vrijdag 30 maart 2007

March 30, 2007

Several topics of interest. Let’s discuss the recent rash of outbreaks in the food chain. Mad Cow disease, Ecoli outbreaks in fresh spinach, Ecoli at east coast Taco Bells’s and an Olive Garden in the Midwest and finally, the great Pet Food die off. First off, there is Mad Cow in the United States. The Department of Agriculture is well aware of it. The Secretary issued dozens of calming statements when they found one cow in the States, did her best and then quit to work for, of all things, the meatpacking industry. Typical of the Bush people. Some wealthy contributor’s factory dumping cyanide into the local water supply? Never mentioned in the media. The spinach and other Ecoli episodes? Massive cover-ups. The pet food? Again, the same thing. Tests by a very reputable lab showed rat poison but this was quickly played down by the government and rat poison was replaced with a harmless plastic additive that wouldn’t kill anything unless a 50 gallon drum of it fell off a shelf and onto a passing cat. Many millions of cans of food had to be recalled and many, many lawsuits are pending. Business is affronted so the Bush people issue calming statements and the press is instructed to pay more attention to the passing of Anna Nicole Smith or the Lost Girl from Aruba. There is a report floating around here that says that the episodes were deliberately caused and the suspects are illegal immigrants employed in the restaurant, farming and pet food canneries. Why? The recent statements on the part of ultra-right Republicans about rounding up all illegals and shipping them out of the country and the raids on companies hiring these people which leave children in day care centers and schools while their frantic parents are on a plane back to Guatemala.

Another interesting topic is the obvious forthcoming total collapse of the Bush administration, due entirely to the personality of the president. Bush is not the brightest bulb in the lamp but he is not going to budge on the Iraq business and Congress has gotten his measure and is attacking him. As they score hits, Bush gets nastier and nastier. You should hear him in the White House. If it were up to him, he would declare martial law and put all the Democrats, and defecting Republicans, into custody and let Karl Rove run the country as he has always wanted to do. Eventually, the impasse will get so intense and so nasty that the word ‘impeachment’ which is now being whispered in official circles, will sound like the last five minutes of the ‘1812’ overture. It’s the Nixon/Watergate mess all over again and it will not go away. Clinton, for all his faults, was clever enough to sway with the wind but Bush will not and in the end, he will not have the entire electorate after him but Congress as well.

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