I am all for the smallest government we can get when it comes to insuring the freedom of the individual. I am NOT for the smallest government when it comes to basic safety issues such as food, air, and water. If the people in government can't do their jobs as described and delineated by the constitution, what the fuck are they doing there? If they can't provide for the common defense, they need to go away. That goes for food inspectors, their overseers, congress that allowed relaxation of regulation, and DUBYA.
This is just some food for thought. At least you know this food won't leave you puking in the corner, or running for the toilet before the E. Coli makes you experience explosive anal decompression.
UPDATE As of 12/13/2006, the cause of the E. Coli outbreak at Taco Bell has been traced to lettuce, not scallions as originally theorized. Be that as it may, the points of the article stand. With the amount of money being cut, the number of inspectors being cut, and the number of actual inspections dropping to ten percent of pre-DUBYA levels, it's clear there is a serious problem with food inspections. How can anyone anywhere claim we are winning a so-called war on terror, when it's clear we can't even win a war against E. Coli when it unintentionally gets into the food supply. Goddess forbid a real terrorist (or group thereof) actually put something seriously virulent into the American food supply. It's just one more failing of DUBYA and his neo-con fuck head government.
Blessed be! Pappy
*Appropriate apologies to Guns and Roses. (1) Countdown with Keith Olbermann, 12/11/2006
...and perhaps you should have submitted this information as an article of it's own instead of a comment under mine.
As to my assumption of the reasons why the sudden incidence of food borne illness, I submit it has a lot to do with lax food inspections. As I sited in my original article, pre-DUBYA, there were 35,000 food inspections per year. While the data wasn't explicit, one assumes those inspections occured all the way down the line from the field and pasture to the processing plants, to the delivery stations, to the stores or restaurants. After DUBYA, inspections have dwindled to less than 3,400 for one year. The number of inspectors and the amount of money given for such inspections has also dwindled. Isn't it nice we can cut costs in such a strategically important thing as food safety. Who needs Osama bin Laden when you have DUBYA with his hand on the tiller?
Have we not, at long last, finally come to the point where we have cut so close to the bone we are starting to choke on the bone fragments? I would submit that we have come to that point. We need to stop the lunacy before something truly evil and virulent finds its way into the food supply poisoning tens to hundreds of thousands.
I hope we get to that point soon, for the sake of all.
Blessed be!
Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments)
on Friday, December 22, 2006 at 1:05:21 AM
