No Spinach?

“Oh yeah, Pedxing? Well sometimes I think you do a pretty good job of getting in my head too!



I no longer guess who the demographic is when the political parties don't offer any solutions to our problems. It’s because many people don’t want to examine the logic of the arguments.




Bearmagnet, I still can’t make any sense out of your argument that this is all the fault of “Big Business.” And you won’t organize your thoughts in a way that allows us to critically examine your thought process. Don’t you have any desire to examine yourself, or are you already perfect?




" The unexamined life is not worth living ! "
Socrates (470-399 B.C.)




If you accept my syllogism, we know that government is not performing the function that some people said it would.

We also know that government is a large (and growing) burden on our economy.

We know that the poor and middle class are most vulnerable to poor economies.


We know that agencies such as the FDA, Federal Flood Insurance, and Federal Mortgage Insurance are driving up prices for everyone.

Have doubts about the economics? Here’s a fun article:


Will retiree benefits sink agencies?


Notice how the areas with the most out-of-control and irresponsible spending are the two overwhelmingly leftist areas of California and NY? This isn’t a surprise is it?

These two areas of the country continually call for more government control at the expense of the taxpayer. Well the bill is coming due (as it is in Europe) and it isn’t pretty.

These two areas already have housing prices that make it almost impossible for a low income person to buy a home. Now they’re talking about raising taxes because their governments have grown so bloated. And this helps the low-income family how?

So we know that the actions of some people are not in line with their rhetoric.


This is insanity, if your definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting different results. Healthcare is expensive? Increase government involvement in healthcare. Healthcare becomes more expensive? Increase government involvement in healthcare. Healthcare becomes more expensive? “Why don’t we create a government run healthcare system?”


“Big Government” is accountable to the people?


Legal aid officials live high while clients go unserved



Legal aid watchdog rips spending by its officials



Dream on, leftists, dream on over and over and over....

All great civilizations have fallen. I suspect insanity is a major cause.[/url][/url]
last edited: 9/27/06 3:31:41 PM”

“Arc sez:

“Oh yeah, Pedxing? Well sometimes I think you do a pretty good job of getting in my head too!
If I was any good at getting into your head, I'd know what you were responding to there.

"The unexamined life is not worth living ! "
Socrates (470-399 B.C.)

Oh yeah Arc!!! I say
"The unlived life is not worth examining"”

“Yes arc - I am poor at articulating my thoughts through the internet. It's probably because I type too slow.

Originally you aske for proof regarding lobbying. I gave it. I also gave proof that Factory Farming is a problem with no benefits.

I have seen nothing to sway me on that. I'm not claiming to be "perfect". I'm claiming there is nothing positive about factory farming and, imho, no reason to debate it.

To me it would be like debating smoking.

I mean one is allowed to come to a conclusion, yes?
last edited: 9/27/06 3:43:09 PM”

“I think factory farming offers efficiencies of scale, so it is far too broad a sweep to say it offers no benefits. Even to oppose something it helps to acknowledge its benefits and its appeal - how else will you counter it?

Even smoking provides benefits, such as pleasure, weight maintenance and nicotine. Nicotine is remarkable for its ability to both increase alertness and relaxation.”

“Thanks for justifying my habit, pedxing. Some help you are.




Bearmagnet, it’s not the “proof” of lobbying that I’m questioning here.

You say that it was the fault of “big business” that the organic regulations are not as strict as they should be. And you didn’t question that premise when I posted it as part of your thinking. So let’s look at that premise shall we?

It is the responsibility of business to make a profit. It is not the responsibility of business to regulate itself other than what damage turning out poor, or dangerous, goods does to its profit margin. Freidman argues that threat of lawsuits and loss of market share (informed people won’t buy goods from a company that produces dangerous products) keep most business in line (Personally, I think there are times where preemptive regulation does some good, but I feel it has been WAY overdone).

When government creates whole departments, whose job it is to regulate business, and then business lobbies government to increase market share, whose fault is it when government allows that to happen? I cannot imagine how you reach the conclusion that it is the fault of “big business.” Did “big business” create the regulations? Did “big business” hold a gun to the heads of these government employees to change the regulations?

No, bearmagnet, these government employees create favorable conditions for certain “big business” because it is in their interest to do so. That is the concept of the Invisible Hand that Adam Smith talks about. And you should understand basic economics if you are to make a useful contribution to our democratic process. Friedman provides many good examples of these failures of government regulators.

Since it is government’s job to protect the general welfare of the population, they have no business reducing their regulations if it is harmful to the populace. That is the responsibility of government.

And so when business lobbies government to create favorable conditions for itself, it is the responsibility of government to protect the general welfare. IT IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILTY OF “BIG BUSINESS.”

Government employees should JUST SAY NO! Unfortunately that is often not what happens. So the result is, we get bloated bureaucracy that doesn’t follow its mandate, and it costs us all of LOT of money. You did pay attention to that article showing how much bloated government is costing certain areas of the country didn’t you?
last edited: 9/28/06 6:03:59 AM”

“This would be a good time to kick Popeye's arse.”
kleetn
2:38:06 PM
9/21/06


Anyone seen the email going around titled "Another E Coli victim?" It has Popeye laying on a bed next to a can of open spinach. I tried looking for it on the internet and can't find it with Google and such. If you've seen it could you provide a copy?”

“I'm strong to the finich................




......aaarrggghhh!!!”

“Thanks, wolfeyes. Got to get my eyes fixed. I just glanced at it on a co-workers computer.”

“I thought Popeye ate Canned stuff? and Yes USA I thought I saw the same thing.”

“I think a little Olive Oil will keep him going for awhile.”

“The company that sold the spinach has been putting out arugala(sp?) now that is very close to what the spinach was like. My salads are still sucking and I can’t wait for the salad mixes to come back.”

“Stop hunting us...we stop sh#$ing in your salads.”

“Getting born is hazardous to your health.

Not dying is good. It beats hell out of the alternative, although nobody has ever come back from the dead and said, "Don't go there! It sucks!"”

“If only the FDA had existed when Popeye was around. Oh the humanity!”

“http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/10/12/tainted.spinach.ap/index.html

We do not have a smoking cow at this point," said Dr. Kevin Reilly, deputy director of the Prevention Services Division of the California Department of Health Services. Nevertheless, Reilly called the match an important finding.

Now that's a quote!”

“

I like my cow to smoke a bit.
Yum Yum!”

“They may be looking in the wrong place. According to pedxing, E. Coli grows on plastic bags.”

“I was so happy last night because the company has finally gotten their fine spring mix back in stores sans spinach. It's been way too long sense I had a good salad.”

“Isn't there a recall on lettuce, too?”

“I don’t think so. Foxy lettuce’s water supply had e coli in it but they found no lettuce with it on it.”

“Ah! - I saw this question I missed, from Arclite,:

“Today, federal regulatory agencies devote some $1.7 billion a year and roughly 15,000 employees to enforcing food safety.”

Pedxing, can you answer one question? With all this manpower and money devoted to government making us safer, are we getting our money’s worth?"

Honestly, I don't know. I would assume it could be done more efficiently. I don't know what the death and illness rate would be without food safety inspections. Secondly, I don't know how the figure was arrived at or what services it included.

A lot of food inspection is not primarily about safety, but about quality ratings (USDA choice beef, prime beef...). It would be interesting to compare that to the cost of private bonded food inspection services or kosher inspection services.”

“That’s what it was? Pedxing, you need to check your eyeglass prescription my man.


That's an awful lot of money and an awful lot of government pensions to be paid in the future.

A lot of people have died, and are dying yearly, from things like medication (Vioxx) and tainted food products. We already have a number of very large (and growing larger) government agencies that are dedicated to protecting us from any number of things like unsafe foods and medicine.

Does this make sense? Milton Friedman provides some interesting insight and asks some thought provoking questions.

An interesting point brought up by Friedman is, “How do you count the cost of this protection?” Statistically it’s hard to do. Take Beta Blockers for instance. Beta Blockers were held off the market in this country for 10 years by the FDA back in the 60s. Meanwhile they were readily available in Europe where they were shown to prevent heart attacks. Some estimates put the number of lives that Beta Blockers would have saved in this country at 10,000. But we can’t really know for sure that the FDA cost 10,000 U.S. lives in a ten year period.

Friedman has many, many interesting ideas in his book Free To Choose. If you don’t agree with all of it at least it provides some provocative thoughts.

I have recommended this book so many times. Isn’t anyone interested in educating themselves about some ideas from a Nobel Prize winning economist? Or isn’t anyone who has read the book interested in discussing his ideas?
last edited: 10/14/06 10:33:17 PM”

“I'm pretty sure Arclite has a pinup of Milton Friedman in his room right behind the kleenex and hand lotion.”

“E. Coli grows on plastic bags.”
What? E. Coli is a fecal organism, that doesn't do very well outside of a host. It will multiply enough to make you sick under the right conditions.

F. Food
A. Acid/base
T. Temperature
T. Time
O. Oxygen
M. Moisture

Now I remember....
last edited: 10/15/06 8:27:08 PM”

“I'm almost positive that phaedrus would never bother to read something that didn't already agree with his preconceived ideas.

I'm 100% positive he's never read anything by Friedman.

You are one clever (wild) and witty (crazy) guy, phaed.


Did you ever think about adding education to your repertoire?
last edited: 10/16/06 3:17:06 PM”

“And of course, I never said e coli grows on plastic bags.”

“Of course not, ped. All you posted was:

Read: Probe finds E. coli in spinach package


That’s clear as mud. You like supplying inaccurate or unclear information to confuse issues and jump to conclusions don’t you?




Let me poll vault back TO one of my conclusions:

Maybe E.Coli had to do with manure fertilizer. Why did it take so long for the media to mention anything about manure as it relates to organic farming? And then they only do so to point fingers at some other possible culprit?”

“Ah, now it's the evil media again.

Obviously Milton Friedman watches only Fox News.”

“Ah, obviously all phaedrus has to say is...

...nothing.”

“Yeah, but I say it in fewer words than you do.”

“Wrong!”

“You.”

“.
last edited: 10/17/06 5:34:12 PM”

“Another exercise in phaedrus logic here.

Is this the same type of logic you used when, on a previous thread, you suggested I read a book that would change my mind and prove your point?

The only thing was… you hadn’t even read the book yourself!!!




You can’t use any fewer words than one. We are delving into pure sophistry when we say that no words are the fewest. That’s like saying you’ve got fewer oranges, or pencils, or less understanding of a Nobel Prize winning economist’s thoughts than I do when you have none.


Phaedrus, it doesn’t matter how many words you use. You’ve already shown that your mere presence adds nothing of value to a discussion.”

“We could use NEGATIVE words....or would that work?”

““Another exercise in phaedrus logic here.

Is this the same type of logic you used when, on a previous thread, you suggested I read a book that would change my mind and prove your point?

The only thing was… you hadn’t even read the book yourself!!!


Another lie by you, much like most of the things you say to try to prove your point while ignoring or deliberately misconstruing the points of views of others.

You're talking about What Liberal Media I assume. I've read it, and as I told you in the other thread, I don't base my whole opinion of media on it. That you wanted to slam the book and pretended that my entire argument revolved around it leads me to believe that YOU bring nothing to the table.


You can’t use any fewer words than one. We are delving into pure sophistry when we say that no words are the fewest. That’s like saying you’ve got fewer oranges, or pencils, or less understanding of a Nobel Prize winning economist’s thoughts than I do when you have none.


Phaedrus, it doesn’t matter how many words you use. You’ve already shown that your mere presence adds nothing of value to a discussion.”
arclite
5:42:07 AM
10/18/06

After a thorough review of the two paragraphs above, I stick to my original thesis:

You're a dick.”

““Of course not, ped. All you posted was:

Read: Probe finds E. coli in spinach package

arclite
4:28:51 PM
10/16/06

LOL! Did it ever occur to you that spinach is in spinach packages? Was the article that had that headline not correct?

By the way, this manure thing you keep harping on is silly for several reasons. Conventional agriculture uses manure and even human waste from waste treamtent facilities. It is supposed to be sterilized before use. If you have any evidence that there has been imporperly sterilized manure in use by conventional or organic growers, I'd be interested in seeing it.

BTW ecoli can also get into the spinach at packaging plants from unsanitary practices at the plants - so the fact that it was found in a spinach bag is important. If it is found in the bagged spinach, it could have gotten in at any point in the process chain from its growth to its bagging.”

“"After a thorough review of the two paragraphs above, I stick to my original thesis:

You're a dick.”

Pwn3d again, huh Phaed?”

“Oh yeah, change your story now, pedxing.

No, it's anything but silly. It was the most logical place to begin looking. And I still wonder why there was no mention of that line of reasoning in early news articles?

Now how am I going to go proving that one, pedxing? But the idea that some manure fertilizer was not properly sterilized, is probable. More probable I think than the idea of E. Coli growing in packaging machinery and plastic bags.

But if it was in the plant... where was our mighty FDA to protect us?

So what did you think about what Friedman says about all the government agencies that are very expensively keeping us all from skinning our knees?






Speaking of manure; I can smell phaedrus's brain from here.”

“Did you bother to even read that whole post Arclite. I didn't blame packaging. Handling at the plant (someone doesn't wash their hands properly) is a possibilty - but I didn't say what was more likely.

Anyway, right after the headline, which was a cut and paste, I wrote "Highlight":
And quoted the article: "The tainted greens — conventionally grown spinach and not organic — came from one of the farms that supplies spinach to Natural Selection, said Samantha Cabaluna, spokeswoman for Natural Selection."”

“I'm TEASING, ped. You'd be able to tell if you could see my face. But then, you may be laughing too hard to hear my words anyway.

Yeah, that's the ticket! Someone not washing their hands caused the E. Coli outbreak. Who's being silly here?”

“Those must have been some big hands.”

“Great! Now we'll have to endure a great onion scare. Who'da thunk it that Taco Bell would give someone the shlts?

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-12-07T193516Z_01_N07256063_RTRUKOC_0_US-ECOLI-ONIONS.xml&WTmodLoc=USNewsHome_C2_domesticNews-1”

“Where's Arclite blaming the media and Organic growers for this one?”

“NY Times has a way better article on it. The Green Onions are from Mexico.”

“So can we blame this on NAFTA?”

“LOL! My original message had "Yay NAFTA" in it but I decided I didn't want to go there. FDA/USDA don't really have the resources to inspect all the crap coming cross the border.”

“Don't you mean where's arclite questioning the wisdom of having a huge governmental bureaucracy like the FDA sucking up our tax dollars and doing a lousy job, Phaedrus?

Yeah, you kinda missed that train of thought didn't you? No surprise there.


I'll bet you were glued to the tabloids checking on Brittany's relationship problems while they were running all those Milton Friedman tributes weren't ya?”