Big Fat Hairy Living

Good grief. It does get worse:

The Canadian government strongly opposed tougher U.S. rules to prevent listeria and lobbied the United States to accept Canada’s more lenient standards, internal documents reveal.

Briefing notes prepared by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for an April 7, 2006, meeting with the board of directors of the Canadian Meat Council outline how both industry and the Canadian government were frustrated with the increased precautions the United States was demanding. Specifically, Canada opposed daily inspection visits and the testing of finished products for Listeria monocytogenes.

The Conservatives were trying to get the Americans, who have tougher standards than us, to go easy on Listeria, which now has killed nine people. An election can’t come soon enough.

Hello out there
Originally uploaded by Trevor_Page

The Conservatives quietly try to eliminate federal food inspectors to let companies inspect their own food product, and what happens? 15 people die from food poisoning, 29 more get sick, and the numbers just keep going up. Coincidence? No. The plant that’s the source of the food poisoning outbreak has been allowed to inspect itself for almost four months:

At the Maple Leaf plant behind the listeria outbreak, a single federal inspector was relegated to auditing company paperwork and had to deal with several other plants, the manager and the union official said, contradicting the impression that officials had left last week that full-time watchdogs were on-site.

Under the new system, federal inspectors do random product tests only three or four times a year at any given plant. And meat packers are required to test each type of product only once a month.

Under the old system, inspectors had a more hands-on role on the plant floor, did more of the tests themselves and had more freedom to investigate, said former CFIA inspector Bob Kingston, who is national president of the Agriculture Union, a branch of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Not that the Liberals are completely innocent, since the Americans have been using more effective techniques for a decade now. But at least the Liberals can argue negligence, unlike the Conservatives, who actively sabotaged the system.

Some scientists said yesterday that Canada has also not required companies to adopt new processing methods that would make their products safer.

Canada simply failed to react in the same way as the United States did to the 1998 deaths of 15 people who ate infected hot dogs, the scientists say.

Many U.S. companies now pasteurize sliced turkey, ham and other ready-to-eat meat products after they have been packaged to kill any microbes.

It only took four months for people to die from the Conservative plan to eliminate independent food testing. And while all this is going on, Health minister Tony “Two-tier” Clement is in Denver trying to sell the tar sands to oil and gas companies. Does it get worse than this?

In New York, Tattooed, beefy bikers rescue and care for abused and abandoned animals:

They met on the local hot rod scene. They saw one another at tattoo conventions around the area, comparing bikes. They looked like heavies, a band of Hells Angels, with nicknames equally tough: Mike Tattoo, Big Ant, Johnny O, Batso, Sal, Angel, Des.

They meant no harm. Clad in leather, inked to the hilt in skulls and dragons, with images of bloodied barbed wire looped about their necks, they shared something else — a peculiar tenderness for animals, and the intensity needed to act on the animals’ behalf when people abuse them.

“I’m a vegetarian,” said Mike Tattoo (real name Mike Ostrosky), a former bodybuilding champion with a shaved head, great arms covered in art and a probing clarity in his blue eyes. “And Big Ant has in his backyard three guinea pigs, a couple of rabbits, birds, cats — and fish everywhere. But just because a person has tattoos, they wouldn’t come running with us.”

The only thing I love as much as I love animals and big men is a big man who loves animals.

If there’s anyone out there who’s still confused as to why anyone would think that Obama is about change, or who thinks that criticizing Obama as a sell-out is anti-American, they should take a look at an essay kindly pointed out to me by danlmarmot and written by noted leftist, pinko, commie America-hater Andrew Bacevich:

This time around, expectations are, if anything, loftier than usual. The youthful and charismatic Sen. Barack Obama casts himself as the standard-bearer of those keenest to fix Washington, redeem America and save the world. “Yes, we can,” Obama’s anthem proclaims, inviting supporters to complete the thought by inserting their own fondest desire. Yes, we can: bring peace to the Middle East; reverse global warming; win the global war on terrorism.

Yet Sen. John McCain’s campaign has been hardly shy about fostering grandiose expectations. Speaking earlier this month, while most Americans were fretting about the cost of oil, McCain uncorked one of his patented straight-talking promises: “I’m going to lead our nation to energy independence.” As far as McCain would have us believe, you can take that to the bank.

Will the next president actually bring about Big Change? Don’t get your hopes up.

[...]

In matters of substance, Big Change will remain elusive. The next president will leave his own imprint on U.S. policy. It just won’t be nearly as distinctive or dramatic as the most enthusiastic Obama and McCain supporters have talked themselves into expecting.

Why does Bacevich hate America?

Writing about Barack Obama in the previous post, I wrote:

The very first articulate, bright, clean black presidential candidate is just more of the same.

That prompted responses from people shocked that I would make such a bigoted statement and who rightly called me what they thought were my words. In fact, I chose those words specifically to emphasize how Obama is just more of the same. What do I mean? Someone very interesting said those words originally. Who was it who said this?

His remarks about Obama, the only African-American serving in the Senate, drew the most scrutiny. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Biden said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Joe Biden, Obama’s candidate for Vice President. That’s how much of a disappointment Obama will be, folks. Storybook indeed.

Years ago, I volunteered for a political campaign. It was the first and only time I’d ever been so inspired by the honesty and integrity of a politician that I decided to get off my ass and volunteer for him. I did the phone bank thing, calling people and asking them to support him. And despite being a long shot, he was elected. I went to the victory party for his volunteers and shook his hand and congratulated him - and really meant it.

Then, of course, the disappointment slowly set in. He was constrained by the limited powers of his position and by the necessity of compromise and by the fact that, even though he had political experience, being at the top is almost never an opportunity for meaningful change. Now? He’s all right. He’s not inspiring any more. He’s just another sell-out politician.

Same story with Obama, whom I predict is going to be the biggest disappointment imaginable. The only thing that might prevent people from being disappointed on January 20 is the fact that he hasn’t bothered to wait for the election to be over to turn into a sell-out. Yeah, he’ll probably stop torturing prisoners in Guantanamo, but given who he’ll be replacing how could he not be better? The very first articulate, bright, clean black presidential candidate is just more of the same. He’s not meaningfully different from any other right wing politician, at least if you define right wing sensibly and not by the standards of the Republican party. Prepare for disappointment.

I recently hooked up with a guy who told me that he’s had a thing for me for six years. It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say I couldn’t believe it, but I was a tiny bit surprised and a large bit flattered. I’m used to being the one who lusts after guys for years, not the other way around.

Mark
Originally uploaded by thickslab

On the Civic Holiday weekend, our friend Christopher was kind enough to invite us to sail with him around the Islands. I took a few pictures.

This is Mark holding onto the edge of the boat which we anchored off Hanlan’s point. We swam ashore and discreetly ogled the hot naked bears.