BLOG POSTS

You gotta laugh! What a farce! US Secret Service agents getting their hands smacked for dallying with prostitutes? Give me a break. This is the CIA we’re talking about. And all over $47.^[1]

Apparently, one of the floosies didn’t give value for money and rather than cough up an additional $47, the disgruntled guy raised a rumpus that now has the whole lot of them confined to barracks, and being laughed at by Mossad, Ogpu, Stazi, MI5, and every other shower of psychopathic, government-sponsored assassins on the planet.

“We let ‘the boss’ (Barack Obama) down,” says US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey.

Give me a break!

^{Psst! The President’s the one NOT wearing the shades.}

Less of a laughing matter is the irresponsibility of the US Internal Revenue Service, which is denying citizens their legal tax rebate because gangs are fraudulently infiltrating their ‘system’ (or lack of it) and claiming the rebates of dead servicemen and other unfortunate victims of this taxation scam.

Instead of doing the decent thing by admitting their security is non-existent and coughing up what they owe to the proper tax payer, the IRS just says, “Sorry, we’ve already paid you out. Not our fault if someone has hoodwinked us and stolen your money.^[2]

Perhaps if they came up with a proper ‘Pay As You Earn’ taxation system, like every other ‘civilized’ nation on the planet, such fraud could never be perpetrated.

The drawback is they then wouldn’t get to keep your overpaid tax money for twelve months, and earn all that lovely interest, which, by the way, legally belongs to you.

Still, if the prostitute you hired tonight didn’t perform to your satisfaction, and you got home to find a letter from the IRS informing you your tax rebate had been claimed by someone in Uganda, you can always head on over to New Jersey where they’ve just issued their first cannabis-growing permit to a company called, “Greenleaf Compassion Center.”^[3]

Who the hell thought up that crazy name?

There’s one minor drawback: the permit is for growing pot, but ‘Greenleaf Compassion Center’ isn’t disclosing their cultivation site. Now that’s hardly compassionate.

Oh, well, I guess it just isn’t your night.

^{[1] “Secret Service revokes security clearances of 11 accused of misconduct” CBS News, April 16th 2012}

^{{2] “Tax refund fraud affecting many innocent people” CBS News, April 16th 2012}

^{[3] “N.J. issues first permit for legal pot growing” CBS News, April 16th 2012}

I’m no great sports fan. I’d never heard of Ozzie Guillen until today, and frankly, it doesn’t bother me if I never hear of him again. I understand he has a passion for bullfighting. Those who take pleasure from cruelty to animals deserve no respect from me.

Yet today, I found myself sympathizing with Ozzie Guillen. He’s been punished for speaking his mind. Here, in the America that boasts constantly of its freedoms, Ozzie Guillen has been punished for daring to say he admires Fidel Castro.

Why are Americans not roaring their disapproval and demanding his reinstatement? He wasn’t being racist. He wasn’t suppressing a minority. He merely said he admired Fidel Castro. As a result, he’s been suspended for five games.

Oh, did I forget to clarify? Ozzie Guillen is the new manager of the Miami Marlins. I believe they’re a baseball team in…guess where?

Florida – yet again! It all happens in Florida. I’m tired of writing about the place.

Apparently, in Florida, you have the legal right to shoot unarmed boys on their way home from the candy store, but you mustn’t announce publicly your admiration for a socialist dictator.

Florida is full of Cuban people who fled the regime of Fidel Castro. America welcomed them with open arms because America hates Castro. They’ve tried to assassinate him on numerous occasions. In America it’s okay to assassinate people the government doesn’t like. These days they’re murdering folks in the mountains of Pakistan by remote control .

In 1959, Castro toppled the previous dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista

Batista was America’s boy. He loved capitalism. He aligned himself with all the wealthy sugar plantation owners on the island, while keeping the rest of the populace in near slavery. America helped him by supplying the weapons for his secret police to commit gross acts of violence, torture, and public executions. In total, America’s boy was responsible for the deaths of around 20,000 Cubans.

Why was America so keen on Fulgencio Batista? Here’s what John F Kennedy had to say on the subject:

At the beginning of 1959 United States companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands—almost all the cattle ranches—90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions—80 percent of the utilities—practically all the oil industry—and supplied two-thirds of Cuba’s imports.”

And Kennedy didn’t stop there:

“Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years … and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state – destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista – hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend – at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.”

Despite these remarks, John F Kennedy still did his level best to have Castro assassinated. The notorious Bay of Pigs affair was probably his greatest blunder.

It was to topple Batista’s evil, US-backed, regime that Fidel Castro returned to Cuba from exile in 1956. It took three years, but eventually Batista was forced to flee the island and Castro took over control.

He nationalized the industries and threw out the US corporations. In retaliation, the US began an economic embargo of the island, which began in 1960 and continues to this day, devastating the Cuban economy and forcing many into poverty.

While it could be argued that Castro’s regime was far from perfect – tales of torture, executions, and political prisoners kept in appalling conditions, abound – there is no doubt that the American government has taken every opportunity to blacken Castro’s name.

During Eisenhower’s presidency the CIA even joined forces with the Mafia in an attempt to assassinate him. When a superpower stoops that low it should ring warning bells right around the globe.

So, today, I join with Ozzie Guillen in stating my admiration for Fidel Castro. He’s stood against the corrupt and arrogant superpower of the United States for over sixty years, and they haven’t got him yet.

Now that’s some achievement.

Twenty years ago it would only have been used for dog-food. Since the 1990s it’s been in 70% of all processed beef products on the store shelf. ‘Pink Slime’ is the one that leaped off the production belt of secrecy and out into the limelight of public knowledge, thanks in no small part to TV chef, Jamie Oliver, who ‘outed’ ‘Pink Slime’ on a 2011 TV show.

What disgusted consumers the most was Oliver sloshing household bleach all over the stuff.

They’d probably be even more horrified if they realized ammonia is used extensively in the meat industry. How do they think those ‘oven-ready’ chickens remain un-putrified until they finally reach the supermarket shelves?

The answer is they’re stored in huge caverns filled with ammonia gas. Back in the mid-seventies, while training with the British RSPCA, I visited a poultry processing and storage plant. It was one of the largest in the country. I won’t mention the company’s name, but can assure you the processing was definitely not as ‘bootiful’ as the owner described his product on television. British readers will, no doubt, remember the relevant advertisement.

‘Pink slime’ is supposedly safe. It meets federal food safety standards. It’s only fault is it’s bloody disgusting.

Desperate to save their profits, the meat industry is fighting back with a new slogan: “Dude – it’s beef”. Wow! They’ve also called on failed Republican presidential nominee, Rick Perry, for assistance. He happily sampled the product and appeared to enjoy it.

Pink Slime: it takes one to know one.

The meat marketing companies knew it was disgusting, so they came up with the name, ‘Lean Finely Textured Beef’. That makes it sound quite appealing, and while it isn’t a lie, there can be no doubt of the obvious deception to the consumer.

It may be perfectly acceptable to describe a tin of ‘Lassie’ as ‘lean, meaty, chunks in a rich, taste-laden, gravy’ when the reality is a load of offal processed into lumps of gristle, but dogs aren’t too bothered what they eat so long as it tastes okay.

To treat human consumers as though they are no better than animals is an extreme insult, and a certain marketing disaster once the ‘pink slime’ hits the fan.

It’s sad that 850 employees have to lose their jobs because yet another food marketing scandal has come to light. Some folk appear to blame Jamie Oliver, or the media, but it’s not their fault.

No, the blame lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the meat processing industry. Deception will out, eventually.

We’re not their pets, we’re their customers, and it’s time they remembered that.