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Do you ever get the feeling Republicans are still in control of this country?

While President Obama is running his socks off trying to persuade the party that lost the election to vote for his stimulus package, members of that party are busy ensuring their wealthy constituents aren’t going to be too financially inconvenienced by it.

Oh, heck, you know what? I don’t want to write about this crap anymore. Americans deserve the politicians they elected, and almost half of America wanted the party that was impoverishing them back in power. It says a lot for the average US brain cell, now doesn’t it?

Republicans are whining that there’s too much pork in the stimulus bill. They want the part that pays off the states’ debt to be trimmed, saying it won’t create more jobs.

What total crap!

Paying off the debts owed by the states may not create new jobs, but it will certainly help keep jobs that would otherwise be lost. Is that too complicated for Republicans to understand?

Likewise, for the same reason, they want to trim social programs like healthcare and education. Well, who the hell needs them anyway? Oh, yes, I forgot. The poor need healthcare and education. But, Republicans are quite right: technically it won’t create jobs, so let’s scrub it from the stimulus package, because who cares about the poor anyway?

California state workers are on strike over job losses and short-time working. California has the biggest state deficit in America. As yet, no-one is daring to suggest it might just be down to the ineptitude of the Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who seems hellbent on terminating California as an economic viability.

Well, Goddammit, we mustn’t criticize those warm-hearted, generous to a fault, Republicans, now must we? After all, aren’t they the party of God, defending the sanctity of jackets and ties in the Oval Office?

Republican Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff to George W Bush, today criticized President Obama for not wearing a jacket in the Oval Office, stating it “betrayed the sanctity of the office”.

Andrew Card’s wife once asked him, “Are you married to me, or George W Bush?”

It’s understood his answer was vague.

Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News tonight consoled us all with a neat little infomercial financed by the makers of that horrifically unhealthy ‘meat’ product, Spam.

According to anchor, Brian Williams, the American people will survive the economic crisis by switching to a Spam-based diet. Sales of this cheap, artery-clogging commodity, have spiraled during the recession and, as NBC Nightly assures, it will assist us in surviving to better times, even if we die from coronary heart disease shortly afterward.

Of course, that won’t worry the Republicans. After all, it’s one good way of getting rid of some of that pork, and you can be sure that Spam will not be the Republican cuisine of choice, this economic crisis.

Filed under: Marie Antoinette syndrome

The perpetrators of 9/11 believed what they were doing on that day was right, because they were absolutely certain they were dispensing the will of God.

In Volume One, Chapter Two, of his book, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote:

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”

For years following the Second World War, Christian historians attempted to portray the German Fuhrer as an atheistic, devil-worshipping, satanist who led an evil force against the Christian God and all He represented.

Nothing was further from the truth. Indeed, Mein Kampf is filled with religious utterances and claims of Christian faith, as were many of Hitler’s speeches.

If we had any doubts beforehand, then the events of September 11th 2001, must surely have reinforced the conclusion that the most dangerous individuals in the world are those suffering from a misplaced belief they are acting on behalf of a divine Creator.

Indeed, tracing the history of warfare, and violence against populations, it’s hard to discover one involved ruler or leader who wasn’t convinced he was either acting on behalf of a God, or that he was God.

George W Bush was just such a leader, but thankfully his reign has ended.

So, one would think, has this man’s……

……but, apparently not, judging by a speech he made today at the Annual Prayer Breakfast in Washington. A speech in which he used the word, “God,” thirty-one times.^[1]

This is a man who helped slaughter countless innocent human beings, who admitted to deceiving the British people over his religious faith while in office – denying it as adroitly as any Judas Iscariot, assisted George W Bush in the extraordinary rendition and torture of prisoners, and like his trans-Atlantic counterpart, brought the country he purported to lead to its knees, both morally and economically.

Addressing US President Barack Obama:

Now, also, we should be as steadfast with you in the hard work, as we were in the celebration…… Sir, we offer you our friendship today. We will work with you to make your presidency one that shapes our destiny to the credit of America and the world.”

Tony Blair, today, represents no-one but himself. In the above extract he used the word “we” on four occasions. Of whom was he speaking? To whom was he referring?

Tony Blair no longer has a mandate to speak for the British people.

Or, does he, perhaps, believe he has a mandate from God?

^{[1] “Blair hails ‘God’s love’ in extraordinary speech….. “ Daily Mail, February 5th 2009}

Filed under: Blessed are the meek

“Care for a nice portion o’ dry-roasted rat, guv’nor, wiv a drop of freshly crushed roach sauce? Luvly wiv a few peanuts on the side.”

I do the cooking in our house. It’s not that my wife can’t cook, but she can only cook American. Fortunately, she likes European, which is what I cook, because I won’t eat American.

I don’t like most American food, and while I’m sure there are many good gourmet restaurants in this nation (though not so many in the corn belt, outside of Chicago) their menus do little to boost my appetite.

I also do the food shopping – attentively. After eight years of George W Bush and his slack-Alice administration, American foodstuffs can no longer be trusted, so I choose it with care. Wholesome ingredients are available, even when shopping somewhere like Wal-Mart, but only if you know what to look for, and what to avoid – not just like the plague, but from fear of catching it.

We’ve all heard of the salmonella outbreak that’s recently killed a number of Americans, and laid low many more. The “Peanut Corporation of America” was the culprit. This is a company so big, Kelloggs was one of its regular customers.

Yesterday, the New York Daily News ran a report on the state of this company:

One rat, dry roasted, was found at the Georgia peanut plant blamed for a sweeping salmonella outbreak that has killed eight people across the country and sickened hundreds more.

Jonathan Prather, who was laid off last month when the Peanut Corp. of America plant was shuttered, told CBS News on Tuesday that roaches also ran rampant.

“Roaches get up there in the dry roast,” Prather told the Early Show. “Some of them blend in with the peanuts. You’d never know they’re there.”

Prather, 29, called the plant a pig-sty and that there were “plenty of holes in the roof.”

“When it rained, water just came through the whole plant,” he said.

The worst, though, was the rat Prather said he saw “dry roasting in the peanuts” three or four months ago.

Fancy a Kellogg’s cookie, anyone?

The feds say the Georgia plant had a salmonella problem dating back at least to June 2007 – but never told the FDA.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that another Peanut Corp. plant in Plainview, Tex., has been operating for four years without a license – and has never been inspected.

“I was not aware this plant was in operation and did not know (what) type of products (were) processed,” chief Texas health inspector Patrick Moore wrote in a report snagged by AP.

Luckily, no salmonella was found at the Texas plant.^[1]

“Luckily” is the wrong word. Luck has nothing whatever to do with the production of safe, wholesome, foodstuffs. It’s all about responsible management, coupled with regular, strict inspections and monitoring by government officials, who act on behalf of the consumer and do their jobs efficiently, without recourse to bribes and management backhanders as an incentive to “look the other way”.

It’s not just the Peanut Corporation of America who are responsible for the suffering and deaths caused by this outbreak, but the Kellogg’s Corporation, and other companies, who have a responsibility to ensure their suppliers meet the high standards of hygiene we, the consumer, should be demanding of them.

Until America puts its house in order, those who live in our house will continue to eat carefully selected, and wholesomely cooked, safe European cuisine.

^{[1] “Peanut Corporation whistleblower: Rats, cockroaches roasted with Peanut Butter” Daily News, February 3rd 2009}

Filed under: Poisonous peanuts and other foods