Hating the Govt, Loving the Disease

Conservatives:

Topps Meat Co. on Friday said it was closing its business, six days after it was forced to issue the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history and 67 years after it first opened its doors.

On Sept. 25 Topps began recalling frozen hamburger patties that may have been contaminated with the E. coli bacteria strain O157:H7. The recall eventually ballooned to 21.7 million pounds of ground beef.

Government is the means by which we come together to accomplish that which we cannot achieve by ourselves. It is an acknowledgment that we are all in this together. Only those who cannot see these important ties and lack this empathy would choose to sever them. These people are conservatives and they are psychotic.

E. Coli Conservatives

Redux:

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Arkansas City-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

...

The Agriculture Department argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry. U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on and said the government didn't have the authority to restrict it.

They must have already contracted mad cow. Read the whole thing, which is nothing short of pathetic. To these folks, government of the people, by the people, for the people only refers to themselves and their buddies.

Take the Food Stamp Challenge

Can you handle it at $21 a week? Writes Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) after two days,

I’m feeling much better today. Yesterday, I didn’t eat anything at all until lunchtime, and that really took a lot out of me. So far today I’ve had some cottage cheese, a cup of coffee and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I think that now that my body has had some time to adjust, it’s a little easier, but my energy level is still noticeably lower than normal. I have some serious challenges ahead of me today. I’m expected to make an appearance at a reception on Capitol Hill and I need to pass by a dinner meeting at one of my favorite restaurants afterwards. I know I’ll be fine.

My biggest concern today is running out of food before the end of the week. One loaf of bread doesn’t make as many sandwiches as you’d think, and I’m running through my cottage cheese pretty fast as well. The budgeting was hard enough, rationing
what I do have will present another challenge.

After the full week,

I'm coming away from this experience with some hard lessons learned and a newfound understanding of this issue. First and foremost is that it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to make due on this amount of money. I know many people have written in saying that Food Stamps are meant to be a supplement to other income. Well, yeah that is how the program was intended, but it has been 11 years since we've added ANY value to food stamps, 10 years since we've raised the minimum wage and in that time inflation has risen, the price of milk has risen, the price of produce has risen. NOW we find ourselves in a position where with gas well over $3.00 a gallon in many places those who earn the least among us use their food stamp benefit not as a supplement, but as their sole source of income for food.

Many of us, myself included, have never known the despair of going to sleep hungry not as a cause of our own free will, yet, for millions of Americans, citizens of the most wealthy nation in the world, this is a reality. I know I could barely make it through half the week on $21.

Anyone who continues to complain about social welfare and support should try to put himself in these people's shoes. Make him take the food stamp challenge and see how he fares. The only problem with the poor is that they are poor.

E. Coli Conservatives

Are at it again:

A Michigan meat packer is recalling 129,000 pounds of beef because it may be contaminated with the E. coli bacteria.
The firm, Davis Creek Meats and Seafood, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, shipped the beef products between March 1 and April 30, according to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The potentially-contaminated meat was shipped to foodservice distribution centers
and Marketplace stores in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Federal safety inspectors were not involved in the discovery. Rather, the problem was uncovered by state health officials carrying out the Michigan Department of Community Health’s ongoing E coli illness investigation.

Republican strategy: Say that government does not work, get elected, wreck government, thereby proving one's point. Rinse and repeat.