Say It Ain't So, Jose!

 

This just breaks my heart... maybe some other parts, too, but certainly my heart:

Salsa, guacamole -- and a side order of food-borne illness

July 12, 2010|By Tami Dennis, Los Angeles Times

No one is suggesting, even remotely, that Americans give up salsa and guacamole. But it's worth noting the risks that they pose. New research from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does just that.

In analyzing outbreaks of food-borne illness, researchers found that almost 1 in 25 restaurant outbreaks between 1998 and 2008 could be blamed on these two offerings. Improper storage times or temperatures were likely a contributing factor, the report found; food workers themselves were sometimes a source of the contamination.

But the report also noted that many of the common ingredients -- peppers, tomatoes, cilantro – in these uncooked foodstuffs have been implicated in individual outbreaks. Put those ingredients together and you've got more than a zesty condiment; you've got a statistical target.

...

If guacamole is off-limits, I might as well lay me doon and dee.

I understand and even sympathize with the restaurants. Guacamole is best made (yes, as you may recall, I've done it many times myself) in a quantity suitable for eating on the spot, immediately after preparation, no leftovers, not much chance for contamination. Restaurants have generally clean food prep areas (yes, admit it; most of them are cleaner than your own refrigerator) but they don't have circumstances that allow for that sort of just-in-time preparation, delivery and eating. So sometimes we get sick from the guac. It hardly seems fair!

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NOTE: Google appears to have turned its greenest programmer loose on the Blogger post editor. Several times an hour, something different breaks, and this has happened for a couple of days now. The breaks and the necessary manual fixes in the post's HTML are so egregious that I might as well write the post directly in HTML... just like old times at the Yellow Doggerel Democrat! Why do we put up with this kind of crap? Don't say it's because it's free; the whole fuckin' Open Source world is free, and the quality is rarely this despicably bad. Goddammit, Google, get your act together, or at least assign a better coder to the job... I'm tired of covering for your errors!

Kinderszenen

 

Not really childhood, more like scenes from when I was 30. And certainly not by Schumann. But the similarities are perceptible.

There I sat, in a house much like this one... the same age, the same hardwood floors, eventually the same harpsichord in the living room. In my hand was K&R... Kernighan and Richie's The C Programming Language... a standard reference (as it still is today) on the subject mentioned in the title. The book is tiny, because the language is tiny, and much of its power is externalized into libraries. The book, not even close to a half-inch thick, is not a summary; it's the whole damned language, all of it. In those days, a person who commanded the content of that book was a powerful person indeed, for many, perhaps even most, of the software written then was written in C. I absorbed those contents, and sought and obtained many a job writing software and applications in C. Ah, those were the days.

Today, the jobs are not to be had. Read fallenmonk's post; the work is really impossible to find, especially for older technical professionals. And here I am, in this nearly identical house, reading an introduction to Python, the programming language, usually associated with Linux but available on most platforms these days. The document is small because the language is itself fairly compact... and powerful. Now if only I can accomplish the same result of earning a livelihood by writing it... nah. That's unlikely. I've read that Silicon Valley employers don't want any programmers over 35, and that they aren't even shy about saying so, even though age discrimination is against the law. Still, it's a nice fantasy, being back in childhood with my child's occupation and my child's income...

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While I was writing this, we had a power glitch. The power, and a sort of net connection, came back within two minutes... but as has happened before, domain name service is now excruciatingly slow; e.g., it takes about two minutes for it to look up google.com . So until that is somehow resolved, I probably won't do much more online this evening. Yes, I've cycled the power, etc. etc. Last time this happened, I got my service back sometime in the small hours of the morning. I'm paying too much for "fast" service to put up with this!

Experimental Google News

 

I have been suckered in by a clever widget offered by Google News. It's very obvious (very obtrusive) in the left sidebar. At present, I have set it to display science/technology, health, and political/election stories. How long will it stay there? I don't know... maybe an hour, maybe a year. Comments welcome.

More On Raising SS Retirement Age To 70

 

Here.

There's just one problem with raising the retirement age as a means of controlling the deficit and/or balancing the budget: raising the Social Security retirement age doesn't change human physiology one bit.

I think it is likely that medical advances have done about all they can to extend the period of human life during which people can effectively work. Even if by some miracle the overwhelming unemployment rate we see now is alleviated, and there are actual useful jobs for those people, when today's 40-year-olds reach 70, they're going to feel just like today's 70-year-olds... we're kidding ourselves if we believe otherwise. Retirement is a physical matter, not just a budgetary matter.

How about pulling back the Reagan/Bush/Bush tax cuts to the obscenely wealthy and using that money instead to allow people to retire no later than they do now? Does anyone else see that as a fair disposition of the matter? There is no intrinsic "right to great wealth"; one can reasonably argue, though, that there is a right to a healthy and moderately comfortable retirement at a reasonable age. If there's a choice between those two... and I'm not at all convinced it's a choice... a civilized society has an obligation to choose a decent retirement for everybody. Yeah, call me a socialist for saying that, if you think name-calling changes anything.

I'm really, really tired of watching America's rich get richer... repeatedly, and at the explicit expense of poor and middle-income Americans... under Republican and Democratic leadership alike. Reagan and Poppy Bush gave the already obscenely wealthy still more obscene tax breaks. Clinton caught a break on a good economy. Baby Bush repeatedly, with the cooperation of a Democratic Congress, handed the already wealthy an unconscionable portion of the nation's wealth (see the Adrianne Appel quote in the banner as I write this), leaving the rest of us worse off even than we were. And Obama, the one we all hoped would set things right... well, don't get me started.

History shows us this inevitably has to end. And the manner of its ending... civilized or through violent revolution... is largely in the hands of our leaders. I hope they choose a civilized course.

Getting Screwed Without Protection

 

Despite appearances, this post is not about teens who don't use condoms. It's about, who else, BP: they are refusing to let clean-up workers wear respirators while they work, subjecting them to toxic fumes, sending some to the hospital with "nausea, chest pains, and headaches." (Adam Green of BoldProgressives, who emailed me about it, obviously likes the Oxford comma.) Apparently, BP thinks the appearance on TV of respirators on the clean-up crew will generate worse publicity than the workers' illness.

It is our task to make BP pay for that deeply stupid decision. "Risk your health or lose your job" is a choice no worker should be forced to make.

In response to BP's folly, all kinds of people, from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of Progressive Change Campaign Committee to Keith Olbermann to dozens of members of Congress to labor leaders to teachers to preachers to you-name-it have mobilized a publicity effort under the name BP Makes Me Sick in hopes of pressuring BP through bad PR to end this awful practice. Yesterday when I signed, there were about 25,000+ signatures; this morning, there are 50,000+. Please add your name to the petition.

Friday Kitty-On-Her-Rocker Blogging

 

Actually, Lily is on Stella's granddad's rocker, a seat fit for a king (or in this case a queen):

Lily posed for this picture all by herself, waited for me to go get the camera, and stared straight at me as I took the picture... wonders never cease. My only contribution, other than snapping the pic? I gave her two black eyes... in the original pic, the green-eye was a little distracting. (Does anyone know of a photo editor that will correct green-eye without special effort on the part of the user? In the Linux world, of course.)

Notice how fast Lily is growing. Even in real life, even seeing her day-to-day, we notice. So does Esther when the two of them play rough: Lily's mass and strength are obviously better matched to her mom-cat's now.

Headline Of The Day (At Least)

 

Josh Marshall has it. The headline is about a runner named Gay and a runner named Dix, and it involves the verb "succumb"; you can imagine the rest... or click the link.

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Afterthought: they didn't manage to work in "supersede." Pity.

TD Two Heads For The Border

 

Here is an image, as of this posting, a recent image of Tropical Depression Two. It looks as if it is headed for the Texas-Mexico border (image from Weather Underground):

Up the coast, we're getting a lot of rain from time to time, and over the past couple of days there have been a few tornadoes in SE Texas, but I have to count this one as a miss for Houston. We keep holding our breaths and crossing our fingers. I wish we could be home today, but Stella has work she must do, and I have a doc appointment. So far, the roads do not look too bad.

Democrats Apparently Join Bipartisan Effort To Shovel Social Security Bullshit

 

Most of us who have at least half a brain are familiar with the simple facts presented (for example) in Dean Baker's and Mark Weisbrot's Social Security: The Phony Crisis, all of which boil down to this: Social Security is solvent, unchanged, for approximately the next 30 years. Moreover, minor changes will extend even that unprecedented longevity.

Yet there is a growing caucus in Congress and elsewhere that repeatedly and stridently shouts that Social Security is going under. One has to make some unsupportably dire assumptions... microscopic growth rates and failure of all kinds of safeguards... to advocate this argument without being laughed off the public stage. But all kinds of people have advanced this position for long enough that many people believe it, evidence be damned. From the above-linked book, published in 1999 but as valid as ever:

The Social Security system is currently threatened more than ever before in its [75]-year history. The problem is not financial, economic or demographic — the standard projections provide no basis for serious concern about the program's financial survival. Nor is the problem a lack of political support for Social Security. This continues to be overwhelming. The problem is that people have become convinced that the program is in serious trouble. As a result of a steady stream of misinformation, the public could possibly allow a program that it values immensely to be seriously undermined or dismantled. Ironically, the greatest threat to Social Security has come from its would-be rescuers.

In the 12 years since Baker and Weisbrot wrote those words, many Republicans have seized upon the opportunity to plant the notion of the impending failure of Social Security deep in the public consciousness, advocating dismantling or privatizing Social Security for what I trust is their own obvious political advantage.

Now it appears many Democrats are joining the effort to misrepresent the status and projected survivability of Social Security, as Brian Beutler of TPM explains:

There's no big surprise there. The Republican minority in the House doesn't have a lot of power, but if Boehner had his druthers, he might well take things quite a bit further. He's the one, after all, who won't take Social Security privatization off the table if Republicans retake the House.

It's the Democrats who have progressives feeling queasy.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer explicitly put the idea on the table as well in a speech last month. "We should consider a higher retirement age or one pegged to lifespan," Hoyer said.

Et tu, Brute?

The Democrats appear to be abandoning, not just the left, not just the center, indeed not any particular political position, but arguably the most popular public program in American history. It ain't broke. But with the Republicans, they intend to fix it.

It's time to get out your pitchforks and torches, folks... metaphorical or otherwise.

Why I Am No Longer A Democrat, Part 9,736

 

Jane Hamsher explains it about as well as it can be explained:

House Democrats: Nancy Pelosi Tricked Us

By: Jane Hamsher Tuesday July 6, 2010 8:07 am 

Many people are still trying to figure out what exactly Congress voted to do last week when they passed their fake budget. Kagro and Dave Dayen go back and forth here, here and here.

But one thing is for certain: if procedural experts are still trying untangle what happened, there is no way 215 members of Congress knew what they were voting for at the time they cast their votes.

I got this from a Hill staffer that evening:

The real story on this thing is that Members were whipped on the rule before the leadership gave us specifics about what was in the budget resolution or what the amendments would look like. We were merely told that there was a budget and it would be tied to the rule and there would be some sort of seperate vote on the war funding. We got details about the budget resolution in the last 24 hours. It’s bullshit that they claim members knew what they were getting into when they didn’t know the intimate details of the budget resolution or the rule itself until right before the vote.

I’m putting it up because it reflects what I heard from many offices that evening: Nancy Pelosi threw the rule up for a vote and sneaked it by without telling even her own members what she was asking them to vote for. She demanded they vote with leadership on a procedural motion or risk retribution, twisted arms and threatened people to get the votes she needed, and didn’t tell them she had slipped in language to cover her own ass with the Catfood Commission.

...

Did Pelosi learn this from the Bush administration? If I recall, they frequently thrust completed bills on Congress, insisting on a vote, with virtually no time for members to review the text. Can someone explain to me how this is different?

Vulnerable? No Kidding?

 

Reuters:

(Reuters) - The Obama administration may succeed in pushing through its offshore drilling ban, despite fierce resistance from the oil industry, since a piece of machinery in short supply has left oil companies and the environment glaringly vulnerable to another oil spill.

The offshore skimming devices -- seagoing vessels that suck up spilled crude -- are the first line of defense in the contingency plans that big oil companies are required to submit when they drill in the deep waters of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

But the vast majority of skimming capacity listed in "worst case scenario" plans to combat major Gulf spills is already deployed to clean up BP's leak, according to copies of the plans made public by Congress and lists of vessels active in the cleanup that were obtained by Reuters.

...

I disagree with one aspect of this analysis. The Obama administration will not succeed in pushing through such a ban, because they're incompetent, but mostly because they don't want to upset BP or any other large multinational corp. Show me the motivation on Obama's part to do this for real... it's just not there.

Slogan for 2012: "Obama... he talks a great game!"

Privatize Social Security? For GOP, It's A No-Boehner

 

It's bad enough that the idea recurs repeatedly in the GOP camp. It's still worse that John Boehner can't express himself worth a damn:

...

Asked whether partial privatization of Social Security, which Republicans pushed unsuccessfully in 2005, would be part of a GOP agenda, he twice replied, "I have no idea." 

Later, he called back to clarify, saying that what he meant to say was that, until Republicans complete their process of soliciting ideas from the American people, there will be no answer to that question. "We're not going to prejudge what's going to come out of this listening project." 

...

No, he got it right the first time: he has no idea. If this is the strategy that is intended to take back the House in November, I say, bring it on.

(H/T TPM.)

Wastin' Time

 

The weekend of the Fourth is at last over and done with, and you've probably even finished your fifth. I noticed that, as usual, the Budweiser Clydesdales... magnificent, large horses; I've been to the ranch in Austria at which they are raised*... participated in somebody's Fourth of July parade:

The eight-horse hitch will be pulling the iconic red, white and gold beer wagon. Standing at 18 hands high (about six feet) at the shoulder, each Budweiser Clydesdale wears a full set of hand-crafted, patent leather and solid brass harnesses.

I suppose the theme song for the people sitting on the beer wagon is... wait for it...

Sittin' On the Bock of the Dray.

(I didn't really do that, did I? I suppose I did!)

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* Oops, my mistake. A Lippizan is not the same as a Clydesdale. Both are large, magnificent horses, though.

The Best Country That Ever Was

 
... or not, I'm not sure. That part, if ever true, ended not later than 10 years ago, and to quote a line from the talking recitative in the middle of Patricia Barber's Postmodern Blues, "What we're left with... is wrong." I'll not dwell on all the bad stuff; I suspect ultimately it happens to any nation that lasts long enough. I feel privileged that my life overlapped at least some of the good parts; most people who ever lived had no such advantages.

I engaged... indulged?... in my annual ritual of listening to a lot of different kinds of American music, including the abovementioned blues artistry of Ms. Barber, concluding with The Stars and Stripes Forever and The Star-Spangled Banner (somehow it seems symbolic that in standing for the latter, I have to balance on one foot). For something a bit more recent (1974) and less pompous, you can try Paul Simon's American Tune (YouTube video); pay particular attention to the last verse.

Happy Fourth of July, my fellow Americans. We never expected this, but now that we've got it, we shall find a way to cope.

A New Day

 
Of all the things I didn't expect when I awoke this morning, high on the list was... sunshine. All the same weather warnings are in effect... heavy rain, flash floods, etc. ... and I'm still glad I don't have any place I simply have to go. But it was nice, for an hour or two, to see the sunlight struggling through the clouds. If you don't like the weather in Houston, etc.

Friday 'Face The Camera' Blogging

 
Esther again. That gal is very considerate about facing the camera...

(Lily, on the other hand, can't stay still when the camera is on.)

We Are Having Weather

 
Those who do not live on or near a coast may not be aware that tropical weather (in this case former hurricane Alex) can cause severe weather, even after the storm itself is over, hundreds of miles away. We are experiencing that side-effect right now in Houston, even though Alex gave up the ghost in the mountains of Mexico many hours ago.

Much of the city is suffering periods of really severe rain... not much lightning, some wind occasionally, but mostly straight-down, really heavy rain... for periods long enough to flood major freeways and intersections. If you are new to Houston, I beg you: do not take this lightly. In particular, if you are out on the road already or about to head home from work, do not drive into water (e.g., under an underpass) where you cannot see the bottom. A regrettable number of people have drowned that way; many more have lost their vehicles. And do not attempt to swim in a flooded bayou if your car is stranded there: there's a good chance you will be swept downstream to your death.

Stella and I are both safe at home today, as are the kitties. We have canceled appointments and settled in for the moment. The last vehicle that stopped here was a scheduled food delivery; it's rare that there is any advantage to having a cripple in the house, but I am glad we now have at least a week's supply of food just in case we become isolated.

We are still trying to locate some friends, hoping against hope that they are somewhere safe. While we look, we can all say a prayer for non-sheltered homeless people and feral animals; it's going to be a tough night, and the next few days look likely to be almost as bad.

Friday Dignified Cat Blogging

 
Esther poses in her role as interspecies diplomat:

(AS USUAL, CLICK FOR A FULL-SIZE IMAGE.)

Ben Nelson (D-Hell) Kills Unemployment Benefits Extension

 
With people starving and losing their homes because their unemployment benefits have run out, Sen. Ben Nelson joined Republicans, withholding his vote to assure the Democrats lacked the 60 votes needed to overcome the Republican filibuster. This is the third time the benefits extension bill has failed, and this time, it's because of a Democrat, who says the bill is not paid for.

I have known forever that Ben Nelson had no brain. Now I know he also has no heart. I suppose his body is made up entirely of a prick and an asshole.

Any questions about why I am no longer a Democrat? It's simple: there are too many Ben Nelsons in today's Democratic Party. There is no place for a liberal in such a party.

Alex Comes Through

 
... in more senses than one. According to Dr. Jeff Masters,

... Alex made landfall at 9pm CDT last night, 110 miles south of Brownsville, Texas, as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds. Alex was the strongest June hurricane since Hurricane Alma of 1966, which had 125 mph winds as it skirted the west coast of Florida. Brownsville long-range radar shows that Alex's heavy rains continue to pound the Texas/Mexico border region, and satellite estimates of rainfall (Figure 1) show that some of Alex's spiral bands dumped rains in excess of five inches today, in addition to the 5+ inches that fell yesterday. ...

It's going to be a rough season, as was predicted. If you live near the Gulf Coast, be ready.