The Angry Jew

The rantings of an Angry Jew in The Pacific Northwest

OK Recruits, here is your scenario.

You are a Portland Police Officer on routine patrol.  It the day before you are scheduled to go on vacation.  Suddenly before you appears a man running down the street, completely engulfed in flames.

Do you:

A)  Call for Back Up

B)   Douse him with your Grande Mocha Frappa Crappa Chino from Meglo Coffee

C)  Grab a riot control sized can of pepper spray and hose the guy down, not realizing it was not the fire extinguisher you thought it was until another officer finds the empty canister at the scene AFTER you have already returned to the station.

If you answered C, congratulations, you are now a member of the Portland Police Department.

Now before you folks go off on the officer, let me explain a few facts.

The man intentionally set himself on fire and had a history of mental illness and suicide attempts.  His own father was not surprised to hear that his son had died in such a manner.

Pepper spray is water based and while not the best choice of fire fighting agents,  it did not make the situation any worse.

The riot control sized canisters of pepper spray are roughly the same size and color as the portable fire extinguishers found in most emergency vehicles.  I know from personal experience as we used to use them to clear freight train riders out of rail cars back when I worked the rail yard in Missoula, MT.

If you are going to feel bad for anyone in this case, feel bad for the Officer.

Many an ashtray and candle are going to show up on this officers desk for the rest of their career.

It’s OK to laugh, it’s cop humor.

The Oregonian reported that City Hall emptied for about 20 minutes Wednesday morning while firefighters dealt with the burning bagel in the break room of Mayor Sam Adam’s office.

There’s no immediate word on who burned the bagel in the toaster oven or what type of bagel it was.

All Hail The Power Of Jew Food.

I have never been much on conspiracy theories because frankly, I don’t think there is anyone in our government smart enough to pull off any of the real big ones floating around out there. Well, maybe with the exception that The Warren Commission was full of shit, but I don’t buy the whole “JFK”, Oliver Stone/Jim Garrison version of what they “think” happened either.

My biggest problem with them is that they are what they say they are…THEORIES.  I can’t remember what it was said about or where I got it, but the phrase the absence of a negative does not mean a positive.  What I am trying to say is if you can’t provide me with verifiable proof of something, I am not going to buy into it just because someone says it is true.

If nothing else, you now understand why I have such a huge problem with religion.

So, with all that being said, I want to address a comment to my story “China Sticks It To Us Again”.

In his comment, Reader CJ stated “It is not just the Chinese” and provided a link to a story on TheGoodHuman.Com that proclaims in large, bold type “90% of US Infant Formula May Be Contaminated With Melamine.”

Now, this intrigued me enough to read on.

The gist of the story is that after the Chinese baby formula scare, in which China admitted to the world that dairy farmers had added large amounts of the chemical to raw milk to up the protein counts on their product , the FDA stated that no amount of Melamine was acceptable in formula products.

The article quotes the FDA as saying that

“FDA is currently unable to establish any level of melamine and melamine-related compounds in infant formula that does not raise public health concerns.”

Now the article goes on to say that The Associated Press, through the Freedom of Information Act, obtained test results that proved that most US produced infant formula contains traces of melamine and that the FDA had reversed it’s initial finding of zero tolerance for the chemical to an acceptable level of 1 PPM ( part per million, just under what it was reported to be found in US made products.

The article goes on to state that

Rather than this decision being based on science, the FDA is once again resorting to politically-motivated decisions that seek to protect the profits of Big Business rather than the safety of infants and children.

The article theorizes that the FDA claim that the contamination was a result of packaging material and cleaning products can not be true because

“…the FDA’s own tests on Mead Johnson infant formula reveal it to contain 245 ppb, (Parts per Billion) or 1600% more than what would be expected to exists due to melamine contamination from manufacturing equipment.”

The writer then puts forth two theories for the source of the contamination.  First, that infant formula is being deliberately being adulterated with the substance or that US Dairy operations are feeding their animals feed tainted with melamine in an effort to save money.

OK, I was intrigued.

The article mentioned no other sources for it’s information and in fact, their was no byline for the author, with the exception of his name, David, in the websites “about” section.

Now, before you read any further, I encourage you to read Davids article in full at the link provided.  It will make what follows a little bit easier to understand.

I first went to the AP website and tried to obtain a copy of the original article, but the bastards wanted a buck fifty for it, so a little bit of digging  later, I was able to find the original posted on Huffington Post.

Now the AP article tracked initially with what David had written.

According to The AP, yes, trace amounts were found in US produced formula.

Yes, there appeared to be no new science involved in the FDA’s decision to call the trace amounts detected safe.

Yes, the three major manufacturers of US formula had been tested and there production accounts for 90% of all infant formula made here.

The article then goes on to point out the difference between the Chinese and US contamination.

In China, melamine was intentionally dumped into watered-down milk to trick food quality tests into showing higher protein levels than actually existed. Byproducts of the milk ended up in infant formula, coffee creamers, even biscuits.

The concentrations of melamine there were extraordinarily high, as much as 2,500 parts per million. The concentrations detected in the FDA samples were 10,000 times smaller _ the equivalent of a drop in a 64-gallon trash bin.

There would be no economic advantage to spiking U.S.-made formula at the extremely low levels found in the FDA testing. It neither raises the protein count nor saves valuable protein, said University of California, Davis chemist Michael Filigenzi, a melamine detection expert.

So much for the intentional spiking theory put forth by David.

The article also addressed the specific contamination of the Mead Johnson formula.

According to FDA data for tests of 77 infant formula samples, a trace concentration of melamine was detected in one product _ Mead Johnson’s Infant Formula Powder, Enfamil LIPIL with Iron. An FDA spreadsheet shows two tests were conducted on the Enfamil, with readings of 0.137 and 0.14 parts per million.

Wait a minute, David said it was 245 parts per billion.  Billion.

He repeats his claim in his article where he states

If manufacturing and packaging machinery should only result in melamine contamination levels of 15 ppb, and yet 245 ppb were found in the infant formula, then where did all the extra melamine come from? The FDA has no explanation for this and seems to hope people will forget to ask.

OK, if my math is right, 245 parts per Billion is one hell of a lot less then the 1 Part per Million that the FDA says is safe, and that 0.137 and 0.14 is even less then that.

Even if I work under the assumption that the parts per billion was in fact a typo on Davids part, I could not find ANYTHING in the original AP article with a 245 parts per million value, so where did Davids number come from?

Again, I would ask you to take the time to read the entire article for yourself and see whether or not I am correct.

So, are the amounts of Melamine in formula safe, or are they not?

A quick check Medicinenet.com gave me the answers I was looking for.

According to well annotated article citing a full dozen sources, the answer is, PROBABLY.

Here’s the opinion of Marcel Casavant, MD, chief of clinical pharmacology/toxicology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, medical director of The Central Ohio Poison Center, and director of the Central Ohio Lead Clinic.

“We don’t really know for sure how much melamine is safe,” Casavant tells WebMD. “We do know how much is bad. It’s really the dose that makes something a poison or not. Concentrations of more than 250 parts per million cause big troubles for some babies. How low does the concentration have to be to cause no problems for any babies? That’s what we don’t know for certain.”

Another opinion

Gary Wasserman, DO, chief of medical toxicology at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo., says trace levels of melamine and other chemicals have probably been present in infant formula for decades. We find it now because we’ve just started to test for it.

The article goes on to say,

Scientists never say never. None of the experts who spoke with WebMD would guarantee that all U.S. infant formulas are safe for all babies. But every one of the experts says the evidence so far strongly indicates that U.S. infant formula is safe.

So, here we are.  From what I have been able to find, I would have to put forth the opinion that David is pretty much full of crap and using scare tactics, unsupported by verifiable facts, to sway his readership to his way of thinking.

I can’t fault David for having an opinion, but having an opinion does not make it fact.

And so now you see why I don’t find much use for conspiracy theories.  I have found that if you dig deep enough, the facts they present tend to start to unravel.  It took me all of 15 minutes to find and digest the information for this article and about ten times that to write it.

I followed this same process with any article I write when it comes to presenting facts.  Any errors are my own and if anyone finds FACTS contrary to the ones I present, I will be happy to publish them.

I only ask that you take the time to look into them.

As Ronald Regan once said “Trust…but verify.”

In south eastern California there is a little town called Menifee.  It covers 50 square miles and has a population right around sixty thousand.

Now, one of these 60,000, just one, complained to the principal of Oak Meadows Middle school that one of the books in fourth and fifth grade classrooms was full of smut.  Wasting little time, the school board yanked the books until a committee could be formed to review the books and determine if they were in fact to racy for 4th and 5th graders.

A spokeswoman for the Menifee Union School District, Betti Camus stated on Monday that … “There was a growing concern by parents that some of the words were not age-appropriate.”

What was this book, this cesspool of evil that would dare to poison these children’s minds?

Huck Finn?  Nope

Catcher In The Rye?  Uh no.

The Diary Off Anne Frank?  Hardly.

How about the book that contains all these books.

To quote my favorite GILF Sarah Palin, “YOUBETCHA”.

Because of one vocal parent, The Menifee Union School District has pulled the Merriam Webster 10th Collegiate Dictionary off the shelves.

Apparently, the unidentified parent who started the ruckus was concerned about the entries describing oral sex were too explicit.

Now, before I start, lets see what we are dealing with.  According to the online edition of Websters, Fellatio is defined as…”oral stimulation of the penis.”  It defines Blow Job as “usually vulgar : an act of fellatio”.

OK, now that we know what we are dealing with, let us begin.

I would like to start by asking the obvious question here, are you people FREAKING INSANE?

Do you really think there is a single forth or fifth grader in your community that does not already know what a blow job is?  Hell, most of them have either given or received one by that age.

Do you really think they are playing on the monkey bars and saying to each other…

Hey Mikey, I heard that Betty Sue gave fellatio to Barry.

What is Fellatio, Scooter?

I don’t know lets go look it up in the dictionary.  Oh, here it is, hmmm…oh…she gave him a hummer you dumb ass, why didn’t you say so in the first place?

Now unless you people have been keeping your children in a basement, cut the TV cables and turned off the internet in your fair city, removed all music made after 1985 and banned every publication known to man, your children are learning about sex.

They live in a culture obsessed with it, they are surrounded by it and completely immersed in it.  You may not like it, but that is they way things are.  If you think that having the medical definitions of sexual acts available to them in the classroom is going to turn them into a pack of rutting animals, well, might I suggest that you pull your heads out of your collective asses and take a look at the world your kids are living in, because that is where they are, not the asexual, 1950’s, Ivory Snow world you wish they were in.

For the educators and city government of this small town to give into the whining of ONE oblivious parent who thinks her little boy might be locked in the bathroom wanking to a dictionary is, to my mind, child abuse of the worst possible form, and should be dealt with as such.

What do the officials of Menifee think about this issue?

Lets find out.

I have sent copies of this post to the mayor and the city council, to get their side of the story.

I will of course print whatever comments they wish to make.

I have recently, like most of America and indeed the world, seen James Cameron’s ground breaking entertainment experience “Avatar”.

Notice I used the words entertainment experience rather then “film” or “motion picture” to describe his remarkable achievement.  He has truly created a genuine first in modern cinema and while I in no way wish to detract from his remarkable achievement, I am concerned by the Best Picture “buzz” that his work is receiving.

Cameron is deserving of praise for his directing skill, his technical innovation and soulful score, but Best Picture?

Hardly.

Listen, first and foremost, it’s been done.  Not once numerous times in the past.

When you strip away the incredible use of Cameron’s own innovative 3D technology, it is at best a mediocre story that has been done to death.  Evil corporation bad/Tree Huggers good.  Hero has a change of heart and joins with the forces of light over darkness.

This describes everything from Pocahontas to Soylent Green.

Nothing new here.  It is in stark contrast to Cameron’s other mega blockbuster, Titanic.  With Titanic, he was able to create something compelling despite the fact that everyone who purchased a ticket knew how the film was going to end.

To me, this is a fantastic example of film that deserves Best Picture recognition, which it did in fact earn in 1997.

Now that I have given my negative, I feel compelled to also give forth some much deserved praise for what James Cameron’s AVATAR has accomplished.

With his groundbreaking 3D Fusionvision technology, Cameron has created something so unique, I am hard pressed to call it a movie.

For the first time as a film goer, I can honestly say I was “in the room” as the action unfolded before me.  The ONLY distractions I found were with minor issues with foreground and background focus that took away from the illusion and returned me to my theater seat.

What Cameron has done is no less then to have broken down “The 4th Wall” but in reverse.  He has truly brought the audience into the screen.

By melding real enviornments with computer generated elements IN REAL TIME, Cameron has created a technology that will be the benchmark for all that comes after it.  Imagine Gladiator, Top Gun, Alien, Star Wars (Hell, this stuff would have made JarJar Binks look good) or even this years effects masterpiece yet box office loser 2012 rendered in this technology.

A completely immersive experience is what all filmmakers try to provide to their audiences and Avatar has proved that Cameron is the king.

It is a shame he did not have a better story to tell.

Thank you For Your Time

The Angry Jew

“Now that corporations are people, I am feeling so much better about the death penalty”

Lake Oswego Resident Burl Ross commenting in today’s op-ed section about the Supreme Courts decision to allow corporations to contribute as much as they like to political campaigns.

The owner of a British Company that makes bomb detectors for use at checkpoints throughout Iraq and Afghanistan was arrested Saturday on fraud charges.

Jim McCormick, a former British police officer and managing director ATSC Corporation, the company that sold the devices to the Iraqi government for around 85 million dollars..

The device in question, the ADE651, is a hand held wand with no batteries of internal electronic components.  It is ostensibly powered by the static electricity generated by the operator, who needs to walk in place to keep it charged.  The only moving part appears to be what looks like a radio antenna on a swivel which swings in the direction of weapons or explosives.

Over 800 of the devices are said to be still in use in Iraq, despite warnings from technical experts and US that they were “useless”.

Maybe the British should just send Jim to Iraq to face their Justice.  You figure at worst he will lose his hands, and at best, maybe they can arrange for him to man an out of the way check point with one of his own products and let nature take it’s course.

Just to review, melamine in dog food, antifreeze in toothpaste, lead and heavy metals in stuff for our kids.

Now you tell me, does it not seem that the Chinese have a hard on for the good ole USofA.

God I hope not, because if they do, we have one less way to protect ourselves.

China’s latest export will leave us all well and truly fucked, and you don’t even need to pardon the puns here.

What, you ask, is their latest outrage?

Counterfeit Condoms.

In November, authorities in Hunan province released details of a July raid on a factory where they found workers lubricating condoms with vegetable oil in unsanitary conditions and then packaging them to look like high quality, brand named contraceptives.

In another case, workers were found recycling used condoms to be made into hair bands.  Now, if you have seen any woman use a hair band, you tell me where she holds it as she fixes her hair.  YUCK

Chinese authorities estimate that up to one third of the condoms used in the world most populous nation are in fact counterfeit.  None of the counterfeits found so far are sterilized in any way, and others were found to be of such poor quality that they might rupture during use.

Now, if these things were only in China, I would in fact be laughing my ass off right about now.  Serves the greedy little bastards right, wouldn’t you say?

Yea, well, you see, the thing is, back as far as 2008, officials in New York confiscated knock off Chinese made goods, including MILLIONS of phony Trojan Brand condoms that were sold in small discount stores in New York, Texas and Virginia.

It seems that China is just determined to love us all long time.

I am thinking that Carl’s Jr hates the handicapped

This is the only explanation that I can see for the design of this restroom in one of their restaurants.

Allow me to explain.

The other day Kwazy Kate and I took her brood to Carls for lunch.  For some odd reason, her oldest had never known the joy of a Carls burger in his 17 years and despite my pledge to live a healthier lifestyle, a Six Diollar Burger now and again is a wonderful thing.

After getting my cholesterol on, I had the need to use the restroom and decided to make use of the handicapped stall, because I like to have the option of a game of hand ball while doing my business.

Anyway, my business done, I started to reach for the paper, only to find that because the dispenser was mounted about 8 inches off the floor, I was forced to bend in half and lift off the seat to reach it.

WHAT THE FUCK CARL?

How the hell is a handicapped person supposed to reach it when a fully functional person cant?

I thought the whole idea of handicapped restrooms, like their special parking, was to make things easier for these people, not harder.

Who designed this thing, Josef Mengele?

Well, if you will pardon the pun, I intend to get to the bottom of this.

I have sent a copy of this posting to their corporate people in search of an explanation.

Authors Note:

I am sure that some politically correct types out there are going to take exception to my use of the terms handicapped and fully functional in this piece.

Now if you are handicapped and have taken offense, GO FUCK YOURSELF.  What matters more, the vernacular I use or the fact that I am championing YOUR  cause.  My mother has been missing her right arm for twenty years and would have kicked the restaurant managers ass rather then let this pass.  I am doing your job for you.

Now, if you are not handicapped and have taken offense,

GET A FUCKING LIFE!

Sweathearts, those inedible candy hearts with the cutsie sayings on them, have moved forward in their bid to remain on the cutting edge of pop culture.

After taking a poll of over 10,000 customers, the company responsible for the annual chalky tooth breakers has added the phrases “Tweet Me” and Text Me” to their line up.

Favorite sayings that made their debut in years past, have been dumped in favor of You Rock, Soul Mate, Love Bug and Me & You and the return of classic expressions including Puppy Love, Sweet Love, Sweet Pea and Love Me.

“Sweethearts have long been America’s favorite Valentine’s Day candy for sharing a sweet sentiment with loved ones,” said Jackie Hague, the company’s marketing vice president in a statement. “The new tastier flavors, vibrant colors and modern expressions will ensure that Sweethearts continue to delight people of all ages and help them say something sweet to those they care about.”

I think I will stick to chocolates and flowers for my lady love.