(Marginally) tougher food safety rules mean (marginally) safer food

"There is no more important mission at USDA than ensuring the safety of our food, and we are working every day as part of the President's Food Safety Working Group to lower the danger of foodborne illness. The new standards announced today mark an important step in our efforts to protect consumers by further reducing the incidence of Salmonella and opening a new front in the fight against Campylobacter," announced Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on Monday. Under these new proposed regulations, 7.5% of the chicken at a processing plant may test positive for salmonella. In 2009, average salmonella levels were at 7.1%, so I guess these giant food conglomerates won't have to stretch too hard to meet the proposed rule. I suppose it's better than the 20% salmonella contamination that's allowed under current regulations. But perhaps current regulations are not the best standard with which to judge the new rules, given that they don't regulate campylobacter at all. Campylobacter causes diarrhea, cramping, fever, and there are no federal standards governing how much of it can be in your food. Under the proposed regulations, companies may not have more than 10% of their carcasses "highly-contaminated" by campylobacter, and no more than 46% may be contaminated at a "low-level." I feel better, don't you?

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Peabody Coal Company argues that coal is “green coal” and “clean coal”

A few months ago one of my neighbors, a proudly conservative man, saw me carrying a package of high-efficiency light bulbs into my house. He gave me a disappointed look loudly said: “Buy some real light bulbs, Erich.” This neighbor has repeatedly made it known that that liberal concerns and proposals regarding energy are unnecessary because there is plenty of oil and coal, and we should make it our national priority to keep digging and burning these resources. I know that my Republican neighbor is not the only “conservative” in the U.S. willing to scoff at conservation. I previously argued that this anti-energy-efficiency climate–science-denial attitude like my neighbor’s outlook has become a badge of group membership among conservatives. It has become a salient display that one believes, above all, in the alleged power and wisdom of the “Free Market,” an unsubstantiated leap of faith so incredibly bold that I once termed it the Fourth Person of the Holy Trinity (and see here and here). These free-market fundamentalists are contemptuous at well-informed suggestions for using energy resources more efficiently and for reducing our reliance on dirty and dangerous fossil fuels. Many of them consider national policy aimed at energy conservation to be totally unnecessary and ridiculously expensive. Proposals that we should be smarter consumers of energy annoy and anger them and they offer no evidence-based alternatives for peak oil (and see here and here and here ). They refuse to consider the damage being done to our environment, our health and our budget (especially our military budget) as a result of our reliance on fossil fuels . My neighbor displays a startling lack of curiosity regarding the ramifications for continuing to attempt to drill and dig our way to energy independence. This same attitude is found in many conservative politicians, the most prominent being Sarah Palin. Based on an extraordinary video of a recent debate at Washington University in Saint Louis, this same attitude is also embraced by of the executives at the largest private coal company in the United States, Peabody Coal Company.

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I Was a Third Grade Science Project

I was on the phone with my next door neighbor Chad and suddenly the left side of my face slid down below my chin. Chad noticed my speech suddenly changed and asked what was up. “I’m either having a stroke or I have Bell’s palsy. I was familiar with both the symptoms and what Bell’s feels like because a good friend had the same condition before. My wife was due home in about 10 minutes so I waited for her to arrive. If she hadn’t returned soon, I was going to call an ambulance. After arriving at the hospital and spending about three hours there and confirming Bell’s palsy, I went home. I took my medicines immediately and settled in to recover. My face was funky and my speech was slurred because my mouth wouldn’t close, nor would my left eyelid. I watered my eye, and settled in for bed. The weekend was busy and my condition seemed little better on Monday. Monday morning was the usual chaos of getting the kids up and off to school. [More . . . ]

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