Irwindale, California Sues Sriracha

According to RT:

Sriracha hot sauce may be known for burning your taste buds, but one southern California town is also blaming the company behind the popular product for harming its residents.

Residents of Irwindale, CA claim that the odors coming from the Huy Hong Foods factory, where the sauce is made, are causing irritated eyes, throats, and headaches.

***

A judge will decide whether or not to halt production at the factory on Thursday.

According to the Times, the smell from the factory is so strong that one local family needed to move a birthday party indoors because of it.

I love me some Sriracha, but damn can I imagine living near the factory that produced it could be quite a challenge.  

San Francisco Soda Tax

According to ABC:

A can of soda could eventually cost about a quarter more in San Francisco. A proposed measure would add a special tax to sugary beverages, but the proposal is different than a similar ballot measure that failed in Richmond last year.

The idea is simple -- the bigger the drink, the more taxes you pay. It would be 2 cents per ounce for all sugar-sweetened beverages. That includes soda, sports drinks, energy drinks, and bottled Frappuccinos.

"It's not a nanny state at all; we're not banning anything," San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener said.

If you have to preemptively defend yourself of being a nanny state... you're probably part of a nanny state.  

McDonald's Sues Australian Town

According to NaturalNews:

Plans by fast food giant McDonald's to build its first restaurant in the Australian town of Tecoma, located in the state of Victoria, are being challenged by nearly 100,000 individuals who recently signed a petition demanding that McDonald's stay out of the area. 

According to Yahoo! TV in Australia, representatives from an activist group known as BurgerOff recently flew 10,000 miles to the McDonald's global headquarters near Chicago to deliver the petition and signatures, which company officials reportedly refused to touch.

***

Despite the fact that the vast majority of Tecoma residents, according to Muratore, are in opposition to the project, McDonald's plans to move forward with it anyway. The company has even gone so far as to file a lawsuit against the protesters in an effort to keep them away from the proposed construction site, alleging that the project is well supported throughout the local community. But according to Muratore, this claim is absolutely false.

"That's a lie that McDonald's in Australia keeps pushing," he told reporters. "We know that nine out of 10 people don't want this."

God bless any town that fights elitist global corporation who think they know what is best for an area of the world they've never even been to.  Somehow McDonalds thinks suing this town will help their image?  I guess they don't really care about their image considering the way they treat their employees.  

Mcdonald's has a world wide reputation, they were a once beloved aspect of society, not so much anymore.  Yet somehow they think they can rest on their laurels and keep treating their customers, employees and communities like crap, while still raking in enormous amounts of cash.  Sadly they get away with this because most people are so addicted to Big Macs they don't care what the company is doing other than serving their food.  

Learn more at the official site, BurgerOff.org.

Awesome Fast Food Packaging

It nearly makes me want fast food just to try something like this out ... fortunately for me it is only a concept, but a very awesome one!

Check out Wired to learn more.  

McDonald's Canada Linked To "Shocking Animal Cruelty"

L.A. To Ban GMO

According to RT:

Los Angeles is considering a ban on the cultivation, sale and distribution of genetically modified organisms, which would make the city the largest GMO-free zone in the US.

Los Angeles City Councilmen Paul Koretz and Mitch O’Farrell introduced Friday a motion to curb growth and proliferation of GMO seeds and plants within the city.

The councilmen said the proposal aims to protect local gardens and city-grown food from future contamination from GMO seeds. The motion would not impact the sale of food containing GMO ingredients, however.

GMO seeds are mostly used only by large-scale farming operations, of which none exists in Los Angeles city.

***

Some smaller US localities have banned the cultivation of GMOs, but LA would be by far the biggest US city to do so.

***

A public effort to require all GMO foods and seeds to be labeled as such throughout the entire state of California failed a year ago. Opponents of Proposition 37 - like Monsanto and Kraft - helped donate around $46 million to the cause against labeling. Supporters of labeling raised just over $9 million in that defeat.

Voters in Washington State will consider a labeling requirement next month. Opponents of Initiative 522 - led by questionable fundraising tactics by industry trade group Grocery Manufacturers Association - have pumped $17 million into the effort to defeat labeling. Supporters have raised over $5 million.

As the article states this measure seems to be more symbolic than anything else.  Considering it won't ban much of anything since there are no large farms using GMO seeds in L.A.  

However I guess it is a step in the right direction in gaining more public attention to the situation.  So ... I guess good job L.A. Let's get this ban implemented and then adequately expanded to include a ban on all GMO foods and then we'll have something to truly celebrate about.   

Feds Order School to Ban Packed Lunches

According to InfoWars:

A school in Richmond, Virginia is following federal government instructions by telling parents that they need to have a doctor’s note in order for their children to be allowed to bring packed lunches to school, another example of how the nanny state is encroaching via the public education system.

***

While informing parents that they cannot make a decision on their own child’s diet, the same school promotes the fact that they sell ice cream during P.E. lessons every week. In a separate post, another parent describes how their child was upset because she was the only student not able to buy nachos and lemonade, which were also being sold during P.E. lessons right before lunch.

So schools are happily promoting junk food, while at the same time claiming that parents are not the best suited individuals to decide what their kid eats for lunch.  What kind of backwards logic creates this atmosphere of idiocracy is truly mind boggling to me.  

Dear Parents,

I have received word from Federal Programs Preschool pertaining to lunches from home. Parents are to be informed that students can only bring lunches from home if there is a medical condition requiring a specific diet, along with a physicians note to that regard.

I am sorry for any inconvenience. If you have any questions concerning this matter, please contact Stephanie [redacted] the Health Coordinator for Federal Programs Preschool at [redacted].

Thanks,
Ms. [redacted]

Cop Served Raw Burger at McDonalds

According to CBS: 

Officer Rob Moore pulls up to the McDonald’s drive-through in Derry, New Hampshire a couple times a week for some fast food, ordering a double quarter pounder with cheese. It’s usually the only place open working the night shift.

“I was the only one at the restaurant. I drove through and I was in full uniform,” said Moore. He grabbed his order and pretty hungry he dug in and quickly took four bites before realizing something was wrong. “I took the bun off and the first patty was cooked, the second patty revealed a raw mess and I’m sitting there holding that. I couldn’t believe what I just ate.”

Officer Moore believes it was no accident given the circumstances. “A lot of people don’t like police officers, all the circumstances are there. Only one there in full uniform and it was obviously cooked after I arrived.”

The problem is it wasn’t cooked and a few hours later he became violently ill. Moore says he contacted the franchise owner and was told the cook was a manager in training.

He says he was also told there is surveillance video of the cook preparing his order. “I was told you could see him actually put the patty into the cooker, trying to close the mechanism a couple of times, eventually taking it out and putting it on the bun and serving it to me like that. It’s unacceptable.”

McDonald’s would only release a statement saying, “We take matters regarding food safety and quality very seriously. We have investigated the issue and have resolved the customer’s concern at the restaurant level.”

Officer Moore believes there should be more stringent procedures for monitoring employees. “This could happen to anybody, not just law enforcement,” he said.

There was no way I could even edit this story down, the whole tale needed to be shared.  

I worked at a rotisserie chicken place for a while, we served the majority of our food right in front of the customer, and I know for a fact we had a few cops who would purposefully come to get food from us knowing they could watch us prepare it.  

With that said I'd imagine they were worried about someone spitting in their food or using dirty gloves to prepare it.  Serving someone raw meet is not cool.  There certainly are bad cops out there but one should not assume that they are all bad people.  Possibly causing sickness or worse to someone who has never done anything to you personally is really immature and pathetic.  

But hey, it's McDonald's what else should I expect?  

Pizza Saves America!

According to NY Post:

It’s the late night fix favored by stoners and university students around the world.

And now pizza can claim to be the food responsible for ending the US government shutdown and averting a global economic disaster.

Senate leaders announced a bipartisan deal to reopen the US government and raise the debt ceiling overnight.

But only after industrial sized quantities of pizza were wheeled in for late night negotiations.

At least 20 huge boxes were delivered by a congressional aide to the office of Speaker John Boenher, along with bags stuffed full of sides.

I'd rather give pizza the credit for averting the crisis American politicians have been pushing for the past two weeks.  I sure as hell don't give any credit to anyone in Congress who caused the problem to begin with.  So thank you pizza for allowing the Federal Government to continue spending unlimited funny money and kicking the can down the road a few weeks.  

I for one was terrified of the EBT shutdown that was about to occur if the debt ceiling was not raised.  Rioting and looting are not quite as fun as people on Twitter make it out to be.  So any way to avoid massive riots and police crack downs is appreciated.  Again thank you pizza!

Fast Food "Benefits"

According to RT:

Over half of US workers employed by fast food restaurants rely on public assistance because their meager paychecks do not cover basic needs. The aid costs American taxpayers billions of dollars each year, according to a new report.

The average American fast food worker earns $8.69 an hour and regularly works less than 40 hours a week, qualifying them for a variety of government benefits. Fifty-two percent of families that include a fast food worker receive food stamps, Medicaid, or are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Compare that sum with the 25 percent of families eligible for those assistance programs from the overall workforce.

***

Most fast food workers (68 percent) are single or married adults not currently attending school and 26 percent are raising children - debunking the stereotype that teenagers fill most of said positions.

***

Only 13 percent of workers receive health benefits from their employers, compared to 59 percent of workers elsewhere. An individual working at McDonalds or Burger King, for example, also works an average of ten hours less than his or her full-time counterpart working for a non-fast food company.

***

Experts have said that the estimated annual figures are likely low because they do not account for school lunch programs, home heating assistance, subsidized housing, or any state programs.

This is all pretty much common knowledge.  But it is always good to see a reputable news source covering it further.  Not to mention while most of us realize these facts, sometimes it is easy to forget about them when the main stream media focuses on such menial bullshit day in and day out.  

Costco Salmonella Outbreak

According to Natural News:

A San Francisco Costco store has recalled 40,000 pounds of cooked rotisserie chicken products due to confirmed SalmonellaHeidelberg contamination. Salmonella Heidelberg is an antibiotic-resistant strain that poses a life-threatening risk to those with weakened immune systems, including the elderly, kids and people with cancer or HIV. At least one cooked rotisserie chicken tested positive for the salmonella bacteria, leading the store to issue a recall for 8,730 rotisserie chickens and 313 units of soup, leg quarters and salad possibly containing salmonella. An expected 18-20 customers have reported illness directly linked to the contaminated chicken sold between September 11 and September 23.

***

This recall is being linked to the Foster Farms antibiotic-resistant salmonella outbreak which caused The Kroger Co. to remove Foster Farms brand raw chicken from six of their grocery store chains in Nevada and New Mexico earlier this month. Despite consumer pressure, Foster Farms has refused to issue a voluntary recall, claiming that their chicken meets USDA standards, and reminded consumers that contaminated chicken is safe to eat when handled properly and cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees. The USDA has issued supportive statements.

I worked for a super market that cooked rotisserie chickens in high school, they were gross.  It would not surprise me if one of these workers didn't wash their hands or used the same gloves to remove the chickens after they were cooked.  So yeah, cooking them would have killed the Salmonella, but if some idiot didn't wash his hands and he had some bacteria on them from preparing the chickens...

You get the idea.  As for the company that supplied the chicken, talk about classy.  Of course your chicken meets USDA standard, they barely have any!  Don't worry just cook that salmonella away... forget about the fact that it most likely spread to your chopping board and counter tops and if you just so happen to cook the chicken to 155 degrees you still might get sick.  The USDA says it is all okay, and the Government wouldn't lie to us, would they?  

EBT (Food Stamps) to Shut Down in November

According to InfoWars:

The USDA is directing states to withhold Electronic Transfer Benefits for the month of November until further notice, setting up a potential food stamp crisis that could very easily lead to riots and widespread looting if the government shutdown drags on.

***

In other words, up to 47 million Americans who rely on food stamps to feed themselves face the prospect of going hungry next month.

An EBT system failure that occurred this past weekend led to “mini-riots” and looting at several Walmart stores. In Springhill and Mansfield, Louisiana, shelves were cleared as frenzied customers tried to exploit unlimited credit balances that had temporarily been applied to their EBT cards as a result of the system glitch. Store managers also had to close a Walmart and call police in Philadelphia, Mississippi aftercustomers began rioting when their EBT cards stopped functioning.

EBT card users responded by invoking the threat of widespread riots if the system went down again for any sustained period of time. More conspiratorial types even suggested that Saturday’s glitch was a beta test for a future total food stamp shutdown.

***

Richard Phillips, a homeless man who relies on food stamps, told Fox 13, “It’s going to cause problems… because then you’re going to come to find out that you’re going to have people starting to steal and do what they have to do to survive.”

So the havoc we saw take pace in Louisiana this past weekend during a 2 hour EBT shut down is about to spread across the entire nation.  What do you think will happen for an entire month if it took just two hours for Walmart customers to nearly riot?  

Riots at Walmart

According to KSLA:

Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits. 

The chaos that followed ultimately required intervention from local police, and left behind numerous carts filled to overflowing, apparently abandoned when the glitch-spurred shopping frenzy ended.

***

Lynd explained the cards weren't showing limits and they called corporate Walmart, whose spokesman  said to let the people use the cards anyway. From 7 to 9 p.m., people were loading up their carts, but when the cards began showing limits again around 9, one woman was detained because she rang up a bill of $700.00 and only had .49 on her card. She was held by police until corporate Walmart said they wouldn't press charges if she left the food.

Lynd says at 9 p.m., when the cards came back online and it was announced over the loud speaker, people just left their carts full of food in the aisles and left.

"Just about everything is gone, I've never seen it in that condition," said Mansfield Walmart customer Anthony Fuller.

***

 "I was just thinking, I'm so glad my mom doesn't work here [Walmart] anymore, that's the only thing I could think about, those employees working, that would have to restock all that stuff," said O.J Evans who took cell phone video of the overflowing shopping carts at the Mansfield Walmart.

Evans believes it was natural human reaction that led people to fill up their carts during the glitch, but Walmart shoppers Stan and Judy Garcia feel very differently. "That's plain theft, that's stealing that's all I got to say about it," said Garcia.

This was all with in hours of the system going down.  Imagine what will happen  when it does down a for a day or a week?  The masses will start rioting with in no time at all.  This was just a glimpse of what's to come. 

On a slightly positive note, although I could spin it otherwise, it seems Walmart actually did something good for others this one time.  The article goes on to say:

Kayla Whaling, a spokesperson for Walmart, tells KSLA News 12 that the company was "fully engaged and monitoring the situation and transactions during the outage."

"We did make the decision to continue to accept EBT cards (and purchases on WIC and SNAP) during the outage so that they could get food for their families.

Big Mac Causes Police Car Chase

According to The Smoking Gun:

After exiting a McDonald’s drive-thru lane, an intoxicated Ohio motorist led cops on a short chase because he “just wanted to eat his Big Mac before he stopped,” according to a police report.

***

“I initiated a traffic stop and the subject failed to stop,” noted Officer Clifford Smith, who added that he chased Miller until the motorist pulled over. Miller, who smelled of booze and was slurring his speech, apologized to Smith, saying he “was too drunk and he just wanted to eat his Big Mac before he stopped.”

I'm surprised this guy wasn't shot to death for running from the cops.  But aside from that what else is there to say about this story except the fact that Big Macs are so addictive they will make a man risk arrest and possible execution just to finish eating one.  

Food Stamps (EBT) Not Being Accepted in 17 States.

According to a Boston CBS Affiliate:

People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure.

At about 9 a.m. Saturday, reports from across the country began pouring in that customers’ EBT cards were not working in stores.

***

Wasmer said the affected states also included Alabama, California, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

***

Shoppers left carts of groceries behind at a packed Market Basket grocery store in Biddeford, Maine, because they couldn't get their benefits, said fellow shopper Barbara Colman, of Saco, Maine. The manager put up a sign saying the EBT system was not in use.

“That’s a problem. There are a lot of families who are not going to be able to feed children because the system is being maintenanced,” Colman said. She planned to reach out to local officials. “You don’t want children going hungry tonight because of stupidity,” she said.

Glitch in the system during routine maintenance or a prequel of things to come...?

Gitmo Guards still Torturing Kidnapped Inmates to this Day.

Mos Def Willingly Being Force Fed

So you think the Gauntanamo Bay torture scandal was a thing of the past?  Think not.  To this day guards at the infamous rendition and enhanced interrogation camp are still putting these inmates through incredible mistreatment that the American people seem to have become desensitized to at this point.  

According to RT:

Guantanamo guards were conducting regular night raids on inmates’ cells, putting prisoners in solitary confinement and manipulating temperature in the cells to force an end to the months’ long hunger strike in the camp, detainees claim.

***

The hunger strike, which began in February after authorities confiscated personal possessions from the detainees’ rooms and became a wider protest against indefinite detention, grew to include more than a hundred people by July. Last month, US authorities announced that the strike had petered out.


“The US authorities have, with some glee, announced the hunger strike to be over. What they fail to tell you is the horrific things they did to crush the hunger strikers' spirits, as my clients have described. And yet still there are at least 16 men striking and being brutally force-fed twice a day,” said Cori Crider, a lawyer at Reprieve, a charity that represents some of the inmates.

One inmate had this to say of the treatment of a fellow inmate he had witnessed:

“The riot squad uses the excuse of giving him water and food and medicine to storm his cell again,” 

***

“They took him to the clinic, tore his clothes off and left him with only his underwear for long hours, taunting him.”

Americans are not good people, we are not exceptional, we do not spread peace and democracy around the globe.  Many Americans are terrible people who find pleasure in others suffering.  They have been desensitized by decades of actions flicks and shoot 'em up games.  They've had their minds warped by millions upon millions of pharmaceutical prescriptions preventing them from properly perceiving reality.  They've lived a life of luxury and lavishes (yes even what used to be of the middle class) that separates them from the rest of the world creating a them vs us mentality that make's it simpler for us to allow our government to kill millions of people while the majority of us focus on football and Dancing with the Stars.  

America is not special.  America has become a breeding ground for the type of person who is willing to torture someone else based on false claims by an untrustworthy government.  Yet somehow these idiots in power still find people even dumber than them willing to "just follow orders".  There are good people in America, there are smart, caring people in this country.  The sad thing is they are not the ones who are in power, the ones in power are greedy, evil bastards willing to maim, murder and mutilate anyone who gets in their way.  

McDonalds CEO would rather have his Employees arrested than Acknowledge their Concerns.

According to RT:

A Chicago woman was arrested late last week after confronting the president of her long-time employer McDonald’s over the low wages she earns as she struggles to raise two young children.

Nancy Salgado, 26, interrupted a speech by McDonald’s Corporation President Jeff Stratton at the Union League Club of Chicago on Friday, saying her wages weren’t enough for her to supply her kids with basic necessities like shoes.

“Do you think this is fair, that I have to be making $8.25 [per hour] when I've worked for McDonald's for 10 years?” Salgado, who claimed never to have received a raise in that time, said at the gathering as Stratton stood at a podium.

"I've been there 40 years," Stratton replied, the extent of his response to Salgado.

“The thing is that I need a raise. But you're not helping your employees. How is this possible?” Salgado continued at Stratton. “To your employees you haven't done anything.”

She and six other protesters were arrested and given tickets for trespassing.

***

Salgado said she was quickly approached by authorities at the event and told she would be arrested.

“I remember just telling them … because I have to speak out my mind and I had to tell the president the poverty wage I'm living in, that's just against the law?” she told The Real News.

I work for a rather large company, and boy do they take care of their employees.  It sickens me to hear about something like this, someone just trying to make their voice heard being arrested for simply questioning the CEO of the company they work for.  If that isn't representative of a corporatocracy I am not quiet sure that is.  Ask a question of a CEO that he does not like and go to jail ... 

Food and Drug Administration Not Inspecting Food

With all the hoopla over the partial shut down of the Federal Government, one story that has gone under reported is that the Food and Drug Administration is one of the many federal agencies whose furloughed employees are off the clock.  So all the imported seafood and domestic produce on the shelves in the coming weeks will have gone through no inspection process to be deemed safe.  According to Gizmodo:

FDA food safety inspectors are furloughed right now and have been all week. Which, as Quartz explains, is problematic because, in addition to finding the source of outbreaks, the FDA also monitors 80 percent of all U.S. food and especially imports. And don't think for a second that the food safety inspectors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren't on Furlough too, because they are.

Fruits, vegetables, seafood and and basically anything else that comes through US customs isn't being safety checked by the FDA right now.

The first thing that occurred to me while reading this article though was a statistic I had run across recently.  One that apparently MSNBC was reporting on back in 2009:

Meanwhile, the FDA is so understaffed, it’s only able to inspect roughly 1 percent of foods that are imported into the country. And the rate of inspections at U.S. plants isn't much better. The FDA had not inspected Peanut Corporation of America’s Georgia plant since 2001. Investigators say PCA’s own internal tests repeatedly found salmonella traces, but it continued to sell peanut butter products.

So make of this latest development in the ever expanding series of unfortunate consequences resulting from the Federal Governments 18% shut down.  However with 99% of food getting through the system while bypassing inspection to begin with I'm not too worried about that last 1% getting a pass for a week.