You will, you will...eat this...

So, now they’re planning to put GMO sugar into the market without any labeling to identify it as GMO, saying:

“ ‘Basically, we have not run into resistance,’ said David Berg, president of American Crystal Sugar, the nation’s largest sugar beet processor. ‘We really think that consumer attitudes have come to accept food from biotechnology.’ ”

Well, Mr. Berg, how can a consumer even act on any resistance they might have to purchasing your GMO crap, if you are not even honest enough to LABEL it as such?

“A Kellogg spokeswoman, Kris Charles, said her company ‘would not have any issues’ buying such sugar for products sold in the United States, where she said ‘most consumers are not concerned about biotech.’ ”

Basically, the food industry does not give a damn about what customers want. The sole intent is to eliminate all choices the consumer might have regarding GMO, organic, whatever. Why? Because the food industry does not think we have the right to spend our money as we wish, eat what we’d like, make our own decisions for ourselves. No, their arguments mostly boil down to consumers being too stupid to make such choices on their own, so the food industry should just dictate from on high that we WILL eat whatever they decide to feed us.

The chutzpah is mind-boggling. If this GMO stuff you’re trying to foist off on us is so great, why not sell it to us on its merits? Tell us the truth, price it appropriately, and let us vote with our dollars. But of course, the food industry has no interest in doing any such thing. Instead, they want to hide their GMOs in UNlabeled products. We’re supposed to just trust them. Because, of course, THEY are sure that they know better than we do! What brazen imperious deceit!

Rescued from the memory hole

25 April 1960
From: Allen Dulles, Director of CIA
To: J. Edgar Hoover, Director of FBI
In Re: Torture

How is it that we have forgotten this fundamental truth?

Pogo was right.

Howling Bells: best musical surprise of 2007

I don’t remember how I happened to stumble across this album, but even at $30 import price, it’s worth every cent. Original, well-crafted, and what a voice! You can try it out at http://howlingbells.com/

No spine, no principles, no integrity

Senators Feinstein and Schumer have today demonstrated that the Democrats are lazy and/or have no guts, and that there is apparently nothing for which they are willing to go to battle.

Torture? ‘Ho hum,’ these Dems apparently believe.

By throwing their support to the Mukasey nomination, they are telling us that it’s OK to have another Gonzales as Attorney General. It’s OK to have another moral relativist and supporter of torture in charge of seeing that this country follows the rule of law. Or not. And most assuredly, the answer is ‘not.’

Mr. Mukasey either LIED to the Senate Judiciary Committee, or proved that he is completely INEPT, when he professed ignorance regarding the specifics of waterboarding as a method of “enhanced interrogation” as the Bush administration likes to call it. Which alternative do we prefer? Speaking for myself, I say none of the above!

And then, listening to Mukasey dance around the question about whether the President has the authority to order any and all acts, legal and illegal, simply on the basis of his authority: my God, what an obfsucator this man is! Which, of course, is exactly his qualification for being chosen by Bush, i.e., no surprise there.

No, in this matter it is the Democrats who disgust me. Spineless, heartless, with no moral center. Is there ANYTHING at all that will make them stand up to Bush riding roughshod over everything this country stands for?

For a while there, it looked like they were going to hold Mukasey’s feet to the fire, and force him to either state that waterboarding IS torture, and ipso facto, Bush is a war criminal; or, declare that waterboarding is NOT torture and demonstrate that he is unsuited for the position by his disrespect for the rule of law. A no-win situation for the poor guy, obviously, but surely he knew what he was wading into.

And surely the Dems also realized that if they persisted and Mukasey declared unequivocally that waterboading is torture, the Dems would then be obligated to follow through and begin impeachment proceedings, something they clearly would prefer to avoid, albeit for unfathomable reasons.

Is there a single politician out there who is willing to fight for what is right? SO DAMN WHAT if they don’t have the 60 votes they “need” for this and every single other vote that they already have or will in the future cave on? Does that mean they give up without even trying? Have they ever considered the filibuster? Do they really think that the way the game is played in Washington is to make nice, always make nice, be polite, and hope that they’re teaching the opposition by example what decorum is? They may think this, but many of us see them for what they really are: a pathetic joke.

If they’re going to roll over before the fight even starts, why should we put them in office as our proxies? I have never been closer to simply throwing in the towel and acknowledging that whole ugly thing is hopeless, that our country is done for, that there is nothing that can be done to save it.

Democrats: I am sick of your empty promises. You were elected you on a specific platform, and you have obviously sold us a bill of goods, because on item after item, you have simply rolled over. There really is no opposition party anymore. This is the last straw (of many) for Feinstein: I will never vote for her again, under any circumstances.

What breathtaking betrayal can we expect next from this crowd?