excerpt from an article on the plastics most of us consume every day:
If Food Is In Plastic, What’s In The Food? - Plastic food packaging is a major source of these potentially harmful chemicals, which most Americans harbor in their bodies. Other studies have shown phthalates passing into food from processing equipment and food-prep gloves, gaskets and seals on non-plastic containers, inks used on labels – which can permeate packaging – and even the plastic film used in agriculture. The government has long known that tiny amounts of chemicals used to make plastics can sometimes migrate into food. . If the concentration is low enough (and when these substances occur in food, it is almost always in trace amounts), further safety testing isn’t required. How common are these chemicals? Researchers have found traces of styrene, a likely carcinogen, in instant noodles sold in polystyrene cups. They’ve detected nonylphenol – an estrogen-mimicking chemical produced by the breakdown of antioxidants used in plastics – in apple juice and baby formula. They’ve found traces of other hormone-disrupting chemicals in various foods: fire retardants in butter, Teflon components in microwave popcorn, and dibutyltin – a heat stabilizer for polyvinyl chloride – in beer, margarine, mayonnaise, processed cheese and wine. They’ve found unidentified estrogenic substances leaching from plastic water bottles.
we’re using our bodies as test tubes for admixtures of 3000 chemicals…what could possibly go wrong?
Nancy Ortiz
April 19, 2012 10:23 am
Nancy Ortiz
And, while we’re at it, remember the Gulf Oil spill? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/gulf-seafood-deformities-raise-questions_n_1434268.html BP has been running TV spots showing pristine Gulf beaches, cheerful locals welcoming tourists with open arms, and BP spokespeople promising to keep at cleaning up the Gulf until the work is done. Of course, the beaches look clean already so I guess they’re well along into the project–Right? Maybe you’ve even been thinking of checking out Biloxi or Gulfport this spring. Yeah, well, don’t eat the fish, y’all. Stick to Pacific wild-caught. Really. NancyO
save_the_rustbelt
April 19, 2012 10:48 am
Regulatory fail – quick story:
Mrs. Rustbelt, RN: Why are now recording vital signs in four places?
DON: Because the state says we have to.
Mrs. R: And how does that improve patient care?
DON: It doesn’t improve anything. But we have to do it. The state says so.
Mrs. R: Oh (dripping sarcasm)
Nancy Ortiz
April 19, 2012 10:53 am
Hmmm, STR. I wonder why those records aren’t available at least locally online in one place which could then be accessed by anyone who needed to know. Oh, I know. DOS software, paper records only, or some combination of the two. Or is it just the state ees don’t know what they’re doing? Always my first choice, actually, when it comes to people outside of a particular operation. NancyO
coberly
April 19, 2012 1:57 pm
are you saying the congress and supreme court have been drinking out of plastic cups?
not to say the President.
Jack
April 19, 2012 2:41 pm
Never one to allow a sleeping dog (with apologies to Fido et al) lie, I’m repeating here, with some minimal modification my comment from the end of comments to Linda’s post concerniing rejection of the Buffet Rule. I’m inspired by the recent news that Kent Conrad (D, N.D.) has renewed interest in the Bowles-Simpson Budget Plan. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/04/17/conrads-budget-surprise-simpson-bowles/?mod=google_news_blog. Comments please.
A well thought out confidence scam occurs in stages that the professionals know well. Here are the several steps to pullling off a major grift. Each step description is followed in bold type by a professional description of that same step. This excercise is intended to address our system of legislative process and the elaborate lengths to which the Congress (both parties included) will go to achieve an unpopular end. An end which is unpopular because it is destructive to the greater majority of citizens. The example in this case is the interplay of budget, taxation and entitlement (entitlement in this case means that which has been previously agreed to and paid for and is soon due).
First and foremost in the success of an elaborate scam is that those being taken for the ride must trust those doing the taking. “the common factor is simply that the victim relies on the good faith of the con artist” Then the best con artists will enlist the assistance of others who intend to be rewarded for their part in effecting the scam. “shills, also known as accomplices, help manipulate the mark into accepting the con man’s plan” The victims of the best confidence scams expect some form of reward to be awaiting them, most often in the form of money though not only financial rewards are used as the lure. Madoff used financial incentive to bait his traps. Others use fear, love and other emotional appeals such as patriotism or religious zeal. ‘the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task.’
When the scam is truly outsized and the payoff is a king’s ransom (or maybe just a raid on a sizable Trust Fund) the scam requires a host of participants. “A “long con,” sometimes known as a “big con,” is a much more ‘plannified,’ complex con, intended to take the mark for a substantial portion of his/her net worth. It usually consists of a team of grifters working together and often involves elaborately rigged false decors (“The Big Store“). The most famous types of long con are The Wire, The Rag, and The Pay-Off.” Then, of course, there is the U.S. Congress.
Well we are about to hear a couple of other shoes now that the Buffet Rule setup has been played out to its foretold conclusion. You might recall that there had been a poorly received Bowles-Simpson Plan to “balance the budget.” It was outrageously destructive to working Americans who weren’t part of the top tier of our economy. It was an end run to grab the fruits of FICA and the haloed Social Security Trust Funds. It was shunted aside by politicians who wanted to remain in office. At least for the time being it was taken off the table so that far worse plans could [...]
Nancy Ortiz
April 19, 2012 3:53 pm
Well, Jack
Senator Conrad forgot one thing. When the House passed its budget bill just last week, it passed a “deemed to have been voted in by the Senate” provision in it. So, the 2013 budget essentially has already been passed.With a buncha cuts the President doesn’t like.
Sen. Conrad’s bill is too late for this year and he has some language to address this issue in his current talking points. But, the WH has already moved on saying that the President will not sign any appropriations bills Congress sends to him under this “deemed passage” provision. AND, will happily shut down the govt on midnight of Sept. 30th if the Congress futzes around and undoes the deal the President made in December 2011 (or whenever that big hoohah was.) So there, nyah nyah, ya’ll!
So, we’re to the point in the action in which for whatever reason the President wants to block Conrad’s Swan Song Revival of the S-B fiasco. Beats me what it all means. Jack’s scheme has the merit of logical consistency. Damned if I know what the players think they’re doing. NancyO
coberly
April 19, 2012 5:40 pm
NancyO
it’s called the Big Lie. just keep repeating it with variations. ignore the evidence that it’s not true.
not only will SS be privatized, it will be privatized under the same “rule” that allows the government to require you to buy private insurance (don’t tell Linda, she thinks it’s the other way around).
and it will be privatized because “otherwise the country is going to go bankrupt!”
and if you know anything about history as it is taught in schools, fifty a hundred years from now innocent little children and graduate students will read how “entitlements” almost caused the country to go bankrupt until a last minute grand bargain between Republicans and Democrats under President Obamney brought in the sacred principle of free markets to save the day.
It was obvious in 2009 when the benefit claiming rate jumped that there would be a countering drop.
“The Urban Institute found that a smaller proportion of eligible people signed up for Social Security in 2011 than in any other year since 1976.”
Since we are still in a downturn, I think it is fair to forecast that (when we get better recovery) we will actually hit a new record for the smallest portion of eligible people signing up. The actual results over the next 5 to 10 years will be much more volatile than the forecasts in the annual report.
”When the House passed its budget bill just last week, it passed a “deemed to have been voted in by the Senate” provision in it.” Nancy O.
A very interesting way to legislate when your party controls only one part of the Congress. Does “deemed to have been” have any legal standing? It is not something I’ve ever heard mention of. Can the President have his staff write up legisltion with an included clause, “deemed to have been voted in by the Congress,” and sign it into law? If not, why not? And are the Republican leaders in the House planning a coup d’etate? Bloodless or otherwise?
Nancy Ortiz
April 20, 2012 5:48 pm
It’s a trick only one of the two houses of Congress can use. I first remember this in connection with Pelosi’s efforts to pass the ACA. The Republicans blew a gasket when they realized Pelosi could use the language “deemed passed” in the House version of the bill, and then all the Senate had to do was vote it in with a simple majority using any language they wanted. I read an article about this deal just this week, maybe in DKos. But, I’ll see if I can find it. Anyhow, the rules of the two houses of Congress make all kinds of nasties perfectly legal. QV the fillibuster which is highway robbery no matter how you look at it.
Anyhow, they already pulled their coup–actually, it was Orville Norquist who invented the no new taxes/tax hike pledge. Nothing in the Constitution supports it. Rather the reverse. But, once you make it impossible to raise taxes you make it impossible to govern. That’s what we have now courtesy of the Pledgers. See what I can find about the deemed pass rule. NancyO
excerpt from an article on the plastics most of us consume every day:
If Food Is In Plastic, What’s In The Food? - Plastic food packaging is a major source of these potentially harmful chemicals, which most Americans harbor in their bodies. Other studies have shown phthalates passing into food from processing equipment and food-prep gloves, gaskets and seals on non-plastic containers, inks used on labels – which can permeate packaging – and even the plastic film used in agriculture. The government has long known that tiny amounts of chemicals used to make plastics can sometimes migrate into food. . If the concentration is low enough (and when these substances occur in food, it is almost always in trace amounts), further safety testing isn’t required. How common are these chemicals? Researchers have found traces of styrene, a likely carcinogen, in instant noodles sold in polystyrene cups. They’ve detected nonylphenol – an estrogen-mimicking chemical produced by the breakdown of antioxidants used in plastics – in apple juice and baby formula. They’ve found traces of other hormone-disrupting chemicals in various foods: fire retardants in butter, Teflon components in microwave popcorn, and dibutyltin – a heat stabilizer for polyvinyl chloride – in beer, margarine, mayonnaise, processed cheese and wine. They’ve found unidentified estrogenic substances leaching from plastic water bottles.
we’re using our bodies as test tubes for admixtures of 3000 chemicals…what could possibly go wrong?
Nancy Ortiz
And, while we’re at it, remember the Gulf Oil spill?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/gulf-seafood-deformities-raise-questions_n_1434268.html
BP has been running TV spots showing pristine Gulf beaches, cheerful locals welcoming tourists with open arms, and BP spokespeople promising to keep at cleaning up the Gulf until the work is done. Of course, the beaches look clean already so I guess they’re well along into the project–Right? Maybe you’ve even been thinking of checking out Biloxi or Gulfport this spring. Yeah, well, don’t eat the fish, y’all. Stick to Pacific wild-caught. Really. NancyO
Regulatory fail – quick story:
Mrs. Rustbelt, RN: Why are now recording vital signs in four places?
DON: Because the state says we have to.
Mrs. R: And how does that improve patient care?
DON: It doesn’t improve anything. But we have to do it. The state says so.
Mrs. R: Oh (dripping sarcasm)
Hmmm, STR. I wonder why those records aren’t available at least locally online in one place which could then be accessed by anyone who needed to know. Oh, I know. DOS software, paper records only, or some combination of the two. Or is it just the state ees don’t know what they’re doing? Always my first choice, actually, when it comes to people outside of a particular operation. NancyO
are you saying the congress and supreme court have been drinking out of plastic cups?
not to say the President.
Never one to allow a sleeping dog (with apologies to Fido et al) lie, I’m repeating here, with some minimal modification my comment from the end of comments to Linda’s post concerniing rejection of the Buffet Rule. I’m inspired by the recent news that Kent Conrad (D, N.D.) has renewed interest in the Bowles-Simpson Budget Plan. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/04/17/conrads-budget-surprise-simpson-bowles/?mod=google_news_blog. Comments please.
A well thought out confidence scam occurs in stages that the professionals know well. Here are the several steps to pullling off a major grift. Each step description is followed in bold type by a professional description of that same step. This excercise is intended to address our system of legislative process and the elaborate lengths to which the Congress (both parties included) will go to achieve an unpopular end. An end which is unpopular because it is destructive to the greater majority of citizens. The example in this case is the interplay of budget, taxation and entitlement (entitlement in this case means that which has been previously agreed to and paid for and is soon due).
First and foremost in the success of an elaborate scam is that those being taken for the ride must trust those doing the taking.
“the common factor is simply that the victim relies on the good faith of the con artist”
Then the best con artists will enlist the assistance of others who intend to be rewarded for their part in effecting the scam.
“shills, also known as accomplices, help manipulate the mark into accepting the con man’s plan”
The victims of the best confidence scams expect some form of reward to be awaiting them, most often in the form of money though not only financial rewards are used as the lure. Madoff used financial incentive to bait his traps. Others use fear, love and other emotional appeals such as patriotism or religious zeal.
‘the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task.’
When the scam is truly outsized and the payoff is a king’s ransom (or maybe just a raid on a sizable Trust Fund) the scam requires a host of participants.
“A “long con,” sometimes known as a “big con,” is a much more ‘plannified,’ complex con, intended to take the mark for a substantial portion of his/her net worth. It usually consists of a team of grifters working together and often involves elaborately rigged false decors (“The Big Store“). The most famous types of long con are The Wire, The Rag, and The Pay-Off.” Then, of course, there is the U.S. Congress.
Well we are about to hear a couple of other shoes now that the Buffet Rule setup has been played out to its foretold conclusion. You might recall that there had been a poorly received Bowles-Simpson Plan to “balance the budget.” It was outrageously destructive to working Americans who weren’t part of the top tier of our economy. It was an end run to grab the fruits of FICA and the haloed Social Security Trust Funds. It was shunted aside by politicians who wanted to remain in office. At least for the time being it was taken off the table so that far worse plans could [...]
Well, Jack
Senator Conrad forgot one thing. When the House passed its budget bill just last week, it passed a “deemed to have been voted in by the Senate” provision in it. So, the 2013 budget essentially has already been passed.With a buncha cuts the President doesn’t like.
Sen. Conrad’s bill is too late for this year and he has some language to address this issue in his current talking points. But, the WH has already moved on saying that the President will not sign any appropriations bills Congress sends to him under this “deemed passage” provision. AND, will happily shut down the govt on midnight of Sept. 30th if the Congress futzes around and undoes the deal the President made in December 2011 (or whenever that big hoohah was.) So there, nyah nyah, ya’ll!
So, we’re to the point in the action in which for whatever reason the President wants to block Conrad’s Swan Song Revival of the S-B fiasco. Beats me what it all means. Jack’s scheme has the merit of logical consistency. Damned if I know what the players think they’re doing. NancyO
NancyO
it’s called the Big Lie. just keep repeating it with variations. ignore the evidence that it’s not true.
not only will SS be privatized, it will be privatized under the same “rule” that allows the government to require you to buy private insurance (don’t tell Linda, she thinks it’s the other way around).
and it will be privatized because “otherwise the country is going to go bankrupt!”
and if you know anything about history as it is taught in schools, fifty a hundred years from now innocent little children and graduate students will read how “entitlements” almost caused the country to go bankrupt until a last minute grand bargain between Republicans and Democrats under President Obamney brought in the sacred principle of free markets to save the day.
Social Security Claiming Slows
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2012/04/17/social-security-claiming-slows
It was obvious in 2009 when the benefit claiming rate jumped that there would be a countering drop.
“The Urban Institute found that a smaller proportion of eligible people signed up for Social Security in 2011 than in any other year since 1976.”
Since we are still in a downturn, I think it is fair to forecast that (when we get better recovery) we will actually hit a new record for the smallest portion of eligible people signing up. The actual results over the next 5 to 10 years will be much more volatile than the forecasts in the annual report.
via Andrew Biggs
http://andrewgbiggs.blogspot.com/2012/04/benefit-claiming-slows-down.html
”When the House passed its budget bill just last week, it passed a “deemed to have been voted in by the Senate” provision in it.” Nancy O.
A very interesting way to legislate when your party controls only one part of the Congress. Does “deemed to have been” have any legal standing? It is not something I’ve ever heard mention of. Can the President have his staff write up legisltion with an included clause, “deemed to have been voted in by the Congress,” and sign it into law? If not, why not? And are the Republican leaders in the House planning a coup d’etate? Bloodless or otherwise?
It’s a trick only one of the two houses of Congress can use. I first remember this in connection with Pelosi’s efforts to pass the ACA. The Republicans blew a gasket when they realized Pelosi could use the language “deemed passed” in the House version of the bill, and then all the Senate had to do was vote it in with a simple majority using any language they wanted. I read an article about this deal just this week, maybe in DKos. But, I’ll see if I can find it. Anyhow, the rules of the two houses of Congress make all kinds of nasties perfectly legal. QV the fillibuster which is highway robbery no matter how you look at it.
Anyhow, they already pulled their coup–actually, it was Orville Norquist who invented the no new taxes/tax hike pledge. Nothing in the Constitution supports it. Rather the reverse. But, once you make it impossible to raise taxes you make it impossible to govern. That’s what we have now courtesy of the Pledgers. See what I can find about the deemed pass rule. NancyO
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37893
This one refers to Pelosi’s budget which the R’s say wasn’t a real budget. Well, wrong, I guess.
http://www.ilonanickels.com/CC_deemandpass.html
This is an explanation of the “deem and pass” rule.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/222035-house-votes-to-deem-ryan-budget-as-passed-by-congress
And, the last one is a description of the House incorporating deem and pass language in their latest budget bill. FYI. NancyO
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/04/19/conrads-bowles-simpson-rollout-has-a-misstep/
Post CommentThis is the article in FDL which explains that Obama refuses to sign any appropriations bills based on the House’s messed up reduced budget. FYI. NancyO