Dangerous Chicken

I don't know how many of you cook but all but a few of you probably at least eat chicken in some form at least once a week and many of you probably even more often. The latest Consumer Reports has a real eye opening study in the latest issue.

Back in 2003 they did a study on how clean the chickens were that we bought at the local market and found that 49% were contaminated with one or both of the bacteria campylobacter or salmonella. Both of these pathogens will make you very sick if consumed and even lead to serious complications like Guillian-Barre.

They have just completed a new study and it is now even worse. The latest study showed that today 83% of fresh chicken was contaminated with one or both. That number is bad enough but within it hides something even more alarming. The organic, no antibiotic, minimally processed varieties ( you know the ones you pay extra for like Bell&Evans, Maverick Ranch, Murray's, Whole Foods) are, on average, the worst offenders. Purdue, Tyson, Foster Farms and Pilgrim's Pride are bad as well with Tyson the worst of all.

So the 411 is that if you use fresh chicken in your kitchen you can assume that it is always going to be contaminated with at least one or both of these very dangerous organisms. You are going to have to be extra careful when handling, cleaning up and cooking chicken and always cook it to at least 165 degrees F. Get yourself and instant read meat thermometer to be sure.

And remember, that just because you go out of your way to buy organic or no antibiotic chickens doesn't make a hill of beans when it comes to getting a clean bird. Enjoy your chicken.

U.S. Number One in Unequal

OK the house guests are on their way back to Arkansas. These are very dear and long time friends and we always have a good time. That is, of course, if I keep my mouth shut. My friends are pretty wealthy and I am sorry to say confirmed conservative Republicans. We get along great as long as I don't mention politics or say anything too liberal or progressive. You can guess that I didn't say anything about this

The richest 2 per cent of adults own more than half the world’s wealth, according to the most comprehensive study of personal assets.

[SNIP]

The richest 10 per cent of adults accounted for 85 per cent of assets. The bottom 50 per cent of the world’s adults owned barely 1 per cent of global wealth.

[SNIP]

In terms of wealth distribution the US was among the most unequal, whereas Japan had one of the lowest levels of inequality. Britain ranked with Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan in wealth inequality.

Ice Golf Today

It was decided that we play golf today. Only 31 right now and tee time is 9:45 so we may not be frost delayed. Our out of town guests are old friends and he is my oldest golf buddy. Since he retired to Arkansas he has lowered his handicap to 6. It will be hilarious today since this is only my third outing this year. My old 18 handicap won't be in danger today I assure you. I will report on the comedy later today. I have a rule about playing when it is below 45 but it will be ignored today.

Another Tourist Day

Updated with picture if a stu=inging nettle. Most pics not too good this trip may have a couple more later.

Another cool one today in Atlanta. Today is aquarium day for our out of town guests. We are out of here in a few minutes to battle the Roswell morning traffic as far as the rail station and then zoom to CNN center for the short walk to the aquarium. Even though this will be the third visit for me I am looking forward to it. It is a smashing exhibit and the two huge whale sharks in the super tank are just amazing. I could watch them for hours (and have).
You folks play nice today and we'll try and report in later today.

Dodged the Bullet

We in the west dodged the serious hurricane bullet this year as the hurricane season was officially over last week. The people in the Pacific rim have not been so lucky. The latest Typhoon named Durian(the fourth major storm in four months)may be responsible for thousands of deaths.

MANILA,
Philippines (CNN) -- Relief efforts in the Philippines faced delays Sunday
for survivors of Typhoon Durian, as fears grew of a rising death toll in the
archipelago nation from last week's storm.

The Red Cross put the death
toll Sunday at 406, and another 489 as injured. Another 398 people were missing,
the organization said.

But the death toll caused by the typhoon could
eventually be "in the thousands" as more people are believed to be buried under
the mud, Red Cross Executive Assistant Gwendolyn Pang said Sunday.

A lot of people are pointing to the lack of a serious hurricane season this year to pooh-pooh the Gobal Warming threat. Remind them that the rest of the world is currently suffering.

Cold Snap

First really cold(cool weather in Atlanta this year. Dropped to freezing last night but now at noon it is back up to 50. Other than the coolness it is an absolutely brilliant day with not a cloud in the sky. Soon it is off for the Christmas Home Tour sponsored by the Historical Society. The three antebellum home owned by the city are all decorated and in addition there are two contemporary homes open for tours. These are actually multi million dollar mansions. The one has some 30 Christmas trees in the house including an 18 footer in the entry hall. Since Madam is involved with the society she has already been in the two homes and says they are fabulous. We will take our visiting friends to make the grand tour this afternoon and then we'll all come home feeling like like poor relations to our little house. It is always interesting to see how top 1% live.

UPDATE: The one house on the tour, a mere 30,000 sq.ft. was a sight to behold. A tree in every room and every square inch of pretty much everything decorated. In the long windowed hallway from the main house to the gymnasium (a full size gym with basketball court and lap pool) there were perhaps another 20 or so decorated trees and Christmas vignettes, and a fully motorized creche. Jeebus.

TGIF

Whew, glad it is Friday. Going to take a week of vacation next week. Have some friends coming into to town tonight for a long weekend so we are going to do some fun stuff. Got tickets for the Georgia Aquarium for Monday and have some other stuff planned.

Been a technical week from hell. Still having spooky weird problems with Firefox. Deleted it and all traces of it twice today and reloaded with no success. Got mad went and over to Explorer for awhile and all of a sudden it is working correctly...maybe jealously has something to do with it.

Also been having problems with the learning curve on MS SQL 2005. It is sure different from 2000 and not very straightforward to learn. Making some progress but it is slow slogging. Maybe if I step away for a few days it will magically become user friendly.

Anyhow it is Friday and everyone should have a great weekend. If you are in the Midwest or Northeast then work at the snow shoveling slowly and keep warm. It is turning colder here today and tonight but just down into the 30's. No snow on the near forecast.

Time to put my chicken in to roast and maybe even a nice dry martini. How about you PoP?

Charlie Brown Syndrome

I know I said earlier that I have a lot of work to do and I do but something is nagging me and I have to get it off my chest.

Everyone is waiting for a solution to Iraq. We are each praying in our own way for a solution. We know in our heart of hearts that we are completely screwed and that while we can hope for some miracle it probably isn’t going to happen. We waited to see what was to come of Bush’s meeting with al-Miliki and now we will wait for the long awaited findings of the Iraq Study Group (ISG). Then we will be waiting for the Democratic Congress to wade in.

It should be clear by now that what we are waiting for is not going to happen as we desire. If you take a serious look at who makes up the ISG it should be clear that this is going to be just another political spin job and the true goal of the ISG is to soften the reality of what this administration has done to America and the Middle East. Its leader tells the whole story…James Baker the ace Bush family political operative and trouble shooter. Once again the American people are going to be treated to a shell game of propaganda. The propaganda being that this panel of “experts” knows the truth and will point the country in the right direction. It is a damage control effort plain and simple.

Nothing will change. The same champions of the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) are still in place (sans Rummy) and their ambitions for a global American hegemony and the willingness to make it so with armed intervention are still alive and well. Secondly, by throwing up this panel of so called experts they are telling the American electorate that “we don’t care that the great majority of you want us the hell out of Iraq and soon” we are going to do it our way. The current administration wants the American people to mind its own business and leave the driving to them. The election be damned. He’s the decider and he has decided that we will be in Iraq until…

The ISG is not really a serious attempt to address Iraq or the assumptions, lies, and organization that led to the debacle. If it was a serious attempt to remedy the disaster it would have elected officials, military experts, Middle East experts, Iraq war veterans, family members of soldiers killed in Iraq and finally people from the antiwar movement. It has none of these. Not one person on the panel possesses specialized knowledge of Islam or the Middle East. The media has bought in to the idea that some magical solution is forthcoming but the reality is that these aren’t the people capable of the kind “out-of-the-box thinking” that is necessary for us to change the game.

The ISG is merely a vehicle that will provide the cover necessary for the Bush administration to shift course in Iraq without admitting defeat. Its number one goal is to insure no one is held directly responsible for the war and its vast ramifications. Secondarily, it will not change the system that is responsible for the war in the first place. Everyone that played a role in the march to war will still be right where they were and ready to do it again.

The sad thing is that the majority of Americans are likely to fall for this song and dance one more time. We are like Charlie Brown and the football when it comes to stuff like this. It has been ingrained in us to “trust the experts” and we generally do even when evidence like Iraq, Katrina, and Afghanistan are staring us in the face. We really, really want to believe that our leaders know what they are doing and will act rationally. We really, really want to believe that our leaders know what they are doing.

Why do we believe that our leaders are going to do right when all evidence points to the contrary? The idea that our leaders are capable of acting in irrational and destructive ways is too scary for most of us to take seriously, much less to accept. History has shown us over and over, and recent history has underlined the fact, that our leaders can make stupid decisions and are even incompetent. Their decisions regularly lead to a large number of deaths and massive destruction but we always fall back and defer to them and hope that this time our trust is not mislaid.

So what’s the moral of this story? We all need to recognize and accept that our leaders are not gods. Their poop stinks just like yours and they put their pants on one leg at a time. We should resist the desire to trust them as if they were more intelligent and better informed that we are. If we are knowledgeable and think clearly as citizens we can make sound decisions and are just as capable as the “so-called” experts of knowing the best course for us to take. We are capable of judging our leaders’ decisions and we should do so and we should loudly let them know when we think they are wrong. Our founding fathers knew that a well informed populace was the best guarantee a country could have in insuring that the government was of the people and for the people. Pay attention and scream when you think you should.

Rambling

Just taking a moment while the laptop runs some database scripts, otherwise it is still busy with work stuff.
It's the last day of November in Atlanta(and in many other places) and it is 61 degress outside with a warm rain falling. Very odd weather and not a good omen. I am not a big fan of cold weather but this spooks me just a couple of days after watching "An Inconvenient Truth".
Seriously, it should be twenty or so degrees cooler.

Even the wildlife is confused. Just last week as I wandered the manor I noted all the chipmunk dens that had been boarded up for the winter. The little guy or gal that lives under the front walk had piled up dirt and sealed themselves for the winter, same for the little creature that lives under the stump out front and the one in the Patrick Swayze rocks out back. They are Patrick Swayze rocks because madam gathered them from the roadside on our last trip to Mountain Lake where Dirty Dancing was filmed which is only about 10 miles from my birthplace. Anyhow, yesterday I noticed that everyone had unsealed and was back to foraging again. Normally, when they button up for winter they stay that way until spring.

Gotta get back to work. I'll be in and out of here all day since I have a lot of testing to do and it takes about 20 minutes to run the set of scripts. I make a few changes and rerun everything...look at the results...tweak something else and go again. This on and off again lets me swing around and wander the blogs for a few minutes and maybe even post something if I am inspired.

P.S. Sorry but it looks like Haloscan is tits up again this morning so I can expect no comments... except it appears PoP got in for a moment. Beginning to seriously doubt the use of this for comments as it seems as if it has been down or limping more than it has been solid lately. Keep checking and maybe it will heal. BTW my Firefox has started acting up again and is truncating my blogroll right after the first "T". Created a new profile the other day and that fixed it for a day and now the new profile is hammered as well. Very strange.

Strange Happenings

Very busy with actual work today and as such not much activity here. I have been getting snippets of news here and there and it seems as though something, though who knows what, is happening in the high circles of power in Washington, Iraq and Jordan.
If I have it straight...

• The Whitehouse purposely leaked a secret memo calling al-Maliki an ineffective leader.
• Bush is supposed to meet with al-Maliki today to consult about solving the "not civil war" in Iraq but someone scrubbed the meeting and it is now supposed to be tomorrow.
• Al-Sadr jerked his troops out of the Iraqi Parliament just as he promised if al-Maliki met with Bush even though he hasn't yet.
• al-Maliki cancels his dinner date with Bush for tonight.
• Oh, and Colin Powell says it's a civil war.
• Iran is saying they will step in to prevent the Shia from being abused in Iraq.
• Saudi Arabia is saying the same for the Sunni.
  

Let me make a wild guess here and say that the Whitehouse is beginning the laying of cover for Bush to bail on Iraq with a story line something on the order of "We did what we could but we just couldn't over come the weak leadership in Iraq."

Looks like the Iraq debacle is spreading into a regional conflict and that is why Cheney was summoned so that he could be given the bad news and read the riot act.

There is even a chance that the meeting between Bush and al-Maliki won't happen at all.

This ought to be real interesting.

Penquin Wars- Seriously!

This is so ridiculous I am not even believing it — Media Matters is reporting that the Christmas warriors have turned on the penguins .

Not content with their annual discussion of a supposed “War on Christmas,” conservative talking heads have taken on a new issue this season: environmentalist propaganda in children’s movies. CNN Headline News’ Glenn Beck and Fox News’ Neil Cavuto recently spoke out against Warner Bros.’ new animated children’s movie Happy Feet; criticizing the film for its alleged pro-environmentalist content. Media Matters for America spokesman Karl Frisch responded to the criticism, lambasting the conservative talking heads for their return to holiday-season absurdity.

“The idea that anyone would make such comments against a children’s movie about a tap-dancing penguin shows just how low the bar has dropped for what the media consider real news,” Frisch said. “Conservatives seem to have abandoned their traditional coverage of the supposed ‘War on Christmas’ for a ‘War on Penguins.’ “

With all the other crap in the world going on. These guys have to invent issues to get incensed about. Who cares if it promotes an "environmentalist agenda". Is it a sin now in the right wing to be concerned about the environment? Did I just ask that question?

Who Me?

It seems to me as if George W Bush is trying to distance himself from any responsibility for the clusterfuck he and his minions have created in Iraq. Now he is saying that he is going to push al-Maliki for answers to the violence in Iraq. He says he’s going to ask al-Maliki for a plan to reduce the violence which is kind of odd. You would think that the war was now al-Maliki’s bright idea and that Bush is now going to take his hand and lead him out of the valley of death.

Hey George, this war was your idea. You invaded al-Maliki's country for heaven’s sake. al-Maliki should be the one asking you for a plan. You are the one who should have had a plan to prevent the civil war that is now raging in Iraq.

President Bush said Tuesday morning he will press Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a plan to contain the escalating sectarian violence, though he refused to characterize the situation in Iraq as a civil war.

Previewing the message he will carry with him to Amman, Jordan, where he will meet Maliki for a summit later this week, Bush said he will ask Maliki, "What do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?"

Bush and Cheney started this war without a plan. The Republicans in Congress never asked for a plan. American soldiers and Iraqi citizens are paying the ultimate price for Bush’s incompetence and he is acting like none of this is his fault. Jeepers what a load of crap.

Technical Troubles

It always seems to run in cycles. My best laid plans for the day went far astray and I spent virtually all day trying to solve what turned out to be a very simple problem. Just in case any of you reading this have an opportunity to work with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 this is a free tip. If you are using applications or converting databases that were on SQL 2000 try changing the compatibility mode in SQL 2005 to SQL 2000. There appear to be some "features" in 2005 that are not supported in apps that were developed to use SQL 2000. I spent 4 hours today discovering this fact.

Second, it appears my profile in Firefox on the home computer is not healthy. I don't know what happened to it but it is the reason I don't see all of the blogroll on the fallenmonk page. IE and other Firefox implementations (my laptop) work fine and I see the whole blogroll. I can start Firefox from the command line with the -P option and create a new profile and everything is fine only all of the bookmarks are missing. I really hate these days when the tech Gods are feeling frisky.

Anyhow, I can at least now see my homepage as it should be though it appears I have some template problems. In my troubleshooting today I discovered a tool on Firefox that lists the problems with the page you are viewing (Tools/Error Console) so I obviously need to take some time on the template. With the new Blogger beta there are some options to create a new beta compatible template that will support all the new features but I hesitate to jump off that pier for fear of losing what I have...if I disappear for awhile you will know I took the dive.

So here we are at 10pm and bruised and battered by the complications of technology and absolutely no energy to spend in my regular blog cruising. There is some good news though... the last of the turkey was consumed tonight for dinner. PTL!

UPDATE: It now appears that Haloscan is Tango Uniform again. It's one of those days.

Post Holiday Monday

Here we are on the Monday after a four day holiday and it is very hard to get rolling this morning. Have meetings in the office this morning which means fighting Atlanta traffic which is always a bad way to start the week.

Just noticed that my Blogroll is truncating in the "T's" for some reason. I haven't messed with the template so I am assuming it someone else's problem. We'll watch it and see if it fixes itself.

Hope everyone had a great holiday and is ready for the slide to Christmas. This is always a tough part of the year for some reason. Really don't want to start any business projects since you can't get anything done until the first of the new year with everyone taking holiday but you hate to just drift along. I only have one engagement scheduled so far in the next 30 days and that is just a couple of days in Boston with an existing client.

OK, off for a quick blog around and then hit the streets. If I am lucky I can get everything wrapped up by noon and escape. Supposed to be in the lower 70's and clear today so I definitely don't want to spend all day in the office.

Need a Refresher?

Sumo has a link to a powerful YouTube flick about Iraq by Burnt Page. Not an easy view but it manages to slam home the message about how screwed the war in Iraq really is as if you didn't already know it.

Impending Doom

This is most likely the beginning of the end in Baghdad. I am afraid we are about to see a mass bloodbath in Baghdad between the Shiite and the Sunni. This is very likely the end of a unified Iraq. Losing control over state radio is an extremely ominous development. Losing control of the airwaves is a classic symptom of a government that has completely lost control of the country.
The McClatchy wire service is reporting that followers of Shiite radical Muqtada al-Sadr have taken over a radio station in Baghdad and are urging attacks on named Sunni leaders and neighborhoods.

Followers of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took over state-run television Saturday to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis "terrorists" and issue what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms.

The two-hour broadcast from a community gathering in the heart of the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City included three members of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, who took questions from outraged residents demanding revenge for a series of car bombings that killed some 200 people Thursday.

With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki relegated to the sidelines, brazen Sunni-Shiite attacks continue unchecked despite a 24-hour curfew over Baghdad. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia now controls wide swaths of the capital, his politicians are the backbone of the Cabinet, and his followers deeply entrenched in the Iraqi security forces. Sectarian violence has spun so rapidly out of control since the Sadr City blasts, however, that it's not clear whether even al-Sadr has the authority - or the will - to stop the cycle of bloodshed...

Sunni politicians vowed to file complaints against the channel for inciting sectarian violence. Ordinary Sunnis were shocked to hear their neighborhoods singled out for attack on the government's station.

"I got four phone calls from friends telling me to change the channel to Iraqiya and see what's happening," said Mohamed Othman, 27, a Sunni resident of Ameriya, one of the districts mentioned in the program. "I think this is an official declaration of civil war against Sunnis. They're going to push us to join al-Qaida to protect ourselves."

Hagel Making Sense

This is some pretty good stuff from Republican Chuck Hagel in the WaPo:

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis — not the Americans.

Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism. There will be no military victory or military solution for Iraq. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger made this point last weekend.

We have misunderstood, misread, mis-planned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam. Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government…read on

An Inconvenient Truth

Well the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" is now out on DVD so I had the opportunity to see it for the first time yesterday. All I can say is that it is a must see. Get yourself down to the local Blockbuster and check it out right this minute. You will be glad you did.

The downside is now I feel even guiltier about my efforts at conservation. Even though I consider myself a fairly diligent steward of our planet I am now embarrassed to admit that there are things I know I can do better. I will do them.

Soft Molasses Cookies

In the spirit of the upcoming holidays and my interest in cooking and heritage foods, I am presenting the first of some traditional holiday recipes from my family. This one is for soft molasses cookies. It comes down from my mother's side of the family which is the notorious Hatfield clan of West Virgina. This is very simple recipe and makes the house smell wonderful. The goal is to not overcook them so that they will still be soft. If you like gingerbread you will love these cookies. They always bring back memories of the big old family Christmas celebrations that we used to have.
Keep in mind that we are talking about coal miners and farmers. There was not a lot of money to spend on toys so most of the joy of the holiday was around the family and good food. Certain recipes were always reserved for this time of year and as such will always be associated only with the holidays. Maybe you can make a memory with these cookies.

Soft Molasses Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup Crisco
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsulphered molasses
2 eggs slightly beaten
4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp baking soda
2 1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Cream butter and shortening with sugar in a large bowl and then beat in the molasses and eggs and set aside. In another large bowl mix the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices with a wire whisk to mix thoroughly. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until well blended. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls (or 1 1/2 inch for big cookies). Roll the balls in granulated sugar and bake for 10 – 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Don’t overcook as you want them soft. Store in tins tightly covered. You might want to put a slice of apple in the tin to keep the cookies soft.

Out Of Control

Out of control

Worshippers, mosques torched

• Sunni men burned to death leaving a mosque
• Gunmen attack Sunni mosques and homes
• Two reported wounded from U.S. helicopter gunfire
• White House calls Sadr City attacks "senseless"

This is the lead on the CNN web site right now. You'll read the stories soon enough but the bottom line is that Iraq is rapidly spiraling down the civil war toilet. Presumably in response to yesterday's bombing that killed as many as 22o in the Sadr neighborhood of Baghdad a group of Shiite men grabbed some Sunni leaving worship and doused with them petrol and lit them afire right in the plain view of Iraqi police.
Note the last bullet....What's senseless is this whole damn war, that's what's senseless.