Another E-coli Outbreak

Today’s Weiner Log: Representative Anthony Weiner stiffed organizers of last weekend’s big Israel Day parade in New York City. Stay tuned for the latest developments.

I have to run over to Langley this morning for a few routine maintenance checks of my NASA systems: just to make sure none of them have been compromised by recent outbreaks of hacking attempts.

While I’m out I thought you might appreciate reviewing Granny Jan’s recent PSA regarding cookies that may be carrying a lethal strain of E-coli.

And in case you missed her PSA from last week on Lady M’s new Food Plate Icon:

And just a quick update on Europe’s recent E-coli outbreak: current focus has zeroed in on an organic farm in northern Germany that grows bean sprouts, of all things!

He said it is possible that the water was contaminated with E. coli or that the sprout seeds -- purchased in Germany and other countries -- contained the germ. He said the farmers had not used any manure, which is commonly spread on organic farms and has been known to cause E. coli outbreaks.

I can testify to the fact that when you spread manure all over the damn place you’re likely to spread all sorts of vile things around.

Nothing organic here, and I mean nothing.

America’s New Normal: Welcome Back to the Beans and Franks Economy

In the face of what might be considered bad news by a lesser man:

• Dow has its longest weekly slide since 2004,
• Housing price slide now officially worse than that of the Great Depression,
• Manufacturing index fell nearly 10 points (unexpectedly) last month
• Unemployment rate up, and number of new jobs down
• China is dropping its stake in America.

Big Guy managed to put on his happy face

to address the troops at a Jeep plant in Toledo.

The Minister of Propaganda takes the stage: Booyah!

Today, Chrysler is repaying its government loans six years ahead of schedule and posted five consecutive quarters of operating profit.  Earlier this week, the National Economic Council released a new report on the resurgence of the American automotive industry…

Obama praised Chrysler for repaying “every dime and more of what it owes the American taxpayer” six years ahead of schedule.

That would be great! If it were true. Butt, you’ll be surprised to hear, it’s not:

The Treasury Department announced Thursday that it sold its stake in Chrysler, which is owned by Italian automaker Fiat, resulting in a $1.3 billion loss.

I guess if you “forgive” debt, it counts as “paying it back.” At least by government accounting standards.

In total, the auto bailout will cost taxpayers about $14 billion, more good news! Because originally we didn’t expect to get any of the $80 billion back.

Still, a little advice may be in order for future rallies: even if you’re fabricating delivering good news, don’t go into a Jeep plant and trash the Wrangler:

Butt do you really need me to dissect the other, ahem, shades of gray in the Big White Big Lie Propaganda Post on the Resurgence in the the Auto Industry? It’s a feel good “infographic” (I wonder if we can trademark that term?).

And it helps to deflect the data that otherwise indicates that the economy is in a death spiral.

Click pic for the complete “infographic” provided by the Big White

Also while in Toledo, Big Guy stopped in for a couple of chili dogs (please, no weiner jokes) at Rudy’s Famous Hot Dog stand.

Where he was waited on by a former auto company executive;

Would you like fries with that order?

How about a Jeep?

Or a house? I’ve got a special on houses today.

So, despite Lady M having thrown the full weight of the Federal government behind the USDA’s new Food Plate Icon,

Big Guy opted to stick with his current plan:

 

Because he likes it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And wants to keep it.

And it seems to provide him with all the energy he needs to run the free world.

Of course, Velma Hart told him about that diet months ago.

NOTE: If you could use a feel-good start for your day, check out Dewey’s take on the viral Grand Rapids LipDub.

Let’s Talk Baseball: Terrible Ted At the Plate, Weiner’s On Deck & Michelle Obama In the Dugout

Lady M was already smarting a bit by Secretary of the USDA,Tom Vilsack’s, rather dismissive, even derisive dumping of her “Pizza Wheel of Life” Food Icon in favor of the one he paid $2 million for:

Then Jewel, a loyal and regular contributor over at American Digest found an even simpler version that she linked to:

And NOW, Lady M is all, like, getting her LaVaughn up, because nobody’s even talking about her Pizza Wheel, and everybody else thinks they’ve got a better idea than Tommy Sack’s 2 XXL dollar food plate.

So I probably didn’t pick the appropriate moment to run the Motor City Madman’s recommended version by her. Ted Nugent, world famous rock star and hunter thought even the simplified version could be simpler:

Ted “Vegetarians are cool. All I eat are vegetarians - except for the occasional mountain lion steak” Nugent’s recommended Food Plate icon. 

I HOPE this is the end of the Food-Themed Plate Icon disputes. We’ve got a lot to accomplish in the next 18 months and we’re going to need every single fruit, nut and Barry  we’ve got in order to WTF (Win The Future).

Speaking of nuts and berries, if you were wondering why Anthony Weiner pulled out of his speaking gig at this weekend’s Wisconsin Democratic Convention at the last minute, it was due to the results of my “Which Tony’s Bologna Would You Buy?” poll from a few days ago.

The results confirmed that, in the opinion of the voters, Representative Weiner comes up a little short. After 2,260,000 votes were cast, Tony the Tiger pulled out the victory beating Tony Soprano by 50,000 votes and whipping Tony Weiner by a whopping 900,000 votes. Talk about spanking the monkey!

Confirming the poll results, American Idol judge Randy Jackson said he could tell from the git-go that Tony the Tiger was “in it to win it”, and JLo said that Triple T (Tony the Tiger) was the only candidate who showed up with “the whole package.” Steven Tyler added, “Well, hellfire, save matches, f*** a duck and see what hatches!” (Translation: That kid with the deep voice sang extremely well).

Butt I digress: our busy day on Friday included the spring organic garden of versus harvest which was, oddly, closed to all press other than that strange woman who runs the Big White Food Blog. Lady M greeted the children rounded up for the harvest:

Have you noticed how we’re changing up our optics for these events? WTF!

said a few words, and then proceeded with the harvest:

I sure don’t think that corn looks ready to harvest yet

Then, as a special treat, Big Guy arrives back at the Big White from his trip to Toledo (more on that tomorrow) where he bought Lady M some garden gloves at Fred’s Hardware

And presented them to Lady M when he landed

…as usual, a day late and a dollar short, since we were done with the spring harvest by then. Probably because we skipped the Rhubarb Dance this year.

Then we got cleaned up because if it’s June, 2011, it must be Presidential campaign season, right? And our day was not over yet.

It was on to our last commencement address of the season: the carefully selected graduation of just 35 students in Quantico, VA. Why waste Lady M’s considerable speaking skills on so few graduates, you ask? Did I not mention that it is campaign season? And the graduation was at the Qunatico Marine Base, where the Middle/High school graduation of children of service members was held last evening? 

Graduation at Quantico Middle/High School, where they even have Caucasians of European heritage to pose with. 

Butt it looks like we still needed our doobie face on in order to to get through this.

So after a like, “congratulations kidz”, and “I feel your pain because our family once suffered from separation too when I was, like, a Senators wife” Lady M gave them all the thumbs up; an international symbol for her “Let’s Moove those fat behinds” and called it a night.

Now that I look at the size of that thumb, I don’t think those new garden mittens Big Guy picked up are going to fit. 

 

“She said Friday she had some inkling of the upheaval that military families feel from her husband's time in the Senate and on the campaign trail.

"We missed each other. We had misunderstandings, which is easy to do when you're only in touch through e-mail or phone calls," she said. "Sometimes our frustration that we weren't with each other would become frustration with each other.” from Marine Corps Times

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on DougRoss@Journal Thanks!

It Might Be Time to Stick Your Head in the Sand

After turning out our $2 million dinner plate at the Department of Agriculture yesterday, (Wow! even Big Guy’s fundraisers can’t charge that much!)

Your tax dollars at work

in our summery, stripey topped frock

we had to prepare for our next big event: this year’s Architectural Award Ceremonies.

We didn’t really want to go, butt since it was the Pritzker Prize, and we’ve been the recipient of the Chicago based Pritzker family’s largesse in the past we felt obliged. This year’s award went to Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura whose work embodies a style that, in Big Guy’s own words, is as “effortless as it is beautiful.”

Boy, I’ll say, at least the effortless part:

 Paula Rego Museum in Cascais, Portugal, by Eduardo Souto de Moura. Credit: Luis Ferreira Alves

I’m no architectural expert or anything, butt the winning entry’s minimalist style reminds me more of a child’s sand castle than an architectural jewel. 

In his remarks, Big Guy confessed to once harboring dreams of becoming an architect himself. He had to drop out though, when he found out you had to take math. As he told the crowd:

"I expected to be more creative than I turned out, so I turned to politics instead,"

Heh. As if there’s no creativity in politics! Big Guy has been displaying his creative tendencies since he was sworn in. Take the economy for example; he’s found creative ways month after month to report bad news cleverly disguised as unexpectedly good news.

Butt unfortunately, even he’s getting tapped out now and this week’s reports are starting to emerge in their unvarnished state. And as you see by the looks on his and Lady M’s face, it isn’t pretty any more:

      

 

Containment system alert!

Sheesh! They look like Pat and Dick Nixon. (Sorry, I know I promised no more weiner jokes.)

Here are a few of the random bits of this week’s economic news: Fewest number of jobs created in last 8 months (66% lower than expected). Housing starts down (again). Housing prices down (again.) Consumer confidence down (again). Unemployment rate, up (again).  No wonder the sour faces.

It’s as if the R-words drove the economy off the cliff in an American made 4-wheel drive vehicle:

Big Guy’s team came in to clean up the mess:

Only to get swept out to sea in a tsunami (initiated by Bush)

 

that’s now threatening our very existence.

Watch out for that incoming wave! Talk about building sand castles in the air.

Linked By Vanderleun @ American Digest and by Labwriter @ Touched With Fire Thanks!

Michelle Obama’s New Food Icon: We Get to the Meat of the Matter

Linlked and Given “Drool-Cup Award” By: American Digest Thanks!

Later this morning Lady M (bona fide fashion icon) will be bringing her iconerosity to your dinner table. She’ll be joining Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to unveil the new “food icon” that is replacing the old: “MyPyramid” 

which replaced the original “Food Pyramid”

 

 

 

which in turn was the government’s attempt at replacing common sense. So far, all of the government funded “what to eat” recommendations from the USDA have proved to be incorrect – especially that one funded by cereal makers and grain producers encouraging everyone to eat more carbohydrates. They’re grrrrr-eat!

Butt this time we’re feeling lucky.

I think it’s somewhat unfortunate that Secretary Vilsack will be joining Lady M for today’s very important paid political announcement. I think we’ve had altogether too many “sacks” in the headlines lately, and just HOPE this doesn’t throw the photo op off topic.

And I’m sorry I can’t give you a sneak preview of the actual “icon” because we’re keeping it under tight wraps – like it was some kind of super-secret government weapon or birth certificate or something. Come to think of it, we don’t even protect them this well. Still, I’m surprised some weiner hasn’t already tweeted it out.

I can tell you that it will be a huge improvement over the previous MyPyramid that people found confusing to the point of being unhelpful.

The second version (mypyramid.gov) was widely criticized for being difficult to read. "The last graphic was awful because it was so hard to understand"…

Imagine that! A government agency that can’t even make simple nutritional recommendations clear. Butt don’t worry, we do much better with large, complicated things. Say, like, the entire healthcare industry.

Anyway, I can tell you that the new food icon will be a "simple, plate-shaped symbol, sliced into wedges for the basic food groups and half-filled with fruits and vegetables."  That was Lady M’s idea: the round shape, sliced into wedges part.

This was Lady M’s first proposal - and personal lifestyle food icon. I’ve been told that the USDA did not accept  the Pizza Wheel of Life verbatim, but did retained it’s shape:

Like King Arthur’s Round Table, it is totally non-judgmental: all slices are equal. Although, just like in real life, some slices are more equal than others.

Here are Lady M’s personal 9 essential food groups. I don’t think any of them made the final cut, butt we did stick with the original concept: round.

     Cheetos

 

Bacon

 

 

 

 

    Dom

 

foie gras

 

 

 

 

     ice cream

 

lobster

 

 

 

 

    Pizza

 

Truffles, two ways

 

Michelle Obama in the Pour House?

"She looks as though she's been poured into her clothes, and forgot to say when." —P. G. Wodehouse

Sir Wodehouse departed this earth in 1975 when Lady M was still a wee one, so despite allegations to the contrary, it’s unlikely that his quote was directed at her. That would be as silly as saying he was referring to Snooki, pour queen of the Jersey shore.

In truth, due to the au courant style, Sir Wodehouse might have been talking about any number of today’s celebrities. Lady M didn’t exactly invent this look, she just nationalized it:

Lady M wears U.S. Rubber, formerly B.F.Goodrich

 

Now offered in multiple colors:

Butt just for example, he could have been talking about any one of the following:

JLo visiting on Capital Hill

 

Kirstie Allie poured into her new “size 6”

Beyonce, being be-ouncy

Lady M, channeling that be-ouncy “let’s moove” energy:

              

Below, Desperate House wife, Eva Longoria, also pouring it on Capital Hill. Gosh! Celebrities and Washington: what a concept!

Butt I think the evidence supports my theory that Sir Wodehouse was not talking about Lady M. Even the casual observer would have to agree that Lady M looks less like she was “poured into” her clothes and more like she has been stuffed into a sausage casing.

And speaking of which, be sure to tune in tomorrow for some additional tips on Weiner grilling. Just in time for all your summer “outings.”

H/T Larwyn

Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on DougRoss@Journal Thanks!