Trial lawyers looking for the next big payday and think they’ve found it: food

I just won’t feed creosote to children, even if these brats were borrowed from the orphanage to pose for this ridiculous photograph!

Massive class action suits for misleading eaters into thinking they’ll live forever if they can just find the right food, the right diet and instead end up discovering that there’s sugar in flavored yogurt. I refuse to believe that we’re such a bad people that we deserve our politicians and legal system, but maybe we are.

A mere quibble for those determined to shut down western civilization

Texas tea party

A reader sends along this link to a Canadian company using a new technology for waterless fracking.  Worse news is, they’re hiring Americans down in Texas and putting them to work. The horror!

A Canadian company that uses a new, waterless process in fracking operations plans to build an operations center in Floresville that will serve clients drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale, a company official said Friday.

Canada-based Gasfrac Energy Services Inc. already has begun hiring the 100 workers that it will need, marketing director Kyle Ward said.

At a recent job fair in Floresville, “the hiring went pretty well,” Ward said. Many applicants came from Floresville and from San Antonio, he said.

Experts say about 5 million gallons of water is needed to hydraulically fracture a well in the Eagle Ford Shale, a rapidly developing oil and gas play in South Texas. Water used in hydraulic fracturing has raised concerns the region’s water supplies could be threatened.

Gasfrac’s Ward said the company’s technology uses a propane gel to fracture rock instead of the usual mix of water, sand and chemicals.

“We are the only 100 percent waterless (well) stimulation process in the world. The beauty of the gel is that it becomes gas again as it returns to the surface. Because it is vaporized, there’s no disposal or cleanup. It’s a clean hole. All we leave is sand.”

The gel was developed by Chevron Corp., which patented it, while Gasfrac has patents on the process, Ward said.

Stupid headline

 

White out!

GT: Greenwich woman averts disaster on 86-day trek. That’s the claim; the story, written by someone not on the paper’s staff, is less compelling and of course, more accurate. Turns out, a young woman on a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) trip ran into a snowstorm in New Mexico with her group. They expected sun, they got snow and cold feet so they retreated and went on with the rest of their itinerary. Big friggin’ whoop.

I suppose I’m annoyed at this jazzing up of the facts by the editor because I’m a graduate of NOLS as is one of my daughters and I know the organization to run a safe program. The hiker was never in danger, nor does she claim to have been – the Greenwich Time invents that element.

Just another example of the phenomenon that, when you know something about a particular subject you can recognize how much the press, which seems to know nothing about anything, distorts reality. It’s not a huge leap to imagine that that same distortion and misrepresentation of facts is also going on in the coverage of events you don’t know much about.

The Arab Spring progresses

A religion of pieces

Muslim Brotherhood crucifying naked Christians and other opponents: it’s required by the Koran. 

This would be the group that Obama wants to give $800 million to.  That’ll buy a lot of nails.

“It’s anyone who is resisting the new government,” Ibrahim said. “In this particular case, the people attacked and crucified were secular protesters upset because of Morsi’s hostile campaign against the media, especially of Tawfik Okasha, who was constantly exposing him on his station, until Morsi shut him down.”

Ibrahim said extra brutality is reserved for Christians, but the crucifixions are because of Islamic doctrine and are required by the Quran.

Told you last month that plastic bags use 1/186th the energy to produce as organic hemp reusable Whole Food bags, but there’s also this:

As if melting the planet by banning disposable (but reusable and recyclable) plastic bags weren’t enough, the organic mommy crowd is also carrying home  e coli infections and other good stuff. Dolts and morons and, at least here in Greenwich, mostly college graduates. See what majoring in victimhood studies does to the brain?

We’ll put Mr. Farrell down as a supporter of the movement to repeal the Hollywood tax cut

Will Farrell: “I’d actually raise the top tax rate to 75%” In addition to the structuring of movie star income so that it’s taxed at the Mitt Romney capital gains rate of 15% instead of as earned income, Hollywood thrives because of the repeal in 1955 of a 20% excise tax on its gross revenue, known as “The Hollywood tax Cut”. Interestingly, while  Farrell denies that increasing taxes to 75% would not affect tax revenue or productivity, it was exactly that argument, put forth by Rep. John Dingell’s father, Congressman and Hollywood lobbyist John Sr., that convinced Dingell’s peers to slash the movie folks’ taxes.

flashback-big-movie-v-tax-happy-congress

Transparency: Obama bares all to local press corp

Obama hasn’t held a real press conference since he voted “present” at Kyoto, but as the White House Dossier reveals, he’ll brave any audience, answer any tough question, so long as the subject is chile peppers and favorite Chicago soul food joints. Quinoa remains off-limits.

Let’s hope it doesn’t end up as a “Healthy Lunch” at the White House

 

Goes well with quinoa

North Haven bows to national pressure, little girl gets to keep her pet bunny.

For now.

Head masks will be required before they play outdoors

Last of the Incans – just 12, but a quinoa eater

Greenwich girl wins Michelle Obama’s “healthy food” contest for school children and as the result, has to dine at the White House. I applaud the kid’s initiative, but why do I have a sneaking suspicion that the winners of this contest were selected on the basis of political correctness? I don’t know the identity of the kiddie-chefs from the other 56 states but the GT story tells us the salient facts about Greenwich’s.

1. The girl is Hispanic

2. Her recipe adds “quinoa” to an otherwise – ordinary sandwich. I’d never heard of Quinoa either, so I looked it up. Turns out, it was a main crop of the Incas, who went mostly  extinct a couple of hundred years ago, probably voluntarily and probably because, in their poverty, they were forced to subsist on this stuff.

Quinoa in its natural state has a coating of bitter-tasting saponins, making it unpalatable. Most quinoa sold commercially in North America has been processed to remove this coating. This bitterness has beneficial effects during cultivation, as the plant is unpopular with birds and thus requires minimal protection. There have been attempts to lower the saponin content of quinoa through selective breeding to produce sweeter, more palatable varieties that have proven difficult due to cross pollination contamination.

The toxicity category rating of quinoa saponins are classified as a mild eye and respiratory irritant and a low gastrointestinal irritant.The saponin is a toxic glycoside, a main contributor to its hemolytic effects when combined directly with blood cells. In South America, Quinoa saponin has many uses outside of consumption, which includes detergent for clothing and washing, and as an antiseptic for skin injuries. High levels of oxalic acidin the leaves and stems are found in all species of the Chenopodium genus, but are also present in the related plant families of Polygonaceae and Amaranthaceae. The risks associated with quinoa are minimal, provided it is properly prepared and leaves are not eaten to excess.

So birds won’t eat the stuff and it’s suitable for use as a detergent. Sounds exactly like every other “all-natural” product sold at Whole Foods. Since it also causes gastrointestinal distress, may I express my hope that the President will join his wife for lunch?

Look for them to be stocked by Whole Foods next summer

It’s a day at the beach

Chinese wearing full body suits and head masks to avoid the sun at the beach. The new popularity of nuts in China has not gone unnoticed, but it’s a shame to see American hysteria spread to the other side of the world.

Forget CO2 warming, the “new civility” is heating up the atmosphere all by itself

Mary Hogland’s victim

Obama supporter Mary Hoglund spits in the face of Romney supporter. Roberto Alomar was unavailable for comment.