Hiding The Armadillos

11 Responses to Hiding The Armadillos

1. MikeTheDenier says:

   March 5, 2015 at 12:36 pm

   We have to stop all this Gorebal Warming!!!!

   http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-aquaculture-fish-killed-by-superchilled-water-1.2980172

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2. bleakhouses says:

   March 5, 2015 at 12:53 pm

   Interesting Spinal Tap reference.
   Ive often referenced my favorite scene in the film in the CAGW debate.
   “Why not just make 10 louder?”
   “These go to 11”

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3. rah says:

   March 5, 2015 at 1:13 pm

   When I was stationed in Ft. Sam Houston, San Antonio, TX I noticed that instead of the Possum road kill I was used to seeing the predominate road kill down there was Armadillos. Possum on the half shell.

   Oh by the way, Opossum is the greatest single animal carrier of the Gram positive rod bacillus that causes Hanson’s disease (Leprosy) in the US. Transmission to humans from wild opossums either dead or alive has been confirmed. So don’t fool with them without taking precautions. Though about 95% of the population of the US is not susceptible to the infection and Hanson’s disease is treatable but you wouldn’t want to go through it unless you like the idea of having purple skin for a few months. The treatment involves a lot more than “take these pills and call me in the morning”.

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   • rah says:

     March 5, 2015 at 1:32 pm

     Darn it! The carrier is the Armadillo NOT the Opossum. Sorry. Banging my head on the desk!

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4. Steve Case says:

   March 5, 2015 at 1:19 pm

   Day after day, example after example – Is there anyone putting it all together and writing a book?

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   • stevengoddard says:

     March 5, 2015 at 1:22 pm

     Yes I am.

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     • Steve Case says:

       March 5, 2015 at 1:41 pm

       (-:

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     • Gail Combs says:

       March 5, 2015 at 1:48 pm

       Be careful Tony. The US Government has a history of censorship.

       Congressman Charles Lindbergh was a strong opponent of the Federal Reserve Act. He wrote books such as “Why your country is at war” just before Pearl Harbor and another earlier book “Banking and Currency and the Money Trust” about the banks and how by expanding credit then withholding it wreck the economy. Government Agents visited his printer on order of the US Government smashed the plates and confiscated most of the printed books. A few copies still remain.

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       • Gail Combs says:

         March 5, 2015 at 2:27 pm

         Speaking of new books, while getting the names of Charles Lindbergh Sr.’s books I ran across this brand new book:
         The Impacts of Genetic Engineering: Not Science, Just Lies and Propaganda: The Massive Fraud Behind GMOs Exposed
         ‘Altered Genes, Twisted Truth’, a new Book by US Public Interest Lawyer Steve Druker.

         ……………
         Too bad WordUnimpressed ate my earlier comment on the Dog and Pony show aka congressional hearings. It was about the Hallmark Downer Cow hearings and the corruption of the USDA that was swept under the rug despite the hearing. I have no problem with the idea of GMOs but given the fact that Monsanto’s Lawyer, Michael R. Taylor was a top dog at the FDA under Clinton and declared GMOs ‘equivalent’ to natural a have a wee bit of a question mark. Taylor is also back in the FDA thanks to Obummer.

         I am reproducing the lost comment since it has baring on the Congressional hearing Dog and Pony Shows and even the Bush Energy policy. (Remember Enron and BP met in Bush’s office to discuss getting rid of coal)

         The corruption in DC is really sickening.
         …………

         In other words folks, what Edgar Salsbury, a former state food inspector, said rings more true today than ever before. At our first meeting I asked him, “Which part of the law applied to food processing?”  He replied, “The part that screws the little guy and lets the big guys get away with murder.”  (wwwDOT)newsofthenorth.net/article.cfm?articleID=24209

         Government Accountability Project: Shielding the Giant – USDA’s “Don’t Look, Don’t Know” Policy

         The USDA ‘looked into’ this testimony and called Stan Painter a LIAR about a year later. This was followed by a major push to ‘update’ the antiquated food safety system. Never mind HACCP had already been introduced in 1996 and the CDC data showed the food borne disease rate DOUBLED. (I plotted three years before and three years after from the CDC data.)

         Testimony
         Of
         Stanley Painter, Chairman
         National Joint Council of Food Inspection Local Unions,
         American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO
         Before
         Domestic Policy Subcommittee
         House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
         Thursday, April 17, 2008
         2154 Rayburn HOB
         1:00 P.M.

         ….My members are very conscientious about their jobs. Consumer protection is the first thing we think about when we go to work every day.

         We are trained to enforce the various laws and regulations under FSIS jurisdiction. When we see a violation, we are trained to document and write non-compliance reports. In practice, however, that does not always occur. As I mentioned earlier in my testimony, we have had a problem with the way HACCP was implemented at FSIS in the late 1990’s and continues to be enforced. HACCP was adopted in response to the Jack-in- he-Box E.coli 0157:H7 outbreak in 1993. While HACCP was billed as an attempt to introduce science into meat and poultry inspection system, it also shifted the responsibility for food safety over to the companies.

         While I agree that companies must be responsible for the products they put into commerce, it frustrates me and many of my members when we are told by our supervisors to “let the system work” when we see violations of FSIS regulations and we are instructed not to write non-compliance reports in order to give companies the chance to fix the problems on their own. Sometimes even if we write non-compliance reports, some of the larger companies use their political muscle to get those overturned at the agency level or by going to their congressional delegation to get the inspection staff to back off. So, the agency’s databases may not contain accurate information about the compliance history of meat and poultry plants because of pressure being applied not to write them up for violations.

         Employee Intimidation
         Some of my members have been intimidated by agency management in the past when they came forward and tried to enforce agency regulations and policies. I will give you a personal example.

         In response to the December 23, 2003 discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in response to the December 23, 2003 discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a cow in Washington State, FSIS issued a series of interim final rules in January 2004 to enhance the safety of the beef supply. Among these new regulations included a ban on meat from downed animals from entering the food supply and the removal of specified risk materials (SRMs) from slaughtered cattle over the age of 30 months before the meat from these animals could be processed and enter into commerce.

         In December 2004, I began to receive reports that the new SRM regulations were not being uniformly enforced. I wrote a letter to the Assistant FSIS Administrator for Field Operations at the time conveying to him what I had heard.

         On December 23, 2004, I was paid a visit at my home in Alabama by an FSIS official who was dispatched from the Atlanta regional office to convince me to drop the issue. I told him that I would not. Then, the agency summoned me to come here to Washington, DC where agency officials subjected me to several hours of interrogation including wanting me to identify which of my members were blowing the whistle on the SRM removal violations. I refused to do so.

         I was then placed on disciplinary investigation status. The agency even contacted the USDA Office of Inspector General to explore criminal charges being filed against me. Those charges were never filed. Because all of this was occurring during the time that USDA was trying to re- open beef trade with Japan, I found out that the disciplinary investigation and the possible criminal investigation into my allegations were the subject of a posting on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Japan. Both my union AFGE and the consumer group Public Citizen filed separate Freedom of Information Act requests in December 2004 for any non-compliance records in the FSIS data base that would support my allegations.

         It was not until August 2005 that over 1000 non-compliance reports – weighing some 16 pounds — were turned over to both AFGE and Public Citizen that proved that what my members were telling me was correct – that some beef slaughter facilities were not complying with the SRM removal regulations. Coincidentally, on the same day that those records were released, I received written notification from the agency that they were dropping their disciplinary investigation into my actions – some eight months after their “investigation” began….

         While I was completely exonerated in this incident, it has caused a chilling effect on others within my bargaining unit to come forward and stand up when agency management is wrong.
         http://domesticpolicy.oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1870

         “Evidence of Weak Meat Inspection Program Found in Nearly a Thousand Violations of Mad Cow Rules at Slaughter Plants,” Public Citizen, August 18, 2005,
         http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2024

         …United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) Statement of Lisa Shames, Director Natural Resources and Environment:
         In January 2004, GAO reported that incomplete and inconsistent inspection records made it difficult to determine the frequency…of violations,…and that USDA was not using consistent criteria to determine when to suspend [slaughter] plant operations in cases of serious or repeated violations…. USDA’s most recent report said very few infractions were for inhumane treatment, but GAO found that at least one-fourth of the infractions were for ineffective stunning which fails to meet humane standards. GAO…reported that FSIS was not adequately recording instances of noncompliance…..Although the FSIS budget has increased since 1988, staffing levels have declined since 1995, and some districts have experienced high vacancy rates among inspectors, possibly impairing enforcement of HMSA and food safety regulations generally. Meanwhile, the volume of meat and poultry inspected and passed by FSIS has grown, along with the number of pounds of recalled meat and poultry.
         http://www.gao.gov/assets/120/119747.html

         On another matter:

         Saturday, Mar 1, 2008 Posted on Thu, Feb. 28,
         > 2008
         > USDA shuts down congressional audit By BEN EVANS
         > The Agriculture Department abruptly ordered congressional auditors to leave its Washington offices this week and told employees not to cooperate with them. “You are hereby instructed not to meet with any member of the (Governmen t Accountability Office) today, or until this matter is resolved,” Michael Watts, head of the department’s office of adjudication, wrote to employees Wednesday in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press…..

         “They had about seven to nine people who were willing to talk to GAO and that’s why they kicked them out of the building,” Lucas said. One employee who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, met with the auditors before they were asked to leave. The worker said department attorneys stood outside the interview room, telling employees that they had no obligation to talk to the GAO auditors. Kelly said the department has been cooperating with the GAO for a year but will not let its employees discuss the matter….

         Although executive agencies frequently chafe at the GAO’s findings, the agency has a reputation as an independent, nonpartisan investigative office. The agency has clashed with the Bush administration, however, most notably in 2002 when it sued Vice President Dick Cheney to get the names of energy executives who met with a White House task force working on President Bush’s energy policy. The lawsuit marked the first time in the GAO’s nearly 90-year history that it had resorted to asking a federal judge to force a president or vice president or their aides to release documents. The GAO lost the case.

         A newer URL: usatoday30(DOT)usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-02-28-4261447442_x.htm
5. gator69 says:

   March 5, 2015 at 1:37 pm

   It was an inside job. Those were government armadillos, and the Nixon administration wanted a reason to go to war with Vietnam, so they programmed armadillos to only migrate south. This caused the world to wobble from the armadillo imbalance, making Vietnam unstable and all communisty. Another false flag operation.

   Reply
   • Stark Dickflüssig says:

     March 5, 2015 at 4:00 pm

     My favourite false-flag operations are the ones that propagate backwards in time.

     Then again, consider when we actually started sending “military advisors” there, & who was vice-president then (Barkley!). Obviously the armadillo plot was being fought by Truman & Nixon, & all this went to hell when Truman died & Nixon was able to send his mighty armadillo troops South again. South, South Vietnam! IT ALL FITS!!

     *foams*

     Reply