Bacon sucks

[Buck_Godot]

Of course if there is a huge outbreak of pork based Ecoli, the Republicans will be sure to blame the regulators at the USDA for being lax at the job and cut their budget to punish them.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@Buck_Godot

Of course if there is a huge outbreak of pork based Ecoli, the Republicans will be sure to blame the regulators at the USDA for being lax at the job and cut their budget to punish them.

Well, not entirely. It will also be Obama’s fault (somehow)

[running_coach]

@Euphonious_Polemic

Well, not entirely. It will also be Obama’s fault (somehow)

How? He’s Muslim.

:flees:

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

@Buck_Godot

Of course if there is a huge outbreak of pork based Ecoli, the Republicans will be sure to blame the regulators at the USDA for being lax at the job and cut their budget to punish them.

Just so happens to be an E Coli outbreak right now.

The CDC has not identified the cause of the outbreak, which has been reported in Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia. Half of the cases are in Kentucky.

The CDC is not recommending that consumers avoid any particular foods at this point. The agency said the source could be a specific food item, grocery store or restaurant chain.

It could certainly be caused by a lot of things besides pork.
Sage Rat, my initial review of your PDFs confirms your assertions- about 2/3 think overall food safety is better under HIMP than traditional methods, while 1/3 think it is the same or worse. That doesn’t settle everything, and there is of course the larger pattern and concern (it’s the pit, so if it is concern trolling, lemme have it) that letting plant operators control their own inspections will result in predictable disasters via greedy self-interest as has happened in other cases. It will take me awhile to really grok those PDFs in any case. But please don’t compare the US to Canada. I’ve been to Canada- things seem to be screwier here.

@Sherrerd

That would be a major selling point for his fans. “Our guy is a BULL! Match that, you wimpy Democrats!!!1!!”

Like a minotaur, but the bull half is the hindquarters.

[Sage_Rat]

@Sage_Rat

(particularly if you include observations from similar programs in Canada).

I meant to write “in Canada and Australia”.

[RTFirefly]

I keep waiting for the Dems to make an issue of this sort of thing, saying (a) this is why we regulate, and (b) this is why we need enough actual government inspectors to enforce those regs.

[naita]

@Beckdawrek

Don’t we already do all that for chicken?
Now, let’s see, I need to go sanitize my counters. I’m pretty sure there’s germs and contaminated matter laying around waiting to kill me. Argh!

In the US? Yes, but here’s no reason to accept that spreading to pork.

[Kobal2]

Amazing. What will they fuck up next ?! I’m putting $20 bucks on “sex”. Because I didn’t even know fucking up *bacon *was even possible, and I think they can reach for the stars.

[SteveG1]

@Slash1972

What’s the problem? Cuts down on Federal overreach, which is good for reasons.

And the pork industry will do their utmost best to insure comprehensive inspections are taking place, and will only allow meat that has passed their own rigorous internal inspection to be shipped out. They definitely won’t cut any corners, ignore any regulations, or send any bad meat just to save a couple of bucks because of reasons.

Historically, whenever there have been government regulations and oversight, it was exactly because industry was NOT policing itself.

[Gatopescado]

Bacon cannot suck.

[Sherrerd]

@RTFirefly

I keep waiting for the Dems to make an issue of this sort of thing, saying (a) this is why we regulate, and (b) this is why we need enough actual government inspectors to enforce those regs.

They should definitely make an issue of the Boeing 737 Max situation.

There was audio released some days ago of, I believe, a Boeing executive crowing about getting the Max approved by the FAA (when that happened some years back), with lots of phrasing about how ‘getting rid of burdensome regulation was clearly a great boon to the US economy’ and such.*

Aside from the audio: so much reporting on the two crashes (Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines) gets bogged down in talk about the software: pitch control and automatic stabilizers and cockpit sensors and so on.

It took Ralph Nader to explain what the actual problem with the Max is:

…the 737 Max 8 was defectively designed. It put in larger engines which destabilized the aerodynamics of the plane. And that’s why Boeing went to such lengths with all the different iterations of the complex software. It’s because in rushing to compete with the Airbus 320neo, they put on larger engines for a little more fuel efficiency. And they upset the center of gravity and made the plane prone to stall, rather than stall-proof.

Ralph Nader Calls For Recall Of Boeing 737 Max Jets After His Grandniece Was...

…And the reason for all the complex software and sensors and need for special training is to counteract the fact that the *fucking plane is off-balance.
*

Vox has the best write-up I’ve seen of the cozy relationship between the FAA and the industry it’s supposed to be regulating, and of the market decisions that led Boeing to try (successfully) to get this monstrosity approved:

… Airbus was coming out with an updated version of the A320 family that it called the A320neo, with “neo” meaning “new engine option.” The new engines were going to be more fuel-efficient, with a larger diameter than previous A320 engines, that could nonetheless be mounted on what was basically the same airframe.

…[Boeing] would probably lose a bunch of narrow-body sales to Airbus.
The original version of the 737 first flew in 1967, and a decades-old decision about how much height to leave between the wing and the runway left them boxed out of 21st-century engine technology — and there was simply nothing to be done about it.
Unless there was.
Boeing decided to put on the too-big engines anyway…

…because the new engines wouldn’t fit under the old wings, the new plane wound up having different aerodynamic properties than the old plane. And because the aerodynamics were different, the flight control systems were also different. But treating the whole thing as a fundamentally different plane would have undermined the whole point. So the FAA and Boeing agreed to sort of fudge it.

…In a blockbuster March 17 report for the Seattle Times, the newspaper’s aerospace reporter Dominic Gates details the extent to which the FAA delegated crucial evaluations of the 737’s safety to Boeing itself. The delegation, Gates explains, is in part a story of a years-long process during which the FAA, “citing lack of funding and resources, has over the years delegated increasing authority to Boeing to take on more of the work of certifying the safety of its own airplanes.”

Boeing’s effort to get the 737 Max approved to fly again, explained

Democrats SHOULD be talking about this. And if a lot of people get sick from eating unsafe meat, Democrats should talk about that, too. Unless we’re too weak from our roundworm infestations.

*I just spent more than half an hour looking for this, and weirdly, can’t. If it had been revealed as a hoax you’d think there’d be stories about it being a hoax. So at this point I’m wondering if there was a transfer of cash between Boeing and Google. It’s possible I just have bad search terms, but… Anyone else remember this?

[Monty]

Gives new meaning to the term pork barrel politics, doesn’t it? As for me, I live in China and am now in shock that the People’s Republic is doing a better job of ensuring the safety of the food supply than the United States. Well, not that I needed yet another reason to be vegetarian (having gone “veggie” 18 years ago), but I’ll add this to my list just in case.

[Skypist]

You can get sick from veggies, too. And I believe it’s possible for the contagion to be soaked up by the roots of some plants so that the germ cannot be washed away before eating.

It seems like there’s been a lot of food safety issues since tRump took office, but I know we’ve had problems pre-tRump too - not sure how to find out if it’s more now or what’s going on. But he’s anti-regulation and none of his followers or the Repugs in Congress seem to see any problem with leaving it to profit-driven companies to regulate themselves on food safety and no one is saying anything about it to counter that attitude that free market fixes everything.

There’s an E. coli outbreak (72 people sickened) going on right now but nobody knows what the source is yet. I’m really freaked out about our food safety.

[Monty]

Oh, I know FBI can also be transmitted via vegetables; however, it seems that certain meat products aren’t the best unless they’re scrutinized along the path to the plate. Pork, of course, is not going to miraculously be fit for food without a competent government overseeing the industry. And the last thing Trump’s administration is is competent.

[Sage_Rat]

Bumping this thread for potential relevance:

Blood puddles, mold, tainted meat, bugs: Boar’s Head inspections are horrifying

[Dandan]

@Monty

the People’s Republic is doing a better job of ensuring the safety of the food supply than the United States.

What about “sewer oil”? Tap water filling used bottled water bottles, to be sold as original? Perhaps check out “China Fact Chasers” on YouTube.

Dan

[Mundane_Super_Hero]

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!

A feature with bugs…

[Little_Nemo]

@Sage_Rat

The USDA recorded 69 violations in a year. So far, 9 people have died in the outbreak.

Well, sure, if you let the USDA conduct inspections, they’re going to find violations. The obvious solution here is to disband the USDA.

Then those nine people wouldn’t have died from consuming tainted food. Their deaths would have been due to mysterious circumstances.

[Sage_Rat]

Note that it’s not clear whether Boar’s Head was being inspected using the old-style or new-style methodology.

I found this in the New York Post:

The [USDA] issued a statement Thursday explaining that the inspectors were in fact employees of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), which had a contract with the USDA and was authorized to monitor the plant according to federal standards.

My sense, from that, is that the incident says that the USDA is still understaffed. It doesn’t say much about whether employee-led inspections improve that situation, but it does tie in to the idea that poor training creates poor results.

[fedman1]

no he’s not