Simon Rich's Sell Out, part three of four. : The New Yorker

Simon Rich's Sell Out, part three of four. : The New Yorker: Screaming over money is what makes the market fun. Sarah used to threaten to kill the potato man whenever his prices went up. She would take out her knife and say, “I will kill you with this knife for robbing me.” He would curse her in Hungarian and then the two of them would wave their fists around. It was good times for everyone. These days, though, nobody has that kind of will. It is all please and thank you and have a nice day.

Start with Part 1. This is a great read.

Salmonella kills people but not corporations

Path to Illnesses and Deaths Began Five Years Before Salmonella Outbreak | Food Safety News: As dangerous as those conditions were, the indictment makes a strong case that what put PCA at fault was its fraudulent practices that left no space for food safety.

The indictment portrays a company that was too busy lying to its customers, pretty much day-in and day-out.

Fraud was being practiced by PCA as early as June 2003, more than five years before people started getting sick, according to information contained in the indictment. The picture U.S. attorneys paint in the indictment is one where PCA promised to deliver on food safety standards and customer specifications while putting a system in place to do neither.

I am 99% positive most of my dear readers have heard about federal charges against Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) for shipping 'tainted' (read: normal) food to its customers. I've highlighted a passage from "Food Safety News", the blog credited with the most extensive investigation yet (and by "extensive investigation" I mean someone sat down with both a copy of the indictments AND a biology textbook -imagine that!!)

I've bolded a few key terms in my quote, but I'll go long-form to get this across.

PCA's customers are NOT American consumers (people). PCA is not in trouble for poisoning people - they're in trouble for lying to Kellogg's, and by proxy, putting Kellogg's in a position of potential liability - the thing all corporations avoid by design. Kellogg's is customer #1. 

So go ahead - celebrate this "victory" for food safety. And by "food safety" I mean to say that corporations are safely insulated from any liability arising from their food.

Window Tint and Gun Culture

Want to tie together a couple of seemingly disparate ideas...

In California, it is technically illegal to tint your driver and passenger windows. The main rational is that it presents a danger to law enforcement. That danger being.... firearms.

The backup rational is a physics argument: interior light reflections can cause misleading visuals potentially increasing accidents.

The light problem could be solved by the application of a gradient tint that allows the driver to see their mirrors untinted, but cuts the amount of solar energy entering the vehicle's cabin. (Update: I'm informed it is legal to coat windows with a UV blocker provided it's completely opaque. Most manufacturers do this as a matter of practice.)

The arguments in support of tint reform are twofold: primary is an climate/environmental/comfort argument. Tinted cars use less energy running AC, means less air pollution.

The second is an easy one: JOBZ! (film manufacture/sale, installers, etc).

There is an aspect that will have a curious opponent: a security state apparatus that will not easily accept having its view curtailed.

I don't think there's a practical political path to simply change the Vehicle Code to allow tinted windows without increasing the regulation of firearms. So, will gun owners endure greater regulation in exchange for tinting their windows a darker shade?

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Notes:
It turns out there are few aftermarket manufacturers of gradient-tint films, and they tend toward egregious styles. This makes me wonder if a mandatory tinting scheme (compliance and economic incentives) would lead to development of this form of tint (think of a window that's tinted except around the area where you view your mirrors - that would remain clear, but get gradually darker the farther up and back on the window.)

The Nation:The Phony 'Fix the Debt' Campaign

Stacking the Deck: The Phony 'Fix the Debt' Campaign | The Nation: Meet the Campaign to Fix the Debt, the billionaire-funded project that uses Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles as figureheads for a fearmongering campaign to convince Americans that the deficits the United States has run throughout its history have suddenly metastasized into “a cancer that will destroy this country from within.” It is the latest incarnation of Wall Street mogul Pete Peterson’s long campaign to get Congress and the White House to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while providing tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

Insanity.

Everything's Niche

"How much experience do you have?" asks the hiring manager at the yard care service.

"Experience?" I stare dumbfounded. "You mean, with yardwork? Like, raking leaves?"

He stares back.

"Ok, honestly, not much, but I think its a skill I could pick up really quick. What with it being.. y'know, raking leaves and all..."

"No," he interrupts.

"Nobody in this business "rakes leaves". Every one of my guys can install sprinklers, PVC, trenching.. all of that. They got trucks with all the tools and blowers.... shit, whatever it takes. I don't got a spot on my team for someone to just show up and do what they're told. You have to be able to do almost every job. That's my 'entry level' job."

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Replace "yard care" with just about any job that you associate with manual labor. Everyone's a specialist now.

There may have been a period of time in this country's history when lots of transitional jobs existed - i.e., yard work -  but no more. Even "entry level" jobs require specialty.

This means two (bad) things:
1) there is no fallback for people who want to work but have no current skills,
2) remaining jobs tend toward permanence, or low social mobility. This creates social stress.

End of Days

What's the difference between Sacramento and a gallon of milk?

You leave milk out in the sun this long, even it develops culture....

Sad to see this go (says a guy who never booked a day in the room....)

TanteMaries: Potato Chip Frittata

This looks delicious. Her channel is wonderful - I recommend subscribing.

Here's her recipe best I can interpret:

6-8 eggs

leftover cheese (feta), olives , leftover bacon/ham (cooked), scallions, roasted red peppers (not pickled), potato chips (BBQ flavor FTW, IMHO.)

Crush the potato chips and let them soak in the eggs for 5 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir.

Add some butter or olive oil to pan and heat. Pour mixture into hot pan and cook until mix is golden brown on bottom. Finish in broiler, 1-2 minutes.

The End of Cats: An Interview With the New Zealand Economist Calling to Eliminate All Kitties - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic

The End of Cats: An Interview With the New Zealand Economist Calling to Eliminate All Kitties - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic: Because we have virtually no obligations on cat owners (bit like you guys with your guns) and so people own them, abandon them, and generally take no responsibility for the unintended consequences of their actions. The most oft-heard and erroneous utterance we get here from cat owners is, "Oh but my pussy only kills rats and mice, he'd never harm a native bird." As you can see this denial verges on explicit stupidity.

I believe circumstances are similar here in CA. Human activities are probably the greatest evolutionary pressure(s) ever.

Unintended consequences, indeed.

(Note: I appreciate he's making an economic proposition here, but I don't think that alone is a sufficient indictment of it.)

SocImages: The Poor Pay More Taxes

Politics, Discourse, and the Real Tax Rate on the Rich and Poor:

The current political discourse is so focused on a single form of government revenue, that the word taxes has become essentially synonymous with just one tax in particular; the federal income tax.

The non-profit, non-partisan Institution on Taxation and Economic Policy recently released its research on the taxes families in the United States paid in 2010.  These findings reveal when the focus is taken off the federal income tax and the entire tax system is examined, cumulative household taxes in nearly every state are regressive because the less money a family makes, the larger proportion they pay to the different levels of government.  As the graph below shows, the cumulative tax system is regressive because sales, excise and property taxes offset progressive income taxes at both the state, and federal levels.

Notice this was not written by anybody who's last name is "Paul."

I can only hope our next election cycle will feature more nuanced discussions about taxes, that is to say, none at all.