Unilever Recalls Peanut Butter

    The Unilever Company has issued a recall for its flagship peanut butter brand “ Skippy “ due to some jars which may be contaminated with salmonella. Two varieties are affected in the recall, those being the Skippy reduced-fat  creamy and the reduced-fat chunky peanut butter.

CSMonitor

Sixteen states are affected by the recall: Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

   So kiddies, if you live in one of the above states check your  Skippy UPC code or the date stamped on the lid.

UPC codes:  048001006812 or 048001006782

Used-By-Dates:  MAY1612LR1, MAY1712LR1, MAY1812LR1, MAY1912LR1, MAY2012LR1. or MAY2112LR1

   Happy Hunting!

Technorati Tags: Unilever,Skippy,Peanut Butter,Recall,Salmonella,Current Events

The American Taliban

  This is just a preview/test post of what I have been working on for the past few weeks. I’ll have much to say about the Conservative’s who wish to mess up the average citizens living standards. Included in this group, which I call “ The American Taliban “ are not only all of the conservative movement, but many from the Democrat Party as well as from big business. All of the major players who are stealing our jobs, our wages, and our rights as people of the United States will be included. Plan on seeing the Wall Street crowd along with the Bankers who ripped you and I off.

   Right now, I am gathering pictures of the American Taliban members as well as more information, so you will be seeing various pics throughout the next few days as I size them to fit this space.

    What you see below will not necessarily be what you see when the chapters are completed.

John Boehner, current leader of the American Taliban ( R ) controlled House majority.

 

   Rick Scott, current Florida Taliban leader posing as the states Governor. It is rumored that Florida is where all of the Taliban members train before going national in the political arena, much like the Al Qaeda airplane pilots did before 9/11.

    Scott is a special Taliban leader having experience running a company which was A+ at ripping off the taxpayers by way of overbilling the federal government. Scott more than likely holds the record for pleading the 5th Amendment some 75 times when dragged into hearings over his participation in this scam.

    Scott will be the first Florida governor to drag the state of Florida down to 4th world status, a first for anyone governing a state in America. I will note that Arizona is not so far behind.

Technorati Tags: American Taliban,Conservatives,Republicans,Democrats,Blue Dogs,Tea Party,Koch,Banking,Wall Street,Deficits,Economy,Current Events

The Republican Scare Machine

   You and I have been hearing over the past few weeks about the communist Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s ongoing attempt to bust the public-workers unions because of the state deficit which he and the state assembly created with some tax cuts that they created for businesses. We have heard all of the media take by American media, but what about the thoughts from overseas?

Watching America

Le Figaro, France
Republicans: The Red
Scare Is Back

By Jean-Sébastien Stehli
Machiavelli could never have imagined this.
Translated By Zachary Hebert
23 February 2011

Edited by Patricia Simoni

France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The United States and the USSR were at odds for 45 years, but during that time, the two superpowers had many things in common. Today, the USSR is no more, and we suddenly are witnessing a strange phenomenon. The dream of American conservatives is to create an oligarchical system similar to the one that ruled over Russia: power for a few, deconstruction of regulation, and privatization of all that could be sold. That is the ideal of the GOP and its tea party allies. The Wisconsin story, seen as that of a courageous governor’s refusal to accept the shameful advances of unions, at a time when the entire country has to tighten its belt, is a huge farce and an untruth. Here’s an explanation.
For over a week, Wisconsin’s civil servants, professors among them, have been on strike. The state’s governor, Scott Walker, wants to increase the percentage of civil servants’ salaries that goes toward their retirement pensions and to increase their contributions to their health insurance premiums, two propositions that do not at all please the unions, but which were accepted. But the governor, who is close to the tea party moment, wishes to limit unions’ negotiation power and obligate them to accept a system in which employees would annually vote to say whether to continue to be union members.
In reality, what is going on in Wisconsin has nothing to do with the official reasons invoked by the governor and his supporters. As Nobel Prize for economics winner, Paul Krugman, highlights, what Scott Walker is “trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy.” The hypocrisy is flagrant: Although the governor admits that it is necessary to reduce the deficit, he is trying to pass tax cuts for a portion of the population (always the same one), which does nothing but exacerbate the deficit.
The governor, elected six weeks ago — thanks to the financial help of the super-conservative millionaire Koch brothers, financiers of the tea party, in the hope that the movement would abolish pollution regulation — simply wants to erase the unions and, above all, their ability to speak on behalf of the employees of an industry. Above all, the unions that do not think like he does, because he is not as hot-headed toward the unions that are closer to the Republicans.
The political system that Scott Walker and his allies want is not American democracy, in which the rule is one person, one vote. The political system admitted by the new GOP darling is one in which some powerful entities have all the rights. The irony is that those who, like the tea party, claim to speak on behalf of the scorned people, wish to eliminate the power that truly speaks on behalf of the poorest and the middle class: the unions — whether or not unions should be agreed with is a different issue.
Another irony, this one a little crueler, brought up by Paul Krugman: It is precisely this oligarchy that, in pushing for more and more deregulation, has provoked the very financial crisis that America is facing today; it was not the unions. And now, the oligarchy is using the pretext of the crisis in order to eliminate the modest forces of opposition that continue to be against such a form of government. Machiavelli could never have imagined this.

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL VERSION

Technorati Tags: Republicans,Russians,Scott Walker,Unions,Workers Rights,Health Care,Wisconsin,Koch Brothers,Current Events,American Taliban

GOP Senators try to block stricter rules for for-profit colleges

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Sat Mar 05, 2011      by  Joan McCarter for Daily Kos

A handful of extremely right-wing Senators are trying to block implementation of rules designed to curtail deceptive marketing and recruiting by for-profit colleges. Senators Jim Risch (ID), Tom Coburn (OK), Jim DeMint (SC), Ron Johnson (WI), and Mike Lee (UT) are all seemingly fine with taxpayer dollars, in the form of federal student loans, lining the pockets of these profiting colleges that aren't delivering on education. For example:

Bridgepoint Education Inc., a publicly-traded for-profit company based in San Diego, with online and traditional programs that have grown quickly in recent years.

Bridgepoint . . . experienced a 167 percent increase in profit in 2009, from $81 million in 2008 to $216 million in 2009, according to HELP Committee data. But between 2008 and 2009, more than 60 percent of its bachelor’s degree students withdrew by the summer of 2010....

On Feb. 4, the Education Department released new data showing that for-profit students account for nearly half of all student loan defaults, even though they account for less than 15 percent of students nationwide. The department has also published data showing that some for-profit schools overcharge students and offer inadequate training, leaving them burdened with heavy debt and unable to get jobs after graduation.

Here's what that looks like:

And here's what it means, from James Kwak at The Baseline Scenario.

Though increased enrollment appears to imply increased opportunity, many students are in higher risk of drop-out and loan default when choosing a for-profit college. The for-profit education sector is in large part to blame for the sharp rise in student loan defaults, accounting for almost half of total defaulters. In the graph [above], the Department of Education has concluded that despite only having 12% of total enrollments, for-profit schools disproportionally account for 48% of total student debt defaults. Since for-profits are so effective in securing Federal loans and grants for their students, this means that the schools are in essence receiving an indirect subsidy from the government and taxpayers, while leaving students in the red.

While an increasing number of students enroll in for-profits and take on large amounts of student debt, they also increase their risk of drop-out. A report published last year by the Education Trust shows how devastating dropout rates are, with only 22% of students enrolled at for-profit four-year universities graduating within six years, as compared to 55% and 65% at public and private non-profit universities, respectively. Many students enrolling in these institutions are left without credentials and burdened with debt, yet the schools are able to retain their profits made from students’ tuition.

The high rates of both drop-outs and defaults in these colleges should be enough for responsible lawmakers to demand some accountability—as the Department of Education has done with these rules. Responsible lawmakers, obviously, are not part of the teahadist wing of the GOP, which doesn't want to pay public school teachers, but has no problem with public money subsidizing the ripping off of millions of American college students for the private good of a few. Same old GOP story.

Technorati Tags: Education,Jim Risch,For Profit Colleges,Current Events,Republicans,GOP