Europe and freedom, not getting it...

[ballen0351]

Now that's something I can't comment on, totally no knowledge of either!

I feel so bad for you

 

[ballen0351]

Bacon and Beer MMMMMMMM

 

[Tez3]

I feel so bad for you

LOL, you don't need to, a Jewish diet includes so many good things to eat we don't miss pork, actually it probably contains too many good things!

 

[granfire]

LOL, you don't need to, a Jewish diet includes so many good things to eat we don't miss pork, actually it probably contains too many good things!

If you don't know what you are missing, how could you possibly miss it?



I am craving latkes. Got any cooking?

 

[CanuckMA]

If you don't know what you are missing, how could you possibly miss it?



I am craving latkes. Got any cooking?

I know what I'm missing. Don't miss it. And Canadian bacon is far superior than the strips of fat that Americans seem so fond of.

 

[Tez3]

I know what I'm missing. Don't miss it. And Canadian bacon is far superior than the strips of fat that Americans seem so fond of.

I would have tried but the smell put me off, ugh. I was watching a farming programme the other day and here a lot of farmers rear pigs outside either in fields and woods, there's also a lot of old breeds some of which are rare. Breeds like 'Gloucester Old Spot' (that's pronounced Gloster btw), and Tamworths (ginger pigs), Berkshires ( PG Wodehouses famous Blandings pigs) the piglets are sweet and by all accounts the bacon, hams and pork that come from the old breeds that are naturally reared is delicious. I imagine it would taste better than factory farmed animals.

 

[ballen0351]

I know what I'm missing. Don't miss it. And Canadian bacon is far superior than the strips of fat that Americans seem so fond of.

Oh you are so close to a Neg rep point for that comment. This means war verkill::knight2:

 

[granfire]

I would have tried but the smell put me off, ugh. I was watching a farming programme the other day and here a lot of farmers rear pigs outside either in fields and woods, there's also a lot of old breeds some of which are rare. Breeds like 'Gloucester Old Spot' (that's pronounced Gloster btw), and Tamworths (ginger pigs), Berkshires ( PG Wodehouses famous Blandings pigs) the piglets are sweet and by all accounts the bacon, hams and pork that come from the old breeds that are naturally reared is delicious. I imagine it would taste better than factory farmed animals.

What are you? A treehugger?!

(yes, small farm food tastes better)

 

[billc]

Actually, Penn and Teller, I don't know if you know them or not, did a show on organic foods. They did a taste test that was really funny. Everyone believed they could tell the organic foods, and bragged about how good they tasted...only to find out they had picked the factory produced foods.

This clip is of the taste test portion of the show, the second clip may be the whole piece...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_IoNQHMFLk&feature=related

Careful, there may be some nudity in this clip, the guys like to objectify women on each show...



Steve, this is Penn and Teller from Youtube, I think even you can watch this...

 

[elder999]

Actually, Penn and Teller, I don't know if you know them or not, did a show on organic foods. They did a taste test that was really funny. Everyone believed they could tell the organic foods, and bragged about how good they tasted...only to find out they had picked the factory produced foods.

"Taste" is subjective.

Ferinstance: I had a history teacher, Harry Kursh.You'd have loved him, billi-he was a socialist-capitalist, author of "The Franchise Boom," and a bunch of other stuff-woulda driven ya nuts!

Anyway, Mr. Kirsh had two really good stories. He was a Depression brat, and, when he was a kid, "tomato soup" was watered ketchup heated up. He related how when he first had real tomato soup, he hated it. He was also stationed in Alaska, where he had to get used to drinking powdered milk. His daughter lived on a kibbutz (and went back to Israel to stay) where she got used to drinking goat milk, and his wife could only drink skim milk. So they had three different kinds of milk in their house-all of which, presumably, "tasted good."

Try a tomato from my garden, though, and one of those picked when they're green, ripened in a nitrogen atmosphere monstrosities, and tell me the "factory food" tastes better.....:lol:

 

[elder999]

I would have tried but the smell put me off, ugh.

Apropos of my last post, then:

:lol:

I was watching a farming programme the other day and here a lot of farmers rear pigs outside either in fields and woods, there's also a lot of old breeds some of which are rare. Breeds like 'Gloucester Old Spot' (that's pronounced Gloster btw), and Tamworths (ginger pigs), Berkshires ( PG Wodehouses famous Blandings pigs) the piglets are sweet and by all accounts the bacon, hams and pork that come from the old breeds that are naturally reared is delicious. I imagine it would taste better than factory farmed animals.

Indeed. I raise a couple of breeds of heirloom poultry-when I serve people some Australorp, there are always comments about how tasty it is. Part of that's my cooking, of course, but the other reason is that they taste like chicken is supposed to taste.

 

[Sukerkin]

I agree with BillC {slaps self and then faints } that there is a certain degree of tosh surrounding the non-factory farmed food industry. Part of taste is expectation after all (e.g. my wine always tastes better out of my extremely expensive Jaguar lead-crystal glasses). Part of it is 'education' too, as Elder said, if your first experiences with food are with 'bad' produce then you'l learn that that is how they are 'supposed' to taste.

But there is also a certain of truth in 'properly' grown/raised produce tasting better. The tomato example that Elder gave is perhaps the most striking I can think of - the ones our neighbour gives us straight out of his greenhouse are absolutely divine compared to the tasteless red bags-of-water that you buy from the supermarket. When it comes to free-range meats, the taste difference might be less obvious, tho' still there, but there is also the satisfaction that the creature that gave it's life for my dinner actually had a life; a pleasant one rather than the torture that a lot of factory-raised animals have to endure.

 

[Tez3]

It's probably obvious but what an animal eats is going to affect how it tastes, also how it's killed, it's no good rearing up free range animals if they are stressed when they are killed, the hormones flooding in ruin the taste so the humanity has to last to the end and is practical as well as well meaning. Corn fed chickens are going to taste different from the normal chicken food eating ones, wild game such as duck and venison taste different from the domestically reared ones. In Wales there sheep raised on salt flats by the sea their meat is naturally more salty. Different breeds give different tastes as well.
One reason to eat organic food as opposed to factory farmed ones is the additives that the latter are given, growth hormones, antibiotics etc that the organically and field fed animals don't need. Animals reared in such close proximity to each other need more medication than those bred outside and naturally.

Organic free range eggs are miles better than the factory ones which have thick shells through feeding them more calcium, makes the eggs last longer they reckon. The free range organic ones are wonderful and I find there's less I have to throw away because of blood spots, they seem hardly to occur in the 'natural' ones as opposed to the farmed ones. they are also much fresher having only been laid the same week I buy them as opposed to up to 28 days in the supermarket.

I wonder though if the people who say they can't tell the difference between non factory farmed food and factory stuff have actually tried real non factory farmed? I say this because the supermarkets are very good at bamboozling customers with things like 'farm fresh' and 'barn raised' as well as other labels, also a lot of food is irradiated to make it last longer so even if it started as organic etc the supermarkets will ruin it.

 

[MariaK]

I would say it's a very risky topic to discuss - which country has more freedom. Coming from Russia (not Soviet Union that collapsed more than 20 years ago), I always had an impression that Americans have more freedom. When I came to the USA I was advised (behind closed doors) by University professors not to discuss certain topics in American classroom (e.g. in American studies program - that Alaska belonged to Russian Empire). I never had this experience in Russia - you can discuss any topics in history there without being afraid of prosecusion. I was specifically trained in critical history in Russia - where you will evaluate, for example, atrocities that were conducted by communist regimes create in my country, and how it affected the development of the poitical, social etc. system in the country.

Another example - I had to pass an exam here in the USA to be able to conduct research with human subjects (in the area of speech and hearing sciences). I had to learn about medical experiments on people conducted without their agreement by the US government and medical organizations in 1970-80s. Now, how the country where freedom seems to be a cornerstone of politics etc. allowed for such atrocities to take place? Other questions: Why Americans have no freedomn to have free medical service? Why is there death sentence in the country - and freedom to life is not guaranteed like in Europe? I think it's a very interesting but really hard topic to discuss - for every example you would find a counterexample and as we all are a "product" of our own societies and political systems - we will probably never understand the other side to full extent.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

What country has the most laws?
US

What country has the most prisoners?
US

Funny that huh?

A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College in London, more people are behind bars in the United States than in any other country. China ranks second with 1.5 million prisoners, followed by Russia with 870,000.
The U.S. incarceration rate of 737 per 100,000 people in the highest, followed by 611 in Russia and 547 for St. Kitts and Nevis. In contrast, the incarceration rates in many Western industrial nations range around 100 per 100,000 people.
Groups advocating reform of U.S. sentencing laws seized on the latest U.S. prison population figures showing admissions of inmates have been rising even faster than the numbers of prisoners who have been released.
"The United States has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's incarcerated population. We rank first in the world in locking up our fellow citizens," said Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which supports alternatives in the war on drugs.
"We now imprison more people for drug law violations than all of western Europe, with a much larger population, incarcerates for all offences."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1209-01.htm

 

[ballen0351]

Sounds like good police work here. Higher caliber of officers.

What country has the most laws?
US

What country has the most prisoners?
US

Funny that huh?


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1209-01.htm

 

[Tez3]

Sounds like good police work here. Higher caliber of officers.

Really? Bob's already posted that you have more laws to break so more things to arrest and charge people with.

 

[billc]

I would say it's a very risky topic to discuss - which country has more freedom. Coming from Russia (not Soviet Union that collapsed more than 20 years ago), I always had an impression that Americans have more freedom. When I came to the USA I was advised (behind closed doors) by University professors not to discuss certain topics in American classroom (e.g. in American studies program - that Alaska belonged to Russian Empire). I never had this experience in Russia - you can discuss any topics in history there without being afraid of prosecusion. I was specifically trained in critical history in Russia - where you will evaluate, for example, atrocities that were conducted by communist regimes create in my country, and how it affected the development of the poitical, social etc. system in the country.

Another example - I had to pass an exam here in the USA to be able to conduct research with human subjects (in the area of speech and hearing sciences). I had to learn about medical experiments on people conducted without their agreement by the US government and medical organizations in 1970-80s. Now, how the country where freedom seems to be a cornerstone of politics etc. allowed for such atrocities to take place? Other questions: Why Americans have no freedomn to have free medical service? Why is there death sentence in the country - and freedom to life is not guaranteed like in Europe? I think it's a very interesting but really hard topic to discuss - for every example you would find a counterexample and as we all are a "product" of our own societies and political systems - we will probably never understand the other side to full extent.

You wo't be prosecuted for discussing things...yet, but the University history department is the home of left wing academics. Political correctness, the attempt to get people to censor their own speech originated on left wing college campuses. If you can silence people on certain subjects, you can control how those subjects are taught.

Research on human subjects even in a country like America is why a free people need to be constantly watching their government. It is another reason why you don't want the government in control of your healthcare. The infamous tuskeegee experiments, where men with syphilis were not given medicine, but placebos so the government could track the spread of the disease, is just one reason to keep the government out of the healthcare system, it gives them too much power to do bad things when bad people get in charge.

Health care is never free so you can't have free healthcare. You may pay for your healthcare in your taxes, or you may pay when you recieve a service, but you do pay. Americans who are fighting obamacare are fighting it because they know, from over 200 years of experience, that the government can't be given any more power over citizens than absolutely necessary, just look at tuskeegee, and that government healthcare will deliver an inferior system of medicine, at a more expensive price, and that it will consume the nations income as it sky rockets out of control. Look at the Veteran's administration hospitals in the United States to see what government healthcare will become.

The death penalty is in the states as far as I am concerned for justice, punishment and prevention of more crimes. It is not right that when you take a life you can spend the rest of yours in jail. You recieve the ultimate punishment for taking the life or lives of others, and by executing murderers, you keep them from killing again. Innocent life should be revered, not murderers.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Same link

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Ryan King, a policy analyst at The Sentencing Project, a group advocating sentencing reform, said the United States has a more punitive criminal justice system than other countries.


"We send more people to prison, for more different offences, for longer periods of time than anybody else," he said.
Drug offenders account for about 2 million of the 7 million in prison, on probation or parole, King said, adding that other countries often stress treatment instead of incarceration.

[/FONT]

One site mentioned that Miami-Dade county alone averages 40,000 dropped cases a year due to shoddy police work....leading one person to wonder if IQ's higher than 70 were ineligible to be cops there. Good police work means you get the right guy and get the evidence to put them away. Not get the first person you find and pull stuff outta your *** to take them in.



Also, interesting to note that in the US, execution by firing squad is still an option (Utah), electric chair (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.), as well as lethal injection and gas (34 US states, plus the US military and federal government)
Sources:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without-death-penalty
http://brainz.org/13-most-brutal-and-inhumane-judicial-punishments-still-used-today/

Looking at who else has such penalties and punishments, it's interesting to see who's on that list. Other fortresses of freedom such as Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, etc.


Then there is the so called "Constitution-Free Zone"
http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone
http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/fact-sheet-us-constitution-free-zone
100 miles of the US border, it's a potential "papers please!" stop and detain area.


Now, all that said, I feel pretty free. I haven't been stopped recently, in fact my last stop was last August at a Revenue-Enhancement stop in Texas (read speed trap). Before that it's been years since I had my last 'official' run in with cops. Most of the time I run into them at martial arts camps and seminars. My border crossings have been a bit longer, mostly more questions, 1 random vehicle search, nothing major. Flyings more of a pain so I don't do that, my position on the TSA is pretty well posted here so no need to rehash.

From a business POV, it's a pain in the ***. Lots of regulations, lots of paperwork, and it's often confusing trying to comply with things that even the government can't keep straight. I sometimes think the maze of regs is just make work so lawyers don't have to flip burgers for income.

My photos and art aren't run by some government board for approval, I can move to where ever I want in the country as long as I can afford it, I don't need anyone's permission to go out, or travel, and I can obtain various means of self defense as I like as long as I can comply with a small amount of regulations and fees. It's not perfect, but it's not as bad as some think either.

 

[Tez3]

You wo't be prosecuted for discussing things...yet, but the University history department is the home of left wing academics. Political correctness, the attempt to get people to censor their own speech originated on left wing college campuses. If you can silence people on certain subjects, you can control how those subjects are taught.

Research on human subjects even in a country like America is why a free people need to be constantly watching their government. It is another reason why you don't want the government in control of your healthcare. The infamous tuskeegee experiments, where men with syphilis were not given medicine, but placebos so the government could track the spread of the disease, is just one reason to keep the government out of the healthcare system, it gives them too much power to do bad things when bad people get in charge.

Health care is never free so you can't have free healthcare. You may pay for your healthcare in your taxes, or you may pay when you recieve a service, but you do pay. Americans who are fighting obamacare are fighting it because they know, from over 200 years of experience, that the government can't be given any more power over citizens than absolutely necessary, just look at tuskeegee, and that government healthcare will deliver an inferior system of medicine, at a more expensive price, and that it will consume the nations income as it sky rockets out of control. Look at the Veteran's administration hospitals in the United States to see what government healthcare will become.

The death penalty is in the states as far as I am concerned for justice, punishment and prevention of more crimes. It is not right that when you take a life you can spend the rest of yours in jail. You recieve the ultimate punishment for taking the life or lives of others, and by executing murderers, you keep them from killing again. Innocent life should be revered, not murderers.

ROFLMAO at explaining to someone who used to live in the USSR/Russia what is left wing. Oh my, that's a good un and of course it's the 'left wing' that want to stop evolution being taught isn't it?