Ah, Congress

Bikewer

Penultimate Amazing
Bikewer
Joined
Sep 12, 2003
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Location
St. Louis, Mo.
Just when you thought that public approval of our august legislators could not sink lower than the already-lower-than-Communism 9% they currently enjoy.....

We are now informed that they have overruled the FDA and declared pizza to be a vegetable, while another congressman has, with charts and arrows, showed us that air pollution has no effect on asthma.

We are encouraged to see that special interests have no effect on our representatives.....
 
I suspect this was a move to allow schools to remove a separate vegetable from a school lunch when they serve pizza. Thus allowing them to cut more money from education.

Those tax breaks for the rich are really important you know. Way more important than making sure kids are getting a healthy meal.
 
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1 of your 5 a day.
 
CynicalSkeptic said:
And yet we keep re-electing them.
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I refer you to the late, great Douglas Adams:

DNA said:
[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...]
"I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."

Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.

"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

"What?"

"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"

"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."

Ford shrugged again.

"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
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CynicalSkeptic said:
And yet we keep re-electing them.
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Don't paint me with your broad brush. I've been conducting a write-in campaign for the characters from Jersey Shore for a few years now. It would be a small step in the right direction, I know, but one must start with baby steps.

They would be all over that pizza thing.
 
Travis said:
I suspect this was a move to allow schools to remove a separate vegetable from a school lunch when they serve pizza. Thus allowing them to cut more money from education.
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The kids would just eat the pizza and throw the vegetable in the garbage.

Travis said:
Those tax breaks for the rich are really important you know. Way more important than making sure kids are getting a healthy meal.
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Maybe if California wasn't throwing bllions at high speed rail they could put vegetables on kids plates.

Gotta have priorities!

What this has more to do wth is agriculture policy that encourages farmers to grow too much of certain things, and so the government buys the excess and dumps it on the kids lunch plates. Too many potatos? Turn them into tater tots and feed them to the kids! Add ketchup and it's a vegetable!
 
A USDA study found that 42% of cooked vegetables served in school lunches gets thrown away, and 30% of salads.
Managers reported that plate waste varied by food type (fig. 2). The estimated average amount of food wasted ranged from 11 percent for milk to 42 percent for cooked vegetables.
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Horses, water, etc.
 
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CynicalSkeptic said:
And yet we keep re-electing them.
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I understand that point of view--basically we get the government we deserve.

However, I also wonder how many people who think that also refuse to vote for 3rd party candidates because they're not "viable". If so, doesn't it argue that it's not in the electorate's power to get a better government? We're stuck with choosing the lesser evil (or "throwing away" a vote).
 
WildCat said:
A USDA study found that 42% of cooked vegetables served in school lunches gets thrown away, and 30% of salads.
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And you can skew that statistic quite badly by defining pizza as a vegetable, right? I don't see how your point excuses declaring pizza to be a vegetable. It would be like sweeping the problem under a rug. If the USDA finds next year that only 20% of "vegetables" are thrown away, one would conclude we did something right and improved the situation somehow.

I think the problem you point to could be addressed by even stricter limits on what gets served in school (and more aggressive health and nutrition education), but not by simply saying things aren't as they are.
 
I believe our public schools would see a big boost in academic achievement if the lowest-scoring children were turned into burgers and fed to the higher-scoring children. This would simultaneously inspire achievement and remove the lowest percentiles, so we'd not only catch up to other countries in academics but our new generation of genius cannibals would be a force to be reckoned with. Provided, of course, they elected enough of their own to Congress. To pave the way for this glorious new order, I suggest the stupidest members of Congress be turned into burgers and fed to the less stupid members of Congress.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
And you can skew that statistic quite badly by defining pizza as a vegetable, right? I don't see how your point excuses declaring pizza to be a vegetable.
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The point is a pizza in a kids stomach has more nutritional value than a sprig of broccoli in the lunchroom garbage can.
 
I think it is completely reasonable to count pizza as a vegetable.

Of course, I also count beer as a grain.
 
Denver said:
I think it is completely reasonable to count pizza as a vegetable.

Of course, I also count beer as a grain.
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Well, I have occasionally heard some porters and stouts referred to as liquid bread.
 
I'm looking for a list of congresspeople who supported this imbecility. Would anyone happen to have one? Or possibly a bill number?
 
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