Archives for January 2012

Stuff comes from strange places. We talked earlier about how modern literacy in Western culture came from porn. People may not want to think about that but that doesn’t make it any less true. Modern computers are the direct descendants of looms. The punch card system that was designed to ensure each pattern came out identical is the same system that was used for data storage and sorting until micro-chips were invented. The water wheel led to the industrial revolution. Until then all mill work had to be done by hand. With that hurdle cleared new and better uses were developed. Including self powered looms. I could go on and on, and often will when left unchecked, but I think you get the point. The thing you know may have come from a very unlikely source.

For example, at one time a woman’s body was merely something men let her inhabit. They owned it, she just got to use it. But then women decided they wanted to own their bodies and to do with them what they will and, if what they will happened to be “Walk around naked” then so be it. And in 1968 a man’s voice rose from the wilderness to support them. To shout down the conservative morass of repression and to truly celebrate the liberal joys of femininity unfettered.

Bra burning? Go for it he cried!

Artistic nudes in print? Hell yeah he bellowed!

Porn for all? BY GOD YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES!!!

And who was this champion of freedom?

Newt Gingrich.

Republican candidate Newt Gingrich attacks President Barack Obama as a “radical” and “community organizer,” but as a Tulane University graduate student in 1968, he helped lead an anti-censorship protest in defense of sexually explicit photographs.

While Republican foe Mitt Romney steered clear of the college campus tumult that year by doing Mormon missionary work in France, Gingrich warned Tulane’s president of an impending “clash of wills” over the university administrator’s decision to ban publication of explicit photographs in “Sophia,” a literary supplement for the student newspaper “The Tulane Hullabaloo.”

The episode illustrates some of the same pugnaciousness that Gingrich now displays as a candidate for the Republican nomination.

It also underscores a sharp evolution in his views on civil protest, an issue that has played out during the campaign because of the growing strength of the Occupy Wall Street movement. During a forum last November, Gingrich suggested that participants in the Wall Street protests, “Go get a job, right after you take a bath.”

And Gingrich has repeatedly made comparisons between Obama and Saul Alinsky, a forebear of 1960s campus activism and a powerful community organizer in Chicago in the 1960s — the city where the president began his career in public service after graduating from Columbia University in the 1980s.

During the Tulane demonstrations, Gingrich emerged as a leader of one of the student protest factions. His politics, according to fellow students on the New Orleans campus, were those of a liberal Republican.

“In a sense, Gingrich has been very consistent. He utilizes free speech more than almost any other American,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, who said he found the candidate’s student activism “very amusing.”

Sabato puts those days in the same category as Obama’s community organizing in Chicago.

“We should be less interested in where the candidates have been many years ago, and more concerned about where they are now,” he added. “However, it would be interesting to hear how Newt (like Obama) got from there to here. Does he still think his actions at Tulane were correct?”

A spokesman for Gingrich’s presidential campaign did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Accounts published by the Hullabaloo, retrieved from university archives, describe the standoff over two artistic images the literary magazine sought to publish.

HUMAN BODY PARTS

One photo showed a Baton Rouge sculptor posing beside what was described as a “mechanized box” carrying “symbolic descriptions” of human body parts, including sex organs. The second image showed a naked sculptor posing with a statue that depicted what Hullabaloo described as “male and female figures with enlarged sexual organs.”

A proposed caption described one photograph as “an ironical statement on the fad for nudism.”

Tulane authorities at the time, including President Herbert Longenecker, banned publication, argued that the images “are considered to be obscene” and could expose the university to “criminal prosecution.”

Demonstrations erupted, including a picket of Longenecker’s residence. Within days, the movement split into factions. Gingrich’s group called itself Mobilization of Responsible Tulane Students, otherwise known as MORTS.

The same day that MORTS announced its formation, student picket lines spread to the New Orleans offices of Merrill Lynch, a local bank, a department store and a local TV station.

On March 11, 1968, MORTS leaders, including Gingrich, met with Longenecker and other college officials. Typewritten minutes held in college archives show that Gingrich was one of the more outspoken leaders at the meeting, employing the kind of bombastic rhetoric that has been a trademark of his national political career.

“It is now a question of power and if the student body wants to demonstrate until May – we are down to a clash of wills,” Gingrich told Longenecker, according to the minutes, which were obtained by Reuters.

As the meeting concluded, Gingrich warned: “There will be increasing attempts of the student body … to test the guide-lines and test the administration. As long as the student body is aroused it will meet.”

Eventually, the protests waned and the university held firm on the photograph ban. Some members of Gingrich’s protest group later went on to form the Tulane Liberation Front, which occupied a student center and demanded that the swimming pool be opened to the general public.

Though college campuses were hotbeds for political dissent into the 1970s, Gingrich’s student activism waned. University records show that by the summer of 1969, his protest days were behind him. He had persuaded Tulane to allow him to teach a non-credit course in futurology called “When You are 49; The Year 2000.”

Ah yes, only a future serial adulterer could come up with the line “As long as the student body is aroused it will meet” for a protest about nudity.

But, it had a lasting effect. The years rolled on and nudity became a tried and true means of getting your message across. Just recently the nice people at PETA staged a protest in Montgomery Alabama to protest people wearing furs.

Because in the deep South everyone’s really trying to stay warm and wearing furs.

Wait? They’re not? Oh well then, never mind.

It was a stupid protest anyway. A couple of rubes made up to look like naked corpses with signs reading “We Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead in Animal Skins.”

Hah.

The nice people at Sodahead started a poll about the effectiveness of nude protesting which has devolved into a comments war about the value of PETA.

There are some nice naked pics accompanying the poll though if you’re bored.

On the other hand, properly staged and in the right setting a nude protest can garner needed attention to a cause. For example, in front of the president’s house while screaming about tapioca works every time.

In front of the Government House, Pitsanulok road, Bangkok, Ms. Patcharida Keeratinoppadol age 40, owner of a tapioca field named “Baan Rai Chaiyapan” in Amphur Dankhoonthod, Nakornratchasima province proteted againsts the governments pledging of 10 million tons of tapioca by taking off her clothes of leaving only her bra and g-string underwear and holding a poster and blaming the government’s policy.

The police try to stop her but they couldn’t. Ms. Patcharida didn’t want to submit the opposing document to the officer of the Prime Minister but she wanted to give it to the reporters only. When one reporter received her documents she put on her clothes and went home.

However, Ms. Patcharida said that she had filed a suit to the Administrative court on January 23, 2012 because she was disgruntled by the goverments approval of pledging tapioca for 10 million tons and limited pledging to 250 ton per person in the price of 2.75 THB per kg at a meeting in Chiang Mai.

This project will start from February 1 until May 31, 2012 with a totally amount of 33,000 million THB. She said that this project cannot solve the problem of the decreasing price of tapioca. The program will prompt buyers to offer even cheaper prices in order to pressure farmers into entering the program.

I bet you never knew there was such a thing as a tapioca farm until just this instant. So, her nudity served a useful purpose.

Another good cause, although slightly more risky, is stripping down to point out that your government is run by the Mafia.

Three topless Ukrainian protesters were detained Saturday while trying to break into an invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders to call attention to the needs of the world’s poor. Separately, demonstrators from the Occupy movement marched to the edge of the gathering.

After a complicated journey to reach the heavily guarded Swiss resort town of Davos, the Ukrainians arrived at the entrance to the complex where the World Economic Forum takes place every year.

With temperatures around freezing in the snow-filled town, they took off their tops and tried to climb a fence before being detained. “Crisis! Made in Davos,” read one message painted across a protester’s torso, while others held banners that said “Poor, because of you” and “Gangsters party in Davos.”

Davos police spokesman Thomas Hobi said the three women were taken to the police station and told that they weren’t allowed to demonstrate. He said they would be released later Saturday.

The activists are from the group Femen, which has become popular in Ukraine for staging small, half-naked protests to highlight a range of issues including oppression of political opposition. They have also conducted protests in some other countries.

“We came here to Switzerland to Davos to explain the position of all poor people of the world, to explain that we are poor because of these rich people who now sit in the building,” said Inna Schewcenko.

Good call holding that particular demonstration in a country where their government couldn’t just have them killed and lose the bodies.

I’ve written about Femen before. Their protests are effective because they live in a country that makes the middle east look like the Playboy mansion when it comes to equal rights for women. A radio station in the Ukraine was actually offering women as door prizes for a contest.

No, I am not kidding. Click the link to read all about it.

You can also click here to read all about Femen and what they’re trying to accomplish.

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Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!

There is a gentleman who live a couple of blocks away from me. He is, to use the common vernacular, a grade A jerk. He is also not very bright. I can sum him up with a single incident; he recently broke his leg trying to kick in the front door of a bar that had thrown him out for being drunk and disorderly. You get the idea. Anyway, yesterday, I saw him crutching – it’s my story and I’ll invent words if I want to – his way down the street towards the corner. I also noticed a nasty patch of black ice at the same corner. So, despite my more evil thoughts, I yelled a warning to him. As he was flipping me off and telling me to go and perform and anatomically impossible act on myself, he hit the black ice, flipped straight into the air and broke his other leg. It took me a moment to stop laughing but I did eventually call 911 for the guy. Mostly because I wanted to give the cops and EMTs a laugh too. Which I did and which they appreciated. As it turned out there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest so, once they got his leg all braced up, the cops were going to arrest him. His very bad day could have easily been avoided if he had an ounce of common decency. Or, if he had just stepped about 2 feet to his left. Either / or would have worked.

He would have gotten along well with the people we are going to discuss now.

Police in London arrested a man for being too fat. The reason they knew he was too fat was because he was stuck in the window of the house he was trying to rob.

British police said a burglary suspect found himself in an awkward situation when his backside became stuck in the window he was trying to enter.

Investigators said Paul Keenan, 36, tried to squeeze through the small window — measuring 12 inches by 8 inches — at a London home early Tuesday, the Daily Mirror reported Wednesday.

Police said Keenan was discovered when the home’s occupant woke up for breakfast.

Firefighters said it took about 30 minutes to free the alleged burglar.

“Oh look mumsy, the window’s trapped another burglar.”

“You’re right snookums. What should we do?”

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to ring up the Bobbies, but I would like my morning tea first.”

So, a nice cup of Earl Gray later, justice was served.

Of course it’s not only overseas that these things happen. Police in South Carolina were called to a Shoney’s, yes they still exist, to extricate a burglar there.

Police in South Carolina said a burglary suspect was stuck in a grease vent at a restaurant for more than six hours.

North Charleston police said a worker at Shoney’s restaurant called 911 at about 4:47 a.m. Monday and said she heard cries for help upon entering the closed eatery, The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier reported Tuesday.

Police said they discovered Kevin Michael Harley, 23, stuck vertically in a vent above a stove.

Harley, who police said was wearing socks on his hands to avoid leaving fingerprints, told officers he had become stuck in the vent at about 10 p.m. the previous night.

Firefighters freed Harley from the vent and he was arrested and charged with burglary in the second-degree. He was treated at a local hospital for minor injuries.

Okay, so we’ve covered fat and stupid, now let’s see what happens when we combine the two.

Police in Michigan arrested a woman who … oh, I’ll let them tell you.

A 400-pound Michigan woman was caught shoplifting when her motorized cart got stuck in the store’s door, authorities say.

Jerrie Perkins, 30, of Pontiac was attempting to leave a Meijer store in Rochester Hills with more than $600 worth of stolen electronic merchandise Tuesday night, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office told The Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens, Mich.

She set off the door alarm and hit a store employee who confronted her, authorities said. When a sheriff’s deputy arrived, she “took a fighting stance” and had to be Tasered to be subdued, the report said.

Perkins was charged with unarmed robbery, resisting and obstructing a police officer and second-degree retail fraud. Her bond was set at $15,000 at her arraignment Thursday.

She’s an entire episode of Springer all by herself. Heck, she might just account for a week’s worth of shows.

Now that we’ve covered all the permutations of fat and stupid, let’s move on to the unusual. Firefighters in Pennsylvania had to rescue a woman who was being eaten by an ATM.

Firefighters in Pittsburgh said they had to use a special piece of equipment to free a woman whose hand became stuck in an ATM while she was withdrawing cash.

Moon Run firefighters said they were called to the First Commonwealth machine in Robinson Monday to free a woman whose hand was stuck in the ATM, WPXI-TV, Pittsburgh, reported Thursday.

Fire Chief Paul Kashmer said the firefighters used a special tool to free the woman.

First Commonwealth Bank released a statement in response to the incident.

“As a community bank, First Commonwealth’s primary concern is to provide a safe, convenient banking experience for our clients. We understand that the recent injury was a minor one and we are grateful that our client is OK,” the statement said.

How long do you think it took that bank executive to stop laughing before he or she could write that? My guess is about twenty minutes.

This next story is a stunner. A woman in Weymouth England was trapped in an elevator for over an hour because … wait for it …. no one was authorized to touch the button that would have freed her.

Company officials disputed a woman’s claim she was stuck in a British supermarket elevator while waiting for a trained technician to arrive and press a button.

Janice Woodward, 55, of Dorset says she and her 2-year-old granddaughter were trapped in the elevator for well over an hour because store employees said they weren’t authorized to push the button that would have freed them.

“I was in there for an hour and 15 minutes and I had visions of being in there forever,” Woodward told The Sunday Star. “When the technician got there he just touched the control button and the lift moved.”

Woodward said she rang for help but the workers at the Asda store in Weymouth said they were prohibited by safety regulations from pushing the button that would have released the stalled elevator car.

An Asda spokeswoman said the technician actually arrived within 20 minutes and needed another 30 minutes to work on the machinery before the button could be pushed.

Dear Asda spokeswoman; quit while you’re ahead. You are not making things any better for yourself right now.

Speaking of not making things any better, school officials in Boca Raton Florida purchased money saving waterless urinals. Which completely rotted due to the fact that there was no water to wash away the urine. Which led to ….

Officials say they have started repairs on the waterless urinals at a Florida high school after they began springing leaks of liquids that were not water.

Students and staff at Spanish River High in Boca Raton have been dealing with rivers of urine flowing across restroom floors from holes in corroded pipes.

“It was seeping through the hallway into the classroom next door,” student Caleb Rader, 15, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Pretty disgusting.”

Palm Beach County school officials said the problem was caused by corrosive gases created by urine that have eaten away the copper plumbing over the years. The lack of water in the waterless systems means the urine isn’t flushed away, allowing the fumes to build up in the system.

The result has been leaks inside the walls at Spanish River High and trickles appearing in the most inconvenient places.

Palm Beach County is negotiating with the vendor on the cost of the repairs at a total of four schools, which will run about $500,000.

Okay, show of hands, how many people think that waterless urinals are a good idea?

How many people think that “corrosive urine gases” is a great name for a band?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TTceYEJif4&w=560&h=315]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!

You all know that one person who listens to the bunnies in their head before making any decision. You’ll find them in supermarkets carefully perusing the Weekly World News for facts as they check their horoscope before embarking on any errand. They will often, in that cute way they have that borders on – yet misses wildly – lucidity, make declarations that will flatly contradict anything they said seconds ago. And, should you be silly enough to point that out they will immediately proclaim “so you’re one of them too.” In the pantheon of disturbia they call minds, everything they say is a deft syllogism and everything they think makes sense. The fact they are wrong on all counts somehow manages to elude them. But, for the most part, these people are harmless. They just want to be left to their talking bunnies and live out their days in solitude. For the most part. However, every now and then one of them sneaks through and manages to ensconce themselves in some position of authority. Usually as a counter clerk at a video store but, sometimes, as head of the FDA. Or very close to head of the FDA.

For those of you new to this country the FDA is the Food and Drug Administration. It has wide powers and answers only to itself and, on occasion, the U.S. Congress. It’s job is to keep food safe for people to eat. As I noted yesterday, it does a lousy job of that. In fact, of all the industrialized nations, we rank near the bottom when it comes to food safety. At this point we may as well list uranium as a food group and be done with it.

However, not content to merely be the laughing stock of the world when it comes to health and safety, my buddy Mike Flores notes that the FDA kicked it up a notch by declaring that walnuts are an illegal drug.

No, I am not high. And neither are the people at The New American.

Seen any walnuts in your medicine cabinet lately? According to the Food and Drug Administration, that is precisely where you should find them. Because Diamond Foods made truthful claims about the health benefits of consuming walnuts that the FDA didn’t approve, it sent the company a letter declaring, “Your walnut products are drugs” — and “new drugs” at that — and, therefore, “they may not legally be marketed … in the United States without an approved new drug application.” The agency even threatened Diamond with “seizure” if it failed to comply.

Diamond’s transgression was to make “financial investments to educate the public and supply them with walnuts,” as William Faloon of Life Extension magazine put it. On its website and packaging, the company stated that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts have been shown to have certain health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease and some types of cancer. These claims, Faloon notes, are well supported by scientific research: “Life Extension has published 57 articles that describe the health benefits of walnuts”; and “The US National Library of Medicine database contains no fewer than 35 peer-reviewed published papers supporting a claim that ingesting walnuts improves vascular health and may reduce heart attack risk.”

This evidence was apparently not good enough for the FDA, which told Diamond that its walnuts were “misbranded” because the “product bears health claims that are not authorized by the FDA.”

The FDA’s letter continues: “We have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease.” Furthermore, the products are also “misbranded” because they “are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes.” Who knew you had to have directions to eat walnuts?

“The FDA’s language,” Faloon writes, “resembles that of an out-of-control police state where tyranny [reigns] over rationality.” He adds:

This kind of bureaucratic tyranny sends a strong signal to the food industry not to innovate in a way that informs the public about foods that protect against disease. While consumers increasingly reach for healthier dietary choices, the federal government wants to deny food companies the ability to convey findings from scientific studies about their products.

Walnuts aren’t the only food whose health benefits the FDA has tried to suppress. Producers of pomegranate juice and green tea, among others, have felt the bureaucrats’ wrath whenever they have suggested that their products are good for people.

Meanwhile, Faloon points out, foods that have little to no redeeming value are advertised endlessly, often with dubious health claims attached. For example, Frito-Lay is permitted to make all kinds of claims about its fat-laden, fried products, including that Lay’s potato chips are “heart healthy.” Faloon concludes that “the FDA obviously does not want the public to discover that they can reduce their risk of age-related disease by consuming healthy foods. They prefer consumers only learn about mass-marketed garbage foods that shorten life span by increasing degenerative disease risk.”

Faloon thinks he knows why this is the case. First, by stifling competition from makers of more healthful alternatives, junk food manufacturers, who he says “heavily lobb[y]” the federal government for favorable treatment, will rake in ever greater profits. Second, by making it less likely that Americans will consume healthful foods, big pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers stand to gain by selling more “expensive cardiac drugs, stents, and coronary bypass procedures” to those made ill by their diets.

But people are starting to fight back against the FDA’s tactics. “The makers of pomegranate juice, for example, have sued the FTC for censoring their First Amendment right to communicate scientific information to the public,” Faloon reports. Congress is also getting into the act with a bill, the Free Speech About Science Act (H.R. 1364), that, Faloon writes, “protects basic free speech rights, ends censorship of science, and enables the natural health products community to share peer-reviewed scientific findings with the public.”

That sounds like it was written by the people who talk to their inner bunnies but it wasn’t. Walnuts are being threatened by the FDA. Your granny’s fruitcake could become contraband. Not to mention your favorite ice cream toppings could be listed as a toxic threat. You could do hard time for that pecan pie.

I know, I know, that sounds nuts – if you’ll pardon the phrase – but it is the sanest thing the FDA’s done recently.

No, I didn’t write that wrong. They recently raided an elderberry plant and seized its wanton elderberry juice.

Until just now you’d never given a second thought to elderberry juice. Now you have to have some.

Wyldewood Cellars, a Kansas-based producer and distributor of elderberry juice, is the latest raid target of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which recently sent US marshals to the company’s winery in Mulvane to confiscate the “unapproved drug.” According to the rogue agency, Wyldewood had violated provisions in the US Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) that restrict health claims for food items, warranting the sudden invasion.

According to Barry Grissom, US Attorney for Kansas, the FDA sent a warning letter to Wyldewood in 2006 to remove or modify certain health claims that it said were in violation of federal law, but the company did not comply. FDA officials claim that Wyldewood continued to make unapproved claims, and that seizing the product was the next step.

However, John Brewer, co-founder of Wyldewood, says that after receiving the initial FDA warning letter, his company hired a consultant familiar with FDA regulations to help his company reword their product descriptions. After making the appropriate changes, and clarifying that the elderberry products in question were supplements, Brewer says his company had done what it needed to in order to be in compliance.

“We haven’t heard anything from (the FDA) since,” he told reporters, noting that following the changes up until the raid, the FDA had ceased communicating with Wyldewood. “They’ve been in our facility multiple times. It’s like, ‘C’mon guys, we changed our label, we changed everything we thought we were supposed to do.’ And then they show up and do this. (Supplements) seems to be one of their hot buttons these days.”

This tactic, of course, has become all too common in recent years. A company receives a warning letter from the FDA, makes the appropriate changes, never hears anything further from the FDA, and out of nowhere gets raided. Such actions on behalf of the FDA are ultimately unwarranted and illegal, and the offended parties have every right to sue the agency for damages.

“You think you are doing things correctly, and there hasn’t been any word, and all of a sudden you get this,” said Brewer to The Kansas City Star.

To learn more about the legitimate health benefits of elderberry, visit: http://www.naturalnews.com/elderberry.html

While they were at it they also seized about 14% of the nation’s orange juice and the okayed giving dangerous drugs to feed animals.

Don’t you feel safer already?

My personal favorite move by the FDA is their legalizing drugs for asthmatics that cause more fatalities than asthma alone.

Before you get all Obama this or Obama that or even Bush this or Bush that, the FDA has been like this since around 1985. That was when President Reagan greatly expanded their scope. I believe that he did it with the best of intentions. Advances in science were far outpacing the government’s ability to keep up with them and regulation was painfully spotty, if it existed at all.

But, clearly, all that power has gone to their head. That would be the same head that is obviously housing the aforementioned talking bunnies. I do not blame the president for this mess but I wouldn’t mind if he took a moment out of his busy day to walk down the hall and bitch-slap a few of these fools and then make them fix this mess.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGL2rytTraA&w=560&h=315]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!

In my time here at World News Center I have railed against the complete insanity of putting the pretend food at McDonald’s into your body. More often than not you’d be better served just eating the Styrofoam and washing it down with Draino. And let’s face facts, it’s not like I live a healthy lifestyle. Beer, bourbon and babes comprise my daily diet. Oh, okay, I will toss down the occasional burrito to keep a sense of balance. But even that lifestyle is healthier than McDonald’s food. Meat that does not decay, chicken cleansed with bleach and additives that, taken alone, could cause fatal illnesses do not inspire confidence. And yet Americans line up 3 deep to go nom nom nom and chow down on this crap. And how much food is in that little wrapper you’re handed? Try this; take a 4 oz. steak, 3 oz. of fresh lettuce and tomato and 4 oz.’ of pasta with an ounce of alfredo sauce. You now have the equivalent of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. That does not include fries or anything else. That’s just looking at the carbs and content of the sandwich and splitting it out into a healthy alternative. If you sat down to the meal I just described you would be full at the end. Not so much so with the sandwich since your body isn’t processing it right away. It’s just a big lump that arrived all at once. So you’re still hungry and it’s off to the counter you go to get an apple pie and a shake or something else.

McDonald’s will point out that it’s not their job to make sure Americans eat healthy. And they are 100% correct. They will also point out that it is government health regulations that force them to add so many additives and stuff to their food and also it’s the only way to turn a profit because without all that stuff the cost would go through the roof.

Fortunately for the common people there is a crusader out there who has deep pockets and a vision of a world where fast food can also be good food. This company has put their money where their beliefs lie and has begun serving only locally grown foods wherever possible and supplementing them with only the highest quality and freshest items.

And they’ve been turning a tidy profit to boot.

Who are these great crusaders for a better world?

McDonald’s.

Greetings from McDonald’s, or “MacDo,” as they call it here in Paris, where I am comfortably ensconced in a McCafé enjoying a croissant and a grand crème coffee. I’m surrounded by people of all ages who are talking with friends, reading, or typing away on their laptops like me.

The beauty of McDonald’s in France is that it doesn’t feel like a fast food joint, where hordes of people shuffle in and out and tables turn at a fast clip.

McDonalds is the world’s largest food chain. It operates in 123 countries around the world, and just this week the company said it plans to open another 1,300 restaurants in 2012.

Naturally, the U.S. is its no. 1 market, but guess who is no. 2? You got it: France. A paper out this month by three graduates of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business says McDonald’s is such a success in the land of Michelin three-star restaurants because it has adapted to French eating habits and tastes. There are now 1,200 franchises in France; the company opened 30 restaurants per year in the past five years alone.

Even in these harried times, the French spend more than two hours a day at the table. Sitting down to a meal is a cornerstone of French culture, and McDonald’s seems to get that. French McDonald’s are spacious, tastefully decorated restaurants that encourage people to take their time while eating. And the cozy McCafe’s with their plush chairs and sofas have become an extension to many restaurants.

I remember there used to be a few Burger Kings in Paris, but McDonald’s closest competitor went belly up years ago. The Wharton study says it’s because they tried to transplant the total American dining experience to France, without taking into consideration French preferences.

McDonald’s, meanwhile, offers all kinds of Frenchified dishes, from the Alpine burger with three different kinds of cheese to tasty little gallette des rois, or King’s Cakes, popular after Christmas and sold by all the bakeries. Last year, it introduced the McBaguette.

Another reason McDonald’s works so well here is that the food is locally sourced and very high quality. As we all know, France is the land of haute cuisine. But it’s also the land of good cuisine. The French appreciate quality in any category, even fast food. Restaurateurs in France know they’ll go bust if they offer substandard products. I’ve had friends from India tell me that the Indian restaurants in Paris are among the world’s best.

And if you like good meat (who doesn’t?!), then McDonald’s France is clearly superior. In the U.S., McDonald’s says its cattle are mostly corn-fed. While the company doesn’t address on its site whether growth hormones and growth-promoting antibiotics are added to the animal feed consumed by the animals it buys, it’s a reasonable assumption that they are.

French cattle are all grass fed, which many argue makes them tastier. Growth hormones are illegal here and each animal has a passport showing where it was born, raised, and slaughtered, according to McDonald’s France. That’s called traceability, and we don’t yet have such a national system in place.

As for chicken nugget lovers, French chickens, unlike some of their American counterparts, are not rinsed in chlorine to disinfect them. The regular use of chlorine in the U.S. chicken industry is why poulet americain has long been interdit in the European Union.

Of course you can still find French people who dislike McDonald’s because it represents American hegemony in a globalized world and the homogenization of food and culture. French anti-globalization activist Jose Bove actually served prison time a couple years back for sacking a McDonald’s restaurant in southern France. For a friend of mine who lives in Burgundy — pretty much the French heartland — MacDo is the symbol of malbouffe, or bad food and bad eating — a major slur here. He says he’d never take his two young sons to eat chez Ronald.

But this McDonald’s in Paris’ 15th arrondissement is brimming with parents who’ve brought their kids in for lunch. There’s a good dose of teenagers too. Like teenyboppers back home, French adolescents, or ados, love to hang out at MacDo — they just gather in the café instead of the parking lot.

I’m not a big fan of France, I’ve been there a few times and can think of many other ways to get insulted for far less cost. That being said, I have eaten in the McDonald’s in Canne. The first thing I noticed was that the food tasted like food. There were real flavors. Also, instead of the standard yellow mustard there were several varieties of Dijon. The whole cost of the meal was about twenty cents more than the same meal here.

Now, the big question, could it work here? My guess is yes. The loco-vore movement, demanding better access to locally and organically grown foods, has grown every year. I try and get to as many of their events as I can to pick up fresh veggies and meats. If you’ve ever had fresh killed chicken on a farm you know that it bears little resemblance to the bland slab of whiteness that passes for chicken these days.

To make it work our government would have to stop sucking the big toe of companies like Monsanto and allow farmers to grow healthy food. I know that sentence reads odd but that is the situation we find ourselves in. Food grown organically, without gene splicing or chemical alteration, is severely limited in its marketability under current regulations. The situation was completely reversed until the 1970’s.

Then you could only buy foods “in season.” Hot houses extended some of those seasons but, for the most part, you based your shopping on what you knew would be around. There were winter recipes and summer recipes and so on. It sounds quaint because it is. But it also guaranteed that you were only eating food that had been grown naturally.

And, since we truly are what we eat, isn’t it best we eat foods that aren’t lethal?

Now sit back and enjoy a video my friend Marcie (about 50 seconds in, pink dress) and her friend put together to show what joys a kitchen can hold.

And they’re all good for you.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-QMNQup360&w=420&h=315]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!

Over the last few weeks we have been picking up more and more readers from Asia. Specifically India. First off, to all of them, welcome. We love having new faces around here. And it is certainly fun getting emails from new readers. However, yesterday, after I called the Wizard of Ed to see if there was a way to auto-translate the site into accurate Hindi (he’s going to get right back to me on that), I received an email from one of our new readers that left me completely flummoxed. Mr. Patel, not his real name, wanted me to explain Florida to him. I think I’d rather explain quantum string theory to a four year old. Where do you begin? Oh well, I’ll give it a shot. Florida is actually two states. The first state is the collection of tourist attractions known to many and which is populated primarily by people who range from upper middle class to filthy rich. Their children tend to end up in Girls Gone Wild videos and then get jobs on Wall Street. The second state, which is what we usually write about, is a glorious celebration of all that is wrong with humanity. If there is a way to humiliate yourself, they not only have done it they’ve done it twice just to make sure they enjoyed it.

By way of example, let’s take a look at the case of Michael Lee Mitchell. While there are tons of examples of bad parents, I bet you even know a few, there is only one that I know of that involved electric dog collars and marathons.

A 28-year-old man was arrested Tuesday and charged with using a dog shock collar to punish two young girls.

Michael Lee Mitchell, was charged with two counts of child abuse without great harm, according to an arrest report from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.

Mitchell punished an eight-year-old girl by making her do extreme physical activity until she vomited, according to the Sheriff’s Office. He called the punishment “suicides” and it included running, flutter kicks, push-ups and sit-ups.

Mitchell also placed a dog shock collar around the girl’s arm after threatening to put it around her neck, according to the report.

The girl told deputies that when she would stop running, Mitchell would shock her until she began running again.

The eight-year-old said at one point Mitchell could not see her and she took off the collar and ran into the woods, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

Mitchell used the dog collar on the eight-year-old at least three times over the last three months, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

Mitchell admitted to also putting the dog collar around a four-year-old girl’s waist and shocking her for bad behavior, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Mitchell also told deputies that he forced one of the children to run alongside his car for at least three miles as a form of punishment.

Oh, wait, they’re not even his kids. That’s right, someone thought it was a good idea to let him care for these children. Despite their pleas.

That is so Florida.

Or, you hear stories all the time of people who have their dogs stolen. That is very sad and also so very “last week” for criminals in Florida as evidenced by the story of Catherine Warren.

A 57-year-old woman was charged with stealing a dog from a 10-year-old girl who was walking the animal, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.

About 4:20 p.m. Monday, the girl had just grabbed the pit bull by its collar after it had run from her and into Pride Park, when Catherine Warren drove up to the girl and started yelling that it was obvious the dog was being abused and needed to be taken away from here, according to a news release.

When Warren couldn’t take the dog away, she pushed the girl to the ground and fled with the dog, the sheriff’s office said.

Deputies later located Warren and arrested her on a robbery charge.

The news release did not whether the dog had been recovered.

Warren was being held without bond at the Manatee County jail.

Ah yes, because beating up a ten year old girl just adds to the joy you feel when committing a dog napping.

As noted above, so very Florida.

Lots of kids run away when they’re young. But only in Florida does the mom pack their back packs and send them out the door.

Jayme Beall says her 9-year-old son’s cursing at her set her off, according to a sheriff’s arrest report.

The 30-year-old woman ordered her 9- and 13-year-old sons out of their home at 7 p.m. Monday and give them backpacks she stuffed with clothing.

Unknown to her, they somehow fled to their great grandmother’s house in Boynton Beach.

When Beal went outside, she couldn’t find the boys and called 911, 20 minutes after telling them to leave their home in the Pineview Mobile Home Park in the 3200 block of South U.S. 1.

The Sheriff’s Office brought in search dogs and air surveillance. Neither youth could be found in the neighborhood or adjoining woods.

Investigators quoted her as saying she had no idea where they went because she has no relatives in the area. Until recently they had lived in Port St. Lucie, where her older son had tried to run away.

She described the middle school student as having a history of acting violently toward her.

Five hours after the 911 call, investigators found the boys in Boynton Beach. Deputies charged her with a felony charge of child abuse and took her to the St. Lucie County Jail.

Oh the number of things wrong with this woman would take too long to summarize here. All I can say is that you need a license to drive a car, to buy a gun, heck, even to fish. I see no reason there shouldn’t be a simple license required before people can procreate.

Before we go on, allow me to share my own story about U.S. 1 in Florida. I was about nine years old when my uncle, a native Floridian, wanted to have sex with my aunt. He also had a couple of rounds of bourbon in him at the time. Yeah, he was the guy babysitting me. Anyway, he told me to go play in traffic on U.S. 1. He said it was what all the local kids did for fun. So, about a half hour later this nice state trooper pulls up next to me and asks what I’m doing in the middle of a highway with no median. I tell him. He calmly helps me pack up my Hot Wheels and loads me into the nice squad car and takes me back to see my uncle. Whom he promptly arrested. My mom bailed him out when she got back but things were a touch tense between the families for a while after that.

As it turns out, he lied. None of the other kids played there at all.

Speaking of Florida police who drive squad cars, a teen in Orange Park walked past a squad car to break into the home of the officer who lived there. No need to share this story since you know how it turns out. This kids bruises have bruises.

But this next story is quintessential Florida. It has everything. It has two jealous women. It has a knife fight. It has …. super breast implants!

A Brevard County woman said on Tuesday her breast implant saved her life after it absorbed the blow when she was stabbed with a pocket knife.

The victim, who doesn’t want to be named, said her ex-fiancé’s new girlfriend, Amy Winter, attacked her outside of his Melbourne apartment.

Police said Winter first scratched the victim’s car, then turned the knife on the victim, stabbing her repeatedly in the left side of her chest.

“It happened so fast. I’m like, ‘Put down the knife.’ I look down, and I was covered in blood,” the victim said.

The victim said she realized the knife had punctured the implant and she was soaked with saline.

Doctors said the stab victim’s breast implant had just enough saline in it to stop the knife from piercing through her chest.

The 41-year-old victim said that the decision to spend $6,000 on breast augmentation three months ago might’ve been the best move she ever made.

“It was just really lucky. Just think about it, three months ago, if it happened to her, she would have been dead,” said the woman’s doctor, Dr. Frank Filiberto, of Artful Awakenings.

Doctors said the implant prevented a deadly blow.

“When you stab it, it gives a little. It probably gave and couldn’t get through it, then it went through it and couldn’t go through the back wall. She would have had a collapsed lung or (the knife would have) hit her heart,” Filiberto said.

Filiberto said that in his 30 years of cosmetic surgery, this is a first, and it gives him a whole new outlook.

“If this saves lives, there’s nothing wrong with passing a law that everyone should have breast prosthesis,” Filiberto said as a joke.

The kind of damage the victim had to her breast implants isn’t typically covered by warranty, but because the patient is a victim of a crime, the manufacturer said it will cover the cost.

Now, let’s take the chain of events, shall we? She was at her ex-fiancé’s place, probably not a good thing, where she was attacked by his new girlfriend. With a pen knife. Which gets us all the way to the point that there’s a plastic boob palace in Florida named Artful Awakenings.

I remind you now what they call the guy who graduates last in his class in medical school.

Doctor.

This last article sums up Florida perfectly. I’ll let you read it first before I comment.

A woman was standing in front of a movie dispenser at Walmart when she heard another customer say, “Hey, what are you doing?” reports the Orlando Sentinel.

She then saw a man, later identified as Lorenzo Adan Ramirez, 24, acting “like nothing had happened, holding a black smart phone” — before he fled, according to an arrest report.

He was caught because he also was videotaped: Security cams had footage of him and his car’s license plate.

Ladies, just stick to pants when you go shopping so you don’t have to worry about these pervs.

Fort Myers: Man accused of taking cellphone videos under a woman’s skirt at Walmart
.
Fort Myers: Man accused of up-skirting shares his method with deputies

Holly Hill Walmart: Man admitted taking ‘‘up-skirt’ photos, cops say

Lake Mary: Man hides camera in his shoe at Target — watch out for that left foot

Ocala Target: Video voyeur up-skirts a granny. A granny!

Orlando Home Depot: Man took up-skirt footage of mom at Home Depot, deputies say

Tampa Bay: Man may have ‘up-skirted’ thousands of women using a shoe camera

Orlando Target: Man up-skirts woman

Ah yes, it’s the victim’s fault for wearing a skirt. That is a very Floridian attitude. But the best part of this is that they list all the best places to go look up women’s skirts. Yeah kids, just head on over to the Home Depot in Orlando and you’ll get some of the best up-skirt video you could ever want.

Don’t forget the Target on Ocala or the Walmart in Holly Hill, both fine examples of places where perverts are welcome.

Gee-yiminy.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASgldCcWjRo&w=420&h=315]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!