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Comment by chris123 | Hacker News Reader

A few excerpts:

- confidential grinding records

- hamburgers made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together

- processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.

- those low-grade ingredients are cut from areas of the cow that are more likely to have had contact with feces

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I think the most important excerpt from the article:

- slaughterhouses and grinders are resisting testing their ingredients for E. coli, because it costs too much

- they also blacklist customers who do their own testing

- U.S.D.A., the federal agency regulating the industry, is not requiring proper testing, instead they issue recommendations the large companies mostly ignore

- U.S.D.A has not imposed any type of sanctions for food safety violations regarding E. coli outbreaks at facilities dealing with ground beef

Agreed. For some reason all this makes me want to throw this out there:

This "resistance" and "blacklist" and "regulator not regulating" shit (fitting word, given this topic) sounds familiar. Isn't it the same song they play on Wall Street and in Washington... the song that lead us the "financial crisis"?

I am sick of politicians and regulators being in bed with lobbyists and corporations instead of looking after us.

And I'm sick of the rest of us fucking taking it. Why are people not standing up for each other, saying they're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore (to borrow a phrase)?

I'll close my mini-rant by posting this link to a HuffPo article that comes to mind: "Common Sense 2009" by Larry Flint (yes, that Larry Flint): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-flynt/common-sense-2009_...

I'm sick of reading the same damn complaint over and over and over again. I could take it -- I expected it -- when it was just reddit, but somehow the theoretically more level-headed Hacker News community has decided that it too needs to incessantly talk about lobbyists.

We get it -- the political system has fucked-up incentives. Duh. SHUT UP.

STFU, perhaps.

But wouldn't it be wonderful to hack our government to effect change in same (think wikileaks meets The Daily Show). We could have transparency via open source tools and translate public knowledge to public action.

All we need are public records for every public penny spent in an open format. There might be some difficulties in getting that....

Wow, angry man. Just shut up and take our ass-f--king. Smart.

Why are you telling us about it? Why don't you be the leader? Let us know what we can do to help you in the plan you've developed to solve the problem.

Clearly he doesn't have the millions of dollars and high class lawyers and lobbyists that the meat companies have. Individuals can do little to combat such huge companies.

What can he, or any one of us, do? We might start a website condemning the companies for their practices, we might write senators or try to get laws passed, but American government is not a true democracy, and it is not really ruled by the people.

The businesses have far too much power for individuals to fight effectively.

Of course this is my own pessimistic view, but I believe it is realistic.

We can take it to the streets. You may think I'm kidding; I'm not. http://twitpic.com/k8qjl (Banksy street art: "change")

I definitely approve of Banksy but you have to admit that graffiti street art doesn't change much. The big corporations are just going to laugh, say "how cute", and then pressure the local government to destroy the graffiti art because it is vandalism. Many of Banksy's art pieces have been removed in that very manner.

Yes, I was talking about people taking it to the streets, not th Banksy, which was/is just an image I like, regardless of if he's "sold out," as they say. Sorry for any confusion. For me, anyway, this horse is pretty well dead and beaten, so I leave it to you guys to carry on. Real and rehotorical question: Would you participate in a mass protest standing up for others? Have you? Will you? How about organize one? Would/have/will/am now? If we don't stand up for each other... You know how that story ends (See "First they came").

Banksy is a mainstream commercial artist now, he sells his work at Sotheby's, who mainly deal in traditional oil paintings. Was his "graffiti" just a clever marketing campaign?

I think it was a little bit of both: half clever marketing campaign, half a plea for change and an exposure of corruption.

I live in Sweden, now (from Washington, DC, where I made these http://tr.im/ADXe after Bush's "re-election"). I'm just trying to stir the pot from here :) -Chris PS: "Mad as hell" speech from "Network": http://tr.im/madashellvideo (YouTube)

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