Why McDonald’s Isn’t Free of Trans Fat:

Why McDonald’s Isn’t Free of Trans Fat
Public opinion is swinging against the use of the artery-clogging fat. But it’s hard for some companies to give up the habit

by Pallavi Gogoi

On Dec. 5, New York City’s Board of Health voted to ban the use of artery-clogging trans fats at restaurants, a major victory for health activists who have been fighting for healthier foods. Restaurants will have to stop using frying oils with trans fats by July, 2007, and eliminate trans fats from all foods by July, 2008. “New Yorkers overwhelmingly favor action to get artificial trans fat out of their restaurants,” says Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden.

Companies such as McDonald’s (MCD) are expected to comply with the city’s vote by converting their restaurants in New York. The fast-food giant already has demonstrated that it can eliminate trans fats when required. In Denmark, the company switched the oil it uses to make French fries to one that doesn’t have any trans fat. And just last month, the food giant vowed to use the healthier oil in 6,300 other restaurants in Europe.

Google News:

Stents’ Day in the Sun
TheStreet.com – 1 hour ago
By Althea Chang. A Food and Drug Administration panel is slated to review safety data on the use of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ – commentary – Cramer’s Take) and Boston Scientific’s (BSX – commentary – Cramer’s …

Daily Kos: Bush did NOT know there was difference between Sunni & Shiite Muslims until Jan ’03:

n case you missed it like me, here’s more proof our president is in over his head, a national security risk. According to Peter Galbraith former U.S. diplomat on a Channel 4 special aired Nov 21, Bush didn’t know there was a difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims as late as January 2003. The report (link to video at the Dossier below) has a lot more …here’s the part where Bush shows again how in over his head he really is.

Oborne: I traveled to Boston to meet a former U.S. diplomat who had been a leading authority on Iraq for over a decade. A chance remark made just two months before the war, hinted at how the complexities of Iraq had bewildered Americans at the highest levels.

Peter Galbraith – former U.S. diplomat: January 2003 the President invited three members of the Iraqi opposition to join him to watch the Super Bowl. In the course of the conversation the Iraqis realized that the President was not aware that there was a difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. He looked at them and said, “You mean…they’re not, you know, there, there’s this difference. What is it about?”

continuing with Galbraith:

For the United States to launch a war where the president is not aware of this very fundamental difference between Sunni and Shiite Arabs is really stunning. It’s a bit like the U.S. president intervening in Ireland and being unaware that there are two schools of Christianity – Catholics and Protestants. -snip-

Oborne: It’s perfectly clear that neither Tony Blair here in London or George Bush in Washington had the faintest idea what to do after the invasion of Iraq.

Video of the report from the Dossier

Dispatches – Iraq: The Reckoning — Peter Oborne reports on the West’s exit strategy for Iraq. He believes the invasion of Iraq is proving to be the greatest foreign policy failure since Munich. Oborne argues that the plan to transform Iraq into a unified liberal democracy, a beacon of hope in the Middle East, is pure fantasy

From Channel 4 Dispatches: Iraq: the Reckoning Peter Oborne, political editor of the Spectator, reports on the West’s exit strategy for Iraq. He believes the invasion of Iraq is proving to be the greatest foreign policy failure since Munich. Oborne argues that the plan to transform Iraq into a unified liberal democracy, a beacon of hope in the Middle East, is pure fantasy. Reporting on location with US troops in Sadr City, and through interviews with leading figures in Britain and the US, Oborne argues that the coalition and its forces on the ground are increasingly irrelevant in determining the future of Iraq – a future that’s unlikely to be either unified, liberal or democratic.

The film includes interviews with Richard Perle, Peter Galbraith, Deputy Chief of Army staff General Jack Keane. Oborne also interviews Rory Stewart, who worked as a deputy governor in Nasyriah and witnessed first hand the rise of the pro-Iranian fundamentalist parties that are now at the heart of the Iraqi government.

Tags: George W. Bush, Iraq war (all tags)

The Volokh Conspiracy – Can You Tell a Sunni from a Shiite?::

Anderson (mail) (www):
but do policy makers and administrators really need to know the origin of the split in Islam?

Love the spin here. That’s not what Stein asked. A functioning knowledge of how the Sunni/Shiite split works in today’s politics was enough to win the lollipop.

The FBI official didn’t even know that Iran and Hezbollah were Shiite.

For that matter, I’m nothing but a health-care attorney, with two kids, who glances over the paper and the blogs more days of the week than not … and somehow, over the past 5 years, I’ve managed to pick up a rough notion of the origins of the Sunni/Shiite split, let alone the lineup in today’s Middle East. And it ain’t even my job to know it.

At some point, defending the pathetic becomes pathetic itself.

Rolling Stone : Iran: The Next War:

A few years later, after Reagan was elected, Ledeen had become prominent enough to earn a spot as a consultant to the National Security Council alongside Feith. There he played a central role in the worst scandal of Reagan’s presidency: the covert deal to provide arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages being held in Lebanon

Is the FBI doing its best to combat terrorism? – Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit – MSNBC.com:

Is the FBI doing its best to combat terrorism?
Highest-ranking Arab-American agent says no, sues for discrimination
By Lisa Myers, Jim Popkin & the NBC News Investigative Unit
Updated: 7:30 p.m. ET Dec 4, 2006

WASHINGTON – Bassem Youssef is the FBI’s highest-ranking Arab-American agent. He’s fluent in Arabic, ran the FBI’s offices in Saudi Arabia and is a terrorism expert. In fact, Youssef’s undercover work helping to infiltrate the terror organization of the so-called “blind sheik,” Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, earned him the intelligence community’s most-prestigious award, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal.

But now, for the first time, Youssef is speaking out against the agency he loves.

“I don’t believe that the FBI’s doing everything it can to combat terrorism,” the 18-year FBI veteran tells NBC News.

Though he’s one of only six FBI agents with advanced Arabic skills, Youssef believes that, since 9/11, the FBI has blocked him from playing a significant role in the war on terror. He claims discrimination, and sued the FBI in 2003.

“To be totally set aside, blackballed since 9/11, makes absolutely no sense,” he says.

Beyond Youssef’s own employment claims, depositions of nearly a dozen top FBI officials in his case have exposed what critics say are serious shortcomings in the FBI’s approach to counterterrorism. The taped depositions, which have never been aired before, seem to reveal a stunning lack of knowledge about some terrorism basics.

Terrorism 101
Dale Watson, now retired, was the FBI’s top counterterrorism official before and after 9/11.

In a deposition taken on Dec. 8, 2004, Youssef’s lawyer Stephen Kohn asked Watson: “Do you know who Osama bin Laden’s spiritual leader was?”

Watson: Can’t recall.

Lawyer: And do you know the differences in the religion between Shiite and Sunni Muslims?

Watson: Not technically, no.

John Lewis was until recently the FBI’s deputy assistant director of counterterrorism. During his deposition on May 17, 2005, he was asked if he knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis.

Lewis: You know, generally. Not very well.

Lawyer: Was there any relationship between the first World Trade Center bombing and the 9/11 attacks?

Lewis: I’m aware of no immediate relationship other than all emanates out of the Middle East, al-Qaida linkage, I believe. Not something I’ve studied recently that I’m conversant with.

Counterterrorism experts say such apparent ignorance of the enemy is alarming.

“Not knowing these basic tenets is symptomatic of a lack of deep knowledge about your principal adversary, and that is unacceptable,” says Michael Sheehan, an NBC News terrorism analyst.

Senior FBI officials argue on the tapes that it’s not necessary to have expertise in Arab culture — even in terrorism — to run the FBI’s war on terror. It’s leadership that matters most, they say.

“The subject-matter expertise is helpful, but it is not a prerequisite. That’s not what I look for,” said Gary Bald, the former executive assistant director for the National Security Branch of the FBI, in his March 14, 2005, deposition.

However, Youssef says expertise is critical in evaluating threats, recruiting informants and allocating resources.

NBC News: You’re saying the biggest problem is the FBI still doesn’t have the expertise to effectively fight the war on terror?

Youssef: Yes, I believe that is the case. If you can’t get inside the mind of the enemy, we will never succeed.

Five years after 9/11, critics say the FBI has been slow to hire agents with Arabic skills or knowledge. In fact, only 33 of the FBI’s 12,000 agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, the agency says. Until recently, new agents used to get just two hours of Arabic culture training at the FBI facility in Quantico, Va. They now receive 12 hours of instruction in Islam and the evolution of militant Islamic ideology, plus much more extensive counterterrorism training.

FBI spokesman John Miller concedes that subject-matter expertise does matter in counterterrorism.

“To have that depth of subject-matter expertise and the executive and leadership skills is certainly a plus,” Miller says.

Miller adds that while top FBI officials may not have been able to pass a lawyer’s pop quiz version of Jihad Jeopardy, the FBI has brought in and trained a new generation of agents and supervisors with years of frontline experience handling terror cases.

“To ask them to go back and pick out details from cases from years ago, or other questions that I refer to as kind of Trivial Pursuit, they have analysts working for them who have those answers cold,” Miller says. “That is not necessarily their function at the top.”

Miller adds that the FBI is working hard to increase its pool of six fluent, Arabic-speaking agents.

“It’s not enough. And it’s not for lack of trying,” he says. “But you can’t just focus on agents. We’ve tried to break down the walls between agents, analysts and language analysts. They now work as a team, and we have doubled the number of language analysts and increased by 300 percent the number of Arab speakers among them. We still need to build on those numbers, but we have vastly improved.”

Justice Department watchdog
A Justice Department watchdog recently ruled that the FBI had blocked Youssef from getting a counterterrorism job because, in part, Youssef had angered and embarrassed FBI Director Robert Mueller at a face-to-face meeting with a prominent U.S. congressman. The DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility wrote in July that Mueller and senior FBI officials were upset when Youssef complained to Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., that Youssef’s counterterrorism training and Arabic skills weren’t being used after 9/11.

The FBI says in legal filings that it never discriminated against Youssef. Miller says he can’t discuss the merits of the case because it is still in litigation. However, some FBI agents privately grumble that Youssef has an inflated sense of his own worth, and used poor judgment in taking on the FBI at the meeting with Mueller and Wolf.

Youssef says he never meant to be disloyal or to air his problems outside the family.

“I had gone through every possible channel that I could think of within the family, and nothing was done,” he says.

Youssef says he will not give up his fight.

“I think every American would do whatever they can to fight terrorism, because we will never forget 9/11,” he says. “And having worked counterterrorism for so many years and not to do it, that devastates me.”

For now, Youssef has a desk job with the FBI running a squad that analyzes links between telephone calls — a far cry from terrorism’s frontlines.

TULLYVISION – Is the FBI doing its best to combat terrorism? Highest-ranking Arab-American agent says no.:

Lawyer: Was there any relationship between the first World Trade Center bombing and the 9/11 attacks?

Lewis: I’m aware of no immediate relationship other than all emanates out of the Middle East, al-Qaida linkage, I believe. Not something I’ve studied recently that I’m conversant with.

Spinach-Artichoke Dip

Chop and drain two 10 oz. packages of frozen spinach. Add a chopped can of artichokes. Add a jar of commercial Alfredo sauce. Add a little tabasco and lemon juice. Stir it up good. This will make three soup bowls full. Freeze one and cover the other two with parmesan and bake them. Serve wid salsa, sour cream and tortilla chips. It’ll take you two days to eat both bowls but it’s best on the second day.

Shrimp Enchilada

Clean some shrimp and put them in a bowl with a can of Mexican Rotel. Put lemon or lime juice on it and a few sliced green olives or some green onions. Throw the southwest seasoning to it. Add some chopped bacon and dip your flour tortillas in the bacon grease. Put your tortillas in a baking dish and spoon the shrimp and Rotel mixture onto the tortillas. Wrap up the tortilla, top with cheese and bake.

Blackened Tilapia

Put a little balsamic vinagrette and lemon juice on some Tilapia filets. Let ’em sit in the fridge for at least an hour. Dip the filets in melted butter and cover ’em up with blackened redfish seasoning. Cook on your George Forman grill. If you cook ’em in a black iron skillet, you’ll make a mess. I don’t think it’s worth it.

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RECIPE

The Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » House Republicans blame their incompetence on Dems:

I think we all need to be a bit more sensitive here and stop offending those who have done us no harm.

I’m talking about:

1) your lying sacks of shit,
2) your fuckwits,
3) those who are batshit crazy (an ATF for me)
4) creeps (an oldie but a goodie)
5) fuckbrains (a newbie but destined to be a classic)
6) punkasses,
7) incompetent zeros
8) clowns

I’m sure there are a few that I’m forgetting but no insult is intended to them.

These people have their own problems – can’t we just leave them alone? I think calling Republicans “Republicans” is demeaning and offensive enough

Bull Moose:

The Moose gloats and kvells.

There is great joy in Mooseland. The nutroots have struck out. Joe Lieberman has prevailed. The vital center is victorious!

Read and weep, dear nutroots,

“Throughout his career, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman has proudly proclaimed himself an “independent-minded Democrat.” But in the closing days of this campaign, Mr. Lieberman added a superlative, promising to be a “very independent Democrat.”

After a brutal fall from grace in losing his party’s primary this summer, Mr. Lieberman will return to the Senate emboldened, rather than chastened. All fall, he used terms like “unshackled” and “liberated” to describe himself and called his independent candidacy a “twist of fate.” In Washington, he is unlikely to be cast out – rather, he could be courted by both sides on close votes.

“I will go to Washington beholden to no political group, but only to the people of Connecticut and my conscience,” Mr. Lieberman told supporters in his victory speech Tuesday night at the Goodwin Hotel here. He said his victory was “a declaration of independence from politics of partisanship,” adding, “I will be an independent senator, but I will not be alone.”
Yes, there is justice. Joe took a brave stand by putting country before party. Despite the fevered efforts of the McGovenites with Modems, the sensible voters of Connecticut rejected polarization and partisanship.

Don’t believe the pathetic nutroots spin. In August, they engaged in premature triumphalism believing that they vanquished the vital center. One even indicated that he had ominous plans to obliterate the organization that Joe once led. No, they did not need the dreaded establishment. All they needed were their trusted keyboards and their internet access.

Bloviating bloggers had rushed to the Nutmeg State to hop aboard the Lamont bus with laptops in hand. Indeed, the candidate was their creation. He was their central project. And this “people power” populist plutocrat poured millions of his own fortune into the race. While the nutroots are fervent, they are also cheap.

As the Moose used to say in Texas, the nutroots were all hat and no cattle. Alas, the internet emperors wear no clothes! MSM take note. Kos and Sirota are out. Gerstein and Sun are in.

Now, these tough blogosphere operatives kvetch, moan and cry. Their champion has lost and these puerile puppies complain that the loathed “establishment” did not stand by their man. They cannot handle the truth. Polarization is passe.

The central reason that the Democrats have achieved their major triumph is that they captured the center that was abandoned by the GOP. The Moose welcomes the new group of Blue Dogs.

Polarization has its limits. And Joe Lieberman will return to the Senate as the leader of the vital center. Indeed, Joe emerges ever stronger and as perhaps the most influential member of the upper chamber! By sticking to his guns, Joe wrote another chapter in Profiles in Courage.

A powerful message has been sent to the ’08 wannabees who sent Negative Ned their money and support – you can pander to the nutroots to win primaries, but you must reach out to the vital center to win a general election (even in a deep blue state). More persuasion and less comment threads, please.

The Moose deeply enjoys Kosenfreude*. And yes, Virginia, there is Joementum!

Holiday Treat From Your Friends at Tullyvision

Video: Gnarls Barkley: Gone Daddy Gone [from the St. Elsewhere LP]