Free Republic

How much free speech is there when conservative voices get their twitter accounts suspended because a small number of people with zombie accounts report “abuse” with the express purpose of suppressing that speech. The practice is common and effective. It's not right.

This sounds like a great idea, but I suspect it will only be used for Left-Leaning "Correct" posters and take-downs.
They mention "Freedom for Palestine" and LGBT issues, but nothing about PC take downers.

The girl on the right has spiked hair, the girl on the left wears a caeser hairstyle.

Yeah, I think you are right. But the clone army theory could still be true.

Then you are not looking at the photo that is posted in this thread.

Well, I am the one that posted the thread and made the image. I still don't see it. Which one do you see the beard?

This is a bigger picture: bigger

... in Columbus, Ohio

Isn't Ohio next to Minnesota? Oh well, it was a long shot. Thanks for finding the photo.

One slender thread ... someone here mentioned that it looks like someone on the Obama team.

Man there is nothing in the news today!

The girl on the right has spiked hair, the girl on the left wears a caeser hairstyle.

I don't see that. Look at how distinctively his/her sideburn sticks below the also distinctive glasses.

Lesbians got beards?

Yeah, what of it? Actually, I don't see a beard in either photo.

???

Guy? I thought it was a girl.

Oh, really? Stores & distribution centers/warehouses save no documentation? We are required by law to keep ALL shipping docs for a certain number of years, as well as every warehouse/distribution center in the USA

Maybe you and I could dial the passion back a notch or two.

Yes the BOLs have some details on them that are useful for traceability. But if you will recall, you said the farm was on each box. That is great, if you have the original carton, which you probably won't.

During the 2008 event, competent people used the current data and tried to figure out the source. The 257 sick people implicated the entire tomato industry...because the tomatoes were not the cause. I suggest that if the PTI had been implemented at the time, they would have concluded that tomatoes could not be the cause within a few days of the original sicknesses. That would have saved tens of millions of dollars in destroyed produce.

You seem like a knowledgeable guy. If you were to target (as a terrorist) the produce industry, could you not basically destroy the whole industry for months at a time? Then we are not talking about tens of millions, but many billions of dollars. Not to mention long-term damage to the industry (some people would be afraid of fresh produce.)

I know I am quibbling, but you are talking about the wrong industry. It is like the College Football and Pro Football (hey, football is football, right?). You keep talking about the Jets and the Cowboys. I am talking about the Gators and Bulldogs. The companies you mention grow massive acreage of field crops (pro football). In fact, there is almost no produce grown in Iowa, but a lot of corn, right? Produce (college football), which is much harder to grow, process and ship, is dominated by tens of thousands small(ish) farms. Dole and Delmonte might be examples that you are searching for, but they have very targeted product lines.

...ook who may be secretly (and openly) backing legislation of this nature...Archer Daniels Midland?, Cargill?, Monsanto?. Who will suffer the most lose of profit? ...

None of the companies you mentioned will earn a dime on the PTI. They have nothing to do with it. The PTI does not involve field crops (cotton, wheat, field corn, etc.) It is only fresh fruits and vegetables.

This is just more bureaucratic BS. As one who deals in ‘fresh produce shipping’ almost daily, the stores know full well EXACTLY where that product came from. It is right in the shipping documents and on every box that the product is shipped in.

I am not sure you have thought this all the way through. People don't get sick when you take the produce out of the shipping carton. And you do know they through the box away without ever recording the info that is on the box. Nor does the distribution center on receiving or on shipping. And I too have been dealing with fresh produce shipping daily...for 25 years.

IOW, this is already in effect. Why the FDA incompetents were unable to follow the breadcrumb trail is something they should have to explain.

I know it seems like it is easy. Believe me, it is awfully hard. You know how they say every person on earth can be connect to any other person with six degrees of separation? This is like that.

It is too expensive to label each piece of fruit with a serial number tied to a unit of production (very different than a simple location.) So Mrs. Smith eats a bad tomato. She reports it 5 days later to the Grocery store. The grocer has thrown away the boxes. So you have to rely on store records. The warehouse does not track which boxes of produce got sent to the store and since the boxes don't have barcodes, they cannot be scanned by the store to track them. So, the grocery store has to say it could have come from this lot, this lot, this lot or this lot on a particular day. We don't know how long the tomato sat in the store before it was purchased, so we block out 5 days. Now the grocer has implicated 25 lots. The suppliers might also have distribution facilities. They can narrow the lot down to five lots they have received. Now we have 125 companies that are the possible source of the problem. Or maybe it was a truck that was contaminated. Now, if you have multiple sick people, you can see how it becomes impossible to narrow the source down very much. Under current law, each of these companies has 24 hours to respond to queries. Many of them are unable to give the information requested. The problem is hard.

With these special barcodes, the store can scan the 40 cartons of produce received each day. If there were 3 cartons of tomatoes each day and 5 days was the safe turnover assumption, then you know exactly which 15 cartons were suspect. You know where they came from, when they were received. The farm can tell you which field they came from, when they were packed and which truck they left the farm in. And the answers can be found quickly.

And this idea would do NOTHING to stop a terrorist from doing that. All that would happen is the govt would be able to trace where the terrorists did their dirty deed but it would not prevent a darn thing.

This also would not prevent bombings and other terrorism. Prevention is not the point. Minimizing the damage is the point. Our mass media would likely get the word out quickly enough where not that many people would be poisoned. But if it destroys the confidence in the food system, that is pretty major. My point is that there is a national defense aspect to this.

Private enterprise works better. If airlines had their own security and competed on security, flying would become immediately safer. Similarly if people have a choice they will pay the added prices for secure food. The problem with the Feds running it is that everyone pays more and the food is NOT more secure.

No one is talking about federalizing the produce industry. This is more like food labeling. The government requires it, but does not do it in any way.

United States government imposed its first personal income tax, on August 5, 1861, as part of the Revenue Act of 1861 3% of all incomes over US $800...flat tax...that lasted a long time. Don't give the Gubment anymore power! For any reason...period. IMHO

Do you have a suggestion for the terrorist problem? Produce is a pretty sizable percentage of GDP. Even a libertarian thinks it is the government's job to protect us from foreign attacks. The cost of doing this is about 1% of the damage that an attack would cause.

I remember the tomato thing, that was bad. Although it is going to be a real pain, it could save our bacon if something like the tomato scare happened with our crop. Our margin is so slim that something like that would probably put us out of business and if we could prove it wasn’t from our farm quickly it could save us.

If you used our company, it would cost you $8,000 and a penny per carton. It would require extra labor effort, but you might not have to add anyone. But you might.

By the way, I love your tag line. It is absolutely true and the message needs to be spread.

Where’s the cheese posts so we can have a laugh?