Free Republic

So what happens now with Redskin Potatoes?We have all heard the potato jokes by now.Should we all be wary of what we call redskin potatoes in public?,careful of how we ask for directions of redskin potatoes at our grocers?Oh god forbid we accidentley ask a Native American who works for wal-mart any questions regarding redskins potatoes!(kind of reminiscent of the classic Indian Episode of Seinfeld).Well,looks like we are going to have to rename one of our favorite veggies by the end of the year.Any suggestions?,Red Hispanic Potatoes?The Potato Formerly known as Redskins Potato?

Consumer prices are skyrocketing. The price of meat, poultry, fish and eggs was up 0.7% in May. The price of chicken is up 50% in the last decade. There are some mitigating factors in these price increases. The cattle herd isn’t very good this year and a pork virus has killed thousands of pigs. Nonetheless, with incomes stagnate price increases on staples such as meat and eggs is felt by the middle class. Consumer prices generally were up 0.4% in May after a 0.3% increase in April. Inflation has arrived after years of money printing at the Federal Reserve. (with...

In one of the most comprehensive studies ever conducted of China’s bubblicious property market, Professor Gan Li at Texas A&M University estimates that there are a whopping 49 million vacant homes in China right now. As a percentage, this is twice the vacancy rate that the US housing market experienced at the peak of its recent bubble… suggesting that China has a rather painful housing collapse in store. This should be a brutal blow to the economy given that housing comprised 15% of GDP last year. And the slowdown is already apparent. In fact, China’s president Xi Jinping uncharacteristically announced...

Portland and South Portland plan to defy the LePage administration and continue offering General Assistance to undocumented immigrants, the group at the center of Maine’s latest fight over welfare reform. The Department of Health and Human Services formally notified cities and towns Monday evening that the state will no longer reimburse them for General Assistance to undocumented immigrants and will begin auditing municipalities in October. The memo went out five days after the DHHS announced the policy change in a media release.In a sign of the discord ahead, officials from Portland, South Portland and Bangor said Tuesday that they will...

Washington’s potato saga continues.While the House considers a bill to include the potato in the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) food nutrition program, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is echoing First Lady Michelle Obama’s claims that including the potato is an assault on science.“Republicans are even going after the nutrition for pregnant women and children, the WIC program. Mandating the WIC program include more white potatoes. You know, were talking about fruits, vegetables, whole grains and the rest, and they have an amendment that says more white potatoes than nutritionists recommend,” Pelosi said during her Thursday press conference.“These assaults...

The LePage administration’s plan to stop funding General Assistance benefits for undocumented immigrants has many immigrant families worried that they will lose their apartments and that their children will go hungry, say leaders in the immigrant community in Greater Portland. “People will have nothing to feed their kids,” said Mia Ntahobari, 43, of Portland, who leads the Burundian Women’s Commission. “They just don’t know what to do.”Ntahobari discussed the rule change Thursday at the monthly meeting of the Maine Immigrant Women’s Network, which drew 20 women from almost every immigrant group in the city. Many were surprised to hear about...

The nation has seen an increasing trend among lawmakers, particularly those on the left, in utilizing the state to drive our consumer choices. Generally, these have come from punitive measures. In addition to added regulations on food producers, they have struck directly at the consumer, in the form of "sin taxes" on sodas and other foods high in sugar and cholesterol in an "altruistic" attempt to persuade Americans to eat healthier. While I tend to disagree with these tactics and believe that the usage of state power to drive our consumer choices is a form of tyranny, I do believe...

I’m retelling this story not to cause sheer outrage or bring down shame and fire on one school in one instance, but to let you know definitively that Monsanto representatives could visit a school near you to teach a class. And you need to know what they are saying… It happened in at least one instance and with a fairly interesting method of leaving lasting impressions on 12-year-old 7th graders. I know Steve from Facebook and he posted videos of his stepson after coming home from school one day in late May to tell the family that four Monsanto representatives...

In 1995, American agriculture underwent a profound, dangerous change. In that year, Monsanto and other companies pushed through approval for a handful of genetically modified (GM) organisms. These included canola oil tweaked to improve its flavor, potatoes modified to resist pesticide dousing, and tomatoes gene-spliced to delay ripening. This deal, struck between crony capitalists and their congressional toadies in Washington, marked the beginning of a disturbing trend. Today, the U.S. leads the world in the production of GM food crops. In fact, about half of all the crops planted on American farmland are genetically modified. This includes about 85% of...

Up and down the foodservice spectrum, breakfast is heating up. Here are some recent developments: •Taco Bell introduced a breakfast menu trading on ubiquitous locations and a massive promo of the Waffle Taco. The Bell blitzed social media and took direct aim at rival McDonald’s, including an ad campaign making fun of Ronald the clown. •McDonald’s countered with an offer for free morning cup of McCafe and started promoting its McGriddle pancake wrapped breakfast sandwich. •Not to be forgotten, runner up, Burger King took a different approach, and announced it would serve burgers as well as breakfast fare each morning....

Watching the Tea Party consistently object to everything and anything the Obama administration has proposed over these 5 years has certainly been frustrating to those of us who believe that government can play a positive and valuable part in the lives of the citizenry. In another column I listed just some of the initiatives that could have had our economy singing, our people employed, and our citizens enjoying the equal treatment guaranteed to them under our constitution and our laws. Instead, we have the most ineffective congress in history, universal, unrelenting obstruction, and our people and economy continue to struggle....

San Diego-based Total Communicator Solutions Inc., a leader in mobile brand management, announced today the use of the Gimbal™ context aware and proximity platform integrated with its Spark Compass platform in a pioneering research project in workplace wellness. The project, named Project Boundary , has been conceptualized by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) IDEA Lab and the Office of the National Coordinator. It is a research project undertaken in the spirit of exploring new concepts and ideas in workplace wellness that will benefit the American workplace, and to spark further innovation in this space. “Our project is...

More than half the members of the City Council have fired off a letter to Walmart demanding that it stop making millions in charitable contributions to local groups here. Twenty-six of the 51 members of the Council charged in the letter that the world’s biggest retailer’s support of local causes is a cynical ploy to enter the market here. “We know how desperate you are to find a foothold in New York City to buy influence and support here,” says the letter, obtained by The Post and addressed to Walmart and the Walton Family Foundation. “Stop spending your dangerous dollars...

Two national chain restaurants have asked that customers refrain from bringing firearms into their establishments, saying the weapons can create an uncomfortable atmosphere for other diners. Sonic Drive-In and Chili's Grill & Bar both issued statements Friday requesting that customers keep their guns out of their restaurants even if they have an open carry permit. The request, which stops short of an outright ban, came after members of the gun-rights group Open Carry Texas walked into Texas outlets of Sonic and Chili's carrying assault rifles. Dallas-based Brinker International, which owns the Chili's chain, said in a statement it was dedicated...

Same-sex marriage is still illegal in Colorado but the state's civil rights commission ruled Friday that Jack Phillips has to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage ceremony. The Daily Caller reports:In 2012, Jack Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cakes in Lakewood, refused to sell cakes to Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig, a same-sex couple. Mullin and Craig were to be married in Massachusetts but wanted a cake for a reception at their home in a Denver suburb. As he had done with other same-sex couples in the past Phillips refused to sell the goods, saying that he is a devout...

Michelle Obama’s intrusion into school lunches has come under fire from students, Republicans and even her husband’s executive branch. Mrs. Obama essentially wants government to dictate what people eat. Via her school lunch program, the government is insisting that schools feed kids food they won’t or don’t eat. The cost for schools is higher, student participation is lower. As is typical with government, the program is one size fits all. Calorie counts are based on elementary, middle and high school and don’t count for age differences. In other words, the program is a mess. Republicans want to cut into it,...

Today, the National Potato Council praised the House for considering a bill to include the potato in its WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) food nutrition ("food stamp") program. The Council also debunked First Lady Michelle Obama's claims that including the potato would "override science" and that Americans are already eating enough of them.The Potato Council notes that the First Lady's science is based on old data - not the latest government reports:"Opponents of adding fresh potatoes to the WIC package are picking and choosing the science. Instead of relying on a 2005 report that looks at data from the mid-1990s,...

There’s a hashtag filled with colorful commentary and color pictures of the devastation Michelle Obama’s healthy school lunch initiative has wrought on the plastic platters of America’s school children. There’s a GAO report showing participation in the school lunch program down more than 1 million students— the first such decline in years— while costs are up and the actual nutritional value of these allegedly improved meals remains in question. But none of this requires reevaluation. The real problem with Michelle Obama’s crusade and a top-down, inflexible federal mandate for students of varying sizes and tastes is that Republicans are pointing...

It may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but scientists have now printed, not picked, fresh fruit. Researchers working at a company in Cambridge, England, have used a new process to enable the 3D printing of a variety of fresh products. They recently unveiled the process and results at the TechFoodHack conference held in Cambridge, an experimental dining event that also included the unveiling of a new flavour of gelato. 3D printing was first demonstrated back in 1984, but use of the technique was not widespread until 2010 when the cost of the Additive Manufacturing machines dropped significantly in...

News broke today that Sprinkles Cupcakes will install New York City's first 24-hour cupcake ATM at its Upper East Side location next week. The unit has a 760 cupcake capacity and can dispense up to four sweet treats at a time. That's pretty cool—but not as cool as a vending machine that makes fresh pizza in under three minutes. Behold Let's Pizza:(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Invented by entrepreneur Claudio Torghele, Let's Pizza machines were initially designed and manufactured in Northern Italy. Customers choose between up to four kinds of pies, and watch through windows as the machine adds water to flour, kneads the dough,...