Weekly Roundup - Living On Nothing Edition [Survival Today

Did you hear about the guy that lives on nothing? No seriously, he lives on zero dollars a day. Meet Daniel Suelo, who lives in a cave outside Moab, Utah. Suelo has no mortgage, no car payment, no debt of any kind. He also has no home, no car, no television, and absolutely no “creature comforts.” But he does have a lot of creatures, as in the mice and bugs that scurry about the cave floor he’s called home for the last three years.

To us, Suelo probably sounds a little extreme. Actually, he probably sounds very extreme. After all, I suspect most of you reading this are doing so under the protection of some sort of man-made shelter, and with some amount of money on your person, and probably a few needs for money, too. And who doesn’t need money unless they have completely unplugged from the grid? Still, it’s an amusing story about a guy who rejects all forms of consumerism as we know it.

How to Brew Your Own Beer and Maybe Save Some Money. A fantastic introduction to home brewing, something I’ve never done myself, but always been interested in trying. (@Generation X Finance)

Contentment: A Great Financial Principle. If I had to name one required emotion for living a frugal lifestyle it would be contentment. Once you are content with your belongings and your lot in life you can ignore forces attempting to separate you from your money. (@Personal Finance by the Book)

Use Energy Star Appliances to Save On Utility Costs. I enjoyed this post because it included actual numbers, and actual total savings, from someone who upgraded to new, energy star appliances. (@The Digerati Life)

Over-Saving for Retirement? Is it possible to “over-save” for retirement? Yes, I think so. At some point I like the idea of putting some money aside in taxable investments outside of retirement funds, to be accessed prior to traditional retirement age. (@The Simple Dollar)

40 Things to Teach My Kids Before They Leave Home. A great list of both practical and philosophical lessons to teach your kids before they reach the age where they know everything. I think that now happens around 13 years-old. (@My Supercharged Life)

Index Fund Investing Overview. If you are looking for a place to invest with high diversification and relatively low fees (for broader index funds with low turnover), index funds are a great place to start. (@Money Smart Life)

5 Reasons To Line Dry Your Laundry. My wife and I may soon be installing a clothesline in our backyard. In many neighborhoods they are frowned upon - one of the reasons I don’t like living in a neighborhood. I digress. One of our neighbors recently put up a clothesline, and we might just follow his lead. (@Simple Mom)

* 4 Quick Tips for Getting Out of a Rut * Young and Cash Rich * Embracing Simple Style * First Trading Experience With OptionsHouse * The Exponential Power of Delayed Consumption * How Much Emergency Fund is Enough? * 50 Questions that Will Free Your Mind * Save Money On Car Insurance

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm177114.htm

Limited Recall of 772 Cartons of Iced Jumbo Green Onions due to Possible Health Risk

Contact:
Lisa Largent
1-831-758-7810

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - August 12, 2009, Salinas, CA - A precautionary voluntary recall of 772 cartons of iced jumbo green onions under the brand names Omo and Fu Choy distributed from three locations, R.A.M. Produce Distributors of Detroit, Michigan, Franzella Distributing of San Francisco, CA, and United Food Service of East Point, GA has been issued by California-based NewStar Fresh Foods due to the possible presence of Salmonella.

No illnesses have been reported. The product is packaged in a 48-count iced carton, item numbers 02487403 and 02487452, product lot numbers 40550707 and 40510707, with production dates of July 20th and July 21st 2009. No other food service distributors or products are involved in this recall.

All affected product within the foodservice channel has already been accounted for and destroyed.

58 cartons were shipped from two distributors to small grocery outlets in the Detroit and San Francisco areas. Consumers in California may have purchased the product from Larry’s Produce in Fairfield, La Loma Produce, Good Life Grocery and El Grande, all San Francisco, and Valley Produce & Meat Market, San Pablo. Consumers in Michigan may have purchased the product from Confers Supermarket in New Lothrop, Ryan’s Food in Detroit, Brothers Supermarket and Al Jazeera Market in Dearborn and Sahara Market in Warren.

Although it is likely that the jumbo green onions are now beyond their usable life, the recall is being issued by the company out of an abundance of caution for consumer well-being in the possible event some consumers might have purchased from the listed retail outlets and still have the product in their home refrigerators.

The company is working closely with regulatory authorities at the state and federal levels to inform consumers in Detroit and San Francisco areas who may have purchased the product.

Salmonella is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstance, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.

Customers who have purchased the jumbo green onions are urged to return it to the place of purchase for a full refund. Customers with questions may contact NewStar Fresh Foods at 1-831-758-7810.

Page Last Updated: 08/12/2009

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm177198.htm

Peregrina Cheese Corporation Recalls All Products Manufactured In Its Plant Because Of Possible Health Risk

Company Contact:
Customer Service
718-456-2391

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – August 12, 2009 – Peregrina Cheese Corporation of Brooklyn, New York, is recalling all products manufactured in its Brooklyn, NY plant from March 17, 2009 to the present because they have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

This recall action is being conducted in accordance with the Consent Decree filed on July 20, 2009, which requires Peregrina Cheese Corporation to recall all products and codes produced in the Brooklyn plant from March 17, 2009 to the present.

The recall action involves the following products produced since March 17, 2009:

*
o Peregrina Cheese brand QUESO FRESCO Fresh Cheese, 14 Oz. (397 g) foil-wrapped package, Plant # 36-8431, UPC 8 17424 00024 6, all lot codes on the market produced since March 17, 2009.
o Chipilo brand MEXICAN CHEESE QUESO FRESCO – Fresh Cheese, NET WT. 15 oz. (425g), Plant #36-8431, UPC 8 17424 00028 4, all lot codes on the market produced since March 17, 2009.
o Peregrina Cheese brand QUESO HEBRA Queso Oaxaca, NET WT. 15 Oz. (425g), Plant #36-8431, UPC 8 17424 00026 0, all lot codes on the market produced since March 17, 2009.
o Peregrina Cheese brand QUESO COTIJA MOLIDO, NET WT. 15 OZ. plastic bags, Plant # 36-1388, UPC 8 17424 00027 7, all lot codes on the market produced since March 17, 2009.
o Peregrina Cheese brand Flan, NET WT 8 oz., Plant # 36-8431, UPC 8 17424 00026 0, all lot codes on the market produced since March 17, 2009.
o Peregrina Cheese brand GELATIN, NET WT. 10 OZ., Plant # 36-8431, UPC 8 17424 00031 4, all lot codes on the market produced since March 17, 2009.
o Peregrina Cheese brand CREMA MEXICANA Mexican Cream, Weight 16 Oz., Plant # 55-8991, UPC 8 17424 00030 7, all lot codes on the market produced since March 17, 2009.

The products were distributed to retail stores in New York and Pennsylvania.

No illnesses have been reported to date.

This recall action is being conducted with the knowledge of the FDA.

Consumers who purchased the above listed products are urged not to consume them and to discard them immediately. Please direct questions regarding this recall action to Peregrina Cheese Corporation at 1-718-456-2391, Monday - Friday from 9 am - 4:30 pm EDT.

###

Photos: Product Labels

Page Last Updated: 08/13/2009

http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/0908132549.aspx

Date: 8/13/2009
Media Contact: SAMHSA Press Office
Telephone: 240-276-2130
Updated Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Programs Now Available

A new, updated guide to finding local substance abuse treatment programs is now available from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Programs 2009 provides information on thousands of alcohol and drug treatment programs located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and five U.S. territories.

The National Directory includes a nationwide inventory of public and private substance abuse and alcoholism treatment programs and facilities that are licensed, certified, or otherwise approved by substance abuse agencies in each state. The National Directory is organized in a state-by-state format for quick reference by health care providers, social workers, managed care organizations, and the general public and provides information on more than 11,000 community substance abuse treatment programs.

The directory provides important information on levels of care and types of facilities, including those with programs for adolescents, persons with co-occurring substance abuse and mental disorders, individuals living with HIV/AIDS, and pregnant women. In addition, information is available on forms of payment accepted, special language services available with select providers, and whether methadone or buprenorphine therapy is offered.

The updated directory complements SAMHSA’s internet-based Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator — the online service, which is updated regularly and may contain more current information, provides searchable road maps to the nearest treatment facilities, complete addresses, phone numbers and specific information on services available. The electronic, searchable version of SAMHSA’s updated National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Programs is available on the Web at http://FindTreatment.samhsa.gov/.

SAMHSA is a public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency is responsible for improving the accountability, capacity and effectiveness of the nation’s substance abuse prevention, addictions treatment, and mental health services delivery system.

Chicken Mess: More Neo-Liberal Nonsense
Aug 4th, 2009 | By Linda Brady Traynham |
Category: Featured, Morning Whiskey

Okay, laugh, but much information can be culled from contemplating chicken manure, even if nobody much consults chicken entrails any more.

This spring we wanted chicken manure spread on the pastures because it is incredibly rich in nutrients, the best “natural” fertilizer known to man, and quite inexpensive, comparatively speaking. So I asked one of my truck driver friends, who cleans out houses for Sanderson Farms affiliates, to bring me several dump truck loads. “No can do, because they aren’t having it done, this year,” quoth he.

How odd. I mulled that over off and on for months, and today I got the answer.

The greenies are at it again! THIS time they are claiming that litter (sawdust and, ah, processed chicken feed) is polluting the sacred environment, and I guess they’ll have to fight it out with those who insist we should eat lots more chicken and much less red meat.

AP online reports that Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson has accused a dozen Arkansas processors of “polluting the Illinois River watershed with bird waste.” A federal trial–Oh, grief, now we’re making a federal case out of chicken mess?

The federal trial begins September 21st. If the Feds win, other “environmental” lawsuits may ensue in other states, threatening the multi-billion-dollar poultry industry. At stake in this suit are 1,800 poultry houses which employ more than 55,000 people who produced over eight billion pounds of chickens and turkeys last year. The average investment is over half a million dollars. It may not be pertinent, but raising fowl is not a pleasant way to earn a living.

The AP report continues, “Edmondson says the sheer volume of the waste spread on the land - estimated at 345,000 tons per year - has wreaked environmental havoc.” (He’s talking about a million-acre area, by the way.)

“Runoff carries bacteria into lakes and streams, where it threatens the health of tens of thousands of people who boat and camp in the valley every year. He says the industry took the least expensive way out when it could have burned the litter as energy, processed it into pellets or even composted it until the pathogens died.” Oh, yeah, we can imagine the reaction of the carbon freaks to the burning proposal, I’m not sure what pellets would be good for, unless, again, he is talking about something that can be burned in stoves, but they would surely be expensive to produce, and the stuff is composted naturally in the chicken houses, as I discuss below. Have you ever smelled burning manure? Maybe it isn’t so bad when dried; pioneers used buffalo chips. You would prefer not to know about the time the Old English Sheepdog had a tummy upset near a floor furnace…Odoriferous does not begin to describe the calamity.

AP states, further, “For decades, farmers took clumps of bird droppings, bedding and feathers from the houses and spread them on their land as an inexpensive fertilizer for other crops. The two states sanctioned this by issuing the farmers permits, and the industry says no individual companies or farms have been accused of violating environmental regulations.” (Emphasis mine.) The “bedding” referred to is sawdust or wood shavings, not Posturepedic mattresses. Not a lot of feathers are involved, but they’re pure protein.

We have spread chicken manure on our land when it was available since 1950. Daddy got it from the local college, which gave the stuff away. One of life’s more pleasurable pursuits is NOT shoveling fresh chicken mess out of a truck and spreading it by hand, but it produced thick, lush grass and lakes where fish thrive. For over 50 years we have been “polluting” our pastures to the benefit of man, beast, and land with natural organic fertilizer. Silly us, we thought we were practicing good animal husbandry, as taught to Daddy at Texas A&M, as well as economy.

The modern “product” is not literally fresh chicken manure. The caged birds defecate onto sawdust or wood shavings–which add minerals and organic matter and “lighten” the soil, making it better for crops or grassland–and the fecal matter ages and dries out naturally over the course of about six months since the houses are usually cleaned out twice a year. While some of it is “fresh” (you could come up with a wonderful equation involving percentages and age of the product) when the natural fertilizer is spread on the land, the preponderance of it has dried and mellowed, and the bacteria mentioned have died of exposure to the elements. When it is spread sunlight kills whatever remain quickly. What the farms were almost certainly selling, as well as using to improve their own land, is known as “cake,” and compared to the product fresh out of the bird it smells delightful. My darling Charles points out punctiliously that lime should be added at the time, but I told him you had already learned more than you ever wanted to know about chicken mess.

In short, this lawsuit is sheer balderdash, as usual, another attack on the free market and our food chain.

This case bodes ill for the poultry industry, stocks in Sanderson and Simmons, and the consumers’ pocketbooks. It is a beautiful try for more “legislation from the bench” from the Liberals, castigating a superb byproduct that is needed desperately by our mineral- and nutrient-depleted soils, harming small business men, and creating shortages where they need not be while costing all of us.

This, in turn, is likely to have an effect on Col. Sanders, which is owned by Pepsico. Wake up, CEO, or Kentucky Fried Chicken could be out of business through lack of meat to steam cook or enormous price increases. Are you listening, Church’s, Chick-fil-A, and Wings and More?

Chicken will be very rare on your tables if the poultry giants are shut down, particularly in light of the provisions in the Food “Safety” act which will make it a crime to kill our own for home use. For thousands of years mankind has managed to slay chickens, remove their feathers and innards, and eat them quite safely, but we are held to be so incompetent to do so that Nanny has to take our hatchets away and threaten to jail us. (That is the most savory explanation. There are scarier ones.)

Small farmers cannot keep chicken in grocery store freezers year around, friends, even if we could make a profit after paying to have the birds processed “professionally.” Will the EPA decide next that we have to diaper our birds? What about wild birds?

Grocery stores cannot function with unreliable suppliers.

Perhaps we should consider founding a Reform Rastafarians movement (I don’t know much about what Rastafarians do, other than that it involves killing chickens.) and have as a tenet of our faith that we must cook and consume the sacrifices as part of freedom of religion. That could be just whacko enough to be approved by the “you may worship anything but Jesus” crowd.

If the EPA and the Greens aren’t reined in we’re going to have serious food shortages. Thirty per cent. of the corn crop is being thrown away on ethanol. We stripped out an ear grown from genetically-modified seeds recently, and not only did it not produce kernels that would propagate, it hadn’t made any at all! There was nothing in there except the cob and the silk. The result in the field was baled as fodder, and my friend’s hundred goats had great fun tearing apart the 900 pound roll and eating the two ears per stalk, after which they refused, sensibly, to have anything further to do with dried, tasteless cellulose.

The government proposes to tax me because the Black Dexters produce methane, and this year’s Thanksgiving turkey may be the last you ever see. Guess I’d better give you my recipe for Linda’s Heart-Stopping Gravy. I’ll post it here on Morning Whiskey.

Enjoy it while you can.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

August 4, 2009
Author Image for Linda Brady Traynham
Linda Brady Traynham

Linda Brady Traynham is a former editor and analytical project report writer and is now a Whiskey & Gunpowder field correspondent on a ranch in the Republic of Texas. She studied Counseling at Boston University and got her Masters degree in Philosophy from the University of Hawaii.

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/chicken-mess-more-neo-liberal-nonsense/

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