Thursday--

We should have abnormally high temperatures today and tomorrow--into the high 40s and low 50s in February in Northern Indiana. Sheesh!!! Most of the last snow and ice that came through has melted leaving just what is in shadow (like on the patio) or piled (like where the plow or the shovelers piled it getting it off the sidewalks and street).

We noticed some time ago that the Parmesan cheese we bought had cellulose (shredded wood fiber) to prevent clumping. We would much rather not have the cellulose at all but we don't use much parmesan so choosing brands with the lowest possible amounts is the best option for us. The only option is to buy blocks of parmesan and great it ourselves. That may be coming. We have gone back in time here in other things--baking bread, cooking our own tomato sauce, freezing our own veggies. As I read the article that led me to the one linked above, I had a thought or two. Counterfeiting and adulteration of foods has been going on ever since man began commercially producing and selling foods. And I don't mean since the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Medieval governments had draconian punishments for short-weighting baked goods and watering beer and ale. Hammurabi's law code was even more severe allowing the death penalty for watering beer. We have dealt with the problem using legal penalties. But we should also insist that companies truthfully label their products so customers can make informed choices. That is something companies and industries have resisted through their lobbyists from the beginning. As customers we need to be more aware of what is in our foods and read the labels for whatever information we can glean from them. I don't mind people buying foods with GMO ingredients but I would rather not and so want labels indicating what does and does not contain GMO. I don't mind people buying foods with high fructose corn syrup but I would rather not and so want labels that indicate its presence. And I don't want any chicanery such as getting the regulators to relabel it as "corn syrup" or "corn sugar." None of that means that some unscrupulous company, or, lets be honest, corporate executives won't find ways to get around any safeguards or decide that the penalties are "just the cost of doing business." Such people are like the poor which Jesus said "are with you always."

Gene Logsdon has a cute blog about "part time farmers."

Another example of how totally ridiculous Repthuglican politics has become. The Constitution says that the President nominates people to fill Federal appointments, including Supreme Court justices, and doesn't qualify that with "unless s/he is a Democrat in the last year of his term." It also says that the Congress is to give "advice and consent" and doesn't contain an exception for "unless we Republicans control the Senate and are having a snit about a Democrat President exercising his Constitutional authority in the last year of his term."