The banks have made this property bubble. Soft landing? My arse.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 16 2006 21:41 utc | 3

WaPo editorial on this newspeek: Ending Hunger – By renaming it, that is

Whatever the intention, this linguistic airbrushing diminishes the shame of the problem, its persistence and its scope. That 11 million Americans reported going hun — sorry, reported disrupted eating patterns — is a national embarrassment. In this group, 96 percent said they cut the size of meals or skipped meals because they didn’t have enough money. The same percentage said their food did not last and they did not have enough money to get more.
At least the USDA doesn’t have jurisdiction over national monuments. Otherwise, just imagine it going after the inscription on the Statue of Liberty next: “Give me your energy-deficient, your financially challenged, your space-impaired masses yearning to breathe free.”

Posted by: b | Nov 17 2006 7:22 utc | 5

mfi,
*ahem* not euphemistic enough: “your space-impaired masses with low respirational security”
And what ever became of the issue of diabetes and obesity among the low income groups?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 17 2006 7:48 utc | 7

You’re entirely correct and I stand corrected ralphieboy 🙂
This is one of the poems I was made learn off by heart when I was a schoolboy (and thank you Mr. Google for saving me having to type it out) enjoy 🙂
The Unknown Citizen
by W. H. Auden
(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
The more I think about it the more chilling I find it.

Posted by: markfromireland | Nov 17 2006 12:27 utc | 9

World wide things are not looking good. Wheat stocks are now down for the 5th year out of 6, and delivery-in-time doesn’t work for a product that takes several months to grow.
Corn production in the US is being shunted to ethanol; it used to be a big exporter. NAFTA forced Mexico to become an importer of corn, but what happens when the US surplus (about 25 to 30% of its production) is no longer exported but used, at great cost and waste, for sending SUVs down the highway?
Thank you B for this post.
Food as a weapon. It really is. People underestimate or neglect this topic.

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 17 2006 15:11 utc | 11

NYT editorial: Brother, Can You Spare a Word?

Bureaucratic terminology about food security has always been a part of the hunger report, but so was the plain word “hunger.” The Agriculture Department decided that variations of “hungry” are not scientifically accurate, following the advice of the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies. The specialists advised that being hungry was too amorphous a way to refer to “a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation.”
The government insists that no Orwellian plot is in the works to mask a national blight. The goal has been to cut what we’ll call the hungry households to no more than 6 percent of the population. But hungry people persist at nearly twice that rate, despite the slight drop last year. To the extent that more public empathy is needed to prod a stronger attack on low food security, we opt for “hunger” as a most stirring word.

Posted by: b | Nov 20 2006 8:16 utc | 13