The carbon footprint of food

To contact us Click HERE
Recently, I was in the market for a good layperson's summary of the environmental impact of food choices.  The one I liked best so far was the brief chapter on food late in the book How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything, by Mike Berners-Lee.

Berners-Lee takes measurement seriously.  At the same time, he is completely frank about how rough some measurements are.  He doesn't waste time figuring out every last significant digit.  Instead, he stays focused on the information that really matters for making sensible lifestyle choices.

Berners-Lee has a talent for explaining technical material.  As just one simple example, he has a delightfully clear explanation of a financial discount rate, an important concept for evaluating payback periods for investments (p. 188).  Other authors might be tempted to skip the topic, but Berners-Lee recognizes that the layreader can understand this issue, without needing any equations.

From the food chapter, here is a summary food tips:

• Eat what you buy. 
• Reduce meat and dairy.
• Go seasonal, avoiding hothouses and air freight.
• Avoid low-yield varieties.
• Avoid excessive packaging.
• Help the store reduce waste.
• Buy misshapen fruit and vegetables.
• Lower-carbon cooking. 

On related issues, I enjoyed seeing a presentation at the Friedman School's Wednesday seminar series last week by Susanne Freidberg from Dartmouth College, who spoke about Life Cycle Analysis (LCA).  Her most recent book is Fresh: A Perishable History.

Among other topics, Freidberg described the use of LCA in corporate sustainability initiatives, of which a leading example is Walmart's.  Although a major retailer won't say "reduce meat and dairy" or "avoid excessive packaging," I nonetheless find the Walmart initiative interesting.  Just for example, this video is blunt: "The raw truth is that the design of this system is unsustainable."  And it provides a nice visual explanation of a food product's life cycle.

FDA is missing deadlines for implementation of complex food safety rules

To contact us Click HERE
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been missing the implementation deadlines that Congress set in 2009 as part of the landmark FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). 

Food safety advocates have sued the agency because of the delays.  In a legal motion to dismiss (.pdf) filed today, FDA argues that the courts should not hold the agency liable for this failure to implement the law:

The sole remedy available for an unreasonable agency delay claim is for the court to compel agency action, such as by issuing an order requiring the agency to act, without directing the substantive content of the decision....  Although FDA has been unable to meet the aggressive statutory timelines for the seven new rules, there is no indication that Congress believed that strict adherence to those timetables is more important than careful consideration and development of these complex regulations to create an effective and modernized food safety system, provide clear guidance to the industry, and minimize later challenges or revisions to hastily adopted regulations. Accordingly, judicial intervention is not warranted at this time.

There is a certain sad logic to this argument! The courts should mind their own business, because the only possible punishment is to order the very same achievements that FDA already is failing to achieve.

I considered disputing FDA's claim about there being "no indication" of Congressional intentions for adherence to timetables.  After all, Congress did write these timetables into law.  On the other hand, Congress has not given FDA sufficient funding to meet all of its food safety objectives in the past year, and of course the next year looks even more bleak.  Although food safety advocates are unimpressed with the agency's excuses, FDA really does seem justified in implying that Congress has sent mixed signals about prioritizing food safety implementation.

I think we'll just have to be patient ... and go easy on the peanut butter.

Home-made cheese

To contact us Click HERE
I have been preparing home-made soft cheeses for the past couple years, working my way through the recipes in Ricki Carroll's book on Home Cheese Making.  Here is a photograph of neufchatel curds draining in my kitchen last week.

In a future post, I will tell about building a makeshift cheese press with my son this month at the holiday Craft Day, an inspiring Boston area tradition organized each year by Carolyn Mugar (who is executive director of Farm Aid).  For more than a year, I had promised myself not to take up more arduous hard cheese making as a new hobby until I submitted a manuscript for my food policy book, but that goal was completed this fall.  So this weekend, armed with the new press, I claimed my reward and began my first attempt at cheddar.

For entertainment during the waiting periods for that project last night, I sat, with a beer in hand, reading the relevant sections of Harold McGee's classic, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.  You will think I was tipsy if I tell you it felt like grasping a thin and nearly invisible thread connecting my kitchen to 5,000 years of kitchens inhabited by inventive cheese makers (and brewers) responsible for a truly remarkable group of technologies using living microorganisms to convert perishable foods into shelf-stable treasures.  McGee writes:

Cheese is one of the great achievements of humankind.  Not any cheese in particular, but cheese in its astonishing multiplicity....

Minor Update 12/13/2012: According to an NPR story by Adam Cole and Helen Thompson today, based on an article from Nature, the thread is even longer, connecting 7,000 years of kitchens!

FDA urged to make public information about antibiotic use

To contact us Click HERE
The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future and the Government Accountability Project have spent a couple years asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release information about the amount of antibiotic use in farm animals.  Overuse of antibiotics in farm animals may lead to the evolution of more dangerous drug-resistant strains.

FDA releases some summary data each year, but denied the request for more detailed tabulations,citing an exemption in freedom-of-information law that applies to commercial information and trade secrets.  This seems wrong.  Misuse of antibiotics is an important public health issue, and the aggregated data requested were not firm-specific.

In response, the Center for a Livable Future and the Government Accountability Project brought a lawsuit this month.  The Center's director Robert Lawrence explains this week:

Since 2008, when the Animal Drug User Fee Act (ADUFA) began requiring drug companies to report basic information about antibiotic sales to FDA, the agency has released limited summaries of these data to the public. Sadly, though, the FDA conceals most of what gets reported by the drug companies. This concealment protects the producers and the drug companies, both of which make tidy profits from injudicious dosing of food animals.

In the meantime, the Center's staff has done some clever sleuthing, exploiting a glitch in FDA's annual release of summary data, which was followed by a correction to the agency's numbers.  The Center tracked down the source of the change in order to conjecture about the amount of antibiotics used in one particular category called arsenicals.

Agricultural producer support declining over time

To contact us Click HERE
We hear all sorts of generalizations about U.S. farm policy.

Some say U.S. farm programs are too stingy and should provide more help to farmers, especially small farmers. Others say U.S. farm programs are a boondoggle that just makes rich farmers richer. Still others say farm programs make consumers fat by encouraging too much cheap food.

Instead of generalizing, it is important to think quantitatively.

One good data source is the Producer Support Estimates (PSE) from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (a club for the world's upper-income countries). I use this data source in several chapters of my forthcoming book from Routledge/Earthscan called Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction.

The PSE data measure diverse agricultural programs and policies in a consistent way across countries and over time.  One problem with the PSE is that it can seem a little complex.  To provide an orientation, Rebecca Nemec and I created the following data gadget.  Nemec is a graduate student at the Friedman School at Tufts and the teaching assistant for my class on U.S. Food Policy.  The top panel shows broad categories of support for agricultural producers.  The bottom panel shows more detail about each broad category in turn.   

Just click on each colored broad category in the top panel to see the corresponding detail in the bottom panel.

Working from top to bottom, we learn about trends in several major categories of producer support.

• Price supports and deficiency payments help farmers in years when prices are low.  OECD worries about these programs because they distort international trade and hurt farmers overseas.  Michael Pollan criticizes deficiency payments for making corn too cheap.  Notice that in recent years -- with greater scarcity and higher prices -- these distorting policies have fallen to almost nothing under current policy.
• Conservation programs have been growing in recent years, and also do not respond to price fluctuations as wildly as deficiency payments do.
• The other payments category includes direct payments, which pay farmers regardless of the current price.  These direct payments may end under some current farm bill proposals.  They do not distort agricultural markets very much, but it is unpopular to pay farmers when they are prospering during high-price years.
• Market Price Support represents the economic impact of the trade barriers that protect some producers, especially for milk and sugar, from imports.  Although they do not have a budget cost, these supports benefit farmers at the expense of consumers.  As with deficiency payments, the impact of these trade barriers has declined to almost nothing in recent high-price years.

An especially clever feature is that PSE data allow sensible comparisons across two seemingly different types of policies:

• payments to farmers at the taxpayers' expense (the first three broad categories), and
• trade policies that support farmers at the consumers' expense (the fourth broad category).

To speak coherently about U.S. agricultural policy, one must make important distinctions across several types of programs and be aware of rapid changes in program impacts from one year to the next.

There are a couple limitations that I should mention.  First, the OECD data may have some limitations of their own.  Second, while I did the best I could to classify programs from the OECD data into sensible categories, I did make some judgement calls about these program classifications.

In general, U.S. support for farmers has been declining in recent years, mainly because of high food prices that result from greater scarcity on world markets.  Though some people are more optimistic, I think population and environmental constraints may generally keep prices fairly high in the future.

This means that governmental support for U.S. farmers can be smaller over time, unless legislators replace existing programs with new and poorly designed alternatives.  For example, I worry about new and potentially expensive crop insurance programs that have been proposed in draft farm bills.


Powered by Tableau

NY Times: Low Income, High Achieving Students Still Struggle In Post-Secondary Life

To contact us Click HERE
The central tenet of education reform is that public education is failing students from low income families, particularly students of color, by failing to give them the "rigorous" training and skills that students from higher income families get.

Education reformers say if we just fire the teachers and close the schools where low income students are going and reopen these as "No Excuses!" charters or other reformy institutions, hold the teachers who teach these students to test-based accountability and evaluations and impose a rigorous, top-down curriculum of high standards, these students will flourish in their post-secondary lives.

The NY Times is running a front page story today that puts a lot of water onto that white-hot reform meme:

Poor students have long trailed affluent peers in school performance, but from grade-school tests to college completion, the gaps are growing. With school success and earning prospects ever more entwined, the consequences carry far: education, a force meant to erode class barriers, appears to be fortifying them.

“Everyone wants to think of education as an equalizer — the place where upward mobility gets started,” said Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. “But on virtually every measure we have, the gaps between high- and low-income kids are widening. It’s very disheartening.” 
The growing role of class in academic success has taken experts by surprise since it follows decades of equal opportunity efforts and counters racial trends, where differences have narrowed. It adds to fears over recent evidence suggesting that low-income Americans have lower chances of upward mobility than counterparts in Canada and Western Europe. 
Thirty years ago, there was a 31 percentage point difference between the share of prosperous and poor Americans who earned bachelor’s degrees, according to Martha J. Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski of the University of Michigan. Now the gap is 45 points. 
While both groups improved their odds of finishing college, the affluent improved much more, widening their sizable lead. 
Likely reasons include soaring incomes at the top and changes in family structure, which have left fewer low-income students with the support of two-parent homes. Neighborhoods have grown more segregated by class, leaving lower-income students increasingly concentrated in lower-quality schools. And even after accounting for financial aid, the costs of attending a public university have risen 60 percent in the past two decades. Many low-income students, feeling the need to help out at home, are deterred by the thought of years of lost wages and piles of debt. 
In placing their hopes in education, the Galveston teenagers followed a tradition as old as the country itself. But if only the prosperous become educated — and only the educated prosper — the schoolhouse risks becoming just another place where the fortunate preserve their edge. 
“It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that a low-income student, no matter how intrinsically bright, moves up the socioeconomic ladder,” said Sean Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford. “What we’re talking about is a threat to the American dream.” 

 The Times looks at four high-achieving students from Galveston, Texas to illustrate the problem:

Angelica Gonzales marched through high school in Goth armor — black boots, chains and cargo pants — but undermined her pose of alienation with a place on the honor roll. She nicknamed herself after a metal band and vowed to become the first in her family to earn a college degree.

“I don’t want to work at Walmart” like her mother, she wrote to a school counselor. 
Weekends and summers were devoted to a college-readiness program, where her best friends, Melissa O’Neal and Bianca Gonzalez, shared her drive to “get off the island” — escape the prospect of dead-end lives in luckless Galveston. Melissa, an eighth-grade valedictorian, seethed over her mother’s boyfriends and drinking, and Bianca’s bubbly innocence hid the trauma of her father’s death. They stuck together so much that a tutor called them the “triplets.” 
Low-income strivers face uphill climbs, especially at Ball High School, where  third of the girls’ class failed to graduate on schedule. But by the time the triplets donned mortarboards in the class of 2008, their story seemed to validate the promise of education as the great equalizer. 
Angelica, a daughter of a struggling Mexican immigrant, was headed to Emory University. Bianca enrolled in community college, and Melissa left for Texas State University, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s alma mater. 
“It felt like we were taking off, from one life to another,” Melissa said. “It felt like, ‘Here we go!’ ”

Four years later, their story seems less like a tribute to upward mobility than a study of obstacles in an age of soaring economic inequality. Not one of them has a four-year degree. Only one is still studying full time, and two have crushing debts. Angelica, who left Emory owing more than $60,000, is a clerk in a Galveston furniture store. 
Each showed the ability to do college work, even excel at it. But the need to earn money brought one set of strains, campus alienation brought others, and ties to boyfriends not in school added complications. With little guidance from family or school officials, college became a leap that they braved without a safety net. 
The story of their lost footing is also the story of something larger — the growing role that education plays in preserving class divisions.

The struggles these students have suffered that have short-circuited their dreams have not been caused by "bad teachers," they are not due to "failing schools."

Economic inequality, a nation that has rigged its economic system and its social and political institutions for the benefit of the affluent - that's the problem:

Income has always shaped academic success, but its importance is growing. Professor Reardon, the Stanford sociologist, examined a dozen reading and math tests dating back 25 years and found that the gap in scores of high- and low-income students has grown by 40 percent, even as the difference between blacks and whites has narrowed. 
While race once predicted scores more than class, the opposite now holds. By eighth grade, white students surpass blacks by an average of three grade levels, while upper-income students are four grades ahead of low-income counterparts. 
“The racial gaps are quite big, but the income gaps are bigger,” Professor Reardon said. One explanation is simply that the rich have clearly gotten richer. A generation ago, families at the 90th percentile had five times the income of those at the 10th percentile. Now they have 10 times as much. 
But as shop class gave way to computer labs, schools may have also changed in ways that make parental income and education more important. SAT coaches were once rare, even for families that could afford them. Now they are part of a vast college preparation industry. 
Certainly as the payoff to education has grown — college graduates have greatly widened their earnings lead — affluent families have invested more in it. They have tripled the amount by which they outspend low-income families on enrichment activities like sports, music lessons and summer camps, according to Professor Duncan and Prof. Richard Murnane of Harvard. 
In addition, upper-income parents, especially fathers, have increased their child-rearing time, while the presence of fathers in low-income homes has declined. Miss G. said there is a reason the triplets relied so heavily on boyfriends: “Their fathers weren’t there.” 
Annette Lareau, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that the affluent also enjoy an advocacy edge: parents are quicker to intervene when their children need help, while low-income families often feel intimidated and defer to school officials, a problem that would trail Melissa and Angelica in their journey through college. 
“Middle-class students get the sense the institution will respond to them,” Professor Lareau said. “Working-class and poor students don’t experience that. It makes them more vulnerable.” 

And so the result of all of this is that students from low income backgrounds who score higher on tests than students from more affluent backgrounds finish college far less.
There are no simple solutions to this problem, but there are solutions.
Lower class sizes in low income schools.
Provide a safety net for families.
Provide medical care.
Add more counselors and support staff.

Provide access to out-patient services for emotional health.
Give each student a "mentor" who can help them  navigate not only the secondary school process and college application process, but the post-secondary process.
Oh, and do what John Liu suggested last week - award students from low income backgrounds full ride scholarships to CUNY and SUNY.
Don't force them to take on tens of thousands of dollars of loan debt to go to college.

Raise taxes on millionaires and cut tuition and fees at SUNY and CUNY rather than the other way around, as Cuomo has done.
I teach high school seniors.
I keep in touch with many long after they've graduated.
I have helped students with all kinds of problems - from helping them to edit their papers to helping them with their taxes to helping them with career advice and resume preparation to using connections I might have to help them get an interview for a job to taking them to out-patient counseling or support programs to help them work through family or life traumas.  
I've gone to colleges and advocated for them when they needed that.
I take that kind of work as seriously as I do my in class teaching because I see my role as something larger than just "adding value" to my students' test scores.
Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee and Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo and Barack Obama may not think that kind of work is important.
Certainly the education policies they promote in which high stakes testing and accountability trumps everything else suggests they don't think much about the "other" work teachers and schools have to do to help students from low income backgrounds break whatever cycle they're stuck in.
But if the so-called education reformers really wanted to help students from low income backgrounds break the cycle of poverty, they would provide the social safety net and the school supports needed to do just that and would drop the FEAR-based, test-based accountability nonsense which is, quite frankly, only making things worse for these kids.
The reality is, Obama and Cuomo and Bloomberg and Klein and Rhee and Murdoch and the rest aren't interested in helping kids from low income backgrounds climb the economic ladder.
They're interested in perpetuating the current economic system that is very much rigged in the favor of the 1%.
Thomas Merton once said (I'm paraphrasing) that we should call things what they are and give them their proper name.
The name for an education reform movement that demonizes teachers and schools even as it ignores the real solutions to the vast problems kids from low income backgrounds face is "hypocritical."
They say they are putting "Students First" even as they put corporations first.
They use the motto "Children First.  Always" for the NYC school system as a slam at teachers even as they send kids to schools with cancer-causing toxins in them, or mold, or PCB's.
It is good to see this article in the Times, although it would have been nice to get this on a weekend other than the one before Christmas.
It needs to be read widely and used to rebut the claims of the Rhee's and Klein's and Bloomberg's and Cuomo's and Bush's and Obama's that we can fire our way to economic equality if we just evaluate teachers and schools with rigorous test-based accountability.

The more test-based accountability and Danielson nonsense they put onto teachers, the less time teachers have for the socio-emotional, career and life supports many try and provide their students.

Mulgrew And The Mayoral Candidates

To contact us Click HERE
In case you haven't noticed, there's been a lot of wooing of Mike Mulgrew and the UFT from the prospective 2013 mayoral candidates.

The latest example was reported by the Daily News yesterday:

New York's four Democratic mayoral candidates flew to the Ohio city at the request of the teacher's union president, Michael Mulgrew. They want his endorsement - and he wanted them to see an innovative program in Cincinnati's schools.

...

 When Mulgrew, boss of the United Federation of Teachers, suggested the candidates accompany him to inspect a Cincinnati program bringing social services into public schools, they all complied.

Two of them - city Controller John Liu and Council Speaker Christine Quinn - had the city pick up the tab, maintaining that what they learned was relevant to their work as city officials.

The other Democrats, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former Controller Bill Thompson paid for the trip with campaign funds.

The journey was a chance to spend more time talking about the future of education with Mulgrew, who said he was also impressed that the candidates reached out to him after Superstorm Sandy and stood with him in cleaning up the wreckage.

"Where I come from, standing side by side in the mud, going out on a trip with no media coverage, finding things that are really going to work (for schools is what's) going to make a difference in my mind," said Mulgrew, a Staten Islander whose home suffered flood damage.

Mulgrew does have his limits. He said Republican candidate Tom Allon offered to underwrite a jaunt to Finland to scrutinize its education system after Mulgrew talked about it in a speech - but the union boss said he thought that was a bit much and declined.

The article goes on to describe the "desperation" the mayoral candidates are showing as they suck up to various power brokers, union heads and members of Al Sharpton's family in a bid to garner an early endorsement.

I can't speak to that stuff, but I will note that in this wooing of the mayoral candidates game, Mulgrew is clearly laying out his strategy for the future of the city schools (and even the new teacher evaluation system.)

In the next mayoral administration, Mike Mulgrew thinks he will be a power broker with more input into how the school system is run.

Now I think he's delusional because once one of these candidates gets elected, you can be sure the DFER's and Students First NY and the rest of the hedge fundie/education reform movement will make sure that many of Bloomberg's policies will continue unabated - and they'll put a ton of money behind those efforts.

Maybe if Liu gets elected, the DFER's and the rest of the corporate reformers will be shut out of City Hall, but you can bet that if Quinn, de Blasio or Thompson is elected, Mulgrew will have a lot less influence over policy than he thinks he will.

From what I can see, the strategy the UFT is currently running around APPR and closures and all the other damaging Bloomberg policies is to wait out Bloomberg and try and undo the worst damage once Bloomberg is gone.

It's a short-sighted strategy because it assumes that the next mayor will be open to undoing the damage.

If Bloomberg and his Students First NY group, along with the DFER's and the other hedge fundies have their way, you can bet that will not happen because they will make it clear they do not want it to happen.

It's true that political pressure and parent outrage over the worst excesses of the Bloomberg policies might mitigate some things, but frankly, if the UFT cannot frame an alternative vision of what the public education system should like - one that explains very clearly why high stakes testing, a fear-based teacher evaluation system based upon value added measurements of those tests and an unworkable observation rubric, 30+ school closures a year, and mayoral control can no longer be the policy in New York City - then they cannot fight for an alternative to the Bloomberg policies.

It's great that Mulgrew took the candidates to Cincinnati to see public schools with social wrap-around services.

I am a huge fan of schools with wrap-around services and I think giving schools support like that would go a long way toward improving student performance and academic achievement.

But Mulgrew and the UFT need to put out an alternative vision of what the school system should look like and tell the public and parents why we should move toward that vision.

Students First NY and the DFER's think nothing of putting up ads (usually dishonest ones) touting the wonders of test score-based accountability and fear-based teacher evaluations.

Why won't Mulgrew spend some union funds on counter ads explaining that kind of system is harmful to students, teachers and schools and putting forth a vision for schools that would benefit students - one with low class sizes, social wrap-around services, a rich, diverse curriculum, a plethora of after school activities, and partnerships with local businesses that provide job and learning opportunities for students?

I suspect that Mulgrew and Company don't really have that alternative vision of the school system or public education but rather have a watered down one from what Bloomberg and Cuomo and Obama have.

Watching how the UFT and the NYSUT supposedly battle the reforms pushed by those guys, you really only see a half-hearted attempt by the unions to push back.

It's like they're trying to make it look like they're fighting this stuff without actually fighting it.

Which brings me back to the mayoral candidates and the trip to Cincinnati.

It's fabulous that Mulgrew is getting some attention from the prospective mayoral candidates for an alternative program for schools.

But why can't he share that vision with the public at large?

They ought to be running commercials non-stop touting an alternative vision of schools - one that promotes low class sizes, social wrap-around services, a rich, diverse curriculum, a plethora of after school activities, and partnerships with local businesses that provide job and learning opportunities for students.

Instead they run this kind of thing.

That's a nice little ad - but what does it really tell the public other than teachers are dedicated to their students?

It's the kind of ad you run when things are slow in the news - not the kind of ad you run when your entire existence is under attack from the corporate education reform movement.

It's important to communicate to the public that teachers are dedicated to their students - but nowhere near as important as communicating a coherent alternative vision to the current corporate reform public education system.

Where's The Accountability For The New York Post?

To contact us Click HERE
The people running the NY Post are very big on holding teachers accountable for so-called performance, but just can't seem to hold themselves accountable for their own.

Case in point - the interview with a fake "Ryan Lanza" they ran in yesterday's Sunday New York Post:

The brother of the Connecticut school shooter, Adam Lanza, said through a spokesman Sunday that he never conducted a Facebook interview with the New York Post and that any statements or postings attributed to him were fabricated.

“This is a complete hoax,” said the Lanza family in a statement issued through the spokesman, Errol Cockfield of the public relations firm Edelman.

In the story, Ryan Lanza, who works for the major accounting firm Ernst & Young in Manhattan, purportedly told a New York Post reporter in a Facebook chat, “I am a victim. I loss [sic] my mom and brother.”

The spokesman said that Lanza, 24, shut his Facebook account shortly after the shooting and it has not been reactivated. A fake Facebook page that at first glance appeared to be Lanza’s was subsequently created and used to deceive the New York Post reporter. It is not known who orchestrated the deception.

Cockfield described the New York Post story as the “unfortunate result of a poor editorial process.”

The New York Post acknowledged Sunday that it had been deceived. An “update” added to the top of the original story on the newspaper’s Web site read: “A spokesman for the Lanza family says an imposter is behind Ryan Lanza’s Facebook page and that Ryan did not post the messages in this story.”

A spokeswoman for the Post said the paper did not have an immediate comment.

Oh, and of course the Post deflected blame onto the imposter who ran the fake Facebook page rather than their own reporter or editorial process:

An imposter created a fake Facebook page in the name of Sandy Hook school shooter Adam Lanza’s brother, a family spokesman said yesterday.

“It appears to be a hoax by someone. Ryan [Lanza] shut down his page shortly after the shooting.

This mock-up is atrocious,” said Errol Cockfield, a spokesman for Ryan and his father, Peter Lanza.

The family will ask Facebook to remove the page, Cockfield added.

The page included images of Adam, Ryan and their mom, Nancy, that had already been published online.

The bogus posts and instant-message chats were reported by news outlets, including The Post.

New York Magazine reports that the "Ryan Lanza" Facebook page looked pretty phony from the outset:

The Facebook page itself looks pretty suspicious: All eight of the eight pages it "likes" have to do with Newtown, and four of them, liked within minutes on the same day, call for Ryan Lanza's name to be cleared. There's no friends list visible, only two photos, and no activity prior to last Thursday. Of course that's just what we're seeing now. The Post's story makes reference to photos and comments not visible, which suggests they're either private or have been taken down since the original report.

The real Ryan Lanza's Facebook page became its own story when he was briefly named as the suspect on the day of the shooting (it turned out Adam was carrying his brother's ID). Lanza used his page to deny the reports, then deleted it. So yeah, it would be possible that he started a new one, but seeing as how he's a regular person with interests and friends and whatnot, and that he's already had to disentangle himself from media attention once, it's hard to believe his new page would focus exclusively on the tragedy and his unfortunate association with it.

Those apparent red flags didn't stop The Post from running the item, and they didn't stop others from picking it up. Yahoo News, The Telegraph, Gothamist, MSN, Huffington Post, The Australian, and others posted the news, then had to update their reports with word of the hoax.

 The Posties are still running the original story on the Post website, albeit with a disclaimer:

UPDATE: A spokesman for the Lanza family says an imposter is behind Ryan Lanza's Facebook page and that Ryan did not post the messages in this story.

Gotta love when some piece of "journalism" is proven to be fraudulent, but the newspaper refuses to take the piece down and instead runs a disclaimer.

Also gotta love how the Post makes it sound as if other journalistic outlets got caught up in the hoax:

 The bogus posts and instant-message chats were reported by news outlets, including The Post.

No - the Post conducted an interview with the fake "Ryan Lanza" and that interview and other information from the Post story got picked up by other news outlets.

That's a whole lot different than a bunch of other news outlets getting caught up in the same hoax.

It isn't the job of the other news outlets to check the news stories of supposed legitimate news organizations like the NY Post for validity.

It is the job of the NY Post reporter to make sure the "Ryan Lanza" he is interviewing is actually Ryan Lanza and the job of the NY Post editors to smell out a hoax when they see it.

Especially if the Facebook page of this "Ryan Lanza" looks suspicious as soon as you see it.

Both the reporter and the editors failed in their jobs, but even worse, they refuse to be held accountable for this and instead are deflecting the blame onto the imposter and then making it sound like other news outlets got caught up in the same hoax.

While it is true that in the hours right after the Newtown shootings, many news outlets reported erroneous information, the only "Ryan Lanza" hoax the other news outlets got caught up today in was reprinting a story from the imposter new outlet called the NY Post.

As usual with the people at a Rupert Murdoch organization, accountability is never for themselves - it's always for other people.

Windows 8 - A Christmas Gift For Someone You Hate

To contact us Click HERE
Microsoft has bet its future on the Windows 8 system, but that bet doesn't seem to be paying off:

BELLEVUE, Wash. — It used to be that a new version of the Windows operating system was enough to get people excited about buying a new computer, giving sales a nice pop. 
Not this time. Windows 8, the latest edition of Microsoft’s software, failed to pack shoppers into a Microsoft store in a mall here last week, at a time when parking lots in the area were overflowing. The trickle of shopping bags leaving the store with merchandise was nothing like the steady stream at a bustling Apple store upstairs. 
Weak PC sales this holiday season suggest that the struggles of Microsoft and other companies that depend heavily on the computer business will not abate soon. Plenty of consumers already own PCs and seem content to make do with what they have, especially in a shaky economy in which less expensive mobile devices are bidding for a share of their wallets. 
While there are also many tablets running Microsoft’s new, touch-friendly Windows, they have so far failed to emerge from the shadow of competing products from Apple and Amazon and other devices that are being snapped up by holiday shoppers. 
Emmanuel Fromont, president of the Americas division of Acer, the world’s No. 4 PC maker, said sales of the company’s Windows 8 PCs had been lower than expected. He said one factor was the system’s unfamiliar design, which appeared to be making consumers cautious.
“There was not a huge spark in the market,” Mr. Fromont said. “It’s a slow start, there’s no question.”

The clearest evidence of Windows 8’s disappointing introduction comes from the research firm NPD, which estimates that sales of Windows machines have actually dropped from a year ago. 
According to NPD, stores in the United States sold 13 percent fewer Windows devices from late October, when Windows 8 made its debut, through the first week in December, than in the same period last year. 
Those figures do not include sales in Microsoft’s own stores, which were the only place to buy a Surface tablet during that period, but because the stores are scarce, analysts believe it is unlikely they made a big difference. 
“I think everybody would have hoped for a better start,” said Stephen Baker, an analyst at NPD. “The thing is, this market is not the same market that Windows 7 or Vista or even XP launched into.” 

There you have it - people hate Windows 8, people aren't buying the new Microsoft Surface tablet, Microsoft stores are bereft of shoppers, and Windows-based PC sales are down from last year to this year, partly because people don't like Windows 8.

And I mean people really don't like Windows 8.  There have been some really harsh reviews of the system, including one by the Nielson Norman Group that panned every part of the Windows 8 system in a usability study.

So while Bill Gates spends all his time trying to privatize the public education system, make all of Africa and Asia eat genetically modified food, and solve global warming by whitening the clouds in the sky, the company he helped found has become a bigger object of ridicule than during the darkest days of Vista:

Microsoft (MSFT) is no stranger to criticism these days, and the company’s new Windows 8 platform is once again the target of a scathing review from a high-profile user. Well-known Internet entrepreneur and MIT professor Philip Greenspun handed Windows 8 one of its most damning reviews yet earlier this week, calling the new operating system a “Christmas gift for someone you hate.” Greenspun panned almost every aspect of Microsoft’s new software, noting that Microsoft had four years to study Android and more than five to examine iOS, but still couldn’t build a usable tablet experience.



“The only device that I can remember being as confused by is the BlackBerry PlayBook,” Greenspun wrote on his blog after using Windows 8 on a Dell (DELL) XPS One All-in-One desktop PC. The acclaimed computer scientist noted that Microsoft omitted all of the best features from the most popular touch-focused platforms and instead created a user interface he describes as a “dog’s breakfast.”

“Suppose that you are an expert user of Windows NT/XP/Vista/7, an expert user of an iPad, and an expert user of an Android phone… you will have no idea how to use Windows 8,” Greenspun wrote.

He continued, “Some functions, such as ‘start an application’ or ‘restart the computer’ are available only from the tablet interface. Conversely, when one is comfortably ensconced in a touch/tablet application, an additional click will fire up a Web browser, thereby causing the tablet to disappear in favor of the desktop. Many of the ‘apps’ that show up on the ‘all apps’ menu at the bottom of the screen (accessible only if you swipe down from the top of the screen) dump you right into the desktop on the first click.”

Bill Gates seems to know as much about computers, tablets and operating systems these days as he does about what works in a school classroom - he thinks Windows 8 is fabulous:

Bill Gates is giving some initial feedback aboutWindows 8, and it's no shocker that he thinks the operating system is pretty nifty.
 
The Microsoft co-founder and chairman, speaking in a video interview with Microsoft's Steve Clayton, echoes CEO Steve Ballmer in calling Windows 8 an "absolutely critical product" that combines "the best" oftablets and traditional PCs.

  Gates noted that people will be "amazed at the energy" Microsoft is putting behind its new products, and he said Windows 8 "is key to where personal computing is going."

"This is the big time for us," Gates said.

He added that he has been using his Surface tablet nonstop, calling it "unbelievably great."

Gate also hinted that the PC/tablet version of Windows and the phone version will eventually merge over time.

"We're certainly sharing between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8," Gates said. "Over time, we do more and more of that. It's evolving literally to be a single platform."

Microsoft can merge the Windows 8 phone and computer systems into one single platform all they want - people can then hate one big operating systems instead of two little ones.

And I love how Gates thinks Windows 8 takes all of what is great from every other system while Greenspun the MIT professor and the Nielson Norman Group says it is just the opposite - Microsoft took the worst parts of every system and put them into Windows 8.

It's amazing to me that the people give credence to anything Bill Gates says about poverty, education or the environment when it is becoming increasingly clear that he can't even get computer and phone operating systems right - and that's a business he supposedly knows about.

What's worse, he seems to really think the system is fabo, showing just how clueless he truly is.

Microsoft Windows 8 is a nightmare system designed by people who think they're geniuses but who actually are clueless incompetents.

Pretty much like the people at the Gates Foundation who are involved in education policy, food policy, disease eradication and poverty alleviation.

Cory Booker Does The Business Of Our Corporate Overlords

To contact us Click HERE
The WSJ covers the release of the emails related to Mark Zuckerberg's "gift" of $100 million in Facebook stock to the Newark school district.

Mayor Cory Booker had attempted to keep the emails secret but the ACLU sued to get release.

Via Schools Matter, Glenn Ford of the Black Agenda Report looks at the crimes of Cory Booker, Barack Obama and other black politicians who do the bidding of our corporate overlords.

Ford shows how the attacks on black progressivism and unionism have helped promote the corporate agenda.

It is good to remember that, as Booker's machinations with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and David Einhorn and other hedge fund criminals to sell off the Newark public school system are exposed.

Booker likes to go on Oprah and make like he is trying to improve the lives of citizens of his city.

But most citizens in Newark are not fooled by Booker.

They know Booker is not out to improve public education, public schools or the lives of the citizens in Newark.

They know he is out to promote a corporate agenda, a privatization agenda, and thus promote himself for higher office.

If he tried to run for re-election in Newark, he probably wouldn't win - he has a reputation for being an "absentee mayor" - a politician more interested in national acclaim over stunts like his trying live on food stamps for a week than the difficult business of actually governing Newark.

But that's okay - he's aiming higher anyway.

He had been mulling running for governor for so long that it seemed a foregone conclusion he would run - until Hurricane Sandy. 

Following the storm,Chris Christie's approval ratings soared and Booker soured on running against Christie.

He will try and run for Frank Lautenberg's Senate seat instead, using the Senate as a launching pad to eventually run for president, just like another great sell-out of progressivism, Barack Obama.

Booker's ruffling some feathers by announcing this bid so far out from the election, but make no mistake, Big Money, Wall Street and the hedge fundies will be behind Cory Booker.

So will Bill Gates, the Broad Foundation and Oprah Winfrey.

Some of the same coalition that helped put Obama in the White House, btw.

Although unlike Obama, who has a lukewarm relationship with his corporate overlords at best, Booker is beloved by the corporate establishment.

Which is why he is so dangerous - he can look like a progressive to people who aren't paying close attention while actually harming progressive ideals and politics a great deal.

Take his food stamp stunt, where Booker lived on food stamps for a week to allegedly expose the problems with the program.

Rather than pulling stunts like that, he ought to be fighting for better paying jobs for people in New Jersey so they don't have to supplement their pay with food stamps to feed their families.

But this guy's too busy defending the private equity predators from attacks and backing Chris Christie up on his charter school proposals and attacks on teachers unions to get around to putting pressure on a company like, say, Walmart to provide a livable wage to its employees before it opens a store in Newark.

He's too busy promoting himself on Twitter, appearing on Oprah and writing opinion pieces in the Star-Ledger about his future plans to think much about the people who need help the most.

That's why the guys in private equity and on Wall Street love this guy - he's all show, and when it comes to policy agendas, Cory Booker can always be counted on to do the right thing - for Wall Street and the corporate state.

And so, as you peruse the Cory Booker/Facebook emails and see the coziness the mayor has with the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the hedge fund industry, remember that Booker is looking to use those relations to take his thing national.

Just like that other paragon of progressivism, Barack Obama.

NYC: Authorized Representatives May Apply for D-SNAP on Behalf of those Who Cannot Get to Sites

To contact us Click HERE
According to the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA), individuals who cannot get to one of the two centers designated to apply for Disaster SNAP assistance, may now go to one of seven Restoration Centers to designate an authorized representative to apply for them.

Click here for specific information on the HRA web site about authorized representatives.

An updated outreach flyer is also available on our Hurricane Sandy Resources page. Keep checking back for the most updated information.

Mayor Bloomberg King's Game 911 Tech System CityTime Mega-Crimes

To contact us Click HERE





http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/06/suzannah-troy-note-to-press-activists.html  King's Game Danish film -- from Albany under the reign of andy cuomo to mike bloomberg and mrs. bloomberg Christine Quinn his mini-me -- the 2 get off playing good cop bad cop we have the largest mega corruption EVER and no one seems to notice...

Don't forget mega-corrupt MTA SAIC deal -- oh yeah and than the MTA and it's board got integrity?  Even less now that Andrew Cuomo stabbed the people of NYC in the back and sent a message go ahead and be violent towards women and get rewarded as well re: Dave Paterson silencing his 6 foot 9 best friend Dave Johnson's girlfriend in to silence.

Johnson fled.  The only honest folks with integrity resigned from their jobs in Albany as the corrupt Paterson and Johnson stayed on.  Finally paterson was forced to fire johnson who did plead guilty!

Judge Judy Kaye is a political fixer and betrayed all decency folks to do Cuomo's political fixing and it is is because of Paterson's daddy Basil who has powerful connections so from Albany to City Hall the most corruption EVER.

I had hoped Cuomo might change things but he has clearly signaled he is now part of the problem.

9-11 a nightmare I still can't believe but this too seems like a bad dream -- really mind blowing they are getting away with the largest tax payer abuse -- billions upon billions and no one seems to notice or care and the most corrupt players are all above the law while the little people are falsely arrested ticketed etc.

The New York Times Christine Quinn's Campaign Manager Protest Dress! by Suzannah B. Troy

To contact us Click HERE


Protesting tonight and I will wear my red wig!!!!!
Wait until you see the back!   I accuse The New York Times of killing news stories on behalf of Christine Quinn!


http://christinequinnminime.blogspot.com/2012/07/christine-quinn-chuck-meara-locked-out.html


I wrote at the very bottom of the back of the dress.....Thanks Carolyn Ryan, We owe you....xoxox Christine Quinn, Emily Giske!

NYPD Jose Ramos Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly's Albatross

To contact us Click HERE

Wiczyk, O. 3297/2011 Pt. H60 12/13/2012	Jose Ramos	Ramos, a New York City Police Officer, is charged with crimes stemming from more than half a dozen different incidents that occurred between March 10, 2009 and November 11, 2009. Ramos has been charged with attempted robbery, attempted grand larceny, transporting what he believed to be a shipment of heroin for drug dealers, selling counterfeit CDs and DVDs in his barbershops, and disclosing the identity of a confidential informant who was providing information on a series of shootings and homicides.
Wiczyk, O. 2047/2012 Pt. H60 12/13/2012	Jose Ramos and Wanda Abreu	Ramos, a New York City Police Officer, and his wife Abreu have been charged in a new indictment with conspiring to hire a “hit” man to murder a witness in a criminal case against Ramos. It is alleged in court papers that the defendants from September 15, 2011 and continuing through May 7, 2012, attempted to arrange the contract killing through face to face meetings and telephone calls, some of which were recorded at a detention facility on Rikers Island, where Ramos is awaiting trial.

http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/09/httpbronxda.html



This link will take you to docket of legal cases Bronx with NYPD cops listed!
The list -- the last one is a shocker the NYPD cop accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill witness -- one case in a series of nypd fixes and favors scandals that involve PBA -- my point is the corrupt NYPD are not effectively being weeded out and something is really really wrong.


Aren't you glad there is not fixing or favors by the NYPD and PBA anywhere but the Bronx including City Hall.....


http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/11/murray-weiss-on-shrinking-nypd-forgets.html?m=1

Bloomberg's Scandalous CityTime Trial Delayed & SEC Head Quits!

To contact us Click HERE

Bloomberg's Scandalous CityTime Trial Delayed & SEC Head Quits!

http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/12/bloomberg-bharara-citytime-trial-pre.html
Note;  Preet is delaying the pre-trial blaming Hurricane Sandy to some degree so folks this means the trial will be delayed as well which at this point may allow Mike an exit as mayor as his "service" I prefer rule/abuse of power to make him and his puppets and pals far richer is over -- although he wants to extend his rule via Christine Quinn.


If New Yorkers grasped what he is guilty of he would be forced to resignnot that we have any leaders to step up.  (From the White House to Albany to City Hall from the right and left we are doomed....they run it like a corrupt corporation not a government....)

Follow the links:



http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/04/citytime-saic-scandal-washington-post.html?m=1


http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/26/business/la-fi-sec-schapiro-quits-20121127

Head of SEC quits -- does that mean SEC going to come out of coma and go after SEC for role in CityTime (screwing over robbing NYC tax payers -- yes folks that is you -- if someone robbed your wallet or smart phone but you don't seem to care we were robbed on CityTime and ECTP the 911 tech system and we are not getting the proper responses of the authorities including the SEC.    http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/11/saic-sec-in-bernie-madoff-like-coma.html

Preet Bharara refuses to go back in Time CityTime and re-do the indictment.  It seems like he is protecting top SAIC officials and NYC Gov officials.   His office claims they are swamped with millions of pages of paper work but SAIC shareholders suing SAIC agree with my theory about SAIC robbing us way back before Denault was even hired.  The Richard Valcich letter proves it.

http://youtu.be/ARFIl0hxTGw  My vid of me reading only part of the letter has almost 9,000 views.

http://bloombergnewzzz.blogspot.com/2012/11/ny-post-editors-911-son-of-citytime.html

http://nyciloveyoubigtime.blogspot.com/2012/11/michael-bloomberg-mayor-in-thief.html
Documentary Film Maker on Mike Bloomberg explaining how he makes millions of dollars a day as mayor -- since this film was made Mike's private fortune as grown even more.


http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/07/rumor-preet-bharara-avoiding-career.html

http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/12/mayor-bloombergs-911-tech-software.html

SAIC the Artful Dodger
http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/11/saic-artful-dodger-repost.html

POSTED BY SUZANNAH B. TROY ARTIST AT 8:27 AM LINKS TO THIS POST

Mayor Bloomberg King's Game 911 Tech System CityTime Mega-Crimes

To contact us Click HERE





http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/06/suzannah-troy-note-to-press-activists.html  King's Game Danish film -- from Albany under the reign of andy cuomo to mike bloomberg and mrs. bloomberg Christine Quinn his mini-me -- the 2 get off playing good cop bad cop we have the largest mega corruption EVER and no one seems to notice...

Don't forget mega-corrupt MTA SAIC deal -- oh yeah and than the MTA and it's board got integrity?  Even less now that Andrew Cuomo stabbed the people of NYC in the back and sent a message go ahead and be violent towards women and get rewarded as well re: Dave Paterson silencing his 6 foot 9 best friend Dave Johnson's girlfriend in to silence.

Johnson fled.  The only honest folks with integrity resigned from their jobs in Albany as the corrupt Paterson and Johnson stayed on.  Finally paterson was forced to fire johnson who did plead guilty!

Judge Judy Kaye is a political fixer and betrayed all decency folks to do Cuomo's political fixing and it is is because of Paterson's daddy Basil who has powerful connections so from Albany to City Hall the most corruption EVER.

I had hoped Cuomo might change things but he has clearly signaled he is now part of the problem.

9-11 a nightmare I still can't believe but this too seems like a bad dream -- really mind blowing they are getting away with the largest tax payer abuse -- billions upon billions and no one seems to notice or care and the most corrupt players are all above the law while the little people are falsely arrested ticketed etc.

The New York Times Christine Quinn's Campaign Manager Protest Dress! by Suzannah B. Troy

To contact us Click HERE


Protesting tonight and I will wear my red wig!!!!!
Wait until you see the back!   I accuse The New York Times of killing news stories on behalf of Christine Quinn!


http://christinequinnminime.blogspot.com/2012/07/christine-quinn-chuck-meara-locked-out.html


I wrote at the very bottom of the back of the dress.....Thanks Carolyn Ryan, We owe you....xoxox Christine Quinn, Emily Giske!

NYPD Jose Ramos Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly's Albatross

To contact us Click HERE

Wiczyk, O. 3297/2011 Pt. H60 12/13/2012	Jose Ramos	Ramos, a New York City Police Officer, is charged with crimes stemming from more than half a dozen different incidents that occurred between March 10, 2009 and November 11, 2009. Ramos has been charged with attempted robbery, attempted grand larceny, transporting what he believed to be a shipment of heroin for drug dealers, selling counterfeit CDs and DVDs in his barbershops, and disclosing the identity of a confidential informant who was providing information on a series of shootings and homicides.
Wiczyk, O. 2047/2012 Pt. H60 12/13/2012	Jose Ramos and Wanda Abreu	Ramos, a New York City Police Officer, and his wife Abreu have been charged in a new indictment with conspiring to hire a “hit” man to murder a witness in a criminal case against Ramos. It is alleged in court papers that the defendants from September 15, 2011 and continuing through May 7, 2012, attempted to arrange the contract killing through face to face meetings and telephone calls, some of which were recorded at a detention facility on Rikers Island, where Ramos is awaiting trial.

http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/09/httpbronxda.html



This link will take you to docket of legal cases Bronx with NYPD cops listed!
The list -- the last one is a shocker the NYPD cop accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill witness -- one case in a series of nypd fixes and favors scandals that involve PBA -- my point is the corrupt NYPD are not effectively being weeded out and something is really really wrong.


Aren't you glad there is not fixing or favors by the NYPD and PBA anywhere but the Bronx including City Hall.....


http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/11/murray-weiss-on-shrinking-nypd-forgets.html?m=1

Bloomberg's Scandalous CityTime Trial Delayed & SEC Head Quits!

To contact us Click HERE

Bloomberg's Scandalous CityTime Trial Delayed & SEC Head Quits!

http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/12/bloomberg-bharara-citytime-trial-pre.html
Note;  Preet is delaying the pre-trial blaming Hurricane Sandy to some degree so folks this means the trial will be delayed as well which at this point may allow Mike an exit as mayor as his "service" I prefer rule/abuse of power to make him and his puppets and pals far richer is over -- although he wants to extend his rule via Christine Quinn.


If New Yorkers grasped what he is guilty of he would be forced to resignnot that we have any leaders to step up.  (From the White House to Albany to City Hall from the right and left we are doomed....they run it like a corrupt corporation not a government....)

Follow the links:



http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/04/citytime-saic-scandal-washington-post.html?m=1


http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/26/business/la-fi-sec-schapiro-quits-20121127

Head of SEC quits -- does that mean SEC going to come out of coma and go after SEC for role in CityTime (screwing over robbing NYC tax payers -- yes folks that is you -- if someone robbed your wallet or smart phone but you don't seem to care we were robbed on CityTime and ECTP the 911 tech system and we are not getting the proper responses of the authorities including the SEC.    http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/11/saic-sec-in-bernie-madoff-like-coma.html

Preet Bharara refuses to go back in Time CityTime and re-do the indictment.  It seems like he is protecting top SAIC officials and NYC Gov officials.   His office claims they are swamped with millions of pages of paper work but SAIC shareholders suing SAIC agree with my theory about SAIC robbing us way back before Denault was even hired.  The Richard Valcich letter proves it.

http://youtu.be/ARFIl0hxTGw  My vid of me reading only part of the letter has almost 9,000 views.

http://bloombergnewzzz.blogspot.com/2012/11/ny-post-editors-911-son-of-citytime.html

http://nyciloveyoubigtime.blogspot.com/2012/11/michael-bloomberg-mayor-in-thief.html
Documentary Film Maker on Mike Bloomberg explaining how he makes millions of dollars a day as mayor -- since this film was made Mike's private fortune as grown even more.


http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/07/rumor-preet-bharara-avoiding-career.html

http://mayorbloombergkingofnewyork.blogspot.com/2012/12/mayor-bloombergs-911-tech-software.html

SAIC the Artful Dodger
http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/11/saic-artful-dodger-repost.html

POSTED BY SUZANNAH B. TROY ARTIST AT 8:27 AM LINKS TO THIS POST

Holiday Miracle Henry Buhl of Ace Foundation Forced to Remove Illegal Planters Displacing Veteran and Artist Vendors

To contact us Click HERE

The Ace Foundation is suppose to help homeless men and women but even the short clip captured by a vendor as fork lift are put in place show Henry Buhl leaning against a wall in a red jacket as an Ace Worker in red uniform --  a person of color works cleaning around a garbage can -- but Buhl tried to illegally evict Veteran Vendors and Artist who have been there for years and many are People of Color!

Does he want them in homeless shelters.  These are hard times and he has displaced them for 6 months illegally breaking the law but no handcuffs for him.  If OWS did this they would have been removed instantly with arrests and fines!

Miracles do happen and thanks to everyone who helped to make this slow moving miracle happen!
Some times People without mega bucks do win in this City run like Oligarch Central!





http://suzannahbtroy.blogspot.com/2012/12/henry-buhl-ace-illegal-planters.html

Food Stamp Use Skyrockets...Again: Record 607,559 Americans Added To Rolls In September

To contact us Click HERE
More than 47.7 million citizens received federal aid; Spending between August and September had single highest spike in history, too...
The number of Americans receiving Food Stamps has spiked once again, but this time the increase is staggering: 47,710,324 citizens received benefits at a cost of $6,407,024,21, according to newly released Department of Agriculture figures for the month of September, the latest month for which data is available.  607,559 people were added to the rolls between August and September, the highest increase in beneficiaries in a single month during President Obama's first term in office.

Spending increased by more than $123 million between August and September, in contrast to a spending increase of $19.6* million between July and August.  The number is also a record setter.

USDA released the figures for what is officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) after the close of business on Friday.

Last month's figures, the second highest for the Obama Administration in enrollment and single-month increase in spending, were released after Election Day, in a deviation from the USDA's practice of issuing the numbers at the beginning or very end of each month.  September's dramatic uptick came as President Obama was in the final weeks of his reelection campaign, reassuring Americans with a narrative that the economy was in recovery.

More than 15.72 million people have been added to the SNAP rolls since President Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009.

The number of households enrolled in SNAP also increased from 22,684,463 in August to 22,973,698 in September.  The average benefit, according to the new data, was $134.29 per person and $278.89 per household.  Texas, California, and Florida were the states with the most recipients.

Cuts to the federal nutrition safety net are currently part of the ongoing and contentious fiscal cliff negotiations between the President and Congress.  President Obama travels to Detroit, MI on Monday to continue to pitch his plan, with an event at Daimler Detroit Diesel.

The SNAP numbers for September include disaster assistance for the states of Mississippi and Louisiana, USDA noted, but not for Hurricane Sandy.  The superstorm made landfall on the East Coast in the last week of October. 

31.9 million people were enrolled in SNAP when President Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009, with monthly spending at $3.63 billion.  Participation in the program has remained above 46 million people for all of fiscal year 2012, with annual federal spending for Food Stamps more than doubling over four years to a record $75.7 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2011. 

The September spike follows on the heels of the second-highest spike in numbers during the Obama Administration in spending and enrollment between July and August, when 420,863* citizens were added to the rolls.

USDA documents say that most beneficiaries leave the program after ten months.  About 47% of Food Stamp recipients are children, according to USDA, and 8% are elderly.

*USDA has updated its preliminary figures for August posted last month, and recorded different  numbers in November. 

*Photo by Pete Souza/White House

Recipes: Obama White House Holiday Cookies, And Other Sweet & Merry Treats

To contact us Click HERE
Joy to All from the White House to your house:  Gingerbread Cookies, Sweet Dough Butter Cookies, Ginger Crinkles Cookies, Honey Tea Lollipops...
Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses and his team are busier than Santa's elves this holiday season, baking and decorating thousands of cookies for the 24 holiday dinners and receptions President Obama and First Lady Obama will host through late December.  Holiday cookies are a staple on the dinner buffets, and Sweet Dough Butter Cookies shaped like First Dog Bo, snowflakes, ornaments, stars and Christmas trees fill silver cookies trees.  Gingerbread Cookies in the shape of decorated reindeer and sugar-sprinkled snowmen are also on offer.  The recipes for both, and Ginger Crinkles Cookies are below. The Gingerbread Cookie recipe can be used to make ornaments, too.  (Above, a tree of cookies on a dessert buffet in the East Room)


Bo is all over Mrs. Obama's 'Joy to All' decor scheme, with "Boflake" ornaments scattered among the 54 trees that fill the mansion, and a larger-than-life pom-pom topiary of the First Dog taking pride of place in the Booksellers.  The Bo cookies are the most popular with guests each year; the 2012 edition is a "seated" Bo with a red collar.  The cookies tend to get pocketed by guests, rather than eaten.  That's a good thing, because the black dye in Bo's "fur" frosting stains the lips, which has become something of a joke around the White House.

Yosses and his staff have so much to do with baking cookies, double-crust fruit pies, Yule logs, pumpkin and coconut and gingerbread cakes and other delights for the President and Mrs. Obama's 14,000 expected holiday guests that the cookie dough is made weeks ahead of time, and then frozen for daily baking, he says.  The President and Mrs. Obama's guests will include "volunteers, members of Congress, White House staff, Secret Service personnel, White House reporters and Americans from across the country," said the East Wing.  Sometimes there are two parties a day; the holidays are very busy at the White House.

For the 2012 holiday season, Yosses has newly released his recipe for Sticky Toffee Pudding, a rich, moist cake, as well as the recipe for Ginger Crinkles Cookies {PDF}.  Mrs. Obama made White House Honey Tea Lollipops with children from military families when she unveiled her decor scheme.  These use candied root vegetables and a tea infusion.  More holiday recipes are linked at the bottom of this post.  (Above, Mrs. Obama displays a lollipop at the decor preview)


White House Sweet Dough Butter Cookies
*Dough must be chilled overnight.

*Preheat the oven to 350F.

Ingredients
1 lb Sugar

2 lbs Butter

3 lbs All Purpose Flour

3 Eggs

1 Tsp Vanilla

1 Tsp Salt

Method
1. Mix the butter and sugar till soft and well beaten.

2. Then add eggs, vanilla, salt and half the flour. Beat on slow speed till mixed, then add the rest of the flour and mix until incorporated.

3. Push flat onto a cookie sheet and refrigerate overnight.

4. The next day, roll dough out to one quarter inch thick, and cut out cookie shapes with cookie cutter.

5. Bake at 350F for 14 minutes and then allow to cool before decorating.

Royal Icing

Ingredients
2 cups Confectioner's sugar, sifted

1 egg white

1 Tsp lemon juice

Method
Mix with paddle attachment on electric blender (or by hand) for 5 minutes. If icing is too thick, add more lemon juice or a little egg white to desired consistency.  Use pasteurized eggs if possible, in the interest of food safety.

Decorate as desired. Number of cookie servings varies depending on size of cookies cut.

White House Holiday Gingerbread Cookies
*Dough must be chilled overnight.
Bake longer to harden for ornaments.
Ingredients for the Cookies
8 oz (2 sticks) butter, soft

2 cups dark brown sugar

2 eggs, large

1 Cup molasses

7 Cups All Purpose flour

1/4 Tsp ginger ground

1/4  Tsp cinnamon, ground

1 Tsp baking soda

1/4 Tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Zest from 1 lemon

Zest from 1 orange

Method
1. Cream butter and sugar in an electric mixer for a minimum 5 minutes.

2. Add eggs one by one, then molasses.

3. Put mixer on slow, sift spices, salt, baking powder and baking soda with flour then add these dry ingredients in three increments and scrape bowl each time.

4. Add zests and mix until incorporated, but do not over mix.

5. Remove dough from bowl and place on plastic wrap and spread to 1" thickness over wrap and cover with another sheet of plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.

6. Remove dough from refrigerator and roll out a small piece on a floured surface. This dough is very wet, so add flour when necessary to prevent sticking and turn over often.

7. Roll out to 1/8 to ¼ inch thickness for cookies. Cut out Gingerbread shapes.

8. Bake for 12 minutes at 350°F for cookies; 25 minutes or more for ornaments.

*Serving size depends on number of cookies cut


More White House holiday recipes...
Recipes for Yosses' other holiday desserts on offer at the Presidential parties include Apple Pie and Huckleberry Pie and Pumpkin Cake.  Yosses' nearly 300-pound Gingerbread White House is a show-stopper this year, and sits beside the dessert buffet in the State Dining Room.  The savory dinner buffet menu includes recipes featured in the First Lady's Grammy-nominated book, American Grown.  Check the sidebar for all White House recipes.  (Above, a dessert buffet in the East Room)

Click here for links to all posts about the 2012 holidays.

Download:  The Official White House Holiday Tour Booklet {PDF}


*Photos by Eddie Gehman Kohan/Obama Foodorama