That's My Girl

Abby Wambach and nine other U.S. athletes were on a "troublemaker" list created by the Chinese government before the Olympics. China gave the list to the USOC in July, warning that the athletes (most were members of Team Darfur) might protest and disrupt the Games.

Click on the USA Today story to watch the video of Abby Wambach being interviewed in April 2008 about human rights in China.

Interesting that 9 of the 10 listed are women.

Way to go Abby, and all the athletes on the list. That's like Paul Newman being on Nixon's enemies list, an honor to have been blacklisted by an opponent so foul.

Christine Brennan, USAToady: China listed U.S. athletes as possible troublemakers

China's government was so concerned about the possibility of athlete demonstrations in the Beijing Olympics that it created a list of nine U.S. athletes and one assistant coach it thought might cause trouble at the Games, according to an internal U.S. Olympic Committee e-mail obtained by USA TODAY.

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"This may be the biggest compliment of my life," Wambach, a member of Team Darfur, said in a phone interview when informed of the list. "If they're worried about us, maybe we do have more strength as athletes and as people to speak out. This just gives me more empowerment."

BEIJING WATCH LIST

The 10 Americans on Beijing's watch list, not all of whom were actually Olympians:

Jessica Mendoza, softball.

Jennie Finch, softball.

Natasha Watley, softball.

Amanda Freed, softball.

Karen Johns, softball assistant coach.

Laura Goodwin, golfer.

Abby Wambach, soccer.

Jonathan Page, cyclist.

Jen Howitt, Paralympic basketball.

Cheri Blauwet, Paralympic wheelchair racer

No Chinese, Please

Smithsonian neg#77-1965 Neon Sign Display in A Nation of Nations at Museum of American History. SI photo by Dane A. Penland
Big Food has been importing cheap food and food "ingredients" from China. There's no FDA in China, and our own FDA barely inspects a fraction of the foodstuffs coming in to this country. The FDA has even been sending tainted products back, rather than destroy them; the producers just send 'em in again. And probably succeed most of the time, as so little is actually inspected, just 0.9% in 2006. I'm writing to my Congressman today in favor of a mandatory label on food products listing country or countries of origin.

litbrit at Shakesville: It's Time For America To Legislate Mandatory Country Of Origin Labels

WaPo: Tainted Chinese Imports Common
In Four Months, FDA Refused 298 Shipments

Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.

Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.

Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.

Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught -- many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

NYTimes: Poisoned Toothpaste in Panama Is Believed to Be From China

International Herald Tribune (reprinted from the Boston Globe): U.S. proposal to allow chicken imports from China raises health concerns

Chicago Tribune: Big holes frustrate food import safety net
China trade reveals gaps in FDA system

Save Darfur: Divest

I saw this on BlueGal:

The reason Fidelity feels they can't divest from genocide is because that would mean divesting large holdings from China. China is an international scourge on so many levels. “They’re too big a market to be held accountable to international standards” is a sick testimony to Western greed. That and Wal Mart. Oh, wait. That’s cheap junk from China, isn’t it?

Look at her. Just look at her face.

h/t Quakerdave, who would like as many of you as possible to post this vid to your blogs.

Food Blogging

I never thought I'd become a food blogger, but so many stories have food in them today.

(1) Save Chocolate! Due to popular demand (meaning the FDA got slammed) the consumer comment period on Big Food's petition to be allowed to substitute vegetable fat for cocoa butter has been extended to June 25, 2007. Don'tMessWithOurChocolate.com has a sample letter you can use in composing your petition to the FDA. I don't want to buy a bar of Crisco, do you?

(2) Pizza. Resigned-in-disgrace AIDS Czar Randall Tobias, patron of the DC escort service, said this in his defense:

[ABC Investigative Reporter Brian] ROSS: Well, David, I talked to him one day before he resigned and told him that we had found his name and personal phone number on a list of clients of the so-called DC Madam’s escort service in Washington. And what he told me was that he in fact had been a customer of the service, but that he had not had sex. He had had what he called gals come over to his condo to give him a massage. He claimed there was no sex but that he was stunned by the fact that we were aware he was a client and that was his conversation. I asked him if he knew any of the young women, their names. He said he didn’t remember them at all. He said it was like ordering pizza.

I don't even know what to say about a comment like that.

(3) Melamine. Apparently our food supply is awash in the stuff, much of it coming from China. It's ground up and added to feed and grains. When a food is tested for nutritional value, melamine looks like protein, so it 'boosts' that number. It's all part of the scientific breakdown of food into scientific categories or nutrients, which has had a disastrous effect on the American and the world diet. Read this article from the Times magazine a few months ago: the best diet is to eat food your grandmother would recognize as food. Mostly plants, and nothing reconstituted in a factory. Most of it tastes like crap, anyway.

NYTimes: Filler in Animal Feed Is Open Secret in China