Ranting Woman Ranting Daily

Birth Tourism?14th Amendment Needs Changing

ranting woman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 23:19:36 +0000

The United States is one of the few countries which grants citizenship to all babies born here of non-citizens or residents. In recent years “Birth Tourism” has been a way for illegals or others ‘just visiting’ to have their child be granted citizenship because of being born here.

This is an incentive for unauthorized entry into the United States, and then turns around and ‘rewards’ that entry with U.S. citizenship to a child born of non-residents! It’s a loophole which needs to be closed. As regimes crumble all over the world to war or civil unrest, as natural disasters destroy cities worldwide, the business of pandering to pregnant women and their families has grown. “Birth suites’” are offered in hotels such as the Marmara Manhattan, a luxury Turkish owned hotel in New York’s upper east side.

When a child is awarded U.S. citizenship, a foothold can be established to bring in other members of their family. With this new status the child is entitled to many rights their parents could only dream of in their country.

This practice should be stopped. Unless one of the parents IS an American citizen the child should not immediately be granted citizenship. If you come here from Mexico, Africa, the Middle East or wherever — and YOU and your spouse are NOT citizens? Guess what? No automatic citizenship for little Pedro, Yamballah, Ali, or Schlomo !

Our laws are wonderful things but some are, sadly outdated. They need to change.

Filed under: Babies, Children, Life, News, Parenting, Pregnancy Tagged: 14th amendment, birth suites, birth tourism, birthright citizenship, illegal aliens, marmara manhattan hotel, U.S. citizenship, U.S. constitution

Fast Food Wars – Disgusting Eats

ranting woman — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:53:50 +0000

KFC Double Down®

Here we go again: another ploy by fast food to win YOU over with some revolting new invention that their competitors don’t have. The KFC Double Down® is a bun-less ‘sandwich’ with bacon, cheese and sauce in the middle. I gagged in horror when I clicked on the article and the picture exploded on the screen! How can anybody in their right mind – or stomach – eat this? It’s got 1,380 mg. of sodium, but then again, all of KFC’s ‘food’ is chocked full of it. The calories are 540 and it contains 32 mg of fat. The supposed ‘healthier’ version, the grilled one has 1,430 mg. of sodium, only 460 calories and 23 grams of fat.

Another disgusting fast food offering is the BK Quad Stacker.® WHO needs to eat four burgers in one sitting? How about 6? Click HERE to make yourself really sick!

Hardees® has always been tops in the fast food disgusto offerings. Their $6 Burger tops in at 890 calories, 2040 grams of sodium and 54 grams of fat!

Ah, but all you have to do is take your Lipitor and everything will be fine, right?

Filed under: Children's health, Family Health, Food, Health, Life, Shopping Tagged: BK Stacker, fast food, Hardees, KFC Double Down, worst burgers

Fast Food Addiction=Sad Food Choices

ranting woman — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:25:42 +0000

I could only shake my head in astonishment at what I was hearing! I had to keep remembering to close my mouth as I was sitting there with it just hanging open in disbelief! Here is an example of the food mentality all too common today with children.

A woman and her two adopted children: she’s in her early 60′s, they are in their early teens. All are (no surprise) overweight, one of the girls who is quite short, probably under 5 feet, is well over 100 pounds over weight. The other is a bit taller and probably close to 75 pounds heavier than she should be.

I listened in horror at this story. Because their food is charged to a credit card, last month the food expenses were about $1800.00. Four hundred dollars of that was spend at McDonald’s. Some days they eat there 2 or 3 times a day. Their other favorites are Burger King, Pizza Hut and Wendy’s. The girls eat no vegetables; the Mom doesn’t cook because she’s too busy. Their beverage of choice is sweetened ice tea. They buy 5 pounds of sugar a week for the tea. Yes — you read correctly: five POUNDS. With the exception of a Sunday dinner, there don’t seem to be any other homemade meals that are served.

The sad thing is they don’t seem to care. THIS is food to them! They laughed at the whole thing; howled as they told the story! The long-term consequences of this is absolutely frightening! The Mom is compounding her medical problems by eating this diet. The girls are surely headed (if not already) for diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries and other ailments cause by fast food or a diet lacking in essential vitamins and minerals. They get no exercise at all.

Neither of the girls knows how to cook even a simple meal. They aren’t inclined to learn, either. Why should they… when McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King are so readily available?

Part of this is from advertising, part from convenience. Mickey D’s (and others) with their campaigns and never ending product offerings have hoodwinked these woman, and millions like them. They’re TOLD it’s good food. They’re promised that their fast food has gotten healthier, but HOW can this be healthy when the meat comes from animals treated with antibiotics, growth hormones, fed offal from dead chickens and processed in a way that could essentially make them sick from fecal contamination? Then there are the additives and chemicals used to make the buns, flavor the meat, breading and make up the ‘ice cream’ and flavor the shakes. What about the pesticides that the cows and chickens have eaten on their grain or are in the vegetables (what little there are) on the sandwiches. All ingredients in these meals undoubtedly come from fields treated with pesticides and herbicides such as Round-Up and are probably all made from GMO crops!

I later told the Mom and IF… for ONE MONTH… they ate real food, no fast food and used a sweetener such as stevia for their tea… that they all would lose weight, probably without exercising. Their calorie intake as it is right now must be thousands of calories a day…, never mind the salt, sugar and fat consumption! Of course, they’d have to be willing to TRY new food such as eggs, fruits, breads, grains, beans, salads and consume far less meat and processed food. Their tastes at present are addicted to fast food and it’s a sad testimony.

Is it too much to make a simple breakfast between the three of them in the morning? How difficult would it be, with all of them participating every evening, to make a home-cooked meal? Is it so impossible to cook something beforehand, freeze it and have it on a night when they might be in a hurry to be elsewhere?

I still say it: required reading in schools should be “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser and Morton Spurlock’s “Don’t Eat This Book-The Supersizing of America”. Required movies should be “Fresh, The Movie” and “Food, Inc”

Kids like these are heading toward health problems and an early death. Their generation is the first one that studies show, that may not outlive their parents. Already rampant are health issues never seen before in their age group. These two girls are very likely to have a major health event such as a stroke, cancer of some kind or heart attack by their 40′s or 50′s.

It’s their food choices, bite at a time, that will doom them!

Filed under: Babies, Children, Children's health, Corporate America, Education, family, Family Health, Food, Health, Life, News, Parenting, Pesticides, Shopping, Thoughts, Uncategorized, Women Tagged: artifical food, chemicals in food, children & chemicals, Culture, eating naturally, exposure to chemicals, family, fast food, Health, Home, Kids, Life, McDonalds, real food, restaurants, Society, Thoughts

Tea Party, Sarah Palin and Hatred

ranting woman — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:38:56 +0000

Recent Tea Party acts of violence against members of the House Representatives is going too far. Under the constitution these people are entitled to their views. Sarah Palin, on her Facebook page, posted pictures of gun scope cross-hairs over Democratic districts she aims to defeat.

The recent health care debate and passage of the bill has brought out vast amounts of anger on both sides. Tea Party members are rallying around Palin as their savior in 2012. God help us! Her angry redneck gun-toting rhetoric, combined with Conservative Christian views do NOT belong anywhere near the White House! While advocating for ‘freedom’, she is anxious to push her conservative Christian agenda in government. Sarah – LOOK around you! We are no longer a nation comprised solely of Christians!

There’s a new term coined by John Avalon of CNN: “Hatriots”. There is no place for hate and inciting violence in politics. These people, like Palin and other right wing fanatics, are condoning violence as a way to solve problems! Why aren’t they treated as domestic terrorists? If I were to go out on the street and proselytize like Palin and other Hatriots, I’d be thrown in jail for threatening government officials!

People are screaming ‘off with their heads’ about government officials who passed the health care reform bill. They want Mr. Obama thrown out of the White House because they think that he’s caused this mess.

No folks, THIS MESS was created long ago by different administrations, corporate influences with deep pockets and the ability of people in government to write their own rules. I’m certainly not a political genius, but I do know one thing: we’ve lost our clout as far as having a government ‘for the people, by the people.’ I do agree that we need to get our government back, and out of the hands of the greedy, but I’m not sure how to do it. However, we’ve got ENOUGH hate in this world and inciting violence of ANY sort, toward ANYONE, is NOT the solution!

Filed under: Conservative Christians, Health, Politics Tagged: 2012 election, hatriot, health care bill, right wing conservatives, Sarah Palin, Tea Party

Jaycee Dugard Kidnapper Wants ‘his family’

ranting woman — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:18:17 +0000

Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped at age 11 by Phillip Garrido. He kept her prisoner for 18 years and fathered two children: one when she was 14, the other when she was 17.

Now in court proceedings, Garrido (I can’t even call him ‘Mister’) says he wants to be in contact with ‘his family’.

Garrido and his wife Nancy have pleased not guilty. A simple DNA test would confirm his link to the children.

Religious fanaticism plays a great part here. He claims he’s turned his life around since the kidnapping, but evidence suggests he’s one of these poor souls who fell into religious fervor. He’s so pathetic – believing thousands of people are going to ‘come out of the woodwork’ to testify about some seemingly religious event.

This man was a registered sex offender and had been imprisoned Leavenworth for federal kidnapping charges in 1977 for the rape of a 25 year-old, Katie Hall. He took her across state lines from California to Nevada where he raped her. After serving 10 years he was transferred to Carson City, then paroled in 1988.

He managed to stay under the radar for many years after his release and finally moved to California. In 2006 he was required to wear a GPS tracking device because he was a sex offender. Two 911 calls to local sheriff’s office from his neighbors failed to unearth the fact that he was keeping a woman and two children prisoners in has back yard. Deputies didn’t check his background; a lack of communication between jurisdictions can be blamed for this.

Oh yeah — the GPS worked alright! He never went near schools or where children were likely to be. He was being good as gold. Why would he have to go in search of children? His own home was his perverted playground!

Jaycee and her children were imprisoned at his home in Antioch, California. They went without medical care, didn’t go to school and were instructed to ‘hide’ if someone came to the door.

Now, he wants contact with his ‘family’. He’s clearly a nutcase, a fanatical one at that. He’s also a sex offender and kidnapper. In all — he NEEDS to be KEPT in prison for the rest of his life, never paroled, because of his 18 year imprisonment and continuous rape of Jaycee Dugard.

No… buddy — you CAN’T have ‘your family’ back.

Filed under: News Tagged: assault, Crime, Dugard kidnapping case, Durgard kidnapping, Jaycee Dugard, Phillip Garrido

NAIS Scrapped By USDA… but….

ranting woman — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:07:55 +0000

NAIS, for the meantime, has been shelved by the USDA . This sounds good, but…. and I say this with a capital “B”… that we should not reduce our vigilance where any sort of government intrusion into our food system is concerned.

Says USDA Secretary Vilsack, “We are committed to working in partnership with States, Tribal Nations and industry in the coming months to address many of the details of this framework, and giving ample opportunity for farmers and ranchers and the public to provide us with continued input through this process.” Let’s make sure this happens; that we who are committed to local food & preserving our small farms stay on the ball and not get complacent. We are not to let our guard down, not even for a minute.

I am bothered by this: These steps will include accelerating actions to lessen the risk from diseases–such as tuberculosis–posed by imported animals, and WHY do we have to IMPORT animals for our food? … improving response capabilities, and focusing on greater collaboration and analyses with States and industry on potential disease risk overall. Keeping in mind, here, that small farmers’ livestock has never contributed to the beef industry food recalls.

One of USDA’s first steps will be to convene a forum with animal health leaders for the States and Tribal Nations to initiate a dialogue about the possible ways of achieving the flexible, coordinated approach to animal disease traceability Flexible should take into consideration the small farmers and consumers who own livestock. They should not be lumped in with the massive feed lots, (CAFOS) and withor compared to facilities which breed disease.

ALL of us need to be more aware of where our food comes from and what’s in it. Read this Organic Consumer’s article for a quick briefing. It’s written by a farmer.

We CANNOT RELAX on this issue! Special interest groups like Monsanto, Cargill, ADM and Tyson and major food retailers like Wal-Mart are NOT out to protect consumers! Wal-Mart is aggressively raising the level of food imports as reported in Supermarket News. U.S. food imports are staggering. WHY should we allow the government to use us as Guinea pigs so that retailers can save money? Imports are on the rise, even since this 2004 article.

Across this land people are starting to wake up regarding our food: what’s in it, where it comes from and how its produced. Everyone who is concerned needs to voice their opinion. The thousands of letters, e-mails and phone calls made obviously reached someone in the government. The 100 organizations who opposed NAIS and millions of consumers who called, faxed or signed online petitions – accomplished something.

Now is NOT the time to quit!

Filed under: Corporate America, Ecomony, Environment, Family Health, Food, Health, Life, News, Politics, Shopping, Small Farmers Tagged: animal identification system, Food, food imports, local food, NAIS, Small Farmers, sustainable agriculture, USDA, USDA scraps NAIS, Vilsack

GET OVER IT, Virginia

ranting woman — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:59:04 +0000

Oh… HORRORS ! It S N O W E D in Virginia! As usual the news media is treating it like a devastating event.

OK, OK, there’s a slant to this whole thing. I’m from the snow belt in upstate New York. It’s nothing to get a foot of snow or more at a time, or even two! So what? We just took it in stride and life went on. We knew how to manage when it snowed, took extra time to get to work; no big deal.

Not so here in Virginia. Local media builds it up for days ahead. Weather people (notice I didn’t say weathermen) track the advancing storm like it’s gonna be the end of the world! Even so, when just an INCH is predicted, which will probably be gone by 9am once the sun comes out, they STILL close the schools even before the storm gets here!

Granted, this storm had the potential for greater accumulations. We got far less than was forecast. For this area we were supposed to get 12-16″. IF we got 8-10 I’d be amazed.

We’ve all heard about climate change. True, if weather patterns are changing and states like Virginia will experience more snow, then why not just adapt?

QUIT WHINING and just do what you have to do! Learn how to dress for winter, learn how to DRIVE in the snow. (Hint, Magnolia Moms… this is an easy to remember rhyme: GO SLOW in the SNOW) Don’t be an idiot and try to do 60. It won’t work. Sooner or later you’ll lose traction and wind up being a statistic. Steady pressure on the gas going up hills. Don’t do anything ‘fast’ – no stomping on the gas, brakes or making sharp or sudden turns.

Another hint: that SUV you’re driving will NOT make you invincible! Neither will 4WD. Don’t be fooled by the car commercials which show these vehicles zipping though the snow. (read the captions on the ads: ‘Closed course, professional driver’) You can slide just as well in 4WD -and- yes… you CAN get a 4WD stuck! Just try to drive it through deep snow, say up to the bumper or high drifts. Sooner or later it will act as a snowplow building snow up underneath lifting it just far enough off the ground to lose traction. (Been there, done that!)

Locals will give me the excuse about the school buses having to go on back roads. Uh…, a school bus weighs how much and has how many wheels? Buses in upstate NY traverse snowy roads every day from October to April.

People have said that ‘We aren’t prepared to handle this weather.” Well you must might have to get used to handling more of it now if weather is changing, won’t you? VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) and municipal entities will have to reallocate funds from doing stupid things like leaf collection to getting more plows and winter weather equipment. DEAL WITH IT, folks!

Better yet, wimps and dummies: listen to the State Police when they tell you to stay home.

Filed under: Environment, family, Life, Thoughts Tagged: climate change, driving in snow, Virginia, Virginia snow, weather, winter driving

James Dobson, Focus On The Family: Dangerous, and Narrow Minded

ranting woman — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:57:54 +0000

You’ve heard about the plans of CBS to air a Super Bowl ad from James Dobson’s group, Focus On The Family. Thinly veiled as an effort to ‘promote’ women, it’s true intent is to get Roe V. Wade overturned.

Dobson’s group is a narrow minded group of conservative Christian zealots. Their focus seems to be the literal interpretation of the Bible. This antiquated, dangerous look at the way they think life should be. In their eyes, anything less than total submissiveness to God and total reliance on Jesus Christ, is blasphemy. to FOF, everything IN the Bible is ‘truth’. Much of our modern world is a sin: from gays and lesbians, premarital sex to liberal thinkers, separation of church and state. Huffington Post’s Michael Rowe offers a good take on the controversy. Go browse the FOF site and see what a sad bunch they are. Not only sad but scary!.

Sarah Palin attacked NOW this week saying that the ad acts to empower women. I agree with NOW that Palin, in her anti-abortion rhetoric actually takes rights away from women. It is this sneaky disguise of empowerment veiled in Focus’ message that disturbs me.

“In a statement to POLITICO, NOW President Terry O’Neill said that “Palin is “missing our point.”

“The goal of the Focus on the Family ad is not to empower women. It’s to create a climate in which Roe v. Wade can be overturned,” O’Neill said. “There are always going to be women who need abortions. In this country, one in three women will have an abortion.”

“Focus on the Family has cynically set it up so they can say anyone who disagrees with airing this ad is disrespecting one woman and her choice. NOW respects every woman’s right to plan her own family and insists our laws do the same,” said O’Neill.

What they actually hope to do is use this ad to further their cause against abortion. After all, they are ‘focused on the family’ but for their own slanted agenda: to add the to ranks of millions of brainwashed, unquestioning Christian fundamentalists, blindly following scripture which throughout the centuries has been twisted to suit various regimes. “In the name of God” has perpetuated death & persecution for thousands of years. Their desire to see every last non-Christian or abomination (in their eyes) disappear from the Earth is replicated over and over on their website and in their Christian publications.

Palin has a frightening background in fundamentalism. In this vein are people like Pat Robertson, and Todd Bentley those in Joel’s Army. These are nothing but cults.

Dangerous, d-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s stuff!

Filed under: abortion, Conservative Christians, Life, Politics, Religion, Women Tagged: abortion, abortion rights, CBS, Christian cults, Christian fundamentalism, Christian world domination, cults, Focus on the Family, James Dobson, NOW, Sarah Palin, Super Bowl ads

Oprah, Michael Pollan and Food, Inc

ranting woman — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:18:06 +0000

The Oprah Effect has hit the local food movement! Her show featuring Michael Pollan has given a boost to small farmers, pesticide free food, eating naturally and the movie, “Food, Inc.”

NOW will people get it about our food? Will they see how Monsanto has bullied, threatened and sued farmers right out of business? Is it possible that they will finally understand that McDonald’s, Burger King and others are not the ‘friends’ they thought they were? Perhaps they will finally pick up Eric Schlosser’s book, “Fast Food Nation” or READ (instead of just watch the documentary) “Supersize Me” by Morton Spurlock. Those two publications alone, made me stop eating at fast food restaurants. READ THEM. If YOU can go back to eating Mickey D’s, you’ve either got a stronger stomach than I have ~or~ you just plain don’t give a shit!

Our food has been hijacked and for the last 50 years or so we’ve been used as Guinea pigs. Monsanto has lied about its Round-Up. It is forcing farmers to buy their Round-Up ready GMO crops.

After reading the many postings and articles on what are food REALLY IS… how could anybody go to the store and look at food the same way again? After watching Food, Inc or “Fresh, The Movie”, one will see that our food isn’t what we are told it is. It’s a pack of LIES!

PEOPLE: Get behind your local farmers. FIGHT for them because in doing so – you are FIGHTING FOR YOUR FOOD! It is the consumers who have convinced corporations like Starbucks to stop buying Monsanto’s milk with growth hormones. Learn about things like NAIS, which is threatening not only small farmers but organic farms -and- you consumers – yes, YOU – who own a-n-y livestock.

SHOP at FARMER’S MARKETS: You’ll get to know where your food comes from. You’ll ‘see’ the ‘face’ of your food. Instead of the smiley deceitful face at Wal-Mart, who lie through their teeth about everything… you will again be able to trust that your food IS free of pesticides, GMOs, antibiotics.

WHY DO YOU THINK WE’RE SUCH A SICK NATION….. our antibiotics don’t work because we’ve been eating them e-v-e-r-y day. They’ve been in our milk, meat, eggs, cheese for decades. (Doctors haven’t helped either. They write millions of prescriptions a year for kids whose parents take them to their doctor at the first sniffle or slight fever!) THE FOOD INDUSTRY IS TO BLAME!

WAKE UP, people! Can you tear yourself away from texting for a minute to see what’s going on? Get off your cell phone for awhile and do some research. If you wonder why you’re so sick, so fat and crave that awful food… isn’t it about time to do something about it?

Are you, the public — FINALLY going to believe us nutty food activists and environmentalists?

God …. I hope so because TOGETHER…. we CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Filed under: Corporate America, Family Health, Food, Health, Pesticides, Politics, Small Farmers, Uncategorized Tagged: antibiotics, eating locally, fast food, Food Inc, Fresh the Movie, growth hormones, local food, Michael Pollan, Monsanto, Monsanto GMO, NAIS, Oprah, pesticide free food, Round-Up, Small Farmers

Wal-Mart Cuts Up Unsold Clothes

ranting woman — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:54:05 +0000

Ten years ago, a friend who worked at a Wal-Mart in Blackstone, Virginia told me that every night, all the unsold clothing and other items went into the trash. Employees were not allowed to buy or even take home anything.

Now this has made the pages of the New York Times and the Huffington Post.

A supposedly shocked spokeswoman at Wal-Mart, Melissa Hill, said they donate all clothing to charity. Really? I don’t believe it…. not when you have the eye-witness accounts of Wal-Mart workers.

Another friend sent me an e-mail recently:

Here are some more reasons for not shopping Wal-Mart. A person who works in the local one told my husband yesterday that all the good food in the produce dept. that doesn’t sell – tons of bananas that have brown speckles …as well as fruits and veggies, meats and other fresh food that may be ONE DAY past date. Seasonal clothes, decorations, too. Electronics, (computers etc) are thrown into a giant compacter in the back of the store. Isn’t it illegal to dump computers???

Employees are not allowed to buy any of this.

Everything is dumped late at night in this machine.

Our local food bank would be glad to take the food since they have refrigeration and freezers. The clothes could go to places like Goodwill or church “closets”.

Where does all this waste go? Our landfills, and runoff to lakes, streams and the Chesapeake.

My husband could not believe that all those bananas that were piled up yesterday – perfectly good – could be gone. He went back early this morning to check and, sure enough – they were gone!!!

In these days of hardship for millions on this planet, HOW can a international corporation like Wal-Mart do this?

If they claim that they donate their clothing – then WHY isn’t it done? What is their benefit to throwing away perfectly good food or clothing?

Do they write it off as being ‘damaged’, therefore getting some sort of tax writeoff?

Do they report part of it as stolen? (I don’t see how a store could get away with saying that hundreds of pounds of bananas – 0r thousands of dollars of clothing were ‘stolen’ in one week. The loss prevention people would have apoplexy as would the accountants!)

Wal-Mart, despite its claims to be ‘for’ its employees & the community & the planet, has well a well documented track record of abuse. Employees here in the U.S. have been routinely mistreated in clear violation of labor laws. Wal-Mart have also been revealed to be purchasing from companies in China engaged in human rights abuse.

Is THIS ‘live better’? Are these practices benefitting people or the environment of the planet?

This is part of the global paradigm that ALL of us – with our purchasing power – CAN — change.

You make that choice every time you go to the grocery store or to buy anything else.

BUY LOCALLY GROWN…. LOCALLY MADE… not from Wal-Mart.

Posted in Corporate America, Shopping Tagged: clothing for homeless, corporate waste, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart clothing