The world of fruits and vegetables is kind of confusing. Tomatoes and corn are fruits even though most people consider them to be a vegetables. Well, to make things more complicated, some American politicians want to throw common sense to the wind and declare pizza to be a vegetable.

Earlier in the year, the Agriculture Department proposed some standards for school cafeterias; namely reducing the use of potatoes and sodium, and encouraging the use of whole grains. Unsurprisingly the makers of frozen pizzas didn't take kindly to the standards and have lobbied Congress to reclassify pizza as a vegetable.

This isn't the first time behavior like this has occurred, in 2009 Illinois considered using legal means to reclassify Pluto as a planet again. However, this assault on scientific knowledge and common sense is atrocious. It's sad to see corporate interests taking a higher priority than the health of children.

Mike Lofgren retired on June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. He served 16 years as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees. After watching the politics of the past few years play out, he decided to resign and like Kai Nagata, he wrote a barn burner of an essay when he left.

While some of the points are a bit stretched, they paint a very dismal picture of the Republican party. He believes that beyond the window dressing, the party only has three main tenets:

1. Caring solely and exclusively about its rich contributors
2. Maintaining a high level of militarism
3. Pandering to fundamentalist Christianity

Here is an excerpt from his essay; however, I recommend reading it in its entirety:

Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. But if this technique falls short of producing Karl Rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's New Jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.

This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting.

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult - Mike Lofgren

Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance

1. If you work hard, and become successful, it does not necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard, just as if you are tall with long hair it doesn’t mean you would be a midget if you were bald.
2. “Fortune” is a word for having a lot of money and for having a lot of luck, but that does not mean the word has two definitions.
3. Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.
4. People who say money doesn’t matter are like people who say cake doesn’t matter—it’s probably because they’ve already had a few slices.
5. There may not be a reason to share your cake. It is, after all, yours. You probably baked it yourself, in an oven of your own construction with ingredients you harvested yourself. It may be possible to keep your entire cake while explaining to any nearby hungry people just how reasonable you are.
6. Nobody wants to fall into a safety net, because it means the structure in which they’ve been living is in a state of collapse and they have no choice but to tumble downwards. However, it beats the alternative.
7. Someone feeling wronged is like someone feeling thirsty. Don’t tell them they aren’t. Sit with them and have a drink.
8. Don’t ask yourself if something is fair. Ask someone else—a stranger in the street, for example.
9. People gathering in the streets feeling wronged tend to be loud, as it is difficult to make oneself heard on the other side of an impressive edifice.
10. It is not always the job of people shouting outside impressive buildings to solve problems. It is often the job of the people inside, who have paper, pens, desks, and an impressive view.
11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.
12. If you have a large crowd shouting outside your building, there might not be room for a safety net if you’re the one tumbling down when it collapses.
13. 99 percent is a very large percentage. For instance, easily 99 percent of people want a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and the occasional slice of cake for dessert. Surely an arrangement can be made with that niggling 1 percent who disagree.

Seeing as today is the 40th Manitoba provincial election, I would like to encourage everyone to get out and vote.

Now you may be curious why I haven't so much as mentioned this election on my website until now. The reason can be summarized in two words: profound disappointment.

In Manitoba we have two forerunners and two underdogs running in this election. Sadly the two forerunners have done absolutely nothing to distinguish themselves, which does nothing to inspire the voting public.

One party throws money at crime, the other party throws money at crime. One party promises improvements to health care, the other party promises improvements to health care. One party jumps off a bridge, the other party jumps off a cliff.

You see where I am going here right? While the exact delivery method of campaign promises differs, at a high level the overall effect is a wash. No one wants to take a radical position which could bring about significant change. Sigh.

So to conclude my first and last post on this provincial election, I leave you with Winnipeg Cat; which is pretty much the best election commentary money can't buy:

The United States is fairly well known for their use of capital punishment. Worldwide they executed the fifth most prisoners of any country in 2010. Now let's take a look at a list of the other countries in the top 10:

1. China
2. Iran
3. North Korea
4. Yemen
5. United States
6. Saudi Arabia
7. Libya
8. Syria
9. Bangladesh
10. Somalia

Is this really the sort of company that one wants to keep?

So depending on which blogs you read, or conspiracy theories you subscribe to; the agenda advanced by some right-wing politicians in America is to eliminate social services provided by the government. One interesting question to come out of this is how do Christians respond to talk of cuts in social services?

Well one response is to claim that all social services should be the churches responsibility:

A hundred years ago, the safety net, the social safety net in the country was provided by the church.

If you didn't have a job, you'd go to your local church and ask the pastor if he know somebody that could hire him. If you were hungry, you went to the local church and told them, "I can't feed my family." And the church would help you. And that's not being done.

But the government took that. And took it away from the church. And they had more money to give and more programs to give, and pretty soon, the churches just backed off.

-Franklin Graham

It appears that Franklin is suggesting that there is a binary relationship for social programs, either the state or church can provide them but not both.

Besides being utter lunacy, it's brilliant in a way. It manages to satisfy the demands of the small-government conservatives while providing fuel for evangelical Christan empire building. Win win for everyone right?

No so much. The church is an excellent vehicle to administer social programs to church-goers, but this argument completely ignores the needs of those from different faiths. Is the Christian church going to provide jobs for Jews, housing for Hindus, and meals for Muslims?

The problem with this strategy is that when Christians do provide social services for non-Christians there tend to be some strings attached. "Sure, we can feed you, but listen to this sermon first." The great thing about governments providing social services is that they rarely have an ulterior motive. Jobs are just jobs, housing is just housing, and meals are just meals.

That having been said, everyone has a moral obligation to help the less fortunate. You can't abdicate your responsibility just because someone else is helping now. Churches need to work to complement the services being offer by the government by finding areas which aren't being addressed and filling in the gaps.

The CBC had an exclusive interview with Steven Harper recently where he claimed that 'Islamicism' [sic] is still the largest terrorist threat to Canada. This statement was made in support of re-establishing controversial anti-terrorism legislation originally implemented in 2001 and later scrapped by the Liberals in 2007.

According to the CBC, the legislation has two main clauses which are the subject of controversy:

• The police may arrest suspects without a warrant and detain them for three days if they suspect terrorist activity.
• Judges may compel witnesses to testify about past or present activities or associations with a penalty of jail time for non-compliance.

The CBC also added that these two clauses have never been used. The fact that these clauses have never been used stands in contrast to the interview, where Steven stated:

We think those measures are necessary. We think they've been useful, and as you know … they're applied rarely, but there are times where they're needed.

So today's questions are:

• Is something still useful if it is never used?
• Does 'applied rarely' carry the same meaning as 'never used'?
• Can we not find a better term than 'Islamicism'?

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

- John Steinbach

I think this is the closest reason to why impoverished Americans hold some of the downright bizarre political positions they do. This quote also manages to reflect the common belief that any failure to be successful is a personal failure and consequently these failures do not require any form of state intervention.

The Star has an interesting piece on what they call "Apocalyptic Crisis Budgeting".

During the Reagan era, a friend and former colleague, a professor of American history, was invited to the deliberations of a Washington think-tank that provided policy direction for the Republican Party. As they discussed growing the debt and increasing the deficit, he was flabbergasted: "Are you not the party of balanced budgets and debt elimination?" The reply was unequivocal, "Our goal is to grow the deficit as much as possible in order to create political space to eliminate government-funded programming. Until then, we want high deficits while lobbying for a balanced budget — and promoting social program cuts as the only solution."

It's truly disappointing that signs of a similar mentality are beginning to surface here in Canada too.

Well it appears that the US debt crisis has been averted and the necessary changes will soon be made law. Despite feeling that they have just dodged a bullet, the US is not out of the woods yet.

Bond rating agencies such as Moody's and Standard and Poor's have stated that they may downgrade the countries debt rating, regardless of the borrowing limit, unless other fiscal changes are made. This comes as no surprise given the remote chances of the US suddenly earning a surplus and beginning to pay off its debts. Considering the pain and agony of changing the debt limit, any other financial changes will be slow in coming and another crisis is likely.

Everything I know about American politics I've learned from the Internet.