Re: OT - Re: Program templates as Object Classes

On 7 Dec 2004 12:36:46 -0800, "Richard" <riplin@Azonic.co.nz> wrote:
 
>
>That seems to be another of your tin-foil hat theories.
>
>All of 'residential and commercial' consumption is around one third,
>all of 'industrial' is around one third (a bit more), all of
>transportation is around 'one third' (a bit less).
>
>There doesn't seem to be another 'one third' available.

Agriculture is the major component in industrial. In addition, meat
consumes small amounts under transportation and residential.

>In New Zealand meat production consumes almost _no_ energy.  We do not
>raise animals on land irrigated by anything other than rain or diverted
>water sytems.  There is no energy consumed at all.

That would be true if beef cattle fed on grass. The problem comes when
they are raised in feedlots, where energy is consumed indirectly
producing feed grains -- for irrigation, fertilizer and processing.

"The net contribution of irrigation to GDP at the farmgate is
estimated to be in the order of $920 million in 2002/03. This is over
and above GDP that would have been produced at the farmgate without
irrigation."
http://www.maf.govt.nz/mafnet/rural...mic-value02.htm

I don't know what percentage of NZ beef (by weight) comes from feedlot
vs. grass. It's definitely lower than the US. In the US, Europe and
China, well over 50% of beef comes from feedlots. Poultry and pork ALL
comes from the equivalent of feedlots. In addition, one third of US
corn feeds Asian cattle. That has to be included in meat production.

>Certainly the farmer drives a tractor (or rides a horse), and a truck
>will be used to take them to market, but so is a truck used to cart
>carrots around.

That's trivial. The big energy consumer is feed. To produce one pound
of usable meat, it takes 18 pounds of feed. Producing 18 points of
feed requires 2,000 gallons of water.

>I suspect that your 'information' comes from looneys who would
>calculate how much energy from the sun is used to grow the grass and
>then add that in as 'consumption'.

Economics are abstract to most people. Let's talk about cleanliness.
This is from sources who are not looneys.

Supreme Beef v. USDA

In December 2001, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision
that some believe dealt a serious blow to the food safety reforms
instituted by the USDA in the wake of the 1993 West Coast E. coli
outbreak. The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that the
Agriculture Department does not have the authority to shut down a
meat-processing plant that repeatedly failed tests for salmonella
contamination.

In 1998, the government unveiled a radically redesigned system of meat
inspection called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Systems
(HACCP). Rather than relying on USDA inspectors to ensure that meat
and poultry coming out of the plants was safe to eat, the new system
required meat-processing plants to develop and implement their own
systems of controlling the levels of harmful bacteria in their plants.
As a way to determine whether the companies' plans were working, HACCP
regulations required microbial testing of salmonella levels in the
finished meat and poultry coming out of the plants. If a plant's
products repeatedly exceeded the salmonella limits imposed by the
regulations, the USDA could shut the plant down.

Supreme Beef Processors Inc. is a Texas-based meat processor and
grinder that at one point supplied millions of pounds of ground beef
to the public school system. In December 1999, a Supreme Beef plant
failed the USDA's salmonella tests three times in eight months; in one
test 47 percent of ground beef samples in the plant were contaminated
with salmonella. Pursuant to the HACCP regulations, the USDA notified
the company that it would pull federal inspectors out of the plant, an
action tantamount to shutting it down. The company immediately filed
suit against the USDA in federal district court. The same day, the
court granted a temporary restraining order forbidding the government
to remove the inspectors.

In the lawsuit, Supreme Beef claimed that the USDA did not have the
authority to set limits on the allowable levels of salmonella bacteria
in meat. They argued that because the bacteria is naturally occurring,
it is not an "adulterant" substance subject to regulation by the
government. Since beef may contain salmonella bacteria when it arrives
at the packing plant from the slaughterhouse, the company argued, the
level of salmonella in the finished, processed meat is not an adequate
indicator of the whether the pathogen control procedures employed in
the plant are being properly implemented. They also pointed out that
since salmonella bacteria is killed and rendered harmless when meat is
cooked properly, the presence of salmonella in the meat does not pose
a significant risk and struck down salmonella testing regulations.

The USDA appealed the case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,
which upheld the lower court decision. The court also allowed the
National Meat Association to intervene in the case, as representative
of the interests of other meat industry members.

The appeals court rejected the USDA's argument that the salmonella
tests could serve as a proxy measure for other contaminants because
measures taken to control salmonella would also likely reduce other
pathogens. The court found that since the presence of salmonella alone
does not render the product "injurious to health," the performance
standards were not within the USDA's enforcement authority.

The decision prompted vociferous protest from food-safety advocates
who believe that the elimination of the salmonella testing takes away
an important enforcement tool from the government. Carol Tucker
Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America says, "It is hard to
overrate the importance of the Supreme Beef decision. It could be
interpreted as saying there is no amount of disease causing bacteria
in raw meat or poultry that would ... violate the law." Without
objective testing standards, she fears, the new meat-inspection system
will have no teeth. And former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman told
FRONTLINE that he believes the decision was "a serious blow" to food
safety.

Others disagree, however. The USDA has said that it has no plans to
appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, and USDA Undersecretary
for Food Safety Elsa Murano denies that the decision diminishes the
power of USDA inspectors to ensure clean meat factories. She points
out that the USDA continues to test for salmonella, and uses the
results of the tests as indicators that there may be a problem in the
plant that needs investigation. All that has changed is the ability to
shut down a meat plant based solely on results of the salmonella
tests. "The Supreme Beef decision is one that, when we looked at it,
did not take away our authority to enforce our regulations," Murano
told FRONTLINE. "We still can shut down plants, and we have been since
the decision came out in December. ... We continue to test for
salmonella. But we use those results to point us to what we may have
to do in order to see what the plant may be missing in their
implementation of HACCP."

The battle over the salmonella testing is now turned over to Congress.
In March 2002, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate
Agriculture Committee, introduced legislation he intended to undo some
of the damage he thinks the Supreme Beef decision wrought. His
proposed legislation would clarify the USDA's authority to shut down
plants based on failed salmonella tests. When introducing the
legislation, he voiced his concerns that the meat industry was trying
to undercut the USDA's power: "We have an industry that appears dead
set on striking down USDA's authority to enforce meat and poultry
pathogen standards. And ly, we are now at the point where the
food-safety reforms USDA enacted in 1996 are on life support."

The American Meat Institute will oppose the proposed legislation.
"Senator Harkin's bill is a political effort to legislate what science
and the judicial system do not support and what Congress has rejected
twice before," said the AMI's J. Patrick Boyle in a statement.

Observers on Capitol Hill think the possibility for passage of the
Harkin legislation is slim.

[url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/evaluating/supremebeef.html[/ur
l]

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:56:34 GMT, "Howard Brazee" <howard@brazee.net>
wrote:

>
>On  8-Dec-2004, Robert Wagner <spamblocker-robert@wagner.net> wrote:
> 
>
>Especially since the energy costs in transporting the food isn't at an 18:1
>ratio.

Food transportation is very inefficient. When I was in the food biz we
sponsored a bill that required railroads to provide the same level of
service they had in 1948. They cried foul, said it was impossible.
Railroad transport costs half as much as truck.

Nearly all US produce is shipped by cross-country truck. Next time
you're on the highway, note how many truck trailers have a 'reefer'
(refrigeration unit). They're hauling produce. On a SWAG, they're
about 30% of trucks on the road.

>I do believe that the biggest polluters are buildings, roads, and farms.
>(nothing grows on a highway).

Roads are way under one percent of US real estate. The total of all
developed land -- cities, towns and roads -- is only 12%.

>Grain-fed humans are less impactful than humans
>fed from grain-fed cattle.   Of course, cattle doesn't have to be grain-fed
, in
>which the 18:1 ratio isn't so meaningful.

Right. Grass energy and protein is almost free, considering most
grassland isn't good for anything else. But it still costs money to
raise animals on grass -- for land investment, taxes, growing silage
for winter feed -- and it takes 4-5 years vs. 1 year on grain. As a
result, it costs more to produce a pound of grass-fed beef than
grain-fed. The system rewards inefficiency.

On 13-Dec-2004, Robert Wagner <spamblocker-robert@wagner.net> wrote:
 
>
> Roads are way under one percent of US real estate. The total of all
> developed land -- cities, towns and roads -- is only 12%.

So?   What percentage would make these the biggest polluters?

On 13-Dec-2004, Robert Wagner <spamblocker-robert@wagner.net> wrote:

> Right. Grass energy and protein is almost free, considering most
> grassland isn't good for anything else. But it still costs money to
> raise animals on grass -- for land investment, taxes, growing silage
> for winter feed -- and it takes 4-5 years vs. 1 year on grain. As a
> result, it costs more to produce a pound of grass-fed beef than
> grain-fed.

College trained pianists cost more than untrained pianists.   But some peopl
e
like listening to them and are willing to pay for them.

> The system rewards inefficiency.

What system is this?  Individual people pay for what they want.   The reward
comes from the consumer and goes to the supplier.   Systems are for central
governments who decide what people should want and remove the individual cho
ice.

Elitists are all for deciding what are worthy ways for others to spend their
time and money.

On 13-Dec-2004, Robert Wagner <spamblocker-robert@wagner.net> wrote:

> Food transportation is very inefficient. When I was in the food biz we
> sponsored a bill that required railroads to provide the same level of
> service they had in 1948. They cried foul, said it was impossible.
> Railroad transport costs half as much as truck.

Why do you think the Railroads don't want to get more business, and require
people like you to decide how their businesses should run?

Is it because of their obscene profits that result from not having any
competition from the trucking industry?   Or do they believe that since they
 had
their turn, they should now gracefully step aside and let the truckers steal
from the public instead?

> People can only buy what's on the shelf.

> Think less like a consumer,

That first quote is you thinking entirely like a consumer.

If I want something then I tell the owner/manager, if they don't want
to get it for me I go elsewhere until someone will.

> Some foods that people buy ready-made are ridiculously easy to make
from scratch.
Excuse me, but are you trying to tell that to a New Zealander ?

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 15:46:13 GMT, "Howard Brazee" <howard@brazee.net>
wrote:

>
>On 13-Dec-2004, Robert Wagner <spamblocker-robert@wagner.net> wrote:
> 
>
>Lots more choices are on the Supermarket shelves than were when I was a chi
ld.
> Not having more choices isn't a good business strategy.

When you were a child, the average supermarket covered 15K square
feet, carried 10K items and was one mile from your house. Today, the
average supermarket covers 40K square feet, carries 25K items and is
three miles from your house.

When you were a child, you may have lived near a downtown full of
mom-and-pop stores offering perhaps 10-15K items. Now, they've been
replaced by a Wal-Mart SuperCenter that carries 65K items.

On both cases, variety was the result of readily available
transportation and centralization.

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 15:50:31 GMT, "Howard Brazee" <howard@brazee.net>
wrote:

>
>On 13-Dec-2004, Robert Wagner <spamblocker-robert@wagner.net> wrote:
> 
>
>Paid for by whom?

Guess. Governor Aaarnold has already approved the sale of bonds, I
believe. They've been planning it for six years. It will be
self-sustaining  in 2020.  Environmentalists are upset.

There is another in the works, to go from Portland to Seattle and
(maybe) on to Vancouver. Do you think Gates and Portland-resident Paul
Allen will sponsor it? If so, they could call it WinDozeTrailblazers
(after Allen's team). No, I've got it -- the Everyman's 959 (after the
ultimate Porsches they bought). Ad copy: Have YOU gone 220 mph without
leaving the ground?

> Every time they add a new item, they must delete another item to make
room for it.
> A w earlier, the deleted item was considered 'what people want to
buy.'

Supermarkets keep a very careful eye on 'stock turn'.  This is the
number of times the shelf space gets refilled and sold again.  Those
with the lowest turn are deleted, ie what people are _not_ buying.

> Every w they're denying people access to things they want.

If they want it and are buying it then it would have a high stock turn
and stay on the shelves.  If just one wants it and buys it once a month
then they can get it from someone that cares about such things.

> The decision is often based on 'push' rather than 'pull'. They're
pushing
> items they _hope_ people will want .. not because it's better but
> because it has a higher profit margin.

And if they don't buy it then the space will be reused for something
else.

> How many consumers say 'I'd rather buy y than x because the store
> makes more money?' I do.

You are not demonstrating any expertise at all in how 'the store makes
more money'. Profit margin per item on the shelf is irrelevant.  What
counts is profit on each basket load going out the checkout and that
requires the customer to put the item in the basket.

> If artisan pain au levain were priced for 60% gross profit,
supermarkets would overflow
> with it.

You seem to be quite clueless about economics.  If there was a 60%
margin then either:

it is priced too high and no one will buy it
or

the buying price is too low and the supplier won't make it

> If artisan pain au levain were priced for 60% gross profit,
supermarkets would overflow with it.

No. WRONG.  If it were priced for 60% profit then either:

customers would not buy because it was far too expensive

or

suppliers would not make it because they would lose money if they
did.
When you understand economics 101 please do come back and play again.