csziggy
csziggy's JournalFrance's 'Nutella amendment' causes big fat international row
Kim Willsher in Paris
guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 November 2012 10.55 EST
It is the sweet and sickly staple of many a French schoolchild's breakfast: la tartine de Nutella, a dollop of chocolate and hazelnut spread on a slice of baguette.
An estimated 235,000 tonnes of the paste – reportedly invented in the back room of an Italian pastry shop in 1944 – are consumed every year, around 100m pots in France alone.
Little wonder, then, that health warnings and government threats to impose a fat tax, known as the "Nutella amendment", have caused a mini revolution among Gallic consumers and sparked an international row.
On Monday, the Malaysian Palm Oil Council hit back at French claims that palm oil, a key ingredient in Nutella and widely used in margarine, biscuits and crisps, was detrimental to the environment and fuelling obesity. "Malaysia is deeply concerned with French Senator Yves Daudigny's proposed 300% tax increase on palm oil … Palm oil is a healthy, natural and important product, which 240,000 small farmers in Malaysia are proud to produce.
"Contrary to Senator Daudigny's comments, every nutritional and food expert concludes that palm oil is in fact free of dangerous trans fats, free of GMOs and contains valuable vitamins," the council's chief executive said in a statement.
Nutella's maker, Ferrero (of Ferrero Rocher chocolates fame), has also moved to reassure its customers in France, insisting that there will be no change in the recipe.
More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/france-nutella-amendment-international-row
Corrected information!
ETA: Here is the statement from the St. Lucie Supervisor of Elections website:
http://www.slcelections.com/
Thank you, LisaL for pointing me to the correct answer!
(I had the link directly to the PDF of results and missed that note on the St. Lucie Supervisor of Elections website.
My husband just brought this into me. According to the State of Votes Cast from the State of Florida Division of Elections (http://www.slcelections.com/Pdf%20Docs/2012%20General/rescan/GEMS%20SOVC%20REPORT.pdf), All but one precinct had more than 100% turnout.
According to their totals, the county has 175554 registered voters and 247383 ballots were cast.
In the Presidential race, they show 175554 registered voters and 123301 votes cast in that race.
This is very strange. I am not sure what to make of it!
A Florida OFA GOTV person just knocked on my door!
Looking for my husband to make sure he had voted or if not, if he needed a ride to the polls.
He was surprised that my name wasn't on his list. I voted two days before my husband did and my guess is that they were making up walk lists before the results for Friday were in their database.
I thanked him for his work.
GOTV is going to make sure every single Democratic voter is at least reminded to get to the polls! 
First four days of early voting in Leon County
Completely blow out the 2008 total!
So far the total early votes for this year are 24,058. In ALL of the 2008 early voting the total was 18,594.
By party: Democratic 14,945; Republican 6,230; NPA 2,354; INT 341; UNK 80; IDP 63; LIB 23; GRE 13; Several others have 1 or two votes each.
http://www.leonvotes.org/includes/EarlyVoting/EvPDFs/2012/General/EarlyVotesByLocation.pdf
I'm on some super polling list
Not for any of the major polling companies - for odd named companies whose names I never remember with blocked or spoofed numbers. I'm getting at least one or two calls a day.
At least one type of call is for Romney's internal polling. Those are all robocalls. The voice is always the same, a nice, generic female voice. She starts out telling me that there are only four polling questions (which is a lie), asks demographic info (sex, age, race, party registration) then asks if I have already voted, if I will vote before election day, who I will vote for President, for Senate, and for House of Representatives.
At one point I wrote down the company and Googled it - it was listed by several sources as Romney's internal polling company. In the last week or so the name of the polling company is different in every call but the recorded voice and questions are identical.
The other polling company has only called twice and I have not caught the name of the company. The questioner is a live person with a very heavy Indian accent. The young women have trouble understanding my Southern accent and I have trouble understanding theirs. They go into a lot more detail with their questions and take notes on any comments I make elaborating on my answers. With our mutual difficulty in communicating this makes for some amusement on my part.
I could just hang up on the calls but I LIKE influencing the direction of their polls. 
Anybody else getting polling calls like these?
You Don't Know Jack (Welch) - great blog post!
Jack Welch should know when books are being cooked - he is connected to one of the larger cases in history!
Posted: 10/06/2012 9:49 am
The Bureau of Labor Statistics was created in 1884 by Chester Alan Arthur -- and now Jack Welch wants to see its birth certificate. President Arthur was a rock-ribbed Republican, a product of New York's Conkling political machine, but he was clearly a shifty liberal.You can tell by the eyes.
Welch thinks somebody's "cooking the numbers" on unemployment -- and if anyone should know about "cooking the numbers" it's Jack Welch. Manipulating information to influence an election? He should know about that too. There were well documented stories that he pressured staffers in NBC's newsroom -- who were also his employees -- to declare his friend George W. Bush the winner of on the night of the disputed 2000 election.
These crazy new charges making the right-wing rounds cry out for a new definition of the word "conservative": Someone who thinks the unemployment situation is even worse than anyone else does -- but wants to do less about it. And Welch's absurd, cackling, over-the-top comments may finally have stripped the veneer off the most carefully polished media image in corporate America.
It's more than a little ironic that Jack Welch, who agrees with Mitt Romney that "corporations are people," is pontificating about electoral matters. With its record of felony convictions, Welch's GE wouldn't even be allowed to vote.
More, including information about Welch's career as head of the felonious GE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/jack-welch-job-numbers_b_1944489.html
2012 Proposed Constitutional Amendments - Information to make choices
The Collins Center for Public Policy* has provided a guide to the many amendments that will be on Florida ballots this year. Each amendment has its own page with a synopsis, history, pros and cons. It is an objective guide to what the amendments are, what they might mean and the history of why they have been added to our ballots.
2012 Proposed Constitutional Amendments - http://collinscenter.org/2012flamendments/home-2/
*Named after Gov. LeRoy Collins (served 1955-61), the nonprofit Collins Center for Public Policy was established in 1988 to seek out creative, nonpartisan solutions to Florida’s toughest issues. Our work exemplifies Governor Collins’ desire for objective analysis and his vision for a better Florida. http://collinscenter.org/
Second round of voter purge in Florida
The first round of voter purging wrongly informed hundreds of legal voters in Florida that they were ineligible to vote. Governor Rick Scott seems to be planning a second round. Can you sign our petition that lets Governor Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner know that Floridans are against any measures that would prevent eligible voters from voting?
That's why I signed a petition to Governor Rick Scott, which says:
"Governor Rick Scott and Secretary of State Ken Detzner,
Please do not interfere with fair and legal voting in the State of Florida. Misleading voters who have the legal right to vote into believing that they do not is wrong and unpatriotic. Any manipulation of a voter's rights is underhanded and against the principles that our American democracy was built upon. Please cease and desist these illegal practices."
Will you sign this petition? Click here:
http://signon.org/sign/second-round-of-voter?source=s.em.mt&r_by=33546
Yellow Jackets SUCK!
Got stung on the face by one this afternoon. Right next to my nose, just below the eye.
I swell when I get stung, so my husband hustled me down to the walk in clinic. They shot me up with prednisone and benadryl which stopped the swelling, but my entire face still hurts. My TEETH hurt. My ear hurts.
At least my husband sprayed the nest before he took me to the clinic, so that nest is DEAD.
I'm headed to a Benadryl induced nap. Later.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Leon County, Florida
Member since: Tue Feb 12, 2008, 10:18 PM
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