El Cid - August 22, 2010 | 11:06 am · Link

Hey, why don’t we get that anti-regulation asshole who owns the exploding West Virginia mines to run our nation’s chicken and egg suppliers?

A supplier in egg recall has history of violations

WASHINGTON (AP) – Two Iowa farms that together recalled more than half a billion potentially tainted eggs this month share close ties, including suppliers of chickens and feed.

Both farms are linked to businessman Austin “Jack” DeCoster, who has been cited for numerous health, safety and employment violations over the years. DeCoster owns Wright County Egg, the original farm that recalled 380 million eggs Aug. 13 after they were linked to more than 1,000 reported cases of salmonella poisoning.

Another of his companies, Quality Egg, supplies young chickens and feed to both Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, the second farm that recalled another 170 million eggs a week later…

...DeCoster is no stranger to controversy in his food and farm operations:

• In 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay $2 million in fines to settle citations brought in 1996 for health and safety violations at DeCoster’s farm in Turner, Maine. Then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich said conditions were “as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop.” He cited unguarded machinery, electrical hazards, exposure to harmful bacteria and other unsanitary conditions.

• In 2000, Iowa designated DeCoster a “habitual violator” of environmental regulations for problems that included hog manure runoff into waterways. The label made him subject to increased penalties and prohibited him from building new farms.

• In 2002, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced a more than $1.5 million settlement of an employment discrimination lawsuit against DeCoster Farms on behalf of Mexican women who reported they were subjected to sexual harassment, including rape, abuse and retaliation by some supervisory workers at DeCoster’s Wright County plants.

• In 2007, 51 workers were arrested during an immigration raid at six DeCoster egg farms. The farm had been the subject of at least three previous raids.

• In June 2010, Maine Contract Farming — the successor company to DeCoster Egg Farms — agreed in state court to pay $25,000 in penalties and to make a one-time payment of $100,000 to the Maine Department of Agriculture over animal cruelty allegations that were spurred by a hidden-camera investigation by an animal welfare organization…

...Still, DeCoster’s Wright County Egg is already facing at least two lawsuits related to the egg recall. One is from food distributor Dutch Farms, which says the company used unauthorized cartons to package and sell eggs under its brand without its knowledge.

Clearly a humble 18th century Founding Father style entrepreneur who should receive funding by the Chamber of Commerce and defended by Glenn Beck from the ACORN journalists and union thugs and eco-terrorists who are attacking him.

Cat Lady - August 22, 2010 | 11:11 am · Link

@Violet:

Tabloids are understood no matter what language they’re in (thanks Hollywood!), and the reporter and this guy were separated at birth.

Adrienne - August 22, 2010 | 11:17 am · Link

Umm, no. The Swedish sex symbol would be Alexander Skarsgaard. True Blood FTW!

burnspbesq - August 22, 2010 | 11:26 am · Link

Is Julian Assange the new Swedish sex symbol?

I tend to think of the Swedes as sensible people who don’t see criminals as sexy.

Violet - August 22, 2010 | 11:34 am · Link

I put the page into Google Translate. The translation is terrible, but there were a few interesting tidbits:

Have you had sex with them?
—They are anonymous in the media. I have no idea who they are.

Have you had sex at all during your stay in Sweden?
—It is one thing that belongs in the middle and, if present, women’s privacy.

But it is not as good to you in this situation is as transparent as possible?
—Yes, but I do not want to drag people’s private lives in the dirt without having the whole situation is clear for me. Why do they turn to the police? What lies behind?
—What I can say is that I never, either in Sweden or in any other country, had sex with someone in a way that is not built on total voluntary from both sides.

At the time of the interview it doesn’t seem like he even knew who the accusers were.

Kay Shawn - August 22, 2010 | 11:40 am · Link

I’ve noticed this in the British press too. Today’s Observer has a big front page photo that’s very glam.

morzer - August 22, 2010 | 11:45 am · Link

@Guster:

IKEA! IKEA! IKEA! Flatpacks going down the field! IKEA! IKEA! IKEA!

Just sayin’.

eemom - August 22, 2010 | 11:50 am · Link

Reagan’s first term offers measuring stick for Obama

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01591.html

I do not think that means what Dan Balz thinks it means.

Violet - August 22, 2010 | 11:56 am · Link

@valdivia:
But he’s Australian and lives on the run. Is there an apt comparison in film or literature?

DougJ - August 22, 2010 | 12:04 pm · Link

@Violet:

He’s definitely got some Doogie all up in there.

BB - August 22, 2010 | 12:15 pm · Link

He looks like Draco Malfoy.

AhabTRuler - August 22, 2010 | 12:41 pm · Link

I see Assange as more Mark McKinney, although I can undrstand the NPH comparison.

Plus, McKinney is gettin’ a little old for the part, but what hey?

Adrienne - August 22, 2010 | 12:44 pm · Link

@Starfish: Brings the sexy time is an understatement, to say the least. Just looking at him almost makes my love come down—as my mama would say. Old school slang for you get-off-my-lawners out there!

KCinDC - August 22, 2010 | 1:08 pm · Link

Is he dyeing his hair now? Didn’t it used to be white?

El Cid - August 22, 2010 | 1:31 pm · Link

@Alwhite:

This has been with us always and will always because there are plenty of people willing to put a marginal profit increase ahead of human well-being. We are trying desperately to prove that modern Americans are just as awful but the consequences can be so much greater thanks to modern efficiency.

This is clearly unpossible because the free market would react negatively to them endangering their consumers.

kommrade reproductive vigor - August 22, 2010 | 1:34 pm · Link

@Omnes Omnibus: Rahm’s an animated fuck bunny!?

gypsy howell - August 22, 2010 | 1:38 pm · Link

@Violet:

My first thought was “they couldn’t find a more recent photo?”

kommrade reproductive vigor - August 22, 2010 | 1:55 pm · Link

@Omnes Omnibus: Man, I WISH. It would help cut the shame of going to a college that nurtured Dick Miniter and Marc Theissen. But I think he went to Sarah Lesbian.

Also2: Rahm is dark enough to be your average V.B’s shadow.

Omnes Omnibus - August 22, 2010 | 2:55 pm · Link

@kommrade reproductive vigor: Ah yes, I think you are right. Mea culpa.

Anoniminous - August 22, 2010 | 6:59 pm · Link

Alla dina bloggar r tillhör Sverige

(Links are in English for the minority of BJ Svensk utmanas :-)

Sweden drops warrant for WikiLeaks founder

http://www.thelocal.se/28504/20100821/

Assange: Pentagon could be behind rape claim

http://www.thelocal.se/28514/20100822/

I don’t know who those women are or why they accused Assange of raping them but they are in hip deep trouble. Swedes take false accusations and public defamation VERY seriously.

Anne Laurie - August 22, 2010 | 7:08 pm · Link

@burnspbesq:

I tend to think of the Swedes as sensible people who don’t see criminals as sexy.

You didn’t have a Norwegian-American mother-in-law. Folk chant:

“Ten thousand Swedes
Came through the weeds
To fight a sick Norwegian;
Ten thousand more
Stood up & swore
The fairest fight they ever saw!”

Actually all the modern Scandinavian nations benefitted, to pull a Matoko-chan, from the several hundred years during which they exported their most aggressive and least-suitable-for-civilisation individuals to pollute the gene pools of Scotland, Ireland, northern France, Russia, and possibly North America. (There is an Iroquois creation legend involving the Storm God’s runaway, redheaded daughter.)

Assange’s terrible horrible very bad no good Wikileaks doc-dump has had, so far, a positive effect on the American discussion of “our” AfghanIraqistan fustercluck. Whatever the man’s secret hidden motivations, if any, he’s helped bring to light some of the ugly details of war and would-be imperial conquest to light. Never was a Star Wars fan, but if Assange wants to play Han Solo, more power to him.

chaseyourtail - August 22, 2010 | 8:00 pm · Link

He’s Robin Hood, Luke Skywalker, and Neo rolled into one.

Oh jeez.

Alaine - August 26, 2010 | 2:06 pm · Link

but he is sexy indeed. Julian has a high carismatic look with a confident and smooth talk..