As recently as last week, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was one of a handful of members of Congress who asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate possible “duplication of effort and internal redundancies” involving agencies of the federal government. With that fresh on my mind, I was struck by a troubling question when I saw the Drudge Report’s top afternoon story, TERROR: BIG SIS ISSUES TURKEY WARNING: What business is it of Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security to stick her agency’s bureaucratic nose into my Thanksgiving feast?
I decided to investigate.
A quick online search of “turkey fryer” and “.gov” yielded a plethora of information produced by federal government agencies:
The U.S. Fire Administration, a subsidiary of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, offers cooking fire safety tips;
The Consumer Product Safety Commission offers safety tips for turkey fryers;
USA.gov offers a list of cooking tips for Thanksgiving that includes links to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and to Underwriter’s Laboratory’s turkey fryer safety tips site; and
FoodSafety.gov offers Turkey FUNdamentals: Deep Fat Frying a Turkey at its website.
In addition to leading me to the federal government agencies’ websites listed above, my search yielded more than a half-million links to other webpages — most of which appear on state and local government websites — discussing safety concerns related to the use of turkey fryers.
MY POINT: Anyone who thinks the size of the federal government is “just right” and that no duplication of effort takes place can take the information above and stuff it. Into their turkey. On Thanksgiving Day.
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Did you actually READ those various sources? No, of course not. Yes, there is SOME information overlap, but they are all very different articles with very different focuses.
The USDA’s article isn’t even about turkey fryers!!!
And UL, for your information, is a private company — not even one of the quasi-government ones like the USPS.
Just to recap:
The Food Safety article is about making the whole dinner — “soup to nuts”.
The CPSC’s article is about mostly just the fryer and how to use it safely.
The Fire Administration’s article is focused mostly on the fire hazards of fryers.
As mentioned, the USDA’s article is about Thanksgiving dinners, but nothing about fryers.
As mentioned, UL is a private company and can report on whatever it wants — unless you think the government should be telling private companies what they can inform the public about…
Sorry, but this is just more right-wing, fear-of-government mongering, and really sad at that.
Ahh, a liberal sticking up for government duplication of effort in a sort of “Occupy BobMcCarty.com” movement, I guess.
“Occupy BobMcCarty.com”?
HAH! You WISH you were that important. Not surprising that a right-winger blowhard has a delusional sense of his importance…just like your hero Rush.
I never even heard of you before today when I was doing my own research on this “big brother” menace. I did an internet search for “homeland security turkey fryer” and you know what I found? A whole bunch of FOX reports, Washington Examiner, and wing nut blogs like yours.
And they were all quote the same language from the Washington Examiner: “The Department of Homeland Security is taking any threat seriously during the Thanksgiving holiday, including the ominous threat to our national security posed by turkey fryers.”
A news source, btw, that is “in bed” with News Corp (i.e. FOX).
Much ado about nothing. Just like your “research” above.
I find it hilarious that you use the web domain, null.com. The phrase, “null and void,” comes to mind. Have a happy Thanksgiving, Bastion! Sounds like you need it.
Perhaps my last comment has been lost to cyberspace. I’m not going to try to reproduce it, but will reprise the first part:
The “null” comes from my programmer days and in UNIX you use “/dev/null” as the proverbial “bit bucket” — i.e. a place to send output that you don’t care about.
Thus, a website and email address with “null” in it means follow-up emails and inquires are things that I will not care about.
Then the feeling is mutual! At least we agree on something! Again, have a happy Thanksgiving my confused friend!