Apparently, the federal government of the United States thinks that pizza should qualify as a vegetable.
Yep.
In a new spending bill, congress continues to effectively define anything with two or more tablespoons of tomato paste as a vegetable for school lunches. Ignoring for a moment the fact that a tomato is a fruit, allow me to address the absolute ridiculousness of this.
I understand that the American government is hugely in debt. However, choosing to continue to serve the same food to our schoolchildren (one-third of whom are overweight or obese) that has been served for the last fifteen years because it's too expensive to serve them healthy food is mind-blowingly absurd.
Let's just ignore the fact that approximately forty percent of the calories schoolchildren consume are consumed while at school and the food they eat there is a large part of their diet. Let's also ignore the fact that diabetes rates in schoolchildren are increasing at alarming speeds.
Supposedly, if Congress had not earmarked a single dollar for the entirety of 2011, the government could have saved sixteen billion dollars. I'm pretty sure that would cover the cost of healthier foods for our students. Additionally, should the United States government serve healthy food to our students, it would likely minimize the effects of childhood obesity and the medical conditions that are related to it, such as diabetes. This would actually end up saving the government money, because Medicare and/or Medicaid would almost inevitably have to end up paying at least some of the costs for treatment of these conditions.
Between this and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), I am absolutely disgusted with the government. Completely honestly - if I had the capability and the opportunity to move to another country right now, I would jump on it. If this isn't proof that the government does not care for their constituents but only for the money from lobbyists, I don't know what is.
Anyway, I'm going to move on before I get too political because that really isn't my intent and it's definitely not where I want this blog to go.
Remember the book I talked about in my other post? This book:
Book that I am super excited to read and was supposed to get in the mail today.
Yeah, that didn't happen. Instead, I got this book:
Book that I am not super excited to read and I did get in the mail today. :(
Naturally, I drove (read as: sped, because it was 20 minutes to closing) over to Barnes and Noble and made them fix the problem for me. Normally I would have been much nicer about it, and maybe even laughed it off and dealt with it myself. But normally, I'm also not this stressed out. It ended up okay; they ordered me the correct book and are having it shipped to me and I didn't have to pay extra or do anything, really. It was handled well. I was just really, really excited (and still am) to get the German book and opening it and seeing the wrong one was just one more thing than I could handle.
In any event, hopefully I get the correct one soon so that I can focus on the aspect of German that is going to cause me the most trouble.
Anyway, that's it for today. I'm going to go watch The Big Bang Theory and get some sleep.
Tschüss!
Completely ridiculous, isn't it?
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