I’ve been wondering this myself as milk we buy at Kroger goes bad in a week whereas milk from Whole Foods lasts a month. Turns out the pasteurization process is different for the two types of milk.

The process that gives the milk a longer shelf life is called ultrahigh temperature (UHT) processing or treatment, in which milk is heated to 280 degrees Fahrenheit (138 degrees Celsius) for two to four seconds, killing any bacteria in it.

Compare that to pasteurization, the standard preservation process. There are two types of pasteurization: “low temperature, long time,” in which milk is heated to 145 degrees F (63 degrees C) for at least 30 minutes*, or the more common “high temperature, short time,” in which milk is heated to roughly 160 degrees F (71 degrees C) for at least 15 seconds.

There’s a lot of buzz about Carly Fiorina being part of John McCain’s inner circle and how she might be a candidate for Veep. Now, being that she hasn’t been elected to any office I doubt she’ll start at the top, most likely she’ll be in a support role much like Condoleeza Rice is currently. Still, that is pretty important since McCain himself has said he’s not adept at financial matters. The first time I heard about Carly Fiorina was in a report from Jay Nordlinger’s Davos Journal in 2004. Here’s what he said:

On to Carly Fiorina: She is CEO of Hewlett Packard, and she speaks in crisp, clear English. It is almost completely devoid of international-conference-speak, which is refreshing. She is like a cool glass of verbal water.

But what is the content of that water? She says that “the fundamental objective” of her company — the fundamental objective, mind you! — is not “to make money” but “to do good,” “to be a good international citizen.” When she says “make money,” she makes it sound so dirty. She borrows the old Quaker business about not just doing well but doing good.

Fine and dandy, of course, but I find myself wishing — not for the first time — that businessmen would be a little less defensive and more self-confident. They have nothing to apologize for. Does Hewlett Packard want to do good? Then let it invent and manufacture products that people need — or want, or that make their lives better — and sell them at affordable prices. That is doing good.

I hate to be more pro-Hewlett Packard than the CEO of Hewlett Packard, but . . . I tell you, I would wet my pants with joy if one of these people, at one of these conferences, said, “You know? People like Henry Ford and Bill Gates have done more for humanity than any thousand soi-disant benefactors-of-humanity put together.”

Except for the wetting of the pants I would agree with Jay.

Here’s a couple of snippets from wikipedia on Fiorina’s performance at Hewlett Packard.

HP’s services continued to lose market share to IBM, and HP continued to rely on its lucrative printer division to remain profitable

…

As HP’s performance slowed, the Board of Directors became increasingly concerned. In early January 2005, the HP Board of Directors presented Fiorina with a four-page list of issues the board had with Fiorina’s performance.^[22] A week after the meeting, the plan was leaked to the Wall Street Journal.^[23] The board proposed a plan to shift her authority to HP division heads, which Fiorina resisted.^[24]

On 9 February 2005, Carly Fiorina was dismissed as chairman and chief executive officer of HP.

…

After her departure from Hewlett-Packard in 2005, the company prospered, overtaking Dell as the biggest computer maker in the world. Her defenders, as well as some critics, credit her with laying foundations for that prosperity.

All in all I’d say lukewarm CEO at best. Ladies and Gentleman our next Secretary of Commerce!

The Chicago Tribune informs us that “Whitey” is not really a slur. Why? Because it’s just not offensive enough. The entire rather short article is below. Not only does the Tribune staff inform us that it’s really not offensive, they tell us that anyone who finds it offensive is simply ignorant and stupid.

Now all you deep-down-inside institutional racists dig down and think of a couple of racial slurs that you consider simply “more of a taunt” and insert it for the word “whitey” above. You see? We’re all free to make whatever slurs we deem appropriate as long as we feel that it involves simply “prejudice” and not REAL “racism;” as long as it lacks an “ominous context.” We’re all free to be prejudiced, as long as we’re not racist.

I can’t find anything in this article to disagree with, but find it hard to believe that this is setting an equal standard for whites and non-whites when it comes to racial slurs. The article could have been even shorter. Something like:

“Only white people can be racist.”

Well, it’s deja vu all over again. This time the levees are breaking in an Illinois town. Could this be racism as was the case in NO? No, this town is 99% white and only white people are racist.

With the recent flooding and forecasts for rain, I expect more levee failures and unthinkable flooding. Will the next president protect us from natural disasters? I mean, the government already protects us from everything else including ourselves.

The best way I could put my feelings about Tim Russert is this:

First, he is the only one of his kind where it was very hard to tell what his political leanings were.

Second, he was the only one left that I could regularly listen to and not want to drill a hole in my head.

Third, from every available source, he personified a man who was a TRUE journalist, and a REAL family man.

He will be truly, sorely missed.

Tim Russert…1950-2008.

Real quick…does anyone know what the DNC website and GOP website have in common?

That’s right, a big picture of Obama on the front.  I have not seen a picture of John McCain on either site for weeks.

Someone tell me why that is? Why is that the GOP has virtually NOTHING to say about their candidate for President on the main website, and instead has article after article after picture after “expose” about the Democratic candidate?  Does anyone else see something weird about that?

Thomas Sowell has a hit piece out on Savior, uh, Senator Obama.  While I think he is a little over the top on the fear mongering, the last two lines are killer:

Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.

On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.

Ouch! BTW did anyone notice Obama lost South Dakota after winning all surrounding states? Funny things have been happening since Super Tuesday.

The Obama campaign is as of this moment 4 delegates short of clinching the nomination before the polls have even closed in Montana and South Dakota.  Rest assured the next 48 hours (or few weeks) will be a consistent (and at least partially understandable) media orgasm on the Democratic party electing our nation’s first African American Presidential Nominee from a major party.  And rest assured there will be about 10 times as much talk about the historical nature of the nomination as about the real issues.

(This is just a very brief aside, but I just heard Wolf Blitzer suggest to the McCain campaign that they should just “let Obama have his night.”  What a pompous ass.)

But that honeymoon will wear off, and EVENTUALLY, MAYBE, we’ll be able to have a real conversation without fear of being branded as racist, insensitive, or politically incorrect.  My only contention is that it is at THAT point that we will can say we’ve made some progress as a nation on the issue of race.

Can’t wait.

I’m not going to comment much on the whole McLellan thing, but I was waiting to see what Robert Novack had to say about it. Amazing how the guy who wrote the article that resulted from the leak rarely gets a lot of credibility about the truth behind the leak:

McClellan on Plame.

The long and short of it is (according to Novak…and what does HE know?): McClellan conveniently doesn’t hardly even mention the fact that the leak originated from Dick Armitage, not a sycophant in the EVIL Bush regime; and it seems obvious that McClellan (especially given his recent fascination with the campaign of Barack Obama) had a LITTLE help writing this book that basically spouts the Democratic line on the Plame leak case.