Caffeinated Thoughts

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• My Beef With Pink Slime
• The Half Billion Dollar Lottery: Some Poor Person’s Going to Win It
• “The Gambler” Enters the Presidential Race
• Uniting People Around Defending Marriage is Bad, Causing Division by Changing Marriage Definition is Good
• Wisconsin Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch is Extremely Vulnerable in Recall Battle
• Let Iowa’s Schools Determine Their Own Start Date

My Beef With Pink Slime Posted: 30 Mar 2012 02:30 AM PDT Can a British chef and TV personality, social media, and the lamestream media destroy jobs and a company unnecessarily? If recent events, including the closure of three of four beef processing plants, including a plant in Waterloo, Iowa that employs about 220 workers are any indication, the answer is yes.  A number of governors and lieutenant governors  were in South Sioux City, Neb., Thursday afternoon to tour a Beef Products Inc. plant. BPI earlier this week announced it would close three of its plants in response due to concerns from grocers and restaurants demanding ground beef without lean finely textured beef. More than 650 workers in the three states have been temporarily laid off because of the closures. The South Sioux City plant is the only plant remaining open. During a press conference after the tour, officials called on the media to set the record straight.  Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said he wants to end the "smear campaign and stop the use of inaccurate, inappropriate and charged words designed to scare people.” Beef Products Inc. (BPI) is the company at the heart of the "pink slime" debate. Reuters reported that back in 2002, United States Department of Agriculture scientist Gerald Zirnstein was unhappy USDA approved the use of the Lean Finely Textured Beef in ground beef. He referred to the product as “pink slime” in an email to a coworker, but a Freedom of Information Act request brought the email to the attention of the news media, which then shared the moniker with the general public. In 2009, The New York Times had a lengthy article reporting on the concerns various consumers and USDA professionals had with the two products. In April 2011, Jamie Oliver (the Brit formerly known as the Naked Chef) did a segment on his show “Food Revolution” to discuss Lean Finely Textured Beef. By discuss, “butcher” might be a more appropriate, pun intended, way to depict his methods. The pejorative term, 'pink slime' has taken off because of postings by Food Network chef Jamie Oliver as well as a series of reports recently by ABC News. "While lean finely textured beef was given a catchy and clever nickname in 'pink slime,' the impact of alarming broadcasts about this safe and wholesome beef product by Jamie Oliver, ABC News and others are no joke to those families that are now out of work," American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle said in a statement. From the huge reaction, given the sensationalist nature of Oliver's presentation, in social media, the story spread to every newspaper front page in the nation by a further sensationalist report particularly by ABC News. Oliver's complaint is about beef trimmings.  He associates the trimmings with what would go into dog food, implying it is unfit for human consumption. In his segment on his now defunct show, Food Revolution, Jamie Oliver holds up putrid-looking pieces of beef and of course, there is suitable disgusting audience reaction when he mentions that this in our children's hot lunches at school. I wish that the chef would also show the ingredients of much of the German and Italian sausage that he no doubt thinks is among the greatest food on earth. The Food Network chef, is, however, selective, sensationalist, and fundamentally dishonest in my opinion. He continues the scare tactics by opening a locked cabinet to reveal common household chemicals including a bottle with a skull on it, indicating it contains poisonous contents, labeled as 'ammonia'.  The Food Network star then pours cups and cups of straight ammonia directly onto the beef leaving the audience members and viewers of the show with the impression that merely biting into the lean textured beef or a burger made with it would kill you on the spot. Part of me thinks History Channel needs to jump on this bandwagon and create a “How It’s Made” or “Modern Marvels” episode about Lean Finely Textured Beef and Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings. I’m not going to lie, I like what Jamie Oliver’s intent was with “Food Revolution.” I think it’s vitally important for consumers to be aware of agriculture, since most of them are several generations removed from the farm. But there are some serious flaws in his methodology of presenting Lean Finely Textured Beef and how it is processed. Oliver does have the facts correct that LFTB is produced by further processing beef that before this process wasn't eaten by humans. The beef is also treated with ammonium hydroxide. That is as far as the actual truth telling goes in Oliver's discussion of this beef that acts as a binder in lower fat ground beef. Now, here is what is misleading about the segment.  Oliver decries the process to make it, how the meat is chemically treated, and that the beef is unfit for human consumption. To illustrate what exactly lean finely textured beef is, imagine you are at a fine restaurant eating a steak. It’s a really good, medium New York Strip dripping with deliciousness and you are determined to eat every morsel. But there’s a bit of fat around the edge you have to trim off because, flavorful as it may be, the intramuscular fat surrounding a cut of meat isn’t always the best thing to straight up eat. You trim off that fat, eat the rest of the steak and then notice there’s still some bits of beef embedded in the fat trim. Try as you might, you can’t cut them out with your steak knife, and it’s not exactly the best table manners to pick up the fat and gnaw at the leftover beef. That’s kind of what happens when you harvest a beef animal. The majority of whole muscles are turned into steaks, roasts or specific ground beef (think “ground chuck,” “ground round” and “ground sirloin”). With ground beef, the muscle is separated from the fat by hand, and using a lot of mathematical equations, processors determine how much muscle and fat to add together to make an 80/20, 85/15 and so on ground beef mixture. Now, there are parts of the beef carcass that are like that “meat-stuck-in-the-fat” scenario. America wants lean beef. Processors also don’t want to waste beef. Thus, the process of creating LFTB was designed. According to the American Meat Institute, this is the process to make LFTB: Trimmings (that’s the “meat-stuck-in-the-fat”) are warmed to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit inside a centrifuge. That’s a machine that looks rather like a large mixing bowl. The centrifuge spins the trimmings to separate meat from fat, similar to the way milk is separated from cream. The temperature inside the centrifuge melts and liquefies the fat. Once the meat is separated from the fat, it’s 95 percent lean. It can be added to ground beef to create a leaner product desired by lots of American consumers. Lean Finely Textured Beef is treated with food-grade ammonium hydroxide. This is NOT the stuff you find in your run-of-the-mill chemistry lab. This is a type of NH3 that’s been, in a better term, watered-down to be safe in extremely small quantities when added to food. LFTB is treated with citric acid. Why treat the trimmings? With ammonium hydroxide in particular, these treatments if done correctly reduce the amount of E. coli and Salmonella found in ground beef. Let’s be clear here, though. Treating is not what Jamie Oliver’s video showed, where the LFTB is dumped into a plastic tub and doused with noxious amounts of household chemicals. Treating is, however, giving the LFTB a puff of ammonium hydroxide to up its pH to an amount that will kill off these bacteria. In fact, if you look at the Material Safety Data Sheet for ammonium hydroxide, you’ll see that in any amount it’s harmful to bacteria, where in humans unless you drink, inhale or rub it on you, there are no harmful effects. In fact, it’s a chemical found naturally in humans. It is in meat. It is in baked goods. It is in chocolate. It is also in cereal. Like a slice of melty, gooey cheddar on that beef burger? Well, the .8oz piece of cheese on your cheeseburger contains about 813 parts  per million(ppm)of ammonium hydroxide? Guess how much your 1/4 lb beef patty (from BPI) has? Only 200 ppm! So when a puff of it is added to a processed beef product, it is used to up the“anti” in anti-bacterial; not to poison schoolchildren who eat NH3-treated hamburgers in their school lunches.   The next big argument against the use of LFTB in ground beef is whether or not it should be labeled as an ingredient. We’ve established that these are beef. So you can imagine how ridiculous it might seem to the meat industry to add beef to the ingredient listing on the label when they are actually adding beef to something that is already beef.  If I would see "LFTB" on the label and immediately react by wanting to know what the heck the USDA was putting in our ground beef. Then I would immediately petition the USDA to stop using confusing abbreviations on ground beef packaging. Because if you think about it, no packer is going to label ground beef as containing “pink slime,” because that’s a misnomer. Let’s address another claim Oliver made in his segment. The beef that’s turned into LFTB is inedible and used for pet food. For the record, the only reason it was considered “inedible” is because until these processes were invented, it was inedible in the sense the industry could not get to the meat!  Boneless lean beef trimmings are 100% edible meat.  These trimmings are simply the lean beef removed from the meat and fat that is trimmed away when beef is cut into steaks and roasts.  The meat in these trimming is nearly impossible to separate with a knife so, historically, this product only could be used in cooked beef products when the fat was cooked and separated for tallow.  But now there is a process that separates the fat from the fresh lean beef, and it is this fresh lean beef that can be used in ground meat foods like hamburger and sausages.  No process exists that could somehow make an inedible meat edible. Another fact to consider, these trimmings are removed during primal and sub-primal fabrication, and the company isolates the small bits of lean attached to these larger chunks of fat. This stuff is 80% fat or more and not trim that would be fed to a dog. ABC News' characterization of LFTB as a filler or additive is also inaccurate. Many in the media including KCCI have begun to describe Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB) as "filler" for ground beef.  This is factually inaccurate.  Meat fillers include cereals, legumes, vegetable, roots and tubers, and may not be used in anything carrying the term "ground beef" due to its standard of identity.  On the other hand, LFTB is an end product made from boneless lean beef trimming, the very same beef that is processed into roasts and steaks for retailers and restaurants.  These trimmings are simply small pieces of beef with fat attached. The boneless lean beef trimmings become "finely textured" using high-technology food processing equipment that resembles a large, high-speed mixing bowl, in which they are warmed to help separate away the fat so that only the beef remains.  The result is a high-quality beef product and is at least 90 percent lean. LFTB is blended into ground beef, which is required by law to be made exclusively from beef.  It has not been labeled as a separate ingredient because it is 100 percent beef.  It is not an additive or filler.  In fact, to label it as anything but beef would raise truth-in-labeling questions. I've always enjoyed Jamie Oliver and think a lot of him as a chef and entertainer, but I find this treatment of "pink slime" disgusting and irresponsible. It shows how entertainers like Jamie know how to play to that, and how reporters and producers know how to attract audiences by heightening fears. It shows how crisis normally start in social media or from videos posted on YouTube and rapidly gain momentum both from amplifying messages in social media and mainstream media. Each step of the process heightens the fear and outrage. It shows how companies, understandably sensitive to their own business, respond at the first sign of consumer reaction and pull the product, further amplifying the message that this stuff must really be bad. Never to miss an opportunity to create fear and outrage, ABC jumped on the story (remember ABC was the primary "investigator" behind Toyota's "software" problems that turned out to be bogus.) Because of the now near panic created by the sensationalist TV entertainment and news stories, the retailers reacted by pulling the product from the shelves, schools refused to provide beef products that included "pink slime," and pressure was put on government regulators for failing to do their job.  Ground beef is the most widely consumed beef product in the United States. Scaring consumers away from this unnecessarily will hurt beef demand. The fact that an individual "whistle blower" can single-handedly effect beef demand is scary, and an unfortunate reality to meat producers. Regardless that the USDA and FDA employs hundreds of scientists whose job is to study different applications of products and compounds for approval to use in the food system, one person who disagrees (and no longer works for USDA) can grind that all to a halt. Should additional scientists at USDA have been contacted? Probably. Should a scientist from the American Meat Institute or National Meat Association have been consulted for a 3rd party scientific perspective, unrelated to USDA? Absolutely. But given the nature of the media machine, there is only so much info that can go into a two-and-a-half minute news piece and unfortunately those perspectives didn't make it in the story. And now we have our "white knight" legislators already rewriting the rule book on beef products to eliminate pink slime from the marketplace.  Wrongly informed legislators from around the nation are jumping on the "Stop the Pink Slime" bandwagon.  For example, in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack , Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, 1st District of Maine urged the government to immediately end the use of the product in school lunches. “It’s wrong to feed children a slurry that was formerly only used for dog food. I hope you will do everything in your power to eliminate it from school lunch programs around the country,” Pingree wrote. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has assembled the support of 41 House representatives and submitted a sign-on letter asking that USDA discontinue the use of any beef with LFTB in schools, recognizing that that USDA's offer of a choice to schools may not be a viable solution for all. Senators Robert Menendez (NJ) and Kristen Gillibrand (NY) have also sent letters to the USDA in support. Consumers have a right to question what goes in their food, and we owe it to the public to be transparent on the process that results in a hamburger on their plate. However, the story run last night, on one of the largest media outlets in the world,  and the misguided expose by Jamie Oliver last year unnecessarily struck fear into the consumer on a process that poses no threat to their health.  Mischaracterizations on the process, and portraying it in a way that makes it looks like the meat industry is being disingenuous to the consumer is irresponsible.  It is also irresponsible because it has caused a loss of jobs during a time when so many Americans are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. It will no doubt also result in the food that we can manage to put on our tables to be less since the cost of ground beef will rise as much as thirty cents per pound. So please, next time you are watching the news, remember fear mongering. And remember that everything you hear on the news isn't always the actual truth. I'd sure hope that before you make a decision to discontinue eating a product such as meat that you would at least do some research about the topic. And what other way to research than to consult an expert in the field? Head down to your local butcher shop and ask questions! It is my hope that through asking the right people questions, you will come to find out that ideas you had about the meat industry really aren't what they are made up to be. And that in fact, the truth really isn't bad. So what are you waiting for? Go grab a burger!     Link to this post!

The Half Billion Dollar Lottery: Some Poor Person’s Going to Win It Posted: 29 Mar 2012 09:19 PM PDT The Mega Millions Lottery is up to $540 million and some person is going to win it.  They can take a $370 million lump some payout (for comparison, Mitt Romney is worth around $200 million) if they don’t want to live off annual payments of $27 million per annum. However will their life be better for it? The big winners in the lottery could turn out to be big losers in the long run. Consider the case of Jack Whitaker who took a $114 million payout and even began well by giving money to Christian Charities and the poor, lost the whole sum through a long series of arrests and lawsuits within four years. His teenage granddaughter and her boyfriend died an an apparent consequence of his decision to give his teenage granddaughter a $2100 a week allowance with little supervison. Whitaker is not alone, the horror stories of lottery winnings gone wrong are manifold with suicides, bankruptcies, and lost marriages among the casualties. What causes this disproportionate misery? Perhaps, it can be explained by who plays the lottery. Lottery ticket sales disproportionately come from poorer zip codes which means that’s there’s a very good chance of people who have never managed a significant some of money finding themselves with the same net worth as Mitt Romney. And they can’t handle it well, certainly not as well as those winners who are expert at handling money. Despite the horror stories, people are eager to buy the tickets, believing as many winners did, that having all that money will be fun, nice, and a great fortunate occurance. It seems to me that, at the core of lotto fever are some very subtle lies and rebellion. The lie is that money will make us happier and more fulfilled.  Christ warned us, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” (Luke 12:15) Even Hollywood in its best moments acknowledges this truth. In its A Wonderful Life, George Bailey’s life was rich and full despite a meager salary because of the good he did for others.  In Groundhog’s Day, Bill Murray’s character takes advantage of the ever-repeating day to satisfy his selfish desires, and only begins to find satisfaction when he uses his knowledge to help and being a blessing to other people. The lottery also seems to lead us to rebel against God’s design for life, which is that if you’re faithful over a few things, God will give you more responsibilities. (Matt. 25:23)  The sad story of many lottery winners suggest that one reason that God doesn’t give these huge responsibilities to people who haven’t shown themselves over little is that they will be unable to handle the much. Beyond this, the scriptures particularly the Proverbs warn about seeking sudden wealth. “He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.”  (Proverbs 28:20) Lottery time is perhaps a good time for us  to check our hearts. Do we think that money will make us happier? That it will solve our problems? In my life,  I’ve only played the lotto once, as I’m stereotypical cheap Scotsman, but I’ve entered other contests and thought of how much better life would be if only Publisher’s Clearing House or Readers’ Digest came to the door. I’ve thought how winning a million dollars on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire or America’s Got Talent would be exactly what I needed. In those moments when I think like that, I’m putting my hope in getting enough money rather than in God working His Will in my life and supplying my needs according to His riches. In Proverbs, the wise man Agur made a request of God that we’d all be wise to make in this get rich quick culture:  ”Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me.” (Proverbs 30:8) Link to this post!

“The Gambler” Enters the Presidential Race Posted: 29 Mar 2012 07:58 PM PDT Former President George H.W. Bush endorsed Mitt Romney for the second time.  This endorsement, timed to coincide with Marco Rubio’s endorsement to send the theme that old leaders and new leaders of the GOP are rallying around Romney.  Even if Romney is trotting out old endorsements to support Romney’s narrative. In support of Mitt Romney, George H.W. Bush cited that great political philosopher Kenny Rogers: "I do think it's time for the party to get behind Gov. Romney. And she was reminding me Kenny Rogers sang, 'It's time when to hold 'em and time when to fold 'em,'" Bush said, loosely quoting a lyric from the famous song, "The Gambler." However Santorum Spokesman J. Hogan Gidley one upped the former President with an even more relevant line: "We have huge respect for President George H.W. Bush and he is one of my personal political heroes," Gidley said, "but my favorite line from that song is 'there'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done." It’s rare for a pop culture reference to be parried so well, but Gidley did well, particularly with the two campaigns’ competing delegate math. Link to this post!

Uniting People Around Defending Marriage is Bad, Causing Division by Changing Marriage Definition is Good Posted: 29 Mar 2012 05:00 PM PDT That is basically the meme in the media over the past couple of days in response to liberal group Human Rights Campaign leaking an internal memo from the National Organization for Marriage. One of the memos read… The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of his party. Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key to raising the costs of pushing gay marriage to its advocates … find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally. Now if we were only able to get a peak behind the veil of liberal groups political strategy…. But I digress.   Would I write the memo this way?  Probably not, but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the overall strategy. Look to the Proposition 8 vote back in 2008.  Black voters came out en masse to vote for Barack Obama.  They also voted en masse against gay marriage.  Hispanics typically hold to traditional values.  They also are highly churched being predominately Catholic.  A large percentage of Blacks are also churched. It would be stupid for NOM not to reach out to these segments of the population as they can unite people around a common belief about marriage.  The simple fact is this – most minorities reject the argument that same sex marriage is a civil right issue.  So this really shouldn't be a surprise or be considered news. I'm reminded here in Iowa one of the prominent leaders to defend marriage is Rev. Keith Ratliff who was formerly the head of the Iowa/Nebraska NAACP.  Below is a video of a speech he gave during a marriage rally last year at the Iowa Statehouse: Are they trying to get minorities on board?  Of course they are.  Not to cause racial division, but to unite people of all races around traditional marriage. Now how much division has been caused by trying to change the way Western civilization has defined the institution of marriage for thousands of years.  You don't see this story getting reported that way. Link to this post!

Wisconsin Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch is Extremely Vulnerable in Recall Battle Posted: 29 Mar 2012 03:15 PM PDT Many of us know about the recall battle in Wisconsin with Big Labor trying to oust Governor Scott Walker.  He's the most visible, but  Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, State Senate Van Wanggaard and State Senator Terry Moulton are also being targeted.  Another target for recall, State Senator Pam Galloway decided to step down which know leaves the Wisconsin Legislature deadlocked. Michelle Malkin wrote yesterday about a lesser known target who isn't getting the support that Governor Walker is receiving: New poll data released on Tuesday show two potential Democratic rivals neck and neck with Walker. Wisconsin politicos tell me his national name recognition has bolstered public awareness and fundraising efforts. He's currently sitting on a $5 million war chest. Walker supporters believe the Big Labor-fueled fight will be dirty, but with vigilant backing, he'll survive. The outlook for the unhinged Left's secondary targets, however, is not so bright. Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, a tea party candidate who is not part of the GOP establishment, is being treated as collateral damage by the party. Outside of Wisconsin, most conservative activists are not even aware that she may be booted from office for simply doing her job. Kleefisch told me that on a recent fundraising swing in D.C., national GOP leaders were shocked to learn of her plight. While Democratic femme-a-gogues continue their plaintive wailing about a "war on women," Kleefisch has battled vile misogyny from liberal detractors. When lefty Wisconsin radio host John "Sly" Sylvester accused Kleefisch of performing "fellatio on all the talk-show hosts in Milwaukee" and sneered that she had "pulled a train" (a crude phrase for gang sex), feminists remained silent. A former television anchor, small businesswoman and mother of two, Kleefisch's quiet work on economic development has reaped untold dividends for the state. But if conservatives who preach the gospel of fiscal conservatism do not act, the profligate progressives' vendetta against Wisconsin may result in the first-ever recall of a lieutenant governor in American history. I'm sure the media and feminists were all over that right?  Strangely absent.  Malkin goes on. Kleefisch, a 36-year-old colon cancer survivor, is a fighter who points to her two young daughters when I ask why she's in the political arena. What message would it send to young tea party moms across the country if Walker survived but Kleefisch was hung out to dry? Will Beltway Republican strategists and donors who constantly harp about the need to diversify the party step up to the plate? Governor Sarah Palin also went to bat today for Lt. Governor Kleefisch: She's being thrown beyond the wolf pack – she's also under the GOP establishment's bus because this Tea Party "Mama Grizzly" beat the establishment candidate when she got elected. (And dang, it's uncomfortable under that chassis!) Rebecca must be thinking, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" Worse than seeing radical Leftists attack and make things up about a Conservative female opponent is when supporters on the Right sit on their thumbs and act as if there's nothing they can do to help. Come on! When all else fails you can at least tell the truth! Tell other voters why you supported Rebecca in the first place. Explain her campaign promises and how she has stuck to them and – surprising in today's political world – is actually fulfilling them. She promised to help balance the budget, cut taxes, build a sound fiscal environment, and provide job opportunities for all Wisconsin residents – not only our union brothers and sisters. She's setting an example for every other state in the union because responsible state and local governments will be the entities that defend our Republic at a time when there is less and less reason to believe our big centralized federal government will address its self-perpetuated economic problems. The far Left has targeted Lt. Governor Kleefisch in particular because they know she's been busy working and hasn't raised anywhere near the money Governor Walker has to weather his recall. And get this: they are hoping to keep her off the same ballot as Governor Walker, and instead they would love to put her on a ballot during a Democratic primary in order to give her the worst voter turn out possible. It's vicious. She's in the fight of her political life for doing nothing more than what she and Governor Walker were elected to do. If Wisconsin sees either of these two go down in defeat, it will have a chilling effect on any public servant having the guts to do what's right. You can donate for her defense here. Link to this post!

Let Iowa’s Schools Determine Their Own Start Date Posted: 29 Mar 2012 01:30 PM PDT Local control in education is under attack again in Iowa.  This time in the form of House Study Bill 671 that is currently being considered by the Iowa House Ways and Means Committee.  The bill in essence says that the first day of school can be no earlier than September 1.  If a school district wants to start earlier than this they must receive a waiver from the Iowa Department of Education if they have a pilot program for an "innovative school year."  Schools that are running on trimesters are exempt, and schools that want to seek the waiver must pay a $100 waiver fee to the department. There are two primary issues that is driving this bill – the Iowa State Fair and increased energy costs for running air conditioning units in August. The Iowa Association of Christian Schools in their legislative update pointed out in regards to the energy costs that that those concerns are unwarranted… "public schools are using the penny sales tax to increase building efficiency and IACS schools are not pulling down State dollars for utility costs." Before the Iowa House decides to trample all over the ability of school districts and non-public schools with the input from parents to determine their own calendar.  IACS brings up the following points why schools would want to start earlier than September 1: To avoid spending a week in January refreshing students' memories, effectively adding days of instruction. To avoid taking exams immediately after Christmas break. To allow those students graduating at semester to attend college starting in January. To avoid the impact of made-up snow days extending well in to June. To facilitate dual credit courses for high school students with post-secondary institutions by having the calendars better aligned. Student athletes are on campus already August 11 for the State (IHSAA and IGHSAU) mandated start of Fall sports practices (football, volleyball, and Cross-country) with first contests starting the week of August 20.  It makes no sense to have football and volleyball games and not yet be in school. To prep students for the finals testing regimen they will likely face in college, and allow them to enjoy winter break with no finals hanging over their heads. To give some buffer between the end of the school year and the opportunity for teachers to begin summer coursework in June. It just doesn't make sense for the Legislature to be making these types of decisions for schools, and it cedes more power over to the Iowa Department of Education.  Certainly something they don't need.  Not only should the Ways and Means Committee kill this bill, but they should also strike the current language in the code as well. Let schools, not the state, determine their start date. Bonus: Here are the members of the Iowa House Ways and Means Committee along with their email addresses. Thomas Sands, Chair, tom.sands@legis.state.ia.us Josh Byrnes, Vice Chair, josh.byrnes@legis.state.ia.us David Jacoby, Ranking Member, david.jacoby@legis.state.ia.us Peter Cownie,peter.cownie@legis.state.ia.us Betty DeBoef, betty.deboef@legis.state.ia.us Greg Forristall, greg.forristal@legis.state.ia.us Pat Grassley, pat.grassley@legis.state.ia.us Lee Hein,lee.hein@legis.state.ia.us Erik Helland, erik.helland@legis.state.ia.us Charles Isenhart, charles.isenhart@legis.state.ia.us Anesa Kajtazovic, anesa.kajtazovic@legis.state.ia.us Jeff Kaufmann, jeff.kaufmann@legis.state.ia.us Jerry Kearns, jerry.kearns@legis.state.ia.us Brian Moore, brian.moore@legis.state.ia.us Dan Muhlbauer, dan.muhlbaurer@legis.state.ia.us Jo Oldson, jo.oldson@legis.state.ia.us Ross Paustian, ross.paustian@legis.state.ia.us Janet Petersen, janet.petersen@legis.state.ia.us Dawn Pettengill, dawn.pettengill@legis.state.ia.us Brian Quirk, brian.quirk@legis.state.ia.us Chuck Soderberg, chuck.soderberg@legis.state.ia.us Jeremy Taylor, Jeremy.taylor@legis.state.ia.us Roger Thomas, roger.thomas@legis.state.ia.us Guy Vander Linden, guy.vanderlinden@legis.state.ia.us Nate Willems, nate.willems@legis.state.ia.us. Link to this post!

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