Day: November 14, 2001

Believe it or not, there is actually a federal standard that defines a pizza — and, ironically, the main effect of the standard has been to prevent pizza makers from lowering fat content and making other changes to pizzas that consumers might like.

The rules apply to apply to frozen pizzas that are labeled as meat or sausage pizzas, and dictate that such a pizza must have a crust, cheese, and tomato-based sauce and at least 10 to 12 percent of meat by weight. So, under USDA regulations it is illegal to sell a frozen pepperoni pizza that is only, say, 5 percent pepperoni by weight, even if consumers might prefer the pepperoni taste without all the calories and fat of a pizza that comes with a 10 percent weight standard.

Similarly, pizza makers can’t call it a pepperoni pizza if the product uses a non-tomato based sauce.

As Tony Mantuano, a consultant to Schwan’s Sales Enterprises which makes Freschetta pizza notes, the rules are long out of date. “One of our most popular pizzas is a pizza that has duck sausage and goat cheese. There’s no tomato sauce. There’s no mozzarella.”

The USDA will accept comments on its proposal to eliminate the regulation of meat pizzas through Jan. 2, 2002.

Source:

Government defines what a pizza is. Philip Brasher, Associated Press, November 7, 2001.

On an e-mail list I read, somebody posted a long list of Taliban-related jokes from talk show hosts. This one, attributed to Jay Leno, was the best of the bunch,

There are reports on the news tonight that members of the Taliban feel persecuted and fear their own safety. So now they know what it is like to be a woman in their country.

Predictably, John Robb gives a little pushback whining that some web sites are putting a damper on all of the speculation over Flight 585 being downed by terrorists. Robb writes,

I have noticed a pattern on some Weblogs. Some people want to squash all speculation on this crash being a terrorist-driven event entirely. Their reasons are complex but the most common thread I can spot is an attempt by these folks to talk the nation (and themselves) back into normalcy. … Don’t get scared and shut down your brain: think!

Give me a break. Okay, lets back up and look again at what Robb wrote on November 13:

NTSB Investigators claim crash was an accident. Voice recorder indicates no hijackers on board… Who said anything about hijackers??? This is inane. There is also evidence that BOTH engines fell off the plane creating a unusual crash pattern. WTFO?? And they still want to rule out sabotage?? I don’t get it.

Again, if you spend a few seconds search Google you can find a ton of information about airplane crashes and specifically airplane engines which explains in detail why and how engines can fall off during airplane crashes. In fact, you can even find information about previous crashes in which two engines separated from an airplane shortly after takeoff. You might even learn that in most large aircraft the engines are designed to separate from the wings if they experience intense stress. Plus you would have missed the unusual airplane crashes page which is mindboggling, even though it doesn’t include a couple of bizarre instances where engines fell off a plane during flight due to leaky toilets (I’m not making that up. In 1985 a Northwest flight lost an engine after water and disinfectant from a leaking toilet froze, the ice broke away from the plane which hit an engine and caused it to separate from the plane).

Come on — what’s the point of living in the information age if we’re going to just ignore the incredible resources that are at our fingertips and run with our speculations and uninformed opinions about airplane crashes (hmmm…a lot like the traditional news media!)

I’m really surprised at the number of people who think that American Airlines Flight 585 was the victim of terrorism and that the U.S. government is covering up that fact for any number of reasons.

This particular conspiracy theory provides interesting insight into the peculiar ambivalence that people in developed countries have with technology. Specifically, people often tend to be incredulous when technology fails.

So someone like John Robb wonders how both engines could fall off a plane and the NTSB not suspect sabotage (hint, the engines are designed to fall off under certain circumstances in order to increase the survivability of the aircraft).

BlackHoleBrain adds another common theme to these theories — planes don’t just fly out of the sky by themselves.

Or I mean, what else could possibly cause a completely healthy airplane to neuter itself of both engines just minutes after takeoff? The voice recorder proves there was no one on board with box cutters doing the hijacker hand-jive… so it must have been complete and catastrophic, dual engine failure.

How can a “healty” airplane just fall out of the sky? Dozens of different ways, actually. Birds are a huge problem — a U.S. spy plane in Alaska crashed in 1995 because a flock of geese got sucked into the engines.

That’s apparently been ruled out in this crash, but in the cockpit voice recorder the captain of the American Airlines flight is heard to say something suggesting he thought the plain was experiencing wake turbulence (turbulence caused by a preceding jet — there was another jet in the same general flight path, but the two should have been at a safe distance).

Microbursts, pilot error, structural defects, overlooked maintenance problems, volatile cargo — there are many things that can go wrong during flights, but some people are acting as if no airplane ever simply crashed before.

And since he said it, yes Doc Searls speculation that terrorists might have brought the plane down with Stinger missiles was irresponsible. Searls says anything is possible and he’s just being careful, but you have to use some common sense here.

After all, if I were being purely speculative and throwing reason to the wind I might conjecture that a terrorist network wanting to sow fear in the United States one thing might recruit webloggers to whip up frenzy of conspiracy theories, cover ups, and terrorist attacks every time there’s some sort of major accident. And, of course, the CIA probably already knows this but doesn’t want to reveal it to the American public for fear of causing a nationwide panic (plus some of those in question are probably really double agents).