Monday, Nov. 21, 2005 | 8:03 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The federal government has unveiled a new cartoon campaign to educate Americans about food safety for the Thanksgiving holiday.
The campaign's star is the creatively named Thermy, a grinning, chef's hat-wearing cartoon character food thermometer. His nemesis: the creatively named Bac, a little green snarling glob of food bacteria.
The characters were unveiled in a goodie bag of pamphlets and other swag distributed to the media this week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The service notes that turkey is ready for consumption only after it has cooked and reached an internal temperature of 180 degrees. "You can't tell by looking," the service says. "Use a food thermometer to be sure."
Or as Thermy says: "It's safe to bite then when the temperature is right!"
Thermy's friends -- a wildly grinning bottle of soap, a cutting board and a refrigerator -- remind people to "Clean!" "Separate!" and "Chill!" This being Washington, the characters are unnamed -- anonymous sources.
The USDA has plenty of tips on how to avoid getting sick from food during the holidays, but no advice on dealing with airport lines or annoying relatives.
Holiday cooks with meat and poultry safety questions can call the USDA Hotline at 1-888-MPHotline.
Reid vs. Cheney
Senate Minority Leader Reid has been taking some vicious swings at Vice President Cheney.
Reid in recent days has linked Cheney to government contracting abuse as a former Halliburton executive, accused him of conspiring with energy companies on policies that hurt consumers, and painted him as a role player in the CIA leak case in which Cheney aide Lewis Libby was indicted.
Last week, the Nevada Democrat demanded that Cheney hold a press conference to explain his comments about Iraq intelligence prior to the war.
Cheney swung back, bemoaning attacks from senators who voted to authorize war. "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory -- or their backbone -- but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history," Cheney said in a speech Wednesday. Reid that night went to the Senate floor to throw his counterpunch, saying: "Tired rhetoric and political attacks do nothing to get the job done in Iraq."
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said that Reid's attacks are "unconscionable and beneath the office of the Minority Leader of the Senate."
And the GOP is dismissing Reid's attacks in part by suggesting he's off the deep end. At Reid's weekly press conference in the Capitol last week, Republican aides quietly distributed a copy of a Nov. 11 Investor's Business Daily editorial critical of Reid for "playing Capt. Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick Cheney." Reid sounds like a "whacked out conspiracy buff," the publication said.
Despite the scrape, the Veep himself doesn't seem stressed. Fresh from a South Dakota hunting trip, Cheney and his wife Lynne last weekend went to a Georgetown cinema to see the movie "Derailed," Roll Call reported. Maybe he thought the Jennifer Anniston thriller was about knocking political opponents off message.
Oil Company Tax Unlikely
Irked by a lack of attention to high gas prices in Congress -- and ever mindful that the issue is a top voter concern -- Reid on Oct. 12 proposed a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies.
But the proposal is sputtering on an empty tank. A number of lawmakers, including Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, have said a profits tax will not bring down prices at the pump.
Critics say a profits tax levied in 1980 failed to lower prices and actually decreased domestic production, increasing dependence on foreign sources. In a Senate hearing Nov. 9, five top oil company executives downplayed their record profits, explained booms and busts in their industry and said they were investing heavily in new production.
So Congress is not moving too fast to punish them. Of course, voter-conscious lawmakers also are mindful of another constituency -- campaign donors and lobbyists. And some top money men and K Street heavyweights were not happy about Reid's proposal. The oil and gas industry gave $10.2 million to federal candidates in the 2004 election cycles, and it's time to call in the favor.
Publicly and privately, industry chiefs have been pressuring lawmakers to drop the proposal. As part of an advertising campaign, five leading lobby groups took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post. "A windfall profits tax is a failed relic of a bygone era," the ad said.
In other words: hands off our cash.
Dems: No turkey break
Reid said Democrats have no intention of letting up their aggressive attack on the White House and congressional Republicans just because lawmakers will be adjourned next week for the Thanksgiving holiday, Roll Call reported. Reid sent the Senate Democrats back to their states with marching orders to keep the pressure on Republicans, on issues ranging from Iraq to GOP corruption.
"Recess makes no difference," Reid told Roll Call. "If they think by adjourning that we are going to leave, they are wrong."
New Yucca chief?
Edward Sproat moved one notch closer to taking over the Yucca Mountain project when a Senate panel approved him Wednesday with no opposition. Or did he?
Whether the full Senate will get to vote on Sproat's nomination to be the new director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management remains to be seen.
Ensign and Reid have placed a hold on Sproat's nomination until they get more answers on the department's plans for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Based on answers Sproat gave to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which approved him, the senators may not receive answers they like. Sproat remains committed to opening the repository, and will "aggressively pursue the submittal of the license application."
He also said he was not aware of any nuclear waste reprocessing technology that would eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain.
Sproat plans to do a thorough review of the program and formulate a plan "that will have specific, measurable goals and objectives for all parts of the OCRWM organization."
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