On Sun, 23 May 2010 08:36:40 -0500, Omelet wrote:

> In article
> >,
> spamtrap1888 > wrote:
>
>> On May 22, 8:18*pm, Omelet > wrote:
>>> Sorry, but I thought this was funny as hell. ;-)
>>>
>>> U.S. Military recipe for brownies and oatmeal cookies.
>>>
>>> It's twenty-six pages long and replete with such gems as:
>>>
>>> "3.2.4 Shortening, hydrogenated. *Shortening shall be a refined,
>>> hydrogenated vegetable oil or combination of refined vegetable oils
>>> which
>>> are in common use by the baking industry. *Coconut and palm kernel oils
>>> may
>>> be used only in the coating. *The shortening shall have a stability of
>>> not
>>> less than 100 hours as determined by the Active Oxygen Method (AOM) in
>>> Method Cd 12-57 of the MIL-C-44072C Commercial Fats and Oils chapter in
>>> the
>>> Official and Tentative Methods of the American Oil Chemists Society. *
>>> The
>>> shortening may contain alpha monoglycerides and an antioxidant or
>>> combination of antioxidants, as permitted by the Federal Grain
>>> Inspection
>>> Service (FGIS), and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and
>>> regulations
>>> promulgated thereunder."
>>>
>>> PDFhttp://liw.iki.fi/liw/misc/MIL-C-44072C.pdf
>>
>> Having been in procurement, I can appreciate that every line spelling
>> out requirements was borne of bitter experience dealing with suppliers
>> trying to make the most profit they can. (why prohibit use of rancid
>> fats? Because experience taught them if it wasn't in the spec, people
>> would use rancid fat.)
>
> I see. I was unaware of that... Manufacturers of military food try to
> poison the troops?

if you've never heard of contractors providing shoddy goods to the
military, you haven't been paying attention:


"Burn & Loot"

Halliburton has been doing work in war zones since the early 1960s, when it
acquired the construction company Brown & Root and was tasked by the
Pentagon with building the infrastructure for the Vietnam War. Back in
those days, it was vilified as "Burn & Loot." After more than three decades
in news obscurity, in March 2003, with the invasion of Iraq, it suddenly
returned to national attention. After all, not only had its former CEO been
beating the public drums for an invasion, but its subsidiary KBR (the old
Brown & Root) had been given a vast, open-ended, multi-billion dollar
contract to build and maintain the new infrastructure of bases that the
U.S. military was rushing to construct in that country.

More than six years later, KBR has taken in over $31 billion for a variety
of services to the U.S. military, notably in the field of logistics, and
the money continues to flow in. As of April 2008, under a renewed contract,
the company estimated that it had served more than 720 million meals,
driven more than 400 million miles on various convoy missions, treated 12
billion gallons of potable water, and produced more than 267 million tons
of ice. While these numbers may be impressive, so are the multiple claims
from Pentagon investigators of Godzilla-like overcharges and waste, not to
speak of spiraling claims of workplace negligence, including faulty
electrical wiring that led to deaths and injuries on bases KBR built, and a
failure to provide adequately clean water supplies to the troops; and then
there are those allegations of war profiteering made by activist groups and
politicians.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=haliburton+barracks+shock&hl=en&client=fi refox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&start=10&sa=N>

remember the inadequately shielded armored carriers? the crappy body
armor? or, if you're old enough, the six-hundred dollar toilet seats and
three-hundred dollar hammers?

cheating the government is one thing the free market does fairly well.

your pal,
blake