HOUSTON (AP) — It’s a tradition with roots that can be traced far back in history: Before being put to death, a condemned prisoner can choose his last meal.

Not so anymore in Texas.

Officials who oversee the country’s busiest death chamber stopped the practice on Thursday after a prominent state senator complained about a hefty request from a man executed for his role in a notorious dragging death. Now, inmates get to eat only what the kitchen serves.

The controversy began after Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was executed on Wednesday for the hate crime slaying of James Byrd Jr. more than a decade ago, asked for two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover’s pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts. Prison officials said Brewer didn’t eat any of it.

“It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege,” Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, wrote in a letter Thursday to Brad Livingston, the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Within hours, Livingston said the senator’s concerns were valid and the practice of allowing death row offenders to choose their final meal was history.

“Effective immediately, no such accommodations will be made,” Livingston said. “They will receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit.”

That had been the suggestion from Whitmire, who called the traditional request “ridiculous.”

“It’s long overdue,” the Houston Democrat told The Associated Press. “This old boy last night, enough is enough. We’re fixing to execute the guy and maybe it makes the system feel good about what they’re fixing to do. Kind of hypocritical, you reckon?

“Mr. Byrd didn’t get to choose his last meal. The whole deal is so illogical.”

Brewer, a white supremacist gang member, was convicted of chaining Byrd, 49, to the back of a pickup truck and dragging him to his death along a bumpy road in a case shocked the nation for its brutality.

It was not immediately clear whether other states have made similar moves. Some limit the final meal cost — Florida’s ceiling is $40, according to the Department of Corrections website, with food to be purchased locally. Others, like Texas, which never had a designated dollar limit, mandate meals be prison-made. Some states don’t acknowledge final meals, and others will disclose the information only if the inmate agrees, said K. William Hayes, a Florida-based death penalty historian.

Some states require the meal within a specific time period, allow multiple “final” meals, restrict it to one or impose “a vast number of conditions,” he said.

Historical references to a condemned person’s last meal go as far back as ancient Greece, China and Rome, Hayes said. Some of it is apparently rooted in superstition about meals warding off possible haunting by condemned people once they are put to death.

The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based anti-capital punishment organization that collects execution statistics, said it had no data on final meals.

Since Texas resumed carrying out executions in 1982, the state correction agency’s practice has been to fill a condemned inmate’s request as long as the items, or food similar to what was requested, were readily available from the prison kitchen supplies.

While extensive, Brewer’s request was far from the largest or most bizarre among the 475 Texas inmates put to death.

On Tuesday, prisoner Cleve Foster’s request included two fried chickens, French fries and a five-gallon bucket of peaches. He received a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court but none of his requested meal. He was on his way back to death row, at a prison about 45 miles east of Huntsville, at the time when his feast would have been served.

Last week, inmate Steven Woods’ request included two pounds of bacon, a large four-meat pizza, four fried chicken breasts, two drinks each of Mountain Dew, Pepsi, root beer and sweet tea, two pints of ice cream, five chicken fried steaks, two hamburgers with bacon, fries and a dozen garlic bread sticks with marinara on the side. Two hours later, he was executed.

Years ago, a Texas inmate even requested dirt for his final meal.

Until 2003, the Texas prison system listed final meals of each prisoner as part of its death row website. That stopped at 313 final meals after officials said they received complaints from people who found it offensive.

A former inmate cook who made the last meals for prisoners at the Huntsville Unit, where Texas executions are carried out, wrote a cookbook several years ago after he was released. Among his recipes were Gallows Gravy, Rice Rigor Mortis and Old Sparky’s Genuine Convict Chili, a nod to the electric chair that once served as the execution method. The book was called “Meals to Die For.”

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama makes it sound like there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries.

“Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires,” Obama said Monday. “That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that.”

The data tells a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That, however, was less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.

In his White House address Monday, Obama called on Congress to increase taxes by $1.5 trillion as part of a 10-year deficit reduction package totaling more than $3 trillion. He proposed that Congress overhaul the tax code and impose what he called the “Buffett rule,” named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

The rule says, “People making more than $1 million a year should not pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay.”

“Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it,” Obama said. “It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million.”

Buffett wrote in a recent piece for The New York Times that the tax rate he paid last year was lower than that paid by any of the other 20 people in his office.

This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes and payroll taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay 15 percent of their income in federal taxes. Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7 percent.

The latest IRS data is a few years older – and it’s limited to federal income taxes – but it shows much the same thing. In 2009, taxpayers who made $1 million or more paid on average 24.4 percent of their income in federal income taxes, according to the IRS.

Those making $100,000 to $125,000 paid on average 9.9 percent in federal income taxes. Those making $50,000 to $60,000 paid an average of 6.3 percent.

Obama’s claim hinges on the fact that, for high-income families and individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages. The top tax rate for dividends and capital gains is 15 percent. The top marginal tax rate for wages is 35 percent, though that is reserved for taxable income above $379,150.

With tax rates that high, why do so many people pay at lower rates? Because the tax code is riddled with more than $1 trillion in deductions, exemptions and credits, and they benefit people at every income level, according to data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’ official scorekeeper on revenue issues.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46 percent of households, mostly low- and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year. Most, however, will pay other taxes, including Social Security payroll taxes.

“People who are doing quite well and worry about low-income people not paying any taxes bemoan the fact that they get so many tax breaks that they are zeroed out,” said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. “People at the bottom of the distribution say, but all of those rich guys are getting bigger tax breaks than we’re getting, which is also the case.”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was pressed at a White House briefing on the number of millionaires who pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-income families. He demurred, saying that people who make most of their money in wages pay taxes at a higher rate, while those who get most of their income from investments pay at lower rates.

“So it really depends on what is your profession, where’s the source of your income, what’s the specific circumstances you face, and the averages won’t really capture that,” Geithner said.

NEW YORK (AP) — When Wendy’s decided to remake its 42-year-old hamburger, the chain agonized over every detail. A pickle chemist was consulted. Customers were quizzed on their lettuce knowledge. And executives went on a cross-country burger-eating tour.

The result? Dave’s Hot `N Juicy, named after late Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas. The burger — with extra cheese, a thicker beef patty, a buttered bun, and hold the mustard, among other changes — will be served in restaurants starting Monday.

“Our food was already good,” said Denny Lynch, a Wendy’s spokesman. “We wanted it to be better. Isn’t that what long-term brands do? They reinvent themselves.”

For Wendy’s Co., based in Ohio, reinvention is critical. That’s why executives at the 6,600-restaurant chain spent the past two and a half years going over burger minutiae during an undertaking they call Project Gold Hamburger. That included deciding whether to switch from white onions on its burgers to red (they did), to change the fat/lean ratio of the meat (they didn’t), or to go with plain or crinkled pickles (they picked crinkled.)

Wendy’s is trying to boost lackluster sales and fight growing competition from much bigger rival McDonald’s on one end and expanding fast-casual chains like Five Guys on the other. Part of the problem is that Americans, who are being squeezed by the tight economy, are being pickier about how they spend their dining-out dollars. But the biggest issue is that Wendy’s, which hadn’t changed its burger since the chain began in 1969, let its food offerings get stale over the years while its competitors continued to update their menus.

Still, it can be risky to tweak an old and familiar product. In fact, the past is littered with examples of this, including New Coke and Clear Pepsi, which were eventually pulled from store shelves because customers didn’t like the new versions. Wendy’s itself stumbled a few years ago when it tried to introduce breakfast foods. The company now says it made a mistake by offering omelets and pancakes, which aren’t conducive to eating on the go.

“We have a lot of catching up to do in some areas,” said Gerard Lewis, Wendy’s head of new product development. “But after we launch this hamburger there will be folks who need to catch up to us.”

How it all began

Project Gold Hamburger started around early 2009, shortly after hedge fund magnate Nelson Peltz bought Wendy’s and combined it with Arby’s. The marriage ultimately failed, with Peltz selling Arby’s to a private-equity firm this summer.

It was clear Wendy’s had lost its way. In six of the past 11 quarters, the company has reported lower or flat revenue at restaurants open at least a year, a key measure of a company’s growth. And after Thomas died in 2002, Wendy’s fell flat on finding a new face for its advertising, at one point running bizarre commercials featuring a man wearing a red pigtailed wig.

Also looming over Wendy’s is strong competition from McDonald’s, which has grown even larger in the past couple of years by remaking itself into a hip, healthy place to eat, with smoothies, Wi-Fi and high-margin coffee drinks. Last year, McDonald’s had 49.5 percent of the fast-food burger market in the U.S, up from 41.6 percent in 2002, according to research firm Technomic. In the same period, Wendy’s share fell to 12.8 percent from 14 percent. Burger King’s fell to 13.3 percent from 17 percent.

Anxious to gain market share, Wendy’s polled more than 10,000 people about their likes and dislikes in hamburgers. It found that people like the food at Wendy’s but thought the brand hadn’t kept up with the times. So, executives were shipped off to eat at burger joints around the country and measured each sandwich on characteristics like fatty flavor, salty flavor and whether the bun fell apart.

“I’ve traveled more with this burger than I have in my entire life,” said Shelly Thobe, Wendy’s director of hamburgers and new platforms.

Then, it was time for Wendy’s researchers to consider the chain’s own burger, ingredient by ingredient. Each time they made a change, they asked for feedback, visiting research firms around the country to watch through two-way mirrors as people tried each variation.

Wendy’s chefs also tested new products at the headquarters in Dublin, just outside Columbus. From the test kitchens, they slipped new burger incarnations through little windows into a “Sensory Test Area,” a white-walled room with 16 cubicles where tasting volunteers, or sometimes employees, ranked each burger.

Many suggestions sounded good but didn’t ring true with tasters. They tried green-leaf lettuce, but people preferred to keep iceberg for its crunchiness. They thought about making the tomato slices thicker but decided they didn’t want to ask franchisees to buy new slicing equipment. They even tested a round burger, a trial that was practically anathema to a company that’s made its name on square burgers. (Wendy’s ultimately did not go with the round shape, but changed the patty to a “natural square,” with wavy edges, because tasters said the straight edges looked processed.)

Amid all the changes that were proposed that didn’t make it, there were some golden nuggets. Tasters said they wanted a thicker burger, so Wendy’s started packing the meat more loosely, trained grill cooks to press down on the patties two times instead of eight, and printed “Handle Like Eggs” on the boxes that the hamburger patties were shipped in so they wouldn’t get smashed. And Wendy’s researchers knew that customers wanted warmer and crunchier buns, so they decided that buttering them and then putting them through a toaster was the way to go.

In the end, Wendy’s researchers changed everything but the ketchup. They switched to whole-fat mayonnaise, nixed the mustard, and cut down on the pickles and onions, all to emphasize the flavor of the beef. They also started storing the cheese at higher temperatures so it would melt better, a change that required federal approval.

“It’s not about getting real exotic,” said Lori Estrada, Wendy’s senior vice president of menu innovation and packaging. “It’s about making everything work.”

Change is good — but hard

But Wendy’s acknowledges that remaking a burger that’s been around for more than four decades isn’t easy.

Wendy’s faces the reality that some customers may not like the new burger — or its price. At a time when Americans are cutting back in the down economy, Wendy’s says prices for the burgers will probably increase, maybe by 10 or 20 cents, because of the higher-quality ingredients. Franchisees set their own prices, though. A Wendy’s down the road from the Dublin headquarters, which was already selling the new sandwiches last week, was charging $3.49 for the quarter-pound burger, $4.69 for the half-pound, and $5.79 for the three-quarters pound.

Wendy’s officials say complaints about the new burger are inevitable. After all, the company was bombarded with complaints for three or four weeks last year when it made changes to the fries, including flavoring them with sea salt. But Lynch said fry sales eventually went up and “exceeded expectations,” although he declined to give figures. He also said the new burger “speaks for itself.”

Jeff Davis, at research firm Sandelman & Associates, said Wendy’s still has a long-term reputation for quality and credibility that it can harvest. “If they can hit those buttons, it’s going to work for them,” he said.

No matter how many times I pack up my equipment for a road trip to broadcast sports, when I get to the edge of town I can’t get past the feeling that I left something.  I mean I have been doing this job for over a decade now, you would think I had the whole process down.  But regardless I have the same weird feeling each time I leave town.  The obvious reason for this is that I have in fact left equipment at the radio station.

One particular time I got to Phillipsburg and started setting everything up before I realized I forgot all the power cords!  After a quick freak out session, I contacted the guy back at the station to meet me half way.  Now for a second let me back track, I have been pulled over in Phillips County more times than in all counties (and states) combined.  I had already been pulled over going into Phillipsburg the first time for a 69 in a 65.  Didn’t get a ticket but a stern warning.  OK back to the story, I met the guy with my equipment and burned my way back to Phillipsburg getting pulled over again, by the same sheriff’s officer.  As he came up to the window it dawned on him this was the same car as earlier, once he recognized me, I explained why I was traveling so fast (74 in a 65) and by the grace of God he let me go.  Pulled over twice in the same day and got away with no tickets either time (guess I should have bought a lottery ticket).

Thanks to the kindness of the sheriff’s officer I got back to the gym just in time, set up my equipment to begin the broadcast, only to say something so ridiculous that the guy helping me with the broadcast couldn’t control his laughter got up and left for 15 minutes.  I can’t put down what I said that day…could get me in trouble if taken the wrong way!

Any way I will hit the road for Liberal Friday, and many more road trips after that, and still when I hit the edge of town I will start thinking that I did leave something and probably pull over and check once again.

From 1961, I love the singing and I especially like the the fact that most of the French spoken is the word ‘le’ in front of the word in english. Most funny. Enjoy and LIKE it if you do.

By Paul Ibbetson ~ from Salina Post

Need a job? How about a job that pays the bills? These questions no longer apply to isolated parts of the country that have faced natural disasters or workers displaced by ENRON-type white collar criminal activity. In America, finding substantive work and keeping it has now become a national question of importance to everyone. For a growing number of people, the answer from the business world to the question of employment has been, “We are not hiring at this time.”

As reported by Chris Stirewalt on Fox News, the argument for saying America is not in a recession because we have stopped having three sequential quarters of negative growth becomes moot when every quarter’s growth is so small that it cannot improve the economy. The truth is that America’s economy, and its subsequent lack of job growth, is like a heavy anchor dragging the bottom of the deepest ocean. Now imagine the American worker strapped to that anchor, and the mental image is complete.

As Shaila Dewan writes in The New York Times, we see that the most recent reports show the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent. These numbers are scary enough, but they fail to show just how bad unemployment really is. Given America’s current economic dilemma, the percentages of the unemployed whom people read about in newspapers and hear discussed on the television should be more accurately described as “nice scenario” numbers, because “true unemployment” numbers are much, much higher. In reality, unemployment figures for Americans are at least double of those reported: more and more people continue to run out of Obama’s extended unemployment benefits and no longer qualify to stay on the rolls; others are tired of looking for jobs that don’t exist and simply abandon the job hunt and go home to stare at their sofa cushions. People who have fallen off the official count of the unemployed are not the only means by which the current employment numbers in America are being obscured; there are also the Obama “fantasy employment numbers.”

The Obama “fantasy employment numbers” are undoubtedly a fiction originally created to combat the administration’s inability to make good on the president’s pledge to the American people to stop unemployment numbers from reaching 8 percent if given a historic “good faith” loan of $787 billion. After the president’s social programing and “shovel ready” New Deal approach failed, the administration started counting unemployment from a new perspective; that is, new jobs would be counted from people who still had jobs. If this sounds a little weird, that’s because it is.

As if pulling a clip from an episode of the Twilight Zone, the Obama administration said America’s new reality on unemployment would now be evaluated from the perspective of people who didn’t lose their jobs due to the president’s actions. As reported by William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal as early as 2009, this method of gauging how Obama’s economic stimulus plan is affecting American jobs was full of phony bologna number crunching. There is no way to quantify jobs saved by the stimulus package; this is a projection of pure fantasy born of desperation. At least in a realTwilight Zone episode, Rod Serling would have taken viewers to the side and told them they were now leaving the real world. Barack Obama needs to be dragged back to our reality, because Americans are just too broke to be able to play along anymore.

The truth is that Obama’s philosophy and the capitalistic/free market system, the system upon which America was founded, cannot co-exist without American workers suffering. Employers of businesses that are still economically viable in today’s economy will not expand their companies nor, hire new employees, so long as the Federal government impinges on the free market and creates future economic uncertainty. The administration’s failed economic policies have protracted an employment downturn beyond what political spin and fantasy statistics can legitimize. Our country’s painful reality is that the more common job status question for the average America is not, “What do you do for living?”, but “Do you do anything at all?”

Paul Ibbetson

 

The views and opinions expressed in this post are soley those of the author. These views and opinions do not represent those of SalinaPost.com, and/or any/all contributors to this site.

I was reminded Sunday how unselfish and proud so many of us are here in the midwest and across this great country. As we returned from Missouri, it seemed every other overpass from Kansas City to Hays was decorated in some manner with the red, white and blue. Often times flags were being hoisted proudly by individuals. Some were Firemen, some were EMS workers and some were likely just proud folks or perhaps parents and family of those affected by the tragedy ten years ago. As we drove home, we felt very patriotic and honked and saluted as we drove by each and every one. Thank you America for giving us a place to enjoy our freedoms, and thank you everyone who participated along Interstate 70 for your patriotism.