kutulu

I'm glad we took care of feeding all the homeless before we did this:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...st/big_burrito

They couldn't even fucking eat it!!

I'm so sick of stupid towns trying to one-up each other by making the biggest x ever. It's a waste of time, money, and resources. Why can't the people donate the food, time, and resources to the freaking salvation army instead of doing this pointless shit?

I think the Guiness Book of World Records should stop accepting these types of submissions.

Thoughts?

Averett

I agree. The worlds largest bagel was built at the NY State Fair this summer. Or at least there was talk of it, not sure if it was accomplished.

I mean... So what? You made a fucking huge piece of pie. Great! Why don't you make a ton of smaller pies, feed em to people who could use the food, and break the record of most people fed or some such nonsense?

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the_marq

Absolutely.

I know a few years ago Guinness stopped accepting new records for pointless shit. Things like "Most ping pong balls in the ass" will not be accepted. Now if you want to BREAK the record for the most cigarettes in your mouth that's a different story.

But yeah it's really a shame that they basically chucked 3000 pounds of food and for what? "To but the Reno state fair on the map."

Way to go jackass!

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powerclown

The worst of the worst, and the best of the best....all in one country!
God Bless America.

billege

You have valid points there, I suppose.
It's kind of a shame that all that food was wasted. Thing is though, it's no big deal.
We have the extra food that we can afford to throw 8000lbs of food away. We also grow so much extra grain and corn we feed large areas of the world. Our breadbasket, so to speak, feeds more countries starving mouths than any other. The United States donates more food, money, and aid, than any other country in the world. I couldn't tell you numbers for sure, becuase I'm not looking them up, but I know we give billions of dollars a year in aid. I don't even know how much in privately donated fundage goes out, but you know there are umpteen organizations in the US that soly exist to help somene starving/whatever in some godforsaken country. Much of that goes straight to people that don't like us very much. But, we do it anyway.

Ever see Blackhawk Down? Yes, that was the US stepping into a civl war to try and feed people. Both sides didn't like us too much, but we lost sons anyway.

So, I guess you could get up on a soapbox about how a burrito makes the world hate us becuase we wated some food. I suppose....
I'd just ask you to remember that we are far from the only developed country that does this kind of thing. Plenty of people in the rest of the "1st World" do things like this too. Maybe that doesn't make it okay. But, if someone is looking for a reason to hate the US, they'd have to single us out of a crowd of people doing the same thing. If they did that, they either already didn't like us, or are looking for a reason.

Basically, I think a few billion dollars a year in aid, outweighs a burrito. Even if it was a big one.

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absorbentishe

World records are all just to 15 minutes of fame for somebody. Most records are okay, but stupid crap like this just needs to go. There's one record that will never be broken, the most assholes in one place, Washington D.C.

onetime2

I just wonder why this is significantly more offensive than the world's largest tomato fight?

Virtually every country has some example of excess.

http://www.spain-info.com/Culture/tomatofight.htm

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warrrreagl

I completely don't get why this makes people hate Americans.

Perhaps if we had sent a dozen Tom Arnolds to Belgium and let them talk/act loud, pushy, aggressive, condescending, disrespectful, and obnoxious while making a giant burrito, then it would make sense to me.

(Personal rant): Since I live in the deep South, this has been my experience with many midwestern tourists on their way to Florida. After a particularly bad carload of them would blast through town, we would shake our heads and say, "Now THAT'S why people all over the world hate us."

And as Lewis Grizzard once said, "There wouldn't even be Alligator Farms in the South if it weren't for dumb Yankee tourists."

I have no idea where I'm going with this, but it seemed all connected at first...

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onetime2

Personally, I don't believe it does. It's just more "evidence" used to justify presupposed beliefs. If you already hate America then just about everything can be used to point to how terrible it is.

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roachboy

you want an idea of how american aid really works when it comes to food? watch the film "life and debt" and then we can talk about it.

people around the world who do not like the states tend to do so on the basis of specific kinds of policies enacted by the government--this usually does not extend to individuals. unless you manage somehow to bring it on yourself, which is always possible, i guess. it requires a certain virtuouso skill, but i suspect some folk have it.

the notion of american matrydom seems to me tedious and wrong-headed.

but randy newman said it better than i possibly could, in his song "political science" on the album "sail away"
the lyrics start:

no-one likes us
i dont know why
we may not be perfect
though heaven knows we try
but all around even our old friends put us down
so let's drop the big one and see what happens...

check out the rest of the song--its hilarious.
it came out in 1972, but it still seems appropriate.

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warrrreagl

A truly brilliant album and song as well. The title song "Sail Away" may be the best he's written, and I love hearing that song played at patriotic outings where the organizers clearly have no idea the song is about American slavery.

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THGL

Well said!

To all the naysayers: All this town was trying to do was bring a little attention to itself (like any other company advertises) so next year maybe some more people will visit and spend their money there helping the local economy. More money in the local economy means more money is the locals pocket. More money in the local's pockets means they're more likely to donate some of that money to charities that feed the homeless/starving children of the world/whathaveyou.

Also, instead of complaining about what this town's fair did or didn't do, why don't you start making phonecalls and set up a "world's record for most homeless fed at one time". Call local groceries, food suppliers, homeless shelters, volunteer groups, Boy Scouts of America, etc. for donations and volunteers. Then (and IMO only then) when some reporter asks you why you did it, you can complain about a giant burrito and what a waste it was and how you found a better way to spend everyone else's money.

aphroditeskiss1

Yeah it's true we give billions of dollars of aid to people, billions of dollers we don't have because of a war hawk president driving up the national deficiate.

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mb99usa

Wow, all this because Reno decided to throw some disgusting food (IMHO) away. Taco Bell would have sold it to the fair attendees at $0.85 a serving.

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la petite moi

Yeah, this is just another human tragedy. Stupid.

bigoldalphamale

mmmmm...i like burritos.

fyi...anybody assuming world opinion of the US is affected in one way or another by a giant burrito needs to get a life. giant burritos are not political. nor are they socieconomical. giant burritos are not scandolous and they are not morally devoid. giant burritos are full of tasty goodness.

Nefir

Its interesting how when the US decides to donate food, nobody makes a big deal of it, but make a giant burrito, and suddenly the world hates us for it.

kutulu: I think you are making a bit too much of a big deal of it. Its not even that much food wasted, compared to how much is being donated. We are not in the middle of a shortage, and there's plenty to go around. Why many homeless people are not be getting it is a different non-burrito-related problem altogether. Why the world hates us is a whole other problem too, also not related to bad Mexican food.

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powerclown

hahahaha, good one.

speaking of food waste, don't forget the tons of food & beverage 'wasted' daily on cruise ships (not to mention the damage done to the environment from dumping), the majority of which are US-owned companies. With the amount of food consumed on one 7-day cruise (multiplied by ~300 days a year), you could feed 500 villages in Africa. Strange world.

Lebell

Gee,

I didn't know that the "largest burrito" is "Another reason people hate us".

Maybe we should all commit suicide least we offend someone with our very existance.

Oh wait, too late.

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World's King

I have the worlds largest blade of grass in my back yard. Give me a fuckin' medal.

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Cowman

I highly doubt that Kutulu was simply referring to this specific example as a reason why people would hate America. Im pretty sure he/she was using this article as an example of how Americans, really North Americans, tend to waste a ton of resources.

Also, im pretty sure that *per capita* America doesn't donate nearly as much as some other(European?) countries. I, like you, don't have any numbers. But if someone could dig some up so we could look at them that would be cool..

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Cynthetiq

better keep them it away from these people

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cookkee

what a waste

Diamond

You know, as much as I typically support this country, this is one of my biggest piss off points against it.

Anybody ever travel abroad? I enjoy travel, my purpose is see what other cultures are about. I've seen arrogant Americans who absaloutly embarass and annoy me, looking down at rich cultures they don't give two shits about. Yes, I can see how this would piss people off, but definitely not the only reason. Typical arrogance.

KellyC

I hate idiotic people who wastes food like that....regardless of country.

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Draak

This seems to be really odd. Seeing as the U.S. does not actually grow enought food to feed their population. There is a lot of food imported into the states simply so that they will have enough to feed everyone, if you do some research(outside of U.S. goverment sources) I'm sure that you will find this out easily. The reason that the U.S. can donate so much to other nations is that it is simply money being used to import more, and send it.

tiltedbc

I once made a huge burrito and a couple people got pissed off.

Did they do the dishes after they made the Burrito in Reno? That's what did me in.

Why can't we all just get along?

billege

I did my research after you said that. Depending on what catagories of food you're talking about, the US is a large, or very large, exporter of food. That would mean, food we produced, and are exporting. I'm not sure if you have a paranoia of US government sources or what, but I don't. The USDA has some very enlightening articles on the subject. Apparently the billions of dollars in homegrown food we export has fallen significantly in the last decade. I guess we're down to $10.5 billion dollars worth of food we sold to others. We are also importing higher amounts of processed food.

I suppose the USDA could be lying about a few billion dollars, and millions of tons of food, in exports, but I'd think someone would have maybe noticed that.

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Glava

The elimination of giant food records is <i>totally </i> going to solve the homeless problem in America, as well as increase our credibility abroad by a factor of 5.

Yeah, ok.

nothingx

I'm not saying I don't believe you, but I'd really like to see hard numbers for this statement. Basically, it runs contrary to a theory I have about why the United States has such a huge problem with public education and health care. I mean, we spend more money on health care than any other country in the world, yet ours is among the worst quality available. Why is that? I'm no economist, but I would guess it has something to do with capitialization, "big business", and the desire to make the most money you can... You can't keep all that money in your pocket if you're giving it away to feed people in other countries, or medicate and hospitalize your own. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but it seems like we lack the fundamental structure for supporting these things.

Cynthetiq

worst quality available? maybe in the lower rungs of county and community hospitals which is subsidized by the government, but if you have the $ you have the best that money can buy.

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bigoldalphamale

healthcare is bound and determined to end up like the airlines in this country. many large healthcare providers work on zero or negative margin. this means that more often than not, they are losing money on every patient they treat. additionally, as new treatments become available, the cost inherently rises as these new methods are almost always more expensive...and the provider is expected to absorb this cost because everyone from doctors to patients will scream bloody murder if salaries are cut or if patient bills rise. its an issue that needs tending to. but it has nothing at all to do with giant burritos.

roachboy

for the folk who imagine it is beneficience alone that motivates american food export policies, you really should make an effort to connect it to the effects of imf structural adjustment policies for example:

american exports of food too often undercut the ability of poorer countries to develop anything like a self-sustaining agricultural infrastructure.

the main reason for this is that american agricultural subsidies amount to dumping.

when you combine this with neoliberal "free trade" ideology enforced by the imf as conditions for loans prevents these countries from using tarrifs as ways to protect local agriculture from their markets being flooded with cheaper, often much less beneficial, american products.

and much of what the americans export is shitty quality. in the example of jamaica, american powdered milk imports have nearly crushed the jamaican dairy industry. and it is not at all obvious that powdered milk offers any nutritional advantage, is it?

the policy of exporting food, then IS NOT simply a nice act by nice people.
you cannot view food exports in isolation.

if people particularly from poorer countries veiw american food policies as a weapon in a kind of economic warfare, it would follow that displays on the order of the huge burrito could be taken as an affront.

on its own, the huge burrito is not scandalous, not interesting: it is just fucking stupid.

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it make you sick.

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kutulu

The thing about internet sarcasm is that most people can't see it. I wasn't actually using the thread title to say that the world hates us because we waste food, I was just being sarcastic.

The waste does piss me off though because even in Reno there are people that go hungry every day. People are so wrapped up in stupid shit (like making a giant burrito) that they don't even think about alternative uses for shit they are planning on wasting.

Delvid

Just include in the world record rules that it has to be eaten to win. Then no food waste and an burrito that size could wean us off foreign oil.

bigoldalphamale

WINNER WINNER!!!! CHICKEN DINNER!!!!!!!!!!!

VitaminH

....sooooo anyone want to go on a burrito run to TB with me?

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Tophat665

Hmmm. Spend more time in Hollywood. You may revise your opinion. Then there's NYC. While I would stipulate that DC's per capita asshole quotient is much higher, numbers will tell, and I have got to believe that New York is in the running too.

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Lasereth

That's actually the first thing I thought of too. It's a lot more complicated than "send the food to the poor people in other countries." In Desert Storm (and in particular the Black Hawk Down incident), the US sent food to various areas (like Somalia) and got extremely hostile resistance due to overlords controlling the area. If there are areas in the world that need help, chances are the US is already doing something (if not just a little bit) to help out.

-Lasereth

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Cowman

Anytime you refer a MOVIE starring Josh Hartnett in a serious debate, no matter how much of the movie may be "based on real incidents", your entire posts validity gets thrown out the window.

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