Video: Student Forgotten in DEA Holding Cell Gets $4.1 Million Dollars - Daniel Chong Update - 7/30/13

Hi!

Imagine being arrested and then forgotten in a windowless holding cell without lights, a toilet, and food or water for nearly five days.

UCSD student Daniel Chong doesn't have to use his imagination...it actually happened to him.

Arrested with other students by the DEA in 2012, he was told:

"Hang tight. We'll come get you in a minute."

But that's when his nightmare began.

The agents forgot about him and didn't "re-discover" him for nearly five days.

Forced to drink his own urine to stay alive...after his cell lights went out...he began to "lose his mind" and hallucinate.

He'd been so forgotten in the end, when he was discovered the agents had no idea who he was. 

He was incoherent, suffering from kidney failure, had a perforated lung from eating glass, was dehydrated, and literally on the brink of death.

In order to avoid a lawsuit Federal Agents settled with him for 4.1 million dollars and issued a formal apology.

Before you wish you could get "forgotten" too and receive that same kind of payday...Chong needed to be hospitalized for five days and is still being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Here is a CNN video report about it:



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Scary Video: What's In That Fast-Food Burger?

 

Hi,

I've been a dedicated fast food patron for most of my adult life.  And my waste-line and health are both ample testaments to this lifetime diet of burgers, fries and carbonated high-fructose water (aka sodas).

When I was young, I didn't care much for warnings about health effects and nutrition.  But as you age it becomes more and more clear that what you eat has an effect on the quality of your life.

At the same time, the fast food industry has been creating more and more of what I call "Frankenstein" foods...laboratory concoctions designed to save them money...all while serving up up less and less healthful and nutritious meals.

Video Screen Capture

For example, when I was a kid, french fries were made from whole, sliced potatoes.  They were fried on the outside and soft, real potatoes on the inside.  When held at one end they bent under their own weight and when you broke them open you saw nothing but white potato.

Now if you break open the typical fast-food french fry, you can immediately see that they are not made from a whole potato...but rather look like a lattice-work of potato "bits".

Video Screen Capture

It's much harder to see what's under the hood in that beef patty. 

A few years ago I read an article in the news paper where "a California woman sued Taco Bell, claiming its taco filling is only 35 percent ground beef. The rest, she [alleged] in her class action suit, consists of edible padding: binders, extenders, preservatives, additives and other non-meat ingredients." *  A Taco Bell spokesman challenged those findings and proudly announced Taco Bell's filling is actually "88 percent ground beef, [and] that this beef is no different from what you'd buy at your local supermarket for use at home". *

* http://abcnews.go.com/Business/taco-buns-fast-food-meat-cook-home/story?id=12826571)

According to that ABC article the rest of that burger is in fact binders...no different that what you'd find in meat loaf...and furthermore, the fast food industry is under no obligation to reveal what is in their beef...AND their "hamburger" may in fact only contain 70% real beef.

Isn't that re-assuring?  Knowing that what you're sold as beef (sometimes even in the supermarket) is actually "meat-loaf"...that should put your mind at rest.  Right?

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I found an interesting video that further expounds on the subject.  The video is called "What's In A Burger?"

It claims that "beef" found in a fast-food burger is actually only 2% to 15% meat...or "practically vegetarian".

Video Screen Capture

WARNING:  When you hear some of the "other" ingredients in "hamburger"...ammonia for one...it may change your dietary choices.

Old habits die hard though...and even knowing about the Frankenstein foods they're serving...I still find myself darkening the doorways of far too many fast-food joints.

But I'm trying to change my ways and eat more healthfully.  Maybe if we all do the food industry will change its practices as well.

Here's to hoping that day will come...soon!!




All images in this post are screen-captures from the video.

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