Link:

The U.S. government is no longer referring to poor people going hungry. Hunger in America, in other words, has disappeared. It's been made inapplicable. Irrelevant. Improper. Non-existent. In its place, there's food security. This is not a joke. This is the new policy of the United States Department of Agriculture, and it was reported in this morning's Washington Post: "Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word 'hunger' to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year. Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said 'hungry' is 'not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey.' Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, 'We don't have a measure of that condition.' The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined 'very low food security' to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group."

i can just see it now.... Food insecurity, Food insecurity Hippos.

fnord12 sucks and only he knows why. on that note...

To measure hunger, the USDA determined, the government would have to ask individual people whether "lack of eating led to these more severe conditions," as opposed to asking who can afford to keep food in the house, Nord said. ... "Hunger is clearly an important issue," Nord said. "But lacking a widespread consensus on what the word 'hunger' should refer to, it's difficult for research to shed meaningful light on it."

The USDA should prolly call up the DHHS and explain to them what "scientific accuracy" is seeing as they seem to be all in the know on that score.

I'm not sure if everyone has been replaced by robots or by lawyers. Mebbe they're robot lawyers!

And let's not leave out this little gem:

That 35 million people in this wealthy nation feel insecure about their next meal can be hard to believe, even in the highest circles. In 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then running for president, said he thought the annual USDA report -- which consistently finds his home state one of the hungriest in the nation -- was fabricated.

"I'm sure there are some people in my state who are hungry," Bush said. "I don't believe 5 percent are hungry."

Link

I can almost understand his disbelief. I'm sure he assumed Mother Bush had those people removed from the state entirely.