Stephen Colbert missed 3 episodes after the death of his mother, Lorna, at the age of 92. But Colbert didn't lose a step when he went after the size of chicken cages and marketing yet another bottled water to women.
Colbert "praised" Rep. Steve King (R-IA) for going after California's new law about the size of chicken cages for chickens raised in California and eggs sold in the Golden State. Colbert also made sure to remind the viewers that King voted in favor of feeding arsenic to chickens.
California's requirement is that chickens get a 200 square-inch cage. Of course, Colbert pulled out a 200 square-inch cage. The cage is more than 3x the size of the industry recommendation.
Colbert's "solution" for boneless chickens is to have them live in a paper towel roll.
Even if a news story happened to discuss this story, chances are they wouldn't pull out what 200 square inches looks like. As Colbert noted, chickens in the larger cages can actually turn around.
The factory farm system has instituted chickens and cows that live in their own filth. Pigs don't have it much better. Other than saving a bit of money, they haven't told us why animals living this poorly is better for the consumers of the food they are growing.
Even those who think eating animals is okay know animals need to be treated better. The conservative take is to let animals be animals and roam. 200 square inches is still a joke, but better than the status quo for a lot of chickens.
In the second segment, Colbert mocked Resource, the latest water from Nestle. Resource is aimed at women to give them "total Electrolytenment" — "spring water with naturally occurring electrolytes."
Colbert pointed out that Resource joins an already crowded set of Nestle bottled water products: Arrowhead, Deer Park, Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Acqua Panna, Pure Life, Zephyrhills, and Poland Spring
"The one opinion, which I think is extreme, as a human being, you should have a right to water. That's an extreme solution. Personally, I believe it's better to give a food stuff a value so we're all aware it has its price."
The clip from Nestle chairman of the board Peter Brabeck-Letmathe is from 2005. We've been told in several news reports that the quote is taken out of context. Given Nestle's stake in the bottled water industry, there are definitely bottles of truth in what he said.
Marketing a basic human right is bad enough; marketing a water to women is even more insulting.
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