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The Glorious Return of the Twinkie

iggymanz writes "The geek food staple the Twinkie is coming back. The sturdy main component of the foundation to the geek four food groups of sugar, fat, caffeine and bacon — with rumored shelf life on the order of the time span to cool a white dwarf to room temperature — the Twinkie, along with Ding-Dongs, Ho-Ho's and Cupcakes, will be returning 15 July 2013 to the shelves under new management of Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulous & Co which paid over 400 mega dollars (U.S.) for the brands."

528 comments

  1. Mega Dollars? by firegate · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are they like regular dollars with superpowers?

    --
    "Make it idiot proof, and someone will make a better idiot."
    1. Re:Mega Dollars? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes. They have the strength of a million normal dollars. Personally, I welcome the newest addition to the SI unit family. (What could be more ironic than the addition of a highly-variable American currency to a French system intended to be as constant as possible? Nothing, friends. Let us rejoice.)

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    2. Re:Mega Dollars? by sjames · · Score: 1

      yes. A dollar won't even buy you a cup of coffee. A mega dollar can make crime legal and get people to like you even if you're an entitled sneering jackass with an ego the size of Texas.

    3. Re:Mega Dollars? by SailorSpork · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's part of the new dual-currency system they're introducing in the US off of the highly successful Free 2 Play game system model and gamification of real life. Dollars can be earned through normal gameplay, mega-dollars can only be purchased by the Rich or Politically Connected and are required to unlock the best stuff in the the game.

    4. Re:Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      A megadollar is about 2.23 forlongdollars.

    5. Re:Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure. Like Ameridollars are dollars but more PATRIOTIC.

    6. Re:Mega Dollars? by geekoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why should it? In 1975(just before the Brazilian Freeze Coffee (an 8 oz cup) on average was 30 cents, 50 cents a year later)
      From http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

      What cost $.30 in 1975 would cost $1.26 in 2012.

      A Tall at Starbucks* is 1.35. And it's in a coffee specialty store, not a Denny's like restaurant.

      *I'm not a fan of Starbucks, I use them becasue they are pretty much everywhere.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Mega Dollars? by varmfskii · · Score: 1

      I like that it is stated as four hundred dollars mega dollars!

    8. Re:Mega Dollars? by Patch86 · · Score: 2

      Serious answer- presumably they mean "million", as in megahertz or megajoule.

      I for one find the idea of SI prefixes for currency exciting in ways I can't quite explain.

      On the other hand, they might have meant $1,048,576, in which case god help us all.

    9. Re:Mega Dollars? by g0bshiTe · · Score: 0

      Or pay for the prez elects newest family outing!

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    10. Re:Mega Dollars? by g0bshiTe · · Score: 2

      As opposed to the local convenience store of choice or gas station which also has coffee and probably a good bit cheaper.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    11. Re:Mega Dollars? by nitehawk214 · · Score: 4, Funny

      A megadollar could get you two chicks at the same time.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    12. Re:Mega Dollars? by sconeu · · Score: 3, Funny

      Lawrence, is that you?

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    13. Re:Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are not plain megadollars, they are $400 mega dollars, so they really are 400 mega dollars to the cube!

    14. Re:Mega Dollars? by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      And a good chance of having better coffee. I'm not picky about my coffee, but even I can tell that Starbuck coffee is not good.

    15. Re:Mega Dollars? by Zynder · · Score: 1

      CHECK OUT CHANNEL 9! It's the breast exam!

    16. Re:Mega Dollars? by onkelonkel · · Score: 2

      Most Gas_Station_Coffee around here still sits in little round glass jugs on hotplates for hours, and tastes like it came from Satan's bladder. The stuff in the the thermos carafes is somewhat better.

      --
      None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
    17. Re:Mega Dollars? by infolation · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal sized dollar in the New York area. Based on this article's example, 400 mega dollars would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.

    18. Re:Mega Dollars? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      A megadollar could get you two chicks at the same time.

      at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    19. Re:Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least, a dude like me...

    20. Re: Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Community Coffee is good stuff. But yes, that other stuff in the pot tastes like ass not because of the bean, but rather it's scorched from being on the burner too long. Also the burners tend to be too hot.

    21. Re:Mega Dollars? by danomac · · Score: 1

      Sure, but that sludge is what wakes you up. Works every time...

    22. Re:Mega Dollars? by pjbgravely · · Score: 2

      That makes me feel better about where I live. I don't know of any Starbucks in nearby towns.

      I make my coffee at home where it is cheaper and doesn't taste like the brown water you get from Dunkin Doughnuts.

      --
      Star Trek, there maybe hope.
    23. Re:Mega Dollars? by elashish14 · · Score: 1

      You SI barbarians! Everyone that knows anything knows that Mebidollars are a far more preferable unit of currency!

      --
      I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
    24. Re:Mega Dollars? by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

      That's furlong-dollars, barbarian. Sheesh.

    25. Re:Mega Dollars? by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 1

      As opposed to the local convenience store of choice or gas station which also has coffee and probably a good bit cheaper.

      If you like coffee that tastes like gasoline.

      --
      Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
    26. Re:Mega Dollars? by EETech1 · · Score: 1

      Dunkin Turbo Baby...

      MMMMM...

      The finest!

    27. Re:Mega Dollars? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 1

      HEAD KNIGHT: Augh! Ohh! Don't say that word.
      ELASHISH14: What word?
      HEAD KNIGHT: I cannot tell, suffice to say is one of the words the Knights of SI cannot hear.
      ELASHISH14: How can we not say the word if you don't tell us how many mebibytes it takes up?
      KNIGHTS OF SI: Aaaaugh!
      HEAD KNIGHT: You said it again!
      ELASHISH14: What, 'it'?
      KNIGHTS OF SI: Agh! No, not 'it'.
      HEAD KNIGHT: No, not 'it'. You wouldn't get vary far in life not saying 'it'.
      KNIGHTS OF SI: No, not 'it'. Not 'it'.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    28. Re: Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's $400,000,000$. That's 400 mega square dollars (or 400 square kilo dollars).

      Where the hell are you getting the cube from.

    29. Re:Mega Dollars? by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Ah, you've heard of the Ellison buck.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    30. Re:Mega Dollars? by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      I tried that game; it sucks. Too much repetitive grinding just to get basic tier items.

    31. Re:Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a big twinke.

    32. Re:Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think of all the yard work they could get done.

    33. Re:Mega Dollars? by danmart1 · · Score: 1

      Obviously they have the power to bring the dead back to life. Now we have to worry about Zombie Ding-Dong's, Zombie Ho-Ho's, and Zombie Cupcakes. Twinkies are immortal and therefore can not be Zombies, although that raises other questions about them.....

    34. Re: Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No that would be a mega Brian.

    35. Re:Mega Dollars? by doccus · · Score: 1

      Why should it? In 1975(just before the Brazilian Freeze Coffee (an 8 oz cup) on average was 30 cents, 50 cents a year later) From http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

      What cost $.30 in 1975 would cost $1.26 in 2012.

      A Tall at Starbucks* is 1.35. And it's in a coffee specialty store, not a Denny's like restaurant.

      *I'm not a fan of Starbucks, I use them becasue they are pretty much everywhere.

      Huh? Boy oh boy i wanna move to where you are.. what cost $.30 here in 1975 now cost about $4, and worse, if you're dealing with items subject to "sin tax", like beer, tobacco, gas (if driving to the grocer's on the next brock a sin?). that's a little closer with rents, as an apartment i rented in 1975 for $200 is now $1300.. however, I had an accident in 1978, and have since ben on a disability, my allowance was $350 for rent, but now it's.. oh, wait, that hasn't changed in 35 years.. it's still $350 ;-)

    36. Re:Mega Dollars? by gmanterry · · Score: 1

      yes. A dollar won't even buy you a cup of coffee. A mega dollar can make crime legal and get people to like you even if you're an entitled sneering jackass with an ego the size of Texas.

      You are defining politicians, aren't you?

      --
      Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
    37. Re:Mega Dollars? by sjames · · Score: 1

      Among others.

    38. Re:Mega Dollars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FINALLY!!! A Ghostbusters reference to the Twinkie.

      For a second there I thought I was living in an alternate reality.

      "Cats and Dogs living together... Mass Hysteria"

  2. Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by belatucadros3918 · · Score: 1

    "Popular products such as Ho Hos, Ding Dongs and Cupcakes will return to shelves next month under the new ownership of private equity firms Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulous & Co., which picked up several Hostess names this spring for $410 million." Why mangle the quote? You took the rest of it word for word.

    1. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They probably thought they would sound smarter.

    2. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Popular products such as Ho Hos, Ding Dongs and Cupcakes will return to shelves next month under the new ownership of private equity firms Apollo Global Management and C. Dean Metropoulous & Co., which picked up several Hostess names this spring for $410 million."

      Why mangle the quote? You took the rest of it word for word.

      "News For Nerds"

    3. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Didn't you hear the news? Slashdot has been over run by morons. Run for the hills (I only turn up to warn others now)

    4. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      more like dorks...twinkies are for idiots, so why are they mentioned on slashd....

      never mind.

    5. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      They don't write "news for nerds" anymore under the logo for a reason.

    6. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by DrGamez · · Score: 4, Funny

      I honestly have not noticed that until just right now.

      Oh man I need a minute to digest this.

    7. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by Yakasha · · Score: 1

      I honestly have not noticed that until just right now.

      Oh man I need a minute to digest this.

      Be glad you didn't just eat a twinkie. You'd need a few years to digest that.

    8. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by Salgak1 · · Score: 1

      I honestly have not noticed that until just right now.

      Oh man I need a minute to digest this.

      Be glad you didn't just eat a twinkie. You'd need a few years to digest that.

      And a good thing you DO digest it. You don't want it to hatch a lizard that burrows out of your gut. . .

    9. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by Culture20 · · Score: 4, Funny

      At least they didn't say 390.625 Mebidollars.

    10. Re:Over $400 mega dollars (U.S.) by xenobyte · · Score: 1

      They don't write "news for nerds" anymore under the logo for a reason.

      And "Stuff that matters" is also gone... Explains quite a lot actually...

      --
      "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
  3. Shelf life by Bodero · · Score: 4, Informative

    with rumored shelf life on the order of the time span to cool a white dwarf to room temperature

    From the AP:

    During bankruptcy proceedings, Hostess had said that its overall sales had been declining, although the company didn't give a breakout on the performance of individual brands. But Seban is confident Twinkies will have staying power beyond its re-launch.


    As for the literal shelf-life, Seban is quick to refute the snack cake's fabled indestructibility.


    "Forty-five days - that's it," he said. "They don't last forever."

    1. Re:Shelf life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh. So they're making them with perishable ingredients now?

    2. Re:Shelf life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's lying. They last forever. That's why they went out of buisness - everyone owned some twinkies so no one needed to buy some more. Now they're telling us we need to buy new ones every 45 days? WTF.

    3. Re: Shelf life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They have always had a shelf life. The reason they are known to have a long shelf life is because they use banana cream instead of dairy cream, giving them a comparatively longer shelf life.

    4. Re:Shelf life by Bill+Dimm · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Forty-five days - that's it," he said. "They don't last forever."

      That's forty-five days after you take the Twinkie out of the cellophane wrapper, right?

    5. Re:Shelf life by hedwards · · Score: 2

      That was always an urban legend. The oils that they use will always perish at some point, it's just that you don't always notice when oils have gone rancid when they're baked into a chemical product like Twinkies.

    6. Re: Shelf life by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

      Bannana cream? How the hell do you get milk fat out of a bannana? Bannanas don't have nipples!

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    7. Re: Shelf life by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 5, Funny

      Factoid: Every banana you buy at the supermarket has already been "processed" and milked for Twinkie production. Those hard, brown tips at the ends of bananas? Those were the bananas' nipples before they got milked.

    8. Re:Shelf life by geekoid · · Score: 1

      No, optimum freshness is 28 days from creation. After that they get stale.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    9. Re:Shelf life by larry+bagina · · Score: 1, Funny

      No, 45 days after you swallow it, you'll run to the nearest toilet (or wastebasket) and strain to remove the brick residing in your large bowel. You'll understand what women go through when they give birth. The rounded corners usually prevent anal bleeding. Usually.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    10. Re:Shelf life by Crudely_Indecent · · Score: 1

      with rumored shelf life on the order of the time span to cool a white dwarf to room temperature

      They just failed to mention that room temperature is taken from a room which contains a white dwarf, so the temperature of the cooling white dwarf doesn't really hav far to fall.

      --


      "Lame" - Galaxar
    11. Re:Shelf life by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      The rounded corners...

      So the real reason Hostess went bankrupt was because of an Apple lawsuit, huh?

    12. Re:Shelf life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...usually prevent anal bleeding.

      You quoted the wrong part.

    13. Re:Shelf life by Applekid · · Score: 1

      No, 45 days after you swallow it, you'll run to the nearest toilet (or wastebasket) and strain to remove the brick residing in your large bowel. You'll understand what women go through when they give birth. The rounded corners usually prevent anal bleeding. Usually.

      I guess it's no big deal that they've got a ton of calories per 100g, since it's not like it's digestible in the first place.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    14. Re: Shelf life by HaZardman27 · · Score: 1

      Why'd you have to go and ruin bananas for me?!

      --
      Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
    15. Re: Shelf life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine you had a business card with the job title "Bananamilker"

    16. Re:Shelf life by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      45 days? they must have added some preservatives since I was delivering them n the mid-80s. We missed rotating a couple once and 4 days after their expiration date, they were covered with green not-goodness.

    17. Re:Shelf life by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      45 Mercury days, or 45 Jupiter days?

    18. Re: Shelf life by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      Allow me to blow your mind: One ingredient ice cream

    19. Re: Shelf life by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      That's not really surprising. I used to bake quite a bit and used banana's in quite a bit of it. It's similar to baked cheese cake, how do you make it so creamy and smooth? Add sour cream.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    20. Re:Shelf life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A metric ton of calories? A short ton of calories? A long ton of calories? Inquiring minds want to know.

    21. Re:Shelf life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is this supposed to make me feel better about this shit being sold as food for humans?

    22. Re: Shelf life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      45 Pluto days. And god dammit it is a planet.

    23. Re: Shelf life by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Herbivores are just sad.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    24. Re: Shelf life by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

      Wow! Bananas were already sexualized, and you double-dog sexualized them again!
      Bravo, sir, bravo!

    25. Re: Shelf life by Waccoon · · Score: 2

      That's the most insightful thing I've read on Slashdot within the last Twinkie shelf life.

    26. Re:Shelf life by Darth+Twon · · Score: 1

      45 mega days.

      --
      Take this sig and smoke it.
    27. Re: Shelf life by Macgrrl · · Score: 1

      Dammit, I just spent the last of my mod points, though you were already modded to +5. I nearly LOL'd at work and would have to have explained myself - I don't think I could.

      --
      Sara
      Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
    28. Re:Shelf life by Macgrrl · · Score: 1

      Surely given the context it's obvious we are referring to a shit-ton.

      --
      Sara
      Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
  4. huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what the hell is a mega dollar?

    1. Re:huh? by Smivs · · Score: 0

      What the hell is a Twinkie?
      (Well actually I know 'cos I RTFA - read the RTFA? Doesn't know what a Twinkie is? Must be a Brit! :) Well you guys seem happy to have them back, so Enjoy!)

    2. Re:huh? by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      1024 kilo dollars.

    3. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please post less.

    4. Re:huh? by Smivs · · Score: 1

      Please post less.

      ' K

    5. Re:huh? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      You need to elect a nerdy president to push through a mandatory bilateral pinkiectomy at birth. That way, mankind would finally get used to powers-of-two arithmetics and we'd be able to get rid of this decimal nonsense. Also, much more useful than circumcision if you absolutely feel the need to do religiously motivated surgery on infants.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    6. Re:huh? by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 2

      It's like an Americanised eclair. Pastry on the outside, cream on the inside. I don't think they usually put chocolate on the top either. Damn now I have a mad craving for eclairs.

      On that note the geek culture of eating shit needs to stop, I mean this stuff combined with a sedentary lifestyle is basically slow or not so slow suicide. Eat small amounts of healthy food, cut back on the coffee and cut out the booze, get regular exercise. Being fat isn't fun or smart and sugar rushes wreck anyone's concentration. Diabetes, no thanks. I'm not a fitness freak but come on, take a half hour at the start of the day to prepare some sushi or maybe a ham and sundried tomato bagel with a touch of cheese for a treat, delicious and filling. Have a cup of green tea.

    7. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm surprised. Britain is full of twinks.

    8. Re:huh? by ArcadeX · · Score: 1

      or just watch zombieland

      --
      An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
    9. Re:huh? by BioTitan · · Score: 2

      I love it. I'm calling Twinkies "American eclairs" from here out.

    10. Re:huh? by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

      I have eaten one twinky. Had to see what it was, but it wasn't anything special. Guess you got to grow up with it, an acquired taste.

      --
      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    11. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Twinkies or no twinkies, you really should watch Zombieland.

    12. Re:huh? by D'Sphitz · · Score: 1

      I grew up with them, and I agree. I wouldn't say they're disgusting, but I have no problem passing them up at the supermarket.

    13. Re:huh? by smooth+wombat · · Score: 1

      I mean this stuff combined with a sedentary lifestyle is basically slow or not so slow suicide.

      Yeah, so? It's their life. They can do what they want with it.

      Besides, they'll just let someone else pick up the tab for their healthcare.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    14. Re:huh? by AdamThor · · Score: 1

      Ding Dongs, on the other hand, are fantastic.

      --
      -- "Oh. This guy again."
    15. Re:huh? by Anonymous+Psychopath · · Score: 1

      I love it. I'm calling Twinkies "American eclairs" from here out.

      Noooo! Slapping a French name on a shitty American product is why Americans think Chablis is terrible wine that comes in big glass jugs. Or boxes.

      --

      Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

    16. Re:huh? by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      but have you tried them deep-fried at the county fair?

    17. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pastry on the outside, cream on the inside. I don't think they usually put chocolate on the top either

      They have those they are ho-hos or zingers (chocolate or blonde with icing) . Both are mass produced and 'meh' on taste like most mass produced items.

      The correct term is sponge cake pastry with cream.

      You are better off figuring out what caloric/carb intake you need per day. The stick to that. DO NOT SNACK between meals. You can eat only Twinkies and loose weight and come out better than you started. The trick is portion control.

      http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

      It seems backwards but it works. It was pretty much the reason the adkins diet worked so well. It was about portion control (not eating meats which most people get wildly wrong). Your diet sounds like a controlled one though probably a bit high on the carbs/sugar (breads are wildly high in them, you still need them though).

      Diabetes comes from several factors. First is a genetic disposition to it. Second is years of poor eating habits and wrecking your insulin levels. A snack once or twice a month will not kill you. IF you stick to the diet.

      Also remember exercise for strength, diet for weight. Then even after eating grass and twigs for years you can still go down in a stroke...

      I personally use a controlled carb diet with a 'treat' every week (works for me). My treat used to be a Twinkie once and awhile. Different planned treat every week and it can be thousands of carbs and calories :) Lost 30 pounds. Put it all back on because I did not stick to the plan. Down 4 again and back on my plan. I look forward to having a couple of twinkies again in a month or so.

      People end up weighing 300 pounds when they snack all the time with high carb foods. Convenience foods (like twinkies) are the worst because people treat them as food instead of what they are desert for after you eat your dinner.

    18. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's like an Americanised eclair. Pastry on the outside, cream on the inside.

      That is a terrible description. An eclair has a slightly flaky crust, like a cream puff does. A Twinkie has a soft, moist sponge cake with vanilla overtones. The two are nothing alike other than having a cream filling and being oblong in shape.

    19. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      chocolate covered twinkie = choocodile

    20. Re:huh? by sixsixtysix · · Score: 1

      it's a shame that most of the good-for-you foods only get (if any at all) a smidgeon of the amount of subsidies going into corn, wheat, and rice.

      --
      ...
    21. Re:huh? by RubberDuckie · · Score: 1

      Besides, they'll just let someone else pick up the tab for their healthcare.

      And therein lies the problem, I get to pay for someone's poor lifestyle. It would be nice to have a healthcare penalty on smoking, drinking, and eating processed foods such as this.

    22. Re:huh? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      This nationalizing the health care industry is more complicated then I thought! /Dennis Moore

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    23. Re:huh? by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      Noooo! Slapping a French name on a shitty American product is why Americans think Chablis is terrible wine that comes in big glass jugs. Or boxes.

      Well said. Now, where's my bourbon...

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    24. Re:huh? by MickLinux · · Score: 1

      But chablis IS terrible wine that comes in big glass jugs.

      For good wine, I'd say go for the red muscadine from North Carolina. But the muscdine is an American grape that grows singly, not in clusters.

      Obviously, some people just have no taste.

      --
      Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
    25. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anorexia is just a bad idea.

    26. Re:huh? by slim · · Score: 1

      You say "cream". It's a non-dairy "creamy filling" made of sugar, water, oil and vanilla flavouring.

      You say "pastry". It's sponge cake.

    27. Re:huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have eaten 1 or 2 twinkies. Twinkies are good. They don't sell them where i live, so not an acquired taste.

    28. Re:huh? by Macgrrl · · Score: 1

      Mmmm... eclairs. Nothing like twinkies which are a form of commercial sponge cake filled with artificial cream, vs an elcair which is light choux pastry filled with fresh creme and iced with chocolate on top. Now I want to wander down to the bakery around the corner to see if they've sold out yet.

      --
      Sara
      Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
  5. No Wonder You All Are So Fat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Glorifying the return of this unhealthy snack like the second coming is just sad, sad, sad. I stay away from all processed and sugary foods so I can be healthy, look good, and score with chicks.
    Keep eating it up fatties, you'll only make me look better in comparison.

    1. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by Desler · · Score: 2

      So you score with your left hand or the right hand?

    2. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by halltk1983 · · Score: 1

      whynotboth.jpg

      --
      Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
    3. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by dildos_akimbo · · Score: 1

      By his condescending tone, I'd guess whichever one he chooses

    4. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some of us have to use both hands at the same time you insensitive clod!

    5. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by arekin · · Score: 1

      both hands would benefit from a twinkie in them. That sexy cream filling...

      --
      Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
    6. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by hedwards · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Twinkies and other processed foods aren't the problem. One Twinkies a week isn't likely to make a person gain weight, unless they're taking in exactly the number of calories that they're burning.

      The problem is that people aren't moving enough and are eating too much. The fact that Twinkies are effectively just a source of calories without any redeeming value doesn't really factor into it.

      I remember having a Twinkie once, and it was one of the most disgusting "foods" I've ever eaten. And I've eaten spiders, scorpions and tripe.

    7. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by hedwards · · Score: 2

      It's not really supposed to taste good. It's comfort food. As in it presses specific buttons in the brain to make one feel better in the short term. Sort of similar to why some people have a harder time of managing their sodium intake than others. I have very little compulsion to consume too much salt, but I have to be really careful about my sugar intake because that's a problem for me.

    8. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by Nyder · · Score: 1

      ...

      I remember having a Twinkie once, and it was one of the most disgusting "foods" I've ever eaten. And I've eaten spiders, scorpions and tripe.

      Try King County Jail, you'll find even worse food there.

      --
      Be seeing you...
    9. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      I remember having a Twinkie once, and it was one of the most disgusting "foods" I've ever eaten. And I've eaten spiders, scorpions and tripe.

      I don't know if I'd tell people that, its more of a reflection on you than Twinkies.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    10. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not Zoidberg?

    11. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      I'm glad your taste buds are so evolved, Mr. Slashdot Cuisine! I've tried twinkies before, and they're good enough that your family will have to shackle you to stop you from scarfing down the whole box! Paraphrasing Chris Rock, twinkies are so good you'll suck a dick for one.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    12. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I remember having a Twinkie once, and it was one of the most disgusting "foods" I've ever eaten. And I've eaten spiders, scorpions and tripe."

      That just goes to show what a fuckwit you are. Congrats!

    13. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      I have to agree. Twinkies are pretty far down there. It's almost like Spinal Tap's "This one goes to 11" except in the case of America, the food quality starts somewhere around -5. Don't get me wrong, there's good food (and wine) available but the lowest common denominator stuff starts at really, really bad.

    14. Re:No Wonder You All Are So Fat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One to hold your 'apron' out of the way?

  6. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These never really left, as other companies offer basically the same items.

    But sure, I guess this is news-worthy...

    1. Re:In other news... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      Not exactly the same, no. There are copyright restrictions on Hostess recipes.

      I just want to know if whoever buys Ding Dongs also gets King Dongs- which truly are the same thing.

      And I just RTFAd, which tells me that soon Carl's Jr. will feature these brands in their desert menu and you should be able to buy them anywhere Pabst Beer can be bought (two other overpriced-for-the-nutrition-you-get brands).

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    2. Re:In other news... by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      and you should be able to buy them anywhere Pabst Beer can be bought (two other overpriced-for-the-nutrition-you-get brands).

      PBR is overpriced?!?!

      It is one of the cheaper beers around. To me, it tastes just about the same as Budwiser or the like. I'm not often in mood for the chug'em ice cold US lagers like these, but they do have their place (on extremely hot days here in NOLA), and I'd just as soon grab a PBR as a Bud or Bud Light, especially since the price is much lower.

      When not sweating my ass off, and wanting to enjoy a beer for taste and more..I got for the better stuff, but PBR as far as that style of beer goes, is good as any of the rest and you often find it rock bottom prices.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    3. Re:In other news... by Desler · · Score: 1

      They said it was overpriced for what you get. Which is different than what you were arguing. Budweiser is also overpriced for the quality of cat pee you get as well.

    4. Re:In other news... by h4rr4r · · Score: 2, Funny

      PBR costs money correct?
      That makes it over priced, they would have to pay me to drink it.

      If you want bottled water, just drink that. If you must pickup a sixer of megabrewery product for a hot day you could get some blue moon.

    5. Re:In other news... by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Horse pee, not cat pee. They proudly show off the source of their "beer" every chance they get.

    6. Re:In other news... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

      There are copyright restrictions on Hostess recipes.

      No there aren't. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:In other news... by kamapuaa · · Score: 2

      PBR is 153 calories, for about fifty cents a can. 300 calories to the dollar is not bad at all.

      --
      Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    8. Re:In other news... by operagost · · Score: 1

      Even if there were, you just couldn't reprint the recipe-- in a cookbook, for example. If you know the recipe, nothing can stop you from using it.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    9. Re:In other news... by nwf · · Score: 1

      That makes it over priced, they would have to pay me to drink it.

      If you want bottled water, just drink that. If you must pickup a sixer of megabrewery product for a hot day you could get some blue moon.

      I believe PBR is actually cheaper than bottled water. I'll still stick with water, though.

      --
      I don't know, but it works for me.
    10. Re:In other news... by Golddess · · Score: 1

      Depends on the "brand" of bottled water.

      --
      "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
    11. Re:In other news... by Animats · · Score: 1

      There are copyright restrictions on Hostess recipes.

      No, no, you cannot copyright how to make a functional object. That's what patents are for, and they run out after 20 years.

    12. Re:In other news... by Desler · · Score: 1

      No, there is "trade secret" protection for the recipe.

    13. Re:In other news... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      I said for the NUTRITION you get. Those beers are anything but nutritious- empty calories, none of the good "liquid bread" that thicker craft beers are made out of.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    14. Re:In other news... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      To get the taste the same, you need a lot more than just a list of ingredients.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    15. Re:In other news... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 2

      Calories are not equal to nutrition at all, unless you're on hospice.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    16. Re:In other news... by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      There are copyright restrictions on Hostess recipes.

      No there aren't. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

      And even if there were, the actual Twinkie recipe probably says something like "Take 500 lbs of refined flour and dump it in a cement mixer...".

      They don't make them suckers up in home-kitchen sized batches.

    17. Re:In other news... by clarkkent09 · · Score: 1

      There are copyright restrictions on Hostess recipes.
       
      There is a recipe involved? I thought they just squirted some cream inside of a spongy cake and wrapped it in cellophane.

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    18. Re:In other news... by sh00z · · Score: 1

      And there's no mention of the Dolly Madison brand in TFA. Wonder and Drake's have buyers, but no mention of my favorite raspberry-flavored snack cake.

    19. Re:In other news... by hedwards · · Score: 1

      I take it you weren't drinking PBR a decade ago. My dad regularly complains about the price that he pays now versus a decade ago. A decade ago it was legitimately cheap beer, these days though, the price is way over what you're actually getting.

    20. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      King Don, actually.

    21. Re:In other news... by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Yes, but it's not just calories that matter. Otherwise I could spend $5 a day on PBR and not need to spend money on any other food.

      Obviously, that wouldn't work as PBR doesn't have much nutritional content to it. And consuming that much alcohol would lead to serious health problems.

    22. Re:In other news... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "Autism, it's not a processing error. It's an entirely different Operating System"
      That is one of the stupidest and most harmful ways of thinking about Autism,

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    23. Re:In other news... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      You can't copyright recipes, only the expression.
      http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    24. Re:In other news... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      buy them anywhere Pabst Beer can be bought"
      so Portland, Or. And Manhattan.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    25. Re:In other news... by kamapuaa · · Score: 1

      It's cheap nutrition, that doesn't mean you shouldn't eat anything else. Eating nothing but broccoli will kill you eventually, too. The idea is you just make PBR part of a balanced breakfast.

      --
      Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    26. Re:In other news... by krakelohm · · Score: 1

      Not arguing either way but why is it stupid and harmful?

      --
      You are all a bunch of idots.
    27. Re: In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I was young, the price of a case of cheap beer was about $3.50. The deposit on the case was 80 cents. That was a 24 bottle case.

      Good old Cold Spring or Leinekugels, balanced on the rack on the back of my bike for the trip back to the rooming house. Good memories.

    28. Re:In other news... by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      It might be a trade secret, though.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    29. Re:In other news... by networkBoy · · Score: 1

      I'm an ADHD Aspie (yeah, interesting life) and I think that's not too far off actually...
      Curious about your opinion behind that statement.

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    30. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You could spend $2.50 a day on PBR and $2.50 a day of milk, and then eat an occasional bite of veggies, and be totally fine.

    31. Re:In other news... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      All carbs, no protein or vitamins to speak of (they even filter it to the point you don't get the natural B12 from the Brewer's Yeast)?

      By what stretch of the imagination is that good nutrition for your fifty cents? You get more nutrition buying an apple for the same price.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    32. Re:In other news... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      Thanks. I'm from the other side of the Rockies and have never seen the brand.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    33. Re:In other news... by kamapuaa · · Score: 1

      Google says 1.6 grams of protein.

      Apples have less protein, barely any more vitamins, and will cost more than fifty cents.

      --
      Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    34. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I take it you weren't drinking PBR a decade ago. My dad regularly complains about the price that he pays now versus a decade ago. A decade ago it was legitimately cheap beer, these days though, the price is way over what you're actually getting.

      We have the hipsters to thank for that.

    35. Re: In other news... by ganjadude · · Score: 1

      a 30 pack of PBR at the beer store (not a gas station or small deli) goes for 14.80 here in NY, same as busch. Bud and miller 30 packs go for 21.50. but then the good micro brews go for about 8-15$ for a 22-24 oz bottle.

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    36. Re:In other news... by Minwee · · Score: 1

      I'm not often in mood for the chug'em ice cold US lagers like these, but they do have their place (on extremely hot days here in NOLA), and I'd just as soon grab a PBR as a Bud or Bud Light, especially since the price is much lower.

      Let me introduce you to something called "water". Based on your beer drinking history it looks like you're already familiar with the taste, but you may find the low price to your liking.

    37. Re:In other news... by sh00z · · Score: 1

      All three of them, actually. Had this argument back in 1986, and eventually demonstrated that everyone was right.

    38. Re:In other news... by HaZardman27 · · Score: 1

      After PBR caught on with the hipster crowds, the price went up. I'm not sure if retail price has changed much, but I've been to bars that charge as much for a PBR as they do for a craft brew.

      --
      Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
    39. Re:In other news... by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      I said for the NUTRITION you get.

      Anyone who drinks PBR for the nutrition is a moron and their opinion should not be ignored, it should be lampooned and vilified at every opportunity.

    40. Re:In other news... by scot4875 · · Score: 1

      *blinks*

      Are you really making the argument that a can of PBR is more nutritious than an apple? I'm just going to file this one away as a poor attempt at devil's advocacy because I can't believe that anyone would honestly buy that.

      --Jeremy

      --
      Jesus was a liberal
    41. Re:In other news... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Chocolate deficiency would kill you.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    42. Re:In other news... by vivek7006 · · Score: 1

      Google says 1.6 grams of protein.

      Apples have less protein, barely any more vitamins, and will cost more than fifty cents.

      Apple is loaded with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-apple-i9003

    43. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you look at the link you posted? It isn't loaded.

    44. Re:In other news... by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      I think you missed reading all my post.

      I DO appreciate good beers most of the time. I like a lot of the US craft beers...and I myself, am a home brewer.

      I grab the stuff like PBR for more of thirst quench ice, ice cold when I've been out doing something like mowing the lawn in 95F 90% humidity...when something heavier than that just isn't pleasant....this is 'chug' beer.

      Also, good for fishing out on the boat on a hot sunny day...so you don't get trashed, but still have something to sip on.

      When in a bar or somewhere nice, or indoors at home, I crack open something much more substantial.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  7. The most tortured copy I've ever seen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    What the hell goes through the brains of people who write like this? Re-runs of The Big Bang Theory? This is godawful.

    1. Re:The most tortured copy I've ever seen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the hell goes through the brains of people who write like this?

      not much by the looks of it

  8. Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by sjbe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The geek food staple the Twinkie is coming back.

    Ok, show of hands. Who among you has actually consumed a twinkie after grade school? Last one I had was during the Reagan administration. Obviously they sell but I cannot recall the last time I saw anyone actually eat one. It's like the National Enquirer of foods. They apparently sell lots but you never actually see anyone buying them.

    I don't really know any geeks who eat twinkies either. Is this a thing in some part of the country? I know some geeks who are overly fond of sugary treats (I'm one) but twinkies never seem to be in the shopping cart.

    1. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by a_big_favor · · Score: 2

      I do eat Ding Dongs but not very often. The rest of it, no.

    2. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

      I've probably eaten 5 Twinkies in my life. We were a Ding Dong household -- that was our choice from mom.

      I will say, Ding Dongs lost some cachet moving away from a tinfoil wrapper. Oh those glorious vacuumjammers!

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    3. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ring Ding Jrs were/are a kid treat. Since I was one, no.

    4. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by asmkm22 · · Score: 2

      I was wondering the same thing. The only people I see buying and eating twinkies are the housewives or cat ladies. There seems to be a real media saturation about them, though, for whatever reason.

    5. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think they're vile and over-sweet -- just like most other Hostess products.

    6. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The main reason why I didn't eat Twinkies or anything by Hostess in college or in the couple of years afterward was because they were much more expensive than Little Debbie's. The prices was something like $4 a box versus $0.99 to $1.29, and it's not like there was a difference in quality (though of course, the snacks were entirely different.) Now of course I don't eat them because I restrain my junk food habits to mostly fresh, homemade treats.

    7. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by gsslay · · Score: 1

      No-one eats them. Why do you think the company went bankrupt?

      However, there is a meme that appears to have the perpetual life of the undead (rather like their shelf-life *rimshot*) that they are the food of choice for unhealthy slobs who don't cook everywhere. We are to believe has a big overlap on the geek population.

      As far as observational comedy goes, it got old at least 20 years ago and went meta observational around the same time. Say, have you every noticed how many comedians use twinkies as a lazy reference to poor dietary habits? What's with that?

    8. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by SocietyoftheFist · · Score: 4, Funny

      And when you do I'm sure you are thanked profusely... oh wait you're talking about the snack cakes?

    9. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by ArcadeX · · Score: 1

      I bought a box after watching zombieland. i think i'm good for at least another few decades now, will prob take that long just to get it out of my system

      --
      An I.T. motto in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing...
    10. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bought a box once or twice a year. They were rather overpriced for what they were. Usually 5 dollars for 1 box. They were also rather inconsistent in taste depending on the winds of 'must think of the children' laws. They are sugar and wheat and egg whites (and yellow dye #5 just what a growing boy needs) beat into a particular form. Not exactly health food in the first place.

      I avoid them as I have little self control over snacks. So I do without and my waste-line thanks me :)

      You are also falling victim to self selected sample theory. You dont do it so no one else must do it. I knew a manager who ate 1-2 boxes a day. Strangely he was thin as a rail...

      For those of you who can not wait 'little debbie' makes 'cloud cakes'. Which are almost exactly the same thing. Little more vanilla though. My wife said 'they taste exactly the same'.

      Also you *can* loose weight eating these things. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/ It is about portion control like much of any particular thing you eat and sticking to the diet. I dont buy them on a regular basis as I snarf the whole box :)

      The thing you need to keep in mind these are desert foods. Treat them as such. If you treat them as food you over eat because of them when you are hungry you will gain weight.

    11. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Graydyn+Young · · Score: 1

      In my experience geeks generally aren't big on sweets. If you want to be the hero of your IT focused office; bring jerky, not cake.

    12. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, never had one, I don't think I even know anyone that eats them. This article stinks of advertising...

    13. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Nimey · · Score: 1

      I haven't eaten one for at least ten years, and probably another ten before that time.

      Fruit Roll-Ups were always my vice.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    14. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      I do not even think that I have ever seen one IRL

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    15. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by gatkinso · · Score: 1

      I ate one when they went out of business. No gastrodistress, other than the somewhat unsavory taste.

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
    16. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by hedwards · · Score: 1

      My parents wouldn't let me eat that shit in grade school. I had precisely one as an adult, and I will never eat another one of those vile "foods" again.

      I get the feeling that if they don't get you hooked as a kid, they'll never get you hooked as an adult. I doubt that many people get turned onto them as an adult.

    17. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 1

      It's like McDonald's, nobody actually admits they eat them, but everybody does.

      --
      I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
    18. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My parents kept me from eating shit, too.

    19. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I ate a few boxes once, as an adult. Don't know where they came from, they were just in the house one day. ...and they were tasty as all fuck. For some reason I never bought any more, though.

    20. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have, a nicely chilled twinky with an sunkist orange soda is great.

    21. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by BigBunion · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Vacujamming a Ding Dong... Is that some sort of S&M?

    22. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by kannibal_klown · · Score: 1

      God no, I hated those things

      Granted, looking at me you'd think I lived on those things. But nope, they never appealed to me.

      Everyone loves mass-produced pastries. They're good. /quote

      Except Twinkies... I'm not going to say they were horrible because I'm sure they appealed to some person's tastes. But I just can't see it.

    23. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "No-one eats them. Why do you think the company went bankrupt?"

      Possibly, but I've heard that it was a "pump and drop" situation, its apparently pretty popular in the wall street investment community. If I understand the concept an investment firm buys up a popular but not stellar brand. They then proceed to pump every red cent out of it by cutting corners, shafting employees & loading the company with debt. They then claim it's a failure and sell off the remnants while writing it off on taxes as a debt. Its kind of the "Hollywood accounting" of the investment world, in real life they make millions off of it but on paper it looks like they lost their buts.

    24. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 1

      Ok, show of hands. Who among you has actually consumed a twinkie after grade school?

      According to his lawyer, Dan White ate them daily while he was on the Board of Supes in SF.
      And they alone made him do that bad thing.

    25. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      Well, I used to know a few people who ate Twinkies, but they lived in a benighted part of the world where Tastykakes were unavailable.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    26. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Fuck that noise. Keep you dam dry chew meat.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    27. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Me. I love them, especially frozen.
      I stopped eating them a decade ago, due to my age. In fact I love all Hostess products, except Apple fruit pies.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    28. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I probably ate 5 twinkies a week, easy. And ding dongs, ho hos and snoballs. They used to be the staple of my diet and I'm glad they're coming back. God, I missed them.

    29. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      Cat ladies seems to be in the majority these days. Being a crazy cat lady has become so mainstream that it has become common for men as well. They have even spawned the new sub-genre of crazy dog lady.

    30. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by asmkm22 · · Score: 1

      " They have even spawned the new sub-genre of crazy dog lady."

      Those are just hippies.

    31. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      I admit I eat McDonalds. I eat it much less frequently than I used to, but hot McDonalds french fries are one of my favorite foods. I like the actual burgers/sandwiches better at other places, so eat there much less frequently than I did as a kid. They did have a buy 1 get 1 free for some of their new burgers last week, that got me in though. Still won't pay $3.99 for those burgers, though they were pretty decent.

    32. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they're bad for you right?
      hence they are geek food.

    33. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bah, both of those snacks are nasty!
      I prefer the Swiss Rolls!

    34. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      No, being a hippie might make you think bringing your dog into restaurants is OK, but it doesn't make you dress the dog up, or cause you to think that dogs are human.

    35. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bet it's the fastest way to get the Ding Dong cream -- which some mods clearly had too much of, given they moderated parent as insightful.

    36. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by Hypotensive · · Score: 1

      Never heard of any geeks eating twinkies. Aren't they supposed to be something that jobsworth cops eat?

      Geeks eat pizza as any fule know.

    37. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by ClioCJS · · Score: 1

      what the fuck is wrong with you?

      --
      -Clio
      Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
      Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
    38. Re:Do any of you actually eat Twinkies? by swalve · · Score: 1

      The replacement brand (around these parts anyway), Mrs. Freshly's, makes clones of all the Hostess stuff. And they taste better. Twinkies are delicious. Foamy and uncomplicated, sure. But not everything has to be a culinary masterpiece. Sometimes you just want a Taco Supreme.

  9. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by DexterIsADog · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mayor Bloomberg, is that you?

  10. Fallout rations by RenHoek · · Score: 2

    Ever since hearing that after a nuclear war the only two things left are cockroach and twinkies, I've been keeping 2 twinkies in my basement since the 80's. And they're still 100% good. So I guess it's pretty much true.

    1. Re:Fallout rations by belatucadros3918 · · Score: 1

      and by "still good" you mean you have eaten parts without getting sick?

    2. Re:Fallout rations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever since hearing that after a nuclear war the only two things left are cockroach and twinkies, I've been keeping 2 twinkies in my basement since the 80's. And they're still 100% good. So I guess it's pretty much true.

      As long as the fallout clears up in about 25 days, which is the amount of time a twinkie is good for.

      See: http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/twinkies.asp

    3. Re:Fallout rations by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      the actual shelf life of a twinkie is 30 days

    4. Re:Fallout rations by RabidReindeer · · Score: 2

      and by "still good" you mean you have eaten parts without getting sick?

      They're Twinkies. If you didn't get sick, they wouldn't be "still good".

    5. Re:Fallout rations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless frozen. Then they seem to last forever, and they defrost nicely or are quite edible while nice and cold. Nobody seems to take that in account.

      But the real zinger is... Uh... Hey! Where are the Zingers!?

    6. Re:Fallout rations by ak3ldama · · Score: 1

      Zingers are the only important super-disgusting-barely-food I used to care about. After all of this though I plan to not eat another.

      --
      "but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
    7. Re:Fallout rations by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      No, they aren't. They don't look good either.

      This myth has been busted so many times its not funny.

      Your statements are flat out lies.

      Even frozen, they decay, though at a slower rate. Funny thing about sugars and chemical reactions, freezers don't stop them! Which is why you actually make certain sweets (mmmm candied strawberries) by adding a bunch of sugar and freezing them.

      There is no way you've had them for more than a year and they still look edible.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    8. Re:Fallout rations by sh00z · · Score: 1

      Yeah--I posted that above. The article talks about what they've done with the Hostess, wonder and Drake's brands, but not Dolly Madison. Don't go leaving Snoopy homeless!

    9. Re:Fallout rations by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      that does bring up interesting question of fate of orange hostess cupcakes, the only super-disgusting-barely-food I used to care about

    10. Re:Fallout rations by Seumas · · Score: 1

      It's too bad they are tasteless like fucking styrofoam. I don't know anyone that actually eats twinkies. They're just a cultural reference and nothing more.

      Also, what you heard is an urban legend. Twinkies have a shelf life of three and a half weeks.

    11. Re:Fallout rations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm. I heard about that and tried it.

      Creepy Joke one: the cockroaches ate the twinkies

      version 2: they died.

      X-files version.....The New Formula Twinkies ate the cockroaches... (hum X-Files Theme)

  11. The geek food staple the Twinkie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The geek food staple the Twinkie

    Sorry, not all geeks are over-sugared fat American slobs. Some of us eat real food.

    1. Re:The geek food staple the Twinkie by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      No actual geeks are. We aren't, by definition, that stupid.

      Twinkies are not a geek food. When CmdrTaco left, so did the only actual geek that worked at slashdot.

      No one left at the organization is qualified to even know what geeks do, let alone act like they can tell others about it.

      Fat fucks with no social skills who dwell in moms basement drooling over a computer are not geeks, they are just fat slobs in front of a computer.

      slashdot's editors don't even actually know what geeks are. Very sad. At least they removed the News for Nerds tagline from the site.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  12. Ding dongs and ho hos? by Andrio · · Score: 1

    These foods are naughty.

    --
    The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
    1. Re:Ding dongs and ho hos? by xaxa · · Score: 1

      These foods are naughty.

      Twink is British slang for a young gay man. (It might mean 'not hairy', I'm not sure -- not my scene.)

    2. Re:Ding dongs and ho hos? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      Twink was also the old school Netrek term for noobie, unskilled players.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  13. All part of a secret government plan by cellocgw · · Score: 4, Funny

    The USA public may have been sad at the thought of a Twinkies shortage, but the Secret Shadow Government engineered this re-booting of production for one reason. They know we need massive stores of Twinkies to sustain our brave zombie-killers in the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  14. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    No, it's your lard ass.

  15. You sound fat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Moo.. Fetch the twinkies. Moo

  16. Hail Ceasar, delicious and cream filled. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Twinkie will ride, cool and triumphant through our streets as we throw flowers at its feet but the nutritionist in chains beside him whispers "This too shall pass. Soon they will cast you out and return to the trendy diets and nutritional supplements that brought you low before."

  17. Twinkies are coming back... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...but I still won't eat them. I prefer Little Debbie Swiss Rolls. ...and RC Cola - Mmmmmm nom nom

    1. Re:Twinkies are coming back... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your love of lesser snack foods disgusts me.

    2. Re:Twinkies are coming back... by Applekid · · Score: 1

      ...but I still won't eat them. I prefer Little Debbie Swiss Rolls. ...and RC Cola - Mmmmmm nom nom

      Yodels > Swiss Rolls

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
  18. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is impossible to have a Twinkie wiener sandwich without a Twinkie.

  19. Significant figures by BorkBorkBork6000 · · Score: 1

    Disappointing use of ambiguous significant figures. And why use the dollar sign if you're going to write "dollars" anyway?

    It's probably better to write either "410 megadollars (US)." Or use "0.4 gigadollars (US)" if you don't consider M$US10 to be significant.

    1. Re:Significant figures by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      there is nothing ambiguous about the number of significant figures in "over 400". there is exactly one.

    2. Re:Significant figures by msauve · · Score: 1

      He was confused by the megadollar/mebidollar conversion.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  20. 1024 dollars to the kilo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Are we talking Mebidollars? Just want to be sure I'm doing the math right! :)

  21. Need a control for the experiment by sjbe · · Score: 2

    I've been keeping 2 twinkies in my basement since the 80's. And they're still 100% good.

    Unless you actually eat them how would you know?

  22. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To quote a recent /. article: "Another group at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill has shown that gut inflammation leads to a radical change in the microbial population there, which encourages growth of E. coli that can disrupt the inflamed cells' DNA, leading to cancer."

  23. Four food groups by bsandersen · · Score: 1

    Everybody knows that the four food groups are salt, sugar, cholesterol, and preservatives.

    1. Re:Four food groups by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      I've always gone by salt, sugar, grease, caffeine. Bacon isn't a group, it's just a particularly inspired combination of salt and grease.

    2. Re:Four food groups by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      You need to expand your culinary palette. Get some maple syrup or brown sugar cured bacon (the good stuff from a butcher shop that makes it in house with real ingredients, not some mass market thing loaded with unpronounceable preservatives) with a nice hardwood smoke and it is great. That way you are hitting 3 of the 4 food groups, although I am surprised I haven't seen caffeinated bacon yet so either someone hasn't gotten that idea yet or I haven't looked hard enough.

      And now I only wish I had ripe tomatoes and lettuces out of the garden as I want BLTs for dinner.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    3. Re:Four food groups by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      Preservatives are better classified as vitamins.

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
    4. Re:Four food groups by Tokolosh · · Score: 1

      There are five. You are missing the red food group.

      --
      Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
    5. Re:Four food groups by mcl630 · · Score: 1

      ...although I am surprised I haven't seen caffeinated bacon yet so either someone hasn't gotten that idea yet or I haven't looked hard enough.

      Not quite "caffeinated bacon", but close: http://republicofbacon.com/2012/06/15/bacon-love-friday-caffeinated-bacon/

  24. SI units are fiat units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The meter's length is set based on the average distance from the equator to the north pole. That's kind of incredibly arbitrary and highly subject to variation were it not for scientific fiat.

    One USD has always equaled one USD and will always equal one USD no different than one gram's mass is always one gram. The weight of the gram however, like the exchange rate of the USD, is highly variable.

    1. Re:SI units are fiat units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      METRE!!!

    2. Re:SI units are fiat units by ponraul · · Score: 1

      The meter is defined to be the distance light travels through a vacuum in exactly 1/299792458 seconds.

    3. Re:SI units are fiat units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In this region of space at a certain year. That might change.

    4. Re:SI units are fiat units by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      Why 299792458? Why not 299792459? Why not 300000000? Why not 1000000000? And let's not even get into how long a second is.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    5. Re:SI units are fiat units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No

    6. Re:SI units are fiat units by StrangeBrew · · Score: 0

      That doesn't sound very scientific. Is it a central vac, or a Dyson handheld?

    7. Re:SI units are fiat units by Applekid · · Score: 2

      Why 299792458? Why not 299792459? Why not 300000000? Why not 1000000000? And let's not even get into how long a second is.

      Backwards compatibility, from when the meter was defined by "the length of this here stick."

      Seconds, though? Absolutely. Sorcery that is. I guess there had to be a unit of time to make all of science useful in some way, but seconds are really SI unfriendly since, while you could use units like kiloseconds, you can't really abandon hours/minutes for it.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    8. Re:SI units are fiat units by Algae_94 · · Score: 1

      Obviously they already had a meter and determined they needed a more precise and repeatable definition that still matched what an actual meter was.

    9. Re:SI units are fiat units by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      A second is how much time elapses as light travels exactly 299792458 meters through a vacuum.

    10. Re:SI units are fiat units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why 299792458? Why not 299792459? Why not 300000000? Why not 1000000000? And let's not even get into how long a second is.

      Backwards compatibility, from when the meter was defined by "the length of this here stick."

      And, as is obvious, that there stick is infinitely superior to this here stick that defined one foot. SUPERIOR, DAMNIT!

    11. Re:SI units are fiat units by sconeu · · Score: 2

      Wasn't the meter originally defined as "1/10000 the distance from the equator to the north pole, as measured along the meridian running through Paris"?

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    12. Re:SI units are fiat units by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Shit. That should be 1/10000000. Mixing up meters and kilometers again, dammit!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    13. Re:SI units are fiat units by lgw · · Score: 3, Informative

      The kilometer was 1/10000 of 90 degrees of latitude. Which of course was for less natural for navigation than the nautical mile, which was 1 minute of latitude. The metric system is just a relic of the days when calculations were done on paper, and needs to be abandoned in favor of the One True System of measure: the Furlong-Firkin-Fortnight system!

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    14. Re:SI units are fiat units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Time: man's cruelest construct.

    15. Re:SI units are fiat units by Cinder6 · · Score: 1

      I recently read a book (A Deepness in the Sky) that used kiloseconds, megaseconds, etc. instead of hours and minutes. It was pretty interesting, and by the end of it, I had a pretty good grasp of the relative time intervals.

      --
      If you can't convince them, convict them.
    16. Re:SI units are fiat units by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Although that's the definition, it's a poor definition. One is left asking, "What's a second?" (To which the A&C answer is "No, What's on second.")

      A second is "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom."

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    17. Re:SI units are fiat units by Kittenman · · Score: 1

      Although that's the definition, it's a poor definition. One is left asking, "What's a second?" (To which the A&C answer is "No, What's on second.")

      Where's a mod point when you need it. (Aka, I'm here for you...)

      --
      "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    18. Re:SI units are fiat units by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      A second is how much time elapses as light travels exactly 299792458 meters [ distance travelled by light in one second] through a vacuum.

      I love how redundant your post looks with the http://www.dictionaryofnumbers.com/ Chrome plugin installed.

      --
      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
    19. Re:SI units are fiat units by mirix · · Score: 1

      Nah, the 10 millionth was the original design, as far as I understand it. There was a debate between that, or the length of a pendulum that has a one second stroke (which are pretty close, but pendulum varies with altitude).

      It was later redefined to be equal to the distance light travels in 1/c of a second.

      --
      Sent from my PDP-11
    20. Re:SI units are fiat units by guruevi · · Score: 1

      The meter is the length of light travelled in a vacuum over a very small period of time (1/300,000 of a second or so).

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    21. Re:SI units are fiat units by doccus · · Score: 1

      Actually "the length of this here stick" is the yard, as in "yardstick".. Of course one could always make the case for the cubit ...

    22. Re:SI units are fiat units by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      Well, it was meant to be a circular reference to the GP post's definition of a meter.

    23. Re:SI units are fiat units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How the fuck did this get modded Score:4, Informative? The origin of the km is COMMON KNOWLDGE, and the proposal to go to the "Furlong-Firkin-Fortnight" system IS OBVIOUSLY A JOKE. The post was FUNNY, but not really informative.

      Are you guys just clicking randomly again? Ya'll need to lay off the fucking NyQuil, you're hitting that shit way too hard.

    24. Re:SI units are fiat units by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the metre was 10^-7 of the distance between the pole and the equator on a great circle through both (, where the standard meridian was through Paris (as that had most recently been fully surveyed by a pair of teams evaluating the various proposed approaches to defining the metre -- notably the pendulum method (which relied upon at least two tables and a good chronometer, with the metre being the length of the arm of a pendulum with a half-arc of one second at a specified latitude) and various practical surveying methods. At the time the errors arising from practical difficulties in determining longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates precisely affected the pendulum method in practice, and deviations in quarter-great-circle calculations turned out not to be highly dependent on longitude after all, given reasonably flat terrain). Additionally, there was no practical realization of the second that did not depend on the choice of unit of length, so the pendulum method's definition of the metre was known to require circularity at the time (and it turns out that persisted into the 1960s!)). Moreover, a closer inspection of the data by the "losing" pendulum advocates showed that gravity deviates with position generally, rather than just with latitude, and that this would impose an accuracy limit on the metre anyway (since it would be impractical to survey gravity *everywhere* on the planet, and it was not known how stable the deviations were), so they withdrew their objection to the use of a metre prototype based on a believed-to-be-incorrect (and ultimately actually incorrect) measurement of meridional distance.

      "90 degrees of latitude" was never actually a part of the definition as the quarter-meridian metric was explicitly designed to be independent of choice of coordinate systems. Multiple lat/lon coordinate labels were used by various navies and other surveying agencies (dms, degrees and decimal degrees, grad, and rad), and several alternatively gridded coordinate systems were explored, as those were expected to be useful for particular uses of maps. Another objection to the pendulum definition was that it was impractical at the time to calculate a useful metric (defining distances, so as to calculate appropriate latitude-dependent offset) for differing sets of coordinates (many of these mathematics were refined with work by Riemann (and Einstein, who embraced free choice of coordinates wholeheartedly in his theory of general relativity)). [Technically there was still a constraint based on the definition's dependency on the stability of the Earth's axis (which is now known to have several periodical deviations!) and the precise curvature of the Earth between the poles, thus constraining the arbitrariness of choice of coordinates, most of which vanished into negligibility with the adoption of a prototype and then the redefinition of the metre based on the probably-universal physical constant c and international atomic time. Periodical movement terms in the axis do not affect the WGS geoids which have a wide choice of alternative fixed points upon which one can hang differing polar coordinate systems, so we are back to (effectively) free choice of coordinates, and these are actually used in practice in specialized applications (it can be handy to avoid mathematical singularities when doing navigation, for example, especially in the arctic and antarctic)].

      The current SI definition of the metre is easy to explain and reproduce, even if the precise length would not necessarily be sensible to some alien civilization with its own history of fixing standard units to the dimension of length (cf. various systems of natural units; wikipedia's "natural units" page is useful as a starting point). The previous actual and proposed definitions, and what they replaced, would be much harder to explain and/or reproduce precisely.

  25. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know about the not eating part, but seeing this in the news, just reminds me of the Eastern Cougar, and I become a sad panda.

  26. WTF? by Peter+Simpson · · Score: 1

    It seems wrong that a brand discontinued by its owner should sell for $400 million. Perhaps I just don't understand the consumer business. Maybe that's why I'm a hardware designer...

    1. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wasn't discontinued, the parent company Hostess went out of business.

      It's like if Pepsi went out of business, Coca-Cola might buy Mountain Dew.

    2. Re:WTF? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

      It seems wrong that a brand discontinued by its owner should sell for $400 million.
      Perhaps I just don't understand the consumer business.
      Maybe that's why I'm a hardware designer...

      It's not really the consumer business, it's the corporate chop-shop/knacker business.

      "Hostess Brands" has reasonably strong product lines and revenue; but it was having trouble with those pesky 'employees' who wanted 'the wages and benefits specified in their contracts', like some kind of parasitic commies or something. Some of them even had the temerity to suggest that demanding that they take major cuts when the 'Chief restructuring officer' and other higher ups had received 80% raises was a show of rather bad faith.

      By chopping up the company for parts, the various brands, which are valuable, can be divorced from any "legacy pension and medical benefit obligations and restrictive work rules"(as the company describes them, in the self-pitying tones of one who has conveniently forgotten agreeing to them...) and turned into sweet, sweet cash, any facilities worth keeping can be sold off, and operations and creditors who actually matter can continue as normal. (Thanks to a little strategic-under-funding of the pension plan, American taxpayers will get to do their part to ensure that real creditors come out unscathed.

    3. Re:WTF? by bws111 · · Score: 1

      The brand was never discontinued by it's owner. The owner was forced into liquidation by bankruptcy, which had little to do with the brand and much to do with high labor and pension costs. The brand remains popular, so why shouldn't it sell for $400 million?

    4. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The owner discontinued the brand because the owner was discontinued. Twinkies never stopped selling while Hostess was around. It's just that Hostess isn't around any longer.

    5. Re:WTF? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      Welcome to the 21st century USA; where if you're not raping workers (I mean THOSE workers, not us guys) for benefits and salaries, it's bad for business and bad for America! You should see the forums about that recent Supreme Court ruling against unpaid internships. People were actually COMPLAINING about it!

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    6. Re:WTF? by fnj · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't it have been cheaper and the goods just about as successful if they had paid $0 million for the brand and just called them Trinkies, Ha-Ha's and Ding-a-Lings?

    7. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It didn't sell for $400 million, it sold for $400 mega dollars. RTFA.

  27. Geek Food Staple? by DrGamez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Could you not just write "Bazinga! 42! All Your Base!! xD!" instead?
    If anything, the Twinkie is the food staple to those who are too nostalgic or stupid to know to buy ANYTHING ELSE.

    The sturdy main component of the foundation to the geek four food groups of sugar, fat, caffeine and bacon

    Ugh. I feel ashamed this is in the summary.

    1. Re:Geek Food Staple? by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 1

      not to mention bacon. Bacon? wtf. Beer.

    2. Re:Geek Food Staple? by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      yes, but redundant since beer is to wash down the bacon.

    3. Re:Geek Food Staple? by tedgyz · · Score: 1

      Next... bacon flavored beer.

      Ugh!

      --
      "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
    4. Re:Geek Food Staple? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, it already exists.

      Try to keep up please.

  28. 36 million units sold in 2011 by sjbe · · Score: 3, Informative

    No-one eats them. Why do you think the company went bankrupt?

    They sold 36 million of them in 2011. That's a lot of twinkies if "no-one" is eating them. I just can't figure out who.

    Why do you think the company went bankrupt?

    They went bankrupt because their (union) labor costs, pension costs and debt load. Incompetent management probably played a role somewhere in there too. They had significant revenue but their costs were out of line with the amount of revenue.

    1. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by geekoid · · Score: 5, Informative

      The union took cuts twice, and each time management gave themselves huge bonuses (million +), . SO after that, why would the union cut yet again?

      The union stepped up and did their part, and management screwed them, and refused to make an actual management changes.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hostess's bankruptcy had little to do with the unions. The company was over-leveraged and never re-invested in itself. They reduced their workforce from 35000 to 18000 without ever looking at their executive pay packages. So while you may want to blame the unions, they had already made major concessions (around $110 million) when Hostess management demanded 27% to 32% cuts in salaries and benefits (again without ever looking at cutting executive pay and perks). It was bad management period that killed hostess, they have no one to blame but themselves.

    3. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They went bankrupt because their (union) labor costs, pension costs and debt load.

      No, they went bankrupt because their sales were cratering. Their sales had been steadily declining since the 90s when the low carb craze was starting in mass effect. Their 2011 sales were 28% lower than what they did in 2004. But let's ignore all that when we can blame the unions instead for everything and then only make passing mention that a tiny sliver might have been bad management. The funny part is years before the bankruptcy the unions had already agreed to allow thousands of jobs to be cut and millions in benefits as well. It id quote obvious that their issues was declining sales and poor management. Unions just once again became the scapegoat to accountabilty.

    4. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Desler · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Don't bring your silly "facts" into this. Every business failing is always 99.999% the union's fault. The poor management was just being held hostage and made impotent by those big, bad bullies.

    5. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by captbob2002 · · Score: 1

      regardless if the workers were part of a union or not.

    6. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      36 million is nothing in a country of 300 million. They're regularly bundles in packs of 5 or 6 in supermarkets, so let's say 6 for ease. That's 6 million packs in a year. 0.05% of the population bought 1 pack in 1 year then. That's no much considering how many kids there are and how new parents buy precisely this kind of sugary shit for treats. Even with 10x as much, it's still almost nothing for 300,000,000 people, and seeing as they're little more than fat and umpteen sugars with the usual chemical flavinoids, even kids aren't interested in them after a couple of times.

      The product was cheap shit very few people wanted and would have died even quicker had they priced them to cover "business as usual". Perhaps they can join the whip makers club. People move on, and in this case, nothing of value was lost by the disappearing twinkie.

    7. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Every business failing is always 99.999% the union's fault.

      No, every business failing is always 100% the government's fault. It just looks like it's the unions' fault because in 99.999% of the cases the government failed to ban the unions.

    8. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Tailhook · · Score: 1

      As long as the agenda in the US is de-industrialization then industrial workers will continue to get the shaft. Don't like it? Stop accepting every tenet of "free" trade, BANANA and single minded environmentalism as though these things have no consequences.

      Otherwise you're just another unthinking malcontent exhibiting your training.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    9. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Hrm, a few million in bonuses to a few people compared to paying salaries of 40k people ... yea, totally the same thing.

      You do realize the rounding errors in salary payments cost more than those executive bonuses, right?

      The end of the story was 'Unionized workers: go back to work or we're selling'. The union tried to bluff.

      They got called on it and lost. No job is clearly better than a low paying job, isn't it?

      And how well did the union help out those workers? Are they making money now? Did they get a raise when they went back to work at hostess? No, they didn't, in fact ... now they aren't unionized workers anymore and get paid less.

      So I'm sorry, how exactly did the union do its job? Its job is to make the employees get better treatment at their jobs. Not having a job does not in any way count as better treatment. And if you're going to refuse to come to work, you're a moron to not recognize you may not have a job to go back to very long.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    10. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by FooAtWFU · · Score: 1, Informative

      Not quite.

      The Teamsters union always had a variety of rules, e.g. "the guy who unloads the truck has to drive in a separate car from the guy who drives the truck" and other stuff like that. Hostess, realizing the costs that this imposed on them, didn't really invest in the brand very much over the next several decades, because they realized that they couldn't turn the investment into a big profit and they're not in the business of giving away money if they can help it - instead, they returned such money as there was to shareholders. (And to themselves as management. The shareholders and bankruptcy courts are free to look into that, certainly.) Hostess slowly declined into marginal profitability, then unprofitability, and limped around in bankruptcy for 11 years, until at a critical juncture the baker's union went on strike because they felt that they could do better for their members in any takeover than if Hostess were otherwise restructured with a Teamsters contract.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    11. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The unions accepted job and benefit cuts totalling $110 million. They did more than their fair share.

    12. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Jiro · · Score: 1

      6 million packs in a year is 1 out of 50, or 2%, not 0.05%. It's still not a lot, though. Not only that, that Wikipedia article doesn't even say that the sales are US-only. You'd think Twinkies are sold worldwide. The world population is 7 billion, so that's 0.1 percent.

    13. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by sjbe · · Score: 1

      The unions accepted job and benefit cuts totalling $110 million. They did more than their fair share.

      If the company still got liquidated then it wasn't enough. Fair has little to do with it. Revenues have to exceed costs. It may be that the union didn't have enough to give in light of the other liabilities (debt etc) but labor is a major cost and whatever cuts were made obviously were not enough. I think the union got screwed but they don't escape being part of the problem here.

    14. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by steveha · · Score: 5, Informative

      The union stepped up and did their part, and management screwed them, and refused to make an actual management changes.

      Actually, no.

      I followed this story. The way it actually worked:

      Hostess went into bankruptcy in 2004. It found investors who bailed it out and it kept going.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostess_Brands#Bankruptcy_.282004.29

      Hostess went into bankruptcy again. It found additional investors who bailed it out and it kept going.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostess_Brands#Bankruptcy_and_liquidation_.282012.29

      Hostess was running out of money. Management set up a deal that would cut costs by paying workers less. This was not what the workers wanted, but according to management, it was essential to save the jobs.

      One thing that riled up the workers: management got paid a lot. In an effort to make the workers happier, the top four guys at Hostess had their salaries lowered to $1 per year for 2012.

      http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/

      But the major costs at Hostess had to do with worker salaries, particularly with respect to delivery of Hostess products. Union rules required Hostess snack foods and Wonder bread foods to be delivered on different trucks, which had to be loaded by different people. A "Hostess" worker couldn't load a "Wonder" truck, a "Wonder" driver couldn't drive a "Hostess" truck, and the company couldn't contract out delivery. So, if a small town in a distant location wanted to buy Hostess cakes and Wonder bread, two trucks would have to drive out there, not one. Also, there is some complicated stuff I don't really understand about Hostess paying pensions to a whole bunch of workers, many of whom had never worked for Hostess.

      http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/111912-633985-unions-dont-always-benefit-workers.htm?p=full

      http://ohioansforworkplacefreedom.com/how-unions-killed-twinkies-and-wonderbread/

      Now, pay attention, because here's the key part: the Teamsters Union had been fighting with Hostess management, and they had seen the accounting numbers, and they believed that (at least on this issue) management was not lying. If Hostess didn't cut labor costs, it was doomed.

      I am not an expert on unions, but my impression is that the Teamsters Union is not exactly a shill for management.

      It wasn't Teamsters Union workers who went on strike: it was workers of a smaller union called the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM). The Teamsters Union publicly told BCTGM not to strike. Check out this page from the Teamsters Union web site:

      http://www.teamster.org/content/teamsters-bakery-workers-should-hold-secret-ballot-vote-hostess

      The story gets even crazier. Management publicly told BCTGM that if the strike wasn't over by a specific date, they would shut down Hostess. BCTGM continued to strike. Management shut down the company. Then... a judge ordered both sides into an extra round of negotiations, and I thought to myself, "Here is where BCTGM can back down yet save face. They were unwavering in the face of a threat, they can proudly tell their members that they didn't back down until they were forced to, but they can still save all the jobs." But it was not to be. BCTGM continued to strike and Hostess shut down.

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    15. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who eats Twinkies? Stoners, children under 10 who've never had them before, and rednecks who deep fry them at every "XYZ State Fair" in the US (well ok I only know for a fact that it happens in both Texas and Washington; I can't speak for the rest).

    16. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As far as I can tell by sifting news stories, the bulk of the blame for the shutdown of Hostess has to fall on the unions. BCTGM was the immediate cause of the shutdown, but the union work rules that made expenses really high caused the financial troubles in the first place.

      Nope, the blame is squarely on the management who agreed to those union work rules in the first place. If management could close down in 2012, they could have closed down back in 2004 or earlier. Don't bleed the company for 10 years then tell me it's not your fault.

      Those investors you spoke of that propped the company back up in previous years? They lost money, and it's all on management.

      The union workers losing jobs is nothing. Many are rehired anyway. Maybe they're making less, but they weren't the ones who invested and expected a return

      "Earning less money" sucks, "No more job" sucks, but not as much as "my investments in Hostess blew up"

      Unions really have no power. They can voice their concerns and desires, but if management does not want to grant them, they won't be granted, and if companies have to close so be it. They can reopen later, and now there's no union.

      Cut pay to $1 in the last year after all the previous years is a drop in the bucket (and all too often the anti-union people always said a CEO's pay in millions is peanuts compared to collective employee compensation)

    17. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, the blame is squarely on the management who agreed to those union work rules in the first place. If management could close down in 2012, they could have closed down back in 2004 or earlier. Don't bleed the company for 10 years then tell me it's not your fault.

      Well, that is certainly a different way of looking at things than the current /. groupthink (which seems to be "management fired everyone because they like to cause human suffering").

      Looks to me like management was trying very hard not to just fire everyone, even though the union rules (going back a long time) were pretty bad.

      Those investors you spoke of that propped the company back up in previous years? They lost money, and it's all on management.

      There is merit in this comment.

      Unions really have no power.

      Not really true. There are special rules and laws that apply to unions that are helping prop them up. These special rules were made up in the early days of unions, but don't really make sense anymore if they ever did.

    18. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Wow, you just single handed cut the mean IQ for ACs in half.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    19. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the marketing department and management of a company like Hostess couldn't figure out how to monetize the hell out of the nostalgia of the aging boomers who grew up on the stuff and retro hipsters who lust after irony, that's waaaaaay past the unions screwing up anything. I mean, seriously. Take some intellectual property, ANY intellectual property of that era. It's been milked for cash at some point in the past ten to twenty years via cross-promotions, t-shirts, trinkets, movie deals (Zombieland was a start, but then they lost track of it), etc. There's companies whose continued existence is primarily owed to that fact. If Hostess, a company that was basically at the core of a LOT of old peoples' childhoods, couldn't even get THAT right, that's higher-level decisions screwing up, not the schmucks on the production line and doing deliveries.

    20. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by mdielmann · · Score: 1

      6 million packs in a year is 1 out of 50, or 2%, not 0.05%. It's still not a lot, though. Not only that, that Wikipedia article doesn't even say that the sales are US-only. You'd think Twinkies are sold worldwide. The world population is 7 billion, so that's 0.1 percent.

      So it's entirely possible that this time 99.9% of the people are right. I'm impressed!

      --
      Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
    21. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      And the union workers chose to go on unemployment. So yeah, why lose another few percentage points of pay when I can collect my paycheck for doing nothing?

    22. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "You do realize the rounding errors in salary payments cost more than those executive bonuses, right?"
      no, they don't.

      Where doe s it end? how many rounds of cuts? how much debt load do investors continue to dump into the company without taking any blame?

      You ARE away of the equity investors debt load issue with this company, right? right? if not STFU up ignorant fuck twad.

      The fact that you can not understand the idea of standing up after you have taken the brunt of the hits from upper management fuck up tells us just how big of a coward you are.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    23. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Yes they do. The problem rest squarely on the equity investors and the upper management that allowed that level of debt load.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    24. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by geekoid · · Score: 1

      That's not even close.

      Upper management allowed equity investors it jack up the debt load.
      That's what cause the slide.
      Unions took many, many cuts.
      In the end the teamsters settled for 25% seats on the board and 100 million.
      Based on the debt load, the bakers union did not think a percentage of the company had enough value.

      The reminds me of the 70s, when a company would sell key technology to the Japanese, who would then shut down the local plants. Unions got blamed, and the people who sold out to the Japanese got rich.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    25. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      And all that Teamster nonsense was not in play back in the 80s. i worked summers during high school going out on routes for a company Hostess (ITT-CBC at the time) had contracted to manage deliveries to Southern Utah and parts of Arizona and Nevada. It made economic sense because we were also delivering potato chips for a regional company and canned goods, etc. to restaurants. The Teamster demands shut that down so Hostess immediately lost access to a small portion of their market as I am certain we weren't the only company doing that.

    26. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Maybe you cna find less biased links with less cherry picking?
      Did any one of those links even mention equity lender shenanigans with debt load?
      Temseter manamgemtn sold out the teamsert for a piece of the company. They knew you could not save a compjnay wher emanamgment had allowed that kind of debt load.
      Blaming the unuions is stupid. DO you now where Hostess would be right now had the bakers union taken the deal? bankrupt.
      There dept load was untenable even if all the union members worked for free.

      This is a long term management fuck up. And while the 'paid themselves a dollar' I can't help but note the millions they got through 'bonuses' I would work for a dollar a year if I got to name my own bonuses. Many CEOs pay themselves a dollr. It's a meaning less gestures when they get bonuses based on criteria they get to set.

      ""Here is where BCTGM can back down yet save face. They were unwavering in the face of a threat, they can proudly tell their members that they didn't back down until they were forced to, but they can still save all the jobs.""

      That is a clear misunderstanding of what was going on.

      But yeah, they should just keep taking a cut years after year after year after year after year after year~

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    27. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you cna find less biased links with less cherry picking?

      And maybe YOU cna post even a single link to back up even one of your points?

      That is a clear misunderstanding of what was going on.

      Put us some knowledge then bro. What was really going on.

      But yeah, they should just keep taking a cut years after year after year after year after year after year~

      No need. They took a 100% cut, and non-union workers get the jobs now. Problem solved! Everyone happy~

    28. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realise that you two are talking about two different Unions don't you?

      Even the articles you linked mention how the Teamsters (the largest Union at Hostess) had agreed to terms - while the members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union continue to strike.

    29. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by lgw · · Score: 1

      Companies don't take on more debt for fun. If the company was struggling and taking on debt, presumably it would has gone straight under without that borrowed cash. I'm guessing part of why it finally died was the inability to borrow further. Future of the US government right there.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    30. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realise that you two are talking about two different Unions don't you?

      From GP post:

      It wasn't Teamsters Union workers who went on strike: it was workers of a smaller union called the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM). The Teamsters Union publicly told BCTGM not to strike. Check out this page from the Teamsters Union web site:

    31. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by steveha · · Score: 1

      Maybe you cna find less biased links with less cherry picking?

      Cherry picking? Not me. I have no dog in this fight: I am neither pro-management nor pro-union, I live far away from the affected Hostess factories, and I don't really care about Twinkies. I followed this story with some interest due to the drama, and now these are the articles Google found for me when I looked up the details.

      Probably the most "biased" links were the ones about the featherbedding that raised costs so much. But there was nothing I could find from CBS, CNN, etc. on this issue; they seem to have just not reported on that part. Do you think the claims about the separation of "Twinkie" trucks and "Wonder" trucks are untrue? If so, please post some links documenting this. If I have posted anything that is incorrect, I would appreciate a correction.

      Temseter manamgemtn sold out the teamsert for a piece of the company. They knew you could not save a compjnay wher emanamgment had allowed that kind of debt load.

      If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that the Teamsters Union betrayed their own workers in order to side with management!

      That is an extraordinary claim. I haven't seen anything about this in the news reports I have read. Could you please post some references in support of this claim? I'd like to read more about it.

      That is a clear misunderstanding of what was going on.

      Well, it's possible that I misunderstand what was going on, but if so I request that you explain what really was going on -- with at least a few links to support your case.

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    32. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If so, please post some links documenting this. If I have posted anything that is incorrect, I would appreciate a correction.

      Don't worry. He can only respond with anti-free enterprise vitriol rather than facts. Most of his arguments are of the "nuh uh!" variety, which he props up by hypocritically accusing other people of misrepresenting the situation. If he does reply, I expect him to cherry-pick some elements to "refute" your "cherry-picked" (aka. well-documented) assertions.

      You will find that most zealots cannot abide the cognitive dissonance of their chosen side ever being in the wrong, thus they resort to contortions to justify whatever their "team" has done. It's a sign of intellectual weakness.

      In summary, I believe you have won the debate. We will see if he actually responds to you or if he just flies off the handle. My bet is that he pretends he never had this debate thread with you, with a smaller chance that he will decide to ignore you and instead accuse *me* of orchestrating something vile.

      Bonus points if he waits until he is overtly inebriated to launch his attack (the incoherence and increased prevalence of typos are a giveaway).

    33. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by mtrachtenberg · · Score: 1

      So now, not only do Twinkies offer no nutrition, but the employees who make them get slave wages. Mmmm-mmm, sure makes that synthetic lard sweeter!

    34. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Homeowners don't take on more debt for fun....

      Oh sorry, I thought we were talking about mortgage defaulters signing contracts they couldn't afford. Do carry on, since it's totally different when companies do it.

    35. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, that is certainly a different way of looking at things than the current /. groupthink

      It's the only true and un-hypocritical way to look at it.

      Take a look back when people on slashdot were screaming about people were signing contracts they couldn't afford to buy a house they couldn't afford. Screaming that they shouldn't be allowed to force the bank to renegotiate and should be punished with bankruptcy and having the house taken from them.

      Those same people should be screaming about management signing contracts they couldn't afford to buy labor they couldn't afford. Now by-and-large those same people are complaining about unions refusing to renegotiate and forcing the company to declare bankruptcy.

      Of course there's the other half of the groupthink that complained that banks should just give out houses for free and who now complain that companies should pay labor whatever the unions want whether they have the money or not.

      There aren't that many with the opposite "fuck contracts all around" stance, while it would be un-hypocritical, it's not very workable.

    36. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by mortonda · · Score: 1

      I live in a town affected by this - in fact, we are now the main hostess factory to begin production and our city is looking forward to the 250 to 300 jobs returning. The big point I always heard from the actual workers here, is that a lot of pension money was diverted, and most of the workers lost all of their retirement money. The striking unions figured it was better to just kill the company and hope for better management.

      Of course, the new management is pretty much the same old people.. and they aren't hiring anyone who actually went on strike. Nice move there.

      The best I can hope is that the silly union rules mentioned elsewhere in this thread are no longer there, which may allow for a more profitable business. I don't have any info on what the new job salaries are, or benefits, though. I would not be surprised if it is lower than before. Well, except for management.

    37. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by mortonda · · Score: 1

      Oh, Also, a friend of mine who actually read the proposed agreement, said the union contract was written in such a way that management could essentially rewrite it or walk - it was a horrible contract. It didn't do any favors for the union workers.

      I usually don't like unions, but in this case, I think there was cancer all over the system and it just needed to be put down.

    38. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by FooAtWFU · · Score: 1

      Upper management allowed equity investors it jack up the debt load.

      Yeah... part of the plan to to return money to the shareholders. That's why companies do things: to make money for the shareholders. (The debtors, rather than getting totally screwed, are first in line for the bankruptcy proceeds.) Not necessarily a nice thing but, when the financial incentive put the two sides in conflict over millions (nearly billions!) of dollars, guess what happens?

      Based on the debt load, the bakers union did not think a percentage of the company had enough value.

      Yeah, because the company's worthless when they've got work rules saying that you can't put Twinkies and Wonder-bread on the same truck. Word on the street has it that normal distribution channels would have easily freed up $80-$120 million a year to go straight to the bottom line; maybe the bakers' percentage would have been worth something under those circumstances.

      And now that they're out of union-contract-land, they're actually thinking about making new snacky-things. Because they might actually be able to make money off of them. Perish the thought.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    39. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really true. There are special rules and laws that apply to unions that are helping prop them up. These special rules were made up in the early days of unions, but don't really make sense anymore if they ever did.

      So how did any of these special rules help the union here? Did the unions' goal of benefiting their members/employees succeed? And how's the reputation of unions in society?

      Those rules don't matter when management can circumvent them. Another example: Walmart has been very successful at keeping the unions from even forming.

      The rules only work on weak management (or maybe management who actually cares about employees- all two of them - but to some this trait also qualifies them as "weak" management). So again, if the rules are a problem then it's management's fault for not being able to handle it.

    40. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So how did any of these special rules help the union here?

      Didn't really help, except in the general sense of helping the unions keep power. But in part thanks to these, Hostess will take whatever steps needed to avoid dealing with unions ever again.

      http://www.nrtw.org/d/big_labor_special_privileges.htm

      The rules only work on weak management

      Not true. The special laws allowing unions to trespass on private property, to force workers to join, to force workers to pay dues, etc all "work" whether management is weak or strong.

      Did the unions' goal of benefiting their members/employees succeed?

      The unions did not help the Hostess workers, especially given the actions of a single union with ~6K members ended the jobs of all ~18K workers.

    41. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you think Twinkies are sold worldwide? Are they really so great that you think people all over the world would want them, although judging by most of the comments here, they aren't. I've never seen them in the UK, but I can't speak for other countries, though I'd think if they were sold outside the US then their distribution would be quite limited. But you should factor in that people who buy Twinkies would likely buy them more often than once a year, maybe once a month would be reasonable.

    42. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Didn't really help, except in the general sense of helping the unions keep power

      Oh really? So are the unions in power in the reopened Hostess?

      Not true. The special laws allowing unions to trespass on private property, to force workers to join, to force workers to pay dues, etc all "work" whether management is weak or strong.

      Oh really? So is that happening in the reopened Hostess?

      See, even your link agrees with me. The first sentence: "Labor union officials enjoy many extraordinary powers "

      How many labor union officials are there now in the reopened Hostess?

    43. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh really? So are the unions in power in the reopened Hostess?

      No they are not.

      These special laws that protect unions are a large part of why Hostess will make damn sure not to have any union workers ever again. Once you are in bed with the unions it's hard to get out again, better never to get in.

      Maybe you are going to say next that "Hostess management should never have allowed unions in the first place." Yeah well I don't disagree, but you have to go back a bunch of years to that decision, it wasn't a recent thing, Hostess had unions for decades. Since the beginning I think (but I couldn't find any references to confirm or deny)

    44. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by swalve · · Score: 1

      $100 million over how many workers and how many years? Or did they play that game where existing employees keep their sweet deal, and new union hires eat all the "cuts"? It's easy to shove out a big number to show sacrifice when you can spread it across a lot of time and people.

    45. Re:36 million units sold in 2011 by swalve · · Score: 1

      Another word for equity investor debt load is "owners". The people who put their real actual money on the line to try and save the company.

  29. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by BioTitan · · Score: 1

    I live in NYC, and oh, I wish I had mod points...

  30. Blue Man Group by antdude · · Score: 1

    They must be happy now to have their Twinkies back! ;)

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  31. Hahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We're all fat slobs! hahaha... Bacon! haha.. bacon!! ... I love bacon!!! hahaha

    1. Re:Hahaha by DrGamez · · Score: 1

      This is exactly what the summary sounds like, quite the ostentatious start to the week.

  32. Not really surprising by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Informative

    The reason that Hostess went under is that management refused to play nice with their unionized workforce, and they decided that they'd rather have no company than a union shop. Now that the union is busted, they've restarted production with a non-unionized workforce, "generously" allowing those workers to return to their old jobs at about 1/3 what they were paid before.

    And if you're wondering which side to blame: Before the strike that ended Hostess, there were a couple rounds of the union taking pay and benefit cuts followed by management giving themselves bonuses for convincing the union to accept the cuts. That's why the union didn't buy the "but if you don't take the cuts, the company will go under" argument.

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    1. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The side blame was the vulture capital corporate raiders that annexed the company, loaded it with debt, then blamed the unions as they crashed the company to raid pensions.

      An American institution destroyed. Good jobs lost. Unions slandered.

      Go USA.

    2. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      $1.8 million to a management team (the collected bonuses) is
      a) Miniscule in comparison to how much the labor wanted for their jobs where they press a button and no skill is required.
      b) The only real motivation for the management team to stay with a sinking ship instead of looking for work elsewhere, when a management team was needed.

      Anonymous because Slashdot karma. Anybody who isn't wildly anti-business gets modded down here.

    3. Re:Not really surprising by BitZtream · · Score: 2, Interesting

      A few million in management bonuses has exactly dick to do with the billions paid in wages each year. Get some perspective, the managements job is to do EXACTLY that. Its not a charity, its a business.

      And lets remember that when hostess closed up shop, the union tried to get an injunction against the sale of assets to which the judge replied basically saying 'no, you got what you deserved'.

      The union pushed too hard and lost, next time perhaps they won't be so quick to side with the greedy fucks in the union ... who also give themselves millions in bonuses when they do ... well pretty much ANYTHING.

      Unions in America are a joke, they're just like lawyers. They don't actually accomplish anything, but do their best to drive up costs so they can take a bigger cut from the workers.

      You need to stop thinking the union cares about the workers. Union management cares about the same thing company management does, they just bullshit you into believing otherwise,, and this is why they don't exist in any meaningful form in right to work states. When they can't use strong arm tactics to prevent people from working if they aren't part of the union, they cease to exist. Get the picture? They aren't your friends, stop being so naive.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    4. Re:Not really surprising by captbob2002 · · Score: 2

      you may not have been getting your Twinkies, but clearly you are still drinking the Kool-Aid.

    5. Re:Not really surprising by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      1. "how much the labor wanted for their jobs"
      The union was protesting wage cuts, not demanding wage increases. Management had already agreed to what their labor was worth, and then re-neged on that agreement.

      2. "The only real motivation for the management team to stay"
      How come management needs nice big bonuses in order to stay when labor is supposed to accept 25-30% wage cuts without complaint?

      3. Regardless of how large or small the change is, it certainly bad form. An equivalent scenario: Your sister tells you she's broke and the rent is due, and being a decent fellow you help her out. She gets your check, and then flies to Cancun for a week. 3 months later, she calls you again and says she's in a jam and needs your financial help. Are you as quick to support her the second time? How about the third time?

      And, as a sibling poster pointed out, this was also about robbing the entirety of the workers' pension fund.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    6. Re:Not really surprising by roman_mir · · Score: 0

      It's not "they", the company was liquidated, somebody else bought the assets and restarted the business without liability of the unworkable union agreements.

      I wrote a JE on this the day Hostess was back in business and published it to the /. queue, but as always it wasn't selected to be the story. Of-course this /. story is missing the point that I was making, that under a normal bankruptcy procedure the business is restructured and if it is economically viable it comes back lean and healthy, which is what should always happen under such conditions, including car companies, banks, etc., that's how the market works out bad debts and that's why government shouldn't get its claws into any of it.

    7. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What do you mean? What parent poster posted was factual, it's been covered pretty thoroughly. There is plenty of evidence available via a simple Google search.

    8. Re:Not really surprising by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      You need to stop thinking the union cares about the workers. Union management cares about the same thing company management does

      Union management is voted in by the union membership, which means that a union management that fails to do what their workers want them to do will get replaced. For major union actions, such as strikes and accepting contracts, union members vote directly. So the only possible way your view of things is remotely accurate is if workers either don't know what's good for them, or vote against their own interests.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    9. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You seem to confuse management with ownership. Why should management stay on a sinking ship? A relatively small financial motivation was given, and they led the transition, and then likely moved on to other jobs.

      The employees weren't needed. It is a sad fact that unskilled labor is in low demand, and that commodity foods like Twinkies exist in a competitive marketplace. There just doesn't exist a place for a cheap commodity food made at a high expense.

    10. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anybody who isn't wildly anti-business gets modded down here.

      Lie.

    11. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There were multiple unions involved, the Teamsters made out like bandits, the Bakers union however seemed to be run by complete morons (the didnt even show at the last negotiation session) fucked themselves and their membership.

    12. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ever hear of 'supply and demand'? There is a limited supply of qualified management people, and there is high demand for those people. If you want to attract those people, you must pay them.

      There is very little demand for unskilled laborers.

      And your 'equivalent scenario' is not in any way equivalent, for several reasons. First, the amount of money (as a percentage) certainly DOES matter. You picked a ridiculous scenario. The amount of money to pay the rent and the amount of money to go to Cancun are approximately equal (or maybe Canjun costs more). That is not even remotely true here. What if, in your scenario, your sister bought a cup of coffee instead of a trip to Cancun? That is more like what happened.

      And secondly, in your scenario you have no stake in what happens to your sister. In the real situation, if the company could not afford to pay the wages EVERYBODY was going to lose. The union was not being asked to 'be nice' to save management, they were being asked to save their own jobs.

    13. Re:Not really surprising by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      Why should management stay on a sinking ship?

      For the same reason anyone else goes to work: To continue collecting their paycheck for a while longer. And it's not like there's a shortage of would-be managers in the world who could not be brought on board if needed, even for a short-term contract.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    14. Re:Not really surprising by schnell · · Score: 1

      How come management needs nice big bonuses in order to stay when labor is supposed to accept 25-30% wage cuts without complaint?

      Because the "management" in this case were (at least purportedly) experts in turning around failing companies, who were hired to try to fix Hostess, and who could easily have gone to work somewhere else. The truck drivers? Where else were they going to go?

      It's sad to say, but in this case as in pretty much all cases in the real world, what you get paid is not related to how well you do your job, or what you "deserve" to get paid, but is based on how replaceable you are. And people who drive bread trucks and load or unload them are generally pretty replaceable.

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    15. Re:Not really surprising by captbob2002 · · Score: 2

      What, that unions are to blame for all that is wrong with corporate America? Sure plenty of evidence for that. Tired of the canards regarding unions being tossed around as "facts."

    16. Re:Not really surprising by captbob2002 · · Score: 1

      Think someone likes to paint all unions with the Hoffa-era Teamsters brush.

    17. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dr. Robert Atkins murdered that company, not the unions or the management. Why do you think that management was pushing for those steep cuts? Why do you think the company folded up like hot laundry when the unions stopped taking 30% pay cuts every year? Track Hostess's sales from the late nineties to when they finally collapsed in 2011: sales fell too precipitously for the company to keep up with, and so the company died.

      And frankly, the country is probably better off for it.

    18. Re:Not really surprising by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      "Ever hear of 'supply and demand'? There is a limited supply of qualified management people, and there is high demand for those people. If you want to attract those people, you must pay them."

      Yeah, that's what management sits around telling themselves at the Country Club. Management simply has keys to the piggy bank. You could find people to take their jobs for 1/3 the wages and benefits as well, but that would be an outrage!

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    19. Re:Not really surprising by fnj · · Score: 1

      Our esteemed union toadie contributors and moderators will never admit that.

    20. Re:Not really surprising by Hatta · · Score: 1

      b) The only real motivation for the management team to stay with a sinking ship instead of looking for work elsewhere, when a management team was needed.

      If you want to provide incentive for management to save the company, you have to tie financial reward to actually saving the company. These vultures sunk the company and still got paid. There's no reason to believe that wasn't their plan from the start.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    21. Re:Not really surprising by bws111 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, right. Who in their right mind is going to take the job for 1/3 the wages and benefits, when they could be making 3x somewhere else? Not top talent, that is for sure.

    22. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BitZtream, exposure to your uninformed bile is easily one of the most unpleasant parts of browsing Slashdot.

    23. Re:Not really surprising by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      BTW, even though the meme is "drinking the Kool Aid", in the actual incident that inspired the phrase, it was actually Flavor Aid.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_Aid#Jonestown_Massacre

    24. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not top talent, that is for sure.

      I'm pretty sure I'm talented enough to sign away the future of the company to ridiculous union demands like requiring separate trucks for bread and cake, and I'll take a QUARTER of what those managers were taking when they signed the contract.

    25. Re:Not really surprising by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Have you ever had an employer fold under you? Everybody knows it's coming. The smart GTF out fast. Best employees leave first. If you want to keep operating you have to _pay_ them to stay and for any lost opportunities in the meantime.

      The deadwood is always there till the bitter end. As you say 'collecting their paycheck for a while longer.' If you let management self select you will be left with only air thieves.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    26. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy revisionism batman

      Remember that the Teamsters union actually agreed that the changes were needed to keep the company afloat. This comes down to petty bakery union leaders who didn't have their member's best interests at heart. It's not a good idea to play chicken with a failing company during a recession.

    27. Re:Not really surprising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wrote a JE on this the day Hostess was back in business

      You wrote it when Snowden's leaks about the NSA was just coming out.

      Isn't it strange that when you had such a great (tech related as the spying involved the Internet) story to use to demonstrate how corrupt government is and how it ignores its own Constitution and how nerds on slashdot need to care, you didn't take advantage of the opportunity?

      And it's not like you're some journalist whose job is on the line to get the news out ASAP. Why the rush to post "on the day" Hostess reopened? It's almost like you're trying to get your twinkie story out faster than stories about the government spying, so as to distract the people from the more serious issue.

      But I guess unfortunately for you, the socialist slashdot mob who according to you is always around to downmod you just conveniently took the day off, and didn't promote your story. Yeah, that must be it.

  33. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is impossible to have a Twinkie wiener sandwich without a Twinkie.

    I quite frankly do not want Anthony Wiener anywhere near my snack foods of any sort, thank you very much.

  34. The Not-So-Glorious Reality by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is another case of corporate S.O.P: declare bankruptcy for one reason; to void any and all obligations to current - and especially - retired employees.

    So as you gorge on your new Twinkiees, try to ignore that no doubt they were made by newly or re-hired workers from the now-permanent underclass: longer hours, lower wages, little or no benefits, and laughable health insurance.

    Not that much of this will matter to the increasingly Randian crowd on Slashdot.

    1. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by stox · · Score: 1

      Thanks! I was going to make the same points. It is worthy of note that not only did the company void its pension responsibilities, it legally stole from the pension to support executive salaries. Absolutely disgusting.

      --
      "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    2. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by HCase · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Not that much of this will matter to the increasingly Randian crowd on Slashdot."

      Oh, please. You know that if a worker just shows a little initiative, and works hard on the twinkie production line, they will be rewarded with wage increases and promotions until they are able to join elite non moocher society. /s

    3. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Rakarra · · Score: 2

      This is another case of corporate S.O.P: declare bankruptcy for one reason; to void any and all obligations to current - and especially - retired employees.

      This is one reason why I dislike corporate pensions so much -- there are so many ways for companies to get out of those obligations. Never accept compensation that assumes that the company will even be around anymore in the next month, much less the next year.

      Corporate 401ks are almost benign in comparison.

    4. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Seriously?

      Management said: If you strike, we'll close up shop as we can't stay in business.

      The union went on strike anyway.

      Management started selling the company.

      The union TRIED to block it, but a court stepped in and said 'no, morons, you fucking ruined the company financially, they can not pay you now, you're strike got you exactly what they said it would get you'

      You can cut this bullshit 'watch out for the little guy' crap, they hung themselves when they joined the shitty union.

      Unions aren't for protecting workers, they are just another political machine used to rob you without making it obvious you're still someones tool, just a different someone. At least the company made it clear they aren't your friend, the union just says they are your support team while fucking you over and collecting more fees.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    5. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by captbob2002 · · Score: 1

      and the Twinkies will cost the same or more

    6. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Virtucon · · Score: 1

      All Twinkie production has been outsourced to Foxconn where trade unions are opaque and you live in collective apartment complexes 8 to a room, complete with safety nets for works who try to commit suicide.

      Yeah, those Unions are really bad for American workers.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    7. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by HexaByte · · Score: 1

      The problem is that during times of good profits, the unions negotiate contracts that say: "Our members don't have to pay into a pension fund, it all comes out of future profits".

      That way, the unions don't look like thy're scalping the company because their compensation is "only x dollars". However, since the company sooner or later gets real competition, or the product/business model is no longer valid, profits decrease, and they're stuck with staggering payments to retirees, making less money available for the present day workers.

      If the workers want a pension fund that's stable, they need to fund it themselves. Put it into the compensation package like they used to, like the Trade Unions still do. The companies pays so much per hour into the Unions run pension plan, and the union pays the retiree. That way if the company folds, your pension is still safe.

      --
      HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
    8. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by captbob2002 · · Score: 2

      When Hostess began to face financial woes, the company’s CEO got a 300% salary increase from $750,000 to $2,250,000. It was discovered that the former Hostess CEO tripled his salary in early 2012. Meanwhile, a number of top executives saw massive pay raises, some nearly doubling their salaries. The new CEO blamed union workers for the company’s bankruptcy filing—yet it's the workers who were the very ones who gave concessions multiple times in the past few years. In December, a staggering $1.8 million in bonuses were awarded to executives AFTER the bankruptcy filing. In late 2012, Hostess Brands admitted to The Wall Street Journal that money taken out of workers' paychecks—intended for their retirement funds—was used for company operations instead. Hostess is one example of executives' blame-the-worker and blame-a-union game.

      I could've run the company into the ground for far less money.

    9. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh you jest, but if a blue collar shows initiative and works hard, they will be rewarded. That reward just happens to be more work than their peers and the privilege of more responsibility at the same pay.

    10. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      Yes, unions in charge of the pensions... What could possibly go wrong?

    11. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      On the upside, Twinkies will now play MP3s and come with a 4.3 inch screen.

    12. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, there are no re-hired workers, unless of course they felt like relocating to the Hermosillo Mexico mega industrial complex where they are now made.

    13. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Entropy98 · · Score: 1

      This is another case of corporate S.O.P: declare bankruptcy for one reason; to void any and all obligations to current - and especially - retired employees.

      You have no idea what you are talking about. When a company declares bankruptcy all the assets (Trademarks and other IP, buildings, equipment, etc) are sold and the proceeds go to pay the creditors (Bond holders, retirees, etc) if there is anything left, and there rarely is in bankruptcy, the shareholders get it.

      The idea that a corporation would intentionally declare bankruptcy to get out of obligations is completely ridiculous. Is it that hard to understand that the current company selling Hostess products is a completely different company than the old one and that the owners of the old company got nothing?

    14. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      Exactly, how about just pay me for the hours I work and let me decide how I want to invest it.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    15. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and what makes them special? unskilled labor with a GED with millions of people behind them ready to step in at a moments notice. Make yourself disposable, then cry when you are disposed of is what I hear

    16. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, actually it does in fact matter to me. It is something I should have thought of and did not, and you have inspired me to not buy another package of Twinkies or other "Hostess" branded products. (Even though I do like them. There are alternatives, though.)

      Thank you for taking the time to post.

    17. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "it legally stole from the pension to support executive salaries."

          Legal until someone with authority starts asking questions, so far Crickets!! (maybe)

      Fact is, the management should be seeing some prison time.

    18. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The twinkie production line job should be a dead end, there is nothing ot learn. But while the worker is working on the production line, when he goes home, if he shows initiative and learns new skills useful to the society, and or if he comes up with something original, he then can move upwords. Those that can not do deserve to stay in the lower class. Rewards should be based on merit, and the skill one has to offer to the society.

    19. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by evilviper · · Score: 1

      Corporate 401ks are almost benign in comparison.

      Yes, but you have to be smart enough to know to leave it in a very low-fee index fund (typically based on the S&P 500) and not fall for the crap the sales team pitches you about about their ultra-complex derivatives that are absolutely positively going to pay you 15% for the next 30 years... Then start moving it into a more stable investment like bonds bit by bit for several YEARS before retirement.

      It seems most people just aren't that smart, though, and swallow the marketing, making bankers richer, while they lose their retirement.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    20. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Make yourself disposable, then cry when you are disposed of is what I hear

      Yeah, I guess that's what makes it different from when a bank forces a homeowner into bankruptcy rather than renegotiate their contract. Funny thing though, what I hear is the cognitive dissonance echoing in your hollow skull.

    21. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I learned that mistake the hard way. The first six months I was in a fund where I bought the sell and the gains it made me was a grand total of $98 and this was with me doing the maximum contribution with 100% matching by my employer. However, I switched after six months because I had a WTF!? moment because there was a flat dollar amount fee, a percentage of money earned fee (of course, if it lost money they wouldn't give me any), a percentage of the money I contributed, and two other things that were basically commissions to various people. Went into my investor's office (because he didn't return any of my calls) and gave him a piece of my mind. In the end, I joined a place that does local government bonds that were long term and are 6%. The nice thing is that the fee is a set dollar amount, one on withdrawals on money before I'm somewhere in my 60s, and a huge one on withdrawals with less than 2 months notice. Since, I don't need that money now, I figured that was good enough.

    22. Re:The Not-So-Glorious Reality by strikethree · · Score: 1

      Not that much of this will matter to the increasingly Randian crowd on Slashdot.

      Fuck you. Back that statement up with fact rather than your increasingly pessimistic world view. Go rag somewhere else bitch.

      Nah, just kidding. Have a nice day. :)

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
  35. Who cares.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I haven't eaten a Twinkie since they changed the filling recipe to not use sugar. Tastes like crap now...

  36. Google Reader by wisnoskij · · Score: 0

    Umm, why is Slashdot warning all RSS users that Google Reader is closing soon? If I were still using Google Reader it would be telling me that, I would not need /. to tell me.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  37. COuple of things: by geekoid · · Score: 1

    A) Twinkies have a normal shelf life, please stop with that myth.
    B) I thought the for food groups were cokes, chips, cakes and pies.
    Alternatively Can, bags, boxes and wrappers.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:COuple of things: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The four food groups are Sugar, Starch, Caffeine, and Salt.

      Although my diet is primarily Grease, Salt, Caffeine, and Beer.

    2. Re:COuple of things: by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 1

      Four food groups are:
      Eat in
      Take out
      Frozen
      Caned

      As I recall from before I was forced to learn to cook by severe lactose intolerance. (There are milk products in just about everything.)

      --
      If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
    3. Re:COuple of things: by Kittenman · · Score: 1

      Four food groups are:

      Eat in

      Take out

      Frozen

      Caned

      ...

      You may mean 'canned'. Or you may not.

      --
      "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
  38. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unless his cock is in a Twinkie and photos are being taken?

    While not a delicacy, i'm a fan of funny

  39. I never see them in the checkout line by sjbe · · Score: 1

    You are also falling victim to self selected sample theory. You dont do it so no one else must do it.

    Wasn't talking about me though I freely admit I don't eat them. I quite seriously can not recall having seen a box of twinkies in anyone's shopping cart in the last 20 years and I've been in the grocery store at least once every week or two during most of that period. I also have not seen twinkies in anyone's home or seeing anyone actually consume one in person during the same time period. Now obviously someone must be buying this things since they sold over 30 million of them a year as recently as 2011. But I'll be darned if I ever see anyone buying or eating them.

    Also you *can* loose weight eating these things.

    You can lose weight eating almost anything as long as you are careful with the portions. Doesn't mean it is a healthy way to do it but if you only eat 600 calories a day it doesn't much matter what the source of the calories is from a weight loss point of view.

    1. Re:I never see them in the checkout line by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The reason you never see them is because of 'sales'. No 'sale' a box is 5-6 dollars. On sale 2.50 and the shelf is cleared out. It is the 'coupon' people who are snarfing them. Like I said I buy them 1-2 times a year.

      However, I did notice the shelf was nearly always full unless they were on sale. Also "I quite seriously can not recall having seen a box of twinkies in anyone's shopping cart" is silly. I honestly can not say what was in the cart of the guy (or was it a lady?) who was in front of me 2 days ago... The only time I notice is if they are buying 40 of something. Also "I also have not seen twinkies in anyone's home or seeing anyone actually consume one in person during the same time period" I could not tell you what is in my friends/family cupboards. I do not go digging thru them. I also do not pay attention to what they eat.

      The reason I am saying you are being self selective is something like "hey I am having this happen on my computer" "well its never happened to me so you must have done something wrong". When clearly both items are true. Sometimes people see it as black and white when it is not that sort of question.

      I only make the weight loss comment as people seem to think eat 1 = instant death by type 2 diabetes. You were going that way even if you did not intend it...

    2. Re:I never see them in the checkout line by sjbe · · Score: 1

      I honestly can not say what was in the cart of the guy (or was it a lady?) who was in front of me 2 days ago... The only time I notice is if they are buying 40 of something.

      Well that is just you being self selective. I actually tend to look around a fair bit. Call me nosey but I'm a bit of a foodie. While it is absolutely possible I just didn't notice, I certainly can recall seeing green peppers, and ground beef and milk and tons of other products in people's carts. But twinkies? Nope. I have seen some little debbie snacks in people's carts but never twinkies. I see them on the shelf now and then but never in the checkout line.

      Never seen them hauled out at parties, school lunches (I coach high school kids), in any friends or family pantries, or anywhere else. Never seen them at work or in any of the factories I visit.

    3. Re:I never see them in the checkout line by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What part of anecdotal evidence do you not understand? Seemingly everything.

  40. No banana's harmed in making of Twinkies by sjbe · · Score: 3, Informative

    The reason they are known to have a long shelf life is because they use banana cream instead of dairy cream, giving them a comparatively longer shelf life.

    They have used vanilla cream instead of banana cream since around WWII when there was a banana shortage.

  41. Yahoo by SonnyDog09 · · Score: 0

    Our long, national nightmare is over.

    --
    Your "fair share" is NOT in my wallet.
  42. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by geekoid · · Score: 1

    Mod up or Down? Frankly, it's a good law and I would like to see it implemented nation wide.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  43. You don't have to wait until July 15 by Yakasha · · Score: 1
    Seriously.
    Twinkies (and cupcakes and hohos) first appeared at a couple locations here in the SF Bay Area a couple months ago. At first I thought it was a distributor that hoarded a few crates and was disgusted. (I think others thought the same thing cause the shelf didn't get touched for a few days).

    But I asked and found out they were already back in production and being sold. The only change I saw was the lack of the paper base inside the packaging. Its now just a Twinkie and a wrapper.

    Ahhh the Silicon Valley... I still can't get high speed internet at my house, but I can buy Twinkies...

  44. Geek food staple? by BitZtream · · Score: 1

    Turn in your card. No geek eats that crap. They are the butt of jokes about surviving a nuclear winter and out lasting the cockroaches, not something we actually eat. These things are false of course, Twinkies dont' last all that long at all on the shelf. Its just fun to make fun of them since they are made out of some things one would not normally consider being edible in its natural form.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  45. Union negotiators screwed up by sjbe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The union took cuts twice, and each time management gave themselves huge bonuses (million +), . SO after that, why would the union cut yet again?

    The union played a game of chicken with management and lost. I think it is clear the management was incompetent (and greedy) but apparently so was the union. The company had already been through bankruptcy once before. The union leadership BADLY misread the strength of their position and it cost a lot of people their jobs.

    I think the negotiation went something like this.

    Mgt: We need wage concessions, etc.
    Union: We're going on strike
    Mgt: We're going to liquidate the company if you do that
    Union: You're a bunch of liars and poopyheads
    Mgt: We warned you
                        Mgt takes company into Chapter 7
    Union: Oh shit, they weren't kidding.
    Mgt: Let's pay our selves some handsome bonuses before this thing completely goes under [/evil cackle]

    1. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Nice rewrite of what actually happened. One of the two major reason that Hostess escaped bankruptcy in 2009 was that the union allowed thousands in job cuts and agreed to benefit cuts to the tune of $110 million. So to act like the unions did nothing is utter nonsense. They only threatened striking after the incompetent management told them that they had to make even deeper concessions

    2. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, but the union also had in the contract that breads had to be shipped separately than cakes, thus you had to send two trucks to a store to stock it.

      It's not all the union's fault, and it's not all management's fault. They were both culpable.

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    3. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Hatta · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It went more like this.

      Mgt: We need wage concessions, etc.
      Union: OK
      Mgt: Let's pay our selves some handsome bonuses
      Later...
      Mgt: We need wage concessions, etc.
      Union: OK
      Mgt: Let's pay our selves some handsome bonuses
      Later...
      Mgt: We need wage concessions, etc.
      Union: We're going on strike
      Mgt: We're going to liquidate the company if you do that
      Union: You're a bunch of liars and poopyheads
      Mgt: We warned you
                                              Mgt takes company into Chapter 7
      Union: Oh shit, they weren't kidding.
      Mgt: Let's pay our selves some handsome bonuses before this thing completely goes under [/evil cackle]

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    4. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by kimvette · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the unions' defense: both the teamsters and the bakers union had agreed to concessions previously, while executives were ignoring the consultant they hired to fix problems and instead used Hostess as their own personal piggy bank, pocketing everything that was saved by cutting benefits and pay. It wasn't until last year that the board finally grew wise and axed the executives and promoted the outside consultant, and they did seriously try to turn the company around. The CEO of the time did NOT draw bonuses after taking the company into chapter 7.

      The bakers union had cause (based on previous experience) to disbelieve the new boss ("meet the new boss, same as the old boss" is usually true) and think they were playing chicken when they threatened to board up the company. They weren't kidding, the new boss was seriously trying to turn things around and Hostess was not liquid enough to survive, so they recalled all the trucks the next morning, closed the factories, and that was that.

      Interesting tidbit: the Teamsters knew the score actually tried to coax the Bakers Union negotiators to agree, because the cut the last Hostess CEO requested was to be a temporary one, until (if) the company got back on track. The Bakers' Union ignored the Teamsters and decided it was another bluff. Unfortunately for Hostess employees, it was not a bluff. It was game over.

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    5. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by jdev · · Score: 5, Informative

      Unions had already agreed to $100 million in concessions during the previous bankruptcy. The bakers union was being asked for something like an additional 25% in cuts over 5 years, while there were reports of raises and bonuses for management. On top of all that, management had stopped contributing to the pension fund and there is still a lawsuit over that. Agreeing to the cuts would have taken wages well under the market average could have depressed wages for the entire bakers industry. So let's not try to play this as a one-sided "unions are dumb" argument. There were good reasons for the unions to reject the concessions management proposed.

    6. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by geekoid · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wrong.

      Private equity backers had loaded the company with debt, That was the problem. The trivial saving that might have happened if they combined the two entities(breads and cakes) has just become an knee reaction from anti-union groups.
      lets not that division went up into management. Upper Management tried play the unions off each other to take the light off the private equity shenanigans.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      The union "allowed" thousands in job cuts? Here's how it should work "Your services are no longer required."

      Depending on contracts, there might be other considerations and a decent company might lend some assistance in finding new positions but the union is not the decider on how many people need to be employed. Screw em.

    8. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by publiclurker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also, if you know the company is going to tank, agreeing to wage cuts only means that you will end up getting less unemployment when the ax does fall, since the benefits are based on your salary.

    9. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sound old and bitter

    10. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not all the union's fault, and it's not all management's fault. They were both culpable.

      OFFS. How much blame goes to each party? Don't look to this "informative" comment for such information.

    11. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by SonnyDog09 · · Score: 1

      Not only two trucks, but members of the truck driver's union could not unload stock from the trucks, so there needed to be an additional person, from yet another union, to unload each truck.

      --
      Your "fair share" is NOT in my wallet.
    12. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      I am old enough to remember how badly the unions screwed up the UK. Candles for lighting in a civilized country? Trash piling up in the streets?

    13. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by dwpro · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "The union" _is_ the employees, and they do have a seat at the table during decision making, that's what collective bargaining allows. You think this is a bad thing, I think it's the only thing that will keep our society together (division of power, some semblance of equality.)

      --
      Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
    14. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by operagost · · Score: 1, Troll

      It would be nice if internet socialists didn't offer totally blind support for every misbegotten union.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    15. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Hatta · · Score: 4, Informative

      It would be nice if internet feudalists didn't offer totally blind support for every robber baron.

      I mean, are you denying that the union accepted several wage consessions before striking? Are you denying that management then gave themselves raises? Are these not facts?

      The article's depiction of the company's fall omits crucial context and leaves readers with the impression that the act of discarding union workers is what allowed the "trimmed-down" company to re-emerge. The AP did not tell readers that, just three years prior to Mr. Rayburn's negotiations with labor, union workers made "substantial concessions" to aid the company's financial health, or that Hostess stopped contributing to workers' pensions and cut wages and benefits "by 27 to 32 percent."

      Nor did the AP story mention the dramatic pay raises Hostess provided its executives during its financial struggles. For example, Brian Driscoll -- Hostess CEO in March 2011 -- received a salary increase from $750,000 to $2.25 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.

      Tell me, in what way is my support blind? It appears to be supported by facts.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    16. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The union also has leaders and probably lawyers, the former of whom may or may not actually be "workers", the latter of whom certainly are not.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    17. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      mediamatters is a biased and not necessarily honest source. Same for AP. WSJ is better.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    18. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it would be nice if the internet ayn randists would decide if contracts are sacrosanct or not, and quit pretending that signing contracts you can't afford is only evil when some poor person buys a house and not when some rich capitalist buys labor.

    19. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by zidium · · Score: 1

      I'm an American who is too young to ever know anything about that. Can you please give me a link or the period's name or something so that I may know more??

      --
      Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
    20. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by ebno-10db · · Score: 1

      mediamatters is a biased and not necessarily honest source. Same for AP. WSJ is better.

      WSJ is "better" because they promote the ideology that you like. Mediamatters is clearly on the left, but calling AP biased and dishonest compared to Rupert's rag? Oh, sorry, didn't realize you must be being facetious.

    21. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Part of the Unions demand was to repay the funds that the management took from the retirement fund of the employees. Nice management, gve it to themselves as part of their bonus checks before frying the company.

    22. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But, companies, will not "bargain" faithfully with the employees. They wont bargain with unions unless forced by a rule in the state where the bargaining takes place. That is why the Koch brothers ALEC is fighting employment rules here, so they do not have to bargain. They would rather have the us go piss in a pot, then pay the dues necessary to have freedom to bargain here. And we are heading there, that away. Crumbling infrastructure is the first sign that we will be a third world country before they are finished. Not the shining light on the hill for all to aspire too.

    23. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Read the link. They provide citations CNN, KansasCity.com, and the WSJ. Do you have any reason to believe that the events did not happen as described?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    24. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by rnturn · · Score: 1

      Yeah... thanks for that chuckle.

      Rupert Murdoch's WSJ has long been a champion of the working man. It'll be a cold day in Hell when you read a story in the WSJ about how it was wrong for managers to take a huge bonus after screwing the workers. I'm guessing that you actually believe that there's a vast liberal bias in the media, too.

      --
      CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
    25. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by xenobyte · · Score: 1

      That was until Thatcher killed off the unions. They had become both too powerful and too much focused on themselves and not the greater picture.

      A proper union works with the company to make things work the best for all involved; the UK unions was only working for themselves, not the workers and certainly not the company or the country.

      --
      "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
    26. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      No true Scotsman?

    27. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      Not hard to find. This looks like it has some interesting personal accounts...
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6729683.stm

    28. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      Nor does the union which at some level and some point in time begin to look out for its own interests over that of the employees. Rather than being a representative for collective bargaining, it becomes a third party at the table.

    29. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by operagost · · Score: 1

      No, Actually, they're not facts. And would you please offer evidence that I'm a "feudalist"? You're clearly an unabashed socialist; why be insulted by the mere reference?

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    30. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Hatta · · Score: 2

      No, Actually, they're not facts.

      And I suppose you know more about the situation than CNN and the WSJ? It's possible they reported incorrectly, but businesses keep financial records so it should be easy to verify. What reason do you have to doubt those assertions besides their conflict with your predetermined narrative?

      And would you please offer evidence that I'm a "feudalist"?

      Capitalism is feudalism with better PR.

      You're clearly an unabashed socialist; why be insulted by the mere reference?

      I'm not insulted by the assertion that I'm a socialist. I'm insulted by the assertion that my support is blind. It's well supported by the available facts.

      Go back and read my first post in this thread. All it did was more accurately describe the situation that actually happened, and I was able to provide references from respected journalistic sources. YOU were the one that interpreted my post as support. Why is that? Because the facts support the union, that's why.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    31. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nor does the union which at some level and some point in time begin to look out for its own interests over that of the employees. Rather than being a representative for collective bargaining, it becomes a third party at the table.

      Strawman. Everybody has their own interests, and there's actually nothing wrong with having your own interest. If we didn't have our own interests, we wouldn't need to bargain or negotiate at all (the side without self interest can just bend over)

      It is a slippery slope to say that having self interests will lead to negotiators becoming third parties at the table. You could say the same thing whenever the owners don't negotiate themselves and have their hired managers or professional negotiators do it. I mean, almost any large enough company has its own HR department to deal with employee issues, instead of the owner doing it him/herself.

      Difference is, with union reps, the employees have in theory the power to "fire" the union if the union's doing a bad job (like how the company owners can fire HR or middle management). So really, if the union does end up not representing the employees and become a third party, it's the employees' own negligence. This falls in line with the idea that employees should fend for themselves and be responsible for their own consequences.

    32. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by Richy_T · · Score: 1

      Haha. Right...

    33. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by betterprimate · · Score: 1

      AP is bias and WSJ is better? Wow, you have fucking lost it. The only reason WSJ and FoxNews are deemed as news *is because of AP*. Their reporting comes from AP, the rest is biased editorials.

    34. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by overmod · · Score: 1

      I was in Memphis when this all happened, and the word there, which I think is correct, is that a bakers' union held out for a strike after other unions involved had made concessions, etc. And those unions were more angry with the bakers than they were with management.

      Those unions had access to the company's books, and their understanding of the financial position of the company based on that access led to their making the concessions that the bakers' union would not. (I also recall that the bakers didn't choose to believe the company, and did not bother to check whether or not it was true... this was not so much a management-union issue as a stupid union issue. Just don't go tarring all of the unions involved for what one union did.

    35. Re:Union negotiators screwed up by zidium · · Score: 1

      A most fascinating read! Thank you!

      --
      Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
  46. Glorious indeed by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Welcome back, Type II Diabetes. We have missed you.

    --
    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
  47. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    Pointing out how terrible something is for you != banning it.

  48. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why so worried about what other people do?

  49. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mod up or Down? Frankly, it's a good law and I would like to see it implemented nation wide.~

    FTFY.

    Seriously, that law does nothing to stop over-consumption. How can you say that a law that does nothing is a.... OH! I see what you did there.

  50. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by smooth+wombat · · Score: 2

    Ahh yes, because one's lack of self-control is the reason we should implement a law telling a company what size cup they can serve their drinks in.

    Should we tell car manufacturers their cars can't go faster than 75 mph too while we're at it?*

    Again, we're trying to find a technical solution to a human problem.

    * Have to make sure to get in the car analogy

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  51. Ramen Noodles are the Geek Food Staple! by Virtucon · · Score: 1

    Because true geeks can't afford Twinkies.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  52. Misread negotiating position by sjbe · · Score: 1

    No, they went bankrupt because their sales were cratering.

    A company only goes bankrupt from falling sales if costs do not fall in proportion. Hostess had heavy debt loads, high labor costs (both management and union), and apparently heavy pension obligations as well. Their costs (of which union labor was a big component) did not fall fast enough to keep up.

    Their 2011 sales were 28% lower than what they did in 2004.

    So that means they needed to cut costs by 28%. A portion of that is going to come from labor when you are talking percentages that big. The fact that they had made prior concessions is irrelevant so long as sales continued to fall.

    The funny part is years before the bankruptcy the unions had already agreed to allow thousands of jobs to be cut and millions in benefits as well.

    I fully concur that the management did a horrible job and apparently wasn't negotiating in good faith. However the union screwed up bad. They went on strike thinking and the response was to liquidate the company. That means the unions BADLY misread the strength of their negotiating position. If they go on strike and the company liquidates, the union cannot escape blame. The main cause of the bankruptcy very probably was not the unions but pretending they didn't play any role is frankly naive. Unions never make labor costs lower. The unions basically cut their own throat here.

    1. Re:Misread negotiating position by Desler · · Score: 1

      So that means they needed to cut costs by 28%. A portion of that is going to come from labor when you are talking percentages that big. The fact that they had made prior concessions is irrelevant so long as sales continued to fall.

      The union conceded what was around a 30% reduction in labor costs to heed off the first trip to bankruptcy and then the management demanded them take another 27-32% cut on top of that a few years later. It's not the union's failt they weren't willing to shoulder the entirety of the cuts while management dicked around.

    2. Re:Misread negotiating position by sjbe · · Score: 2

      It's not the union's failt they weren't willing to shoulder the entirety of the cuts while management dicked around.

      Actually it is their fault. The union could have conceded more but chose not to. They chose to take the risk of liquidation and they came up snake eyes. They let their ego get in front of their BATNA. Given the financial position of the company management clearly held all the cards in this negotiation. I genuinely feel bad for the union employees since the management seems to have been a bunch of douchebags but they made the choice to risk unemployment over further cuts.

    3. Re:Misread negotiating position by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The banks could have conceded more but chose not to. They chose to take the risk of mortgage default and they came up snake eyes. They let their ego get in front of their BATNA. Given the financial position of the banks, homeowners clearly held all the cards in this negotiation.

      (Banks,The Union) had a signed contract. (Homeowners,Management) had signed away more than they could afford. (Homeowners,Management) asked for modifications to the contract. (Banks,The Union) refused. Shit hit the fan. (Banks,The Union) complained that those evil (Homeowners,Management) ruined everything.

      It's interesting how you can swap just two pairs of words and get the exact same situation up to this point. And yet, after the swap, the outcome changes drastically:

      The government gave (Banks,Union members) money in the form of (TARP,Unemployment). While (Democrats,Republicans) were angry with the (Banks,Union), (everyone but the bankers,Republicans) were angry about the resulting bailout.

    4. Re:Misread negotiating position by crioca · · Score: 1

      Actually it is their fault. The union could have conceded more but chose not to

      How exactly? Wages had been cut from 45k to 35k, now the executive was asking to cut that by another 30%. How would these workers continue to afford to pay their bills after having their wages effectively cut in half? In what world is it the union's fault that the executive mismanaged the company so badly that they couldn't afford to pay their workers a livable wage?

    5. Re:Misread negotiating position by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some day, we're going to get access to the NSA data, we're all going to know who you people are, and ensure that you end up penniless and your children do to till the 4th generation for collaborating with those who have been robbing us blind for 40-50 years.

      Sleep well, thug.

    6. Re:Misread negotiating position by fibonacci8 · · Score: 1

      Actually, if we now have a control group of the management without the union, we can now observe whether it's management's fault if/when there's another round of borrowing too much followed by another bankruptcy.

      --
      Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
    7. Re:Misread negotiating position by sjbe · · Score: 1

      How exactly? Wages had been cut from 45k to 35k, now the executive was asking to cut that by another 30%. How would these workers continue to afford to pay their bills after having their wages effectively cut in half?

      No one said it would be a comfortable experience. But they did have that choice. They had the choice between having wages cut in half or wages going to zero. Last time I checked, half is still greater than zero. Pretty hard to pay your bills with no job at all.

      In what world is it the union's fault that the executive mismanaged the company so badly that they couldn't afford to pay their workers a livable wage?

      It's partly (in fact probably mostly) the management's fault but the union is not blameless here. It sounds like the union was fighting for wages instead of fighting for a healthy company. If I'm the union negotiator and management comes to me and says I need a 30% drop in every employee's wages, my response is going to be to ask for an equity stake in the company in lieu of pay and a seat on the board of directors. Give up pay but ask for control and participation in the upside. The union didn't apparently demand a deal like this and thus pretty much cut their own throat.

    8. Re:Misread negotiating position by crioca · · Score: 1

      No one said it would be a comfortable experience.

      Comfortable don't enter into it. How are they supposed to live? If you've been supporting a family on 45k, How do you suppose to support them on half of that?

      But they did have that choice. They had the choice between having wages cut in half or wages going to zero.

      If we want to talk about choices how about the executives choices to purchase a company and then immediately start loading it up with debt? How about the choice to give themselves pay rises while the company fell apart under their watch?

      Last time I checked, half is still greater than zero. Pretty hard to pay your bills with no job at all.

      Not being able to pay your bills on 20k is still not able to pay your bills. What exactly aren't you getting about that? But where do you suppose the union draws the line? 10k? 5k? This is exactly there are social safety nets.

      It sounds like the union was fighting for wages instead of fighting for a healthy company.

      It's not the union's job to manage the company. That is management's job. And they're paid a hell of a lot more than anyone in the union for it.

      If I'm the union negotiator and management comes to me and says I need a 30% drop in every employee's wages, my response is going to be to ask for an equity stake in the company in lieu of pay and a seat on the board of directors.

      Yeah, they'd have literally laughed in your face. I don't think you understand what happened here; the company was bought by vulture capitalists, loaded up with debt and when the creditors came calling they literally held the company to ransom so they could look the worker's pensions and their salaries. Even in a refinancing negotiation where the board gives a shit about the company you'd get laughed at.

      The union didn't apparently demand a deal like this and thus pretty much cut their own throat.

      Because 1) it'd never happen and 2) it'd still be a shitty deal for the workers.

    9. Re:Misread negotiating position by sjbe · · Score: 1

      Comfortable don't enter into it. How are they supposed to live? If you've been supporting a family on 45k, How do you suppose to support them on half of that?

      Cut expenses. Just because you are used to a certain standard of living (modest though it may be) doesn't mean you can't live on less. I have lived on considerably less than $45K/year in the not very distant past. Any claim that they cannot live on less is nonsense. I don't think they should have to but sometimes life isn't kind. You make do for as long as you have to and you look for employment elsewhere if you still can't make ends meet. Frankly, given how shitty this company was run I can't really imagine why anyone would stay longer than absolutely necessary. This wasn't exactly an overnight revelation. They've known for years that the company way in trouble.

      Not being able to pay your bills on 20k is still not able to pay your bills. What exactly aren't you getting about that? But where do you suppose the union draws the line? 10k? 5k? This is exactly there are social safety nets.

      Because you can pay SOME bills on $20K. You can buy yourself time to find another job. You slow the bleeding. Yes it sucks but being unemployed doesn't make the situation any better and unemployment payments are considerably less than $20K. The union did draw the line and the company was liquidated as a result. It sucks

      It's not the union's job to manage the company. That is management's job. And they're paid a hell of a lot more than anyone in the union for it.

      Wrong. You can't abdicate all responsibility for running the company AND demand a say in work rules, pay rates, job descriptions and the rest. A union by definition is demanding a say in the operation of the business. You don't get to have it both ways. If you want a say in the operation of the company, then it is not unreasonable to demand an ownership stake. Being an owner is hardly a fix all but at least then the union members interests are aligned with the company.

      Yeah, they'd have literally laughed in your face.

      Then they can shut the company down which happened anyway. Employee ownership is hardly a novel demand. United Airlines union negotiated an equity stake in the company. The UAW got an equity stake in GM during the bail out. The management may not agree to the demand but in this case the union loses nothing by asking.

      I don't think you understand what happened here; the company was bought by vulture capitalists, loaded up with debt and when the creditors came calling they literally held the company to ransom so they could look the worker's pensions and their salaries.

      I understand perfectly well what happened here and my point stands. You don't negotiate terms when you have a gun pointed at you. The union screwed up by not acting sooner and by not focusing on the health of the company. I'm not claiming that the union is in any way the primary responsible party for the failure of the company. They quite plainly are not. But you are wasting your breath if you think you will convince me that they do not share any of the blame for what happened.

      Because 1) it'd never happen and 2) it'd still be a shitty deal for the workers.

      It certainly could happen and how exactly do you think the workers could have gotten a worse deal than they actually did? They liquidated the company which is about as bad as it gets.

    10. Re:Misread negotiating position by betterprimate · · Score: 1

      Then that would make it management's fault. They mismanaged, plundered, and expected the union to bear the costs. There is a breaking point.

  53. What an incorrect post! by whitroth · · Score: 1

    I mean, the four food groups are sugar, carbs, chocolate and preservatives (which makes a Boston Creme donut the perfect food...).

                    mark

  54. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 0

    Why so worried about what other people do?

    Because my tax dollars pay for their healthcare.

  55. The hell with twinkies by paiute · · Score: 1

    We want the Chocodile back!

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
  56. Sno Balls Too!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't explain it, but I sometimes get a craving for one of those big pink marshmallow things. I sure hope they come back too. I haven't seen them in the stores in years.

    Around 10 years old or so, you realize they are actually bite-sized.

    yummmm....

  57. Re:Two food groups by Wonda · · Score: 1

    what's this four groups nonsense, there are only two! meat and beer

  58. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should we tell car manufacturers their cars can't go faster than 75 mph too while we're at it?*

    Bad analogy since cars are regulated to be max speed limited.

  59. Urgh... by gweihir · · Score: 1

    It the geek population in need of reduction? Again?

    These things are so horribly unhealthy, it is impressive.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  60. Little Debbie is already making identical products by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just not under the same brand names - Cloud Cakes look and taste just like Twinkies, and Cocoa Cremes look and taste just like Ding Dongs.

  61. Caffeinated Bacon Twinkie by Daetrin · · Score: 1

    Now that the possibility has been suggested, this needs to be a thing.

    --
    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  62. All new twinkies! by goffster · · Score: 4, Funny

    Same great product! Without that heavy union after-taste.

  63. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should we tell car manufacturers their cars can't go faster than 75 mph too while we're at it?*

    A more correct analogy: drunk driving is widely recognized as a significant problem so let's have the gu'mnt install breathalyzer devices into every car. Don't drink? Oh well.

  64. zombie apocalypse averted? by kimvette · · Score: 1

    It's finally official: Twinkies are coming back - Tallahassee rejoices upon hearing the news!

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  65. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by dAzED1 · · Score: 1

    like wearing seatbelts? mandating crash test ratings? etc? We can go down the route of comparing it to cars if you *really* want to...

  66. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by nbritton · · Score: 1

    Should we tell car manufacturers their cars can't go faster than 75 mph too while we're at it?*

    Works for me... "officer, you're mistaken, my car can never exceed the limit."

  67. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by AdamThor · · Score: 1

    As we continue to optimize, society will become less tolerant of sub-optimal behavior.

    --
    -- "Oh. This guy again."
  68. Spongy Bastard by cpopin · · Score: 1

    Tallahassee: "Oh, this Twinkie thing, it ain't over yet. Where are you, you spongy, yellow, delicious bastards?"

    --
    -=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
  69. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should we tell car manufacturers their cars can't go faster than 75 mph too while we're at it?

    The Internet might introduce you to the concept of speed governors.

  70. Geek food staple? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Never knew twinkies were a geek thing.
    I do like how the geek 4 food groups are in reality, the college kid's 4 food groups. Maybe everyone who goes to college is a geek.

  71. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by kwbauer · · Score: 1

    Would it be a good law if it discussed the size of your hard drive or ram sticks or monitor or whatever other piece of electronic/computer geear you want to substitute?

    Would it be a good law if it discussed the absolute size of engine in your car (or electric motor as the case may be)?

    Also, why would it have been acceptable to sell 18 ounces of soda with 2 ounces of rum mixed in but not 20 ounces of soda? Are those 2 ounces of rum really that much better for me than an extra 2 ounces of soda?

    If it was so good, why could they sell me a 2-liter bottle but not a 64 ounce cup? Are the extra ~3.6 ounces really better for me as long as they are sealed in plastic?

  72. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    most of us didnt want our tax dollars paying for your healthcare either but we got stuck with it. I for one am sick and tired of bloomberg deciding ever other day that he knows whats best for NY when he hasnt a clue. its none of your damn business how much soda i buy. why make me by 2 16 ounce cups? that just means im using 2 times as much plastic in straws, 2 times as much plastic in cup lids and around 2 times as much paper or plastic depending on the cup. I mean talk about adding more to the pollution levels. He really has not thought it through one bit

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  73. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by SecurityGuy · · Score: 1

    Your tax dollars don't pay for my healthcare. If and when they do, it won't be because I voted for it. So why do you get a right to decide what I eat again?

  74. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by ganjadude · · Score: 1

    they are not regulated to be limited but most companies do limit them. and different cars that are limited are limited at different speeds based on the car maker, not the government.

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  75. Substitute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been buying Little Debbie's Cloud Cakes, which look and taste the same to me.

    But "Twinkie" just rolls off the tongue better, know what I mean?

  76. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by kwbauer · · Score: 2

    Well... If all you do-gooder types would stop asking to pay for everyone's healthcare, maybe you wouldn't have to complain so much about everyone's lifestyle.

    Speaking of having to pay for healthcare being an excuse to control lifestyles... I hear that certain lifestyles run a much higher risk of contracting diseases that are long-term and costly to treat. Maybe we should outlaw such lifestyles on the pretext of not wanting to pay for the downstream healthcare costs. Just saying.

  77. Only in extreme circumstances. by Torodung · · Score: 1

    If it was the zombie apocalypse, the first thing I would look for, after a shotgun, is a blessed Twinkie.

    -Talahasee

  78. I'm going to .. by PPH · · Score: 1

    ... tune in to the Food Channel and get a recipe for deep fried Twinkies from Paula Deen's show ......

    ..... Damn! Rotten timing.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  79. HP Lovecraft was right! by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    I'm trying real hard to not to imagine the cows these bananaudders are from!

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  80. At the onset of this news, US Life expectancy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    dropped 3 years, as actuarial estimates predicted a spike in obesity and sugar-induced murders.

  81. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Libertarian tards crack me up

  82. What's funny by publiclurker · · Score: 1

    is that corporate whores like you think that it's OK to fuck over thousands as long as the benefits only go to a few of your masters.

    1. Re:What's funny by operagost · · Score: 0

      Keep using ad homs against your opponents; that way, you'll never be faced with putting their allegations to the test and possibly changing your own opinions.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    2. Re:What's funny by publiclurker · · Score: 1

      It's not an ad-hom when it's a statement of fact. remember, reality does not manipulate itself just because you find the truth to be unpleasant.

  83. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

    If it was so good, why could they sell me a 2-liter bottle but not a 64 ounce cup?

    And I'm still wondering how the sugar that isn't in a 64 oz cup of diet Mt. Dew merits a prohibition on selling me a 64 oz cup of diet Mt. Dew. And where the government thought it had the right to ban such a sale in the first place.

  84. Re:Geek Food Staple by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    I think this misapprehension comes from the idea that geeks work all hours and hence feed from vending machines at the office. The only problem with that theory is that I have never seen Twinkies in a vending machine, it's always some competitor's brand. You have to go outside, down the street and to the gas station to find Twinkies. Not very time-efficient at all.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  85. Twinkies? Meh. Dreamies are better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try the Mrs. Freshley's Dreamies. You'll never go back to Twinkies after that. The cake is a bit denser and has a stronger vanilla flavor. The filling is also a bit thicker and has a frosting taste. Hostess can kiss the fattest part of my... Dreamie!

  86. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

    I hear that certain lifestyles run a much higher risk of contracting diseases that are long-term and costly to treat. Maybe we should outlaw such lifestyles on the pretext of not wanting to pay for the downstream healthcare costs. Just saying.

    Yeah! This. I hear that the hetero style often results in pregnancy (a horrible debilitating disease, if you ask any woman, especially around 9 months in) and huge long-term costs as everyone pays to feed and educate the results. It should be outlawed.

  87. no luv for Dolly Madison?! by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    Little Debbie is a cheap and easy slut. Used to be a quarter a pack up until recently.
    To be fair one or two varieties are OK, but for most of them, the "icing" is waxy and greasy.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:no luv for Dolly Madison?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I didn't mind that in college, as I was also waxy and greasy. I mostly ate the chocolate-peanut butter wafer things, which I would usually disassemble into individual wafers (like I did with Kit Kats). The cream pies were my long-standing favorite until one day I ate enough that I got nauseous.

  88. Spaulding Krullers by Mike+Morgan · · Score: 1

    I've never had a Twinkie, and I'm fairly certain I qualify as a geek. I just wish they'd bring back Spaulding Kruller donuts.

    --
    -USR1
  89. And THE BEST part of this story is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After all of those bastard union workers forced their employers into going bankrupt, and claiming that the assets would be bought and that they would keep their jobs, the fact is that those assholes lost their jobs and the new company is UNION FREE!! God Blessed America!

  90. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Why is this modded down to -1, Troll when it's sparked such a conversation and has so many replies? Mod parent up, damnit.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  91. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why are any cars able to go over the speed limit? in this day and age, with all the technology, it'd be easy as fuck to implement, so why hasn't it?

  92. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The fake sugar is worse for you anyways, so they are doing you a favor?

  93. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Cinder6 · · Score: 1

    Mod up or Down? Frankly, it's a good law and I would like to see it implemented nation wide.

    And how do you propose to enforce it? What's stopping someone from buying multiple, smaller drinks? (Hint: Nothing. Even if you implement a max soda purchase limit per customer, they can always go to another shop and get more there. It really is a completely idiotic law of the highest order.)

    I don't think people should drink 64oz sodas, but I also don't think it's any of my damn business, and I have no right to dictate what people drink. I say this as a teetotaler who also hasn't had soda or caffeine in almost 10 years.

    --
    If you can't convince them, convict them.
  94. Re: calories per dollar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A store-brand loaf of bread is 1000 calories to the dollar. Suddenly your 300 calories per dollar doesn't sound like a very wise investment. (Yeah, yeah: bread is missing vitamins, complete proteins, and you still have to find energy to cook it, etc. But your PBR is also missing those nutrients too, and you still need energy to cool it.)

    If you have access to a stove, you can make your own bread a lot cheaper: A 48oz bottle of store-brand vegetable oil is 4100 calories per dollar, and a 25-lb sack of store-brand flour is 4500 calories per dollar. (A 5 lb sack of sugar is 2900 calories per dollar, but you'll barely use any sugar. You'll also need salt and yeast; salt will cost $0.001 per loaf of bread, and yeast will cost you less than $0.03 per loaf of bread.)

    If you want complete proteins, how about this: An 8lb sack of pinto beans is only 11 calories per dollar, but a 20lb sack of white rice is 3,200 calories per dollar. Following the serving size guidelines on the packages (35g beans and 45g rice), you get a mixture that's 1900 calories per dollar and provides you with all the essential amino acids.

    Or you could make your own bread/tortillas and serve with beans and rice for something in the 3000+ calorie per dollar; so if you're ever broke, you now know how to survive on a $15/mo food budget (assuming you still have access to a stove).

  95. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by scot4875 · · Score: 2

    You were paying for everybody's healthcare already in about the most inefficient way possible (ER visits), you're just too dumb to know it.

    --Jeremy

    --
    Jesus was a liberal
  96. Who eats Twinkies? by jowifi · · Score: 1

    Anyone who has had a Tastykake knows better that to eat Twinkies.

  97. The management wasn't incompetent by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've got MOD points but I can't let this slide. The management was very, very competent. It's just they were after something other than a successful company. To wit: The Pension Fund. The hard part about stealing a pension fund is doing it legally. It requires enormous skill, business and legal knowledge to do it.

    What Hostess' management did wasn't just mismanagement, it was a complete lack of management. The bought the company, paid themselves just well enough to stay within the bounds of legality, and then ignored the company entirely. They put no effort into expanding, into controlling and managing the supply chain, or into anything else. Then they sat back, waiting for the company to die and used the pension to pay back the creditors they'd racked up debt with.

    The last part that makes it all nice and legal is when a judge ruled that the creditors get paid before employees do. If you paid your own cash money into your pension while working at Hostess you literally got robbed. As an added bonus they killed a major Union without any bad press.

    But nobody talks about that. All they talk about is playing an imaginary game of chicken. FYI: You can't win a game that the other side isn't really playing.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  98. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by kaatochacha · · Score: 1

    I hear computer monitors cause cancer. Get off now!
    I'm paying for your eyeballs!

  99. I'm old enough to remember what Coke did by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    to Unions in South America. Mostly because it wasn't wasn't that long ago...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  100. Re: defectum scelerisque by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've heard that defectum scelerisque (hint: translate from Latin) is fatal, but it has been nearly eradicated in most first world countries because it can be easily prevented with daily consumption of chocolate.

  101. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And where the government thought it had the right to ban such a sale in the first place.

    Because it, like marijuana, is bad for you.

  102. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by Danga · · Score: 1

    The new system is even worse, prove me wrong.

    --
    Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
  103. Re:coffee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here in Italy, normal coffee prices range between an espresso for 0.80€ at very cheap bars and/or in cheap cities to 1.20€, at classy (or greedy) expensive bars; Starbucks price ranges are an exotic unreality, like Starbucks stores themselves (the closest one I've been to is in Vienna).
    Coffee quality is rather constant for each bar, but not correlated with price; competence of personnel, rent costs and number of customers are particularly independent variables.

  104. Yep, Too Tasty to Fail! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can all use that line...

  105. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by slim · · Score: 1

    I'm with you. I hate /. pandering to the "geeks are overweight slobs who spend all day in darkened basement and eat nothing but Twinkies, pizza and Cheetos" stereotype.

    Any real geek knows that in order to do your best thinking, you need to eat reasonably healthily, and do a certain amount of exercise.

    "Geek food staple"? Bollocks.

  106. Geek or Greek? by tmjva · · Score: 1

    Apollo Global Management? Metropoulous?

    I suspect olive oil will be substituted for fat!

    Parapolee Kala!

    --
    Tracy Johnson
    Old fashioned text games hosted below:
    http://empire.openmpe.com/
    BT
  107. Diabeetus by DiEx-15 · · Score: 1

    I have the 'beetus. So I never really ate many of them in my lifetime.

    However, it is great that they are coming back because they were one of my favorite "cheat" foods. I could make them last 4 or more days by cutting them in half and freezing the parts. Whenever I wanted a cheat and my blood glucose allowed it, I'd warm of a half and enjoy.

  108. mega dollar? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why in the world call it a mega dollar? no one says that. it's a million.

  109. gross by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why is this article seem to celebrate the return of the twinkie?

    not sure what makes them a "geek food". twinkles arguably taste gross and are definitely terrible for you. i was glad they were discontinued.

    seriously, who eats twinkies except for fatass depressed losers?

    1. Re:gross by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, a troll on The Internet. You don't see that everyday.

  110. Re:..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

    He didn't point out that it was terrible, except for calling it crap, a generic term. He did say that "nobody should even be eating" it, similar to the sentiments expressed by Bloomberg about many things, just before he tries to make it a law. The comparison was apt.

    Oh, and it was a throwaway joke, but thanks for overanalyzing it.

  111. Re: ..and this is ./-worthy news, how? by DexterIsADog · · Score: 1

    Speaking of having to pay for healthcare being an excuse to control lifestyles... I hear that certain lifestyles run a much higher risk of contracting diseases that are long-term and costly to treat. Maybe we should outlaw such lifestyles on the pretext of not wanting to pay for the downstream healthcare costs. Just saying.

    You want to outlaw obesity? Smoking? Awesome! Right on!

    Oh, you meant gay men? That's not a lifestyle, that's how they were born. If you meant you'd outlaw promiscuity without condoms, regardless of sexuality, you'd at least be a little closer.