Archive for the In the News category
May 8th, 2007
Some days I’m really glad the doctors told me not to eat red meat.
The Maine Department of Agriculture says a Greene company is voluntarily recalling nearly a ton of beef. Bubier Farms says nearly 2,000 pounds of beef may be contaminated with fecal matter, a common source of E-Coli bacteria.
State officials say 1,936 pounds of beef may be contaminated with fecal material, as well as other contaminants. The problem was discovered by a federal inspector earlier this week. Officials say the inspector found fecal matter and hair on slabs of beef inside a cooler at Bubier Meats.
Bubier meats is a
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Tags: beef, red meat, food contamination e. coli, Bubier Farms, Maine Department of Agriculture, Maine
April 24th, 2007
I know that there are some people who would call me a little hippy-dippy when the subject of food comes up. I mean, I’m a psuedo-vegetarian, who’s doctors have officially made it official, I shop organic and support local farming, I like yogurt and soy, I’ve spent quite a bit of time ranting about Mad Cow Disease and how little testing the U.S.A. actually does on it’s food supply, and last Summer I spent spent a lot of effort worrying about what gets put into my pets’ food.
I’m glad I worry about nutrition and health and not just my health but my loved ones’ health too.
I know, I know, some of you less compassionate people who don’t see pets as family members, are saying, but those 16 confirmed cat and dog deaths were just animal deaths and those thousands of sick cats and dogs? They weren’t people. It’s not like the screw-up affected people.
‘Cuz that wouldn’t happen.
Except remember the tainted peanut butter and then there was that spinach that was making everyone sick?
Are you ready for this?
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Tags: none
December 27th, 2006
When I was a vegetarian in the early to mid-1990’s, it was never about animal rights or some ideal cause. In fact, I had great fun on mailing lists and newsgroups, stirring up the vegan and vegetarians who were all about “not eating anything with a face” or “animals are our friends, we don’t eat our friends!” Basically, I was a vegetarian because I was just plain tired of eating meat — even the smell of it made me feel a bit ill.
This is not to say that I don’t respect people who do actually become vegetarians because
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Tags: vegetarianism, vegetarian, pescetarian, cloned animals, Peter Clement, FDA
December 20th, 2006
- Detained In Iraq by Brendan Skwire @ All Spin Zone; another American abused for doing “the right thing” by a system that has become dangerous for Americans and nonAmericans alike. I bet he thinks twice before he acts so heroically in the future.
Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.
“Even Saddam Hussein had more legal counsel than I ever had,” said Mr. Vance, who said he planned to sue the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on grounds that his constitutional rights had been violated. “While we were detained, we wrote a letter to the camp commandant stating that the same democratic ideals we are trying to instill in the fledgling democratic country of Iraq, from simple due process to the Magna Carta, we are absolutely, positively refusing to follow ourselves.”
- Detainee Abuse by Tim F. @ Balloon Juice; more on Donald Vance
American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.
The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.
- Our path to ‘victory’ ends in defeat by Mark Morford @ SFGate.com
It’s not like we were overpowered. We weren’t outmanned or outgunned or outstrategized, hence we weren’t defeated in any “traditional,” kick-ass, take-names, sign-the-peace-accord way.
It wasn’t because our can’t-lose military didn’t have the latest and greatest killing tools of all time, the biggest budget, the most heroic of baffled and misled young soldiers sort of but not really willing to go off and fight and die for a cause no one could adequately explain or justify to them.
We still have the coolest, fastest planes. We still have the meanest billion-dollar technology. We still have the most imposing tanks and the most incredible weaponry and the badass night-vision goggles with the laser sights and the thermal heat-seeking readouts and the ability to track targets from 2 miles away in a dust storm. It doesn’t matter.
What we don’t have is any idea what we’re doing, not anymore, not on the global stage. We lost this “war” and we lost it before we even began because we went in for all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong planning and with all the wrong leadership who had all the wrong motives based on all the wrong greedy self-serving insular faux cowboy BS that your kids and your grandkids will be paying for until about the year 2056.
Maybe you don’t agree. Maybe you say, “Wait, wait, wait, it’s not over at all, and we haven’t lost yet. Isn’t the fighting still raging? Can’t we still ‘win’ even though we’re still losing soldiers by the truckload and thousands of innocent Iraqis are being brutally slaughtered every month and isn’t Dubya still standing there, brow scrunched and confounded as a monkey clinging onto a shiny razor blade, refusing to let go and free us from the deadly trap, ignoring the Iraq Study Group and trying to figure out a way to stay the course and never give in and “mission accomplished” even as every single human around him, from the top generals to crusty old James Baker to the new and shockingly honest secretary of defense, says we are royally screwed and Iraq is now a vicious and chaotic civil war and it’s officially one of the worst disasters in American history?” Oh wait, you just answered your own question.
Yes, technically, the war is still on. The fighting is not over. And, yes, you can even say we (brutally, tactlessly) installed ourselves with sufficient ego to give us a modicum of violent, volatile control over the gulf region’s remaining petroleum reserves — which was, of course, much of the point in the first place.
But the nasty us-versus-them, good-versus-evil ideology is over. Ditto the numb sense of Bush’s brutally simpleminded American “justice.” Any lingering hint of anything resembling a truly valid and lucid and deeply patriotic reason for wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of lives and roughly an entire generation’s worth of international respect? Gone.
What’s left is one lingering, looming question: How do we accept defeat? How do we deal with the awkward, identity-mauling, ego-stomping idea that, once again, America didn’t “win” a war it really had no right to launch in the first place? After all, isn’t this the American slogan: “We may not always be right, but we are never wrong”?
It’s still our most favorite idea, the thing our own childlike president loves to talk most about, burned into our national consciousness like a bad tattoo: We always win. We’re the good guys. We’re the chosen ones. We’re the goddamn cavalry, flying the flag of truth, wrapped in strip malls and Ford pickups and McDonald’s franchises. Right?
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Tags: detainees, Donald Vance, Iraq, terrorism, violence, soldiers of fortune, private military, torture
November 8th, 2006
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Election 2006
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Tags: 2006 election, Republicans, Contract with America, Contress, ethics, scandal, Democrats, negative political ads, election tampering, politics, factcheck.org, DHS, TSA, passports, Hasan Elahi, FBI, mental illness, anxiety, depression
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November 1st, 2006
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Tales of the Detainee Kind
- The Case Of Bilal Hussein — Justin Gardner @ Donklephant reports on Bilal Hussein, an AP war photographer, accused by the U.S. military of helping some insurgents kidnap a couple journalists. Only those journalists have been rescued and they say Hussein is a hero. The AP wants to know why he’s been detained since April with no charges having been filed against him while right-wing bloggers call for his head.
Six months is more than enough time to get some facts together and make a case against Hussein. The military hasn’t done that, and they should…or else they should release Hussein without charge.
As Gardner points out, Hussein isn’t the first journalist to be treated as such.
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Tags: detainees, Bilal Hussein, Abdul Rahim Al Ginco, Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, al-Qaeda, Insurrection Act, FEMA, Lynne Cheney, Bill O'Reilly, liberals, rightwingers, patriotism, pragmatism, American soldiers, Republicans, Democrats, GOP, Georgia, Genital Cutting, abortion, pro-choice, pro-life, TSA, airport security, bomb-making materials, Christopher Soghoian, Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, Indiana University, fake boarding passes, Ed Markey, FBI, Police State
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Politics & Causes, In the News, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, The World, 9-11 & Terrorism, Iraq & Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, Natural Disasters, Women's Rights, The Middle East
October 31st, 2006
Travel In America
- Homeland Absurdity – Jill @ Brilliant at Breakfast reports that the difference between life and death is a ziploc bag apparently…
There you have it: Tiny containers of hand sanitizer in zip-lock bags are harmless and approved. Those not in zip-lock bags are dangerous contraband. Meanwhile, the TSA still cannot justify its methods of confiscation: If certain liquids and gels are taken from a passenger, the assumption has to be that those materials are potentially hazardous. If so, why are they tossed unceremoniously into the trash? At every checkpoint you’ll see a bin or barrel brimming with illegal containers. They are not quarantined or handed over to the bomb squad; they are thrown away. In effect, the agency readily admits that it knows these things are harmless. But it’s going to steal them anyway, and either you like it or you don’t fly.
What the Fuck Are They Thinking?
- UK retailer to little girls:”Let’s have a lap dance over here, luv!” — Twisty @ I Blame The Patriarchy has a commentary on Tesco’s plans to market a striptease toy to five-year-olds for Christmas this year. Kid you not. How sick is that. I thought thongs for four-year-olds was bad enough, but you’ll be able to buy a toy sexy chrome pole, a CD with sexy music, and ”Peekaboo Dance Dollars” to stuff in a toy “sexy dance garter” to “Unleash the sex kitten inside” (quoth the Tesco website). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: WAL-Mart, Ziploc, TSA, Tesco, airport security, U.K. striptease, Voting Irregularities, Texas, Florida, Virginia, James Webb, Democrats, Republicans, Missouri, Arkansas, censorship, bloggers, Iran, Tunisia, China, Vietnam, Amnesty International, human rights
October 18th, 2006
Since several of us on the blogosphere were just discussing the use of iPods/MP3 players in public and their effect on society, I found this article to timely…considering it’s another more permenant effect and all.
NEW YORK (Reuters) — Listening to loud music with earphones on a digital music player for more than 90 minutes a day can damage your hearing, according to a new study.
The study of 100 doctoral students concluded that people who listened to music at 80 percent of volume capacity, at which point the sound is considered loud, should keep it to under 90 minutes a day.
“If a person exceeds that on one particular day and happens not to use their headphones for the rest of the week, they’re at no higher risk,” study author Brian Fligor told Reuters. “I’m talking about someone who’s exceeding 80 percent for 90 minutes day after day, month after month, for years.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: iPod, MP3, hearing loss, music, earphones
October 10th, 2006
Over the weekend, I saw a segment on Today Weekend Edition which must have been filler leftover from their show on “Take Your Dog To Work Week” back in June. However, I was attracted to the story because it focused on workplaces that are pet-friendly all year round, not just one day a year.
According to this national poll of working Americans 18 years of age and over, nearly one in five U.S. companies allows pets at work. And, a majority of those polled believe there are benefits to having pets at work such as relieving stress, improving relationships with coworkers, making for a happier workforce and creating a happier work environment.
According to the survey:
- 55 million Americans believe having pets in the workplace leads to a more creative environment
- 53 million believe having pets in the workplace decreases absenteeism
- 50 million believe having pets in the workplace helps co-workers get along better
- 38 million believe having pets in the workplace creates a more productive work environment
- 32 million believe having pets in the workplace decreases smoking in the workplace
- 37 million believe having pets in the workplace helps improve the relationship between managers and their employees
- And, 46 million people who bring their pets to the workplace work longer hours! [APPMA]
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Tags: pets in the workplace
October 3rd, 2006
On Terror-steria
mass hysteria
n. A socially contagious frenzy of irrational behavior in a group of people as a reaction to an event.
- The Suntan Menace — The Cunning Realist writes about another incident in our friendly skies where an innocent man is assumed by other passengers to be a terrorist because of “suspicious activities” like going to the toilet when he got on the plane and having an iPod. The most damning piece of evidence was the color of his skin, which was tanned due to the vacation the Jewish father of three
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Tags: John Batiste, Senate Democratic Policy Committee, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Iraq, War, stay the course, adapting to win, propaganda, American soldiers, Middle East, Seth Stein, American Airlines, mass hysteria, terrorism, rogue state, The American Prospect, CBS News, torture, War Crimes Act, Geneva Convention, Congress, Seattle, Tamil, TSA, Kip Hawley, leftist terrorist agenda, NIE report, Guantanamo Bay
September 20th, 2006
- Thank a Democrat for Lower Gas Prices — Richard Cranium @ The All Spin Zone reminds us that it was Democratic Party Congressional candidate Larry Kissell who held a campaign rally at a gas station in Biscoe, NC on August 3rd to remind voters that the price of gasoline was $1.22/gallon when the GOP incumbent in his district took office. Ever since then, the price of gas has been dropping nationwide.
With third quarter oil industry profit statements due out just before the upcoming elections, it’s pretty easy to assume that the Gouging Oil Party boys in the backroom figured that something had to be done, even if (for the oil companies) it meant taking a bit of a hit on the bottom line for a few months. Ergo, gasoline prices have dropped by nearly 30% in the space of a couple of weeks, even as BP’s shutdown of their Alaskan pipeline continues, and middle east tensions continue apace, and (strangely) the cost of a barrel of crude has dropped by maybe 10%. The good news is that, based on my own water cooler conversation, even the most hard core neocons in our midst understand the play.
So, the next time you fill up your tank and you don’t have to sign over a second mortgage on house to do it, remember that Democratic Party congressional candidate Larry Kissell from NC-8, is more responsible for the drop in prices than anyone else on the planet. Here’s an idea on how to thank Larry: take $10 of that gas savings, and drop it in Larry’s campaign bucket.
- Gas Prices a Republican Dirty Trick — Becky @ Preemptive Karma takes a different look at how the Republicans are using their Big Oil friends to lower gas prices before the 2006 election.
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Tags: gas prices, oil industry, privacy, CIA, CIA Interrogation Program, George W. Bush, Article 3, Geneva Convention, Congress, John Warner, Colin Powell, Jack Vessey, Lindsay Graham, John McCain, POW, torture, detainees, terrorism, White House, politics, anthrax, 9/11, phobic nation, J. Edgar Hoover, FBI, Martin Luther King Jr., Iraq, International Red Cross, Maher Arar, Canada, Syria, JFK Airport
September 13th, 2006
- The 9/11 Timeline — To mark the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, ThinkProgress has created a comprehensive timeline documenting the key events since September 11, 2001. Their timeline charts five threads:
- The steady increase in international terrorism and the growth of al Qaeda
- The campaign to block and obstruct the work of the 9/11 Commission, and the failure to carry out the commission’s recommendations
- The failure to stablize and rebuild Afghanistan
- The downgrading of the hunt for Osama bin Laden
- The steady decline of America’s image abroad
- ABC’s ‘Path’ Not Taken — Ruth Marcus @ TheWashingtonPost.com writes a scathing review of ABC’s “Path to 9/11″ mini-series that was fraught with inaccuracies and blantant flaws.
The docudrama is an inherently flawed form, one that invites embroidery. The irony of “The Path to 9/11″ is that this dramatic license was so unnecessary, given the richly detailed narrative in a document available to the docudrama’screators. It was called “The 9/11 Commission Report.”
Hat tip: John in DC @ AmericaBlog
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Tags: terrorism, ABC, Keith Olbermann, George W. Bush, 9/11, Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Memorial, World Trade Center, Mark Juergensmeyer, al-Qaeda, 9/11 Commission, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, Condi Rice, George Tenet, Saddam Hussein, al-Zarqawi
September 11th, 2006
Remembering the Day
- For Thou Art With Us — Sarah Bunting @ TomatoNation.com was there.
We come up the rise to the corner where a crowd of people has gathered, all looking up, and the towers come into view — the south tower closer to us and to the left. “Ohhh, man,” we both say, and “Jeeeesus Christ,” and “This is not good. This is not good at all. This is fuckin’ bad.” So dumb. So dull. We sound like frat boys when the keg is dry, but there’s nothing else we can say about what we’ve got in front of us. In front of us, high above us, the south tower has a huge hole torn through it, a burning, screaming maw with thick black smoke pouring out. Occasionally, flames lick up one corner of the twisted mouth of the hole and then retreat, only to reappear on the other side. It doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t even seem that serious at first, actually, until I remember just how big the building is, how many stories high — and that the hole must therefore cover twelve stories, at least. “This isn’t the kind of history I want to be present at,” I say, lamely, to Bob. “Me neither,” he says.
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Tags: 9/11, World Trade Center, terrorism, New York, American flag, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, Conspiracy Theories, George W. Bush, Matt Lauer, Rudy Giuliani, ABC, tragedy, patriotism, Ground Zero, We Will Never Forget, al-Qaeda, CIA, Pakistan, Taliban, Joint Special Operations Command, NSA, National Counterterrorism Center, Tora Bora, al-Zawahiri, Paul Krugman, NATO, Bill Clinton, Rush Limbaugh, Pentagon, healthcare, Iraq
September 9th, 2006
A Little Fun First
- Thursday Thirteen #2 — ribbiticus @ Pond Perspective offers some gems of advice. Here are my favorites:
5. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
10. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
11. We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
12. A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
13. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
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Tags: Thursday Thirteen, Crayons, terrorism, Logan Airport, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Congress, wiretapping, Osama bin Laden, Mother Jones, liberals, 9/11, religion, aetheists, women, virginity, Journal of Sex Research Western soceity, involuntary virgins, economy, America
September 8th, 2006
If you’ve never been fired or laid off, then you can’t begin to imagine the feeling. Every situation is different.
One of my friends who went through a lay off came into work one morning and everyone who had boxes on their desks were told to pack up and go home.
For me, I was told that after six years I was incapable of doing my job and then treated like a criminal, not allowed back near my desk as the boss who hated me went through my belongings, even my purse, and boxed up my things. I had to wait in
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Tags: fired, job recovery
September 6th, 2006
- Due to last month’s terror alert, British Airways is claiming a £40m ($75.9m) loss. Between August 10th and 17th, it cancelled 1,280 flights and incurred costs of hotels, catering and recovering baggage for stranded passengers. [“ BA says terror alert cost it £40m” (BBC News)]
- “A coalition of 300 Iraqi tribal leaders on Saturday demanded the release of Saddam Hussein so he could reclaim the presidency and also called for armed resistance against U.S.-led forces.” Yikes! [“A Demand for Hussein’s Release” (WashingtonPost.com)]
- On the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, CNN will replay their coverage of the day’s
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Tags: British Airways, airport security, terror alert, Saddam Hussein, Iraq, 9/11, CNN, WTC
September 4th, 2006
Women’s Rights
- Class warfare at Starbucks — lambert @ CorrenteWire writes about how class warfare starts over breast milk. Companies are far more likely to be accomodating to executive mothers who need breaks during the day to pump breast milk, but the women who work in the stores and “on the line” have to “barricade themselves in small restrooms intended for customers, counting the minutes left in their breaks.” There’s a lot of pressure to breast-feed in this day and age, but it’s easy to get discouraged and give up under less than ideal conditions.
- A Mystery From the Time When Abortion Was Illegal and Dangerous — olvlzl @ ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES remembers a horrible, deadly practice from the pre-Roe era — infanticide.
The woman who owned the trunk was in her 60s in 1983. The papers say she was called a “pillar of the community” when she lived in the area. People who remembered her said that at the time the babies had been killed she often appeared to be pregnant but she never had children. The authorities found her but she wouldn’t say anything about the trunk. I don’ t know of any legal pressure put on her to talk. The fact that there were five corpses of infants wrapped in newspapers from different years certainly suggests serial infanticide, not a misdemeanor in anyone’s book.
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Tags: Starbucks, Women's Rights, breastfeeding, class warfare, abortion, baby snuffer, infancticide, Islamofascism, propaganda, War on Terror, WWII, Osama bin Laden, Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq, Domino Theory, Hitler, whistleblowers, Russell Tice, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Department of Justice, 101st Fighting Keyboarders, Fox News, David Warren, Debbie Schussel, Kathleen Parker, Mark Steyn, Glenn Greenwald, hypocrisy
September 4th, 2006
In case you’ve missed it yesterday…
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi forces have arrested the second most senior operative in al-Qaida Iraq, and the group now suffers from a “serious leadership crisis,” the national security adviser said Sunday. [“No. 2 al-Qaida leader in Iraq” (Yahoo!News)]
If you were like me when you heard the news, you were probably trying to figure out how many #2 al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq there are that are because it seems like they’re making this announcement every month or so. It turns out someone has been keeping track and yesterday’s arrest makes 39.
Yesterday the Iraqi
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Tags: al-Qaeda, Iraq, propaganda
September 4th, 2006
Australian naturalist and television personality Steve Irwin has been killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast.
Mr Irwin, 44, died after being struck in the chest by the stingray’s barb while he was filming a documentary in Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. [“‘Crocodile Hunter’ Irwin killed” (BBC News)]
He had a wife and two kids and seemed to have an endless amount of curiousity and energy. He will be remembered and missed.
Tags: Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin