Month: February 2008

Beef recall? Can it *really* be that bad?

So, maybe you’ve heard about the huge, nation-wide beef recall? Maybe you don’t know just why this is happening. And maybe you are wondering, well just how bad could it really be?

A disturbing video of cows too sick to walk being pulled to their feet by chains in order to pass slaughterhouse inspections has prompted the largest recall of beef in American history.

. . .

The undercover footage, obtained by the Humane Society of the United States, shows workers kicking crippled cows, spraying them with water and using electric shocks, trucks and chains to force the cattle to walk and pass USDA inspection.

. . .

The recall covers beef produced since February 2006 and distributed nationwide to wholesalers for use in products such as burrito filling, meatballs and sausage.

Of course, a lot, probably most of the beef in question has already been consumed. But if you weren’t already wary of beef, maybe this will help you to think about your food before you buy it. I love me some beef, but I rarely eat it any more. This recall is making me appreciate not having any lately.

Oh, and why the hell is it that the best story I can find about a US product recall is from a British news site?

[tags]Beef, Recall, USDA, Mmmmm[/tags]

My littlest singing

Here’s a pic of my littlest one pretending to be grown up and singing in church a couple weeks ago.

daniel_in_church01.jpg

I should point out that he just turned 5 at the start of the month, and can’t actually read yet.  So cute as this is, it’s just him imitating his mother.

[tags]My children, Church, singing[/tags]

If warning label is not in place to warn, do not use?!?

OK, so on this paper cutter at the office, there’s this interesting little cap over the spring attached to the blade handle. Am I the only person who sees a problem with this?

cutter.jpg

So, um, how exactly would someone know they should not use the cutter if the guard weren’t in place when they arrived?  Maybe a label on the cutting board warning against using the cutter if the spring guard is not in place?

[tags]Stupid, Cutter, Do not operate, User interface, Design flaws[/tags]

Floridians against evolution?

tb_evolutionpoll_graph225.jpgResults from a badly worded survey are in, and if the numbers are to be believed (hint: they aren’t to be believed), approximately 50% of Floridians are in favor of teaching creationism in place of evolution as science.

Only 22 percent want public schools to teach an evolution-only curriculum, while 50 percent want only faith-based theories such as creationism or intelligent design, according to a new St. Petersburg Times survey.

Here’s a clue. If you only use penicillin to deal with your occasional infection, you can make a reasonable claim that you don’t buy in to the theory of evolution. If, however, you use such as Azithromycin, Ciprofloxacin, Amoxicillin, or any of the other updated penicillin alternatives or medications which fight some of the same classes of illness, then you are getting medicated based on evolution theory. If there were no evolution, you wouldn’t need to fight penicillin-resistant medications, as penicillin would always work against the class of ailments for which penicillin worked many years ago.

If you want to believe in some higher power, that’s great. But don’t confuse faith issues with science and try to get evolution taken out of school just because the science disagrees with your faith. If you feel children must be taught Intelligent Design or Creationism, take them to church and get your Sunday School teachers to educate them. Because as appealing as these concepts are, they are most certainly not science.

I lack the proper command of the language and sufficient depth in the subject to write a very good post about this, but I do know the difference between science and non-science, and am so tired of people trying to teach one as the other. (via Pharyngula)

[tags]Pharyngula, Science, Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design[/tags]

Staten Island Ninja!!!

You know, there are only 3 facts you need to know about Ninja:

  1. Ninjas are mammals.
  2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.
  3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

So when one shows up on Staten Island robbing houses, you know eventually someone is going to end up dead. It hasn’t happened yet, but someday…

[liveleak 8c3_1191087140]

Phear the Ninja, people.

[tags]Ninja, Real Ultimate Power, Staten Island, LiveLeak, Video[/tags]

Dear Microsoft:

Please give me a way to save my default station and frikkin’ volume level on my Zune.  The damn thing has a hard drive.   Surely there’s a few bits of space on it to save that information.  And I don’t give a rat’s ass about the solid-state Zune owners – satisfy my desires to make this ultimate in poor design media player a little less phail.  Given how incredibly quickly the battery drains unless I fully shut the device down and lock the controls, I have to suffer a reboot and ear-drum breaking volume setting on a static filled non-station every time I want to listen to the radio or my stored music.

I won’t even go in to other problems I’ve found since I first complained about how bad this device is, but know that I keep finding things to dislike about the implementation.  Yes, I keep using it.  But I recommend buying a different player to people who ask me about it, and I’m kinda invested for $100 that I hate to just toss, because it does function as a radio just fine once I set my station (although there are bad choices in the radio interface, but that should be no surprise given how many bad choices were made with this device).