Nuclear Beef

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Here's one way to put a scare into your holiday weekend barbecue.

A Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, man was about to throw lobster and steak on the grill for a wedding anniversary cookout Saturday when he stopped by his bushes to pull some weeds.

Along with the weeds he found a yellow-and-black box about the size of a car battery with the word "nuclear" on the side.
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Police determined the box was a nuclear compaction device used in construction. A neighbor had reported the box stolen from his truck.

The fire chief says the thief probably threw the box into the bushes. He says it had the same level of radiation as two household smoke detectors.

'Nuclear' and a barbeque? Close enough!

Smoke detectors are radioactive?

Posted by darwin at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

China 'fake milk' scandal deepens

State television says infants who were fed fake formula have been treated for malnutrition in a second province.
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Around 200 babies in Anhui alone were fed formula milk of little nutritional value, media reports said.

An initial inquiry has shown that 45 types of substandard powder were on sale in Fuyang City, Anhui, produced by 141 factories across China, Xinhua said.
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They said some of the babies developed what doctors called "big head disease", where infants' heads appear abnormally large in comparison to their bodies.

It was not clear if the counterfeit powder included any toxic ingredients, but some children were reported to have died within three days of being fed the fake milk.

This story is actually pretty sad. I remember when, years ago, I heard a story about the way that consumers of the third world "stretch" baby formula because they basically don't know any better. It made an impact on me at the time, and actually kinda made me hate Nestle for marketing formula in places with no clean water. This story is about 30x worse than that.

Speaking of Nestle..

Nestle Urged to 'Tell Truth' About GMOs

Chinese lawyers and experts yesterday urged Nestle to reveal whether the Swiss firm's Nestle Nesquik contains genetically modified organisms (GMO), as widely suspected.

Zhu Yanling, the plaintiff, bought Nestle Nesquik at a Carrefour outlet in March last year.

"Soon, I learned from a report by Greenpeace the product contained genetically modified elements,'' she said. "As a consumer, my right to know the truth was tampered with.''

The 33-year-old woman asked for a refund, plus compensation of 6.8 yuan (80 US cents), which is as much as the price of one bag of the drink.

Now ok, that's a pretty weird story. She sued Nestle for 80 cents, for GMO food? Greenpeace put her up to it?

But that's not the weirdest thing :

The case became more complicated when a second test on the product at the end of last month showed no genetically modified ingredient was found, contradicting the findings of an earlier examination in August.

"No matter what the result is, there is no denying consumers find it difficult to know the truth about such a product,'' Wu said.

On the two different results, Wu Zhangzhu from GeneScan, a leader in the field of molecular biological testing of genetically modified organisms in food, feeds and agricultural raw materials, said that a test may not be that exact.

There's a leader in the field of testing food for Genetic Modification.. and it's Chinese? What the hell? What in the world is this Genescan up to?

GeneScan's U.S. laboratory is located in suburban New Orleans, LA. It is a subsidiary of GeneScan Europe, AG, a publicly traded biotech company located in Freiburg, Germany, in the heart of Europe's biotech corridor. GeneScan USA started in 1998 under the name Central Hanse Analytical Laboratory, LLC, (CHAL).

Figures, they're Cajuns. Uh.. Germans.

A. on the hook for the Malk.

Posted by darwin at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Pork products processed and distributed from the farm of accused Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton may have contained human remains, police and health officials said on Wednesday.

Pickton raised and slaughtered pigs at the Port Coquitlam farm as a part-time occupation until his arrest at the property in February 2002, and police believe he gave or sold processed meat products to friends and acquaintances.

Pickton, 53, is awaiting trial in the killings of at least 22 of more than 60 missing Vancouver prostitutes who disappeared over the past decade and are feared to have been murdered at the dilapidated farm 20 miles east of Vancouver.
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"Given the state of the farm, and what we know about the investigation, we cannot rule out the possibility that cross-contamination may have occurred," B.C. provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall told reporters in Victoria.

"Cross-contamination could mean that human remains did get into or contaminate some of the pork meat," Kendall said.

Officials stressed that the farm's pig slaughtering operation was not officially licensed and he did not sell processed meat to retail outlets.
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The victims were among more than 60 drug-addicted prostitutes who disappeared from Vancouver's poor Downtown Eastside neighborhood. Families of the missing women expressed horror at the news, with one telling a Vancouver radio station bluntly. "I'm not eating dinner tonight."

I've changed the headline of this story to be more accurate and less alarmist.

This story is a case study in how incompetent reporting feeds hysteria.

I'm amazed at the "drug-addicted prostitutes" description. First, I thought Canada was a perfect paradise.. who knew they had prostitues, never mind "drug-addicted" ones! Second, how does this reporter know that all 60 of the missing prostitutes were drug addicts? Third, what does it matter whether they were drug-addicted or not? Boggle.

It appears based on various news stories that the "drug addicted prostitute" description originates somewhere official.

Mr Pickton, was charged with attempted murder in 1997, for the stabbing of a drug-addicted prostitute at his home, but the charges were later dropped.

So because he previously attacked a drug-addicted prostitute, all the missing prostitutes suddenly become drug-addicted? Does the Vancouver Police just refer to all prostitutes by the title "drug-addicted prostitute"? W T F ?

Posted by darwin at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hey, This Is Wrong, That Cow Was a Walker

On Dec. 23, the day it became known that a cow from Vern's had tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy and a team from the Agriculture Department arrived, he barged into the office of the veterinarian, Rodney D. Thompson, and found him "hip deep in the paperwork and writing like a madman," Mr. Louthan said.

The paperwork included the slips a veterinarian fills out on each animal in which illness is suspected.

"I said, `Hey, this is wrong, that cow was a walker,' " Mr. Louthan said. "And he got mad at me and said, `Then why the hell do I have him down as a suspect?' " ("Suspect" describes any animal suspected of being seriously ill, including downers.)
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Mr. Louthan noted that the cow in question was the only one on the downer record not having a temperature recorded that day. It was marked "unable to get temp." It is easy to get a rectal temperature from a downed cow, he said, but difficult to do so in a moving, upset one. He called the absence of such a reading the "smoking gun" showing that the records were changed.

We truly learn something every day. Today we've learned that it's hard to get a rectal temperature from a moving, upset cow. A good day. Also, our buddy with the big mouth resurfaces! Bonus!

Cheers to A. on the hooks. Jeers to the NYT for forcing me to do this before they expire the content!

Posted by darwin at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's a hunting game that evens the odds. In Cabela's Dangerous Hunts you won't merely blast Bambi and friends with impunity, but you'll also square off against wolves, grizzlies, rhinos, leopards, and other animals that can kill you in a heartbeat.
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Dangerous Hunts offers three game modes. Action zone pits you against successive waves of charging animals. After you kill all the nearby threats, you head through a glowing green portal to the next area.

Jimbo: Boys, looky there. That there's a Rocky Moutain black bear, one of the few remaining of its kind. Isn't it beautiful.. By God, it's coming right for us! [Shoots it. It is hit and flips off the mound it was on.]

Stan: Hey, it wasn't coming right for us. It was just sitting there.

Jimbo: Shhh, not so loud. Now that there's just a technicality.

Kyle: What do you mean?

Jimbo: You see boys, the Democrats have passed a lot of laws trying to stop us from hunting.

Cartman: Democrats piss me off!

Jimbo: They say we can't shoot certain animals anymore, unless they're posing an immediate threat. Therefore, before we shoot somethin', we have to say 'It's coming right for us.'

Stan: Wow, you're smart Uncle Jimbo.

Posted by darwin at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three accused of putting hairpieces on cows

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Three livestock exhibitors at last year's Ohio State Fair have been disqualified for allegedly outfitting their Holstein cows with hairpieces. State Fair inspectors said the three glued or painted hair from another part of the animal or from another animal to create straighter backs on the cows and enhance their appearance in the show ring.

This could be a great ad for the Hair Club for Cows. Happy, hairy cows come from.. Ohio.

Props to Dr. Clude for the hooks.

Posted by darwin at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know the Manatee is rightfully the noble Sea-Cow.. but..

An Heroic Cow Saves Woman From Drowning

Kim Riley was herding a herd of 350 cows in early morning darkness Tuesday when they were caught in a torrent of floodwater created by the devastating storm that swept New Zealand early this week.
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"I thought most of the cows had abandoned me," Riley said "They were strong swimmers and left me in their wake. But I looked back and saw one of the last cows bearing down on me, No. 569. As she went by I threw my arm over her neck."

She said when they hit firm ground, they both sat down, puffing and shaking.

Riley previously held little regard for No. 569, calling her "an ugly old tart," but admitted she would find time to thank the beast.

I really like this story. An Ugly, Old, Heroic Cow. New Zealand. And what were they puffing, huh? We also learn that cows are strong swimmers. Perhaps they're not totally useless after all!

Posted by darwin at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shooting a cow turned Dave Louthan into a crusader

On Dec. 9, at Vern's Moses Lake Meats in Moses Lake, Wash., Mr. Louthan killed the only mad cow found in the United States.

Two weeks later, he says, he was dismissed after four years as Vern's slaughterer when he talked to the television crews outside and told them he was sure the cow, ground into hamburger, had already been eaten. The plant's owners did not return calls seeking comment.

"I got a big mouth," he said in a telephone interview.
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Mr. Louthan said the agent who ordered him to be quiet suggested that he was akin to "an urban terrorist" for spreading alarm about beef.

"I'm not," Mr. Louthan said. "I just want to enjoy my cheeseburger like anybody else. I don't want to think: Is this the magic burger that's going to kill me?"

Every story I read about an individual in the meat industry scares the living bejeezus out of me. Anyone who says anything remotely critical about their masters seems to get completely effed over. The whistleblowers are often so kooky, however, that it's hard to be sure what to think. Are there any sane people in the Meat Industry?

Props to A. on the hookup.

Posted by darwin at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is Eating Meat A Catholic Sin?

Bruce Friedrich is a Catholic from the Midwest who was recently rated No. 5 on Details magazine's 2003 list of "The 50 Most Influential People Under 38" -- ahead of Tiger Woods, Leonardo di Caprio and Justin Timberlake. What has Friedrich done to deserve his high standing? Surprise answer: He's an animal rights activist on the governing board of the Catholic Vegetarian Society and the advisory board of the Christian Vegetarian Society.

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So, you think the God of Christians never wanted people to eat meat?

The Garden of Eden, God's perfect world, was vegetarian (Gen. 1:29-30), and God called this nonexploitative relationship "good" (Gen. 1:31).

9 out of 10 gods agree! So does Morrissey! Surely they can't be wrong!

Posted by darwin at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Patent holder has major bone to pick with ham rival

For a guy who claims a small slice of the ham market, local entrepreneur Pink Logan puts up an expensive fight.

Logan has invested tens of thousands of dollars to protect his patented ham product, even as the patent's expiration date spirals closer.

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He says he will likely duke it out in court with Michigan-based HBH and four of its HoneyBaked Ham licensees for over $3 million in past royalties. He says they sold a boneless ham product that Logan received a 17-year patent on in 1991.

This sounds suspiciously like the secret process behind the McRib sandwich. I wonder if that's why no other fast food chain has duplicated the McRib's success. Damn you, intellectual property! I know the McRib is actually made of vat-grown tofu and therefore Vegetarian. Also, delicious.

Posted by darwin at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)