New botulism warning — green beans

Health Alert: U. S. Issues NEW Botulism Warning. Canned green beans sold nationwide.

Warning is second nationwide in last 30 days Product Marketed Under a Variety of Brand Names The affected Lakeside cut green beans are sold nationwide under the following labels: Albertson’s, Happy Harvest, Best Choice, Food Club, Bogopa, Valu Time, Hill Country Fare, HEB, Laura Lynn, Kroger, No Name, North Pride, Shop N Save, Shoppers Valu, Schnucks, Cub Foods, Dierbergs, Flavorite, IGA, Best Choice and Thrifty Maid. U. S. health officials are warning consumers not to eat certain brands of French Cut Green Beans in 14.5 ounce cans manufactured by Lakeside Foods Inc, of Manitowoc, Wisconsin because the product may not have been processed adequately to eliminate the potential for botulism toxin. This warning is not related to another recent warning for botulism. The canned green beans may cause botulism if consumed. FDA is providing this warning to make consumers aware of the possible risk of serious illness from eating these products. As of August 1, 2007, FDA had not received reports of illnesses related to the product. The botulism toxin is very potent, and botulism is a life-threatening illness. Symptoms of botulism can begin from six hours to two weeks after eating food that contains the toxin. The symptoms may include double vision, blurred vision, drooping eyelids, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth, and muscle weakness that moves progressively down the body, affecting the shoulders first then descending to the upper arms, lower arms, thighs, and calves. Botulism also may cause paralysis of the breathing muscles, which can result in death unless assistance with breathing (mechanical ventilation) is provided. Individuals who show these symptoms and who may have recently eaten the product should seek immediate medical attention. The specific codes (top line of can code) involved are: EAA5247, EAA5257, EAA5267, EAA5277, EAB5247, EAB5257, ECA5207, ECA5217, ECA5227, ECA5297, ECB5207, ECB5217, ECB5227, ECB5307. Consumers who have any of these products or any foods made with these products should dispose of them immediately. If the code on an affected can is missing or unreadable, consumers should throw the product out. Lakeside Foods has informed FDA that it is voluntarily recalling all of the potentially contaminated products. Lakeside Foods recommends that consumers with any questions or concerns about the recall should call the company at 800-466-3834 ext. 4090.

Source: Emergency Alerts

6 coal miners trapped in Utah :-(

Six Coal miners are missing after a cave-in in a Utah coal mine earlier today. There was an earthquake in the vicinity but at the moment it’s undetermined if the cave-in followed or preceded the earthquake though it is believed that the mine collapse caused the earthquake.

Walter Arabasz, the head of the University of Utah’s Seismograph Stations, said there was a link between the quake and the mine collapse, based on wavelengths.

“The seismic waves are consistent with the idea that the mine collapse caused the earthquake,” said Walter Arabasz, who added that more information must be analyzed.

The miners are thought to be 1500 feet/457.2 metres below ground. (1320 feet=1/4 mile) .

 

The map is cut off a bit on the right side. The necessary information is NOT cut off however. The mine entrance is shown near the top and the red circles to the left (west) of it is the epicentre of the earthquake.

———

Update:

It now appears that what was thought to be an earthquake was actually a seismographic recording of the cave-in; it’s not uncommon for cave-ins to register on the Richter scale. According to CNN, a 1995 cave-in in southwestern Wyoming caused readings as high as 5.4 on the Richter scale-one of at least half a dozen cave-ins to register on seismographs in the last decade.

Source: CNN.com

And the hits just keep on coming!

Some highlights from an Entertainment Weekly article on LiLo and her latest crap movie.

“Her career was over long before she had these troubles”.

“She had the world at her feet,” says the head of a major studio. ”And right now, she’d have to pay a studio to get herself into a movie.”

”Her films don’t open. She’s a pain to work with. I think she’s done.”

”It’s always challenging for a young actor to mature into an adult star. It takes great planning, sophistication, and judgment. She hasn’t shown any of those things.”

The full article can be found at the link above.

Does Andy like Dick?

So I was surfing Perez Hilton’s website (should be required reading for any goss blogger-seriously!) when I happened on some interesting pix…

Apparently Andy Dick doesn’t just act like a dick, he *ahem* likes it too. Wouldn’t be so interesting if he claimed only to be straight.

These are the pics from Perez’s website, and I’ll post what his reader Jack MeHoffhassle Jr said when he submitted them:

“I was at the Viper Room [in Los Angeles] to watch a band called “Nick Dixon”. We were all drinking, watching the show and having a great time. About half way through the show Andy Dick walks in….shitfaced…and i mean SHITFACED. It wasn’t five minutes before i saw him sucking face with this other dude. So here’s the pic! I included another pic of Andy that same night with some random chick, just so you can see that it really was him. Too funny.”

Source: PerezHilton.com

This could be the new ‘Anti-Drug’

Just say NO!!!!

Source: CelebGuru

J-Lo’s incredible growing chest?

I’m not saying see had plastic surgery. But I’m not saying she didn’t. What I AM saying is that J-Lo’s chest does seem larger than before…

You decide.

Sources: CelebGuru

Pic 1: StarPulse

Pic 2: StarPulse

Vogue has ALSO gone to the dogs!

Apparently Vogue editor Anna Wintour likes Skanky Wino’s Amy Winehouse’s latest album so much that she’s making her a Vogue cover girl.

*shudders*

That girl is a walking stumbling nightmare.  Seriously-she spits on fans, cancels concerts because she’s too drunk much of a perfectionist to perform… eurgh!

*runs to vomit*

Source: CelebGuru

There’s hope for Daddy Lohan after all!

The trainwreck known as Lindsay might meet with her father, from whom she has been estranged, ‘as early as Wednesday’ reports the NY Daily News.

Apparently she never stopped loving Pops, just resented him for milking her fame for his agenda, part of which was (in a bit of irony) a teen addiction programme.

Hmm, papa uses her fame for a bit of good (as well as, admittedly, personal gain, via a book).  Mama uses it to further herself!

Oh, another, ahem, crime (in her eyes) her ex-con pops committed?  Demanding her mum undergo drug testing.

Ex-con or not, with the few facts I have, I’m comin’ out for Dad here.

“They view it as: I put American soldiers in prison over Iraqis.”

Joe Darby thought he was looking at some US soldiers horsing around. Then he looked at another photo; and another. People he knew, some for years, were captured, in photos, torturing Iraqi prisoners at the now-infamous prison.

It took him three weeks to tell anyone in authority what he saw. He was afraid of repercussions from his fellow soldiers; literally afraid for his safety and life.

“At night when I would sleep, they were less than 100 yards from me, and I didn’t even have a door on the room I slept in.

“I had a raincoat hanging up for a door. Like I said to my room mate, they could reach their hand in the door – because I slept right by the door – and cut my throat without making a noise, or anybody knowing what was going on, and I was scared of that.”

When he turned in the photos, which had been given to him on a CD by none other than Charles Graner, one of the participating soldiers, he was promised anonymity.

And then Donald Rumsfeld thanked him. Publicly. By name.

So much for anonymity.

The accusd soldiers had already been removed from the base. And the funny part was, it wasn’t his fellow soldiers that gave him a hard time. They thanked him. They shook his hand.

It was we Americans, here at home. His neighbours, people in the town where he lived with his wife–where she was still living–called him a traitor. Someone ‘decorated’ his home with graffiti forcing his wife to flee to her sister’s.

Says Darby:

“You have some people who don’t view it as right and wrong. They view it as: I put American soldiers in prison over Iraqis.” [emphasis mine]

To protect his safety, he was quickly taken from Iraq and, for six months, ‘lived under armed protection’.

He is still afraid of repercussions from the convicted soldiers.

[Graner] ‘had a stone-cold stare of hatred the entire time – he wouldn’t take his eyes off me the whole time he sat there. I think this is a grudge he will hold till the day he gets out of prison.’ (regarding his testifying during Charles Graner’s trial).

He hasn’t been able to return to his former home. He and his family have had to move to a new town. Despite that

“I’ve never regretted for one second what I did when I was in Iraq, to turn those pictures in,” he says.

They ‘lost track’ of 190,000 weapons?!

From the BBC:

The US military cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to the Iraqi security forces, an official US report says.

That’s roughly 30% of the past 3 years’ weapons!  And that’s not counting protective gear like body armour.   Again from BBC:

MISSING IRAQ WEAPONS

AK-47 rifles: 110,000

Pistols: 80,000

Body armour pieces: 135,000

Helmets: 115,000

And of course this wise little tidbit was thrown into the article:

Correspondents say it is now feared many of the weapons are being used against US forces on the ground in Iraq.

No kidding?  My first thought when I read that almost 200K weapons were missing is ‘Great, we’re supplying the insurgents!’

Source:  BBC UK

Oh, why couln’t it have been Baghdad?

So apparently the Spice Girls let their fans decide where they were going to perform ‘an extra special show’.

The top cities were Toronto (the winner), Baghdad, Chicago, and Rio de Janeiro.

I have nothing against them as a group really.  I even have a CD and two live performance DVDs (that I did not pay for).  There song Mama moves me to tears every time I hear it because I was close to my mother, may she rest in peace, but I gave her a very hard time growing up.

But I was totally against a reunion!  Unlike the Backstreet Boys (who I like very much) they didn’t do that well the first time around.  And frankly, I’m ‘Poshed-out’.  And come on, when baby spice is preggers, maybe a reunion isn’t so hot.  Or maybe the fact that they will have a therapist on the road with them because they can’t stand each other!  (Totally not making that up).

HP v Aussie Scientists

A report by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) showed that many office laser printers emit ultra-fine particles, in some cases as many as a cigarette. The particles, when inhaled, can cause

‘respiratory irritation, cardiovascular problems, and even cancer.’

Hewlett Packard had the most printers come up as high-emission.

HP refutes the claims, saying

‘that testing of ultra-fine particles was still “a very new scientific discipline” and that there were “no indications that ultra-fine particle emissions from laser printing systems are associated with special health risks”.’

The researcher leader, Professor Lidia Morawska, rebutted

saying the European Commission had already added a particle number limit to its Euro 5/6 emissions standards for light-duty vehicles.

“It is normally a lengthy process for introducing new scientific findings into the regulatory framework,” Morawska said.

“The fact that this process has already occurred in relation to vehicles emission is an indication that testing of ultra-fine particles is not ‘a very new scientific discipline’.”

Morawska backed up her health risk claims by pointing to the latest update of the World Health Organisation Air Quality Guidelines, which said “there is considerable toxicological evidence of potential detrimental effects of ultra-fine particles on human health”.

The only area of agreement between HP and the researchers is that more testing is required.

For the record, most printers tested were quite safe:

Of the 62 printers Morawska tested in an office building and a particle-free chamber, 37 were found to be non-emitters, six were low, two were medium and 17 were high.

An interesting note is that HP made every list, that is non-emitter, low emitter, middle emitter, and high emitter. But HP also makes a LOT of printers and the majority of printers tested appear to be HP.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

The full report (7 page PDF format– Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

HP’s response (NOT a PDF)

What about Jake?

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe have set tongues wagging all around the blogosphere after Page Six. They’ve done lunch, gone jogging, and even gone shoe shopping together. A friend of Reese’s is quoted as saying:

“Reese and Ryan are trying to work it out. They are still close.”

But (of course) Ryan’s rep denies the rumours. Reese’s never got back to reporters.

Now, this comes just days after reports that supposedly Reese and Jake Gyllenhaal are back on. Frankly, I’m inclined to believe she and Ryan are reconciling as friends.

Edited to add:

Saw this on Perez Hilton’s site.  If he says it, I’m inclined to believe it.

Don’t believe the rumors that Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe are getting back together.

“Not so,” a source in the know tells PerezHilton.com.

Gyllen-poon are still fanning the flames of desire!

“Reese and Jake [Gyllenhaal] were at a screening of the Bourne Ultimatum at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles on Saturday night,” sources tell us.

And…they even discretely shared some kisses in the darkened theater!

Source: PerezHilton.com

In Style has gone to the dogs…

Apparently they named Guy and Madonna the best dressed celeb couple…

Huh? Did I seriously sleep through hell freezing over?

I mean, okay. Perhaps they dress well. But best dressed couple?

Doesn’t Posh dress well enough for both her AND Becks? As much as it makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little, I seriously think Posh and Becks should’ve taken this one.

Edited to add:

Here’s a list of the top 5 I got from another blogger (source below, as usual).

1. Madonna and Guy Ritchie
2. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
3. David and Victoria Beckham
4. Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale
5. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher

I could totally see either Brangelina or the Beckhams in that spot. Even if the chicks in both couples are scary-skinny…

Source for list: Gabby Babble

Movies in the casting stages, the interesting, the scary, & the debateable

The interesting:

Nottingham with Russell Crowe: A love triangle forms between the legendary do-gooder Robin Hood, his Maid Marion and the archer’s arch nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Dirt Music w/ Colin Farrell: Set in the dramatic landscape of Western Australia, Dirt Music tells the story of Luther Fox, a broken man who makes his living as an illegal fisherman — a amateur. Before everyone in his family was killed in a freak rollover, Fox grew melons and counted stars and loved playing his guitar. Now, his life has become a “project of forgetting.” Not until he meets Georgie Jutland, the wife of White Point’s most prosperous fisherman, does Fox begin to dream again and hear the dirt music — “anything you can play on a veranda or porch,” he tells Georgie, “without electricity.” Like the beat of a barren heart, nature is never silent. [Supposed to be better than it sounds]

The Changeling w/ Angelina Jolie: A mother’s prayer for her kidnapped son to return home is answered, though it doesn’t take long for her to suspect the boy who comes back is not hers.

Burn After Reading w/ Brad Pitt & George Clooney: A CIA agent writing a novel loses the disk that contains his book. [IMDb had a very sketchy synopsis; I think it's going to be a LOT better than it sounds!]

The Scary:

Jurassic Park 4 w/ Laura Dern: It’s been 12 years after the Destruction of Dinosaurs,John Hammond and a Team of People go to Isla Nublar along with Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm to stop BioSyn from taking Dinosaurs off the Island and on to the Mainland.

The Debateable:

The Women w/ Meg Ryan, Candice Bergen, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Debra Messing, Nicollette Sheridan, & Annette Bening: The story centers on a group of gossipy, high-society women who spend their days at the beauty salon and haunting fashion shows. The sweet, happily-wedded Mary Haines finds her marriage in trouble when shop girl Crystal Allen gets her hooks into Mary’s man. Naturally, this situation becomes the hot talk amongst Mary’s catty friends, especially the scandalmonger Sylvia Fowler, who has little room to talk – she finds herself on a train to Reno and headed for divorce right after Mary. But with a bit of guts and daring, Mary snatches her man right back from Crystal’s clutches…