draggonlaady: (Teddy)
FINALLY, the FAA has told airlines to stop being dumb and let people use ebooks and video players on planes because they will not somehow randomly make planes crash.
draggonlaady: (Teddy)
FDA sends out a notice that a product is dangerous and shouldn't be taken, what do you do?
You relabel those bastards and sell them anyway!
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm333188.htm?source=govdelivery

Oh dear.

May. 7th, 2012 11:51 am
draggonlaady: (Default)
Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis has introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to subject a dog, cat or other companion animal to piercings, tattoos and unnecessary appearance-altering surgeries.

Yeah, this isn't the state in which I live, and doesn't affect me directly. However, I would like to point out that at no place in this article is there mention of exemption for tattoos done by a veterinarian. Many people are not aware of this, but I tattoo animals at least weekly. Nothing as elaborate as the dog pictured for this article, but I put tattoos in ears and on abdomens to 1: identify individual animals (this is usually livestock, but rabbits are often ID-tattooed, as are horses. This is becoming less common with increasing use of microchip ID, but is still widely done.)
2: ear tattoos make it clear that feral cats have been neutered
3: abdominal tattoos mark female cats (feral or outdoor pet/barn) as spayed

I'm gonna be mighty pissy if I start getting charged with misdemeanors for every feral cat I tattoo. That tattoo may prevent unnecessary anesthetic and/or surgical procedures in the future. Do you have ANY idea how frustrating it is to re-open a cat that's already been spayed? I call bullshit on statements like this: "There's no reason to pierce or tattoo a dog or cat. It should be illegal."

I can't say as I've ever pierced a dog or cat...but I put ear piercings in cattle regularly, and goats and sheep on occasion. These are usually ID tags, marking them as tested for or vaccinated against certain diseases, but there are also several medication-impregnated ear tags in common use for range animals that can't be caught and medicated daily.

Bills like this piss me off-this is NOT a real problem. Focus on shit like ear cropping and tail docking if you are worried about wide-spread unnecessary cosmetic procedures, not tattoos that are 1: uncommonly done by lay persons and 2: may have valid medical reasons. This politician really wants to help animals? She should focus on supporting neuter and vaccinations programs, and requirements for animal identification to decrease the number of unclaimed strays. Instead, she's floating this ridiculous bill, and using it to smear her opponent as an animal hater. Fucking politics.
draggonlaady: (Grinding Bones)
Ganked wholesale from Lowering the Bar

Well, I have good news and bad news.
Angry Baby sketch
Artist's impression

The bad news is that the TSA was unable to prevent a baby from bypassing a security checkpoint at Newark International Airport on Friday, and did not notify airport police of the potential breach for over 30 minutes.

The further bad news is that airport police reacted by evacuating the entire terminal, sweeping it for explosive babies and rescreening all the passengers who had already cleared security.

And the additional further bad news is that said baby and its accomplices still were not found, apparently having boarded a flight and moved on to stage two of the plot even before police (over)reacted.

The good news is that it was a f*&%ing baby.

Please

Apr. 15th, 2012 05:33 pm
draggonlaady: (Default)
You remember me ranting last year about how Whooping Cough is a preventable disease and it is ridiculous that there have been so many cases lately? Well, its officially an epidemic in the state of Washington now.
Get your kids vaccinated. Get your self vaccinated - the most important step in preventing babies too young for vaccines from getting ill and dying is to vaccinate the adults around them. Herd immunity, my darlings, it saves lives. But it only works if the majority of the herd is vaccinated.
draggonlaady: (Default)
So the number of animals that died on passenger airline flights in the US last year has been released. And once again, I'm reminded that I hate newspapers. Please note how eagerly this article compares numbers of deaths by year with not a SINGLE reference to how many animals flew on each airline during the year. There's no way from this article for the reader to know how many animals survived the flights, or whether Delta has more deaths/year because they actually suck (which is what many people will take away from this article because they don't think about it) or whether Delta has twice as many deaths, but in reality fly 4 times as many animals as Continental. Numbers out of context are worse than useless!

Huzzah!

Jan. 20th, 2012 10:34 am
draggonlaady: (Default)
Check this out for more details, but apparently the administration has decided that even religious non-profit employers will be required to provide coverage of contraceptives in their employee insurance benes. They get longer than anyone else to make that happen, of course, because religion is still a privileged category somehow (whatwhat? separation of church and state? what's that?) but no more "here, you can have insurance, but you can't get THAT done" exclusions.
draggonlaady: (Grinding Bones)
Fair Oaks Dairy Products issued a voluntary recall of certain one half pound retail packaged cheeses and cheese gift boxes produced under the Fair Oaks Farms Fine Cheese label and sold between September 30, 2011 and December 3, 2011. These cheeses have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

Ocean Spray today added five additional Best By code dates to its voluntary recall issued November 25, 2011 of a limited number of production lots of its Original Flavor Craisins® Dried Cranberries in 5-ounce, 10-ounce and 48-ounce packages in the western U.S. only. Ocean Spray took this precautionary measure due to the possible presence of very small hair-like metal fragments that are unlikely to cause consumer injury.

As a precautionary measure, certain production lots of Tejava® Premium Iced Tea in 12 oz glass bottles are being recalled nationwide due to the possible presence of glass fragments which could be harmful if swallowed. To date, there have been no reports of any illness or injury.

Pacific International Marketing is working with the Food and Drug Administration and California Department of Public Health to coordinate a recall of Cilantro for potential contamination with Salmonella. FDA has advised that a sample of Pacific Cilantro has tested positive for Salmonella. A total of 6,141 cartons of Cilantro are being recalled.

House of Raeford Farms, a Raeford, N.C. establishment, is recalling approximately 4,140 pounds of cooked chicken breasts that may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced.

After finding more than 30 live roaches in a beverage machine, a state inspector issued a temporary emergency closure order for a Jacksonville Burger King last week.
draggonlaady: (Nice Girl)
Hopefully this'll be the last thing I post about it.

Federal investigators have identified dirty equipment, faulty sanitation and bad storage practices at a Colorado farm as the likely cause of a cantaloupe listeria outbreak that has killed 25 people, [and] top U.S. food safety experts say there's one actor in this deadly drama that shouldn't be blamed: The consumer. . . . Federal Food and Drug Administration officials reported Wednesday that standing pools of water, inaccessible drains, hard-to-clean equipment and failure to cool cantaloupes fresh from the field before placing them in cold storage all likely contributed to the growth and spread of four strains of listeria bacteria at the Jensen Farms packing site in Granada, Colo.
draggonlaady: (Default)
It seems that last week, "unidentified" animal rights people decided to turn out the pens at a mink farm. As usual, this tactic was not dreadfully successful in either helping the mink, or shutting down the business. The majority of the mink were promptly rounded back up, as they mostly just hung around the building where food has always been. That's really quite the common outcome for these mass releases--animals, it seems, LIKE a steady supply of food, and tend to return to where they've been fed. This exceedingly simple fact has apparently eluded the attention of animal rights terrorists for years, and leads me to believe the mink are smarter than the activists. Of the mink that were not caught, several were killed on the road; also common, as an animal who has lived in a protected pen its entire life is unlikely to be very road-smart.

At least one of the mink was shot by a neighbor, who didn't know what the weird animal pacing on his porch was, but suspected a rabid marten. Yes, I know this happened. No, I don't have a source to link-site. No, I'm not the neighbor.
Martens are native to this area, but do not typically pace around on porches. Mink are not native to the area, and you can see why someone might mistake one for a marten.
draggonlaady: (Default)
Seven customers at a Subway sandwich outlet in the international terminal of Vancouver airport were taken to hospital on Friday afternoon suffering from an apparent bout of food poisoning. Vancouver Coastal Health spokesman Justin Karasick said the suspected cause of their illness was some tuna that may not have been stored at the right temperature.
draggonlaady: (Default)
Not just Colorado anymore. 3 people in New Mexico are dead and 6 more ill. 12 people in Colorado, Texas and Nebraska have been sickened and two others from those states have died.
draggonlaady: (Default)
Fancy that. Bank of America is in trouble again. For being assholes. Again. Specifically, Nevada's Attorney General "contends that Bank of America raised interest rates on troubled borrowers when modifying their loans even though the bank had promised in the settlement to lower them. The bank also failed to provide loan modifications to qualified homeowners as required under the deal, improperly proceeded with foreclosures even as borrowers' modification requests were pending, and failed to meet the settlement's 60-day requirement on granting new loan terms, instead allowing months and in some cases more than a year to go by with no resolution."
draggonlaady: (Nice Girl)
Utterly ridiculous. Junior High boy got suspended for the rest of the year, missed the school dance, and the class trip. Because he wore a dress. Oh NOES, a DRESS! Suspension was later reduced, but not until he'd already missed the dance and class trip.

Here's one with a picture of the dress and shoes.

Why are people so completely stupid that anybody even gives a crap if a kid wears heels to school on a dare? For that matter, why is it even dare-worthy? Never mind. It's dare-worthy because people care, so just refer to the first question, I guess.

Anyway, have some blow-up overreaction, shall we? I mean really--if you can't handle the way he's dressed, send him home to change. But suspend him for the rest of the damn year? Get a life and a sense of proportion.
draggonlaady: (Nice Girl)
If You Left a Stun Gun on a JetBlue Flight Friday, the TSA Would Like to Speak With You

Because otherwise, it won't have a clue as to how you got a stun gun through all its ultra-clever security-checkpoint procedures.

A cleaning crew reportedly found the stun gun in a seatback pocket while tidying up a plane that had landed at Newark. The flight had originated at Logan International in Boston but had made several other stops during the day. The Newark Port Authority has turned the weapon over to the Trouser Search Administration, which said it and the FBI are jointly investigating the matter but that it was currently unclear how the device got on board.

For now, I guess we can only assume that, somewhere along the way, a 95-year-old potential terrorist's diaper went unsearched. We must close this loophole (preferably with new federal legislation making it a felony for any 95-year-old cancer patient to conceal a stun gun in his or her diaper).

"All current information indicates this is not part of an attack," an FBI agent was quoted as saying. Well, since the "current information" includes the fact that there was no attack, that seems like a pretty solid conclusion, but it's still not a very comforting statement. It is a little more comforting that we have at least finally located a team of people that is actually able to detect weapons on airplanes, and so I hereby nominate JetBlue's cleaning crew to take over the TSA.


Stolen from Lowering the Bar

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