High arsenic levels in apple & grape juice, Horse meat may be back on the menu, and how a homeless man turned his life around

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When one-in-10 apple or grape juice samples have high levels of dangerous arsenic in them something needs to be done.

   Good Morning Humboldt County!

There you are…c’mon in and join me for a cup of hot Joe and the news of the day.

I’m concerned about this new study (which backs up prior ones) on apple and grape juice containing high levels of arsenic.

The guy from the FDA that’s defending their position that every thing is just fine with the juices, tried to claim the levels were okay, despite all the evidence that is cropping up showing otherwise.

Now I have to think twice before drinking either juice or start watering them down as one consumer group suggested.

Horse meat may be back on the menu

Horses could soon be butchered in the U.S. for human consumption after Congress quietly lifted a 5-year-old ban on funding horse meat inspections, and activists say slaughterhouses could be up and running in as little as a month.

Slaughter opponents pushed a measure cutting off funding for horse meat inspections through Congress in 2006 after other efforts to pass outright bans on horse slaughter failed in previous years. Congress lifted the ban in a spending bill President Barack Obama signed into law Nov. 18 to keep the government afloat until mid-December.

The USDA issued a statement Tuesday saying there are no slaughterhouses in the U.S. that butcher horses for human consumption now, but if one were to open, it would conduct inspections to make sure federal laws were being followed.

Homeless man's decision to return $3,300 changed his life

About a year ago, a homeless man in Arizona found a bag full of cash and made a fateful decision: He returned it. The Arizona Republic published a feel-good story today that actually feels good about the future of 49-year-old Dave Tally (photo left) of Tempe.

Tally was in debt, unemployed and had lost his driver's license for DUI violations. Homeless, he was sleeping on a mat in a church-based homeless shelter when he found $3,300 in a backpack at a local light-rail station.

That could have gotten Tally out of his hole, but he decided that was the wrong thing to do. Instead, he tracked down the owner of the cash, a college kid named Bryan Berlanger who had planned to use the money to buy a car to replace one he'd lost in an accident.

"Meeting Belanger and hearing the student thank and praise him for his honesty and kindness made Tally feel good about himself, he says," writes Republic reporter Dianna M. Nanez. "He hadn't had that feeling in awhile." When word got out that Tally had turned in the cash instead of keeping it, the national media came looking for him.

Donations poured in, and Tally suddenly found himself with $10,000. But he was determined not to fritter it away. He began paying off his bills, clearing up his driving record, and taking the long road back. He even moved into a no-frills apartment across from the shelter as "a reminder of where I've been and where I'm not going back again."

One year later, Tally has landed his "dream job," managing a community garden. Recently, The Republic reports, Tally started overseeing an internship program that allows people who are homeless to volunteer in the garden. But he doesn't preach to anyone. "I let them know that when they're ready to make changes, it's possible," he says.

Time to walk on down the road…

Nothing says Christmas like a machine gun and a Santa shoot!

I don’t know about you, but this story really gets me in the spirit of Christmas. Posing with yuletide gifts of automatic weapons and a warlord Santa send shivers down my spine. 

Want to improve the caliber of your family’s Christmas card this year? How about having your picture taken with Santa Claus and your choice of machine guns?

For a fee of $5 for members and $10 for non-members, the Scottsdale Gun Club in Arizona will arrange a Yuletide photo op with Santa and a selection of automatic weapons valued at $170,000.                         (Full article)

Printers open to hack attacks, Great Gay Softball debate, and a ‘Hooters style’ eatery for women

             Good Morning Humboldt County!

Welcome to my little corner of the universe. Step right in and have a seat. There’s hot coffee and tea to go along with several stories that will entertain and educate. Enjoy:

Exclusive: Millions of printers open to devastating hack attack, researchers say

Could a hacker from half-way around the planet control your printer and give it instructions so frantic that it could eventually catch fire? Or use a hijacked printer as a copy machine for criminals, making it easy to commit identity theft or even take control of entire networks that would otherwise be secure? It’s not only possible, but likely, say researchers at Columbia University, who claim they've discovered a new class of computer security flaws that could impact millions of businesses, consumers, and even government agencies.

The Great Gay Softball Debate has been settled … out of court

A federal lawsuit brought by three players who were disqualified from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series because of their perceived heterosexuality has been settled out of court. The sum was undisclosed, but part of Monday’s settlement includes getting their second-place team trophy back.

Our story began in 2008 when a team was kicked out of the 2008 North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance softball world series for using non-gay ringers. The men — Stephen Apilado, Laron Charles and John Russ — filed the federal lawsuit against the NAGAAA last year, claiming they had been discriminated against because they were bisexual, not gay. They also said that they were subjected to embarrassing questions by a tournament committee trying to determine if they were, in fact, gay.

      New restaurant aims to be the “Hooters for women”

Mies Contatiner, a new restaurant in Seoul, South Korea, is catering to female customers by flipping the Hooters model on its head, hiring an all-male staff and designing the eatery's interiors to look like a factory construction site.

Journalist Steven Kim says Koreans are famous for not waiting in line. So, when word spread that people were waiting 30 minutes or longer for a table at the new Mies Container, Kim looked for an explanation:

“Around nine out of ten of the customers queuing around the building were young women in their 20s.

When a good-looking young waiter with a hip-hop scarf tied around on his head appeared and called out in a booming voice that a table for five was available, I began to understand why so many women were waiting in line.

And indeed, most of the rumors about Mies Container are about the restaurant's young, hot, male waiters and the "macho" atmosphere, which has proven to be a hit with the impatient young Seoulites who would never wait the 30 minutes in line anywhere else.”

Customers are even given hardhats with their order numbers. And the walls are adorned with notes from appreciative notes to the male staff, such as, "Dear hot waiter, please marry me!" The owners of Mies Container have also embarked on what might be considered a hipster marketing campaign, forgoing social media outreach and even now-traditional forms of marketing like a company website in favor of a strict word-of-mouth approach.

Time to walk on down the road…

Herman Cain’s new theme song: ‘Na Na Hey Kiss Him Goodbye’

I think Herman Cain’s new theme song ought to “Na Na Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” by The Steam

Herman Cain has another woman (other than his wife) to contend with again.

This new woman says she’s been having an affair with the Pizza King for 13 years. 

Cain’s response has been to lump her in with the other women who have accused him of sexual misconduct in the last month, and claim they’re all making up stories. Kinda interesting that all the stories sound a lot alike…just coincidence I’m sure…like this 13-year alleged affair with Ginger White from Atlanta, Georgia.

Muppet song came from porn film, ‘Re-conditioned’ food, and 3-D TV

        Good Morning Humboldt County!

C’mon in and have a cup of coffee with me. Pull up a chair and have a stare. I have three stories to get you jump-started this Monday morning:

     'Mahna Mahna' came from a porn film

It might just be the catchiest Muppet song of them all, beating out "Rubber Duckie," "It's Not Easy Being Green," "Rainbow Connection" and all the rest.

But until reading this Slate article, I had no idea "Mahna Mahna" came from a softcore porn film.

A second chance for faulty food? FDA calls it 'reconditioning'

When a school lunch supplier repackaged moldy applesauce into canned goods and fruit cups, it drew a sharp warning from federal health regulators last month -- and general disgust from almost everyone else. “I was appalled that there were actually human beings that were OK with this,” said Kantha Shelke, a food scientist and spokeswoman for the Institute of Food Technologists. “This is a case of unsafe food. They are trying to salvage that to make a buck.”

Photo - Chocolate ice cream is a frequent catch-all for botched batches of other flavors, which are doled out in small amounts and mixed with the dark, rich treat in order to avoid waste and expense. Reworking food is a common practice, industry experts say.

But even as Food and Drug Administration officials prepare to re-inspect Snokist Growers of Yakima, Wash., to ensure that the applesauce maker keeps toxin-tainted fruit off store shelves, federal officials and industry experts acknowledge that Snokist is not alone in “reworking” faulty food. Turning imperfect, mislabeled or outright contaminated foods into edible -- and profitable -- goods is so common that virtually all producers do it, at least to some extent, sources say.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I can see 3-D TV being in every home someday.

Your next TV? It better be 3-D

By now, I'm sure you've heard about 3-D HDTV. However, the poor roll-out and competing viewing formats have made 3-D one of the most confusing features ever.

This guide will help you decide which 3-D-equipped HDTV is right for you.

                  What it is:
3-D TV is more accurately described as "stereoscopic" television. You may recall View-Master slide viewers — these are an early example of 3-D TV, just minus the TV part. The underlying principle is the same: Two distinct views are made of the same object, one as the left eye sees it, and the other as the right eye sees it. To view in 3-D, the left eye must only see the left eye view and the right eye the right view.

If there is leakage between the different views (as in, the left eye sees some of the right image, or vice versa), ghost images appear when viewing. This is known as crosstalk, an obvious issue that degrades the viewing experience. Read the rest here.

Time to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Signs of hope for our struggling economy

                                                   

        By Dave Stancliff/for The Times-Standard
   Dare I say it?
   The economy is showing signs of improvement. 
   I realize suggesting such a thing might make some readers believe I’ve lost touch with reality. I realize it’s tough out there with families waiting in food lines, the homeless population growing, and jobs as scarce as real meat at Taco Bell.
    A reader recently commented that I use too much space talking about things going wrong in the world. Another reader suggested I need to write about more “important things,” which loosely defined meant issues they were interested in.
  The environment. Partisan politics. Global Warming. Homeland Security spying on American citizens. The war in Afghanistan. Wall Street versus Main Street. 
    All good subjects to write about (and I have), but I don’t want to beat one subject or issue to death. If I write about a subject more than once, you can be sure I feel strongly about it.

  I guess it comes down to expectations. I like to write about new subjects every week. The odds are that a reader will like one column and  disagree with another. That’s more than okay as I’m not a politician running a popularity contest. 
  One of the reasons people disagree with each other is pre-conceived beliefs that clash. They can see, or experience, the same event and have a different perspective on what actually happened.
  Speaking of perspectives, let’s go back to why I think there’s hope for the economy.
California employers added more than 25,700 workers to their payrolls in October, the third straight month of job growth. The state reported broad growth across seven of 11 industry sectors. Professional and business services led the way by adding 17,300 new jobs last month.
  That was followed by education and health services with 7,400 new positions and financial activities with 4,000. Even the beleaguered construction trades which 2,100 jobs in October.
   According to a widely watched private research group, the Leading Economic Index (LEI) is pointing towards modest growth and a gain in momentum by spring.
   The Conference Board LEI  rose 0.9 percent in October, up sharply from a 0.1 percent increase in September and a 0.3 percent rise in August. Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein sees a glimmer of hope for the economy if the momentum can continue.
   Here are some more signs that small advances are being made:
   Jobless claims have trended down according to the latest government data. Consider this, the total number of people receiving benefits fell to the lowest level since September 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the financial crisis intensified.
  The jobless claims data was the latest in a string of reports showing the U.S. economy gaining some momentum this year. I don’t say put on your rose-colored glasses and start throwing “The Recession is Over” parties because of one report, but it’s a good sign.
  Then we have news that factories are running at a faster pace and inflation is almost nonexistent. Factories made more cars, electronics and business equipment in October, a sign that manufacturing is recovering. Industrial production rebounded 0.7 percent last month, according to the Federal Reserve.  This information lends credence to other leading indicators.
  More good news. The Labor Department announced that consumer prices dropped 0.1 percent last month. Americans paid less for cars and gasoline. This data, according to financial experts, suggests inflation is poised to go lower after a spike in oil prices earlier in the year.
  I like to share good news (as long as it’s true) about our economy. I know numerous challenges lie ahead before most Americans regain confidence in the economy and our government. Still, I’m hopeful we can overcome them all in time.

  I don’t expect you’ll skip away after reading this column and tell people the recession is almost over. Actually, I expect you won’t give this column a second thought.
   As It Stands, for those of you who do however, I look forward to hearing your opinions. A waste of space, or was it nice to hear we don’t have to prepare for Armageddon quite yet?

Two skillfully rendered illusions by artist Oleg Shuplyak

 

                                             To see some more great illusions go here.

Ukrainian artist Oleg writes Shuplyak oil paintings with optical illusions.
Oleg Shuplyak 44 years and he is an architect by training. But he devoted his life to not designing buildings and structures, painting and teaching. He worked as a teacher of drawing in his native village, now teaches drawing and painting at a children’s art school in a small Ukrainian town Berezhany. A parallel Shuplyak is a member of Artists Union of Ukraine, works in the genres of associative symbolism, surrealism and abstract art, and participates in group and solo exhibitions suits in Ukraine and Europe.
His paintings – it’s artistic optical illusions, which is found when considering the implication: a figure of reading Girl hides head of Salvador Dali, for autumn leaves – a bird, and for bathing naked couple – the silhouette of Freud.                                                           Go here for even more illusions by Shuplyak.

Montana PBS: Clearing the Smoke – the Science of Cannabis

Watch Clearing the Smoke: The Science of Cannabis on PBS. See more from KUSM.

Another reason for legalization of marijuana…

You’d think the policies in our country were based on science, but they’re not when it comes to pot.

Listen to what doctors and researchers have to say about pot’s medical usages.

In 2004, Medical marijuana was legalized in Montana.

Listen to riveting testimony of one man suffering with cancer, and the ill effects of his chemo treatments. After trying all conventional options to help him his doctor prescribed pot. It worked wonderfully for him.

This is a one-hour video. Try watching the first few minutes and see what you think. I thought it was well-done and made a strong case for the merits of medical marijuana. I’d really like to hear what you think.

Few Facts on FOX: another study shines spotlight on misinformation

The release this week of yet another survey indicating the more you watch Fox News the less they know, has once again shone a spotlight on one of the unique features that defines Rupert Murdoch's cable news outlet - it is very, very good at misinforming people. And it's very bad at reporting the news. In other words: Propaganda? Yes. News? Not so much.

It's true that the most recent survey, conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University, only polled adults in New Jersey and doesn't represent national indictment against Fox. Nonetheless, the findings created a media stir because they reinforce what pollsters and academics previously discovered; that one of the country's all-news channels consistently leaves viewers less informed.

What's stunning is how many different areas of the news and public policy Fox viewers are misinformed about. For instance, the Fairleigh Dickinson survey asked viewers about recent grassroots uprisings in Arab nations [emphasis added]:

For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all..... Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.

That just means we can add the Arab Spring to the laundry list of issues Fox fans are less knowledgeable about. Here are some previously documented examples.

--2010, the proposed New York City mosque. Two Ohio State University researchers released their study, "Fox News Contributes to Spread of Rumors About Proposed NYC Mosque."

The take-away:

In this study, the results are very clear: the more people use Fox News, the more rumors they have heard the more they believe.

2010, mid-term elections. A "Misinformation and the 2010 Election" survey conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, and showed that regular Fox News viewers "were significantly more likely" to hold misinformed views.

--2011, health care reform. The Kaiser Foundation released the findings of its health care reform "pop quiz." It asked respondents ten questions about the topic and graded the responses. The Foundation found loyal Fox News viewers knew less about health care reform than did CNN and MSBNC viewers.

--2003, the Iraq War. the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) study found widespread public misperceptions about the Iraq war, but some media consumers were more misinformed than others:

Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely than average to have misperceptions.

--2009, health care reform. A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Fox fans were overwhelmingly misinformed about health care reform: 

In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly.

2010, global warming. Stanford University, in conjunction with the National Science Foundation, released a report titled "Frequent Viewers of Fox News Are Less Like to Accept Scientists' Views of Global Warming."

It concluded:

More exposure to Fox News was associated with more rejection of many mainstream scientists' claims about global warming, with less trust in scientists, and with more belief that ameliorating global warming would hurt the U.S. economy.

Marines ordered to stop farting in front of civilians, union leaders game pension system, and city builds wheelchair ramps to nowhere

                    Good Morning Humboldt County!

C’mon in…you’re here in time for coffee and a look at some entertaining stories to start the day. Truth is often stranger than fiction as demonstrated in a couple of these stories. Pull up a seat and relax. The coffee’s especially good today. 

       Marines ordered to stop farting around civilians

The Military Times news service, reporting from Afghanistan in August, disclosed a U.S. Marines command directive ordering troops to restrain their audible flatus because, apparently, Afghan soldiers and civilians complained of being offended. The reporter doubted the directive could be effective, in that passing gas by front-line troops is "practically a sport." [Military Times)

    

   Union leaders gaming the retirement system

A Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV investigation revealed in September and October the astonishing result that Illinois laws passed in 1997 and 2007 at the behest of organized labor have given at least three former union leaders lifetime government pensions as if they had been city or state employees, totaling an estimated drain on public budgets of about $7 million. Two teachers' union officials were allowed to teach exactly one day to qualify, and an engineers' union official was hired for exactly one day, with the remainder of the service of the three having been on the payroll of the respective unions. A September Tribune report estimated that perhaps 20 other union officials might have been eligible under similar provisions. [Chicago Tribune

   City builds wheel chair ramps to nowhere

In what a cement company executive said is "one of those bureaucratic things that doesn't make any sense," the city of Detroit recently built wheelchair ramps at 13 intersections along Grandy Street, despite knowing that those ramps are either not connected to sidewalks or connected to seldom-used, badly crumbling sidewalks. The ramps were required by a 2006 lawsuit settlement in which Detroit pledged to build ramps on any street that gets re-paved, as Grandy was. (No one in city government thought, apparently, to attempt a trade of these 13 intersections for paving 13 more-widely used ones in the city.) [Detroit News

Time to walk on down the road…