Canada says 1 dead, 16 ill in listeriosis outbreak

An outbreak of listeriosis has killed one person and sickened at least 16 others, Canadian public health officials said today (Wednesday), as a food company suspended production at a Toronto plant and expanded a recall of nearly two dozen types of packaged meats.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said it was working with officials in four provinces to establish any link between the outbreak and the affected products recalled by Maple Leaf Foods.

Listeriosis is a kind of food poisoning that can be dangerous to the elderly, newborns, pregnant women and people with chronic medical conditions.
Symptoms include fever, headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

On Sunday, the company announced it had discovered listeria bacteria in roast beef and corned beef made at the Toronto facility.
It increased the recall on Wednesday to a total of 23 products, including a variety of turkey, smoked meat and roast beef.

Maple Leaf said that the recall covered all products prepared at the plant since June 2 and that it was temporarily closing the facility to re-evaluate food safety procedures.

*****

Listeriosis ain't no joke but isn't as well known as 'Sam and Ella' (salmonella) so many will dismiss it until it is too late.
I am glad to see our friends to the north are going after the bacteria and actually suspending commercial operations at the plant to fix the problem and to prevent future outbreaks.
Now imagine the same thing happening south of that border - you can't because it wouldn't be ... not until people were dead in at least double digit numbers.
And suspending commercial operations, you've got to be kidding.

Lying ... it is in their nature

I just received an e-mail from a friend wherein they relayed a forum post from some individual claiming to be a 'marine' and chastising a real Marine for being left-wing in his politics though he was trying to pass himself off as a 'moderate' ... while also claiming most Marines are right-wing politically.

Well, first off the 'moderate' in question has ever claimed to be left-wing and a goodly way from center all along so right there shows the accuser for what he is - a LIAR.

Second, most Marines are most definitely Left-wing politically including this one - and I am the one more to the center but was accused of being too far left by those of the accuser's ilk on that same forum until I left to pursue this and my other blogs (subsequently I found that I had been 'banned' form that forum after I announced my leaving here ... I guess they had their little snit; some just cannot handle differences).

But back to the Marines leaning left politically: Of the five branches of the military, the Marines are the most left leaning followed by the Air Force, Navy, Army and Coast Guard in that order and all are above 65% left leaning - a far cry from the myth the right-wing wants you to believe ... actually they need you to believe.

You see a Marine embodies the ideals of the left - the ideals of the nation. The ones we were founded on, not the ones the right-wing falsely claims are our nation's ideals - especially christian, which is the biggest lie.

This election year is focusing a glaring light on those lies and exposing them to more than just military personnel and the liars are getting more and more desperate to keep the lie going.

Earlier this month I posted about the clearest example and the easiest to understand - Money - and where it was going when military personnel gave it to a political candidate for their campaign.
Better than 60% went to the left wing candidates, while 25% went to 'moderate' candidates leaving 15% between the right-wing and radicals.

In the presidential race Obama was given money at a rate of 6 to 1 over McPain by those supposedly 'right-wing' military personnel which is sort of odd given that Obama is the 'Most Liberal Left Winger' in the Senate according to the right-wing smear machine.
Funny, but they said the same thing about John Kerry four years ago and he is still in the Senate.
Oh, well I guess they cannot help themselves from lying, it is their nature.

Bluff collapses at a San Diego beach killing a man

A stretch of oceanside bluff below the Torrey Pines Golf Course collapsed and killed a man today (Wednesday), authorities said.
The man, whose identity was not released, suffered severe head trauma when he was struck by the falling rocks, said San Diego police spokesman Gary Hassen.
The victim was in his 50s and visiting from Las Vegas, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Maurice Luque.
The 30-foot-wide section of cliff gave way several hundred feet below the golf course, which hosted the U.S. Open in June.

Carolina naturally is read in ...

110 different countries have visited this site!

Seekers of the truth in Turkey; Monaco; Switzerland; Nepal; Germany; the United Kingdom; the United States; Canada; South Korea; the Netherlands and Australia have stopped by today.

Cops drive 4000+ miles to arrest wrong man

And here you thought the reputation of those in Kentucky couldn't get any more 'hick' ... to say nothing of the 'space cadet' reputation of those in California

A Kentucky sheriff and deputy drove all the way to California to nab a man who had jumped bail after being charged with a misdemeanor of DWI and a minor felony of attempting to evade police. After returning from their 4100 roundtrip that included some sight-seeing and souvenir shopping, mugshot and fingerprint comparisons proved that they had picked up the wrong guy. Apparently, the man, Joel Oros III, had told them all along that he wasn't who they thought he was. From the Kentucky Enquirer:

Embarrassed by the mistake, the county swiftly put Oros on a plane back to California.

"We decided with our attorneys that the best thing to do was get him back home as quick as we could," said Butler Judge-Executive David Fields.

But the cross-country jaunt may prove to cost the county a little more than the expense of a plane ticket.

As he was being freed, Oros ran into a helpful Kentucky lawyer who agreed to sue Butler County and the state of California, if necessary, to try to get extra compensation for the 2,000 miles he rode in shackles....

Other than the handcuffs locked tightly around his wrists, Oros said he enjoyed the 30-hour ride to Kentucky -- his first chance to states outside California.

"They fed me good," he said. "They were entirely nice people."

He also said he had no problem with Gaddie and Deputy Mitchell Russ doing a little souvenir hunting along the way.

"Praise God, let them shop," Oros said.

4,100 Miles For An Arrest That Just Goes Busy

Daily Funny

FARM KID (NOW AT San Diego MARINE CORPS RECRUIT TRAINING)

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine
Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick
before all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m.
But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do
before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is
strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of
weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.

We go on 'route marches,' which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A
'route march' is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like
the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for
shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake ... I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6' and 130 pounds and he's 6'8' and near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get
onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter, Alice

****

Thanks goes to usmc1 for bringing this one to our attention - reminds me of the enjoyable day in Paris ... Island that is.

A vacation flight that wasn't

An airliner (Spanair flight JK5022) bound for the Canary Islands swerved off the runway during takeoff from the Madrid airport today (Wednesday) and caught fire, Spain's national airport authority said, killing 149 people on board.

There were only 26 survivors in the mid-afternoon crash, said Spanish Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez, whose department is in charge of civil aviation.

It was Spain's deadliest air disaster in more than 20 years.

Spanair flight JK5022 was bound for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, a popular vacation spot off West Africa, the company said.

An official with the Madrid emergency rescue service SAMUR said crews were removing injured people and bodies from the plane.
"It is a certain catastrophe," a SAMUR official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give his name.

At the airport, helicopters and fire trucks poured water on the plane, which ended up in a lower, wooded area at the end of the runway at Terminal 4.

Officials at Barajas Airport said the crash may have been caused by an engine on the Spanish budget airline jet catching fire.

According to aviation analyst John Strickland the MD-80 is known as a reliable aircraft with a good safety record.

The Red Cross in Spain has set up a field hospital at the airport to treat the injured.

Spanish journalist Carlota Fomina said she had spoken to one of the passengers who had been on board the plane at the time of the crash who described an explosion and fire.

Spanair, owned by Scandinavian airline SAS, is one of Spain's three major private carriers.

TSA inspector breaks airplanes by climbing on them using instruments as handholds

Another one from the morons at the TSA

A TSA inspector decided to get a closer look at some American Eagle jets at O'Hare, so he climbed up on them, using a fragile, vital instrument (the Total Air Temperature probes) as handholds. He damaged the craft so badly that the regular maintenance crew grounded them -- and if they hadn't noticed, the lives of everyone on-board could have been endangered. Remember, folks, the "S" in TSA stands for "Security."

Citing sources within the aviation industry, ABC News reports an overzealous TSA employee attempted to gain access to the parked aircraft by climbing up the fuselage... reportedly using the Total Air Temperature (TAT) probes mounted to the planes' noses as handholds.

"The brilliant employees used an instrument located just below the cockpit window that is critical to the operation of the onboard computers," one pilot wrote on an American Eagle internet forum. "They decided this instrument, the TAT probe, would be adequate to use as a ladder."

Commuter Flights Grounded Thanks To Bumbling TSA Inspector

TSA puts commercial pilots on no-fly and terrorist watch lists

Nice to see all is as it should be with these folks ... all f@#k%d up

Here are a couple of accounts of commercial airline pilots, one of whom has been put on the TSA's no-fly list and the other is on the terrorist watch-list, for reasons that no one will disclose.

A Gulf War veteran and his wife say they've been unfairly placed on a federal list that limits their commercial flight access and threatens his job as a commercial pilot. To fight back, the couple, who are Muslim, filed a lawsuit today against a host of U.S. government agencies. "We don't know why they're on the list. They don't know why they're on the list. The government won't tell us why they're on the list," said Amy Foerster, an attorney with Saul Ewing, who is providing pro bono counsel and working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the Schuylkill County couple on the case, which was filed in U.S. district court...

James Robinson is a retired Air National Guard brigadier general and a commercial pilot for a major airline who flies passenger planes around the country. James Robinson is a retired brigadier general and a commercial pilot. His name is on the terrorist "watch list."

He has even been certified by the Transportation Security Administration to carry a weapon into the cockpit as part of the government's defense program should a terrorist try to commandeer a plane.

But there's one problem: James Robinson, the pilot, has difficulty even getting to his plane because his name is on the government's terrorist "watch list."

Robinson is one of many James Robinsons on the list, including a 5-year-old. Good news, though -- all you need to do to avoid the secondary screening is fly under your initials, rather than name. Better hope the terrorists never figure that out. Ho ho ho.

Airline captain, lawyer, child on terror 'watch list', Grounded pilot, wife sue over 'no-fly' list

63-year-old woman sues AARP for age discrimination

AARP, the national advocacy group for older Americans, is being accused of age discrimination.

Bonita Brady, a 63-year-old from Michigan, says the group passed her over for a series of jobs because she was too old, despite excellent job reviews.

She joined AARP in Chicago in 1996 as a health representative.
She also worked for AARP in Washington before moving to the Lansing office in 2007.

Brady says she lost her job in a reorganization and was passed over for nine vacancies.

She sued last week in federal court in Michigan and is seeking more than $25,000.

Now that is a fine 'How do you do' isn't it!

North Carolina man dies after waiting 22 hours at hospital

A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom, said federal officials who have threatened to cut off the facility's funding.

The state sent a team Tuesday to help Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro draft new procedures to ensure patients receive proper care.

An investigator's report released Monday found that 50-year-old Steven Sabock died in April after he at one point choked on medication and had been left sitting in a chair for close to a day at the facility about 50 miles southeast of Raleigh.

Surveillance video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards just a few feet away.

It was not clear from the report exactly how Sabock died.

The report states that he was in a hospital bed and later found unresponsive.

A phone call placed after business hours to the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner rang unanswered Tuesday.

Federal officials have threatened to cut off funding because of Sabock's death and a report that a physician punched a patient after the teen bit the doctor.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Tom Lawrence said the state team also may investigate what, if any, disciplinary action should be taken following Sabock's death.

Lawrence said the Sabock incident is isolated but that officials are concerned."It's not the kind of thing that we in our wildest dreams would expect to happen in our hospitals - in our wildest nightmares, I guess," Lawrence said.

Sabock's father, Nicholas, declined comment when reached by telephone Tuesday evening.
A man who answered the phone listed for Susan Sabock, Steven's wife, hung up without commenting.

The investigation released Monday said Sabock died in April after Cherry Hospital nurses left him unattended in a chair and did not feed him or help him to the bathroom.
The report said Sabock sat, unattended, in the room for four work shifts.
The report also found that Sabock, formerly of Roanoke Rapids, ate nothing the day he died and had little food in the three days preceding his death.

The 47-page report also said workers were supposed to be closely monitoring Sabock's condition and may have forged documents that said they had.
The state has until Aug. 23 to file a report with the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services detailing what changes officials are making, Lawrence said.
If the center rejects the report, federal funds will be cut off beginning Sept. 1, Lawrence said.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton said in a statement that nurses may be reassigned to provide more patient supervision.
Officials are also considering better ways to manage staff resources, he said.

A patient in New York died in June after she waited in a hospital's mental ward waiting area for nearly 24 hours.
Security video showed her writhing on the floor.
It was nearly an hour before someone else flagged down a staff member who got help for the unresponsive woman.