Posts Tagged ‘News’
Antibiotic Free Meat Is Free Of Antibiotics Unless It Isn’t
This story makes my head hurt.
From ABC/AP, an item about Chipotle Mexican Grill and how they are “considering tweaking its ‘responsibly raised’ meat standards to allow meat from animals that have been given antibiotics to treat illnesses.”
Apparently this was to clarify an earlier story. I don’t know exactly. Read it here if you want to.
This is the part that made me go “hmm.”
Quoting from ABC/AP:
The use of antibiotics to treat sick animals is considered acceptable by some health advocates, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is based in Washington, D.C. Sarah Klein, a senior attorney with the group, said the problem is when animals are fed antibiotics with food on a constant basis to promote growth or prevent disease, which could in turn lead to the growth of antibiotic resistant germs.
But Klein said the “Organic Meat” and “No Antibiotics Administered: USDA Verified” labels found in supermarkets mean the meat wasn’t treated with antibiotics, even if the animal was sick. She noted that there are other labels that aren’t verified by the government, such as “raised without antibiotics.”
“It may be true, but it’s not verified,” she said.
Let’s try that again. “It may be true, but it’s not verified.” Does that mean it’s true or untrue? I guess the answer is “perhaps.” Which doesn’t seem good enough.
If I could, I’d live on a farm. Until then I suppose we’ll take our chances.
via Chipotle Considering Change to Allow Antibiotics – ABC News.
Weiner Stuff Not About His Wife – There Is No Carlita Danger
Juliana Margulies was asked about the Weiner stuff, which makes sense because of the character she plays on “The Good Wife.” (For the record, I have nothing against Juliana Margulies. At all. Happen to really like her a lot.) My point is, when politicians do what Weiner did (and seriously, let’s hope that isn’t very often because WOW IS CARLOS DANGER CREEPY), nobody should make it about his wife.
Weiner’s wife isn’t running for office. She is not Carlita Danger. How is this about her? Seriously. She can do whatever she wants as far as I’m concerned. Do I wonder why she’d stay with him? Sure. But that’s between the two of them. It’s silly to blame or attack her in any way.
There’s also a doofy bit in the comments section of this story (which I should put in air quotes because it’s not really news, but whatever) knocking Hillary Clinton for “standing by her man” like Huma is. A commenter going by the moniker Beer Goggles (can’t make this stuff up) writes that he/she/it has “no empathy towards Power Hungry, TAMMY WYNETTE robot, Huma.” For our younger readers or those with poor memories, here is what Hillary actually said back in 1992.
Sorry, Beer Goggles. Not quite accurate. Good try though.
‘Good Wife’ star empathizes with Weiner’s spouse – WTOP.com.
New Android Software Has Parent-Friendly Feature
From TechCrunch, a report about the latest version of Google’s Android software, which includes this parent-friendly feature:
New to Android 4.3: advanced multi-user support, bringing in “restricted profiles”. Restricted profiles lets parents limit what their child’s account can do, for example.
Haven’t looked into the specifics yet but the concept is great. Reporting from the announcement, TechCrunch’s Greg Kumparak writes:
Hugo is running through a demo of the restricted access feature, walking through how you can limit an account to only run certain apps. Apps can even be configured to hide in-app purchase items from kids.
An account that only runs the apps you want your kids to use would be awesome.
According to the article, this feature is part of Android 4.3, which will be installed on the new Nexus 7 Android Tablet announced today by El Goog. For more, including a photo of an enormous tray of bacon, visit TechCrunch.
via Live From Google’s Mystery Announcement With Android Head Sundar Pichai | TechCrunch.
IGN Commenter Speaks Truth About The Avengers
I finally have a few minutes to pull out my Geek Gold Card and catch up with all of the San Diego Comic Con news. At first I thought the biggest tidbit was the title for Avengers 2 — Avengers: Age of Ultron. (Insert little nerdy noise here.) Turns out much more was revealed about the many upcoming Marvel superhero movies, plus the announcement that Superman and Batman will do a project together. (I like phrasing it that way because it sounds like I think they’re real people. You know, like The Muppets.)
Personally I prefer The Avengers. Have I mentioned that lately?
Anyway, in this IGN story about footage from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the comments section is briefly hijacked by someone who thinks that the Nolan Batman flicks are more awesome than The Avengers movie. We disagree with this statement. A lot. Enough that we could say mean things. But since it’s not nice to be mean, let us instead share a polite portion from this post:
They are ALL good movies, however Avengers did what superhero movies needed to do. That is all. I win.
That is indeed all. Well, not really. The above was followed someone stating that “the avengers might be one of the most overrated movies of all time, despite the fact I like it, people just give it way too much undeserved adulation“, which itself led to, “Nolan’s batman films are the most overrated comic book movies of all time. Begins actually felt like a comic book. things slowly started to trickle down hill with the dark knight until we received the all over the place plot of The dark knight rises.” (Note: all comments pasted as is, spelling/capitalization/grammar missteps included.) Eventually the thread gets back to what’s really important, which is that there are a lot more superhero movies on the horizon and how awesome that is.
Personally I’m more excited about the upcoming Marvel movies than I am those from the Distinguished Competition. Part of this is because I’m more of a Marvel fan to begin with. (Not that I dislike DC; I love the Justice League cartoon and yack about it so often that even my fellow Geek Gold Card members tune me out when I get going.) Other reasons include:
(a) There are more Marvel movies on the way, and the main goal here is to have as many superhero movies as possible. Preferably one per week.
(b) Out of the recently released superhero movies, those from Marvel (Thor, Captain America, Iron Man) have been better than those from DC (Green Lantern, The Dark Knight Rises, and even Man Of Steel, although I liked it fine).
The Avengers, of course, is the best of the bunch. Well, the best as of now. Because there’s lots more to come. And that, in the words of Martha Stewart, is a good thing.
Comic-Con: Captain America Honors San Diego with Winter Soldier Footage – IGN
New Language Began With Baby-Talk
Here is a fascinating article in The New York Times about a new language, Light Warlpiri, which is spoken by a relatively small group of Australian Aboriginal people. Everyone who speaks it is younger than 35 years old. And it began with baby-talk.
From the Times:
There are many dying languages in the world. But at least one has recently been born, created by children living in a remote village in northern Australia.
Carmel O’Shannessy, a linguist at the University of Michigan, has been studying the young people’s speech for more than a decade and has concluded that they speak neither a dialect nor the mixture of languages called a creole, but a new language with unique grammatical rules.
Here is a video, “Monster Story in Light Warlpiri Child39”, from Dr. Carmel O’Shannessy’s YouTube account.
So what’s this about baby-talk? Again, from the Times: Read more »
Rutgers Mike Rice Practice Video Is Disgusting
Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice was fired. ESPN has video of why.
The video shows Rice doing the following during practices: shoving and grabbing players, hurling basketballs at them (at least once at a player’s head), and verbally abusing them by “screaming obscenities and homophobic slurs.” The latter refers to a word that begins with the letter F and ends with “got.”
The firing was announced via Twitter. I still find that odd although it is convenient.
Based upon recently revealed information and a review of previously discovered issues, Rutgers has terminated the contract of Mike Rice.
— Rutgers Athletics (@RUAthletics) April 3, 2013
Apparently there is another wrinkle here. ESPN reports that a Rutgers employee was fired and it may have been for telling the administration about Rice’s behavior. Here’s a video about that.
It is beyond belief that anyone would behave in this manner and be able to get away with it for any length of time. College sports are screwy.
Breaking news: Rice says he’s sorry. (Scroll way down on the page.) OK.
New Iron Man 3 Poster Explains Something
Topless Robot has a new poster from Iron Man 3. That would be enough for us, but they also offer an explanation about why the Avengers movie is called “Avengers Assemble” outside the U.S. Read more »
