Caturday

Cats being jerks.

How many of you are experiencing a huge spike of ad phone calls... or silent phone calls?

For a while we were being harassed almost daily by phone calls from construction companies, then it changed to several times a day boiler room type calls for a variety of causes.  Along with these, we get silent calls where no one is on the line.  My daughter thinks it's a plot to make us drop our land line....  What happened to the no-call list anyway?

Is your state trying to force you to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term?

Plan B available on Amazon.

China... haven't you learned ANYTHING?

PetSmart joins Petco in halting sales of Chinese dog and cat treats

Pet owners have complained for years that treats imported from China, in particular chicken jerky, have caused illnesses that officials have been unable to pinpoint. Nonetheless, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued periodic warnings since 2007. 

“We’ve been following the FDA warnings and related customer concerns closely, and we’ve been actively reducing our China-made assortment and expanding our American-made offerings for several years now,” said Jim Myers, Petco's chief executive. 

“As a leader in the industry and the trusted partner for our pet parents, we’re eager to make this transition and to expand our assortment of safe and healthy treats," Myers said. "Very simply, we feel this decision is in the best interest of the pets we all love and, ultimately, for our business.” 

Petco, based in San Diego, said it expects all China-made treats will be removed from its more than 1,300 stores nationwide by year's end. PetSmart Inc. soon followed, saying it would also end sales of China-made pet treats.

I have posted my list of Chinese products that have been badly made, toxic, mislabeled. I have used only those articles from substantiated news outlets. I do not go searching for them, but this is the list I have collected over just a few years of watching.

Daily Kos (via Steve Bates):

Recently, Diane Rehm had a show about prescription drugs sold in the U.S. that are manufactured outside of the U.S. Unknown to me (and probably many others) many of the prescription drugs that we take were actually manufactured outside of the United States. According to Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the FDA: Eighty percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in drugs taken here are actually manufactured in other countries and about 40 percent of the finished drugs are coming from other countries.

Really?  China?  This China?

China, selling fox meat as donkey meat to its clients.  Not that I'll ever eat donkey meat.  That's not the point.  It's that, again, China is caught selling something inedible/ poisonous/ toxic/ contaminated/ mislabeled to customers.  Don't they have an 'FDA' branch of the government that enforces quality controls?  If they don't, why would anyone trust China to sell anything reliable, safe, or uncontaminated?

Here is the list culled from the many posts on my blog on China's ongoing problems in food and industrial safety.

Gutter oil made in China... from dead animals and garbage.  Are we sure we want them to process our chickens?

They never seem to learn:

 220,000 Pounds Of Poisoned Dead Fish Scooped Up In China In Reminder Of Pollution Plaguing Country

Authorities have scooped up around 100,000 kilograms (220,000 pounds) of dead fish they say were poisoned by ammonia from a chemical plant, environmental officials and state media said Wednesday, in a reminder of the pollution plaguing the country. 

The Hubei province environmental protection department, notified of the piles of dead fish in central China's Fuhe River on Monday, pointed the finger at local company Hubei Shuanghuan Science and Technology Stock Co. Officials said sampling of its drain outlet showed that ammonia density far exceeded the national standard. The company said it wasn't going to immediately comment. 

Inadequate controls on industry and lax enforcement of existing standards have worsened China's pollution problem, stemming from three decades of breakneck economic growth. High-profile incidents this year involving dead animals in rivers – not only deaths attributed to pollution but also carcasses dumped by farmers after die-offs at farms – have added to public disgust and suspicions about the safety of drinking water. 

The latest incident has affected the nearby fishing village of Huanghualao, where 1,600 residents make a living from fishing, said the village's Communist Party secretary, Wang Sanqing.

Adding yet one more thing that illustrates why we can't trust food products (or anything else) from China:

More than 900 people have been arrested in China for involvement in meat-related crimes, including producing fake beef and mutton from animals such as rats, minks and foxes, authorities reported. 

A total of 382 cases of alleged crimes in food industry were uncovered in a three-month campaign launched by China’s Ministry of Public Security on January 25, the ministry reported.
In addition to producing falsely-labeled meat, the crimes included using banned chemicals in processing of products, selling meat infected with various diseases and injecting water into meat to pad up its weight, according to Xinhua news agency. 

Security officials seized more than 20,000 tons of illegal meat products during the crackdown.
The ministry said it will now focus on dairy products, continuing a larger campaign to combat crime and violations in food industry.

Nice to see official attempts to crackdown on this unregulated industry.  But I bet I will be posting yet another article sometime soon about poisonous/ toxic/ polluted/ contaminated products made in China.  Because that's the way it is.

Update:  I do hope the Chinese scientists know what they are doing....
Scientists warn Chinese-made air-transmissible bybrid bird flu puts humanity at risk

From my many posts on this subject:

Fake Medicine from China Threatening Lives in Africa

 *sigh*

Add it to the list:

BEIJING—The discovery of unusual levels of mercury in Chinese-produced infant formula reignited fears about the safety of the country's scandal-ridden dairy industry, and underlined the severe challenges the government faces in improving food safety.
Mercury in baby formula.

Pills for human consumption containing human remains.

China poisons more pets:

November 18, 2011 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an important bulletin warning consumers that chicken jerky products (also marketed as chicken tenders, strips or treats) may be associated with serious illness in dogs.
Over the past 12 months, the FDA has observed an increase in the number of complaints regarding canine illnesses associated with consumption of chicken jerky products imported from China.
These complaints have been reported to the government by both dog owners and veterinarians.
And here is the ever-expanding list:

But according to FSN, the biggest reason to avoid ultra-filtered honey is that pollen is the only sure-fire way to trace the source of honey to a geographic location. As a result ultra-filtered honey is often used to mask the shady origins of certain kinds of honey -- especially Chinese honey, which is subject to heavy import tariffs on account of its frequent contamination by heavy metals and illegal antibiotics. Chinese honeymakers ultra-filter their honey, and then ship it through byzantine paths, to sneak their sham product onto American grocery shelves without being hit with a tariff.
Vinegar from China kills 11 people.

"From steroid-spiked pork to glow-in-the-dark meat to recycled cooking oil collected from sewers, a series of illnesses and scandals linked to tainted food has put officials on guard. But tougher measures have had little effect amid an official culture of secrecy."

Watermelons spiked with growth chemicals explode in the fields... so the farmers feed the forchlorfenuron saturated melons to fish and pigs.

Waste water forced into pigs going to market.

Fresh milk tainted with melamine and toxic substances extracted from leather scraps... killed 6 children in China and sickened 300,000.

Rice is contaminated with heavy metals like cadmium.

Fake rice made from plastic, potatoes and resin.

Pulverized lime added to bleaching agents widely used in flour production. Pulverized lime damages the lungs and the entire respiratory system.

Cadmium in children's toys and little girl jewelry. Lead in toys: Thomas the Tank Engine, baby bibs, cub scout badges, wooden blocks. Formaldehyde in candy, in baby clothing. Coma-inducing date rape drug in toys.

Asbestos in toys.

"The rampant use of chemical additives in animal feed can be traced to 1999. According to Gao Yinxiang, the research and development of high-protein feed additives was a hot field among scientists about 10 years ago due to shortage of animal fodder in the country at the time.

From that time, it's hard to define the exact role that scientists played in the evolution of the melamine scandal. Yet scientists certainly contributed to it by developing unsafe protein alternatives. Many Chinese are now calling on scientists to examine their conscience before making profits at the expense of public safety."

Melamine in pet food kills house pets in the US. Melamine is found in wheat, corn and rice gluten.

China says no to inspections and destroys evidence.

Rat poison in breakfast porridge.

Pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

Toothpaste with diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical used in engine coolants.

Highly toxic puffer fish sold as monk fish.

Fake blood protein.

Wild mice used for meat.

Defective tires.

Use of illegal drift nets.

Fake kosher food.

Insecticide-tainted dumplings.

More than 40 percent of drinking water in rural China is unfit for drinking.

Poisoned chocolate.

Toxic drywall which caused houses to be uninhabitable.

Fake Cisco routers

Misuse and overuse of antibiotics. "Studies in China show a "frightening" increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also know as MRSA."

The list will inevitably be added to. When are we going to learn this is what happens to corporations when there is no regulation?

Bits and pieces

Tesla Model S... by Oatmeal.

Girl's skeleton found in cave sheds light on origins of first Americans DNA recovered from 12,000-year-old skeleton help to dispel claims that first Americans came from Australia, Asia or Europe.

What on earth is this prehistoric beast?!

Rachael Carson

Misconceptions about WWI.

Hard to be a supporter of Cliven Bundy ... they're running out of cash.

Solar wind energy tower.

Tigers come in all sizes.

Cat saves the day!

Tuesday casserole

WTF is wrong with Americans?

Why we should watch the virulent religious fanaticism oozing to the surface in the US.

What is wrong with Governor Brown?  MORE jails? Really?

Paving with solar panels.

Hagfish kill by slime.

Drinkable books.

10 ingredients that don't belong in your bathroom.

Shaming, shunning, (soon to be stoning) women who have abortions.

A billboard actually doing something worth while: eating pollution.

Al Franken on the internetal tubes.

Oh, and Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi.

Benghazi

Benghazi  Benghazi!  Benghazi!!  Benghazi?  Really?  Oops.  Benghazi.

States' rights ... and wrongs

You go, Georgia!

A Georgia man panicked parents and children at a local park and baseball field by randomly walking around and displaying his gun to anyone he encountered in the parking lot. According to witnesses who spoke with WSB-TV, the man wandered around the Forsythe County park last Tuesday night showing his gun to strangers, telling them “there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Just what exactly did you think would happen when you pass these kinds of laws? That people would behave in a civilized manner?  Really?

You go, South Carolina!

SC GOP candidate: Women cause ’95 percent’ of divorces by loving their kids too much

And

SC Republican wants to end public schools: Nothing ‘in the Bible about state education’

And you go, Tennessee!

TENNESSEE PASSES BILL ALLOWING THE BULLYING OF LGBT STUDENTS IN THE NAME OF ‘RELIGIOUS FREEDOM’

You go, Alabama!

Alabama’s chief justice: Buddha didn’t create us so First Amendment only protects Christians

You go, New York!

 NYC cyclist arrested for using cellphone to film cop, told iPhones are ‘being used as guns’