Chillax, Veruca...

Mexican Official’s Daughter Doesn’t Get Table She Wants, Shuts Down Restaurant

4/30/13 at 10:25 AM

"I want an Oompa Loompa now!"Photo: Warner Bros.

Mexican Federal Attorney General Humberto Benitez Trevino had to issue an embarrassing apology for "the inappropriate behavior of [his] daughter Andrea." She threw a temper tantrum after Maximo Bistro in Mexico City asked her to wait for a table because she didn't have a reservation. Only a few hours after the incident, official inspectors invaded the restaurant and posted "suspended" signs. "She exaggerated the situation and the officials of the Attorney General's Office for Consumer Protection, which I head, overreacted because it was my daughter," Benitez Trevino explained. "Immediately upon hearing of the situation, I ordered the raid suspended, to avoid any excesses." Tsk-tsk. [AP]

I knew it!!

We needed "research" to tell us this??

Money Buys Happiness and You Can Never Have Too Much, New Research Says
By Derek Thompson | The Atlantic – Mon, Apr 29, 2013 11:41 AM EDT



Americans have a peculiar conviction that the one thing money can't give us is satisfaction. You can't buy happiness, we've all been told. "Mo Money Mo Problems", Biggie concurred. And while we can all agree that desperate poverty is hideous, there is a broadly held view that after a certain level of income (around $75,000, say), more money doesn't buy more well-being.

But it's just not so. Economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers have been arguing for years that, yes, richer families tend to be happier, and no, there is not an automatic cut-off point. In other words: Mo money, fewer problems.

Their elegant and straightforward new paper can be nicely summed up in the two graphs below. The first graph looks at income groups within countries. In all nations surveyed, richer households reported more life satisfaction. (Statistical note: This graph is logarithmic. That means doubling your income from $1,000 to $2,000 raises satisfaction by the same amount as doubling your income from $10,000 to $20,000. You can imagine why this might make a good theoretical case for income redistribution.)


The next graph compares different countries, rather than different households within countries. Here, each circle represents a nation, with the richest ones clustered on the right. If extra income didn't matter for well-being, you'd expect the line to flatten. Instead, it steepens. More money doesn't just mean happier families. It means happier countries.

Crisis Averted!

Happy Friday: Twinkies Will Return To Stores This Summer

Twinkiehenge, Via Fanpop

It's probably been years since you've seen anyone dare to ingest a Twinkie, but that didn't make it any less startling to hear that the chemically-infused "cakes," as essential to the fabric of America as bald eagles and Hulk Hogan's sex tape, would be disappearing from shelves when Hostess declared bankruptcy last November. The brand was bought in March by Apollo Global Management Group, and now, the beloved and indestructible snacks will reportedly be making their triumphant return to stores and psych wards this summer, where consumers with even a modicum of self-respect will probably continue to not buy them!
"We expect to be making and selling in July," Michael Cramer, executive vice president of Hostess Brands LLC told NBC. "Probably the later half of the month before the product hits the stores."

"It's not the kind of deviled egg I'm used to, but at least it really does come from Satan..."

Sandwich Monday: The Egg Rollie

 

 

  

 

 

 

For you gluttons for gosh knows what, here's where you can get your own...

 

One bad apple...

Important Court Case May Define Limits of Free Grocery Store Samples

• 4/17/13 at 2:10 PM
• 1Comment

Freedom isn't free, and neither are the samples, apparently.Photo: iStockphoto

When it comes to eating samples at the supermarket, how many is too many? What's the approximate threshold for salami slices? Is there a cutoff point for cheese cubes on toothpicks? A 68-year-old Gem Lake, Minnesota, retiree who alleges he was "jumped, kicked and beaten" by police officers and store security after he walked off with 1.4 pounds of summer sausage and beef sticks that had been set out as free samples might not actually become the poster boy for pitfalls of supermarket courtesy culture, but he should be. Here's what happened.
Former laboratory machinist Erwin Lingitz moseyed on into a Cub Foods in White Bear Township on April 24, 2010 and proceeded to fill a plastic produce bag with summer sausage. His total haul, gleaned from displays and unattended stations set up throughout the aisles, included:
• "14-16 packets of soy sauce"
• 0.61 pounds of summer sausage in a plastic produce bag
• 0.85 pounds of beef stick
As such, Lingitz was followed out of the store and confronted by a security guard who accused him of shoplifting and "pinned him against a stack of water softener salt," according to the Star Tribune. Then Lingitz alleges police officers threw him onto the sidewalk and kicked him in the head and ribs.
Police contend that Lingitz resisted arrest; Lingitz's lawyers contend that because he hadn't committed a felony, nothing about the way he was treated was proportional to suspicions of shoplifting. Exhibit photos accompanying the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court last month, depict the senior citizen with two black eyes, a laceration across his nose, and cuts and bruises. He was later charged with disorderly conduct, interfering with police, and shoplifting, even though all of the food he took was nominally free. Lingitz's suit not only contends that "store personnel regularly solicited plaintiff to take multiple samples," but on the day of his arrest, Lingitz was encouraged to take food back to his wife, who reportedly has mobility issues and waited in the car while he filled a drug prescription. He's seeking $375,000 in damages.
On Monday, a lawyer representing the grocery store's parent company fired back, depicting Lingitz as a serial offender who had previously been warned to cool it on the freebies. On another occasion, says Robyn Johnson, a manager at the store had witnessed Lingitz "filling plastic produce bags with the samples or with 10-20 cookies from the kids' cookie club tray, which specifically limits the offer to one free cookie per child." Johnson also said that Cub employees never allowed Lingitz to take all kinds of beef sticks. No one has yet addressed the soy sauce packets.
No matter what really happened at the Cub Foods in White Bear Township, the case has multiple issues. The surveillance tape of the incident was erased, for example. But regardless of whether you side with Team Cub or Team Erwin, there's something peculiar and wrong about the store's party line that Lingitz "violated societal norms and common customer understanding regarding free sample practices," as a means of explaining their actions.
In these heady times of "societal norms" for free samples, it's good we have Larry David to guide our moral perspectives. But really, if limits for free samples are never explicitly set, and there's no one around to say how many is enough, how can a customer be confronted about taking too many?

I always say, "the flavor's in the dirt"...

Although, it does support my theory that brown rice is evil... 

Dangerous Levels of Lead Found in Imported Rice

By Samantha Bonar Sat., Apr. 13 2013 at 7:00 AM

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Categories: Food Safety, Food Science

Flickr/nebulux76

An egg atop black rice in a Parmesan cup

Researchers have found unacceptably high levels of lead in rice imported into the U.S., particularly from China and Taiwan, BBC News reports. Some samples exceeded the "provisional total tolerable intake" (PTTI) set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by a factor of 120.
Dr Tsanangurayi Tongesayi of Monmouth University in New Jersey and his colleagues tested a number of imported brands of rice, including rice from Bhutan, Italy, China, Taiwan, India, Israel, the Czech Republic and Thailand -- which accounts for 65 percent of U.S. imports. (The U.S. imports about 7 percent of its rice.)
The scientists measured the lead levels in each country category and calculated the lead intake on the basis of average daily consumption. The results were presented at an American Chemical Society meeting, and will be published in the Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B.
Tongesayi and his colleagues found that the rice they tested contained lead amounts significantly higher than the FDA's approved PTTI levels.
"According to the FDA, they have to be more than 10 times the PTTI levels [to cause a health concern], and our values were two to 12 times higher than those 10 times," Tongesayi told BBC News. "So we can only conclude that they can potentially cause harmful effects" -- especially in children, who are more vulnerable to lead poisoning. Lead can damage organs and the central nervous system and cause serious developmental difficulties in children.
The factor of 120 (12 times higher than 10 times the PTTI) is for Asian children, who are most susceptible because of their age and comparatively high rice intake according to the study.
For non-Asian adults, the levels above the PTTI ranged from 20 to 40.
Rice from China and Taiwan had the highest lead levels, but all of the samples significantly exceeded the PTTIs.
The FDA says it will review the findings.
Because rice is grown in water, it is more susceptible than other crops to environmental pollutants found in irrigation water and groundwater. Previous studies have found high levels of arsenic in rice, particularly brown rice.
The problem, Tongesayi told the BBC, are unhealthy agricultural practices around the world.
"If you look through the scientific literature, especially on India and China, they irrigate their crops with raw sewage effluent and untreated industrial effluent," he said.
Wow, great idea.
"Research has been done in those countries, and concerns have been raised because of those practices, but it's still ongoing."
Heavy metals in rice can even be traced to the increasing practice of sending electronic waste to developing countries, and the air and water pollution it leads to, he said.
He urges international regulations to govern the production and distribution of food.
Can we please do that stat?

If you can't tell the difference between a toy poodle and a ferret...

Man buys toy poodles, discovers they’re actually ferrets on steroids

An Argentine man who thought he bought a pair of poodles at an outdoor market in Buenos Aires brought them home to the vet only to be told they were actually ferrets on steroids, reports the Daily Mail.

The man, a retiree from Catamarca, purchased the animals at La Salada, Argentina's largest bazaar.

The veterinarian informed him the ferrets "had been given steroids at birth to increase their size and then had some extra grooming to make their coats resemble a fluffy toy poodle," the paper says, translating a report from a local Argentine TV station. He paid $150 per poodle.

Another woman interviewed by the station said she was tricked into thinking she had purchased a chihuahua at the same market.

It's unclear what the duped pet owners did with their faux poodles. But if you're thinking about buying a poodle at an Argentine market, the Daily Mail has a handy guide on how to tell whether the pooch you're purchasing is actually a ferret:

• Ferrets typically have brown, white or mixed fur and are around 51 cm in length—which includes a 13 cm tail.

• They weigh around three pounds and have a lifespan of 7 to 10 years.

• When happy, ferrets may perform a routine known as the weasel war dance—which is characterized by a series of hops and frenzied attempts to bump into things.

• This is often accompanied by a soft clucking noise called dooking. When upset, ferrets make a hissing noise.

• Toy poodles are known for their intelligence and are around 25 cm tall and weigh around nine pounds.

• If a toy poodle exceeds 25 cm height, it cannot compete in any dog show as a toy poodle.

• Toy poodles have been known to live as long as 20 years.

• Toy poodles are described as sweet, cheerful, perky and lively, and they love to be around people.

Sugar Rush

Gastro thieves abscond with 5-ton haul of Nutella

As far as breaking news goes, this is extremely serious: thieves in Germany have made off with more than five tons of Nutella. The horrific crime occurred in the dead of Sunday night in Hesse, Germany. The sweet-toothed thieves broke the lock on a parked trailer and unloaded thousands of jars; a haul worth about $20,000, according to police. Our thoughts go out to the thousands of innocent people who could be deprived of their daily dose of the thick, hazelnutty, chocolaty spread — which is supposed to be spread on bread, but any self-respecting snacker knows to eat it straight off the spoon. [Huffington Post]

Because we are all 12 years old at heart...

The question is really why not???

Barbies, Ninjas, and Poop: Why Ridiculous Theme Restaurants are so popular in Taiwan