From the E. coli section of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web page:

"Escherichia coli O157:H7 is an emerging cause of foodborne illness. An
estimated 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths occur in the United
States each year."

That's about 200 cases per day.

According to their spinach "outbreak" web page"As of 1 PM (ET) ( Read more... )

The Republican plan for '08?

Legalized voter suppressionRepublicans in Congress are trying to ram through a bill that would require voters in federal elections to show a government-issued photo ID, under the guise of preventing fraud. There's virtually no evidence that the kind of fraud this bill would prevent even exists. The only predictable ( Read more... )

Trust me, this is worth watching. Yesterday Democracy Now! covered Coretta Scott King's funeral, where President Bush had the nerve to show up and sit behind the speaker's podium. But, what's worth seeing are two speeches made with Bush sitting right behind them while the room erupted in standing applause - Reverend Joseph Lowery attacking the Bush ( Read more... )

Oh, forgot to mention, but the policy passed.

In reference to this post

Oy'.

I spent money today on an anti-pollution smog mask for bicycling, which is ridiculous because it's actually necessary. Every winter I have a hard time breathing while bicycling and eventually figured out that it was pollution smothering me. Mmm, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, black smoke... wee! This is one article, for example, that is just ( Read more... )

Dear friend ( Read more... )

On August 30th, Fidel Castro offered to send 1,100 medical doctors with medications and diagnosis kits to provide assistance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina - and of the Bush administration's lack-of-a-response. Castro reiterated this offer 6 days ago, on the evening of September 2 (and increased the amount of support Cuba would send), but ( Read more... )

Bush's approval rating is 36%, which is lower than Nixon's was during Watergate (before he resigned, which was 39%). I wonder how much lower it can drop after his administration's continued abismal failures here at home as well as abroad. His administration led the opposition to efforts to prepare for the predictable disaster presently unfolding in ( Read more... )

Q: How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: None - The lightbulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.

I'm excited to hear that the Cuban government has dumped Windows in favor of Linux (which is completely free and open source, unlike 100% privatized-for-profit monopolizing Microsoft). So far there are about 1,500 computers running on Linux, and they are working towards replacing Windows on all state owned computers. Then, on June 17th, Inveneo and ( Read more... )