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courtesy of ‘Chris Rief aka Spodie Odie’

My darling wife had to call an 800 number on Saturday to check on some ground beef she’d purchased at TJs. She was relieved to find out she wouldn’t have to throw away a gallon of already-made chili but our good fortune might not extend to you. If you purchased ground beef in the second half of September and put it away in the freezer for future use you could have an issue. This Washington Times article has more details about what you should look out for and the Trader Joe’s site has exact identification. If you have any stored ground beef make sure to check the WT article – it lists some stores whose names don’t jump out at me but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one around.

You can make your own decisions, but personally I don’t sweat e coli issues in ground beef. I use a meat thermometer and check to see that it’s 160F so I don’t need to worry.

‘A puppy is but a dog……….’
courtesy of ‘LaTur’

Main Line Animal Rescue in Pennsylvania, known for some unorthodox tactics like using billboards in Chicago to try to get Oprah to do a show on puppy mills, started a new campaign after convicted dog-abuser Michael Vick was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles- they take out newspaper ads in the city of every team that the Eagles play, encouraging fans to volunteer for animal charities on game day and promising to donate 5 bags of dog food to local shelters and rescues for every time Vick is sacked in that game.

The problem, of course, is that Vick isn’t getting that much playing time and is hard to catch besides, so MLAR has been pledging a certain minimum contribution. But the campaign has been so successful that donations of additional dog food have been pouring in from multiple sources. So much so that after Vick was sacked three times in the Eagles/Redskins game, MLAR was able to bring four tons of dog food to the Washington DC Humane Society, which will distribute it among multiple local shelters.

‘Fight!’
courtesy of ‘phi’

Several sources are running stories about a little dustup in the WaPo offices last week. Fishbowl actually has an on-record confirmation from a WaPo source that the sock-in-the-face did happen. The lesson here seems to be that you shouldn’t call anyone a c*cksucker and feel confident they won’t swing at you, even if they’re in their 70s.

The piece of writing that apparently set this whole thing in motion was Saturday’s piece about infamous accidental disclosures in history. Personally I had a hard time working up the enthusiasm to read the whole thing, much less get into a brawl over it.

Update: Tom suggests that this story demands a little Anchorman.