http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=74503This one is of particular concern because my nephew has tons of these train sets. I just sent the url to my brother so he can take a look at it.I suspect we’re going to hear quite a few more of these where companies decided to ignore legal requirements and use substandard parts for years, and we’re just now starting to go back and look at all the bits and pieces we import from over there after the pet food scare.

Every couple of months I torture myself by going through the spam filter of my catchall email account and seeing which of my many throwaway email addresses is gathering the most spam. The usual is true this time as before, the largest actual email addresses are my old ones, my wife’s old username, my friend’s old account on my domain, etc. The typical spam traps all popped up as well, like orders, billing, sales, accounts, support, info, webmaster, contact, accounting, etc.

http://www.wired.com/gaming/hardware/news/2007/06/soviet_gamesWhat I want to know is if they will be making them available to people who could create emulators for them. They’ve scrobbled them back together, but they won’t last forever with no replacement parts being made. Like other arcade games, it’d be good to get them in a form where they can be stored digitally.Of course, without proper archival medium, the actual arcade units might survive longer. ;)

(Link Dead)China is adding an antifreeze like chemical to their toothpaste to make them taste better. Never mind that its a toxic substance. Another in a long line of china lying to their customers. The problem is, it’s almost impossible to buy anything anymore unless its made in china. Of course, China is dismissing that there’s any problem at all… As is typical of a corrupt system where the customer/individual/etc doesn’t matter.

I recently signed up for Blockbuster’s online movie service because they rent out bluray movies. I watched Aeon Flux tonight, and discovered it’s not as bad as most people claim… But as I was putting it back in the envelope to return it I noticed something silly.On the outside of the outer envelope:“Exchange this movie with a DVD inside for a free in-store movie rental.” (They should have said “envelope” instead of “movie” too.

http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000157.htmlFrom the top down to the word “The Remnant” is something I had thought about in the past, but couldn’t find a solid way to express. It could do a bit to explain the Chinese wheat cheats problem I mentioned awhile back too. China seems to have no real rules against cheating the customer. Thus, Screwing the customer is the only rational response over there for those who live in that environment.

I was reading an article about a US academic who was imprisoned and interrogated in Iran for “formenting a soft rebellion”and stumbled across a line that made me laugh for several minutes. In a statement carried by official state news outlets, the intelligence ministry claimed Mrs Esfandiari, 67, had admitted cooperating with the New York-based Soros Institute, run by the billionaire financier George Soros, who has funded opposition movements in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

(Link Dead)“A lot of animal food companies buy melamine from us to add in the animal feed,” Ji said. “This can lower the production cost and increase nitrogen levels.”Ji played down the risk, saying that despite China’s repeated food safety scares, the companies could be trusted to use melamine safely.“I believe it won’t do any harm if there is only very small amount,” Ji said. “Otherwise, those companies could not do that.

They finally started using the Osprey in a combat situation…http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/13/osprey/How long has it been in development? This was one of 4 helicopters in an old DOS game that I played often. LHX. It was released in 1990. 17 years after it is developed and used in a game, they finally deploy it to some combat situation.Thank you, government, for not getting into health care.

Would you be shocked to hear that it might very well be the generosity and goodness of most Americans that could be keeping third world countries impoverished? I’m about to make that point, and how the old statement about all those good intentions being bricks on the road to hell just might be true. Here’s 3 scenarios. 1. A bunch of students hear that slavery is still practiced in many third world countries.