Last week the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers called for the U.S. government to act to protect workers from exposure to a flavoring agent that has been linked to lung disease. Diacetyl is used as a flavoring in microwave popcorn. Hence the name of the debilitating disease that has left some former food factory workers seeking lung transplants.
A group of doctors joined the two unions in their petition to the U.S. Department of Labor to issue an emergency order to reduce factory exposure to diacetyl. The groups are calling for an emergency order from OSHA since it could take years to develop a standard for exposure.
Later this year the EPA plans to publish a study on whether microwaving popcorn at home releases the chemical. The agency says the study is not designed to measure health risks, but rather whether diacetyl and other chemicals are released.
Monday, August 07, 2006
'A basic rule of punctuation'
It could be the most costly piece of punctuation in Canada.
A grammatical blunder may force Rogers Communications Inc. to pay an extra $2.13-million to use utility poles in the Maritimes after the placement of a comma in a contract permitted the deal's cancellation.
The controversial comma sent lawyers and telecommunications regulators scrambling for their English textbooks in a bitter 18-month dispute that serves as an expensive reminder of the importance of punctuation.
A grammatical blunder may force Rogers Communications Inc. to pay an extra $2.13-million to use utility poles in the Maritimes after the placement of a comma in a contract permitted the deal's cancellation.
The controversial comma sent lawyers and telecommunications regulators scrambling for their English textbooks in a bitter 18-month dispute that serves as an expensive reminder of the importance of punctuation.
Young girl dies after fall from nine-storey human tower
I'd never heard of castellers before this.
The huge, fragile-looking human towers built by groups from eastern Spain known as castellers were at the centre of controversy at the weekend after a 12 year-old-girl died falling off one.
Mariona Galindo died of head injuries after falling from a nine-storey human tower at her home town of Mataro north-east Spain. She had been climbing to the higher levels of the human towers for the past two years.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Is This Crazy Or Is It Me?
Hezbollah is a "cancer" eating away at Lebanon and there can be no peace in the region until conditions are put in place for a lasting ceasefire, says Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.
I think he's saying, "Let's continue to bomb the shit out of them until we have a ceasefire and, hey, no real rush on that."
I think he's saying, "Let's continue to bomb the shit out of them until we have a ceasefire and, hey, no real rush on that."
You're On Notice!
Make your own - you know you want to!Youre On Notice! - The Stephen Colbert "On Notice Board" Generator
Via Calgary Grit
Map of Lostness
The map shows the percentage of lost in each region. The black-colored regions are areas of the world where there are few if any believers in Christ. The white regions show a high percentage of people who profess Christianity. The United States represents one of the few areas of the world where the majority of the population professes Christianity.
I am proud to say that Canadians are 88 to 95% lost - but I think Steve Harper has finished counting to one hundred and I can almost hear him mewling, "Ready or not, you must be caught."
Via Woods Lot
Vinyl Killer - The Cutest Record Player Ever
It's not the record that spins. The world's smallest self running record player doesn't need turntables but churns out music by driving round the record with a needle that is underneath the car.
If you have this, you can enjoy music whenever and wherever you are.
Via Neatorama
Japan marks 61st anniversary of US atomic attack on Hiroshima
HIROSHIMA -- The mayor of Hiroshima on Sunday called for the elimination of all nuclear weapons as he marked the 61st anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack, which killed more than 140,000 people in the Japanese city.
Expressing concerns over the global proliferation of nuclear weapons, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba urged the government of Japan -- the only nation to suffer atomic bomb attacks -- to take a leading role in the effort to eliminate nuclear arsenals.
'Sixty-one years have passed since radiation, heat rays and an atomic blast created hell on earth,' Akiba said in a speech at Hiroshima Peace Park, near the bomb's epicenter. 'But the number of nations enamored of evil and enslaved by nuclear arms has increased. The only role nuclear weapons have is to be demolished.'
A bell rang at 8:15 a.m., marking the time when the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped its deadly payload on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. It was the first atomic bomb ever used in war.
Expressing concerns over the global proliferation of nuclear weapons, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba urged the government of Japan -- the only nation to suffer atomic bomb attacks -- to take a leading role in the effort to eliminate nuclear arsenals.
'Sixty-one years have passed since radiation, heat rays and an atomic blast created hell on earth,' Akiba said in a speech at Hiroshima Peace Park, near the bomb's epicenter. 'But the number of nations enamored of evil and enslaved by nuclear arms has increased. The only role nuclear weapons have is to be demolished.'
A bell rang at 8:15 a.m., marking the time when the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped its deadly payload on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. It was the first atomic bomb ever used in war.
BIG AS BUDDHA
They hadn't seen anything like it - a film about their own town projected onto a big screen. In the background yawned the infamous 52-metre-high empty niche where once the larger of two standing Buddhas in Bamiyan looked upon the valley. The Taliban destroyed the pair of statues five years ago.
For centuries this valley has been the crossing path of monks, travellers, tourists, invading armies and wanderers - the once-famous Silk Road, connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea, passed through here.
But never before had a film , a documentary film about the Buddha statues, declared a UNESCO heritage site after they'd been turned to rubble , been shown here.
In fact, the city of Bamiyan, itself a provincial capital of 100,000 people, has never had a cinema.
Christian Frei's 2005 film The Giant Buddhas has been shown on screens all over Europe and North America but not in the place of its inspiration, in Afghanistan.
For centuries this valley has been the crossing path of monks, travellers, tourists, invading armies and wanderers - the once-famous Silk Road, connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea, passed through here.
But never before had a film , a documentary film about the Buddha statues, declared a UNESCO heritage site after they'd been turned to rubble , been shown here.
In fact, the city of Bamiyan, itself a provincial capital of 100,000 people, has never had a cinema.
Christian Frei's 2005 film The Giant Buddhas has been shown on screens all over Europe and North America but not in the place of its inspiration, in Afghanistan.
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