House of Jorob

Bankrupt Contaminated-Peanut Butter Outfit Stops Talking to Customers

Peanut Corporation of America filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in US bankruptcy court in Virginia on February 13.

Nothing more is shipping from the company's Texas plant as of February 12. Georgia's been down for a while, now.

The filing screws up January recall instructions issued by PCA, wherein PCA said they were contacting customers who received recalled stuff.

Now they can't do that--their assets are controlled by a bankruptcy trustee.

Doors locked.

Phones down.

Internet pipes closed.

So the only way to figure out if your plant has bought or already manufactured product using contaminated product is via the FDA's Peanut Product Recalls website page.

Which is, thankfully, updated daily. See the neat little widget I've tacked on to this post--it'll update daily. Click on SHARE and you should see the code you need to plant this thing on your own sites.

This disaster is ingredient-based.

So, as we've read, watched, or heard in all the December and January news stories, it's potentially everywhere.

We're halfway through February, and the wave of recalls has not stopped.

Just about every one of the alerts here since January involve PCA ingredient contamination.

It's scary.

Trader Joe's, Wegman's, Kroger, General Mills....the list goes on.

It's gotten into the pet food supply chain.

Dog biscuits.

If you handle contaminated pet food and forget to wash your hands, you're at risk.

Before your pet gets sick.

And it is currently out of the media spotlight.

So I figure I'd do my part to return the light, so to speak.

Visit the FDA site here.

Don't waste your time with the Peanut Corporation site. They shipped ingredients, remember?

Unless you're wondering about that 1,700 pound case lot of peanut paste you bought off the back of a truck last month....

The product list is here. Or use the quicklist, below.

FDA Product Recall List

Big Bang: Universal expansion and acceleration

The universe is expanding.

Faster than my waistline.

Has been, ever since the Big Bang.

Scientists have recently tossed out the idea that gravity will be a force to affect the universal expansion.

The universal expansion is accelerating.

The whole idea of gravity slowing, then reversing, then pulling the universe back into itself, into a Big Crunch is so early 21st century.

So, what's causing the acceleration?

Scienctists have come up with a name for it:

Dark Energy.

Dark Energy is driving the acceleration.

Nah.

They're not thinking big enough.

It ain't dark energy within the universe that's causing the acceleration.

It's gravity.

Just like they thought.

But not inside the universe.

There's something on the other side that's attracting the universe.

Integretel: How I hate thee

Integretel.

The name's a pariah to me.

Especially if you actually read your phone bill.

Not according to Integretel, of course. Consider: "Founded in 1988, Integretel addressed a significant billing and collections need by creating a Service Bureau business model focused entirely on telecommunications billing. Integretel established a full compliment of billing and collection agreements with Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) including each “baby bell” and approximately 1,400 smaller, independent LECs. Integretel has been operating from its San Jose, California headquarters since the company’s inception and has processed over $6 billion in client transactions."

They are the best representation of what when wrong with telephone deregulation.

They are a third-party biller.

You know, the one responsible for making sure your telephone bill carries the charges from outfits like Enhanced Long Distance, or Solo Communications, or OAN.

The ones whose charges can not be refused by the phone companies.

By law.

So don't go crying to Verizon.

Or Qwest.

Or any of the other surviving phone companies.

Because there is nothing they can do about it.

Except offer you a global block on such things.

But you have to ask for it.

If you don't ask, Integretel--or others, but Integretel is my best example--will continue to slag your phone bill with voicemail bill after voicemail bill, from now until doomsday.

Which might be in 2012.

Still, that's a couple years off.

Could get expensive.

Talk to Integretel reps, and they make sure you know that *you* are the one responsible for the goofball charges.

They'll even read you back the name of the website that slapped you.

The site that uses Integretel to affix the charges to your phone bill.

It'll be something innocuous:

FunGameLandWorld.

SurveyMeisterBeener.

Yep.

You got the charges when someone used your computer and hit a survey site, or a free-games site, or a travelquest site.

Couple of exchanges of personal information later (your phone number, a name) and boom.

Your phone account has just been tapped for an "enhanced setup fee" or a new monthly "enhanced voicemail account" charge.

Odds are, the person on your computer never saw the 6-point type disclaimer that said they were signing up for the voicemail account or long distance services by playing the game or interacting with the survey.

It is usually buried far, far, far down on the screen.

And they--Integretel--are very happy to have the charges removed.

The process takes one or two billing cycles.

And that's what makes Integretel so special.

They take the whole two billing cycles.

Which is actually THREE cycles, thanks to the way phone companies bill.

So when you short-pay your phone bill, paying only the legitimate charges (as if you really wanted the Enhanced Voicemail fromFunGameLandWorld) and notifying Verizon (in my case--what, like I could make this stuff up??) that the charges are being disputed, your next bill--AND the one after that--accumulate late fees.

From Verizon.

Who puts a disclaimer on the bill that says one is not obligated to pay disputed charges.

No wonder people are cutting their land lines.

Don't laugh, Mr. and Ms. "I-Cut-My-Landline-Two-Years-Ago."

Just wait until this kind of deregulation hits the cable industry.

And this crap starts hitting your cable bill.

The telephone portion of the cable bill.

New blog: World of Warcraft gnome ftw!

I'm goofing around in World of Warcraft a bit these days.

Joined a guild called the Knights of Ehre.

Good bunch of gamers.

Guild has plenty of tolerance for gamers like me--who don't have gobs of hours to spend.

Guild also has a blogging tool.

Oh boy!

So I started one.

From the viewpoint of Deldodin, my main.

A gnome.

Blog is here.

Can't quite figure out how to dump the posts onto my blogging pages.

Yet.

Nor my Facebook account, either.

Working on that.

Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live

Author and MacArthur fellow Carl Safina writes, "Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution."

The Stony Brook University adjunct professor's New York Times essay the other day sums up the problem: "Charles Darwin gets so much credit, we can’t distinguish evolution from him."

" “Darwinism” implies an ideology adhering to one man’s dictates, like Marxism. And “-isms” (capitalism, Catholicism, racism) are not science. “Darwinism” implies that biological scientists “believe in” Darwin’s “theory.” "

With something to believe in, others do not....giving equal footing amongst the other -isms to creationism.

***

And speaking of evolution, cleanup of the Hadron collider's faulty soldering job continues to delay the mega-billion dollar collider's restart.

***

Long live Slashdot.

Taxes I: Something's happening here

I got my borough tax bill earlier this week.

Borough real estate, sewage, and trash removal.

Real estate 10.1780 mills.

Roughly a hike of four percent.

Sewage is 5.70 mills.

Two percent hike.

But that's calculated against my water bill. Inbound water.

They figure most of the water that comes in goes back out again through the sewers.

After all, how much water can two people drink in a day?

But the trash removal is worrisome.

It spiked by over 12%.

The borough, bless their community-based hearts, included substantial explanations in the tax bill for the increases.

From what I read, my trash bill could have been worse.

Last year, Delaware County charged Lansdowne $600 for trash taken to the incinerator in Chester, PA.

For 2009, the County has raised the fee it will charge Lansdowne.

To $91,000.

Lansdowne is 1.2 square miles.

Home to 11,000 people.

The County covers 191 square miles.

Has 550,000 people living in it.

Lansdowne is just one of 49 municipalities inside County borders.

And my little town's bill is $91,000?

Here's the clincher.

According to the paperwork delivered by the borough with my tax bill, Lansdowne is not permitted to shop for a different incinerator contract.

Say, one with a lower freakin price?

Nope.

"By County law all collectors of trash, including municipalities, must deliver and dispose of the trash at the COVANTA incinerator facility located in Chester PA."

So.

We've got a price hike that's exponential in size.

And a law locking all participants into one resource.

Somebody stands to collect a bargeload of cash on this deal.