Uber Agrees To End Unsolicited Text Messages, Will Pay $40K

After being accused of sending unsolicited text messages to Washington consumers, Uber has agreed to “pay the state’s Attorney General’s Office $40,000 to cover investigation fees” and will stop sending the unsolicited texts. The complaints of the text messages began rolling in back in 2014 with people claiming they were receiving “texts from Uber and having no way to opt-out of the messages.”


Perdue Foods Recalls Organic Chicken Sausage

Another recall has been issued, this time for a popular organic chicken sausage produced by Perdue Foods LLC. The recall was issued after complaints started rolling in from customers claiming they found “pieces of blue plastic inside the product,” specifically the “organic Italian chicken sausage manufactured under its Harvestland brand.”


Gulf Bends Over for Offshore Drilling

Oil. Our modern economy can’t exist without it. It powers our transportation, feeds our growing population, provides a cornucopia of plastic products (and oceans of plastic waste), precipitates wars, fouls our environment, and burning it raises sea levels. Our cultural response to the black, sticky stuff is equally complex and internally contradictory. With offshore drilling back in the news, it’s worth thinking about what we’re willing to accept in exchange for oil.



CDC ‘Ends’ Vulto Creamery Listeria Outbreak

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued their final report on the deadly outbreak “traced to soft, raw milk cheese from Vulto Creamery of Walton, NY,” officially ending the outbreak. In total, eight people were confirmed with the outbreak strain of Listeria monocytogenes, and all of them required hospitalization.


If Canadian Lumber is Unfair, So is This

The Trump administration imposed a 20% tariff on Canadian lumber, citing unfair government subsidies. Very well, but what about our subsidized exports? Just two days after the tariff decision, Trump signed an executive order amending the Antiquities Act, allowing a review of all national monuments declared since 1996. One thing this would potentially do is open up more national forest land for logging. How is this different from the “unfair government subsidy” of the Canadian lumber industry?



A Closer Look at Nader, NHTSA & Airbags

NY Times Video Report on Nader & Airbags A good video report, published by the New York Times, explores the history of Ralph Nader’s work on airbags and auto safety up to 2014. Everyone should watch it.1 Additional Airbag History This article provides some additional documentation and stories to provide a richer, fairer, and more


False Fish Flops as Food Fraud

I know we’re all used to a certain level of lies coming out of Washington, but from restaurants? There’s a basic trust with purveyors of noms that what we order from the menu will be the food that shows up on our plates. Not necessarily so, according to an article from last week’s Washington Post investigating potential food fraud.