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It's safe to say that millions of people eat hamburgers every day with few ill effects.

But it's also safe to say that you are taking a chance every time you do. Especially if the tiny flecks of meat are a mixture from different cows in different states and countries -- such as Wisconsin, Texas, Nebraska, Uruguay and South Dakota.

That's what happened to Stephanie Smith, a 22-year-old dance instructor who ate a burger grilled by her mom. You can read her gripping story of e coli infection in The New York Times. And it really makes you wonder about the safety of the ground beef that's out there:

Unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder’s discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.

. . . Food scientists have registered increasing concern about the virulence of this pathogen since only a few stray cells can make someone sick, and they warn that federal guidance to cook meat thoroughly and to wash up afterward is not sufficient. A test by The Times found that the safe handling instructions are not enough to prevent the bacteria from spreading in the kitchen.

Mark Levin

Most Americans have never heard of Mark Levin, the bombastic and crazed right-wing radio show creep who recently called Vice President Joe Biden "the most unstable vice-president in the history of the United States, I think." (6.18.09)

Sure, Biden makes a gaff now and then. But unstable?

Perhaps Levin has never heard of Vice President Spiro Agnew, the fifth-rate grifter who resigned his post in the Nixon Administration when he was caught taking kickbacks, even after he got into the White House.

Or Aaron Burr, this nation's third vice-president (under Thomas Jefferson), who shot and mortally wounded Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a harebrained duel.

Or the slave-raping Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson, for goodness sake, who was such an embarrassment in office that President Martin Van Buren dumped him without bothering to name a replacement.

The question I have is, why does Roanoke news-talk station WFIR bother keeping someone as stupid as Levin on the air?

The man's influence is so small it's almost impossible to measure. Levin's radio show is carried on about 150 stations nationwide (out of thousands) and his weekly listenership is estimated at about 5.5 million, which translates into about 1.1 million nightly victims.

Which means that roughly 1/3 of 1 percent of the American population endures his crazy ranting on any regular basis, assuming they're not watching professional wrestling, or another very dumb TV show, or sleeping or getting drunk or some other more useful pastime. Read more »

It would be nice to think that every time I write a column, the federal government notices. But it ain't gonna happen, you know? There are a lot of jerks with keyboards out there, and no way to pay attention to us all.

It appears to be serendipity, therefore, that on the day my column runs decrying an onslaught of robo-calling "phone spam" to my home and business phones, that the feds announce a crackdown on the vermin responsible for it. But here it is:

SCHUMER, WARNER ANNOUNCE FEDS’ PLAN TO SUE COMPANIES BEHIND BOGUS ‘CAR WARRANTY’ PHONE SCAMS—SAY ROBO-DIALED HARASSMENT SET TO BE TERMINATED

FTC Investigating Automated Calls That Warn ‘Your Car Warranty Has Expired’ – 300,000 Incidents Logged Nationwide

Scam Artists Generate Numbers Randomly and Repeatedly So Americans Still Getting Calls Even If They Are on the Do Not Call List

Both Senators Received Phony Calls On Their Personal Cell Phones

WASHINGTON, DC—Calling it an overdue crackdown on a nationwide nuisance, U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Mark Warner (D-VA) revealed Tuesday that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has investigations underway into the rampant robo-calls that pitch bogus car warranties and said the agency expects to bring cases against the companies responsible in a matter of days.

The senators unveiled a letter from FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz declaring that “law enforcement action in this area can be expected imminently.” The commitment came a day after Schumer, in a news conference in Manhattan, called on the agency to put a stop to the practice that has generated 300,000 inquiries over the last two years, according to the Better Business Bureau. The spam calls have targeted Americans randomly on both call phones and land lines, even when the victim is on the federal “Do Not Call” registry. The call plays an automated message that offers a deal on an extended car warranty.

“It’s about time these robocalls were terminated,” Senator Schumer said. “This prompt, aggressive action by the FTC should provide a bit of relief to the Americans besieged by these fraudulent calls. Almost everyone knows someone who’s received these calls. It’s about time we find out who’s behind them, and put a stop to this harassment.”

“In addition to violating the ‘Do Not Call List’ law, these scammers are peddling phony car warranties that exploit consumers,” Senator Warner said. “We’ve heard of Virginians receiving these calls when they do not even own a car, and others who are understandably upset that the automated calls tie-up their phone lines, costing them time and money. We appreciate this prompt action by the FTC to help consumers through a swift investigation and prosecution of these con artists.”

Schumer and Warner said they themselves have both received these calls in recent weeks.

Thank you, Sens. Schumer and Warner!

If your household is anything like the Caseys', you once felt besieged by dinnertime telephone calls offering all manner of unwise purchases.

And back in 2003, when you triumphantly registered for "Do Not Call," you might have thought, "Hooray, this is the end of those pesky phone spammers."

But there is both good news and bad news on the telephone soliciting front.

The bad news is an irritating loophole in federal regulations that arose last summer. The regs are long and involved, but essentially they allow robots to make unsolicited sales calls to your house, even when live people cannot. No matter if you put your number on Do Not Call.

Read the rest of the column here.

Bill White (far right) salutes Adolf Hitler's birthday in Chicago April 20, 2008 (from the former Overthrow.com site)

The guy you see on the far right of the picture is Bill White, aka William A. White, a former Roanoke landlord and self-styled leader of the American National Socialist Worker's Party -- aka the Nazis.

He had a handful of proudly racist nabob followers, in the wake of a long hobby/career of antagonizing nearly everybody he ever came in contact with. A number of white supremacists considered him little more than an attention whore.

This picture came from a (thankfully) tiny soiree Bill held one year ago today, in Chicago, to salute the 119th anniversary of one of the most evil men who ever walked planet Earth: Adolf Hitler.

According to an account posted on his former Web site, Overthrow.com, Bill and a small coterie of costume Nazis rented a hotel banquet room, persuaded a candidate for Congress (he lost, btw) to address them, wolfed down some Essen, then Seig Heiled themselves into a ersatz fascist frenzy.

Prior to the election of Barack Obama, White also published a magazine that featured a photo of Democratic candidate Barack Obama's head in a crosshairs of a rifle sight. The headline on the magazine was "Kill this N-----?"

Those are interesting ways to get your kicks, eh? Read more »

Rush Limbaugh (AP file photo)

Over the weekend, a bunch of Rush Limbaugh fans blitzed this blog in his defense after I criticized the radio talker for dissing bicyclists.

Some of them, such as regular poster Michael Howdyshell, asked for my views on Rush, the self-proclaimed leader of the Republican Party. So here goes:

Rush Limbaugh is clever. He can be funny. He is a skilled rhetorician (so was Joseph Goebbels).

But Limbaugh's personal failures are so many, so varied, and so long-running that it boggles the mind that anybody could take anything he says seriously.

Limbaugh telling this country what it needs is kind of like porn star Jenna Jameson advising nuns on how to stay celibate.

Let's look at the record.

Read more »

Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Richmond

Earlier this week we brought you the news that Rep. Eric Cantor, the House GOP whip, trashed talked stimulus spending for a bike project. Cantor thought it was silly and not "stimulative" (if that's a word).

Now, we know from whom Cantor takes his lead: the painkiller-gobbling, Viagra-popping blowhard who leads the Republican Party: radio talker Rush Limbaugh. (h/t to Americablog).

Rush Limbaugh/CSPAN

But the connections between the two men run far deeper than already-tried, already-failed schemes about about how to save the economy.

It turns out that Limbaugh takes a dim view of bicyclists, too. On his radio show Feb. 16, he compared cyclists to a "swarm of mosquitoes" and laughingly added, "Frankly, if the [car] door opens into a bicycle rider I won't care."

WFIR-AM 960, the only news talk station in Roanoke, carries Limbaugh's show. The station already has kicked Laura Ingraham off the air. You can let them know what you think about these comments here.

Look up Pharmoney Trust Inc. anywhere on the net, and you see stories of fools and lost money.

What you see here is the latest iteration of a con game known as the "Nigerian Letter." They vary in content -- many are written in pigeon English, and feature tales of despots and squirreled away treasure. What they all have in common is they promise something for nothing.

For me, this is the first of a new genre, a letter mailed from Britain directly to my home here in Roanoke. Usually these arrive as emails. But somebody's actually paying postage for this one -- and similar letters are showing up all over the country and the Web.

Do NOT call Peter Marsh. Do NOT call Sara Hamilton. All they want to do is separate you from your hard-earned money.

Golly, I had forgotten all about Laura Ingraham, the radio host unceremoniously dumped by WFIR-AM back on March 13. That was two whole weeks ago, or 672 lifespans of a Mayfly -- or something like that.

Laura's a useless hack and her show's a godawful bore (IMHO) and I assume that's why the only news talk station in all of Roanoke gave her the hook and replaced her with the useful Clark Howard. She wasn't making them any money, duh.

Bear2mail (read anything you want into that handle), begs to disagree:

You're an absolute idiot!! WFIR will lose valuable listeners without great programming like Laura Ingraham. You'll be tossed aside with the likes of Air (not so fast) America and NPR. I wouldn't advertise with such a short and I mean short sighted station. Actually it's just a matter of time before we say good riddens to WFIR... Haa -By the way Laura Ingraham I know Don (who??) Casey I don't. Some boring idiot I'm sure.

'Riddens' ... right. That's the proof Bear2mail is a genuine Ingraham fan. Or maybe it's even Laura herself.

The original post is here.

Let's establish something right now. The opponents of the proposed asphalt plant in the Glenvar area of western Roanoke County are no NIMBYs.

The acronym stands for Not in My Back Yard and is frequently used by speakers and writers to describe those poor, dumb, reactive souls who shout loudly at change that is coming.

Such people are easy to dismiss when you stamp them with a funny-sounding name. It's like calling a woman with blond hair a "Barbie." With those two syllables, she's suddenly irrelevant. End of discussion. (More)