Pistachios via ajh1963. Great shot.

This message brought to you by the "fergawdsakes, what food is scaring the bejeebers out of people this week" list.

Sadly, pistachios appear to have some risk for salmonella.  Maybe.  So, to be on the safe side, avoid them for now.  

And it isn’t just the nuts in the shells. According to the FDA, you should avoid all foods containing pistachios, too, until they pinpoint the source of this latest salmonella scare.

Sorry to put a crimp in your March Madness baklava and pistachio ice cream plans, but there you are.

FDA will make a list of products to avoid available here shortly. Just FYI…

Drop a dime on it via Chavel Brasil.

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security had a recent hearing on problems with criminal representation that far too many indigent defendants are facing in this country.

In some jurisdictions, inadequate legal representation has reached a crisis level. 

I say this not just as a lawyer who has done criminal representation, but also as a former assistant prosecutor.  I know full well the value of having evidence and procedure tested.  If you are a good state’s attorney, you want well-qualified opposing counsel making you prove your case.

Or, at least, you should, because that is how justice is best served.

When the jury hears all sides, weighs them against one another, and reaches a true and just verdict based on well-tested evidence, facts and law, we all win.

An unjust process, especially one in which opposing counsel fails to make even basic objections, is improper and unfair to the defendant and to constitutional obligations under the Sixth Amendment. 

(more…)

According to Prof. Karl Lauterbach, health care expert:

We do know very well that people who become unemployed are at an increased risk of becoming ill.  And, therefore, becoming unemployed is about the worst time to lose health insurance. So, therefore, everyone who loses a job remains in exactly in the health insurance system he is in.

Prof. Lauterbach is also a member of the German parliament, where public health care has been a highly functional public policy initiative since the time of Otto von Bismarck.

Here in the US? Not so much:

We have a system that doesn’t work. We have a business model that says you do well if you cover people who don’t make claims. But it’s meant to be a health care system, isn’t it? That is the paradox.

We talked a bit about this earlier today. Commenter spacefish really hit the health care nail on the head with this:

The other talking point is “Do you want some government bureaucrat making your health care decisions for you, or do you want your doctor to make them?” Of course, now, an insurance company bureaucrat with a financial incentive to deny coverage is making your health care decisions for you.

And isn’t that just working out fabu for everyone? Especially the folks who are now out of work, have no health care, are stressed out beyond belief, get sick because their immune systems are less functional and then can’t find treatment they can actually afford.  

Or worse, someone in their family gets some catastrophic illness and they face a choice of life or bankruptcy and not much else.

14,000 Americans lose their health care every day.

The awesomeness of the market taking care of everything. Can you feel it?

This infuriates me. And not just because I have a pre-existing condition that would likely have me on the “insurance blacklist.” It’s especially timely because growing numbers are looking for individual health insurance after losing their jobs. On top of that, small businesses, which make up the bulk of South Florida’s economy, are frequently finding health policies too expensive and are dropping coverage, sending even more people shopping for insurance….

Justice Ginsburg recently spoke before the New England School of Law in Boston. Her remarks were candid, funny and showed a bit of the behind-the-scenes doings at SCOTUS which I thought folks would enjoy reading. This, in particular, about a form letter her husband, Martin, who is a Georgetown Law professor, tried to draft for her was an absolute hoot…

The ACLU blog hits a recent case for which cert was accepted by SCOTUS. It has some wide-ranging implications on privacy, “no tolerance” policies and schools, morality, and even plain old common sense. To wit: The fact that no ibuprofen pills were uncovered seems almost beside the point.

These are a few of my favorite things: Empty beaches and time to take a long walk in the quiet while looking for shells and soaking in the sounds of the surf….

There goes that new “eat beef until you almost barf” ad campaign for the beef lobby: Eating red meat increases the chances of dying prematurely, according to the first large study to examine whether regularly eating beef or pork increases mortality.

The study of more than 500,000 middle-aged and elderly Americans found that those who consumed about four ounces of red meat a day (the equivalent of about a