Bridget

Eating more fresh vegetables is supposed to be good for your health, but that turned out to be bad advice for the hundreds of people who have become sick from eating contaminated cucumbers distributed to numerous grocery stores and restaurants in the U.S. and Canada. So far, 53 victims have been hospitalized, and one person has died.

More than half of the people who have become ill from this outbreak of Salmonella Poona have been children and teens. While it’s good to hear that the children of the U.S. and Canada are eating their vegetables, bacterial infections tend to make people sicker if they’re very young, very old, or very frail or immunocompromised.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention know that the cucumbers were distributed to the following states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah. They may have been distributed further than that: if you aren’t sure where a cucumber came from, the authorities note, check with the store where you purchased it, or just don’t eat it.

The affected cucumbers have also been recalled: you can see the box they were distributed in above, which isn’t very useful information to a home cook.

There’s already a lawsuit from this outbreak: a woman in Minnesota who may have eaten an affected cucumber in her salad at a Red Lobster restaurant has sued the chain.

If you have any questions about the recall, contact the distributor at (844) 483-3864. If you or a child you care for experience abdominal pain and fever after eating cucumbers, contact your health care provider, especially if you have other health problems.

Andrew and Williamson Fresh Produce Recalls Limited Edition Brand® Cucumbers Because of Possible Health Risk [FDA]
Multistate Outbreak of Salmonella Poona Infections Linked to Imported Cucumbers [CDC]
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The Japanese city of Onomichi, Hiroshima has created an interactive street view map for cats. Users can click around the cat-height tour of the city and find cat-related points of interest, cat videos, and even profiles of the city’s cats caught on camera.

images via Hiroshima Cat Street View

via Vox

You know what they say about a man who has giant hands and lots of extra fingers, don’t you?

 

It’s hard to find gloves.

Thanks for sending this in, Russell!

The post Daily Telegraph AU: Let’s Play Count The Fingers appeared first on PSD : Photoshop Disasters .

Remember Penny and Roo from the Winter Of 2014? (Not to be confoozed with Turbo Roo, though a similar circumstance.) Roo’s the Prosh Wah Wah and Penny’s the one with the wild hairdo. Here’s an update on their story!

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: BFFs, Bok Bok Bok, Chicken, Wah Wah

This video delivers what it says. No, it’s not the names that sound dumb- it’s the birds themselves.

(YouTube link)

If you’re used to hearing them, you probably never realized how dumb they sound. But they do. This dumb video is from NPR. -via Digg

Patches the crossing guard dog is no longer allowed out at the crosswalk while his owner Brad Curtis is on duty. Following a news report last week, Jersey Shore Area School District officials told their employee he can no longer have Patches outside at the crosswalk while he's working. The school district wants people to know this decision was made not because of Patches, but because it keeps everyone around the crosswalk safe.



Almost every day, crossing guard Brad Curtis is out with his big red sign and orange safety vest on the corner of Allegheny Street in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. But parents also expect to see something else when they reach the intersection. "Patches is missing," said Jersey Shore resident Amy Wampler. "We didn't see him this morning and we wondered why, and now he's not here." "We see the dog every day, every single day for almost two years now," said another resident.




YouTube link.

Curtis works for Jersey Shore Area School District. He usually took his 5-year-old Multipoo with him to work. Lyra Clark could see the dog from her shop. The pooch wore his own stop sign and safety vest. "People come by, even take pictures of him. Everybody likes him. He's a really nice dog." It seems almost everyone loves Patches, but school officials won't let the dog stay at the crosswalk because it's against school policy.

Initial news report.

YouTube link.

Jersey Shore Area School District officials say that employees who monitor the crosswalks didn't previously know about Patches. No one had ever reported the dog to the school. The school district's superintendent said: "We have clear policies in the school district regarding any type of animal during the work day. Yes, he is a cute, adorable pet. The bottom line: there are always unanticipated risks with an animal. Any known distraction needs to be removed." Curtis the crossing guard says he plans to continue his job without Patches.

Bryan Ware, an inventive dad in San Francisco, has come up with a brilliant way to reuse leftover crayons that get thrown out by restaurants and schools – he melts them down and recycles them into new crayons for children at hospitals.

He came up with the idea in 2011 when celebrating his birthday at a restaurant. His waiter had brought his two sons some crayons, and he wondered where the crayons go after they’re done with them. His discovery that they get thrown out led to the Crayon Initiative, which delivers crayons to hospitals throughout California.

More info: thecrayoninitiative.org | Facebook | Twitter (h/t: themighty)

Every year, up to 75,000 pounds of crayons get thrown away by restaurants and schools

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

Creative dad Bryan Ware found a brilliant solution – he melts them down

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

He then pours them into special custom molds

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

He makes 96 new crayons each time he does this

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

These crayons are thicker and easier to grasp for young children and kids with special needs

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

The finished crayons are delivered to hospitals throughout California

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

They’ve already delivered more than 2,000 boxes

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

“If these crayons give them an escape from that hospital room for ten minutes, we did our job,” said Bryan Ware

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

Image credits: The Crayon Initiative

The bunnies residing with Japanese twitter user @evo3183 come with a dangerously high level of cuteness. The threat they pose is massively exacerbated by the floral crowns and fairy costumes that they wear while sitting for the photographer.

Their names are Potato, Kurumi, Marron, and Koishi. Remember those names as you look into their eyes and feel their adorableness seared into your retinas.

-via Rocket News 24

I was in a NYC store recently, waiting in line to try on some pants, when the woman standing next to me started chatting. Nothing fancy, she just complimented my choice and asked who made the pants. Then she kinda sidled up, reached out and felt the material of the very pants I was holding. Like any New York City dweller would, I recoiled. A line had definitely been crossed. But, once I was finally alone in the dressing room, I started thinking about stranger danger and why being approached by someone who I don't know feels so weird. Let's talk about it.

READ MORE »

UK organization Hubbub plans to clean up the streets of London through its #neatstreets campaign. One clever project sees smokers vote on various topics by placing their cigarette butts into clear divided containers in public areas; another uses devices that play music when a cigarette butt is inserted; and yet another encourages gum-chewers to connect the dots on specially designed boards.

“Our public polling discovered that a staggering 86 per cent of people think littering is a disgusting habit yet only 15 per cent of us would actually confront someone and tell them that,” the organization writes on its webpage. “This is why from May to October we’re trialling a new approach to tackling littering on Villiers Street, Westminster, using the latest thinking on behaviour change and awareness raising from around the world.”

More info: hubbub.org.uk | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter (h/t: coomaexpress, eveningstandard)

Vote with your butt

Image credits: Charlie Elliott

Image credits: Sarah E Clarke

Stick your gum on to reveal the image

Image credits: Design Week

Image credits: Catherina Jones

Image credits: Jeannine Saba

Yesterday on Instagram I shared this little peek at a couple living room changes, and already things are looking so. much. better around here.  Even though everything else outside of this shot currently looks like I’ve been burgled, I’m seeing the light!  I said it before and I’ll say it now: if there’s anything I learned […]

The post Friday Finds appeared first on Homey Oh My!.

I use Google Calendar for a broad monthly view of appointments and activities and ToDoist for lists and to check off particular tasks that need to get done (especially if I need reminders). Having these apps on my phone means that this information is with me all the time, but neither offers a sufficiently time-based solution for managing the actual hours in my day. Enter my planner. Here's why having it all on paper is awesome...

READ MORE »

When water goes down a hole in the earth and doesn’t come out anywhere that anyone can find, where does it go? It’s a deep and dangerous hole that no one wants to climb down into. Surely there's some way to test that.  

A few miles south of the U.S.-Canadian border, the Brule River flows through Minnesota’s Judge C. R. Magney State Park, where it drops 800 feet in an 8-mile span, creating several waterfalls. A mile and a half north of the shore of Lake Superior, a thick knuckle of rhyolite rock juts out, dividing the river dramatically at the crest of the falls. To the east, a traditional waterfall carves a downward path, but to the west, a geological conundrum awaits visitors. A giant pothole, the Devil’s Kettle, swallows half of the Brule and no one has any idea where it goes. The consensus is that there must be an exit point somewhere beneath Lake Superior, but over the years, researchers and the curious have poured dye, pingpong balls, even logs into the kettle, then watched the lake for any sign of them. So far, none has ever been found.

The name Devil’s Kettle implies that the water pours straight down to hell for Satan’s tea. You have to wonder why no one has thrown a waterproof GPS tracking device down there. After all, we tags marine animals with them all the time. Or maybe a GoPro on a long string. But it’s a great story, and the mystery may be solved one day. Meanwhile, you can read some of the untested theories at Mother Nature Network. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Flickr user Captain Tenneal)

If wishes were dollars, we’d all be rich. Except for the cat, who has no use for a dollar and wouldn’t know what to do with one anyway. If we could just be contented like that, we’d suffer less from stress. I’ve always heard there are two ways to have what you want: you can go out and get it, or learn to be happy with what you have. I’ve tried to employ both methods, with rather good results. This observation is from Lunarbaboon. You can also catch comics by Lunarbaboon at Webtoons.

Yesterday we told ya about the new BB-8 Star Wars Droid– the entire Interwebs lost its mind over it. And so of course, Puppehs were the first to try it out. #ForceFriday.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: puppehs, Required Star Wars References

I like Castle Crashers a lot, but I wasn't planning on nabbing the remaster for Xbox One. Now I am.

Castle Crashers Remastered releases on September 9, 2015. If you own the original game for Xbox 360 and have an active Xbox Live Gold account, you can download it for free through September 20 (and for $5 from that point on). The price without a loyalty discount is $14.99.

What's new? A strange mini-game called Back Off Barbarian (shown above) that thoroughly confused Steven and me at PAX; larger textures; 60 frames per second; performance updates and gameplay tweaks; and smoother online multiplayer with faster matchmaking.

Also, Castle Crashers will eventually be backward compatible on Xbox One. Though if you go that route, you won't get any of the aforementioned upgrades. Those are only in the remaster.

Castle Crashers Remastered Release Date MEGA POST [The Behemoth]

Jef Rouner of Houston Press has done a bit of research on the amount of original black women playable throughout the history of gaming and found the number to be exceptionally low. Rouner's criteria to count as an original black playable woman excluded games that let you customize skin color, licensed titles, and fighting games.

The fighting genre was specifically excluded as "playability is a factor equally shared by all the characters." To expand upon this, I'd say that many fighting games have characters with barely any personification and act more as a shell for varying fighting styles; the same goes for racing games with selectable characters. That said, the fighting genre has gotten better about personifying characters more recently with games like Injustice and Mortal Kombat having lengthy story modes.

If removing one genre that has mostly generic, personality-lacking characters takes out a majority of the black women, that says a lot.

How many can you name before reading further?

Read more...

The Jacks by Sculpy, are very cleverly designed scented candles that look like they’re crying when lit inside their decorative bases. The current offerings are black or white skull bases with brain-shaped candles, rabbit bases with accompanying ears and deers with antlers. According to the founders, the project came about accidentally.

One of our sculpting member’s hobby is to make useless things with 3D printer. One day he realized that he had no ashtray so he created a skull looking ashtray for his cigarettes, and Sophie lit a candle in it.And then an idea came up…We thought it was fun to depict a dripping of wax as a tear flowing from the skull.
By adding diverse product lines we have created our first The Jacks candle series.

Sculpy is currently raising funds through Kickstarter to bring The Jacks to market.

images via The Jacks

via Cool Material

Harris Faulkner, an anchor on the Fox News cable network, is a human and has been on TV for decades. Yet the toy company Hasbro sells a tiny plastic hamster as part of its Littlest Pet Shop line which is named Harris Faulkner. How did the hamster get its name? Is it intended to insult or honor Ms. Faulkner, or just a very strange coincidence? She has sued the company for $5 million dollars, either way.

Sure, I would love if someone named a toy hamster after me, but not without my permission. Faulkner may not have anything against hamsters, but her lawsuit says that the company “willfully and wrongfully appropriated Faulkner’s unique and valuable name and distinctive persona for its own financial gain.” The letters (TM) appear after the name Harris Faulkner on the toy’s package, which implies that the journalist’s name has been trademarked by Hasbro.

She also happens to have daughters who are six and eight years old, which is the target market for Littlest Pet Shop toys. The lawsuit is happening because she complained about the toy back in January, and Hasbro didn’t respond. The suit describes the existence of this doll as “distressing,” since she believes that the hamster doll “bear[s] a physical resemblance to Faulkner’s traditional professional appearance,” including her skin tone, eye shape, and the design of the animal’s eye “makeup.”

“Further,” the complaint says, “Hasbro’s portrayal of Faulkner as a rodent is demeaning and insulting.” Not just a rodent, but an officially licensed plastic rodent: Faulkner doesn’t endorse or license products, believing that’s inappropriate for a journalist.

We noticed that the toy is no longer on the Littlest Pet Shop site, and also isn’t in stock online at Diapers.com or Target, but it isn’t clear whether that’s due to the lawsuit or the toy has been rotated out of the current lineup of Littlest Pet Shop characters.

In a statement to Entertainment Weekly, Hasbro declined to comment on the lawsuit about the resemblance of the hamster to Ms. Faulkner, but over her allegation that the toy is unsafe, and that a child could potentially choke on a rodent with her name on it. Hasbro sent a statement to Entertainment Weekly:

While we generally do not comment on litigation matters, it is critically important to correct a false statement made by Ms. Harris in the complaint regarding the safety of the product. The Littlest Pet Shop product identified, and all products in the Littlest Pet Shop line, meet and exceed all safety standards.

Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner sues Hasbro over same-named toy hamster [Deadline Hollywood]

Authorities in Oakland, California, were surprised when they responded to a report of what appeared to be a baby trapped in a car.



Emergency personnel smashed the car window and forced their way into the vehicle on Monday, only to find a lifelike doll sitting in the car seat, Officer Johnna Watson of the Oakland Police Department said.

"Although this incident did not involve a baby or small child, it was unknown at the time," Watson said. "And first responders' number one priority is to ensure ... safety. Fortunately, it was not a baby or small child."



"We encourage anyone who believes there is a dangerous situation such as this incident to contact emergency personnel so we can make that determination." The police do not know why the doll was in the car seat, Watson added.

With news video.

More Robocat!

Last month, two armed men were arrested for allegedly threatening a mass shooting at the Pokémon World Championship.

Now, Kevin Norton (18) and James Stumbo (27) have been denied bail, meaning they will be required to stay in jail for at least four months. When denying bail, Judge Thomas Horgan said, “This wasn’t just kid talk on the computer.”

Stumbo and Norton allegedly threatened to attack the championship after being banned from a chatroom for bullying another member. In response to the banning, it is claimed Stumbo simply said, “Oh, ok, that’s fine then I will just shoot him on Friday thanks.”

Investigations are currently underway to determine whether further charges could be brought against them, such as cyberbullying and threatening a mass casualty situation. Meanwhile, there are plans for their lawyers to file a motion to dismiss the case, the hearing for which is due on September 24.

All in all, this is sounding more and more dragged out as it goes on, and now they’ve been denied bail they could be spending quite a time in custody before the case is heard in court.

Men Arrested for Threatening Pokemon Event Denied Bail [GameSpot]

Avoid Humans is a new web app that helps users avoid other people using Foursquare and Instagram check-in data to identify crowded places. The app puts locations into nightlife, food, coffee, and refuge categories and uses simple icons to show how crowded a place is.

images via Avoid Humans

via reddit

Niigata Prefecture, Japan, has thought of a novel way to use the straw left over from their rice harvest. A “wara” or rice-straw festival is held every August 31st, where local artists build elaborate straw sculptures over wooden frames. The frames allow the statues to be larger and let spectators interact with them.

Amy Goda, an aspiring local artist, has gained fame for her spectacular rice-straw dinosaur sculptures. Her massive creatures have made the Wara Art Festival famous online. Visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of these unique sculptures can go to Uwasekigata Park in Niigata City’s Nishikan Ward, where they will remain until the beginning of November.

More info: city.niigata.lg.jp (h/t: demilked, rocketnews24)

Niigata Prefecture holds its Wara Art Festival every August 31st

“Wara” means rice-straw in Japanese

Image credits: amymauscd

Rice-straw is a by-product of the yearly rice harvest

Image credits: kiyukatawani

The straw is attached to wooden frames to provide stability and allow for greater size

The results are surprising

Image credits: amymauscd

Amy Goda studies art in Niigata Prefecture

Her incredible dinosaurs have attracted international attention

Various techniques are used to create the behemoths

Image credits: agedashi0210

The method used to build thatched cottages is similar to that used for the sculptures

This makes for stable structures that visitors can interact with

Image credits: Ruki40788274

Image credits: amymauscd

Image credits: amymauscd

Image credits: yuko_vitzksp90

There will not be a pot shop ready for business in time for the 15th Ave E Merchants Association’s 2015 Sidewalk Fest. The ongoing saga of who will open Capitol Hill’s first recreational pot shop has hit a bureaucratic lull. Two competing potreprenuers on 15th Ave E are waiting to obtain licenses from the state as two other businesses in the mix — a third generation cobbler and a punk rock arcade/ice cream shop — await permits from the City.

Ian Eisenberg tells CHS he plans to apply for a new I-502 license next year to open a second Uncle Ike’s pot shop in his building at 15th Ave E and E Republican.

“The more time I spend on 15th, the more I love it,” Eisenberg said. “I really want to open second shop there.”

For now, Eisenberg is operating the Capitol Hill Family Arcade — a business that he says was a quick and fun way to activate the space while he waits to open a pot shop.

But for Sam Burke, an I-502 permit holder who’s attempting to open tok pot shop across the street, the arcade was simply a maneuver to keep his doors shut. Under state zoning regulations, I-502 shops cannot be located within a 1,000-foot buffer of places where children gather, like schools, parks, and arcades (those rules could soon change with new zoning authority available to local municipalities).

Burke did not return calls from CHS for this story and his representative declined to comment.

The Burke-Eisenberg feud began earlier this year when Eisenberg snatched away the 15th Ave building from Burke. The building was previously home to the Capitol Hill Animal Clinic. 15th and Republican is likely the only area on Capitol Hill where a pot shop could open under current zoning rules. So Burke looked across the street to Angel’s Shoe Repair.

After Burke took over the space in June, Eisenberg carved out room for Ray Angel in his building. Angel’s century-old cobbler equipment is all moved in, but his daughter Arlana Angel tells CHS he’s playing the permit waiting game in order to open.

“Everything over there looks great,” she said. “It’s a great location, better foot traffic, better than Republican.”

The last piece of Eisenberg’s puzzle will be handing over his arcade space to Full Tilt. Again, Eisenberg says its just a matter of City permits coming through to open. According to Full Tilt, the new space will have a larger arcade section than any of the other Full Tilt shops, featuring about 20 arcade and pinball machines. The plan is to serve up ice cream in bars, but in not scoops.

While business has been booming at Uncle Ike’s (an eye popping $1.3 million in sales in July, its most productive month yet), the shop has faced it’s fair share of backlash. Last year members of the Mount Calvary Christian Church sued Eisenberg, claiming he should have never been allowed to open near the church.

The lawsuit was dropped earlier this year, but protests outside of the shop persist. An August 9th Black Lives Matter march made its way in front of Uncle Ike’s, where one speaker praised previous protestors, saying “They told him, you don’t come into a black neighborhood and start throwing your weight around. Especially when you’re coming from Israel. And you’re former IDF [Israeli Defense Forces].”

Video provided by Eisenberg

Eisenberg is Jewish, and says he was born in Seattle and was never a member of the Israeli military. After hearing a recording of the speech, Eisenberg said he contacted the Anti-Defamation League and reported the incident to police.

Meanwhile, Eisenberg is planning some upgrades at both of his buildings. Plans are in the works to add a second story office space above the arcade/ice cream shop/cobbler/future pot shop building. Uncle Ike’s Glass and Goods, adjacent to the pot shop at 23rd and E Union, is currently closed for remodeling. “The place had all the ambiance of a nice insurance office,” Eisenberg said. Uncle Ike’s, by the way, is a CHS advertiser.

Finally, a new neon sign on E Union will, according to permits, give lost customers some helpful advice: “HEY STONER! AROUND THE CORNER.”

Have a hankering for a Tesla electric car but don’t have anywhere in the neighborhood of $127,000? If you don’t need insanity mode or the other high-priced options included in the Model S P85D or even the regular Model S at around $69,000, Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he’s got a deal for you — well, in March, that is, when the company starts taking preorders for its cheaper Model 3 car.

As he often does with company news, Musk made the Model 3 announcement on Twitter, saying the Model 3, a smaller and lower-cost sedan at $35,000, will be available for preorders in March. It’ll be a while before customers can get their hands on the steering wheel however, as Tesla still needs to finish its $5 billion Gigafactory outside of Reno to make a cheaper lithium-ion battery to put into the vehicles.

This isn’t a huge surprise, as Musk told Tesla shareholders [PDF] in a second-quarter letter in August that the company was planning to reveal the Model 3 design in early 2016, with deliveries following by late 2017.

We’ve also known the $35,000 price tag and name since July 2014: originally, Musk had plans to call its $35,000 car the Model E, but that idea was scrapped after Ford got involved.

“We had the model S for sedan and X for crossover SUV, then a friend asked what we were going to call the third car,” Musk said in an interview last summer when revealing the price. “So I said we had the model S and X, we might as well have the E… We were going to call it model E for a while and then Ford sued us saying it wanted to use the Model E – I thought this is crazy, Ford’s trying to kill sex!”

Musk also dropped some more news on customers and the general public yesterday, revealing for the first time that deliveries of the Model X sports utility vehicles will begin Sept. 29.

Trees In Schonbrunn Park

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Trees After Toxic Waste Spill In Western Hungary

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Dress

Hausmannian Building On Georges V Ave. In Paris

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Half-Graffiti Room, Marseille, France

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Boat Looks Like It’s Floating In The Air

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A Pile Of Timber Reflecting In A Puddle

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Burned-Out Utility Pole

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Falling Book Sculpture By Alicia Martin

Her Outfit Matches The Beach

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Fishermen Row A Boat In An Algae-filled Lake In China

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Sand Dunes In Namib Desert, Namibia

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Sculpture In New Zealand

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Lenticular Clouds

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3d Grass Globe Illusion At Paris City Hall

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Nine months ago, when Albertsons and Safeway had to sell off a bunch of stores to make their $9.2 billion merger more palatable, the Washington-based Haggen supermarket chain agreed to snap up nearly 150 of those locations. Now Haggen, in a $1 billion lawsuit, says the sale of these stores was really a calculated effort on Albertsons’ part to eliminate competition.

Haggen, which operates primarily in the Pacific Northwest, claims that since it agreed late last year to acquire 146 Albertsons and Safeway stores in Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, the company has been forced to close 26 of the stores because the larger chain interfered with its ability to successfully operate the stores.

According to the lawsuit [PDF], which was filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, Albertsons engaged in “coordinated and systematic efforts to eliminate competition and Haggen as a viable competitor in over 130 local grocery markets in five states.”

Among other things, Haggen accuses Albertsons of pushing it to acquire the store under an aggressive time frame, misusing Haggen’s confidential information to draw customers away from the newly-acquired stores, providing inaccurate data about transferred inventory, providing misleading price information of transferred products and “sabotaging the quantity, assortment and quality of inventory transferred to Haggen.”

The larger chain also allegedly removed store fixtures and inventory that Haggen had paid for, strategically cut off Haggen stores from advertising and failed to perform routine maintenance on stores and equipment prior to signing over the stores.

Haggen claims that problems began early on when Albertsons made false representations in order to convince the smaller chain to purchase the 146 stores for $300 million.

Albertsons allegedly made false representations to both the company and the Federal Trade Commission about the larger chains’ commitment to the seamless transformation of the stores into viable competitors under the Haggen banner.

“During the transfer process, Albertsons launched its plan to gain market power and/or monopoly power in the [purchased market areas], acting in a manner that was designed to (and did) hamstring Haggen’s ability to successfully operate the stores after taking ownership,” the lawsuit states. “In all of the relevant markets, Haggen was a new entrant, and Albertsons’ improper conduct destroyed Haggen’s ability to build essential goodwill among consumers in those markets.”

As a result of these actions by Albertsons, Haggen claims it was forced to close 26 of the acquired stores and “faces the potential closure of additional stores.”

“Haggen never intended to close any of the Stores it acquired,” the lawsuit states. “To the contrary, Haggen saw these Stores as an exciting opportunity to transform itself into a super-regional grocer with a presence up and down the west coast.”

A spokesperson for Albertsons tells The Oregonian that the company did not engage in anti-competitive or inappropriate practices, and maintains that the divestiture followed the process set out by the FTC.

“The allegations contained in the Haggen complaint are completely without merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves in court,” the company said. “Like the process followed by Albertsons in prior divestitures, our process with Haggen was the subject of regular reports to the FTC and review by the Monitor Trustee appointed by the FTC.”

A spokesperson for the FTC, which granted the Albertsons and Safeway merger after Haggen and other retailers bought the divested stores, said the agency is not liable for the store closures or any lost jobs that may result.

“Obviously, our expectation was and remains that Haggen will become a successful competitor to Albertson’s/Safeway, and we are disappointed in the current situation, which we are following closely,” the agency wrote in an email to The Oregonian.

This isn’t the first time that Albertsons and Haggen have sparred since the store acquisition occurred.

Earlier this year, Albertsons filed a lawsuit against Haggen accusing the grocer of fraud for failing to pay for $41 million in inventory.

At that time, The Oregonian reports that Haggen claimed Albertsons had breached the purchase agreement and had notified Albertsons of those violations before Albertsons sued.

The two companies also face legal action from a Southern California union over allegations they violated union contracts.

[via The Oregonian]

Since we last checked out Athens-based Fabulous Cat Papers (previously) they’ve released a whole new series of notebooks that incorporate vintage science/medical illustrations printed on Japanese paper with hand-stitched embroidery. The notebooks come in a variety of sizes and options for blank, ruled, and graph papers.