HUNDREDS AFFECTED

Packaged Greens Causing Run On Bathrooms

By Miz J

HOMER SIMPSON IS RIGHT: You don’t win friends with salad. You also don’t reap health benefits like you used to. Health officials report that 145 Iowans have fallen ill from cyclospora infections that authorities believe arrived in prepackaged salad mix.

But don’t worry, CNN reports that the mix, of iceberg and romaine, red cabbage and carrot, have been recalled and removed from shelves…although it sounds like the damage has already been done.

MEAL TICKET

Usher’s Freaking Out About Ex-Wife’s Reality Show?

By Miz J

USHER IS FREAKIN’ OUT, YOU GUYS.

Turns out the mega-watt singer, currently judging on The Voice, isn’t happy that his ex-wife, Tameka Foster, is in talks with VH1 to star in an Atlanta-based version of Hollywood Exes. If you remember, the two had a difficult divorce, fighting over custody of their children, who got what house, followed by Tameka losing her eldest son (from a previous marriage) in a tragic water skiing accident.

“Usher and Tameka don’t get along, and he knows she’ll be happy to talk about his personal life so that she can become the star of the show,” a source blabs to RadarOnline.

‘ACTIVELY MISLED’

New Spy Revelations Expand Evidence Of Officials Lying To Public

By Elizabeth Coady

THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY REVELATIONS JUST KEEP GETTING MORE AND MORE ALARMING.

With information provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, The Guardian‘s Glenn Greenwald today revealed yet another top-secret government program enabling government contractors to access virtually every phone call, email, chat or social media exchange that Americans have on the Internet.

From The Guardian:

The files shed light on one of Snowden’s most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.

“I, sitting at my desk,” said Snowden, could “wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email”.

US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden’s assertion: “He’s lying. It’s impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do.”

Rogers’ denials, along with those of many other elected officials underscore just how much the NSA has either lied to its supposed overseers, or how those overseers are lying to the American public.

“We don’t monitor emails,” Chambliss said on ABC This Week last Sunday. “That’s what kind of assures me is that what the reporting is is not correct. Because no emails are monitored now. They used to be, but that stopped two or three years ago. So I feel confident that there may have been some abuse, but if it was it was pure accidental.”

CONFESSION TIME

Pretty Little Liars: The Guilty Girl’s Handbook

By Karen Malmquist

AFTER TRYING TO RUN HANNA OVER WITH HER CAR, outing Emily to her parents, and trying to kill Spencer, Mona Van Der Waal just might have made up for all of that on Tuesday’s new Pretty Little Liars.

Emily and her mom are in a motel, and Mrs. Fields is on the phone, explaining what happened to their house. Apparently the car was stolen, and there was no one in the driver’s seat. She’s obviously frustrated, but doesn’t want Emily to miss her college guidance meeting today.

The other three Liars are at Spencer’s, when Mrs. Hastings walks in. She says they pled not guilty on the homicide charges, but the judge isn’t granting bail. Ashley is also being transferred to another jail—in Munsey. Hanna gets mad, and Aria and Spencer follow her as she charges upstairs in a huff.

Side note: Spencer totally looks like she’s been sorted into Gryffindor with the outfit she’s wearing.

ANTICIPATION PAYS

YouTube

Study: Food Tastes Better After Foreplay

By Miz J

THIS JUST IN: CREATING FOOD PORN ACTUALLY STIMULATES YOUR APPETITE. Then again, so does prayer.

A new study out of University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management reveals that any ritual done before a meal makes food taste that much better.

OUCH

Julio Cortez/AP Photo

Teresa & Joe Guidice Post $1 Million In Bonds

By Karen Malmquist

THE GIUDICES ARE FREE! For now. Sort of.

This morning the Real Housewives of New Jersey couple surrendered to the federal authorities in their fraud case, and are free on $500 thousand bond each.

But here’s the catch: the two have had to surrender their passports, and are not allowed to leave New Jersey and New York, and have to return to federal court on August 14 to be arraigned. Joe, not being an American citizen, faces possible deportation back to Italy.

IT’S ALL WET

Beware ‘Ghost Shark’ Because If You’re Wet, You’re Dead

SYFY FOLLOWS UP its campy Sharkando with more ridiculousness via the Ghost Shark, a vengeance-seeking predator intent on harming the human race to avenge his murder.

No one’s safe from the spectral man-eating beast: Not bathers idling on ocean floats, not daredevil divers in backyard pools, not bikini-clad girls offering car washes for a good cause.

A STORY ABOUT NOTHING

Sorry Shea Allen, You’re No Glenn Greenwald

SHEA ALLEN’S A WEE BIT UPSET — AND BEFUDDLED — AFTER GETTING TOSSED from her reporting job at ABC’s Huntsville, Ala. affiliate WAAY-TV.

Duck and cover. Wow. For God's sake I just want to tell the news.

— Shea Allen (@SheaMallen27) July 30, 2013

GETTING CATTY

Grumpy Cat Coffee?

THIS IS ONE STRANGE MARRIAGE OF MARKETING: COFFEE… AND GRUMPY CAT?

Yes, somebody had the novel idea of making a coffee drink to capitalize on a feline meme.

In fairness, a meme based on a real live cat named Tardar Sauce who wears a perpetual frown.

Come September, Grumpy Cat Grumppuccino will be available in coffee, mocha and vanilla.

ACCUSED OF BANK FRAUD

Teresa & Joe Guidice Facing Fate Much Worse Than Wrath Of Caroline Manzo

By Karen Malmquist

CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR TERESA EXPLAIN THIS ONE!

The Guidices are facing up to 50 years in prison if convicted of a long, long, long list of criminal charges.

It isn’t the first time this couple have faced legal problems. Hell, not too long ago, Joe faced 10 years in jail for using his brother’s ID to obtain a driver’s license.

Now, the couple’s got 39 counts of fraud against them.

Although neither of them seem fully capable of forming a complete sentence, the Giudices are accused of withholding information about their net worth in 2009, when they filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. They also managed to “illegally obtain mortgages and other loans from multiple banks by intentionally overestimating their incomes in order to get more money,” according to TMZ.