Free Republic

Joe Biden appeared totally lost on Monday during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll as he wandered around looking for “Oyster Bunnies” before being sidetracked by fresh babies to sniff. The White House Easter Egg Roll, which banned all religious symbols, was another event exposing Biden’s diminished mental acuity.

Venture capitalist Kenneth Ballenegger has been suspended from the US investment firm he cofounded, Oyster Ventures, after making offensive remarks on X on the Israel-Hamas conflict. According to screenshots shared with Business Insider, Ballenegger wrote on Sunday: "After the war, Israel should handle Gaza like China handles Xinjiang. Full surveillance state. Re education camps. Sterilizations. It's warranted and the only way to pacify the jihadi population." Responding to criticism from a former colleague, Ballenegger continued: "They reproduce like rabbits and raise them to be terrorists, creating more poverty misery and terrorism. Why should we allow that. The world would be...

A 54-year-old Missouri man died Thursday after he contracted a flesh-eating bacterium from eating raw oysters, officials say. The man, whom officials are not publicly identifying, became infected after he ate oysters he bought from The Fruit Stand & Seafood in the St. Louis suburb of Manchester, the St. Louis County Public Health Department announced Friday The bacterium, Vibrio vulnificus, is typically contracted by consuming raw or undercooked oysters and other shellfish. Symptoms of vibriosis, the disease it causes, include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fever and chills. Death is rare after having contacted vibriosis, and it typically occurs in people...

President Biden said in an op-ed published Tuesday that the United States would not try to oust Russian President Vladimir Putin from his position of power because of his invasion of Ukraine. “We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia. As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow,” Biden wrote in a New York Times op-ed published Tuesday evening.

Snails known as impressed odostomes, Boonea impressa, are common parasites of oysters, latching onto a shell and inserting a stylus to slurp the soft insides. Because the snail has a predictable 12-month life cycle, its length at death offers a reliable estimate of when the oyster host died, allowing Florida Museum of Natural History researchers Nicole Cannarozzi and Michal Kowalewski to use it as a tiny seasonal clock for when people collected and ate oysters in the past. Stowaways on discarded oyster shells, the snails offer new insights into an old question about the shell rings that dot the coasts...

Despite being “better educated” than Boomers… Thirty-nine percent of millennials have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to about a quarter of baby boomers when they were the same age. Millennials find themselves falling behind in the Game of Life. That seems, well, unfair. But nevertheless, there it is. Millennials are earning 20% less than baby boomers at the same age — despite being better educated, a new study has found.Research published in a report by the nonprofit New America found that the Great Recession, which began in 2007, was largely to blame in the generational wealth divide.Lack of...

“I never thought I’d say this, but that’s a lot of oysters,” Kristen Amy McElhaney said Tuesday, about two-thirds of the way to setting a new women’s record at Wintzell’s Oyster House in Mobile. Since she was a little girl, McElhaney had wanted to be on the board of recordholders at Wintzell's. And now, at 33, she'd decided to go for it and raise some funds for the Distinguished Young Women scholarship competition. She'd been a participant in 2002, and an oyster-eating challenge has long been a part of the AJM/DYW experience. But McElhaney wasn't playing at the amateur level...

The 71-year-old man ate the oysters on July 8 at a Sarasota restaurant, which health officials did not identify, and died two days later. "We have an individual that consumed some raw oysters and to the best of our knowledge had no exposure to salt water, became severely ill, and passed away," said Michael Drennon, Disease Intervention Services Program Manager at the Sarasota County Health Dept. "We tell everybody regardless of age or immune status that they should avoid eating raw or undercooked shell fish or seafood or avoid or being in the salt water when they have an open...

DOES Louisiana hot sauce, a principal ingredient in the spicy New Orleans cocktail sauce commonly served with raw shellfish, kill certain bacteria found in raw oysters? The answer is yes, at least in the laboratory, researchers said in a preliminary report at a national scientific meeting on microbes and antibiotics yesterday. Principal ingredients of the traditional New Orleans cocktail sauce were found to kill a rare but sometimes fatal bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus. Dr. Sanders said that he saw his first case of V. vulnificus infection 10 years ago and that his interest in studying the sauces arose from lectures...

NEW ORLEANS - A Virginia man wolfed down 40 dozen oysters in eight minutes Sunday to win the World Oyster Eating Championship at the New Orleans Oyster Festival, the Times-Picayune reported. Darron Breeden of Orange, Virginia, topped a field of seven contestants who participated in the annual contest, which is held in a park between the French Quarter and the Mississippi River.

Back in September, Texas residents Vicki Bergquist and wife Jeanette LeBlanc were visiting family in Louisiana. They went crabbing with friends and family on the coast, picking up a sack of raw oysters in a market in Westwego. It wasn't long after when LeBlanc's health rapidly declined, CBS affiliate KLFY-TV reports. The couple's friend Karen Bowers says she and LeBlanc shucked and ate about two dozen raw oysters. "About 36 hours later she started having extreme respiratory distress, had a rash on her legs and everything," Bergquist said. "An allergic reaction of sorts, that's what I would call it. That's...

Back in September, Texas residents Vicki Bergquist and wife Jeanette LeBlanc were visiting family in Louisiana. They went crabbing with friends and family on the coast, picking up a sack of raw oysters in a market in Westwego. It wasn't long after when LeBlanc's health rapidly declined, CBS affiliate KLFY reports. The couple's friend Karen Bowers says she and LeBlanc shucked and ate about two dozen raw oysters. "About 36 hours later she started having extreme respiratory distress, had a rash on her legs and everything," Bergquist said. "An allergic reaction of sorts, that's what I would call it. That's...

Plans to expand aquatic farming could have a serious knock-on effect on climate change, climate experts have warned after new research revealed that underwater shellfish farts produce 10% of the global-warming gases released by the Baltic Sea. A study published in the Scientific Reports journal shows that clams, mussels and oysters produce one-tenth of methane and nitrous oxide gases in the Baltic Sea as a result of digestion. Therefore, researchers have warned that shellfish “may play an important but overlooked role in regulating greenhouse gas production”. Methane and nitrous oxide gases have a far greater warming potential than carbon dioxide...

Hope you enjoy. ”Burnin’ For You”

So rich, there was only one man’s name this dish could bear at the time according to the chef who so masterfully created famous recipes in the French Quarter. January 10 recognizes National Oysters Rockefeller Day! In 1889 in the renowned kitchen of Antoine’s, Jules Alciatore developed a recipe for baked oysters on the half shell with sauce and bread crumbs that would earn the name Oysters Rockefeller. A dish so rich Alciatore himself admitted, “…I know of no other name rich enough for their richness.” While other restaurants serve similar dishes, only historic Antoine’s (founded by Antoine Alciatore, Jules...

Contrary to their own scientific intuition, Cornell researchers found that the body size of intertidal oysters didn’t change after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This offers evidence that either the mollusks recovered rapidly or that the accident lacked the severity to affect growth. After the initial explosion April 20, 2010, which sank the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible rig, about 3.2 million barrels of oil poured into the northern Gulf of Mexico until the well was capped July 15. The scientists believe that the travel distance of the oil gave it time to degrade, and bacterial...

Blue Oyster Cult – I Love The Night [from the Spectres album 1977] That night her kiss told me it was over I walked out late into the dark The misty gloom seems to soak up my sorrow The further I went on I felt a spreading calm Then suddenly my eyes were bathed in light And the lovely lady in white was by my side She said "like me I see you're walking alone Won't you please stay? " I couldn't look away[....]

The National Park Service used falsified data to shut down an 80-year-old oyster company in Point Reyes, Calif, its owner claims. Drakes Bay Oyster Company operated in Point Reyes for decades until National Park Service officials used falsified data to force Kevin Lunny’s family-run oyster farm to shut down. The experience has left its mark on Lunny: “We are terrified,” he told lawmakers during a hearing Thursday. “Let me be clear, we did not fail as a business,” Lunny said in his prepared testimony. “This was not bad luck. Rather, the Park Service engaged in a taxpayer-funded enterprise of corruption...

In a pleasant surprise, an Italian businessman discovered five pearls worth 2,000 euros inside an oyster he ordered at a restaurant. Giuseppe Di Bianco, an executive at Poste Italiane in Italy, found the gems at Nonna Maria restaurant in Salerno, Italy. Di Bianco, who was out on a date with his girlfriend, called up the restaurant and asked the manager to prepare some clams ahead of their visit, only to be told there were none in stock, 'The Local' reported. Di Bianco then pleaded with the manager to replenish supplies, saying he had promised his girlfriend. According to the 'Il...

Cool Pasteurization The pasteurization of oysters as a post-harvest process was developed and patented in 1995 by AmeriPure in Franklin, Louisiana. Cool pasteurization is a mild thermal treatment of oysters in the shell, followed by a rapid cooling. This process raises the temperature of th e oyster enough to kill Vibrio vulnificus bacteria but does not sterili ze or cook the oyster. To treat oysters, the oysters are first washed, then individually banded with rubber bands and loaded onto trays. The trays are loaded onto carts, which are hoisted into a tank containing warm (126°F) water for 24 minutes ....