WARNING: If you have a delicate constitution, don't read this post. It will talk about something disgusting that will cause you to have two or three strong emotional reactions at once. You have been warned.

I read this story about Ed Chrisman, an 88-year-old American who was recently given a humanitarian release from a Mexican jail. I'm not going to go into the details of why he was there or a rant about his treatment. Read the full story if you want all the details.

It was the second-to-last paragraph of the story that just made my blood run cold:

"He told one story - one of the guards there had a guard dog inside the prison and the dog had pups. The rats are so thick in there that rats came and started to drag off the pups and eat them," said Don.

I told this to a person who isn't a "dog person," and even she gave a sympathetic whine for those poor puppies. If you want a way to describe the squalid conditions in a Mexican prison, puppy-eating rats hits it right on the freakin' nail.

Holy crap!

I recently read a post on Foodista telling people to take the United Way's Hunger Challenge, which is basically trying to live for five days on the budget people on food stamps get. I'm not against hunger charities or educating people about hunger, but the Hunger challenge is just bogus in a number of ways.

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A few days back, the West Michigan Whitecaps announced they'd be serving a 4,800 calorie hamburger (equal in calories to about 9 Big Macs - or when broken down to joules of energy, equal to about 1/6 of a gallon of gasoline) at their ballpark. The minor league baseball team claimed the burger would weigh in at nearly 4 pounds, containing 5 burger patties, 5 slices of cheese, and a cup of chili among other elements.

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So, Black Friday caused the death of a Wal-Mart worker as shoppers forced their way into a store, trampling him, a pregnant woman, and co-workers who tried to rescue him. When the store announced it would be closing because of the death, some people complained they'd been in line for hours and kept shopping.

Every Black Friday is chaos. There's always a story about a crowd at one Wal-Mart or another getting unruly. Wal-Mart knew that their first-come, first-served early morning discounts create crowd-control problems, but they didn't have enough security in place. Now someone's dead because of it.

I like Wal-Mart. Their prices really are low and they offer a huge selection. But this is unacceptable. I really hope that this guy's family has a good lawyer.