Melamine Update: Fed To Poultry, Much Already “Processed” (Sold And Consumed)

Attention Melissa and Iain–and everyone else in Indiana–in case you were just about to order some take-out Kung Pao chicken:
WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) – The U.S. government said on Monday 38 poultry farms in Indiana were given contaminated feed in early February containing melamine, with some of the chickens likely to have entered the food [...]

Question of the Day

Suggested by Weasel: What fictional character would you like to meet and why?
This is a tough one, because so many come to mind. But the first two who came to mind are Cal Stephanides from Jeffrey Eugenides’ beautiful book Middlesex and Oly Binewski from Katherine Dunn’s brilliant Geek Love.

This Shit Doesn’t Happen in a Void

Part bingzillion in an ongoing series…
So much for ignoring bullies: Last Thursday night, openly gay Minnesota State University-Moorhead student Paul Marquardt was walking across campus around 11:30pm after leaving the school library when he was accosted by a group of men who began yelling anti-gay slurs at him.
Marquart … turned up his MP3 player in [...]

One Step Over

“The tuxedo is a wedding safety device, created by women because they know that men are undependable. So in case the groom chickens out, everybody just takes one step over, and she marries the next guy.”—Jerry Seinfeld
Grain of truth in every joke:
Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk [...]

Early Friday Catblogging

HT to I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER and my brother.

The War on Terror: Now with 25 percent more attacks

If the war mongers leading the U.S. keep shoving their fingers in their ears every time a report comes out noting how the U.S. “strategy” is adding to the worldwide terror problem, we can surely get the number of terror attacks and dead and mutilated bodies even higher for 2007.
Report says terror attacks up sharply

Quote of the Day

“Am I the only one who [is] thoroughly fascinated by the Manly-Man’s relationship to the vulva? He’s supposed to fucking love it (or at least love fucking it), and simultaneously be disgusted by it. All while asserting his dominance over its owner. So make sure you point out how much you just can’t get enough [...]

Naturellement…

…the Aristocrats.

The Sound of My Voice

I was a quiet child.
My shyness was for no good reason, really, other than that I was strange. I felt quite out of place in childhood; rambunctiousness didn’t suit me. The ability of most children to inhabit their bodies without inhibitions—flailing arms and legs, tumbling somersaults, endless spinning to a dizziness that left them stumbling [...]

There Are More People? No Kidding..

You would think that the Party Of Faith™ wouldn’t have to deal with these lurid sex scandals anymore. Yet more people keep falling through the cracks. Randall Tobias was just the tip of the ol’ iceberg on the current episode. Jeane Palfrey, the DC Madam, will be making her case clear on 20/20 this Friday:
“I’m [...]

Online, Offline, Everywhere

The WaPo’s Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers is a real half-assed attempt to cover the pervasive problem of women bloggers being harassed, intimidated, and blatantly threatened using rape-language. There are a lot of problems with it—one being the exclusion of even a cursory discussion of legal options (or the lack thereof), another being [...]

Monday Blogwhoring

Whatcha got, Shakers?
Recommended reading…
LeMew: Abortion “Contrarianism”–Still Wrong
Mad Kane: Mother’s Day Limerick Contest … With Money Prizes!
The Onion: Middle East Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc. [H/T Sarah in Chicago]
Sara Anderson: Ladies Don’t Have Opinions

Rush Limbaugh’s Influence, RIP

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the death of Rush Limbaugh’s influence on the American political and social scenes. Limbaugh’s influence, which peaked in 1994 and has been steadily eroding since, was at one time a terror on the airwaves, but has now flat-lined, leaving him and his cartel of 75-year-old-angry-white-guy listeners [...]

Melamine A Hot Commodity, Which Means This

It is widely used. And the practice of adding powdered and even scrap melamine to grain products–a cheap and only “mildy toxic” (!) way to artificially boost protein readings and market prices–did not become popular on a China-wide basis overnight, either.
We who live and dine in America might as well get used to the idea [...]

Tart Recommends-No-Requires

Shakers: Do you like a lil’ verite with your cinema? A lil’ gritty ‘n’ realistic with your entertainment? How about some social consciousness and political conscience with your beautiful-but-accessible male protagonists? Then allow me to harangue you into renting Half Nelson, because it’s awesome and you should watch it. It’s [...]

With Friends Like These…

I missed the interview on 60 Minutes with former CIA director George Tenet, but as I made my way through DFW on the way to my gate, I saw the crawl on CNN on the TV monitors: “WHITE HOUSE BLASTS FORMER CIA CHIEF” and had pictures of Secretary of State Rice and all the other [...]

License to Drive Me Nutz

Indiana’s “In God We Trust” license plates, about which I was bitching a couple of weeks ago, have prompted a challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of Mark Studler, a Hoosier who, like Mr. Shakes and me, has consistently paid a $40 additional fee for environmental plates, $25 of which [...]

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Muppet Babies

Daily Round-Up

Friday and the Weekend
Melissa: Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Melissa: Karl and Clippy
Melissa: Dem Debate
Wolfie: MIWOMIT Presents: VD is for Everybody
The Heretik: Dunking in the Dark
Melissa: Homophobic Hatred in Indiana Leads to Murder
Litbrit: FDA Raids ChemNutra’s Office; China Admits Problem For First Time; Menu Foods To Sue ChemNutra
Melissa: Friday Blogwhoring
Space Cowboy: Kristol Kalled on the Karpet
Melissa: Quote of [...]

Food Tainting Update: Melamine Spiking A Common Practice in China

At first, Chinese officials denied even shipping wheat gluten to the US in the first place, though it has since come to light that despite America being one of the world’s largest wheat producers, companies here find it cheaper to import gluten–which requires a certain amount of labor and processing of the grain–from China. This [...]