Mmm mmm good?!

A cow and her cloned heifer

The U.S. government ruled today that food from cloned animals and their offspring is as safe as other food, opening the door to bringing meat and milk from clone offspring into the food supply.

I feel so dirty and defeated. I can't believe this is happening. Join me in vegetarianism before we grow tails out of our asses!

Proof that Tron arrived in China

He brought his girlfriends with him!

The worst summer flooding in years has claimed more than 400 lives and wreaked billions of dollars in damage in central China. Here in the villages around Dongting Lake, rising waters have brought a plague of biblical proportions: an invasion of 2 billion mice.

US torture continues

This past week, the Senate adopted the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This bill is identical to legislation adopted by the House, and removes important checks on the president by: failing to protect due process, eliminating habeas corpus, undermining enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, and giving a "get out of jail free card" to senior officials who authorized or ordered illegal torture and abuse.

"This legislation gives the president new unchecked powers to detain, abuse, and try people at Guantanamo Bay and other government facilities around the world," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

Permissible abuse includes shackling detainees in stress positions, stripping them of their clothes, denying them sleep, forcing them to stand for hours or days, dousing them with icy water, depriving them of heat or food or subjecting them to incessant noise or screaming.

You can judge a society by the way they treat thier prisoners.

Pass the bug spray

Yet another consequence of global warming... the return of the Bubonic Plague!

Researchers publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a rise of just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the springtime temperature led to a 59 percent increase in plague prevalence (currently, up to 3,000 cases are reported each year around the world). The researchers focused their study in Kazakhstan, where the primary host of the plague is the great gerbil (no, really). The gerbils carry fleas, which carry the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes the plague, which gets transmitted to humans by the fleas. Yersinia likely triggered both the Black Death, which killed more than 20 million people in the Middle Ages, and a 19th century pandemic in Asia that killed tens of millions. Depressingly, both outbreaks occurred during warm, wet climatic periods.

Hmm, warm wet climate ... sounds familiar.

Sooooo fucked up

Mister Markus alerted me to this book in my previous post about racialized Survivor.

How fucken gross! For the most part, I don't get offended by racist shit anymore (desensitization is a bitch)... even the racist Addidas shoes didn't bother me. But this is really offensive. What's worse is the author is an Asian guy -- Adam Quan. Fucken self-hating sell-out whore!!

The book came out in 2004, and apparently, many negative comments were posted on Amazon as a result. I was going to post something nasty on Amazon too, until I learned that Amazon eliminated many of the comments regarding the race issue. Fortunately, the Melting Blog captured some of the comments before Amazon erased them.

Gotta love the NY Post...

Code Red?

Yeah right. Why don't we have any information on what led to the capture of these "terrorists"?

"We are taking the step of preventing liquids from getting into the cabin to give us time to make adjustments"

I thought it was foiled? Obviously, the screening measures they have in place were working.

Mothers tasted baby food in front of airport security guards to prove it contained no liquid explosives. Liquids and gels were banned from flights. Travelers repacked their luggage in airports, stowing all but the most necessary items in the hold.

First, they confiscated my tweezers. Then they make me take off my shoes. Now I can't carry shampoo, lotion and toothpaste, or a bottle of water. WTF.

Personal conveniences must be sacrificed for national security.

I guarantee national security would be preserved if we stop occupying foreign countries and aiding Israel with weapons of mass destruction.

"This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation," Bush declared.

It's more like, we're at war with people who we fucked over for years and years, depriving them of their freedom and destorying their nations. Bush and his cronies are the biggest terrorists and fascists I know.

Northern Beirut

Going, going... gone

The trend toward gentrification has been proliferating in cities all around the world for many years, pitting the poor and the homeless against real estate developers, the police and upscale residents returning to "reclaim" the inner city. As long as there have been low-income neighborhoods, there have been those who want to remove them — and those who have, as a result, been left with no place to go. -- by Tom Slater, who wrote an excellent piece about the battle over Skid Row. He provides useful historical context on gentification in America.

The LA Times recently printed a special report, entitled A Community's Ethnic Tradition in Transition, about the gentrification occurring in LA Chinatown. The title should have been, The Rape of Chinatown (again and again and again). When are we going to learn?

Unfortunately, the article is untimely, as the gradual, yet speedy, process of gentrification had already begun in Chinatown about six years ago, when white artists discovered how cool (and cheap) it would be to have their studios and galleries there. Long ago, I remember walking through Chung King Road with Joe Mak in shock and disgust. Now it seems normal...

It appears to be shifting into overdrive. Loft conversions, mixed-use projects and luxury apartments are on the horizon. Director Quentin Tarantino has even bought an old theater where he plans to show Asian films.

The situation has created a culture clash. Some old-timers complain about the rowdy behavior of the new patrons. There are periodic flare-ups over art shows that some longtime Chinatown merchants consider too racy. Some elderly residents worry about being pushed out by gentrification.

Gentrification always begins with the artists. Yuppie scum arrives shortly thereafter. Before you know it, housing markets and retail prices skyrocket. Local residents can no longer live in neighborhoods that they and their families have lived in for generations... and they can't afford to live anywhere else in the city, because all the once "blighted" communities are "revitalizing", hence pushing them to the booty suburbs. They are displaced and forgotten, while rich white residents enjoy their new cool ethnic digs. This pretty much sums up the process. Gross, huh?

Downtown loft developers have caught the vibe. "Chinatown is one of those best-kept secrets," said Kate Bartolo, senior vice president for Kor Realty Group, which is planning a development.

Several years ago, Joe Mak and I, and a few others, acquired property in Chinatown to be used as a multi-purpose space for local residents to congregate (and reclaim their community!). My goal was to do it covertly, incognito-style and shit. We failed, unfortunately, because we were naive and wasted time trying to develop a collective, rather than a movement, while others made back-door deals with the landowners. It was a crushing experience, but it made me truly believe that ownership is power. Well, like He-Man says, knowing is half the battle!

Southern Beirut

Fucken Israel. Motherfuckers need to chill out.

Fuck you and your hummer!

(Check out this cool website for more F-U pictures.)

The good news out of Detroit is that the largest version of the Hummer – the 10,000 pound, less than 10 mpg, $150,000 Hummer H1 – is being scrapped by General Motors due to lagging sales.

However, sales for the entire Hummer fleet – including the H2 and H3 models which boast whopping 13 mpg and 16 mpg fuel efficiencies, respectively – TRIPLED nationally between March 2005 and March 2006. According to The Wall Street Journal "people are buying Hummers precisely because of high gas prices – buyers want the world to know they can afford the gas." (If you were wondering who the 29 percent of Americans are who still support George Bush, look no further!).

Racist shoes

Addidas has recently released a new pair of sneakers that feature a stereotypical caricature with slanted eyes, buck teeth and bowl cut with "Fong" written on it's heel. It is part of their "Yellow" series.

Too bad I'm desensitized to all this racist shit, otherwise I would sue Addidas for intentional infliction of emotion distress. But instead, I'll just sue them under the Right of Publicity doctrine for appropriating my brother's likeness and identity for profit.


But if you don't practice law, I recommend emailing or calling Addidas at their customer service number 1-800-448-1796. That's right, bitch them out... oh, and by the way, do me a favor and ask if they would personalize the shoe with "Yee" instead of "Fong"...

Maybe we'll have social security after all

Mike Walls never envisioned his golden years as a fight with drug addiction when a friend gave him a plastic bag of crystal-like powder and a promise of youth nearly two decades ago.

At 55, with rotten teeth, frayed nerves and high blood pressure — all brought on by meth — Walls has become part of a growing number of baby boomers struggling with addiction to the stimulant and seeking help after living with it through middle age.

Hey Grandpa, weren't you part of the Reagan era? Haven't you heard? Say No to Drugs, Bitch. That shit will fry your brains. Save it for the young... we still have plenty of brain cells to fry. Stick with BINGO.

An experiment gone wrong

In London, a medical study was administered on volunteers to determine the effectiveness of a new drug made to treat leukemia patients... needless to say, the drug company still has a lot of work ahead of them...

"It felt like we stepped into some sort of horror film," Raste Khan, one of two men who were given placebos in the trial of TGN1412. "The three other men in my ward started vomiting, then they began to fall in and out of consciousness. The person on my left was begging doctors to help him. I was really scared and was just waiting for it to start happening to me."

The experimental drug caused convulsions and organ failure immediately after it was injected. Two men remained in a coma and four others were seriously ill.

Is it me or does this sound really awful and fucked up? This would never happen during a study of medicinal marijuana...