Well.. It's been a while

For anyone paying attention -- yes.. all two of you -- I've neglected this thing for more than a year now. Whoops.

So much has happened too. Let's recap the big stories since my last post:

• SEPTEMBER 2007: President Bush nominates Michael Mukasey to relieve Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General; Gonzales shifts his talents to torturing college students at various paid lectures across the country.
  
• OCTOBER 2007: Nintendo announces that Sonic the Hedgehog will join the cast of Super Smash Brothers.
• NOVEMBER 2007: TV gets really boring, really fast.
  
• DECEMBER 2007: Satan stops by Dick Cheney's ceremonial office in Washington for a weekly update, sparking a small fire.
• JANUARY 2008: India launches the world's cheapest car, to coincide with the world's cheapest labor.
• FEBRUARY 2008: A judge in Illinois declares adventurer Steve Fossett dead after he wasn't seen for five months. Judge also declares all unicorns dead, after he admitted he hadn't seen one for five months either.
• MARCH 2008: Vietnam bans people from owning hamsters. Seriously. Fucking communists.
• APRIL 2008: The Olympic Torch relay runners don Invisibility Cloaks to avoid angry Tibetan protesters in San Francisco.
• MAY 2008: Death toll from the Sichuan earthquake in China rises to 20,000. Meanwhile, Orange Chicken sales go through the roof at Szechuan Earthquake restaurants across America.
• JUNE 2008: inBev threatens the very foundation of American culture by offering 46 billion dollars to buy out Anheuser-Busch.
• JULY 2008: Google announces its total indexed page count has reached 1 trillion -- 999 billion of which are porn sites.
• AUGUST 2008: Vladimir Putin sews the final stitches on his 21st century Iron Curtain by rolling tanks into Georgia.

Whew. It's been a busy year.

But September is almost over.... let's see, what have I missed this month? Well, the economy is tanking, the election can't come soon enough, and Texas is fucked.

Hey -- sounds like not much has changed since last year after all!

Corruption from Within

I guess I (and the rest of the news media) should have been more skeptical of that story about cardboard dumplings in China (original post). Now it turns out the undercover reporter in that story made up the entire thing! He's been arrested! After a city-wide inspection by the government, it determined, 'Zi [The reporter] had provided all the cardboard and asked the vendor to soak it. It's all cheating.'

I don't know why a dumpling manufacturer would have willingly submitted to pretending to stuff its delicious pork dumplings with chopped up boxes. Maybe the reporter paid the guy? Allegedly the man 'fabricated the report to garner higher audience ratings.' He succeeded there, that's for sure.

Honestly though I'm more upset at the state of journalism in the world now. We've got reporters flat out making up investigative pieces? Next thing you're going to tell me is that Joel Grover really works for Mannie, Moe, & Jack (and the rest of the 'Boys) and he's just trying to get EZ shut down!

CNN article about 'Dumpling Duping' here.

Hungry? Not anymore

If you love dim sum, this story's for you! Some Chinese restaurants have a new item just added to their menu: delicious pork dumplings, steamed to perfection, and they're even bigger and 'meatier' than what you can get in Chinatown! Mmmmm...

So what's the beef (or pork)? A Beijing TV station says some Chinese food manufacturers are using 'unsavory' ingredients in their brand of dumplings. You know, just your everyday dumpling of fatty pork, powdered seasoning, and chopped-up cardboard. Apparently it cuts costs, and customers don't notice the difference. At least cardboard is high in fiber.

Read the full article here.