AP is reporting on the recent mass deaths of animals due to melamine poisoning, as follows:

Some 1,500 dogs bred for their raccoon-like fur have died after eating feed tainted with melamine, a veterinarian said Monday, raising questions about how widespread the industrial chemical is in China’s food chain.

…

The raccoon dogs — a breed native to east Asia whose fur is used to trim coats and other clothing — died of kidney failure after eating the tainted feed, said Zhang Wenkui, a veterinary professor at Shenyang Agriculture University.

“First, we found melamine in the dogs’ feed, and second, I found that 25 percent of the stones in the dogs’ kidneys were made up of melamine,” said Zhang, who performed a necropsy — an animal autopsy — on about a dozen dogs.

Well, seriously folks, what a shocker huh? I’m going to go out on a limb here, and predict that plenty of people will act surprised, the people involved will never be publicly questioned, and the Red Gods will eventually say that “We are now more confident to tell the public that animal feed and related products available in the market are safe”. Until the next time.

Boy howdy, what kind of a box must you have been living in, to be in any way surprised that the Chinese put poison in food? Or in toothpaste? Or lead in children’s toys? Or substandard parts in motor vehicles? Or recording devices in taxi cabs for crying out loud? What the hell did you expect?

Producers, regulators, inspectors, enforcers… All of them run by the CCP. Anyone else see a problem here?

The simple fact is, that the CCP is the largest criminal organisation in the history of the world, with their own private army numbering over two million, with nuclear weapons pointed at their neighbours, and with a large population of brainwashed serfs under their complete power. Why the hell should they care who suffers, as long as they get money and power?

[/rant]

Anyway, in other news, ChinaDaily is reporting that the terrible skin afflictions that have suddenly struck over a thousand farmers in Jianli county, Hubei province, were “caused by boll worms” and are “not related to vanadium [released illegally into the environment by factories with Party connections] according to tests done by the provincial health department“. Which is all well and good.

The media [boo! hiss!] had reported farmers started suffering from rash-like symptoms in March when local industrialists and those from nearby Hunan province opened plants to smelt vanadium, a highly profitable alloy element.

Some of the illegal plants had failed to install treatment facilities for gas emissions and wastewater.

What has seven letters, and is considered rude to your host?

(Hint: It’s an old swearword, invented by some uneducated carpenters somewhere in ZhongYuan, 5000 years ago).

Please send your answers to:

MyLaowai Seven Asterisks Competition
c/- MyLaowai AT Gmail DOT com

The first place winner will receive a week in China. Second place will win two weeks in China.

Let’s try this again, shall we?

I have decided to become a communist. It appears that I will never reach the pinnacle of my ambitions to be financially independent and above the law by taking part in the Capitalist rat-race and working for someone else, so I’ve decided to switch sides and join the real Rats-race. I’m going to use my many years of military experience and join the Peoples Liberation Army so that I too can become one of the privileged elite. That’s the great thing about communism – it’s fkn great if you’re up top, propped up and top dog. I live to serve and be served but don’t try and be like me – Know Your Place, Comrade.

Ok, ok, so I will never be accepted into the ranks of the PLA elite. I fact, It’s unlikely that I’m even fit to wash their dishes in their mess halls due to the fact that I’m ethnically impure and not born to serve the Handy ones.

However, what I can do is “masquerade” as one the “privileged members of the People’s Liberation Army”. Yes that’s right, Privileged! These are the same Privileged Members who are above the law and answer to no one except the other Privileged Members of the PLA. These are the cunts who drive on the wrong side of the road, cut up traffic at will, run red lights, totally ignore all traffic control and police, park where they want and generally act in a Peoples Liberation Privileged Army sort of way and in fact, ‘look at me, I’ve got a white number plate’ sort of way. Not only are they Privileged Members, they also have funny sounding Horns and are not shy about using their Horns in public.

I am going to get myself one of these (see below) – one of the fast and expensive ones – and I’m going to masquerade as one of the Privileged Members. In fact, let’s not call it ‘masquerading’ – let’s call it ‘aspiring to be’…

Traffic police said, “over half of speeding drivers either cover up their plates or use a fake plate, the chances of capturing them is next to nil!”

Speeding drivers in south China are getting clear away thanks to machines which switch the numbers on their licence plates in seconds, state media said.

“More than 50 percent of cars caught on camera for speeding and other offences either cover up their plates or use a fake licence plate,” a traffic policeman in the Guangdong city of Yangjiang was quoted by the Beijing Youth Daily as saying, “our chances of capturing them is next to nil.”

The price of the remote-control device starts at around 800 yuan ($115), while a more advanced apparatus with the ability to flip over the numbers in less than three seconds costs more than double.

“The era of covering up the licence plate by hand has passed,” a driver surnamed Zheng told the newspaper.

“It’s really convenient and economical too,” a salesman who specializes in such devices in the provincial capital of Guangzhou was quoted as saying.

In April, Xinhua news agency reported that China had confiscated thousands of fake military vehicles and number plates in a move to crack down on citizens masquerading as privileged members of the People’s Liberation Army.

In years past, Chinese counterfeiters have used fake military vehicles to ship bootleg cigarettes and other goods, previous reports have said.

– Photo and text from Asianoffbeat

Oh What a Pair of Tits!

So now even the Communist Party has been forced to admit to there being in excess of 50,000 babies lying sick in various and sundry hospitals scattered throughout the land.

FIFTY THOUSAND BABIES IN HOSPITAL!

Jesus titty fucking Christ! How did they miss that the first time around? Somebody lose count around four again? And that doesn’t include the ones whose parents are too poor to afford hospital beds for them (yes, I know the Party said it would cover the costs, but I also know for a fact that it was a lie). It also doesn’t include the others that weren’t counted. And it sure as all hell doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands who were sick last year, and the year before, and the year before that.

What, you mean you actually thought this whole thing was new news?

The only surprise here is how many people seem surprised at all this. I mean, c’mon people, it’s an old story: Boy Chinese meets Girl Chinese, they somehow make a baby although neither knows quite how it all happened, something to do with squeezing tofu apparently, boy gives baby to girl to take care of so he can gamble and go to the KTV, girl gives baby to grandma because she thinks breastfeeding will ruin her figure plus then she can go back to the factory and meet more boys, grandma gives baby patriotic milk powder that has had all nutrients replaced by cheaper industrial waste in order that the glorious and diligent and very famous in the world Chinese company can make more glorious revolutionary profits to share with the Dear Leader(s), baby gets sick and is taken to hospital, foreign media exposes the whole shebang, Party promises free medical care, both boy and girl and grandma are sent home for being too poor, and baby dies in an amusing but rather unfortunate mix-up with the people who extract collagen from live prisoners for export to evil foreign make-up companies.

Don’t pretend you’ve never heard that old chestnut before.

Anyway, this has all been going on for bloody years, and the fact that now everyone is running around recalling milk powder and milk and ice cream (Magnums! Noooo!) and M&M’s and Snicker’s and Mento’s and Dove Choccies and Oreo’s and Mini-Popper’s and Cornetto’s only goes to show how stupid everyone was to trust these deceitful lying bastards in the first place.

Actually, I’m rather glad to hear this news. Well, relieved is perhaps a better word. All this time, ever since I came to China in fact, I’ve been worried that the pain in my right kidney was due to excessive alcohol consumption. I mean, I’m not an alcoholic (because I don’t go to the meetings), but there are times when I drink to take the pain of life away – such as every day. Now that I know it’s just kidney stones, and that they aren’t serious enough to kill more than a handful of babies, I’m happy as Larry again (in case you were wondering, Larry is your Aunties’ live-in lover).

Thank you, Chinese dairy industry, you’ve taken a load off my mind. May your profits never dwindle, may your KTV whores never get pregnant, and may your CCP masters never extort more from you for their silence than you are willing to pay.

Thank you and good night.

The Jumping of the Shark

(An Agony in Five Thousand Bits)

One, two! One, two! And through and through,
Their eating sticks go clicky clack!
They eat it dead, they eat it live,
Any time’s a good time to snack.

“Five Thousand Years!” the taxi driver cried,
As he examined his mole with care;
So proud was he that the obnoxious spot
sprouted luxurious lengths of hair.

“Five Thousand Years!” they say it twice:
That alone should warn those new.
“Five Thousand Years!” and now it’s thrice:
A lie three times must be true.

The crew is complete: it includes a Wang –
no one is sure what he does.
A Liu and a Zhang and a Wen and a Hu,
A collection of murdering thugs.

They are famous of course for everything good:
The grander the greater the fib.
If it’s real they made it and taught it to us,
They believe that they honestly did!

From paper and powder to compass and wheel,
From money to iron to glass.
They invented it all, or so they believe,
They even made mountains and grass!

They discover’d the Poles, and Europe as well,
Just ask Gavin Menzies for proof!
You’ll find him at the bank with his mountains of kuai,
Counting his ill-gotten loot.

And what maps they have made! O! Wondrous designs!
With the North clearly marked to be ‘East’.
They list all their neighbours and people they know,
In the Dragon’s Imperial Reach.

Yet long, long ago – well before Fonzie’s show,
When they first ate a dog for it’s bark,
‘Twas plain to us all, those near and those far,
That these buggers had well jumped the shark.

Five thousand they say? Why the pride, why not shame?
Five thousand but developing still?
They call all this ‘culture’? I laugh at their lies when their milk
Gives small babies kidneystone pills.

Five thousand? Give it up! It past time they did,
Five thousand? They haven’t done much.
Peaceful for ever and honest and brave?
Tell that to Tibetans and such.

Yea, if it were a show on TeeVee today,
(There’s nothing to see worth a damn – what a lark!)
It’s a show that we’d simply switch off don’t you see?
They long ago jumped that ole’ shark.

One, two! One, two! And through and through,
Their eating sticks go clicky clack!
They eat it dead, they eat it live,
Any time’s a good time to snack.

USA Today. 28th June, 2007.

China insisted Thursday that its exports are safe, issuing a rare direct commentary as international fears over Chinese products spread.

Wang Xinpei, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry, said China “has paid great attention” to the issue, especially food products because it concerns people’s health.

“It can be said that the quality of China’s exports all are guaranteed,” Wang told reporters at a regularly scheduled briefing.

The statement was among Beijing’s most public assertions of the safety of its exports since they came under scrutiny earlier this year with the deaths of dog and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine.

Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe colour additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

Chinese-made toothpaste also has been banned by numerous countries in North and South America and Asia for containing diethylene glycol, or DEG, a chemical often found in antifreeze. It is also a low-cost – and sometimes deadly – substitute for glycerine, a sweetener in many drugs.

The New York Times reported Thursday that tainted Chinese toothpaste had been more widely distributed in the United States than had been previously reported. It said about 900,000 tubes have turned up in places including correctional facilities and some hospitals, not just at discount stores.

Earlier this month, a spokesman for North Carolina’s Department of Correction said Pacific brand toothpaste was distributed to prisoners who could not afford to buy a name brand at prison stores. The tubes were taken away after trace amounts of DEG was found in them.

Officials in Georgia and North Carolina told the Times there had been no illnesses reported, and that the toothpaste in question was being replaced with brands not manufactured in China.

On Wednesday, three Japanese importers recalled millions of Chinese-made travel toothpaste sets, many sold to inns and hotels, after they were found to contain as much as 6.2% of diethylene glycol.

Wang, the Commerce Ministry spokesman, said Chinese experts have already “explained the situation.”

He gave no details, although the country’s quality watchdog has in past cited tests from 2000 that it said showed toothpaste containing less than 15.6% diethylene glycol was harmless to humans.

Also Wednesday, Beijing police raided a village where live pigs were force-fed waste water to boost their weight before slaughter, state media reported.

Plastic pipes had been forced down the pigs’ throats and villagers had pumped each 220-pound pig with 44 pounds of waste water, the Beijing Morning Post reported Thursday.

“It can be said that the quality of China’s exports all are guaranteed”

Made-In-China: A Brand You Can Trust