Friday, May 29, 2015

Michael Bloomfield, Blues Guitarist & Bullshit Artist



Sweet Blues: A Film about Mike Bloomfield, a DVD included with the CD set From His Head to His Heart to His Hands, features an undated audio interview with the blues guitarist (who died in 1981). In it Bloomfield recounts his experiences playing rowdy clubs in Chicago in the early 1960s.

Bloomfield: I’d be up there playing and some dude would pull a gun on another dude and another dude would pull a knife on another dude and the whole band would hide. Oh man, I remember a time I was standing at a bar and a guy walked in and he took a woman’s head and slammed it on the bar top. He said, “Bartender, get this bitch a beer.” Well, that freaked everybody out. That was just --

Interviewer: How would she recover from it?

Bloomfield (astonished at the interviewer’s obtuseness): Her head! Her severed head!

This tall tale is immediately followed by clips from his ex-wife and his friend, blues harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite.

Susan Beuhler: I don’t think of Michael as a liar because I always knew if he was telling the truth or not. But I think most everybody considered Michael the biggest liar they’ve ever met and they would never trust anything that he ever said.

Charlie Musselwhite: I never knew when he was telling the truth or lying because he could tell both equally well.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Soldiers Served Decades-old Lunch Meat (Ukraine)




Ukraine Today
19 May 2015

Video of Ukrainian soldiers using chainsaws to cut up meat goes viral

These pieces of meat are at the center of a social media mishap. The video purporting to show Ukrainian soldiers using chainsaws to cut up frozen carcasses has gone viral after social media users accused the Ukrainian government of feeding soldiers decades old meat.

Many believed the combination of numbers 10-01-68, stamped on to the carcasses, indicated the date when the meat was butchered.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has refuted the rumors. […]

Fake Rice




The Korea Times
20 January 2011


China famous for having all, making all, has now been reported to have made rice out of plastic and has distributed it.

The Korean-language Weekly Hong Kong in Hong Kong quoted Singapore media that “Fake rice made out of plastic is massively sold on the Chinese market.”

According to the report, some distributors are selling fake rice in Taiyuan, Shaanxi Province, and this rice is a mixture of potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic.

“This ‘plastic rice’ is made by forming potatoes and sweet potatoes into rice-like shape, then adding industrial synthetic resins,” said a food expert. “Since the rice is different from normal rice, it is hard like stone even when cooked. Moreover, the synthetic resin in it is very harmful to the human body.”

One Chinese restaurant association official warns that eating three bowls of ‘plastic rice’ is the same as eating one vinyl bag. He added that since the rice is very dangerous there would be strict investigation on the rice factory. […]


Malaysia Chronicle
19 May 2015



KUALA LUMPUR - The Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry has not received any reports on fake rice.

Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob denied receiving such reports and assured that consumers would be taught on how to identify fake grains. […]


Free Malaysia Today
18 May 2015


FMT Reporters

PETALING JAYA: First there were artificial eggs from China and now plastic rice said to be exported to several Asian nations.

Social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook have been circulating the news of the fake rice that has now believed to have entered Singapore.

Health experts and dieticians have warned that consuming such fake grains, laced with poisonous resin, could seriously damage the digestive system. […]



MySinChew.com [Malaysia]
19 May 2015

The Star [Malaysia]
19 May 2015

The Straits Times [Singapore]
19 May 2015

Asia One
20 May 2015

The Jakarta Post
21 May 2015

Viet Nam News
21 May 2015
 


Jakarta Post
26 May 2015


Dylan Amirio,

House of Representatives (DPR) deputy speaker Agus Hermanto says the circulation of synthetic or “plastic” rice at markets could be an inside ploy to disrupt food supplies and create public dissent toward the government.

The suspicion, the Democratic Party lawmaker said, was because synthetic rice is reportedly more expensive to produce than regular rice, making the emergence of the problem itself odd.

“Don’t just look at the fact that plastic rice comes from imports. The polemic could have a domestic political motive so that food supplies will be disrupted and stir public anger toward the government,” Agus told reporters on Tuesday at the House of Representatives complex. […]


The Jakarta Post
27 May 2015


Ina Parlina

The government announced on Tuesday that a round of official laboratory tests found no plastic substances in controversial rice samples from Bekasi, West Java.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the results with National Police Gen. Badrodin Haiti, Trade Minister Rachmat Gobel and Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) head Roy Sparringa before the government made the public announcement.

Unlike the results from tests done recently by state-owned PT Sucofindo, which confirmed that the rice contained polyvinyl chloride (PVC), the tests conducted by the laboratories of the police, the BPOM, the Trade Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry showed negative results for plastic substances, Badrodin announced after the meeting. […]