WORST HARVEY WALLBANGER EVER
The trial of a 57-year-old Burlington County, NJ woman charged with murdering her brother-in-law by serving him a concoction of fruit juice laced with antifreeze is underway in Mt. Holly. The Shamong Township woman is charged with preparing a fatal cocktail of fruit juice and antifreeze that resulted in the death, three years ago this week, of 58-year-old Jonathan Neabor of Old Bridge, NJ. During one of two of her taped confessions, she told a state trooper that she wanted only to sicken Jonathan so he would come and live with the family to provide financial assistance.” [KYW]
MERRIAM-WEBSTER GETS CRAZY-DRUNK ON SLANG
The fine line between the Urban Dictionary and the, um, suburban ones continues to erode. The 2007 edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary includes the words, ginormous, crunk, IED, sudoko and Bollywood. No word yet on our current favorite: sha-boing-boing. As in, ‘That shit’s off the sha-boing-boing, yo.’ Word. [ASSOCIATED PRESS]
SMASHING PUMPKINS STILL ANNOYING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
Long thought to be safely frozen in the amber of the pre-9/11 era, Billy Corgan has in fact called off the suspended animation of his career and re-activated the Pumpkins franchise with charter drummer Jimmy Chamberlain — dame Darcy and James were either unavailable or uninterested. Kinda like us. We haven’t heard Zeitgeist, and don’t expect we ever will — not willingly, anyway — because frankly we’re sure it’s unnecessary, and any credible review would either open or close with this line: Another narcissistic epic of bathetic bombast and whiny self-absorption sure to turn Sketcher-shod suburban jerk-asses into high-fiving white guys. Just add Coors Lite.
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CHINA EXECUTES CHIEF FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATOR FOR CORRUPTION
BEIJING – China executed a former director of its food and drug agency Tuesday for approving fake medicine in exchange for cash, illustrating how serious Beijing is about tackling product safety, while officials announced steps to safeguard food at next summer’s Olympic Games. Many of China’s recent food woes have been tied to the purity of ingredients, flavoring, artificial colors and other additives. During Zheng Xiaoyu’s tenure as head of the State Food and Drug Administration from 1997 to 2006, the agency approved six untested drugs that turned out to be fake, and some drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, according to state media reports. One antibiotic caused the deaths of at least 10 people.Fears abroad over Chinese-made drugs were sparked last year by the deaths of dozens of people in Panama who took medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol, a thickening agent used in antifreeze, imported from China. It was passed off as harmless glycerin.
In the United States and Canada, pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine has been blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats. Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint. Zheng’s death sentence was unusually severe even for China, which is believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and indicates the communist leadership’s determination to confront the country’s dire product safety record. Zheng, 63, was convicted of taking cash and gifts worth $832,000 when he was in charge of the food and drug agency. [ASSOCIATED PRESS]