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Aug-23-2006 22:01

I have created a sleuth miracle!

IT IS THE UNHIJACKABLE THREAD!

Go ahead and try, but this thread is about anything and nothing, all at the the same time!

This is the place where Al can talk about world domination, Crunch can worship David Hasselhoff, SS can try and find even more complicated questions for his pub quizzes, Nikkie can advertise for Tim Tams, cfm can troll for more Sharpie victims, JR can beg for the chance to win Bobo back, and bedazzling can be a way of life!

So go off, rant and rave, talk about anything, i don't care, I just wanted to see my avatar on the page (when its actually me anyways)

So go ahead, I dare you all to try and hijack me :)

Aug-25-2006 00:09

He plans to make a second prospecting visit before the end of this year, perhaps to sell electronics. "The culture question is a very big one ... but if I do business for a while, I can learn a little and pass it on to my friends," Mr. Wu says.

The culture question looms large in the yak business. Where rancher Ni Ma lives, rocky flatlands stretch to bald mountains on the horizon, and brushes of green grass are the only summertime vegetation. Three generations of his 10-person family sleep in two rooms of a concrete house with no electricity. Inside, a Buddhist shrine is set on top of a row of hand-painted Tibetan cabinets, contrasting with posters of Chinese luminaries such as Mao Zedong.

In a bow to tradition, when Ni Ma slaughtered his three yaks last fall, he paused for a "crying" rite on behalf of each animal slaughtered, a ceremony he is teaching to his seven children. Before a rope is fixed around the neck of a yak to be suffocated -- considered the least painful way to kill -- Tibetan nomads comfort the animal by putting Buddhist blessing pills and holy water into its mouth, while holding smoky butter candles near its nose.

The term comes from the good wishes read when an animal or person dies, called bsngo-ba, which is pronounced like the word for cry -- ngu wa -- according to Tibetans and foreign experts.

A decision to slaughter an animal is, "not a simple market transaction," says Gabriel Lafitte, a lecturer in Asian civilizations and science at the University of Melbourne, and a long-time critic of China's role in Tibet. "It's a very quiet, simple dignified ritual."

Mr. Duan, the Communist Party official, dismisses the crying rites. He says emotion is unsuitable for the slaughterhouse industry he envisages. "The traditional concept has contained the economic development in our region," Mr. Duan says. "These traditional concepts will have to be changed." The local government also cites a need to fill its budget deficit.

Aug-25-2006 00:10

Beijing thinks Tibet has too many yaks, which aren't raised systematically and threaten the grasslands through over-grazing. The Nagqu government is trying to enforce an edict from the Grasslands Construction Authority, the body that decides how such land is used, stating that no more than one yak can be raised per 120 mu, a Chinese measure equivalent to about eight hectares.

Nagqu's yak herders are trying to break into distant markets through a government-funded dairy cooperative. Tibetan butter, cheese and yogurt, all made from yak milk, are slowly becoming specialty products overseas. Tibetan Ragya Yak Cheese has been irregularly imported to New York by Slow Food U.S.A., a not-for-profit organization.

After sampling the Ragya Yak Cheese this year, chef Riccardo Buitoni of the Aurora restaurant in Brooklyn, N.Y., developed a pasta incorporating the "amazing cheese." Mr. Buitoni says he will put the dish on his menu permanently if he can get regular supplies. It reminds him of the unpasteurized cheese he ate as a child in Italy.

Local officials also used the cooperative to lean on yak farmers to slaughter enough animals each year to keep the herd from growing.

Yak meat tastes like tough beef. The woolly animals are two-thirds the size of cows but they're pound-for-pound more valuable; both sell for about $750. The meat is often available jerk-dried or as an ingredient for dipping into a hot pot consisting of an oily, spicy soup. At Ba Guo Bu Yi, a Sichuan-style restaurant in Shanghai, raw yak meat is a delicacy that sells for $16 a plate compared with a cold beef plate at $3.25.

So far, however, there isn't much cargo leaving Tibet. About 60 loaded freight cars a day have pulled into Lhasa since freight services began in March, some of them ferrying supplies for China's military. Railway officials say through July, only about two dozen stocked freight cars left Lhasa for other parts of China.

Aug-25-2006 00:10

In the Sichuan town of Manigango last year, some 300 ethnic Tibetans rioted and burned down a year-old slaughterhouse operated by Sichuan Longsheng Group. Ranchers said they faced government pressure to sell livestock to the company for slaughter, according to human-rights groups and an official at the company. The slaughterhouse has reopened "but business is not good," says a Longsheng official. "Tibetans aren't willing to kill their yaks. They just keep them and raise them," he says.

For Ni Ma, the train had an immediate financial impact. As the construction work stretched into Nagqu, he was hired as part of the preparation crew. The work tripled his $250 yearly herding income.

Now the railroad is complete, Ni Ma says he recognizes the potential of a business-like approach to slaughtering his yaks. But for "family" reasons, he says he still isn't comfortable with it in practice.

Aug-25-2006 00:12

Hey,

The article mentions "Shangri-la." lol

Aug-25-2006 00:13

How do you reckon Yak would BBQ Justin :D

Aug-25-2006 00:15

A man walks into a bar,

He says "Ow!"

Aug-25-2006 00:19

Oh, I'm pretty sure I could bbq up some mean yak brisket, some pulled yak sandwiches, yak ribs. Mmmm bbq! Getting hungry thinking about it.

you know that's how bbq in America got it's regionalization. Texas cooks beef (the freaks), everyone else had pork, lamb, goat, chicken, venison, etc... you learn to cook with what you have. I'm pretty sure a yak bbq would be pretty tasty.

Aug-25-2006 00:24

you might want to soak/marinate the meat in milk for a bit first like you would with venison or other game. The meat might have a gameyness to it. Definately a flavor you wouldn't be used to. They say a milk bath removes the gamey flavor of certain meats before you cook them. I haven't tried to cook game as I'm not a hunter, just an eater. :-D lol But everyone recomends it.

Didn't US troops bbq, or at least grill, water buffalo in Vietnam? And there was the scene in Black Hawk Down of the Delta's hunting from the choppers in Somalia. Hmmm, have to research that.

Aug-25-2006 00:39

Methinks, Dr. Biggie, that rather than creating a miracle - you have created a monster!!

It's alive! It's alive!

Mawhahahahah!!!

Aug-25-2006 01:08

Ah beautiful bobo, her buttocks against a coke bottle, relaxing comfortably in the Esprit cafe. Just what she always wanted.

I googled "david hasselhoff" and "yak milk". Got 11 responses.

Thesis 11 from Karl Marx's 'Theses on Feuerbach' is understood as groundbreaking because it suggested that the intellectual community could and should be a political one as well. *S'uthen voice* It go a lid'l summin like dis:

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

lol *tried to copy/paste the ENTIRE communist manifesto in here but got pissed at the 200 word limit*