In my Inbox: Do you know what this is?

Rumor has it that it has been reintroduced in Washington, DC, and may be part of the new health care program.

Um, I think I’ll pass. Next?

Romantic getaway on ice

Image, the perfect evening, candlelit, romantically cozy and as memorable as they come. Now, add in a huge dose of unique and you have a night spent in this Quebec City, Canada Ice Hotel adorned with glasses made of ice, beds made of ice and a guarantee that you two will cuddle together – for warmth.

In its eleventh year running, the ice hotel sports 36 rooms in an area with average temperatures of –4. Inside, however, it’s cozy, with the igloo construction trapping in body heat as the Inuit’s intended.

Book your event now because it will close its doors on March 27, then melt away.

Fake rice: cheap, mass produced and toxic

What do you get when you mix potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic? Mass produced and distributed rice.

The Korea Times reports that the Weekly Hong Kong quotes a Singapore media article that the fake, toxic rice is selling like hot cakes in Taiyuan, Shaanxi Province.

The rice is made by shaping potatoes and sweet potatoes like rice, then adding in an industrial strength synthetic resin. One Chinese official said that if you eat three bowls of this rice, you’ve eaten the equivalent of one vinyl bag. The fake rice is hard like stone, even when cooked, and “very harmful to the human body.”

The rice is hugely profitable and still sold in mass quantities, despite its discovery to be harmfully fake.

Kudos to Mike Elgan for finding this tidbit. How long before this rice hits US grocery shelves?