Food For Thought

Well didn't win the Laugh's 1st annual wing eating contest. But did come in Second or third. The winner ate 15 wings with their joker sauce (the hottest they sever) in 5 min. but I was only able to eat 12.

There are several proposed no fishing zones that may go into effect off of Britain. Now the other day reading the news I think I heard one of the dumbest arguments against the no fish zone. Which was basically a no fish zone was like leaving a field fallow it was wasted area until you used it. But as anyone who has farmed knows the reason you leave a field fallow (or rest it) is because it allows nutrients to be reestablished. Like having the pockets of no fishing allows an area to regain its population and the area around it. So actually I think it’s a good comparison but for why it’s a good idea not bad.

Just heard about this but on May Day (May 1st, International workers day) The International Longshore and Warehouse Union went on strike to protest the war in Iraq for eight hours, and the Dock Workers in Iraq also went on strike for a time in solidarity. So this action nearly closed down the entire west coast docks for a day yet apparently this wasn’t big enough to make much noise in the news?

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN01447701
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/2/25_000_dockworkers_shut_down_west

Current Music: Sting: ...Nothing Like the Sun

Ohio state's welfare agency said a record 1.1 million ohioans are getting food stamps. That’s about 10 percent of the state’s population. But were not in a recesion.

Happy Π day have a piece of pie to celebrate

More and more evidence is comeing up of the problems of food and plastic. As if fish that didn't know what sex they were in our streams from wast flow wern't enough.

This is the conclusions to the "Reproductive Toxicology" 24(2): 2007,
Chapel Hill Bisphenol A Expert Panel Consensus Statement:
Integration of Mechanisms, Effects in Animals and Potential to Impact Human Health at
Current Levels of Exposure
To read the full summary statement of the outcome from the meeting: “Bisphenol A: An
Examination of the Relevance of Ecological, In vitro and Laboratory Animal Studies for Assessing
Risks to Human Health” go here environmental health news

CONCLUSIONS
The published scientific literature on human and animal exposure to low doses of BPA in relation to in vitro mechanistic studies reveals that human exposure to BPA is within the range that is predicted to be biologically active in over 95% of people sampled. The wide range of adverse effects of low doses of BPA in laboratory animals exposed both during development and in adulthood is a great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans. Recent trends in human diseases relate to adverse effects observed in experimental animals exposed to low doses of BPA. Specific examples include: the increase in prostate and breast cancer, uro-genital abnormalities in male babies, a decline in semen quality in men, early onset of puberty in girls, metabolic disorders including insulin resistant (type 2) diabetes and obesity, and neurobehavioral problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
There is extensive evidence that outcomes may not become apparent until long after BPA exposure
during development has occurred. The issue of a very long latency for effects in utero to be observed is referred to as the developmental origins of adult health and disease (DOHaD) hypothesis. These developmental effects are irreversible and can occur due to low-dose exposure during brief sensitive periods in development, even though no BPA may be detected when the damage or disease is expressed. However, this does not diminish our concern for adult exposure, where many adverse
outcomes are observed while exposure is occurring. Concern regarding exposure throughout life is
based on evidence that there is chronic, low level exposure of virtually everyone in developed
countries to BPA. These findings indicate that acute studies in animals, particularly traditional toxicological studies that only involve the use of high doses of BPA, do not reflect the situation in humans.
The fact that very few epidemiological studies have been conducted to address the issue of the
potential for BPA to impact human health is a concern, and more research is clearly needed. This also applies to wildlife, both aquatic and terrestrial. The formulation of hypotheses for the epidemiological and ecologists studies can be greatly facilitated by the extensive evidence from laboratory animal studies, particularly when common mechanisms that could plausibly mediate the responses are known to be very similar in the laboratory animal models, wildlife and humans.

For other articals on BPA check out
National Geographic The Green Guide
Our stolen Future

Devinder Sharma

Devinder Sharma is an award-winning journalist, writer, thinker and researcher respected for his views on food and trade policy. Sharma holds a Master's in Plant Breeding & Genetics. In recognition of his contributions he has been awarded the honorary degree of Professor at Large by the CSK Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University, Palampur (India), from where he graduated. He was also formerly Visiting Fellow at the International Rice Research Institute, in the Philippines; Visiting Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia, Norwich (UK); and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK). He is the chair of the Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security an independent collective of well-known policy makers, agriculture scientists, economists, biotechnologists, farmers and environmentalists.

From Share The World's Resources

The Collapse of Green Revolution

It doesn't shock the nation anymore. Reports saying that 65 of the 243 farmers who committed suicide in Vidhrabha region of Maharashtra had debts as little as Rs 8,000 have not shaken the conscious of the world's biggest democracy. That Meena Prakash Rechpade, widow of the 36-year-old farmer, Prakash, of village Dhanori, near Wardha, in Maharashtra, has no money to arrange for the last rites of her husband, who took the fatal route to escape the misery of green revolution no longer evokes strong reaction.

In Andhra Pradesh, ever since Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddy took over as the chief minister some three months ago, on May 14, more than 400 farmers have committed suicides. This was the official death toll in the suicides register till July15. In Karnataka, the new chief minister Dharam Singh, has no time for the farmers in distress. He has been too busy with balancing the equation of coalition politics. More than 300 farmers have committed suicide in the state, which claims to be on the highway leading to the convergence of information technology and biotechnology. The sad part of the story is that a majority of those who committed suicide were relatively young, below the age of 45 years.

In western Uttar Pradesh, more than 14 farmers have committed suicide in the month of July. Farmer suicides are topping the chart in Kerala "God's own country". In the frontline agriculture states of Punjab and Haryana, the situation is no better. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had himself gone on record (before he was elected) saying that close to 2,000 farmers have committed suicide in the past few years. While the serial death dance continues unabated, policy makers and agricultural scientists are busy laying the foundations for the second Green Revolution. The US Ambassador in India has already been addressing the industry and policy makers suggesting biotechnology as a panacea for the country's farm ills. And rightly so. After all the first green revolution was also promoted by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through its land-grant system of agricultural research, education and extension !

Sensing the uneasiness being felt by the agricultural scientists, lest they be hauled up for the blood bath being enacted in the farm sector, support has already flown in from the expected quarters -- biotechnology industry. The US-based International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Application (ISAAA), which unabashedly promoted genetically engineered crops and 'transfer' of technology with multi-million dollar funding from Bayer, Cargill, Dow, Monsanto, Novartis, Pioneer, Syngenta, in addition to foundations and Western governmental funding agencies, is busy collaborating with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which is besotted with the vision of India as one vast genomic valley.

All this is happening at a time when high-chemical input based technology has already mined the soils and ultimately led to the lands gasping for breath, with the water-guzzling crops (hybrids and Bt cotton) sucking the groundwater acquifer dry, and with the failure of the markets to rescue the farmers from a collapse of the farming systems, the tragedy is that the human cost is entirely being borne by the farmers. In Punjab, for instance, of the 138 development blocks, 84 have already been declared dark zones, the level of groundwater exploitation in these blocks has been in excess of 98 per cent against the critical limit of 80 per cent. Six of the 12 districts in the State have recorded groundwater utilization rate of 100 per cent. The National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning in India estimates that nearly 120 million hectares of the total cultivable land of 142 million hectares in the country is degraded. Green revolution was projected to have saved the country some 58 million hectares of additional land to be brought under the plough to produce more food, whereas almost twice that land mass has been rendered degraded and ecologically devastated in varying degrees in its aftermath.

Green revolution has not only gone sour, it has now turned red. The unexplained number of huge number of suicides a testimony to the entire equation going wrong. However, the fundamental issue of destruction of sustainable livelihoods is not at all being addressed.

All these years, for instance, the dryland regions of the country, which comrpise nearly 75 per cent of the total cultivable area, have increasingly come under the hybrid crop varieties. While the crop yields from the hybrid varieties was surely high, the flip side of these varieties "these varieties are water guzzlers" was very conveniently ignored. For the sake of comparison, let us take the example of rice. In Punjab and Haryana, farmers cultivate high-yielding varieties of rice. These varieties require about 3000 litres of water to produce a kilo of grain (IRRI's compilation of the water usage for rice at 5000 litres for a kilo, is being questioned). Instead of bringing in varieties that require less water for the water deficit areas of the drylands, hybrid rice varieties with water requirement exceeding 5000 litres per kilo of grain were promoted.

Pesticides are a waste of time and money

Three decades after the launch of the Green Revolution, agricultural scientists are now discovering that chemical pesticides are a complete waste of time and money. They have realized the grave mistake only after poisoning the lands, contaminating the ground water, polluting the environment, and killing thousands of farmers and farm workers.

Says an IRRI press release (July 28, 2004): Imagine 2,000 poor rice farmers in Bangladesh, whose average farm income is around US$100 per year, suddenly take on the role of agricultural scientist. Over the course of 2 years -- 4 seasons they prove that insecticides are a complete waste of time and money. IRRI senior entomologist Gary C. Jahn, states: "To my surprise when people stopped spraying, yields didn't drop -- and this was across 600 fields in two different districts over 4 seasons. I'm convinced that the vast majority of insecticides that rice farmers use are a complete waste of time and money.

This is the outcome of a joint IRRI-DFID's Livelihood Improvement Through Ecology (LITE) project, which has demonstrated that insecticide can be eliminated and nitrogen fertilizer (urea) applications reduced without lowering yields. We've reduced insecticide use among participating farmers by 99%, and by 90% among non-participating farmers in the same villages, Dr Jahn added.

What's more, if LITE continues as it has started, in less than a decade, most of Bangladesh's 11.8 million rice farmers -- almost a 12th of the country's population of 141 million, according to the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, a key project partner -- will have eliminated insecticides and optimized their fertilizer use.

Similar studies in the Central Luzon province of the Philippines and in certain parts of Vietnam have already demonstrated that pesticides were not required. Does it not mean that agricultural scientists had pushed and promoted chemical all these years without looking for viable and sustainable alternatives? Does it not mean that the technology for productivity increase was not based on sound ecological and environmental parameters? Does it not mean that the land grant system of research had ignored the potential of agriculture growth that existed in the developing countries, based on time-tested technologies and sustainable farming system?

If it has taken 30 years to realize that the technology promoted by the USAID and blindly aped by the National Agricultural Research Systems in the developing countries, and that too after inflicting an irreparable damage to human health and environment, was faulty; what is the guarantee that genetically engineered crops will not leave behind still more damaging consequences? Who will be responsible for the destruction that is being enforced through genetic manipulations?

Not only rice hybrids, all kind of hybrid varieties that require higher doses of water – whether it is of sorghum, maize, cotton, bajra, and vegetables are promoted in the dryland regions. In addition, agricultural scientists have misled the farmers by saying that the dryland regions were hungry for chemical fertilisers. The harmful combination of chemical inputs with water guzzling crops have played havoc with the drylands turning the lands not only further unproductive but also barren. The water table plummeted, the impact of deficient rainfall became more pronounced forcing farmers to abandon agriculture and migrate. As if this was not enough, Bt cotton requiring more water than hybrid cotton, was knowingly promoted so as to allow the seed industry to make profits. What happens to the farmers as a result was no body’s concern. It never was.

Fertilisers and pesticides were aggressivly promoted, with huge subsidies being doled out to keep the fertiliser companies afloat, without realising the resulting devastation these chemical inputs have wrought on the sustainability of agriculture. At no stage, did the scientists call for a mid-term correction to rectify the imbalance and destruction of the soil fertility through excessive application of the chemicals. The second-generation environmental impacts became so serious that the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which runs the 16 international agricultural centres, did launch an initiative for studying the negative impact of the green revolution model on sustainability of agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic plains but the results were never made public.

Instead of learning from the green revolution debacle, the same breed of scientists and policy makers are now being asked to provide a solution to the prevailing agrarian crisis. No wonder, second green revolution that harps on agribusiness and biotechnology, has become the new mantra to pull out the farming community from the raging farm crisis. Strange, the country has already jumped into the second pahse of green revolution without first drawing a balance sheet of the first phase of the technology era . Such an approach will only worsen the crisis, and force more farmers to commit suicide or abandon their farms. As a result, India is sure to witness the worst environmental displacement the world has ever known and this will be in the field of agriculture.

From The Organic Consumers Association
Vandana Shiva: Organic Farming a Solution to Global Rural Poverty

* Organic farming a solution to poverty, says Vandana Shiva
The Hindu, Nov 11, 2006
Straight to the Source

BANGALORE: Environmentalist Vandana Shiva on Friday cautioned that poverty in rural areas was increasing and called for adoption of ecological agriculture which was not only productive but also a solution to poverty.

Delivering a lecture on agrarian crisis at the Indian Organic Congress 2006 organised by the Organic Services and International Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture (ICCOA) here, Dr. Vandana Shiva dwelt on the hazards of chemical farming. Risks involved in genetic engineering threatened public health.

Challenge

What the people of the country needed the most was good and clean food at affordable prices. This was the biggest challenge, Dr. Vandana Shiva said.

Farmers were not getting remunerative prices for their produce, but were forced to pay more for fertilizers and pesticides.

The cost of production had gone up in the wake of the increasing prices of fertilizers, pesticides and hybrid seeds. This pushed farmers into a debt trap. Around 40,000 farmers had committed suicide as they were unable to clear their loans.

Conservation of biodiversity, promotion of organic farming and fair trade should be encouraged to prevent farmers from taking the extreme step, she said.

Research on ecological agriculture had proved that it was highly productive and was the only solution to hunger and poverty.

Organic farming was not just a source of safe, healthy and tasty food, but was also an answer to poverty.

Along with organic farming, marketing of organic produce should be given priority to help farmers and consumers, Dr. Vandana Shiva pointed out.

Dr. Vandana Shiva said that it was time people were reminded of centuries-old food culture and crops. Climatic change was also taking its toll on agriculture and the recent floods in Rajasthan had made the Government and farmers think of taking corrective measures, she added.

Claude Alvares of the Organic Farming Association of India said chemicals were not killing the microbes. They could be controlled using "Panchagavya", which is a mix of natural products. Many fertilizer companies were feeling the heat of organic farming, he added.

I will let Dr. Vandana Shiva help in answering part of this. Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. Her most recent books are Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply.
From <a href="http://www.countercurrents.org/glo-shiva050404.htm>countercurrents.org</a> The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation By Vandana Shiva 05 April, 2004 Znet The Indian peasantry, the largest body of surviving small farmers in the world, today faces a crisis of extinction. Two thirds of India makes its living from the land. The earth is the most generous employer in this country of a billion, that has farmed this land for more than 5000 years. However, as farming is delinked from the earth, the soil, the biodiversity, and the climate, and linked to global corporations and global markets, and the generosity of the earth is replaced by the greed of corporations, the viability of small farmers and small farms is destroyed. Farmers suicides are the most tragic and dramatic symptom of the crisis of survival faced by Indian peasants. 1997 witnessed the first emergence of farm suicides in India. A rapid increase in indebtedness, was at the root of farmers taking their lives. Debt is a reflection of a negative economy, a loosing economy. Two factors have transformed the positive economy of agriculture into a negative economy for peasants - the rising costs of production and the falling prices of farm commodities. Both these factors are rooted in the policies of trade liberalization and corporate globalisation. In 1998, the World Bank's structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds which needed fertilizers and pesticides and could not be saved. As seed saving is prevented by patents as well as by the engineering of seeds with non-renewable traits, seed has to be bought for every planting season by poor peasants. A free resource available on farms became a commodity which farmers were forced to buy every year. This increases poverty and leads to indebtedness. As debts increase and become unpayable, farmers are compelled to sell kidneys or even commit suicide. More than 25,000 peasants in India have taken their lives since 1997 when the practice of seed saving was transformed under globalisation pressures and multinational seed corporations started to take control of the seed supply. Seed saving gives farmers life. Seed monopolies rob farmers of life. The shift from farm saved seed to corporate monopolies of the seed supply is also a shift from biodiversity to monocultures in agriculture. The District of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh used to grow diverse legumes, millets, and oilseeds. Seed monopolies created crop monocultures of cotton, leading to disappearance of millions of products of nature's evolution and farmer's breeding. Monocultures and uniformity increase the risks of crop failure as diverse seeds adapted to diverse ecosystems are replaced by rushed introduction of unadapted and often untested seeds into the market. When Monsanto first introduced Bt Cotton in India in 2002, the farmers lost Rs. 1 billion due to crop failure. Instead of 1,500 Kg / acre as promised by the company, the harvest was as low as 200 kg. Instead of increased incomes of Rs. 10,000 / acre, farmers ran into losses of Rs. 6400 / acre. In the state of Bihar, when farm saved corn seed was displaced by Monsanto's hybrid corn, the entire crop failed creating Rs. 4 billion losses and increased poverty for already desperately poor farmers. Poor peasants of the South cannot survive seed monopolies. And the crisis of suicides shows how the survival of small farmers is incompatible with the seed monopolies of global corporations. The second pressure Indian farmers are facing is the dramatic fall in prices of farm produce as a result of free trade policies of the W.T.O. The WTO rules for trade in agriculture are essentially rules for dumping. They have allowed an increase in agribusiness subsidies while preventing countries from protecting their farmers from the dumping of artificially cheap produce. High subsidies of $ 400 billion combined with forced removal of import restrictions is a ready-made recipe for farmer suicides. Global prices have dropped from $ 216 / ton in 1995 to $ 133 / ton in 2001 for wheat, $ 98.2 / ton in 1995 to $ 49.1 / ton in 2001 for cotton, $ 273 / ton in 1995 to $ 178 / ton for soyabean. This reduction to half the price is not due to a doubling in productivity but due to an increase in subsidies and an increase in market monopolies controlled by a handful of agribusiness corporations. Thus the U.S government pays $ 193 per ton to US Soya farmers, which artificially lowers the rice of soya. Due to removal of Quantitative Restrictions and lowering of tariffs, cheap soya has destroyed the livelihoods of coconut growers, mustard farmers, producers of sesame, groundnut and soya. Similarly, 25000 cotton producers in the U.S are given a subsidy of $ 4 billion annually. This has brought cotton prices down artificially, allowing the U.S to capture world markets which were earlier accessible to poor African countries such as Burkina, Faso, Benin, Mali. The subsidy of $ 230 per acre in the U.S is genocidal for the African farmers. African cotton farmers are loosing $ 250 million every year. That is why small African countries walked out of the Cancun negotiations, leading to the collapse of the W.T.O ministerial. The rigged prices of globally traded agriculture commodities are stealing incomes from poor peasants of the south. Analysis carried out by the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology shows that due to falling farm prices, Indian peasants are loosing $ 26 billion or Rs. 1.2 trillion annually. This is a burden their poverty does not allow them to bear. Hence the epidemic of farmer suicides. India was among the countries that questioned the unfair rules of W.T.O in agriculture and led the G-22 alliance along with with Brazil and China. India with other southern countries addressed the need to safeguard the livelihoods of small farmers from the injustice of free trade based on high subsidies and dumping. Yet at the domestic level, official agencies in India are in deep denial of any links between free trade and farmers survival. An example of this denial is a Government of Karnataka report on "Farmers suicide in Karnataka - A scientific analysis". The report while claiming to be "scientific", makes unscientific reductionist claims that the farm suicides have only psychological causes, not economic ones, and identifies alcoholism as the root cause of suicides. Therefore, instead of proposing changes in agricultural policy, the report recommends that farmers be required to boost up their self respect (swabhiman) and self-reliance (swavalambam). And ironically, its recommendations for farmer self-reliance are changes in the Karnataka Land Reforms Act to allow larger land holdings and leasing. These are steps towards the further decimation of small farmers who have been protected by land "ceilings" (an upper limit on land ownership) and policies that only allow peasants and agriculturalists to own agricultural land (part of the land to the tiller policies of the Devraj Urs government). While the "expert committee" report identified "alcoholism" as the main cause for suicides, the figures of this "scientific" claim are inconsistent and do not reflect the survey. On page 10, the report states in one place that 68 percent of the suicide victims were alcoholics. Five lines later it states that 17 percent were "alcohol and illicit drinkers". It also states that the majority of suicide victims were small and marginal farmers and the majority had high levels of indebtedness. Yet debt is not identified as a factor leading to suicide. On page 32 of the report it is stated that of the 105 cases studied among the 3544 suicides which had occurred in five districts during 2000 - 2001, 93 had debts, 54 percent had borrowed from private sources and money lenders. More than 90% of suicide victims were in debt. Yet a table on page 63 has mysteriously reduced debt as a reason for suicide to 2.6%, and equally mysteriously, "suicide victims having a bad habit" has emerged as the primary cause of farmers suicides. The government is desperate to delink farm suicides from economic processes linked to globalisation such as rise in indebtedness and increased frequency of crop failure due to higher ecologic vulnerability arising from climate change and drought and higher economic risks due to introduction of untested, unadopted seeds. This is evident in recommendation no. 4.3.24.3 "The government should launch prosecution on the responsible persons involved in misleading the public and government by providing false information about farmers suicide as crop failure or indebtedness" (page 113 of expert committee report). However, farmers suicides cannot be delinked from indebtedness and the economic distress small farmers are facing. Indebtedness is not new. Farmers have always organised for freedom from debt. In the nineteenth century the so call "Deccan Riots" were farmers protests against the debt trap into which they had been pushed to supply cheap cotton to the textile mills in Britain. In the eighties they formed peasant organisations to fight for debt relief from public debt linked to Green Revolution inputs. However, under globalisation, the farmer is loosing her / his social, cultural, economic identity as a producer. A farmer is now a "consumer" of costly seeds and costly chemicals sold by powerful global corporations through powerful landlords and money lenders locally. This combination is leading to corporate feudalism, the most inhumane, brutal and exploitative convergence of global corporate capitalism and local feudalism, in the face of which the farmer as an individual victim feels helpless. The bureaucratic and technocratic systems of the state are coming to the rescue of the dominant economic interests by blaming the victim. It is necessary to stop this war against small farmers. It is necessary to re-write the rules of trade in agriculture. It is necessary to change our paradigms of food production. Feeding humanity should not depend on the extinction of farmers and extinction of species. Another agriculture is possible and necessary - an agriculture that protects farmers livelihoods, the earth and its biodiversity and public health.

Some reasons why eating organic is better than non-organically produced food.

Grabbed from the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont

Build Soil
More than three billion tons of topsoil are eroded from the United States croplands each year. That means soil is eroding seven times faster than it is built up naturally. Soil is the foundation of the food chain in organic farming. But in conventional farming the soil is used more as a medium for holding plants in a vertical position so they can be chemically fertilized. As a result, American farms are suffering from the worst soil erosion in history.

Reduce Health Risk
the EPA considers that 60 percent of all herbicides, 90 percent of all fungicides and 30 percent of all insecticides are carcinogenic. A 1987 National Academy of Sciences report estimated that pesticides might cause an extras 1.4 million cancer cases among Americans over their lifetimes. The bottom line is that pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans. In addition to cancer, pesticides are implicated in birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutation.

Protect Water Quality
Despite its importance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), estimates pesticides (some cancer causing) contaminate the ground water in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country's population.

Also

New Studies Back Benefits of Organic Diet
A U.S. research team from Emory University in Atlanta analysed urine samples from children ages three to 11 who ate only organic foods and found that they contained virtually no metabolites of two common pesticides, malathion and chlorpyrifos.

However, once the children returned to eating conventionally grown foods, concentrations of these pesticide metabolites quickly climbed as high as 263 parts per billion, says the study published Feb. 21.

September is National Organic Harvest Month established in 1992 by the Organic Trade Association. So eat organic.

On Mon. May 21 the Cutty Sark caught a blaze.


So as a Tea drinker I rase a mug of tea to her.
As a Nautical fan I rase a mug of tea to her.
Though I guess as an amerinca I would have to rase a shot of wisky... I think I'll go with a larg glass of ice tea Ice tea then.

Today is National Chocolate Chip day. So enjoy your chocolate but remember to make it slave free. To help stop Chocolate Slavery sign this petition to tell Hershey's to develop means to end the cruel cycle that is hurting countless children. (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/904308807

This is an interesting article about Tony van de Keuken from Holland who took himself to cort over eating chocolate to raise awareness of the problem. As Dutch law states:

“Whoever receives goods...while knowing at the time he receives them or when they are made available to him...that it concerns unlawfully obtained goods is guilty of wilfully receiving...unlawfully obtained goods and shall be punished by a term in prison of maximum four years or a Category Five fine.”

Current Location: Ohio
Current Mood: blank

Wondering about the vote in the UK. But, even more Scotland. Was the SNP take over a vote against the labor party or a vote for more devolution and separation. With as much as the U.S. press is covering (OK I'll try and stop laughing now U.S. press covering something outside the U.S. hehe) this as a devolution vote makes me think it's a vote against labor and the war in Iraq. I think in Scotland this is esp. the case since labor through out the U.K. seems to be moving more to neo-liberalism and away from the democratic socialism it clams to be.

A look back to Operation enduring occupation day 1
Do you remember "shock and awe"? Has it worked yet?

From CBS News
The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called "Shock and Awe" and it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces.

"We want them to quit. We want them not to fight," says Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the Shock and Awe concept which relies on large numbers of precision guided weapons.

And from Fearless Leader
"Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures and we will accept no outcome but victory.

My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others. And we will prevail."

Hmm military hospital problems I’m shocked. Think it has anything to do with what I mentioned in Aug. of 06. “The republican led congress has decided to cut The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center's (DVBIC) funding in half - from $14M to $7M.” And where is this center out of you? You guessed it Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Sisyphus had it easy he only had to push a bolder endlessly up a hill.
He didn't have to walk up the stairs at Cincinnati State more than once.

"I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma..."
-George Bush
Each comma represents an american troop death in Iraq

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On Wednesday 2/7/07 Condoleezza Rice said, "I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really destroying his own country, economically, politically, and this is a place with which we've traditionally had very good relations and would like to continue to have good relations."

I guess the good relations part is true if you don't count:

the 1948 coup over throwing President Romulo Gallegos backed by US armed forces putting in place Marcos Perez Jimenez.

And on April 11, 2002 Chavez is overthrown in a military coup. However, the coup collapses after two days, and Chavez returns to power. Otto J. Reich, the US’ assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, is in contact with Chavez’s successor on the very day he takes over.

Or that In January 2004 Washington awards coup plotter Gustavo Cisnero the Inter-American Economic Council’s “Prestigious Excellence in Leadership” award.

Current Mood: quixotic