food

You didn't want to eat them, did you?

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The world's fish and seafood could disappear by 2048 as overfishing and pollution destroy ocean ecosystems at an accelerating pace, US and Canadian researchers reported.

If current global trends continue, the loss of fish and seafood will threaten humans' food supplies and the environment, according to the most exhaustive study to date on the subject, published in the November 3 issue of the US journal Science.

"Our analyzes suggest that business as usual would foreshadow serious threats to global food security, coastal water quality, and ecosystem stability, affecting current and future generations," the international team of ecologists and economists wrote in "Impact of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services."

Of course, we don't want to do anything about it, do we? After all, we don't want government regulation of free enterprise, do we?

Or should Republican pollyanna sloganeering be set aside, once and for all?

"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging," Worm said in a statement. "In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected."

When ocean species collapse, it makes the ocean itself weaker and less able to recover from shocks like global climate change, Worm said.

The decline in marine biodiversity is largely due to over-fishing and destruction of habitat, Worm said in a telephone interview from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Oh, but global warming is a hoax! Dick Cheney and George W. Bush said so! We don't want to be premature in our judgment, do we? Better to let the fish all die and the ice caps melt before we do anything about it — just so we're certain!

Right?

Some brilliant man of proud ignorance has opened a restaurant in Mumbai, India, called Hitler's Cross.

The owner insisted then — and still does — that the name and theme of his new eatery is only meant to attract attention, even if it has outraged Bombay's Jewish community.

"It's really made people very upset that a person responsible for the massacre of 6 million Jews can be glorified," Elijah Jacob, one of the community's leaders, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

But owner Puneet Sablok has refused to back down, and apart from Bombay's 4,500 Jews, there's been little controversy in India, where Holocaust awareness is limited, Hitler is regarded as just another historical figure and swastikas are an ancient Hindu symbol, displayed all over to bring luck. There are just 5,500 Jews in all of India.

"It's just to attract people. There is no intention to hurt anyone," said Sablok about his spacious restaurant, which serves pastries, pizza and salad in Navi Mumbai, a northern suburb of Bombay, which is also known as Mumbai.

I wonder if people go there seeking the final solution for hunger. Have some Star of David Curry, followed by a cup of coffee with Xyklon B? Or perhaps there's a buffet where they can get large helpings of Moscow Masala? With a side of Nan mehr Intellektual? (Millions more than the six-million Jews died in the Holocaust, and many millions more died in Hitler's wars.)

Here's the great irony:

But while India is ordinarily sensitive to causing religious offense — recently taking action to bar "The Da Vinci Code" movie and cartoon drawings of the prophet Muhammad — at least one local leader said the name Hitler didn't bother him.

Sensitivity indeed.

Update: Thanks to bruno below, who links to http://www.hitlerscross.com/, and to Nancy, who mentions that the Gypsies were one of the many ethnic and demographic groups that were systematically murdered by Hitler's death camps.

We have yet another case of corporate experimentation with food genetics has been released into the food supply.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced late yesterday that U.S. commercial supplies of long-grain rice had become inadvertently contaminated with a genetically engineered variety not approved for human consumption.

They say that genetic modification of foods is so that agriculture companies don't have to use so many pesticides. That's not quite true, is it?

Johanns said he did not know where the contaminated rice was found or how widespread it may be in the U.S. food supply. The agency first learned about it from the company, he said, after it discovered "trace amounts" during testing of commercial supplies.

The variety, known as LLRICE 601, is endowed with bacterial DNA that makes rice plants resistant to a weedkiller made by the agricultural giant Aventis.

And this is not an isolated case.

Bayer said in a statement it is "cooperating closely" with the government on the discovery. It added that the protein conferring herbicide tolerance "is well known to regulators and has been confirmed safe for food and feed use in a number of crops by regulators in many countries, including the EU, Japan, Mexico, U.S. and Canada."

Johanns acknowledged that the discovery could have a significant impact on rice sales -- especially exports, which are worth close to $1 billion a year. Many U.S. trading partners have strict policies forbidding importation of certain genetically engineered foods, even if they are approved in the United States.

Those restrictions reflect a mix of science-based fears that some gene-altered foods or seeds may pose health or environmental hazards; cultural beliefs about food purity; and political wrangling over trade disparities.

Is it any wonder? These companies are playing with fire, and have pressured the federal government into prohibiting the labeling of these Frankenstein foods.

If other countries cut off imports, the political and economic impact could rival or exceed that of the last such major event -- the discovery in 2000 that the U.S. corn supply had become contaminated with StarLink corn. StarLink, which was engineered to be insect-resistant, was approved for use in animal feed but not for humans because of its potential to trigger allergic reactions.

That's right. The world is a science project for corporations looking for bigger and better ways to make money off of what we eat.

Do the modifications make the food more nutritious? No.

Do the modifications make the food more tasty? Quite the opposite.

Do the modifications make the food prettier? Oh yes, packaging is everything.

Do the modifications make the plants more durable to stand up to even more massive sprayings of toxic pesticides? That's the point.

Don't worry. The Bush Administration is on the job. Doesn't that make you feel better?

Methinks Peter Schweizer doth protest too much. The Republicans have enjoyed a nice political bubble over the years when it comes to the environment. "Global warming? What global warming?" has been typical of their responses.

That's been changing since Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth (directed by Davis Guggenheim) hit the screens. Since then, the film has enjoyed some remarkable documentary-level box office. As a result, the American public is seeing what the rest of the world has for years: that when it comes to the environment, the Republicans and the Bush Administration have no clothes.

Yet one more area where right-wing fantasies failed to convince the prevailing facts to change themselves. Reality's a bitch. And people realize that Al Gore, whom the wingnuts ridiculed in the 2000 campaign, was right all along.

Those stale old jokes no longer stick. And the Republicans are scared.

Now the right-wing fictioneers who so expertly dismantled Michael Moore's public image with loud and repeated falsehoods, distortions and outright lies of their own are now turning their sights on Gore. Why? Maybe because they are finding the truth just a tad too inconvenient.

In today's USA Today, we get an early shot -- intended to be a barrage, but which comes off more as a bb-gun sniper attempt: right-wing Hoover man and dittohead-industry author Peter Schweizer has a petty little piece nitpicking Gore's life.

Public records reveal that as Gore lectures Americans on excessive consumption, he and his wife Tipper live in two properties: a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room, eight-bathroom home in Nashville, and a 4,000-square-foot home in Arlington, Va. (He also has a third home in Carthage, Tenn.) For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, Gore requires little from himself.

Smell a little envy there? This is a typical smear by the right, attacking Gore based on class. "He's not like you folks," Schweizer is saying to us "peasants" (a popular word used in right-wing power circles to describe us non-special folks born without silver spoons in our mouths). I don't know what Schweizer's lifestyle is like, but his Republican and corporatist allies live much fatter lives. Besides, this is about global warming, not about a real estate crunch.

Schweizer then goes on to talk about the apparent fact that Gore's estates have not yet switched to alternative energy options in their areas, and that Gore owns stock in Occidental Petroleum. Apparently these are to be considered glaring character flaws and indications of some big great hypocrisy. He also goes after the Democrats, who also have not signed up for alternative energy.

Then, in a well-practiced move of non-sequitur pseduo-logic -- a speciality of Schweizer and Coulter and the other writers in the alternate-reality books genre -- he suggests:

Maybe our very existence isn't threatened.

Not exactly stellar reasoning from a defender of the ruling class, is it?

Ironically, Schweizer doesn't acknowledge that us non-ruling-class Americans are already struggling with energy prices. We aren't cashing in on big trade with mass-polluter China, or raking in record profits from oil speculation, or laughing all the way to the bank with 10-figure government checks for no-bid contracts. The men in power are screwing over America big time, and we're supposed to get mad at Al Gore?

The issue here is not simply Gore's hypocrisy; it's a question of credibility. If he genuinely believes the apocalyptic vision he has put forth and calls for radical changes in the way other people live, why hasn't he made any radical change in his life? Giving up the zinc mine or one of his homes is not asking much, given that he wants the rest of us to radically change our lives.

In other words, if you can't refute the scientific evidence, then shoot the messenger. Global warming, according to Schweizer, is not a scientific theory with evidence in our faces every day. No, global warming is just what Al Gore wants. Get it? Our response to global warming should be tempered by the right wing's approval of Al Gore's politics and financial investments.

My own guess is that Schweizer is accusing Gore of simple class betrayal. After all, being rich and powerful, Al Gore should be a Republican, right? How dare he!

Inconvenient indeed.

So could someone please tell me what the hell this is about?

Dobbs: "I was asked the other day about whether or not the American people had the stomach to stand up and stop this nonsense, this direction from group of elites in absolute contravention of our laws, our Constitution and every national value.... This is beyond belief!"

Pretty scary when Lou Dobbs has a problem with what the Bush Administration is doing.