MaxRedline

Your Tax Dollars At Work

A University of Illinois perfesser has received a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation in order to pursue a cure for cancer means of altering the sexes of papaya plants.  No, this isn't a put-on; your money is really going to fund this critically important endeavor.  Apparently, the recession hasn't significantly impacted the halls of academia (or is that macademia?).  Either way, it's nuts.

U. of I. plant biology professor Ray Ming secured a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to change the papayas' sex to grow only plants that produce hermaphrodite offspring.

Food Fight!

According to a recent cover story in TIME magazine, “food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous” and blamed obesity on American agriculture.  This is one of the reasons why print is dying.  They don't do actual journalism; they just print propaganda.  Food is dangerous?  That's reminiscent of the formerly famous Ames tests for carcinogens.  That was another "scare you to death" media playup.  It sort of blew up after it was revealed that the Ames tests indicated that two essential amino acids were carcinogenic.

Huh.  Essential, as in "must have in order to live".

Obesity has nothing to do with agriculture, but it has everything to do with people who lack self-control.  Certainly, there are a small percentage of people who are genetically predisposed to store fat, but in most cases, fat folks just plain pork out.  Agriculture has nothing to do with it - electronics and packaging encourage obesity.

Fortunately, Multnomah County (which can't maintain its bridges, nor open the jail that has never been used since it was completed some 4-5 years ago) is working hard to help folks out on the food end of things.  Judging from the article in The Oregonian, it's easy to see why they're losing subscribers at a death-spiral pace:

Amber Meyer doesn't need university studies or proclamations from experts to tell her something's wrong with the U.S. food system.

Amber has four kids that she and her husband can't support.  Yet of course the big Zero doesn't touch upon the all-important "carbon footprint" - not for this article.  No, we can ignore all of the usual propaganda in order to focus upon the heart-rending tale of a couple of folks who make chronically bad decisions in life.  Riding in to the rescue is Multnomah County's "sustainability manager".

Say what?  A county that can't open brand-new prisons, nor keep its bridges in repair, somehow has enough cash to toss around to fund things like "sustainability managers"?  Note to MultCo: that's not sustainable.

"We have a crisis and many people consider our food system broken," said Kat West, the county's sustainability manager.

"It's a very big, daunting task ... but somebody has got to lead and we think we are up to the challenge."

Well, as BO's good buddy Rahm says, you should never let a good crisis go to waste.  Unfortunately for Kat, this isn't a crisis - it's just another example of governmental stupidity.

It's only a matter of time before we begin to equal the idiocy seen today in Formerly Great Britain, where governmental intrusion into every aspect of life has permeated even into the area of nursery rhymes.  "For goodness sake. Obviously children will find it far too violent, distressing and horrific that Humpty should not be put back together again."

And so the tale was altered: rather than "couldn't put Humpty together again" all the King's horses "made Humpty happy again".

Apparently, sex with equines is okay.

Best Year For Bordeaux In 60 Years

Thanks to "perfect weather", the 2009 vintage is expected to rank as among the best on record, according to wine experts. 

"Nature has been extremely generous, it is sumptuous," said Denis Dubourdieu, director of the Bordeaux Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences and a renowned winemaker.

"It's difficult to find comparisons, you have to go back to the climatology of the 40s to find, perhaps, comparable conditions," he added.

 

This is difficult news.  Man-Made Global Warming should not allow such events to occur.  Experts on the subject, such as our own David Appell, will dully inform you that local conditions do not reflect the planetary climate.  And while that is correct, the fact remains that in France, the best condtions for wine grapes in some 60 years occurred in 2009 - while Denver, Colorado experienced the earliest snowfall in recorded history.

 

Something's happening on the planet, but it isn't man-made.  And it certainly isn't global warming.

 

 

Risky Business

Vegetarians may be startled to find that their "planet-friendly" diet includes some of the most dangerous foods on the planet.  According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, lettuce and spinach top the list of most hazardous food items, along with sprouts, "tomatoes, potatoes" (remember when the media were guffawing about Dan Quayle's spelling?), and berries.  Ice cream is also on the list, although people who want to "Save The Planet" by eating only plants would never stoop to such decadence.

We Call It Hot Sauce For A Reason

The Brits aren't especially known for their cuisine, but this one's experience with a particular American version of hot sauce is Dave Barry-esque. 

Burns victims often say that when they are actually on fire, there is no pain. It has something to do with the body pumping out adrenaline in such vast quantities that the nerve endings stop working. Well, it wasn’t like that for me.

He'd always thought that he liked spicy, hot foods and condiments.  He may still believe, somewhere, that he does.  But he classifies this condiment as a weapon.

Norman Borlaug

Thanks to the relentless efforts of western environmeddlists, it is unlikely that Borlaug's accomplishments could today be replicated.

Although that work saved a billion people from starvation and sparked what eventually came to be known as the "Green Revolution", he encountered steadily increasing bureaucratic resistance and heavily-propagandized interference from such stellar environmeddlists as Paul Ehrlich (author of "The Population Bomb").  Ehrlich had good reason to oppose Borlaug's efforts to feed the world, because the entire premise of his book was based upon a doomsday scenario in which the planet reached its carrying capacity and billions of people died of starvation.  All of a sudden, this clown shows up and starts producing varieties of wheat and other grains that are adapted to local conditions - and highly productive, as well.  The upstart!

Today, much of the political left still sees the Green Revolution as a failure, despite its obvious successes, because it promoted technological tweaks to address the deficiencies of nature, weakened socialist agrarian reform movements of the 1960s and 1970s by improving rural productivity, and permitted the survival of hundreds of millions — perhaps billions — of lives who just end up despoiling the environment.

This failure of the political left, particularly the environmental movement, to acknowledge the usefulness of innovative agricultural technologies led Borlaug to eventually reject the movement he once embraced.  He also became one of the biggest boosters of food biotechnology and one of the biggest critics of those who believe organic agriculture is the only sustainable option. On the 30th anniversary of his Nobel Prize, he said “I now say that the world has the technology — either available or well advanced in the research pipeline — to feed on a sustainable basis a population of 10 billion people. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called ‘organic’ methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot.”

I've long noted that environmeddlist fear-mongers such as AlGore and Ehrlich are simply greedy little bastards and nothing more.  They have theirs; they want to make sure that you don't get anything.  AlGore has a vested interest in his doomsday prophecies - he's set up companies to "trade" carbon credits.  He's already rich, but he wants to be richer.  That can only happen if he can sell fear to governments.

Ehrlich built a reputation and no small amount of pocket-change upon fear-mongering.  His theory that the planet had reached its carrying capacity was shattered when some upstart from Iowa developed agrarian techniques that proved him wrong.  Environmeddlists are all the same.  They all use the same playbook: scare people, profit.

Cat Crap Fever

National Coffee Day is Sept. 29, and in its honor, Bennett’s Fresh Roast in Fort Myers, FL, will be serving up cat poo coffee.  This rare Indonesian specialty item involves coffee beans that have been consumed by native civit cats, then crapped out.  Trackers collect civit feces and separate out the beans for processing and roasting.  They believe that fermentation in the cat guts add a special something to the flavor, and they sell it for $190 a pound.  Don't you sometimes wonder exactly how somebody came up with an idea?  It really takes a special mindset to say to oneself, "You know, I think I'll poke around in this turd and see if there's anything good to eat or drink in there".

Then they go on to believe in Man-Made Global Warming, health insurance as a basic human right, and environmentally-friendly light rail.

Hunger In Oregon

Over at another blog, I encountered a discussion involving public schools offering free meals year 'round.  Naturally, the loony leftists thought this was a great and compassionate thing.  Compassionate it may be, but great it is certainly not.

If you're a leftist, you may as well move on now, because I'm going to explain exactly why compassion is not necessarily good.  This will cause your head to explode, so in the interest of your personal safety, you should leave.

My parents were out here for a visit a few years ago, and one of Dad's observations was that Oregon has so much food, growing everywhere - even in the urban areas - that it would be almost impossible to go hungry during the summer months. He was right.

Unless you're absolutely a sloth, you really can't go hungry. Nuts and berries grow in almost every neighborhood in which I've lived or visited. To supplement, there are edible native plants in abundance, as well as - in the urban areas - food distribution centers.

The only way someone can go hungry here is if they sit on their fat ass and demand that others bring stuff to them.

Sure, and you may have to get hands dirty by picking nuts and fruits, by participating in one of the many gleaning programs, or otherwise working to feed yourself and your kin, if any. But forty+ years ago, finding myself out of work for a time and with few actual possessions such as telephone or tv, I lived in Forest Park for a couple of months - a mere jaunt to downtown Portland.

It involved a bit of work, as I had to fabricate a small shelter - but it was well-camoed and actually had quite a spectacular view from the entrance. I harvested quite a number of edible native plants and obtained water from a nearby spring. Perhaps the greatest amount of work involved digging a privy; difficult to do with but small tools and hands.

Of course, as the economy improved I was able to secure work, leave the park, and build things up. I now live in a house, complete with mortgage, in Portland's West Hills.

Nothing was given to me. I worked for everything, however meager it may have seemed at the time.

And if I can do it, surely then others can as well.

I'm not advocating that everybody move into the park and start digging privies and setting snares, but there are far more private social services in play now than there were 40 years ago. The one factor that remains is this: you have to be willing to do at least some work.

"Free" meals served year-round at schools simply undermines the values of self-reliance and personal responsibility; supplanting them with a "somebody owes me" mentality.

Newsflash: There's Mercury In Fish

Well, as Ronald Reagan once said, there you go again.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Scientists have detected mercury contamination in every one of hundreds of fish sampled from 291 freshwater streams, according to a U.S. government study released on Wednesday.

More than a quarter of those fish contained concentrations of mercury exceeding levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency for the protection of people who eat average amounts of fish, the U.S. Geological Survey report said.

More than two-thirds exceeded the EPA-set level of concern for fish-eating mammals.

"This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds, and many of our fish in freshwater streams," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. The USGS is part of the Interior Department.

And what, it their infinite wisdom, has our government mandated - pushed by heavy enviro lobbying?

Phasing out incandescent lightbulbs in favor of "energy efficient" compact flourescents.  By reducing energy consumption, we're "Saving The Planet".  Energy-inefficient incandescent lightbulbs are a thing of the past.  You are required to purchase "energy-efficient" compact flourescents (CFC).

Oh, one little problem with CFC - they all contain mercury.  If you break a standard lightbulb, you sweep it up and toss it.  Break a CFC, and it becomes a hazmat issue.  Most folks don't realize that, so they'll live in a mercury-poisoned environment.

And their government worries about fish.

"The only way to save it from extinction is to eat it," Bradford said.

He's talking about the Ancient White Park steer, a 2500 year-old breed of cattle that has since dwindled to a population of around 1600 animals.  But he could have been talking about any of a number of endangered species, because lacking incentive to conserve and propagate such species, humans have a tendency to allow them to die out - often hastened by habitat conversion to uses that humans find more productive.

Species can best be saved when humans have reason to consider them valuable.  Whether that value is determined to involve tourisim or as part of the food supply is irrelevant; if a species is widely considered to be of value to the people nearest to it, they will ensure that it persists.