Cleaning out the Desk Drawer of the Mind

Doug:
So this dude Chris Sligh who got booted off Idol this week now says he "nevah came into this wanting to win it."

 

---

Mike:
Maybe the Royals front office should offah him a job since they both have the same game plan?

 

---

Doug:
Ouch. Hey, don't tell Shaughnessy "but research shows so-called computer geeks are becoming the new schoolyahd bullies."

 

---

Mike:
Considering the virtual inverted-wedgies the CHB has been getting the past several years from the blogosphere, somehow I think he already knows this.

 

---

Doug:
So this is it, the truck is packed up and on it's way back and we only have one final weekend sans baseball.

 

---

Mike:
Can you imagine a summah without the Red Sox?

 

---

Doug:
It'd be like an orchard without honeybees.

 

---

Mike:
That shit is scary.

 

---

Doug:
Absolutely. It's right out of a 60s sci-fi movies. Bees are are vanishing without a trace, no bodies left behind or anything, and the scientists are stuck scratching their heads.

 

---

Mike:
Right and they just fail to consider the possibility of aliens taking all the bees up to their spaceship …

 

---

Doug:
Hidden from our view by some sort of "advanced cloaking device" …

 

---

Mike:
And using the bees in some nefarious plot to Wipe Out the Human Race!™

 

---

Doug:
Or the othah classic sc-fi theme: The government's top secret mission to weaponize bees goes awry …

 

---

Mike:
Yes, the bees became too intelligent and formed their own super-colonies and are now in some remote unknown location plotting to Wipe Out the Human Race!™

 

---

Doug:
Creepy.

 

---

Mike:
You got that right.

 

---

Comments

[buckner was framed]

I dunno, SinKC- I try to keep the curlies OUT of my BBQ... hmmm, maybe you should keep yer beer

[SinKC]

Hey, I didn't say they had to be positive references!

And a bet's a bet. Just bring a sieve to pour it through.

[bobtaco]

Industrial ag’s serial poisonings and vicious practices threaten us all….

Water quality, wildlife, pets, bees, reproductive difficulties, developmental disorders, cognitive impairment, cancer survivors and those who perish from cancer….

We see an epidemic of cancers now “common” which were vanishingly rare a century ago.

Now, one-third of women and one-quarter of men can expect to have cancer in their lifetime.

Humans have pretty much the same genes we collectively had a century ago.

THE INCREASE IS NOT GENETIC.

The massive increase in (non-tobacco) cancers exactly parallels the introduction of synthetic pesticides and similar industrial toxins in the post-WW II period. Within a generation, US cancer incidence increased.

Best info on this for laypeople is Sandra Steingraber’s lyrical book Living Downstream.

Today’s victim: honeybees.

So who cares about honey when we have white sugar, right?

Er - uh - anyone who eats.

Those bees aren’t just filling up the little plastic squeezy bears on your breakfast table.

Without bees, we lose one-third of our food supply.

Gone.

Bees aren’t just used to produce honey. They play a vital role in the food chain, helping to pollinate one-third of food crops. In California, more than 50 crops — from almonds to avocados to squash — with a gross value of $6 billion are pollinated by bees, said Eric Mussen, a bee expert at UC Davis.

Mussen said it’s possible recent cold, dry weather that squelched the life out of plants that produce pollen and nectar to keep bees healthy could have left bees even more vulnerable to whatever is killing them.

Press-Enterprise

Oops - turns out industrial ag’s GMO crops with BT (bacillicus thuringiensis toxin) help kill honeybees.

BT is a toxin found in soil microbes - not found in the honeybees’ natural diet.

The honeybees go to the flowers, not the soil.

Industrial ag’s genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) include plants that make BT toxin, ’cause some Frakenstein put soil bacteria genes in our food crops.

Turns out the Frankenfoods with BT help kill off honeybees.

Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates that “besides a number of other factors,” the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be playing a role. The figure is much lower in Germany — only 0.06 percent — and most of that occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Haefeker recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working Group some data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees.

The study in question is a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called “Bt corn” on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a “toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations.” But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a “significantly stronger decline in the number of bees” occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.

According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have “altered the surface of the bee’s intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry — or perhaps it was the other way around. We don’t know.”

Der Spiegel - h/t Raw.

Wonder what BT crops and other Frankenfoods on our dinner plates do to us?

Keep wondering - the FDA never bothered to answer the question.

The FDA scarcely looked.

Bon appetit - while you still can.

Without the bees, we’ll all be hungry.

extra nerd credit -

Unlike typical nerve-poison insecticides, Bt acts by producing proteins (delta-endotoxin, the “toxic crystal”) that reacts with the cells of the gut lining of susceptible insects. These Bt proteins paralyze the digestive system, and the infected insect stops feeding within hours. Bt-affected insects generally die from starvation, which can take several days.

Occasionally, the bacteria enter the insect’s blood and reproduce within the insect. However, in most insects it is the reaction of the protein crystal that is lethal to the insect. Even dead bacteria containing the proteins are effective insecticides.

thanks Colorado State U Ag ext for the mechanism

[da kine]

I know I came to the game late today, but Massachusetts does have some lovely wines, er, sorta. Plymouth Bay Winery uses that most New Englandy of fruits, the cranberry, to make some delicious hooch. It isn't something you'd put on John Forbes Kerry's table, but you can drink it and smile.

As for beeah, I miss Hahpoon IPA the most. I don't think they use preservatives, because I can't find it anywhere.

[buckner was framed]

da kine- you're right about Plymouth Bay- I had forgotten about them, and they're actually about 15 minutes from me.Thanks. So, SinKC, if you'd rather go back to the wine rather than ale, I'm flexible...
You're right about the Hahpoon IPA too- although I'm a UFO man myself

[SoxSweepAgain]

Hey!

I wrote the BSMW Shaughnessy Contest article that came in third (and have the T-Shirt to prove it)!

Here it is:

http://bruceallen.wordpress.com/selective-memory-for-returning-diva/

/End props for self.

[SoxSweepAgain]

Here are all of them...

http://bruceallen.wordpress.com/

[soxdownunder]

'pies won

[illegitimate son of dwight evans]

Hey bobtaco,

Thanks for the illuminating insight into how two things happening at the same time means one of them caused the other. Here is some other important evidence we cannot overlook:

http://www.venganza.org/images/spreadword/pchart1.jpg

[SinKC]

Cranberry wine?

Entirely new taste experience. I'm in.

Sorry for the delay in responding. It's been an interesting couple of days ... heh.

Speaking of Boulevard, though, I made another convert to the unfiltered wheat on Friday night.

(That almost sounded dirty, dinnit?)

[Devine]

4 hours to season start. 24 hours to Red Sox season start. Strap in.

[louclinton]

Yup, I'm giddy

lc

[soxdownunder]

Still one sleep to go! Dooh! Bloody international dateline.