Mmm...clones

I love the Washington Times subhead for this story:

"FDA Clears Cloned Foods
Meat, milk safe to eat"

Not, "Agency says meat, milk safe to eat" but "meat, milk is safe to eat."

Because if the FDA says something is safe, it is, de facto, safe. Right?

Enjoy the silence

Turns out wireless technology has not yet completely saturated the greater Tri-Cities area. So this blogger will continue to slack off for a couple of days.

A heartwarming Capitol Hill holiday scene

If you ever make the walk between Union Station and the Senate office buildings, you probably know the Friendly Senate Homeless Guy. He is an elderly man who lives in the park behind the Russell Building, and as people walk by he offers cheerful greetings like, "enjoy your day!" or, "Friday, only one more day to go, have a great day!" He is quite friendly and sincere, and though he never asks for money, you always feel compelled to give him a little change (good strategy). Anyway, I like the Friendly Senate Homeless Guy a lot, so it was nice yesterday to see a Capitol Police officer pull up to the park and give him a big gift basket full of candy and treats.

On a related note, Friendly Senate Homeless Guy is just one of about 6,000 homeless people in DC. If you're so inclined, consider helping address this problem with a donation to DC Central Kitchen.

Dinner down under!

Gidday!

Tonight me 'n' me mates fired up the barbie. Cracked a tinnie and ran around in a T-shirt like I had kangaroos loose in the top paddock. It was bonzer!

Except for this is the Northern Hemisphere and it's seven days 'til Christmas.

WTF?

Next week I'm going surfing off the coast of Ohio!

The omnivore's confusion

An article in last week's Economist questions several widely-held assumptions about the environmental impact of different food choices and sourcing. If you've got 'em I'd be interested in seeing support or critiques of some of these ideas, especially the point about food-vehicle-miles and local products. Among the claims presented:

Organically grown food. The article quotes the "green revolution" guy, Norman Borlaug, who argues that the total land area required to produce a given amount of food organically is much greater than that required to produce it using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. More land used for agriculture = more forest clearing etc. Borlaug, of course, has always been proponent of chemical agriculture, but the land area argument is new (to me at least).

Locally grown food. There are many reasons, social, economic, and environmental, to buy locally grown goods. One of the commonly accepted reasons is that locally grown food does not have to travel as far to reach your table, saving energy and pollution from transporting and preserving it. But the UK's environment and ag department recently put out a report that found that "a shift towards a local food system, and away from a supermarket-based food system, with its central distribution depots, lean supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of food-vehicle miles being travelled locally, because things would move around in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles."

"Fair trade" food. Some economists don't like it because it messes with the price signals that should shift production away from crops that are being overproduced. (A problem if you assume that perfectly free markets always produce the "best" result.)

Wednesday night entertainment tip

My friend's husband's band is playing at the Grog and Tankard on Wednesday. I checked them out on YouTube and they seem pretty rad.

Wed Dec 13
Grog and Tankard
2408 Wisconsin Ave, NW
Washington DC 20007
202-333-3114
Doors @ 8 pm
Show @ 8:30 pm
$6

Set By Satellite - http://www.myspace.com/setbysatellite
Big In Japan - http://www.myspace.com/baltimorebiginjapan
OFM - http://www.myspace.com/ofmhq
The Expotentials - http://www.myspace.com/theexpotentials

Recent experiments in endurance nutrition

These rule:
They are like slightly softer versions of those gummy fruit snacks you used to get in your brown bag school lunch. The black cherry and cola flavors contain a little caffeine bonus (about 50 milligrams for 3 blocks, equivalent to almost a shot of espresso).

These taste like Flintstones vitamins, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your preference:
These are small (150 cals), sit pretty well, and are therefore good for eating before a short race. Beware, they are also easily crushed in pocket or backpack:

These are the grand high emperor of bar foods, the best of all. Better than an actual Snickers bar, and nutritionally A-OK:

The Man is dead. Long live The Man.

I was just realizing that my whole full-time working life (2001-now) has been spent under the boot of the Bush administration and most of it under an extreme right-wing Congressional majority. It's hard to break out of certain reactive ways of thinking, and not be completely bitter and paranoid all the time.

I think that all progressive organizer-type-people should be sent to some kind of detox-counseling-yogic ashram to release some of the tension, resentment and fear of the last six years. Not that our problems are over, but...it's kinda hard to do your thing when we have this national case of political PTSD.

Lead absurdity

As one government agency cautions manufacturers to keep lead out of children's toys, another wants to make it easier to put lead into the air those children breathe.

The Consumer Products Safety Commission is recommending a ban on lead in toy jewelry. The EPA, meanwhile, is proposing to remove lead from the list of pollutants that localities must limit to remain within air quality standards (Reuters). EPA calls it a response to the removal of lead from gasoline and other sources; public health advocates like California Rep. Henry Waxman call it "dangerous."

Let's get down to brass tacks, Lou Dobbs

Would you marry a Cylon?
would you marry a Cylon yes [ 11 ] [91.67%] No [ 1 ] [8.33%]
If yes Which Cylon Doral [ 0 ] [0.00%] Six [ 2 ] [16.67%] Boomer/Athena [ 8 ] [66.67%] Brother Cavel [ 1 ] [8.33%] D'Anna [ 0 ] [0.00%] Leoben [ 1 ] [8.33%] Simon [ 0 ] [0.00%]

(forums.scifi.com)

Today's biased, leading Lou Dobbs poll question can be found here. (booorrr-ing)

What are you implying, Amazon.com?

Buy The Weather Makers : How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth and get Ready or Not - A Disaster Survival Handbook at an additional 5% off Amazon.com's everyday low price.

Beware the suggestive oversell

Ever since reading chef Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, I've been a little skeptical of ordering things like fish on Fridays (the end of the week, before new fish is delivered) and brunch specials (the way a restaurant gets rid of ingredients that have been hanging around for a while).

That's why I was so amused by a waiter's behavior at the Beacon Bar and Grill last night. Settling down for some drinks and small plates as we waited for a friend, my companion ordered bread. "You mean the shrimp toast," the waiter replied weirdly. "Umm, no, venison sausuage, and an order of bread," we said. When a third friend arrived, the waiter immediately asked him, "How about the shrimp toast?" It was all kind of blatant. Shrimp toast was mentioned at least once more during the course of the evening.

Why are they trying so damn hard to move the shrimp toast? My guess would be that that shrimp is nearing the end of its useful lifespan. I'd advise not ordering anything containing shrimp at BBG in the near future. Especially not the shrimp omelet that may appear on the brunch menu this weekend. Bon appetit.

By the way, there's a nice article in the City Paper this week in which Anthony Bourdain and other chefs try to top each other's horror stories.

Hott!

My holiday shopping is D-O-N-E. Everyone's getting this.

From Russia with love

The radioactive poison that killed a former KGB spy turned Kremlin critic has been traced to two BA planes and to Moscow. (WP) The spy, Aleksander Litvinenko, succumbed in a London hospital last week.

Litvinenko is just the latest in a string of mysterious poisonings of Russian president Vladimir Putin's enemies.* Suspicion is drifting toward government agents in this case because a fatal dose of the material in question, polonium-210, could probably only be obtained by someone with access to a nuclear reactor.

Besides being cruel, and an assault on democracy and human rights, doesn't this poison tactic seem a little--I dunno--needlessly complex? Like, how hard would it be just to hire some thug to shoot these people or throw them off a train?

*Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko: dioxin, survived. Anna Politkovskaya, journalist critical of Russian brutality in Chechnya: poisoned, survived, later shot and killed.