bionic burger

why a Happy Meal won't decompose

the rooster's beak

My perfect Pico de gallo recipe

10-12 tomatoes or two big cans petite diced
2 good sized white onions
fresh cilantro
8-16 serrano peppers
4-8 cloves garlic
two large limes
olive oil
black pepper
sea salt

I like canned tomatoes because they're already chopped, skinned and de-seeded but you can't beat fresh grown tomatoes. Drain the diced tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste. Add the chopped onions, and finely chopped peppers, garlic and a handful of finely chopped cilantro. Drizzle liberally with olive oil and add the juice of two large limes. Mix ingredients and refridgerate for one hour. Enjoy with corn chips, tacos, burritos and guacamole dips.

this has to stop

December brings the biggest showdown with Illinois' and possibly the nation's most gluttonous corporate freeloader: the corn ethanol industry.

Symbolically, the upcoming battle of budget hawks against ethanol's special pleaders is as significant as the fight over continuing the Bush tax cuts.

At issue is whether Congress will allow corpulent ethanol subsidies and a tariff against some imported ethanol to expire on Dec. 31. The ethanol industry has been tromping around Washington like starving bears, hoping to get the deal done during this lame-duck session of Congress, before budget-cutting hunters arrive in the next Congress.

Ethanol's supporters assert that it is an environmentally friendly, renewable and cost-effective gasoline additive. Its opponents dispute it on every point, arguing, among other things, that ethanol costs more than gasoline to make, raises food prices, increases tailpipe pollution and encourages cultivation of fragile lands. But dare to question ethanol, which consumes 41 percent of the corn crop, and snowstorms of studies are produced, from both sides. Clearly, the science supporting ethanol is "unsettled." Which makes spending billions of taxpayers' and consumers' dollars on ethanol at best a costly crapshoot.

Despite that, the Environmental Protection Agency recently decided that we aren't consuming enough of it. Instead of mandating that 10 percent of gasoline sold at the pump be ethanol, as has been required for years, the EPA issued its so-called E15 rule, which raised to 15 percent the allowable blend of ethanol for cars and certain trucks built since 2007. In that, the EPA ignored studies pointing to the harmful effects that 50 percent increase will have on cars, including the agency's own conclusion that it would damage the catalytic converters of tens of millions of cars now on the road.

Wait, that's only the start. The ethanol industry also receives a tax credit amounting to 45 cents a gallon and is aided by a tariff on sugar-cane ethanol valued at 54 cents. In addition, the 2007 energy act mandates the use of renewable fuels, including ethanol: 10.5 billion gallons in 2009, 14 billion in 2011 and 36 billion by 2022.

This is extraordinary. And insane. Here, the government creates a fake market for ethanol, then subsidizes the market, and then protects the market against foreign competition.

This has to stop. But don't count on it.

Agribusiness is an American biggie, especially in Illinois, loaded as we are with ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland Co., commodities markets, corn farmers and countless refiners, processors, haulers and investors. Their people sit on important corporate boards and their campaign contributions flow into Congress and state legislatures. Even cost-cutters will pretend not to notice the need to carve away at this turkey, one of the most heavily subsidized businesses in America. And, I haven't even mentioned the tens of billions of federal dollars that go for crop subsidies and other boons for wheat, cotton, sugar, peanuts, dairy, wool and other types of farmers.

Critics of these subsidies get it from the right and the left. But opposing the subsidies is a growing coalition from the right and left. Among them are the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Working Group, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, International Dairy Foods Association and Grocery Manufacturers Association. As their Web site (followthescience.org) illustrates, they are united in their opposition to the EPA's E15 rule for a variety of environmental and economic reasons, including, no doubt, their own self-interest. The coalition earlier this month filed a federal lawsuit charging that the EPA exceeded its statutory powers by issuing the rule. (chicagotribune.com)

a better way

"What is wrong with us? Why do we seem to care so little about our own safety, our own health, and the future of our children?" asks Maria Rodale, farmer, author and CEO of Rodale Inc. "Why are we willing to pay thousands of dollars for vitro fertility treatments when we can't conceive, but not a few extra dollars for the organic food that might help to preserve the reproductive health of our own and future generations?"

In her powerful and informative new book, Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe, Maria Rodale has done all of the thinking and the research about organic farming for us. Yay, we don't have to think! Following in the path of her grandfather, JI Rodale, who launched Organic Gardening and Farming magazine in 1942 and her father Robert Rodale, who devoted his life to educating others on health and environmental issues, Maria Rodale explains why and how we must immediately begin to undo the damage we have done to the environment and to ourselves.

The 'Farming System Trial' that her father, Robert Rodale began in 1990, is now the longest running scientific study comparing 'synthetic-chemical' versus 'organic' agriculture. After 20 years of experiments, the trial clearly shows that organic farming is not only more productive than chemical farming, especially during times of flood or drought, but that soil farmed organically is a necessary step toward solving our climate crisis. 'Mycorrhizal fungi' which grow at the roots of plants, stores carbon. These miraculous fungi build our soil and its health while also sequestering excess carbon and pulling it underground.
(read more) (rodaleinstitute.org)

weeds

(watch the future of food)

Price of life

food slavery

(watch full-length movie)

My Victory Garden

Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort. In addition to indirectly aiding the war effort these gardens were also considered a civil "morale booster" — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. This made victory gardens become a part of daily life on the home front.

In March of 1917, Charles Lathrop Pack organized the National War Garden Commission and launched the war garden campaign. During World War I, food production had fallen dramatically, especially in Europe, where agricultural labor had been recruited into military service and remaining farms devastated by the conflict. Pack conceived the idea that the supply of food could be greatly increased without the use of land and manpower already engaged in agriculture, and without the significant use of transportation facilities needed for the war effort. The campaign promoted the cultivation of available private and public lands, resulting in over five million gardens and foodstuff production exceeding $1.2 billion by the end of the war.

It was emphasized to home front urbanites and suburbanites that the produce from their gardens would help to lower the price of vegetables needed by the US War Department to feed the troops, thus saving money that could be spent elsewhere on the military: "Our food is fighting," one US poster read; in Britain the slogan "Dig for Victory" was ubiquitous.

Although at first the Department of Agriculture objected to Eleanor Roosevelt's institution of a Victory Garden on the White House grounds, fearing that such a movement would hurt the food industry, basic information about gardening appeared in public services booklets distributed by the Department of Agriculture. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 20 million victory gardens were planted. Fruit and vegetables harvested in these home and community plots was estimated to be 9-10 million tons, an amount equal to all commercial production of fresh vegetables.

Victory gardens were planted in backyards and on apartment-building rooftops, with the occasional vacant lot "commandeered for the war effort!" and put to use as a cornfield or a squash patch. During World War II, sections of lawn were publicly plowed for plots in Hyde Park, London to publicize the movement. In New York City, the lawns around vacant Riverside were devoted to victory gardens, as were portions of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

The Fenway Victory Gardens in the Back Bay Fens of Boston, Massachusetts and the Dowling Community Garden in Minneapolis, Minnesota, remain active as the last surviving public examples from World War II.

Since the turn of the century there has existed a growing interest in Victory Gardens. A grassroots campaign promoting such gardens has recently sprung up in the form of new Victory Gardens in public spaces, Victory Garden websites and blogs, as well as petitions to both renew a national campaign for the Victory Garden and to encourage the re-establishment of a Victory Garden on the White House lawn. In March 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama, planted an 1,100 square foot "Kitchen Garden" on the White House lawn, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt's, to raise awareness about healthy food which was one of Mrs. Obama's advocacy issues

The Malthusian Catastrophe

The Population Bomb was a best-selling book written by Paul R. Ehrlich in 1968. It warned of the mass starvation of humans in 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation and advocated immediate action to limit population growth. The book also popularized the previously coined term, "population bomb". The book has been criticized in recent decades for its alarmist tone and unfilled predictions. Ehrlich stands by the basic ideas in the book.

Early editions of The Population Bomb began with the statement:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.

The book dealt not only with food shortage, but also with other kinds of crises caused by rapid population growth. A "population bomb", as defined in the book, required only three things: a rapid rate of change, a limit of some sort, and delays in perceiving the limit.

Also worth noting is Ehrlich's introduction of the Impact formula or I PAT:

I = P × A × T (where I = Environmental Impact, P = Population, A = Affluence, T = Technology)

It states that the impact a community has on the environment, can be calculated by multiplying the community's population by its wealth and how developed it is. Ehrlich thus argued, affluent technological nations have a greater per capita impact on the limited resources of the earth than do poorer nations.

The world's population doubled from 3 billion in 1959 to 6 billion in 1999. It is currently (2010) at 6.8 billion, and is expected to reach 9 billion by around 2042.

More than 36 millions died of hunger or diseases caused by malnutrition in 2006. According to the World Health Organization, malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child mortality, present in half of all cases. Environmental issues with agriculture has hampered the finding of acceptable solutions to these problems.

In a 2004 Grist Magazine interview, Ehrlich acknowledged some specific predictions he had made, in the years around the time the Population Bomb was published, that had not come to pass. However, as to a number of his fundamental ideas and assertions he maintained that facts and science proved them correct.

In answer to the question: "Were your predictions in The Population Bomb right?", Ehrlich responded:

"Anne and I have always followed U.N. population projections as modified by the Population Reference Bureau -- so we never made "predictions", even though idiots think we have. When I wrote The Population Bomb in 1968, there were 3.5 billion people. Since then we've added another 2.8 billion -- many more than the total population (2 billion) when I was born in 1932. If that's not a population explosion, what is? My basic claims (and those of the many scientific colleagues who reviewed my work) were that population growth was a major problem. Fifty-eight academies of science said that same thing in 1994, as did the world scientists' warning to humanity in the same year. My view has become depressingly mainline!"

The book sold over two million copies, raised the general awareness of population and environmental issues, and influenced 1960s and 1970s public policy. (read more)

worldpopulationbalance.org

Current global population of over 6.8 billion is already two to three times higher than the sustainable level. Several recent studies show that Earth’s resources are enough to sustain only about 2 billion people at a European standard of living. An average European consumes far more resources than any of the poorest two billion people in the world. However, Europeans use only about half the resources of Americans, on average. (read more)

Whale Wars

"What are they doing mama?...

They are trying to save us darling one."

Overpopulation: Our Greatest Threat

Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth.

The resources to be considered when evaluating whether an ecological niche is overpopulated include clean water, clean air, food, shelter, warmth, and other resources necessary to sustain life. If the quality of human life is addressed, there may be additional resources considered, such as medical care, education, proper sewage treatment and waste disposal. Overpopulation places competitive stress on the basic life sustaining resources, leading to a diminished quality of life.

If resources required to sustain the organism are being consumed by the organism faster than the resource can be renewed, then the organism is overpopulated. For example, humans are destroying topsoil and consuming fossil fuels much faster than the planet can renew them and those resources are currently required to produce and distribute the necessary quantity of food to feed the population, and therefore humans are overpopulated on Earth.

(read more)

Sperm

In the 1950's the average sperm count was 120 million per milliliter. The average sperm count today has been halved to an average of around 60 million per milliliter in the Western world, a decrease of 1-2% per year.

My guess is that all the poisons, chemicals and female hormone mimicking compounds we've introduced into our environment and food have begun to concentrate in our bodies and are slowly trying to turn boys into girls. Male infertility will be the method of our self-annihilation. We are killing ourselves and the planet with our waste.

The Dark Side of The Agro-Industrial Complex

Plant a vegetable garden

Michelle Obama is planning the first vegetable garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II.

It's about time we resurrect the old fashion notion of a vegetable "victory" garden in every backyard or patio in America.

I think everyone should plant a vegetable garden. It's hours of family fun and exercise, not to mention all the great fresh vegetables you'll be enjoying.

The Future of Food

90 min. to get deep understanding on how the system is working and about MONSANTO... and why those criminals MUST BE STOPPED!


Deborah Koons Garcia's The Future of Food
by Lily Films

Watch full film here: The Future of Food

Your children

Don't cry for me.....

.....I'm already dead.


........The Simpsons........

Soylent Green

Soylent Green......is people!

Killer Coke

Corporations hate unions. After reading from the website killercoke.org, I am shocked to learn of the indifference to the safety of workers who bottle Coca-Cola products. There are undisputed reports that Coca-Cola bottling plant managers in Colombia, South America, allowed and encouraged paramilitary death squads to murder, torture and kidnap SINALTRAINAL leaders and members in an effort to crush their union.

Union leaders at Coca-Cola's Colombian bottling plants have been murdered. Hundreds of other Coke workers have been tortured, kidnapped and/or illegally detained by violent paramilitaries, often working closely with plant managements.

Aspartame is the dangerous artificial sweetner used in Diet Coke. An examination of Aspartame, its history and its effects, is enough to shock anyone into really looking at their food labels next time they shop. Aspartame is a toxic food that came into the world as an investment by Donald Rumsfeld, while ignoring the deadly effects the tests showed. Reading all the stuff about aspartame could make your head explode. But what convinced me that aspartame is not safe are not just the studies that have found its link to cancer but also the efforts of Donald Rumsfield and Searle/Monsanto in ramming this product down our throats. Monsanto, as you know, is the world's leading producer of genetically modified products - another innovation that many are convinced has already wrought havoc on human life and the ecosystem - and uses not just money and influence but also threat and intimidation on those who go against it, as a Vanity Fair investigative report makes clear. Indeed, Monsanto's track record alone is enough to convince me that this product can kill.

The Coca-Cola Company has recently come under fire by the Food and Drug Administration for its reluctance to disclose exactly what the "Plus" in Diet Coke Plus really means. For starters, the FDA isn't exactly thrilled with the concept of fortifying an unhealthy snack drink. Couple that with the fact that the amount of vitamins and minerals added to Diet Coke Plus remains somewhat vague, and it becomes clear why the FDA deemed it appropriate to step in.

Residents living around Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Kala Dera, near Jaipur in Rajasthan, India marched and rallied demanding the closure of the bottling plant. Nearly 60 villages surrounding Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Kala Dera have complained of severe water shortages since the bottling plant began operations in the area.

The Coca-Cola company is also the target of intense community campaigns in Mehdiganj and Kala Dera in India for creating water shortages and pollution. The company was forced to agree to an assessment of its bottling operations in India as a result of a sustained international campaign. The assessment, released in January 2008, was a damning indictment of Coca-Cola's water management practices in India. The assessment recommends that Coca-Cola shut down its bottling plant in Kala Dera because the plant contributes significantly to water shortages in the area.

The council of Colombian capital Bogota fined the local unit of Mexico-based soft-drink bottler Coca-Cola Femsa SA (KOF) 201 million Colombian pesos, or about $110,000, for dumping industrial waste waters in marshes located in the city's outskirts...The council's environment secretary's office said Femsa had been polluting the wetlands with industrial waste waters since 2006.........(excerpts from killercoke.org)

This is a list of Coca-Cola products.

Food for one week

Germany : The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States : The Revis family of North Carolina
Food expenditure for one week $341.98

Italy : The Manzo family of Sicily
Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11

Mexico : The Casales family of Cuernavaca
Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09

Poland : The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna
Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27

Egypt : The Ahmed family of Cairo
Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53

Ecuador : The Ayme family of Tingo
Food expenditure for one week: $31.55

Bhutan : The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village
Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03

Chad : The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp
Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23