The Associated Press had an article on Spam today, detailing how sales are up now that economy is getting rougher. My first thought was the Monty Python Spam video, my second was “Yechh”, as I don’t like Spam so much and it’s pretty high in salt and fat, not really that good for you. Anyway, the links are below:

Link to Associated Press article on Spam:
SpamArticle

Nutritional Value of Spam:
SpamLabel

Monty Python Spam Video:
MontyPythonSpam

Was going through some old newspapers this past weekend and came across a travel column by John Flinn in SF Chronicle.
He had some readers write in about their goofs while traveling. I don’t see it on website so I reprinted the best ones below:

Steve Wolf, Portola Valley:
“While sailing through the Baltic, my wife Cathy and I took an overnight sail from the island of Gotland, off the Swedish coast, to the islands near Stockholm. We found a suitable anchorage about 4am, dropped the hook and retired below.
About an hour later we were roused by the sound of boots on deck. I stuck my head out the companionway to see uniformed sailors with guns drawn, and a navy gunboat alongside. A polite officer ordered us off our boat, and we were taken to a remote island, where the Swedes proceeded to set up a camp on shore, raise portable radio antennas and establish communications with their home base. We later found out that we had anchored just around the corner from a concealed, underground sub base.”

Judy Watten, Kenwood:
“In 1993 we were traveling in China with 18 other potters to various sites and pottery cities. At one delicious lunch, the last thing served was a cold fish dish. No one would taste it except me, and I harangued my colleagues about being polite and respectful to the restaurant, the tour organizers, etc......I spent five days in my hotel room on IVs. A nearby military hospital sent doctors and nurses around the clock to treat me, and I recovered.”

Judy Zachariasen, San Leandro:
“On a trekking holiday in New Zealand, I had all my camping gear in a big backpack and all my ‘can’t live without’ stuff (wallet, passport, return plane ticket, all travelers checks, almost all cash, camera) in a fanny pack. When I got to the end of the trail, I stopped at a creek to wash up. An older couple drove up as I finished, and asked if I needed a lift to the coast. I jumped at the offer.

Forty miles later I had that sickening stomach drop feeling as I realized I’d left my fanny pack at the trailhead. The kindly couple turned their car around and drove me back to the trailhead. I kept saying over and over to this nice older couple, ‘I’ve lost my fanny pack! I’ve lost my fanny pack!”

The fanny pack was still there at the trailhead, and the couple then drove her back to the coast. However, she sensed the couple was eager to get her out of the car. “It was several months later that I learned that in New Zealand, ‘fanny’ isn’t slang for rear end, but rather for female genitalia.”

Well, I'm still awake at 3:30am, so time to throw another blog on the barbie.....

As I was thinking about Memorial Day and the military, I surfed around a little, interesting info abounds. When you look at all the money the US spends on its military, and how badly some of it is spent, you begin to wish someone had the balls to make some changes. Misguided wars and obsolete or inferior weapons systems get funded while the VA budget and GI benefits get cut. Furthermore, much of the nation is relatively untouched by the war. Given that we no longer have a draft, the vast majority of the population has seen little sacrifice and little personal pain.

It’s been disappointing that the Democrats under Nancy Pelosi have folded under pressure and continued to vote for funds for the war. It seems that the Democrats think keeping the blame for “not supporting the troops” or “losing the war” away from them and trying to pin it on Bush is worth the daily body count from Iraq. After seeing her roll over and support the incredibly bad farm bill, it appears that she values power more than principle.

I wonder if the politicians would be more responsible about sending other people’s kids to die if they had more of their own at risk. Should there be a rule that those politicians voting for war be required to offer up their families, and for every 1000 or 3000 deaths of soldiers, there’d be one or more deaths of a randomly chosen politician’s family? It sounds a bit macabre and twisted, I admit. On the other hand, in a way I find it macabre and twisted that these votes continue, the deaths and injuries continue, yet the Senate and House bear no pain. If you also consider the amount of death and suffering we’ve inflicted directly or indirectly in Iraq, it’s even more disheartening.

If we were spending wisely it would be different. If the defense contractors weren’t making tons of money, and if Congress didn’t waste funds on needless weapons in order to get votes, and if our troops weren’t suffering from basic equipment shortages, then I’d feel differently. But with the waste and poor choices, it’s a shame when you consider all the good we could do with that money.

Interesting tidbits about US defense spending:
“The U.S. military spends more than all other militaries on Earth combined. The official U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 2008 is $623 billion; the next closest national military budget is China’s at $65 billion, according to the Central Intelligence Agency.)”

“The United States' military budget is greater than that of the next 14 biggest military spenders combined”

Here’s one more link to pdf document about Pentagon spending:
Pentagon Spending

Interesting blog about Iraq, including links in the article to the costs of bases, etc:
Iraq

This morning's paper had some more info on veterans:
Each month, 1000 veterans under VA care are attempting suicide. A little over 500 succeed.
The average length of time to resolve a benefit claim with the VA is 5.5 years.
Approx 19% of returning vets from Afghanistan and Iraq have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or depression. 20% of these veterans report experiencing traumatic brain injury.

Couldn’t sleep tonight, still fighting a cold. So I was flipping channels around midnight and came across Tim McCarver doing an interview with Herschel Walker, the retired NFL running back. I must not have seen Tim McCarver in awhile because I was shocked he looked so old. I didn’t know too much about Herschel since he didn’t play for teams I followed. However, watching him tonight I was really impressed. He seemed to be a very intelligent, very well-spoken person. I was surprised to learn that he was the valedictorian of his high school, which is not something most football players are known for.

The interview got even more interesting when they discussed his upcoming book, in which he reveals he has something called “dissociative identity disorder”. I’d never heard of that. Apparently it’s similar to having multiple personalities, but in this case you have fragments of personalities. I am guessing that the periods you’re not yourself are shorter. Therapy focuses on dealing with this and sort of working to collect all the fragments up together and work to make them mesh together.

Some of this is caused by psychological trauma, with people developing the different personalities to cope. Hershel mentioned he was overweight, stuttered, and was bullied a lot by other kids when he was young. You’d never think that when you look at someone his size. The other interesting thing was that he still does something like 1500 to 2500 situps and pushups every morning. Just amazing.

Anyway, I put a link below to one blog that discusses this. Further info is on the web.

Link to blog mentioning Herschel Walker’s disorder:
Dr Gupta blog

Today’s entry is a bit long, but I think it’s worth reading. I also encourage you to check some of the web page and video links at the bottom for more information. It was really an eye opener for me.

I was listening to KGO Radio Saturday and caught some of Joanie Greggains’ show. She was talking to Roy Upton (whom I’d never heard of) and a few other people, about the light brown apple moth. I had read a little bit about this before but didn’t have a ton of knowledge. One of the callers told about walking out of his house last fall, the morning after the aerial spraying, and finding 30 dead birds on the way from his house to the beach. This from a pesticide spraying that was supposedly “safe”. That kind of got my attention. So I found myself pulling my car over and searching around for some paper to write some notes with. Did some more research when I got home, and here’s what I’ve got so far.

The light brown apple moth is native to Australia, has been in New Zealand for about a century, and also lives in Hawaii, England, and New Caledonia. It is a “leaf roller”, spinning a web under the leaf and causes the leaf to roll up and I assume thus protecting the moth. The moth eats some of the leaf but apparently does not generally attack fruit, although some damage may occur.

The moth was “discovered” in California in March 2007, over a wide area of Northern California, with higher concentrations in San Francisco and Santa Cruz counties. At the time, I remember reading stories that suggested this moth was spreading rapidly and would need to be controlled, as it was a major threat to California agriculture. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and the CDFA (California Department of Food and Agriculture) both declared a state of emergency. This let them proceed with spraying while doing an EIR (Environmental Impact Report) concurrently, rather than before the spraying.
"We believe this to be a biological emergency," said CDFA public affairs supervisor Steve Lyle. "If we waited a year or two, so we could first do an EIR, we would lose the battle and become generally infested."

The USDA set aside $90 million for the program, and in the fall, aerial spraying was done in Santa Cruz and Monterey.
The spray was done using a pesticide/phermone mix. The company with the contract to make the spray coincidentally donated $144,000 to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The USDA’s Larry Hawkins had some spinning to do in media interviews. He brushed off the fact that there was no evidence that LBAM (light brown apple moth) had either infested or seriously damaged crops in California by saying that the lack of evidence proved that the USDA/CDFA eradication program was working.
“The reason you haven't seen major damage here is because we've found it early enough to deal with it before it becomes substantial. And the reason you won't find reports of major LBAM damage in New Zealand or Australia is because they are constantly using pesticides," Hawkins said.

So all is well and good, and the government is once again protecting us and our fruits and vegetables from certain destruction. Well, maybe not exactly. It appears that instead, the governor, CDFA, and USDA are auditioning for a chance to play the game “Liar, liar, pants on fire”.

Turns out that Larry Hawkins “mis-spoke” when he claimed New Zealand and Australia are constantly using pesticides to controller LBAM. New Zealand used pesticides in the 1980’s but it turns out they killed a lot of the beneficial predators of the moth. Since stopping pesticides in 2001, they have controlled the pest mainly through non-chemical means.

One of the other interesting tidbits is that one of the possible reasons that the USDA declared LBAM as a major threat to the US crops was that American apple growers lobbied them to do so as a way of cutting down competition from New Zealand. The USDA has a zero tolerance for LBAM, unlike the European Union and other areas. In addition, one of the concerns now is that other countries will use the LBAM as an excuse to block US agricultural exports. So big Ag is pushing hard on the idea of spraying now.

The other interesting thing is that the US officials have portrayed LBAM as this rapidly spreading dangerous threat. However, based on data that shows the moths do not venture more than 100 yards in their lifetime. Based on the 2007 findings of moth locations, scientists estimate the moths have been here for 30 or more years. This is one more fact that tends to put a hole in the “emergency now” theory.

It is also interesting that a fair amount of money for this operation is coming out of the department of Homeland Security, and the contract for the planes was given to Dynamic Aviation out of Virginia, which does intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaisance.

Now the other interesting thing is the spraying and the pesticide/phermone itself. By declaring an emergency, the government has avoided the need for an EIR beforehand. (It looks like the courts may force and EIR, but that is still up in the air).
In addition to the 30 dead birds I mentioned at the beginning, there were over 600 health complaints by residents. These ranged from asthma like problems to swollen neck glands to skin rashes to intestinal pain to near death. A 12 month old baby boy almost died. The California Department of Public Health refused to get involved, referring people to their local County Agricultural Commissioner. This is sort of like the 911 dispatcher telling you that you don’t really need an ambulance, just call your local farmer and see what they would do. Absolutely unbelievable.

The spray contents were only revealed after much publicity and the filing of a lawsuit. The spray was sprayed over occupied cities, homes, etc, not just in open fields. This spray has never been tested to see if it’s safe for humans. The government just told people, “Oh, it’s safe, don’t worry about it”. If you look into the spray, not only does it contain carcinogens and chemicals harmful to humans, it also contains nanotube particles that can get in your lungs and cause serious problems. It is just nasty, nasty stuff.

As part of the eradication, California nurseries are required to spray organophosphates, even though New Zealand found they did more harm than good and did not eradicate the moth.

Currently the bad publicity and a few lawsuits have resulted in the spraying postponed to August and perhaps beyond. However, it is still important (if you’re in California) to be aware of this and protest to your elected officials.

I’m posting some links to websites below:
Joanie Greggains/KGO website has some really good links to articles about the spray, health effects, the moth, etc:
Joanie Greggains

Roy Upton’s blog article:
Roy Upton

Also I have two video links:

Testimony from some UC Davis researchers:
UC Davis testimony

Interesting interview with Michael Lynberg, who compiled 632 complaints from spraying victims:
Michael Lynberg interview