Archive for 2004
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Friday, June 11th, 2004Dennis Avery
Brace yourself for more screaming “mad cow” headlines.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is starting to test hundreds of thousands of cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), hoping we won’t find any. The U.S. already banned feeding ruminant-based meat meal to cattle in 1997, effectively cutting off any potential “mad cow” epidemic. (Britain found that […]
Organic Food Non Safety?
Wednesday, May 26th, 2004Dennis Avery
The latest research from the University of Minnesota renews concerns that organic produce has higher bacterial risks than conventional fruits and vegetables. The Minnesota researchers found significantly more E. coli and more Salmonella bacteria on organic produce than conventional.
But the researchers themselves say, “Don’t worry.” They say that finding more E. coli bacteria on […]
McDiet: Losing Weight On Fast Food?
Friday, May 14th, 2004Dennis Avery
Soso Whaley lost ten pounds while eating three meals a day for 30 days at McDonalds! She says she feels great. Her secret: she limited herself to 1,800 calories a day. Sometimes she ate the Big Mac, but for lots of meals she ate the Chicken Caesar Salad.
Ms. Whaley is a moviemaker. She was […]
Will Global Warming Bring On The Next Ice Age?
Monday, May 10th, 2004Dennis Avery
The forthcoming Hollywood movie, The Day After Tomorrow stars Dennis Quaid as an earnest climatologist trying to save the world from catastrophic global cooling-brought on by burning fossil fuels. The special effects are said to be spectacular, but the film is no more realistic than Planet of the Apes.
One of the movie’s big dramatic […]
Evaluating Earth Day, 2004
Tuesday, April 27th, 2004Dennis Avery
Last week we celebrated Earth Day and it was a fantastic success.
No American river caught fire. Brown clouds of smog did not engulf New York City. No children were poisoned by leaded gasoline. No major U.S. corporation casually dumped untreated wastes into a lake or river.
Instead, eagles and ospreys caught fish in the Potomac […]
The Great Rich-Country Sugar Scam
Monday, April 19th, 2004Dennis Avery
Oxfam, the British charity, is calling for an immediate slash in rich-country sugar subsidies that lock out sugar imports from desperately poor places like Northeast Brazil and Mozambique that can produce little except sugar cane.
EU sugar subsidies, it says, is costing the pitiful economies of Mozambique, Malawi and Ethiopia $238 million in the past […]
Will Even Western Europe Duck Kyoto Energy Caps?
Monday, April 12th, 2004Dennis Avery
Fans of the Kyoto global warming treaty are busily floating rumors and reasons why Russia will soon sign the protocol and finally bring it into force. President Bush has refused to sign Kyoto, so the agreement must get Russia’s signature or die.
However, even Kyoto’s most ardent fans in Western Europe are wavering as they […]
Rice Breeders’ World Food Prize Underscores Future Hope
Tuesday, April 6th, 2004Dennis Avery
It seems an unbridgeable distance from Washington’s grandest ballroom-the crystal-chandeliered and silk-brocaded Benjamin Franklin Room atop the State Department-to the muddy fields of hungry West Africa and the “hungry ghosts” who struggle for sustenance on crowded Asia’s marginal croplands.
Yet, on April 2, the flossy ballroom was the setting to announce this year’s World Food […]
Will Expanded Mad Cow Testing Make Us Safer?
Tuesday, March 16th, 2004Dennis Avery
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will test far more cattle for “mad cow disease” next year-more than 250,000 animals at a public cost of $70 million.
Will that make our beef safer? Probably not. Our beef is already safe. The $70 million is being spent to placate nervous consumers.
Meanwhile, organic farmers and the Japanese claim […]
Is Outsourcing Bad?
Friday, March 5th, 2004Dennis Avery
Why are Americans so afraid of some jobs being outsourced? I’m paying more tax dollars for “homeland security” to protect my family from the hopeless and unemployed of the Middle East. Why would I be unhappy that some of the world’s jobs are flowing to poorer countries?
Two Presidential elections ago, I was supposed to […]