The Canadian policy stance vis-à-vis the recession is essentially standing impatiently while US and EU policy-makers get their sh*t together
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) June 21, 2012
June 21, 2012
Canada’s recession, in one Tweet
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Even Mother Jones is coming around on genetically modified crops
Sarah Zhang points out that people who want less damage to the environment should support GM technology in farming:
Genetically modified Bt crops get a pretty bad rap. The pest-killing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacteria protein these plants are bioengineered to make has been accused of harming monarch butterflies, honey bees, rats, and showing up in the blood of pregnant women.
Just one problem: None of that is true. (Click on any of those links to see a scientific refutation of each claim.) Seven independent experts in genetically modified crops I spoke to all confirmed that the science shows Bt crops to be safer than their alternative: noxious chemical insecticides.
[. . .]
But just as we do not blame a murder on, say, a knife, Bt technology is not to blame for the ills of industrial agriculture. After all, knives are pretty handy in the kitchen when we use them properly. Even critics will acknowledge that Bt crops have led to a sharp decrease in insecticide use, which is a huge net positive for the environment. Broad spectrum chemical insecticides kill often and kill widely, wiping out “natural enemies” that are helpful pest-eating critters like spiders. A massive 20-year study just published in the journal Nature found that using Bt cotton in China to control cotton bollworms closely tracked with a rebound in natural enemy populations, which in turn keep out secondary pests like aphids that usually proliferate when chemical insecticides kill the bollworms.
If that last sentence sounds complicated, it is. Integrated pest management is about recognizing the interconnected complexity of these ecosystems of plants and all the insects living on them. The Nature study found that pest control through Bt cotton even had spillover benefits to the non-Bt soybeans growing around them. Natural enemies like ladybugs, spiders, and lacewings keep pests unaffected by Bt at bay. “Maintaining the biological control agents we already have is one of the cornerstones of integrated pest management,” says William Hutchison, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota. In addition, a 2010 study by Hutchison in Science (PDF) showed that American farmers of non-Bt corn actually reaped two-thirds of the economic benefit (read: additional profit) from nearby Bt-related pest suppression.
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Percy Harvin asks the Vikings to trade him
It’s never a good thing when one of your best young players starts dropping hints to the local media that he’s unhappy about his contract, or his role on the team, or some other unspecified issue. Percy Harvin is the unhappy player right now, and John Holler does the introductions:
If an old-timey big microphone was going to drop from the rafters down for a bald, silky monotone-voiced guy to make the fight introductions between Percy Harvin and the Vikings, it might go something like this:
“In this corner, weighing in at 185 pounds. He hails from Virginia Beach, Virginia. He is 24 years of age. If his four years in the NFL, he has re- written the Minnesota record books like a modern day Paul Bunyan. One of the most explosive playmakers in franchise history-y-y-y, he is the Threat Who’s Owed A Debt, The Grenade Who’s Underpaid. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Percyy-y-y-y Har-r-r-r-r-vin!”
Michael Buffer, eat your heart out. As the applause subsides, the other introduction is made.
“In this corner, weighing in at significantly more. They have been part of the NFL wars for more than half-century. In 1970, they won the NFL championship of the wor-r-r-r-ld. They have three more NFC title belts to their credit. They have sent 10 of their representatives to the prestigious Pro Football Hall of Fame. Over the last eight years, they have paid more than $1 bil-l-l-l-l-l-l-lion dollars to players. They are the Scandinavian Scourge, The Tower of Power, The House That Wilf Built. Put your hands together for the Minneso-o-o-o-ta-a-a-a Vi-i-i-i-i-i-kings!”
The introductions have been made, thanks in part to Harvin “calling out” the organization. His announcement of unhappiness came out of nowhere. It was planned. It was effective. Now the question is whether Harvin is ready to go the extra mile to make his point
Rick Spielman, general manager of the Vikings, has said he has no intention of trading Harvin, but Harvin doesn’t want to attend training camp unless his (unspecified) issues are dealt with.
Harvin is a great player, and I don’t want to see him either leave the team or hold out, but given the Vikings’ history he wouldn’t be offered a contract extension until late this year and the team probably doesn’t want to create a precedent even for someone as important to the team’s fortunes as Harvin.
Update, 22 June: Harvin is apparently surprised at the concern:
https://twitter.com/Percy_Harvin/status/215869665551986688
The guys at 1500ESPN.com try to figure out what went down over the last three days:
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Light to moderate drinking during pregnancy has no measurable health risks
As Radley Balko pointed out on Twitter, “Prediction: The activist public health crowd will go absolutely nuts over this study.” Jacob Sullum on a recent European health study:
Despite the familiar surgeon general’s warning advising women to abstain completely from alcoholic beverages during pregnancy “because of the risk of birth defects,” there has never been any solid evidence that light to moderate consumption harms the fetus (as Stanton Peele pointed out in Reason more than two decades ago). New research from Denmark, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, indicates once again that heavy drinking is the real hazard. In a study of more than 1,600 women (“nearly a third of all Danish women who were pregnant between 1997 and 2003,” Maia Szalavitz notes in Time), children of women who consumed nine or more drinks per week during pregnancy had shorter attention spans and were five times as likely to have low IQs at age 5 than children of abstainers. But no such effects were apparent in the children of women whose alcohol consumption during pregnancy was light (one to four drinks per week) or moderate (five to eight drinks per week). “Our findings show that low to moderate drinking is not associated with adverse effects on the children aged 5,” the researchers said.
Szalavitz cautions that a “drink” as defined in this study contained 12 grams of pure ethanol, compared to the American standard of 14 grams, one-sixth more. Given the relatively wide consumption ranges, that difference probably does not matter much. Szalavitz also notes that, unlike earlier studies, this one asked women about their drinking while they were still pregnant, so the responses are less likely to be skewed by inaccurate recall. Still, self-reported drinking, especially by pregnant women, probably underestimates actual consumption, meaning that the amounts associated with no neurological impairment are apt to be bigger than those indicated by the study.
One of the issues with studies of this sort is the very need for self-reporting: most people, after a lifetime of public health warnings, will under-report their drinking (whether consciously or not). In this case, that’s a useful thing to provide some level of comfort in the findings: if most women in the study under-reported their actual intake of alcohol while pregnant, yet the children show no negative effects developmentally, we can concentrate on those few who really do over-indulge and whose children do suffer as a result.
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Conservative government, but only in name
Andrew Coyne on the palpable absurdity of the “Harper government” stonewalling the very office it insisted on setting up for oversight of government spending:
The reality is that the PBO has been given anything but the “free and timely access” that Parliament demanded. Time and time again, rather, he has been given the back of the government’s hand — stonewalled by the bureaucrats, ridiculed by the politicians, and lied to by both.
When, for example, the Department of National Defence at last consented to share the cost of the F-35 fighter jet purchase with the PBO, it provided only the most rudimentary figures, without any indication of how they were arrived at. These figures, on which the last election was fought, were later shown to understate the true costs of the jets by at least 40% and probably 60%, in violation not only of Treasury Board rules but the department’s own stated policies. For the crime of having been right, the PBO was subjected to a volley of ministerial insults, while the department pretends to this day not to have understood the office’s clearly stated requests.
More recently, the PBO (Kevin Page is his name) has been trying to get government departments to explain how they plan to achieve the $5.2-billion in largely unspecified “efficiencies” pencilled into the 2012 budget. How much of these, Page wanted to know, would be achieved by reducing costs, and how much by reducing services? How would federal employment be affected in either event? In other words, what did the budget mean by “efficiencies”? This would seem useful information for Members of Parliament considering their vote, assuming — you’ll indulge me here — MPs do indeed consider their votes.
Power corrupts, as Lord Acton reminds us, and the discipline that Stephen Harper enforced over his unruly caucus on their way to winning a minority government is now extended to the majority he enjoys today. What affronted him about Jean Chretien’s imperial ways now seems quite normal and unexceptional. Power does indeed corrupt.
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