I think I have found a new favorite beanie. My only question is why it costs so much if it is made from 40% pest?
The possum was introduced into New Zealand from Australia and is an ecological pest. 90 million of them are munching through 21,000 tonnes of vegetation every night. Possum culling is endorsed by the WWF and GreenPeace.
Are we supposed to feel good about reducing the possum threat? Good enough to spend $60 for a hat?
SFGate has posted a smoking critique of those who lament the new tobacco tax in an op-ed called Give It Up, Smoker / Death, cancer, rotted teeth, emphysema won’t do it, but 62 cents will?. Example:
Also lost amid the outcry: how the same legislation that cranked up the tobacco tax also gives long-overdue powers back to the FDA to regulate Big Tobacco — powers, by the way, that Bush twice vetoed, in the name of corporate cronyism and general immoral idiocy.
Is that the real smokers’ lament? “Damn you, Obama administration, working to regulate the chemicals in my poisons and trying to make me marginally safer! Can’t I just get lung cancer and emphysema and be a massive burden on my friends, family and the health care industry in peace, without government meddling?” Wait, that can’t be right.
Amusing view of regulation.
Do you wonder how to tell whether you have a conficker infection?
A simple test has been released by the Conficker Working Group.
Try it out here.
Der Spiegel interviewed terror expert and Obama advisor Bruce Riedel about the evolving focus on Pakistan.
SPIEGEL: Currently, there are many reports about how closely the Pakistani secret service ISI is intertwined with terror groups. Does the ISI actually supply the Taliban with ammunition, trucks and recruits?
Riedel: These are serious issues. We are raising them with the Pakistanis. The head of the ISI was here in February. We have put these issues on the table and we expect to see a serious response. In our engagement with Pakistan, I think our watchword must be an old one: trust but verify.
SPIEGEL: What does the ISI expect to gain from their influence on these groups?
Riedel: Over the course of the last three decades, the ISI used these relations to have leverage against India and influence in Afghanistan. More and more Pakistanis now recognize that they have created a Frankenstein that threatens the Pakistani state itself. We now need to help them bring this monster under control.
SPIEGEL: The United States also played a role in its creation, back in the eighties when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, then the number two at the CIA, was involved.
Riedel: Yes but we cannot go back and change history. We have to live with the reality we face today.
I like the Frankenstein reference. Nice sidestep to the historical connection, but the past is obviously still relevant and probably a real influence on Gates’ strategy for the Pentagon.