The Watering Hole, Tuesday May 19, 2015 – Environmental News and Food Politics

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Recycling electronics is getting more difficult as devices get smaller and smaller:

Nanotechnology means not only where do you put it when its life is over, but can you even find it? Open Thread.

55 thoughts on “The Watering Hole, Tuesday May 19, 2015 – Environmental News and Food Politics”

  1. ‘…but can you even find it?’

    Imagine trying to find a cell phone when it’s the only phone you have, you’re alone, and can’t contact someone to have them call you so you can find your phone when it rings.

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  2. There may be so many Republicans running for the GOP nomination, they may have to split up into divisions and adopt a playoff system.

    At least chips and beer would go on sale at the grocery store the week before their ‘Stupor Bowl’! 😉

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  3. White House will unveil strategy to protect honeybee habitat

    On Tuesday, the Obama administration will announce the first National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, a bureaucratic title for a plan to save the bee, other small winged animals and their breeding grounds. The initiative may feel like the kind of niche interest a second-term president devotes his time to, but scientists say his attention to the busy workforce that sustains many American crops is critical. While bee colonies regularly die off during winter because of stressful conditions, their sharp decline has been called a potential ecological disaster by some environmentalists and academic experts; conservative Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) described it in an interview as “an essential thing [that] we need to pay attention to.”

    The strategy, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, will seek to manage the way forests burned by wildfire are replanted, the way offices are landscaped and the way roadside habitats where bees feed are preserved.

    It is also the culmination of a years-long fascination Obama has had with the bee and its worrisome fate.

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    • Funny you should post that.
      I just pulled six quarts of honey from my hives.
      Deeeeelish!

      You want to protect honey bee agriculture?
      Stop rewarding farmers for using Monsanto /Bayer products and planting monoculture.
      Bees need a diversity of plants to survive.
      Also, my hives stay in one place all year.
      I’m a hobbyist not a commercial so mine stay put.
      Even some of the commercials are choosing to remain local rather than truck boxes of bugs all across the U.S.A. and stress out the hives.
      If I shipped you on a long uncomfortable journey with no ability to go to the bathroom and then you showed up in a new location without knowing where the food is, you’d collapse too.

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      • I agree that the nuts and bolts of the problem are GMO’s and pesticides. But we have to start someplace, and maybe that’s finally going to happen. In re Monsanto, it would probably be much faster and far more efficient to simply nuke the place than it will be to politically dismantle it. In fact, yes, I vote for the nuclear option. But then, I detest Monsanto more than the average detester. Don’t get me started.

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      • I can see, smell and taset that fresh honey!
        (growing up we ate *honey and peanut butter sandwiches, Had to let the honey ‘set’ a bit before closing up the other half of bread)
        * local

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    • I’ve got a yard full of clover blooms, and I have yet to see a single bee, honey bee or bumble bee. Haven’t seen any butterflies either.

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        • They aren’t ‘roaming the house’ very well. If Gisela gets in sight of Lili without me in the room, there’s a fight I have to break up. I put a screen door back on the bedroom so I can keep Gisela in with me overnight, else I can’t get much sleep.
          If I have to leave the house or go outside, they have to stay separated.

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    • Whoa there! First, GW Bush and Cheney need to be hanged for their war crimes…Get your priorities straight, ISIS/ISIL.

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      • Exactly – they can have at least 2 Presidents and 2 Veeps if they need someone to hang – and we can toss in a Def Sec and a few NSAs – we’re keeping Kissinger to give to the Chileans though.

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  5. Watching all those motorcycles being hauled away on flatbeds after the arrests in Waco gave me a thought: How many of those machines will end up the property of the police and be sold at auction?

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    • Confusion over the appropriate punishment for smokers reportedly led to a fight that killed 12 ISIS members in February.
      So, our strategy should shift to air dropping cartons of pall mall reds…!?

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    • Iraq was better till Obama screwed it all up by following the Bush admin’s withdrawal timetable. Now it’s getting worse because Obama hates Amurkkka and is trying to take away our guns and doesn’t hate Cuba. It’s so simple.

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    • Iraq, which is now being governed by Shia Muslims, has it’s own fifth column called the Sunnis. We have Republicans as our fifth column.

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  9. Sometime last year I posted that I would be in a YouTube video. The video maker is my landlord’s grandson who submitted this video as part of his application to college. He graduates high school soon and heads off to college this fall. A lady with white hair appears at 2:56, that was Mrs White who worked for my landlord for 47 years. She died Dec. 19. My cameo comes at 4:20, a most appropriate time indeed!

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      • Somewhat, I suppose. I’m more private and would have chosen a spot behind the dumpster to consume my wine. I believe the rush to create the video, once I agreed to take the role, necessitated shooting when the ambient light was too low behind the dumpster. I do, however, take full credit for all wardrobe items! 🙂

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      • Can we re-purpose Jade Helm to eradicate motorcycle gangs in Texas? Does motorcycle guy Allen West wanna weigh in on that?

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    • Come September, those people are going to be SO DISAPPOINTED that Obama didn’t actually invade Texas and impose martial law on it.

      And I, for one, will share their disappointment.

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    • Dear dumbass reichwingnuttiae;
      The president’s order BANNED the handing over of military equipment to the police.
      Evidently, they can’t read. Or write. Or think.

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    • Usually in a situation like that, there’s a second cat to sit on the box and hold the first one hostage. 😉

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      • Considering the way this little guy seemed to intentionally rock the box, I think he knew this would happen and planned on it. If someone else came along and sat on the box, I don’t think the little guy would care. He didn’t seem upset at getting trapped inside, so I think he did it on purpose.

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