Its Hard Writing a Blog....

when you are sitting on the floor leaning against the couch with the laptop on the coffee table and there is an anklebiter DOG climbing on your back and wiping his doodle on your shoulder.

Ahh but he's ma baby.

Rangering

For a short time now I have been toying with the idea of becoming a ranger.

I've now decided that I want to be the ranger of the Great Park in London. Now if you are familiar with this park or have been watching the TV program on channel 9 about the British Royal Family, the Great Park is the grounds of Windsor Castle.

Only problem is, in becoming the ranger of this park I will have to kill the Duke of Edinburgh and marry the Queen. Hehehehe

I think that will cause more scandal than the Camilla (Horsey) and Charles affair.

Random Rambling

So I finally got my car washed today and guess what? It is forecasted to rain all week. I wouldn't be so annoyed except that I have been waiting for it to rain (OK so most of NSW has) so IT could wash my car.

I also visited my sister today, so she could give me my B'day present. We ate rice balls and I found out that I quite like the Japanese strained(?) plums. Its salty/sour/tart and goes well with seaweed.

Hope you all noticed my new backround. It was a bit of trial and error, well if you look down the bottom there is a random moon in the "posts" bit. I cant merember the code that I deleted so its gonna stay that way.

MMMMMMMM the letter M. I guess we can thank Homer Simpson for certain people today for injecting the letter M into some words in which it can fit. ANGEMELA....CIGAMARETTES...SUBAMARU all because of SAXAMAPHONE.

I just wish I could either be sick or well not this kind of verging on the edge of being either. I think I'd rather be sick so I can take a few days off work. That kind of sucks that you'd rather be sick than go to work. Someone want to come round and break my arm?

Scary Phones

A while ago, Darkskies was telling me about her haunted phone (perhaps she could do a blog about it :) )

Well anyway this is my phone Story.

THE CASE OF THE PRANKSTER PHONE

Yesterday I arrived home from a job interview and there were 2 messages on the answering machine, but before I could listen to them I had to feed my dogs a shmacko each or otherwise they will just keep barking until I give them one (we have them soooo well trained). I'll start with the 2nd message first 'cause it was normal, it was just my dad asking how my interview went. BUT the 1st message was just plain wierd and you'll soon discover why it is a prankster phone.

First of all I would just like to add that I was home all day except from 4pm to 6:30pm and my dad started work at 2:30pm. Both calls happened when I was out, which is pretty normal 'cause I would have answered them if I was home.

So the 1st message starts off with hold music, its piano music, but I can't pick the melody. Then it starts ringing with the Brr brr, brr brr tone - you know the one. The the next noise is someone picking up the phone and then all of the sudden I hear my Aunt saying "HELLO, HELLO" then she hangs up!
So while I am out and my dad is at work the landline Phone is making prank calls to my Aunt! What a bastard!

I'm sure there is a logical explaination for this, but that just takes away the fun of the whole experience. (Oh yeah, it is one of those phones where you can store numbers, but the only number in it so far is my mobile #)








This phone is scary because it is YELLOW!

Genetically Engineered Food

I was reading on the UTS (University of Technology, Sydney or if you prefer Up The Shit) SA website about their food co-op shop and the first sentence I read is about filling people bellies up with good, nutritious food. Sounds good to me. Then it goes on a bit about something that happened in the 16th century blah blah blah....and that we treat the earth as a commodity. Well der of course we do, we probably have been since the sapien species emerged from the primordial goo, which was well beyond the 16th century for example, although it is not PC, the indigenous people of Australia were burning down pine forests to get their tasty morsel leaving parts of Australia with a primarily eucalypt population.

Anyway the point of this blog is not the history of human disturbances that has changed the biosphere but the possible impact of genetically engineered food.

But what is the point of playing around with the genes of plants and animals?

Genetic engineering of plants and animals has been occuring since people pretty much learnt how to put pen to hides (I only say this because there are no records of it otherwise). The first readily accessible evidence (that comes to mind) of GE is in the Torah, Genesis 30:37-30:43 to be precise, where Jacob took Labans sheep to mate with his sheep (it looks like artifical insemination to me with the rods and all) to produce a "special" flock. Does that mean we can't get a sheep that hasn't already been interferred with?

Now we zip forward to a century after the 16th C. to whom people call the father of genetics, Gregor Mendel, who did his famous experiments with peas.

Genetic Engineering is not all Frankensteinish Flymen and mice with human ears growing out of their backs or adding bacteria to wheat to reduce the use of instecticides. It could be as simple as crossing this species of wheat with that species of wheat to produce something that could survive a sudden frost or a long drought. It is not evil, its evolution, humans are just helping it to happen faster.
Ok the former examples I used (not the flyman one) are happening and there should be a limit on what is allowed to be done, I grant you that, at least. Anyway I don't think coccus wheat is out in the market.

I guess people are scared of GE food because you don't know how it could effect the human body and to a lesser extent how it could effect the equilibrium of the environment (cause as you know we treat the environment as a commodity). Well stuff the human body, I'm sure a pharmaceutical company can come up with a drug to counteract the side effects, while giving us a few more side effects in the process.

Well so far I have not seen a major disturbance in the environment because of a GE wheat field, but I am not saying it could not happen, just we won't know until it does, if it does.

Could GE food be used to solve world hunger? Is another question people think of when it comes to GE. Well it could if you compare 100 acres of wild wheat to 100 acres of GE wheat. So UTS how many people are you going to feed with 100 acres of wild wheat? Well considering the fruit produced on one blade of wild wheat is hardly worth noting compared to hybrid wheat, not many peoples bellies will be filled and especially since wild wheat is only native to Israel, I dare you to pick it. So stop the BS about filling peoples bellies.

I guess like most food stores you sell bread products? Well the wheat they use to make the flour used for bread is a hybrid of 3 species. Ok the hybridisation happened thousands of years ago, its still GE'd.

Cultivation and Breeding:
Cultivation of wheat began around 7000 BC in the Euro-Asian region. Wild varieties were first collected and then purposely grown. Mutations and crosses led to bread wheat. Bread wheat originated from three different wild wheat varieties. It carries six times the normal chromosomal complement (hexaploid plant). Wild Emmer (Triticum dicoccoides) probably arose first, from wild Einkorn (Triticum boeoticum) and wild Spelt (Triticum speltoides). Through hybridisation with a further wild wheat (Triticum tauschii), Spelt (Triticum splelta) and bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) finally arose.

Truth is you probably wouldn't know if it is GE even if it bit you on the bottom.