A beautiful paint job hopelessly marred...*

I know the absence of my scathing commentary has been keenly felt. The latest fake mad cow, McGee², Amanda's new lifestyle venture, not to mention ten million discussions of how to cook a turkey, all have passed without my invaluable insight. I haven't even had a chance to mention how retarded NPR's Hidden Kitchens is for not even knowing about the WPA America Eats project until Mark Kurlansky called them. Attention professionals: will someone put out a fucking book of the thing already?

You can already feel the frisson, can't you? But adventures in home improvement have denied me the time to waste fucking off on the internet and enlivening your pathetic cubes. I haven't even read a word of print since approximately Creflo Dollar, and that was on a plane. Anyway, a visiting friend, observing my sisyphean labors the other day, said: "you can tell you spent a lot of time painting rich people's houses." And in fact many years ago, when I still toiled among the laboring classes who really work for a living, said rich people did pay me to do things to their houses, including applying paint. As I learned about the perfect paint job and how to apply it, I secretly nourished the belief that this knowledge and skill would pay off some day, when I had a house of my own (along with the servants and other amenities I require). Well, let me tell you something, people. Sitting around on your ass and reading books for ten years is not conducive to the maintenance of any kind of manual skill. I'm so weak I can barely lift a fucking paintbrush. As for knowledge, it is a curse. If I hadn't wasted my youth working for the man, I wouldn't give a shit about the goddamn paintjob, and I would now be reclining in ignorant bliss with a single lumpy coat of Navajo White separating me from my decrepit walls, oblivious to the squalor that enveloped me.

But this is not to be, and combined with holidays and real work (however un-manual), will prevent me from doing much more to entertain you for the calendar year. Oh yeah, I have to leave the country now too.

*[In case you were wondering].

Duccio

Anyone who wants to trade 2 1/2 Duccios for a fucking Picasso, give me a call. I'm just saying, this is what you call a "market inefficiency." Could it be that the art market is driven by the same nouveau riche douchebags who pay $41,000 for a truffle? (OK, I admit, Phillipe just more than earned his ridiculous salary). If you're looking for a more affordable signifier of your vulgarity, you can always buy an empty bottle of '83 Yquem [links via J, other J, and maccers].

Expect desultory posting here to continue for the forseeable future. The plus side of this is a more selective approach, one would think, but I leave it to you to judge from the quality of the following: The U.S. government -- now freely elected™ -- is predictably outraged over the official NAFTA report [discussed above] on transgenes in Mexican maize, for making outrageous "anti-scientific" claims such as:

There is no reason to expect that a transgene would have any greater or lesser effect on the genetic diversity of landraces or teosinte than other genes from similarly used modern cultivars.

Elsewhere, our old friend Nina Fedoroff has produced a new book: Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist's View of Genetically Modified Food, which you can read in the world's most retarded electronic format at the National Academies Press site (or you can fork over real money for the pdf); reports of drought-resistant wheat from Egypt; and speaking of cereals, I should point out gramene, a comparative genome database for grains; the plight of Mexican farmworkers in the Anderson Valley; CGIAR accused of pandering to multinationals [really, this is shocking]; D.G. Hole, et al., "Does organic farming benefit biodiversity?" Biological Conservation 122 (March 2005), 113-130 concludes:

The majority of the 76 studies reviewed in this paper clearly demonstrate that species abundance and/or richness, across a wide-range of taxa, tend to be higher on organic farms than on locally representative conventional farms.

update: Everyone's favorite fanatics at the CCF just interrupted me with their foray today into heretofore unscaled heights of douchebaggery. In the course of mocking Jerry Garcia's widow (for this), they write:

...Berkeley professor Ignacio Chapela -- whose study on genetically enhanced (GE) corn in Mexico became a case study on scientific hoaxes after it was retracted by the prestigious journal Nature. Incidentally, Chapela's work was rebutted again this week, as a new report from the North American Free Trade Association found that GE corn poses no threat to Mexico's native corn species.

Of course, they don't link to the actual report, but to a summary of it on another industry blowjob site. The lies:

1. the report says nothing of the kind, as indicated by out government's response above;
2. it, in fact, confirms the important part of the Chapela article, which established that there were transgenes in Oaxacan maize landraces, and has never been disputed;
3. there was no "hoax": the bombshell was the discovery of the transgenes [the dispute concerned the methodology used in the second part of the paper, which claimed extensive fragmention of the foreign DNA throughout the maize genome. Note again, noone has ever disproved even these disputed results; they have only raised (apparently valid) doubts about the suitability of the the techniques used, and their successful application]. Nature has never satisfactorily eplained their "retraction," and Quist and Chapela stand by both parts of the paper. One wishes someone would repeat the experiment correctly to end all this bullshit one and for all.

Normally I ignore these clowns. They're just trying to earn a living, and their incompetence is actually kind of endearing. But now they're just making shit up.

America has spoken, and it said I'm an asshole. That's my losing entry in the postmortem witticism contest, currently tied between Tom:

I look at the big map and all of the red in flyover country and I feel like I've been locked in a room with the slow learners.

and James:

Good, Go Ahead, America, Choke on Your Own Vomit, You Deserve to Die.

There is also touching optimism, realistic assessments, and despair, along with a useful tool for those of you considering your options.

Buck up kids: remember Reagan's second term. Sure, our tax dollars paid for the senseless death of thousands of Latin Americans, and we created a whole class of war criminals for Bush père to pardon (and fils to re-employ). Then there was that whole Ed Meese thing... But the point is that it was not, technically, the End Of The World. Although we are getting closer.

I just have to add that I find Le Monde's disapproval of our electoral college very amusing:

Un tel désordre, inimaginable dans la plupart des autres pays démocratiques, n'est pas à l'honneur de l'Amérique. Et il est préoccupant que le sort du monde soit suspendu à un système aussi archaïque.

important election coverage

The new Crop Science features several reports from a Symposium on Genomics and Plant Breeding, including Major M. Goodman, "Plant Breeding Requirements for Applied Molecular Biology," Crop Science 44 1913-14 , which concludes:

Any molecularly engineered trait of clear economic use will be rapidly utilized by plant breeders. What is lacking at present is an array of useful transgenic traits. The easy and obvious ones have been implemented. At the moment, the pipeline of molecularly engineered traits appears to be largely empty. [Bt for maize rootworms (Diabrotica spp.) has recently become available, but it has few companions.] Indeed, the question can be asked, does the pipeline exist or do we just have random bits of pipe strewn about, with rather little organization?

There is little doubt that plants (and animals) will be used to produce certain chemicals and pharmaceticals, but this is apt to be on a horticultural scale, rather than a broad-based agricultural effort. There is considerable need for fungal and bacterial protection of crop plants, but progress has been slow. Worldwide, the greatest problem that needs to be solved for most food- and feed-crops is postharvest protection against insects and vermin. That would solve far more problems than adding carotene to rice or lysine to maize.

They do not, however, appear to have picked up on the efficacy of Coke as a pesticide.

Also via those Limey assholes at the Guardian: BigBarn, a site that lets Brits type in their postal code to find all their local food producers. Kind of like a UK Local Harvest.

Finally, scientists discover that fat is a lubricant! I kid: René A. de Wijk et al., "The role of friction in perceived oral texture," Food Quality and Preference 16 (March 2005): 121-129. Abstract:

Instrumentally measured in vitro friction in semi-solid foods was related to oral texture sensations. Increased fat content resulted in lower sensations of roughness, higher sensations of creaminess, and lower friction, suggesting that lubrication is the mechanism by which fat affects oral texture in low fat foods. Starch breakdown by salivary amylase in low fat foods resulted in reduced friction, possibly through the release of fat from the starch food matrix, and the migration of fat to the surface of the bolus where it becomes available for lubrication. No evidence was found that salivary mucins or salivary viscosity play a role in lubrication. Astringent sensations may be related to reduced lubrication and increased friction caused by particles, either resulting from precipitation of salivary protein rich proteins or from flocculation of dead cells.

important things

Following up on Simplot's potatoes, Monsanto produces marker-free transgenic corn: Shihshieh Huang et al., "Generation of marker-free transgenic maize by regular two-border Agrobacterium transformation vectors," Transgenic Research 13 (October 2004): 451-461.

Attention Bakers: transgenic rye with triple the gluten: Fredy Altpeter et al., "Stable expression of 1Dx5 and 1Dy10 high-molecular-weight glutenin subunit genes in transgenic rye drastically increases the polymeric glutelin fraction in rye flour," Plant Molecular Biology 54 (April 2004): 783-792.

The Lees hit the itinerant flavor sales trail in the Times. Followed by extra-bizarre "arsenal"; funny, I just saw saltimbocca at one of the hottest restaurants on the east coast.

Speaking of which, there is apparently a pay-what-you-think-it's-worth restaurant in London as well as Berlin [via tfs via kottke].

Finally, the Old Hag is new again.

Addendum: One of the fascinating links that Firefox ate last week before I could serve you was a WRI report called Designing genes: How can genetic engineering serve U.S. midwestern agricultural sustainability?