Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Farmed Fish

or - why you should make your cat eat a more vegan diet.

Cats (the house pet variety) eat 10% of all the fish scooped out of the ocean every year. This is a problem for humans who are trying to preserve the world's ocean. The more meat we eat in general, the more resources we use overall out of the ecosystem. The more carnivores we keep as pets, the heavier of a demand we put on either our fisheries ... Read Moreor our crop-land. Instead of eating one pound of grain, people and apparently animals that are carnivores eat one pound of meat which took 7 pounds of grain to produce. Similarly, one pound of farm-raised fish actually uses up three pounds of wild fish, because farming fish (like salmon) requires the feeding of the fish, and the cheapest way to do that is with shrimp and other seafood products. Therefore wild caught fish is better for our overall economic picture and better for preventing world hunger, etc.

The exponential growth curve is an old biology idea that says any population, say algae, will continue to increase its rate of reproductive growth until it runs out of food and the environment can no longer support it's needs. Then massive death occurs, because the population has stripped every resource bare until some critical component (nitrogen runs ... Read Moreout for algae, and someday fish may run out for humans and pets) is missing and the house of cards tumbles down since at the moment all the food runs out, the algae are having more babies and eating more food than they had an any time previously. An imbalance of algae can cause harm to anyone exposed to that environment (the so-called "red tide" phenomenon). Also, when human populations have saturated a particular area, the ideal setting for disease proliferation is created - all it takes is one tricky flu virus, and an overcrowded room (or continent or planet) suffers devastating losses. If you look at human population over time, we're following this pattern. Further, if people in China and India (1/2 the world population roughly) all become as wealthy as Americans, there may suddenly be a billion more cats and dogs in the world, and demand for dog food and cat food will go up. A billion cats and dogs means a billion pounds of meat a day, and suddenly the price of meat climbs higher than the poorest people can afford anymore, and now refugees in Darfur suddenly can't get enough protein in their diet (as an example). Thus, through no particular wrongdoing on any one human being's part, cats get fatter at the expense of humans and sustainable ocean fisheries. If we're not careful about how much meat is in our diet, how our country regulates the seafood industry, our pets' diet, and our feed animal's diet (pigs and chickens mainly) then we could inadvertently over-harvest the ocean until one year the fish just aren't there to be harvested. By then we've become dependent on an unsustainable practice for our survival and everyone starts starving.
Hence the term "Inconvenient Truth" applies, since nobody wants to quit having babies or eating meat.

Prescience of Stankonia

I like it when things that happened years ago get a chance to catch up and mean something for years and years to come. Intriguing, delightful, and especially insightful are the things that make curiosities' cut over our collective individual experience crossed with the longitude dimension of time.


Lyrics for Outkast's "Bombs Over Baghdad"


[Dre]
1, 2.. 1, 2, 3; yeah!
Inter-national, underground
Thunder pounds when I stomp the ground (Woo!)
Like a million elephants with silverback orangutans
You can't stop a train
Who want some? Don't come un-pre-pared
I'll be there, but when I leave there
Better be a household name
Weather man tellin' us it ain't gon' rain
So now we sittin' in a drop-top, soaken' wet
In a silk suit, tryin' not to sweat
Hits somersaults without the net
But this'll be the year that we won't forget
One-Nine-Nine-Nine, and brutha anything goes, be whatchu wanna be
Long as you know consequences, to give and for livin' defenses
Too hot, I'm jumpin' jail
Too low to dig, I might just touch hell
HOT! Get a life, now they gon' sell
Then I might catch you a spell, look at what came in the mail
A scale and some Arm and Hammer, so grow grid and some baby mamma
Black Cadillac and a pack of pampers, stack of question with no answers
Cure for cancer, cure for AIDS
Make a nigga wanna stay onto it for days
Get back home, things are wrong
We're not really able to spend all alone
before he left for a ball of power
Thousands of thousands miles per hour
Hello, ghetto, let your brain breath,
believe there's always more
Ahhhhh!

Chorus: 2X
[Dre] Don't pull the thang out, unless you plan to bang
{Choir Bombs over Baghdad!}
[Dre] Yeah! Ha ha yeah!
Don't even bang unless you plan to hit something
{Choir Bombs over Baghdad!}
{Dre Yeah! Uhh-huh}

[Big Boi]
Uno, dos, tres, it's on
Did you ever think a pimp rock a microphone?
Like that there boy and will still stay street
Big things happen every time we meet
Like a track team, crack fiend, dyin to geek
Outkast bumpin' up and down the street
Slam back, Cadillac, 'bout five nigga deep
Seventy-five emcee's freestylin' to the beat
Cause we get krunk, stay drunk, at the club
Should have bought an ounce, but you caught the dub
Should have held back, but you throwed the punch
'Spose to meet your girl but you packed a lunch
No D to-the U to-the G for you
Got a son on the way by the name of Bamboo
Got a little baby girl four year, Jordan
Never turn my back on my kids for them
Should have hit it (hit it) quit it (quit it) rag (rag) top (top)
Before you read up, get a laptop
Make a business for yourself, boy, set some goals
Make a fair dime out of dusty coal
Record number four, but we on a roll
Hold up, slow up, stop, control
Like Janet, planets, Stankonia is only
A movin' like floor commin' straight to Florida
Lock all your windows then block the quarters
Pullin' off on bell 'cause a whippins in order
Like a three piece fist, 'fore I cut your daughter
Yo quiero Taco Bell, then I hit the border
Penny pap rappers tryin' to get the five
I'm a microphone fiend tryin' to stay alive
When you come to A-town well you better not hide
cause the Dungeon Family gonna ride
Hah!

Chorus: 2X
[Dre] Don't pull the thang out, unless you plan to bang
{Choir Bombs over Baghdad!}
[Dre] Yeah! Ha ha yeah!
Don't even bang unless you plan to hit something
{Choir Bombs over Baghdad!}
{Dre Yeah! Uhh-huh}

{ChoirBombs over Baghdad! Yeah
Bombs over Baghdad! Yeah
Bombs over Baghdad! Yeah
Bombs over Baghdad! Yeah}

[Dre]
B-I-G, B-O-I
An-An-Andre
To the T-O-P

[Dre and Big Boi]: 15X
Bob your head. Rag top.

(1, 2.. 1, 2, 3, 4) (Gimme some)

{Choir: 23X
Bible music. Electric revival.}

The Beard Song