Food on the table #3 - Argh Billy - you ever taste High Liner Fish · Monday June 9, 2008 by colin newell
With the price of fuel spiraling like lead-shot at a Dick Cheney hunting party, only the most oblivious among us have not figured out the impact this is having on food distribution.
Food riots.
It is amazing what people will do when they or their children are hungry.
Get used to hearing about it.
I heard something in passing about Canadian food legend, Captain High Liner.
They sell fish sticks… but that is not all.
Quite a few of their products are processed in China… flown all the way to China for filleting and then back to you… to feed you better.
Let’s here it from them directly: Link
WHY DO SO MANY HIGH LINER PRODUCTS SAY “PRODUCT OF CHINA” – WHY DOES SO MUCH HIGH LINER FISH COME FROM CHINA?
Very few of our products actually come from China. In fact, only 2 (Tilapia and Shrimp) out of 13 major seafood products sold by High Liner are from that country. All High Liner wild fish are caught in international waters where they are frozen within hours of being caught. The fish is shipped to China, where it is filleted (cut) and packaged. For filleting, the frozen fish are slightly “tempered” to allow the fish to be cut.
WHY ARE THE FISH NOT CAUGHT AND FILLETED IN CANADA?
- Chinese processors have built state-of-the-art processing facilities to meet the growing demand of the global market. This has given them a greater buying power that allows for better-priced seafood.
- High Liner uses China to cut some of our fish as it helps to keep our costs in line. This allows High Liner to provide competitively priced products to our consumers. Research has shown that we all want the highest quality products, yet at the best price possible.
- The majority of Canadian fish and seafood companies use China to process and/or fillet their fish.
Wow. Right. We want cheap fish! Yea.
As aviation fuel becomes liquid gold I am imagining that local fish processors might be getting more work… very soon.
Comment [10]
Big Brother Air travel rant #3 fuel prices surcharges hassles argh · Friday June 6, 2008 by colin newell
If I was an aviation executive, partner, employee or investor in the year 2008, I would not be sleeping much right now.
My seemingly endless nights would be filled with a tedious and unbearable sequence of cold sweats and gut wrenching anxiety attacks.
Because air travel is now approaching a perfect storm of utter chaos.
Guess the written language above (not what it says…) and win a prize!
when you figure it out – e-mail me
Fuel prices could double within the next 12 months.
Air fares now have almost doubled in the last year. Example: I was poking around the internet for some return flights to Portland Oregon from where my wife and I live…
$1600 return for the two of us. For a 300 mile flight.
Granted I had not checked one of my personal favorites – Horizon and Alaska Air… that netted return fares of about 800$ for the 2 of us for a long weekend – not including food or a place to rest our heads.
We are flying to Hawaii this Christmas – and those prices are rising faster than an untethered weather balloon.
And get this. Domestic flights in the U.S. are down 41 million trips… over the last 2 years if I read the report right.
Travel to Canada from the U.S. is down 65% over 2 years ago.
And that was prior to many of the fare increases.
So what was that about?
Well – Americans are sick and tired of the hassle of air travel, sick and tired of the TSA, sick and tired of the presumption of guilt, sick and tired of the shake down, sick and tired of the illogic, sick and tired and frustrated and frightened of speaking up about any of the above for fear of the small room, the bare light bulb and the questioning matron snapping her glove as she/he preens for the strip search.
Americans don’t like to be pushed around – and I witnessed too much of it first hand after 2 years of travel after 9/11… before I became too anxious to travel south of the border… for fear of being one of 700,000 on the FBI’s and Homeland Securities No-Fly list
One of my more dim-witted friends actually said…
“The terrorists have won now haven’t they?”
Uhm. Hello. The terrorists have not won anything. The business of security and the U.S. administration has won the task of scaring the crap out of us and keeping us at home… with our heads semi-permanently buried in the sand.
In North America we have spent billions of dinar securing ourselves from an almost invisible and non-existent threat – remember what I said about the killer bath-tub in an earlier post?
Too many people are not traveling enough. They are not spending money. Airlines are shrinking faster than a wool vest on a hot tumble dry. And those that do travel are being treated like a beleaguered and badgered holiday camp queue for the loo – except in this line-up there are more fees than a chartered bank checking account… and after you stand in a cryptic and endless assembly named, however ironically, platinum, green, blue, or First Class... for an hour and a half, scanned with a chest x-ray’s worth of microwave radiation, berated for trying to sneak on an 8 ounce tube of Colgate tooth gel, forced to drink a sample of your own tepid breast milk, frog marched across a fungi ridden floor while your shoes pile up at the end of a conveyor belt littered with lap-top computers and strangers sweaty overcoats… you are allowed to board your 35 minute flight – packed in a aging steel tube with less breathing room than a Green Day mosh pit.
Airport security teams are now being trained to be piracy police… to poke through your i-Pods, laptops, gidgets and gadgets… without your permission… and god help you if you speak up – which supports my whole point.
Perfect storm.
F*ck. F*uck F*uck F*ckity F*uck.
Comment [4]
U.S. develops yet another tool for abusing civilians #2 · Tuesday June 3, 2008 by colin newell
Colonel Hymes of the Moody Air Force Base in Georgia U.S.A demonstrates the Active Denial System weapon by staging what CBS somewhat oddly called “a scenario soldiers might encounter in Iraq” — a handful of military volunteers, dressed as civilian protesters, who carried signs saying “peace not war” and threw objects at a small group of soldiers. A series of raygun blasts from half a mile away disrupted their chants and finally sent them running.
Watch the whole video and story and shake your head with me.
I am fully qualified to make this statement: This is no ray-gun. This is a microwave transmitter. Much like the mechanism that works inside a microwave oven, the Active Denial System, uses radio waves to heat peoples skin up – possible side effects include permanent damage to your eyes and changes to your DNA.
Shocked? You should be. Dismayed? I hope so.
Sure, it’s better than bullets. But why are we shooting people in phony wars anyway?
And people who carry signs that say Peace, not War!
We should not be zapping these folks – we should be electing them as leaders.
My original post
Your Daily Planet #2 · Thursday May 29, 2008 by colin newell
If I had a dollar for every absurd thing I have seen or heard this week, I would have… let’s see… 56$.
Still. If there are people from other Planets cruising our internet via a free wireless connection, I would just like to let them know…
…that we are not normally this kooky or illogical. Really.
But back to the silly files for a moment.
Dunkin’ Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after complaints that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism.
Uh-huh? Right. Critics, including right-wing want-to-be journalist Michelle Malkin who ejaculated: “The scarf wrapped around her looked like a kaffiyeh, the traditional Arab accessory.” Woo! Scary! Head-scarf! Obvious sign of terrorism, Woo!
A quick read of Michelle’s open comment system revealed that many readers thought she was out of her mind… as well as the readers that support her headline grabbing nonsense. I will add my sentiment to that list of comments, “Michelle, you are a dying breed of ignorant, fear-mongering web nobodies… enjoy your fleeting moments of whatever…”
In other news – Afraid of flying? Watch your facial expressions.
A prototype surveillance system being tested by the European Union would place cameras inside the back of every passenger seat to track the facial expressions of travelers and catch would-be terrorists and unruly fliers on the brink of “air rage.” link According to a report in New Scientist, the cameras would look for passengers sweating profusely or behaving in a nervous manner, but it would alert the crew only after detecting a combination of signs, rather than a single one.
Sweating. Nervous behavior. Gee. That describes, what, less than 1% of the flying population?
In an update to the Big Brother post: Lap-top, i-Pod, gadget searches to become routine in your daily air travels… There are numerous court challenges yet to be prepared and contemplated in Canada and the U.S.A. It seems our American constitution and Canadian charter of rights and freedoms still have some basic protective tenets built in – there has to be a reasonable expectation of privacy in your travels, there has to be a reasonable suspicion of guilt or potential guilt when fishing for data in your computer or personal electronic and ex-parte searches are still open to challenges, if not immediate in the airport objections to security staff rifling your stuff. Still, if you are an American returning to America or a Canadian transiting the American aviation infrastructure, there is a remote possibility that your laptop and all its contents will be confiscated – despite your protestations – with no promise of return.
If this upsets you, write your senator or member of parliament.
additional reading from the TSA themselves…
