The currently brewing issue of US Food Aid to Zambia embodies many hot button issues for me.   The short of the story is that Zambia is about to undergo a massive famine and, in anticipiation of this, several US food agencies are preemptively donating the necessary grain to the country.   However, Zambia's EU benefactors want to block the US grain because it has been subject to Genetic Modification.   The EU is afraid that once the donated grain is brought into Zambia that it will "contaminate" Zambia's native stocks.   For the EU, this is a problem because their agri-policy bans GM food imports. 

Consequently, accepting the US donation will put Zambia (and broadly large parts of sub-saharan Africa) on the EU food import black list.

The hot buttons in this story for me:

• anti-science reflexology
• 3rd world poor bearing the cost of 1st world pseudo-morality
• EU foriegn policy
• dumb-f**k 3rd world dictators kowtowing to global leaders rather than their own populations

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler has a takedown of an article in the Guardian describing Zambia's latest moves to ban and, uh, launch a research study on the impact of GM foods.   First the basic facts:

The government said that concerns about the impact on health and the environment made the food too risky to be distributed to an estimated 3 million hungry people.

Of course, the Zambian government officials are pleasantly impressed with the elevated moral status of the EU Leadership, the Rottweiler comments:

The report has not been published but one of its authors, Dr Mwananyanda Lewanika, told the Guardian that the delegation had been most impressed by Norway, which is hostile to GM, rather than South Africa, which has recently adopted the technology for commercial purposes.

It's probably worth noting that the ranks of the HUNGRY in Zambia approximately equal Norway's ENTIRE population.  The Rottweiler continues:

He said the delegation ordered GM food in a US restaurant

Now that's what I call the Scientific Approach™ in action! I wonder if the Idiotarian Genocidal Maniacs ran into Matthew Engel? That would explain a lot.

and was astonished to be told that such distinctions were not made in America, confirming the scientists' fears that once admitted into the food chain the technology was irreversible.

...yet failed to notice that 280 million people seemed to be living quite well off of the "poison". Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. Talk about running into every damn tree in the fucking forest and come out on the other side wondering where all the bruises came from.

Sigh.   I HIGHLY recommend reading the Rottweiler's post for the full details.

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