Pesti-cola ?

This article is a spin of from Badmash’s blog . If you have not read it, read it (and the comments) before reading further on this here….

Now that I am actually looking at the numbers from CSE lab report, holy cow! I am just glad Indian population doesn’t drink soda like Americans do. Even though ISDMA refute the results, I have no reason to suspect the credibility of CSE. It is in the best interest of both the Indian governing agencies and ISDMA to come up with standards for their products when it comes to safety of the products. I am still sticking to my original statement that all soft drinks should have been banned instead of just the two major players.

“Pesticide residues found in all soft drinks tested. (CSE tested 57 soft drink samples from 25 different manufacturing plants, spread over 12 states – roughly 30 percent plants covered."

“In India, there are no provisions for penalties for unsafe food. Therefore, even if unsafe, because it does not meet standards, cannot be penalized easily".

What India need might be something like FDA here in the States. Food safety should not be up to the politician.

This issue reminds me of MTBE issue we had in the US around 2001’s. The issue was that the gasoline additive MTBE was contaminating ground water. Just because there was evidence of contamination, did EPA ban all gasoline production?. Of course not!. EPA came up with the time line to phase out use of MTBE and replaced it with ethanol (much environmental friendly).

As far as environmental laws in India. THEY SUCK! Is it a surprise that there is DDT in drinking water there?. Western world recognized the harmful nature of DDT and DDE (degraded DDT that not use) in the sixties, banned the chemical in 1972, yet India continue to use, and has not plan to reduce the use. It takes up to 15 years for DDT to break down in soil, even then the by-products are DDE and DDD which are also highly persistent and have similar chemical and physical properties.

When the The Environment Act of 1986 authorized the central government "..to protect and improve environmental quality, control and reduce pollution from all sources (that includes ISDMA), and prohibit or restrict the setting and /or operation of any industrial facility on environmental grounds.

I guess the environment is not a top priority to the people of India.

Willful ignorance?

I went to ABC News to read the story about the airplane bomb plot in UK. Reading through the comments, I see there are people who refuse to give into reality. To these people, foiled terror attacks are nothing but propaganda. We are less than 3 months away from midterm election, so it must be a stunt to prove a point that the people are out there to kill us huh?.

There hasn’t been a single terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. It is not because the Islamic jihads believe we are nice. It is because of diligence and proactive measures taken by the Dept. of Homeland Security and other departments by going after these terrorists.

According to a liberal, when a country fights for its own survival against these terrorist, they are only creating more terrorist. Instead of fighting them and eliminating any threat to the nation, you should “NEGOTIATE”. Imagine that!. Negotiate with terrorists!. The same terrorist who would use women and children as human shield?. The same cowards who dress in civilian cloths and hide in the midst of civilian so that they can make a quick get away?. The same terrorists who will kill they brethren for wearing short or having the wrong name?. These terrorist have no moral, no shame, no ethics. All of this in the name of religion?.

When I started writing this, the ABC story above didn’t have many comments and I couldn’t comment either. The fact that I couldn't comment really pissed me off. I feel better now :)

The good thing out of all this tighter security at the airports?. The garbage trucks never smelled better.