But lets go back to the Gulf. I read about this high technological testing they're doing to determine the safety of the seafood for consumption. I'm sure it must have taken decades of trial and error before they perfected this and I'm sure it's absolutely fool-proof. It's called --- (can you stand the anticipation?)
... It's called
THE SMELL TEST!
By Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Pascagoula, Miss. — Robert Downs leads the scientists who sniff at fish.
Each day, his team of seven sensory experts dip their noses into large Pyrex bowls of snapper, tuna and other raw seafood to test for even a whiff of the pungent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
We use specific terms for the aroma," said Downs, who supervises the seafood smellers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine lab here. "Diesel oil. Bunker oil. Asphalt. Rubber-band-like. Tar."
Each olfactory analyst has a super schnoz, able to smell oil diluted to one part per million. That's 40 times more sensitive than your average proboscis.
"Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are using their noses to spot contamination in seafood, trying to ensure that the BP spill doesn't pollute the nation's food supply."
Uh huh... Yep, I feel safer now. Read it for yourself.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/13/nation/la-na-fish-sniffers-20100713
The smell test... This seems like it's a fairytale written by kindergarteners. One of the most toxic substances on the planet, coupled with another highly toxic dispersant to break it up into nano-particles, was pumped into the Gulf for 3 months. Millions of barrels of oil and Corexit dispersant were polluting the water in the Gulf. Oil washed ashore in the form of a sticky, tarry goo. Oil coated the beaches and the reeds and the grasses of the marshes. Oil, reduced to something of an underwater smog, if you will, hung suspended below the water's surface. It hung, and floated, and finally, perhaps, sank to the bottom where it coalesced into a carpet of oily muck laying on the seafloor. Now "independent scientists" are saying that it's safe to go into the water. The "independent scientists" say that the oil is practically gone. They want people to swim in the Gulf. They want them to play and dig in the sand on the beaches. They want them to go out and fish, and shrimp and go crabbing... and they have determined that the seafood that is brought in is safe to eat. They determined this by a smell test. They take samples of fish that people have caught, and they filet them. Thin slivers are sliced, and they're put into a high tech sterile glass pyrex mixing bowl with a lid on it. After a few minutes they open the lid and bend over, and fan the smell of the fish toward their noses. If they don't smell oil, viola!!! The fish is safe! If they do... then that fish was contaminated. Out it goes, and the grid that they caught that fish from, on the map, is not opened to fishing. Now, the fish, supposedly, know that they are supposed to stay in their own grid. Mr. Tuna can only swim in grid 33, and Mr. Spot can swim in grid 35. They KNOW this. Mr. Spot is tainted with oil so his grid is going to remain closed to fishing. Mr. Tuna didn't have an oil smell so his grid is open to fishing.
What? Wait... What do you mean no one in grid 33 got the EPA memo that they were supposed to stay in their little square?! You mean they went outside of the barrier? Now it's possible that Mr. Spot will get caught in the net with Mr. Tuna and ... Let's just hope people don't actually decide to perform this highly sensitive and error free test on their fish. In fact, lets make sure they know that it took us years to train our noses to smell crude oil hidden beneath the fragrant perfume of fish. If they were to smell oil, they can't be sure that it's from the Macondo well anyway so it might not be toxic... (Everything that isn't labeled BP or Macondo isn't suspect, you know).
So they want to minimize this. They, BP and our Government, want the fisherman to get back to work. The sooner they do, the sooner BP can close their checkbooks and get back to the business of polluting our oceans... and the better that bottom line looks when Mr. Fisherman and Mr. Shrimper are fending for themselves and bringing in the poisoned fishes and shrimps and selling it to the gullible public.
They're rushing, pushing, barreling towards an "It's all better now!!' scenario... And it isn't.
This, folks, is the attempt, albeit a pathetic one, to assure the public that they know what is best for us. Have they sufficiently dumbed America down so that they expect people to believe that after 3 months of gushing toxicity flooding the Gulf, that the seafood there is safe? They honestly think that a 4 year old swimming and carousing in the surf won't fall down and get a mouthful of that oiled sand (nano particulates) and swallow it? Little girls and big girls who are prone to get sand in places where sand isn't supposed to be are vulnerable too...
The Gulf is safe- come and vacation ... Go to Mississippi, go to Louisiana... Go to Pensacola! Vacation. Eat the seafood. Meanwhile the Obama's, after making this publicly televised appeal on national televison, headed up the East Coast to Maine.
Mrs. Obama and her daughter went to Spain. Some 40 or 50 Secret service went along and several friends, and they stayed in a hotel that cost 600- 4000 dollars a night... Is Spain in Louisiana? Hmm.
Mr. Obama turned 49. He had a private barbeque at the White House. Guess what they served? They had shrimp flown in from the Gulf. Mmhmm... Shrimp that were bought from the Wal-Mart in Louisiana, probably. I mean, come on! They won't even VACATION there even though it's good enough for all of us... and they want us to believe he's eating shrimp caught in the Gulf?
They caught crabs, blue crabs, in the Gulf, and when they took the shells off, their gills were black. Black!!!
"I have never seen anything like this," said Scott Tartavoulle. "There is oil on the bottom out there. The crab is a bottom feeder."
Read about it here.
http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=12921166
Corexit or Oil? We don't eat the gills, but that is an indication that something is seriously wrong under the water in the Gulf. The president seems acutely unaware of or is completely disconnected from a deadly reality.
So I say, please, EPA, "independent scientists", Thad Allen, BP officials... stop blowing smoke up our asses. America woke up a long time ago. We're not the slumbering idiots you purport us to be. On the other hand, you guys ... well. The alarm clock is buzzing... and there isn't a snooze button on it this time.
