BloggeRhythms 2/4/2010

Scrolling through news pages, I came across a headline about fish. Though not really interested in the subject, I clicked on it anyhow and here's what I found.

It seems that in the president's recent State of the Union message, he mentioned something about how salmon are managed, and actually joked about the process. He said, "The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in freshwater, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater." Which is true, but then he went on to say "I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked."

He was using the fish example as evidence of too much bureaucracy in people's lives, suggesting that we could do with much less. And although I must confess, I was surprised to see that he questioned the system which he generally supports, I certainly have to agree with him on this one.

But what really astounded me the most though, was some information further along in the article. Because according to Joseph Bogaard of Save Our Wild Salmon, not only is there an oversight overlap and wasted funding, efforts to save salmon runs have cost the country $10 billion over the last 20 years. Nonetheless, salmon runs still fluctuate wildly from year to year.

Bogard went on to say, "We are making decisions that are ineffective. We're spending billions of dollars on programs that aren't working, we're not restoring our salmon, and as a result we don't have healthy, fishable populations."

After reading the preceding comments, I went back and read them again. Because I couldn't believe it. Here we are in the middle of a hopeless economy, with roughly 20% of the population un or under-employed, yet blowing 10 billion bucks on managing fish.

Now, most of the time, folks are exposed to big picture things, like health care or the cost of wars, even the colossal waste of funds on non-existent things like global warming. But, as I've mentioned before, it's little things that'll get you if you don't watch out.

So, now that we know how much money's being blown on salmon, maybe we ought to demand to learn how much is spent on saving other foods, like pizza perhaps or maybe Spam, because the cost could be in the zillions but the public's not been made aware. Which leads me to want to stop typing now, because my hot dog lunch might be endangered.

That's it for today folks.

Adios