There is a new Wired article on Stem Rust long but worth the read. It details efforts to combat the UG99 fungus which has the potential to destroy much of the world’s wheat crops but more importantly it gives information on how far the Wheat blasting fungus has spread. It’s in Iran and heading for the Punjab which is the breadbasket of the Pakistan/India region.

UG99 has yet to make an appearance in the Northern Hemisphere, but scientists are claiming it’s only a matter of time before it does. The appearance of this blight would be a civilizational game changer:

Stem rust is the polio of agriculture, a plague that was brought under control nearly half a century ago as part of the celebrated Green Revolution. After years of trial and error, scientists managed to breed wheat that contained genes capable of repelling the assaults of Puccinia graminis, the formal name of the fungus.

But now it’s clear: The triumph didn’t last. While languishing in the Ugandan highlands, a small population of P. graminis evolved the means to overcome mankind’s most ingenious genetic defenses. This distinct new race of P. graminis, dubbed Ug99 after its country of origin (Uganda) and year of christening (1999), is storming east, working its way through Africa and the Middle East and threatening India and China. More than a billion lives are at stake. “It’s an absolute game-changer,” says Brian Steffenson, a cereal-disease expert at the University of Minnesota who travels to Njoro regularly to observe the enemy in the wild. “The pathogen takes out pretty much everything we have.”

Indeed, 90 percent of the world’s wheat has little or no protection against the Ug99 race of P. graminis. If nothing is done to slow the pathogen, famines could soon become the norm — from the Red Sea to the Mongolian steppe — as Ug99 annihilates a crop that provides a third of our calories. China and India, the world’s biggest wheat consumers, will once again face the threat of mass starvation, especially among their rural poor. The situation will be particularly grim in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two nations that rely heavily on wheat for sustenance and are in no position to bear added woe. Their fragile governments may not be able to survive the onslaught of Ug99 and its attendant turmoil.

The pathogen has already been detected in Iran and may now be headed for South Asia’s most important breadbasket, the Punjab, which nourishes hundreds of millions of Indians and Pakistanis. What’s more, Ug99 could easily make the transoceanic leap to the United States. All it would take is for a single spore, barely bigger than a red blood cell, to latch onto the shirt of an oblivious traveler. The toll from that would be ruinous; the US Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 40 million acres of wheat would be at serious risk if Ug99 came to these shores, where the grain is the third most valuable crop, trailing only corn and soybeans. The economic loss might easily exceed $10 billion; a simple loaf of bread could become a luxury. “If this stuff gets into the Western Hemisphere,” Steffenson says, “God help us.”

Even if it doesn’t however a blight in China and India would put increased pressure on food markets and mean increased prices for food for you and your family.

What happened to all those green shoots?

Stocks rose as the Fed pledged to keep rates low. If the economy was on track they could raise the rates couldn’t they? This is also more punishing of savers who are losing money to inflation by trying to be fiscally responsible. But hey, Wall Street likes it!

New York is suspending payments of tax refunds as their coffers run dry. They’re holding on to as much as possible until April 1st to try to squeeze out every last penny of interest they can. A half billion dollars in tax revenue is being held onto, as well as another billion and a half of payments meant to go to schools and local governments.

Housing construction fell almost 6% in February. The MSM blames the snow, but who will they blame when the new numbers come out?

Construction unemployment is at 21.7%

Corporate junk bond debt bomb set to go off in 2012. May not be the end of the world, but it’ll be the end of a lot of jobs.

Seed prices have been rising while seed companies consolidate. Food inflation is on its way.

Credit card companies have been forced to write off at least 90% of their charge offs for last year. In other words, people are just defaulting on the debt to the tune of $84 billion, which means less credit and higher rates for the rest of us.

FedEx analysts say a double dip recession is all but inevitable.

Author of The Black Swan Nassim Taleb thinks we’re headed for hyperinflation.

The States are in too deep a hole to get out of.

Washington state Walgreens stores have already stopped taking new Medicaid accounts at their pharmacies because the state is reimbursing them at rates that don’t cover the overhead of the pharmacies.

Keep counting those green shoots America!

h/t Drudge and Survivalblog

This story is a little different though in that a) the baby wasn’t hurt and b) when the stoner sobered up he did the right thing.

From KFVS:

PADUCAH, KY (KFVS) – A 34-year-old father who lives in the Paducah area was arrested Monday after he apparently put his five-week-old child inside an oven.

The McCracken County Sheriff’s Department identifies the suspect as Larry Long, 34, who lives on Cold Springs Road in the Reidland community.  Long was booked into the McCracken County Regional Jail on charges of wanton endangerment.

According to deputies, the infant’s mother told investigators she was awakened Monday morning by the sound of a baby crying.  She said she went into the kitchen and found the child in the oven.  The door was not completely shut and the oven was turned off.

Detectives believe the child could have been in the oven for a few hours.  The child was taken to a hospital for observation but was not hurt.

Long said he must have unknowingly placed the child in the oven, which investigators believe he likely did as a result of alcohol and/or drug use.  Detectives said it was reported Long had smoked marijuana before leaving work Sunday night; Long told investigators it made him feel strange and that the marijuana may have been laced with something.  He also claimed he had been hallucinating.

Together, both Long and the child’s mother drank about a fifth of whiskey when Long returned home from work, investigators said.  The mother went to sleep after taking several shots of whiskey around 11 p.m. or midnight, but Long reportedly finished off the bottle of whiskey.

The couple have two other children in the house who have been removed from the mother’s custody. Maybe when you’re 34 and have three kids to take care of getting stoned and drunk is something you should have outgrown.

Long at least did the right thing after this and turned himself in … to a mental hospital. Close but no cigar Cheech, the shrinks called the cops and Long is sitting in county. He can hopefully use that time to sober up and start putting his life on track.

h/t Dreamin’ Demon

Uh-oh:

(CNSNews.com) – Nearly one-third of all practicing physicians may leave the medical profession if President Obama signs current versions of health-care reform legislation into law, according to a survey  published in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The survey, which was conducted by the Medicus Firm, a leading physician search and consulting firm based in Atlanta and Dallas, found a majority of physicians said health-care reform would cause the quality of American medical care to “deteriorate” and it could be the “final straw” that sends a sizeable number of doctors out of medicine.

But the news gets worse if a public option is included in the legislation:

More than 29 percent (29.2) percent of the nearly 1,200 doctors who responded to the survey said they would quit the profession or retire early if health reform legislation becomes law. If a public option were included in the legislation, as several liberal Senators have indicated they would like, the number would jump to 45.7 percent.

Better make your medical appointments now kids. When the Democrats ram through their “health reform” you’re going to be waiting years to see a doctor.

90% of men and 100% of women are going to have to take the word of lefty crime rag True Crime Report that Andrew Grande is indeed gay adult film actor Dustin Michaels. The important thing about this story is that a male stoner a) was fighting a woman in a parking lot and b) tried to hide his weed by swallowing it when cops showed up then c) attacked the cops while the baggie was still in his throat.

Gay or not a man is a man and shouldn’t be fighting women so frankly I don’t feel bad for him. But I suppose some legalization activist will tell me that drug use has nothing to do with hatching such an asinine plan as putting something too big to swallow in your mouth then attacking people with tasers.

There’s video. The cops try their best to save this woman beating douche, but to no avail. So if pot was legal the only thing that might have been different was that Grande wouldn’t have tried to hide the weed so he may have survived, but he still would have assaulted a woman and attacked cops. I guess that’s better?