Toles Toon- Worst Decision of All Time, Continued

Starbucks strawberry Frappuccino dyed with crushed insects

By Sarah Laskow

Here’s a Starbucks order to try out: a Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino with soy milk and a shot of crushed parasitic insects.

Actually, you don’t need to order the bugs — they come standard with the drink, in the form of the red dye used to give the frap that special strawberry color.

Yes, the insects are crushed, and yes, they are a commonly used natural food dye. Enjoyed a strawberry PopTart lately? Yeah, those use crushed critters for coloring, too.

So you may have already eaten your peck of bugs, and besides, insects are nutritious. Still, there’s obviously a bit of an “ew” factor here. It’s one thing to eat bugs knowingly, but when a gigantic corporation sticks them into a sugar bomb without asking, I think one is entitled to feel at least as miffed as when one’s parents snuck broccoli into a perfectly good Kraft macaroni-and-cheese dinner. There are some health impacts, too, for the factory workers who produce the dye.

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http://grist.org/list/starbucks-strawberry-frappuccino-dyed-with-crushed-beetles/

George Bush’s hometown is running out of water, thanks to climate change

By Christopher Mims
Here’s a theme we’re going to see a lot in the 21st century:

Payback is a bitch.

The president who nixed America’s commitment to the carbon-reducing Kyoto protocol, whose administration censored reports on climate science, and whose State Department thanked Exxon executives for their “active involvement” in helping to determine climate change policy, is watching the town in which he grew up squirm in the grip of Texas’ epic, climate change-enhanced drought.

Midland, Texas, where Bush learned how to talk and grew into a strapping young alcoholic, is already running on half the water it had in the summer of 2010. As the drought grinds on, water from the Colorado River Municipal Water District has become scarce. The town’s only remaining reservoir will be dry in under a year if these conditions continue — and they’re projected to. “[P]eople could get up in the morning and there’s not any water in the system,” City of Midland Utilities Director Stuart Purvis told CBS 7 News.

Officials are trying to put the best face on this, and they say that by increasing utility rates they hope to force conservation so that Midland can get through this crisis.

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http://grist.org/list/george-bushs-childhood-home-is-running-out-of-water-thanks-to-climate-change/