A bipartisan duo has floated the idea of putting an end to having 50 rules for 50 states when it comes to labels on genetically modified foods. The federal government is usually hands off about processes that don't involve safety - they don't do spot testing of organic or kosher food, for example they rely on companies to be honest in filling out paperwork and for the public to be punitive when food makers are unethical. Likewise, GMO is just a process, so the FDA and the USDA hasn't much cared, as long as products show substantial equivalence.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service  of the United States Department of Agriculture has released its honey report for 2014 and found it's boom times for bees.

Hives increased again, another 4 percent, up to a whopping 2.74 million colonies, and honey production is up 19 percent. Yield per colony averaged 65.1 pounds, which is up 15 percent.

If there is a Beepocalypse, the bees have not gotten the memo.

The big question in policy circles for the last month has been, would the Obama administration that has repeatedly said that putting solar panels on public land should be allowed side with science or with environmentalists when it came to natural gas?

America has the luxury of being able to dash from one culture war to another, primarily because we are a wealthy country with plenty of food and medicine and energy, providing ample opportunity for people who have never lacked for any of those to be opposed to science related to food, medicine and energy, while others can claim pollution is our friend or worry about abstract ideas like the conflict between science and religion.

Whither The Celts?

In the 1980s there was a terrific British documentary called simply "The Celts", made because of ongoing fascination by entitled western elites with indigenous people and perhaps the lingering hope/fear that maybe they were somehow better than the winners.

The Celts were a blanket name for a lot of people who were just The Other to Romans, any number of tribes that the Romans ascribed names to based on region.  They were basically a kind of "dark matter" for ancient authors, who didn't know what they were or how to figure them out, but knew they have to have existed because Caesar fought someone in France and Germany and he took really good notes.