2011 What a Year

Well 2011 has been a year of what we used to call a "mixed bag".


On the plus side we got the production module up and operational and are growing shrimp and poised to have a break out year for the company in 2012.


Then there was the devastating news of Lori's cancer.


My book, "UnderCover" was published and served as a substantive refutation for the ongoing slander and libel statements that continued to pop up here and there on the Internet.


I lost two of my best friend my two labs, Teddy and Lulu.


As I write this Lori is gaining strength and is now being treated by the doctors at MD Anderson in Houston, the best in the world at extending life against this deadly disease. They have said she is "atypical" which gives us hope she may be the one of the people that beats this cancer. 


As we start the new year the rest of our animal pack is intact and though many are aging they are all looking good.


I head back to Texas this week and the work there begins anew.


Let's all pray for positive news this year and that next year at this time we are all here healthy and sound.


Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012.

I will be in Maryland over the next two weeks.


Except for the three days I will be in NYC, (including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) where I will see the Radio City Rockettes annual Christmas show on Christmas Day. If you have not seen it do your self a favor and make plans next Christmas to go. There is really nothing like it in the world.  


Been an amazing year professionally. Last year at this time I was not even sure I could revive our aquaculture project one more time. Today as I prepare to fly back to Maryland for  a few weeks we have are actually growing shrimp  in our own greenhouse and we have (to the best of my knowledge) the only recirculating, sustainable, bio-secure  commercial aquaculture system  in the world. 


In a few months we will harvest the first of our shrimp and actually sell them for consumption. 


Go Figure !!


I am so proud of the team that has worked their proverbial behinds off to get us to this point it is hard to express. It is just a pleasure working with honest and self motivated professionals who see the vision and potential in our system. 


It is Christmas and that for me is a time to count my blessings. I have been talking to God a lot this year perhaps more then ever in my life and as the year winds down it is obvious God is listening.


Lori has been admitted into MD Anderson and there she will be surrounded by the best doctors and nurses and staff in the world for dealing with her specific illness. 


My friends rallied for me and for Lori in 2012 and with their help and prayers we succeeded in getting the MD Anderson opportunity.


Next year, we are poised for a break out year for our company and our system. I have no idea what direction it will come from but as people learn what we have accomplished and can see firsthand  (once again) how productive and risk free our system is, I am confident opportunities to expand our production dramatically here in Texas and beyond will present themselves.

My horse Charm who I have had since she was 6 months old is still alive and enjoying life. A year ago she was diagnosed with cancer and I was told she probably should be put down.


We did not do that and next week on Christmas Day she will get her Christmas basket of special edible treats which she loves dearly. She will be 27 next March.

                                              CHARM 


The rest of the menagerie will enjoy Christmas as well. 


Lots of good things to look forward to in 2012.


Michigan Wolverines in Sugar Bowl January 3rd "GO BLUE !!!!" 


And today I saw the trailer for the movie version of one of my favorite books of all time.


The book is "Salmon Fishing in Yemen" and the movie trailer looks delightful.....


We should be selling our first shrimp in March, less then 10 months since we broke ground to build our production facility. 


So, Merry Christmas to all and thank God for the blessings we have both large and small every day. 

Books of Faith

So yes, it is Christmas, that time of the year and for some reason this year, instead of thinking about Bing Crosby and White Christmas, and Elvis and Blue Christmas, and Burl Ives and a “Holly, Jolly, Christmas”, my thoughts have return repeatedly to several books that have had a profound effect on my faith and my belief in Jesus Christ.

I realize that many people feel the Bible is more then adequate to provide the foundations for faith in this weird world in which we live. I enjoy the Bible in its many translations and sometimes still, in the dead of night when my fears and wavering faith (and conviction) peak, find comfort in many of its passages.

That said the following are four books that have provided me with enormous comfort during some of my very confused moments and when my faith in “something beyond all of this” has wavered.

So Merry Christmas, I hope these books (should you choose to read them) bring you the comfort and peace and joy they have brought and continue to bring to me.

 The first is “God, The Evidence”, by Patrick Glynn.

Here is what Amazon and others say about this book:

“In the modern age science has been winning its centuries—old battle with religion for the mind of man. The evidence has long seemed incontrovertible: Life was merely a product of blind chance—a cosmic roll of an infinite number of dice across an eternity of time. Slowly, methodically, scientists supplied answers to mysteries insufficiently explained by theologians. Reason pushed faith off into the shadows of mythology and superstition, while atheism became a badge of wisdom. Our culture, freed from moral obligation, explored the frontiers of secularism. God was dead.

"Glynn's arguments for the existence of God put the burden of disproof on those intellectuals who think that the question has long since been settled." — Andrew M. Greeley

But now, in the twilight of the twentieth century, a startling transformation is taking place in Western scientific and intellectual thought. At its heart is the dawning realization that the universe, far from being a sea of chaos, appears instead to be an intricately tuned mechanism whose every molecule, whose every physical law, seems to have been design from the very first nanosecond of the big bang toward a single end—the creation of life. This intellectually and spiritually riveting book asks a provocative question: Is science, the long-time nemesis of the Deity, uncovering the face of God?

Patrick Glynn lays out the astonishing new evidence that caused him to turn away from the atheism he acquired as a student at Harvard and Cambridge. The facts are fascinating: Physicists are discovering an unexplainable order to the cosmos; medical researchers are reporting the extraordinary healing powers of prayer and are documenting credible accounts of near-death experiences; psychologists, who once considered belief in God to be a sign of neurosis, are finding instead that religious faith is a powerful elixir for mental health; and sociologists are now acknowledging the destructive consequences of a value-free society.”

I am totally enthralled by the opening chapter that discuss the “unexplainable order to the cosmos” that physicists are discovering. (The rest of Glynn’s book did not have the same impact for me).

That said, not since reading the first chapter of Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation” has a single chapter in a book made such a convincing argument to me that it infused my own views and thoughts. Do yourself a favor and just read the opening chapter in Glynn’s book and I am confident it will enrich your conviction “that there is a God” or if you currently believe there is not, it may make you rethink that view.

The second book I am rereading the Christmas is Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ”.

Again from Amazon, “A seasoned journalist chases down the biggest story in history--is there credible evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God?

Retracing his own spiritual journey from atheism to faith, Lee Strobel, former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, cross-examines a dozen experts with doctorates from schools like Cambridge, Princeton, and Brandeis who are recognized authorities in their own fields. Strobel challenges them with questions like: How reliable is the New Testament? Does evidence for Jesus exist outside the Bible? Is there any reason to believe the resurrection was an actual event?

Strobel's tough, point-blank questions make this Gold Medallion-winning book read like a captivating, fast-paced novel. But it's not fiction. It's a riveting quest for the truth about history's most compelling figure. What will your verdict be in The Case for Christ?

"Lee Strobel probes with bulldog-like tenacity the evidence for the truth of biblical Christianity."--Bruce M. Metzger, Ph.D., Professor of New Testament, Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary

"Lee Strobel asks the questions a tough-minded skeptic would ask. His book is so good I read it out loud to my wife evenings after dinner. Every inquirer should have it."--Phillip E. Johnson, Law Professor, University of California at Berkeley.”

OK, Strobel’s book is very one sided and surely will not move any skeptics or atheists toward Christianity but it is a very well written, an entertaining read, and it makes a strong case for Jesus being the Son of God from an investigative journalistic perspective. (As an aside Thomas Cahill’s “The Desire of the Everlasting Hills” is another must read for this time of the year).

Then there is a book that really reinforces my belief in God’s existence, (regardless of how unfathomable God was and will always be, and despite the fact that clearly none of the earth’s religions gets it right). When I reread this book I feel with confidence there is in fact a God and the probability that Jesus was his son and God made physical on the earth is about 100%.

I am talking about CS Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”. I have been comforted and enriched by this single book so much in the past, that this year as a Christmas present to myself I bought an audio version.

And finally, there is a personal favorite book of mine that is difficult to read as it was originally written in German so the English translation at times can be stilted. It will never be a best seller but in terms of helping me strengthen my own (often shaky) faith it is right up there.

This is J. Christiaan Beker’s “ The Triumph of God, The Essence of Paul’s Thought”.

So, I am not going to extol these books in prose or detail their positions.

They simply bring me comfort. And that is more than enough to make me reread them often. 

So, do yourself a favor and  if you have the time read them all.

And by the way, Merry Christmas. 

Pet Overpopulation

This is Rebel Jean. 


She is the latest addition to our family. Dogs and cats have always been part and parcel of of our world. We love them and they love and depend on us. We take care of their physical and hopefully their emotional needs and they love us unconditionally and make us think we are very special. We definitely get the better half of the relationship.


I recently read a quote that I forgot to whom it was credited but I wish I had said it first.


The quote was "I have been told dogs do not go to heaven as they have no soul. If that be so please after I die send me to where they go. That is where I wish to be."

On a local Texas TV station last evening I saw an ad for the ASPCA in New York. This one had some celebrity, along with a montage of very sad faces of abandoned or orphaned dogs and cats, making a plea to the viewer to send $18 a month or something like that to save these homeless animals lives.

It is always hard for me to look at the faces of those animals. I have spent too many years in animal shelters on Christmas Day watching the loneliness and confusion in the faces of the animals no one wanted that day or that month or year. Their emotional pain is daunting.

That aside the ad was offensive to me for two reasons. First, unless I am mistaken the ASPCA is a New York based organization that only has animal shelters in New York City so why are they appealing for money from the state of Texas.

Second, in the year 2011 of the 21^st century there simply is no excuse for healthy dogs and cats (companion animals) to be killed because there is no home for them.

This was wrong thirty years ago when I ran shelters that killed surplus pets and it is even more wrong now. I was going to vent about this and write some scathing and hopefully clever blog to vilify the ASPCA but coming on TV just a week or so after I saw the ad in “USA Today” questioning the merit in donating to the HSUS (see my blog “Small Satisfactions”) as I began to write I realized that the whole tragedy of pet over population just needs to stop.

I mean we have 50 states with animal control laws that all mandate by statue that if a stray dog or cat is impounded and no one claims the animal after a period of anywhere from 3- 7 or maybe 10 days the state has the authority to kill that animal. 

It is the only damn law I know in the USA that lets the criminal, (the owner or person who abandoned or did not take proper care of the pet) go “unpunished” while the victim faces execution. How wrong and screwed up is that?

So I am not going to rant about the millions of dollars the national animal groups take from an uneducated public while paying only lip service to solving the pet overpopulation crisis.

I am not going to talk about the rights of animals and how their having an interest in not being harmed, or tortured, or killed establishes a moral and legal justification for societal protection.

I am not going to get into the politics and fears or address the arguments of those that hunt, eat meat, wear fur, operate zoos, etc., “and so forth and so on ” that feel if we grant special status to dogs and cats that starts us on a slippery slope toward granting moral rights to all animals. Maybe true and maybe past due, but that is not my topic today.

Here is my view on how to end overpopulation of pets.

My assumptions.

They are not property.

They are sentient*.

(*Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think ("reason") from the ability to feel ("sentience"). In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences; clearly dogs and cats can do both).

They are extended members of our family, not totally unlike children who simply never grow up.

This issue has nothing to do with religious views. (Though my personal view is if we have a soul so do they).

Nothing I am about to suggest will stop insensitivity, cruelty, or stupidity when it comes to human beings and their interactions with dogs and cats.

And finally these are my own ideas and opinions. If you have a better one I am all for it. If I missed something let me know. 

Ending pet overpopulation and stopping the practice of “euthanasia” (a misnomer if there ever was one) as a population fix is the only thing I am trying to address.

With that all on the table this is what I suggest we do if we want to stop the killing of surplus (homeless, unwanted, etc.) dogs and cats:

Legislate that dogs and cats as companion animals merit a legal status that makes the law protect their basic rights since as sentient creatures they are morally worthy of consideration. You don’t have to philosophize it to death. They sure as hell have an interest in not suffering and in not dying and the government can designate some quasi-personhood status on them that says, not totally unlike children and their parents, these animals may belong to you but they have basic rights you cannot violate without suffering society’s punishment and condemnation.

Next, prohibit commercial breeding for profit. Like driving a car, ownership of pets should be a privilege not a right. If you abuse it you lose it. The first and most basic part of that privilege is as an owner and custodian of these creatures you do NOT have the right to breed them and sell their offspring for a buck.

I am serious, this is just BS. If you have to have a litter charge a pet owner a “one time only” breeding fee of like $500 and make them fill out an application with an enforceable adoption agreement designating where the puppies are going to be placed (before they are born) and that the future owners are responsible, caring, and can afford to take care of the animal.  And most importantly no money is exchanged for the puppies or kittens. "Puppy Mills" are abolished and back yard "professional" or "vanity" breeders get one and only one litter. 

If pet stores need to have pets to increase sales of pet food and other stuff let them work with local shelters and with adoption contracts feature homeless dogs and for adoption to owners who qualify. 

(In the mid eighties I tried to introduce a state bill that would require a breeders license and I was branded a communist, a lunatic, and an idiot, all actually mild accusations given what I have been called in the years since. In any event the effort failed but I remain convinced it is a cornerstone to ending the killing of homeless dogs and cats in the USA).

Next, because I think everyone who is sensitive and caring should have a pet (if they wish) as pets enrich our lives so greatly, establish a 1 cent tax on every dollar of dog food, cat food, and other pet paraphernalia such as leases, bowls, sweaters, chew toys (you get the drift) and establish a national fund to be administered state by state so that financially strapped individuals who qualify can get basic care and support for one pet and one pet only.

You could have a National Pet Protection Coalition (sort of like the Federal Reserve) made up of 5 large sheltered humane societies and 6 small sheltered societies each of whose terms expire after three years and who cannot be re-elected to the Coalition until they have sat out three years and they can administer the fund).

Next, mandate that if a humane society or animal protection group or SPCA does not have shelters and does not house and rescue and adopt homeless and unwanted pets they lose their not-for-profit status.

I am tired of this crap where the national groups rake in millions and create the perception they are saving individual dogs and cats when in fact they are rich, well endowed and have just perfected the business of “compassion for profit.”

Further more, pet owners should unite and get a high profile team of lawyers and file a class action lawsuit against the national animal rights groups alleging fraud (for taking money from the public under the pretense it was to help stop the killing of homeless dogs and cats) over the past ten years and requiring that every national non-sheltered humane group immediately devote no less then 50% of its annual budget and endowments to ending pet overpopulation and its consequence, the killing of homeless healthy companion pets.

The veterinarians are complicit in this tragedy as well. Every small animal practitioner should be mandated by state law to do a specific amount of pro bono work each month. Like law firms and TV stations this should be a requirement for them to keep their license to practice current. Hell, if each small animal vet did ten free (and I mean free, no fees for materials) spay and neuters a month for owners that qualified as needing financial assistance that alone would dramatically diminish the amount of surplus pets.

Make it illegal to ever use a dog or cat (even one specially bred for it) in any form of research. It is the 21^st century, find another way to test your drugs and comply with insurance standards.

If the AKC wants to keep registering and breeding purebreds it can, just at the cost of $500 a litter and one litter only and the litter is not for sale. It is too hard on the females to have multiple litters in any event. The AKC can be less of a business and more of a “hobby club”. Given that the whole concept of “pure bred” dog or cat is largely a subjective categorization of  “appearances” a hobby club is more appropriate. To me, ultimately, dogs are dogs and cats are cats and breeds are just vanity descriptions determined by humans for a multitude of reasons that no one can really totally articulate.

Humane Societies and animal shelters and municipal pounds have to quit killing surplus or homeless dogs and cats that are healthy and they need to stop today. It just is not right and it has to stop. 

In point of fact today’s shelters though largely operated by caring and well meaning people have become modern society’s version of a “sin eater**” for this particular societal disgrace.

(The term sin eater is an ancient description of a person who at an individual's death bed takes food from that person and eats it themselves thus absolving the soon to be deceased of all sin). 

In short someone donates to the shelter and the shelter kills the pet taking the guilt and discomfort away from the individual and absolving society as a whole. It lets everyone off way too easy.

People need to know that every day tens of thousands; perhaps more innocent healthy dogs and cats are being killed behind closed doors because in the USA we don’t have the will to say “enough”.

It is our shame and we are the cause and our “pets” should no longer have to pay the ultimate price for our lack of action or will.

If we started working on al of the above today, I believe in less then 9 years or by the end of this decade this decades old tragedy could be only an ugly memory of a harsh  and insensitive past. 

Initial Weight Sampling

Today is weight sampling day.

As I mentioned earlier not having a JRF means we have to use one of the 12 production ponds and stock it intensely with the post larvae until we can grow them to the 5 gram stocking weight our protocols require. Then once the juveniles are at an average of 5 grams of live weight we move them to the actual grow out ponds in the proper densities and begin a strict nutritional regimen designed to maximize growth and survival.

Today’s weights show an average of 2.5 grams indeed almost 3 grams per juvenile, which is actually phenomenal for our inaugural batch of larvae. The shrimp are very robust and active.

They look very healthy and non-stressed and most important their weights are excellent.

They are definitely getting there. “There” in this case means ready for the actual stocking for grow out and harvest.

Water temperatures in the ponds are a bit lower then I like as we have had both cool and cloudy weather the past week here at the site. While not lethal when the pond water temperature hits around 26 C it does slow down the metabolic rate of the shrimp thus slowing growth.

Once we get the boiler installed (scheduled before Christmas) and can stabilize pond water temperatures we should get growth rates equal or better then those we saw in Gulfport and later South Africa.

We have changed virtually all of the protocols that were used in South Africa.

Having had the project literally “high-jacked” from our management team and having our designs ignored made the work done at Coega in 2007 and 2008 virtually worthless from an operating and design perspective.

In this production greenhouse the fundamental designs of the system have now been changed and we are now back in conformity with my original vision developed in the early days in Mississippi.

Most importantly, having these initial results this positive prove the system methodology is sound.

We have the world’s only commercially viable re-circulating bio-secure aquaculture system in operation. Not bad, given where we were ten months ago.

The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill

Those of you that know me or that have read past blogs know I am a serious reader. 


I love books.


For me, books have always been a source of knowledge, entertainment, and comfort.


I like fiction and non-fiction equally and find as I grow older I will nearly always pick up a book given the choice between reading or watching a television show. 


Recently I had the occasion to see a notice of a new publication titled, "The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill" by Dominique Enright. 


Churchill has always been a hero of mine and I think I have read all of the definitive biographies on him as well as many lesser known works on his life and the lives of his family.


(On a side note of interest perhaps only to me, Churchill's Mom, an American socialite named Jenny Jerome, is credited with inventing the bourbon drink, the Manhattan. Now, how cool is that?) 


In any event, I ordered the book, more out of compulsion then really expecting to read anything "new" about WSC. 


Imagine my delight upon discovering in this very tiny book a multitude of sayings and quotes from Churchill, the majority of which had escaped my knowledge previous to reading this book.


A sampling:


"When I was younger I made it a rule never to take strong drink before lunch. It is now my rule never to do so before breakfast."


"I have in my life concentrated more on self-expression than on self-denial."


"Do not let the better be the enemy of the good."


And a personal favorite, one Christmas as WSC was about to carve the Christmas goose he was informed that the goose before him had been one of his own from the flock at Chartwell. WSC put down both carving knife and fork and remarked,


 "I could not possibly eat a bird that I have known socially."


If you have opportunity take the time to get and read this wonderful small treasure which provides some new (or forgotten insights) into (for me) perhaps the greatest man of the 21st century. 

Progressing nicely !!

Approximately one month since initial stocking and the facility is performing beyond expectations.


I would prefer to have a juvenile rearing facility (JRF) in which we can take the post larval shrimp from about a "PL 10" to a size of 5 grams before we stock them in the actual production ponds.


That is not the case here so we must stock the PL's directly into the production ponds. It is a bit inefficient and it does not give a true indicator of the actual production performance of the system but we can adjust for the growth time lost in not having a JRF and extrapolate real production time very accurately.


In any case the shrimp are growing beautifully and despite three days of very cool and cloudy weather the pond temperatures are holding at a nearly perfect 82 degrees Fahrenheit. (And this is without having our heating system installed). 


There are about 18 conditions that maximize an aquatic organism's ability to grow and survive to maximum efficiency. In a traditional open pond aquaculture system you can control maybe two of these factors. In our system we control 13 of the 18 and are closing in on controlling two more. Exciting and evolutionary.


I am so ready to start working on several species of fin fish that I know will thrive in our system. We are progressing quite nicely. 

Thank God and MD Anderson

I am not going to write about cancer anymore after tonight.


You who read this blog know my wife, Lori is in a fight for her life having been diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer and that is has metastasized in her brain.


Last week we spent a week getting her admitted into MD Anderson in Houston,Texas. They are the best in the world at fighting breast cancer and they particularly specialize in attacking triple negative.


Today we learned that Lori's PET scan done at MD Anderson last week was negative. The cancer is no where else in her body. Now if the full brain radiation has worked (and we should know in late February 2012) she has a real chance at extending her life.


Whatever happens she is now in the right place with the best of the best in the world ready to fight for her. 


A month ago we felt hopeless and lost.


Tonight we have real hope. 


Thank God and MD Anderson.

Small Satisfactions

Sometimes it just feels good to be vindicated in a small way even indirectly.


A few days ago this ad ran nationwide in USA Today.

The ad was sponsored by a group called "HumaneFORPETS.com


I do not know this organization. Having been out of the animal rights movement for over 16 years it has been a long time since I followed or even cared what the various groups are doing.


I still have my love for all animals and as I grow older I am increasingly disgusted and angered by the continued cruelty that many people perpetuate on our fellow creatures who inhabit this planet with us.


But those of you who know me are well aware of my complete disdain for the national groups, especially HSUS, who make tens of millions of dollars in profit annually and do (in my opinion and obviously in the opinion of others, notably this "Humane For Pets" group), little to nothing to reduce the killing of dogs and cats (our companion animals) deemed surplus by society.


No dog or cat should ever be killed in the USA simply because we cannot find them a home.


This problem has been an epidemic and a badge of infamy for all US citizens for decades.


Many national groups like HSUS raise millions of dollars largely by creating the perception they are working to protect dogs and cats when in point of fact they do little more then provide lip service to ending this tragedy.  


I raised "hell" about the lack of effort and funding to solve the pet overpopulation crisis when I was at HSUS in the early nineties. 


My subsequent personal "Waterloo" within HSUS is well (though seldom accurately) documented.


I always maintained a large part of the motivation behind the character and career assassination that I felt I endured from the HSUS leadership was do to my challenging what I saw as an unethical, almost criminal manipulation of the public's perception and the lack of any meaningful effort to stop the pet overpopulation crisis. 


The consequence of my "stirring the pot" internally was that I was labeled a purveyor "sour grapes", a trouble-maker, and finally a crook. I finally, having grown tired of the continued distortion and the slander and libel my name carried from that controversy, wrote my own account of my five years with HSUS and published the book, "UnderCover" this year. 


So, it was with no small measure of personal satisfaction I saw this ad last week in USA Today.


16 years after my controversy within the HSUS it seems others who love animals are waking up to the fact that the dollars HSUS and other national groups drain from the public's largesse are NOT being used in any meaningful way to save the very dogs and cats, whose faces they use so effectively in their pleas for donations. 


No healthy dog or cat need be killed as surplus in the USA in the year 2012 and beyond. The problem is very solvable. It simply takes the will and the funding to create the societal changes that would see pet overpopulation become a relic of a cruel and brutal past. 


Groups such as HSUS clearly have the money to get the job done and done quickly. 


Jonathan Swift, the great English satirist, once wrote, "I am never surprised to see men wicked, but I am always amazed that they are not ashamed". 


Those that take money from a caring public, a public that wants an end to certain societal evils, and then do not use that money responsibly to cure those evils, should definitely be ashamed. 


And as the ad suggests people should quit being so generous without demanding an accounting and action.