When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson

30 July 2008

It's really all about the dan dan noodles

New York City now has many "Chinatown" neighborhoods... but for foodies, the consensus-best Chinatown is in Flushing, Queens:
Everything tastes different in Flushing, Queens, the best neighborhood in New York for tasting the true and dazzling flavors of China. The dumplings are juicier here, the noodles springier, the butter cookies flavored with a bit of salty green seaweed, as a cookie at a French bakery might be sprinkled with fleur de sel. The perfume of roasted Sichuan peppercorns and the sound of dough slapping against countertops lures visitors down to the neighborhood’s subterranean food malls, where each stall consists of little more than a stove and a specialty: slow-cooked Cantonese healing soups; fragrant, meaty Sichuanese dan dan noodles; or Fujianese wontons, no bigger than a nickel, that spread their fronds in clear broth.

[...]

The shift means that the food of Flushing now includes dishes that don’t fit many American notions of Chinese food: griddle-baked sesame bread from China’s large Muslim minority, potato-eggplant salad from Harbin in the northeast, Beijing-style candied fruit, and grilled lamb skewers, from China’s long-unreachable western frontier near Kazakhstan. There is now a mind-bending variety of noodles and dumplings: the flour foods, (mian shi in Chinese), those wheat-based staples that feed China’s north and west, as rice traditionally feeds the southeast. (The Yangtze River is the divider.)

Let The Meals Begin: Finding Beijing in Flushing, NY (New York Times, 30 July 2008)

Apologies for the infrequent updates

Regular readers - both of you - may be wondering what's happening at enrevanche.

Briefly, all is well, but I'm very busy.

I don't talk about work on this blog (there's another one for that kind of thing).

In general terms, however, my recent reward for doing a half-decent job with my then-current set of responsibilities was a promotion and a whole new set of responsibilities that I am currently only 25%-decent at doing. :-)

Until I get more of a handle on things, blog updates may be spotty.

26 July 2008

Maximize *what*?

At Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow points us to a fantastic rant at Crooked Timber:
...I have a real bee in my bonnet about the claim made by Richard Posner that ” The managers of corporations have a fiduciary duty to maximize corporate profits”. It raises a whole load of topics relevant to plenty of my favourite economic hobby-horses as soon as you start to look remotely critically at what the seemingly simple phrase “maximise corporate profits” actually means anyway.

Pretending not to understand the meanings of common English phrases is a stock tactic for creating the impression of profundity (cf philosophers, who are always pretending not to understand the meaning of words like “is”, “would” and “must”). But sometimes you have to do it – my view is that in any view of the world more complicated than a very elementary blackboard model, the phrase “maximise profits” can’t be unpacked into a coherent decision rule which rules out any of the things which Posner talks as if it does. First, let’s look at some things that it can’t possibly mean...
What obligation? Maximise what? (Crooked Timber)

(via)

Wow

Split (in Croatia) sure is pretty.

Chap's been telling me this for years.

25 July 2008

Life in the post-political age

Over at Joe Bageant's place, an "anonymous political consultant" asserts that we are now in a post-political age:
It should not come as a surprise that the dominant ideas and mores of popular culture have become the dominant ideas of our society. Popular culture is the breaker of customs, prejudice, tradition and relevant historical knowledge.
It is a result of this dynamic that the two consistent winners in American politics over the last 30 years have been the cultural left and the economic right. Despite the massive organizing drive of the religious right over the past three decades, they are further away from reversing the cultural liberalization of American society than when they started. 
On [the other] side of the ledger, organized labor outside of a few urban pockets and industries is no longer a relevant force in American life. The ever greater electoral activism of both of these groups is generally misunderstood as a show of strength; in fact, it is the exact opposite. It is the desperate fight of the losing side of the American economic, cultural and political scene.
In essence the same forces that make it possible for the rapid acceptance of ideas such as gay marriage are the same force which can create a society that will accept massive social inequalities.
Joe Bageant: Life in the Post-Political Age

23 July 2008

Turn out the lights, the party's over

James Fallows:
On the first night in the [Newark NJ airport-vicinity] hotel, dragging in late from the PEK-EWR flight, I see... a single copy of the New York Times in the hotel gift shop! I snap it up. Second day, leave in a rush before dawn, back late in the afternoon and see there is still one copy of the NYT left. Snap that up too. Just now, day three (nearing the end of the adventure), on my way in to breakfast I see that again I've had the luck to get the last copy of the paper.

I remark on my good fortune to the woman at the news stand. She says, "Oh, sir, we only get the one."
Oof.

Our American Media Landscape (James Fallows, 23 July 2008)

22 July 2008

Powered exoskeleton helps paraplegic "walk"

Not for the first time--hell, not for the first time this week--I wish my old man were still around.

In this case, so I could pick up the phone and tell him about this:



My dad was a paraplegic for almost 40 years, following a motorcycle accident in 1967. And he and I were discussing powered exoskeletons as a "cure" for paralysis back in the 1970s, when as a young lad, I read Starship Troopers for the first time.

As an engineer and geek in his own right, Bob Campbell would have loved this on so many levels. And he sure as hell would have blustered, bribed, or sweet-talked his way into taking one of those suits for a spin.

I wish that you had lived to see this, Dad.

Thanks to Greg for sending the link.

Thought for the day

"My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared."

- PJ Plauger

21 July 2008

Following in Dylan's footsteps

A walking tour of Greenwich Village, following in Dylan's footsteps.

No, not that Dylan.  Dylan Thomas.
Drawn up by Dylan’s daughter Aeronwy, who is also a poet, and Welsh writer Peter Thabit Jones, the tour takes in all of his old haunts, including the Cherry Lane Theatre, where he held a special reading of his poems; the Washington Square Hotel, where he often stayed; and, of course, the White Horse Tavern, where he enjoyed drinking with his contemporaries. It also includes St Vincent’s Hospital, where Dylan died after allegedly downing 18 straight whiskies – a fact that is discounted during the tour.

When I recently visited New York for the first time with three friends, our trip coincided with the inaugural tour, led by Catrin Brace from the [Welsh] Assembly’s New York office.
Following in Dylan's Footsteps (WalesOnline.co.uk)

20 July 2008

A 2:1 Chow:door ratio

As a Chow owner, you learn to expect that one or more Chows will always be positioned between you and the door. If there are multiple doors and multiple Chows, they will be distributed approximately according to a 1:1 Chow:door ratio. Where there is but a single door, they happily double up.

The Chow is always between you and the door.

18 July 2008

Every American family deserves a false sense of security

The Onion one-ups the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times with this piece:
A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble in which to invest.

"What America needs right now is not more talk and long-term strategy, but a concrete way to create more imaginary wealth in the very immediate future," said Thomas Jenkins, CFO of the Boston-area Jenkins Financial Group, a bubble-based investment firm. "We are in a crisis, and that crisis demands an unviable short-term solution."

[...]

"Every American family deserves a false sense of security," said Chris Reppto, a risk analyst for Citigroup in New York. "Once we have a bubble to provide a fragile foundation, we can begin building pyramid scheme on top of pyramid scheme, and before we know it, the financial situation will return to normal."
Sometimes satirists have a much better handle on the truth than reporters.

Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In (The Onion)

Thought for the day

Get a bomb and get respect from America. Kim blows one off and gets the offer of a peace treaty. Iran enriches uranium and fires off rockets and gets a low-level resumption of diplomatic ties.

Bombs really do work.

- Thomas P.M. Barnett

Schneier on Chinese hackers

Bruce Schneier doesn't think that the multifarious hacker attacks against Western IT infrastructure emanating from China are state-sponsored... but he also doesn't take much comfort in that:

If anything, the fact that these groups aren't being run by the Chinese government makes the problem worse. Without central political coordination, they're likely to take more risks, do more stupid things and generally ignore the political fallout of their actions.

In this regard, they're more like a non-state actor.

So while I'm perfectly happy that the U.S. government is using the threat of Chinese hacking as an impetus to get their own cybersecurity in order, and I hope they succeed, I also hope that the U.S. government recognizes that these groups are not acting under the direction of the Chinese military and doesn't treat their actions as officially approved by the Chinese government.

Schneier on Security: Chinese Cyber Attacks (14 July 2008)

17 July 2008

Becoming Batman

What's most plausible about portrayals of Batman's skills?
You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess. Most of what you see there is feasible to the extent that somebody could be trained to that extreme. We're seeing that kind of thing in less than a month in the Olympics.

What's less realistic?
A great example is in the movies where Batman is fighting multiple opponents and all of a sudden he's taking on 10 people. If you just estimate how fast somebody could punch and kick, and how many times you could hit one person in a second, you wind up with numbers like five or six. This doesn't mean you could fight four or five people. But it's also hard for four or five people to simultaneously attack somebody, because they get in each other's way. More realistic is a couple of attackers.

How long would Bruce Wayne have to train to become Batman?
In some of the timelines you see in the comics, the backstory is he goes away for five years—some it's three to five years, or eight years, or 12 years. In terms of the physical changes (strength and conditioning), that's happening fairly quickly. We're talking three to five years. In terms of the physical skills to be able to defend himself against all these opponents all the time, I would benchmark that at 10 to 12 years. Probably the most reality-based representation of Batman and his training was in Batman Begins.

Why such a long training time?
Batman can't really afford to lose. Losing means death—or at least not being able to be Batman anymore. But another benchmark is having enough skill and experience to defend himself without killing anyone. Because that's part of his credo. It would be much easier to fight somebody if you could incapacitate them with extreme force. Punching somebody in the throat could be a lethal blow. That's pretty easy to do.
But if you're thinking about something that doesn't result in lethal force, that's more tricky. It's really hard for people to get their heads around, I think. To be that good, to not actually lethally injure anyone, requires an extremely high level of skill that would take maybe 15 to 18 years to accumulate.
Dark Knight Shift: Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long (Scientific American)

Black swans and banking

Complex systems don’t allow for slack and everybody protects that system. The banking system doesn’t have that slack. In a normal ecology, banks go bankrupt every day. But in a complex system there is a tendency to cluster around powerful units. Every bank becomes the same bank so they can all go bust together.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, interviewed in the Times of London, 1 June 2008

13 July 2008

The most deceitful form of socialism

Professor Willem Buiter, blogging for the Financial Times, has a modest proposal--and some "inconvenient truths"--to discuss with American taxpayers:
On July 11, 2008, the New York Times reported that US government officials were considering a plan for the US government to take over Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac if their financial situations were to worsen due to the US housing crisis. These government officials were also reported by the New York Times as stating that the government had also considered calling for an explicit federal government guarantee of $5 trillion on debt owned or guaranteed by the two companies through legislation. You can see why the creditors to these GSEs don’t seem to be too worried. There are many forms of socialism. The version practiced in the US is the most deceitful one I know. An honest, courageous socialist government would say: this is a worthwhile social purpose (financing home ownership, helping my friends on Wall Street); therefore I am going to subsidize it; and here are the additional taxes (or cuts in other public spending) to finance it.
Instead the dishonest, spineless socialist policy makers in successive Democratic and Republican administrations have systematically tried to hide both the subsidies and size and distribution of the incremental fiscal burden associated with the provision of these subsidies, behind an endless array of opaque arrangements and institutions. Off-balance-sheet vehicles and off-budget financing were the bread and butter of the US federal government long before they became popular in Wall Street and the City of London.
[..]
So let’s call a spade a bloody shovel: nationalise Freddie Mac and Fannie May. They should never have been privatised in the first place. Cost the exercise. Increase taxes or cut other public spending to finance the exercise. But stop pretending. Stop lying about the financial viability of institutions designed to hand out subsidies to favoured constituencies. These GSEs were designed to make losses. They are expected to make losses. If they don’t make losses they are not serving their political purpose.
So I call on Secretary Paulson, Chairman Bernanke and Director Lockhart to drop the market-friendly fig-leaf. Be a socialist and proud of it. Come out of the red closet. The Soviet Union may have collapsed, but the cause of socialism is alive and well in the USA. Granted, the US version of socialism is imperfect thus far. The federal authorities have mainly intervened to socialise the losses in the financial sector while allowing the profits to continue to be drained off into selected private pockets. But that is bound to be an oversight. It surely cannot be the intention of such committed Marxists to target taxpayer-funded largesse solely at the very rich and at a few favoured, electorally sensitive constituencies. Fannie and Freddie are, or will be, safe in the hands of comrades Paulson, Bernanke and Lockhart.
Update, Sunday evening: A few hours after I posted this, CNN announced that the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve have a plan prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, undoubtedly hoping to head off more bloodletting when US markets open Monday morning.

The supper table, in high summer

Down in Raleigh this week. 

The North Carolina Farmer's Market (in downtown Raleigh) is an embarrassment of riches at this time of year, and the gardens of our friends and neighbors are starting to come in, too.

The summer supper I just ate could convince anyone to go vegan, I think, or at least seasonally vegan. :-)
  • Silver Queen corn, cooked and served on the cob
  • Stewed field peas
  • Yellow squash simmered with onion until it all cooked down to mush (maybe you have to grow up eating it like this, but it's absolutely ambrosial to me.)
  • Fried okra (not battered; dredged in a little cornmeal and fried in vegetable oil)
  • Sliced tomatoes
  • Sliced cucumber
  • Fresh cantaloupe.
If any of us can actually contemplate dessert tonight, there are dead-ripe peaches and fresh blueberries on offer.

12 July 2008

Alcohol also enhances one's ability to be a fair and critical judge

S.F. Jukebox attends the US Air Guitar Regional Championship:
The spectacle's inventors have designed a rubric for measuring this skill, employing three judges—think The Muppet Show's Statler and Waldorf with unlimited drinks and a third, equally critical sidekick—to drink heavily and rate the contestants on technical merit, stage presence, and airness. Airness is that certain je ne sais quoi that launches an air guitarist from novice to virtuoso. Although no scientific studies have been done on the subject, it's likely that alcohol plays a role in one's airness (or lack thereof). Alcohol also enhances one's ability to be a fair and critical judge. Like the last two years, judges Marc Hawthorne (Onion AV Club), Jennifer Maerz (SF Weekly), and John Trippe (FecalFace.com) were completely hammered by the end of the night.

[...]

Plaid-pants-wearing Stoney Iommi may have been the Black Sabbath guitarist's namesake, but this Iommi's "Iron Man" was tedious, albeit accurate. Lieutenant Castille's followed with an inspired but horrific version of the theme from Miami Vice. Aside from the white Members Only jacket, the only thing remotely Don Johnson about it was the cheese factor. Dan the Man's rendition was more Bill Nye the Science Guy than Freddie Mercury, and a hirsute Bad Ass Blondini, sporting a black vest with no shirt, tight black and white pants, and the world's worst mullet wig, just didn't have what it takes to impress the judges, who were starting to get tipsy.
S.F. Jukebox: 25 June 2008 - U.S. Air Guitar, San Francisco Regional Championships

(via)

10 July 2008

Raleigh pix

Some nice photobloggage of my home town:

Raleigh Skyline

Goodnight Raleigh

iPhone 2.0

iPhone 2.0

Upgraded to the new iPhone firmware and software tonight.

I have a new phone! And it didn't cost me anything.

Well, $9.95 for Super Monkey Ball.

I couldn't say no.

09 July 2008

White Trash in a Bear Market

It's a rough market out there.

The White Trash Portfolio is hanging in, but showing a little less resiliency than the basket of indices we're tracking.

GM is selling for less in absolute dollars than it has since the 1950s.  Accounting for inflation... you really don't want to think about GM at $10 and change a share.

And it looks like BUD might just get bought by some Belgians.

To refresh your memory, the components of the White Trash Portfolio were as follows:
  • BFB - Brown-Forman Corp. Cl B
  • BUD - Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc.
  • CHB - Champion Enterprises Inc.
  • F - Ford Motor Co. 
  • GM - General Motors Corp.
  • IGT - International Game Technology
  • KO - Coca-Cola Co.
  • MCD - McDonald's Corp. 
  • MO - Altria Group Inc.
  • WMT - Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
And here's the tale of the tape: the WTP is down 14.54% since inception...

White Trash Portfolio

...while our basket of indices is down about 13.77%.

indicies

07 July 2008

Q train as microcosm

[It is] nearly impossible to take a single authoritative snapshot of New York City’s population, to freeze it in place, to discover and list all the different people who live here. Or were born here. Or who came here in search of success, or family, or to escape misery. Each block is different, from Park Avenue to Parkside Avenue, from the East Village to Eastchester — each is its own little city, with its own evolving ethnic mixture, its own traditions.

But if there is no perfect way to take that snapshot, then there are certainly worse ways than to catalogue the people in that car of the 8:27 a.m. Q train in the middle of the Manhattan Bridge, to learn who they are, and how they happened to be there. And there are certainly worse days to publish it in the newspaper than the Fourth of July.

05 July 2008

Guest Post: Global Weirding

John deVille, aka Mountain Hermit, sends along a guest post today:

The flathead dude, aka The Prophet, has mouthed some serious bullshit in his day and garnered serious bucks and accolades for said bullshit. But he has reached new heights, not just for himself mind you, but for all dedicated purveyors of the art of bullshit.

The air is not just rarefied in Aspen but so unique as to cause neural activity previously unknown. It's either that, or the sensational stories I've heard about Colorado pot were actually understated.

Our Prophet appears to be leaving the smoldering images of Iraq in his rear view mirror, a place where all his flowery prognostications went up in a cloud of IED smoke and shrapnel. He seems to be headed for the region successfully plowed by Al Gore.

Enough prologue, let's get to The Prophet's Message:
"We're not post-something anymore," Friedman said. "We're not post-war, we're not post-Cold War, we're not post-post Cold War. We're pre-something. And what we're pre-...is the energy climate era, defined by these five problems going over a tipping point. And how we manage these five problems, I believe, is really gonna define the stability or instability of the 21st century."
I dare you to read that passage to someone you respect with a straight face. I mean I'm a pretty good bullshitter and I would have to practice a fair amount. Look in the mirror: "We're not post, we're pre-something." Giggle. "We're not post, we're pre-something." Bite tongue hard. Giggle. I give up.

The Prophet continues:
Friedman also warns of strange new weather patterns — what he refers to as "global weirding" — coming in the energy climate era.

"The weather is gonna get weird," he said. "We're gonna get hotter hots, longer droughts, heavier rains, heavier snowfalls."

In addition to strange weather patterns, Friedman warns that we are in an "extinction period," witnessing extinction rates 1,000 times the norm, giving rise to what he calls "the age of Noah."

"We are the first generation of human beings that are going to have to think like Noah," he said. "We are the first generation of humans who are going to have to think about saving the last two pairs."
"Global weirding" -- The Prophet can turn a half-assed phrase, I'll give him that. It sticks with you. So, I decided to see if I could register it as a domain and then sell it back to Flathead and damn if someone didn't beat me to it. Type in globalweirding.com and it points you to LIFEONTHEGREENSIDE.TV which is all about "green living" and it is broadcast on cable in one market......ASPEN!!

Did The Prophet smoke a fat one while eating a club sandwich in his hotel suite, flip on the telly, and find some material to "borrow?" Hmmmmm.

But back to The Message. "Hotter hots" and "the age of Noah." Got to learn to think like that Noah. Let me check the Bible here quick:
"Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent." Genesis 9:20-21.
Well, shit, I've got a good friend in Chapel Hill who thinks almost exactly like Noah. Now, he doesn't plow nor tend a vineyard but he does know how to buy PBR by the case at the Food Lion and he's the master of that getting drunk and being nekked in a tent thing. Except he calls his tent the Love Lounge and you can see him in it with one of his sirens singing right here.

And "saving the last two pairs?" What?

Anyway, back to The Message:
Friedman argues that the solution to these problems will require "a serious revolution," and he calls for the development of an "energy internet," which he defines as "basically a smart grid that goes into a smart home that's connected to a smart car, basically, where all your devices are on the internet and can day-trade electrons for you."

"Without an energy internet that basically connects clean electrons to a smart home to a smart car," he said, "you will never get the scale that you need."

"Only if we got abundant, cheap, clean reliable electrons could we deal with climate change, petro-dictatorship, biodiversity loss, energy poverty, and energy resource supply and demand. That is the cure."
I'm all for that "serious revolution" thing. The non-serious revolutions, the half-hearted revolutions, the kinda funny revolutions aren't good revolutions. The Prophet did not on this day, speak to the question as to whether neoconservative revolutions with their attendant economic, cultural, and political uprootings imposed on foreign peoples without their consent were serious revolutions or not but he was busy.

By using the word "serious" as a qualifier, The Prophet elevates His Message above the din of the other purveyors of bullshit. His bullshit is serious bullshit; it's so serious in fact that it's not bullshit but rather, bankable dogma all ready to be rolled out on cable news, the New York Times, and Charlie Rose. Let the great centrist altar calls commence, The Prophet is serious. And, by implication, all those who disagree with him, you know, the Dirty Hippies, are not serious.

And not only is The Prophet and His Message serious, mind you, well, the whole damn enterprise is rather smart if you ask him. Smart grid, smart car, smart home. Hmmmm. I wonder what happens to the environment once we all, well, those of us who can afford it and feel compelled to follow, dispose of our stupid cars and stupid homes?

"Without an energy internet that basically connects clean electrons to a smart home to a smart car," he said, "you will never get the scale that you need." OK, Tom, there is such a thing as holding the smoke in your lungs too long. Clean electrons? What are clean electrons? I'm sure they are both smart and serious, I can tell you that much. The really cool thing about the clean electrons if you noticed, is that one no longer associate with nasty Muslims. Having failed to convert the Middle East to the neoliberal faith that globalization is really cool, The Prophet is Coming Home to preach to the Infinitely More Gullible. Because these clean electrons pretty much solve All Our Problems.

And how do we get these clean electrons? Simple really, human cloning:
"This is an innovation problem," Friedman said. "We don't need a Manhattan Project....What we need is 100,000 Dean Kamens [Segway inventor] in 100,000 garages trying 100,000 things, so maybe ten of them will come up with that holy grail of abundant, cheap, clean reliable electrons."
For a guy who has spent a lifetime dissing True Believers of religion, it's amazing the chutzpa Friedman has when it comes to promoting the supranatural. But I readily concede The Prophet will make millions on his new book and that it shall be lapped up as any other cure would be by a desperate empire so eager to return to its position of glory and dominance.

{enrevanche: feel free to edit and post at yer place}

[not edited, but posted - bc]

04 July 2008

All down the line

This is mighty fine reading, even with a hot dog and a lemonade in your hand.

Happy Independence Day.

Burning out his fuse up here alone

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's . . . Fusion Man!

Make that Yves Rossy, a 48-year-old Swiss daredevil also known as Jet Man, Rocket Man, the Bird Man of the Alps.

Thanks to his homemade, jet-powered wing suit, Rossy can flash through the air at a Superman-like 186 mph. Imagine George Jetson, the futuristic cartoon character, pumped up with nuclear steroids and leaving his boy Elroy in the dust.

"It's always been my dream, to fly like a bird," Rossy said in an interview at his home in this Swiss village overlooking Lake Geneva. "And I don't want to do it just for myself, but to show mankind how to do it."

"Zooming Around The Alps In a Homemade Wing Suit" (Washington Post, July 4, 2008)

02 July 2008

I hope this doesn't make Brit Hume, Mary Richards...

At dinner the night before, Bill O’Reilly’s name came up, and Limbaugh expressed his opinion of the Fox cable king. He hadn’t been sure at the time that he wanted it on the record. But on second thought, “somebody’s got to say it,” he told me. “The man is Ted Baxter.”

Late-Period Limbaugh (New York Times)

Related: Ted Baxter (Wikipedia)

01 July 2008

It may not be the tomatoes

More than 11 weeks into a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds across the U.S., government regulators still have little idea where the outbreak originated. That is causing rising anger among the farmers, distributors and others slammed by slumping sales of tomatoes, the outbreak's prime suspect.

As consumers abstain from tomatoes or find alternatives, one growers association called over the weekend for Congress to investigate the Food and Drug Administration, the lead agency on the case. The National Restaurant Association, the industry's main trade group, says the outbreak has cost the food industry at least $100 million. And as some crops rot on the vine, the problem is threatening to reignite a long-simmering trade dispute between tomato growers in Florida and Mexico.

Anger Rises over Salmonella Probe - WSJ - 1 July 2008