Extreme seafood

Ocean foraging taken to the limit.



Hat tip: Deep Blue Home

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Radioactive fish in Japan-part 2

The seafood nightmare just got worse. Radioactive cesium 137 has been found at harmful levels in fish in Japan. This element has a half-life of 30 years, so this contamination won't dissapate quickly like short-lived radioactive iodine.

This is probably coming from the highly radioactive water spilling from the damaged reactors.

According to PanOrient News:

Fisheries minister Michihiko Kano said later in the day that the government intends to toughen inspections of marine products in Ibaraki and increase the number of inspections off Choshi, Chiba Prefecture, in light of the continuing leaks of radioactive materials into the Pacific Ocean from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Private companies are taking matters into their own hands. I just happended to notice this press release from Royal Greenland:

During the current events in Japan, there have been some concerns about the safety of food stuffs from this area. We are monitoring the situation in Japan closely, including the hazard of contamination of our raw materials that come from or transit in this area.

The raw material currently used in our factories have been caught, processed and shipped before the catastrophic events occurred. Fish caught, processed or shipped in this area of the world after the 11th of March 2011 will only be handled at our factories after satisfying results of relevant analyses. Current goods on stock are exclusively taken from 2010 catches. We will submit to international requirements for controlling and analyzing of the quality in general of our goods and raw material.

This means that all products from the Pacific or stocked goods from Japan will be thoroughly analyzed before sales and we are in constant dialogue with the relevant authorities regarding the situation.

How long will it be before Royal Greenland will open the doors again for seafood from the region? I wonder what other seafood companies are doing.

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Radioactive fish in Japan

The radioactive seafood nightmare is beginning. Radioactive fish were found today in Japan.

Harmful levels of radioactive iodine were found in sand lance, small fish that feed on plankton. Later, larger predatory fish will acquire radioactivity from eating smaller fish.

Radioactive iodine has a half-life of 8 days, meaning it loses radioactivity quickly. More worrisome are the longer-lasting radioactive elements likely to show up later if releases of radioactive water continue. Stay tuned.

From SeafoodSource.com:

About 20,000 metric tons of low-level contaminated waste water is being released from holding ponds at each of two reactors owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) to make room for more highly contaminated water, as the company struggles to cool overheating fuel rods.

Plankton and small fishes that are low on the foodchain, like the sand lance, are expected to be affected first. As larger fish consume these smaller fish, the substances may become concentrated; however, unlike the case of mercury, the radiation will dissipate over time. Radioactive iodine has a half-life of eight days, and if the problems at the reactor can be solved it should not pose a long-term hazard to human health.

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Seafood crisis in Japan

Seafood demand is down in Japan, way down. "The fish are here, but nobody's buying," says one fish seller about business at the Tsukiji auction, Japan's premier fish market.

Tsukiji is normally a busy city, with some 60,000 workers, but prices have plunged by up to 50% for some seafood products.

"The drop in demand from sushi restaurants and the cancellation of weddings and banquets at hotels are partly to blame," an official of the market's marine and agricultural produce section said.

Radiation fears are also a problem according to mysinchew.com:

Food safety fears have risen since radiation from the coastal Fukushima plant has been detected in vegetables and dairy products grown nearby, and after iodine levels in Tokyo tap water rose above levels safe for infants.

There has been no official warning about the impact on marine life, but operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday that iodine-131 levels in the ocean near the plant were 145 times the legal level, Kyodo News reported.

Japan's seafood world is reeling, and the outcome is far from clear. The problems will likely persist for some time. The biggest long-term risk may be the radiation scare that already has some seafood buyers scared (see photo above of a chef screening imported seafood for radioactivity).

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Frozen fish help cool the planet

When it comes to fish, frozen is better. At least if you're concerned about climate change impacts, you should buy frozen. According to expert Peter Tyedmers: "In many cases, your better choice overall, from an environment or energy–related perspective, might be frozen product from afar, regardless of the distance."

I know this goes against the common belief that fresh seafood is better. It's time to stretch your mind a bit.

Fresh seafood is wonderful, especially when you're privileged to eat something that just came out of the water. But "fresh" fish shipped by air and delivered to you days later is not the same thing. The rot sets in as soon as the animal dies, and good chilling only slows down (doesn't prevent) the decline. Good handling and fast transport helps forestall the rot, but at what cost? AT THE COST OF WARMING THE PLANET.

Take one example. Copper River salmon shipped by air all over the US is an environmental abomination. Other salmon is just as good, and shipped frozen by barge it's better for the planet.

Smart seafood people know that properly handled and quick-frozen fish is actually better than so-called "fresh" fish that has sat on ice for several days.

Will we re-investigate frozen fish now that there's a new reason to be pro-frozen? I don't know, the "fresh" dogma is fairly entrenched. But we should.

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The fish worth more than your house

A bluefin tuna sold for $396,000 this week, a record price. Caught off the north coast of Hokkaido with a longline, the fish was sold at auction in Tokyo to high-end sushi restaurants.

Is this a valuable fish or just costly advertising? Does it prove that bluefin are going extinct? Note that this is not the Atlantic bluefin that has been much in the news over the last year. Northern Pacific bluefin are doing better and do not appear to be in immediate danger.

Like Copper River salmon, the hype about this high-priced tuna is all about hype and not about fish and seafood. But it's working since lots of seafood people are talking about this fish.

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Help build sustainable aquaculture

Tilapia produced in Indonesia and Honduras is to join the new WWF seafood guide category of “moving towards certification”.

Typical tilapia is currently rated as unsustainable in WWF seafood guides due to issues with harmful environmental effects including chemical use, waste spilling into waterways, risks of disease and escapes and weak regulation of aquaculture in many producing areas.

“The moving towards certification classification was set up to give consumers the ability to identify and support fisheries and fish farms that have signed up to achieve the highest standards of sustainable production,” said Dr Mark Powell, WWF International Global Seafood Leader.

“In some cases, these standards and the mechanisms to administer them are still being established, so we are rewarding producer commitment to sustainability.”

“We advise customers to buy tilapia from Indonesia and Honduras to support leadership in sustainable aquaculture.”

Tilapia is the world’s second most important farmed fish, and Indonesia and Honduras are important suppliers to the demanding US and European markets. Tilapia producers in these two countries have achieved or soon will achieve compliance with the tilapia standards that will be used by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

"The benefits we expect from certification are international recognition of all the efforts we have made in developing a socially and environmentally sound aquaculture model,” said Anne-Laurence Huillery, Sustainability Manager for Regal Springs, the leading tilapia producer in Indonesia and Honduras.

“We would also anticipate improved market access thanks to the use of the ASC logo and continuous improvement of the industry, with more producers seeking certification and raising consumer awareness."

The recent reclassification of Vietnamese pangasius (also known as tra or Vietnamese catfish) to the new category will see 50 percent of pangasius exports certified to Aquaculture Stewardship Council standards by 2015.

“We expect that the timeline for certification of tilapia from Honduras and Indoneisa will be very short and it will quite possibly be the first aquaculture product certified to the new standards” said Dr Powell

The long running Aquaculture Dialogues convened by WWF released sustainability standards for tilapia in 2009 and pangasius in 2010.

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council, modeled on the Marine Stewardship Council for wild caught fisheries, was established in 2010 and is expected to certify the first sustainable farmed products in 2011.

Certification to ASC standards will cover not just environmental impacts but also social issues such as protection against the use of child labor, forced labor, protection of worker health and safety, and collective bargaining.

WWF publishes consumer seafood guides in 19 countries.

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Eating seafood responsibly

Here's a nice editorial on eating seafood responsibly. I don't agree with everything it says, but that's OK. It has some overstated gloom and doom in my opinion, but I like the overall message. It's from Tim Winton, patron of the Australian Conservation Society.

AUSTRALIANS are passionate about food. It's impossible to ignore the fact our culture is in the grip of a food revolution. Eating well is no longer the preserve of an elite. Cooking creatively is a mainstream aspiration and diners enjoy a cuisine that's an eclectic regional fusion of old and new worlds.

For many of us, the centrepiece of Australian cuisine is fish. Whether we're at home or at a restaurant, seafood is the culinary currency of celebration.

In previous generations we served roasted meats on special days, but in many homes prawns, rock lobsters, fish and oysters are now more commonly served.

Seafood is lighter; it seems more suited to our climate. And of course, in an era when Australians seem to want to eat more and weigh less, fish is sold to us as a panacea to our health problems. We want to give our children the healthiest start in life that we can.

And tastes have broadened enormously. We eat species our grandparents considered bait. Restaurants and cafes now offer everything from mussels to marlin. But as our palates are educated and our curiosity constantly piqued, our expectations grow. And so does demand.

With so much good seafood on offer, and with such an abundance of energy and ideas in the business of cooking and promoting it, you could easily get the idea that this incredible plenty extends to the fisheries and oceans themselves. The seas that supply the stuff we hanker for seem to be limitless in their bounty. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

The world's oceans are in trouble. Yes, pollution and irresponsible coastal development are taking their toll, but overfishing is the single biggest threat to the marine environment.

Eighty per cent of the world's fish stocks are overfished or fished to their limit. Global catches peaked in the late 1980s and have been in precipitous decline since, and now 90 per cent of big predatory species such as bluefin tuna, swordfish and sharks are gone.

Unless fisheries management is radically improved, we face a catastrophic collapse.

Of the 53 top fishing nations, Australia ranks a startling 31st in sustainability. We continue to exploit vulnerable or overfished species such as southern bluefin tuna, orange roughy, gemfish and many species of shark.

For the past 50 years we've fished the oceans with the same industrial intensity with which we once clear-cut our forests, as if there were no tomorrow. On land we pulled back at the very brink, but on the high seas we're still kidding ourselves.

How do we reconcile this tough news with our appetite for fresh, healthy seafood?

Well, perhaps by acknowledging that this is not someone else's problem; this is about us and our habits and tastes. The oceans are at the mercy of our expectations.

But nothing modifies expectations like fresh knowledge.

To make informed judgments about the seafood they buy, consumers need coherent, well-researched, impartial information, material that's easy to access and free from commercial influence. Until recently, this has been hard to find. Non-government organisations such as the Australian Marine Conservation Society have begun filling the gap.

Discriminating diners want to make intelligent and responsible choices. Why should they accept low standards about the provenance of what's on the plate when only excellence will suffice at every other point of the dining experience? In a culture of excellence, why should a dodgy product from an unsustainable fishery be any more acceptable than something poorly cooked?

It's important to know where a fish comes from, how it's caught and how it fares as a species.

A sustainable choice favours quality over quantity, and this needn't come from any dour or ascetic impulse because, any foodie knows, elegance is born from restraint. Care, at every level, adds value. Chances are, if you buy fish carefully, you'll prepare it with similar deliberation.

Most sustainable fish tend to be smaller, faster-growing species, and they're often the most local produce, the kinds of things we overlook and undervalue.

A tasty fish doesn't need to be exotic; it needn't be as long as your arm. The chances are your best choice is one of the species you caught as a kid: squid, herring, whiting, mudcrab, mussels.

It's often startling to learn a fish's story: what's wild, what's caged, what's pointlessly wasted and which species are in trouble. It's an even bigger surprise to know how little independent information is readily available.

What's not so shocking is how quickly the mood has begun to change in favour of making informed choices. After all, nobody wants to be dudded.

Our buying habits at the market or restaurant will help shape the business of seafood. The explosion of food culture shows just how fast things change.

Suppliers will respond because they must. The choices we make as individuals and groups have tangible and multiplying effects on the market.

As people begin to favour sustainable fisheries, voicing their concerns to suppliers and retailers, voting with their wallets as well as their feet in restaurants, they will transform the seafood industry and perhaps even rescue it from itself. There are too many good reasons not to try. When we buy food we think first of our families, our children. For their sakes we need to know food is safe and secure. Unless we properly value what's left of our seafood it may, quite soon, be neither.

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Oil in plankton in Gulf of Mexico

A new study found oil in plankton from the Gulf of Mexico.

Does this mean that we're all gonna die tomorrow if we eat a fish from the Gulf? Or does it mean that the Gulf ecosystem is working to break down the oil? Let the debate begin.

But first a quick correction.

Studies of Gulf plankton show a chemical signature of oil. This is not the same as finding oil. It's oil-derived carbon. How did it get into the plankton? It likely happened because bacteria ate the oil and plankton ate the bacteria. Voila.

This does not mean that the plankton are contaminated. Quoting the author of the study:

"What we found was that the system works. It doesn't mean everything is OK and it doesn't mean that there isn't anything out there that isn't toxic. It just explains that the ecosystem is working to process this oil as if it were food."

The oil was treated as "fuel" to grow and reproduce, Graham said. "It's all biomass conversion. If I eat a cow that ate grass, I'm not eating grass; I'm eating what got converted into cow biomass."

Carbon is the element that forms the backbone of all life forms, so the evidence of the oil carbon in the zooplankton doesn't necessarily mean the food chain has become contaminated, Graham explained.

OK, this is a bit tricky. Carbon from oil is making it's way up the food chain. This means the oil has been digested and converted into other forms of carbon--like zooplankton tissue. It doesn't say anything about contamination with actual oil.

Will the world see this as evidence of oil metabolism (the correct view)? Or as evidence that the plankton were dripping in black goo that will poison our seafood (the wrong view)? We'll see, but I'm betting on the incorrect view.

Of course it's good to worry about what our food ate. If we're eating a cow that ate cow brains, we may find ourselves with a brain wasting disease. That would be bad.

So what about this oil-derived carbon in plankton? I don't think seafood with oil-derived carbon is the scariest thing on plates of most people. I'd worry more about mass-produced meat and what those animals have been eating. Give me a Gulf snapper any day.

BTW, I must offer the now-traditional context statement: the oil spill was bad-bad-bad, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. Some animals in the Gulf are contaminated, we know that. And we have to be careful about oil in Gulf seafood. But this carbon from oil story doesn't address that point. This study says that the ecosystem is working to metabolize the oil and that's a good thing.

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Illegal fishing threatens bluefin tuna

Most seafood lovers know that fish fraud can trick you into paying a small fortune for cheap fish.

But did you know that fish fraud can do more than ruin your dinner party?

Fish fraud is a major cause of overfishing, and a new documentary just shown on BBC explains how this problem works for bluefin tuna, the most valuable fish in the sea and also one of the most threatened.

Through hook and crook, 1/3 of the bluefin tuna caught in recent years is illegal.

ICCAT, the fish managers who are supposed to handle this problem will be meeting soon in Paris. Will these revelations shame them into action? This problem could easily be solved if the fishing nations of the world work together with a serious commitment to solutions.

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Is your seafood from China?

"Is wild Chinese salmon sustainable?"

That's when I knew that things were getting strange.

Salmon don't live in China, but many salmon travel through China on their way from the ocean to your dinner. You can even find salmon in China when they were caught in the US and will be eaten in the US. And sometimes they are labeled "product of China" thanks to quirks in seafood labeling laws.

China is now the largest seafood importer into the US.

Maybe you don't speak Chinese, but your seafood does.

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Slippery science in the Gulf of Mexico

Researchers locked out of Gulf of Mexico research sites? Seriously? I can't believe this is happening when when we need all the information we can get about oil and dispersant impacts on the Gulf of Mexico.

What else is going on? How about seafood that is being approved for sale, even though some studies suggest that harmful contamination is present in some Gulf animals. Are people being adequately protected from contaminated seafood?

First, on the authorities stopping researchers from doing their work...I don't have the whole picture, but it's hard to imagine why researchers are being locked out of Gulf research sites. It seems unbelievable, crazy, and foolish:

Since the gulf oil spill first began gushing on April 20, Linda Hooper-Bui’s research group has repeatedly run up against the authorities. In May, a Fish and Wildlife Service officer confiscated insect samples that one of Hooper-Bui’s students had been collecting on a publicly accessible beach in southern Alabama. On research trips in Louisiana, her students have been stopped by sheriff’s deputies—one time after driving 150 miles—simply for attempting to study the ecological impact of oil and dispersants. Time and again, they were told that they couldn’t access their normal research sites unless they were working for BP or the government.

On the seafood contamination concern, here's a description of part of the FDA's seafood contamination test:

In order for an area to be considered acceptable for re-opening from a sensory standpoint a minimum of seventy percent (70%) of the expert assessors must find NO detectable petroleum or dispersant odor or flavor from each sample.

Is this real, 70%? I don't think I want to eat seafood that 30% of assessors think is oily. Yuck.

I'm not yet persuaded that everything's fine. It may be fine, but this stuff isn't reassuring.

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Gulf seafood safe to eat

"...despite millions of gallons of oil and chemical dispersants gushing into the water, federal officials said Tuesday."

This according to the Panama City (Florida) NewsHerald.com

The safety of Gulf seafood is a big subject that will grow in importance. I hope the conversation is more informative and credible than this type of blanket assurance without anything to back it up.

In fact, things may not be quite so rosy. According to the Congressional Research Service, a highly credible source of information, there may be contamination risks that have not yet been fully studied following the oil and chemical spills caused by Hurrican Katrina.

There is concern over the long-term contamination of fisheries through the food chain. Toxins released to the environment through flooding may accumulate through the food chain into the tissues of fish. Bioaccumulative toxins such as lead and mercury have been detected in floodwaters that are now being pumped in Lake Pontchartrain. The timeline for bioaccumulation is uncertain, and depends on the amount of toxins released, where they were released, and whether the release was in specific areas or diffuse.

Another credible report found continued risk of chronic low level contamination of seafood in Alaska, 18 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill there.

Sadly, there is much more to come on the issue of Gulf seafood contamination. We need thorough studies and complete transparency, the public has a right to know and the Gulf seafood industry will only thrive in a climate of open and full disclosure.

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Supermarket empties shelves for conservation

I never thought I'd see this day...a supermarket is showing customers empty seafood shelves to demonstrate the plight of the oceans.

See the photo at top left, showing an empty tray where Loblaw used to offer skates to customers, and now they offer a message about the need to find sustainable fish to sell.

Loblaw in Canada is emptying part of their seafood trays where they used to sell fish that are in trouble. The effort is designed to send a visual message to consumers that unless conservation happens, we'll lose our ocean fish.

Most sustainability messaging on seafood is designed to be consumer-friendly, here's an example of a store taking a risk of making customers uncomfortabl, not usually a winning idea in retail.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

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Ethically correct fish and fishing

Can a fishery be sustainable if customers waste the fish? That's the provocative question raised by scientists Daniel Pauly and Jennifer Jaquet in their critique of the Peruvian anchoveta fishery. Pauly and Jacquet say it's wasteful and wrong to use anchovies for fishmeal instead of feeding people, so it would be wrong to certify the fishery as sustainable.

For me, this stretches too far the definition of sustainable fishing. It's already difficult to find consensus around the definition of sustainable fisheries when it's just about fishing. But this messy debate gets far worse if we include issues like what happens to the fish.

Sustainability should be about not catching too many fish, limiting bycatch, and protecting habitat. We can, and do, debate the proper benchmarks for overfishing and bycatch limits. But if we get into debates about ethical uses of fish, there is no limit to the issues that someone may want to include.

Today, Pauly and Jacquet criticize feeding fish to animals not people. What's the next complaint about how fish get used? Are high-priced fish unsustainable because they're just for the privileged wealthy? Is it a problem to waste fish in processing or preparation? Is a fishery unsustainable if mercury levels in the fish are too high? Can you lose your sustainability certificate if you run a good fishery but the people who buy your fish do bad things?

Certification of fishery sustainability by the Marine Stewardship Council addresses some ethical issues. But it's a mistake to attempt to use the MSC process to address every perceived ethical problem in the seafood supply chain.

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Somebody ate a megamouth shark

This is sad. Megamouth shark number 41 (it's the 41st megamouth ever seen) was eaten in coconut sauce in the Philippines. It's ironic, considering that the region is the home of whale shark-based tourism, so they ought to know better. They used to eat whale sharks, now they sell trips to see whale sharks.

Even if the megamouth was dead when found, there must be a more dignified fate than eating it.

Megamouths are large filter-feeding sharks, first discovered in 1976. Perhaps the world's rarest fish.

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Canada beats US in fighting fish fraud

Responding quickly to the blogfish expose from a few hours ago (wink), Canadian government authorities today announced action to combat seafood fraud in a letter to seafood importers.

Showing productive leadership, a US-based seafood industry group praised the Canadian action and questioned a lack of action by the US government.

“We’re pleased to see CFIA taking such a thorough and proactive approach on the net weight issue,” said Lisa Weddig, Secretary of the Better Seafood Bureau. “At the same time we’re disappointed that our own Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to recognize the importance of this issue and devote needed resources to it.”

Who is the Better Seafood Bureau? A seafood industry group dedicated to tackling the problem of fish fraud, in order to build consumer trust in seafood.

Way to go, guys. Now if we can only get the US government moving.

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Seafood fraud is a big problem

USA Today says seafood fraud is a big problem.

What is seafood fraud? According to a USA Today story, which refers to a report on seafood fraud by the Government Accountability Office:

Sometimes excessive amounts of water, ice or breading are added to increase weight, sometimes seafood is shipped through an intermediate country to avoid customs duties, and sometimes packages are labeled as containing more seafood than they actually do, called short-weighting, the GAO report says. It was released this month.

The Food and Drug Administration is hearing about species substitution — selling cheap fish, often in fillet form, as more expensive species — "with increasing frequency," says spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek.

What does the seafood industry say about seafood fraud? "It's an industry-wide issue," says Gavin Gibbons of the industry's National Fisheries Institute. The GAO report says that seafood companies routinely receive written solicitations to buy fraudulent products. But the report says that when the National Fisheries Institute forwarded several solicitations to the FDA last year, the agency took no action, because insufficient funding forced the FDA to focus on health concerns ahead of fraud.

Until we get some solutions for seafood fraud, customers will have some sketicism about seafood, and that isn't good for anybody.

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Boston Seafood Show

I'm excited to be heading to Boston today for the annual Boston Seafood Show. I'm on a panel tomorrow, discussing how to fix unsustainable fisheries. The panel deals with the larger topic of illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing, and "red list" fish. Red list includes the IUCN global red list of endangered fish and red lists of unsustainable seafood.

I guess I should figure out what I'm going to say. I have some ideas, and 6 hours on 2 airplanes today with an layover in Chicago. That should be enough time. Any suggestions? No kidding, I'll listen if you post suggestions in the comments here.

I'll explain my work and the broader issues as I see them. Then I'll duck the flying rotten tomatoes and fish.

I'll do my best to blog the show, hope I'm not too busy eating seafood.

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Saving the oceans

Sun-baked, fish-fed, brain dead and depleted. It could be worse. At least I was saving the ocean and it was 75 and sunny.

It’s a strange sort of work so close to the edge of collapse, mental and physical. Just getting to the heart of an issue with an interesting mix of people, some I’ve never met before, when the warning box starts popping up: “recharge immediate to avoid immediate brain shutdown.”

It’s tough to keep talking smart through the mental fog, the endless drinking (purely social, of course) and the pounding onslaught of the finest seafood on earth, selected in the company of people who make a living buying and selling seafood.

…and of course, the crushing guilt, no time to blog…

I’m just done with the most intense 4 days of my year. Seafood Summit 2009 in San Diego, where I meet with fish and seafood people nonstop from waking at 7 until collapsing in bed at midnight (or later).

I wish I could link to independent reports on the doings, like the words of seafood journalists John Sackton and the boys from Intrafish.com, but those are subscription-only sites. Too bad, since John seems to think that I took a fairly interesting stand. And then there’s the deep thinking from the Ashoka Foundation, which is uniformly surprising, occasionally contrarian, and also sadly unlinkable.

So what the hell, I think I’m going to take a pass on reporting the event, and just blunder into a couple of things that keep echoing in my head.

One thing I need to ponder is the sometimes-deep divide between the business world and the views of ocean environmentalists. Are we really so different? Is that the way it has to be? Or can we do a better job of finding the areas where we have the same goals? Sometimes we don’t seem so far apart…is it a coincidence that usually happens later in the evening?

What are the duties and obligations of people who make a living buying and selling seafood? Do they owe a special debt to the ocean? And if they don’t feel such a debt, should they have their feet held to the fire? Will that make them see the light and transform into ocean heroes?

Am I really evil if I eat thresher shark, swordfish, or –gasp- Mary’s bluefin tuna? There are maybe 3 or 4 people on the planet who understand my relationship to these fish, and so far as I know they’re not talking, so what up with anyone who presumes to know what I should or shouldn’t do? I’ve told one story--of me and coho salmon--do such things matter?

Is it true that environmentalists eat our young, as a friendly seafood business guy asked me?

And finally, will next year’s meeting be equally productive if it happens in Iceland in the winter, as the rumors would have it?

Regardless, it seems like a good time for a vacation. So I’ll take this opportunity to let you know that Blogfish is going mostly off-line for up to 2 weeks as I retire to a beachfront apartment in Akumal and lick my wounds. It’s rough duty but someone has to do it.

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