The Environmental Group WildEarth Guardians says an anachronistic part of the Department of Agriculture spent $117 million last year to kill 2.4 million animals. The Wildlife Services has changed names plenty of times, but dates back to the days when the prevailing wisdom was just to wipe out any animals that got in the way of people. In its defense, the agency says it saves up to four times what it spends in agricultural losses. Of course, those would be private losses and we're spending tax money.

The agency just agreed to start putting out its data in a readable form after pressure from WildEarth Guardians. Meanwhile the animal group estimated that about half of those exterminated were starlings (an invasive bird) but 122,000 were carnivore mammals (like coyote and bear). The Wildlife Services program accidentally knocked off reindeer, pronghorn sheep, foxes, and bald eagles, says WildEarth Guardian's Wendy Keefover-Ring. Their sloppy application of poisons has killed off pet dogs, like Jenna, a lab mix poisoned while hunting rabbits. Most tragically, 10 people have died in aerial shooting programs.

Sure, some ranchers should be compensated for wildlife losses. The government should cooperate so frustrated ranchers don't take matters into their own hands. But the wildlife bureacracy has spread to cover all kinds of entrepreneurs from the cost of doing business. They also kill bears to protect logging companies (bears like seedlings). Federal agents bumped off 300,000 blackbirds who's big crime was eating sunflowers grown for birdseed. Fish farmers get protection from birds, too.

According to NewScientist, if Americans want to save their economy, they should go on a diet. Not only that, but ecologists say that "the apparently looming energy crisis could be averted if US residents cut their calorie intake."

On the surface, this sounds like it could be contradicting plain economic reason. The U.S. must consume more, not less, to save the economy, right? But is that long-term thinking in the face of higher food and energy costs?

The scientists who tried to bring their point across, David Pimentel of Cornell University and colleagues, showed how a few relatively simple changes can save energy. A lot of it. Changes include improvements in farming to more efficient bulbs, reduced transportation distances, cutting on packaging and more.

Fine, you say, what's that got to do with my diet?

No need to panic yet, but you may have heard the buzz that honeybees have been disappearing from the Earth.

This is a problem for a variety of reasons. For starters, we have a lot of crops that depend on honeybees. The United States alone has 130 crops that are dependent on honey bees for pollination, including carrots, onions, squash, blueberries, apples and almonds. Honey bees are basically in charge of seeing that $15 billion in food crops are nutritious and edible and able to go to the grocery store. Or put another way, the honey bee is given credit for 85% of the pollination necessary to supply about one-third of the nation's food supply.

Nobody really knows the cause, and lately it's suspected that it's a variety of causes, but there are the current crop of suspects.