Wednesday, July 09, 2003

Bird Crap, USA
Navassa Island may not have a star on the flag, nor a representative in Congress, but it is indeed a chunk of US territory. A chunk of bird crap that is, or to be more accurate - Guano. You see, Guano was at one time highly prized as a fertilizer for agriculture. In a bid to secure sources of Guano, the US government essentially deputized private citizens (under the Guano Islands Act of 1856) to seek out uninhabited and unclaimed islands around the globe - that would provide sources of profitable Guano - and make claims to them . Under the provisions of the act, such islands became unincorporated territories of the US - run out of the Office of Insular Affairs in the Department of the Interior. A number of islands claimed under the Guano Islands Act have in recent times been negotiated over to other countries, but apparently the US and Haiti are in a dispute over ownership of tiny Navassa Island. Let's hope the international peacenik crowd doesn't direct their attention towards this issue, or else there will be no end to the No Blood for Bird Shit sloganeering.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home