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We have that in the USA too. http://farm.ewg.org/farm/index.php

Water in plastic bottles smells and tastes funny because of the contaminants. We're talking disinfection byproducts, wastewater pollutants (caffeine, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, minerals, arsenic, nitrates, ammonia, solvents, greases, even propellants). Many of these are from the bottle manufacturing process, others are from the failure of large scale water filtration systems to properly clean certain things from the water. Still others simply hover in the air in the bottling facility.

We won't need to ban BPA from bottles. That's happening by itself. (If we enforce it, who knows what they'll replace it with). I'd much rather see our country make bottled water illegal all together...

Bottled water tested from dozens of manufacturers failed to meet state minimum requirements across a panel of tests. It's simply no safer that tap water, even in some of the worst cities in america.

Get a sediment filter added to your home's main line. This will help clean certain contaminants out making all your home's water cleaner (this helps clean your dishes better, prevents staining in your laundry, and allows the use of less soap per load). Add high quality filters to each drinking tap. Ensure these filters add BACK the fluoride to the water post filtering (many from PUR do this as well as others). Use high quality bottles when necessary, but generally, drink from glass when possible. Not only use good detergents, but also a rinse agent, and use heated drying instead of air drying. Change your filters when they indicate, not when water is impeded, as the fluoride reserves are depleted at that point. If the water ever tastes funny coming through the filter (especially if you know your local water quality is poor), change the filters as the activated charcoals and other aspects of your filter may be used up even though it has not yet reached it's expiration.

I have filters on (actually under, not a faucet mount) the kitchen sink and in the fridge, plus a sediment filter for the house. The water I drink is perfect, and tastes better even that the expensive glass bottle name brand waters. I replace the sink filter about every 6 months (3 packs costs $40, that's $30 annually for clean tap water), the fridge about every 5 months ($34 filter, that's about $70 annually for cold clean water and ice). The house filter is a 5 year filter and it's $40. (that reduces our soap use by about a third, saving us at least that in detergent annually alone) We drink not less than 3 gallons daily at home. More on weekends and when family visits. These filters run hundreds of gallons during their life. I can't buy 48 bottles (less than 20 gallons) for that in a store!

Our office replaced their bottled water tanks with PUR tankless water coolers. Tastes better, costs less, and I don't have to change a 5 gallon bottle when some other lazy ass doesn't change it for us. With our staff of 14,000 people, we were going through as many as 300 5 gallon bottles a DAY across the company. Some locations were getting multiple trucks daily to keep up with the supply.

for a source on bottled water contaminants, see: http://www.ewg.org/reports/bottledwater

You're water probably already has Lithium in it since it occurs naturally and is unregulated in tap water (not sure for countries other than US).

http://www.ewg.org/tapwater/contaminants/contaminant.php?contamcode=1083

Watch out! Only 10 of the 39,751 test for Lithium and almost all of them report it being there. It's so dangerous you could be dead from it already and not even know it.

Heck, farmers were paid to grow grass.

They are paid not to grow anything, for conservation.

Falcon

I agree that there's an appealing aspect to "Buy Local", but the reality is that it's economically inefficient. I think you'd be surprised by the aggregate effect of this on the economy if everyone were to do it.

What about the subjective components of cost? More importantly, what about future costs? I'm sure you're familiar with arguments for protectionism, so what is your response to them?

When one nation enacts protectionist laws other nations follow suit shutting down exports. The protectionist law Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act made the Great Depression worse than it would have been without the law. No matter how it's sliced and diced national economies depend on international trade. As a recent example look at US based Caterpiller, the world's largest heavy equipment manufacturer for construction and mining. Because other countries can't buy Cats they have had to close down factories putting the employees out of work.

Why do you want to limit economic improvement to certain people?

There are a ton of answers for this. The simplest is selfishness -- if I help my physical neighbor, I get more benefit out of that than if I help some random dude across the globe. For instance, maybe he'll find the cash to put in better landscaping so I don't have to look at his ugly brown grass each evening.

By helping someone half way around the world you enable him or her to buy what the US exports, which creates jobs thus helping your neighbor. Or don't you have Cat employees next door? What about farmers? The US is the largest food exporter, largely because you the taxpayer gives hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill. If you really want to help your neighbor then tell government not to give his tax dollars to large corporations.

Falcon

perhaps you haven't heard but most of the western world has HUGE subsidies for farmers

While farm subsidies are high not all of the money makes it to the farmers. I don't particularly like farm subsidies but it would be better if the money was given directly to the farmers instead of to huge agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill. Giving the money to farmers would be more efficient than giving it to ADM and Cargill. I don't know how farm subsidies work in Australia, Canada, the EU, or Japan, all of which give large subsidies for agriculture produce.

Falcon

Then we'll just have to go after the people responsible!

Bullshit!

Farmer's in the US area already subsidized enormously. And bio-fuels is the largest subsidy of all time - subsidy that allows them to side-step the global economic talks because it is not a direct subsidy.

http://farm.ewg.org/farm/regionsummary.php?fips=00000

And guess what? $8 loaf of bread? If that was 1 kg bread, so about 2 pounds, that means flour would cost close to $4000/ton !!! (50% of wheat, because of excess discarded, guessing)

The cost of bread has VERY LITTLE to do with prices farmers get. Not in the western societies. Farmers get paid next to nothing to overproduce then the middle man grabs most of the profits.

At $400/ton for wheat, then even if your recovery from wheat => flour is 50%, this would mean 1 lb. bread would cost $0.40 (40 cents for Verizon employees). So why is bread 5+x that and they justify "grain costs" for increase?

Bullshit!

100% increase in grain prices would have meant 20 cents increase in bread prices, MAX. But then everyone wants to blame those greedy farmers.

Point your little finger at oil companies and greedy middle man for the bread price, not farmers. Not until I see $5000/ton wheat.

I won't say it's the only one, but a big reason the US exports so much food is because agricultural businesses receive billions of dollars in subsidies, which causes havoc with the economies of Third World Nations. For instance, corn is native to Mexico however because US companies get billions of US taxpayer dollars businesses like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill are able to export corn to Mexico and sell it there for less than Mexican farmers spend on growing corn. This is neither fair nor free trade.

The fact that the agribusiness industry has to spend that much money and they barely have anything to show for it just shows how little influence they have. Corn-based ethanol subsidies are basically the only thing I can think of that they have ever done to help the corn market. Looking at one recent success and saying it means they are powerful is not a very good call.

Agribusinesses don't have much influence? Please explain all the farm subsidies especially corn subsidies then. Between 1995 and 2005 corn alone got more than $50 billion.

The fact that the agribusiness industry has to spend that much money and they barely have anything to show for it just shows how little influence they have. Corn-based ethanol subsidies are basically the only thing I can think of that they have ever done to help the corn market. Looking at one recent success and saying it means they are powerful is not a very good call.

Agribusinesses don't have much influence? Please explain all the farm subsidies especially corn subsidies then. Between 1995 and 2005 corn alone got more than $50 billion.

The fact that the agribusiness industry has to spend that much money and they barely have anything to show for it just shows how little influence they have. Corn-based ethanol subsidies are basically the only thing I can think of that they have ever done to help the corn market. Looking at one recent success and saying it means they are powerful is not a very good call.

Agribusinesses don't have much influence? Please explain all the farm subsidies especially corn subsidies then. Between 1995 and 2005 corn alone got more than $50 billion.

If you take the price that corn sold for in the 1970s and adjusted for inflation, corn should be selling for above $10/bushel today. The prices of corn and other commodities have been kept low for years because there are more voters who eat food than there are who grow food.

And how high would the price of corn be if they didn't get billions of dollars a year in subsidies?. From 1995 to 2005 corn received $51.3 billion in subsidies.

Here's a link to a good breakdown of USDA's farm subsidies.

Even though my father grew up on a dust bowl farm in Kansas during the depression and benefited from some of FDR's programs, I agree that there's no longer any need for farm subsidies. I also don't think we should use subsidies/tariffs as an excuse to compete with other exporters. If foreign governments want to subsidize their exports, then let US consumers take advantage.

I don't believe the government should intervene in the free market in attempts to manage the economy, unless obvious monopolies have developed. On the other hand, I believe strongly that the government should intervene in the free market to protect the environment, ensure labor and product safety, and protect property/legal rights of individual citizens from corporations.

I would feel much better if I thought there would be any lasting effects to any of these "wars".

Sure, there is a lasting effect. The Bill of Rights was pretty much gutted in the name of the "War on Drugs" and what little was left of it has been put thru the shredder in the name of the "War on Terror". Those are the lasting effects.

Meanwhile, the US Government actually operates a price-support program to keep producers of one of the most addictive drugs in business.

I know the cycle. Good point about the ratios. I don't think it will affect anything either, but it would be good to study in biospheres or even just model. However, we are sure that the increased atmospheric CO2 is affecting, so if there is not time/interest/money, perhaps it is best to act.

I agree: multiple sources, depending on the location. The nuclear methods and tidal are good options; the former having a lot of political baggage and waste disposal R&D needed, the latter being able to contribute only relatively insignificantly. Wind in large scale has unknown, possibly great impact on climate streams and comes indirectly from solar. Geothermal doesn't have an unexploited capacity large enough to contribute substantially either (except in Iceland?).

I do think PV can solve all needs, in time. One more benefit to tack onto it is its relative independence from geographic location. Sure, some areas receive more direct sunlight than others, but with panels performing well in diffuse light situations and a good storage system, it should suffice everywhere. The other renewables apart from nuclear are much more localized (actually, solar can even be installed far from water or pipelines).

In the near-term, integrating intermittent solar electricity into the grid provides few technical difficulties, even when considering much higher levels of solar power usage, shown by studies and field experience. Storage is key in the long-term and is being studied (but I agree, perhaps not enough). Of course we could always put together that worldwide electric grid if we could all get along :]

For all this "extra work", bottled water STILL ends up with more bacteria 2 weeks later than ordinary tap water, as well as more contaminants. There are a ton of regulations governing the purity of the water you drink from the tap - none of which apply after its bottled and sold to you.

As for the "pipes that haven't been clean in 50 years", I don't know where you live, but the pipes here are flushed on a regular basis. It's not a hard process - they just dump some extra chlorine into the system, open the fire hydrant at the end of the loop and let it run. This removes any "dead zones". Also, if you've ever done any home plumbing, you'd know that even 50-year-old copper pipe is in decent shape inside, after decades of attack by chlorine, ozone, and good old H2O.

And if you're concerned about energy consumption, there's a lot more energy consumed trucking that water all over the place, as well as in the manufacture of the bottles, etc., than in just pumping it through the muni pipes. And most water bottles end up in the dump (the blue-tinted ones are harder to recycle anyway).

Plus, last I heard, copper and cast-iron water pipes don't have issues with phthalates leeching from the plastic water bottles. You know, those plastics that contaminate the water in the bottle, your peanut butter, etc., 6 types of which have already been permanently banned in Europe http://www.eiatrack.org/reg_alerts/regulatory_aler t_detail.php?id=882 because of their effects http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/newscience/oncompou nds/phthalates/phthalates.htm.

They're everywhere http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=4830, they help explain the huge decline in male fertility over the last 50 years, and we'll have to phase them out if we want to reduce the cancers they cause.

Google is great:

http://www.ewg.org/farm/findings.php
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twr141f.htm
http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?Sto ryId=3795%20#Box

The fact that most of the subsidies go to large agribusinesses makes it even more depressing.

1. The study suggesting Teflon in cookware is harmful to humans was based on PFOA.
   No, but nice try. There have been teflon cancer scares that had nothing to do with PFOA since teflon started being made into consumer products. One of these resurgencies occurred in the 1980s, which was what made me aware of the issue in the first place. As a kid.
2. Scorched fumes from pans without teflon (but with traces of cooking oil, food residue, etc) also kill birds.
   True. They are also not good for humans to breathe.
3. People are not birds. Birds are extremely vulnerable to resperatory problems. People are more durable.
   However, our historical use of birds as signifiers of atmospheres dangerous to humans suggest that there is in fact some useful overlap.
4. There is no evidence whatsoever that people suffer any ill effects (other than psychosomatic) or the specific resperatory maladies caused to birds by overheated teflon (and other fumes) at the doses in question.
   A quick google search turns up some of the evidence in question:
   

   "At 554 degrees Fahrenheit," said Houlihan, "studies show ultrafine particles start coming off the pan. These are tiny little particles that can embed deeply into the lungs."

   The hotter the pan gets, the more chemicals are released. "At 680, toxic gases can begin to come off of heated Teflon," Houlihan said.

   It turns out, DuPont has known about the "Teflon flu" for years.

   "You get some fumes, yes," said Chowdhry, "and you get a flu-like symptom, which is reversible." Chowdhry said the flu is temporary and lasts at most for a couple of days. She also added that a warning about the flu, while not on the pans themselves, is on the DuPont Web site.

   In the demonstration for 20/20, a piece of bacon was just getting crisp when the Teflon pan went beyond the initial warning point of 500 degrees.

   "I've never cooked bacon," said Chowdhry. "I can't comment."

   (http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Teflon/Non-Stick -Sick14nov03.htm)

5. Canaries were used in mines to detect excessive levels of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Which has nothing to do with this.
   Canaries were chosen because they have a delicate respiratory system in general, meaning they will succumb to any particular respiratory distress quickly, which makes them useful as a signifier.
6. Toxicidity is about the dosage (sometimes dosage per kilogram of the test subject) for a particualar substance - not the substance itself.
   Very true. From the same article linked above:
   

   Now the unexpected discovery of the almost universal contamination of Americans' blood from C-8, combined with worrisome laboratory studies, has led to a high priority investigation by the EPA of the chemical's risks.

   "It's a potential threat," said Houlihan. "And the EPA's moving fast in studying this. Human blood levels are too close to the levels that harm lab animals. That's why they're moving too fast."

   
   (here is another story with the same significant content.)

Got any arguments I can't poke holes in, Coward? I suggest you quit your job at Dupont as a corporate shill before you, too, suffer genetic damage due to toxic chemicals. Er, before you suffer more damage.

After that, the most common form of biodiesel supply is oil palms.

Not that this makes it any better of solution for the UK, but it's been a huge part of the US energy debate since the 70s.

Cities, due to their density have much lower tranportation costs. It is much cheaper, per person, to get water and gas services to a single apartment building than 100 rural farms, or even 100 suburban homes. Virtually anything done in a city is cheaper per person than it is in rural areas.

Urban taxes pay for the network of roads and highways that make suburbs possible. Urban taxes pay the farm subsidizes. Urban taxes pay for public transit outside of cities. Urban taxes pay for rural schools and hospitals.

http://www.ewg.org/reports/gastaxlosers/analysis.p hp
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Infrastructure/ov erview.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/07/05/AR2005070500594.html
http://www.techliberation.com/archives/015244.php
http://www.blueoregon.com/2005/03/joined_at_the_h. html

How many people have died or gotten ill from asbestos? maybe 1,000?

ex.
government subsidies for tobacco farmers
government anti-tobacco spending

-bs

Then you get what you deserve, I'd say. Somehow I greatly doubt that Tillamock Cheese and North Plains Lettuce purchased in Beaverton at the farmer's market are contaminated.

That's a pretty insensitive and ignorant comment. You might be surprised to learn how prevalent perchlorate contamination is in the United States. Drinking and irrigation water for up to 20 million Americans in 14 different states are contaminated with it. But then again, I guess those 20 million people get what they deserve? And yes, even our lettuce is affected.

Anyway, regardless of whether you were trolling or not, some information for other people who might be interested. Southern California has a rather large problem with perchlorate contamination in our water supplies. This wasn't discovered until around 1997 when the EPA and local water municipalities decided to start testing for it. They were quite surprised as to the extent of this "plume".

Evidentially, contractors and other workers were dumping all their rocket fuel right into the ground. Granted, they were probably unaware of the possible consequences at the time. Anyway, a number of these plumes have been found around former military bases in Southern California (Norton, March, George). In particular, the plume located around Norton/San Bernardino is a huge problem and cleaning it up is astronomically expensive

Other links:
A Perchlorate Primer
Map of contaminated sites in the United States
Study says low amounts of Perchlorate pose NO risk (LA Times - Registration Required. This article was written yesterday. Interesting contrast to this Slashdot article)
Lockheed Martin commissions study. Volunteers take perchlorate pills

Then you get what you deserve, I'd say. Somehow I greatly doubt that Tillamock Cheese and North Plains Lettuce purchased in Beaverton at the farmer's market are contaminated.

That's a pretty insensitive and ignorant comment. You might be surprised to learn how prevalent perchlorate contamination is in the United States. Drinking and irrigation water for up to 20 million Americans in 14 different states are contaminated with it. But then again, I guess those 20 million people get what they deserve? And yes, even our lettuce is affected.

Anyway, regardless of whether you were trolling or not, some information for other people who might be interested. Southern California has a rather large problem with perchlorate contamination in our water supplies. This wasn't discovered until around 1997 when the EPA and local water municipalities decided to start testing for it. They were quite surprised as to the extent of this "plume".

Evidentially, contractors and other workers were dumping all their rocket fuel right into the ground. Granted, they were probably unaware of the possible consequences at the time. Anyway, a number of these plumes have been found around former military bases in Southern California (Norton, March, George). In particular, the plume located around Norton/San Bernardino is a huge problem and cleaning it up is astronomically expensive

Other links:
A Perchlorate Primer
Map of contaminated sites in the United States
Study says low amounts of Perchlorate pose NO risk (LA Times - Registration Required. This article was written yesterday. Interesting contrast to this Slashdot article)
Lockheed Martin commissions study. Volunteers take perchlorate pills

Then you get what you deserve, I'd say. Somehow I greatly doubt that Tillamock Cheese and North Plains Lettuce purchased in Beaverton at the farmer's market are contaminated.

That's a pretty insensitive and ignorant comment. You might be surprised to learn how prevalent perchlorate contamination is in the United States. Drinking and irrigation water for up to 20 million Americans in 14 different states are contaminated with it. But then again, I guess those 20 million people get what they deserve? And yes, even our lettuce is affected.

Anyway, regardless of whether you were trolling or not, some information for other people who might be interested. Southern California has a rather large problem with perchlorate contamination in our water supplies. This wasn't discovered until around 1997 when the EPA and local water municipalities decided to start testing for it. They were quite surprised as to the extent of this "plume".

Evidentially, contractors and other workers were dumping all their rocket fuel right into the ground. Granted, they were probably unaware of the possible consequences at the time. Anyway, a number of these plumes have been found around former military bases in Southern California (Norton, March, George). In particular, the plume located around Norton/San Bernardino is a huge problem and cleaning it up is astronomically expensive

Other links:
A Perchlorate Primer
Map of contaminated sites in the United States
Study says low amounts of Perchlorate pose NO risk (LA Times - Registration Required. This article was written yesterday. Interesting contrast to this Slashdot article)
Lockheed Martin commissions study. Volunteers take perchlorate pills

But a lot of the gasoline and home heating oil used in the country is very much a measure of how much is available.

Bullshit. I have to heat my house. My usage of home heating oil is purely a function of the average temperature. If it's cold, I have to buy about 250 gallons per month regardless of the price, or my family freezes. The argument that it's supply-dependent is absurd. If supply is greater or the price is lower I don't raise the thermostat or shower four times a day.

Diverging from topic a bit....

Did you know people are stupid enough to buy bottled water when they have clean tap water?

Did you know people are stupid enough to think that tap water is clean when it is not? Did you know that EPA reulations allow a small ( < ~10%) percent of homes to be furnished with water that exceeds contamination levels by any degree

Well, you do now.

That means the water coming from your tap could have carcinogens, and/or lead levels 100+ times greater than standards allow - and there's nothing you could do except stop using your water....

Stop being such a chucklehead

-shpoffo

I know this generally isn't an issue for humans, but if you have any pet birds, the fumes from Teflon, even in very small amounts, can easily kill them. You can have the same problem if you have a "self-cleaning oven." Some appliance manufacturers are even starting to include warnings in their product manuals about this problem. Whirlpool is one that I've seen before.

Here is a link to some information about it. They also discuss what they call "polymer fume fever" which occurs in humans. The particulate matter that is given off is supposed to be some pretty nasty stuff.

Also, if you're suspicious about the information contained there because it's from an environmental group, try searching for "Teflon toxicosis" for any number of other sources.

Sorry, but it's not that simple. In the USA, the corn industry is heavily subsidized by the government.

What's interesting about the protests about the project is that the political types that represent the area where the hole is are fine with the project... it brings plenty of jobs to their area, and they're convinced of the safety.

You are so fucking wrong it boggles the mind. I'll challenge you to read this article and think before you support bullshit like this in the future.

And as a resident of Las Vegas, may I personally say, fuck you.

Unfortuately, those getting the benefits (e.g. chemical company stockholders & management etc.?) and those facing the risks (e.g. tap water drinkers living by a factory etc.?) are often not the same people.

Example: http://www.ewg.org/policymemo/20021113/20021213.ph p "DuPont Hid Teflon Pollution For Decades ... Company Kept 1984 Tap Water Tests Secret After Finding C8 Contamination in Ohio Town"

bottled water? THere is no regulation in the U.S. on the quality of bottled water. Check out the Environmental Working Group for more information.

-shpoffo

The Environmental Working Group
These are some seriously dedicated guys who do environmental research and advocacy. They also maintain several interesting projects, including:

• Body Burden - Directly related to this article
• The Chemical Industry Archives - I used to work with these documents. They're a massive collection of the chemical industry's own documents which describe how little they care about you.

Bill Moyers - Trade Secrets
Bill Moyers did a great film about the problem.

A Google Search For Philip Landrigan
Dr. Philip Landrigan has done extensive work on body burdens in children and has written a number of books.

The Environmental Working Group
These are some seriously dedicated guys who do environmental research and advocacy. They also maintain several interesting projects, including:

• Body Burden - Directly related to this article
• The Chemical Industry Archives - I used to work with these documents. They're a massive collection of the chemical industry's own documents which describe how little they care about you.

Bill Moyers - Trade Secrets
Bill Moyers did a great film about the problem.

A Google Search For Philip Landrigan
Dr. Philip Landrigan has done extensive work on body burdens in children and has written a number of books.

discarded [fluorescent] bulbs release approximately 2-4 tons of mercury per year in the United States...

And that sucks. But you have to balance that against the 49 tons that are emitted (directly to the atmosphere) by coal burning power plants annually.

I don't have time to do the arithmatic right now, but the reduced atmospheric emissions may make fluorescents a wash in this department.

What?! This is offtopic now, but please, for the love of god, don't start a farm if you want to make money. You'll sink thousands into working the land, acquiring equipment, buying seed... then find that there is almost no margin at all. You'll basically have to apply subsidies, and even those go disproportionately to the richest existing farmers.

Please, stay away from agriculture. Ugh. Better to buy up cheap (or even "distressed") land near a city and just sit until the suburbs creep out to it.

There is no subsidised low cost food sent to the cities. The government takes money from the city dwellers and gives it to the rural farmers to throw out the food they grow to keep the prices artificially jacked up.

that's actually incorrect.

agricultural subsidies include such mechanisms as price guarantees, income guarantees (though most of this is now being done through crop insurance subsidies which are partially assisted by the goverenment but require majority copay by the producer), counterproduction subsidies like crp which attempt to limit production, and other items.

who does this go to? mostly large corporate interests. see the Environmental Working Group website and try your own searches.

what effect does this have? overproduction. crop insurance results in overproduction.

they benefit large producers while hurting smaller ones.

why is this? a city is a voracious consumer of raw goods - none of which it produces. it needs a sustained, uninterrupted supply of those goods. what better than empowering large corporate, city-driven farming interests to rule over the production - people you can control and influence.

To keep them there.

Sadly, that's not even working, since millions of dollars go to corporate farms every year, and not to the small family farmers who need them most. Like some of my neighbors out here in southern Minnesota.

PS. I would like to use Just because you don't see something first hand dosn't mean it isn't out there. Christ. on the back flap of my new book, "UFO Sightings: Fact or Facists?"

Yes. I *am* so stupid. Thanks for noticing.

I think this might be a reference to the Highway Beautification Act. Obviously, the law did not have the intended result.

Why bother typing so many tags if they all lead to fair.org?

(shrug) I was rushed for time; I went somewhere that I was fairly sure would have most of what I needed.

Yes, I have read the letter written by the parents [...] Were you aware that most of them were present *during* the original interviews [...]

Um, yes, that was mentioned in the letter. That is, after all, how they were able to observe that Stossel "asked leading questions to get [the kids] to say what [he] wanted". I asked because you didn't seem to have grasped that point (about which more below).

[...] and only protested after being cajoled by environmentalists?

Riiiiiight. What's your source for this?

Regarding Stossels record, of course I'm aware of the nonexistent test (it was not 'faked', as you claim, [...]

He 'faked' that the tests existed at all. You're engaging in tetrapyloctomy.

[...] rather he was erroneously told by a producer that it had occurred)

Mm-hmm. "It was just a mistake. Honest." Very credible. Not at all the sort of thing one might say to cover one's ass or the asses of one's colleagues.

Furthermore, I find your line about 'just the one he got caught on' quite laughable.

(shrug) A poor choice of words, perhaps; "caught and held accountable for" was what I was aiming for. This one was sufficiently egregious that ABC couldn't just sweep it under the rug, like it's done with so many others.

His every move is scrutinized by people such as you who don't believe any viewpoint other than their own should even be voiced.

Hmm. Calling Stossel out on verifiable errors of fact is now somehow equivalent to attempting to silence him because of his opinions. No presentation of any actual rational connection between these concepts, of course; the point is merely to create the mental association between the two. Associationism, on top of projection of conservatives' (and possibly also the accuser's) censorial inclinations onto amorphous "people such as you" (whatever sort that might be). Are you with the cult, perchance?

As for the resignations of the producers, have you considered that they are as politically biased as you and can't abide the airing of opinions that don't match their own?

(shrug) I considered it, but it seemed far less plausible than their stated reasons for leaving: that they couldn't abide being associated with the airing of opinions that were contradicted by actual evidence (which evidence was indeed thrown out precisely because it contradicted said opinions).

And you *still* have not addressed the point of my original article [...]

Yes, I did; you just ignored it, presumably because you couldn't answer it.

(find it yourself...I'm not as link-addicted as you)

namely that the kids parrotted the opinions of the environmentalists, never acknowledging the merest possibility that alternative views exist.

The kids that were shown. Stossel has a history of dismissing or ignoring evidence that doesn't support the position he wants to present; how much of the metaphorical cutting room floor is littered with kids that didn't "parrot[] the opinions of the environmentalists", or that didn't present themselves as 'scared' by the environmentalists (the position Stossel was pushing), or that responded with actual evidence supporting the environmentalists' positions or refuting the "alternative views" (or that otherwise couldn't be edited to make it look like "parrot[ing]")? And don't forget the "leading questions" from above (not to mention "ask[ing] and re-ask[ing] questions until he got material he could edit [...] to support his position", as described elsewhere); how many of the kids who did say what Stossel wanted to hear were prompted into doing so by Stossel himself? Given his "interviewing" tactics as witnessed by the aforementioned parents, we have no reason to believe that what was shown on air bore any resemblance to what the majority of the kids actually said or believed, and plenty of reason to believe that it didn't.

[...] but you still can't tell me what temperature it will be on August 16th in Berlin, whether 2001 or 2101.

Ooh, nice straw-man misrepresentation of the position you're attacking (another common tactic of the cult; I'm guessing you are a member, then). One does not have to be able to predict the exact temperature in Berlin on August 16, 2101 (morning or evening? you didn't specify) to be able to predict, for instance, what the average temperature of the entire planet is likely to be in the early 22nd century, or that it will be sufficiently higher than the current average planetary temperature to cause significant ecological problems.
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I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
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See ABC's report by John Stossel for verification of this brainwashing.

See also the various debunkings of same. Stossel has a very dubious track record on matters like this; I wouldn't put much credence in anything he says.
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