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Maybe they would be happier watching Shaving Ryan's Privates ?

I know I would. As long as it's with aggro military people in the buff, and not aggravating nerdy /.ish (decidedly non-buff!) military history nerds.

For those interested in this tricky situation, I'd recommend the book and movie 'House of Sand and Fog.' Jennifer Connely plays a woman who wrongly has her home taken for back taxes. It gets put on the auction block and purchased by an Iranian family (headed by Ben Kingsley. Both sides had a valid claim to the house. Tragedy ensues.

Not to be pedantic, but that scene was in Alien: Ressurection... However, I have a similar question with Space Truckers. Wouldn't a table just as easily been "sucked" over the hull breach rather than George Wendt's posterior?

I'll take giant rabbits over any movie with the line: You gonna be da' worm face!

i dunno, some of the modern "startle" movies are scarier than Night of the Lepus

i think it would be absolutely impossible to explore the subject matter he does without talking about Alien (and i suppose its followup, Aliens as well, with its exposition of social insect behavior)

Alien is almost an excellent primer on parasitology, taking some of the more bizarre lifecycle aspects of certain parasites and insects, and exploding it into a scifi universe where humans are the host (with some great neato "what if" aspects of contemplative exobiology like acid for blood, organometallics for an exoskeleton that can resist the vacuum of space, the mouth-within-a-mouth, etc.)

wikipedia has a good exploration of the subject

the point is, Alien satisfies both mass audiences with requisite scares, but it also satisfies the scientifically-minded audience, because it begins with a good grounding in biology and expands upon it in a scholarly manner. Alien is entertaining on both a shallow bug out manner, and is also fodder for intellectual rumination as well. so many movies are just one or the other (usually the former), and it is very rare to find a movie that can do both very successfully like Alien

i think it would be absolutely impossible to explore the subject matter he does without talking about Alien (and i suppose its followup, Aliens as well, with its exposition of social insect behavior)

Alien is almost an excellent primer on parasitology, taking some of the more bizarre lifecycle aspects of certain parasites and insects, and exploding it into a scifi universe where humans are the host (with some great neato "what if" aspects of contemplative exobiology like acid for blood, organometallics for an exoskeleton that can resist the vacuum of space, the mouth-within-a-mouth, etc.)

wikipedia has a good exploration of the subject

the point is, Alien satisfies both mass audiences with requisite scares, but it also satisfies the scientifically-minded audience, because it begins with a good grounding in biology and expands upon it in a scholarly manner. Alien is entertaining on both a shallow bug out manner, and is also fodder for intellectual rumination as well. so many movies are just one or the other (usually the former), and it is very rare to find a movie that can do both very successfully like Alien

When my dad and I first watched Cocoon http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/, few words were exchanged for most of the movie. toward the end, when the old people were on the boat fleeing the US Coast Guard, my dad stood up and shouted, "There is no way in hell that a little pleasure yacht like that could outrun a Coast Guard cutter!"

So he was totally satisfied that intergalactics and geriatrics would hit it off, he believed without question that aliens visited earth in the first place, and did not quiestion that the first notion the US government would have had was to chase down a pleasure boat, but once that boat had exceeded its real-world limitations, he was totally disillusioned.

So my dad is a boat man. This guy is a body size ratio man. Neither seem to posess the skill of suspension of disbelief, a prerequisite for watching a movie. I further the "waste of time" motion.

Now we know what the secret of NIMH was.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084649/

Really, it makes sense. Patrick Duffy is what makes us truly human, after all.

Ryan Fenton

He's probably talking about the dystopian, 1984-ish movie Brazil, not the country.

It seems like a knee-jerk reaction to me. They're losing money and they don't want to scare off the investors. Easiest way to do that is to reduce the money flowing out of the company which usually means layoffs. Less salaries gives the appearance of more profit margins

Everytime, I hear of layoffs though I always think of Office Space

Peter Gibbons: You're gonna lay off Samir and Michael?
Bob Slydell: Oh yeah, we're bring in some entry-level graduates, farm some work out to Singapore, that's the usual deal.
Bob Porter: Standard operating procedure.
Peter Gibbons: Do they know this yet?
Bob Slydell: No. No, of course not. We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.

Man, I was hoping your imdb link went here. The whole promoted through high school without learning to read or do math made me think of it.

wouldn't tying teacher's rate of pay to standardized testing encourage the teachers to teach just the exam and not how to learn and explore?

In any effective education system (there aren't many of them) the teachers don't see the exams until after the students. The teachers and the QA staff have access to the same curriculum - one group creates lesson plans based on the curriculum and the other group creates exams. This division of labour prevents "teaching to the test" because the teachers don't know what's going to be on any given test (everything in the curriculum is fair game), but more importantly it takes away the ability of teachers to "test only what they taught" if they fail to complete the curriculum. That hopefully eliminates the stereotyped "worst case" where a student is promoted all the way through high school without learning to read or do math.

Perhaps an alternative using the best of both worlds [a matter of opinion of course] is to maybe use something along the lines which the Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com/ does and allow users to add their input but instead of going 'live' right away, would be looked at/approved/whatever buy the admin/moderators or whoever who then post it to the database or, perhaps, refer it back to the author for them to either forget it or re-research it or ammend it etc when they could then re-submit it again if they wished.

It's a tricky one admittedly and I guess when push comes to shove, it's up to Wikapedia to do what they feel is right but as long as articles/submissions etc aren't being rejected, as someone else rightly said, based on their own predjudices, beliefs etc, maybe that's a fair alternative?

Wikipedia could be called an experiment in human nature: assuming that everybody does their best (and no evil) is just like one of the principles of communism (everybody should do their best at work, despite their motivation, salary, etc). I did never believe it could possible work as well as it did.

I did not research this but I assume that in the beginning mostly more educated people used it and they tend not to abuse it too much. As it became widely adopted and used, everybody started to use it, meaning a higher percentage of people who would like to abuse it.

Unfortunately I don't believe that a [global] experiment in human nature can survive... Check out Winterbottom's movie, "24 hour party people".

Dark Star references...cool!

I'm not sure where I got this quote from (possibly even a /. post !) but it sums this up quite nicely:

"New Labour see a problem and a headline - then address the headline".

This is such a bad bill it's hardly worth discussing. They might as well make it illegal to own war films (very, very violent and displaying a definite lust for death - You could make a very good case for labelling then as violent pornography)

As in every instance where a twisted individual has forcibly projected their inner sickness onto an innocent third party I have every sympathy for the victim and their family. But this sort of knee jerk legislation will achieve nothing. It will not make anyone safer and it will not prevent further such murders.

So the obvious question is exactly how will "violent pornography" be defined ? From my (very, very) limited watching of current UK TV I suspect that you could class quite a bit of the current output as violent pornography - especially the utter crap put out under the moniker of "soap operas" which seem to feature nothing but fucking and fighting.

Oh well, maybe I suppose I'd best get up early tomorrow so I can take my DVD copy of "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" down to the local cop shop to check up on its legal status... :)

What did the "Web Hype" do for Snakes on a Plane, oh thats right, NOTHING. Just like some bad press will not kill the PS3.

That's because Snakes on a Plane web hype also appealed to people who leave the house a lot less and are more apt to wait and download then pay and sit next to joe-joe the idiot circus boy and his ringing cell phone.

To deny that "web hype" has any effect on the real world is just silly. Ask those folks in Alaska whose little pork project just fell apart if blogs have power over public opinion. They will undoubtedly say, "Yes."

This doesn't mean that the PS3 will fail, and by all accounts "SoaP is not a "failure." But to deny that the Internet bailed out what was likely to be another Deep Blue Sea is inaccurate. The impact was nowhere near as big as expected, but people certainly saw that movie because of hype. Imagine what the box office would have been *without* the hype...

Nevertheless, inaccurate box office projections will likely hurt some people. It doesn't mean that New Line Cinema or anyone else is going to "fail." It does mean that someone somewhere will probably lose a job or two. It does mean that some people with lofty endorsement contracts or marketing tie-ins may not make as much money.

So too, it could be with Sony and negative web hype. This does not necessarily mean Sony dies. It just means they ain't in first. Internet hype has power. It is important. It's just not magical, or special.

"Shaun Gabb, director of the anti-censorship organization the Libertarian Alliance, said: 'If you are criminalizing possession then you are giving police inquisitorial powers to come into your house and see what you've got, now we didn't have this in the past.'

No, that attractive chick was in a movie about Stenography.

Link Correction... LOL

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0385296/

Most of today's artist don't deserve money for their CRAPtastic music.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0385296//
Maybe the record companies should be a little more selective of their artists?

And we all know no one has ever worked their way up from a small self-funded work to something bigger. It never happens!

And we all know no one has ever worked their way up from a small self-funded work to something bigger. It never happens!

And we all know no one has ever worked their way up from a small self-funded work to something bigger. It never happens!

And we all know no one has ever worked their way up from a small self-funded work to something bigger. It never happens!

I really enjoyed the movie Dennis Hopper presented, called Best Sellers in the English version I saw. They present the interchangeability of art and advertising, especially after the 1980s saw so many film/art directors produce ads and vice versa.

What, nobody mentions the real reason to go to PAX, The Wizard? Unfortunately, the audience participation this year and last were nowhere near as good as it was in '04. Hell, back in 04 I skipped a chance to play Halo 2 to see The Wizard. It was so worth it.

The panels, tournaments (I'm not that good) and freeplay rooms were good, I suppose, but just hanging out with a DS was awesome. There were so many DSes being used, in fact, that it was hard to play without getting a connection error even if you were right next to the other people you were playing, unfortunately. Pictochat was awesome if you could get past the aformentioned connection issues and you were lucky enough not to be chatting at a time when ten people all think it's the height of comedy to draw dicks.

I brought my PSP but never really had a chance to use it. Maybe if the number of PSP games that supported single disc play was anywhere near the number of DS games that support single cart play, that'd be different.

The Omegathon (6 or so game contest spread over all 3 days among a handpicked few lucky contestants) ended anticlimactically. I waited in line at least an hour to see the final, and it was just a guy who wasn't that good at tetris (Tengen, baby!) vs. a guy who absolutely sucked. The prize was a car. I really thought it should be game related like the last two years, but I suppose the car manufacturer paid them or something.

Also, the Guitar Hero II omegathon round was weird. They started demonstrating Trippin' on a hole in a paper heart on expert and said the contestants were FUCKED. The contestants then preceded to play games on medium difficulty. Boring! (Then again, seeing them miss every note probably wouldn't be that exciting either)

As for the concerts, same old, same old. The videogame pianist (guy who played the mario theme in a blindfold), Optimus Rhyme, the NESkimos, MC Frontalot, and the Minibosses. Hell, I don't think they even played a single song I haven't heard before. In one of the panels, they said they're trying to get Freezepop, so let's see how that goes.

I didn't like the expo room that much. I was expecting a PS3 or Wii or something. There was a few good things (Guitar Hero II, the DS holiday linup), but there was also a lot of stuff I just didn't care about, like some guy promoting Fury with a mic turned up so high that you could hear it just about anywhere in the room. Also, the Army made a big appearance. I really don't see what they think that game'll do, though. "Gee, looks like fighting a war is really hard, and you can't respawn!"

The worst part: They ran out of Bawls bottles near the end of the second day, and the Snobawls (like Bawls slurpees) took like an hour to make, and each time they would run out in like five minutes. How am I supposed to stay up three days for no reason without Caffeine?

Thank god it'll actually be somewhere in civilisation next time. Bellevue? Bah!. Downtown Seattle's where it's at.

Chef really IS a Chicken Hawk

2. Equipment not working at -40.

Considering that these ships are intended to be used by the coast guard in the gulf of Mexico, I don't see the problem.

3. Unshielded cables.

WTF is he talking about? The only way to sniff data from an unshielded cable is if you are right next to it. It is not going to help you when the cable is on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Further, the moment data is transmitted off the ship via radar, all bets are off. Unless you encrypt it *anyone* can listen to it.

• Gulf of Mexico != middle of the ocean - but that's just a nitpick
• RADAR != transmission device - see RADAR
• Maximum distance to electrically sniff from an unshielded cable != right next to it - see TEMPEST
• Encrypting something != only you can listen to it - it simply means that other folks will have a hard time understanding it which is a critical distinction

Try this.

San Francisco, Ca - Mikhail Borovskiy (GNAP) - Moments after the announcement made by Steve Jobs that Apple would be changing the Macintosh computing platform from a PowerPC based CPU architecture to an Intel Pentium based architecture, GNAA executives jesuitx and timecop were visibly shaken. The announcement confirmed rumors started four days prior when C-Net News reported that this change would be taking place. As C-Net News was the first technical news source to report this story, most people assumed the truth would be somewhere near the polar opposite of their findings.

"Guys what is going on? It seems Apple is trying to market towards 'Straighties'! That's never going to work! Fuck Apple, Apple is dead to me, Apple hit WTC!" said jesuitx upon hearing the news. He was later seen backstage speaking with Apple's Vice-President of Marketing, Phil Schiller, quoted as saying "Phil, baby, this is massively fucked up. As a typical Macintosh user, and as a fellow Vice-President of Marketing [Gay Nigger Association of America], I can tell you there's no amount of spin you could put on this that will save you from losing support from the homosexual installed base [all Macintosh users] that has kept Apple Computer alive for so many years!"

timecop, founder and President of GNAA, is expected to renounce Apple and order the immediate purchase of Chinese made IBM computers by its members, 87% of which are Macintosh users, at the July 8th Copperfield Conference to be held in Kyoto, Japan. At the last Copperfield conference, held in Nome, Alaska, timecop had praised Apple for their continuous support of the homosexual community.

About Apple

Until today, Apple Computer was the creator of the Macintosh, popularly known as the "gay computer". 87% of GNAA members were Mac users. Founded in 1974 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple was nearly out of business in the mid 90's, when Jobs was rehired. He then started the now infamous iGay marketing scheme which involved both the Step 2 ???? Profit model, and a 100% effort towards marketing to homosexuals. Apple is nowadays run by fuckfaced retards.

About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!

• First, you have to obtain a copy of GAYNIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it. You can download the movie (~130mb) using BitTorrent.
• Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA First Post on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website.
• Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on irc.gnaa.us, and apply for membership.

I had an Epson printer for a while, and it sucked ass with a huge sucking noise.

Did you have the Bubba Ho-tep model?

I had an Epson printer for a while, and it sucked ass with a huge sucking noise.

Did you have the model?

Tom: What's he doin?
Droz: He's finishing his senior thesis. Pigman is trying to prove the Caine-Hackman theory. No matter what time it is, 24 hours a day, you can find a Michael Caine or Gene Hackman movie playing on TV.
Tom: That's his thesis?
Droz: Yes! That's the beauty of college these days, Tommy! You can major in Game Boy if you know how to bullshit.
- PCU

Tom: What's he doin?
Droz: He's finishing his senior thesis. Pigman is trying to prove the Caine-Hackman theory. No matter what time it is, 24 hours a day, you can find a Michael Caine or Gene Hackman movie playing on TV.
Tom: That's his thesis?
Droz: Yes! That's the beauty of college these days, Tommy! You can major in Game Boy if you know how to bullshit.

Reference: PCU

That's the beauty of college these days, Tommy! You can major in Game Boy if you know how to bullshit."
-- James 'Droz' Andrews (played beautifully by Jeremy Piven) in PCU.

So you're telling me that you never played with Legos as a kid? or Barbies? Or Lincoln Logs? Or the little games where you stick shapes into their corresponding holes? Did your teacher never read you books in class? Did you never sing songs for a school concert? Did you ever watch Donald in Mathmagic Land?

I know I did all these things in school. In fact, I'm sure I learned just about everything from playing games (entertainment), watching movies (entertainment), and listening to/singing songs (entertainment).

In fact, short of a direct brain interface, not sure how you would teach children anything if you couldn't entertain them in the process. They just wouldn't pay attention. Heck, the only reason I practiced multiplication tables was to win our math races... and we spent a week during our poetry unit in Junior english listening to and analyzing song lyrics (The Sound of Silence and Stairway to Heaven included)... and I expressly remember singing along to that Kokomo song (by the Beach Boys) in first grade at a school play... it would've been a shame if the RIAA had shown up then and busted poor Mrs. Sanderson for playing it...

How sad society would be if our kids had to learn without entertainment...

Great post!

To use the tagline of a great movie, "The Shawnshank Redemption:

"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free."

Indeed, certain fears will always be part of you as a living being, but somewhere a line must be drawn!

The reason why I post this as an AC? Well, although I realise all that was written by the parent post and with the lines I've written myself, sadly my body (amygdala) does not fully agree. However, it is perhaps because I suffer from panic attacks and agoraphobia, I belong to the group of people who are perhaps most likely to realise that "[it is a] Terrible thing, to live in fear. ".

Great post!

To use the tagline of a great movie, "The Shawnshank Redemption:

"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free."

Indeed, certain fears will always be part of you as a living being, but somewhere a line must be drawn!

The reason why I post this as an AC? Well, although I realise all that was written by the parent post and with the lines I've written myself, sadly my body (amygdala) does not fully agree. However, it is perhaps because I suffer from panic attacks and agoraphobia, I belong to the group of people who are perhaps most likely to realise that "[it is a] Terrible thing, to live in fear. ".

Steal This film

IN 2006, A GROUP OF FRIENDS DECIDED TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT FILESHARING THAT *WE* WOULD RECOGNISE. THERE HAVE BEEN A FEW DOCUMENTARIES BY 'OLD MEDIA' CREWS WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND THE NET AND SEE PEER-TO-PEER ORGANISATION AS A THREAT TO THEIR LIVELIHOODS. THEY HAVE NO REASON TO REPRESENT THE FILESHARING MOVEMENT POSITIVELY, AND NO CAPACITY TO REPRESENT IT LUCIDLY.

"Avoid all needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon." -- Steal This Book
"Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire."
"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists."
"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit."

Yes it does, my source said so too!

Making friends with the cable guy...

On one hand, he should be able to tell you about all that high tech stuff: "The future is now! Soon every American home will integrate their television, phone and computer. You'll be able to visit the Louvre on one channel, or watch female wrestling on another. You can do your shopping at home, or play Mortal Kombat with a friend from Vietnam. There's no end to the possibilities!"

On the other hand, he might show you the evils of all his years of TV watching and have an emotional breakdown: "You were never there for me were you mother? You expected Mike and Carol Brady to raise me! I'm the bastard son of Claire Huxtable! I am a Lost Cunningham! I learned the facts of life from watching The Facts of Life! Oh God!"

It's too bad some the mods modded down the GP and that you were offened because you are unfamiliar with African culture. The way the GP expressed how he heard their language is exactly how their languange sounds to Western ears. See this movie:
The Gods Must Be Crazy
It's very funny, pokes fun at Western consumerism, and has some wonderful African songs - I had a fantacy of moving there myself!

• First, you have to obtain a copy of GAYNIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it. You can download the movie (~130mb) using BitTorrent.
• Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA First Post on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website.
• Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on irc.gnaa.us, and apply for membership.

Anybody ever see 'M' (1921, Peter Lorre, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022100/)?

The German government can't catch the child murderer, but the criminals of the underworld go after him, catch him, and administer their own justice.

Misha Borovsky (GNAP) Hollywood, Ca - At a star studded event which was attended by both Jamie Foxx and Denzel Washington, two of Hollywood's leading gay stars, GNAA president timecop and vice-president jesuitx unveiled the latest offering from the G NAA Software Division, GN AA OneNigger.

"OneNigger is a hosted collaboration groupware for taking a more proactive approach to trolling. By leveraging OneNigger services with industry trolling best-pratices, the lone gay nigger, or small gay nigger organization is empowered to think outside the box." stated timecop.

Added jesuitx, "Furthermore, in our focus group testing we were able to increase LastMeasure coverage by 36.4% among bloggers participating in large blogrolls. Using modules like the OneNigger Date shared calendaring system allows groups to pick times to touch base on important trolling issues of the day."

Other modules in the OneNigger Enterprise version include OneNigger Chizzat running on patented extensions to IRC, OneNigger Phone, which offers VoIP technologies with free toll-free access to the USA and Japan, and Gay Porn Avalanche Enterprise 2.0 (GPAE2), now newly integrated into the OneNigger platform. OneNigger requires Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 running on an Intel processor. AMD is not supported, as OneNigger is an enterprise-level software suite, and requires a powerful computer.

Later on at the after-party, GNAA member Depakote jacked off with this Microsoft OneCare CD, and consumed his seed, much to the squealing delight of Jaime Foxx.

About AMD:

Slow.

About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GA Y NIG GER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!

• First, you have to obtain a copy of GAYNIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it. You can download the movie (~130mb) using BitTorrent.
• Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA First Post on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website.
• Third, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on irc.gnaa.us, and apply for membership.

Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today! Upon submitting your application, you will be required to submit links to your successful First Post, and you will be tested on your knowledge of GAYNIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE.

If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, the official GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA irc channel, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is NiggerNET, and you can connect to irc.gnaa.us as our official server. Follow this link

The problem is that the technology isn't safe, nor is it secure.

I highly suggest you watch the documentary Future of Food.

Here's how the documentary starts:
"We used to be a nation of farmers, but now it's less than 2% of the population of the united states, so a lot of us don't know what it takes to grow food. Over 12,000 years ago people began planting and saving seed. Agriculture flowered and civilizations were born. In China, thousands of varieties of rice were grown. Over 5,000 kinds of potatoes were cultivated worldwide. In the US alone, more than 7,000 varieties of apples were grown in the 19th century.

In the 20th century, the face of farming underwent a radical change. The manufacture of nitrogen-based bombs in World War I led to the development of nitrogen-based chemical fertilizers. Nerve gas, developed during world war II, was slightly modified to make insecticides. DDT was the hero of its generation. New technologies promised higher yields, increased food production, cheaper prices and greater availability. By the mid-20th century, these technologies along with new developments in plant breeding led to the green revolution."

It continues:

"The next several decades saw a remarkable increase in production. Year after year, huge fields were planted with only one variety of crop. These monocultures created an ecological vacuum that insects and disease could exploit. This uniformity has led to some of the greatest agricultural catastrophes of mankind. In the mid 1800's, very few varieties of potato were cultivated in Ireland. When they became diseased, 1 million people died. When the same potato blight attacked Peru, they suffered fewer consequences. Today, only four varieties of potato are widely grown. 97% of the varieties of vegetables grown at the beginning of the 20th century are now extinct. Genetic uniformity leads to an increased vulnerability to insects and disease. Farmers found themselves trapped on the pesticide treadmill. The more they sprayed, the more they had to spray. The increased use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides increased costs, polluted water and created health risks.

Then in the 1970's, Monsanto introduced RoundUp. Because of its ability to kill most weeds, it became one of the most popular herbicides in history. In the mid-1990's, building on technologies that used gene splicing, the green revolution turned into the gene revolution. Capitalizing on the new technology, Monsanto genetically modified its seeds to be RoundUp Ready. Normally RoundUp kills anything green, but if a plant is RoundUp ready, when it is sprayed, it doesn't die. Now the company that sells you the herbicide, also sells you the seed. With Monsanto's BT corn, the corn itself is registered as an insecticide. This is because every cell has been engineered to manufacture BT, a natural bacterial toxin. If a corn borer eats any part of the plant, it will die."

So here's the thing: If a company genetically engineers the "perfect" apple tree, everyone will start to grow that apple tree. Eventually a biological mutation will occur (it's only a matter of time) that will allow some pest or disease to destroy these apple trees. Genetic biodiversity is required in order to have a secure food source for an indefinite period. During the great potato blights of the mid 1800's, it was the regions that preserved genetic biodiversity that were able to survive these catastrophes. Something similar is happening now with Bananas as happened with potatoes before. I quote from wikipedia: "In the past, the banana was a highly sustainable crop with a long plantation life and stable yields year round. However with the arrival of the Black Sigatoka fungus, banana production in eastern Africa has fallen by over 40%."

A lack of genetic diversity is a huge risk. While these GE plants may be resistant to existing pests and diseases, evolution is very good at finding ways to exploit the new system and

>making more efficent crops could free up more space for the growing of bio-fuels.

The main reason GE foods exist is so that the companies that own them can patent the gene and own the plant. They don't increase production of the plant significantly, that is not their desire, as there's plenty off food currently (starvation is primarily a distribution issue, not a supply issue).

The reason that I choose organic whenever it's available, is because I want to vote with my dollars to say that I don't support giant companies owning the plants that we need to survive.

As a disclaimer, my girlfriend was the Narrator (among other tasks) for 'The Future of Food' and it was the research that she came across there that changed how we eat. It's a film that covers the aspects of this discussion quite well, but with a bit of a leftist slant. Not intentionally though, monsanto refused any interview requests to present their side of the story.

Also, if you've got a spare few days, give 'The Omnivores Dilemma' a read. It's long, but not heavy, and a lot of good information. My favorite part is the bit about the "grass farmers".