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Selective breeding is not "genetic engineering". And I put that in quotes because you have a better chance of building a house from match sticks than doing proper engineering with genes.

What these "engineers" do is just stick a gene sequence from one type of bacteria of fungus or whatever into some semi-random part of plant/animal DNA. Then they test if the plant,

  1. lives
  2. is not immediately poisonous
  3. has some trait they were looking to insert

Basically, it is a giant crapshoot. But after they get the proper trait, they just declare the entire shebang as "safe" and it is available on sale. In the meantime, they just trow out 100s and 100s of cases where the "genetic engineering" didn't satisfy the above ultra-rigorous criteria.

As to safety, well, rats are not people, right?

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Modified-Soya-Rats10oct05.htm

So yes, I want a label. I want to be able to choose between the food that my body has adapted to over the last 1,000,000+ years or a food that's been deemed safe and profitable for the duration of some patent.

To put it another way, DNA is like compressed, encrypted software, with a bunch of callbacks. You can't just stick one part of one software into another with a `dd` command and expect to have a feature moved properly.

PS. Of course, we may want to go all GM anyway, right?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/enlist-dow-agent-orange-corn_n_1456129.html

Nothing wrong with spraying Agent Orange on the fields if they approve the Agent Orange resistant corn... DOW stock should go up if they approve this. After all, Agent Orange is totally safe! Just ask the vietnam vets or the kids of of the people in Vietnam where they sprayed that stuff. /sarcasm

The Ranch Hand guys didn't wear such things, but they should have had exposure suits or at least mask and gloves. A cape/poncho wouldn't have helped.

Scroll down to the unfortunate Airman working without protective gear:

http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Operation-Ranch-Hand18oct97.htm

Agent Orange doesn't have an antidote. (You can look up its components, 2 4-D, 2,4,5-T, online.)

Atropine is specifically an antidote to either nerve agent or pesticides containing similar compounds. Those autoinjectors have been standard issue for many years and are still stocked today!

A rubber "poncho/cape" isn't great chem protection but it's better than nothing. Odd the overboots and gloves weren't in the same conex.

Unfortunately as usual the greenpeace and anti-GM rent-a-mod luddites are against it because ... well I've no idea really

Because nobody has any idea about the long term implications of using GMOs, or what might be going wrong. They make them, decree they're safe, and then say unless there's evidence to the contrary, they must be.

GMO crops can affect biodiversity, and in the case of Monsanto pollute other people's fields even when they aren't using it, and when it's sent for food aid the recipients are told they can't keep seed to plant next year because they're not "licensed" to grow corn.

It's the law of unintended consequences, really. Except that people take the default position of "what could possibly go wrong?", until something does.

If you think people are against GMO food because they're luddites, then you're an idiot.

People are against it because there's no evidence it's safe either, and there's a lot that can go wrong with it. In fact, there's loads of examples where it has.

Genetically modified pigs have ended up in the food supply and contaminated crops.

It's like pharmaceuticals. The company who makes it has a vested interest in selling it, so if they take a few shortcuts, or leave out the evidence they don't like, or outright fabricate their evidence -- well, then we don't really know what we're getting, do we?

I'm far from a luddite, but I see an awful lot to suggest that people are doing this, doing a piss poor job of actually keeping tabs on it, and not always being up front about it when it goes wrong. With some things (say, thalidomide) you only discover the disastrous consequences after literally years.

Feel free to exercise your choice to eat those things. Me, I'd prefer to avoid it. There's just too many accidents and questions that I'm not convinced there are good enough answers yet.

Luddites?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/19/monsanto-gm-corn-causing_n_425195.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/genetically-modified-soy_b_544575.html

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Modified-Soya-Rats10oct05.htm

basically, no one does ANY testing, they just trust that Monsanto says that it is safe,

http://www.fda.gov/Food/Biotechnology/Submissions/ucm161107.htm

And please, don't get me started about "nature does it for millennia" bullshit. Nature does not insert random genes from some weird funguses or fish into corn (or other plants).

The natural world will have NO PROBLEMS paying the price in working around these new toxins in the plants. It will take a few years and hundreds of generations of critters, but they will adapt. Are we willing to pay the same price too? Sooner or later, we may just find our that our improved food is killing us and we don't know why.

We have evolved to eat the food we have available, not the other way around. We are FAR away from an understanding how our body works completely. We know the big picture, but that's it. So please, don't call people that question our "perfect understanding of nature" into question. You just sound like those stupid people,

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/06/12/2148229/why-smart-people-are-stupid

Elbert Dallas Thomason

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Monsanto-Beats-LA-Farmer.htm

Why would a mysterious agriculture department sprout up months after Monsanto threatens a local farmer and illegally takes samples of his crops?

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-4048288.html

Or going after the infrastructure that non-Monsanto farmers require to make a living:

http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-videos/6-must-see-videos/12161-monsanto-vs-seed-cleaner-moe-parr

Are you defending Monsanto, or just pointing out that the 400+ patent violation cases instigated by Monsanto that are in the judicial system (as of 1999) and are NOT public record don't count as "monsanto up and suing people"? We can't tell if they are cross-pollenation cases becasue they aren't public record due to uncertain influence of Monsanto at the local level:

http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/cfsmonsantovsfarmerreport1.13.05.pdf

I agree that contract violation is illegal (saving seed and all that). Have you stopped to consider why they sign these contracts that don't allow them to save seed, and force them to buy more each year at increasing prices? Jeez, I'd have to have a gun pointed to my head to sign something so ludicrous. /sarcasm

I also agree that it should be illegal to extort people into having no choice but to buy from Monsanto or go broke. Because I'm sure you can google, and I'm sure you can find limitless cases where Monsanto bullies and threatens farmers.

People start off being able to reason, school stomps it out of most of them:
http://www.alisongopnik.com/TheScientistInTheCrib.htm

Well-rounded (or rather, healthy, which does not always mean being perfectly rounded) human beings are more likely to come out of healthy communities and healthy families...

Some other links;

"The Underground History of American Education" by 1991 NYS Teacher of
the Year John Taylor Gatto
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

"The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" also by John Taylor Gatto
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt

"State Controlled Consciousness" also by John Taylor Gatto
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html

"The Big Crunch" by David Goodstein, Vice Provost, Caltech
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html

"Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt
http://www.disciplined-minds.com/

"What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream" by Noam Chomsky
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

"University Secrets:Your Guide to Surviving a College Education" by
Robert D. Honigman
http://web.archive.org/web/20060707100524/www.universitysecrets.com/us.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20060710145531/www.universitysecrets.com/table.htm

"The Kept University"
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm

"In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids' Inner Wildness " by Chris
Mercogliano, who spent thirty-five years teaching at the Albany Free School
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm

"Teach Your Own" by John Holt (and other books)
http://www.holtgws.com/

"The Teenage Liberation Handbook" by Grace Llewellyn (and other books)
http://gracellewellyn.com/

"The Emergence of Compulsory Schooling and Anarchist Resistance" By Matt Hern
http://web.archive.org/web/20071014123355/http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?story=20031028151034651
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm

"Sustainable Education" by Jerry Mintz
http://www.greenmoneyjournal.com/article.mpl?articleid=195&newsletterid=1

"Federated Learning Communities"
http://www.ericdigests.org/2000-1/learning.html
http://www.

the problem with GM crops is that they're owned by corporations looking to monopolise on the worlds food supplies. Monsanto is somehow taking over without much public resistance http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Monsanto-Roundup-Glyphosate.htm

By employers, do you mean rich executives with multi-million dollar homes, vacation homes, more cars that I have digits and really big boats?

You are right! Those good old boys work damn hard for their exteme wealth. How dare we, the relatively weak, the relatively poor, organize to make sure the wealthy do not divide us and exploit us.

I mean it isn't like there is a history of employers abusing workers in the USA.

No one dies from workplace poisoning : http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Chips-Cause-Leukemia.htm
Consumers in the USA wouldn't buy a product from a company that assfucks the people that make their gadget: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/22/chinese-workers-apple-nhexane-poisoning
Big business in the USA is good to its employees: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/06/11/100060613/index.htm

Good god-damn, do not get me started about 19th and 20th century abuses world wide. The industrial revolution has been a violent battle ground for the poor trying to make a living in a world owned by a minority. The minorty holds the vast bulk of the wealth while the majority pays rent to them just to have a place to sleep without being arrested for loitering.

Remind me again why you are kissing the ass of the rich?

I remember. You think you will get a big pile of money by cheerleading capitalism. Here is a interesting idea; let me know what you think:
Insteading designing economic systems built on the idea of unending growth (despite the limited nature of Earth) where the money forms pools around corporations and big pools have leverage to control smaller pools, what if instead we designed economic systems that ecourage money to flow and spread to areas where it best supported society as a whole and not indivials. What if the natural tendency of money was to diffuse and not to coalesce? But you believe this is impossible don't you? You have been taught to attack this concept as naive, haven't you?


But, if I have you pegged right, you are the kind of guy that really wants a shiny car and a big house you can only use 1/4 of even when your whole family is home. Right and wrong don't matter because your are from the USA and everyone there knows unchecked capitalism is good for everyone. And you cannot get that sort of extreme wealth without someboy else doing shit work (assembling your iPhone) being paid next to nothing so your company (like Apple) can see the profit. See how that works? They work hard, and die for you. Fuck yes! That rocks for you. You pay them shit and all the profit is yours. You don't get rich paying workers a living wage, now do you? Fuck the little guy! You need a BIG car, and a BIG house. And as the poor guy in on the other side of the planet you don't even need to see the poverty that helps to fill your wallet because he is in China. WIN-WIN!

Now tell me: Do you own an iPhone?

People's feelings about this change sometimes change in different points in their lives...

This is not to deny there is some truth in what you say, echoed by Chris Hedge's point in his book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Force_That_Gives_Us_Meaning
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/War_Peace/War_Gives_Meaning.html

Still, war is only one thing that can help people find meaning in life. How about the issue of worrying about a big solar flare or a supervolcano? If you really want a challenge, why not help solve those sorts of issues? Or help design better space habitats? Or improve cold fusion reactor designs to power space craft? Or figure out how to get everyone on the planet fresh vegetables and fruits so they can afford to eat like Dr. Fuhrman suggests? Limiting the scope of your ambitions to fighting ironic wars with superweapons seems, well, not very ambitious. :-)

War is also a racket, by the way, just to be sure you know, acording to a very decorated military man:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"Written by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler USMC, Retired
WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. .."

So, you want to go to war to line some rich guys pockets?

Apparently, compulsory schools were mainly created to indoctrinate people to be part of the war racket, and to ensure they were trained to not see how they were being used. See either of:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm
"The particular utopia American believers chose to bring to the schoolhouse was Prussian. The seed that became American schooling, twentieth-century style, was planted in 1806 when Napoleon’s amateur soldiers bested the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is renting soldiers and employing diplomatic extortion under threat of your soldiery, losing a battle like that is pretty serious. Something had to be done.
The most important immediate reaction to Jena was an immortal speech, the "Address to the German Nation" by the philosopher Fichte—one of the influential documents of modern history leading directly to the first workable compulsion schools in the West. Other times, other lands talked about schooling, but all failed to deliver. Simple forced training for brief intervals and for narrow purposes was the best that had ever been managed. This time would be different.
In no uncertain terms Fichte told Prussia the party was over. Children would have to be disciplined through a new form of universal conditioning. They could no longer be trusted to their parents. Look what Napoleon had done by banishing sentiment in the interests of nationalism. Through forced schooling, everyone would learn that "work makes free," and working for the State, even laying down one’s life to its commands, was the greatest freedom of all. Here in the genius of semantic redefinition1

Thanks for the reply. While some of that was old, most of it was organized or written new as a reply. I haven't read about Shrike and ergs, so thanks for the pointer.

I spent a year around Hans Moravec's lab when he was writing "Mind Children" in the mid-1980s. I think he has a lot of great ideas, especially in terms of understanding evolution (in a way I think, say, Ray Kurzweil seemingly does not), but it is indeed easy to get lost in speculation or miss some key issue (I'm guilty of that too often enough myself). Personally, I like him and he was kind to me to let me hang out in his lab for quite a while; he really is in some sense at least to me a real model of what a basic researcher should be like. I'm not saying every researcher should be like him, just that he really represents something special in his own way. As far as his vision of the future, mind children seems a lot better than the robots we have emerging from corporate competition or military competition. Do we want to create our "mind children" to be military slaves? Do we even want human children to be made that way, say through compulsory schooling? From:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm
"Fichte's point was that schools could and should be used to create a compliant citizenry, one that would be used to following orders, comfortable submitting their will to a larger authority, familiar with hierarchical chains of command and instructed in the virtues of the State.
To that end Prussian educational theorists devised a model for schooling, built around centrally controlled curriculums, constant fragmentation of days into changing classes at the sound of a bell, obedience and teacher-directed classroom groupings. At the heart of the system though was the primacy of the State, and that children both belonged to and were the responsibility of the State. As Hegel put it, the State is "the higher authority in respect to which the laws and interests of the family and the civic community are subject and dependent".7
By 1819 the ideal of a national system of compulsory schooling was in place, and the Prussian economy and military was booming. ..."

An alternative (that inspired Ted Nelson's Xanadu project and Hypertext):
"The Skills of Xanadu"
http://books.google.com/books?id=wpuJQrxHZXAC&pg=PA51&lpg=PP1

The Pleasure Trap concept (in the book or video) talks mostly how to break out of one (a food related one, but probably genealizeable) by understanding what they are given neuroadaptation (that getting adjusted to something extra pleasurable that is bad for you in the long run really doesn't feel that more pleasureable after an initial rush, but you may have to accept feeling worse for a short time until your sensation level readjust if you go back to experiencing things that are plainer but healthier).

As life goes by, we may change from experiences (good and bad), and so our plans may change. Not saying they should, just that they might.

I think you have an interesting point about nanotech risk and simulation. You've probably seen this:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/

In Hogan's book, he does not talk about if the other universes are inhabited in VFY, but I've thought about that issue you raised, that they might be polluting another universe. :-) Would have made a nice sequel... Too bad he is no longer around to write it, or I'd suggest it to him.

I agree with you on the problems of unimaginative uncurious politicians in a high-tech rapidly changing time.

Red Dwarf gets better as the season progresses. But, in any case, for background (contains minor spoilers):

According to this Hydrogen in the atmosphere would put holes in the Ozone layer, just like CFCs.

I wanted to add to your point #4: look at GMs compliance with California's requirements. Then look at how much money Tesla (and others) have reported in their statements by selling ZEV credits. For an older discussion of this see http://www.examiner.com/green-transportation-in-national/tesla-openly-admitted-to-zev-credit-sales-an-interesting-2008-letter-to-the-air-resources-board

Neither Honda nor GM appear to have any commitment to producing green vehicles. The volt is far from innovative, but after GM thought they had successfully killed California's efforts to improve emissions standards (see http://www.mindfully.org/Air/GM-Sues-CA-ZEV.htm for an early reference) they recalled and killed their electric vehicle program.

My brother-in-law works at GM and for his (and his family's) sake I hope the company gets its act together and does well. They are, at least, hiring again instead of bleeding talent. But it remains to be seen if it will be correctly managed and pointing at the volt is not the way to instill confidence.

And who decides what knowledge or skills (including unquestioned immediate obedience to authority as exemplified in classrooms?) are important to a child's present or future, or the present or future of the culture they live in?

Who picks the hoops a person is forced to jump through (in a democracy)? The person? His or her parents? Neighbors? Elected officials in the community? Big foundations? How should these different voices be balanced in a democracy? What are we trying to achieve as a culture? Do some of these voices (business concerns?) have a stronger influence than others (like Gatto suggest)?

What different views are there on this?
    http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm
"The history of the development of Western schooling is a complex and meandering thing, but I think it is worth looking at in a very abbreviated form here. A little insight into the logics and basis for contemporary compulsory schooling might be useful to social ecologists."

Most of the flotsam there consists of small particles that are distributed in the first 10m of the water column. What would need to be done is to filter it out and bind it similar to how pebbles are bound with cement to create concrete to create large enough bits that can be combined into an island.

Eventually we (the world community) will have to clear this patch as the plastics now enter the food chain and threaten to poison us all. Already there are areas in the ocean where plastic is more prevalent than krill and plastic is being ingested by marine animals, accumulating in higher organisms and ultimately in us too.

Collecting plastic there would be a nice occupation for all those fishermen that have been made redundant due to overfishing and the necessities to conserve fish stocks. Get them to fish plastic instead and pay them for the trash catch they return.

Two articles on that matter, a bit lengthy but worth your time:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/270
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm

The existing embryonic stem cell lines in 2001 were believed to be unusable after contamination by mouse cells.

The reality is that Bush succeeded in crippling stem cell research until his ban was lifted last year.

• The missing carbon
• Graph showing ice age with 12 times more CO2 than today.
• Polar bears
• Ethanol
• Ethanol again
• Climate cultist whack job from "Whale wars" believes quote We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion.
• NASA's chief on global warming.
• The IPCC get their their asses handed to them in front of Congress in 1997. A personal favorite is this quote:

  The observed warming since the late 19th Century has only been 0.5 degrees Celsius, or less than one-third of the predicted value. Critics argued, as I did before this committee, that there would have to be a dramatic reduction in the forecast of future warming in order to reconcile the facts and the hypotheses.

  By 1995, in its second full assessment of climate change, the IPCC admitted the validity of the critics' position: `When increases in greenhouse gases only are taken into account, most climate models produce a greater mean warming than has been observed to date, unless a lower climate sensitivity to the greenhouse effect is used. There is growing evidences that increases in sulfate aerosols are partially counteracting the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases.'

  Let me translate this statement. It means either it is not going to warm up as much as we said it would or something is hiding the warming. I predict that every attempt will be made to demonstrate the latter before admitting that the former is true.

My links are getting old it seems. I have a folder full of them, but a lot seems to have been eradicated by the cult of climate change. Feel free to use this stuff in your next big flame war, but I think you'll find that arguing with these idiots is pointless. Your best bet is to put together a well reasoned, informative essay... then wait for a related story and top post. You may be marked troll, but it doesn't matter. People like myself who don't agree with /.s group think tend to read at troll +6 anyway. In fact, I would have never seen your response if you had not been marked troll above... anyhow, we'll mod you up if you're hit with -1 disagree mod.

All he did was to buy a house and then waited till somebody started making him sick.

Let's look a little closer at TFA...

She keeps in touch, she said, with relatives in the U.S., Asia, Europe and the Middle East. "Because my family members live in different time zones, I have always made myself available to them at all hours," she said. "We communicate often through Skype, Gmail chat, video and audio sessions." Firstenberg knew this when he mentioned to her that the Casados Street house was for rent, but after Monribot moved in, he and a friend insisted that she turn off her Wi-Fi router and other equipment. She tried to comply, but felt harassed.

So your innocent victim knew that she used wireless devices before she moved in, but conveniently waited until after she moved in to mention the issues he had with them?

"Ah," you say, "Clearly he did not know of them before hand."

But then we see this:

Nearly 400 people signed an online petition that Firstenberg helped organize against plans to add Wi-Fi antennas around town. The City Council postponed the project last month.

.. Hmm. Well, maybe this was after the fact too? Here, wait, let's look a little deeper - Mr Fristenberg has a wikipedia page (The sources of the page do check out)

s an American activist on the subject of electromagnetic hypersensitivity.[1] He is the founder of the independent campaign group the Cellular Phone Task Force.[2] His 1997 book Microwaving Our Planet: The Environmental Impact of the Wireless Revolution was published by the group.[3]

Ah, now things become even more clear. This known activist who went so far as authoring a book about the evils of EM years before he met his new neighbor... just *happened* to not mention his concerns when they spoke up front? (Here's an article he wrote two or three years before the incident... even before his neighbor moved in: http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/2006/Firstenberg-EMF-Experiment1jan06.htm. I'll let you discover the misrepresentations in there for yourself, if you're of a mind to.)

Why don't you look from the other side - make the lady put her house in a Faraday cage if she insist on her wireless?

Mr Firstenberg is bathed in EM spectrum every day, as he is well aware. Given that he has had issues with this dating back to at least 1997 or so, and given that he knows he can't control the actions of everyone walking by his house every day, I think that enclosing his house in a Faraday cage is quite a reasonable request. Kind of like closing your windows and running the AC when humidity gives you a headache.

"The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher"
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
"""
Teaching means different things in different places, but seven lessons are universally taught Harlem to Hollywood Hills. They constitute a national curriculum you pay more for in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what it is. You are at liberty, of course, to regard these lessons any way you like, but believe me when I say I intend no irony in this presentation. These are the things I teach, these are the things you pay me to teach. Make of them what you will: ... Look again at the seven lessons of schoolteaching: confusion, class assignment, dulled responses, emotional and intellectual dependency, conditional self-esteem, surveillance -- all of these things are good training for permanent underclasses, people derived forever of finding the center of their own special genius. And in later years it became the training shaken loose from even its own original logic -- to regulate the poor; since the 1920s the growth of the school bureaucracy and the less visible growth of a horde of industries that profit from schooling just exactly as it is, has enlarged this institution's original grasp to where it began to seize the sons and daughters of the middle classes.
"""

For more on the history of schooling in the USA:
"The Underground History of American Education"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

For more on the history of schooling globally:
"The Emergence of Compulsory Schooling and Anarchist Resistance "
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm
"The history of the development of Western schooling is a complex and meandering thing, but I think it is worth looking at in a very abbreviated form here. A little insight into the logics and basis for contemporary compulsory schooling might be useful to social ecologists. ..."

The bottom line: schooling and education have very little to do with each other... Schooling was designed to dumb people down to produce mindless factory workers, obedient soldiers, and compliant consumers. Education helps a person grow into someone who can be part of or help create a healthy society while also creating joy and health for themselves and their family, friends, and neighbors.

I agree with you on the vouchers part to some extent; the better solution may be to just give all the money directly to the parents, as I suggest here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towards-a-post-scarcity-new-york-state-of-mind.html
"""
New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out.
"""

Really good teachers would have nothing to fear from such a plan, because their would be enough money floating around so they could have flexible

You said: "there's no shortage of crappy or crazy teachers in the school system."

OK. And so why should parents want to have such people adopt their children for much of their waking time?

As for the history of schooling, as another source, here is as short summary:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm

I know how you can feel as you probably do. I used to think and feel the same things. It has taken years of unlearning the explicit and implicit lesson of schooling and other aspects of our society to see beyond those reactions. It will be a long path -- years. One post or a handful is not going to move you beyond that.

Yes, historically, modern schooling did come out of Prussia, and, for that matter, has a lot to do with two world wars coming out of that area too. We need both good facts and good reasoning tools to reach good conclusions. The history of education is a complex thing interwoven with politics and economics.

And next you then say most parents have no regard for the welfare of their own children, and if they had money to use to take care of their children, they would not. Have you thought that maybe many parents have a tough time taking care of their children because they are poor? And, if everyone around them also got US$20K per child per year, maybe their neighbors could also lend a hand for the few parents who were really dysfunctional. Besides, if we had a decent universal health care system in the US, parents who were that dysfunctional would be getting the other help they need. If you look at a recent article on unemployment, you can see that much of the social dysfunction we see in the USA is connected to employment and wealth issues:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future

Do you have any evidence to back up all your suggestion that most parents would give their children a crappy education? Are they really getting a non-crappy education if they live in a poor area? Do you have any first hand knowledge of homeschooling? Have you even researched any of that? Are you holding yourself up as an ideal product of schooling if you have not researched those things but are making such strong comments on them?

Have you at least glanced at books like these by academic historians?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_United_States
(Granted, schooling and the presentation of history is improving some since those were written, in part in reaction to those books.)

A starting point, based on research studies, consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling
"""
Their primary assertion was that the bonds and emotional development made at home with parents during these years produced critical long term results that were cut short by enrollment in schools, and could neither be replaced nor afterward corrected in an institutional setting. Recognizing a necessity for early out-of-home care for some children - particularly special needs and starkly impoverished children, and children from exceptionally inferior homes- they maintained that the vast majority of children are far better situated at home, even with mediocre parents, than with the most gifted and motivated teachers in a school setting (assuming that the child has a gifted and motivated teacher). They described the difference as follows: "This is like saying, if you can help a child by taking him off the cold street and housing him in a warm tent, then warm tents should be provided for all children - when obviously mos

Since you brought up Aspartame....

http://www.mindfully.org/Health/Aspartame-Adverse-Reactions-1993.htm

This has been well known in psychiatric social workers circles for many years (I have had two relatives working in the field). The first year "Tab" with Aspartame came out, and was picked up by a population that typically has body image problems in the first place, ad so immediately grab onto "diet anything", there was about a 70% increase in psychiatric intakes by the local County Mental Health as it (effectively) blocked the action of most Lithium medications in Schizophrenics who had previously been doing fine on their medication levels. Some people they took off the diet drinks, and others, they had to adjust the medications upward to compensate for it.

-- Terry

Neither of these stories had any examples of people who were truly innocent but forced to plead guilty. Prisons are full of people who say they are innocent, yet the vast majority of them are in fact guilty. I'm not saying no innocent person has ever been coerced into pleading to something they didn't do, but there was no evidence of it in your examples.

Here are some examples, 51 of them to be exact:

In 51 of the 328 exonerations since 1989 – 15% – the defendants confessed to crimes they had not committed. In most of these cases it is apparent that the false confessions were coerced by the police.42

Samuel R. Gross, et al. Exonerations In The United States 1989 Through 2003 http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Prison-Exonerations-Gross19apr04.htm

Keep in mind these are only the false confessions that were caught between 1989 and 2003.

"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
On Education vs. Schooling:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm

1) the recycleables we send them are for various reasons. .... shredded plastics. Type 1, 2, and 6 plastics are recylced right here, most of which is sent to our local bottling plants and never leaves the state (unless the newly filled bottle does).
http://www.climatechangecorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=6132
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/09/recycling-global-recession-china
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1942906.ece
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Recycling/Problem-With-Plastics5jun03.htm



It IS carbon nuetral. The CO2 input into the gas is from already expelled CO2. They are not using any stored source of CO2 in the process, so they are not introducing CO2 that would not already have been released. That is the scientific definition of carbon nuetral! The energy in the system is entirely from wind. No additional oil or energy is required, nor does it remove from the economy another product that reqwuires more oil.
Oh, goody. With that logic, then we should be able to shut down the coal and natural gas input stream and get all the electricity as well as hydrocarbons that we want.
The doty process absolutely is NOT carbon neutral. If it was, then you would simply be able to capture it from the air. It depends on Natural gas and Coal being burned and having a relatively pure stream of CO2. What it does is increase the efficiency of the burning of coal/natural gas process. Now, that is not a bad thing. The more so, considering that we sending billions of dollar elsewhere to buy oil in the ground. BUT, to claim that it is carbon neutral is at best a W-level "disingenuous".

Well, there are a few issues with that.

1) It'd probably count as chemical warfare
2) It cannot hit anything nearly as fast or track it as accurately
3) Not everything can be corroded
4) If air for a target in a city with a laser and miss, turn off the laser and that's it.

Now, if you think it's bad when unexploded cluster bomblets look like food rations (picture here), imagine the reaction when a few kg of an insanely corrosive lands in the middle of a market place or playground.

Obviously, you should move to Somalia.

Seriously, though: having lived in Europe and the US, I have to say: while privacy and liberty is out of fashion everywhere, the US is still one of the freest nations on earth. The US is getting so much bad press because Americans complain about laws and government actions that pass without much controversy in other nations.

Of course, the USA isn't doing too badly (relatively speaking) at controlling pollutants, although we're not doing especially well, either. Far better than China or India, AFAIK, although I'm not happy that my country is "better than the worst"!

The problem with the USA's and the EU's record on pollutants is that they tend to solve the problem by shipping pollutants to other parts of the world or they just dump them in the ocean. There is a famous plastic patch the size of Texas in the Pacific ocean between California and Hawaii. Plastic is way to overused and totally under-recycled. Is it really necessary for every candy bar to be packaged in a plastic wrapper? Does every pair of cookies in an Oreo package have to be packaged in their own little plastic pouch? What's the deal with single use plastic bottles? I don't remember my candy tasting any worse when I was a kid and that stuff was sold wrapped in paper or the Coca Cola tasting any different when it shipped in glass bottles. Another major pollutant problem is agricultural runoff. It isn't very visible to Joe Sixpack from the porch of his suburban home and it isn't highly publicised but that stuff can cause havoc. The problem with Algae bloom is well known in the Baltic Sea. To cite a US example, agricultural runoff from the Mississippi River creates a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico which in 2002 measured some 8000 square miles, that's an area bigger than the state of Massachusetts. Keep in mind that this is just due to fertilisers. We haven't even begun to consider the effect of agricultural pesticides on the marine ecosystems and we all know how much faith the agricultural community, goaded on by the chemical industry, places in the lavish application of pesticides. Of course none these problems are unique to the USA, most countries put way to little effort into recycling plastic or putting some money into research into biodegradable plastic substitutes and very few of them are ready to do anything about agricultural runoff.

"A soupy expanse of plastic waste ... now covers an estimated 1 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean"
And exactly where is this million square miles? I've never seen it in any satellite photo

This is a report on that area, and what's exactly what they mean by this "garbage patch" thing. It's scary, and it makes sense.

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Ocean-Plastic-Landfill-Algalita1nov02.htm

I am often asked why we can't vacuum up the particles. In fact, it would be more difficult than vacuuming up every square inch of the entire United States, it's larger and the fragments are mixed below the surface down to at least 30 meters. Also, untold numbers of organisms would be destroyed in the process. Besides, there is no economic resource that would be directly benefited by this process. We have not yet learned how to factor the health of the environment into our economic paradigm. We need to get to work on this calculus quickly, for a stock market crash will pale by comparison to an ecological crash on an oceanic scale.

http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/Philip-Morris-Czech-Study.htm

Looks similar alright. Im pretty sure I saw it with GBP. Maybe someone worked it out for Britain.

We have a big honesty deficit.

You think the economy is doing well? Look again. The numbers have been cooked. Official numbers understate unemployment and inflation. Then tell me how things could be going well after it has somehow been necessary for the government to increase a national debt that has been decades in the making by 50% in the space of a week to stop the economy from melting. And why was the economy in such a state? Because of all the fraud especially but not only in home mortgaging, and the rampant disregard of not just regulations but facts, prudence, and sanity.

Truth has been turned into a political football. Look at the troubles we've had with these bozos squelching good science for short term profits. Exxon has funded "studies" solely to cast doubt on Global Warming after we had determined that it was real, and that we were causing it. Look how many people such as Palin still have doubts. Yes of course we want the best information we can get, but Exxon was barely troubling to pretend they were interested in "sound science", they were so obviously in favor of no regulation whatsoever for carbon emissions so they wouldn't need to seek alternatives to their oil business. So called "business friendly" has been very unfriendly to our health, our environment, and our future. And just in case you missed it, what they're calling business friendly is NOT friendly to business either. It's not business friendly any more than removing all speed limits and stop signs would be driver friendly. Handing out fraudulent subprimes was not friendly to anyone, not home owners and not banks. Not having the facts is one thing, but having the facts and then lying is quite another.

It's entirely too hard to tell how well IT is really doing. Honest studies are too scarce and marginalized. Companies like to cultivate contradictory appearances that IT job seekers need ridiculous numbers of skills to have a chance to receive an offer, that they should be grateful to have a job, and that they'd better go the extra mile if they want to keep that job in view of the hordes of other desperate job seekers just waiting to replace them. They spin the situation that way for the employees, and they spin it the other way for Congress when asking for more H1B visas, arguing that there aren't enough qualified people and the US's technological lead is imperiled. I view this article with a big grain of salt.

I agree, less taxes and less involvement from the US Govt. They're already WAY to much into our business. They pass too many useless laws, stick their nose into Baseball, child rearing, religion, many places they don't need to be.

The size of the Govt is too big too, we need to scale it down, Police and Military, that's all we need them for. Privatize everything else and lower taxes. Get rid of Social Security, welfare and all other socialist programs, bring the country back to what it was when it was first founded (or at least the idea of it).

Eliminating taxes and government programs are two excellent ideas for those who want the U.S. to imitate the libertarian nation of Somalia. Those who are truly educated and not those who attend Ivy Tech "or Community Colleges in general"* and listen to talk radio will know taxes are required to live here in the U.S. It is the government's duty to help those help the needs of others; build infrastructures for transportation, communication, and clean water; and to protect others from the criminals, nicotine addicts, drunk drivers, fire, etc. The government duty is to also provide education for others.

Those who want to eliminate taxes and services are those who do not want clean drinking water and those who do not want education for all that are willing to learn.

Dr. Jack Miller has an insightful look at the critiques of Libertarianism.
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Democracy-For-$ale20feb05.htm

Dr. Miller's writing does strengthen the fact Somalia is indeed a Libertarian nation.

There is no difference between the Libertarian definition of 'limited government' and no government.

The progressive movement in history came from the failures of Libertarianism. One great example is the Triangle shirt factory incident. The Libertarians would have allowed this to occur several more times, while the Progressives have used proper legislation to combat this and any other societal ills. As for the laws, they are put into place to protect others from nicotine addicts spewing toxic second hand smoke, prevent birth defects resulting from family members copulating with one another; and prevent deaths as a result of drunk drivers, businesses locking their fire exits, and illnesses from businesses selling food tainted with dangerous bacteria.

If those willfully ignorant people want libertarianism, they should move to Somalia.

*Community college is a fancy term for describing trade schools to make it seem less outdated.

--

"Evento rerum stolidi didicere magistro" - The stupid have no teacher except their own experience

Solution? Do nothing. It's the same 'solution' offered by the head of NASA and other seemingly intelligent people. I mean, what's the hurry? Where is there any evidence that warming is bad?

Ten years ago, the cult was threatening us with the infamous hockey stick. Computer models were predicting "runaway" global warming. According to the IPCC we were on the cusp of exponential warming. "Oh noes!!11one1! We's all gonna DIES!one1!!"

Then something funny happened... Someone noticed that if you took the model and entered random data, it produced the same hockey stick graph. Gee, do tell... of course, they denied, denied, denied that it was a complete fraud. Yet the most damning evidence is that now, almost ten years later, their predictions simply didn't materialize. 1998 was anomalously hot and temps have not rocketed out of control since then.

Frankly, the only problem I see is global warming cultists preaching fire and brimstone, despite having their alarmist predictions disproven by observation repeatedly.

[And yes, before some global warming cultist chimes in... Griffin did later cede to peer pressure and apologize for making those statement, but to my knowledge he has never rescinded those statements.]

Today I am homeless. My money does not provide me shelter. My good health does not ensure my survival. My friends are unable to help me. I am being killed, but the law offers me no protection.
...
Having stumbled upon an obviously well-kept secret, I researched the world literature on bioelectromagnetics, (or the biological effects of electromagnetism), and made myself an expert. I learned that electro-cautery machines, used in every modern surgical operation to cut through tissue and to stop bleeding, expose surgeons to much higher levels of radio frequency radiation than is permitted for workers in any industry. I learned that there was a disease thoroughly described in the Russian and Eastern European medical literature called radiowave sickness, the existence of which was usually denied by western authorities. This description made me remember my `unknown illness', the one that had derailed my medical career. Bradycardia, or a slow heart rate, was said, in these texts, to be a grave sign.

Because there are virtually no workplaces without computers any more, I have not held a job since 1990. I had resigned myself to living on Social Security Disability, and learned, together with other members of a support group I had found, how best to live with my disability. This mostly meant learning to avoid exposure to electromagnetic fields. But in July 1996, to my dismay, I learned that an innovation was coming to my city, which threatened to make it impossible to avoid exposure any more.
...
The California Department of Health Services has concluded that, on the basis of a telephone survey, 120,000 Californians - and by implication one million Americans - have left their jobs because of electromagnetic pollution in the workplace. The people who have left their homes for such a reason are not being counted by anyone.

if I say "the sky is yellow" and everybody accepts it, it's basically a religion: one person says and everybody else agrees.

This is not good at all, specially in the academic environment.

Do you have the opportunity to disagree?? ABSOLUTELY: prove it is wrong.

So, by searching the truth and trying to prove it's wrong, you MIGHT end up proving it is *really* wrong OOOOOOOORRRRRRR you might end up proving to yourself it's right.

Prove it's wrong. But don't come with "bullshit, big time bullshit!"

Perhaps it's hard to accept north-americans as the real terrorists. In that case, you might be the One who will take ALL the geopolitical academics IN THE WORLD from the path of being historically incorrect and mentally dammed. I'm not say in this or that country, I'm saying in the WORLD.

Perhaps you also don't want to recognize that the USA controls the United Nations and that there's some bacteria in south pole underground and some people thought about searching for it. They are really from the dinosaurs' epoch. Freeing those bacteria COULD be the end of the world, since they might do no harm, or might be like air-transmitted Ebola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola). Those are possibilities. I don't have such knowledge to say what those bacteria really are. SOOO.... in face of that little problem, the scientists said "that's ok, folks, let's those things stay down there". But not the USA government.

Since the USA holds one of the chairs in the Security Council, which give USA, as the other chairs, power to block a project, blocked the non-exploitation of the Pole's underground. Any time we can die. Thanks to USA government. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

What do you want, huh?? You want a great power, but not the responsability that cames along with the power??? Who do you think you are, a rich? Have a huge quantity of money, but is not responsible for those who die of hunger...

I bet you don't read a lot of geopolitical books.
Here's something for you to begin with: http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3818139/Chomsky_Books

Uncle SAM is goingo to save you (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-05/19/xin_27050119142492840419.jpg) from the devil nails (http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/pix/iraq_demnstrtn_cp_7433689.jpg) of the terrorists (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Abu-ghraib-leash.jpg) because terrorists (http://www.vermelho.org.br/admin/img_upload/crimedeguerra.jpg http://www.vermelho.org.br/admin/img_upload/terpalesti.jpg) are really bad. You, north-americans are good.(http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Abu-Ghraib-Prison-Photos11jun04p12.jpg).

"The crisis of pollution and depletion of water resources is viewed by Monsanto as a business opportunity."

"Monsanto's genetic engineering trials in India are dangerous and anti-democratic"

"Why Iraqi Farmers Might Prefer Death to Paul Bremer's Order 81"

"Corporate biopiracy and the terminator seed"

"Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian farmer and seed saver of many years, was sued by the Monsanto Corporation (producer of the poisonous "Round Up") for growing GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) seeds patented by Monsanto. The seeds had blown into the ditch by his field. He is fighting this huge corp. which has the potential to control all the food in the world if not stopped."
http://www.suesupriano.com/audio/schmeiser.mp3
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

"Terminator ban undermined at UN meeting in Spain"

This is about "full-spectrum domination" as far as I'm concerned; imagine if you could simply turn off a region's food supply.

Trespass is exactly what is happening. But it is Monsanto that is guilty of trespass. Take the case of Percey Schmeiser, he planted non-GM seeds and Monsanto pollen trespassed onto his property. As a result he is unable to use his seeds anymore.

Monsanto pollen has clearly trespassed onto his property and taken his livelihood from him.

These detectives who go out to find unlicensed farmers are also trespassing (and stealing) when they enter someones land to take a sample to see if it is roundup ready.

There may already be cases of independent biotechnologists working for the highest bidder. The emergence of Roundup Ready Coca bushes (more like trees actually) in South America is very convenient indeed for the coca farmers and their business partners. The US taxpayer sprays the fields with glyphosate and actually helps the farmers by getting rid of the weeds.

Because I read the Canadian Supreme Court decision too.

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2004/Monsanto-V-Schmeiser-Ruling21may04.htm

I quote:

"The respondents are the licensee and owner, respectively, of a patent that discloses the invention of chimeric genes that confer tolerance to glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup and cells containing those genes. Canola containing the patented genes and cells is marketed under the trade name "Roundup Ready Canola". The appellants grow canola commercially in Saskatchewan. The appellants never purchased Roundup Ready canola nor obtained a licence to plant it. Tests of their 1998 canola crop revealed that 95-98 per cent was Roundup Ready Canola. The respondents brought an action against the appellants for patent infringement. The trial judge found the patent to be valid and allowed the action, concluding that the appellants knew or ought to have known that they saved and planted seed containing the patented gene and cell and that they sold the resulting crop also containing the patented gene and cell."

I am sorry, but this windblown nonsense is a crock of bullshit. 95-98% is clearly a deliberate action to circumvent.

If Monsanto was going after somebody who had a small percentage of contamination, I would be mad at Monsanto too. But this was clearly a cynical action and even worse a program to manipulate public opinion with a campaign of disinformation using politically motivated media sources.

OSCE found the US elections to have only some minor problems, ...

They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand, prosecutors said.

• Many states (such as NH and Ohio) still count votes using machines with secret sauce source code that have been proved to be trivial to crack, making it easy for a single person to alter the outcome of an entire election.
• The media via a private company have conspired to keep the raw exit poll data secret (see first link above) so it can't be used to check the official results.
• A recount was ordered in one of the states that could possibly change the overall winner of the entire election but that recount was rigged and the ballots were destroyed so we have no idea of who actually won.

Why, sure it did.

There is a reason why people are skeptical about nuclear. http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Marble-Hill-Indiana-Blair27jul03.htm That place is near where I live. It's not that old, but from the looks of the ruins, thank god it never fired up. Most people old enough to remember that job, know it was a serious debacle. Nuclear may have lots of potential, but long forgotten things like that above link is why there is opposition to building more nuclear plants -- it's not just mass hysteria, it's collective memory.

The breakthrough may someday allow scientists to create stem cells without destroying embryos

I don't think that the environmental impact of me flushing my toilet is quite as great as the production of an iphone. TFA refers to a Greenpeace article in which certain hazardous substances, which other cellphone manufacturers have stopped using, were found in the iPhone. My latest turd, on the other hand, is comprised entirely of recycled Twizzlers, which contain none of these hazardous substances. The 1.6 gallons of water used by the toilet ends up getting re-used to irrigate a nearby park.

There are a number of studies which find that Roundup is both persistent in the environment and toxic to humans. The EPA calls it "extremely persistent under typical application conditions" and epidemiological studies have linked it to miscarriages, premature birth, and lymphoma. A number of these studies are summarized in a Journal of Pesticide Reform article reprinted here. I'd prefer to see us grow crops less densely on more land using fewer poisons, and stop exporting so much subsidized food that we're destroying the third world's ability to feed itself through local agriculture.

I agree that next-generation nuclear electricity generation could be much cleaner than using fossil fuels. As long as we're getting all the electricity we can from renewable resources like solar and wind, there's no reason to let nuclear's past keep us from giving it a shot in the future. Greenpeace are being fuddy-duddies on this issue and should open their minds to the possibility that the right kind of nuclear power can be better than the oil power it could replace.

The poster's may not have been verbatim charges against Monsanto, but read here, here, here, here, here and here. And if that's not enough, add this and this.

Let's not forget Terminator Seeds, Agent Orange and Bovine Growth Hormone. Sure, it could all be hyperbolic, paranoid, general left-wing nutiness, but I think there's a kernel of truth in there somewhere.

"Everything else I ate in the 72 hours before I got so sick, I've eaten again with no problem," she said. "Frankly, I don't trust the tests."

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE2/StarLink-Cleared-AllergiesCDC.htm

Anyone remember this? Some people don't have the necessary enzyme to properly metabolize the Cry9c protein in genetically engineered corn.

Also, "In September 2006, PUBPAT filed formal requests with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to revoke four patents owned by Monsanto Company that the agricultural giant is using to harass, intimidate, sue - and in many cases bankrupt - American farmers."

http://www.pubpat.org/monsantovfarmers.htm

Many of us don't want to support those things, though

One old gas powered lawn mower running for an hour emits as much pollution as driving 650 miles in a 1992 model automobile That was in 1992, with OBD2 in 1996 and other technological improvements since then, in my opinion, the PZEV's improvement over other standard vehicles is overrated and an implicit assumption in this article.

Okay, so they can eat corn. That's okay, because I'd expect that we COULD grow a hell of a lot of it were the market to make it worthwhile. But...

If they'd consume offal, landfill material, non-rec-plastic, nuclear waste, etc, that would be much better. That's essentially what the earth does to make conventional oil, isn't it? Dead plants, animals, etc compressed into peat, into crude? Lets find a useful product to make from all this trash we create!

Replicate that, and you'd have something interesting. Kinda like this: http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2003/Anything-Into -Oil1may03.htm

Though, if I recall correctly, I heard that the plant was closed, due to the smell.

You're also pretending that I don't want any oil production whatsoever. That's quite impossible, given our need for materials like plastics

Actually petro oil isn't needed to make plastic. Plastic was originally made with the same thing as what this new plant uses to make ethanol, plant cellulose. Eastman Kodak, the camera company, has a good description on making plastic from trees:
From Trees to Plastic

as I said, the "clean" way to deal with the fuel is to reprocess it.

Reprocessing nuclear fuel is not clean. It produces highly toxic waste and the radioactive waste left is even hotter. IEEE's Spectrum magazine had an article in the Febuary 2007 issue on France's, who has gone the farthest on it, reprocessing program "Nuclear Waste Land" . In it the writer, Peter Fairley, goes over the problems the French have with reprocessing, and "the basic problem of waste remains unsolved."