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or do you just stand against genetic engineering as we currently practice because you have an ignorant fear of what you don't understand?

I stand against genetically modified crops because I don't want fucking multinationals to own the intellectual property rights over basic foodstuffs.

this is what you represent:

And this is what you represent:

http://www.usnews.com/news/ene...

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/...

http://www.chemicalindustryarc...

Because make no mistake, those are the people who will own those rights. And they're the people saying GMOs will feed the hungry when GMOs are mainly targeted to countries where there are no hungry people.

I personally don't give a shit whether or not GMOs are safe. Hell if I cared about whether or not my food is safe, I wouldn't have eaten that burrito this afternoon from a street cart on Milwaukee Avenue run by the lady with prison tattoos. I care about what kind of sleazy motherfuckers are going to be gaining even greater wealth and political power from their iron grip on our food supply.

And, I'm also more than a little offended by people who say that consumers don't have a right to know the provenance of the food they eat. As if you've become some new arbiter of what information consumers may be allowed to base their purchasing decisions on. If I don't want to buy green socks, I don't have to buy green socks, even though they are every bit as safe as the grey socks I prefer. Does that mean that sock consumers must now not be allowed to see the color of the fucking socks in the package, because after all, green socks are functionally the same as grey socks? And if I don't want to buy GMO food, and you are hell bent against me finding out whether my food is from GMOs, we have a problem. Not because I'm denying some eternal law of Science, but because fuck you, I'm the one paying for that food. My purchasing your food is not some part of the social contract, and Monsanto making profit beyond the dreams of avarice is not part of some social contract, it's a simple consumer transaction. So if I want to know whether that sweet corn has been soaking in some Roundup lab experiment shit that has to be used in greater and greater amounts just to make the cockroaches drop dead, you'd better be prepared to tell me or no goddamn sale.

It's funny that our consumer economy has made a fucking religion out of people's purchasing preferences, but as soon as someone says, "Hey, I'd like to know if this food product came out of Doctor Motherfucking Frankenstein's lab" he is told, "No, you are not allowed to have that information. Just purchase and believe. Even worse, when a company did decide to state on their label that their products did not contain GMOs, motherfucking Monsanto sued them. Fortunately, they lost, but I don't think for a minute that this won't be revisited. When someone is so desperate to hide a single fact, to the point of spending billions fighting legislative and grass roots efforts just to make sure there is this one, single, scientifically-verifiable fact, that food product X contains genetically modified organisms that makes me suspicious as hell. Because when did it become "pro-science" to hide information from people?

Also, the studies on GMO safety have been extremely narrow, looking for toxicity and certain types of cancer-causing effects. There have been no studies at all on people who've eaten GMOs for 20 years, because they've only been selling GMOs to people for 20 years. Further, no studies on the overall health of people eating GMOs or life expectancy of people eating GMOs or effect of GMOs on

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_west_Virginia_a_red_or_blue_state

http://www.wvgazette.com/Opinion/Editorials/201103251017

There was a previous Slashdot article blaming this incident on Cisco, and even though I don't work for Cisco, I want to cut the bs and set the record straight. Let me do so by quoting the words of the main politician behind this project

West Virginia Homeland Security chief Jimmy Gianato, who's leading the state broadband project, defended the $24 million router purchase last week, saying the devices "could meet many different needs and be used for multiple applications."

"Our main concerns were to not have something that would become obsolete in a couple of years," Gianato said. "Looking at how technology evolves, we wanted something that was scalable, expandable and viable, five to 10 years out. We wanted to make sure every place had the same opportunity across the state."

So we have this asshole behind this mess, but the mass media blames Cisco and Verizon. There's more:

Verizon spokesman Keith Irland said the company simply responded to router specifications detailed in the state's bid posting.

"They specified the equipment they wanted," Irland said. "That's what they requested, that's what we bid on. We had the lowest price, and we won the bid for the equipment and related maintenance."

The Gazette-Mail contacted two Cisco sales agents last week, asking whether the 3945 series routers were appropriate for schools and libraries.

"The 3945 is our router solution for campus and large enterprises, so this is overkill for your network," a Cisco representative responded.

The sales agents recommended a smaller router -- with a list price of $487.

State Department of Education officials questioned the size of the routers before Gianato and the Office of Technology executed the $24 million purchase order.

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201205050057

Other than manufacturing the equipment, Cisco had nothing to do with this project. They weren't even involved in the sales. So clearly corrupt corporations are to blame, not the poor innocent politicians. Oh and did I mention that he was commended for this later?

GMOs, GMOs... leading producers of such, like DOW Chemical and Monsanto...yes, we should really be trusting such to not harm the food supply or hold it for ransom. Right.

Monsanto is still trying to claim Dioxin/Agent Orange doesn't harm humans, thus they have no responsibility for cleaning up the production sites in the southern USA or the results of that production in Vietnam.

They however, lost a class-action suit in WV this year (one of the production sites for AO amongst many other nasty chemicals).

http://wvgazette.com/News/201202230090?page=1

These are not the people we should be allowing anywhere near this type of research, let alone be granting them patents on organisms.

I am all for doing it in an ethical manner, with reasonable testing, etc. Many of these corporations doing this though, have proven many, MANY times over that they are not in the least bit ethical, and love skipping corners to boost share prices.

First,you post an inflammatory statement that is absurd on its face regarding West Viriginia's water. Second, even if you do believe that the water there is substandard, you might want to look at something called 'Coal Mining' as a much more likely source for groundwater contamination. Does that mean that there aren't areas where the water can be screwed up? Of course not, but you can't just declare the latest cause du jour to be the culprit just because it is the latest potential polluter.

Living in West Virginia, I can answer this... In the southern coalfields where they are doing mountaintop removal (surface mining to use the exact phrasing) there are way higher levels of selenium and other cancer causing agents in the local water:

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/category/selenium/

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/category/water-pollution/

First,you post an inflammatory statement that is absurd on its face regarding West Viriginia's water. Second, even if you do believe that the water there is substandard, you might want to look at something called 'Coal Mining' as a much more likely source for groundwater contamination. Does that mean that there aren't areas where the water can be screwed up? Of course not, but you can't just declare the latest cause du jour to be the culprit just because it is the latest potential polluter.

Living in West Virginia, I can answer this... In the southern coalfields where they are doing mountaintop removal (surface mining to use the exact phrasing) there are way higher levels of selenium and other cancer causing agents in the local water:

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/category/selenium/

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/category/water-pollution/

Just look at West Virginia's last big IT project and you'll see how Cisco stays in business.

"Our problem, why so many customers are out, this one damaged over 50 large transmission lines and 70 substations." - http://wvgazette.com/News/201207010139

http://www.dailymail.com/News/201207020077 for pretty picture

Here's a great/terrible example: County sheriff and clerk are forced to resign for vote rigging

This is the same county where the circuit clerk and assessor were convicted of vote buying a few years ago. After serving a little time in a federal prison, the assessor was hired by his buddy in the Assessor's office and he is now running for Sheriff.

Two families have ran local politics in this county for decades. The school system is the county's largest employer and the county commission controls everything in the county, top to bottom. Deputies are given jobs as political favors. School consolidation was passed by the county school board during a meeting called on short notice when those who opposed the measure were out of town. People running against the local power base have been threatened, had their houses shot at, and even were physically assaulted.

And you didn't even try to google the $126 million figure I gave? Nothing? Not even an instant's query as to why I might have said this? No curiosity whatsoever? Just "Hey, they said something negative about Republicans, they must be stupid"?

Try this one, from that bastion of flaming liberalism, the Associated Press:

http://wvgazette.com/ap/ApTopStories/201103120884

But, nuclear safety is not up to the union but rather the federal government. There is something very worrisome that President Obama said about coal mining: http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2010/08/05/obama-touts-miners-union-praises-clean-coal/ He wants miners to join a union for safety. But, really it is his responsibility to make all mines safe, union or non-union. Actually, there is not a lot of evidence that union mines are much safer than non-union mines. It is hard to tell because there are not that many union mines anymore. But, the President's attitude is a disastrous. And it shows. He's had more coal miners killed this year than in any given year of the last two administrations.

This got censored on climateprogress.org so stop reading if you are sensitive.

The question of what counts has put coal mining fatality statistics into a strange state. http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2010/05/05/will-latest-death-be-counted-as-mining-related/ Has President Obama allowed 2010 coal mining fatalities to double 2009 fatalities or is he still one shy of that dubious distinction? If the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) bites the bullet and counts the death as a coal mining fatality, then there will have been 36 so far this year, twice as many as for all of last year. If not, they keep the administration away from that statistic at least for a while. The stakes are high. At 37 fatalities, President Obama will have the highest percentage annual increase in coal mining fatalities of any President ever. His only way out is to close and fence dangerous mines. Current efforts focus on explosion dangers so roof collapses continue apace (fatalities #34 and #35 last month).

And, these statistics are also coming in the context of investigations into bribery at both the MSHA (Department of Labor) and likely at the Minerals Management Service again (Department of Interior) suggesting that coal mine and oil rig fatalities are caused by official and widespread corruption. Does that bribe count as taxable income?

To say that these religious systems don't make useful predictions is false. These systems must be useful, or they would have driven their adherents to extinction many generations ago.

Religion preys on the fear of life and death. Its success has nothing to do with it making "useful predictions".

You want an example of destructive religious predictions? How about the apocalyptic prophecies that George W. Bush cited in his decisions regarding the war in Iraq and up to 16 million American "end timers" believe to be about to come true.

I should first clarify, I work for a newspaper company as a web developer, not as a journalist.

I would suggest that you take a look for yourself.
The Charleston Gazette
The Charleston Daily Mail

I am in a constant battle with both newsrooms about content. To me, quantity is most important because more stories means more clicks means more ad views and so on. To the newsrooms it is all about quality and because of this we often fill out our websites with AP content.

As far as being critical and everything, I think we are. We are a capitol city newspaper company and are expected to be very critical.

I grew up in appalachia, and have a deep love for the mountains of which you are speaking. While I do agree with you completely that the term genocide is wildly inaccurate, and in principle, rearranging rocks is not a big deal, even when done on a big scale; I take issue with the idea that mountaintop removal has no real environmental impact.

Please note that I am FAR from an environmentalist. I believe that we need to be responsible with the environment, balancing that with the energy needs that we have. We cannot return to an agrarian society which uses only renewable resources.

Factually, abandoned mines do leave acid runoff which does affect streams. While I make no assertion that the Charleston Gazette is unbiased in this matter, the linked article also contains links to a report from the Department of Environmental Potection about the cleanup costs.

In summary, while I believe that your points are valid, it's also valid to acknowledge that a legitimate business cost is the cleanup efforts which must be undertaken after the coal is removed so that the streams are unpolluted.

Respectfully,
Anomaly

To those never entering the shitlist, what made a difference was the constant pounding of head against the beaurocratic [sic] brickwall, the humiliation of "sorry, you're not allowed to enter that flight", "you're not authorized by proper authorities", always have to submit to some greater authority. Always hearing "you have nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong". To most, that's something they could live with. And what it would take to change it had very little to do with leadership, it had to do with people getting off their asses.

Yours is one of the most informative comments I've read on Slashdot.

To anyone who doubts just how much we've become like the totalitarian societies we once despised, just compare what Dovregubbens Hall (583591) writes to your last visit to an airport or a Federal building.

We've learned to fear the screener for the Transportation Security agency, because if he doesn't like your attitude, he can keep you off your flight -- or from flying ever again. A year ago that screener was a janitor or a Microsoft Certification dropout. Today he can seriously disrupt your life if he wants to -- and for the first time in his life, he know he holds that kind of power.

We've got the government "training" long-haul truck drivers -- guys who routinely drive twelve or eighteen hours straight to meet deadlines --, and bus drivers, and rest stop workers to identify "suspicious" people and report them to a secret toll-free phone number. To think that this volunteer force can't be used to suppress dissent -- "Just keep a count of pro-choice bumper stickers" --is to be willfully blind to a century or more of police misconduct.

Even guys with cameras aren't safe from being scrutinized and added to government databases, because cops today wave the bloody shirt of 9-11 and invoke "patriotism" as a fig-leaf to justify anything they care do to -- reasonable or not, legal or not.

Protesters, exercising their First Amendment rights, are already being arrested solely because of the content of their speech. Whether they are eventually convicted or just harassed by cops and city inspectors, the message is clear: dissent will cost you at least a day in jail, enough money to hire a lawyer (or rely on a possibly incompetent court-appointed lawyer), and maybe a little roughing up by the cops.

Every war attracts a few war profiteers along with the honest, self-sacrificing patriots. Every increase in police powers gives police new tools to fight crime, but at the same time gives that minority of cops who are bullies, busybodies, and braggarts interested in throwing their weight around more occasion to lord that power over the innocent citizens.

The thing to fear is not another 9-11. It's not even Stalinist knocks on the door at midnight. What we need to fear is more subtle: a steady erosion of American liberties, of what it means to be an American.

I always believed that, as an American, I had a right to protest my government. It said so right in the Constitution. But now I'm reluctant not only to protest, but to even view protests, giving that several nurses at a conference in Washington D.C. were arrested along with protesters, just for being nearby.

I always believed that, as a citizen in a democracy, the police were not to be feared -- and weren't any "better" than me. Now we have the Hiibel decisi

My Toyota was built in Kentucky.

They also have a plant in West Virginia, and just announced plans to expand.

Are there Japanese workers complaining about "outsourcing" to Appalachia?

Don't know if you're still reading or not, but here's an article from today's paper...

'We're enemies now'
Mine runoff has Boone countians opposing Big Coal

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

SYLVESTER -- Last week, Jimmy Dickens worried more than usual about the water his 4-year-old daughter bathes in, brushes her teeth with and drinks.

Independence Coal Co., a Massey Energy Co. subsidiary, had leaked 250,000 gallons of heavy metal-contaminated "blackwater" into a nearby stream, and then didn't tell anybody.

By the time a local resident noticed the grayish water, called the state Department of Environmental Protection, then the Sylvester water plant found out, called somebody who called a neighbor who called Dickens's sister-in-law who called him -- it was a day after the spill, and the Dickens family had been gulping contaminated water all the while.
- advertisement-

Ten miles away, Maria Pitzer had problems of her own. It had barely begun to mist rain, and suddenly the creek in front of her house rose two feet.

Of course, the creek hadn't been itself since June. That's when a heavy rain washed off a strip mine on the hill above Pitzer's 50-year-old house and slashed a ravine through her yard, 12 feet deep and 60 feet wide in spots. The floodwaters ripped

her dog from his collar, and would have swept her 9-year-old daughter from Pitzer's arms if she hadn't slung the child across her shoulders and waded to safety.

Since that day, every time that creek rises the tiniest bit, Pitzer panics for herself, her husband and her two children. This time, she suspected the mine had let off water, thinking the rain might overflow the pond. She called the state Division of Environmental Protection. What's going on? she asked. The inspector said he looked at the mine ponds. Everything seemed to be working OK, no breaks.

But Pitzer has to wonder: Is this what happens when everything's working OK?

"It'll be 12:30 at night, I'm laying in bed, and it'll sound like the creek's up," Pitzer said. "So I'll get a flashlight and go out, and sure enough, it will be." Rain or no rain.

"That makes it hard to sleep. You never know what it [the creek] is going to do. Nothing in my life is normal anymore."

Turning victims into activists

In Sylvester, Dickens is one of more than 100 residents who were awarded thousands of dollars by a court order when Massey subsidiary Elk Run Coal Co. was found to have polluted the town with coal dust.

That hasn't done a thing to stop the blackwater spills that, to Dickens, seem incessant.

"The thing is, this is not abnormal," he said. "This is a constant thing."

Last week's spill of more than 250,000 gallons was the biggest DEP spokeswoman Jessica Greathouse can remember since October 2000, when a Massey subsidiary spilled 300 million gallons of contaminated sludge that wound up in the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River.

Last week's spill contaminated about 5 miles of Laurel Creek and Hopkins Fork, which flow into the Big Coal River. The DEP ordered Elk Run to stop using the supply yard where the leak came from immediately.

Toxic spills and flooding every time it rains have turned people like Maria Pitzer -- who formerly didn't get involved in such issues -- into activists. Drive around Pitzer's community, located in the heart of one of West Virginia's biggest coal-producing counties, and you'll see fliers urging people to speak up by Aug. 29 on a federal study on the effects of coal mining.

With the public comment period ending in 16 days, Pitzer said most of her neighbors didn't even know the study has been going on for the past five years.

"I've got the community center giving out information, and I've been walking door-to-door," she said. "Every comment I can get in will help them realize the impact of what's going on."

One example is Pitzer's neighbor, an 87

Not true. To label a citizen as an enemy combatant, you must show "some evidence". Personally, I think the requirements for declaring someone an enemy combatant should be a little higher. The fact remains though that he was legally declared an enemy combatant. Check out this link for some more information.

Terrorism presents a very tough battleground where civilians are used as camoflauge instead of trees. There will be a few mistakes. We either accept that there will be grey areas in the law that allow these mistakes to happen or our executive branch can be touchy feely and become ineffective and a joke to the enemies. Society is young. America is young. I'm proud to be an American and I'm impressed by the progress we've made so far to evolve.

If they are not in the US they will be assassinated by the CIA like the guy who got a missle shot at him in Yemen (that guy was also an american citizen).

The guys in Yemen were hit by a hellfire from a predator aircraft. There wasn't an operative sitting in the car with a gun executing the guys. The operation was legal under U.S. law. The target deserved it and the American with him probably did too. Yeah, he could have been innocent of providing assistance to terrorists...in a movie. Supposedly, they did not know that an American citizen was with him. That's an honest mistake.

This is no different then what happens in south america. The people the govt doesn't like disapear.

This is an extremely perverted comparison. Again, too many conspiracy theory movies that portray our goverment as evil. I'm not even going to bother presenting reference material.

-Lucas

Also, a side note of health care costs:

Higher health care costs have also come from the severe tort abuses recently. Doctors' malpractice insurance has skyrocketed in recent years. It has gotten to a point to where many physicans no longer perform high risk (as in lawsuit) procedures simply because the insurance costs more than what they make per year by performing the procedure.

Just look at West Virginia's situation and Pennsylvania avoided a close situation