Slashdot Mirror
Bye Bye Bananas — the Return of Panama Disease
Ant sends in a disturbing report in The Scientist on an imminent threat to worldwide banana production. "The banana we eat today is not the one your grandparents ate. That one — known as the Gros Michel — was, by all accounts, bigger, tastier, and hardier than the variety we know and love, which is called the Cavendish. The unavailability of the Gros Michel is easily explained: it is virtually extinct. Introduced to our hemisphere in the late 19th century, the Gros Michel was almost immediately hit by a blight that wiped it out by 1960. The Cavendish was adopted at the last minute by the big banana companies — Chiquita and Dole — because it was resistant to that blight, a fungus known as Panama disease... [Now] Panama disease — or Fusarium wilt of banana — is back, and the Cavendish does not appear to be safe from this new strain, which appeared two decades ago in Malaysia, spread slowly at first, but is now moving at a geometrically quicker pace. There is no cure, and nearly every banana scientist says that though Panama disease has yet to hit the banana crops of Latin America, which feed our hemisphere, the question is not if this will happen, but when. Even worse, the malady has the potential to spread to dozens of other banana varieties, including African bananas, the primary source of nutrition for millions..."
Will this finally be the end of "Peanut Butter Jelly Time"?
Great we can then but locally produced bananas! oh wait nvm
Gordon Ramsay has must be loving this latest development
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2008/05/seasonal_disorder.html
but it is also solved by genetic variation. the story is a little hysterical, as african varieties are also genetically different enough to resist the new cavendish-hungry fungus. not that the african varieties can't be attacked, but the emphasis is on african VARIETIES: more genetic variation means more resistance to the weakness of monoculture
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Slow news day? I think any story about a major threat to our food supply to be a major one, plus it mentions "Banana Scientists"! What is there not to love?
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
According to Banana.com there are over 300 different species of bananas, not all edible. I'm fairly certain that not all the edible species will be susceptibe to the blight. This might actually be a good thing in the long run as different species have different flavors and textures. They may even be better for us from a nutritional perspective than the Cavendish. The growers will need to adapt if the blight can't be stopped or contained.
Invenio via vel creo
This story pops up every 6 months or so (I guess not here, but in general)... Has no one else heard about this banana scare story about 10 times before?? There's even a snopes article about it. Banana Extinction
I'm a bit dismayed over the reactions of some posters. Without sounding too much like a liberal douche, it's easy for us to laugh at a lack of bananas but what of farmers who depends on a healthy crop? Not to mention people going hungry.
Single, cloned fruit, unable to reproduce except by human intervention, with identical genetic structure in virtually all examples, cloned and distributed worldwide for decades is susceptible to the same attacking fungus that attacked the previous single, cloned fruit with identical genetic structure, but which has mutated slightly (my conjecture) in order to attack it's replacement.
And all because people don't like seeds in their fruit? (I would guess this isn't true, most probably people wouldn't really care much anyway, given that the fruit has an inedible skin too and a lot of popular fruits have seeds).
It's hardly surprising, it's only "catastrophic" because we've deliberately propogated a single, genetically-identical (and I would hazard "faulty", due to it's inability to reproduce) plant over and over and over again.
think of the monkeys !
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
All I can think of is the cave at the beginning of the first level in Donkey Kong Country for SNES. When you enter the cave, DK sees that his banana pile is all gone and is sad.
Clearly this is a viral commercial for the next DK Country! DK Country Wii: Panama Disease Adventure!
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
So, was granpa's banana more slippery? 'Cos that would explain their widespread use as comic devices in the pre-television era. (And, no, I never thought about asking Grandma about Granpa's banana, codenamed "Big Mike." Pervert.)
This post 2 down the row will answer you question nicely:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=570567&cid=23624829
We just don't eat - or get offered to eat - the other 299 species.
We have no bananas today!
I know it's against the rules but if you RTFA the interesting part isn't about the blight spreading through the bananas. As others have posted this is not something that sprang up over night, it's been coming for quite a while now.
The truly interesting part is that the banana companies in S. America still don't see this as a problem. TFA says that in their anual summaries they don't even mention this disease much less list it as a threat. I think the issue is much more about these companies' failure to act before it's too late than that nature is running its course.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
Exactly, how does extinction / loss of a food supply / mutating desease which have earlier almost killed a whole industry become small news? I would more likely find it the biggest news this day on Slashdot, time will tell.
I guess he just don't eat bananas.
this shit isn't bananas?
You know what they say about opinions. They're all fabulous!
Seriously, do they grow bananas like the Irish used to grow potatoes?
Having traveled in some tropical countries, one of the things I most remember about their fruits are the sheer NUMBER of different banana varieties. No monoculture. Your average roadside stand would have half a dozen varieties, and the one a mile down the road would have a few more. Tomorrow the mix would be different. And most of them would taste a lot better than the crap that's so widely available elsewhere!
I for one will welcome our new polycultural bananalords.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
What other animated emoticon can I use to signal that I have an erection?
Monstar L
Is anyone else wondering what exactly it was about this Big Michael guy that caused someone to name a large and tasty banana after him...?
we have.. no.. bananas.....
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
Read more carefully. There's more than that in there.
The fungus discussed here grows in the earth, and spreads through earth. In fact, it is a problem _because_ it's in the ground, so you can't just spray the leaves with some fungicide.
So the only way this fungus could make the jump across the ocean to Latin America is either by
A) someone bringing an infected plant and planting it in the middle of a plantation, or
B) someone bringing a sack of infected earth and dumping it in a plantation. That's it, really.
And the cultivars _are_ aware of the threat, so they:
A) don't import any plants, but only clone plants which are known to be healthy. (They actually check, yes.) And
B) don't import soil from anywhere. And apparently the countries which depend on bananas for their economy, have special customs regulations to forbid exactly that.
Just about the only realistic scenario I can think of where that jump could happen, is, basically, an act of terror or sabotage. I.e., someone deliberately bringing some infected soil and spreading it around in Latin America. It could happen, I guess, but it's hardly something that the cultivars can do much about in advance.
At any rate, that's the failure point of the "OMG, it's spreading exponentially" scare. It can spread all it want somewhere else, as long as it can't cross the ocean by itself, it's even less of a threat to the Latin American plantation than Al Qaeda deciding to crash an airplane into a plantation.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Bananas are so overbred and 'engineered' that they have to be manually propagated, since they no longer produce seeds (taste bad). How is this sort of thing a surprise then ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Won't somebody think of Charlie?
I'm convinced that "Ant" doesn't have a job. Not only does he submit stories here, but also to Blues News EVERY day, also to VideoSift and other sites not to mention his own.
So not only does he have to go out and actually find these stories to submit to all these different sites, he has to take the time to write a submission. And I don't think he's getting compensated for it...I mean, how would he?
Would love to know the story behind "Ant".
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Technically, that was worth a thousand words.
Most fungus spores can live a long, long, LONG time without germinating. How would you propose we clean up every bit of fungus?
The answer is varied breeds rather than relying on the clone of a clone of a clone.
Unfortunately none of those dozens of varieties have the attributes that make the Cavendish banana by far the most successful and important fruit crop in the world:
1. Long shelf life
2. Very uniform and predictable ripening times
That is why you can get bananas cheaply, even though they might be grown thousands of miles from where they are eventually sold.
Most, if not all the other varieties are only viable crops when they are sold very close to where they were grown.
siener's youtube channel
maybe sometime in the future we'll end up back in the situation of WWII rationing where a lot of children didn't even know what a banana looked like.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
I live in Brazil where there are many types of bananas available. Any supermarket has at least three different types. Just off my head, I can name at least six types of Brazilian bananas: Ouro ("gold"), Prata ("silver"), d'Agua ("water"), Maçã ("apple"), Nanica ("dwarf"), da Terra ("earth").
I saw this episode of Bananas in Pyjamas. Very sad.
--- I am NaN, I am a free man!
The Alaska Science Forum did an article on this problem back in 1990. Unfortunately I haven't found the promised followup. This contains a lot more information than the wikipedia articles.
Basically it involves information on why the bananas are hard to breed for a better strain. (they have no seeds) The Honduras Foundation for Agricultural Research has found way of crossbreeding in wild strains to produce seeds. Looks like it's slow going, but genetic mutation is pretty much the only way to engineer in resistance to new disease, and that will require seeds, not cuttings.
I wasn't able to find any updates on the HFAR's progress. Anyone else have any luck?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I don't mind dating a girl that has been with everybody, as long as she had a good shower afterwards.
Knowing this will obviously lead to price hikes for bananas, which contains potassium that helps hold off mussel cramps caused by anti-cholesterol meds, taken by millions....
Anyway, what can I do to give cause for a price hike in my salary, so to afford all these other price hikes?
Its not a matter of inflation which is always going to happen given the game it is, but rather a matter of at which end of the inflation spectrum are you positioned at. The side they gives you a financial advantage or the larger side that gives you a disadvantage.
This is your last chance to start Gorillas.bas and play it like we used to!
(For the younger people among us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillas_(computer_game) )
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I bet news about the MTV awards gets more coverage than the banana extinction does.
Can I bum a sig?
I would be more than happy to eat a GM banana, sure hippies might complain but they can just switch to eating flavored turnip like people in the UK did during the war.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Why? because this news is OVER 3 months old. I heard it on NPR "science friday" back in Late April early May! it has been covered heavily in all the earth science and microbiological journals for nearly 3 months now and yes those have covered how it's spreading even faster.
It's like Slashdot waiting until the end of the month to announce, "Mars polar lander made it to the ground and is sending pictures!"
So yes, it's a slow news day as it's a rehash of old news that has had wide coverage.
Next up, The MIR space station is going to be decommissioned, and spacelab will fall from the sky.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"There is no cure, and nearly every banana scientist says..."
Anyone else burst out laughing after reading the title of banana scientist? This picture came to mind...
http://www.zenbutoh.com/charactergallery/images/gorilla-bananas.jpg
But I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts....
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
If bananas are indeed "the atheist's nightmare" does this mean we can wake up now?
I just had the scariest dream... and Kirk Cameron was there smiling about bananas! *shivers*
And what's the moral of this story? The fungus evolved! Or maybe it was intelligently designed and just in hiding in an apple grove or behind some oranges!
~AA
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
Only if a disease wipes them all out too. Err, not that I would want something like that to happen to Justin Timberlake and co, you know...
I thought the Popular Science article was much better: http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-06/can-fruit-be-saved
I bet the evil corporate banana growers will have a fungus-resistant modified banana out and growing shortly, while luddism and superstition regarding engineered bananas in Africa will kill millions.
But they're darker and they sound funny, and they're really far away, so I guess they don't matter, except that it makes me glad that they are still living authentically squalid^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hreal lives.
While this might not seem so serious to consumers in the U.S., in fact the banana family (including plantains) is the 4th largest food staple crop in the world (or at least it was several years ago when I was researching the banana industry for a litigation matter) behind wheat, rice, and corn.
Food for thought.
-- My choice of computing platform is a symbol of my individuality and belief in personal freedom.
It's older than that. I read about it in a magazine years ago. The smallish bananas that you see in the supermarket are part of an aggressive breeding program to get ahead of the disease.
The truth is banana plants haven't been propagated by seed, and only recently (past five years) have there been attempts to find new cultivars, before the bottom falls out of the banana industry.
cat sig >
Yes we have no bananas
- we have no bananas today!
They've all been infected
We're feelling dejected
- they've all gone and rotted right away!
Our culture's all so mono,
they've all died out and gone-oh!
So, yes we have no bananas!
We have no bananas today
We've had red meat and butter (saturated fat), poultry (salmonella), eggs (again, salmonella), oily fish (mercury), non-oily fish (overfished to the point of extinction in some areas), margarine (hydrogenated fat), non-organic food (toxic pesticides), water (female sex hormones reducing sperm count), genetically modified food (we don't actually know what the problem is yet, but we are afraid it may be worse than anything seen before). And that's just off the top of my head.
No, the correct term is 'Bananologist'!
My blog
I'm holding off judgment until I hear what Sharon Stone has to say about this!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
If you RTFS then you will see that while 'we' in developed countries will be ok without bananas they make up a large part of the food supply for some people in Africa. This will likely have a massive effect on people who don't have the luxury to choose what they eat day to day.
next to the Kentucky Jelly and just as tasty.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Can the spores survive bing nuked? Ideally, from orbit.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Meat and saturated fat were linked to heart disease which is now considered non-causative: contributory only. Only highly processed meats are still linked to cancers. Red meat is linked to male infertility but only because of beef hormone usage.
Salmonella infects 1 in 20,000 eggs, and generally only if the shell is cracked. For years it was supposed to cause heart disease, onyl for the WHO to establish that the more you eat the longer you live.
Margarine was supposed to be heart healthy and turned out to be the opposite.
Same with vegetable oils, but which cause cancer in lab animals (triggering an attempt to industrially convert polyunsaturates to monounsaturated oils).
I reckon there are two general rules: when is doubt do the opposite of what the experts tell you, and the second to establish what is anthropologically natural to us rather than chasing novel elixirs. After all, you can't be moderate or balanced with poisons (like margarine, a sort of plasticised oil).
... which would be preferable to bananas falling out of your bottom I suppose...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
An oddly interesting interview that explains a lot about the banana.
Why is this story relevant to Slashdot? Because here at Slashdot, we like technology, and cloning is a fascinating cyberpunk-to-reality technology. The banana is a great low-tech example of what happens when your food crops are clones.
This isn't the end of the world, I mean, there are other varieties which we can eventually breed into mass-commerce viable crops. Maybe we have no bananas for a few years while they plant new varieties... it could nuke the banana companies, but we can live without bananas for a few years, right?
Yeah. But now imagine the same thing happens to cloned cattle, corn, rice, and wheat. The world can do without corn for a few years, right?
Oh crap...
The price of cucumber futures soar due to fear that bananas will be off the market.
After all, it's the only way to be sure.
And where you have banana scientists, you are sure to find banana protectors!
blah blah blah
Wow, imagine having a banana named after you. I bet Michel was popular with the ladies...
Proverbs 21:19
Why the Alaska Science Forum would be concerned even remotely with bananas? They appear to be waaaay ahead in global warming preparations. Either that or they've gone bananas.
Invenio via vel creo
I guess he just don't eat bananas. It'd make a relatively decent sci-fi channel film. A mutant banana virus taking over the world. Yeah... Sounds about right. Maybe even a HUGE mutant banana virus, the size of a large dog! With slime and goo oozing off it!
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Well, first of all, here's an article from 2003 that looks like it might have been on the money
Second of all, most banana plants are grown from cuttings - without the reproduction mutations resistant to these fungal infections are simply not happening on any kind of scale. "The problem is that the banana we eat is a seedless, sterile article which could slip the way of its predecessor which was wiped out by blight half a century ago."
They're sequencing the genome of the bananas eaten in africa (which HAVE seeds) but there are problems because people aren't interested in the GM varieties, saying they taste more like apple (no bad thing to me)
Rational thought is the only true freedom
It might be (or have been) major news, but it's not technology related, and Slashdot is known for tech news.
Don't forget making the bananas grow arms and legs, then rise up against humanity.
I, for one, welcome our new yellow overlords.
Your ad here.
Chiquita Brands International still isn't a "harmless" international company. The company was fined by the US Justice Department, to the tune of $25 million, for paying extortion fees to Colombian rebels between 1997 and 2004 (though the company has a history of doing this back to 1989). Granted, perhaps Chiquita was screwed if it did or screwed if it didn't-- I am not familiar with the details.
... I'm disappointed that this is the only /. article tagged with 'bananascientists'.
But the Africans do not use cloned copies of a single tree, which is what the Cavendish bananas are. So presumably only a part of the banana palms in Africa will be affected.
I though you have balls.
Does that mean growth \propto time^1?
There was a Scientific American podcast about the demise of the banana on April 23, 2008. It was interesting--they actually went down to South America and took a tour of a banana farm. There are some photos on the site as well.
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=7BA7726C-EBE6-29DB-B21F7FF464B293E9
There goes all my work on banana based fuel!
Remember Attack of the killer Tomatoes?
:)
Cross that with the animation bananaphone from the weeble and bob guys
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Most people in areas where bananas can be grown probably don't eat Cavendish bananas. They would have access to the many other local varieties that are excellent food sources and resistant to this disease.
... keep 'em peeled.
"This could mean the end of the banana daiquiri as we know it!"
No Bananas? Hmmm...
reminds me of the Banana Crisis of 2006 (otherwise known as Cyclone Larry)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Cyclone_Larry
Theres more than one way to skin a... err... banana.
The Bible: Historically verifiable fact from an observers point of view
This "news" has been around for a long time. Even the summary says so. It's an old story: monoculture -> disease -> no more bananas. Unless you have zero knowledge of bananas, you heard about this years ago. Hmm, I wonder why they'd be raising the alarm now, even when the banana companies like Dole and Chiquita don't care?
Oh, I see. Somebody wants to skirt regulations regarding transgenic crops. "Won't somebody think of the bananas!!" ... Suckers.
And why is the parent flamebait? Must have been a fruit nazi.
Wait...there are banana scientists?
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
As if we needed another example of the War on (Some) Drugs causing more problems than it solves.
Is it UpAgainstTheWallMotherfuckers Day yet?
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
For some reason around the turn of last century, banana skins -- all of the Big Mike variety -- were a form of ubiquitous garbage in New York City, the center of the known universe then as now, as omnipresent on everyone's sidewalk as poo de poodle is today. Hence, the proverbial slip on a bananaskin, the slapstick schtick of all schtick, that obviates the need for engaging mental processes, such as irony. Apparently, the banana laughs last, but it will be missed.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
I would spend eight years getting a PhD in Banana Science just for an excuse to say so!
Fnord.
I don't think we have much to fear. It appears Bananas that grow arms and legs can't stop talking about peanut butter, jelly, and it being time for said items.
Just make sure they can't find any baseball bats and we should be fine.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
You also forgot to mention how all /. geeks are going to use this as an example of why monocultures are bad, and how this could be used as a model for Microsoft's evilness.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I visited Peru years ago and and found their fried plantains to be incredibly tasty, far surpassing the bananas of home.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
This is correct. There are hundreds, if not thousands of varieties of bananas. The reason we don't see them is that many of them aren't as good as the Cavendish; and none of the many varieties that are better store and ship well. So consumers in India and Central America will continue to have access to superior, locally grown varieties.
However -- this doesn't mean that we should blithely accept the extinction of an important food crop. This is a warning. What if it were rice? Or sweet corn?
The properties that make bananas vulnerable are shared by many other, more important food crops. Mainly these amount to one thing: the crop in question is economically attractive to plant on a large scale and ship around the world.
It's important that we look at this as both a lesson, and an opportunity to try out different strategies to respond. The global food supply is already under pressure from energy prices and population growth. It should be manageable over the coming decades, but we shouldn't trust our luck too much.
This also bears watching because bananas are an extremely important food source in areas where they grow. Even though this is not a variety that is used as a basic staple by anybody, the biology of banana diseases is very important.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Given that it is not the interest of individual companies to take on the burden of maintaining genetic diversity in food stocks, this condition needs to be IMPOSED upon producers for the safety of humanity. This could easily be accomplished by a small tax on each and every company that sells bananas, markets or ships bananas and resells bananas, since they too benefit from the banana market. It should not be borne solely by the growers, but rather spread as broadly as possible. Ultimately, the public will pay, but the price of insuring the ultimate preservation and safety of the food source would be worth paying. It might add a tenth of a cent to each bunch of banas sold.
The funds could then be used to totally sequence the banana genome and develop new ways to introduce new useful variation into the cloned lines. It could also be used to study the genome of the various wilting diseases to understand how they destroy bananas.
I'm not interested in the GM varieties because we've already seen one case of GM corn producing toxins in a late generation. If you don't do 20 generations of trials you don't know what you're doing. There's little to no real danger than the terminator gene will spread and destroy the world's food, but plenty that some manmade gene will spread and make much of it inedible - and not to mention kill or at least harm a bunch of people before we notice.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, we have no bananas tomorrow.
This sounds like the work of General Blight.
Isn't that how it always is? The people who are already struggling just get hit harder. At least there's some warning. The question is what the companies/communities/governments will do about it.
Perhaps there's another staple crop that can be started in those areas so that the economies can begin shifting away from bananas before drop-dead time comes -- rice, wheat, potatoes....?
OTOH, if that disease is catching...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Sounds interesting. Do you have some sources?
Why is it a disease? I like bananas. Why should I not eat bananas? I understand that you want everyone to live according to your standards and morality, but really, why should I not eat bananas?
At the end of the 19th century, with the help of the US government, food companies like Dole and Chiquita helped create and prop up "banana republics" in latin america, which were in fact figurehead dictatorships geared towards producing raw materials and crops for US consumption, like bananas. In fact, before that time, the #1 most popular fruit in the US was the apple, but thanks to these companies, they turned that part of our culture on it's head and created a massive campaign to make the banana #1, using the pricing power of cheap bananas and government influence to steamroll a fruit that was, and still is, produced locally by US farmers.
The reason why they did this is not because bananas are better tasting or better for you, but because they were cheaper than local produce when you factor in highly cheap labor of the impoverished populace and favorable political conditions gained by less than ethical means.
And to be honest, Apples taste better than bananas. An apple is more durable, and can be made into more things, and supports your local economy .
This is absolutely bonkers. My wife's family lives in Wisconsin. You want them to survive on local produce over the winter? You want them to hoard dry goods so they can eat 6 months out of the year? Not to mention the exciting selection of nutritional deficits that most of the world suffered from before cheap year round fresh food selections. Really, this type of judgmental viewpoint bothers me so much. I really see your "EAT THIS WAY OR YOU HAVE A DISEASE!" moralism as no different from right wingers who think homosexuality is a disease.
You'd be surprised the number of vegatables that can be grown late into the fall season. In wisconsin, you don't exactly have to grow the vegetables near Madison, but there are tons of places within the continental US where you can get produce shipped north. You can cross the US from top to bottom by train or 18 wheeler in two days without trying very hard, And we ship things more fragile than fruit by truck these days.
You are taking the metaphor the GP is making way too far. Those who say "homosexuality is a disease" come from an illogical and bigoted stance about the inequality of "races" when in fact there's nothing biological to suggest one "race" is inferior to the other. On the other hand, to play devils advocate, not all fruits are created equal. Also, see my entry above about how the banana became popular by government and big business influence. There's some good reasons why you can be negative about this fruit.
Are you just making this up as you go along? Watching people "line up" for bananas in a supermarket? Food scarcity hasn't exactly been a problem in America in a number of years, I would be very interested in where you've seen people "line up" to get bananas, while bypassing all other fruits.
Food scarcity isn't a problem, but living in the middle and not on the more populated coasts, perhaps you simply don't see that sometimes the bananas on the shelves get sold out and they haven't restocked the shelves yet. I've seen that plenty of times. Then some people have to wait. It particularly happens in less affluent areas with high population density. Doesn't happen every day, but it's simply a matter of shelf space not food scarcity.
Good for you! We should all be more like you, thanks for holding yourself out there as an example of the Right Way to live!
You're welcome. Perhaps I can show you how to live better by trying to reduce your carbon footprint. After all, buying product locally as well as reducing my carbon footprint has positive impacts on my fellow human beings that I should be concerned with. Or would you rather just let your fellow man slip on a banana peel, break his neck, lose his job and his life savings and say "tough shit I don't care about you"?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Your ideas are well suited to my plans. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Clearly, the only person who can save us from the anthropomorphic banana is the man with a spoon that is too big.
"I am a BANANA!"
The details are trivial and useless; The reasons, as always, purely human ones.
I don't believe in scare tactics, but you are right on the money. Consider the case of Ug99, a very appropriate name and a very dangerous threat to the world wheat and barley crop.
If I was a politico in the wheat growing states and provinces, I might take a dim view of anyone growing ornamental barberry bushes. So far as I know, we don't have a defence against this dangerous wheat and barley blight.
Given the enormous amount of travel today, both people and plant diseases are incredibly easy to transmit. We'll have to get used to it.
In times of trouble, the smell of frying onions usually gives confidence and comfort.
Right, because the national health care plans proposed are just as socialist as the automobile insurance system we have today. Nothing more socialist than purchasing your insurance from a private insurance company.
Moron.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I knew we should've let Noriega in charge! ...see what you get from USA interventionism?
Bananas are a staple for atheletes! ... what'll I do now?
~ Artificial Intelligence is better than none! ~
Exactly what part of "Anything that puts more power in the hands of politicians takes power away from you" did you not understand? I think maybe you are the moron. There is more than one way to needlessly give away your freedom.
"Nothing more socialist than purchasing your insurance from a private insurance company."
Are you compelled by law to buy the insurance? That's a needless encroachment on your freedom. Are you forced into a "single payer" system? That's socialism.
I don't care what you think I am. One of us is right, and one of us is wrong. Socialized medicine is what we need. Single payer, fully socialized, completely free medicine in the USA. Government owned hospitals, government employed doctors.
I don't support anything less than that. What the current crop of "pollitions" as you so amusingly spelled it have proposed is basically the same system as our car insurance system.
If you're not out there ranting in the streets about car insurance or house insurance, you're a fucking hypocrite for ranting about socialized medicine.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
All that and you still missed the point. Should you have learned not to listen to "experts" or learned to be skeptical about where your information comes from, maybe to ask questions like "What motivations does this person have to lie to me, and thus how might they be likely to distort the truth?" Such skepticism is often useful in all aspects of life, but is especially so regarding economic issues, by which I mean, If someone is trying to sell you margarine, that in and of itself is sufficient reason to be skeptical of their statements and to do independent research yourself.
Single payer, fully socialized, completely free medicine in the USA. Government owned hospitals, government employed doctors.
BS! What we need is for the government to give everyone the same benefits a business gets for offering employees health insurance. The problem with health care in the US today stems from World War II. Then the federal government passed and enacted price and wage control laws. Employers were barred from offering employees or potential employees more pay, so to allow employers to attract and keep employees the government allowed employers to offer fringe benefits such as health insurance giving them tax breaks on those benefits. Now if those tax breaks were extended to people who bought their own health insurance the competition between insurance policy issuers would drive the cost of health insurance down.
By forcing those who buy and pay for their own insurance to pay for other's insurance, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. You're also subsidizing other people's bad life style choices. I don't want to, and no one should, be forced to pay for someone else's bad choices. Such as eating too many tymes at fast food places, or smoking, or drinking, or not exercising. And I admit I'm one of those who smokes, when I last had insurance I paid more because I did smoke which I'm fine with, and I don't exercise enough. However I also used watch what I eat and take vitamin and mineral supplements.
Simply neither I nor any one else who tries to lead a healthful life style should not have to subsidize others' bad choices.
What the current crop of "pollitions" as you so amusingly spelled it have proposed is basically the same system as our car insurance system.
Which I don't have a problem with, though I would make some changes. And yes I have dealt with the car insurance system in the US. More than 10 years ago as a college student after my classes one day I was riding my bike when I was hit by a moving van, Apartment Movers type, and was medivacted by helicopter to a hospital. Actually that's how my mother found out I was injured, she works as a lab tech in the hospital. I spent something like a month in the hospital, some of that tyme in a coma. When I left, I was moved to live in a rehabilitation house where I spent another month and a half. Because I'm single and was in a coma a judge assigned my mother as my legal guardian, so when I left rehab I was moved into my moms house. Then for about 3 months I went to therapy 5 days a week at the hospital.
All told my medical bills came to more than $120,000 and I had no insurance, car or health. However my mom hired an attorney, my sister's friend. Because the driver of the van was weaving all over the road and clearly caused the accident, he's a diabetic and has a history of causing accidents due to the fact that he does not take care of his diabetes, his employer decided to settle the lawsuit before it ever went before a jury. The medical bills were paid for out of the settlement, with the rest put into a trust fund to take care of me. As I said above, I'd change the system, I'd make it so the guilty party had to pay for the medical expenses of someone disabled, and I am a survivor of a disability, or for health insurance for them for life. Because of the injury I have been refused health insurance, and after the settlement I spent another year in therapy. Even then though I still didn't get as must as I needed but I couldn't afford more.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The fruit of the crab apple is often quite flavorful, it's just small and usually not very sweet.
I only like sour tasting apples and there was a crap apple trees near one junior high school I went to that had some fabulous apples.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Hopefully those farmers will be smart enough to invest in a new food.
However by the tyme a farmer knows a crop is going to fail it may be too late for them.
Those that can't or won't have the option to sell their land.
If they can find a buyer, a big "if", selling their land may put them in a worse position.
Not to mention people going hungry.
We got hungry people in the United States, too. Let's fix our own house before we start crying about our neighbor.
I think feeding the hungry in the US, as well as in the Third World, is economically easy, the problem is political. Multi billion dollar US multinational corporations get billions of US taxpayer dollars in subsidies, Archer Daniels Midland has been called the Corporate Welfare Queen. Instead of the corporate paid politicians giving all that money to large corporations, if the money was given to charities like soup kitchens if not directly to those who need the help, then there's no reason they should go hungry. And by corporations not getting those hugh subsidies, they would have to compeat with Third World farmers. As it has been since NAFTA was ratified, Mexican farmers have been driven off their farms because they can't grow corn for what ADM and Cargill can export and sell corn for in Mexico. The Doha rounds of the WTO failed because First World Nations, specifically the EU and Japan refused to budge on subsiding their farmers, though Bush did agree to cut some US subsidies.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I totally agree, Britain is responsible for slavery in America and as such, shoudl have their products boycotted. Had they not colonized the area and developed an economy reliant on slavery things would have been much better off.
I agree, the British are to blame for slavery in the US.
That's a pretty pathetic excuse. If they wanted in badly enough they'd have it. I know, I know, the all powerful US hegemony would shut them down, just like in Vietnam and Korea before that.
Oh wait...
Reason 2 - because the whole point of it is to prevent genes from spreading. but plenty that some manmade gene will spread and make much of it inedible First, they're not man made - they're just moved from one organism to another. Second, you are constantly eating food with uncontrolled natural mutations, are you scared of them? and not to mention kill or at least harm a bunch of people before we notice. Peanuts kill people every day! Ban them, ban them! See, I can scare-monger, just like you!
If you outnumber them, you win. If you are outnumbered, you lose. This is what distinguishes the modern colonial states (USA, Canada, Australia, etc.) from the colonies which collapsed all over the rest of the world in the 20th century (India, South Africa, etc.)
there is no god but truth, and reality is its prophet
If PETA thinks we can do it with meat, why not with bananas?
We could even make banana flavoured meat. Or meat-flavoured bananas!
there is no god but truth, and reality is its prophet
"Socialized medicine is what we need."
Why do we need that? Food is more necessary than health care, do we need socialized food? What about housing, without shelter many of us would die from exposure. Do we also need socialized housing?
What you want are guarantees and easy answers that the government simply won't be able to give you. Do you honestly believe that socialized medicine will solve our medical care problems? How will it do that? There won't be more doctors or nurses, in fact cost controls will likely reduce the number of medical professionals. All health care systems have a system for determining who will get care and who will do without, because the reality is that you can't treat everyone. Some use gatekeepers, others place emphasis on certain procedures that have a higher benefit to cost ratio. In the US there are exactly two factors determining whether you get treatment: your willingness to pay and your ability to pay. I think this is preferable, since it allows me to make choices for myself (to the extent that I am able to pay).
okay.
In addition, the excessive Bt in the Bt Corn (20% of the US corn production, so far) has long-term repercussions to the soil.
Second, you are constantly eating food with uncontrolled natural mutations, are you scared of them?Nope. See, in nature a single organism tends to be mutated and either passes on its genes or not, whereas in modern agriculture we create big monocrops and do our utmost to ensure that they survive, and (assuming they don't have the terminator gene or are otherwise sterile) pass on their genes.
Peanuts kill people every day! Ban them, ban them! See, I can scare-monger, just like you!Peanuts kill people through an allergy, but toxins kill people because they're toxic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your slippery slope argument is unimpressive.
We need socialized medicine for two reasons: it's cheaper, and it's better. Show me that capitalized medicine is cheaper and better and I'll go for it.
Also, show me how much "choice" you have if you're a half million dollars in hock with medical bills. You have the "choice" to die, in other words. That's no choice at all, and when other people have to make that choice, it hurts me. Not bleeding heart hurt, but actually take money from me hurt.
Also, if Libertarians hate it, it gets a slight bonus for the LOL factor.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
It is not a slippery slope argument (slippery slope arguments claim that something will be a problem later on after it snowballs, I'm trying to explain to you that it will erode your freedoms right away). Socialized medicine is a false hope. It may look cheaper in the short term, but in the long run price controls simply force care providers out of the market. You also don't seem to understand the basic principle that the government can not provide services that are unavailable. They can not provide you with a doctor if there is a shortage of doctors. However much medical care our society produces today is the same amount it will produce under a socialized system. Instead of not being able to afford a procedure, your doctor will simply tell you that you can't have it. It solves nothing. At the very least, higher pay rates encourage more people to become doctors and nurses.
If you want to reform the medical care in this country, you should look at ending employer provided medical insurance (so that people can shop around) and reforming the AMA (because the seem to enjoy capping our number of doctors for no reason at all).
You should note the old adage "it it seems to good to be true, it probably is". If someone tells you that they can give you free, unlimited medical care, and you don't have to do anything for it, don't listen to them. It doesn't make any sense.
Your excuses are just too difficult to tolerate.
I said "Vietnam and Korea before that" to moot your retarded point. You didn't do anything to moot mine, but droned on about shit that in no way changes that "Vietnam and Korea before that" did what you seem to think can't be done.
That a long post you made that completely fails to do anything to refute my argument.
And your rambling is getting difficult to tolerate, in which case I'm ending this.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Monoculture may cause problems, but they're unrelated to GM tech. Peanuts kill people through an allergy, but toxins kill people because they're toxic. But you're still dead, right?
Slippery slope arguments make the case that one worse thing depends on some other thing. In your case you asked if I were to support socialized housing as well.
My answer is that socialized housing is not caused by socialized medicine. It's entirely plausible to have completely socialized medicine, but not socialized housing. The question you asked makes no sense.
Your latest post has no slippery slope argument, and is qualitatively much better as an argument. You make one point, and then you answer your point with the answer I would have given - the AMA does indeed restrict the quantity of doctors, and it's problem. I propose making that illegal. Anybody who passes proper qualifications should be able to be a doctor with no artificial restrictions.
If someone tells you that they can give you free, unlimited medical care, and you don't have to do anything for it, don't listen to them. It doesn't make any sense.
I don't think anybody's said that medical care would be free or unlimited, or without any cost. Did I say that?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
FYP to make it true.
Go ahead and run, you have no other option.
And my point is that if it is, you're only going to eat one. But if it's a whole field...
Monoculture may cause problems, but they're unrelated to GM tech.On the other hand, most of the problems with GM tech are related to monocultures. See what I did there?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I wasn't trying to say that socialized medicine would lead to socialized housing. I was trying to say that socialized medicine is as pointless and absurd as socialized housing. I think you may have missed that because, maybe, you don't think socialized housing is as absurd as I do.
"Did I say that?"
I don't think you said that. But you did say that a single payer system is the only system that will solve the problem. Proponents of socialized medicine tike to make the argument that we need health care for all. They also like to point out situations where poor people in this country have to do without medical care, as an example of what socialized medicine would fix.
All I'm saying is that since it will do nothing to increase the amount of medical care available, it will do nothing to eliminate or fix our medical care shortage. And if we try to use price controls to control the cost of our system, it will actually reduce the availability of health care moving forward.
Any valid argument for socialized medicine (especially a single payer system) hinges around the assertion that everyone should have equal access to health care. I think that everyone should have access to health care when they need it. But I don't think it's fair or reasonable to demand that a wealthy person give up their heart transplant simply because a poor person can't afford one. Also, I think it's important that people be able to make their own choices regarding how to spend their money.
Everybody needs health care all the time. Take a look around at all the fatasses walking down the street. They aren't healthy, and their lack of health care affects everybody.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
But if someone doesn't want to pay for it, you shouldn't force them to.
"Take a look around at all the fatasses walking down the street."
I don't think fatness is usually caused by a lack of health care. Whenever someone is irresponsible it affects everyone, but living in a free society means putting up with the irresponsibility of others. Better to do that than to lose the ability to be responsible for yourself.
Changing the subject?
Blending two subjects that are only tangentially related in order to discredit one of them?
Playing word games?
Realizing that the real problems with modern agriculture have nothing to do with GM?
You tell me.
Yes we should. If they are living in the USA, they're getting the benefits of it. It's a service for everyone that everyone pays for.
If you don't want to pay for it, leave the country. I'm serious. Get the fuck out. The Boy Scouts will kick you out for not paying your dues, and the USA should kick people out for not paying their dues. So leave.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Why should people have to pay for services that they haven't chosen to use? Shouldn't we have an opt-in or at least an opt-out policy. I can see demanding that people pay for national security, since it must be provided to them, but couldn't we just deny medical care to people who don't want to pay. It seems unfair to force people to pay for and use a service when we don't really have to provide it to them.
It seems especially unfair to say "just leave" to people who were born here and have lived here all their lives. Since you're the one who want's to change things, wouldn't it be better for you to leave? That way you wouldn't be imposing your will unfairly onto other people who see things differently.
But on the other hand, it's not fair for you to want to live in a place where you benefit from services that other people pay for. Part of the robustness of a society is provided by people NOT worrying about their medical care and about their medical bills. That robustness benefits you and everybody. With paid-for home care for your parents, you could advance in your career. Lots of people have their lives limited because of an elderly parent they must care for. It's not really a choice for any of us.
There are places where you can go where the government provides no services at all. Just like you're free to NOT join the Boy Scouts if you don't want to pay the dues and earn their merit badges, you're free to move to one of these regulation-less areas.
We do have to provide medical service to people. It's a moral value. Withholding medical service to people is immoral. It's the same as not protecting them from an enemy.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
"Withholding medical service to people is immoral."
I agree, however since we *could* refuse service, I don't think it's fair to say that they have to pay. Taking money from people by force is immoral, so we shouldn't do it unless we really have to.
I say let people who are responsible buy health insurance to alleviate their worry, and let people who are irresponsible chose not to pay. Irresponsible people usually don't have a lot of money anyway.
We could refuse service, but that's immoral. We could refuse to defend ourselves, but that's immoral.
We don't take money from people by force. We provide services that they pay for. Not paying for services you use or benefit from is immoral. It's called theft.
I am not content to let irresponsible people be irresponsible. It affects me. They wind up in the emergency room and I have to pay for them, but it's a much more expensive way to pay for them.
Furthermore, you don't seem to realize that medical insurance is the biggest scam out there. Medicine isn't a market, and it doesn't follow market rules. Companies that sell insurance do it to make money, not to provide care. They treat it like a market, which in the best of situations is subject to pricing distortions. These pricing distortions actually kill people. But the medical "market" isn't really a market. Why? Because I'll pay ANYTHING to live. There's no point at which I'll say no thanks to something that will save my life because it's too expensive. So, we get expensive medicine that is paid for by companies which have no reason to fulfill their end of the bargain to pay for your care. They make you jump through some awful hoops, because they can. The alternative is death. A huge number of bankruptcies are due to people who are saddled by medical bills, even though they were "responsible" and had insurance. Good insurance. This is wrong.
When people can do all the right things and still wind up completely fucked by the system which is far more powerful than they are, that's wrong. That's not freedom at all. If you spend a decade or two of your life putting your life's dreams and goals on hold because you have to care for a sick parent with a rotting brain, and then you wind up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, it's a poor consolation to be expected to think "I'm independent, and that's what matters." No, you're not independent. You paid years of your life and owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to the people who completely screwed you with the idea that you're an independent agent who is somehow more free and more of a man because you took the libertarian view of things.
A libertarian wouldn't stubbornly stick to this crazy notion. A libertarian would voluntarily band together with his fellow man to pool the risk, recognizing that every person shares the single quality of being human. Every human is mortal, and every human is more free when they are free of the agents who use FORCE to take advantage of everybody's natural inclination to pay anything to live.
Libertarians are famous for not wanting to use force against anyone, except in self-defense. I am trying to persuade you here that these cocksuckers who sell you insurance that doesn't insure you, and who perpetuate the fiction that health care is a market like any other are using some pretty powerful force against you already. Defend yourself!
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
"Not paying for services you use or benefit from is immoral. It's called theft."
Not if you don't ask for them. You don't have to pay that guy who washes your window when you stopped at a stoplight.
"I am not content to let irresponsible people be irresponsible."
Then you're not content to let people be free.
"Companies that sell insurance do it to make money, not to provide care."
As does any insurance company. Is car insurance or homeowners insurance also a scam? Of course not. The only reason medical insurance is different is people don't shop around for it. It doesn't have to be that way.
"These pricing distortions actually kill people."
No, a lack of trained medical professionals is what is killing people. Insurance companies are just in the unfortunate position of deciding who gets care and who doesn't. If it wasn't them making the decisions, it would be someone else. What is unacceptable is that the medical establishment seems content barring people from the market and setting quotas for no good reason other than tradition.
"They make you jump through some awful hoops, because they can."
No, they are trying to get rid of the people who don't really need care. The (flawed) assumption is that someone who really needs care will jump through hoops to get it.
"No, you're not independent. You paid years of your life and owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to the people who completely screwed you with the idea that you're an independent agent who is somehow more free and more of a man because you took the libertarian view of things."
Fine, then tell people that and let them decide for themselves, you don't know everything, and people have a right to decide for themselves. That's all I'm saying.
"A libertarian would voluntarily band together with his fellow man to pool the risk, "
That is what insurance is!!!!!!! Why do you think it would be any different if the government ran it? Because they would simply deny you care and let you die rather than let you bankrupt yourself? I'd rather be bankrupt than dead! I think that's a choice I should have!
"I am trying to persuade you here that these cocksuckers who sell you insurance that doesn't insure you, and who perpetuate the fiction that health care is a market like any other are using some pretty powerful force against you already."
Health insurance most certainly can be a market. General care, and long term care, and many other forms of healthcare are markets like any other. The only case where this is not true is emergency care. But you can shop for insurance for that. It's just that people don't because there is a huge tax incentive for using their employers health insurance.
"Defend yourself!"
You do that using lawsuits and criminal trials, not by nationalizing an entire sector of the economy. How will you defend yourself when it's the government screwing you? It will be a lot harder.
And so we are at an impasse. My arguments have been laid out, and rebutting you here would involve repeating myself. So now, that is all that I have to say. I don't think your reasons for rejecting my arguments are very good, but what I think of your arguments is irrelevant. I think if you go back through our discussion, you'll find that all your points were addressed previously.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Genetic material held as frozen tissue cultures will allow a temporary but total destruction of any plant species in the wild. Once the pathogen dies off due to lack of hosts the stocks of the plant can be rapidly replenished. It is the temporal equivalent of crop rotation. Gene blending between infertile varieties of plants is also possible. dan@tekgnu.com