this was probably the least coherent post I have ever put up. distracted!
basically the issue raised by the rising cost of energy, is "how do we deal with our poor", not "how can we keep energy usage cheap for everyone because we have poor people in the country". The problem of energy will never be solved adequately until the true cost of using it is felt by those who use it. The problem of helping our poor meet minimum standards of lifestyle for the security of our society and the dignity of our citizens is just as important... but separate.
query: do you use more or less energy than those wealthier than you?
answer: much, much less.
you act like prices are suddenly going to spike. Not likely. And hey.. you know what? how we help our poor, or don't, is a totally separate arguement from how much energy should cost.
Problem #1 is how much does energy cost Problem #2 is how much do we help people who can't afford it to use more energy?
frankly I would vastly prefer to spend the money to insulate the building you're in than simply burning the money in your furnace. But people who can't afford heat in winter should be helped, generally, sure. Whether or not cap and trade goes through.
put another way, we didn't have cap and trade last winter and you still went cold. So how's that working out for you? There is a problem there, and it's not cap and trade.
True. But people do have a choice in where they choose to live. and choosing to live a commute from work in a hot region has consequences. And when we as a society decide that individuals must PAY THE COST OF THEIR OWN CHOICES... as we would with appropriate energy costs that take into account external costs we have gotten used to being shielded from... then people will have to deal with those consequences.
it sucks for the first people who have to change... such as me, who stupidly bought a house a half hour from my office and can't sell it, so I must commute as I don't have time for 3 hours of biking a day, minimum... but hey, thems the breaks. We also had the benefit of stupidly cheap energy for a long time, which is more than anyone coming after us will be able to say.
This is an optional tax. We can use less energy. We may not be able to do it with 70 degree thermostats year round, 30 MPG cars if we're lucky, and without planning our trips to the store a little better, but it can be done. This removes our ability to ignore the consequence of our actions. Nothing more.
not true. if you had much more capacity than you needed over a wide geographic area, you could probably bet that enough wind was blowing *somewhere* to cover the current load, and shutting down wind turbines shouldn't be that difficult of a proposition.
a really smart person? Or some person who is elevated beyond the rest of humanity on some sort of pedestal?
I would wager the latter. The boy has no perspective. He is just saying he's not better than everyone else, which is what "genius" means to him... and to most people. He'd have to speak pretty precisely to explain it otherwise, but he can't, because he's 11. Just a very, very smart 11.
In geek terms, his wisdom score is still quite low.
he's 11. He doesn't have to be told: he'll still do what he thinks is "right" without regard for other's viewpoints.
When I was 11 I was spouting all kinds of things about smoking and drugs being bad and such. It was based on shallow understandings of things I had heard but didn't really get. It was also correct, but I hadn't yet been tested to disabuse myself of my illusions of perfection.
He's 11. He'll learn. He's not old enough to really have an idea of what his life is going to be all about yet, he hasn't even hit puberty!! But he certainly has quite a head start. he's got 10+ more years than anyone else to explore adult-level topics of interest to his heart's content. Good stuff.
Uh, I think you misunderstand the heat transfer at work here.
If you are trying to reflect energy, that energy must be travelling through space. IR waves "from below' have already hit the roof sheathing, which is what will radiate the heat into space in a heating situation. If you coat the roof in aluminum, you're reduced its emissivity somewhat, but you are not helping to 'reflect' IR waves.. they already stopped, now you're conducting and re-radiatiating/convecting off of the roof surface.
In other words, your top surface paint is nearly irrelevant to keeping your heat in. Likewise, your bottom surface is nearly irrelevant to keeping heat out. If you want to reflect radiant energy in both directions, you need an airspace and reflector plane on both sides, not just top side paint coating.
Yes, but look what you yourself wrote. "...rising above their station..."
You wouldn't say that about a doctor or an astronaut or a scientist. The fact that their blue collar existence is a "station to be risen above" is a subtle form of bigotry.
Biosphere is the closest we have ever come. But sure, if you are willing to gamble that as yet completely unproven technology will just save us all... which is just a variant of the "Aw shucks, sumbuddy'll figger it out" argument... I can see why you aren't at all concerned. Because you have a wildly optimistic faith in human foresight and technology.
Regardless: it's not really about human extinction. That's a pretty drastic event. Of course, killing 5/6 of our population (arbitrary number to illustrate a point) would be PRETTY FUCKING BAD, even if it weren't really "extinction". So perhaps we dial back the casual attitude that if it's not extinction, it's not bad?
I have no idea if climate change will even be a net negative or positive, really. But I don't pretend that it's definitely "all gonna be ok" either. it's a pretty damn big experiment really, and a lot of people would rather not play. Unfortunately, it's kind of an all or nothing thing. So the question is who do you listen to? the ones who would rather not guess, or those who are sure we'll "figure it out"?
yes, that's kind of the problem, isn't it? Since the oil predates human existence, who's to say the world that results from the release of all of that sequestered carbon leaves us a world in which WE will survive? We have never survived a world in which all that carbon was in the atmosphere before.
I'm not really a big worrier about climate change... other environmental issues bother me a lot more... but your argument is a bit weak.
Oh yes, absolutely: however, it's still a big deal to us "non business guys" to have very large bills 'drop from the sky' like that. Lucky for us, our cash flow is good, we haven't been stiffed by any major clients, etc. but if anything bad happened, the tax bill could easily have kicked us from "hurting" to "bankrupt". I forget the exact details, but combining actual growth in sales/profitability plus the "hidden" growth to us of the inventory growth, it was literally a $50k surprise one year. Needless to say, that puts quite a drag on the year following to have to pay the year ahead's taxes PLUS the year behind's.
I'm not saying we are without culpability there or anything.. just that it would help growth a lot if those initial asset *increases* (thanks) could be deferred until, say, now, where we are a more a mature company with greater professional support. Of course, we're a 'success' story so it's not the most compelling example ever, but it was touch and go there for awhile and, based on the profitability, it really shouldn't have been.
Inventory, mostly: we went from zero to $120k in inventory on a cash basis in two years. There were also a bunch of asset purchases such as computer stations and the like for new hires.
That was pretty brutal on us non-savvy business types, paying our estimated amounts and then realizing we hadn't covered half of our "profit"..
As the owner of a small company, let me tell you that the current tax structure is pretty hard on us, when the business is growing.
The problem is that any growth in the business assets is considered "profit" to the owners. So during several years I had to pay taxes at about two or three times the rate of my apparent consumption of income. That hurts! And, it makes it much harder to grow a small company when your growth is taxed at 35%. Sure, someday I may see the benefits of that, if I sell the company or what have you... but while you are "lean and mean" and trying to grow, it's a big deal.
I wish that small businesses had a grace window of "up to X value in assets" or what have you in order to get themselves established to a certain threshold where they can afford good tax lawyers to advise them (getting slammed with unexpected $50k+ tax bills is quite a threat to a small company) and basically "behave like big boys" before being asked to shoulder even the current tax structure.. in other words, small business growth up to X should not be considered profit... or, perhaps, could be deferred profit for later taxation. Adding corporate taxes to this at the small business level would be just another potential burden unless it offsets an equivalent amount of personal taxes.
I understand asset growth must be taxed or this could provide some pretty big loopholes for company owners... but people growing small businesses are often not "businesspeople" at all. This would be behind me at this point, so I wouldn't even benefit, but I can say I'm pretty amazed that any small business makes it and if mine wasn't as highly profitable (to be able to pay for our mistakes) during its growth period as it was, we wouldn't have made it... primarily because of the tax burden.
don't even get me started on employer-funded health care;)
So I agree with taxing capital gains (that's a scam if I've ever seen one), and I as an owner don't care if the check to the IRS comes from my personal account or my business account at the end of the day. but this country does make growing a small business much harder than it has to be, IMHO, and I wish people would target their conversations a bit more at the big, loophole making, lobbyist owning corporations and the small companies just trying to get stable.
gee, most people who didn't go to college have to learn how to be adults much faster because no one guards their bedroom, has rules for their neighbors, prepares their meals every day or gives them a schedule other than "work starts at 8". They don't have advisors, tutors, or support systems either.
How do they ever learn to be adults without college?
College is great: it does not prepare you "for life" in any sense, however. At least not unless you're living off campus and working through school. Frankly, you should know how to be an adult by the time you leave your parent's house.. that's their job. Obviously we don't all learn it in time;) But the fact that you happened to learn that over four years or more in college, doesn't mean that's what "college is for".
the only thing keeping my office from being almost completely completely paperless is an affordable apple tablet, and a desktop-sized touch monitor (two separate issues in my office).
with larger screens, paper gets less and less relevant every day... our "job folders" only exist because we have limited screen real estate and have to print things out to review while we work or work on away from our desks.
CAN NOT be hamful? really? that's quite a dogmatic statement, for one who "doubts dogma". So plants engineered to KILL THINGS... that has no effect whatsoever on a person that eats it? it's exactly the same? That would be an amazing thing, if true. However, it's a ridiculous statement: you can't know that for all current and future GM technology. THAT is what organic means: we are not guessing. I'm a little stunned you could even pretend there could be no effects. You could GM a plant specifically to kill people, so your statement is obviously wrong. And if you are interested in science, you should realize you could not make such definite statements such as "can not" be harmful. All you can say is "doesn't seem to be harmful so far". Any time you change something significantly you introduce the possibility of unintended consequences.
the World Health Organization is on my side as well,
Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.
GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous use of risk assessments based on the Codex principles and, where appropriate, including post market monitoring, should form the basis for evaluating the safety of GM foods.
Your thousands of generations may be well and good in a lab, but I mean thousands of human generations, not plant generations. I don't care how many plants people peer at in a lab. I care how many people have grown old eating the stuff.
Organic is a specific term because that is what organic consumers want. Seriously: fuck you for even mentioning watering it down, it's already hard enough to stop Walmart and other big boys from co-opting the term to make it meaningless. That would only serve to mislead consumers who don't wish to be full time participants in science experiments. and consumers of natural foods want to know if it's GM, for the most part, like it or not, and it should be our right to make that decision for ourselves.
I said remove the hair follicles on a human, not an artic wolf, but fair point on the plankton, I was being pretty broad, and your counterarguement is very clear and correct: thanks for the insight. I have some thinking to do!
I think you'll find that destroying all hair follicles on the body would have less of an impact on a human than killing all plankton would have on ocean ecosystems.
perhaps the distinction is a bit more nuanced in both cases than you give it credit for?
OF COURSE the american association of pediatrics has been infiltrated by gay activists! They also advocate AT LEAST A YEAR OF BREASTFEEDING. At least!! Obviously they are a bunch of sexual degenerates what with their obviously pro-gay, pro-pedophiliac agendas. Because we all know, acceptance of homosexuality is just one more step down the road of embracing pedophilia, necrophilia, and bestiality as "normal and accepted" behaviour, and that just proves it.
Damn pediatricians. Why are they asking kids to undress, anyway? Something's obviously not right with 'em!!!!... there you go;)
Scroll about halfway down to the PSYCHOSOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GAY AND LESBIAN PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN section, and you'll find that children raised in such contexts are normal, normal, normal across the board. they quote study after study after study looking for problems and finding none, none, none and none.
but every time they read a story about families, they read "propaganda". Reading stories about gay families is no more propaganda than reading it about straight families, as long as you accept that gay people have valid rights to raise families. Not agreeing on that is bigotry... there is no evidence whatsoever that children are harmed in gay pairings.
though while "being a homosexual" is not a choice, without cultural (and unnecessary) stigma against it more people are likely to engage in homosexual behaviour, because frankly sex feels good. but it's pretty unlikely to do anything like, say, cause the death of society or the western world would have ended with the greeks. And I think that while it may change people's willingness to engage in different flavors of casual sex or short term relationships, I do not think it will have any effect on people's long term relationship choices. I don't believe (and medical science doesn't either) that you really "choose" or "condition" yourself to be gay, typically: you might play around with it, but in the end you want what you want for long term pairing. Now there might be some psychological cases out there from abuse or what have you that "go to the other side" for less than fully biological reasons. But we're not talking about every single individual in the world, we're talking about general trends.
But in the end, there is no functional reason to discriminate against gay pairings or the "normalization" of gay behaviour. There is only emotional repellence, religion, and other forms of bigotry. No demonstrable harm to society occurs if gays adopt, get married, or are accepted as ok people by the rest of us. Except those groups that use them as a rallying cry wedge issue for cohesion get, thankfully, reduced in relevance.
You sound like you have a chip on your shoulder about "organic", which is a label intended to let interested consumers know that food is relatively naturally produced.
GM does not meet that definition for good reason. Your GM food has seen a few generations of testing... not thousands. It is not organic, whether or not we think it's harmless at this time. Organic does and should remain a very strict bar to reach.
If you want a new label for GM only, but OTHERWISE natural, lobby for it. "Pesticide Free" maybe.
but fuck you for even insinuating GM should be included in the "organic" family of foods. or even the trolling that how a farm generates POWER would have any effect whatsoever on its organic rating. Nobody says gm is the same as pesticides or antibiotics (except, of course the GM that creates such compounds like BT corn and its bug killing bacteria) but that doesn't make it natural, which is what organic consumers are looking for. Not "deemed safe by a testing organization" but instead "deemed safe by thousands of years of consumption".
If you don't care about eating organic, don't eat organic. But don't screw with people who do care about not being guinea pigs for whatever biotech Monsanto has declared safe this week, or paid large amounts of money to have FDA employees who may or may not ever get jobs at Monsanto declare safe over a few years of reading Monsanto reports and maybe, if we're lucky, reading something Monsanto didn't point them at. Maybe the stuff really is safe: great. Too bad for all those people paying all that money for unnecessarily expense food, eh? But Maybe, just Maybe, all the testing isn't quite exhaustive or conclusive all by itself, eh?
and before you even start, only about half of my diet is organic, at best. I'm hardly a zealot. I just acknowledge the limits of testing and don't begrudge anyone the right to be FULLY INFORMED about the food they choose to put in their bodies.
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this was probably the least coherent post I have ever put up. distracted!
basically the issue raised by the rising cost of energy, is "how do we deal with our poor", not "how can we keep energy usage cheap for everyone because we have poor people in the country". The problem of energy will never be solved adequately until the true cost of using it is felt by those who use it. The problem of helping our poor meet minimum standards of lifestyle for the security of our society and the dignity of our citizens is just as important... but separate.
query: do you use more or less energy than those wealthier than you?
answer: much, much less.
you act like prices are suddenly going to spike. Not likely. And hey.. you know what? how we help our poor, or don't, is a totally separate arguement from how much energy should cost.
Problem #1 is how much does energy cost
Problem #2 is how much do we help people who can't afford it to use more energy?
frankly I would vastly prefer to spend the money to insulate the building you're in than simply burning the money in your furnace. But people who can't afford heat in winter should be helped, generally, sure. Whether or not cap and trade goes through.
put another way, we didn't have cap and trade last winter and you still went cold. So how's that working out for you? There is a problem there, and it's not cap and trade.
True. But people do have a choice in where they choose to live. and choosing to live a commute from work in a hot region has consequences. And when we as a society decide that individuals must PAY THE COST OF THEIR OWN CHOICES... as we would with appropriate energy costs that take into account external costs we have gotten used to being shielded from... then people will have to deal with those consequences.
it sucks for the first people who have to change... such as me, who stupidly bought a house a half hour from my office and can't sell it, so I must commute as I don't have time for 3 hours of biking a day, minimum... but hey, thems the breaks. We also had the benefit of stupidly cheap energy for a long time, which is more than anyone coming after us will be able to say.
This is an optional tax. We can use less energy. We may not be able to do it with 70 degree thermostats year round, 30 MPG cars if we're lucky, and without planning our trips to the store a little better, but it can be done. This removes our ability to ignore the consequence of our actions. Nothing more.
not true. if you had much more capacity than you needed over a wide geographic area, you could probably bet that enough wind was blowing *somewhere* to cover the current load, and shutting down wind turbines shouldn't be that difficult of a proposition.
I keep hearing that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
And, we keep getting closer and closer to having "magic wands".
In a few years we'll all be wandering around waving our hands wildly and murmuring gibberish, and yes, we will all be wizards.
what is he saying a genius is?
a really smart person? Or some person who is elevated beyond the rest of humanity on some sort of pedestal?
I would wager the latter. The boy has no perspective. He is just saying he's not better than everyone else, which is what "genius" means to him... and to most people. He'd have to speak pretty precisely to explain it otherwise, but he can't, because he's 11. Just a very, very smart 11.
In geek terms, his wisdom score is still quite low.
he's 11. He doesn't have to be told: he'll still do what he thinks is "right" without regard for other's viewpoints.
When I was 11 I was spouting all kinds of things about smoking and drugs being bad and such. It was based on shallow understandings of things I had heard but didn't really get. It was also correct, but I hadn't yet been tested to disabuse myself of my illusions of perfection.
He's 11. He'll learn. He's not old enough to really have an idea of what his life is going to be all about yet, he hasn't even hit puberty!! But he certainly has quite a head start. he's got 10+ more years than anyone else to explore adult-level topics of interest to his heart's content. Good stuff.
Safari 3.2.1 has the same problem, I can report.
Uh, I think you misunderstand the heat transfer at work here.
If you are trying to reflect energy, that energy must be travelling through space. IR waves "from below' have already hit the roof sheathing, which is what will radiate the heat into space in a heating situation. If you coat the roof in aluminum, you're reduced its emissivity somewhat, but you are not helping to 'reflect' IR waves.. they already stopped, now you're conducting and re-radiatiating/convecting off of the roof surface.
In other words, your top surface paint is nearly irrelevant to keeping your heat in. Likewise, your bottom surface is nearly irrelevant to keeping heat out. If you want to reflect radiant energy in both directions, you need an airspace and reflector plane on both sides, not just top side paint coating.
Yes, but look what you yourself wrote. "...rising above their station..."
You wouldn't say that about a doctor or an astronaut or a scientist. The fact that their blue collar existence is a "station to be risen above" is a subtle form of bigotry.
Have you ever seen a domed city?
Even one?
Biosphere is the closest we have ever come. But sure, if you are willing to gamble that as yet completely unproven technology will just save us all... which is just a variant of the "Aw shucks, sumbuddy'll figger it out" argument... I can see why you aren't at all concerned. Because you have a wildly optimistic faith in human foresight and technology.
Regardless: it's not really about human extinction. That's a pretty drastic event. Of course, killing 5/6 of our population (arbitrary number to illustrate a point) would be PRETTY FUCKING BAD, even if it weren't really "extinction". So perhaps we dial back the casual attitude that if it's not extinction, it's not bad?
I have no idea if climate change will even be a net negative or positive, really. But I don't pretend that it's definitely "all gonna be ok" either. it's a pretty damn big experiment really, and a lot of people would rather not play. Unfortunately, it's kind of an all or nothing thing. So the question is who do you listen to? the ones who would rather not guess, or those who are sure we'll "figure it out"?
"some species will die".
yes, that's kind of the problem, isn't it? Since the oil predates human existence, who's to say the world that results from the release of all of that sequestered carbon leaves us a world in which WE will survive? We have never survived a world in which all that carbon was in the atmosphere before.
I'm not really a big worrier about climate change... other environmental issues bother me a lot more... but your argument is a bit weak.
You never read about the "Ant and the Grasshopper"?
Oh yes, absolutely: however, it's still a big deal to us "non business guys" to have very large bills 'drop from the sky' like that. Lucky for us, our cash flow is good, we haven't been stiffed by any major clients, etc. but if anything bad happened, the tax bill could easily have kicked us from "hurting" to "bankrupt". I forget the exact details, but combining actual growth in sales/profitability plus the "hidden" growth to us of the inventory growth, it was literally a $50k surprise one year. Needless to say, that puts quite a drag on the year following to have to pay the year ahead's taxes PLUS the year behind's.
I'm not saying we are without culpability there or anything.. just that it would help growth a lot if those initial asset *increases* (thanks) could be deferred until, say, now, where we are a more a mature company with greater professional support. Of course, we're a 'success' story so it's not the most compelling example ever, but it was touch and go there for awhile and, based on the profitability, it really shouldn't have been.
Inventory, mostly: we went from zero to $120k in inventory on a cash basis in two years. There were also a bunch of asset purchases such as computer stations and the like for new hires.
That was pretty brutal on us non-savvy business types, paying our estimated amounts and then realizing we hadn't covered half of our "profit"..
As the owner of a small company, let me tell you that the current tax structure is pretty hard on us, when the business is growing.
The problem is that any growth in the business assets is considered "profit" to the owners. So during several years I had to pay taxes at about two or three times the rate of my apparent consumption of income. That hurts! And, it makes it much harder to grow a small company when your growth is taxed at 35%. Sure, someday I may see the benefits of that, if I sell the company or what have you... but while you are "lean and mean" and trying to grow, it's a big deal.
I wish that small businesses had a grace window of "up to X value in assets" or what have you in order to get themselves established to a certain threshold where they can afford good tax lawyers to advise them (getting slammed with unexpected $50k+ tax bills is quite a threat to a small company) and basically "behave like big boys" before being asked to shoulder even the current tax structure.. in other words, small business growth up to X should not be considered profit... or, perhaps, could be deferred profit for later taxation. Adding corporate taxes to this at the small business level would be just another potential burden unless it offsets an equivalent amount of personal taxes.
I understand asset growth must be taxed or this could provide some pretty big loopholes for company owners... but people growing small businesses are often not "businesspeople" at all. This would be behind me at this point, so I wouldn't even benefit, but I can say I'm pretty amazed that any small business makes it and if mine wasn't as highly profitable (to be able to pay for our mistakes) during its growth period as it was, we wouldn't have made it... primarily because of the tax burden.
don't even get me started on employer-funded health care ;)
So I agree with taxing capital gains (that's a scam if I've ever seen one), and I as an owner don't care if the check to the IRS comes from my personal account or my business account at the end of the day. but this country does make growing a small business much harder than it has to be, IMHO, and I wish people would target their conversations a bit more at the big, loophole making, lobbyist owning corporations and the small companies just trying to get stable.
gee, most people who didn't go to college have to learn how to be adults much faster because no one guards their bedroom, has rules for their neighbors, prepares their meals every day or gives them a schedule other than "work starts at 8". They don't have advisors, tutors, or support systems either.
How do they ever learn to be adults without college?
College is great: it does not prepare you "for life" in any sense, however. At least not unless you're living off campus and working through school. Frankly, you should know how to be an adult by the time you leave your parent's house.. that's their job. Obviously we don't all learn it in time ;) But the fact that you happened to learn that over four years or more in college, doesn't mean that's what "college is for".
the only thing keeping my office from being almost completely completely paperless is an affordable apple tablet, and a desktop-sized touch monitor (two separate issues in my office).
with larger screens, paper gets less and less relevant every day... our "job folders" only exist because we have limited screen real estate and have to print things out to review while we work or work on away from our desks.
CAN NOT be hamful? really? that's quite a dogmatic statement, for one who "doubts dogma". So plants engineered to KILL THINGS... that has no effect whatsoever on a person that eats it? it's exactly the same? That would be an amazing thing, if true. However, it's a ridiculous statement: you can't know that for all current and future GM technology. THAT is what organic means: we are not guessing. I'm a little stunned you could even pretend there could be no effects. You could GM a plant specifically to kill people, so your statement is obviously wrong. And if you are interested in science, you should realize you could not make such definite statements such as "can not" be harmful. All you can say is "doesn't seem to be harmful so far". Any time you change something significantly you introduce the possibility of unintended consequences.
the World Health Organization is on my side as well,
http://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/biotech/20questions/en/
Q8. Are GM foods safe?
Different GM organisms include different genes inserted in different ways. This means that individual GM foods and their safety should be assessed on a case-by-case basis and that it is not possible to make general statements on the safety of all GM foods.
GM foods currently available on the international market have passed risk assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous use of risk assessments based on the Codex principles and, where appropriate, including post market monitoring, should form the basis for evaluating the safety of GM foods.
Your thousands of generations may be well and good in a lab, but I mean thousands of human generations, not plant generations. I don't care how many plants people peer at in a lab. I care how many people have grown old eating the stuff.
Organic is a specific term because that is what organic consumers want. Seriously: fuck you for even mentioning watering it down, it's already hard enough to stop Walmart and other big boys from co-opting the term to make it meaningless. That would only serve to mislead consumers who don't wish to be full time participants in science experiments. and consumers of natural foods want to know if it's GM, for the most part, like it or not, and it should be our right to make that decision for ourselves.
I said remove the hair follicles on a human, not an artic wolf, but fair point on the plankton, I was being pretty broad, and your counterarguement is very clear and correct: thanks for the insight. I have some thinking to do!
kill all plankton. see what happens.
I think you'll find that destroying all hair follicles on the body would have less of an impact on a human than killing all plankton would have on ocean ecosystems.
perhaps the distinction is a bit more nuanced in both cases than you give it credit for?
Well, if you want something done....
OF COURSE the american association of pediatrics has been infiltrated by gay activists! They also advocate AT LEAST A YEAR OF BREASTFEEDING. At least!! Obviously they are a bunch of sexual degenerates what with their obviously pro-gay, pro-pedophiliac agendas. Because we all know, acceptance of homosexuality is just one more step down the road of embracing pedophilia, necrophilia, and bestiality as "normal and accepted" behaviour, and that just proves it.
Damn pediatricians. Why are they asking kids to undress, anyway? Something's obviously not right with 'em!!!! ... there you go ;)
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/1/349 provides an in depth study. that took all of two minutes to find via google, if the hordes of anecdotal reports over time have not been high in your conciousness.
Scroll about halfway down to the PSYCHOSOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GAY AND LESBIAN PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN section, and you'll find that children raised in such contexts are normal, normal, normal across the board. they quote study after study after study looking for problems and finding none, none, none and none.
but every time they read a story about families, they read "propaganda". Reading stories about gay families is no more propaganda than reading it about straight families, as long as you accept that gay people have valid rights to raise families. Not agreeing on that is bigotry... there is no evidence whatsoever that children are harmed in gay pairings.
though while "being a homosexual" is not a choice, without cultural (and unnecessary) stigma against it more people are likely to engage in homosexual behaviour, because frankly sex feels good. but it's pretty unlikely to do anything like, say, cause the death of society or the western world would have ended with the greeks. And I think that while it may change people's willingness to engage in different flavors of casual sex or short term relationships, I do not think it will have any effect on people's long term relationship choices. I don't believe (and medical science doesn't either) that you really "choose" or "condition" yourself to be gay, typically: you might play around with it, but in the end you want what you want for long term pairing. Now there might be some psychological cases out there from abuse or what have you that "go to the other side" for less than fully biological reasons. But we're not talking about every single individual in the world, we're talking about general trends.
But in the end, there is no functional reason to discriminate against gay pairings or the "normalization" of gay behaviour. There is only emotional repellence, religion, and other forms of bigotry. No demonstrable harm to society occurs if gays adopt, get married, or are accepted as ok people by the rest of us. Except those groups that use them as a rallying cry wedge issue for cohesion get, thankfully, reduced in relevance.
You sound like you have a chip on your shoulder about "organic", which is a label intended to let interested consumers know that food is relatively naturally produced.
GM does not meet that definition for good reason. Your GM food has seen a few generations of testing... not thousands. It is not organic, whether or not we think it's harmless at this time. Organic does and should remain a very strict bar to reach.
If you want a new label for GM only, but OTHERWISE natural, lobby for it. "Pesticide Free" maybe.
but fuck you for even insinuating GM should be included in the "organic" family of foods. or even the trolling that how a farm generates POWER would have any effect whatsoever on its organic rating. Nobody says gm is the same as pesticides or antibiotics (except, of course the GM that creates such compounds like BT corn and its bug killing bacteria) but that doesn't make it natural, which is what organic consumers are looking for. Not "deemed safe by a testing organization" but instead "deemed safe by thousands of years of consumption".
If you don't care about eating organic, don't eat organic. But don't screw with people who do care about not being guinea pigs for whatever biotech Monsanto has declared safe this week, or paid large amounts of money to have FDA employees who may or may not ever get jobs at Monsanto declare safe over a few years of reading Monsanto reports and maybe, if we're lucky, reading something Monsanto didn't point them at. Maybe the stuff really is safe: great. Too bad for all those people paying all that money for unnecessarily expense food, eh? But Maybe, just Maybe, all the testing isn't quite exhaustive or conclusive all by itself, eh?
and before you even start, only about half of my diet is organic, at best. I'm hardly a zealot. I just acknowledge the limits of testing and don't begrudge anyone the right to be FULLY INFORMED about the food they choose to put in their bodies.