Some people shouldn’t get into this entire protest thing.
On three separate nights this month, vandals irreparably damaged the smiling Ronald McDonald statue that sat outside the Ronald McDonald House in Burlington, Vermont.
“Isn’t this sad?” said Kristine Bickford, the house’s executive director, as she showed the ruined fiberglass body of the famous clown.
Continue reading Vandals attack, deface, then wreck statue outside of children’s charity.
They shall make a food desert, and call it Vermont: “Vermont residents might have to go hungry — or drive into New Hampshire, upstate New York, or even Boston, for food — because of their state’s new GMO (genetically modified organisms) labeling law that takes effect July 1, 2016.” The basic problem here is that Vermont’s new law will allegedly fine companies for non-labeled products that show up in Vermont stores, even if the manufacturer didn’t put them there*. Admittedly, that’s what the Grocery Manufacturers Association is claiming; also admittedly, Vermont’s response is effectively ‘label your products nationally.’ That food retailers might instead decide that it makes more sense to stop selling processed food in Vermont has apparently not yet occurred to that state’s officials. And yes, you can make that call when a target market is less than 700,000 people. And also, yes: you cannot force somebody to engage in commerce**.
Continue reading Vermont playing (organic, free-range) chicken with the grocery industry over GMOs.
Monsanto has announced it has patented the first genetically modified strain of marijuana. Global AgInvesting reports that the news has been welcomed by scientists and leaders of the agriculture business alike as a move forward towards the industrial use of marijuana and hemp products could bring a major shift towards marijuana policies in the U.S.A. and ultimately, to the world.
This should prove amusing.
Has Bill Nye Just Sold Us Down the River on GMO Labeling? http://t.co/8nJLivxOHi pic.twitter.com/5Nmwu5q6V2
— AlterNet (@AlterNet) March 23, 2015
Alternet apparently will be taking pseudoscience’s side – which is to say, a hysterical terror towards the very idea of genetic engineering – on this one. Personally, I’m rooting for injuries, which should surprise nobody…
I try to be a tolerant man. If people want to believe stupid things, that’s one thing. If people want to engage in suboptimal behaviors because of those stupid things… well, I may not like it, but I can’t save the world. But when the scientific illiterates at Greenpeace decide (in classic bloody I’m-a-Western-progressive-here-to-take-up-the-White-Man’s-burden-so-all-you-natives-just-shut-up-now fashion) to condemn poor people to what would otherwise be an easily-preventable blindness? Yeah, there’s a limit to tolerance.
On August 8th, 400 protesters ripped out seedlings of a new genetically modified plant called golden rice at a testing ground in the Philippines. Genes from bacteria and corn have been added to the rice to make it a source of vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency can lead to blindness and weakens the immune system, contributing to 2 million deaths every year. (Golden rice is being developed by a non-profit organization, not Monsanto.) As the Philippine government prepares to rule on whether or not to allow farmers to grow the wonder-crop, the anti-GMO movement is digging itself in for a fight.
You know that Reason.tv‘s got a good video when they can’t get past the intro without being (apparently) assaulted by one of Teh Crazy People. In this particular case, it’s Teh Anti-GMO Crazy people. You know: the ones that the Democrats don’t llike to talk about when the conversation turns to The War On Science.
Via Pejman Yousefzadeh, whose title says it all: “People Who Are Against Genetically Modified Foods Are Ill-Informed, and Willing to Let Millions Starve to Death.” With one caveat: it may be closer to tens of millions at this point. Not that the anti-GMO people really care. Or are capable of doing basic math. Or have even the most basic understanding of the history of technology*…
Continue reading Left’s War On Science Watch: Reason goes to see the anti-GMO crazypants.
God save us all from Gaia-shouters.
Here’s the background: the continuing resolution that’s keeping the government (and that passed last week) included a rider that, as the Competitive Enterprise Institute put it, “codifies existing USDA practices and elements of a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that lower courts should not automatically prohibit the planting of biotech crop varieties, or the harvest and sale of biotech crops already planted, when their commercial approval is revoked for procedural reasons.” As CEI went on to note, this rider (called the Farmer Assurance Provision) is designed to stop nuisance lawsuits filed in order to keep genetically modified organisms out of the market; radical Greenies HATE GMOs, and don’t really concern themselves with the niceties and expectations of normal Western society when it comes to promoting their frankly religiously fanatical worldview.
Which is why the aforementioned religious fanatics are freaking out:
Continue reading War on Science Update: Greenies attack White House over farmers’ rights.
They’re especially mad because they worked so hard to elect Barack Obama last year, and this is what they ge… what’s that? Oh, you thought that I was talking about Republicans? Oh, don’t be silly: we’ve long since worked out that Barack Obama lies when it suits him. Which is to say, pretty much all the time. Anyway, heeeeeeeeeere’s the Luddites:
Nearly a dozen protesters gathered today in front of the White House to protest what they say is President Barack Obama’s lax stance on genetically modified food, which they believe poses serious health risks to consumers.
Video at the link. Anyway, I forget: is this the patriotic kind of dissent, or the unpatriotic kind? It’s so hard to keep track these days.
Via:
‘worked our ass off to put this president in the White House. Monsanto bought & paid for him’.DC – bit.ly/YHvxcP Farm/vegan dupes
— Ironked (@ironked) March 28, 2013
Moe Lane
