If he really cared that much for the spiders, he'd dust his floors....

Your video, The New Politics (Dust), has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Your video, Sci-Fi Short Film "Seam" presented by DUST, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

All that dust!

I say we dust off and nuke the site from orbit. Then go to the concession for tacos.

"I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say misogyny now, misogyny tomorrow, misogyny forever..." The 13th Doctor's Haters.

I was expecting dust from too much speakers and subwoofer blowing or something! And then, I remember this song's title.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

My spoodle Dusty would get about 50 meters. Then lie down. In the dust.

I moved to southern Arizona last year - still have yet to experience one these - but I surely will in the next two months. These dust storms are actually called "haboobs" and are prominent during the monsoon season which is typically June-August throughout Arizona & New Mexico. Which is quite interesting because those are the hottest months and although somewhat dangerous (floods/lightning) the monsoons begin a cooling down process (and immediate relief) which correlates with another 6 months of really nice weather.

The little microbeads effectively prevent large surface areas of their purple material from fully flattening and sticking to adjacent purple material surfaces. So its a lubricant to keep their bed from sticking to itself. That's my assumption at least.

Probably safe enough unless someone was purposefully sleeping on the disassembled mattress and inhaling a lot of the plastic, in which case they could have some lung irritation.

Their R&D and Marketing teams should be working late nights putting together demos of exactly how much of this plastic micro-bead powder makes it up through their covering. I'm thinking demos of people in pristine black clothes jumping on the bed then laying on it, then getting up to demonstrate no dust on them through the mattress pad. They also should be looking at comping people better mattress pads if they still have concerns. Just my read of the situation.

Yes.

I also predicted the ending.

Seeing his hands covered in chalk dust made me want to wash mine thoroughly. Don't know why I didn't see that coming.

I say we dust off and nuke the site from orbit.
It's the only way to be sure.

**EDIT**
I'm finding other sources that say that sterile "terminator seeds" are a patented technique, but that Monsanto has promised not to use it. Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/terminator-seeds.aspx

So it appears that my info below is wrong. I will try to talk with my family and get the full story. That being said, I'll leave my original comment and the followup below unaltered.
*********


My firsthand knowledge of this stuff was from more than 10 years ago, and also when I was pretty young (early 20's). So I did some web searching to try to get updated since your question is a very interesting one:

http://web.mit.edu/demoscience/Monsanto/about.html

According to that, Monsanto is the company behind "Roundup Ready", and their corn (and other crops in the line) do use sterile "terminator seeds". It also mentions that farmers "must purchase the most recent strain of seed from Monsanto" each year.

I was never in the decision-making structure of my family farm, but I did remember that we couldn't just buy the Roundup Ready seed *once* and then hold a small amount back as seed for the next year and continue to get the benefits.

I'm not 100% sure exactly how the modification for sterility works -- I don't know if the plant will sprout if you plant the sterile seeds and just fail to produce any ears / fruit, or if it just won't germinate at all. I do remember that we had to be quite careful to fully clean out the corn grown from the GM seeds from our storage bins, and better yet to store our non-GM corn to be used for future seed in entirely different bins. That was done to make sure that we didn't end up planting any of the sterile stuff.

I'm sure that the seed dealers that sell the GM stuff really push farmers to buy and plant it every year, as hinted to in that link. But you certainly don't *have* to. On the other hand, if you go back to non-GM seed for a year or two or more, you can't use a strong herbicide like Roundup if you have an unexpected outbreak of weeds or other pest plants -- the Roundup would kill the non-GM crop along with everything else.

Basically, I don't specifically begrudge companies like Monsanto for their practices concerning these GM crops. The "terminator seeds" are controversial, but don't seem like a big deal to me. If you could buy GM seeds once and then just hold back some of your harvest for next season's seed, they'd only get your money once AND we'd probably lose the original strains. So I see that as kinda win-win, especially if you don't 100% buy into their sales department urging you to use GM seed every single year.

I don't want to sound like a shill for Monsanto -- some of their other practices are pretty shady, particularly political lobbying. But from the perspective of my family farm, the GM corn that we use was/is a real beneficial thing. Significantly less pesticide/herbicide use over time, and it allows for expanded low/no till farming. Before herbicides, tilling was one of the only ways to kill off pest plants. But, it also makes the fields lose some moisture and nutrients. Expanded farming and ubiquitous tilling was largely the cause of the "dust bowl" dirty 30's. Anyway, I'd say that a lot of good has come out of modernized techniques and technology like GM crops.

In a world where the world ends at the end of your block
And them uh, little whirlwinds spin friction round the clock
I'll be savage, hunt and gather the average rather cadaver
Cock back hammer, splatter matter all over cell phone and calendar
No peace, yeah, in the middle of a war zone, riddle when the norm thinks slow
No sleep, yeah, with the shades down low, on the down low fighting with a dream
I creep, yeah, all secrets please, I don't need to speak
I'm paranoid like a man in the land of the free
To set up and let us burn and turn cheek, damn
Stop with the octagon, top your block, I'm gone
Off my rock, no songs, no more locked, yeah
Just a little bit a prison for everyone of us
We won't listen till there isn't any more of us
These days we quick to part ways with rights like "okay"
Here, let's be clear, for the record I did not sign up for lockdown
Or any kind of shock and I'm so bored

You must have forgot just who you were dealing with
Nothing less than aggression so naked, so crystal clear with a
Trust in absolutely fucking nothing but Doomtree
Step up your thought game lame, we're all thirsty!

It's like they leave us no option
Walking these streets, heat is watching
These preachers speak from their pockets
These teachers...bring it back c'mon
These teachers reach but can't stop it
Seedlings so poisoned, so lost and
Follow these prophets to nonsense
Tossing what's right to the dust
And I ain't no casualty
Got no surface with spotless morality
My dirt might have to cover up my grave
But I keep my fear of faith
And filth clutter up my cave
Got me looking for disinfectant
(I don't know how to behave)
God, I'm bored!

You must have forgot just who you were dealing with
Nothing less than aggression so naked, so crystal clear with a
Trust in absolutely fucking nothing but Doomtree
Step up your thought game lames, we're all thirsty!

Mooooooooore!...
So thirsty for mooooooooore!...

Any fine organic dust is potentially explosive along with some metals and even some materials that in any other form are completely non-flammable.