@newtboy

If you are only growing twice what you can eat yourself, you are describing a large garden, not a farm.

More over, what you class as 'industrial' farming is in fact the entirety of all grain farming. If there is a place in farming for wheat, corn, soy, canola and so on, 99% of it is done on what you class 'industrial' farming.

Your typical family farm is over a thousand acres today. If I go out and start naming the family farms of just friends and family I know, I can come up with 30-40+. They all farm over a thousand acres, they use tractors and combines and they make a fair bit more food than twice what they can eat. They aren't the ultra rich land barons that your 'industrial' moniker would imply either, at most they have a singular hired hand to help out with the work. The ones with children interested in taking over often don't need to hire anyone at all.

If you want to abandon that agricultural production and the methods used you mean raising the cost of production more than 100 times over. I can't even fathom the cost of weeding a thousand acres of wheat by hand, let alone removing grasshoppers from a corn crop that way. I'm sorry, but what works for your garden doesn't scale to grain crops.

Oh, and the conflation of herbicide and pesticide was done by the fear monger crowd. Listing round-up as a chemical that only kills plants and not insects and animals didn't fit their agenda so now everything is supposed to be called a pesticide across the board. Maybe that's just a Canadian thing, but the bottom line is that if you had a crop completely over run with insects you could spray it once a day with stupidly high concentrations of round-up and the water in the sprayer would do about the same damage to the insects as would the round up.


As for the video's other claims, I stand by my characterisation. You can't honestly tell me the video is trying to put forward on open and honest picture of Monsanto's actions and history. For example, the Manhattan Project, here's a transcription for clarity:
"Monsanto head Charles Allen Thomas was called to the pentagon not only asked to join the Manhattan project, but to lead it as it's co-director. Thomas put Monsanto's central research department hard to work building the atomic bomb.Fully aware of the implications of the task the budding empire sealed it's relationship with the inner cicrcles of washington with two fateful days in Japan.
"
- queue clip of nuclear blasts-

I think I stand by my summation.

I thought that was Sacha Baron Cohen at first. Not for long, but long enough.

[author flagged as a spammer - redacted]

When Baron Von Steuben was asked about the colonial troops he'd trained during the American Revolution, he wrote, "‘The genius of this nation is not in the least to be compared with that of the Prussians, Austrians, or French. You say to your [European] soldier, “Do this,” and he doeth it, but I am obliged to say, “This is the reason why you ought to do that,” and he does it.’”

That, in a nutshell, is what it means to be an American. We'll do it, but first you have to explain yourself. Of course, that can be trained out of them, but it's a lot harder than you'd think.

Your video, How Sasha Baron Cohen Snuck Ali G In To The Oscars, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I rather feel that that puts the argument in a skewed light. Essentially, we are either in full awareness of the facts and long term results of fracking or we are not. If we are not yet, why on earth would we pursue it now? We have alternative forms of energy production, it's just a whole bunch of very rich people aren't quite done selling us oil yet.

The shale will still be there, and we may have developed more efficient and safer means of extracting it. And we will have to deal without oil eventually, what better time to begin, whilst we still have some that we can get if we utterly must? We are not yet in crisis but they want to take a risk, that's got to make you ask a few questions. I don't have a detailed scientific knowledge of the subject, but i would know if it was proven safe, and it isn't yet.

Incidentally or otherwise, the first earthquake that i've ever felt in my life happened very shortly after they began a new testing site for fracking nearby - one of two earthquakes that happened in short succession after the first wave of tests. I live in the north of england.. they never happen. It's worth looking into before we start doing it.. the last person i'm going to trust with the future of this planet is an oil baron.

@BoneRemake - let me know which bit of my horseshit you want me to look past and i'll attempt to look past it and see what you describe. Or was it an empty sound-bite? My criticism was valid - newt said everything that needed to be said on that subject, and yes i can in retrospect see the value of the video as a demonstration of the fracking process. But you don't have to be a hippy to try and see positive and informed decisions made in the world, but if it makes me one then i'm glad to be one. What does that make you? No need for name calling, it generally means you've not got an argument.

I'd just like to mention that it really, really suits the pro-fracking lobbyists to try and ridicule people and try to conjure mental images of the long-haired flower-child hugging trees and not showering and wearing tinfoil hats. It turns real, intelligent, professional people who care about what happens around them into caricatures, and it belittles their reasoned and sensible argument without even addressing it. It is a tactic as old as the hills.. i'm sure you're not a lobbyist, but i can't help think they're smiling knowing that the old seeds they scattered around took root somewhere..!

@MaxWilder Agreed. Philanthropy is bullshit, like driving a rolls royce, it's just to impress other rich fucks. Society cannot survive off hand outs from ruthless robber barons.

Why yes it certainly does seem like hyperbole when you fail to read everything I said. I also said this "You do not get that kind of money without the help of others, exploiting others, doing illegal shit, or basically being a fucking thief." Bodies of course being hyperbolic (sometimes, not in the case of Oil Barons) and also metaphorical.

I don't think I have to address Zuckerbergs thievery it's pretty well documented that he had to pay people off to avoid lengthy court cases. It's pretty obvious he isn't Self Made in any way.

Bill Gates well a lot of people have plenty of stories about him stealing things and doing shit that's very sketchy but how about we ignore that. Let's go to the fact that he developed (stole) programs to run on something that was made from public funds by the military. Computers are completely anti-free market, they come from and were created by massive intervention in the market.

If you use a computer and the internet you're basically supporting socialism and betraying the free market.

I don't think she/he's trolling - i think she/he's an idiot. It reminds me of that picture i see around - "hurrr durrr i'm a idiot!" "go away idiot" "joke's on them, it was all a ruse!" ... In other words, if it looks and sounds like an idiot then it's an idiot, even if it's intentionally being one.

The only possible explanation is that she/he is some kind of innovative anti-troll that states the best possible argument for the worst possible opinion - worst as rated on a scale of how damaging and unfair it is to society; religion, the environment, equality - all videos that she/he has been spouting the most abominable shite about within the last week alone! She/He sets up the perfect bad argument for someone to come along and blow it up point by point, all of which she/he pointedly ignores. Everyone who reads past comes to understand the argument, see that one side makes sense and is rational, and comes to the correct conclusion.

In which case i hope you'll all join me in a great big thanks for her/his contributions to highlighting the plight of the boot-trodden minorities. You never fail to set up the perfect knock down for anyone who has any kind of reasoned understanding of anything you post about. Back in the 00s here in England we all thought Dom Joly and Sascha Baron Cohen were crazy fools, but they were 10 years ahead of their time. And now Zach Galifianakis is standing on the shoulders of giants. Great work, @lantern53.

What you seem to overlook is that Samsom is basically a PR guy. As far as the Bilderberg attendees go, he ranks rather low on the totem pole, way below monarchs, American military brass, defense contractors, oil barons, and the many others with more real power.

I'm actually torn on Citizens United these days. The issue is with carefully defining terms. For example, how do we define campaign contributions? If the New York Times runs an op-ed endorsing a candidate, is that a contribution? If Michael Moore makes a film favorable to one candidate or another, is that a contribution? (hint... hint) Nobody likes the Kochs, but how do you sort out one from the other? What if the rich guys just decide to go buy newspapers instead? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/business/media/the-return-of-the-newspaper-barons.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

You're missing the forest for your own trees concerning these government agencies and how they are used by special interests, people-Lands declared federally-owned then 'managed' in this country have been historically for public use. According to the Sierra Club: "Public lands are used in the production of oil, gas, coal, hardrock minerals, timber, and livestock in addition to being used for roads, power and gas lines, and communication facilities just to mention a few. Likewise, the Public lands are an environmental treasure house for recreation and wildlife and scenic wonder from desert to seacoast, mountain top to prairie, grassland to forest -- a shared heritage for now and the future."

Most generational ranchers don't fuck-up the land, they don't abuse it , it's their goddamn livelihood. They know it's vibe way better than the feds and their little friends....

Bundy was paying to, and had a preexisting deal with Clark County and his damn family had been cattlemen on these lands for a few generations, living in harmony with the goddamn turtles, and not trashing the place like newtbox (god you think you know what the fuckit is you know nothing about except what the TV tells you) here and others use in defense of the encroaching and over-reaching bureaucracy whose ONLY goal is to save their own interests in the rights of this land for their nefarious personal good-ol' boy club purposes.

Urbanization and ominous government with peeps with votes never getting involved in righteous decisions during the process of being ASS-RAPED from behind tomes legislation with special interest laws piggy-backed within legislation has ALWAYS been the method of politicians, licking the asses of the money-men.

If people would get an ACTUAL clue abut how the government works to benefit these cunts, they'd start to sound like people who did their homework instead of self-righteous cunts trying to sound smart.

I am happy to accommodate the cries of 'ignorance' and 'fail', heard all this shit before, so go fuck yourselves unless you have anything else to spew but scripted 'what you think you know' horse-shit. I understand that certain types of dum-basses are quite satisfied with themselves to talk a lot and say nothing but whats fed them.

The United States government fucked the Native Americans, now they're fucvkng cowboys and ranchers......No digression with land and money drunk robber-barons, especially when they have dutiful putties to interpret history to suit their delusions.

Wanna fix the situation America? Stop eating their meat. Try turtle soup, the shits awesome.

Wind turbines to provide the comparable megawatts for millions of homes ARE a frivolous waste. The huge amounts needed for wasteful, programmed, energy-addicted peeps IS a huge logistical clusterfuck of resources there, notarobot.

Your example of one family with a turbine and a solar array is fine and all (the upfront cost for such a setup is a shitload of funds and the upkeep of his dual set-up is probably a complete bitch of a money-pit to maintain) but were talking efficiency for the masses here.. Your 'research' should be based upon something besides what seems more of an emotionally passionate ideal moreso than anything practical for the many.

Personally, I think this virgin-trail-run Bloom box bullshit is simply another snake-oil scam. Much more work need be done to ever make them practical. What really should done in the realm of a practical kind of "reality" (otherwise known as a construct...reality that is) is to revive anti-trust/monopoly laws to hobble the robber-baron's once again...

Go listen some Bucky Fuller perhaps and try to awaken from the pipe-dream of monkey-business-as-usual instead of towing some lazy cop-out nouveau-hippy green-party line??

LGR: The Red Baron II Pizza Coupon Adventure! has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash on that post.