OK, one last reply....
Um...no. They didn't do commentary pieces in the constitution. If it's in there, it's because it's important to understanding the law/right it's attached to.
OK, it's meaningless huh?...."[Because our countrymen having farmers tans and wearing wife beaters is an inalienable right, the] right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Not so meaningless now, is it? ;-)

Bi yearly training/testing was Hamilton's FAR LESS invasive and LESS time wasting idea to counter the idea of a "well regulated militia" which he saw as far too time consuming for the entire populace to live up to. HIS way of seeing it was that twice yearly proficiency and equipment testing was far LESS restrictive than what "well regulated militia" meant...because to live up to "well regulated militia" would require extensive training, and re-training constantly.

@newtboy,
Some, (very few) still grow grain using old school methods, some even using old school grains (thank goodness, we will have them to thank for still having grains when/if the Monsanto grains fail). It's not even 99%, but it is 'most'.

If you count your numbers by production it's probably more than 99% fall under your idea of 'industrial'. If you want to count old school methods as no chemicals for pest control and harvesting by hand then you need 20 some old school farms to match the quantity of food produced on one thousand acre family farm.

Clearly, natural farming takes more effort, and costs the consumer more, but does not require major ecological mitigation, so if you count ALL costs involved, it's not that much more expensive.
Can you explain the ecological mitigation costs you imagine are associated with farming a thousand acres of grain by hand versus using modern equipment and some round-up? The round-up breaks down within days of application and the equipment doesn't impact the land any more than having 20 some people marching through on foot. For bonus points include the ecological foot print of everybody required to work the land in both scenarios. Including that makes it glaringly obvious that the efficiency of what you class 'industrial' farming techniques is on the whole much better on the planet. Of course, it shouldn't be a surprise producing double and triple the amount of food from the same land with a fraction of the manpower means less overall demand on the environment.

As for the propaganda in the vid, you claimed I misrepresented the Manhattan presentation, I quoted the video verbatim. I'm not interested in doing the same for every point they ran. The video is propaganda of the purest form and I stand by that.

Twice what my family eats...but yes, a small subsistence farm could also be called a garden, just as my orchard of 30+ apple trees could be called a back yard. That doesn't make it produce any less.

Not true. Some, (very few) still grow grain using old school methods, some even using old school grains (thank goodness, we will have them to thank for still having grains when/if the Monsanto grains fail). It's not even 99%, but it is 'most'.

Industrial farming describes a methodology, not a size, not an incorporation. The fact that a single person or two might farm thousands of acres means they are using the same industrial methods, because non industrial farming takes more people.

Clearly, natural farming takes more effort, and costs the consumer more, but does not require major ecological mitigation, so if you count ALL costs involved, it's not that much more expensive. You act like it's impossible, but it's how ALL farms operated prior to the mid century. If it wouldn't scale, please explain how it worked for thousands of years before industrial agriculture started, or how it continues to work in other countries.

It may not work for WEAK shallow root grain crops that can't compete for water and nutrients, like the one's Monsanto sells. It worked fine for thousands of years with more natural, long root crops that also held the soil together.

I didn't hear that in the video, but fine. Don't just repeat known BS and lies then. Roundup is only a pesticide in that it allows GMO crops that have modified genes to be pesticides themselves to grow without competition....and that doesn't count, and I think you know it.

No, I'm not trying to say the video is perfectly honest, it's clearly highly biased...I didn't say that. They do HINT that Monsanto's actions are "evil", but extrapolating and exaggerating from their already somewhat overboard, clearly biased but careful statements to make them insanely more overboard and biased is not helpful to anyone.

You mean this characterization..."You know, on account of them being evil and wanting to see millions of people dead because it gives their corporate heads joy. Just like it wanted to invent pesticides as a means of convincing the public to poison each other for giggles, and getting the state department to experiment on people."
Um...yeah....that's completely insane. I already explained why it's wrong in so many ways, and defy you to show where they said anything resembling that. You have to listen with quite a biased ear to hear that in between the lines of what they actually said, and one must be incredibly, clinically paranoid to believe any public company does things just to be evil rather than purely for profit. The evil they do is an accepted result of their business methods, not the intent of their business, and I think the video was fairly clear about that.

You may stand by that, as I stand by my summation of your comment...that it's insane and exaggerated hyperbole that ridicules an extreme paranoid stance no one actually took.

Right, they've been used in products that the consumer has no way of accessing without destroying said product. A paint-like application wouldn't be something I would trust to stay applied to the surface. You've seen paint rub off of objects, right? A fine powder is going to stay better than paint over time? You gonna let your baby put it in its mouth?

There have been studies dating back to 2005 or so outlining the possible dangers of these substances, yet we still don't really know all there is to know about it. I'm not so quick to trust that something like that would be safe.

But but thanks for correcting my misinterpretation about the hydrophobic thing.

I was not talking about Vantablack in my comments. I was talking about other, older hydrophobic coatings.

Also, I'm fairly sure they bond the nanotubes with something to make them stick and stay in place. Pure nanotubes are just a powder, they would not act like paint. Nanotubes are not a new discovery and have been used in consumer products already, mostly electronics, google it.

I really doubt this would be considered safe enough to put into something for consumer production like a cell phone. It's made of carbon nanotubes. Those get into the air, and it's very, very toxic to breathe. It is like needles stabbing and slicing through your cellular membranes. There are some real concerns about the long-term safety of CNT. I would feel very unsafe having to work with it every day.

@newtboy

What gave the impression that you think Hillary should drop out is because you are calling for a "debate" at the convention EVEN IF she has it locked up. Why would she do that?

IF IF IF IF she has it locked up, I really want Sanders to use the political muscle he has accumulated to help shape the Dem platform. That is what he says he wants to do, and that is what I hope he does.

Get federal minimum wage increase as a plank in the platform (and good grief, tie it to consumer price index so we can stop having to beg for it every 20 years or so.)

This won't happen, but I would LOVE a tiny tax on all investment transactions. I don't need to have it tied to education, but it wouldn't bother me if it was. If we had that tiny tax, it would stop some of the horrendous volatility in the market as this folks chase fractions of a point going up and down. It's stupid what they do with computers and has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with chasing a buck in a virtual market (nothing being created except hard-ons -- tax those hard-ons, baby. Tax 'em.)

What other planks would you like to see in the Dem platform? Those are two that come to mind.

The warplane is designed to kill, but who is it killing - is it killing an evil dictator in order to save innocents? It might be on a peace keeping mission to discourage any killing. If it the warplane is killing only people who would otherwise be killing the innocent, then it's a tool used for good, it's saving more lives than it's taking, and more importantly it's saving lives that are more important to maintaining a civilized society.
I'd even say that it would be less moral to not build the warplane and let innocents die through inaction, when the consequences are well known.

Even further down the chain, killing isn't inherently bad, there are plenty justifiable reasons to kill someone.

It's the same with veganism -making choices which are less harmful, not necessarily perfect.


Non smokers are definitely way better people than smokers. Especially given that 2nd and even 3rd hand smoke causes cancer. Even if smoking only harmed the smoker, it's still a strange idea to be harming yourself. Perhaps they lack the appreciation of how lucky they are to be alive. I mean the odds of being born are like winning the lotto, let alone being born healthy, being born in this day and age, in a civilized country, being born to the dominate species, being born on the only planet that seems to have developed life. Some people have rough starts to life, but harming themselves isn't going to make it better, just shorter.


I agree that everyone is capable of making good moral stances, you've obviously drawn the line somewhere (otherwise you'd be going all Genghis Khan on everyone). But where the line is drawn is tends to be influenced a lot by misleading information and lack of information. And that makes it very hard to make logically sound choices. It's even harder when in order to understand the real impact means having to watch footage of animal cruelty. Most people find it confronting and uncomfortable at best, so it's easier to put it away, not think about it and continue consuming.

I know most people are moral, but if they don't act on it, it doesn't mean much to the puppies being strayed in the eyes with chemicals, or to the piglets being slammed into the concrete floor for the crime of being born male.


Regardless of how you categorize it, analyze it, or philosophize it, this always remains true: Animals feel and respond to pain, they will do their best to avoid suffering, and they have a will to live.

i am vegan BECAUSE i do not consider myself superior to others,regardless of their species. when looked at logically and without the inherent blinders of our culture, the one's who truly consider themselves superior are the one's who believe that feeling beings have to suffer and die for their taste preferences. your statements completely disregard the viewpoint of the victims who have no choice in their own suffering and death. since it is indisputable that the cows, pigs, chickens and fishes whom people consume feel pain and want to live, there is no moral justification for exploiting and killing them in the name of a momentary taste sensation.

the only consistent ethical position is to reject all forms of violence and exploitation rather than limiting one's concern for a select few species. if you would not wish to experience something yourself, it is never humane or justifiable to force another to experience it. veganism is not about perfection but is about doing the least harm possible. the truth is that when any animal product is consumed, sentient non-human animals suffer and die as a result of it. it is only by being disconnected from the reality of it that one continues to support such heinous violence.

To be fair, by it's very nature, the Medical Industry should NOT get to the point where "Procedure A will cost you $______" or be subject to solid quotes. Most of the things you purchase that way, cars, houses, TVs, etc. are high-volume testaments to physics and industrial chemistry. When you're talking about something as fragile and complex as a human body, this isn't the way to go. If your alternator goes bad, you get towed into the shop and get a new one. If your appendectomy goes wrong, you could die or be affected for the rest of your life.

Equating medicine with consumer purchases is ridiculous and idiotic.

That being said, yes, your medical system needs serious work.

not really-life = sentient life is the only assertion which i clarified and this assumption was stated from the beginning so was implied. the suggestion that this changes everything is a classic straw man fallacy.

the imperatives which i am espousing on are merely non-violence and a rejection of oppression, exploitation and using others as property and economic commodities which almost every human believes when it concerns humans and perhaps a few other species. it is only the others whom should be considered under the umbrella of moral concern which is the key point of the issue for most people.

as far as the population, the main reason WHY the human population IS such an issue is due to the consumption of animal products. along with the obvious moral and ethical issues of murdering other sentient beings, the production of animal based foods requires many times the resources to produce an equivalent calorie compared to plant based food which drives things like climate change, resource depletion, water scarcity, biodiversity, species extinction and other aspects of environmental devastation.

when a video such as this one comes up which highlights people being kind to an animal, it is disturbing that people are so disconnected that they do not make the connection between the animals in the video whom they feel good about being rescued and the countless others which are being tortured and murdered for their dinner plate. this is exactly what the short article i posed above articulates so well.

“Ask ten people on the street if they think it’s wrong to injure or kill animals for one’s amusement or pleasure, and nine or ten will say yes, of course. Chances are all ten of those people freely consume animal products, simply because they like to and they’re used to doing it." - Karen Manfrede

interesting story-but what is also very interesting is why the man does not make the connection between the dog and bird he helped to save and the tortured farmed animals who's flesh, milk and eggs he very likely consumes on a daily basis.

“The only difference between a dog, cat, horse and dolphin and a cow, chicken, pig and turkey is perception. One is no more valuable than another. And yet in this culture, we hold the former animals in high esteem and the latter we brutalize for food. All animals are deserving of respect and freedom from violence. The way to respect others is veganism.

You have a charming definition of crime, which seems to boil down to "I hate this behavior, so it must be criminal"? I'm not saying I approve of Microsoft (presumably*) botching their product roll-out, but you're kind of proving my point about the hyperbole parade.

Of course, everything Microsoft does could be criminal from an antitrust perspective, but that's the risk of having a platform monopoly. From that perspective, making W10 free for most users could be seen as pro-consumer or anti-consumer with equal validity.

*~35% of Windows users appear to be using W10 - I don't know if that's above or below their current target.

So interesting. It seems anime consumers in Japan consider their characters to be kind of non-Japanese because of their physical characteristics.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Ghost-in-the-Shell-VFX-Behind-the-Scenes

So, can consumers buy this for their homes too?