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Monsanto’s Superweeds Saga Is Only Getting Worse

Posted by $ nickursis 7 years, 8 months ago to Science
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Interesting, this is something I have always asked, what happens when they start chopping up the environment to where only specific crops will grow with specif sprays? Superweeds would seem to follow super bacteria that resulted from similar over use of antibiotics.
SOURCE URL: http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/08/02/monsanto-superweeds-soybeans


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  • Posted by dark_star 7 years, 8 months ago
    Takepart is a social justice activist site. They are owned by Participant Media who's own web page states they exist to inspire and compel social change. They will always point to the big bad corporation as the root of all evil.

    "Super weeds" will eventually occur whenever any herbicide is used on any crop. This is simply a result of natural selection where any survivors will propagate and their offspring are more likely to have the same resistance.

    Just because someone plants a bean that's inherently resistant to a herbicide doesn't mean that other plants (weeds) growing next to it will become resistant as well. That's just stupid.

    It's the process of using a single herbicide over and over and over again that selectively breeds the stronger weed - Not the evil GMO ......
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      I do not necessarily agree. When you genetically modify a plant, to respond to a specific chemical, you create a special and unique relationship between them. That is fine, if it stays locked down. One point in the article is that when people spray their field, id carries over and contaminates others, that are not of that kind. The result of this engineering is to create a culture where "I will do what I want, and screw you" for the fallout damage. That is not fair, and I see it as part of the the attempt to secure and blackmail the entire agriculture community to pay a specific company to be able to grow something.
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      • Posted by dark_star 7 years, 8 months ago
        The article is about the Evil corporation's master plan to force simple, honest farmers to use their Evil GMO seeds. They insinuate this is done by creating Superweeds from the modification of another plant species' DNA. Then they create new and even more Evil GMO seeds and force farmers to buy them because their neighbors are spraying even deadlier poisons over their crops resulting in over-spray attacking their farms - All part of their Evil plan at world domination.,,,,

        But even this Leftist article says its the occasional farmer who illegally sprays the dicamba that might be floating into another farmer's field. How is that Monsanto's doing? You have individual farmers breaking the law and potentially destroying other people's property as well.

        I guess Monsanto has developed mind control as well. Maybe they deliver their Evil messages over cell phone emissions. Or maybe they're using the power lines above the farmer's houses. Oh I know, they're using Chemtrails...

        It's nothing but negligence and acts of criminal damage by individual farmers, not the Evil Corporation. These criminal acts can, and should be addressed on a case by case basis by the local authorities.

        This is supposed to be a Libertarian site. It's absolutely amazing how many readers are jumping right on the "Blame the Evil Corporation" band wagon.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
          No, that is not the point. The point is you engineer plants to ONLY use a specific spray, then you have created a specific situation where ONLY that spray cannot be used. When using ONLY that spray, it kills off the other farmers plants. If you wish to have a situation where ONLY your spray can be used, you need to also include an application method that does not impinge on others. Your statement says if someone paints their house blue, and their spray covers their neighbors white house, it is the white house neighbors fault. That is illogical.
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          • Posted by dark_star 7 years, 8 months ago
            Ummmmm no - I never said the victims were at fault. I said they have legal recourse against anyone destroying their property.

            And no one is forcing anyone to plant the Evil GMO seeds. If a neighbor is killing your beans by spraying his weeds, he is legally at fault. Not the Evil Corporation Monsanto ...... Period.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
              Sorry, I did not mean you were saying that, but I am also against manipulation of the system to the point only "specific" things will work with specific things, especially when engineered more for that purpose, than for their efficacy. Such a thing, if it gets out of control, would have a huge number of people fighting in already useless courts over who killed whose crops, in addition to the fact I do not see any concrete evidence to prove it does not have tertiary effects.
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              • Posted by dark_star 7 years, 8 months ago
                These GMO plants are engineered to resist specific herbicides but you can spray any type of weed killer you want on them. Just like every other non-GMO plant.

                Blaming Monsanto for the neglectful / malicious acts of individuals is like blaming the gun manufacturers for people getting shot. Or like blaming the car manufacturer for someone driving their car down the wrong side of the road. It's like, to use your example, blaming the blue paint manufacturer for the over spray onto the white house next door.

                You say: "I do not see any concrete evidence to prove it does not have tertiary effects" Well, it's impossible to prove a negative. The burden on any accuser is to prove what specific harm(s) is being done because there is no possible way to prove everything it's not doing.

                Also, dozens of complaints (with no proof of any wrong doing) across multiple states does not constitute a huge number of people. Where would the world be if we stopped every development simply because "maybe" people will use it wrong and the number of complaints will get out of hand? Some people may want to live in medieval times where anything new or misunderstood is looked at as evil but I don't. If it can be proven Monsanto has committed some actual act of harm then it should be dealt with accordingly. But all these "what if's", "maybe's", "might's", "could be's", etc. serve no practical purpose other than attempting to vilify the Evil Corporations.
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                • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
                  Uh,"These GMO plants are engineered to resist specific herbicides but you can spray any type of weed killer you want on them. Just like every other non-GMO plant." is used by Monsanto to say trhey are "Roundup Ready". That means you can use Roundup on them and it will not effect them. ONLY Round up (glycophosate). Because other weeds are becoming resistant to it they: " Let’s roll out more GMO crops designed to withstand being doused with even more weed killer. Monsanto calls its next-generation line of GMO soybeans “Xtend,” and these are capable of not only surviving heavy applications of glyphosate but an older, more potent herbicide known as dicamba."
                  Also: "Federal regulators have yet to approve the new dicamba-based weed killer Monsanto formulated to pair with its dicamba-resistant GMO soybeans. But that apparently hasn’t stopped some desperate farmers from spraying dicamba anyway. Because the chemical has a nasty tendency to drift to neighboring fields, Monsanto’s new GMO crops aren’t only upending the natural order, they appear to be upending the social order in tight-knit farming communities too: Neighbors are accusing neighbors of illegally spraying dicamba and killing off crops that haven’t been engineered to tolerate the chemical."
                  As far as tertiary effects, I would submit to you the example of DDT, which manifested itself in the CA Condor saga, but also effected livestock and humans. Would it comfort you to know that after you are dying of cancer, that is later found to be a result of the both the chemical and gene manipulation by Monsanto, (who then goes Bankrupt to protect itself from lawsuits) which could have been prevented by due diligence?
                  Development is fine, and needed, irresponsible development is not. There is a long history of issues with the byproducts and unintended results of both manufacturing and and advances in chemcals and mining. Corporations, as well as Government, can equally do evil acts knowing they risk peoples lives and livelihoods. Just because they are a corporation does not imbue them with a capitalist shield of integrity. Accountability is not a strong point in our system and over the last 100 years the legal system has been systemically sabotaged so as to be inert. Your options are few and far between to protect yourself.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 8 months ago
    Here is some responsible research and a system that uses nature to do the job of taking care of weeds and bugs...it's Not Forced.

    http://www.naturalnews.com/054840_bio...
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      Exactly. Any time you go for a specific target with their concept of "gene therapy" and chemicals, you run the risk of issues with resistance as well as conflict with non engineered crops. The articles use of natural bacteria seems a much sounder way, although misuse would again raise the issue of resistance. Thanks.
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      • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 8 months ago
        Right, so compatibility must be considered...but it seems they have done their homework. The one thing about using nature is that if it's not compatible then it has no effect...like trying to breed a monkey with an elephant...it just won't work.
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        • Posted by DeanStriker 7 years, 8 months ago
          It does seem that Monsanto has it's mitts deep in the pockets of the FDA. Monsanto is not alone in that game; often called crony capitalism. It's better called political corruption, and that's everywhere!
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          • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
            Seems to be that way to me, as well. I am not sure I would want to have a few mega corps controlling the food supply through exclusive seeds that are the only that will grow.
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            • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
              per chance have your read the book about Midland, Daniels, Archer and their time in and out of court for price fixing. Then there is Hillary's love affair with Tyson and Tyson's manipulation of tax money to get a big piece of the salmon market.
              Not to mention the ethanol scam and who got rich off of that while food prices went up 30%.
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              • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
                The ethanol scam is still being perpetrated on all of us. I remember the Tyson thing, there were several scams with them and the Clintoncrats. And yes, the whole ethanol thing did nothing but drive up food prices across the board, except in the "magical" cart they use for inflation estimates, that for some strange reason, never seems to go up. Yet Ribeyes went from 6.99lb to 12.99 lb in 4 years, hamburger up from 99 cents to 2.49. But no inflation here....except in taxes and government retirements for politicos...
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    • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 8 months ago
      Just remember that biologicals are no more natural than are so called artificial pesticides and herbicides. No where in nature do biologicals get 'placed' on fields other than artificially by mankind.
      Whatever a human does is considered as artificial. Nothing that a human can do including creating new chemical compounds is outside of the natural. Humans are part of nature regardless of religious or philosophical beliefs.
      You can try to get around nature in some way that is not natural but will get your irrational face slapped. Take the dandelion which many people hate. If I don't want to use some 'artificial' pesticide, I can hand dig them or just keep them and mow the lawn very short so that the dandelions only grow very close to the ground and not very noticeable as was stored in their DNA. What is the difference between the artificial fight with them than letting them be natural? As natural they are undesirable to many and as artificial they are loved by many. I usually just dose them with WeedBeGone when I am tired of playing with them.
      It is forced in your vernacular if anything has the hand of man in it. Remember there is nothing that can exist that can not be a natural existent of existence. A separate creation in some so called Garden of Eden will not make humans into non-members of nature. So called natural methods have killed millions, one case in evidence is using more natural methods in preventing malaria has killed tens or hundreds of millions. Natural treatments of disease have resulted in millions of deaths.
      Most more natural products are just another means of picking your pocket while making you feel good about it.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
        When I read biologicals I first thought of WMD biologicals and their attendant Chemical many of which are nothing more than more potent versions of common pesticides and herbicides. Bit of a side thought but the heading ended with ...no more. I thought about the ones stored in NW Nevada and in Oregon that could not be destroyed due the tree huggers fears of them spreading or something like that. I wondered if they were really gone or not?
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      • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
        Possibly true, however, I prefer to try to use something that has a specific purpose and is not engineered by the frail human mind, simply because I see all the commercials for pharmaceuticals "This will stop you farting" It may also cause blindness, cancer, heart attacks stroke and premature baldness" Then a happy person is seen walking down the road happily not farting. Too many times I have seen people take one pill for something only to get on a long chain of pills to fix the side effects. This is similar, in that no one really has enough data to say it is 100% safe, yet the market it, and take refuge behind lawyers when held to account. Then go bankrupt. And start over.
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        • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 8 months ago
          What you describe is linked to the same mindless set as progressivism. Allopathic medicine and treatments SUCK...they only "hope" to treat the symptom but NEVER the cause. Cancer is a Symptom not a cause!
          The same goes for poison pesticides and herbicides and monsantocides.
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          • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
            I agree with you, Carl. Mainstream medicine just does not want to acknowledge anything they cannot control. If just removing certain elements and compounds around today would eliminate 50% of the health issues, no one will buy it, and label it "voodoo". They don't make money on it, and they don't control it.
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          • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 8 months ago
            Just how do you treat a cause without knowing the disease, say cancer? All treatments of cancer are to affect cancer cells which in many cases have the apoptosis mechanism turned off. Without knowing how to turn on the mechanism, the best that can be done in many cases is to treat the 'cancer' meaning finding what will kill the cell and preferably not harming nearby cells too much. You seem to think that the causes of diseases are mainly environmental causes which by magically adding or subtracting them will somehow prevent disease.
            It might be good to put that 'allopathic medicine' thing to rest since it is just a pejorative term from long ago to disparage non-homeopathic medicine, i.e., modern medicine. If you have studied any biochemistry, you will find that things are not as simple as you may think they are.
            In my case, I use aspirin and a platelet inhibitor, a beta blocker, and a statin which together statistically reduce the absolute chance of a repeat heart attack from about 3% to 1 1/2% in an individual male. That for a population would that would be a 50% relative decrease. Do I quit taking them because they are treating and causing some symptoms only reducing the absolute risk by 1 1/2 percentage points? My main problem is more with medicare which doctors seem to believe requires a $500+ wellness exam yearly to be paid by the taxpayers. I tried opting out, since the doctor had seen me several times during the year. He kept after me to have the exam, even threatening to no longer prescribe the heart medication. So I took the exam and he added a physical exam for another $300 which caused a new deductible payment. That was my second run in with medicare. Back in the 60s and early 70s I tried to opt out of medicare by not paying self employment tax. Got a nasty letter in large print threatening prison if I did not pay up back tax.
            I will continue taking those 'allopathic' drugs because survival is somewhat better than without.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
              Again, medicine for profit. While there may be a lot of value in specific treatments, the overall use of drugs and treatments generally results in more damage than good. My brother in law had cancer and he testifies it is worse to be cured than to die. he is taking 20 pills a day at about 1500 a month, mainly each one is to offset what another is causing. The vested interest in medical is to keep you alive long enough to go completely broke and then screw you with their government programs such as medicare. No thanks, I prefer the modern American company program of "run to fail". They do it for equipment, so I guess it will work for me, after all, all I am to anyone in a company or the government is a source of their wealth and a piece of equipment.
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              • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 8 months ago
                Think of medicine without profit with just traditional medications such as aspirin, sorry that should be chewing willow bark since aspirin was developed for profit by Bayer. Of course, there are those that will feel bad about sick people and spend some time developing stuff but will probably be of the quack variety. I do use the non-profit Aurora Health Service here in Wisconsin. That does not mean that it is not expensive. Four days in cardiac care was $113,000 payed mainly by Medicare and I noticed that large amounts are written of by agreement with Medicare. That is just hospital and not labs and outside expert who installed three stents. Felt much better from that which was a profit making thing.
                As far as I can tell, since doctors are now insulated from cost and profit, they, unless asked, will prescribe what their training recommends as the best treatment drugs. I asked for all generic drugs and lucked out that they were available. It is mainly what the market will bare that will determine prices and as long as there is a government provided monopoly, which is the only kind of monopoly that can be sustained without being broken by competition, initial prices for new drugs will remain very high mainly to recoup development costs and some future research.
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                • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
                  I used to think the Insurance companies were the root of the medical inflation, until the government showed how bad it can really be. Now I have to pay my bills from an HSA until 3700.00 and my wife about cried when she saw what one trip cost. Just to change a bandage we buy for 12.00, they charged 357.00. She changes her own now.
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                  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
                    Same thing in Mexico with the duty pharmacist helping out about $4.00 US or 100 pesos in the low prices stores about $5 in the expensive pharmacies. Pretty much all of them have an on call next door Doctor available. If you need he hospital and have no money the Rescate program doesn't charge a centavo. That' s paid for by the community fund raising program of wich the expat, recerational boaters, and snowbirds are heavily involved. No one is taxed or forced to pay anything it's all egoism not egotistical.
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                    • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 8 months ago
                      In the USA many providers have the idea that they do not have to be concerned with cost because that has been divorced from the doctors concern. When I was young around 1944, I once had an ear ache about 3AM, my dad called a doctor and he came right away. It probably cost about $2.00 for the house call, although may dad was only making $25 a week as union butcher for the A&P. Even into the seventies and early eighties my stepmother could call her doctor and he would come to the house. About that time there began large cost of living raises and multi page hospital statements with exorbitant charges for low cost medicines.
                      When we moved to the small village in 1955 that I am in now there were 750 people. Water and sewer for 50,000 gallons was $8 a year and now is $90 a quarter of a year before the the cost of water is added. The rescue squad and fire department were free and completely voluntary with funds raised by the members and the fire trucks paid for by the village and for the fire department volunteers got $5 per call. But over the years the village boards have found that the rescue squad could be a money maker so the volunteers are still unpaid but the village treasury gets about $600 per call for the truck. Now there is little fund raising and a lot of complaints by members though that is decreasing as memories lose stuff about how it used to be. I can not understand how things seemed better when there was less prosperity than it is now. Can't just be inflation, can it?
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                      • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
                        Nope. It is the diversion of money to the things that "they" want. Not for the community good, or even to benefit the group. If all the money was pulled out and you paid what it cost for the call (i.e. truck cost/365/24 for per hour) or something, it would be a lot closer to reality. Even then, they, like the doctors, pad their bills to pay for the nurses, the office people to fill out forms, the clerks, the gardener etc. You no longer pay for a service, you are paying for the entire industry. You are very correct and an astute observation!
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      • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 7 years, 8 months ago
        Responsibly researched natural products only pick your pocket by being scarce and therefore expensive...but many do the job with no harm (allowing or empowering the body to do for itself), whereas, pharmaceuticals might sometimes mimic nature but combine nature in an unnatural way, therefore does harm. (simply bypassing what the body could do for itself, by force)
        I get your philosophical argument and it's semantics.
        My point was that these bacteria are natural and have a natural beneficial effect whereas pesticides and herbicides might be made of natural constituents but nature would have never combined them in that way. It is clear, they do harm to the body...in my words as the author, are not natural.
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        • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 8 months ago
          Why mimic nature? What is needed is a cure for a disease and that is something nature is not providing. Yes there are built in cellular mechanisms for cell repair and apoptosis when things are really bad. But short of those mechanisms working, mankind has to redo those, so called, natural mechanisms. Sorry for the rant, it's just the chemist in me plus the experience of cancer in the family for the last 70 years with just hard fought little improvements in therapy after billions of dollars spent and you seem to think that it is some kind of simple solution to it and other disease if only researchers will get away from there dumb headed belief that it is a very difficult problem. It is very, very difficult. Some disease problems are easy such as a headache as long as it is not some really badly caused headache. Take a couple of aspirins to treat the pain and maybe decrease some prostaglandins, but those are naturally produced products from naturally produced disease.
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          • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
            There are alternative treatments available, and there are several claimed ways to cure it using just specific diet and regimines. I do not pretend to know what works or does not, but I do not subscribe to the belief that because we do not understand all the interactions and nuances of nature and the human body, we can just over ride our ignorance and move to brute force methods. I subscribe to the Native American belief that you are effected by your environment, and the more artificial stuff that is introduced, the great the chances of unintended, misunderstood reactions that then get the hammer blow treatment methods. There was a study done on a group of people on an island off Japan that lived to 110-120 routinely. The scientists focused on their seaweed diet, and then decided it was some magical thing in the seaweed which they extracted and marketed. Then they go back and the people are dying off at 70-80 years and discovered it was the introduction of western fast food and meat that introduced new poisons and fats that they could not handle and now they are at the same mortality as us, but with KFC and MickeyD to help them along.
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            • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
              Sometimes alternatives from different species areas are not a nice way to use mother nature. The old days in the Panama Canal Zone when it was a US operation we had big problems with hydrangea a fresh water weed. Growing so fast it was choking the water ways. As an artificial lake to begin with nothing was really natural and that included the upper lake located in Panama proper. A solution was suggested in the form of White Amur fish from China that would eat their weight or more in hydrangea every day. We also had imported fresh water bass from Venezuela but they didn't eat Amur young fish or hydrangea. But the thought was to try this species. Then we found out the White Amur considered rice shoots a better meal and that upper lake also fed into some major rice fields for Panama. The idea was ditched just in time.

              On Diego Garcia and Catalina islands species were introduced to control predators. Rattle snakes that had drifted over on trees and branches from storms and brown snakes from Guam to go after rats left from passing ships. in Dago G. The catalina snakes were controlled finally by pigs and one other species the brown snakes by trapping. Each brought their own solution and thier own problems. Catalina now has only buffalo as non native but the rats in the Chagos Archipelago varous islands still dine on the former native bird populations.

              Back to Panama the zone had an active malaria abatement program with light oil sprayed on puddles of water after rain anopholes mosquito larva seemed to grow out of nowhere. After the US left malaria returned as the funds left to continue the program were stolen by government offiicials. Things seemed to have changed for the better down there but it sure proved the resiliency of certain species. Finally ships would anchor for a day or two in the lake to kill off zebra mussels in an attempt to keep them out of the Pacific. That method seemed to work ok.
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              • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 8 months ago
                Here in southern Wisconsin, Geneva Lake is overrun with zebra mussels brought in on boats that had been in Lake Michigan. Cover all the pier posts an cut a lot of feet with the nasty little shells.
                Didn't they fight malaria in the Canal zone with DDT or did that come too late and later withdrawn for somewhat environmental and Silent Spring reasons?
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                • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
                  I think DDT had a heyday in the early 60s for mosquito control, and didn't get banned until the Condor thing, and a bunch of tests showed how bad it really was to all mammals. They used to spray it on people in the 50's. Ugh..
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                  • Posted by lrshultis 7 years, 8 months ago
                    It is not particularly poisonous. Like most substances, it is the dosage that makes the poison and that even includes water. You can eat a spoonful of DDT without any problem. When I was a kid growing up in Janesville, WI we used to follow the spry truck with its opaque white cloud and ride our bikes in it. It was used in WWII to fight typhus and malaria and was dusted over the concentration camp survivors to kill the lice that they were infected with. If I had any say in it, it should be used to wipe out malaria and save a million lives a year instead of the netting program used today which allows breeding of mosquitoes. While polluting ponds and other standing water with oil films works, it is too labor intensive compared to spraying. Then stop its use to help clear it from the environment and use other pesticides that decompose more easily. It is kind of a trade off to not kill too much of the food for bats and maybe some birds and amphibians. It probably would get more criticism from environmentalists than do the wind turbines which kill bats and many raptors or the mirrored solar systems where large numbers of birds become streakers as the burn on the way to the ground.
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  • Posted by Lucky 7 years, 8 months ago
    Takepart also tells us that:
    "2015 Was the Hottest Year Ever, and 2016 Is Already Even Hotter"
    There is grovelling praise for wind power and there is yet another technological breakthru on 'carbon capture' to fight climate change.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
      Every group has their agenda, which does not necessarily rule out the occasional truth. I don't think you can find any unbiased sources anymore.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
        A main difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom is animals adapt to other surroundings and humans tend to adapt their surroundings to suit themselves. Life on a sailboat has taught me the value of each. In harbors I want to know about the electricity and the other amenities. I can have electric heat and air conditioniing. When sailing or voyaging I had to adapt to what nature sent my way. There were small things. Solar and Wind power for one but they didn't produce enough for many ice cubes. Nor was their space to spare. Sun tan lotion and common sense stuff like wearing a hat and long sleeves and pant legs in the tropics basically imitating the animals adapting to thei surroundings. I reckon my point is if we can adapt our surroundings to us we can also adapt ourselves to nature. Applied Objectivism at it's best in the KISS version.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
          Indeed that is true, I am working through the issue of trying to sell my house and find a replacement, and I have found that I can sell mine for 470K, yet I cannot replace it with anything even remotely like it for less. I have 7 horses to care for, so I cannot afford to be in a place with no barn or arena for winter as they will get very cold and very wet. I have come to the conclusion the only thing is to find some bare land, buy it, pay on it, then build on it. Unfortunately, I am running out of time...
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
            Well the horses and barn for stables and hay are important but what about doing a reverse with some existing farm. Instead of buying the house and selling the rest. You buy everything except the house and move into an RV either a nice 5th wheel and an F350 or similar which offers some multiple uses vis a visa the horses and yourself. Nice flat single axle hay trailer and the horse trailers add two dimensions to the pickup.

            The RV aspect give you an escape route as we often term our sailing vessels and it would leave you with no house to dispose of later and perhaps some benefit in property taxes. Depending on where you are local zoning and zillion other items. Something to think of. who know what might come with a sale such as that in the way of farm equipment, tool shed, work shop etc.

            Absent the horses or similar. I found ditching owning any property, especially a house was money in my pocket a huge savings on a lot of extra costs.most of which revolved around the word 'house.' It set me up for go just about anywhere, live just about anywhere and my permanent official residence is in a no income tax state. Most of my US buying is through Amazon and i do watch not only delivery costs but those who do not add sales tax.

            I solved the income tax problems using Turbo Tax which immediately put an extra thousand twohundred plus a year in my pocket. but can't get away completely from Medicare as it's a condition of militiary retirement with military medical . Both of which add up to not much so far except a $1200 a dollar a year expense which means no paying for flu shots ha ha where "I'm at any one resident or tourist can get those at no charge.

            In aniy case it's think outside the box. How many acres do you need for the seven assuming you do not have to produce the hay and straw. and feed. Seven stalls and a spare is eight on a side. That truck will come oin handy for hauling manure or you get someone to come get it who has a spreader Lot off off the cuff trading goes on in the small farm world. Talk to FFA kids.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
              I also use HRBlock tax software. The IRS apparently thinks that you cannot cheat enough with it to make it worth their while to audit, I made a mistake and my Farm deductions got doubled up a couple years ago, and no one noticed, the State did a "manual review" and finally gave up. I can't make heads or tails of 90% of the crap on the forms, nuclear fission is easier to figure out.
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              • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
                I made sure the extra $40 for Turbo Tax to represent me in case of anything was prominently displayed. Best CPA I ever had. My sister just got hit though with an extra payment of $14,236 She notified Turbo and it came back corrected to $142.36 with no tax due.
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                • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
                  Well, Block says they will represent you for any audits, so I am hoping that is really true. I have called them several times and gotten advice.
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                  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
                    Turbo offers and extra back up on that. And since the IRS couldn't figure out, changing every year, how to figure my Social Security deduction and their instructions didn't work worth spit I went with the extra insurance and they did not disagree. With each tax agent saying something different each year they would be completely bogged down in their own tax courts until we get rid of them and the sooner the better.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
              We usually do do hay, and rotate seven acres of pasture most of the year. The real issue id of course, government. Especially in the Neo Fascist state of Oregon. I think it is a cooperative effort between the socialists (who will always "protect the environment and hug a tree to prove it" and the builders/developers who seem to have a magic touch to get permission to short plat something no one else can get approved (a "special exception") The average Joe, unless a vast contributor to a County Commissioner campaign, has no chance to get the OK to short plat their own yard, let alone acreage. I am working to convince my wife we have to find a piece of land we can try to buy, and then build, as it is the only way to avoid the 200K "nothing" vapor fee everyone seems to think their property is worth. Even when the mobile home is "no value, value is in the land" types.
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              • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
                We had a 150 acres at the end of a road with government land on two sides river on the third and a former ranch on the fourth . All that ranch land is now 5-10 acre housing. Ours was in trees using the frorestry deduction to pay I think 40% of assessment. It's still like that as the privilege passess owner t owner but if they land is logged to less than x number trees all the tax excepted is due back to around 1950 somthing. That land was $10,000 and a trade initiallywith anothere $10,000 expanded in 1957. Folks sold it in the late eighties for quarter million carrying the loan on half . The last i heard with a swimming pool and two new barns added it was five million and that was after the 2008 crash. Anymore none of us could afford the 40% of property tax. Another reason to leave Oregon and let the Californios have it. But I did here someone paid a fee t someone and got permission to divide into 3 50 acre parcels. Irrigation ditches run through it to the old ranches are now treated as geo-contiguous waterways... go figure.
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                • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
                  Well the realtor now says that she will submit an addendum to have a clause that says "subject to seller finding suitable replacement property" which I am ok with, as long as I have an ejection seat, and it takes their threat of a lawsuit for their commission (in the fine print somewhere's), away when the listing expires. My wife tends to just fly off the handle and stay there once some screws her over with something. Needless to say, her grudge list is a mile long..
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                  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
                    All our local realators said was 'if you want to rent out your house we can handle management and you pay court costs' "What court costs?" 'Evicting tenants.' They also advised me to dump by not paying property taxed a double wide housing plot in Florida my parent has bought into and long since paid off. Cost was minor so I kept it. Sure enough the developers came in and offered to buy. Others they just paid back taxes. One side was on a dock ready canal and the other across the street from the proposed golf course. PAYDAY! That was just south of Tampa. My sister and I put that into the Jacksonville house ditching the condo. She lives their full time and there is a separate one bedroom on the other side of the garage area.
                    Now she's getting itchy feet and thinking RV but since she hasn't retired no hurry. That is Florida homestead land and low on property taxes. No room for horses but a pool and 'alligators anyone?' Good ole Duval County
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  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 8 months ago
    The forever battle of man versus nature. But, actually, it's nature versus nature. Man's nature versus the environment's nature. One of the chief differences between humans and all other species is that all other species adopt to their environment while mankind alters his environment so that it suits him. It is uniquely man's survival mode. Had humans not been able to use their minds to alter their surroundings, they would have become the same as the big lizards of yore. Mankind will likely win the battle but at the risk of losing the environment (see "Caves of Steel -- Asimov). The proper thing, as I see it, would be to convince companies like Monsanto, especially their competitors, to figure out a way to produce similar results that is environmentally friendly. The only thing standing in the way is the profit motive which is pretty powerful. But also, keep in mind that if Homo Sapiens ever stops altering his environment, civilization's progress stops at that point.
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  • Posted by Hot_Black_Desiato 7 years, 8 months ago
    Hoorah....let's make more GMO's...then we can create more super-weeds.

    Maybe we can get some super poison IVY you cannot kill. Please refer tot he sweet wonderful creation of the Gypsie Moth....Hoorah I guess we need more scientists screwing with DNA...
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    • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 7 years, 8 months ago
      We've been screwing with DNA since we began domesticating plants and animals. We now have a better idea of what we are doing.
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      • Posted by Hot_Black_Desiato 7 years, 8 months ago
        Has nobody watched or been to the movies to see how this all ends?

        While Alien Ressurection, and The Fly and The Thing, and Swamp Creature, may be fiction. Considering Human nature the outcome is not really fiction.
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 8 months ago
          Remember the final scense of the movie Martian. with Herb's favorite actor Mikey Mike Wahlberg? As the Sun is doing a Martian sunset the girl left behind walks around a rock outcropping into a narrow fissure ....and sees foot prints....none match the tread marks of the crews space boots. Of course by this time she has no communications with the space craft nor with Terra. The marks on closer examination look fresh. Very Fresh. With nothing better to do she tracks them int the cave she thought she might use as a shelter. A dim blue light slowly comes into view and then focus. Entering a kiva like room she sees feet , about eight pair of feet coming out ot the shadows.

          The light brightens as she discovers ....eight males all looking quite human. Especiallythe look in their eyes. Number Four the leader rasped, I believe you won first place.

          Does she scream? if like the book Does she look overjoyed and instantly .... mmmmmmmm

          So I'm to be the Matriarch of Mars she calmly voices. 'whose in charge of supper and whose doing the dishes? .....Number Four come with me. I will teach you about garbage dumps.
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      • Posted by $ 7 years, 8 months ago
        Not on the level these folks have. They have started splicing frog DNA into plants and such. A lot of their stuff is not even remotely natural and is questionable as to impact, which they have conveniently never mentioned. I amno super eco nut, but mixing a menagerie of stuff together, and saying "looks like it works" and then selling it, in a rush to get money, with no idea what is the long term impact, is a repeat error we keep seeing. I do not trust a corporation or a government to care about my well being.
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