Month: August 2009

Special topic: Health care reform

There has been so much drama and purposeful misinformation on the subject of health care in the US that I’d like to attempt to cut through the mess and help (along with other bloggers) initiate a national conversation on health care. This issue is so important that we must not let special interest groups or runaway ideologues of any type force their views on everyone. We must view this issue critically – as in using critical thinking skills. Perhaps we all need to read Sherry Seethaler’s Lies, Damn Lies, and Science so we can effectively compare the options to the status quo rather than making false comparisons that serve no one.

Commentary

Bizarre argument against GE wheat

This is a first. While browsing the news recently, I came across this article in Farm Weekly, an Australian site: GM silver bullet could shoot farmers in foot. In the short article, a representative from Network of Concerned Farmers, Julie Newman, says that conventional wheat farmers need to be protected – from being outperformed by…

News

Beware of robot farmhands?

A student in my Sustainable Agriculture program sent out an email a few weeks ago that really piqued my interest (I’m glad I finally have time to blog about it!). It included a link to the New Scientist article: Robot farmhands prepare to invade the countryside. The student said:

I wish this was a link to the onion, but it is frighteningly real. Do you think the cats at the “appropriate technology” center are talking about this? Doubt it. This is progress! I guess now I need a bumper sticker that says “Family farms not Robot farms”

Commentary

Continued confusion about the terminator

While pollinating, I’ve been listening to the Center for Inquiry’s Point of Inquiry podcast. If you are interested in non-mainstream-media topics in subjects as diverse as Naturalistic philosophy, secular child rearing, the planetary status of Pluto, and blasphemy at the United Nations, this podcast is for you. Added bonus: the host, D.J. Grothe has a nice voice and directed interviewing technique that is lacking in many podcasts.

All of the episodes are interesting, but I just had to write a quick post about the 8 May 2009 episode Who Owns You with David Koepsell. Dr. Koepsell has a lot of interesting things to say about intellectual property in his new book Who Owns You? The Corporate Gold Rush to Patent Your Genes. They cover a variety of topics in the interview that relate to human genes and IP, including the ACLU v Myriad case. I’m really looking forward to reading the book.

Commentary

USDA Report on Organic + Biotech

(Hat tip to Southest Farm Press) Cyndi Barmore authored a report for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service titled The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production. It was published on May 26, 2009, but I just heard about it now. Here’s the introduction: The organic movement rejects biotechnology as inherently contradictory to its fundamental goal of promoting…

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Labeling campaigner dies

On Friday the 3rd of July, GE labeling campaigner Craig Winters died. He was fighting an ongoing cancer battle, with multiple back surgeries and other treatments to boot. Winters was involved in political efforts to label genetically engineered crops for many years, which never succeeded. His most recent effort was during the 2008 Presidential campaign….

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