Duck07 Thread

[Bud Lee]

What the hell is going on today? Spending bill gets approved that would recognize that the fed's can't touch state's medical pot AND we're putting an embassy back in Cuba and ending the blockade? F'in weird.

I'm so ready to go down there, get a pulled pork sammich and smoke some fine cigars while I kayak around the island

Its what the Germans and Canadians do

Don't know, I'll have to keep an eye out for some and find out while I'm down there. I forgot to mention that I will be doing all of this while drinking some cuba libres

[mdm0302]

Just to cause issues Every person who has eaten an ear of Corn has eaten a GMO food. The original corn was the size of a head of wheat and just as hard. You can say you don't like the way we currently modify our our food, but we have been genetic altering our food and animals for thousands of years.

Quietduck

I don't know that the corn we eat is considered GMO, but not all GMOs are necessarily bad...

http://www.goldenrice.org/


Monsanto, on the other hand, is the debil.

Like Quietduck, many confuse hybridization with genetic modification (corn if not the #1 GMO crop is certainly in the top 3). Quietduck is absolutely correct that corn has been selectively bred over many years to artificially evolve from a form that was originally much more like wheat or barley than what we know as corn or maize today. To put it succinctly as I can, and most specifically directly at Monsanto (Monsatan), GMO is not selective breeding in the traditional sense, but involves trans species modifications that could not be possible outside of a lab (gene splicing).

The main objective of Monsanto is to create "Round Up ready" crops, Monsanto is the manufacturer of Round Up (and more infamously Agent Orange ), that is, crops that can be sprayed with Round Up to control weeds without adverse effects on the desired crop and to own the patent on that seed. While many people may think that's great, based on my knowledge on the subject (I wanted to write truth or fact, but I am relying on opinions of others with expertise beyond my own on which I form my opinion, so I will leave it up to you and your own research as to what is truth or fact) is that these crops are genetically modified to survive the chemical spraying of herbicides and pesticides that Monsanto manufactures and sells to the farmers. So, the end result is that not only the food you eat derived from these GMO crops, but the soil in which the next crop will grow is effectively saturated with poison for the next crop.

To my knowledge there have been no long term studies on the effects of human consumption of GMO crops or crops sprayed with round up. Most studies that suggest the safety of GMO have been produced by Monsanto. There have been other independent studies that have contradicted the Monsanto Studies, but in most instances they have been denounced as being unscientific (look up the research for yourselves and decide who you believe).

Even worse, is the political nature of GMO! So, as mentioned above Monsanto holds the patent on the "frankenseed" they produce. There was an instance within the last 2 years that an Oregon wheat farmers crop was found out to be a Monsanto GMO wheat that he did not purchase from Monsanto, and was not a UDSA approved Monsanto crop. This effected the value of wheat crops throughout the region. Whats worse, is that if this or any farmers crop was "infected" with an "approved" Monsanto patented crop, the farmer would be exposed to lawsuit from Monsanto for infringement if his crops get infected.

To wrap up this rant, corn is not only one of the highest production GMO crops in the US, its also one of the most subsidized. Look at the ingredients listed on the products you purchase at the grocery store, especially anything processed, you are very likely to see some form of corn, corn flour or corn syrup. Its up to you to decide if it is healthy for you and your family.

I watched a documentary on Netflix called "OMGMO" and all of the facts and information it gave back up what you said. To add to it, there is a second type of GMO that is modified to be a pesticide. The crop will give of some sort of toxic wave that kills any insect that comes into range. So in some cases, the food we are eating is infused with a gene that makes it toxic and while also being grown in soil that is saturated with poison to resist weeds. A short term consequence of all of this that is already happening is the evolution of insects and weeds. As nature always does, it evolves and adapts to survive. According to the documentary, each year there are more weeds that learn to survive and come back bigger and stronger, the same is true for certain insects. Eventually we will be in a situation where it is impossible to grow organically because these "super" weeds and insects will overpower anything that is not genetically modified to resist.

As for long term consequences... these are just my opinions. But ingesting toxins and poisons seem like the exact type of thing that would create "free radicals" which are known to be a main cause of cancer. If it was possible to do a controlled experiment testing the rate of cancer between one group of people who only ate organic food versus a group of people who only ate GMOs my hypothesis would be that the group who only ingested the GMOs would have a significantly higher cancer rate. But the main argument in favor of GMOs is that there is to many people in this world to feed, so maybe they are just trying to knock out two birds with one stone.

The documentary also talked about the lawsuits you explained. And it is absolutely ridiculous. But that is corporate America. And in this instance I'm sure it is less about the money directly from the lawsuits and more about the money earned from eliminating the competition from the limited amount of small organic farming plantations that sill exist. Because they can not take on a lawsuit from a corporation like Monsanto and survive. Also i do not know much about law... but wouldn't it be smart for the organic farms to monitor their crops for cross pollination and then sue the GMO farms when their crops become infected before they can be sued? Would they have anything to stand on in that scenario?

[Duck07]

Don't know, I'll have to keep an eye out for some and find out while I'm down there. I forgot to mention that I will be doing all of this while drinking some cuba libres

I ended up speaking as much German as I did English when I was there. I also had my first Hemingway in the very same bar/cafe that he used to frequent. My group made our way down to Trinidad and one of the older gent's offered me a cuba libre when we were stopped at a roadside rest area - because they serve booze just about everywhere! If you leave the airport outside Varadero and go to the beach, they've got little booze shacks set up!

It's a place that would have been thriving economically had we not set up the blockade and instead brought our tourism and crops to them. I've known a few others who have gone to Cuba through Mexico and they all came back with great impressions about the place.

[duckpoint]

Here is a link to a good article on the subject.

http://www.naturalnews.com/036425_Monsa ... unity.html

I'm not sure of the current status of the Bill. But rest assured that if Monsatan and they other biotech firms have their way that the farmer will be the ultimate loser if his non GMO crop becomes infected with GMO. He can be sued by the consumer for selling GMO as non GMO, Lose sales as many countries refuse GMO crops. Be sued by Monsatan for theft essentially and have no recourse against Monsatan for contaminating his crop.

Here is a link to an article about the Oregon wheat farmer.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05 ... amination/

[Duck07]

[Duck07]

[lukeyrid13]

Ha, has it really been 6 years since the last post in this thread? Nothing during the 2016 election?

[Duck07]

Ha, has it really been 6 years since the last post in this thread? Nothing during the 2016 election?

I suppose some people didn't want to be mean to those who were suffering

[UOducksTK1]

Actually forgot about this thread, until someone brought it up in a different thread. Since 2014, wow....

[lukeyrid13]

Ha, has it really been 6 years since the last post in this thread? Nothing during the 2016 election?

I suppose some people didn't want to be mean to those who were suffering

Truthfully though, how is life under any president that much different than the previous? If you took away the protests/counter protests in regards to Trump, and looked at things honestly, each of our individual lives is not much different with: Trump, Obama, Bush or Clinton in office. Whichever side lost the previous election just complains the whole time the sitting President is in office and twists things to only point out the bad. Then we flip to the other parties candidate the next time around and the other 50% just complain the whole time.

[betty white]

Ain’t that the truth Luke!! I think the big differences this time are all the lies and indictments of top level staff and mYbe the impeachment. Just to hit some of the highlights.

[nogerO]

Wow. Don't know about the rest of you, but there is no comparison to life now vs. 2 terms of the former occupier of the oval office. Not even close if you are objective. As far as lies and indictments, time will tell...

[Duck07]

Truthfully though, how is life under any president that much different than the previous? If you took away the protests/counter protests in regards to Trump, and looked at things honestly, each of our individual lives is not much different with: Trump, Obama, Bush or Clinton in office. Whichever side lost the previous election just complains the whole time the sitting President is in office and twists things to only point out the bad. Then we flip to the other parties candidate the next time around and the other 50% just complain the whole time.

I had a discussion with someone a few weeks ago after the Harris VP announcement and I asked "once you get rid of how vulgar he is, what specifically has Trump done that is so heinous and drastically different?" A lot of comments about things that previous administrations have all done like locking migrant children in chain-link, illegal bombing campaigns etc and the only thing they could mention was him wanting to sell Federal Land that was actually a significant divergence from previous administrations. He's hyperbolic and vulgar, who didn't already know that 10 years ago about him?

One of my friends who wrote his Doctorate Thesis on Conservative Legal Strategy likes to argue that the Democrats don't want to lead - they just want to complain about Trump and if they get into office, they will spend the next 4 years giving themselves a Hi-5 and talking about how they're going to investigate and not do anything. This also explains after why we've been through 4 years of being told he's an actual Nazi that we end up with Biden/Harris as the counter-option.

Republicans have to destroy the myth of Reagan and Democrats have to destroy the myth of Obama. Of course, it should also be mentioned that Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself either.

[StevensTechU]

Truthfully though, how is life under any president that much different than the previous? If you took away the protests/counter protests in regards to Trump, and looked at things honestly, each of our individual lives is not much different with: Trump, Obama, Bush or Clinton in office. Whichever side lost the previous election just complains the whole time the sitting President is in office and twists things to only point out the bad. Then we flip to the other parties candidate the next time around and the other 50% just complain the whole time.

I had a discussion with someone a few weeks ago after the Harris VP announcement and I asked "once you get rid of how vulgar he is, what specifically has Trump done that is so heinous and drastically different?" A lot of comments about things that previous administrations have all done like locking migrant children in chain-link, illegal bombing campaigns etc and the only thing they could mention was him wanting to sell Federal Land that was actually a significant divergence from previous administrations. He's hyperbolic and vulgar, who didn't already know that 10 years ago about him?

One of my friends who wrote his Doctorate Thesis on Conservative Legal Strategy likes to argue that the Democrats don't want to lead - they just want to complain about Trump and if they get into office, they will spend the next 4 years giving themselves a Hi-5 and talking about how they're going to investigate and not do anything. This also explains after why we've been through 4 years of being told he's an actual Nazi that we end up with Biden/Harris as the counter-option.

Republicans have to destroy the myth of Reagan and Democrats have to destroy the myth of Obama. Of course, it should also be mentioned that Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself either.

1) Increased US debt by more in <4 years than any administration in history, during a period of general prosperity from 2017-2019, which will lead to an increased tax burden for those of us who aren't close to dying.

2) Mis-management of coronavirus response has led to...
a. 189,000 deaths. For comparison's sake, if the US's effort to control the virus was as effective as Canada, the country we share the most in common with, we would only have 81k deaths, so one could argue that the administration is responsible for as many as 108,000 dead Americans.
b. Millions of out of work Americans and thousands of family-owned businesses closed.
c. School-age children missing significant classroom time, which predictive modeling suggests this will have long-run economic impacts.

3) Significant cultural shifts in society.
a. Most terse race relations since the 60s.
b. Lowest faith in democracy, resulting from collusion with Russia and misinformation campaign on 'fraudulent' voting, in the country's history.
c. Lowest belief in objective truth in anyone's lifetimes.

4) Strained relationships with allies we've held for decades and reduction in the 'soft influence' of US abroad. The true cost of this won't be known for years, more-than-likely after the safety of Americans has already been effected.

5) More tense relationship with Iran, creation/exacerbation of a cold war with China, no improvement with North Korea, and welcomed political involvement by Russia.

6) $141,000,000 spent on golf trips for the president. https://trumpgolfcount.com

7) Sale and rollbacks of protections of millions of acres of land and sea for purposes of development.

What I chose to leave off of this are the issues that simply weren't fixed. Generally, presidents have some failures but also have some accomplishments, with some things getting 'fixed' (wars ending, economic situation improving, injustices alleviated, etc.). All the issues that existed in 2016 still exist (unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable housing, high inequality, global warming, falling educational quality,), but we just now have additional or more accentuated problems to add to the list. These are also just the items I thought of while eating my oatmeal, so it's far from any kind of complete list.

[Quietduck]

Some factual response note I am not a fan of Donald but please use facts instead of Ad Hominen attacks from political opponents because we all know that politicians and their parties are always so truthful

Increased US debt by more in <4 years than any administration in history, during a period of general prosperity from 2017-2019, which will lead to an increased tax burden for those of us who aren't close to dying.

Not a function of the executive office. Congress controls the spending and taxation. You can blame congress but not the president. No president has had his budget approved in modern history.
2) Mis-management of coronavirus response has led to...
Again not a function of the executive office. In fact not a function of the federal government. See the tenth amendment. If blame is to be assessed it is at the Governor or City level, republican or democrat
a. 189,000 deaths. For comparison's sake, if the US's effort to control the virus was as effective as Canada, the country we share the most in common with, we would only have 81k deaths, so one could argue that the administration is responsible for as many as 108,000 dead Americans.
b. Millions of out of work Americans and thousands of family-owned businesses closed.
c. School-age children missing significant classroom time, which predictive modeling suggests this will have long-run economic impacts.

3) Significant cultural shifts in society.
This falls purely on the people of the united states unless you can specify examples of executive orders that caused this. Also please show actual fact not an opinion on collusion and that there isn't wouldn't be fraud in that form of election. We know there is in our current form.
a. Most terse race relations since the 60s.
b. Lowest faith in democracy, resulting from collusion with Russia and misinformation campaign on 'fraudulent' voting, in the country's history.
c. Lowest belief in objective truth in anyone's lifetimes.

4) Strained relationships with allies we've held for decades and reduction in the 'soft influence' of US abroad. The true cost of this won't be known for years, more-than-likely after the safety of Americans has already been effected.

So we should do what ever anyone else wants us to do? No other country seems to worry about strain relations with us

5) More tense relationship with Iran, creation/exacerbation of a cold war with China, no improvement with North Korea, and welcomed political involvement by Russia.

Nothing new here even when we sent all that money back to Iran they still spit in our face. China doesn't even hide the fact that they are attacking every other country when they can profit so don't expect an improvemnt

6) $141,000,000 spent on golf trips for the president. https://trumpgolfcount.com

7) Sale and rollbacks of protections of millions of acres of land and sea for purposes of development.

What I chose to leave off of this are the issues that simply weren't fixed. Generally, presidents have some failures but also have some accomplishments, with some things getting 'fixed' (wars ending, economic situation improving, injustices alleviated, etc.). All the issues that existed in 2016 still exist (unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable housing, high inequality, global warming, falling educational quality,), but we just now have additional or more accentuated problems to add to the list. These are also just the items I thought of while eating my oatmeal, so it's far from any kind of complete list.