Genetically Modified Foods - Please watch this video!

[gmattson]

Good for you Bill. I'm proud of the fact that you work out, eat a healthy diet and do your best to get others to follow your examples of how to live a healthy life while enjoying life.

No question but that we both understand the addictive nature of unhealthy foods. Where we seem to have a difference of opinion is whether we should condone the behavior of the big companies who earn their livings creating bad foods that have addictive, drug-like ingredients that insure people will continue eating and drinking these products.

We all probably agree that drinking Coke and most other soft drinks are bad for you and definitely are addictive for those who drink a lot of these beverages. Your take (based on our GMO discussions) is that the companies making these products are not at fault - the people drinking it should know better!

I've heard about quite a few scientist and doctors losing their jobs because they question the behavior of their industries and companies. (did you watch 60 minutes last night about the large hospital organizations who were forcing doctors to admit patients who weren't sick. their "goals" were to make money, not heal the sick or to perform good deeds. Doctors were interviewed who were fired.) The person in charge of the hospitals (FMA?) simply stated that all the interviews, studies, documents were not proof, because they were not generated using acceptable testing standard! (where have I heard that before)

Just another example of why consumers must not trust those we used to trust.

[Bill Glasheen]

Where we seem to have a difference of opinion is whether we should condone the behavior of the big companies who earn their livings creating bad foods that have addictive, drug-like ingredients that insure people will continue eating and drinking these products.

No, we don't disagree here. As written, we're in complete agreement.

We all probably agree that drinking Coke and most other soft drinks are bad for you and definitely are addictive for those who drink a lot of these beverages.

Yes

More...

[Bill Glasheen]

Your take (based on our GMO discussions) is that the companies making these products are not at fault - the people drinking it should know better!

No.

[Bill Glasheen]

We parted ways back when you appeared to assume that Genetically-Modificed Organisms (GMO) were *all* bad. On the subject of GMO in general, I am Switzerland. Like a gun, it is a tool that's neither good nor bad. We should be thankful for good uses of the tool; we should fear inappropriate uses of the tool. Any and every GMO must be evaluated based on its potential good and potential harm.

[Bill Glasheen]

I've heard about quite a few scientist and doctors losing their jobs because they question the behavior of their industries and companies. (did you watch 60 minutes last night about the large hospital organizations who were forcing doctors to admit patients who weren't sick. their "goals" were to make money, not heal the sick or to perform good deeds. Doctors were interviewed who were fired.) The person in charge of the hospitals (FMA?) simply stated that all the interviews, studies, documents were not proof, because they were not generated using acceptable testing standard! (where have I heard that before)

Just another example of why consumers must not trust those we used to trust.

I was careful not to parse your language, because I know how frustrating that can be.

Let me stop you at the pass here. This is apples and watermelons.

The company I now work for started as a hospital company. Hospitals do good things. This hospital chain - back then - was the place were the first successful heart transplant was done. Then the company I work for got into managed care (third party reimbursement). Then at some point the people who founded the company realized there was a conflict of interest. The goal of managed care is to keep you out of the hospital. Meanwhile hospitals must have at least 85% occupancy or they can't cover their fixed cost. So they spun off the hospital part of the company, and the remnants of that are now part of a large hospital chain that I'm not very fond of. Number 1 son was born in a hospital in that chain, so they're not all bad. But those of us in the business of managed care understand that they're very good at earning money without necessarily doing what is best for the patient. You'll have to trust me when I say that. I've seen the data; I've done the evaluations. They're not always saints.

Meanwhile... My spouse's primary care practice was allowing itself to be bought by a larger entity. This hospital chain came in as a potential suitor. I warned her that if they sold their primary care practice to a hospital, that they'd be selling their souls to the devil. As I stated above and as ethical businesses have learned, there is an inherent conflict of interest. Well the practice got sold to them, and the horror stories never end. I keep telling her to tidy up her resume and move on. One day she will. Hopefully...

There are good guys and bad guys out there, George. Medicine has the best and the worst of what mankind offers. Sometimes in life dynamic tension is a good thing. Hospitals should learn to live with the needy patient population available to them. As researchers such as Wennberg have shown, there's such a thing as "supply-induced demand" where - as with trial lawyers - there are too many hospitals or specialists in a particular area and they make mischief looking for work. Best to let them battle it out for the scarce resources and let the best and brightest survive. Let the oversupply fail.

We need more primary care MDs out there keeping people out of the hospital. We don't need hospitals owning managed care practices and creating incentives to admit people. That's just bad medicine. Hospitals can make money by getting lean and mean. Buy 3 hospitals, shut one down (turn into another business) and the remaining 2 will have full occupancy. The new leaner-meaner hospital group makes money. Everyone is happy.

Same thing should happen with the trial lawyers. We need maybe 1 out of every 10 out there. The rest should find another line of work. That law degree can be used elsewhere, and hopefully not in politics.

- Bill

[Feur]

I hear that baby seal is especially tender!

Seal Veal Rocks Bill! Less fat and tender. Fur is softer as well!

Carry on.

[Glenn]

If you arbitrarily set a rule that the grass cannot grow above a certain height - and we can assume that Roundup isn't in the budget or business plan - then you've just set a bad rule. You're the grasslands guy; you should appreciate this. Someone like my son would cut the grass close like a putting green so he wouldn't have to cut it as much. It would look fantastic - for a few cuts. Before long, the fescue is waning and the yard is riddled with wiregrass, chickweed, and clover. Go on down the road to my neighbor with the plush lawn and you'll see he cuts it at 3 to 4 inches every time - and no closer. He has what a female friend of mine once called "sex grass." Bottom line - the rule is a dumb one. Fescue likes to be a bit taller than Bermuda grass or some equivalent. I in fact won't cut my grass much at all if the temperature hits above 90. I'll wait until a cold front is coming and cut it hours before it hits. When I look around the neighborhood, I note a few other property owners are out there at the exact time I am. Hmm... coincidence? I think not.

I am with you on this. My lawn is an island of drought-resistant fescue in a neighborhood sea of bluegrass. Bluegrass does not survive well in the generally arid Great Plains and my neighbors have to water it constantly to keep it alive, which becomes an issue when there are drought-induced water restrictions like last year. Meanwhile the number of times I water my lawn a year can be counted on one hand, and that is more to keep this clay soil from developing huge crevices when it dries out than it is for the plants. This year I have yet to water it once, since we have been getting decent rainfall so far, meanwhile my neighbors water regularly even in weeks with heavy rainfall Likewise I cut it at 4 inches and rarely cut it during the hottest part of summer.

Dumb rules begat dumb behavior.

My favorite example around here is that Lincoln planners like to have two lanes merge into one lane right after an intersection. This tends to encourage drivers to race each other to try to reach the merge ahead of the other, particularly when a red light turns green. While the driver behavior is at fault, I also lay blame with the planners who create this situation, something easily remedied by having the right-most lane end at the intersection as a right-turn only lane instead of merging into the left lane right after the intersection.

But here's a brain twister for you. This is the common color of the peppered moth in Britain before the industrial revolution.



Here is the common color of the moth during the industrial revolution, when coal-burning plants were common.



Is this "natural" selection or "artificial" selection? Man after all caused this transformation - however accidental.

It is natural selection. The reason is that humans are not purposefully selecting for any traits in the peppered moth. Purposefully selecting larger cobs, more kernels per cob, taller plants, etc over many generations led to the development of Indian maize from a central Mexican grass called teosinte, and over the past 500 years maize has been further transformed into the dent corn that dominates the fields all around Lincoln.

Likewise our current dog is a Llewellin English Setter we adopted a little over a year ago. Llewellins look like



although mine looks more like this one in color patterns



Llewellins are a strain developed in the late-1800s and early 1900s by R. Purcell Llewellin (1840-1925). Both corn and Llewellins are the product of purposeful selection by humans of specific characteristics, and thus are considered the result of artificial selection.

In the case of the peppered moths, both forms exist in nature, we did not create any new forms. We did influence the population genetics by creating conditions that in some areas changed which moths were more susceptible to predation by birds, but the actual selection of the moths by the birds was still natural. Humans were not trying to select specific characteristics to permanently transform the moth, like we did corn and dogs, and the effect turned out to be temporary since increased pollution control has resulted in fewer areas favoring the darker form these days.

[Glenn]

There are good guys and bad guys out there, George. Medicine has the best and the worst of what mankind offers.

What I find interesting Bill is that while you take the position of good and bad existing in topics you favor, you do not do so with topics with which you disagree such as global warming. With the latter you tend to lump all climate change scientists together as "bozo environmental scientists" with "schitty mathematical modeling" and with the sole purpose of creating "sensationalist findings to get more grant money and make a career". Such characterizations could easily be applied to medical research, where big pharma grant money is paying for a cover-up of the link between vaccinations and autism for example, and economics, a whole field built around money and power resulting in the inappropriate application of hack-job mathematical models...but no, researchers in those fields get the benefit of the doubt that they are not all bad.

And before we get a 500 word essay on the lack of a link between vaccinations and autism, and the glories of economics, I do not believe in such gross characterizations of medical researchers or economists any more than I do of climate scientists, which is the point of my analogy.

[Valkenar]

Such characterizations could easily be applied to medical research, where big pharma grant money is paying for a cover-up of the link between vaccinations and autism for example

What has led you to believe there is a real link there? I did a lot of looking around (I hesitate to call it research in the context of this discussion) at issue surrounding vaccinations, and have gone with a slightly modified vaccine schedule for my kids based on the things I've read. However, my understanding is that the mmr-autism link has been soundly disproved. Is it your contention that the studies which disprove this link are too closely tied to the pharma industry to be reliable? Or that other vaccines than MMR are at fault? I could believe that, but could you offer a link to substantiate it?

[Bill Glasheen]

Good catch, Justin!

This is a classic case where someone argues best when they argue my point. Here is the start and end of the whole MMR vs. autism controversy. It is an editorial in the British Medical Journal discussing the original Lancet article that started the bogus controversy.

..... Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent

The gentleman who faked the original data has forever tarnished his reputation in history. And that's the way it should end.

- Bill

[Glenn]

Can we say "missed the point"?! Clearly y'all did not read all of my post before replying.

[Valkenar]

Can we say "missed the point"?! Clearly y'all did not read all of my post before replying.

Well I got the part about not believing in the sweeping generalization, but the way you put it, I didn't realize you meant "It's as if someone said..."

[Feur]

you tend to lump all climate change scientists together as "bozo environmental scientists" with "schitty mathematical modeling"

Actually Glenn If I'm not mistaken Bill just places the sky is falling crowd in that group. He shows the utmost respect for those in the scientific community that have figured out that the earth has been covered with vast sheets of ice and they melted. Water freezes, melts, evaporates, it's constantly changing (Fluid, Solid, Gas). Think this is explained in primary school. I wouldn't presume to speak for Bill, but I suspect he thinks scientists that don't understand this are bozo scientists. I do at any rate.

[Glenn]

To my knowledge this is the first time the physical states of H2O have been brought up on this forum, and I have never met a scientist who does not understand this basic process...but yes, if you have then I suppose they could be considered "bozo scientists". But no, my quotes were taken from a post by Bill specifically about climate change scientists and that is who he was labeling as "bozo environmental scientists", not scientists unfamiliar with the transitional states of H2O.

[Glenn]

Hey, one more post and I hit 2100...and I guess this is it...clearly I spend too much time on here...