Tag: GMO

Ultra Short Medley of Pithy Tidbits

George Noga
A collection of ultra short but pithy nuggets from MLLG’s treasury
Ultra Short Medley of Pithy Tidbits
By: George Noga – August 13, 2017
      This summer I am experimenting with different formats. This post presents several ultra short, but blog-worthy, tidbits that have accumulated over the past year.
Dakota Access Pipeline now open Environmental protesters left 250 truckloads of detritus spread over 50 acres. The army cleaned up the toxic sludge before it flowed into Lake Oahe, the same lake protesters said would be polluted by the pipeline. This is not just a one off story; liberal protesters never clean up after themselves.
Who’s your progenitor? In Spain, birth certificates no longer use mother or father; instead they use “progenitor A” and “progenitor B“. Marriage licenses list “spouse 1” and “spouse 2“. Chimps, apes and orangutans have been granted full human rights.
The Chavez Diet is a sure way to lose weight. Just move to Venezuela and eat all the food you can scavenge. Last year 80% of Venezuelans lost at least 20 pounds. If you go, be sure to bring your own toilet paper to this socialist workers’ paradise.
When is climate change global warming? Progressives prefer climate change; but when summer rolls around, they revert to global warming. Canny, these liberals!
Obamacare for dummies To insure the uninsured, Obamacare first must uninsure the insured and then mandate they become reinsured at higher cost. The extra premium they pay is for the original uninsured now to become insured at far below cost.
Liberal Dogma: You can kill the golden goose but continue to get golden eggs.
The difference a day makes Young lovers born a day apart break no law until the day one of them turns 18. For that one day only, sex can be rape. The next day, when both are 18, everything is again legal. Teenagers have been prosecuted for this. Government has rendered the sex offender registry meaningless because of such lunacy.
Latest liberal food paranoia Celiac disease, a serious reaction to gluten, affects 1% of Americans although only 100,000 have been diagnosed. Nonetheless, 110 million progressives avoid gluten – equal to 1,100 for each person diagnosed. To make food gluten-free, many polysyllabic chemicals are substituted. Watch what you wish for.
Circus never closes Barnum & Bailey closed but the Washington circus never ends. Circuses, carnivals and freak shows have not disappeared; they simply moved to Washington and cable news shows. They feature prestidigitation, illusion, fake news, people who talk incessantly without saying anything – even bloody severed heads.
GMOs turn 20 The first GMO was used in 1997. Since then, not one person has gotten even a bellyache. Crop yields are up over 20% while pesticide usage declined nearly 40%. Without GMOs, an additional 100,000 square miles (Ohio and Indiana) would have to be cultivated. Someone please remind me why GMOs are Frankenfood.
Obama living the high life He gets $400,000 for speeches to Wall Street firms and jets all over the world cocooned in luxury and leaving a gargantuan carbon footprint. Pocahontas, a/k/a Elizabeth Warren, said he is out of touch with most Americans. And this coming from someone who received $430,000 to teach one class at Harvard.

Food Fight in America

George Noga
Progressive beliefs about food are a witch’s brew of ignorance, politics and religion.
Food Fight in America
By: George Noga – August 21, 2016
     Progressives call GMOs frankenfood and demand it be labeled. They believe organic food tastes better, is healthier, more nutritious, more natural and better for the environment. As usual, we examine the underlying facts.
      Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs: Vermont recently became the first state to mandate GMO labeling – which could cost $500 annually per family as uninformed consumers buy more expensive non-GMO foods. National surveys show 90% favor labeling food containing GMOs; however, the same surveys show 80% also favor labeling for  DNA – what does that tell you about consumers’ acumen?
      Over 100 Nobel Laureates signed a letter supporting GMOs asserting: (1) scientific agencies find GMOs as safe or safer than other foods; (2) there has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome; (3) the environmental impact is less damaging; and (4) they are a boon to biodiversity. Despite this, progressive groups are blocking a GMO rice that reduces/eliminates vitamin A deficiency, which UNICEF estimates can save the lives of 2 million children each year in Africa and Asia.
      With absolutely zero scientific basis and the most blatant anti-science of our age, liberals deny the fruits of modern science to starving and under-nourished poor people. This is not only callous, inhumane and heartless, it is nothing short of imposing starvation solely in the name of progressive religion. To call it immoral is insufficient.
      If GMOs are labeled, we propose the following. “This product contains organic material altered by human intervention. GMOs began 10,000 years ago per the Bible (Genesis 30:30-43) via our forebears’ selection of seeds and breeding. In recent centuries some GMOs resulted from natural mutations due to radiation or chemicals. More recently, some GMOs were via alterations to DNA. These changes have been an unmitigated boon to all of mankind and to the environment. Bon Appetit!”
       Organic Food: For acolytes of the environmental religion, organic food is their holy Eucharist. It is politically correct manna that the right people with the right ideas consume to demonstrate their good intentions, to feel smug about themselves and to solidify their membership in the progressive tribe. Organic food is mainly a political construct; knowing this, Whole Foods puts its stores nearly exclusively in enclaves with high concentrations of progressive voters. Whole Foods understands that they really are selling warm, fuzzy, feel-good Utopian fantasies rather than food.
      There is no difference in taste between organic and conventionally grown food as confirmed by scores of blind, independent taste tests. Stanford researchers reviewed 237 studies and published their conclusions in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluding there are no differences in health, nutrition or antioxidant levels. Organic isn’t more natural and 25% is fake, grown in China. There is however one clear difference – organic costs up to 300% more. How do you spell g-u-l-l-i-b-l-e?
       Nor is organic better for the environment. Both organic and conventional farming use pesticides, the sole difference is organic uses “natural” pesticides which are not as effective and require much heavier usage with bad consequences for the environment. Organic is inefficient, requiring anywhere from 30% to 50% more land – another body blow to the environment. Organic emits more greenhouse gasses from fertilizer (manure), often trucked in from afar. Organic is neither local nor sustainable.
       Progressive dogma about food is 100% voodoo, a toxic witch’s brew of ignorance, eco-religion, lies, myth and evil. It is indefensible scientifically and morally. Two million poor kids are condemned to death each year from vitamin A deficiency. Those who imbibe the witch’s brew cause needless death to children and destruction to the environment. If liberal ideas are so obviously wrong about simple food issues, how can progressives ever be taken seriously about more weighty issues?
The next post advocates a new holiday – Capital Day should precede Labor Day

Conversations with a Liberal about GMOs

George Noga
By: George Noga – December 1, 2013
       Recently I spent a week on the Hawaiian isle of Kauai. My visit coincided with a major political brouhaha about genetically modified organisms or “GMOs”. The residents were up in arms against agricultural interests that produce GMO seeds (mostly corn) there. In response, the local government passed a sweeping new law placing  restrictions on GMOs. Opposition is not restricted to Kauai as there are anti-GMO laws pending in several US states and Europeans’ loathing of GMOs borders on hysteria.
“GMOs are mentioned in the Bible – Genesis 30:25-43.”
       Genetic engineering is timeless. Selective breeding was practiced on corn at the dawn of human agriculture 10,000 years ago.  It is mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 30:25-43).  If you own a dog, it is safe to say it has gone through extensive genetic modifications. Circa 1973 man acquired the technology to modify DNA directly rather than via breeding. Since that time there have been many thousands of GMOs and in the subsequent 40 years not one person anywhere on the planet has experienced an ill effect – even a bellyache – from GMOs.
       While in Kauai I had the opportunity to talk with a liberal opponent of GMOs. The conversation went something like the following:
MLLG (Me): I don’t understand why you are so opposed to GMOs. They produce much more food more safely on significantly less land thus benefiting both humanity and the environment.
LIBERAL: I am against big corporations profiting from GMOs. If GMOs are that good, why are there still so many people in the world starving?
MLLG: The short answer is that  hunger today is primarily due to logistics and government interference. Surely GMOs have vastly alleviated hunger; India has become an exporter of rice.
MLLG: Even with the prices companies charge for GMO seeds, farmers in third world nations come out way ahead in the long run. They willingly spend their own money in a free market because their calculus is they will benefit at the prices they are paying. Fifteen million small farmers owning only  a few acres each in developing nations buy and plant GMO seeds.
LIBERAL: It is not right that big companies profit; in particular granting corporations patents on life forms is objectionable as it forces people to pay year after year for the same seeds. Moreover, large corporations take legal action against small farmers who copy the seeds.
MLLG: If businesses did not protect their patents they would go out of business and there  never again would be new life-saving GMO products created and everyone would be worse off.
LIBERAL: It is simply obscene and unacceptable for giant multinational corporations to go after small third world farmers struggling to get by.
MLLG: Isn’t copying the seeds without a patent the same as stealing?
LIBERAL: No, because the corporations acquired the patents unjustly; patents on plants, animals or genes must not be granted; these should be owned in common by all of humanity.
MLLG: You seem to hate bigness; are you aware GM crops are subject to hyper regulation? Because of the cost and complexity imposed by governments, only large multinational companies can afford to comply. Furthermore, small companies grow into  big companies only if they benefit a great many people by providing products they value and voluntarily purchase. Incidentally, do you also hate bigness in government? Never mind that – it was just rhetorical.
LIBERAL: It is not right for anyone to profit from something so basic as DNA or life forms; the technology should be posted on the internet or otherwise be placed in the public domain.
MLLG: It costs an enormous amount to research, test and produce successful GM crops. There are huge costs to comply with government rules and the Cartagena  Protocol on Biosafety. Without the profit motive, patents and patent enforcement, how could GMO technology exist?
LIBERAL: Governments or universities (with government grants) could do the job.
MLLG: Name anything government does well or a product produced by a university?
LIBERAL: Governments build good roads and bridges.
MLLG: Actually, governments contract with private for-profit companies to build these things.
MLLG: One final question: I know you also believe climate change poses an existential threat to humanity and you contemptuously dismiss those who disagree as being opposed to science. Given that situation, your opposition to biotechnology seems irreconcilable with your stance on climate. Your opposition to GMOs doesn’t appear to be based on science but on ideology and politics because  of your animus and antipathy toward free markets and private enterprise.
LIBERAL: I fail to see the connection.