Recent comments

  • Reply to: Is the EPA Being Pressured on Atrazine? New Findings of Environmental Concerns about Syngenta's Crop Chemical Removed from EPA Site   8 years 3 months ago
    I would argue that Atrazine is a well known problem herbicide with well know problems due to its persistence in especially water. Glyphosate which is a lot safer and less persistent substantially replaced atrazine when you have GM crops that are engineered to be tolerant. This has had great benefit to the land despite what activists or people who speculate that all government and corporate people are corrupt and the activists are 100% pure. I was a member of the Friends of the Earth for a while and realized that many NGOs are just against things. They are not trying to encourage a better approach. We would all love to produce food cheaply with zero impact on the environment as if the crop wasn't there but the biggest impact is growing any crop any way. If we assume we need to grow the crop and you assume that most major row crops need weed control how can you do that effective such that the farmers doesn't go bust ! Atrazine is not the best . Glyphosate is better.
  • Reply to: Exposed by CMD: KIPP's Efforts to Keep the Public in the Dark while Seeking Millions in Taxpayer Subsidies   8 years 3 months ago
    I looked at the KIPP application for federal funds for 2012 and the reviewers comments. I also looked at Appendix 5.8 where school reports give percentages for attrition and for students receiving special education services. These reports invite some gymnastics with a spreadsheet for deeper analysis. I checked a later application from KIPP and it was also redacted. On the other hand, the MASTER charter school application in 2012 was not redacted except for personal phone numbers and amounts from contributors and their handwritten signatures. Having looked at the budget details in the 2012 report is not hard to see how fuzzy accounting begins, with taxpayers paying a percentage contribution to the KIPP Foundation benefits for the highest paid managers, auditors, and so on. The budget includes uniforms for KIPPsters, pennants for promos, musical instruments, easels, computers, furniture, and, and.... travel galore. This in the midst of severe budget cuts for public schools.
  • Reply to: ALEC Spring Task Force Summit Agenda in Pittsburgh 2016   8 years 3 months ago
    So true dear Muriel. You would think that their brilliant tinkledown economic scholars would realize that the Human Cog in their mechanistic model is crushed and sad. Butt hay if only the ruling class could poke just a few more loopholes and eliminate taxes things would be all better. But alas - sick and poverty stricken families with frayed safety nets aren't resilient - and they may be inclined to steal things and shoot people when their children are hungry. If those in control want populations that produce strong smart soldiers and silicon innovators they're gonna hafta give us some humane work and places where we can buy clean food and water. Arcane "neoliberal" economists would do well to recognize that the human components in their models are interconnected, nonmechanical biological systems - we're all hooked together and incredibly, the majority of us actually like each other and are determined to help one another. It's a concept: Civilization.
  • Reply to: Wisconsin Prosecutors Appeal the Walker John Doe to the United States Supreme Court    8 years 3 months ago
    Shouldn't ordering the destruction of all evidence be included? That is an action that should be illegal on its own merits.
  • Reply to: Kochs' Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth, Shell out to Rescue Ron Johnson   8 years 3 months ago
    It is not smart messaging to have Ron Johnson's photo attached to this. It would be better to have a photo that immediately conveys who is financing his run for office and who he answers to.

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