Don't we have several mammoth cO2 reserves around the planet, right on the verge of finally letting go?

Don't bring my mother-in-law into this.

Al Jazeera took over many if not most of the staff of the Arabic BBC world service channel that was shut down by the BBC as a response to Saudi censorship demands.

That's a good point.

Also, it's not that hard to be better at journalism than any of the US cable news outlets. There are several non-US sources that are more reliable, I have found.

To be fair, McDonald's doesn't really count as food.

Seriously? The old self-loathing OMG-I-hate-my-country-because-we're-all-so-fat! trope? What are you, a sophomore in his first PoliSci class?

Lookit - you're dead-wrong in that this is somehow just an American thing: Europe and many parts of Asia(!) are seeing a large rise in obesity as well.

This isn't a national thing, it's a side-effect caused by an overall rising standard of living within any given culture. The short version: If you're not forced to skip meals and not forced to sweat your ass off just to put food on the table, you're going to have a surfeit of calories, and neither your metabolism or hunger mechanism got the memo.

Now if you're that worried about folks whose physiological evolution hasn't caught up to relative prosperity, then crash the global economy and drive civilization back into the dark ages. Otherwise, dude, grow up already... this is much simpler (and at the same time more complex) than you think.

Ever been in line behind some old lady writing out a check?

Probably. I don't really notice. I mean, I guess there's a subset of the tech community that would rather old ladies not disturb their beautiful minds by taking an extra 45 seconds in the grocery store, but I'm not part of it.

Geez, I hope you get old. And when you do, I hope people see you as something besides a pain in the ass to Instagram to their friends about because it was so unbearably awful to be patient for 45 seconds while you wait to pay for your Hot Pockets and Coke Zero.

Maybe this is just the malware they expected people to find. Think of how many people now have a greater false sense of security because this group was "taken down".

Absolutely. I expected to read about missile strikes on the hackers or something. Does anyone really believe this is the only malware this group uses?

gene splicing is more likely to create a dud (a dead lump of cells that dont function) or even have no effect, than to achieve the desired changes.

That's right. When genes are combined in nature and it's something failed, the worst that can happen is a dead lump of cells. For industry, it just means they have to increase the marketing budget.

Do you happen to know the difference between Roundup Ready Corn #1 (which patent is about to expire, except it really isn't) and Roundup Ready Corn #2? Monsanto just moved the part of the gene for the specific trait where not even mold wants to grow on it to a different part of the genome. So, by moving that bit of code from over here to over there They get another 26 years of patent protection.

This kind of patent protection, by the way, is the biggest form of corporate welfare there is. Can you imagine, in 2014, with the speed of innovation, to think the government guarantees monopolies to corporations for twenty six years? I don't like corporate welfare and I don't like patented organisms and I don't like patented basic foodstuffs. It put too much power in the hands of corporations that would gladly poison entire ecosystems if it means a .$0.50 bump in stock price.

You talk about my "ignorance", but I'm arguing with people who believe "science" has proven GMOs absolutely healthy for people to eat. Now I ask you, is that the kind of thing you would ever read in a scientific paper of any kind? "So our findings clearly prove that GMOs are absolutely healthy to eat". If you think so, then you are the ignorant one.

I'm sure there is some sort of correlation between the quality of products advertised and the average intelligence (or maybe education) of the listener.

At some point, I stop blaming people for not being educated. I know, to us it seems like anyone should be able to hop online and get all the information they need to make sensible decisions, but when you start looking at the money and the power that is lined up to misinform and screw with peoples' heads, I just can't blame the victim.

For a whole lot of people, just making it through each day is such a challenge that there's just not a lot of energy or time left for edification. And for many others, they're just so beaten down that they're beyond having personal agency. These are the ones that get taken advantage of the worst, it seems.

This is probably why my wife never let's me clean my guns at the kitchen table or when she's anywhere in the vicinity. And has made sure my life insurance is paid up.

This story illustrates the reason why when I send mail, I don't put any names or addresses on the envelope.

You know what else? I'll bet UPS and FedEx are tracking letters and packages too! In fact, the last time I sent something, they accidentally printed the tracking number right on my receipt. They must really think I'm stupid, but I'm not. I'm smart.

You're going to love this:

https://twitter.com/hormiga/st...

Another great victory for the private sector. Rocket science is hard. It's not like we've been launching rockets for half a century or anything.

Another great victory for the private-sector space program. I mean, it's not like we've been launching rockets for the past half-century. They're still working out the kinks.

This is also confirmed by homoeopaths

This reminds me, apropos of nothing and completely offtopic (sort of): I walk the dog early in the morning, before 6am while listening to the news on my portable radio. Due to some strange meteorological phenomenon, I am able to pick up a 500watt station out of an exurb that's 20 miles away, and carries Alex Jones' show (the station calls itself, "Freedom Radio").

So anyway, as you can imagine, the big story the past week has been Ebola and how it's no coincidence that Ebola is from Africa and the President is from Africa. That Ebola is being used to take away our freedoms (but not "Freedom Radio" for some reason).

The "expert" that Alex Jones has on every single morning is a naturopath from Arizona who has developed an "anti-viral" tonic made from colloidal silver and antioxidants ("equivalent to 10,000 blueberries!"). Of course, the 800 number is given throughout the show where for a limited time, with every order you get the doctor's book about the things "The Medical Industry Doesn't Want You To Know". Then they take calls from listeners, and just thinking about the voices of the people who call in makes the little hairs on my arm stand up. I mean, these people are skeered to death that weaponized Dominican kids are being shot up with Ebola by ISIS and sent to their little Utah town by the Democrat/Catholic cabal (I'm not making that up). One lady who said she was getting chemotherapy for cancer was crying on the phone she was so terrified that the Ebola was going to come to her home near Lake of the Ozarks and kill her because the chemo has lowered her immune system. Just sobbing. Saying that hearing Alex Jones and going to Infowars is the only thing keeping her going because she knows it's God's Truth. And Alex Jones and this witch doctor are telling her that if she orders some of this colloidal silver tonic with antioxidants it's going to build up her immune system, bless her heart. And I don't know if any of you have heard Alex Jones lately, but he now sounds exactly like Sam Kinison. The same accent, the same timbre, the exact same dynamic range from hoarse whisper to hoarse scream.

Alex Jones likes to say, after he's gotten people completely apoplectic with fear, that we shouldn't worry, because he's read the book (bible) and he knows how the story ends (victory for the righteous and all patriots), So nobody should worry. This exact sequence, with small variation, goes on every single morning. I hear that stuff and really feel sad. My wife tells me I shouldn't listen, even though it's not really having an effect on me besides making me sad (except for the hole I've started digging in the back yard). Ok, that last part is a joke, but really, the whole thing is about as unfunny as it gets.

I'm sorry that I threw all that in here as a reply to a mild joke, but hearing "homeopaths" and "cancer" made me think of it, and when I'm half in the bag I start making random associations from a need to unburden my sorrow at the state of humanity OK, I think the second period of the Blackhawks game is starting, so I've gotta go.

LAURA says you're just friends.