🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990May17.074749.7110@smcnet.smc.edu> byoder@smcnet.smc.edu (Brian Yoder) writes:
>>Ok...I stand corrected. I still don't feel right about artificial
>>chemicals on the food I eat. Sorry.
>How's that for a rational approach to life?  Exactly how do you define 
>"artificial" Dave?  Why are "artificial" chemicals necessarily bad?  

By the time you get finished with all the "analysis" that you desire,
you'll be 25 years older than you are now (if you live that long). 
I'm not saying analysis of this concept is bad, but you seem to have a 
compulsion to use "scientific and rational" to prove a point regardless
of the actual fact. 

>iTo act ntelligently can't you see that you have to look at details and understand
>the science involved?  Isn't it irrational to do otherwise?

Artificial CHEMICALS tend to be used before their impact is fully studied.
How come you don't rave about that fact? Is this irrational?

If you must know, I define artifical as man-made. I am one of those
who believes that technology doesn't have to exist out of harmony
with the planet we live on. 

>>>I'd recommend you do a little research on the effects of Malation, rather
>>>than respond on the basis of gut-level fear.
>>Sure, OK. This is like saying "I recommend you do a little research
>>into how a truck can destroy a car before you respond on the basis of
>>gut-level fear and swerve the car to avoid it".
>There's a big difference here.  You understand quite well how cars and trucks
>interact and you understand the dangers involved.  Exactly how do you think
>malathion is harmful? 

I DON'T KNOW scientifically. I am a computer scientist and not a biologist.
I'll tell you that I was driving home at two AM and those damn helicopters 
were spraying their stuff over the freeway. I was physically sick the next day. 
That's all I need to know. 

>If you can prove it is dangerous to a judge, you bet you can.  In fact,
>some convincing information directed directly at the folks doing the spraying
>might even do some good.  You really don't think they are out to hurt 
>people do you?

Well, I have observed reports of oil spills myself. Here's some info for you,
quoted from another net.poster:

"...a review of government/medical malfeasance to-date gives one serious pause. 
After even a cursory review of the data, you begin to realize that even if [the
goverment didn't release the AIDS virus]...it very easily _could_ have. 
That's scary. Consider the following info:

   This is the same governmental structure which, in the
1950's and '60's, released bacteria (Bacillus subtilis and
Serratia marcescens) into the New York subway system during rush
hour, and in the main terminal of Washington's National
Airport, to check dispersal and hypothetical kill rates for
chemical warfare info. Since 1970, the Army has conducted more
than 170 open air tests using these bacteria in cities across
the country. Illness and deaths have resulted. This is the
same structure which has been shipping biological warfare agents
through the U.S. Mail system (including anthrax, botulism, Q
fever and dengue fever, Crimea-Congo virus, etc.).

   From 1945-47,  18 people diagnosed as terminally ill were
injected with plutonium as part of the Manhattan project. The
experiments were carried out at hospitals in Chicago, San
Francisco, Oak Ridge and Rochester, N.Y.

   During 1961-63, 102 people were fed real fallout from a
Nevada test site, plus simulated particles containing
strontium, barium or cesium, or solutions of cesium and
strontium, at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Argonne
National Laboratory...."

There's about three or four more PAGES of this kind of stuff. 
E-mail me if you want the rest. It's SCARY. You don't really think 
that I can assume they AREN'T out to hurt me, do you?

>Others have done research already showing malathion to be safe.  If you
>have counter evidence, that's one thing, but nobody releases pesticides
>without testing them.  Imagine the potential for lawsuits! Not to mention
>non-suit legal consequences!  Chemical companies have enormous facilities
>for testing every product they produce and for the most part they work very
>well.  Are they perfect? Of course not, but you and others act as though
>chemical companies have no idea what these products will do and are using
>people as guinea pigs for untested chemicals.  It's just not true.

Yeah right. Wake up and smell the malathion. Do you really think that we can 
trust the govt to look out for the intrests of the common man? We already
know the corporations do not.

>How much testing is enough for you?  

Aren't there other solutions to the medfly problem?

>It seems as though radical environmentalists are always out to delay any such 
>project for "just a few more years" while it is under further study.  What happens 
>in the mean time?  Destroyed crops? Rural unemployment? 

How about biological safety? What about that? Now I'm not a "radical" 
environmentalist so I couldn't say why they are out to delay these things,
but perhaps one theory is that the govt has such a history of raping the
planet or the people on the planet that it's hard for them to believe
any action they do is good. 

>>There's got to be another solution. 
>OK...what is yours? All I hear from you is complaints about how upset you are
>about the choices being made.  If you don't have any better ideas, isn't
>this just a waste of electrons?

Actually, I enjoy a good debate. It's not a waste to me, but you're right 
in that I cannot see the other solutions. That doesn't mean there aren't 
any...
-- 
----
Dave Hayes --- 'I *like* Chick Corea's _Light Years_ Album, dammit!'     
[dave@vlsi-mentor.jpl.nasa.gov  OR dave%vlsi-mentor@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov]
"The word 'choice' is a fraud when one is taught what to choose."