next, can you guys do a spot on the difference between sea salt and table salt?

organic refers to the type of pesticide used. there's no difference.

well, except price....

TheAsianPlaysGames
Why did they call non-organic fruit regular?

deathtokoalas
the distinction is not between gmo and non-gmo. none of these fruits have commercially available gmo strains, so you can't buy gmo bananas. the distinction is between the types of pesticides that are used. "conventional" means oil-based pesticides, "organic" means pesticides made from organic compounds.

Rani Hanna
I'm lost, by organic, do you mean authentically grown, or the fake label?

deathtokoalas
organic means that the pesticides they use are made of organic chemicals, which is stuff that's present in naturally occurring biology.

Icyfire
they can't use pesticides of any kind....

deathtokoalas
that's incorrect.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/07/18/mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/

Moon Man
Sup Dra'nakyuek, Destroyer of worlds. Congrats on stompiing that village yesterday

deathtokoalas
i'm sorry. i'm not privy to your dungeons and dragons lingo, and haven't the slightest clue which virgin-playing board or card game you're referencing.

theunkownviolinist
Did you know that most of the bananas in the world are clones of clones? So even if they were "organic" they're still genetically modified bananas.

Waldo
I thought it meant that they used bullshit instead of artificial fertilizers

T Dog
+Rani Hanna pretty sad how everyone is calling you stupid, they seem to forget that everyone who is ever born isnt automatically programmed with all knowledge on all subjects and has to learn over time, probably because they are retards that dont know much about anything, i wonder if projecting they're stupidity onto you helped them feel smart for a second, on second thought i couldnt give a shit

Rani Hanna
+T dog Honestly, I don't take offense, as people have the right to judge me on the internet. They can call me dumb if they want, but they don't know who I am

T Dog
+Rani Hanna noone has the right to judge anyone, i know i judged them in the last post but im as much an idiot as they are

Rani Hanna
+T dog They are ignorant, as they are from Europe, where fake organic labels don't exist, and didn't know America has them. I am fine with that, as it is their choice to judge

T Dog
+Rani Hanna oh its been a problem here in the UK since the early 2000's, dont know about the rest of the EU though

Rani Hanna
+T Dog Really? Dat sux

T Dog
+Rani Hanna yeh, not just supermarkets but farmers markets would regularly miss label there stuff as freerange or organic just to make more money

deathtokoalas
+T Dog i've read un reports that suggest growing organic food in africa for export to developed economies, specifically for economic reasons - it fetches a higher price. of course, they don't address the issue of whether the higher prices end up back with the producers or not. and, ironically, given the transportation costs of transporting produce out of africa, these were actually in "adaptations to climate change" documents.

correct labelling or not, it's really mostly a scam.

now, if you want to talk locally grown indoor produce that doesn't need pesticides because it's inside, and preferably with hydroponics, then i'm listening...

JustSiouxMe
organic=grown using the same methods they used 200 years ago conventional=crops that have been made better with science

GMO's produce higher yeilds, larger fruits and vegetables and are able to grow in much harsher environments than organic crops. Also modern synthetic pesticides used on GMO crops are completely harmess to humans. Organic farming still uses natrual poisons that are harmful to humans.

deathtokoalas
+JustSiouxMe completely harmless is a tad bit of an exaggeration. organic farming actually tends to use pesticides in higher concentrations, because the ones they're allowed to use are less effective. but, there's been studies done on round-up's effect, and it's pretty disastrous to frogs, at the least. i'd advise against drinking the stuff.

as i've pointed out a few times, the only way to get to pesticide-free growing is to move production indoors. there's a lot of other benefits to this, including year-long growing cycles, automation and the possibility of dramatically reducing transportation. it also opens up the possibility of using genetic modification to more productive purposes, like increasing nutritional yield. if we're serious about health, yields and sustainability then it's the only real answer, in the long run.

EddyBearr
Growing food indoors could be disastrous for the bees, which in turn would be disastrous for basically everything. Alongside that, it's not very reasonable -- you're not going to have a corn-soybean rotation indoors, huge disruption of soils, and etc. It's decent at a local level for specific crops, but not as a plan for agriculture overall.

With that said, I looked into a few of the studies regarding glyphosate (and other round-up ingredients) and frogs. "Pretty disastrous to frogs, at the least" is a huge overstatement for what happens to frogs. It has a negative affect, but it's not creating some kind of amphibian disaster.

deathtokoalas
well, bees were fine before we came along, i'm sure they'll figure it out. i could deal with less stinging potential. pesticides are a far greater concern to them. but, you need to realize that bees are only an issue insofar as certain outdoor crops require them. moving production inside would largely null our reliance on them; for a handful of crops that require them, we can always bring them inside with us.

there's no reason we can't grow corn or soy indoors, we just need a big enough space.

round-up's benefit is that it's "less bad" than some of the other alternatives. all of things you want - half-life, toxicity - are demonstrably better than most of the other options. but, at the end of the day you're spraying something that seems to be both a carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor on your food. it's easy to point to studies that say that low doses do not increase the background risk. but, it's the kind of thing that you can't really do an experiment on, except in real time. we won't really know the effects of this stuff for decades. another problem is that it does breed resistance, which has a host of problems.

again: the ideal is to get rid of the pesticides and fungicides altogether by controlling the environment that crops are grown in. there's nothing really preventing us from doing this, besides political will and startup capital.

up in canada, one of the few positive things that our extreme right-wing government is doing is funding indoor grow sites for crops like tomatoes that we have a historical industry in, but can only operate a part of the year. i'm hoping that we can build on this. the potential is much greater than that.

this narrative of the collapse of american moral authority is pretty tenacious in it's refusal to acknowledge it's own doublethink. it came up during vietnam, in the contra wars, in iraq...

the reality is that if america had any moral authority it's been gone for over a half century. the rest of the world has not seen america this way for generations. and, americans know better - they just suppress it, as they're trained to.

the reality is that the only morality america needs is the master morality of "might makes right". these rumours of it's demise....

also... i'm not up-to-date on this isis war. but you could see this coming from the mid-00s. and it's not clear whether this caliphate is a threat to the countries in the region, or an intended construction to legitimize a desired confederation.

if prince whomever in riyadh declared a caliphate, the muslim world would laugh at him. as bad as the ottomans. if this is a desired end point, it needs something that appears to be a little more organic to get it rolling.....

why is it different to say "i won't make you a cake because i have philosophical objections to homosexuality" than it is to say "i won't make you a sandwich because i have philosophical objections to whites serving blacks"?

put another way, if you support the right to deny service to gays on philosophical grounds, then why wouldn't you support the right to deny service to blacks on philosophical grounds? can you make that argument, without contradicting yourself?

to be clear, i'd argue that denying service based on religious grounds is discrimination. the canadian constitution would be clear on this point - s. 15 equality rights. and there's a human rights code that upholds it and bans this sort of thing. we're similar in some ways, but very different on issues of discrimination. i wouldn't expect a law like the one in indiana to withhold a constitutional challenge, here. and most canadians would think this is right.

the gay wedding cake thing is a little more subtle, as none of these stores are providing an exclusive service. that is, there is no monopoly. if there was a monopoly, they'd have to do it. otherwise, the court would tell you to chill out and just go to a different store.

that's the legality of this: you could sue them, but you'd probably lose, even in canada - because they don't have a monopoly.

from a social standpoint, i feel the more important issue is that the dominant secular society really ought to push the message that this kind of mindset is unacceptable - that it is not acceptable for a business to judge their customers, or try and force their religious beliefs on them. hiding behind a book and calling your bigotry "religion" shouldn't give it a stronger legal protection. bigotry is bigotry, whether it's religious or not.

to me, that makes these laws wrong-headed. the state should not be working to uphold religious exceptions under a tenuous reading of the constitution (it's about making peace between denominations), but to establish a post-religious society, where these arbitrary systems of judgement are kept out of the public discourse.

it's backwardsness, no matter how you try and parse it. and indiana's economy will suffer for it.

ArnoldArchives
Easy question. Here's one way to put it: In your lifetime, you may meet or learn about many former homosexuals, but you will never come across or learn about a former black person. Get the point? If not, maybe this will help: Homosexuality is a chosen behavior or lifestyle, whereas ethnicity is an immutable fact of biology. Thus, comparing homosexuality to ethnicity/race is like comparing apples and tennis shoes -- they're worlds apart.

Furthermore, as a matter of conscience and conviction, neither Christians nor Jews nor Muslims can or should be compelled by the government (that's called fascism or tyranny) to bake a cake, photograph, provide flowers for or participate in any other capacity in a same-sex wedding ceremony, because such an event is a public celebration and affirmation of sexual behavior that is clearly prohibited in both the Bible and the Quran. Moreover, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects each citizen's (that includes entrepreneurs) freedom of religion -- which includes the free exercise of religion -- and conscience rights. These same protections apply to self-identifying homosexuals and supporters of same-sex marriage, for which you and they should be grateful. After all, if these laws do not protect ALL business owners from having to violate their consciences, then business owners who are proponents of same-sex marriage and the homosexual lifestyle should equally be forced by the government to decorate cakes, t-shirts, signs, etc. with anti-homosexual messages or to photograph a KKK or Westboro Baptist Church rally, for example, if their customers request as much. Be careful what you ask for (or ferociously demand, as may be the case), because the sword of the law cuts both ways. Bet you never thought your own logic through, did you? Glad I could help.

deathtokoalas
i don't see how the choice argument is relevant - the issue isn't the gay/black person, it's your opinion of that person. your opinion may change if you perceive the issue as one of choice, but that's not the issue - the issue is your opinion. if i had a racist book that claimed blacks are inferior - and the book of mormon gets close - i could present the same argument you're presenting. would you therefore agree that it should be legal to deny service to blacks, merely because a person has racist opinions?

there's also two different issues, here, and i tried to point that out. denying general service is not the same thing as denying specific service. this case is not actionable, for that reason. the kkk thing would fail for the same reason that this one would. but, i don't think the courts should uphold the idea that a black store owner can refuse general service to a klan member based solely on their political affiliation - should they choose to enter the store.

your argument is essentially "i should have the right to be a bigot, because i have bigoted beliefs.". it's entirely circular.

it's logically the same as stating "i should have the right to beat my wife, because i believe in beating my wife."

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
yes - anybody can deny specific service for any reason. that's why this "expose" is a strawman. i explained that clearly. it's not the issue in the bill, and there's no use in pretending it's an issue for debate. i'm not interested in debating with dishonest (or stupid, as it may be) people and will block and delete.

if anybody else would like to try and break the logic down and explain why you think that saying it's alright to deny general service based on one arbitrary characteristic does not imply it's alright to deny general service based on any other then i'm all for it.