For years, [Mark] Lynas clung to what can only be described as a religious conviction that g.m. foods were unnatural. It never mattered to him that dozens of scientific organizations, including the British Royal Academy and the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S., had studied the issue and had come to the opposite conclusion. “In my view, the technology moves entirely in the wrong direction,” he wrote in the Guardian, in 2008, “intensifying human technological manipulation of nature when we should be aiming at a more holistic ecological approach instead.”
But Lynas has written widely, and thoughtfully, about climate change, and he came to realize that he would need to rely on science to bolster his positions in a world filled with skeptics. As it turns out, it’s hard to limit a firm belief in science to one discipline. So he began to look at the science of agriculture, too. What he found changed his position and his life; and if a sufficient number of environmentalists listen to him, it may help change the lives of millions of others.
An Environmentalist’s Conversion : The New Yorker
January 10, 2013
Answer here.
Andrew Sullivan disagrees. “At least you can cure gonorrhea.”
January 10, 2013
Boing Boing: Donald Trump proves he’s not half orangutan, demands $5 million from Bill Maher.
On Monday night’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Maher mocked Trump’s offer to President Barack Obama and offered to donate $5 million to the charity of Trump’s choice if he would release his own birth certificate to prove The Donald was not the ‘spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan’ Trump’s lawyer provided the proof and accepted Maher’s offer. Now Trump is ready to collect, ‘He made the offer… I accepted his offer and he owes me $ 5 million dollars which I am going to give to charity… If doesn’t pay the money we will probably sue him.'”
Despite having political views much closer to my own, Bill Maher is (in my estimation) only marginally less awful than the Donald.
January 10, 2013
My prediction? Probably not. Not until those open legal cases are in the rear view mirror.
Here are bets taken on the words Lance Armstrong will use during the upcoming Oprah interview (and their odds):
Sorry 1/4
Apologise 1/4
Confess evens
Conspiracy 1/2
Innocent evens
David Walsh 2/1
Paul Kimmage 2/1
Sunday Times 4/1
British Press/media 4/1
Witch hunt 2/1
Integrity 6/4
Never tested positive Evens
Livestrong 1/4
Team Sky 8/1
Bradley Wiggins 4/1
Sir David Brailsford 8/1
USADA 4/6
WADA 6/4
Tour de France 1/8
Floyd Landis 4/1
Tyler Hamilton 6/4
George Hincapie 4/1
Johan Bruyneel 4/1
Dr. Michele Ferrari 5/6
EPO 6/4
via NextDraft
UPDATE: How’s that for a prediction? :)
January 9, 2013
The braces are a nice touch.
via Colossal
January 9, 2013
More guns equals more killing. Here’s Elisabeth Rosenthal from the New York Times:
Scientific studies have consistently found that places with more guns have more violent deaths, both homicides and suicides. Women and children are more likely to die if there’s a gun in the house. The more guns in an area, the higher the local suicide rates. “Generally, if you live in a civilized society, more guns mean more death,” said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. “There is no evidence that having more guns reduces crime. None at all.”
“If you’re living in a ‘Mad Max’ world, where criminals have free rein and there’s no government to stop them, then I’d want to be armed. But we’re not in that circumstance. Were a developed, stable country.”
Well, sort of … the fact that the NRA is so powerful in the U.S. is evidence that we’re not quite as stable (at least mentally) as we could be. Also, the NRA has gained 100,000 members since the Newtown tragedy.
More Guns = More Killing – NYTimes.com
January 9, 2013
