jwebb’s Recent Comments

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  Wow, I wish i didn't get emails about these comments.  We were talking about the decline of the agrarian section in America, specifically smaller milk producing farms.  What we ended up with was GFM lecturing on fasting/colons/kidneys- how about a fast from a 500 word comment?  I will assume that your 30 year career as a health restoration researcher which led you to 3 claims of epidemics is well documented, but you seem to over-generalize other items.  Calling nurses obese is rude, I saw a fat person riding a Vespa yesterday, so i guess all moped riders are fat?  Saying that wiping our butts with leaves would make the world a desert in a month- guess those rainforest tribes just aren't wiping enough?  Let Umbra figure out if a bidday is a good use of water resources, it isn't part of this discussion.  So please- tell me how my ancestors lived on my farm well into their 90s off of what they could grow or milk...  Tell me how different breaking down milk proteins is from gluten in my body.  Inform me without snide comments or baseless claims so that I feel like i learned something to make myself healthier and still support my farming neighbors.  This site hopefully does support the small scale farmer or i wouldn't be here.  Period.  It allows all of us a chance to learn from each other.  Talk, don't lecture

  On Time to save our nation’s dairy farmers posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago 51 Responses

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  Aaah, why I love Grist.  As a person that grew up on a subsistence farm and live in a farming community i assume that i am the only poster that fits this category.  Please all of you reading that produce your own food degrade my comment.  I can only assume that you live on plant based products grown on farms cleared from forests and jungle and fed with conventional fertilizers and protected with pesticides?  I don't know any large scale organic farms that use only green fertilizer so you probably use the end-products from the same cows my neighbors have been tending for 7+ generations (Virginia).  These cows aren't factory farm chickens or pork kept in buildings.  These animals are part of the family- farmers get up at 3 in the morning and work 7 days a week to live off the land.  I'm sure your city blocks are wonderful beacons of self-sustainability.  How do you propose these land managers keep their land?  Selling farms just brings more sprawl and yuppie yards.  The friends i have who are part of co-ops or small creameries are still affected by the prices of commodities and low return on milk.  You can choose to not eat meat as a moral question, you can say that milk doesn't belong in our bodies, but when do you start producing the products you use?  I'm sure someone will loan you some rubber boots to walk a mile in.  Give me (and the farmers) a break.

  On Time to save our nation’s dairy farmers posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago 51 Responses

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  Let's not cut and paste comments, take the time to use your own thoughts and ideas- or at least provide the original information to give a little credit and honesty.  Perhaps the real point in this article, and not exactly in the following debate, is that I haven't seen another hypothesis combating AGW.  So Dash and SME- present the facts that support your argument so we can have a debate.  Sean brought up ice core data, and CO2 atmsopheric levels.  All I got from your points were attacks on commenters.  Tell me we are cooling and show me the data and peer reviewed report.  Tell me glaciers are growing and that ice sheets break off all the time.  Tell me we're a CO2 starved planet and that China's building of coal fired power plants is a good thing because Walmart saves us money.  Show me where in the past measures that improved human health were "economy crippling." I guess OSHA is responsible for my high property tax, the FDA makes my vegetables too expensive, and the EPA should have left the superfund sites alone so i can send my kids to the private school of my choice?  My opinion is that the leave us alone approach gave us robber barons and indentured servitude, which would be nice if I wouldn't be in the serf class.  I drink the water that Dow chemical discharges into our rivers, I eat the genetically modified food that hasn't been tested, and I would like someone trying to keep me safe.  How about the war on terror or war on drugs crippling our economy and incarcerating a higher percentage of Americans than any other industrialized nation?  Tell me why we should spend money on those but not worry about health?  I personally don't want to pay your Medicare (cough- socialism) bills if you smoke and get lung cancer, but that's just the government we live with.

  On House Republicans bring strange theories and wacky witnesses to climate hearings posted 6 months, 2 weeks ago 22 Responses

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  Mr. Riprock, III

  While you research the IPCC report, lets get back to the reason for commenting on this story.  The story shows a perception that Republican witnesses to hearings on climate change do not lend credibility to their argument.  One argument is that God is smarter than us and we can't screw up his domain.  I thought 2 people in a garden did that a while back, but I don't have a theological degree or pertain to be an expert.  A second argument from a Republican witness was that "green jobs" equals unemployment and that California is experiencing a mass exodus.  Kate supplies data on the latter.  I know that it surprises some people to find that comments on news pieces include unsubstantiated attacks on say- government, politicians, etc.  Such is the comment section of the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal, and a little bit further on NewsCorp, but i don't think the use of "ad hominem" is justified as it isn't going after your character or any other commenter or appealing to prejudices instead of intellect.  I assume by your undecidedness on AGW that you do agree that there is plain old GW?  If so, do we have a responsibility to ensure that America plans to protect its citizens into the future?  Is your argument that if we didn't cause it we can't change it?  I'm confused as to what your standpoint is...

  On House Republicans bring strange theories and wacky witnesses to climate hearings posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago 22 Responses

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  Ugggh, the only thing i can equate this switch too is when Playboy hired Maxim editor Jim Kaminsky so instead of in-depth reporting and focus on substance you get the "Posts with the Mosts" and "Whack-a-Poll" diluted content for the quick clicking demographic of which i apparenlty have grown out of.  I don't care about Umbra on TV, i don't care what writers look like (well hello Kate), and the bag over the head image is down-right repulsive.  Seriously- who came up with that?  A white guy with cloth/paper over his head and holes cut out- sound good at the board meeting?  The colors are horrible and since we have so many ads popping around i guess i don't need to donate any more??  Good luck cleaning up the mess

  On Welcome to the new Grist! posted 7 months, 1 week ago 106 Responses