mauryh’s Recent Comments

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  Brian says, "I'll only drink raw milk if I personally know the producer and trust them to keep their barn clean and keep cow shit out of my milk." Unfortunately, Brian has no problem drinking "milk" and/or "cow shit" if it's "pasteurized". "Pasteurization" is at best a compromise between killing a percentage of the bacteria and "sterilization" which would presumably kill all the bacteria but would destroy the product altogether. Bottom line, you are eating cow shit if you eat an industrial, pasteurized milk product. What's more the fecal content is nothing short of disgusting. There's an old joke about two Aggies (graduates of an "agricultural" college in Texas) who stumble upon a "cow pattie". The first one says, "I think that's a cow pattie." The second one says, "Sure smells like a cow pattie." The first one kneels down and takes a taste, "sure tastes like a cow pattie". The second one says, "Boy, sure glad we didn't step in it!" The funny thing about industrially-raised cows is that their excrement is no "cow pattie", but a squishy, nasty diarrhea full of antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant super bacteria. Even if the number of bacteria is reduced, it's a more deadly bacteria.On I drink raw milk (sold illegally on the underground market) posted 1 week, 4 days ago 49 Responses

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  Industrial agriculture is an abomination not only because of its destruction of ecosystems, water tables, and biodiversity; not only because of the lowered quality of life, hideous illnesses and death that have been caused by exposures to pesticides--and will be caused by exposures to pesticides for generations even were the continued use to be stopped--but because industrial agriculture is a huge contributor to ozone pollution and global warming! A typical industrial field after harvest looks like a dead zone. The degraded, crusty, compacted soil has little or no organic matter, and microorganism populations have lost their resilience to disturbances and are no longer able to perform their normal processes of cycling nutrients, assimilating organic wastes and maintaining soils structure. It's ironic that some of the tools of the so-called green revolution which destroy the soil were modified weapons of war. Nitrogen fertilizers from nitrogen bombs, nerve gas modified to make insecticides. Chemical fertilizers are made from a fossil fuel (natural gas). Superphosphate fertilizer is a dangerously contaminated product and its mining and processing (using fluoride) represents an environmental disaster. It is mined in central Florida where phosphate and uranium were laid down at the same time and in the same place by the same geological processes millions of years ago. They go together. Mine phosphate, you get uranium. The fertilizer remains radioactive. The so-called Green Revolution was a disaster for planet earth. It is a myth that monocropping increases a country's food self-sufficiency. As for double-cropping wheat and "scientifically" breeding new varieties--wheat is one of the most destructive crops to the soil, nearly as destructive as cotton. It is grown year after year on the same soil until the soil is so depleted and full of resistant fungus and mold that it can literally turn black. I do not think it is a coincidence that an increasing number of people can no longer tolerate gluten and are even getting celiac disease, which can be deadly. Also, processed foods with wheat, salt, chemicals and sugar are not healthy and are partly responsible for our epidemic of obesity and diabetes. I do not think anyone causing this sorry state of affairs should be eulogized or given the benefit of the doubt.On Thoughts on the legacy of Norman Borlaug posted 2 months ago 14 Responses

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  Deadly Environmental Devastation

  In the 1980's, your Haliburton Company participated in drilling an illegal oil well on my farm in Texas on the 4th of July, so no courts or agencies were open. My husband and I did everything we could to protect our pristine 70 acres with remnants of an ancient hardwood forest, springs, spring-fed pond,  wells, creek, wetlands, orchards, gardens and prime farm land.  

  The day after the well was drilled, I awoke with a sickening feeling.  Our organic farm normally buzzed and chirped with a thousand sounds of insects and birds, but everything was silent. Days after the well was drilled, all the fish in my spring-fed pond died.  The water in my house well was poisoned and my husband and I could never drink from it again.

  My husband was the first to drink the well water after the drilling & got horribly ill.   Even though I was able to get your "Texas Railroad Commission" to order the well shut down, it was too late.  Visible pollution spread throughout my property and strange molds and fungus covered the trees.

  Before my experience, I had no idea just how horrible and devastating the environmental pollution from an oil well could be.  Your smug, semi-literate response is obscene.  Your claims that Texas laws protect the water is patently false.

  Fifteen years after he drank the poisoned water, my husband died from acute myelogenous leukemia.  How do I know his death wasn't caused by the unregulated chemicals used in drilling the illegal well?  How do I know the oil industry doesn't just use oil drilling as an excuse to avoid paying to dispose of hazardous chemicals? How do you sleep?
  On Nasty chemicals used in oil and gas drilling go largely unregulated posted 1 year, 2 months ago 3 Responses

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  Yes, you can (drive 55).

  Ouch.  For an ostensibly  pro-environmentalist newsletter read and responded to by ostensibly pro-environmentalist readers, I'm getting a very elitist, pro-oil vibe from both your article and most of the comments. First, you leave out any reference to the tens of thousands of lives that were saved by the lower speed limits.  Second, you claim the law "...was yanked in 1995 after 21 years of low compliance and high complaining..."  Low compliance by whom? High complaining by whom?

  I was a car driver back in those days who loved to drive fast as much as anybody.  Weeks after the law went into effect, I was slapped with a $35 ticket for speeding.  After that, I drove 55.  As citizens of the United States of America, we bear witness to selective prosecution on a grand scale.  "Low compliance" with legal requirements is commonplace for corporations and the wealthy.  On the other hand, most of us don't have that option.  So who was complaining?  The Ferrari-drivers who never got ticketed? I don't think so.  Those who drove 55 or got ticketed?  Since when did our complaints effect public policy?  

  I think the complaints that changed public policy were from the Oil Industry who wanted to maximize demand.  The Oil Industry who didn't care about death on the highway any more than they did about the dangerous political and environmental impact of their corporate greed.
  On Advocates push for return to 55-mph speed limit posted 1 year, 2 months ago 20 Responses

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  Endangered Endangered Species Act

  If this RULE is implemented, it will represent yet another example of how in the United States of America, RULES TRUMP LAWS.  In 1973 Congress, created as a co-equal third branch of our government, performed its LEGISLATIVE function by passing a LAW--the Endangered Species Act, for the express purpose of protecting endangered species.  

  Thirty-five years later, despite their best (or worst) efforts--so-called "conservative" Republicans and lobbyists have been unable to convince a majority of Congress to legislate detrimental changes to seriously weaken the Act's safety net of habitat protections.  Not to worry--"rules trump laws", say the corporatists.  

  The Executive Department expects that by proposing this RULE, it can accomplish through regulations what the polluting corporatists have been unable to achieve in Congress.

  This proposed rule would end independent environmental reviews for  the tens of thousands of projects funded, built, or authorized by federal agencies each year. We all know that ending "independent" environmental reviews by current agencies largely staffed by the public-private revolving door to the subsidized polluters and corporatist--would mean a virtual end to any review.  The draft rule also proposes to arbitrarily bar outright any federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats.

  This proposed rule represents nothing less than a transparent attempt to abuse the power of the Executive Department and to avoid enforcement of a law it's RULERS do not like.On Bush admin tries sneaky attack on endangered-species protections posted 1 year, 3 months ago 8 Responses