MTG Salvation

A few years back Bin Laden offered the US a truce. The official reply was something to the effect of "We don't negotiate with terrorists." It was a laughable statement because the US has such a long history of negotiating with terrorists or encouraging other countries to do so. In that case, I happen to agree that negotiating was a bad idea, but the reality is that the US government supports some extremely questionable people and organizations. The first example that come to mind is the corrupt, incompetent narco-state in Afghanistan. Of course Karzai is not a terrorist, he's just an opium (unprocessed heroin) dealer.

The main purpose of the bill is to give a government agency the authority to order recalls, a power that has been lacking and that makes the food system more dangerous because major food suppliers allow extemely unsanitary food production facilities and methods to continue. Stuff like this doesn't appear out of the blue. The response is long overdue given the regularity of outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli, and other foodbourne ailments.

Linked here is kind if an interesting article by a European about why he thinks "under God" should be removed from the pledge of allegiance. The argument is that the reference to the Almighty was added during the Cold War, when we were fighting the Soviets, an essentially atheist enemy. Now that we face religious zealots such as Al Qaeda it makes sense to change the Pledge back to a less religious sounding form. Better a war without a god than a war between the followers of opposing gods. The article goes into more depth about how this conflict is different from that one and the ramifications. I don't have any strong feelings either way. Religion has always defined America in both good and bad ways and I see no immediate harm in including that in the Pledge. On the other hand, in an age of madrasas and megachurches I can see how we might want to keep religion off the table in some circumstances.

The current supreme court is kind of baffling in the way it legislates from the bench. There is no way this is going to make anything more peaceful and it's hard to imagine how it could make anyone safer.

If you know something unethical is going on then there's really no reason not to blow the whistle. I was talking about this with someone earlier today. Essentially where ever you are it is best to assume that you are being filmed. Maybe not maliciously, maybe not even intentionally, but with cell phone cameras and the like there's a good chance you will be in the background of someone's video of something unrelated to you. It is also wise to assume that said video will wind up on the internet. For individuals this means that when a prospective employer googles you they are likely to see that picture or video of you with a forty in one hand and a spliff in the other. So, the safest thing to do is follow the advice of my grandfather, "Don't take nothin' for granted. Don't do nuthin' you shouldn't."
The kind of exposure I just mentioned above has the potential to make the world a better place. It could spell the end of institutional corruption and the abuse of power, but only if it's used properly and only if the common people land on corruption with all four feet.

The transition coating on mine melted, then quickly solidified again. I didn't notice until I went to the eye doctor because of the headaches I was getting and he a look at my glasses and pointed out the general waviness. Lenscrafters shouldn't have any problem making them for you. It's just the same process on thinner lenses.

Are you talking about something like this:
http://fancy-dress-costumes.jn22.com/d.php?id=462662263&p=Round-Colored-Glasses&c=Fancy-Dress-Costume-Accessories
or are you talking about photo gray glasses that get darker when you're out in the sunlight?

You make a fair point, ColonelCoo. I was thinking of melting more in the sense it was used in the early twentieth century (I was a history major and a lot of my studies focused on that time). Back then the expectation was that immigrants come and become something called "American" rather than doing what you're talking about, which is adding something to the larger culture and choosing what aspects of their own to keep. A lot of the hostility toward Irish and Italian immigrants was because they were Catholic and Jews were disliked for being Jewish. All three were looked down upon because they drank.
My misunderstanding of your point I think illustrates the pitfalls associated with something like this. What if you're a WASP whose ancestors fought in the American Revolution. Not very diverse, so are you then left out of celebrating diversity? And if we celebrate the melting pot then whose definition of "melting pot" are we going by? I'm afraid a lot of our political and social discussions become definitional talks about the meanings of vague terms.

I think diversity is worth acknowledging, especially in a place like America, because our soup of cultures and practices is so rich. The problem with something like "Melting Pot Day" is that it implies that everyone should try to blend in and there is something wrong with those who don't. That was the trend around the beginning of the twentieth century when every effort was made to assimilate immigrants and their kids into a very narrow definition of America. In reality America is defined by its diversity: Chinatown, Little Italy (or Havana, or Bosnia, depending on what town you're in) along with such staples as Italian ice and kosher pickles.

I think I can explain why "celebrate" is the term of choice. I happen to be Jewish and if someone told me they were "investigating" Judaism it would sound a little bit like they thought it did something wrong. If they told me they were "learning about" Judaism I would wonder if they were thinking about converting. "Celebrate" is a generally positive term that doesn't actually mean anything specific.

I doubt if it will create much of a problem. The military is ethnically or religiously homogenous. A person who has a problem with Hindus, for example, may have to serve with one because that's just the way it is. This will probably be no different.

To answer the original question, I think fear and hatred of Muslims is tolerated because 9/11 shattered a lot of Americans' confidence in our security and safety. The situation demanded an enemy, a "them" for "us" to be against. Because Islam does not have a large following in America, like Christianity, and because it has not even existed as a large minority since the inception of the country, like Judaism, it makes and easy target. It is something unfamiliar, something many people know little about, and thus it is an easy target for fear mongering. In addition it is an Abrahamic faith, like Judaism and Christianity. Like those two faiths, Islam has a holy book that expresses a lot of intolerance. So it is easy to take choice bits of the holy book of the unfamiliar religion and make it seem as though every imam everywhere is preaching endless war, much as it would be easy to tell someone unfamiliar with Judaism or Christianity that those religions tell us to kill homosexuals, people who eat pork, and anyone who wears a garment that included linen and wool mixed together.

I've been involved in organic gardening for a few years now and may or not expand into full on farming in the next few years. Here are some things that I have noticed in my own work:
Crop yields from organic practices are good, provided that a lot of labor goes into it. Most pests can be dealt with if they are detected relatively early, but you do have to be paying attention. This is probably the best argument against organic farming as a primary means of food production. The labor drives up the price and there is also the general impact on society from this. If you have X population and you need Y people to feed it then X - Y = the number of artists, industrialists, philosophers, etc. that your society can support. The bigger Y is the smaller the number of non farmers and the slower the progress of society will be.
The issue of GMOs is twofold. First there is the rate of change in plant species. Normally pplants are bred over decades or centuries to become better and better crops. If you accidentally create something like a pumpkin that is too invasive, unpalatable, or otherwise bad it is easy to contain. The new tech makes these changes happen much more rapidly and spreads them more widely. The second problem is that at least in the U.S. you can patent GMOs which creates problems with the age old practice of saving seed, essentially putting farmers at the mercy of seed companies.
The concern about pesticides is a real one. If it kills all insects, do I really want to eat it? The pesticides also get into air and water systems and can cause broader environmental problems. There are more holistic ways to deal with pests, but you certainly can't ignore them. The image that Ellye conjures of veggies crawling with bugs because they are not sprayed with chemicals is not an accurate portrayal of the realities of organic farming.
Finally, local and seasonal often goes hand in hand with organic. The idea of both is sustainable food production. I will take pesticide sprayed genetically modified local food over long distance shipped organic anytime. The hazards involved in shipping erase the benefits (if you believe in them) of the organic.
The problem of how organic practices can be used to meet the nutritional needs of large populations in ares inhospitable to farming remains. Though I prefer organic food and use organic methods in my own growing, I do not pretend to have some kind of all encompassing answer that will allow those foods to supplant industrial produced foods in the near future.

The movement for food raised and processed in more natural ways has been gaining steam for a while. What I mean by "organic" is crops that are not genetically modified and which have not been treated with chemical pesticides or herbicides and livestock that are raised in primarily free range environments. The organic movement has grown amid concerns about how food is processed as well as whether some of the practices in the food industry are sustainable (over spraying pesticides) humane (keeping livestock in cramped pens), or healthy for the consumer (feeding large quantities of antibiotics to the livestock).
I am interested in what people think about the issue. Is the current industrial food complex a problem? Can organically grown food be a practical and economically viable solution? What changes (if any) need to be made to public policy in terms of regulation, industry disclosure, and government subsidies to food companies?

Farming takes years to learn. I raised a garden on about a 1/4 of an acre this year. The yield is impressive, but it is not enough to feed a family. As a previous poster mentioned, the problem with the U.S. economy is that it does not produce anymore. We have been running a trade deficit for years. That means wealth is going out at a faster rate than it is coming in. Public policy is decided by politicians who are heavily lobbied by well funded corporations, unions, and other entities with interests that don't necessarily match the common good. Corn fed beef is less healthy than grass fed beef, but corn is heavily subsidized so it is cheaper to feed cows corn. Oil companies also get subsidies, even as some say that the free market is what keeps green tech from taking off. Green tech, organic foods, and other potential beneficial things face a stacked deck due to government policy.
As far as the housing issue, a large part of the problem is the layers of procedure and red tape within the banks themselves. When I had a mortgage I spent about a year making a phone call or writing a letter to the bank at least once a month explaining that I was not going to be able to keep making the payments. I wanted to salvage my credit either through a loan modification or some form of short sale. The bank stone walled me and we finally just gave up. When we stopped paying and moved away the bank finally agreed to a short sale. A buyer was found, but the red tape from the bank dragged on for over a month and the buyer got frustrated and backed out. By the time another buyer was found the house had been broken into and stripped. The endless red tape actually wound up costing the bank about $40,000 on a mortgage that I would have happily paid if they had only worked with me. A lot went into the meltdown, but a big part of the problem is that neither the banks nor the larger system are nimble enough to deal with challenges as they arise.