Comments

1
Jill Stein is completely right to say that Vaccines are great AND that regulatory capture demands added public scrutiny of decisions made by revolving door types based on industry data. Claiming that she said anything more is dishonest.
2
Your own source is widely inaccurate regarding the effect of neocotinoids on pollinator populations as shown by research and EEU regulations.

Neonicotinoid insecticides can serve as inadvertent insect contraceptives
3
Unfortunately, you are still denying there many legitimate reasons to oppose GMO as used and promoted today beside human health.
4
Are you in fact claiming that being to the left of Democrats is "far left"? Shouldn't you be more3 rigorous for a scientist?
5
Wow, 'the Stranger' is really turning into a cesspool of dishonest anti-progressive hysteria. Between Dan "Rahm" Savage and this clown, I feel like I'm reading a Rupert Murdoch rag.
6
I'm no fan of the Stein's run for president and the Green's delusional petulancy. But man. Come on, now. This assault on her supposed "pandering to pseudoscience" is an incredibly weak argument. You're resorting to an really obscene "guilt by association" logically fallacy and frankly it's ugly.
7
Just want to say thank you to @3 - my sentiments exactly. I support labeling & consumer choice, and it's frustrating to always hear people assume that it's because I somehow think it's going to give us all cancer and destroy the world. That is not the case, and it's nice to hear someone else say that.
8
anon1256, sure is brave of you to come in here acting like you're some champion of science after all the blatant lies you told about natural gas.
You're half right about neonicotinoids; there are legitimate concerns about them, and significant links to CCD. However, it is not accurate to claim that they are THE cause of CCD; it's complicated. I believe, based on the precautionary principle, that we should follow Europe's example and impose a moratorium on certain uses of neonicotinoid pesticides while further research is conducted.

However, on the vaccine issue you're spouting the same old vague slander about scary corporations that the anti-vaxxers espouse. (There are plenty of ways to advocate against regulatory capture without putting vaccines front and center.) Stein described FDA review as being full of "snake oil", and take a look at what she has to say on vaccines:
There were concerns among physicians about what the vaccination schedule meant, the toxic substances like mercury which used to be rampant in vaccines. There were real questions that needed to be addressed. I think some of them at least have been addressed. I don’t know if all of them have been addressed.
The same old nod to SCARY SCARY MERCURY that anti-vaxxers always bring up, and the deliberate injection of doubt as to whether vaccines are actually really safe. Classic FUD tactic, and this sort of pandering does actually kill people. And you're defending her, because you can't see past the end of your nose.

And as for GMOs, what are your "legitimate reasons" for a blanket ban on them? Let's hear it, you turkey.
9
@7 so you support onerous regulation for no reason?
10
Does medical marijuana come under homeopathy too?
11
In regards to the shrinking Salmon, I read an NPR article on the shrinking Oysters in the North East. Digging through Native Americans trash heaps from centuries ago they've found that Oysters are significantly smaller now.
12
@8 I didn't say that neonics where THE cause of CCD (also denied by Linck's source). As per usual you are making shit up, which is par for the course coming from someone denying corporate regulatory capture.

I am personally for a moratorium on commercial applications for GMOs until we decide what they are useful for and I am sure they can be useful for some things; however, a moratorium is right now much closer to an outright ban than your own enthusiastic cheer-leading for industrial mono-cultures drenched in herbicide.

It is rather painful to read you invoke the precautionary principle for bee CCD while ignoring it for fracking and fugitive methane emissions.
13
Jill Stein is not smart. She's not smart. She's not smart.

I criticized Bernie for having a "how the economy really works" kind of video with zero education value, but he's running circles around Jill Stein. Raging against neoliberalism while advocating austerity (yes she does), spouting economic buzz words divorced from their actual meaning to confuse voters, and flat out not knowing what a Nazi is are just some of her more questionable intellectual displays. (She said neoliberalism leads to fascism; which is a really weird claim to make because none of the many benefits of global trade include time travel.)

And Hillary, for all the things you might not like about her, is not a neoliberal. She's not running on a neoliberal platform! She's not calling for reduced spending; her only 100-days issue is "the largest investment in good jobs since FDR" (her words). She's not calling for deregulation; she's super pro-Dodd-Frank, super pro-Obamacare and it's many mandates, and is running forcibly on paid-family leave and raising the minimum wage (to something, but a neoliberal wouldn't raise it at all), and she's not in any conceivable way running on a plan to privatize anything--not social security or anything else.

She's not a neoliberal.

@2, that's fine, but it doesn't have much compelling impact because Honeybee populations are not crashing! CCD appears to be a long established historical pattern and not a beepocalypse, and honeybee populations are growing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk…
15
@14 Not my fault that you favor technological fixes rather than address sustainable development..
16
I was vaguely considering voting Stein (unless WA looks dangerous) until I saw this: https://mobile.twitter.com/DrJillStein/s…

Just another politician spouting misleading, disingenuous bullshit to get a few extra votes. Might as well vote for one who has a chance to win and get some good stuff accomplished.
17
@13 This a misleading article in the Washington Post (doh!). The fact that beekeepers are sustaining bee population through their practices isn't the same as "nothing causes mass bee death". As for the, "it's always been like that", I'd rather trust the hordes of professional beekeepers who claimed that they have never seen so many bee community collapse.
18
@17, the article in @2 is also talking exclusively about managed colonies, which are demonstrably not declining.
19
In any event, who cares. Stein can be right about honeybees and still be a terrible candidate for president.
20
@15 these are not mutually exclusive ideas.
21
Voting for Jill Stein is more than about Jill Stein, it's about doing the actions needed to have more political party options? Voting for Jill Stein is voting for the Green Party, one option that we need in stronger contention with the duopoly.
22
There are certainly higher annual harvest limits in eastern states - and I presume this is due to both soaring deer populations and dwindling numbers of hunters - but here in WA we have very low annual bag limits (1/hunter/year) and some really Byzantine WDFW regulations, and hunters are easier to employ for reducing deer populations in specific areas, so how about WDFW works to increase the number and scope of control hunts too, and cover the cost with license and tag fees?
23
The source for the Stein piece in no way supports the conclusion that your piece claims. May I suggest that the sloppy reporter post an apology (because what a shitty thing to call someone an anti-vaxxer) as well as take a critical thinking course as penitence? (And take Dan Savage with you - he's repeated the same false claim in his last column)
24
This is part the current Green Party platform on health care"...Chronic conditions are often best cured by alternative medicine. We support the teaching, funding and practice of holistic health approaches and, as appropriate, the use of complementary and alternative therapies such as herbal medicines, homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine and other healing approaches..."

The first sentence is utterly reprehensible. And if and if someone comes to me talking about magic water or bear bile, I'm kindly going to ask them the get the fuck out of here with that shit. I'd love American politics to steer further left but I have no interest in upping the Green Party's presence on the political scene.
26
@12: I never claimed that you said that neonicotinoids were THE cause of CCD. You cast opprobrium on the Slate piece (which claimed that neonics weren't the cause), and I clarified that you're partly but not entirely correct. The truth is more complicated than you OR the Weissman article make it out to be.
And in accusing me of putting words in your mouth, you're actually putting words in MY mouth. Now that you've been caught in a series of lies, apparently your response is to accuse me of doing everything you get caught doing. 2quoque4me.

"I am personally for a moratorium on commercial applications for GMOs until we decide what they are useful for"
What a mind-numbingly stupid statement. You want a blanket ban on anyone using GMOs until we can find out what they can be used for? You're just spitballing right now, trying to justify a purely ideological ban not rooted in the science.
Here's a better idea. How about we look at genetically modified crops individually rather than lumping them all in together? How about we judge each cultivar according to its own safety and utility. The Arctic apple should not be held hostage to the approval of genetically modified salmon, but GMO-phobes like you apparently think there's no difference.

Also, the way we do agriculture is not the fault of genetic modification. Stop looking for convenient scapegoats and actually think with your head.

I'm invoking the precautionary principle on neonicotinoids because we don't understand their effects that well. Gas extraction, however, is PRETTY WELL KNOWN. We understand the risks of methane emissions, and we have ways to drastically reduce those emissions through fairly small improvements to infrastructure.
The precautionary principle is all about acting cautiously in the absence of definitive evidence, not a penny-wise-pound-foolish policy of cringing inaction.
27
@13: anon1256 is correct on this one.
Seasonal losses have always been a part of beekeeping, but colony collapse disorder manifests not only as higher losses, but as a highly strange death syndrome. A typical dead hive will be full of bees but nearly empty of honey, the colony having starved to death during the winter months. Hives that die from CCD, however, typically have paradoxically very few bees and often ample honey stores.
It is possible to offset higher losses by replenishing hives; you simply divide a colony and either requeen the queenless half or let the bees raise their own queen. Both halves of the colony will be unproductive for the year, spending their resources on getting up to full strength and typically not having any surplus honey. Long story short, it's not all that sustainable; higher losses can be survived, but at the cost of precious production. And it's hurting the beekeeping industry in America, on which much of our agriculture depends.
28
You guys are so dishonest calling Stein an anti-vaxxer. Ever cross your mind that winning over Greens to vote for Clinton requires addressing the credibility gap? That means less lying to people's faces.

Stein's "problematic" Reddit answer was flat-out PRO-vaccine. Full stop. She argued the US should emulate countries with higher vaccination rates because Stein wants the rate of vaccination to be HIGHER not lower. Ergo: pro-vaccination you lying assholes.

Your whole gripe against her is because she dares to try understand why some people don't trust vaccines and to address that trust issue by addressing the very real problem of regulatory capture. Stein makes the empirical observation that governments that don't have industry shills on their health agency boards have higher vaccination rates. Which is the actual goal. Higher rates. Jill Stein's pro-vaccine goal.

The problem The Stranger has with this non-asshole-based solution is the element of respect for people you disagree with. The Stranger prefers something between fascist forced vaccination or my way or the highway ostracism of vaccine skeptics. The goal isn't higher vaccination rates (see any fascist country). The goal is to humiliate anti-vaxxers for the sake of being a dick about it. Like Donald Trump, basically.

Lying about Jill Stein isn't helping. Please stop trying to help Hillary win, Stranger. You are not helping.

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