“Brad’ – turned out to be quite the prize

True story*. Fake names. This is kind of ugly. I forgive you if you don’t read all the way.

Last night, I was just sitting there, minding my own business, chuckling at a Facebook post, my tired butt planted firmly on the couch, when a message came in with a copied-pasted Facebook URL. Intrigued, as it came from a trusted source, I followed it.  Ah. One sided flame war.  Free-thinker friend I’ll call “Bill” was being harassed by someone named “Brad” – because Bill supports gay marriage rights, equal protection rights for LGBT folks,  and doesn’t feel homosexuals should have to hide their nature. Bill provides calm, rational arguments. Bill is straight. Well, me too. But of course Brad feels otherwise about &@% gays. Only fags would say that.  It makes him sick, it’s wrong, God hates gays, And that’s just the start. Gay marriage will never be legal because it offends too many.

I read the whole thread’s last page.  Brad was drunk, actually publicly claimed to be.  The usual hateful bigoted bits came from him – Bill must be gay, gay people are sick, gay people deserve the mistreatment they get because it is their choice and they could somehow stop being gay.  So far, I’m more amused than mad, a little surprised at the persistence and higher than usual amount of profanity, but not shocked. Not provoked to do much but read.

I then calmly point out his fallacy of logic, point out that gay marriage and equal rights for homosexuals are being, and have already been, voted into law in many states and many developed countries.

Wait – now Bill must be an idiot if he believes in evolution, it’s just a  “theory”.  Fish don’t grow legs, fools!

Wrong move, Brad.  I weigh in.

“Just a theory?”  How fucking ignorant are you? You do realize that “sub-atomic theory” FLATTENED HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI.  Ask 400,000 dead Japanese how sure we are about “theory”.  Gravity? Yeah, that  is  ” just a theory”, too. (from another post of mine Just a Theory – From Hiroshima to Whitney Houston) (hey WordPress.com – I just had to hand code that hyperlink – what gives? Insert-link did nothing)

Then it gets weird.  Apparently Brad thinks Bill shared Brad’s home address publicly and then makes thinly veiled threats about vandalising Bill’s home or otherwise stalking him. What?  And Brad suggests that his father would shoot other commentors on Bill’s side. Then he just starts tossing insults.  Then he goes after me – apparently my education at  The University of Colorado was worthless and I must have gotten nothing but a diploma out of it.  I check his page.  Community College grad with a certificate in metal machining.  Nothing bad about that, but it is undeniable I am better educated.  Doesn’t mean he is stupid.  He is proving that with his own words.  I grow weary, state as much, and leave the “discussion”.

As part of my on-going Facebook Campaign of  “I’m not gay but I don’t give a fuck if you are” I then shared on my timeline, nothing related to the flame war I just part of, a tragic post about yet another gay teenager who committed suicide after bullying. I ask “How many more homosexual kids are going to die before we finally as a people stop the hate?”

Brad was watching.  He commented on my post that I should be the next to die. Horribly written and mis-spelled, but clear enough. On MY post.  Before I can finish typing my not-kind response, a friend of mine read his comment and jumped in, ripping him as bad as I was about to.  Thanks Lena (also, not her real name), I got your back too. No more comments from Brad on that post.

There’s more. Today I hear this: Brad has found someone at his school with almost the same name as me, ahem – different middle initial and surname spelled as a different northern European tongue.  Brad thinks this guy is ME. Yep. No shit. But he’s posting this poor bastards home address and encouraging vandalism .This other “me” has now been sucked into this insanity.  A simple view of my profile would have tipped this guy off that I live halfway across the country. Fucking god-damned WHAT?

Police are involved. You will hear no more of this from me.

I was on Facebook IM with a friend in the Midwest couple hours earlier.  She can’t walk the streets with her girlfriend out of fear of public outrage and family ostracism.

Any of you reading this far are already on my side.  The right side.  The fair and human side. If you have read this far and are not on the right side, I pity you. You have evil in your soul.

MJ

PS – follow my campaign on Facebook at I’m not gay but I don’t give a damn if you are

Frankenfish, Beetlecorn, the FDA and Monsanto

Disclaimer – I’m a scientist.  At least my degree is in Biology. These days, I work with…”computers” and lets leave it at that. But I aced genetics, ecology, plant kingdom, physiology and a few others along the way.  I used to work for a company that made medical grade brain scanners, made using used FDA compliance documentation.

So I know what I am talking about.  I’m not just  jumping on a bandwagon. Genetic engineering is cool. It can certainly save lives.  But it gets really dicey when you do it to our food supply.  And even worse when the regulatory agency that should protect us is run by someone who once worked for the industry he is “overseeing”.

Last week I saw that the FDA has approved a farm-raised salmon that has been spliced with some sort of eel.  My first thought was “Frankenfish”.  It grows to market size much faster.  And probably tastes as awful as farm raised salmon tastes.  Not relevant.  Two big dangers here.

First is the Jurassic park effect.  Once these things are self re-populating, odds are eventually some will escape or be otherwise released, and we have ZERO idea about how they will compete in a wild system.  Maybe they would die.  Maybe they would mate with their wild cohorts and we will see a bonanza of huge fish.  Bad, but could be worse.  They could interbreed and the resulting hybrid could be sterile. No more wild salmon.  Ecology of the entire oceans food chain disrupted.  Perhaps the hybrid goes super-huge and starts eating whales.  Not likely, but stranger things have happened.

Second, I don’t really trust the FDA.  I doubt I would like the research they have done on nutrition and safety.  This fish’s metabolism might concentrate some strange chemical/heavy metal/pesticide in its tissue that only manifests after years of consumption.  This leads me to the next bit.

I only tonight learned about Beetlecorn, but it doesn’t surprise me.  Apparently it is a hybrid corn spliced with the DNA of some strange-ass beetle which makes it …wait for it… produce  toxins.  You read that right.  It makes its own pesticide.  Convenient. Until this makes the pest evolve and devour a now-not-diverse food supply.  The Irish learned about agricultural diversity the hard way.  We’re already eating this stuff.

Here’s a quote on the subject  from http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/cropsystems/dc7055.html#ch3

“Although conventional Bt insecticides may perform as well as synthetic insecticides, their performance is not always consistent. Erratic performance of Bt insecticides is attributed to:

• toxin sensitivity to UV radiation, heat and desiccation,
• incomplete coverage of feeding sites, or
• reduced toxicity against older larvae.

Modifying a corn plant to produce its own Bt protein overcomes these liabilities. The protein is protected from rapid environmental degradation. Plants produce the protein in tissues where larvae feed, so coverage is not an issue. Finally, the protein is present whenever newly-hatched larvae try to feed, so the timing of Bt application is not a problem. The result is an efficient and consistent built-in system to deliver Bt proteins to the target pest ”

I’m sorry, but I simply do not want to eat food that is essentially permeated with “incesticides”.  How about you?

And “Fuck Monsanto” for their numerous, numerous acts that are along these lines, and for their shady practices and destructive policies.  Just google “Monsanto protest” and follow the links.

MJ

For more on Monsanto please see “Walmart and Monsanto -Dastardly Duo“