In article ,
animaux wrote:
I was talking about the website slide show of the most vile of all the hate
mongers of radio and television.

Victoria, I don't really care *what* rationalization you use to
avoid the truth. If it wasn't this it would be something else.
The bottom line is that, as always, your statement of fact
(in this case about the article) was false.

billo

On 23 Aug 2003 01:04:44 GMT, (Bill Oliver) opined:


Well, I guess that pretty much does it for any effort at rationa
discussion with someone like you. Sorry to have offended
your cult.

Will you at least tell me what the cult is I'm supposed to subscribe to?


Of course not. It's against your religion. Science be damned.

What religion? I'm an atheist. What are you talking about? Oh, the science of
the mind? How would you know anything about that? Don't you need a functioning
mind in order to know the science behind it?


I love this. You lose on science, you lose on demonization, and now
you stoop to pathetic, infantile threats. Pathetic.

Nah, just having a laugh. I didn't really save your post. Just kidding. But
sheesh, it sure did get you to sit up straight.

Oh, and when you run of to whine, be sure and include the accusations
that they are owned by Monsanto. They'll love that one, too.


billo

Land Grant Universities are owned by the agchem industry. The only one I know
of which remotely has come to their senses is Texas A&M, which finally did a
study on turf grass fertilization and which products work the best. Well, ding
dong, the 8-2-4 of certified organic fertilizer outperformed them all.

On 23 Aug 2003 01:24:56 GMT, (Bill Oliver) opined:

In article ,
animaux wrote:
I was talking about the website slide show of the most vile of all the hate
mongers of radio and television.

Victoria, I don't really care *what* rationalization you use to
avoid the truth. If it wasn't this it would be something else.
The bottom line is that, as always, your statement of fact
(in this case about the article) was false.

billo

Plonk. I'm bored with you.

In article ,
animaux wrote:

Plonk. I'm bored with you.

Run out of misrepresentations have you?

Somehow I doubt it.


billo

) wrote in message om...
Is glyphosate as "safe as table salt" as alleged by Monsanto, or is it
extremely hazardous as contended by some environmentalists? What are
the latest opinions? Thanx, Jack

By now you should have learned what an honest question of yours has
caused a flamewar in three newsgroups....

Let me first introduce myself. I am a newcomer of rec.gardens, and I
never read nor posted in sci.environment and alt.native. However, I
have participated in some of the hottest newsgroups of Usenet and I
have experienced or witnessed all kinds of personal attacks,
emailbombs, someone posting your names, addresses, phone numbers and
wrote "you" offer sex services, and the disputes in this thread are
nothing compared to what I have seen.

I myself do not use anything ending in -cide -- though I admit I
bought Sluggo and used it sometimes after I learned its ingredients
(iron phosphate). I also purchased Neem oil concentrate from local
Home Depot on the indoor plant, used only once or twice. I deal with
most slugs with handpicking, I deal with cutworms and other
underground pests with beneficial nematodes (and if I found them
during digging, they are fed to my Nepenthes after washing clean).
European crane flies are sent to my Sarracenia, and earwigs and aphids
on my roses are delivered to my Drosera. I am not interested in
purchasing Roundup at all.

And I use several bags of compost, from Lowes and Home Depot, each
season, compared to the fertilizer I use, in ounces.

But I think during this dispute, I myself more or less tend to side
with Bill Oliver's comments. By the way, I forgot to mention I do not
own stocks of Monsanto.

I think there are some issues people involved in this discussion
forgot or ignored, and maybe it helps for me to point them out.

First, saying something like "the scientific society did not find
Roundup dangerous" is not equal to "the scientific society found
Roundup safe". You have to define "dangerous" and "safe". As someone
pointed out in this thread, drinking too much water (faster than your
body can expel them) could kill you, and it does not mean water is
"dangerous". Taking two pills of Tylenol for your headache is fine,
and taking a whole bottle could kill you. This does not mean Tylenol
is dangerous or safe. Basically it means "Roundup when used as
directed, was not found to be dangerous on (plants, humans, pets)."
"Not found dangerous" is simply not found, maybe one week later it
will be found dangerous in another study.

On the other hand, honey is safe for us, but it is dangerous for
babies under 1 year old even when used as directed (like diluted in
water). Should we say honey is safe, or honey is dangerous? On the
other hand, if someone says chicken eggs are safe, and you ask them to
swallow the whole egg, including the shell, is that reasonable? This
is in comparison with the claim "if Roundup is safe then you should be
able to drink it".

Secondly, we should know different fields have different meanings on
issues. The scientific society can believe something like Roundup is
safe when the legal society can believe it is dangerous. The medical
society might believe adding fluoride in drinking water is safe when
the ordinary people feel otherwise. A court might order Monsanto to
remove the commercial slogan "as safe as table salt", becaue (1) it is
a lie, or (2) it is misleading for the average people. Such a ruling
(and it seems to be a settlement outside the court) is not a proof
that Roundup is dangerous. We all know what lawyers can do in a
court, like convincing a cup of hot coffee from McDonald is dangerous
and the restaurant did not warn the customers so it has to be
responsible for a burn on the customers. The legal system found the
hot coffee dangerous. Do we?

Some other similar examples are, say, EPA says enjoying tuna is fine
and it is safe, but some others might warn the mercury content is too
high and tuna is not good for expecting mothers and babies. So, is
tuna "safe" or "dangerous"? On the other hand, table salt is
definitely "safe" for most people, but if you have hypertension, this
"safe" material could kill you, and if you pour this "safe" material
over your plants, your plant could wither in one day. On the other
hand, is monosodium glutamate safe? Many people use it in their meals
without problems, and some people demonstrate strong allergy
reactions.

To sum up, when we talk about "safe" and "dangerous", be sure to
specify the definitions. Being "safe" in one field and being
"dangerous" in another field could coexist and both of them are valid;
neither one is lying.

In addition, this thread is on whether Roundup is safe or dangerous,
not on whether Monsanto is telling the truth or lies.

For Bill Oliver, I think you have already made your points clear.
There is no reason to continue arguing. If you do, you will only
convince people to put you in their killfiles in rec.gardens. If you
keep responding to any one followup in this tread, maybe it will reach
a point that the sci.environment and alt.native readers will start
killfiling you.

For others arguing against Bill, I advise you that rec.gardens is a
"peaceful" newsgroup; it is not a newsgroup discussing abortion
policy, gun control, or Saddam Hussein. Those loving flowers, fruits
do not look like the group of people using harsh words against someone
else, digging up Bill Oliver's information and post it in public
domain, and so on. If you feel offended and furious over Bill's
comments, go to a Starbucks/SBC/Tully's coffee shop, enjoy a Latte,
and you will feel better.

Now let me go back and watch the aphids struggling for their lives on
my Pinguiculas. I am the saint of the newsgroup. :P

"animaux" wrote :

On 22 Aug 2003 19:11:18 GMT, (Bill Oliver) opined:
animaux wrote:
On 22 Aug 2003 14:49:11 GMT, (Bill Oliver) opined:
How apropos to quote a person who falsifies data as your soulmate.
What date did Michael Moore falsify? I'm very interested to find out.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel040403.asp

I am expected to believe an article which has Hannity, AnneOrexia Coulter
and
that other jerk I can't stand?

Ferchrissakes...here.

http://www.salon.com/politics/col/sp...ore/index.html

Jason

"Siberian Husky" wrote :

Let me first introduce myself. I am a newcomer of rec.gardens, and I
never read nor posted in sci.environment and alt.native.

[lucid, reasoned commentary snipped]

How dare you invade their ****ing match! Who do you think you are, trying
to introduce intelligent discussion here?
Sheesh, some people...

Jason

In article ,
Siberian Husky wrote:

For Bill Oliver, I think you have already made your points clear.
There is no reason to continue arguing. If you do, you will only
convince people to put you in their killfiles in rec.gardens. If you
keep responding to any one followup in this tread, maybe it will reach
a point that the sci.environment and alt.native readers will start
killfiling you.


Not my problem. I don't care if people killfile me. The
reason I follow-up as much as I do is that people like
paghat, animaux, Tom, et al. turn their lies into truths
through repetition. Every time paghat says I wrote something
I didn't write, it is necessary to follow-up, else the
unchallenged assertion becomes "truth." That's how
these people work.



billo

On 25 Aug 2003 02:06:10 GMT, (Bill Oliver) wrote:

I follow-up as much as I do is that people like
paghat, animaux, Tom, et al. turn their lies into truths



You still don't know shit about gardening. Even a basic understanding
of soil biology would lead you to the truth. Truth is hard to find
when you are surrounded by Monsanto money!

In article ,
vegan don't bother wrote:
On 25 Aug 2003 02:06:10 GMT, (Bill Oliver) wrote:

I follow-up as much as I do is that people like
paghat, animaux, Tom, et al. turn their lies into truths



You still don't know shit about gardening. Even a basic understanding
of soil biology would lead you to the truth. Truth is hard to find
when you are surrounded by Monsanto money!


Pretty pathetic, Tom. Not only do you run and hide when
I ask the same questions of you that you cyberstalked
to get from me. Now you try to hide behind a sock puppet.
It takes a special kind of person to try to hide behind an
anonymous ID to engage in personal attacks.

And you, obviously, are that kind of special person.
By the way, you don't do it very well. A stalker
*and* a coward.

Your hypocrisy is even worse than I thought.


Who do you work for, Tom? Remember, Tom,
*you* are the one who thinks this is
important -- when you're not hiding behind
a sock puppet, that is.


How much money do you make every year pushing
your anti-science agenda?


What are *your* credentials?


And, of course, my scientific challenge stands -- one
single article that shows that Roundup is dangerous
to humans when used as directed. Just one.


billo

what a putz. If I decided to hide it would have been behind an
anonymizer. The details of my message header clearly show where I am
posting from and clearly identifies me inspite of the alias. With the
same IP address as all other posts. Interesting that you find someone
who reveals your vested interests as a stalker. Remedial internet
skills hardly qualify as stalking. Not surprising given you're
clueless about gardening and Roundup use...the good Dr. doesn't know
all!! Is that so painful?


the jig is up



On 25 Aug 2003 12:06:58 GMT, (Bill Oliver) wrote:

In article ,
vegan don't bother wrote:
On 25 Aug 2003 02:06:10 GMT, (Bill Oliver) wrote:

I follow-up as much as I do is that people like
paghat, animaux, Tom, et al. turn their lies into truths



You still don't know shit about gardening. Even a basic understanding
of soil biology would lead you to the truth. Truth is hard to find
when you are surrounded by Monsanto money!


Pretty pathetic, Tom. Not only do you run and hide when
I ask the same questions of you that you cyberstalked
to get from me. Now you try to hide behind a sock puppet.
It takes a special kind of person to try to hide behind an
anonymous ID to engage in personal attacks.

And you, obviously, are that kind of special person.
By the way, you don't do it very well. A stalker
*and* a coward.

Your hypocrisy is even worse than I thought.


Who do you work for, Tom? Remember, Tom,
*you* are the one who thinks this is
important -- when you're not hiding behind
a sock puppet, that is.


How much money do you make every year pushing
your anti-science agenda?


What are *your* credentials?


And, of course, my scientific challenge stands -- one
single article that shows that Roundup is dangerous
to humans when used as directed. Just one.


billo

In article ,
vegan don't bother wrote:
what a putz. If I decided to hide it would have been behind an
anonymizer. The details of my message header clearly show where I am
posting from and clearly identifies me inspite of the alias. With the
same IP address as all other posts. Interesting that you find someone
who reveals your vested interests as a stalker. Remedial internet
skills hardly qualify as stalking. Not surprising given you're
clueless about gardening and Roundup use...the good Dr. doesn't know
all!! Is that so painful?


the jig is up


Yes it is. Your hypocrisy, your commercial interests in
anti-roundup hysteria, your attempt to hide your identity,
your lack of any scientific basis, and your pathetic attempt
at personal attack are pretty plain.

Indeed, Tom.

The jig *is* up.

billo

(Bill Oliver) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Siberian Husky wrote:

For Bill Oliver, I think you have already made your points clear.
There is no reason to continue arguing. If you do, you will only
convince people to put you in their killfiles in rec.gardens. If you
keep responding to any one followup in this tread, maybe it will reach
a point that the sci.environment and alt.native readers will start
killfiling you.

Not my problem. I don't care if people killfile me. The
reason I follow-up as much as I do is that people like
paghat, animaux, Tom, et al. turn their lies into truths
through repetition. Every time paghat says I wrote something
I didn't write, it is necessary to follow-up, else the
unchallenged assertion becomes "truth." That's how
these people work.

I do not think it necessary, but again, these newsgroups are not
moderated and you decide what you wanna say

But some observations .....
-- I do not think you need to worry about people turning their lies
into truths through repetition. In this discussion, the people who
believe Roundup is bad, bad, bad will not believe anything else even
if Bill Oliver provides 100 peer-previewed journal articles to prove
that nobody has yet found Roundup to be dangerous. On the other hand,
the people who think they can go to Home Depot, buy a Roundup and kill
all their weeds and poison ivy will do that regardless how many people
in these groups tell them that is not good for the earth. Some
netters will switch side, but they are few.

-- Do not fight against anonymous people (who knows, maybe "Bill
Oliver" itself is not a real name, but I don't care ). After a
lengthy flamewar, most netters will believe Bill Oliver (1), Dick
Tracy (1), James Bond (1), Ethan Hunt (1), Clark Kent (1), ...... are
not contributing anything for environment and gardening discussions,
and they wan to ignore all of them. Anonymous names and email
addresses can be generated unlimited, but billo is only one. If you
decide to hunt them down, you will only spend your time in useless
directions.

I do not think gardeners like paghat or animaux are malicious. They
just don't have trust in Monsanto when you do not find any scientific
experiments showing Roundup to be dangerous (again, that is different
from showing Roundup to be safe). maybe thru misunderstanding, or
another netters jump in and digged up your employer and else, and
subconsciously you think "this is a war between me and them", so you
raise your tone and animaux or paghat also raise their tones, and you
know what happened...... Hehe.

From my experience, when more than 10 or 20 messages are posted in one
day on a thread, with most of them from netters taking turns following
each other with a "potential hostile" tone, it is an indication the
thread needs a cooldown. In this case, leave the thread for one or
two days to cool yourself down, and come back again. That helps :P
Maybe someone else wrote whatever you wanna say.

I think I said too much as if I can tell the other rec.gardens and
sci.environment folks what to do. I never meant that..... I will
still not use Roundup (who knows, maybe next month some scientists
will have an experiment finding Roundup to be dangerous), but I
appreciate your attitude in using scientific approaches on the safety
of Roundup.

August 23, 2003

The Toxic War on Drugs
GM Crop Weed Killer Linked to Powerful Fungus
By JEREMY BIGWOOD

Scientists are expressing alarm about the relationship between the
application of a common weed killer to food crops and the resultant
proliferation of potentially toxic fungal moulds in the harvest. Monsanto's
popular product Roundup, which contains a chemical called glyphosate is
alleged to increase the size of colonies of the fungus Fusarium, a genus of
often very toxic moulds that occurs naturally in soils and occasionally
invades crops, but usually held in check by other microbes. If true, these
allegations not only call into question the world's number one weed killer,
but they also jeopardize the world's acceptance of Monsanto's flagship line
of genetically-engineered "Roundup Ready" crops.

"Glyphosate-treated wheat appeared to have higher levels of Fusarium head
blight (a toxic fungal disease) than wheat fields where no glyphosate had
been applied." said Scientist Myriam Fernandez of the Semiarid Prairie
Agricultural Research Centre in Swift Current, Saskatchewan in a recent
interview. Fernandez added "We have not finished analysing the four years of
data yet or written up the study." While Fernandez's research recently made
headlines throughout Canada, it was not the first to discuss the
relationship between glyphosate-containing weed killer formulations and the
enhancement of potentially toxic fungi, but it was the first to report on
the possibility of potentially toxic crop damage caused by the link in wheat
and barley, two of Canada's most important crops.

According to Dr. Harvey Glick, head of Monsanto's Scientific Affairs, who
remains critical: "It appears to be that Dr. Fernandez did a field survey
looking at levels of Fusarium and then the factors that might be related.
So, from what I can gather, that was not a cause and effect. It's just that
they saw in the study area some fields that had higher levels of Fusarium,
for whatever reason, and then they looked at a list of factors that might be
related and one of them was there was Roundup used in those fields the
previous year.

Maybe, but, over the last two decades, several scientists from New Zealand
to Africa have noticed and investigated the glyphosate-fusarium relationship
through small-scale experiments in the relative obscurity of their labs and
reporting the results of their work through the hidden world of academic
journals. The result of all of this work, is "just under 50 scientific
papers," says Robert Kremer PhD., a soil scientist at the University of
Missouri. This body work shows an increase in Fusarium or other microbes
after the application of glyphosate.

Monsanto's Dr. Harvey Glick disagrees: "Roundup is almost 30 years old and
scientists have been looking at all aspects of its use for at least that
long. So there is a tremendous amount of information available. And that is
why there is such a high level of confidence that the use of Roundup, based
on all of this earlier work, does not have any negative impacts on soil
microbes... And a lot of it has been published."

Dr. Kremer's ongoing research deals with the effect of glyphosate-fusarium
relationship on soybeans, not just regular soybeans, but "Roundup Ready"
soybeans also. Monsanto has been producing a series of
genetically-engineered "Roundup Ready" seed stock for various crops
including, cotton, soybean, wheat and corn to be used exclusively with their
successful glyphosate weedkiller Roundup. "Roundup Ready" crops are
themselves unaffected by the Roundup weedkiller, which will kill all any
competing plants such as weeds in the same area. Because they are
genetically-engineered, they have not found easy acceptance in many
countries outside the US, and they are still banned in Canada and Europe.

Dr. Kremer found that in his "Roundup Ready" soybean experiments that
"Glyphosate seems to stimulate Fusarium in the roots area of the plants," to
such a degree that he considers the elevation of Fusarium levels to be
glyphosate's "secondary mode of action." While he found enhanced Fusarium
colonies in the roots of his plants, which could potentially reduce the
harvest, he did not find it in the harvested soybeans themselves. Even so,
he expressed concern about what this accumulation of Fusarium in the soil
could lead to.

Dr. Kremer also noted: "We didn't see enhancement of Fusarium when other
herbicides were used." However, in the case of "Roundup Ready" crops,
Roundup is to be used exclusively or in combination with other chemicals as
a weed killer. To use other weed killers alone would be a violation of
contract.

Thus, if Roundup increases Fusarium levels, then "Roundup Ready" crops that
use Roundup as a weed killer could become potential disasters, increasing
Fusarium levels in the soil to such critical levels it could produce an
epidemic and move from field to field throughout a wide area.

In a recent article titled "GM cotton blamed for disease," the Farm Weekly,
an Australian publication, predicted that "up to 90 percent of Australia's
cotton belt could be inundated by the soil borne pathogen Fusarium wilt
within the next decade" due to Roundup Ready cotton.

Fusarium contamination of cereals, such as the Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) in
wheat and barley that Dr. Fernandez is studying in Saskatchewan has been
responsible for serious crop losses. About a fifth of the wheat crop in
Europe every year is lost to FHB and in Michigan during 2002 it was
estimated that 30-40% of the crops were destroyed by the infestation. When
the mould passes into the food-chain undetected, Fusarium epidemics on
cereals can have even worse effects: a Fusarium epidemic of cereals was
considered responsible for thousands of deaths in Russia during the 1940s
and more recently in 2001, it caused a series of deadly birth defects among
tortilla-eating Mexican-Americans in Brownsville, Texas.

When cultured on Petri dishes, Fusarium can display various colours, often
ranging from orange to salmon-coloured, and it has a varying appearance on
different cereals and at different stages of its life cycle. On wheat and
rye it can appear as a chalky white colour; on barley it can appear as a
black rust, and on oats it can be black and reddish-orange coloured. Small
amounts of contamination of grains are invisible to the human eye, and
chemical tests have to be done to detect it. Since such tests are at the
expense of the farmer, minute amounts continually enter commercial food
products. It is at the higher levels that it can become a serious problem.

The Fusarium fungus can produce a range of toxins that are not destroyed in
the cooking process such as vomitoxin, which as its name suggests, usually
produces vomiting and not death, to the more lethal compounds which include
fumonisin, which can cause cancer and birth defects to the very lethal
chemical warfare agent fusariotoxin, more often referred to as T2 toxin.

During 2000, the US Congress planned to use the fungus Fusarium as a
biological control agent to kill coca crops in Colombia and another fungus
to kill opium poppies in Afghanistan, but these plans were dropped by
then-president Clinton who was concerned that the unilateral use of a
biological agent would be perceived by the rest of the world as biological
warfare. The Andean nations, including Colombia, where it was to be used in
the drug war against coca cultivation banned its use throughout the region.
Sanho Tree, the director of the Institute for Policy Studies Drug Policy
Project commented about using a chemical that produces a banned
micro-organism: "The US has supplied tens of thousands of gallons Roundup to
the Colombian government for use in aerial fumigation of coca crops. We have
been using a fleet of crop dusters to dump unprecedented amounts of
high-potency glyphosate over hundreds of thousands of acres in one of the
most delicate and bio-diverse ecosystems in the world. This futile effort
has done little to reduce the availability of cocaine on our streets, but
now we are learning that a possible side-effect of this campaign could be
the unleashing of a Fusarium epidemic in Amazon basin. The drug war has
tried in vain to keep cocaine out of people's noses, but could result
instead in scorching the lungs of the earth."

Because of the glyphosate-Fusarium link, Canada's National Farmers Union is
already opposing the introduction of genetically-engineered "Roundup Ready"
wheat, and this issue shows no signs of going away. Time will only tell if
Monsanto will be able to "fix" the problems of their "Roundup Ready" crops
with more genetic engineering- this time to control Fusarium--or will their
top weed killer and flagship line of "Roundup Ready" crops be rejected by
today's farmers?

Jeremy Bigwood is a freelance writer and investigator specializing in Latin
America. A shorter version of this story was published by IPS.

In article ,
Siberian Husky wrote:


-- Do not fight against anonymous people (who knows, maybe "Bill
Oliver" itself is not a real name, but I don't care ). After a
lengthy flamewar, most netters will believe Bill Oliver (1), Dick
Tracy (1), James Bond (1), Ethan Hunt (1), Clark Kent (1), ...... are
not contributing anything for environment and gardening discussions,
and they wan to ignore all of them. Anonymous names and email
addresses can be generated unlimited, but billo is only one. If you
decide to hunt them down, you will only spend your time in useless
directions.

The "hunting down" was not done by me. It was done by those who,
lacking any scientific basis, decided to try to dig up dirt
on me -- and, failing that, made things up.


I do not think gardeners like paghat or animaux are malicious.

Then you have not been reading this thread.

They
just don't have trust in Monsanto when you do not find any scientific
experiments showing Roundup to be dangerous (again, that is different
from showing Roundup to be safe).


First, *no* experiment can show *anything* to be "safe" to your
definition. If you apply that standard, the *everything* is
life-threatening. In fact, all studies have shown that toxic
effects require very high doses or very long incubations. What
kind of study, for example, would you require?


Second, the studies were not all done by Monsanto.


Third, if it were "just" that they don't like Monsanto,
it would not be necessary to engage in the attempts
at personal destruction that paghat, animaux, Tom,
and their ilk specialize in. This is not just a matter
of them disagreeing with the scientific literature, this
thier attempt at witch-burning.


maybe thru misunderstanding, or
another netters jump in and digged up your employer and else, and
subconsciously you think "this is a war between me and them", so you
raise your tone and animaux or paghat also raise their tones, and you
know what happened...... Hehe.


Your memory is faulty. If you read the thread you will notice
that the personal attacks started from *day one* with paghat,
et al. accusing me of being in the pay of Monsanto, attacking
my integrity, etc. There was no "subconscious" misreading here.


In this case, leave the thread for one or
two days to cool yourself down, and come back again. That helps :P
Maybe someone else wrote whatever you wanna say.

Maybe you should be counselling paghat, animaux, Tom, et al.


billo