Month: September 2014

The National Academy would (I hope)
never solicit testimony from creationists about the findings of
evolutionary science. But when it comes to biotech crops, the
National Academy has succumbed to the moral equivalent of listening
to creationists. How? By inviting numerous neoluddite charlatans
testify before a National Research Council (NRC) panel that is
working on a new report evaluating the safety of modern biotech
crops this week. The
anti-technology activist groups that appeared before the NAS
panel include the Center for Food Safety, Food and Water Watch, ETC
Group, Institute for Responsible Technology, Union of Concerned
Scientists and Consumers Union.

Jon Entine, who heads up the invaluable Genetic Literacy
Project, also testified and warned the NAS panel about how
inviting the claque of anti-biotechnology quacks to appear before
them will backfire.

From Entine’s testimony:

I don’t question the sincerity of the concerns of those invited
about the future of food and farming any more than I would question
the fervent belief of a Young Earth Christian that the earth is
6,000 years old. And I appreciate the bind that you faced in
organizing this project. While not respected in the broader science
community, some of those invited are part of the public
conversation, just as creationists are part of the debate over
evolution.

You face pressure to demonstrate to skeptics of GE that the NRC
and by proxy the American people are listening to their concerns.
Perhaps it made sense to invite science’s harshest critics. But
panel members, don’t assume that those who will have spoken will
ultimately embrace this process. Emboldened by the implicit
endorsement that an appearance at the Academy confers, they will
resume their campaigns to scare the public about a safe technology.
Don’t be shocked that for years to come, they will make hay that
they have been “consulted” by the National Academy of Sciences
about GMOs. Don’t be surprised that when you issue your report in
2016, you will be ridiculed for holding what they will then
characterize as a “rigged NRC process”.

That’s even more of a reason that if your goal is to demonstrate
your leadership, it’s critical that you speak out about what the
consensus science shows—no wavering or hedging to appease critics
that fail to use good science. You may have to take a forceful and
uncomfortable stand in the face of vocal criticism. Science is not
a democracy. We don’t get to vote on whether a whale is a fish or a
mammal…

The scientific consensus does not mean the public embraces sound
science on GMOs anymore than the certainty of natural selection
closes the public debate over evolution. Polls indicate half of
Americans believe in creationism or God-guided evolution…

You, this panel have an opportunity to end this charade,
this faux debate over GMO safety: There are simply no credible
studies in top flight journals—and none that has been repeated—that
suggest serious likely safety issues that would not also apply to
conventional or organic foods.

Entine’s
whole testimony is well worth reading. Let’s hope that the NRC
panel takes it to heart.

For more background, see my article, “The
Top 5 Lies About Biotech Crops.“

More than nine months after the
start of Obamacare’s primary coverage expansion, it’s still
difficult to discern exactly what its effect was. And new data
released today does little to clear up remaining questions.

Multiple surveys so far indicate that millions of people who did
not previously have coverage are now insured. But how many were
covered directly through the law? And what was the net
increase?

A new report
from The National Health Interview Survey, an in-home survey taken
by federal researchers the National Center for Health Statistics
within the Centers for Disease Control, represents the first time
the government has attempted to measure the net impact of the law
on coverage. The researchers found that the percentage of people
who said they lacked insurance at the time of the interview dropped
from 14.4 percent in the first quarter of last year to the 13.1
percent this year. That drop indicates that about 3.8 million more
people had insurance in the first quarter of this year than in the
first quarter of last year, which, as The New York Times

notes, is in line with the private tracking polls from
Gallup.

But this survey probably doesn’t measure the full impact of the
law. That’s because the survey was conducted from January through
March of this year, when Obamacare’s open enrollment period was
still ongoing. So it wouldn’t capture much of the last-minute
enrollment surge that accounted for a significant portion of the
sign-ups under the law. People who signed-up at the end of March,
or in the extended enrollment period in early April, wouldn’t have
technically been insured for another month or more.

That leaves us with a likely net increase in coverage of several
million. But exactly how many is still difficult to say.

Meanwhile, the direct effects of the law, as reported by the
administration, continue to be unclear. Through the summer, federal
health officials have been working to resolve application
discrepancies related to income and citizenship with millions of
individuals receiving coverage and subsidies under the law. At the
end of May, about 1.2 million households, or 1.6 million
individuals, had income-related discrepancies. According to a memo
sent from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
yesterday, about 467,000 of those have been “closed” and about
430,000 are “currently in the process of being resolved.”

That leaves 279,000 households, or about 363,000 people, who
could lose their subsidies if they don’t send in additional
paperwork to verify their incomes before September 30.  

If that happens, their coverage won’t immediately be cancelled.
But it’s likely that with the subsidy gone, many would drop the
coverage they had.

It’s possible that many have already lost their subsidies. The
CMS memo notes how many cases have been closed, and how many are
being resolved. But it doesn’t provide any information at all about
how those cases were resolved. That’s a departure from
when the discrepancies were first revealed in June. At the time, as
CBS News reported, federal health officials
stressed that consumers were coming out ahead in the “vast
majority” of resolved cases. It seems probable some portion of the
resolutions since, and perhaps even a significant fraction, were
resolved with the subsidies being taken away. 

The case of Timothy
Young made
national headlines in 2012 when New Mexico police anally
probed him in search of drugs (no contraband was found). His
ordeal was the result of a false positive alert by a drug-sniffing
police dog. Incredibly, the same dog was involved in a case
involving another New Mexico resident that resulted in forced
rectal exams that uncovered no drugs. That case ended with
authorities paying a
$1.6 million settlement (Young’s case is still
pending). 

Watch the full video above or click the link below for
downloadable versions, full text, and associated
links. 

About 4 minutes. Produced by Will Neff. Additional camera by
Paul Detrick.

Subscribe to Reason
TV’s YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications
when new videos go live.

View this article.

Apparently your labor is the opposite
of your sexuality in California: You can sell it, but you can’t
give it away for free.

California has a state law that prohibits for-profit companies
from using volunteer labor. Anybody who knows anything about
employment economics knows that this isn’t going to hit those big,
dastardly corporations that people hate. No, it’s going to end up
destroying small wineries like Westover Winery in Castro Valley.
From the
Mercury News:

A small-time vintner’s use of volunteer workers has put him out
of business after the state squeezed him like a late-summer grape
for $115,000 in fines — and sent a chill through the wine
industry.

The volunteers, some of them learning to make wine while helping
out, were illegally unpaid laborers, and Westover Winery should
have been paying them and paying worker taxes, the state Department
of Industrial Relations said.

“I didn’t know it was illegal to use volunteers at a winery;
it’s a common practice,” said winery owner Bill Smyth.

So instead, the place will shut down. It was open only 10 hours
of week and earned about $11,000 a year in profits for the owning
couple. The story notes that half of these volunteers were actually
students taking a class about making wine and were benefiting from
what they were learning. Essentially they were interns:

This was an incredible opportunity for me,” said Peter Goodwin,
a home winemaker from Walnut Creek who said he dreams of opening a
winery with some friends. “I got to learn from someone who knows
the business.”

The winery sometimes asked Goodwin if he wanted to assist in
different tasks.

“That’s what I wanted, to be as involved as much as possible —
it was all about learning,” he said. “I don’t understand the
state’s action. It was my time, and I volunteered.”

A state spokesperson’s response was to whine about what might
happen if there were a “catastrophic accident” (lawsuits?) and that
it wasn’t “fair” for wineries that have to pay employees to compete
with wineries who don’t. I don’t think anybody was worried that
this $11,000-a-year empire was going to put anybody out of
business, and it’s the state that mandated this system in the first
place. Whenever anybody who works in government talks about
creating a level field for the marketplace, you know some small
business owner somewhere is about to get screwed over. The story
notes that there are many small wineries like this one in the area
who rely on volunteers. They had to send them all home.  

(Hat tip to Hit and Run commenter Old Man With Candy.)

Thirty
countries met in Paris yesterday at the invitation of the
French president, Francois Hollande, to talk about the threat posed
by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) Among them were the
U.S., Russia, China, and the U.K. and several Arab countries but
not Syria, one of the countries in which ISIS is operating, nor
Iran, which borders Iraq and, as every country in the region,
considers ISIS a national security threat.

Instead, the American and Iranian governments used the
opportunity to exchange barbs. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, claimed his government refused a “private
request” from the U.S. to cooperate on ISIS. Iran already
assists Iraq militarily, as does the U.S., and also assists the
Syrian government in its ongoing civil war with ISIS and various
other rebel groups.

The Syrian government, meanwhile, has insisted airstrikes in
Syria without its permission would be a “big mistake,” blaming the
U.S. and its allies on helping to create ISIS. “Those who would
like to fight terrorism cannot fight terrorism in Syria or in Iraq
without coordinated actions with both governments and without a
broader international coalition,” Syria’s deputy foreign minister
said, according to the
Tehran Times. “That should also take on board Russia,
China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and all other countries. You
cannot fight terrorism when you collaborate with those who created
these terrorist groups, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and
others.” 

ISIS declared itself a caliphate in July, its dominion over all
Muslims and territory reaching from Turkey to Saudi Arabia, the
site of Islam’s holiest city. While some American politicians warn
that ISIS (like the big bads that came before it) could send agents
across the porous U.S.-Mexico border. ISIS has far closer borders
to penetrate in Saudia Arabia to the south and Turkey to the
north.

In the meantime, only the United States has conducted air
strikes in Iraq so far, and it is
looking for other countries to commit combat troops. France,
which called the ISIS conference last month, only began
surveillance flights over Iraq after receiving permission from the
Iraqi government at the conference.  Gen. Martin Dempsey, the
chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said ground troops in Iraq
would be possible if airstrikes “fail.” As the U.S. prepares to
escalate its military campaign against ISIS, it only provides
regional powers more threatened by ISIS’ operations
less incentive to act on their own.