Organic fad meets reality

White House organic garden

Organic foods: trendy, politically correct, more expensive, and no nutritional advantage.

Yet "there isn't much difference between organic and conventional foods, if you're an adult and making a decision based solely on your health," said Dena Bravata, senior author of the paper and a physician at Stanford's Center for Health Policy.

The data don't fit well with consumers' stated motivations for buying organic foods. A 2010 Nielsen study found that 76% bought them believing they are healthier, 53% because they allowed them to avoid pesticides and other toxins, 51% because they are more nutritious and 49% because organic farming is better for the environment.

Channel 15 misses the point

Long line at Phoenix Chick-fil-A today

Phoenix, AZ's Channel 15 explains that today's nationwide Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day is about opposition to gay marriage.

The row over same-sex marriage could see thousands of Christians flocking to Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, while same-sex couples will turn up at the fast-food chain Friday for public displays of affection.

Both events are intended as mass shows of support by people on both sides of the marriage issue and mark the latest round in a long-standing beef that gay and lesbian rights groups have with Chick-fil-A's leadership, which has openly espoused biblical values, not only in its operating principles, but in its conservative definition of family as well.

Sure, some of the folks standing on line in the desert sun for hours, just to buy a chicken sandwich, may be opposed same sex marriage, just as Barry Obama was, up until a couple of weeks ago.  But we believe most of the sweltering customers are there today to protest government officials unconstitutionally using state power to punish a guy whose personal beliefs differ from those of the politicians' core supporters.  And, of course, to score a tasty and affordable lunch.

Update:  Readers of Ithaca' own  Legal Insurrection are flooding the blog with photos  of Chic-fil-As around the country.  Here's an amazing video.

What's for dinner?

Sarah and Todd pick up some chicken

More buyer's remorse

The last word on Chick-Fil-A

The science is settled.  Openly gay rapper Antione Dodson will continue to dine at Chick-Fil-A.

Buyer's remorse

Michael leaves the plantation.  LA Times, release the Khalidi tapes now!

Eating judgmentally

"Food you feel good about"

Finger Lakes residents, perhaps more than any other Americans, are constantly harassed by our elites:  "spend three times as much to buy organic food, or you're no better than Bush!"   While we're usually too polite to question our neighbors' religious beliefs, Diane Mapes has the cojones to ask the question:  "Does organic food turn people into jerks?"

Renate Raymond has encountered her fair share of organic food snobs, but a recent trip to a Seattle market left her feeling like she'd stumbled onto the set of "Portlandia."

"I stopped at a market to get a fruit platter for a movie night with friends but I couldn't find one so I asked the produce guy," says the 40-year-old arts administrator from Seattle. "And he was like, 'If you want fruit platters, go to Safeway. We're organic.' I finally bought a small cake and some strawberries and then at the check stand, the guy was like 'You didn't bring your own bag? I need to charge you if you didn't bring your own bag.' It was like a 'Portlandia skit.' They were so snotty and arrogant."

To see if Raymond is just a crank, or might be on to something, Mapes asked a scientist.

"There's a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous," says author Kendall Eskine, assistant professor of  the department of psychological sciences at Loyola University in New Orleans. "I've noticed a lot of organic foods are marketed with moral terminology, like Honest Tea, and wondered if you exposed people to organic food, if it would make them pat themselves on the back for their moral and environmental choices. I wondered if  they would be more altruistic or not."

If you're not already singing harmony, and we suspect you are, read the whole thing.

h/t Museum Guy.

5/21 update -  Rush Limbaugh piles on: 

 Which Came First, the Jerk or the Diet?

"Economic development councils" will prevent economic development

Planned city, now abandoned, former USSR

Who believes that that way to revive the once-Empire State's moribund economy is to allow the people who got us here to spend billions more of our tax dollars on Soviet-style central planning?  We'll tell you who:  Andy Cuomo and his gang of politicians, union bosses, academics and crony capitalists.

Dryden resident Tracy Marisa, speaking for the Dryden Safe Energy Coalition, takes to the Ithaca Journal to to explain why Cuomo's merry band is doomed to fail.

Central planning is not what New York needs; we need less government planning and a reduction in the role of government.

New York starts in the race for jobs with two strikes against it: one of the highest total tax burdens in the nation and excessive regulation coupled with bureaucratic administration. These are the problems that need to be addressed.

Marisa reminds us who's riding in Cuomo's clown car.

The composition of these councils also demonstrates a failure to understand how to achieve economic development as a majority of their members are drawn from academia and government.

Marisa provides alternative suggestions for shocking Upstate back to life.  Be sure to read the whole thing. 

Opening of the Erie Canal, 1825

Who is "the gas industry"?

The force behind the energy industry

Reposted from July 28, 2011

Here in the Finger Lakes, it seems every self-important leftist follows the "no-fracking " dogma religiously, without considering opposing points of view.  Since these right thinking drones are found everywhere in an academia-dominated bioregion like ours, the media has no trouble locating them when they need an opinion on the evil plutocrats running the shale gas industry.

The pro-energy, pro-jobs, pro-prosperity point of view is always represented as "the gas industry."  What the "mainstream" media, which does not do well with economics, is missing is that the "gas industry," as they understand it, does not exist.  Unlike coercive government programs, the "gas industry" would not exist if every man, woman, child and reporter didn't choose to consume energy on a daily basis.  The "gas industry" is really nothing but a willing servant, doing the demanding bidding of the common man.  But the "gas industry" is much easier to demonize than, say, Mrs. Smith's fifth grade class, which can study environmentalism in a nice warm classroom in January in the Finger Lakes, instead of shivering in a crude shelter in the woods, hoping to survive until spring.

What we really need is a way to create energy from the Finger Lakes' unlimited supply of hypocrisy.  Why, even our newly arrived "off the grid" cultists are usually hiding a gasoline powered generator from Lowe's somewhere on the homestead.  The next time an anti-energy "friend of the earth" asks you to sign her "let's outlaw fracking" petition, you should first ask her to shut down her website, give up air travel, stop drinking coffee, and turn over her smart phone, Volvo keys, prescription drugs and imported synthetic clothing.  

And, speaking of energy consumers, Lonely Conservative has also grown impatient.

We’re surrounded by so many stupid people who buy into the crap the left is spewing, but we’ll never see them turn off their power. Where the heck do they think it comes from?

PA booms, NY suffers

The New York Post discovers that New York City's Upstate neighbors could benefit from increased economic activity.  What took them so long?

‘If it wasn’t for the gas business, none of these people would be working right now,” David Dalrymple said, pointing to one of his crews building a road in Athens Township, Pa.

By “gas business,” he meant drilling made possible by “fracking” -- a process for extracting natural gas that’s legal in Pennsylvania but not yet in New York.

The Post catches up with Upstate bloggers in getting to the heart of the matter.

Then there’s Jennifer Huntington, who operates a 1,000-acre dairy farm with 500 cows in Middlefield, NY.

She has a lease with a gas company for a vertical well on her farm. The well could produce enough gas to service the municipal buildings and hospital nearby -- and give her the much-needed capital to make improvements on the farm. Work there wouldn’t even require fracking.

But a movement led by academics and part-time residents -- people wealthy enough to enjoy the country life without worrying about making a living -- got the town to ban drilling altogether. She has sued the town to get the ban lifted.

The war against fracking is a class war.  Our elites don't want truck drivers, waitresses, building contractors, furniture salesmen, hair dressers, satellite TV installers, or any other of Upstate's non-anointed masses to be able to upset the status quo.  To the swells, their neighbors' financial struggles are nothing more than necessary collateral damage.

Liberals for Palin

The busiest professor at Cornell University, and the are thousands of them, Bill Jacobson, analyses this morning's shocking Palin-positive commentary in the New York Times.

Pigs fly today.  Anand Giridharadas at The NY Times picks up on this theme, recognizing that in vilifying Palin liberals have closed their minds to Palin’s ideas, which are liberal (in the traditional sense, not the modern Democratic Party sense)...

The good Professor's take on this historic event matches our own.

This probably will not signal a sea change in media coverage of Palin, or among conservative pundits.  Liberals and conservatives alike have been played for fools by their media and their parties.

But hopefully it is a starting point of the recognition that Palin stands alone among major political figures in the United States seeking a transformation of the country consistent with its founding principles, not against them, principles which used to appeal to liberals.  Palin’s anti-statist anti-crony capitalism message has the power to reach across parties, which is why that message gets buried in Palin Derangement Syndrome.

Unless you're shoveling mud out of your living room today, we recommend you read the whole thing.

Another Finger Lakes town bans gas drilling

Alternative fuel delivery in Ulysses

Jumping on the anti-energy bandwagon, one more rural Cornell University bedroom community, the Town of Ulysses, NY, has passed another me-too gas drilling ban.

Ulysses residents crowded the Town Hall in Trumansburg to show support for the Town Board's vote to ban hydrofracking for natural gas.

Ulysses joined the Towns of Ithaca and Dryden as the third municipality in Tompkins County to ban the process.

In order to maintain purity, the town board also banned the use of natural gas.  Hundreds of cheering Ulysses residents lined up to to sign NYSEG disconnect forms, while local twig gatherers pitched their services.

Who is the gas industry?

The force behind the energy industry

Here in the Finger Lakes, it seems every self-important leftist follows the "no-fracking " dogma religiously, without considering opposing points of view.  Since these right thinking drones are found everywhere in an academia-dominated bioregion like ours, the media has no trouble locating them when they need an opinion on the evil plutocrats running the shale gas industry.

The pro-energy, pro-jobs, pro-prosperity point of view is always represented as "the gas industry."  What the "mainstream" media, which does not do well with economics, is missing is that the "gas industry," as they understand it, does not exist.  Unlike coercive government programs, the "gas industry" would not exist if every man, woman, child and reporter didn't choose to consume energy on a daily basis.  The "gas industry" is really nothing but a willing servant, doing the demanding bidding of the common man.  But the "gas industry" is much easier to demonize than, say, Mrs. Smith's fifth grade class, which can study environmentalism in a nice warm classroom in January in the Finger Lakes, instead of shivering in a crude shelter in the woods, hoping to survive until spring.

What we really need is a way to create energy from the Finger Lakes' unlimited supply of hypocrisy.  Why, even our newly arrived "off the grid" cultists are usually hiding a gasoline powered generator from Lowe's somewhere on the homestead.  The next time an anti-energy "friend of the earth" asks you to sign her "let's outlaw fracking" petition, you should first ask her to shut down her website, give up air travel, stop drinking coffee, and turn over her smart phone, Volvo keys, prescription drugs and imported synthetic clothing.  

And, speaking of energy consumers, Lonely Conservative has also grown impatient.

We’re surrounded by so many stupid people who buy into the crap the left is spewing, but we’ll never see them turn off their power. Where the heck do they think it comes from?

Dryden residents support fracking

The Town of Dryden, NY, a rural township evolving into a bedroom suburb for Cornell University, held a big anti-fracking hoedown last night.  Dryden's town board conducted a public hearing an on a me-too anti-fracking law.  We hear the usual anti-energy suspects were out in force.

Not to be overlooked in the "let's-return-to-the-stone-age" hysteria, supporters of a more balanced point of view have quickly organized as the Dryden Safe Energy Coalition. Check out the Coalition's website (linked) for a ton of facts and analysis. 

No diversity of thought in Ulysses

If there was any doubt that Tompkins County's Town of Ulysses has completed its transition from rural township to bedroom suburb for right-thinking academics, last night's public hearing settled the issue.  WHCU AM reports that over 100 folks attended the hearing on proposed changes to Ulysses' zoning regulations, intended to prevent shale gas extraction by hydrofracking.  Per this report, not a single soul deviated from the party line.

The Trumansburg Elementary School played host to a public hearing on a zoning amendment that would effectively ban gas drilling in the town of Ulysses.

Nearly 100 people attended the hearing Wednesday night with every speaker showing their support for the board and the ban.

Does every resident of the well educated, "friendly" suburb have exactly the same opinion?  Or have those with opposing viewpoints been intimidated to the point of silence? 

Update your bookmarks!

Congratulations to the Finger Lakes' leading blogger, Legal Insurrection's Professor William Jacobson, on the successful completion of a stressful weekend migration to a new and improved platform.  Be sure to update your bookmarks, as we have on our "Daily Blogs" list:  http://www.legalinsurrection.com/

Kelly shakes up Ithaca race

Janis Kelly

This year's mayoral election field in stereotypical Finger Lakes college town Ithaca, NY was shaping up to be the usual circular firing squad of leftists, greens, leftists, and leftists.  In fact, there are so many party line Democrats in the race that the local Democrat party has chosen not to endorse a candidate.  Our Ithaca correspondent suspects that this  reticence to endorse may be explained by a reluctance to offend any of the politically correct sub-groups represented by announced candidates Pam Mackesey, Svante Myrick , JR Clairborne, Anthony Gallucci, Sleepy, Dopey, Huey, Dewey, Louie, ....... zzzz .......

This morning on WHCU-AM, the Ithaca status quo  was shaken up when Janis Kelly threw her fedora into the ring.  Yes, intelligent, articulate, libertarian, female, gay Republican Janis Kelly.

Kelly will bring long absent diversity of thought to Ithaca's political echo chamber.  For the first time in our history, South of 5 and 20 endorses a candidate for mayor of Ithaca:  Janis Kelly.