January 31, 2016::End of the day round-up (pg 2)

David Barton: Thomas Jefferson Would Like Ted Cruz for President

It now seems clear why Barton and WND brought out The Jefferson Lies now. This rather transparent attempt to claim Jefferson as a Cruz supporter comes just as Iowans caucus next week.

No, Franklin Graham, LGBTQ Children Are Not The Enemy 

Genetically Engineered crops and seed saving myths.

Firstly, by the 1930s, commercial hybrid crop varieties began to proliferate. When one replants second generation seeds from hybrids, one gets a mixture of inferior varieties, so it was in farmers’ best interest to buy new seeds each year. This was especially true for corn farmers, who had by and large been relying almost exclusively on hybrids for roughly a half a century before GE technology came along.

Secondly, buying seeds each year grants farmers certain quality assurances which would let them be confident that either their seeds would be of high quality, or that they’d at least have some recourse of action in the event that the seeds didn’t perform as advertised.

Thirdly, the plant patent act of 1930 meant that plant breeders could procure intellectual property rights on certain varieties of seeds. If everyone just bought the seed once and then made as many copies as they ever wanted, the patents would become meaningless, and there’d be less incentive for innovation in plant breeding. In principle, this is not all that different from software licensing agreements and other forms of intellectual and/or artistic copyrights in which unchallenged piracy would ostensibly permit unlimited copies to be made for free, in which case the concept of intellectual property rights would be rendered meaningless.

BBC - Earth - Found: an ancient crocodile as long as a bus 

Some say POE. some say no,,, Christians Against Dinosaurs Want You To Know They’re ‘Fighting Big Paleo For Christ’ (VIDEO)

UPDATE: Ali Forney Center s Donation Campaign To Buy Harlem Hate Church Tops $75K In First 48 Hours - Joe.My.God. 

AMAZING! On Thursday we learned that Harlem’s infamous “Jesus Would Stone Homos” hate church will be placed to public auction on February 24th due to over $1M in unpaid debts. Late Friday afternoon the Ali Forney Center, which serves homeless LGBT youths, announced a campaign to buy the building and the donation drive has already rocketed above $75,000. AFC founder Carl Siciliano tells us that a huge chunk of the donations have come from the JMG community. Let’s keep that thermometer rising!