The title of the e-mail speaks volumes about America’s political priorities when measured between health of the environment and the individual and corporate profits.

The title of the e-mail was “Dow & Monsanto Join Forces to Poison America’s Heartland”. Source: Truth Out.org by Richard Schiffman

About Monsanto Company—it is the world’s largest provider of patented genetically modified seeds for crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton, bringing in $10.5 billion this past year.

In fact, anything that makes food more expensive benefits Monsanto, which is why this corporation encourages the use of genetically engineered crops.

Schiffman says, “In a match that some would say was made in hell, the nation’s two leading producers of agrochemicals have joined forces in a partnership to reintroduce the use of the herbicide 2,4-D, one half of the infamous defoliant Agent Orange, which was used by American forces to clear jungle during the Vietnam War. These two biotech giants have developed a weed management program that, if successful, would go a long way toward a predicted doubling of harmful herbicide use in America’s corn belt during the next decade.”

Note from Blog host: Because I served in Vietnam and was exposed to Agent Orange, I am on the VA’s Agent Orange list. The VA (The United States Department of Veterans Affairs) lists these diseases on the VA Website as Veteran’s Diseases Associated with Agent Orange.

VA has recognized certain cancers and other health problems as presumptive diseases associated with exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides during military service.

Schiffman says, “The problem for corn farmers is that “superweeds” have been developing resistance to America’s best-selling herbicide Roundup, which is being sprayed on millions of acres in the Midwest and elsewhere. Dow Agrosciences has developed a strain of corn that it says will solve the problem. The new genetically modified variety can tolerate 2,4-D, which will kill off the Roundup-resistant weeds, but leave the corn standing. Farmers who opt into this system will be required to double-dose their fields with a deadly cocktail of Roundup plus 2,4-D, both of which are manufactured by Monsanto.”

Note from Blog host: This actual article is much longer than what I’ve posted in this comment. You may find the rest at Truth Out.org

Yes, everything I’ve read about starting a business in the US is that it is a challenge and the start up costs in China are much less.

I’ve read that 70% of small start-ups in the US fail within the first three years usually due to poor planning and lack of financial resources. I understand that the average small start up takes about three years to turn a profit so these people must have borrowed or saved money in the bank to keep them afloat while they work to build a client base. Starting a small business without this cash reserve is risky. And you are right, in China, since the exchange rate allows one to have more money to survive that start up time, he or she has may have an easier time to stay in business while building that client base.

However, some US companies are starting to come back to America because the cost of labor and the growing environmental movement in China is causing the cost of doing business to go up.

I read that by October 2011, Starbucks had opened its 500th coffee shop in China. There’s this USA Today piece about “Why Starbucks succeeds in China and others haven’t”

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/story/2012-02-12/cnbc-starbucks-secrets-of-china-success/53040820/1

Then there is Network marketing, which is illegal in China, and door-to-door sales, which isn’t, and this sort of business doesn’t cost the individual much to start for most of those types of companies (the buy in is low), but still selling any kind of product in the US or China, for that matter, is a challenge since there is so much competition from giant corporations such as Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, Costco, Target, etc.

As for card counting, the player only has to scan the table with his or her eyes and as the cards are turned over, he or she keeps a running count in his or her head. Each card has a value. The card counter doesn’t need to pull any rabbits out of the hat or touch any of the cards except those he or she is dealt. There are actually books that guide one on how to learn this skill because it is a skill. To learn the skill of card counting required about year of practice until I could go through an entire deck of cards in less than a minute and keep the count accurate without losing it.

Here’s one such book.

There are videos on YouTube but be careful. Some of them are attempting to convince you that you can count cards playing blackjack on the Internet—impossible.

The easiest game for a card counter is one where the dealer only has one deck. It is more difficult with a shoe. Then the player that is counting cards has to avoid the dealer or pit boss catching him or her scanning the cards as he or she keeps the count, which you will learn about in the following video.

And of course, there are casinos in China in Macao.

You said you were thinking of starting somwething small for an Amazon Kindle’s e-book? How small of a book are you considering? You may also want to explore using Amazon’s Create Space for a paperback sold through Amazon. In addition, you will probably want to have an ISBN number. This is important.

It isn’t that difficult to publish through Amazon once you have a finished book. However, you want that work to be edited and revised heavily so it measures up to industry standards.

On the topic of Americans doing business in China, I’ve heard it’s a tough game to play. On the other hand, if you can jump the hoops, I imagine it’s pretty enjoyable to be a business owner in China. The Chinese are always stretching to the “American Way”. Not only becoming a consumer driven society, but they want to be almost exactly like Americans in dress, speech, action, education, etc. A growing market potential. To me, starting a business in the US is dangerous. There’s many licenses, policies, paperwork, etc. Plus, trying to get a person interested in what you are selling (product/service) is easier said than done. It’s just my assumption because I’ve been trying to find a way to startup my own small coffee shop or hawaiin ice for many years. Usually the first step that burns the bridge is the capital required to start a business. Following that is licensing, getting an inspection from the health inspector, marketing, finding a rental space, acquiring equipment, acquiring product, etc. In China, thankfully the exchange rates take 10,000 USD and can turn it into approx 60,000 rmb. On that kind of money I could survive half a year without work.

Your run through Vegas sounds enjoyable. Off topic, but I agree it’s not illegal. Your defense of card counting sounds similar to a magician’s trick. Magic is not illegal, yet these professionals with a good hand can easily swindle thousands of dollars out of an audience by pulling a rabbit from a hat. Card counting sounds similar, except their audience doesn’t pay a ticket price to watch their performance.

I try to stay in contact with many of my friends. I miss them. They were kind enough to help a stranger they just met. They were creative and offered good advice when needed. In a business setting, a person would pay for consultation or “help”, so I’ve always felt I owe them.

When we read Bosshard’s original comment, which follows every post in this six part series, the question should be, “Who is being deceitful and attempting to manipulate the emotions of readers?”

When Bosshard starts his missive with “Deceit upon Deceit?” this assumes (even with the question mark) that I deliberately left out the facts about heavy metal contamination in China’s water, which by the way exists in the US and all industrialized nations and is a global problem and the topic of this series of posts.

In fact, when I framed my comment on the original post on which country was doing more to supply water to its people, India or China, I wasn’t thinking of heavy metals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and other pollution in the drinking water. I was only thinking of what can kill a person faster, which is the diarrhea one gets from drinking bacteria tainted water that hasn’t been boiled or not having any water at all.

Was I engaged in “willful deception” as Bosshard alludes? No!

Another topic might be which country, India vs. China, is making an effort to clean up its water and soil, and that answer would also be China since India is making no effort at all and China has already put long-term plans in motion.

Then Bosshard ends his comment with a phrase to stir the emotions of all God loving religious people. He writes, “God bless and keep all His Children safe and informed.”

As far as we know, Bosshard might be a secularist or atheist and he only uses such phrases to stir emotions, which worked when one reader left a comment pointing out that Bosshard wrote, “God bless”. In fact, anyone can say “God bless” but that doesn’t tell us what type of spiritual person they are.

As far as we know, Bosshard could be one of the “false prophets” the Bible warns us of.

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Mathews 7:15)

In addition, Christ said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8:7)

Since Bosshard appears to live in the San Francisco area, I suspect he is an American and since America has water and soil polluted with heavy metals in addition to pesticides, a host of other chemicals, chemical fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, etc., it is safe to say that Bosshard has no right to cast stones at China without pointing out that America also has heavy metals in its water. Instead, Bosshard isolates China as if judging her separate from the rest of the world’s nations when an international list shows that China is ranked thirteen or fourteen with a dozen countries that have more polluted water than China does.

Let us not forget that the Lord warned that we should not take or use His Name in vain as if we are speaking for Him. (Exodus 20:7)

I say, “May God bless all that are worthy of His blessings, but only He will decide who earns His blessings — Not someone called Bosshard or another anonymous individual in Beijing using IP 114.245.193.72 to send his or her comments and judgments.”

Therefore, I’m replying to faceless IP address 114.245.193.72 (the source of the comment I’m replying too), which is located in Beijing, China at Latitude 39.9289 and Longitude 116.3883. This anonymous commenter uses China Unicom Beijing province network for his or her ISP.

You digress IP 114.245.193.72. I was not wrong and I will not apologize. The topic of the original post that Bosshard commented on was about which country was doing a better job supplying water to its people: China or India. It’s obvious, regardless of the heavy metals that have been found in several of Chain’s rivers and lakes (not all of them), that China was doing a better job since India is doing nothing to supply water to its people, and all of their rivers in India are contaminated but not all of the rivers in China are contaminated. In addition, most of the polluted water in China comes from industries that are violating China’s environmental laws, which when passed, were all but ignored by those industries in other provinces upstream.

It is a fact, that China is known as the factory floor of the world and contracts with foreign suppliers around the world constrain factories in China from raising prices to deal with pollution so those factories cheat by dumping contaminants in rivers in spite of China’s environmental laws. If a Chinese factory doesn’t meet the prices its American or European client are willing to pay, the client goes elsewhere even to countries such as Vietnam.

Therefore, the managers of state owned and/or private owned industries along the Pearl, Yangtze and Yellow rivers often violate their nation’s laws by dumping contaminates in the water just as state and private owned industries have done in the US to save money and boost profits, which is what the post about America pointed out.

One source that was quoted in the series said that most of the contaminated soil in China was probably contaminated from the soot from burning coal. Most of China’s energy comes from coal burning power plants and most of China’s rural poor (about 800 million people—more than twice the population of the US) heat their homes and cook their meals burning coal.

However, it should be pointed out that in China, most or all of the older, dirtier coal burning power plants has been replaced with more up-to-date cleaner burning coal power plants while in the United States few of the old power plants have been shut down yet although current laws on the books have a timeline for this to be done. Meanwhile, lobbyists for the coal burning power plant industry in the US work hard in Washington D.C. to have these laws watered down or overturned due to fear of lost profits from that industry.

This wasn’t a discussion about religion. I will not be suckered into a religious debate when the topic was about water in China. Just because an anonymous commenter known as IP 114.245.193.72 throws out questions to divert the topic from its purpose, does not mean I will answer them. The series of posts on this topic of contaminated water and soil speaks for itself and says that China is not alone with this problem and that some countries are worse off and at one time before the US started to clean up (a job that is not done yet), it was the most contaminated country in the world.

If you read the entire series, you would know that the water that my family drinks at home in the United States is distilled. We do not drink the tap water.

After reading the disturbing facts about tap water quality in the US years ago, I bought a distiller from Sears and have used it ever since.

If you read this series, you would know that tests show water in rivers and lakes in America’s northeast is all contaminated with heavy metals.

In addition, although I didn’t mention this in the series, reports in the San Francisco Chronicle have pointed out that river and bay water in the Bay Area is heavily contaminated with prescribed medicines because many people flush their unused medications down the toilet and from there they flow into the rivers and bays. Due to this, there have been warnings not to eat fish caught in the SF bay.

In fact, Bosshard (and his Western media sources) deceived readers when he/they claimed 10% of China’s land area was contaminated with heavy metals when the reports coming out of China from its government said 10% of agricultural land, which is less than 10% of the total land area.

Also your appeal to emotion, which you supposedly do not employ in debate, was obvious when you said that critics condemn and criticize when the “ccp plans to do something about it….”
His post never criticized the ccp action regarding water. He criticized you in three points I just articulated.
You shoul apologize to the readers for misleading them in this instance.
Regarding the subject matter, he criticized your judgement.
His criticism of the communist regime goes unexplained except for the word ‘havoc’ , thus you cannot understand what his qualms are.
If you reply to my comment, please stay on point. There are three questions only.

Romance?

Hmm, sounds like a good true-to-life story! You never mentioned Larice before.

“I’ve yet to run my good luck streak”

I was a card counter at the game of 21 in Vegas and Reno back in the early 90s, so I assure you the odds will eventually favor you but fortune is capricious. Some that read this may believe card counting is illegal but it isn’t. It is only a method to see when the odds are in the players favor. Just don’t get caught. Casinos have the right to refuse service to anyone caught counting cards, bar you from gambling, and share this info with all the other casinos. They do not like seeing the odds tip away from the house. Counting cards is hard work because the player must turn his brain into a human calculator that does not forget any of the numbers flowing through it and the running total changes with each card that appears on the table.

However, as for Larice, I hope you stayed in touch via e-mail.

I’ve yet to run my good luck streak.

We once worked across dingy tables at the same buxiban in Taipei. I applaud the time and will you have invested into your writing on this topic. That said, what I have to say may come off as quite harsh. I still strive to be fair, but perhaps it’s as fair as I find your findings.

1) I find your decisive attributions to Mao of all the suffering and hardship of the Chinese people somewhat uneven. We have to remember that Mao did age and grow old during his reign. While the Great Leap tragedy is most certainly his own, I don’t think he owns the Cultural Revolution, which was more a Gang of Four product during his Reagan-esque old age.

2) As a thank you, Mao attacked the US in Korea…I know you were in Korea before Taiwan, yet it dismays me to see you portray the Chinese involvement in that war in such a way. History is quite clear that MacArthur abused his command and disobeyed orders in a belligerent attempt to start a war with China. His thank you was being relieved of command. His almost thank you’s include nuclear strikes on China and “creating a trench of radioactive waste” to separate borders. I’ll come back to this in the question section.

3) You’ve written a book called “Why China Will Never Rule the World”. Now, I agree that SOME hype about China might be exaggerated, but speaking in terms of logical fallacies, is this not just one big straw man? Who is going to rule the world? What does it mean to rule the world? On the other hand, taken as travel writing and not scholarly, it might be awesome to write a whole string of cynical books called “Why _____ will never rule the world”. You could start with Tonga and end with Canada.

4) If you spent 10 years in Basque country, then took a 6-month tour of Spain before deciding to write a serious critique of the Iberian Peninsula, you’d be laughed at. What exactly led you to the idea that a holiday in the “mainland” was sufficient for you to conclusively arrive at all of your judgments?

5) You ground your observations in logic, Aristotle and the like. How bout grounding them in a peer-reviewed academic journal of Asian/Chinese studies?

6) Because really, I’ve watched and read. As an ESL teacher in Asia, this all smacks of ill-adjusted westerners talking smack in a staff-room somewhere in Asia. Been there, done that, heard it all in 3 Far Eastern countries, 1 Middle Eastern, and 2 European.

7) Specifically, by 6 above I mean that I could take one Chinese teacher, plunk him in Hawaii for ten years, then send him out on a holiday to “discover America” (preferably on a chopper with Dennis Hopper) to go “find” what he already discerned in year 1.

8) China may not rule the world, but try living without China for a year.

Now, for the questions:

a) Do you yourself find your observations to be fair and balanced?

b) In China’s absence, who is going to rule the world?

c) If confucianism is the wrong way to go, what do you recommend as an alternative?

d) What school of thought/learning do you think is typified by your own writings?

e) Considering the time you’ve invested in scholarly trappings, when, if ever, will these “scholarly findings” be featured in a scholarly journal?