DAccording to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, 88 percent of the 2011 U.S. corn crop consists of genetically engineered varieties — either herbicide-tolerant types like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn, or insect-resistant types containing genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), or both. The figure for the 2011 U.S. soybean crop is 94 percent genetically modified. For the 2011 cotton crop the figure is 90 percent genetically modified.]]> Odds are that this week or next the Palestinians will unilaterally declare their independence. What happens next? It’s easier to say what won’t happen. Peace isn’t going to break out. Conflict and violence will. Chances are events will play out something like this:]]> It's the least you should do. If you want to keep Gaddafi from putting down the popular revolt in Libya and systematically murdering tens of thousands of Libyans - you do, don't you - then ground his air force.]]> About the anti-corporate personhood referendum that might be on the Boulder ballot this November — I smell a rat. Several, in fact. The ballot proposal put forward by Councilman Macon Cowles would put Boulder voters on record as favoring an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to “abolish corporate personhood and prohibit the granting of constitutional rights to any entity other than a human being.” ]]> And now, the next president of the United States! David Walker! Huh? Yeah, you know, David Walker. The former comptroller general of the United States. The guy who has been traveling around the country for years saying sensible things about money. That David Walker.]]> First, when it comes to ballot proposals generally, the tendency is to vote no. When voters are uncertain about what a ballot measure will do and they often are they usually conclude that the safest course of action is to maintain the status quo by voting no.]]> Since 9/11, we have liquidated the Since 9/11, we have liquidated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the Ba’athist regime in Iraq; shot bin Laden and thousands of his excitable boys; dragged Saddam out of a hole and enabled his hanging; stood up a working, if not exactly flourishing, democracy in Iraq; foiled dozens of terror plots and prevented another terror attack of 9/11 proportions from taking place in the American homeland...]]> TAbout Mitt Romney and the Bain Capital thing: I’ve always admired venture capitalists. But not all venture capitalists are equal. The admirable ones are the sort who fund the start-up companies of entrepreneurs like Jobs and Wozniak. They’re the ones who enable the emergence of revolutionary technologies and ways of doing things that transform the marketplace and change the world.]]> Coal is a hydrocarbon that, to the profound annoyance of a lot of people, sustains civilization as we know it. It's mainly used to generate electricity, and nearly half the electricity used in the U.S. comes from coal-fired power plants. Another 20 percent comes from natural gas-fired ones.]]> 'Radical?' T.J. said coldly. 'Of course it's radical! I am a radical! I am not just a radical; I am radicalism! I wrote the most radical document in American history. The second sentence of that document is the most radical sentence in human history. Allow me to quote it to you in its entirety:]]> I was just kicking back with my second piece of Alice B. Toklas fudge when there was a knock on the door. It was Richard Nixon. “I thought you were in Purgatory,” I said. “Bill Safire used to say you were there for sticking the country with wage and price controls in 1971.” “I’m out on a pass,” he said. “Tomorrow [ June 17] is the 39th anniversary of the Watergate burglary, and we’re having a reunion.”]]> Late last Sunday evening, a Navy SEAL team dropped in unexpectedly on Osama bin Laden and said, in so many words, 'Hi, asshole. We understand you want to die for your religion, and we think that's a great idea. We're from the federal government, and we'd like to help.']]> President Obama has been flitting around the country intimating that U.S. natural gas reserves have tripled in the last three years as a result of his administration’s policies. His chutzpa is astonishing.]]> A couple of weeks ago the price of natural gas dropped below $2 per thousand cubic feet, the lowest it has been in more than a decade before rebounding somewhat. For that, the 99 percent — the 99 percent of Boulder residents who heat their homes with natural gas, that is — can thank an oil company.]]> If you want to know why fracking is here to stay, consider what’s been going on in Weld County. The Wattenberg gas and oil field, which sprawls across 1.9 million acres of Weld County, is a pin cushion of more than 20,000 wells, more than 12,000 of which are still producing.]]> Hands down easiest prediction for 2012: Boulder’s hyper-active activists will take time out from their busy schedule of sabotaging American food production to sabotage American oil and gas production.]]> 1. They are doing the Lord's work - assuming you believe the Lord (aka Yahweh, aka Allah) endowed men with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the right to take down deranged tyrants who have become abusive of those rights.]]>