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Let's get your facts straight, 1.) It IS UNNATURAL. 2.) It IS HARMFUL. 3.) genetic pollution HAPPENS OFTEN.

Genetically Modified High Frutcose Corn Syrup is harmful to people's health and GM crops don't grow by themselves.

Organic farms are increasingly finding that via cross-pollination their pure food has been contaminated with GM DNA thus ruining their businesses.

It is illegal to grow GM maize in Mexico..

"Genetic pollution" and collateral damage from GE field crops already have begun to wreak environmental havoc. Wind, rain, birds, bees, and insect pollinators have begun carrying genetically-altered pollen into adjoining fields, polluting the DNA of crops of organic and non-GE farmers. An organic farm in Texas has been contaminated with genetic drift from GE crops on a nearby farm and EU regulators are considering setting an "allowable limit" for genetic contamination of non-GE foods, because they don't believe genetic pollution can be controlled. Because they are alive, gene-altered crops are inherently more unpredictable than chemical pollutants--they can reproduce, migrate, and mutate. Once released, it is virtually impossible to recall genetically engineered organisms back to the laboratory or the field.

Large-scale genetic contamination of imported cottonseed in Greece

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/gepollution.cfm
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/pollution.cfm
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsant o_and_Genetic_Pollution
http://www.globalchefs.com/column/archive/col011po l.htm
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/environmentalscienc e/casestudies/case15.mhtml

And on and on and on and on and on and fucking on...

(the following snipet was stolen at random from: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Dangers-of-High-Fruc tose-Corn-Syrup&id=28535 )

High Fructose Corn Syrup

High fructose corn syrup is made by treating corn (which is usually genetically modified corn) with a variety of enzymes, some of which are also genetically modified, to first extract the sugar glucose and then convert some of it into fructose, since fructose tastes sweeter than glucose. The end result is a mixture of 55% fructose and 45% glucose, that is called "high fructose corn syrup." Improvements in production occurred in the 1980's making it cheaper than most other sweeteners. I remember in the 1980's when the price of Pepsi dropped from about $3 for a sixpack to about $1.50. In 1966 refined sugar such as sucrose was the was the leading sweetener / additive. In 2001 corn sweeteners accounted for 55% of the sweetener market. Consumption of high fructose corn syrup went from zero in 1966 to 62.6 pounds per person in 2001. A 12 ounce soda can contain as much as 13 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup.

Once again, the dangerous combination: fructose and glucose.

When high fructose corn syrup breaks down in the intestine, we once again find near equal amounts of glucose and fructose entering the bloodstream. As covered in recent newsletters, the fructose short-circuits the glycolytic pathway for glucose. This leads to all the problems associated with sucrose. In addition, HFCS seems to be generating a few of its own problems, epidemic obesity being one of them. Fructose does not stimulate insulin production and also fails to increase "leptin" production, a hormone produced by the body's fat cells. Both of these act to turn off the appetite and control body weight. Als

Monsanto sounds like the RIAA of corn for chrissakes.

  "They showed up at my door 6 o'clock in the morning. They flipped a badge
    out," said Good, a Burlington County soybean grower. "It wasn't polite what
    they were saying. They acted like FBI."

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/bigbeans0 22602.cfm

Monsanto has a long history of using a combination of tactics, bribery, force and unethical means to get their products sold world wide.

This has apparently become a huge problem in developing countries like India where farmers are committing suicide in the thousands, because they are too poor to keep re-purchasing monsanto seeds every year - thanks to the terminator gene infested crops they do not germinate.

Contrary to what monsanto claims, the plants ability to resist pests and the use of pesticides has not declined.

In China, there have been huge uproars about how genetically modified Bt cotton, designed to control bollworm, is encouraging the spread of other types of insect pests. There has been a huge impact on the insect ecology, which is resulting in new problems for farmers.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/patent/chinacotton 060702.cfm

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2011/stories/200 30606005912300.htm

Don't forget, Monsanto was one of the companies who produced and supplied agent orange ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange ) during the vietnam war, and they wouldn't blink before screwing half the world if it profited them.

The FDA has already done such a bang up job on identifying melamine in wheat, rice, and/or corn gluten. If they had such success with pet food, why not chocolate? Or should we turn to the USDA to help with our organic chocolate. After all they want to help improve the quality of our organic coffee.

It figures. Since this is /. an article on the FDA trying to regulate something healthy doesn't show up, but chocolate does. (This is a joke for the humor-impaired.)

Seriously, the FDA is Attempting to Regulate Supplements, Herbs and Juices as "Drugs". This is very important. The Big Pharmaceutical corporations have been trying to get natural medicine banned for years. Instead of taking herbs, vitamins, minerals, and other natural and very inexpensive remedies, Big Pharma wants to drug everyone. Medical costs are already skyrocketing here in the US - we should have the freedom to choose whatever kind of treatment we want, not be forced into one choice: corporate drugs.

Chinese medicine (herbs, acupuncture, etc.) has been around for thousands of years. People have been curing themselves long before Big Pharma pushed all of their drugs on us. It absolutely upsets me that the FDA, another alphabet-soup agency, doesn't work for "we the people" but instead for the very top elite executives of Big Pharma.

Starbucks is certainly quite successful at projecting an image of social responsiblity, yes - so much so that uninformed people like you believe that they created the fair trade movement, when actually Fair Trade is a decades old idea and Starbucks use of a tiny amout of Fair Trade coffee is just greenwash.

The article you linked just says that Starbucks only buys a small amount of FairTrade coffee. But it says nothing about how much fairly traded coffee they buy. These are two different concepts. FairTrade is a trademark for a certification process. If something is labeled you can be assured that it is fairly traded, but if something is not labeled FairTrade you cannot be sure of the opposite.

Starbucks is a sufficient large buyer to make it interesting to implement their own fair trading. And there may be good reasons for this, e.g. the overhead of the FairTrade process. In the YouTube video they claim that they often pay even more than FairTrade, and this seems completely possible since they could optimize logistics in a way that selling FairTrade coffee to consumers wouldn't allow.

So the complaint in the linked article is that the money Starbucks spends on coffee is not run through the FairTrade organization, not that the coffee is not traded fairly. Somehow they forgot to make this more obvious.

Should any fairly traded product be bought from FairTrade? I don't think so. Competition does not only lower prices, it also increases efficiency (thereby allowing lowering the prices). If Starbucks can pay the coffee farmers more than FairTrade due to their better process, I welcome this, because it will increase the consumption of fairly traded coffee in a significant way, while this might not happen if the price difference stays the same as it is today possibly due to inefficiencies in the FairTrade process.

I don't know these things, I have no numbers about how much Starbucks pays coffee farmers etc. But I have the ability to distinguish between a justified criticism and someone trying to defend their monopoly by calling someone else unethical.

The only reason why I know anything at all about the disease is because of the Janet Skarbek documentary. With the law on the side of the beef producers (remember the Oprah case?), you won't see too many news outlets sticking their necks out to report this. That and the CDC is doing its best to discount any cases here in the USA as "normal" CJD (as opposed to the variant type).

What the upshot of all this is (as I understand it) is that the prion unfolds somewhat (mutates) and that is what does the damage. They aren't a virus, and they are dammed hard to destroy. And from what I remember, the mutated prions "saw" through the cells in the brain causing holes in it.

Check out the picture of a damaged brain:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/572832.stm

A link to the unfolding/misfolding info:

http://www.cprmap.com/prion/prion-finding-offers-i nsight-into-spontaneous-protein-diseases-8134.html

A link to the Janet Skarbek documentary:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/sight8704.c fm

The latest victim in the USA:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&arti cleID=13D8532225DEA4FCA8E0EBDFB27B83E4

And a reference to the Hindu/cow link:

http://www.sustainabletable.org/blog/archives/2005 /09/news_new_theory.html

I can't remember where I saw the Janet Skarbek documentary. I think it was either FreespeechTV or LinkTV.

Oh, and the word that I have to type in to prove that I'm not a script is "infected". Ironic.

Starbucks is one of the most socially responsible companies out there. They are pretty much why their is such a thing as "fair trade" coffee.

Starbucks is certainly quite successful at projecting an image of social responsiblity, yes - so much so that uninformed people like you believe that they created the fair trade movement, when actually Fair Trade is a decades old idea and Starbucks use of a tiny amout of Fair Trade coffee is just greenwash.

While Starbucks is certainly not the Pure Concentrated Evil of, say, a Halliburton or a Monsanto, neither are they the angels that their PR department would like you to believe. That they seem to treat their direct employees fairly well, is no indication of what ethics apply (or don't apply) to their deals with suppliers.

And to all the people that say *bucks pushes out the mom and pops: when was the last time they offered carreers or health insurance?

Uh huh. So rather than owning one's own small business, being a successful entrepreneur, the new American dream is to work for a national franchise, so that you can get health insurance. How incredibly fscking sad is that?

It's why I don't eat US beef, because the US views the problem as something to fix in the PR dept., not something to fix on the farm.

I heard that a US beef distributer wanted to do 100% testing of its beef so that it could market them as 100% tested mad-cow free. The USDA balked at this since it would put other distributers at a disadvantage. Although distributers pay for their own testing the USDA is somehow involved with this and were able to prevent the testing from taking place.

Gotta love the "free market" - where government watchdogs prevent industry from taking steps to improve its own safety. All in the name of lower costs. As if consumers can't decide for themselves whether they'd rather buy $1.99/lb untested beef or $2.09/lb tested beef. Just put them both on the shelf and customer decide...

Murderous Monsanto should never be trusted with our food supply. Not any part of it. Previous links just the tip of the iceberg.

See here for example.

The ongoing incorporation of nanotech may lead to a lot more need for health care. It should create more jobs in the legal industry, too. Database integration between health and legal could be a profitable IT venture.

Via must have looked at ISO14001 and found that they had no control over
chemical use, water pollution and what their subsidiaries in china were up to.
But since you can buy certificates to clean their otherwize uncontrolled electrical
supply they decided that if they could buy a green corporate image for by getting
certificates a small fractional percentage of their production.

This smells like Chiquita's banana stickers, nowhere close being accepted by
any real certification system, but bragged about in commercials everywhere.
Chiquita - Going Green or Greenwashing Corporate Crime?.

Everyone can make a difference by conserving power, but not by buying more stuff.

GE foods available for purchace are never harmful to humans. They are tested extensivly before release.

The FDA considers them GRAS (generally recognized as safe), for being "substantially equivalent" to the non-GE counterparts.

That said, we almost lost the Monarch butterfly because of GE wheat a few years ago (I can't remember what exactly it was, something missing in the wheat... I dunno).

Bt corn? herbicide-tolerant soybeans? Lots of GE crops have been blamed. Seems a tad suspicious.

Alcohol is one such example. Ever heard of alcohol POISONING?

Similarly, you can take "magic" mushrooms which are poisonous but get you high at the right dosage without dying.

The GP is obviouly very naive. There are TONS of toxins in foods/drinks people eat today. Alot of food is grown in chemical fertilizers unless it's organically grown. If you eat fish, you probably are eating a very tiny amount of mercury and various other toxins in the water. Also in the states, some farmers inject their cows with bovine growth hormones to improve milk yields. Okay, so maybe hormones aren't a toxin persay, but to me, they are evil/unwanted and at the same level as toxins as they can harm your body. Maybe you've heard about Mosanto and the Fox News cover-up where they prevented reporters from releasing a story about Mosanto's rBGH and how it causes cancer not to mention the needless pain and suffering of cows (due to swollen/infected udders, it's a condition called Mastitis).

Here in Canada, rBGH is banned, but it is still not banned in the United States. IMO, the U.S government rather maintain a dominant economy over risk loosing billions if word of U.S infected beef got out, so they will do whatever they can to prevent that from happening. But, they won't test EVERY cow for mad cow (because they claim that would be prohibitively expensive). Infact, I saw a story on CBC a few years ago about a small time beef farmer in the states that wanted to market his beef as having been 100% tested for mad cow disease. The government stepped in and prevented him from testing every cow and selling it because this would set a "precedent" where all the big time beef farmers would have to follow suit, costing them alot of money in the process. So this small time farmer was prevented from marketing his beef as 100% mad-cow tested, pretty sad really (I wish I could find the original story, it was quite amazing that the government would interfere with a small-time business like that to protect the beef industry as a whole, meanwhile putting beef consumers at a greater risk for the sake of profit).

US Continues to Violate WHO Mad Cow Guidelines
Old CBC News Story about a cover-up
More info about rBGH

According to this website, The U.S. is presently testing only 1 out of every 18,000 cows slaughtered (for Mad Cow Disease). Guess what the test rates are elsewhere?
Quoted from this website: ...In Europe, where they test 1 out of every 4 cows, and Japan, where they test 100% of all cattle bound for human consumption...

So U.S tests 0.0056% of their cows, where as Europe tests 25% and Japan tests 100%. Guess I'll stick to non-american beef from now on.

Alcohol is one such example. Ever heard of alcohol POISONING?

Similarly, you can take "magic" mushrooms which are poisonous but get you high at the right dosage without dying.

The GP is obviouly very naive. There are TONS of toxins in foods/drinks people eat today. Alot of food is grown in chemical fertilizers unless it's organically grown. If you eat fish, you probably are eating a very tiny amount of mercury and various other toxins in the water. Also in the states, some farmers inject their cows with bovine growth hormones to improve milk yields. Okay, so maybe hormones aren't a toxin persay, but to me, they are evil/unwanted and at the same level as toxins as they can harm your body. Maybe you've heard about Mosanto and the Fox News cover-up where they prevented reporters from releasing a story about Mosanto's rBGH and how it causes cancer not to mention the needless pain and suffering of cows (due to swollen/infected udders, it's a condition called Mastitis).

Here in Canada, rBGH is banned, but it is still not banned in the United States. IMO, the U.S government rather maintain a dominant economy over risk loosing billions if word of U.S infected beef got out, so they will do whatever they can to prevent that from happening. But, they won't test EVERY cow for mad cow (because they claim that would be prohibitively expensive). Infact, I saw a story on CBC a few years ago about a small time beef farmer in the states that wanted to market his beef as having been 100% tested for mad cow disease. The government stepped in and prevented him from testing every cow and selling it because this would set a "precedent" where all the big time beef farmers would have to follow suit, costing them alot of money in the process. So this small time farmer was prevented from marketing his beef as 100% mad-cow tested, pretty sad really (I wish I could find the original story, it was quite amazing that the government would interfere with a small-time business like that to protect the beef industry as a whole, meanwhile putting beef consumers at a greater risk for the sake of profit).

US Continues to Violate WHO Mad Cow Guidelines
Old CBC News Story about a cover-up
More info about rBGH

According to this website, The U.S. is presently testing only 1 out of every 18,000 cows slaughtered (for Mad Cow Disease). Guess what the test rates are elsewhere?
Quoted from this website: ...In Europe, where they test 1 out of every 4 cows, and Japan, where they test 100% of all cattle bound for human consumption...

So U.S tests 0.0056% of their cows, where as Europe tests 25% and Japan tests 100%. Guess I'll stick to non-american beef from now on.

...rice.

Has anybody done a study of the engery density of sugar beets?

From here:

Growing, transporting, and distilling corn to make a gallon of ethanol uses almost as much energy as is contained in the ethanol itself. Sugar beets are a better source, producing nearly two units of energy for every unit used in production.

People in Fairbanks, AK acted against Wal-Mart by filling carts and leaving them in the store. Is this a crime or not? http://www.organicconsumers.org/btc/walmart11.cfm Personally, I'd love it if the protestors would pay for the stuff and abandon it in the parking lot.

People in Fairbanks, AK acted against Wal-Mart by filling carts and leaving them in the store. Is this a crime or not? http://www.organicconsumers.org/btc/walmart11.cfm Personally, I'd love it if the protestors would pay for the stuff and abandon it in the parking lot.

Hear, hear! Oh, and the US has been covering up its own mad cow cases for years, pre-dating the Canadian cases. How's that for a nationalistic import policy?

I wish the Canadian gov't would grow some berries and just threaten to rip up NAFTA. Beef, lumber, those are just the big two examples. A treaty is just a fancy contract, right? That's what you do when the other side violates the contract repeatedly and unapologetically. And we should charge them a fair market price for our water.

Hear, hear! Oh, and the US has been covering up its own mad cow cases for years, pre-dating the Canadian cases. How's that for a nationalistic import policy?

I wish the Canadian gov't would grow some berries and just threaten to rip up NAFTA. Beef, lumber, those are just the big two examples. A treaty is just a fancy contract, right? That's what you do when the other side violates the contract repeatedly and unapologetically. And we should charge them a fair market price for our water.

Nature DRM? How does Monsanto suing farmers for sowing their land with second generation seeds of its products sound?

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/bigbeans0 22602.cfm
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives /0311/msg00010.html
http://www.chattoogariver.org/index.php?req=monsan to&quart=Su2005

"Put another way, missiles didn't win the Cold War, Bluejeans did.

I certainly do not believe that our elected leaders are idiots. If they have the IQ to engage in mud politics to win an election, they have the IQ to understand the seriousness of global warning.

The problem is that American agribusiness is a huge and powerful lobby.

Think about this scenario. Washington concedes that global warming is real. Then, immediately, Washington must switch to a carbon-neutral fuel system like ethanol. To get enough ethanol, Washington would need to drop the 54-cent tariff per gallon of ethanol imported from Brazil. Dropping the tariff would cause Midwest corn farmers and their lobby to cry, "Uncle Sam!"

To understand the power and influence of American agribusiness, consider the Japanese ban on American beef. Tokyo demanded that we Americans test 100% of our cattle meat destined for the Japanese market. The management of Creekstone Farms actually proposed a plan to test all its cattle meat so that it could be exported to Japan. Tokyo was happy. Creekstone Farms was happy, and its management would happily shoulder 100% of the cost of the tests in order to re-enter the highly profitable Japanese market. Yet, the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to sell the necessary chemicals (for the tests) to Creekstone so that its chemists could conduct the tests. The reason is that American Agribusiness was very unhappy. Who would have thought that Washington would be so opposed to free enterprise and capitalism? The management of Creekstone had every right to satisfy its primary customer: Japan. After all, in a free market, businesses make their own decisions about how to win business. Yet, Uncle Sam blocked this decision (to test all cattle for madcow disease) by a private business.

If you aren't angry yet, consider this fact. If Washington dropped the 54-cent tariff per gallon of imported ethanol, everyone would pay $1.50 per gallon of fuel for their vehicles. What's the cost of fuel now? $2.70 per gallon and climbing.

kinda like organizing a group of people who will be filling up their cart at walmart and then abandoning it in the isle?

http://www.organicconsumers.org/btc/walmart11.cfm

if they're not advocating breaking the law, and are not breaking the law, then they're merely protesting in a civil manner. nothing there to go to jail over. if i can organize a bunch of people to start driving the speed limit during rush hour, it's going to annoy a lot of people, and maybe if they hear the reason we're driving that way, they'll take notice. but there's nothing illegal about that.

having a group of people refresh a web page (slashdotting) not obstruction of the government. if they advocated for the people to break into the servers, that's a different story. (though while many courts would probably find them guilty for breaking into the computers, some might argue that they were merely taking advantage of the public api that was made freely available).

it's quite a shame that after 200 years we still need to fight daily for our civil liberties, and protect ourselves against the injustices caused by arrogant officers and prosecuters.

I'm trying to find the story I heard on NPR about biologists who found GM genes on mountain tops - far away from where the GM crops were planted. Yes, they thought is was impossible, but it's happening.

This was predicted years ago. When Monsanto and other firms first started applying for patents for "terminator" genes (plants that will not generate viable seeds for the next years crop) and for plants specifically resistant to the use of "Roundup" many biologists warned of the danger of cross-polinization. Monsanto, et. al., and their political backers scoffed at the suggestion.

It gets far worse. Let's say a GM crop was planted next to your farm. Due to wind, bees, eh, nature the GM plants spread to your field, and soon you're growing GM plants. And then you're sued for stealing the GM crop. For the basics of wacky Monsanto GM chaos see Organic Consumers.

So, if Monsanto, et. al. want to own and control the GM crops - and the GM crops now spread to destructive speices, what do you think the odds are that the firms responsible for creating this mess will have any liability?

Nonsense, Judges read briefs from normal folks when they represent themselves in the US and the UK. Remeber that in September 1990, McDonald's sued Dave Morris and Helen Steel, activists with London Greenpeace, for producing and distributing a leaflet titled "What's Wrong With McDonald's." McDonalds went after them, they represented themselves and it went around and around but they won.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/politics/mclibel21 705.cfm

Furthermore, in the United States, you have a Right to self representation, any Judge who would refuse to read a brief from someone self representing would be overturned on appeal, something no Judge wants.

More recently, the Supreme Court has expounded the right to represent oneself, holding first in Faretta v. California 422 U.S. 806 (1975) that the power to choose or waive council lies with the accused, and the state can not intrude, even as it later held Gidinez v. Moran, 509 U.S. 389 (1993) if the state believed the accused less than fully competant to adequately proceed without council.
The circuit courts have narrowed the right to exclude appeal procedures as in Martinez v. California Court of Appeals 528 U.S. 152, 163 (2000), and again by reference in US v. Moussaoui (4th Cir. 2003) (No. 03-4162); however, this restriction is new, inconsistent with precedent, and has yet to be tested in the Supreme Court.

Ah, but that combination comes with free cancer instead.

For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980].

You might not remember, but before Monsanto took over, farmers usually didn't purchase patented, genetically crippled (can't reproduce) seeds. Instead, they used part of their harvest as seeds for the next year. Thus, they would have most seeds at harvest time. ;)

And the US is trying to bully them out of it.

I am thinking this notion of corporation, needs to go away. Make every business a sing propriatary whatever.. the people running the business need to have some sort of responsibility. The way corporations are now no one is responsible for anything anymore. If a corporation ends up doing something evil in the name of profit (which it will if it the reward is worth the risk, b/c a corporation as an entity has no conscience no purpose other than acrue wealth) there is no one to hold accountable (with the rara exception).

I don't think it's as simnple as that.

There is evil inherent in the concept of modern business corporations, but they are nevertheless useful, and should be reformed rather than done away with. The evil, in my opinion, comes down to two things:

1. Limited liability
2. Narrowly financial responsibility

Limited liability is what has made the corporation powerful. It allows investors to simply walk away from their debts when things go wrong, ignoring the carnage they've caused to businesses down the food chain. I think limited liability should be done away with, that every shareholder should be personally liable for a share of a company's debt proportional to their shareholding, unless they can prove malfeasance by the directors (in which case the directors would be personally liable for the lot).

Corporations, as presently constituted, have narrowly financial responsibility. They are responsible only to their shareholders, and they are responsible only for their financial performance. Corporations externalise a lot of their costs by, for example, dumping untreated waste into the environment; and global corporations, if prevented by legislation from doing that in one jurisdiction, will simply up sticks and move to another. Corporations also engage in activities of dubious morality - almost half of the chocolate we eat is harvested by slaves; many of the clothes and shoes we wear are made in sweatshops; most of the firearms used by criminals are produced by western corporations. And yet there's no comeback to the investors for any of this. We need a system where any fine imposed on a corporation for illegal activity, and any damages assessed against a corporation, are levied pro-rata on the shareholders. Shareholders need to have a positive interest in the legality and ethics of their corporations business activities. It's also important that corporations can be sued extra-territorially - that simply by moving their operations to a more lax jurisdiction corporations can't evade legal and moral responsibilities.

now they are trying to put down even conventional chemical rockets?

U.S has alot more cases of mad cow, they just cover it up and act like nothing happened. After all, it would hurt their economy if other countries banned U.S beef.

Concerns raised about 1997 U.S. mad cow tests
US Officials Engaged in Mad Cow Coverup: Former Official
Greens Charge Government Cover-Up of Mad Cow Crisis
United States is intentionally under reporting mad-cow disease
More articles from google search

I remember seeing the documentary on CBC about the U.S mad cow cover up a couple years ago. It was pretty interesting. U.S of course doesn't want cases of mad cow to be found in their beef, since other countries would ban imports, and U.S would lose money. One small scale cow farmer in the states wanted to test every single one of his cows for BSE upon death. The USDA threatened him and prevented him from doing this. Why? because the idea of scanning every cow for BSE scares the USDA, it would raise production costs, increasing the price of beef, and alot more cases of BSE would potentially be found.

As it is, the current US policy on beef is to only test cows that look very sick. So alot of cows that have BSE go unchecked and ends up being sold as safe beef. Luckily for me, I have a choice, and I only eat local Canadian beef.

That is a huge problem. I'd advise subsistance farmers to stay away from store-bought seeds.

They just don't grow.

You'd better hope they don't grow, because if they do grow, you have even worse problems. Just ask the Canadian farmers sued by Monsanto.

On Sept. 11 2001 about 3500 people died in New York. On that same day 44000 children died in Africa of hunger. Is there a war on hunger? NO.

If you folks would like us to invade, overthrow your dictators for you, colonize and Americanise you, just say the word and we'll put you on our list. The whole process might take 100 years or more, and if you don't whole-heartedly embrace the Americanisation part, it just won't work (e.g., the Phillipines). Be aware that the list is already very long, and there is just no way that you're going to get ahead of Iran and North Korea, who have already signed up for the ``get civilized or get dead'' package.

It might be quicker and easier for you to get rid of your Mugabes yourself.

Do you remember Oprah being sued under the Food Disparagement Laws?

---

"The Oprah victory," said Collins, "was based on very narrow statutory grounds. And while it was an important win, it was a costly one, which would have bankrupted most other defendants. That is why these laws need to be repealed or struck down -- because they punish the innocent for exercising their First Amendment rights."

Monsanto is selling what they call "Terminator technology" (first reference I found: http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/sterileSeed.htm ) to countries where getting enough food to survive for the day could be a problem.

The "technology" is a fancy word for genetically designing the next-generation seeds sterile, so that the farmers can't grow any new plants from the seeds produced from plants grown by Monsanto seeds.

Now, very few things pisses me off to the extent that this kind of behaviour does. (I can actually start sweating, merely thinking about this)

The idea of exploiting the starving seems to be good business for the Monsanto people.

This kind of behaviour - maximizing profits, disregard for human life, and the complete lack of any moral consideration, is, I believe, one of few that is taking us in a direction which ultimately will bring down the sad downfall (sudden, fiery death for the masses is still a threat) of humanity.

To me, the people who profit from selling these "Terminated seeds" (I here refrain from spilling my thoughts too bluntly, especially avoiding a sentence containing a suggested use of the words "Monsanto executives" and "terminate") to starving people, occupy a niche lower in the food chain than people who murder the elderly for money, and those who sell women and children for sexual exploitation and their personal profit.

Please, even if you disagree with my views, let at least the facts about this be known.

No, your statement comes from thin air between you ears.

Heh. I don't see at all why this fact would make his core argument "wrong."

Anyway, this wasn't true until around December of 2001, when the Supreme court ruled that bio-engineered plants are patentable using traditional patent methods. Until then, parties who wished to protect the results of their breeding would have to act according to the Plant Variety Protection Act and the Plant Patent Act. These limited the control of companies over the results of their breeding methods. Many people, myself included, think this ruling was a bad thing.

Read more about this decision and why it is bad here.

Or maybe I'm just a socialist... [rolleyes]

The purpose of the government is to protect property, obviously.

Come on! I agree that the government should protect property of individuals. But your statement is so generic and implies so many other assumtions as to make it useless. Should a business model be considered property? Should the ONLY purpose of government be to protect property or should they have other responsibilities? (For instance a responsibility to protect humanity.)

Look, I understand where you are coming from: you are a pure capatalist. But please stop arguing like that is the only correct viewpoint out there. Many countries around the globe have found a reasonable balance between capitalist and collectivist principles. The idea of the protection of individual rights (including property rights) while protecting the group as a whole is not a crazy idea. Works well for Canada...

Taft

http://www.truthinlabeling.org/index.html
http://cspinet.org/new/200312111.html
http://www.cspinet.org/letters/labeling_coupon.htm l
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Irrad/deceptivelab eling02.cfm
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/malt_beverag es.html
etc.

Sorry, I just assumed everyone could google.

For a lengthy discussion of this subject, read this paper.

For a brief (albeit slanted, but not untrue) summary, check out this.

For a discussion of an exciting and viable alternative, one which really is just an extension of selective breeding, read about marker-assisted breeding.

I bet the consumer reaction would be similar to how I recall people reacting to Irradiated foods in biology class (link for the use of it). Here's a link against the use of it.

Yes, they are looking into it.

The use of Fluorescently labeled nanoparticles to determine the effect of particle size on translocation from the lung
NanoParticles Shown to Cause Brain Damage
etc. etc. etc.

CAE's latest project, included a mobile DNA extraction laboratory for testing food products for possible transgenic contamination. It was this equipment which triggered the Kafkaesque chain of events. FBI field and laboratory tests have shown that Kurtz's equipment was not used for any illegal purpose. In fact, it is not even _possible_ to use this equipment for the production or weaponization of dangerous germs. Furthermore, any person in the US may legally obtain and possess such equipment.

In a political climate where the one loses all right to due process at the mere accusation of involvement in terrorism and with Education Secretary Rod Paige revealing the administrations definition of "terrorism" by labeling the National Educational Association a "Terrorist Organization" for excercising their first amendment rights to criticize Bush Regime policy and a White House aide is quoted elsewhere in this discussion as saying "In this administration, you don't have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President" , there are some things about this particular case that should be regarded as red flags.

Educating people about the presence of unsafe GM organisms in their food could be the "terrorism" in question. In this case, it is not the Bush Regime who is being criticised but their sponsors at Monsanto. According to the Organic Consumer Association the link between Monsanto and the Bush Regime is almost as bad as the Haliburton/Oil Industry Links.

• Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Judge, "who put GW Bush in office", Former Monsano Lawyer
• Anne Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture, Former boardmember of Monsanto subsidiary
• Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, former monsanto subsidiary board member
• Attorney General John Ashcroft, one of the top two monsanto campaign contribution recipients in a recent election. This is the same John Ashcroft who lost to a dead man in a prior election.
• other campaign recipients

The death of Prof. Kurtz's wife combined with the biological laboratory is legitimate reason for at least some investigation. But it also could be a convenient excuse for an administration that is motivated to harrass him. If these artists have committed a crime, it is probably bad web design (Shitwave Flush (tm) web navigation) rather than terrorism. Unless the mutant flies and roundup-sensitizing compounds prove to be not just consciousness raising experiments but actual intended eco-terrorism; but I certainly don't trust the likes of John Ashcroft to make such a determination.

CAE's latest project, included a mobile DNA extraction laboratory for testing food products for possible transgenic contamination. It was this equipment which triggered the Kafkaesque chain of events. FBI field and laboratory tests have shown that Kurtz's equipment was not used for any illegal purpose. In fact, it is not even _possible_ to use this equipment for the production or weaponization of dangerous germs. Furthermore, any person in the US may legally obtain and possess such equipment.

In a political climate where the one loses all right to due process at the mere accusation of involvement in terrorism and with Education Secretary Rod Paige revealing the administrations definition of "terrorism" by labeling the National Educational Association a "Terrorist Organization" for excercising their first amendment rights to criticize Bush Regime policy and a White House aide is quoted elsewhere in this discussion as saying "In this administration, you don't have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President" , there are some things about this particular case that should be regarded as red flags.

Educating people about the presence of unsafe GM organisms in their food could be the "terrorism" in question. In this case, it is not the Bush Regime who is being criticised but their sponsors at Monsanto. According to the Organic Consumer Association the link between Monsanto and the Bush Regime is almost as bad as the Haliburton/Oil Industry Links.

• Clarence Thomas, Supreme Court Judge, "who put GW Bush in office", Former Monsano Lawyer
• Anne Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture, Former boardmember of Monsanto subsidiary
• Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, former monsanto subsidiary board member
• Attorney General John Ashcroft, one of the top two monsanto campaign contribution recipients in a recent election. This is the same John Ashcroft who lost to a dead man in a prior election.
• other campaign recipients

The death of Prof. Kurtz's wife combined with the biological laboratory is legitimate reason for at least some investigation. But it also could be a convenient excuse for an administration that is motivated to harrass him. If these artists have committed a crime, it is probably bad web design (Shitwave Flush (tm) web navigation) rather than terrorism. Unless the mutant flies and roundup-sensitizing compounds prove to be not just consciousness raising experiments but actual intended eco-terrorism; but I certainly don't trust the likes of John Ashcroft to make such a determination.

That's an understatement if there ever was one.

Monsanto are one of the ugliest examples of corporate greed in existence. Their plan is to patent all of the food supply, and leech of all those able to pay. All those not able to pay will no doubt have their crops fall victim to some chemically triggered distaster. But it doesn't end there. Monsanto have already started purchasing 'rights' to natural water supplies in parts of Africa. Of course they will be selling the water back to those most able to pay, and telling eveyone else to go fuck themselves.

But my rage at Monsanto masks the fact that GM products themselves are dangerous products that are not fit for consumption and pose a large threat to the long-term viability of live on Earth. Replacing numerous varieties of organic crops that have been integrated into the ecosystem with a single GM product is called 'monoculture', and it opens us to the risk of catastrophic food shortages if that single crop falls victim to disease, or simply degenerates into an unviable crop ( GM products aren't necessarily genetically stable... ).

And then there are problems with genes migrating between species. Bacteria are constantly swapping genes with each other. They are also known to lift genes out of other organisms, incorporate them into their own genetic code, and deposit them into yet other organisms they come across. So say Monsanto, in their infinite wisdom, create a gene that causes their product to produce pesticide ( which they have done ). Firstly, you're eating pesticide. This is not good. Secondly, the bacteria in your stomach is quite able to transplant that gene into you . This is also not good. If you stomach starts producing pesticide, I'd say you're in trouble.

This point above would be fine if people had a fucking choice about what they were eating. The Free Trade Agreement that the US are about to sign with us ( Australia ) includes MORE 'rights' for US companies to dump GM products on our market, UNLABELLED. And the companies are then not required to answer truthfully to us the contents of their products if asked.

And then there's the little point about GM products infecting the sancity of organic products by cross-pollination.

I say fuck Monsanto and the horse they rode in on ( imperialism ). My food supply and my ecosystem are not commodities for ANYONE to own or tamper with. Access to clean, safe food is a basic right of all life forms. In many ways, Monsanto are pushing my buttons even more than fucking Bush and his 'war on terrorism'. At least I'm not particularly likely of coming under his definition of a terrorist. Come to think of it though, Monsanto are cruising for a bruising...

More info on Monsanto:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/genetics/monsanto .htm

Google for more. They're fucking bastards!

I would have thought that genetically modified crops would be unable to reproduce by some manipulation. I'm quite surprised to hear from the articles and research linked that this is not the case.

To their credit, Monsanto DID voluntarily declare they wouldn't use the terminator genes. For an undeclared period. But they've have been granted the patents on them, so it's an ace they can still play.