Slashdot Mirror

http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/pest/pe-gly.htm appears to be a pretty good review of papers concerning potential harmful effects (and lack of expected harmful effects) across all areas of the ecosystem due to glyphosate use.

Excerpts:

"Cancer:

There is still considerable controversy over the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate. The conclusion generally reached by regulators is that glyphosate, and glyphosate-containing products, are not carcinogenic to humans. IPCS has concluded that "bioassays in mice and rats did not indicate that technical glyphosate was carcinogenic". It discounted a study that it said constituted evidence of cancer because a more recent study, at higher doses, did not show the same effect. (IPCS ,1994)

The US EPA has concluded that glyphosate is probably not carcinogenic to humans. However, this was based on the results of three studies which showed a variety of carcinogenic effects, all of which were considered not statistically significant: [...]"

[...]

"Water

Glyphosate is moderately persistent in water and not removed by normal drinking water processing. It is more likely to occur in surface waters than groundwaters. Glyphosate is soluble in water, but resistant to hydrolysis. It moves from water into sediment or suspended particles with a half-life ranging from a few days to 91 days. After a year, 0.1ppm of glyphosate was still found in the sediment of a farm pond. Glyphosate was calculated to have a half-life of 120 days in sediment. (Agriculture Canada 1991; IPCS, 1994; US EPA, 1993)

Glyphosate has been found in surface waters in Canada and in ground waters in the Netherlands and USA. One study detected glyphosate in a watershed 4 months after application. (Edwards et al., 1980; Frank, 1990; IPCS, 1994; US EPA, 1992) "

"Residues in food

Glyphosate and its metabolite AMPA are translocated throughout plant tissue, residues are unlikely to be completely removed from produce by washing, peeling or removing the outer leaves. Minimal breakdown of glyphosate occurs in plant tissue and pre-harvest use can result in significant levels of residues; in grains they are not destroyed by milling and much of it remains in the bran. Baking does not remove these residues. Residues in malting barley are transferred to beer. Use of glyphosate on forage and animal feed can result in residues in the kidneys, meat, milk and eggs. Residues are stable for up to one year in plant materials and in water, and two years in animal products, in storage. In the wild, residues of glyphosate can persist for a long time (45mg/kg found in lichens 270 days after application). Sampling of wild berries after forest spraying operations showed that residues remained above 0.1ppm for at least 61 days. (Roy et al 1989; Agriculture Canada 1991; IPCS 1994; US EPA 1993)"

The Daily Mirror (now just The Mirror) is a left-wing tabloid newspaper in the UK. Last month, the paper (which was until yesterday edited by Piers Morgan) published pictures of alleged abuse in Iraq which are now widely believed to be fake. Morgan quit last night and has not apologised, while his paper has.

I used to have some respect for the guy, but fuck him now-he's dragged his paper's reputation through the mud and he's making a bad name for everybody who was every against this war. If you're in the UK and want a decent anti-war left-wing newspaper, try here, here or maybe even (for the insanely left wing) here.

I personally think Monsanto is one of the most evil corporations on the planet. Besides their foray into genetically modified food (I have a problem with their patents more than the final products), they are the ones who invented Nutra Sweet (a.k.a aspartame, a tripeptide with who knows what kind of long-term effects). Of course there are many devoted and ethical scientists working there, too, but the corporation as a whole has an atrocious track record.

The worst thing about the cross pollinated crops in this Canadian farmer's field was that he never had any intention of growing Monsanto's corn, but the wind blew pollen into his field, and somehow the courts decided he was responsible. How asinine.

When they start to threaten your public education and agriculture exports then lets talk.

Not saying that this is limited to Canada. WTO screws everyone equally.(Take this with a grain of salt, as it does come from the Anti-Globalisation Network.)

The WTO is a bad idea gone bad.

<a href="http://www.biotech-info.net/basmati_patent.h tml">Here</a> and <a href="http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/latest/lost.h tm">here</a>.

Good memory!

His name was John Munden and it was October 1992.

Some articles are here and here about it.

Fascist, well the Labour party is a bit right wing of Hitler at the moment.
and I'm English you fool. You don't even know what the morning star is by the looks of things.

[red]Ken is a commie, and therefore a left wing liberal pansy (as blind git would say).

Maybe one day you'll take your head out of your ass and realise how much your beloved government has been screwing you.

Just wait till they get rid of the Lords, then you'll be really fucking screwed.

Like Nielsen, I've been saying for years that eventually micropayment will be the way - at least for users who fall in the mid-range between couch potato and expert for the information in question. For example see here from 1997 (it shows) and the capsule version here.

The key points, it seems to me, are:

• What you pay your connection provider is a utility bill - like the lighting by which you read that book, the heating for your TV womb. Quite different from the payment for the book or the video, an (inadequate) portion of which goes to the humans who made the words and pictures.
• Micropayments offer the chance for wider diversity of content. With micropayments, if I want the scoop on CPRM I'll have these choices:
  • Going to an advertiser-supported site for a really quick view, with the added effort of reading through the commercial bias;
  • Paying $0.05 to an independent for their analysis and summary of what's going on; or
  • Doing the research myself from free sources, FoI requests, etc. Set aside a day or three...
• Corollary of the above: in your own area of expertise free stuff is fine. The areas where you want to pay an independent are those where you want proper information but to avoid expanding your expertise more than absolutely necessary, e.g. avoid learning statistical mechanics or Russian.
• To understand the argument between advertiser-supported and otherwise-supported media, it helps a lot to have spent time outside the USofA. Public-service media rock.
• Micropayments are linked to the battle between independents (like me) and the copyright-grabbing corporations. See Tasini -v- Times . Corporations don't like the idea because it increases pressure on them to hand over a share to the humans who make the content. How would you feel about a paid-for Napster if half the $1 went to the artists? Or 80%?
• Proper micropayments need to be digital cash: secure, anonymous and quite separate from the credit card clearance system. And if only interoperativity standards can be put in place they should be economic down to $0.0001 or less.

Mike

Like Nielsen, I've been saying for years that eventually micropayment will be the way - at least for users who fall in the mid-range between couch potato and expert for the information in question. For example see here from 1997 (it shows) and the capsule version here.

The key points, it seems to me, are:

• What you pay your connection provider is a utility bill - like the lighting by which you read that book, the heating for your TV womb. Quite different from the payment for the book or the video, an (inadequate) portion of which goes to the humans who made the words and pictures.
• Micropayments offer the chance for wider diversity of content. With micropayments, if I want the scoop on CPRM I'll have these choices:
  • Going to an advertiser-supported site for a really quick view, with the added effort of reading through the commercial bias;
  • Paying $0.05 to an independent for their analysis and summary of what's going on; or
  • Doing the research myself from free sources, FoI requests, etc. Set aside a day or three...
• Corollary of the above: in your own area of expertise free stuff is fine. The areas where you want to pay an independent are those where you want proper information but to avoid expanding your expertise more than absolutely necessary, e.g. avoid learning statistical mechanics or Russian.
• To understand the argument between advertiser-supported and otherwise-supported media, it helps a lot to have spent time outside the USofA. Public-service media rock.
• Micropayments are linked to the battle between independents (like me) and the copyright-grabbing corporations. See Tasini -v- Times . Corporations don't like the idea because it increases pressure on them to hand over a share to the humans who make the content. How would you feel about a paid-for Napster if half the $1 went to the artists? Or 80%?
• Proper micropayments need to be digital cash: secure, anonymous and quite separate from the credit card clearance system. And if only interoperativity standards can be put in place they should be economic down to $0.0001 or less.

Mike