Agribusiness Run Amok

The US Environmental Protection Agency has revealed a proposal for mass use of Dow Chemical’s herbicide 2,4-D on the company’s genetically-engineered corn and soybeans. The GE crops were developed to withstand several herbicides, including 2,4-D.

Dow would be allowed to sell the herbicide if the EPA approves it following a 30-day public comment period.

[...]

Dow’s genetically-engineered corn and soybeans – known as Enlist – have received preliminary approval from the US Department of Agriculture. Should Enlist crops win ultimate authorization, the USDA said that would increase the annual use of 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) in the United States from 26 million pounds per year to possibly 176 million pounds.

  RT

You remember 2,4-D.  "Agent Orange."  Once banned in this country, but re-approved for special use in recent years.  And, surely you haven't forgotten Monsanto's herbicide-resistant crops.  In fact, those are directly responsible for the "need" to create 2,4-D-resistant crops. What next?

In an agribusiness chemical arms race, Dow’s development of 2,4-D-resistant crops came about once first-generation genetically-modified crops made by Monsanto evolved to resist the company’s Roundup herbicide. The flood of new GE crops increased the use of glyphosate, which has its own links to a host of ill health effects, and glyphosate-resistant “superweeds.”

[...]

Nevertheless, Dow maintains that farmers need an answer for “hard to control” weeds.

Which have been created by the use of herbicides. What a spot of luck for Dow!  An answer for "hard to control" weeds is stop creating them.

“With this decision it is clear that the EPA is serving the interests of Dow Chemical and the biotech industry rather than protecting our health and the environment,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety.

If it wasn’t already obvious.

“Enlist Duo herbicide will help solve the weed control challenges growers are facing, and will be another option to further reduce the potential for development of herbicide-resistant weeds,” said Damon Palmer of Dow AgroSciences, a subsidy of Dow Chemical Company.

No. No, it won’t. The weeds will develop resistance to Duo just as they’ve developed resistance to Roundup.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Time to Send BP Packing

They polluted the Gulf of Mexico, and apparently they're hard at work polluting Alaska.

Alaska state officials confirmed Wednesday that an oily mist sprung from a compromised oil pipeline and sprayed into the wind without stopping for at least two hours, covering 33 acres of the frozen snow field in the [vicinity of the BP-owned Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska’s North Slope].

[...]

Initial reports said that 27 acres had been covered, although that figure was updated later on Wednesday. [...] They also reported that while the noxious mist was distributed over such a wide area by 30 mph winds, no wildlife was impacted.

  RT

Oh, Suuuuuuuuuuuure.

[In 2006,] an estimated 267,000 gallons of oil seeped through a quarter-inch sized hole in a corroded BP pipeline. That accident went unnoticed for five days.

[...]

Instead of acting as a warning to the company, though, the 2006 spill only served as a preview for a 2009 spill that sent approximately 14,000 gallons from a pipeline into the tundra and wetlands of Prudhoe Bay.

[...]

US government lawyers said in a court filing that sought to levy steep fines onto BP [...] ”Eerily similar to the 2006 spill, BP ignored alarms that warned of the pipe’s eventual rupture and leak.”

[...]

Officials made the most recent finding less than a week after a report from the US National Research Council (NRC) announced that regulators are not prepared to effectively respond to an Arctic oil spill.

[...]

“The lack of infrastructure in the Arctic would be a significant liability in the event of a large oil spill,” the report stated, as quoted by the Associated Press. “It is unlikely that responders could quickly react to an oil spill unless there were improved port and air access, stronger supply chains and increased capacity to handle equipment, supplies and personnel.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Happy May Fool's Day

Eleven years ago today, May 1, George Dufus Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, making him the most publicly exposed fool in modern history. Way to go, George.

Of Course They Did

At the behest of the director of national intelligence, US senators have removed a provision from a major intelligence bill that would require the president to publicly disclose information about drone strikes and their victims.

[...]

Senate leaders have removed the language as they prepare to bring the bill to the floor for a vote, after the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, assured them in a recent letter that the Obama administration was looking for its own ways to disclose more about its highly controversial drone strikes.

  Guardian

Sure. Sure. Take all the time you need.

Give Me a Break

Bill Gates’ Microsoft Corp. announced on Saturday that Internet Explorer versions 6 through 11 are all vulnerable to a glitch that when properly exploited can give hackers remote access to a victim’s computer.

[...]

A person with knowledge of the vulnerability may create a fake website that, when visited, allows the hacker to exploit the bug and break into their target’s machine, Microsoft warned.

"An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights," the company advised.

According to FireEye spokesman Vitor De Souza, hackers had already taken advantage of the exploit by targeting unnamed US-based firms that are tied to the defense and financial sectors.

[...]

Microsoft was unable to patch the vulnerability by the time the weekend was over, and the United States government’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) issued an alert warning computer users to “consider employing an alternative web browser.”

"We are currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem," Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute warned in an advisory of its own.

  RT

I bet they get that sucker patched PDQ, though.

It's Sunday

Peacemaker.

It's Sunday

and girls just wanna have fun....

Are Humans Building Pesticide Resistance, Too?

A recent study has found that the herbicide glyphosate, sold under the trade name Roundup (and others), is present in alarming levels in breast milk of American females. The study found that samples of mother’s milk from women in the United States contained levels of the weed-killer that were 760 to 1,600 time greater than the amount of pesticides allowed by the European Water Directive. Those levels are still less than the 700 ug/l maximum contaminant level (MCL) that the Environmental Protection Agency has decided is safe.

[...]

The study also found that urine from American mothers contained levels of glyphosate ten times higher than urine from European women.

  Planet Natural

I wonder how the end picture looks regarding comparative health between Europeans and Americans given the fact that Europeans across the board have stricter environmental health laws.

The EPA contamination level was decided on the much-challenged assumption that glyphosate wsa excreted and did not accumulate in the human body. Those non-accumulation findings were based on studies sponsored by, among others, Monsanto, the maker of Roundup.

Indeed, this is how the EPA determines anything about chemicals – the chemical manufacturers’ own reports.

Studies have suggested that glyphosate is linked to cancers, endocrine disruption, DNA damage, leukemia, birth defects, and neurological problems such as Parkinson’s disease.

Apparently, the study should not alarm breast-feeding women into switching to formulas, because there’s probably just as much pesticide residue in those: “It is certainly disheartening to know that glyphosate is present in breast milk, but lest you think this means you should not nurse your baby, please be aware that soy-based formula probably also contains glyphosate, possibly in even higher concentrations. The US government has conducted very few studies measuring the amount of glyphosate residue in food, but a report issued by the Department of Agriculture in 2011 showed that over 90% of 300 samples of soy contained glyphosate, and nearly 96% contained AMPA, a derivative of glyphosate.” --Stephanie Steneff, a senior research scientist at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Net Neutrality: 0 -- "Free" Market; 1

The Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday that it would propose new rules that allow companies like Disney, Google or Netflix to pay Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon for special, faster lanes to send video and other content to their customers.

The proposed changes would affect what is known as net neutrality — the idea that no providers of legal Internet content should face discrimination in providing offerings to consumers, and that users should have equal access to see any legal content they choose.

The proposal comes three months after a federal appeals court struck down, for the second time, agency rules intended to guarantee a free and open Internet.

Tom Wheeler, the F.C.C. chairman, defended the agency’s plans late Wednesday, saying speculation that the F.C.C. was “gutting the open Internet rule” is “flat out wrong.” Rather, he said, the new rules will provide for net neutrality along the lines of the appeals court’s decision.

[...]

Consumer groups immediately attacked the proposal, saying that not only would costs rise, but also that big, rich companies with the money to pay large fees to Internet service providers would be favored over small start-ups with innovative business models — stifling the birth of the next Facebook or Twitter.

“If it goes forward, this capitulation will represent Washington at its worst,” said Todd O’Boyle, program director of Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform Initiative. “Americans were promised, and deserve, an Internet that is free of toll roads, fast lanes and censorship — corporate or governmental.”

[...]

Mr. Wheeler rebuffed such criticism. “There is no ‘turnaround in policy,’ ” he said in a statement. “The same rules will apply to all Internet content. As with the original open Internet rules, and consistent with the court’s decision, behavior that harms consumers or competition will not be permitted.”

  NYT

Really? Charging variable rates for speed does not harm consumers and promote competition? Hmmm. I guess those terms don’t mean what I think they mean.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Treat