Over 2 million people peacefully took to streets around the world to protest the poisoning of the global food supply by the biotech giant, Monsanto.

Not surprisingly, the mainstream media has been pretty quiet about the event.

After relentless phone calls and emails by protesters, some coverage has finally been achieved, preventing the event from being completely blacked out. The same article was published throughout global media, including Yahoo, CTV, Huffington Post, ABC News, and the UK Guardian. The article downplayed the magnitude of the March and the importance of the cause:

Protesters rallied in dozens of cities Saturday as part of a global protest against seed giant Monsanto and the genetically modified food it produces, organizers said. 

Organizers said “March Against Monsanto” protests were held in 52 countries and 436 cities, including Los Angeles where demonstrators waved signs that read “Real Food 4 Real People” and “Label GMOs, It’s Our Right to Know.” 

Genetically modified plants are grown from seeds that are engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, add nutritional benefits or otherwise improve crop yields and increase the global food supply. (Huffington Post)

Discover even published a hit piece, calling the event “cartoonish”:

The only thing that’s truly being poisoned is the biotech debate by such rhetoric. I’m also willing to bet that organizers are being as truthful about the number of marchers as they are about the science on genetically modified foods…Nonetheless, there does seem to be many people who buy the notion that dangerous GMOs are being foisted on the world by Monsanto.

The truth of the matter is, over two million people marched in more than 50 countries around the globe (See RT’s excellent timeline of the global event). Despite the grudging media coverage in the mainstream, a sleeping giant has awakened. Many people will no longer accept that what lines grocery store shelves is safe to eat.

We know that we have been sold out, betrayed by the politicians that were duly elected to represent the wishes of their constituencies. The day before the event, the US Senate shot down a bill that would have allowed individual states to require labeling of GMOs. We are fighting a company with billions of dollars, links to the FDA, the USDA and the Supreme Court, and a whole bunch of sketchy politicians in their back pockets. They have fought a sneaky social media war against us, and will continue to pull out all the stops to marginalize the movement against them.

So…

We have to keep the momentum going that we have achieved with the March Against Monsanto. Don’t let it end on May 25, 2013. The only way to defeat Monsanto and the rest of the biotech industry is by spreading information far and wide. We clearly cannot rely on the mainstream media to do this, as evidenced above. So we must use social media, alternative media, and word of mouth.

Print off some labels and put them in the grocery store. Organize your own pickets and hand out flyers in front of the grocery store, letting people know what they’re buying. Go to farmers markets and support your local growers. Sow the seeds of revolution by growing as much of your own food as possible. Most of all, vote with your wallet and don’t buy ANYTHING that puts money into the pockets of companies that support GMOs or that fought against California’s Proposition 37, which would have called for the labeling of GMOs.

Source: Activist Post

Monsanto Wins Fight to Take Away State Food Labeling Rights

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) fought hard to give his state and others the right to label GMO foods, but faced nonsensical opposition from Monsanto-bought Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Did reason win?

German Government: New XBOX "ONE" is a monitoring device

Microsoft's new game console Germany's top privacy advocates worried. The Xbox one is a "monitor", Peter Schaar, told SPIEGEL. Users could not control what information would be stored on it.

Berlin - The Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar has announced the Microsoft Xbox game console One criticism. "Under the heading, game device 'Microsoft pushes a monitoring device in the market," Schaar told SPIEGEL. "The Xbox continuously records all sorts of personal information about me. Reaction rates, my learning or emotional states. The are then processed on an external server, and possibly even passed on to third parties. Whether they will ever deleted, the person can not influence."

The game console is equipped with a camera system to capture the spatial information and can recognize the faces of users. Microsoft plans for the console a deep integration into the consumer electronics equipment of its users - all devices from the TV receiver to the amplifier should be controlled via voice and gesture control console. The group wants the apparatus further than use market research tool : The Xbox One, says Microsoft executive Phil Spencer, will ensure that "we know what people are busy We can take a vote and feed their voice in the creative process.".

A patent application suggests that Microsoft's console might also want to use in other ways - for example, to calculate using the Kinect camera prices for movie downloads then, how many people sit in front of the TV set . Microsoft has not yet commented on the patent application.

Afraid that Microsoft is listening on conversations about the console's built-in camera microphones, data protection, Peter Schaar has not: "The fact that Microsoft now spying on my living room is merely a twisted nightmare." In some media reports had pointed out that the game console can also be turned on with a voice command. This means that the microphones the console must be turned on in the standby state.

The Xbox was the last one was presented Tuesday in Redmond , they should come to the market for the Christmas season.

Source: Der Spiegel

Millions against Monsanto: Putting Words into Action

Saturday, May 25, 2013, marches protesting GMO food [and the lack of food labeling in the USA] will take place in cities around the globe. There is every good reason to support this ‘mega march’ wherever you live because we are losing our sources of food and nutrition, which are being replaced by biotech industry oligarchs who think they can and must patent the human food supply.

If you don’t think activism counts and works, please check out what U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) did and said May 20, 2013 regarding what’s become known as the “Monsanto Protection Act.”

Senator Mikulski actually apologized for allowing the Monsanto Protection Act to go through and vowed to fight against GMOs and Monsanto. Bravo, Senator Mikulski. Let’s hope other members of Congress see the light about the dangers of GMOs and their not being labeled in the USA. Go, Barbara go!

http://www.nationofchange.org/monsanto-protection-act-may-soon-be-repealed-thanks-activism-1369061405

GMO food crops are sprayed with inordinate amounts of the chemical herbicide glyphosate. For some—not all—information regarding glyphosate, see what Wikipedia says here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate.

For information about genetically modified corn, a dietary staple in the USA and in many cultures, read what Natural News has to say here:
http://www.naturalnews.com/040210_gm_corn_march_against_monsanto_glyphosate.html

Will corn-on-the-cob become taboo? Who, in their right mind, would want to take a chance on the possibility of Bacillus thurigiensis growing in their gut?

Organically-grown corn ought to be safe, if it’s not been cross-pollinated by GMO pollen.

To find out where the nearest march to your zip code address will take place, please visit:

March Against Monsanto Everywhere

http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/

Here are some reminders why we should turn out in droves at the Millions against Monsanto marches:

Food Crops that are GMO or GMO contaminated Animal Foods:

• Alfalfa
• Milk (rBST hormone) dairy products
• Canola
• Beef fed GMO feed
• Corn

• Eggs from chickens fed GMO feed
• Cotton (cottonseed cooking oil)
• Chicken raised on GMO feed
• Hawaiian papaya
• Honey from bees in GMO fields
• Plums
• Rice
• GMO Fish
• Soy
• GMO Salmon
• Sugar beet 
• Some tobacco 
• Tomato
• Wheat
• Yellow squash
• Zucchini

New Animated Video About the TPP and its Chilling Effects on Internet Users

When most people think of a trade agreement, they're unlikely to think that it would have anything to do with regulating the Internet. For more than a decade however, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has included copyright enforcement in international trade deals. Such provisions empower countries to enact digital restrictions in the name of preventing illegal file sharing. In practice, these copyright measures strip Internet users of their rights to privacy, free speech, and access to knowledge and culture, and could even work to undermine their very purpose of enabling and promoting innovation and creativity.

Such provisions closely mirror the language carried in the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Up to this point, we have already seen over 15 years of harmful effects due to the DMCA and now there are widespread efforts in the U.S. to reform it. It's therefore both improper and contradictory for the U.S. Trade Rep to push the U.S. copyright system around the world when our own government recognizes that our system is defective.

This new animated video explains how two provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement's intellectual property chapter threaten users' rights. First, it creates legal incentives for Internet and online service providers to police their users' activities for copyright infringement. Second, the TPP carries rigid protections for digital rights management (DRM) in ways that could create expansive chilling effects for anyone who wishes to legally share and interact with their content and devices.

Please share this video, spread the word about this secretive multinational trade agreement, and let others know how they can help fight it.

Take Action

You can express your concern about these problems — and others — that arise from a secret copyright agenda driving international agreements by signing our petition to stop it.

Wherever you are in the world, you can sign on to this petition directed at decision-makers to demand a Fair Deal.

If you’re in the U.S., take our action to send a message to your representative to demand an end to these secret backroom negotiations.

If you're in Peru, join Hiperderecho and tell the Peruvian president that our rights on the Internet are non-negotiable.

Spread the Word

Our website “Why the Heck Should I Care About the TPP?” lays out some of the worst consequences for Internet users if this agreement were to pass.

Share our infographic about the TPP! We have versions in both English and Spanish.

Source: EFF

The Government Wants A Backdoor Into Your Online Communications

According to the New York Times, President Obama is "on the verge of backing" a proposal by the FBI to introduce legislation dramatically expanding the reach of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. CALEA forces telephone companies to provide backdoors to the government so that it can spy on users after obtaining court approval, and was expanded in 2006 to reach Internet technologies like VoIP. The new proposal reportedly allows the FBI to listen in on any conversation online, regardless of the technology used, by mandating engineers build "backdoors" into communications software. We urge EFF supporters to tell the administration now to stop this proposal, provisionally called CALEA II.

The rumored proposal is a tremendous blow to security and privacy and is based on the FBI's complaint that it is "Going Dark," or unable to listen in on Internet users' communications. But the FBI has offered few concrete examples and no significant numbers of situations where it has been stymied by communications technology like encryption. To the contrary, with the growth of digital communications, the FBI has an unprecedented level of access to our communications and personal data; access which it regularly uses. In an age where the government claims to want to beef up Internet security, any backdoors into our communications makes our infrastructure weaker.

Backdoors also take away developers' right to innovate and users' right to protect their privacy and First Amendment-protected anonymity of speech with the technologies of their choice. The FBI's dream of an Internet where it can listen to anything, even with a court order, is wrong and inconsistent with our values. One should be able to have a private conversation online, just as one can have a private conversation in person.

The White House is currently debating whether or not to introduce the bill. Here's why it shouldn't:

There's Little Darkness: Few Investigations Have Been Thwarted

The starting point for new legislation should be a real, serious, and well-documented need. Despite the FBI's rhetoric, there are few concrete examples of the FBI's purported need to expand its already efficient all-seeing eye. Current law requires annual reporting by the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding the use of the government's wiretapping powers; the report includes statistics on how often Federal law enforcement has been impeded in a court-authorized investigation by encryption or has been unable to access communications. These statistics show that this has happened only rarely. In its most recent report—from 2010—DOJ reported that encryption had only been encountered all of 12 times.

Did the encryption stop the investigation, or even prevent the wiretappers from figuring out what was being said? No. The report admits that in all of these instances, police were able to obtain the plain text of communications. Previous years' numbers are similar. Aside from government reports, in 2012 telecommunications companies also revealed that a very low percentage of law enforcement requests for user information were rejected. In AT&T's case, only 965 out of over 250,000 requests for user information were rejected. Overall, the available public statistics don't appear to support the FBI's claims about its inability to access communications.

Read more: EFF

High Fructose Corn Syrup Addictive Like Cocaine, Says Researcher

Is the obesity epidemic due to the addictive qualities in food or that a lot more food is cheap and plentiful than ever before in history?

A paper presented at the 2013 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting, the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience - Association Canadienne des Neurosciences (CAN-ACN), says the problem is addiction rather than food wealth - the authors claim that high-fructose corn syrup can cause behavioral reactions in rats similar to those produced by drugs of abuse such as cocaine.  It's the "Food Addiction" hypothesis that has recently become popular, which posits that we could be addicted to food just like drugs.  

Addiction happens when drug use shifts from positive reinforcement to the negative kind; drugs are relied on to prevent or relieve negative states that otherwise result from abstinence (e.g., withdrawal) or from adverse environmental circumstances (e.g. stress).

Francesco Leri, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Applied Cognitive Science at the University of Guelph, suggest food addiction could explain the global obesity epidemic, though binge eaters have greater rates of psychiatric diagnoses involving negative emotional states compared to the general population, so eating may be the symptom and not the cause. The National Institute of Mental Health recently declared an end to support for symptom-based treatment in mental health.

Leri says increased availability of such highly-palatable foods could partly explain the high incidence of obesity around the world, but simple availability does not explain why some people are obese and others are not, given the same amount of available food. Leri, and others have instead suggested individual differences in vulnerability to addiction. Surveys of consumption of cocaine show that though many individuals try these drugs, only a small percentage of them become addicted. Leri set out to show that the same could be true of "addictive foods". "We have evidence in laboratory animals of a shared vulnerability to develop preferences for sweet foods and for cocaine" says Leri. Specifically, Leri wants to prove that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is worse for us than table sugar.

Other studies instead say addiction is a disorder of decision-making. 

Leri used rats to examine the behavioral, chemical and neurobiological changes induced by consumption of "addictive foods" containing HFCS. "We are not rats, but our children do not think too much about the impact of sweets on their brain and behaviour. There is now convincing neurobiological and behavioural evidence indicating that addiction to food is possible. Our primary objective is to discover biological predictors of vulnerability to develop excessive consumption of high fructose corn syrup ," says Leri.

John W. Bode, President and C.E.O. of the Corn Refiners Association, said in a statement, “It is irresponsible and ultimately counter-productive for these researchers to associate safe and widely used foods, such as high fructose corn syrup, with illegal narcotics such as cocaine. There remains no credible scientific evidence to suggest that caloric sweeteners, such as sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), are addictive to humans in general. One of the main weaknesses of the research conducted by Dr. Francesco Leri, like most research seeking to demonize HFCS and other caloric sweeteners, is they are often conducted on animals, such as rats, in scenarios not likely found in the real world experienced by humans."

Source: Science 2.0