Sick of Corporate Control Over Your Food?

Published on Monday, December 28, 2009 by Firedoglake by Jill Richardson Have you ever played Monopoly? You know how it goes. It’s pretty fun for a while, until one player puts hotels and Boardwalk and Park Place and then amasses crazy amounts of money while the other play goes broke. Often in our house this would end with one player walking away from the game (or worse, turning the game board upside down in anger). This is no coincidence.

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Three Approved GMO's Linked to Organ Damage

Friday 08 January 2010 by: Rady Ananda, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto's GM maize. All three varieties of GM corn - Mon 810, Mon 863 and NK 603 - were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities. Made public by European authorities in 2005, Monsanto's confidential raw data of its 2002 feeding trials on rats that these researchers analyzed is the same data, ironically, that was used to approve them in different parts of the world. The Committee of Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) and Universities of Caen and Rouen studied Monsanto's 90-day feeding trials data of insecticide-producing Mon 810, Mon 863 and Roundup® herbicide absorbing NK 603 varieties of GM maize.

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Is Whole Foods Bad for the Planet?

By Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones Online Posted on January 9, 2010, Printed on January 10, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/144959/ Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has probably brought more people to organic foods than anyone else in the United States. And many of the folks shopping at his markets undoubtedly consider themselves to be environmentally aware. They might even believe that by purchasing their groceries at Whole Foods outlets they are doing their part to help the planet. But certainly many of them would probably be startled to learn of of Mackey's position on climate change: he's a global warming denier. In a recent New Yorker profile of Mackey, the Whole Foods chief argues that there is no scientific consensus regarding the causes of climate change. He lists Heaven and Earth: Global Warming--the Missing Science, a skeptical take on warming, as one of his recent favorite reads. He frets that the "hysteria about global warming" will cause the United States "to raise taxes and increase regulation, and in turn lower our standard of living and lead to an increase in poverty." He adds: "Historically, prosperity tends to correlate to warmer temperatures."

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Take Back Your Education

Published on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 by YES! Magazine More and more people across America are waking up to the mismatch between what is taught in schools and what common sense tells us we need to know. What can you do about it? by John Taylor Gatto Nobody gives you an education. If you want one, you have to take it. Only you can educate you—and you can’t do it by memorizing. You have to find out who you are by experience and by risk- taking, then pursue your own nature intensely. School routines are set up to discourage you from self-discovery. People who know who they are make trouble for schools. To know yourself, you have to keep track of your random choices, figure out your patterns, and use this knowledge to dominate your own mind. It’s the only way that free will can grow. If you avoid this, other minds will manipulate and control you lifelong.

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A LIST OF HIGH PROFILE AIDS DISSIDENTS

* Mohammad Ali Al-Bayati. PhD, Toxicologist and Pathologist, California. Author, "Get all the facts: HIV does not cause AIDS" * Liz Byrski. Author, "Facing Cancer-Searching for Solutions" and other books. Adjunct Teaching Fellow, Curtin University of Technology. Winner, CSIRO Award for Excellence in Science Journalism (1996), Fremantle, Western Australia * Hiram Caton. PhD, Ethicist, Head of the School of Applied Ethics at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia * Nicholas D. Chester. PhD, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Genetics Department, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts * Rebecca Veronica Culshaw. PhD. Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Texas at Tyler. Advisor, Journal of Biological Systems. Studied and published mathematical models of HIV infection for 10 years.

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The Advantages of Having Your Own Organic Vegetable Garden

Today, many people are concerned about the soaring price of food. While a vegetable garden won't provide everything you need, it can go a good way towards reducing your food bill. Even if you have just a small amount of space around the foundation of your home, you can use it for a wrap-around vegetable garden. Depending on the plants that you choose to grow and how you store them, you may even find that you can have fresh vegetables on hand all year long.

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Is Farming the New American Dream?

By Makenna Goodman, Chelsea Green Publishing Posted on August 21, 2009, Printed on August 25, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/142131/ In the post-Omnivore's Dilemma reality, where farmer Joel Salatin is known far outside his county, it doesn't take a genius to say it: farming has totally blown up.

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Does Aspartame Cause Tumors and Pose Cancer Risks? The Jury Is Still Out

By Scott Thill, AlterNet Posted on December 17, 2009, Printed on December 17, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/144617/ "Sweet taste is a quality of some chemical substances that the human race has always associated with pleasure," wrote George E. Inglett in the 1984 book Aspartame: Physiology and Biology, about the controversial artificial sweetener marketed in powder form under popular brands like NutraSweet and Equal. Initially approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1974, aspartame is now "consumed by over 200 million people in more than 6,000 products," according to the Calorie Control Council's dedicated site Aspartame.org. "As a result, high value has been placed on materials exhibiting sweetness," Inglett wrote.

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Gulf War Syndrome: Killing Our Own - Immune Augmentation Therapy

By Gary Null Ph.D. Abstract After the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of our veterans suffered toxic reactions, neurological damage, and rare cancers due to exposure to 2,4,5,-D and 2,4,5-T dioxin that was used in the form of the defoliant Agent Orange. Unfortunately, it took 20 years for the government to acknowledge a link between Agent Orange and any of the illnesses that resulted from its use. Learning from that experience, we have accelerated efforts to associate the ailments that tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of veterans of the Persian Gulf War are suffering with the toxic conditions to which they were exposed. Gulf veterans' ailments include rare cancers, neurological disease, and autoimmune conditions, ranging from full-blown chronic fatigue syndrome to lupus, to scleroderma, to conditions shared within families.

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Pentagon's Role in Global Catastrophe: Add Climate Havoc to War Crimes

By Sara Flounders Global Research, December 19, 2009 International Action Center - 2009-12-18 In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen -- with more than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets -- it is important to ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussion or proposed restrictions? By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements. The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its secret operations in Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1,000 U.S. bases around the world; its 6,000 facilities in the U.S.; all NATO operations; its aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales will not be counted against U.S. greenhouse gas limits or included in any count.

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