Playahata

If you thought Monsanto’s lack of testing on their current GMO crops was bad before, prepare to now be blown away by the latest statement by the USDA. Despite links to organ damage and mutated insects, the USDA says that it is changing the rules so that genetically modified seed companies like Monsanto will get ‘speedier regulatory reviews’. With the faster reviews, there will be even less time spent on evaluating the potential dangers. Why? Because Monsanto is losing sales with longer approval terms.

The changes are expected to take full effect in March when they’re published in the Federal Register. The USDA’s goal is to cut the approval time for GMO crops in half in order to speedily implement them into the global food supply. The current USDA process takes longer than they would like due to ‘public interest, legal challenges, and the challenges associated with the advent of national organic food standards‘ says USDA deputy administrator Michael Gregoire. (more…)

Some of the effects of Agent Orange. ....And now they want to spray this on your food.

It sounds like a supervillain’s plot, but sadly, it’s not. A new genetically engineered variety of corn from Dow is designed to be resistant to a component of Agent Orange. Tell the USDA not to approve this crop! Right now, Dow’s Agent Orange corn is being rubberstamped through the approval process at USDA. It has not been adequately tested for our health or safety, and it should not be approved. We have until February 27 to tell the USDA to reject Agent Orange corn. (more…)

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Faux-pression: Racism and the Cult of White Victimhood
by tim wise
Tue Jul 20, 2010
Here is Tim Wise’s response to the phony reverse racism claims made by the right, re: the New Black Panthers and the Shirley Sherrod/USDA story that broke yesterday.

To hear conservatives tell it, there’s a one-sided race war going on in America, and white folks are the targets. From President Obama’s secret plan to use health care reform as a way to procure backdoor “reparations” for slavery, to his equally secret plan to wreck the economy as a way to pay white people back for centuries of racial oppression, to his personal responsibility for a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois, in which two black kids beat up a white kid, it’s open season on white America. And of course, in case you weren’t convinced, surely that tax on tanning bed customers that was part of the health care bill should suffice to make the case: after all, it’s a clear slap at white folks and the result of the President’s deep antipathy towards those of us lacking sufficient melanin. (more…)