YAY! Finally a step in the right direction!

Patriot Act Article

I'm a granola eatin bunny hugger

I can't believe it, but I would be in denial if I didn't say that I am a bunny-hugging hippie. Okay, I don't really care about people wearing fur, I'm not a democrat or a member of the green party, I think the sierra club and green peace are a bunch of freaks, and I'm pretty sure I love pepsi and big trucks, BUT I have started worrying about western medecine, pesticides and whether the evil corporate machine is going to destroy the world as we know it.

(so dad, I believe I will be getting that bnyhgr license plate!)

I watched (I have about 20 minutes left of it) a show called the Future of Food this week that is so freaky. I know it's propoganda, but what isn't these days? It covers the agricultural industry in the U.S. and Canada and talks genetic engineering and how it's changing and possibly destroying the agricultural industry.

Most industrialized countries have or are passing laws against genetic engineering. The reasons are amazing! In the U.S. you cannot patent life according to the constitution, but when a company in the early 1990's genetically engineered a seed the U.S. patent office (and I believe the Supreme Court was involved, although I could be wrong) allowed it. This has ruined farmers.

The company that first altered and patented their seed was the manufacturer of the weed killer, Round Up. They created a seed that was immune to Round Up so that farmers could more liberally spray it in their crops. A company called Monsant has the patent on the seed called Round Up Ready. The first result is farmers spraying all of their crop, contaminating (in my opinion) the crop and the food it produces.

Then small farmers who had spent years and years (some as long as 50 years) cultivating and storing their own seed found themselves being sued by the large corporations. They claimed the the farmers has stolen their seed. They had gone onto the farmer's land and tested samples, finding that the farmer's plants had cross pollinated with the genetically engineered plant. The courts upheld the lawsuits because of the patents. If the farmer had it and didn't pay for it, then he was liable and had to pay the fines and dispose of all of his seed (in many cases, this was thousands of pounds!).

On top of the the crop that the farmer now had was mixed with the genetically altered seed and was becoming immune to the pesticides (but only some) and was not performing nearly as well.

Amazing! And just think that part of the problem is government subsidies. These farmers can't afford to grow the crops on their own, so we the taxpayer pay the extra cost to just keep them in business. But gosh, isn't it nice that it's all so cheap at the store? gggrrrrr

In the library....yawn

I so forgot what it was like to be in the UAA library. I am falling asleep just thinking about it. Although I do have fond cute memories of Joe flirting with me in the library computer lab our freshman year. Of course this was before you could really "chat" with yahoo or even ICQ. We only cwolf, which was an archaic green screen email system where in order to "talk" to someone you had to know the right commands. Joe would chat with me in the computer lab just a few computers away without me knowing about it. I know, we're pathetic. Such geeks.

I actually came here tonight with the express purpose of writing my paper. Of course today would be "pregnancy brain" day and I would go so far as to forget the hard drive with my paper on it and also lock myself out of the house and the car with the baby in hand and the car running. Yes, I'm a smart girlie today.

I left the hard drive at home and I don't have a wolfcard, so I can't print off the great journal articles I found because I don't have a freakin PASS! GGGRRR!! So I have to go get one tomorrow, although I'm probably going to just print the articles off at home anyway.

I'm so not funny right now. How sad. I aspire to be Hanni. If you haven't read her blog you must. And you must read these specific entries in this order: Mystery Malady and Finger in my Keister. You will be in tears or in the bathroom by the time you're done!