Milkshake8's Last.fm Journal

CBS Says It Could Move To Cable In A 'Few Days' If Aereo Wins; Receives Several Offers To Help Pack Its Bags - from the a-forwarding-address-really-won't-be-necessary dept

Sun, 5 May 2013 18:37:46 +0000

CBS has officially joined the chorus of angsty executive voices expressing their displeasure with Aereo by threatening to take their ball and go cable. Only this time, Moonves really means it.

CBS CEO Les Moonves has said before that he’s talked with New York cable operators about taking his network cable-only if Aereo is allowed to keep Streaming what it Broadcasts on The Internet, but now he’s saying that he could make the switch in as little as a few days "if we are forced to."
"Forced to?" What a small-minded, self-serving, overly dramatic "threat." I'll join Mike and a majority of our readers in inviting Moonves to go do exactly that ASAP. Stop arsing about in court and just take that shiny ball of yours and cram it into the overcrowded cable market and see exactly who notices your departure or arrival.

By taking free CBS broadcasts off the airwaves, Moonves says, "about 10 percent of America will not get our signal and I don’t think they will like that."
And when people out there in flyover country (or wherever Moonves imagines this 10% lives) find themselves short a free TV signal, do you really think they're going to be pissed off at an antenna manufacturer whose only sin was its cord was "too long?"

In case Moonves might feel such a question purely rhetorical, allow me to point out the obvious: they will blame the station that went "Off The Air" for reasons even the courts are having trouble understanding. CBS will be The Villain, along with Fox and whoever else decides the only way to Compete in a market is to exit it.

And, yes, CBS is still claiming the courts will find "Stealing" its precious signal "Illegal." So far, this doesn't seem to be happening. If cbs really wants to play chicken with Aereo, I can only suggest it's not doing it nearly fast enough. Go ahead and give up the free airwave access and the enviable spot as a Big Fish in a rather limited pond and become just another number out of hundreds, distinguishable only by the number of executives suddenly Grumpy they're running a cable channel rather than a network.

Even if Aereo cuts these channels out of retransmission fees from cable operators, who cares? This was the networks' short-sighted decision, one based on wringing money out of something they give away for free to anyone without cable. If Aereo is the cord-cutter's Best Friend, what does jumping to cable accomplish? If that's the scenario, CBS is better off losing the retransmission fees and staying on open airwaves where it takes nothing more than an Antenna to access its programming, rather than exiling itself to a service people seem more and more willing to abandon.

If CBS thinks threatening to move to Cable is going to turn the public against upstarts like Hopper or aereo, it really has no idea what the public actually wants. It will simply turn itself into a lumbering Villain at best and gone-but-barely-remembered also-ran at worst.by Tim Cushing

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130501/19380322911/cbs-says-it-could-move-to-cable-few-days-if-aereo-wins-receives-several-offers-to-help-pack-its-bags.shtml

Exxon blasts spawn Twitter account

Mon, 8 Apr 2013 19:55:43 +0000

A Twitter account called @ExxonCares has been suspended after tweeting about Ninja Turtles and finding the men who built the pipeline 65 years ago.

The Parody account was created last week in response to the Arkansas Pipeline Rupture that forced the evacuation of 22 homes in Mayflower, a Suburb 25 miles outside Little Rock.

We're reaching out to the real folks at Irving-based ExxonMobil Corp to see how they combat this type of parody in social media, especially when the account tries to portray itself as part of the company.

An example of the account's posts: “Turtles latest victims of pipeline rupture. Remember last time turtles got mixed up with toxic sludge? We got Ninja Turtles! #yourwelcome.”

Click here to read more the story from the Dallas Business Journal.By Nicholas Sakelaris

http://www.sustainablebusinessoregon.com/national/2013/04/exxon-blasts-spawn-twitter-account.html

Are We Heading Towards Cyprus or Socialism?

Fri, 5 Apr 2013 18:25:26 +0000

What will happen the next time the largest banks in America gamble their way into chaos? Will taxpayers bail them out again or will the "stakeholders" be forced to make up the losses?

You put your money in a bank and you're a stakeholder. The Cyprus crisis demonstrates that top European officials are more than willing to snatch a percentage of investor deposits, even when those deposits are supposedly insured. Yes, the U.S. is not CYPRUS. But, we can't dismiss the possibility that, should Wall Street take down the economy again (a near certainty), the idea of making all depositors take a haircut is not out of the question.

Imagine the following scenario: Wall Street banks find another wildly profitable, yet dangerous casino game (like high frequency trading or gambling on high risk credit derivatives using depositor money or money laundering or loan sharking or foreclosing on homeowners who are up-to-date on their payments -- wait they're doing all that already!) Before anyone notices, several too-big-to fail banks are On The Verge Of Collapse. As the Chain Reaction sets off a major Financial Crisis, Washington attempts to rush To The Rescue, yet again. However this time sentiment against another round of Bailouts is so great that The Bailouts don't materialize. It's not that hard to imagine The Federal Reserve and the FDIC declaring that all depositors must take a haircut along with other creditors. Tough Love.

Or is it Paranoia? Ellen Brown doesn't think so. She provides chapter and verse from a FDIC/Bank Of England 2012 joint report that describes how depositors would be forced to have their accounts reduced in exchange for equity in the failed bank. (See "Think Your Money is Safe? Think Again: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for U.S. and U.K. Depositors")

There are alternatives:

Effective Regulation?: We could HOPE AND PRAY that between now and then, regulation and enforcement would dramatically increase. But we might as well wish for The Tooth Fairy. My seat of the pants estimate is that it would require 70,000 additional regulators to effectively police the largest banks. What are the odds of funding and deploying such an army? Zilch.

Break up of the largest banks into smaller private banks?: "Returning to Glass-Steagall" is a popular refrain. But, we can't even get a watered down Volker rule implemented. Maybe another round of economic Chaos will get it done? Maybe not.

Wait for the next crash?: Then we could demand the breakup of the large banks into smaller privately owned banks or nationalize them entirely. While I would greatly prefer the latter option, it seems Immoral to base a reform strategy on waiting for massive unemployment to strike again. Millions are still without work due to the last Crash.

That leaves one other Sensible approach: Fight for public banking right now.

Let's not mince words. Public banks, whether in ultra conservative North Dakota or in China are socialist structures. The are owned and operated by the state in behalf of its citizens, at least in theory. There are no private shareholders. All Profits go to the government or are reinvested by the public bank in behalf of consumers and businesses.

Brazil, Russia, India and China, which rely heavily on state-owned banks, also are countries that have weathered the Financial Crisis with the least amount of damage. (See Ellen Brown yet again: "Public Sector Banks: From Black Sheep to Global Leaders" for excellent data and analysis.) These countries recognize that their economies need public banks to assist development, rather than relying solely on predatory private banks.

A Red Bank in a Red State

The Bank of North Dakota (BND) is a remarkably successful example of socialist banking. More amazing still is that it thrives in a state where Democrats are almost as rare as windless days. You would expect that ultra conservative North Dakota would be the last place in America to support public banking. But you know, sometimes Socialism really works. (See "Why Is Socialism Doing So Darn Well in Deep-Red North Dakota?" )

Established in 1919 by the Non Partisan League, a populist organization that gained control of the state legislature, the BND has become a fixture in North Dakota's economy. While Wall Street was on its knees begging for bailouts, the BND was turning a profit, year after year, for the people of North Dakota. It didn't get involved with sub-prime mortgages or derivatives. It didn't become a Casino because none of its employees receive incentive pay for gambling with depositor money.

Check out the current salaries of the top 6 BND officers:

Eric Hardmeyer, President and CEO: $232,500.00
Bob Humann, Chief Lending Officer: $135,133.79
Tim Porter, Chief Administrative Officer: $122,533.95
Joe Herslip, Chief Business Officer: $105,000.00
Lori Leingang, Chief Administrative Officer: $105,000.00
Wally Erhardt, Director of Student Loans: $91,725.92

While these BND public bankers average salary is approximately $132,000 per year, the top five officers at Goldman Sachs average over $13.9 million each. So our illustrious private bankers "earned" over 105 times more than the top BND officers. You think they're 105 times more valuable to society? (For more information on financial inequality please see How to Earn a Million Dollars an Hour, Wiley, 2013)

A Public Banking movement builds in the U.S.

A collection of dedicated financial writers, public finance experts and former bankers have created the Public Banking Institute to help sell the idea of public banking to state legislators, the activist community and the public at large. Its president Ellen Brown (author of Web of Debt), and its executive director Marc Armstrong, are doing a remarkable job in helping various legislatures explore state-owned banks.

The Institute is holding a major conference on June 2-4 at Dominican University in San rafael, Calif. featuring such anti-Wall Street crusaders as Matt Taibbi, Gar Alperowitz and Ellen Brown. Also speaking will be Brigitte Jonsdottir, a member of the Icelandic parliament.

Won't public banks would turn into Piggy Banks for ruthless politicians?
Some fear that politicians would use public banks to provide favors which in turn would lead to more votes and more favors. As economists Panicos Demetriades, Svetlana Andrianova, Anja Shortland, put it, this hypothesis also "postulates that politically motivated banks make bad lending decisions, resulting in non-performing loans, financial fragility and slower growth." ("There should be no rush to privatise government owned banks")

However, their research suggest strongly, that private banking is much more vulnerable to Political Corruption:

We suggest that politicians may actually prefer banks not to be in the public sector. . . . Conditions of weak corporate governance in banks provide fertile ground for quick enrichment for both bankers and politicians - at the expense ultimately of the taxpayer. In such circumstances politicians can offer bankers a system of weak regulation in exchange for party political contributions, positions on the boards of banks or lucrative consultancies. Activities that are more likely to provide both sides with quick returns are the more speculative ones, especially if they are sufficiently opaque as not to be well understood by The Shareholders such as complex derivatives trading.
Sound familiar?

And let's not forget that the enormous salaries that drive private banking also make more than a few politicians and regulators Drool at the prospect of moving from government to private banking. You can well imagine what that does to legislation and regulation.

In short, private banking is a veritable Petri Dish for the germination of weak regulations, tax loopholes, lax enforcement and outright Corruption..

And what about government owned banks? These economists report that:

Government owned banks, on the other hand, have less freedom to engage in speculative strategies that result in quick enrichment for bank insiders and politicians. Moreover, politicians tend to be held accountable for wrongdoings or bad management in the public sector but are typically only indirectly blamed, if at all, for the misdemeanours of private banks.... On the other hand, when it comes to banks that are in the public sector, democratic accountability of politicians is more likely to discourage them from engaging in speculation. In such banks, top managers are more likely to be compelled to focus on the more mundane job of financing real businesses and economic growth.
Wall Street's Counter Punch is Coming:

Wall Street is fully aware that the public banking moving is spreading. They know that the BND, precisely because it sits in such a Red State, is a constant reminder that another, more sensible, and less Lucrative path is both possible and desirable. Therefore, they're determined to snuff out this movement and their Weapon of Choice is the latest Pacific Rim trade treaty. Promoted by the Obama administration, this treaty is designed to help Wall street gain more access to foreign markets. Along the way, the closed-door negotiations may lead to language that will Ban state banks.

Can the public banking movement turn into Occupy Wall Street 2.0?

We don't need to wait for the next crisis to undermine Wall Street's pernicious grip on our country. We can hit them where they live by building public banks in state after state. Here's why. Every time you pay any state or local tax or fee -- from sales taxes to fishing licenses, the money usually goes into a too-big-to-fail Wall Street bank. That's because most of the nation's 7,000 community banks are too small to provide the cash management services that state and the larger localities require. Add that up across the economy and we're talking $1 trillion in deposits that flow into Wall Street. But in North Dakota all the state revenues flow through its public bank. Imagine if the other 49 states formed public banks.

Also state banks like the BND can protect the states and municipalities from Wall Street firms that prey upon public entities that are desperate for funding. Wall Street Banksters have a vast array of bonding schemes that earn them enormous fees at the expense of local taxpayers. Capital appreciate bonds, a Wall Street favorite, can lead to paybacks that are ten times the size of the original loan. (See investigative report here.) But not in North Dakota: the BND, not Wall Street Schemers, provides much safer financing. After all its officers are not rewarded for ripping off their fellow residents.

Beating Wall Street back won't come easy. But it sure looks like the Public Banking Institute is lighting the way. They deserve the support of all of us who are sick and tired of Wall Street's greedy grip on our society.By Les Leopold

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/public-banking_b_3017714.html

Abolish the Minimum Wage??!! A Debate

Fri, 5 Apr 2013 17:41:27 +0000

Had a rousing and often substantive debate last night sponsored by the group Intelligence Squared. My partner was the great and eloquent Karen Kornbluh (listen to the podcast -- I really thought Karen did a great job merging morality, compassion, and the facts of the case); the opposing team was Russ Roberts and Jim Dorn. The proposition was "the minimum wage should be abolished." I'll let you guess which side Karen and I took, but the good news: the audience votes at the beginning and end of the debate and team that gets more people to switch to their side wins. We won.

I've pasted in my opening statement below, but allow me to summarize the opposition's argument, half of which is, I think, a fair point from a Libertarian perspective, though one with which I deeply disagree.

Their first point is that the minimum wage hurts a lot of people. But a) that's not what the research shows (even the bulk of the work that finds some negative impacts shows that the vast majority of affected workers benefit from the policy), and b) half the time they argued that it's a small policy that affects few people so getting rid of it won't be a big deal. Karen and I tried to figure out how a small, ineffectual program could be so damaging to America that it had to be abolished but I thought they were quite muddled on this point.

Their other point was this: if we abolish the minimum wage, more people who are not worth hiring at $7.25 an hour will get jobs at... who knows?... maybe $2 or $3 or $4 an hour.

That's a standard economics point-sliding down a demand curve-and there's certainly logic to it. But let's think a bit more about its implications:

As I stressed throughout the night, you've got to be empirical about all of these questions -- there are always tons of moving parts in the economy -- and the evidence doesn't support the claim. As shown in the figure below, during the 1980s, for example, the real value of the minimum wage slid 32 percent (1979-89) so we have a natural experiment (thanks, Ronnie...). And the job indicators for younger workers didn't out-perform their norms at all.

The employment rate of teens, for example -- just measuring from peak-to-peak (1979-89) to control for the cycle -- fell one percentage point, i.e., it went "the wrong way." Their unemployment fell too, however, but also by only one point. And in the 1990s, the real minimum wage went up by 11 percent (1989-2000, peak-to-peak again), while both unemployment and employment rates fell slightly again, so a confusing pattern once again. In the 2000s cycle the real minimum fell 12 percent but teen unemployment went up and employment went down, very much the wrong pattern from the abolisionists perspective.

In other words, no first-order evidence that changes in the real minimum wage had much to do with employment opportunities for young workers. Now, this is nothing like careful analysis-it's just broad trends. But it makes the point, especially given the steep 1980s real decline in the wage floor, that you shouldn't blithely assert without evidence that abolishing the minimum wage would automatically lead to a "sliding down the demand curve." The whole point of the new research -- and I'm talking about work that finds both positive and negative impacts -- is that those impacts hover around zero, which should lead objective observers to be highly skeptical that phasing out the minimum wage would lead to large employment gains.

But here's the other part of our argument against the slide: it's the ultimate low-road strategy. Let's dump our labor standards and emulate developing economies where such institutions as minimum wages have not yet evolved.

Our opponents believe -- I'm quite certain they would happily agree with this assessment -- that all that matters is to get people working at any wage level... if that's $1 an hour, than that's what the market says they're worth and so be it.

Thankfully, for the rest of us, and for most of last night's audience, that's neither a correct assessment of the evidence nor a vision of America we share.

Source: bls; Unemp and Emp Rate changes are percentage points; real min wg is percent change.
*****

Opening Statement: Minimum Wage Debate

Jared Bernstein

Here's my main point: abolishing the minimum wage would be a terrible policy mistake that would needlessly hurt millions of low-wage workers. It is a not a policy anywhere near the current agenda -- in fact, the current debate asks whether the minimum wage should be increased. Yes, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain endorsed the idea in the R primary, but the idea of abolishing a policy that's been in place helping low wage workers since the 1930s is about as far out of the mainstream as you can get.

Let me explain why.

I got all this grey hair through a lifetime of analyzing social and economic policies. I began as a social worker in NYC working with the poor and worked my way up, or down, or sideways to whatever is I'm doing today. And over all those decades, I've focused almost exclusively on two things: what's gone wrong in our economy and which policies could give less advantaged folks a fair shot.

It is through that simple agenda that decades ago, I became interested in min wg policy.

As Globalization, technological change, and a bunch of other stuff we can talk about has evolved, economic growth no longer reaches WORKING FAMILIES the way it used to. And the further you go down the pay scale, the less growth you're likely to see.

The minimum wage partially helps offset that problem. In fact, you will be hard pressed to find a policy that does what it sets out to do -- to raise the pay of our Lowest wage workers -- more effectively. And importantly, reams of high quality research shows that it does so with a minimum of the type of side effects that I suspect our opponents will emphasize.

Consider this: the American minimum wage has been in place since 1938 -- that's 75 years ago. It has been raised 22 times; 19 states now have their own minimum wages, above the federal level. If this policy was so damaging that it needs to be Abolished, how could it be that citizens and legislatures in 19 states decided not to abolish it but to raise it above the federal level?

If it was as damaging as our opponents claim, how could the minimum wage not only survived this long, but flourished and expanded?

The answer, once again, is because it is widely understood and accepted by mainstream economists, policy makers, and perhaps most importantly, low-wage workers themselves, who overwhelmingly support the policy -- as doing what it's supposed to do: steering a bit more of the economy's growth their way.

To do what our opponents advocate -- to get rid of the minimum wage -- would figuratively take the wage floor out from under millions of low-wage workers, many of whom, as Karen will emphasize, depend on the minimum wage to support their families.

For these reasons, President Obama has recently proposed increasing the federal minimum wage. Now, I firmly believe that economists can and should have good, robust arguments about such proposals... whether it should be increased or not. But that's not what we're arguing about tonight. Our opponents think America should have no minimum wage at all.

To me, a better question than should the min wg be abolished is why anyone would even suggest such A Bad Idea.

I think the answer comes down to two factors. First, common misconceptions, ones that have should have been banished by the research. Second, because of a Laissez-Faire market Ideology that trumps common sense and Empirical Evidence.

A word about that evidence: there's probably no question that's been analyzed more carefully by Economists than this one of impact of minimum wage on low-wage workers. And the conclusion is that it raises the pay of low wage workers without hurting their job prospects.

Of literally thousands of estimates on the impact of Minimum Wage on the job impacts of affected workers the vast majority find that the benefits to low wage workers far outweigh any costs in terms of reduced hours or job loss.

Economist John Schmitt recently published a graph of these estimates -- 1,500 of 'em -- and while there were outliers on both sides of zero, the mass of the estimates were just slightly below zero or slightly above.

Now, recall that I mentioned all those states with their own minimum wage levels. That's provided minimum wage researchers with something very rare in economics: pseudo experimentation.

The best way to test the impact of an intervention like a minimum wage increase is to compare places that are as alike as can be in terms of the relevant economic variables, yet only one place sees a minimum wage increase. And these studies consistently find results for say, job loss effects for workers that hover around zero.

Now, the empirically established fact that minimum wages don't hurt the people who get it isn't the same as showing that they help them. So why do we need a minimum wage and why would abolishing it be so harmful?

Karen will say more about this, but here I'll just note that opponents like to say the minimum wage just goes to rich kids who don't need to The Money. I wish that was true. But analysis of the president's planned increase shows:

-The average Minimum Wage worker brings home about half of her household's earnings;
-84 percent of total affected workers are at least 20 years old;
-over 60 percent of the benefits of the increase go to those in the bottom half of the workforce by income level;
-47 percent of affected workers are full-timers, 83 percent work at least 20 hours per week.

So, we have here a simple policy that for 75 years has been doing what it's designed to do with little fanfare and minimal, if any, negative side effects, reaching mostly workers from low and moderate income families who need the money. I'm perfectly happy to argue about whether it should be increased. But abolishing it makes absolutely no sense at all.

This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein's On The Economy blog.By Jared Bernstein

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/minimum-wage_b_3016512.html

ExxonMobil tar sands pipeline breaks in Arkansas (raw video)

Mon, 1 Apr 2013 18:04:25 +0000

Anonymous
@YourAnonNews
.@ExxonMobil tar sands Pipeline breaks in Arkansas (raw video): http://bit.ly/Xy3I4N

https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/318492223471763457

Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops

Mon, 1 Apr 2013 03:30:44 +0000

by Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson in Independent Science News

How should a regulatory agency announce they have discovered something potentially very important about the safety of products they have been approving for over twenty years?

In the course of analysis to identify potential allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for Consumers and Farmers. This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.

cauliflower mosaic virus

What Podevin and du Jardin discovered is that of the 86 different transgenic events (unique insertions of foreign DNA) commercialized to-date in the United States 54 contain portions of Gene Vi within them. They include any with a widely used gene regulatory sequence called the CaMV 35S promoter (from the Cauliflower Mosaic virus; CaMV). Among the affected transgenic events are some of the most widely grown GMOs, including Roundup Ready soybeans (40-3-2) and MON810 maize. They include the Controversial NK603 MaiZe recently reported as causing Tumors in Rats (Seralini et al. 2012).

The researchers themselves concluded that the presence of segments of Gene VI “might result in unintended phenotypic changes”. They reached this conclusion because similar fragments of Gene VI have already been shown to be active on their own (e.g. De Tapia et al. 1993). In other words, the EFSA researchers were unable to rule out a hazard to public health or the environment.

In general, viral genes expressed in plants raise both agronomic and human health concerns (reviewed in Latham and Wilson 2008). This is because many viral genes function to disable their host in order to facilitate pathogen invasion. Often, this is achieved by incapacitating specific anti-pathogen defenses. Incorporating such genes could clearly lead to undesirable and unexpected outcomes in agriculture. Furthermore, viruses that infect plants are often not that different from viruses that infect humans. For example, sometimes the genes of human and plant viruses are interchangeable, while on other occasions inserting plant viral fragments as transgenes has caused the genetically altered plant to become susceptible to an animal virus (Dasgupta et al. 2001). Thus, in various ways, inserting viral genes accidentally into crop plants and the food supply confers a significant potential for harm.

The Choices for Regulators
The original discovery by Podevin and du Jardin (at EFSA) of Gene VI in commercial GMO crops must have presented regulators with sharply divergent procedural alternatives. They could 1) recall all CaMV Gene VI-containing crops (in Europe that would mean revoking importation and planting approvals) or, 2) undertake a retrospective risk assessment of the CaMV promoter and its Gene VI sequences and hope to give it a clean bill of health.

It is easy to see the attraction for EFSA of option two. Recall would be a massive political and financial decision and would also be a huge embarrassment to the regulators themselves. It would leave very few GMO crops on the market and might even mean the end of crop biotechnology.

Regulators, in principle at least, also have a third option to gauge the seriousness of any potential GMO hazard. GMO monitoring, which is required by EU regulations, ought to allow them to find out if deaths, illnesses, or crop failures have been reported by farmers or health officials and can be correlated with the Gene VI sequence. Unfortunately, this particular avenue of enquiry is a scientific dead end. Not one country has carried through on promises to officially and scientifically monitor any hazardous consequences of GMOs (1).

Unsurprisingly, EFSA chose option two. However, their investigation resulted only in the vague and unreassuring conclusion that Gene VI “might result in unintended phenotypic changes” (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This means literally, that changes of an Unknown Number, nature, or magnitude may (or may not) occur. It falls well short of the solid scientific reassurance of public safety needed to explain why EFSA has not ordered a recall.

Can the presence of a fragment of virus DNA really be that significant? Below is an independent analysis of Gene VI and its known properties and their safety implications. This analysis clearly illustrates the regulators’ dilemma.

The Many Functions of Gene VI
Gene VI, like most plant viral genes, produces a protein that is Multifunctional. It has four (so far) known roles in the viral infection cycle. The first is to participate in the assembly of virus Particles. There is no current data to suggest this function has any implications for biosafety. The second known function is to suppress anti-pathogen defenses by inhibiting a general cellular system called RNA Silencing (Haas et al. 2008). Thirdly, Gene VI has the highly unusual function of transactivating (described below) the long RNA (the 35S RNA) produced by CaMV (Park et al. 2001). Fourthly, unconnected to these other mechanisms, Gene VI has very recently been shown to make plants highly susceptible to a bacterial pathogen (Love et al. 2012). Gene VI does this by interfering with a common anti-pathogen Defense Mechanism possessed by plants. These latter three functions of Gene VI (and their risk implications) are explained further below:

1) Gene VI Is an Inhibitor of RNA Silencing
RNA silencing is a mechanism for the control of gene expression at the level of RNA abundance (Bartel 2004). It is also an important antiviral defense mechanism in both plants and animals, and therefore most viruses have evolved genes (like Gene VI) that disable it (Dunoyer and Voinnet 2006).

GENE VI (UPPER LEFT) PRECEDES THE START OF THE 35S RNA

This attribute of Gene VI raises two obvious biosafety concerns: 1) Gene VI will lead to aberrant gene expression in GMO crop plants, with unknown consequences and, 2) Gene VI will interfere with the ability of plants to defend themselves against viral Pathogens. There are numerous experiments showing that, in general, viral proteins that disable gene silencing enhance infection by a wide spectrum of viruses (Latham and Wilson 2008).

2) Gene VI Is a Unique Transactivator of Gene Expression
Multicellular organisms make proteins by a mechanism in which only one protein is produced by each passage of a ribosome along a messenger RNA (mRNA). Once that protein is completed the ribosome dissociates from the mRNA. However, in a CaMV-infected plant cell, or as a transgene, Gene VI intervenes in this process and directs the ribosome to get back on an mRNA (reinitiate) and produce the next protein in line on the mRNA, if there is one. This property of Gene VI enables Cauliflower Mosaic Virus to produce multiple proteins from a single long RNA (the 35S RNA). Importantly, this function of Gene VI (which is called transactivation) is not limited to the 35S RNA. Gene VI seems able to transactivate any cellular mRNA (Futterer and Hohn 1991; Ryabova et al. 2002). There are likely to be thousands of mrna molecules having a short or long protein coding sequence following the primary one. These secondary coding sequences could be expressed in cells where Gene VI is expressed. The result will presumably be production of numerous random proteins within cells. The biosafety implications of this are difficult to assess. These proteins could be allergens, plant or human toxins, or they could be harmless. Moreover, the answer will differ for each commercial crop species into which Gene VI has been inserted.

3) Gene VI Interferes with Host Defenses
A very recent finding, not known by Podevin and du Jardin, is that Gene VI has a second mechanism by which it interferes with plant anti-pathogen defenses (Love et al. 2012). It is too early to be sure about the mechanistic details, but the result is to make plants carrying Gene VI more susceptible to certain pathogens, and less susceptible to others. Obviously, this could impact farmers, however the discovery of an entirely new function for gene VI while efsa’s paper was in press, also makes clear that a full appraisal of all the likely effects of Gene VI is not currently achievable.

Is There a Direct Human Toxicity Issue?
When Gene VI is intentionally expressed in transgenic plants, it causes them to become chlorotic (yellow), to have growth deformities, and to have reduced fertility in a dose-dependent manner (Ziljstra et al 1996). Plants expressing Gene VI also show gene expression abnormalities. These results indicate that, not unexpectedly given its known functions, the protein produced by Gene VI is functioning as a toxin and is harmful to plants (Takahashi et al 1989). Since the known targets of Gene VI activity (ribosomes and gene silencing) are also found in human cells, a reasonable concern is that the protein produced by Gene VI might be a human toxin. This is a question that can only be answered by future experiments.

Is Gene VI Protein Produced in GMO Crops?
Given that expression of Gene VI is likely to cause harm, a crucial issue is whether the actual inserted transgene sequences found in commercial GMO crops will produce any functional protein from the fragment of Gene VI present within the CaMV sequence.

There are two aspects to this question. One is the length of Gene VI accidentally introduced by developers. This appears to vary but most of the 54 approved transgenes contain the same 528 base pairs of the CaMV 35S promoter sequence. This corresponds to approximately the final third of Gene VI. Deleted fragments of Gene VI are active when expressed in plant cells and functions of Gene VI are believed to reside in this final third. Therefore, there is clear potential for unintended effects if this fragment is expressed (e.g. De Tapia et al. 1993; Ryabova et al. 2002; Kobayashi and Hohn 2003).

The second aspect of this question is what quantity of Gene VI could be produced in GMO crops? Once again, this can ultimately only be resolved by direct quantitative experiments. Nevertheless, we can theorize that the amount of Gene VI produced will be specific to each independent insertion event. This is because significant Gene VI expression probably would require specific sequences (such as the presence of a gene promoter and an ATG [a protein start codon]) to precede it and so is likely to be heavily dependent on variables such as the details of the inserted transgenic DNA and where in the plant genome the transgene inserted.

Commercial transgenic crop varieties can also contain superfluous copies of the transgene, including those that are incomplete or rearranged (Wilson et al 2006). These could be important additional sources of Gene VI protein. The decision of regulators to allow such multiple and complex insertion events was always highly questionable, but the realization that the CaMV 35S promoter contains Gene VI sequences provides yet another reason to believe that complex insertion events increase the likelihood of a biosafety problem.

Even direct quantitative measurements of Gene VI protein in individual crop authorizations would not fully resolve the scientific questions, however. No-one knows, for example, what quantity, location or timing of protein production would be of significance for risk assessment, and so answers necessary to perform science-based risk assessment are unlikely to emerge soon.

Big Lessons for Biotechnology
It is perhaps the most basic assumption in all of risk assessment that the developer of a new product provides regulators with accurate information about what is being assessed. Perhaps the next most basic assumption is that regulators independently verify this information. We now know, however, that for over twenty years neither of those simple expectations have been met. Major public universities, biotech multinationals, and government regulators everywhere, seemingly did not appreciate the relatively simple possibility that the DNA constructs they were responsible for encoded a viral gene.

This lapse occurred despite the fact that Gene VI was not truly hidden; the relevant information on the existence of Gene VI has been freely available in the scientific literature since well before the first biotech approval (Franck et al 1980). We ourselves have offered specific warnings that viral sequences could contain unsuspected genes (Latham and Wilson 2008). The inability of risk assessment processes to incorporate longstanding and repeated scientific findings is every bit as worrysome as the failure to intellectually anticipate the possibility of overlapping genes when manipulating viral sequences.

This sense of a generic failure is reinforced by the fact that this is not an isolated event. There exist other examples of commercially approved viral sequences having overlapping genes that were never subjected to risk assessment. These include numerous commercial GMOs containing promoter regions of the closely related virus figwort mosaic virus (FMV) which were not considered by Podevin and du Jardin. Inspection of commercial sequence data shows that the commonly used FMV promoter overlaps its own Gene VI (Richins et al 1987). A third example is the virus-resistant potato NewLeaf Plus (RBMT-22-82). This transgene contains approximately 90% of the P0 gene of potato leaf roll virus. The known function of this gene, whose existence was discovered only after US approval, is to inhibit the anti-pathogen defenses of its host (Pfeffer et al 2002). Fortunately, this potato variety was never actively marketed.

A further key point relates to the biotech industry and their campaign to secure public approval and a permissive regulatory environment. This has led them to repeatedly claim, firstly, that GMO technology is precise and predictable; and secondly, that their own competence and Self-Interest would prevent them from ever bringing potentially harmful products to the market; and thirdly, to assert that only well studied and fully understood transgenes are commercialized. It is hard to imagine a finding more damaging to these claims than the revelations surrounding Gene VI.

Biotechnology, it is often forgotten, is not just a technology. It is an experiment in the proposition that human institutions can perform adequate risk assessments on novel living organisms. Rather than treat that question as primarily a daunting scientific one, we should for now consider that the primary obstacle will be overcoming the much more mundane trap of human complacency and incompetence. We are not there yet, and therefore this incident will serve to reinforce the demands for GMO labeling in places where it is absent.

What Regulators Should Do Now
This summary of the scientific risk issues shows that a segment of a poorly characterized viral gene never subjected to any risk assessment (until now) was allowed onto the market. This gene is currently present in commercial crops and growing on a large scale. It is also widespread in the food supply.

Even now that EFSA’s own researchers have belatedly considered the risk issues, no one can say whether the public has been harmed, though harm appears a clear scientific possibility. Considered from the perspective of professional and scientific Risk Assessment, this situation represents a complete and catastrophic System Failure.

But the saga of Gene Vi is not yet over. There is no certainty that further scientific analysis will resolve the remaining uncertainties, or provide reassurance. Future research may in fact increase the level of concern or uncertainty, and this is a possibility that regulators should weigh heavily in their deliberations.

To return to the original choices before EFSA, these were either to recall all CaMV 35S promoter-containing GMOs, or to perform a retrospective risk assessment. This retrospective risk assessment has now been carried out and the data clearly indicate a potential for significant harm. The only course of action consistent with protecting the public and respecting the science is for EFSA, and other jurisdictions, to order a total recall. This recall should also include GMOs containing the FMV promoter and its own overlapping Gene VI.

Footnotes
1) EFSA regulators might now be regretting their failure to implement meaningful GMO monitoring. It would be a good question for European politicians to ask EFSA and for the board of EFSA to ask the GMO panel, whose job it is to implement monitoring.

References
Bartel P (2004) MicroRNAs: Genomics, Biogenesis, Mechanism, and Function. Cell: 116, 281-297.
Dasgupta R , Garcia BH, Goodman RM (2001) Systemic spread of an RNA insect virus in plants expressing plant viral movement protein genes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98: 4910-4915.

De Tapia M, Himmelbach A, and Hohn T (1993) Molecular dissection of the cauliflower mosaic virus translation transactivator. EMBO J 12: 3305-14.

Dunoyer P, and O Voinnet (2006) The complex interplay between plant viruses and host RNA-silencing pathways. Curr Opinion in Plant Biology 8: 415–423.

Franck A, H Guilley, G Jonard, K Richards and L Hirth (1980) Nucleotide sequence of cauliflower mosaic virus DNA. Cell 2: 285-294.
Futterer J, and T Hohn (1991) Translation of a polycistronic mRNA in presence of the cauliflower mosaic virus transactivator protein. EMBO J. 10: 3887-3896.

Haas G, Azevedo J, Moissiard G, Geldreich A, Himber C, Bureau M, et al. (2008) Nuclear import of CaMV P6 is required for infection and suppression of the RNA silencing factor DRB4. EMBO J 27: 2102-12.

Kobayashi K, and T Hohn (2003) Dissection of Cauliflower Mosaic Virus Transactivator/Viroplasmin Reveals Distinct Essential Functions in Basic Virus Replication. J. Virol. 77: 8577–8583.

Latham JR, and AK Wilson (2008) Transcomplementation and Synergism in Plants: Implications for Viral Transgenes? Molecular Plant Pathology 9: 85-103.

Park H-S, Himmelbach A, Browning KS, Hohn T, and Ryabova LA (2001). A plant viral ‘‘reinitiation’’ factor interacts with the host translational machinery. Cell 106: 723–733.

Pfeffer S, P Dunoyer, F Heim, KE Richards, G Jonard, V Ziegler-Graff (2002) P0 of Beet Western Yellows Virus Is a Suppressor of Posttranscriptional Gene Silencing. J. Virol. 76: 6815–6824.

Podevin N and du Jardin P (2012) Possible consequences of the overlap between the CaMV 35S promoter regions in plant transformation vectors used and the viral gene VI in transgenic plants. GM Crops and Food 3: 1-5.

Love AJ , C Geri, J Laird, C Carr, BW Yun, GJ Loake et al (2012) Cauliflower mosaic virus Protein P6 Inhibits Signaling Responses to Salicylic Acid and Regulates Innate Immunity. PLoS One. 7(10): e47535.

Richins R, H Scholthof, RJ Shepherd (1987) Sequence of figwort mosaic virus DNA (caulimovirus group). NAR 15: 8451-8466.

Ryabova LA , Pooggin, MH and Hohn, T (2002) Viral strategies of translation initiation: Ribosomal shunt and reinitiation. Progress in Nucleic Acid Research and Molecular Biology 72: 1-39.

Séralini, G-E., E. Clair, R. Mesnage, S. Gress, N. Defarge, M. Malatesta, D. Hennequin, J. Spiroux de Vendômois. 2012. Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Food Chem. Toxicol.

Takahashi H, K Shimamoto, Y Ehara (1989) Cauliflower mosaic virus gene VI causes growth suppression, development of necrotic spots and expression of defence-related genes in transgenic tobacco plants. Molecular and General Genetics 216:188-194.

Wilson AK, JR Latham and RA Steinbrecher (2006) Transformation-induced mutations in transgenic plants: Analysis and biosafety implications. Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Reviews 23: 209-234.

Zijlstra C, Schärer-Hernández N, Gal S, Hohn T. Arabidopsis thaliana expressing the cauliflower mosaic virus ORF VI transgene has a late flowering phenotype. Virus Genes 1996; 13:5-17.By Fritz Kreiss

http://www.occupymonsanto360.org/2013/01/23/regulators-discover-a-hidden-viral-gene-in-commercial-gmo-crops/

Big Agriculture Takes Control of Congress – Gets Immunity from GMO Lawsuits

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 18:51:19 +0000

Health Impact News Editor Comments:

Since the Alliance for Natural Health published this report below, more information has been uncovered about the GMO protection rider that Food Democracy Now had labeled “the monsanto protection act.” The law containing the rider was signed by President Obama late last night (March 26th). David Rogers of Politico has done some good investigative reporting to find out who introduced this rider, and it was Senator Roy Blunt from Missouri, the state where the headquarters for Monsanto is located. The other rider in this bill that removed certain basic safeguards for poultry farmers is linked to the new chairman of the appropriations subcommittee responsible for the Ag budget, Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, home of the headquarters of Tyson foods, the largest poultry producer in the U.S. The former head of the same committee who used to resist these types of riders was Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, the state with the second largest production of organic foods, many consisting of small family farmers. Senator Kohl retired from the Senate after the last session.

Here are some excerpts from the Politico article:

Big Agriculture flexes its muscle

Congress holds the purse strings, but who holds Congress these days when it comes to Farm Policy: the meatpackers and Monsanto? So it seemed last week as lawmakers sent The White House an updated budget for the Agriculture Department complete with industry-backed orders on how Secretary Tom Vilsack should run the place.

Even the typically conservative American Farm Bureau opposed this last action. And proponents would argue that the doomed poultry rules were never more than minimal protections for growers, such as requiring 90-day notice before a contract is canceled by a packer. “It’s almost as if the poultry companies are sending the signal through Congress: ”’you can’t touch us,’” said Steve Etka, who represents a coalition of growers. “It doesn’t get much lower than that,” said Mike Weaver, a 61-year-old West Virginia Chicken Farmer. “They should all be ashamed. Anyone who could do that doesn’t have much integrity or soul.”

The orders to Vilsack on genetically modified seeds are more subtle but potentially far reaching. In no uncertain terms, the amendment tells the secretary how he must respond the next time a court order challenges one of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds for which the St. Louis-based giant is a pioneer in commercializing. The language is unusually strong: the secretary “shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law… immediately grant” temporary permits to continue using the seed at the request of a farmer or producer wanting such a stewardship program.

The Center for Food Safety, a Washington-based nonprofit which has been waging its own guerrilla war with the biotech industry, denounced the Monsanto measure as “corporate welfare” and a backroom deal. “Monsanto flexed its muscle and won,” said attorney Bill Snapes, who serves as counsel to the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity.

Vilsack’s own reaction suggests he has doubts about the amendment’s legal standing. “Secretary Vilsack has asked the Office of General Council to review this provision,” the department told Politico, “As it appears to pre-empt judicial review of a deregulatory action which may make the provision unenforceable.”

All this happened with little or no floor debate and in a period of turmoil for the Senate Appropriations Committee. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), who had resisted such House-riders in the past as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee responsible for the Ag budget, retired from the Senate at the end of last year.

On balance, these changes tipped the balance even more toward the National Chicken Council, representing the big poultry processors. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who took over the Ag spot from KOHL, hails from the home state of Tyson Foods, headquartered in Springdale. Perdue Farms, a second big council member, has deep roots on Maryland’s Eastern Shore represents by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) who succeeded Inouye as chairman.

But the biggest player may have been Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a battle-scarred veteran of the House GOP leadership who is now rebuilding his power base in the Senate. Coming from Missouri, Blunt is a strong ally for both the poultry companies and Monsanto, and as the ranking Republican on the Ag appropriations subcommittee, he was a consistent and determined presence.

Watching the bill with dismay was Sen. Jon Tester, a 56-year-old Montana Democrat and one of the few farmers in Congress. In his lifetime, Tester has witnessed firsthand the immense consolidation of power at the top of the meat industry and was one of those in Congress who urged the Ag Department to be more aggressive with its regulatory power under the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act. At the same time, as an organic farmer himself, Tester is leery of the power enjoyed by Monsanto and the introduction of new GMO (genetically modified organism) products tailored to work better with herbicides. Tester’s background and Western roots encapsulate many of the tensions today in agriculture itself.

Tester waited too long to be a major force, and critics would argue that as a member of the Appropriations panel, he should have seen the train coming at him sooner. But he did file amendments — which were never allowed votes — to strip out both the riders. In Private, he made his displeasure known to top Appropriations Committee staff, and he delivered a strongly worded floor speech likening the provisions to essentially earmarks for industry.

Read the Full Story Here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/big-agriculture-tom-vilsack-monsanto-89268.htm

The Latest on the GMO Rider

by Alliance for Natural Health

Where do we go from here?

The Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the federal government passed both The Senate and The House last week—and despite all our mutual efforts, it still contained the Dangerous GMO rider we’ve been telling you about. The Senate, and in particular, the Senate Appropriations Committee leadership, let us down, despite earlier signals they would stand up to Monsanto on this one. Senate Democrats were unwilling to remove the biotech rider, despite the efforts of hundreds of organizations and businesses and tens of thousands of phone calls and Action Alert messages sent.

As you’ll recall, the newly passed rider will strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of illegal, potentially hazardous genetically engineered crops while USDA is performing an environmental impact statement. It will not only affect future judicial orders—it will also invalidate several recent orders that found the approval of GMO crops were Unlawful, and will allow the planting of those GMO crops even while the USDA assesses Environmental Hazards.

Since the USDA is totally behind GMO crops, removing court restraints really means that there are no controls on GMO planting at all. No safety reviews (USDA can’t even do them, only FDA, which refuses), and not even any real environmental assessments. This is one of the most blatant examples of money talking in politics that we have seen, and we have seen plenty of them in recent years.

There is also a real question whether the rider is constitutional—how can Congress contravene judicial actions? That would seem to contradict the separation of powers doctrine. We will be reviewing this and other questions with legal counsel.

Unfortunately, the Democrats were the ones who pushed this rider and allowed it to go through unhindered. What did they receive in return? This is the big unanswered question, as no one is willing to “Take Credit” for the rider (Editor’s note: see update above). We spoke to the office of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, and asked our lobbyists to see what they could find out, but we still did not get any answers. Barbara Mikulski, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairwoman, is not a big recipient of biotech funds, and she’s usually our ally on this issue—so it is even stranger that the rider’s language would arise out of her committee. Procedurally, it is irregular for a rider to become law that was not passed through the committee of jurisdiction first—in this case, the Judiciary or Agriculture Committee. In fact, Congress held no hearings on the Biotech rider, and many Democrats on the committee were initially unaware of its presence in the CR in the first place.

We do know that Monsanto and other biotech companies give a great deal of money to politicians. Opensecrets.org has not collated the information for 2013 as yet, but their figures reveal that contributions to both parties have increased dramatically in recent years. From 2011 to 2012, the agribusiness industry contributed $89,675,179 to political campaigns—65.9% to REPUBLICANS, 22.3% to Democrats—with MonSanto topping the list of contributors. The biggest recipients? In the Senate, it was Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) with $739,926 in agribusiness donations, and in the House, Frank Lucas (R-OK) with $720,590. However, neither of these individuals serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where the rider language was inserted.

Technically, this CR will be in effect only for six months—its purpose is to fund the government just through September 30—and the GMO provision will expire when the CR expires. In practice, however, this will happen only when Congress enacts a 2014 Appropriations Bill, and it’s not likely they’ll have one written, debated, and enacted by September 30, the end of the 2013 fiscal year. If they don’t have a new bill by then, they will simply change the date on the CR and extend it once again—and everything will remain as it is, including the GMO rider.

In other words, it’s extremely unlikely that the GMO rider will simply go away. Our only chance to end this provision is to make sure it doesn’t get included in the 2014 Appropriations Bill. This will require a huge and sustained grassroots effort—and a strong message to Congress to stop trying to sneak biotech riders by us. We as concerned citizens shouldn’t stand for it! ANH-USA will continue to work on lobbying, strategizing with various grassroots partners, and doing outreach. And we will, as always, keep you posted every step along the way.

Read the Full Article Here: http://www.anh-usa.org/the-latest-on-the-gmo-rider/By Brian Shilhavy

http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/big-agriculture-takes-control-of-congress-gets-immunity-from-gmo-lawsuits/

BitTorrent ‘s Bram Cohen Patents Revolutionary Live Streaming Protocol

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:49:07 +0000

Hoping to revolutionize live broadcasting on the Internet, Bram Cohen has filed a patent application for the new BitTorrent Live streaming protocol. BitTorrent’s inventor has worked on the new technology for several years and believes his new protocol can be world-changing. “We plan to shape the future of live broadcasts and want to work with broadcasters to accomplish that,” Cohen says.

Earlier this month BitTorrent Live was unveiled to the public.

The new protocol allows the public to send a video stream to millions of people, without having to invest in expensive bandwidth.

Around the same time as BitTorrent Live was launched the underlying patent application was published online. In it, Cohen describes what makes the technology so unique and TorrentFreak caught up with BitTorrent’s creator to find out more.

It took nearly half a decade before BitTorrent’s live stream service was released to the public. One of the main reasons is that it has been quite a challenge to make it work seamlessly. BitTorrent’s inventor is known for his passion for puzzles, and the streaming challenge is probably one of the most difficult puzzles he has solved to date.

“Doing live streaming well on the Internet has long been a problem. Peer to peer live-streaming has always suffered from high latency, meaning there is typically a lot of delay between when a broadcast happens and when end users see it, typically dozens of seconds or minutes,” Cohen told TorrentFreak.

“BitTorrent Live allows a broadcaster to stream to millions of people with just a few seconds of latency. This is new, and unique, and potentially world-changing,” he adds.

Bram Cohen explains that the patent is in no way going to restrict user’ access to the new protocol, quite the contrary. BitTorrent Live will be available to end users for free, and publishers who are using the service and hosting it on their own will not be charged either.

“We want people to use and adopt BitTorrent Live. But we aren’t planning on encouraging alternative implementation because it’s a tricky protocol to implement and poorly behaved peers can impact everyone. We want to ensure a quality experience for all and this is the best approach for us to take,” Cohen told torrentfreak.

BitTorrent Live is a complex technology but basically works by dividing peers into various “clubs” of peers who share data among each other via a UDP screamer protocol.

“To get slightly more technical, the way BitTorrent Live works is by making subsets of peers responsible for subsets of data. High robustness and low latency is achieved by using a screamer protocol between those peers,” Cohen explains.

“For the last hop it uses a non-screamer protocol to regain congestion control and efficiency. There is redundancy and some waste in the screaming, but that’s kept under control by only using it to get data to a small fraction of the peers.”

BitTorrent Live Clubs

Bram Cohen believes that the future of television is on the Internet, and BitTorrent Live can help to deliver live high-definition content to millions of people at once at no cost. This is not just the future for independent broadcasters, but also for the major content companies.

“I believe that inevitably all video streaming will be done over the Internet. It’s simply a better technology for doing so. On a technical level the cable approach is expensive and can only reach subscribers, as opposed to the Internet which can reach anyone,” Cohen told us.

“So far the one thing cable infrastructure has managed to still do better is live broadcasting. But the BitTorrent Live technology makes it practical to move that to the Internet without being cost prohibitive. We plan to shape the future of live broadcasts and want to work with broadcasters to accomplish that.”

While it can’t be expected that all major broadcasters will convert to BitTorrent during the next month, the technology is there and the patent is coming. It will be interesting to see how it develops over time and if it can gain mainstream adoption.

There are not many people who can change the fundamentals of the Internet two times in a row. However, Bram Cohen already did it once with the original BitTorrent protocol, and he believes that BitTorrent Live can have a similar impact.

Those who are interested in trying out BitTorrent Live can do so here. The more people join, the better it gets.By Ernesto

http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-s-bram-cohen-patents-revolutionary-live-streaming-protocol-130326/

Why Aren’t More Americans Fired Up About Inequality?

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:06:15 +0000

With news of record corporate profits and increased bonuses for those at the top of the financial heap — and on-going income stagnation, job loss, and rising poverty for those in the middle and bottom of the ladder—it’s maddening for progressives to hear our political elites continuing to promote austerity as a means for growth.

Just a year and half ago, Occupy Wall Street was all anyone could talk about. President Obama won a historic second term running on these themes and announced a new era of liberal governance in his recent Inaugural address. Yet, even with strong evidence out of Europe that austerity is failing, and public opinion polls in the U.S. showing clear opposition to rising inequality, the political class in Washington is collectively trying to convince itself that America can cut its way to prosperity and economic opportunity for the middle class.

What happened? And why aren’t we seeing more social protests against an economic and political order that sanctions these outcomes?

There are many culprits in this development, chief of which is the intersection of libertarian economic theory with control of one political party that has strong minority voting power in our constitutional system. The long term decline of the labor movement and the corporate ownership of media provide additional institutional explanations for why there is not more pushback.

But a more painful explanation might be closer to home.

John Jost, a professor of psychology and political science at NYU, and various colleagues over the years have developed a theory called “system justification” that shows how people are “motivated to defend, bolster, and rationalize the social systems that affect them — to see the status quo as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable,” because it serves their own internal needs and desires as humans. It helps them “manage uncertainty and threat and smooth out social relationships,” and “enables people to cope with and feel better about the societal status quo and their place in it,” as the authors write.

People do not always defend an unjust status quo and system justification varies across groups and situations. Similarly, system justification may be motivated by different reasons for those who are relatively advantaged or disadvantaged within society. But for most of us, it appears that there’s a powerful need in our own lives to reduce difficult feelings and anxieties when confronting the limitations of our social and economic order. As Jost and his co-authors note:

In several studies we find that giving people the opportunity to justify the system does indeed lead them to feel better and more satisfied and to report feeling more positive emotions and fewer negative emotions (e.g., Jost et al., 2008; Wakslak et al., 2007). Furthermore, chronically high system-justifiers, such as political conservatives, are happier (as measured in terms of subjective well-being) than are chronically low system-justifiers, such as liberals, leftists, and others who are more troubled by the degree of social and economic inequality in our society (Napier & Jost, 2008a).

The hedonic benefits of system justification, however, come with a cost in terms of decreased potential for social change and the remediation on of inequality. Wakslak and colleagues (2007) demonstrated that system-justifying ideologies, whether measured or manipulated through a mindset-priming technique, do indeed serve to reduce emotional distress — including negative affect in general and guilt in particular — but they also reduce “moral outrage.” This last consequence is particularly important, because moral outrage motivates people to engage in helping behavior and to support social change (Carlson & Miller, 1987; Montada & Schneider, 1989). Thus, the reduction in moral outrage made people less inclined to help those who are disadvantaged, measured in terms of research participants’ degree of support for and willingness to volunteer for or donate to a soup kitchen, a crisis hotline, and tutoring or job training programs for the underprivileged (see also Jost et al., 2008).
So people are somewhat conditioned to want to reduce their own stresses and anxieties and make sense of their position in life which in turn reduces their desire for social change.

The key for progressives is to figure out how to turn real concerns about inequality into sustained “moral outrage” that can force our economic and political system to do something to create more equitable conditions. This is where institutions, political education, and social movements come in which we’ll examine in future posts.

But based on this research, the powerful pull of system justification is something we must seriously consider and overcome if we want to successfully deal with Inequality.By John Halpin

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/12/1671341/americans-income-inequality/

Whole Foods GMO Labeling To Be Mandatory By 2018

Fri, 8 Mar 2013 20:16:16 +0000

Whole Foods has announced that by 2018, all products in U.S. and Canada stores must be labeled if they contain Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). This is the first national grocery store to set a deadline from GMO labeling.

“We are putting a stake in the ground on GMO labeling to support the consumer’s right to know,” said Walter Robb, co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, in a press release. “The prevalence of GMOs in the U.S. paired with nonexistent mandatory labeling makes it very difficult for retailers to source non-GMO options and for consumers to choose non-GMO products. Accordingly, we are stepping up our support of certified organic agriculture, where Gmos are not allowed, and we are working together with our supplier partners to grow our non-GMO supply chain to ensure we can continue to provide these choices in the future.”

Genetically modified organism have been manipulated through Genetic Engineering by introducing changes into DNA structure.

This announcement comes at a time where interest in GMO labeling is at an all-time high. During the November election, a mandatory GMO labeling initiative -- Prop 37 -- was introduced in California. Millions of dollars poured in from various corporations such as MonSanto and Pepsico against the ballot measure, which was ultimately defeated.

A recent poll by The Huffington Post in partnership with YouGov found that a huge majority -- 82 percent -- of Americans want labels for GMO food.

Gary Hirshberg, the CEO of Stonyfield Yogurt and the chairman and founding partner of the Just Label It campaign, has been a vocal proponent of the move to label GMO foods. In a recent blog for The Huffington Post, he explains:

Our government's failure to require labeling, and to be engaged in developing the science supporting GE food risk assessment is an absolute breach of its responsibility to The American Public.

There are in fact lots of reasons to label these foods: health and environmental concerns, ethical/religious views or just because people want to know. In fact, Mellman research shows 92 percent of citizens want the right to know with no meaningful statistical difference between MEN and Women, REPUBLICANS and Democrats, Urban and rural communities, education level or any demographic.

The bottom line is: without labeling, Consumers are completely in the dark. The FDA can label GE foods. And the vast majority of consumers want them to be labeled.
Not everyone agrees with Hirshberg, though. Recently, a former activist for non-GMO food switched his stance and no longer advocates against genetically modified food.

Whole Foods has been selling non-GMO foods for years -- any certified organic food cannot be made using GMO crops, for example. The company will continue to makes announcements about progress between now and the 2018 Deadline.By Carey Polis

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/whole-foods-gmo-labeling-2018_n_2837754.html