Lately, I've been researching Monsanto...

[DixieDem]

This company is starting to scare the crap out of me. I've not read much about them here. Does anybody even care anymore?

[intheflow]

1. Oneof my best friends grew up next to a Monsanto plant in

Springfield, MA. Both she and her mother have crazy health problems. I mean like "Erin Brockovich" kind of health problems. I'd love to find some info tying their health problems to Monsanto and see Monsanto pay them some compensation.

Lately, at my prodding, my friend has also started to research this. You have any good online links I can send to her?

[DixieDem]

6. I just started researching this...

For online sources, truefoodnow.org has some very good resources. I love their shopper's guide! Maybe if you related her story to them? They seem pretty active in this fight. I'm sure they could at least point you in the right direction. Let me know what you find out, ok?

If I run across anything else in my search, I'll let you know.

[Tempest]

2. If you're only scared, you're not completely informed

Find a copy of the documentary "The Future of Food".

You'll think twice about eating anything you didn't grow yourself.

[DixieDem]

5. Thanks! "The Future of Food" is now on my list.

About growing my produce myself... so that Monsanto can sue me if some of their terminator seeds migrate to MY property??? I can't figure out why this country is not rebelling about this! Corporate control of our food supply is major, MAJOR!!!

[Donailin]

19. Before the industrial revolution and dow chemical,

one out of ten got cancer. Now, in the year 2005, one out of three get cancer. Can't imagine why? Nah, can't be anything we eat. :eyes:

[wli]

3. Any word on the I.G. Farben connection?

[DixieDem]

7. Nope. More details???

Newbie Monsanto critic here. What I've found so far is very, very frightening!

Please don't tell me there's even more...

Okay, go ahead and tell me. Who/what is Farben?

[wli]

8. I.G. Farben was the company that used the slave laborers at Auschwitz

Monsanto entered a joint venture with it in 1967.

Standard Oil (and hence all descendents of the breakup), DuPont, Agfa, BASF, Bayer, and Aventis are likewise also tainted.

[DixieDem]

9. Ughhh!!! Thanks for the info (I think)

The hole gets deeper and deeper. Lots of research to do!

[Coastie for Truth]

14. One advantage of digital photography and Photoshop

killed IG Farben's "Agfa" photo business.

[DixieDem]

16. Arghhh! As if I don't have enough research to do...

Any links you can give to help me sure would be appreciated!

[firefox]

4. Monsanto's poison is killing the rain forest

One of the most interesting facts I ever read concerns the spraying of Monsanto's poisons in Colombia. It does not just destroy coca plants. It can kills plants and animals too. The Supreme Court in Colombia ordered the sprayings to end. But the drug warriors will have none of that and the sprayings continue along with the death and the civil war. You can read about it at NarcoNews.

They are also big in GM foods. In Canada they want money from farmers whose canola fields were contaminated by their GM canola. It sure seems like they should be the one being sued to me instead of the other way around.

There is an even bigger corporation that owns them.

[DixieDem]

10. I'm beyond irrate right now...

>>There is an even bigger corporation that owns them.

Who? Please, please don't tell me it's Halliburton. I don't want blood on my hands!

[Coastie for Truth]

11. Years ago - in the prehistorical days of chemical plant CAD/CAM

there was a "Chemical Engineering CAD/CAM for Undergrads" book<1> by Univ. of Delaware's Roger G.E. Franks. Simple (for the subject matter) and easy to read (for that subject matter), with lots of illustrative Fortran code.

Well, Monsanto took his book and illustrative code, bundled it with the barest hint of their code, and sold it under their "Flowtran" trademark as a student edition - at about 10X what Prof Franke was charging.

Not cool.

<1> -- "Modeling and Simulation in Chemical Engineering" by Roger G. E. Franks

[DixieDem]

12. Hey Coastie! I know FORTRAN!

Yep, I'm THAT old!

Too bad Monsanto turned on us, eh? What they're doing to us (without our concent) is repulsive!

[Coastie for Truth]

13. Fortran to C++ Translator/Cross Compiler

About 12 years ago I downloaded a Standard Fortran to C++ Translator/Cross Compiler - write Fortran Code in the built in text processor, get a rough check for syntax, compile and link (but wouldn't run) and send the compiled and linked code over to your C++ compiler.

Ran on Win 95 and OS2 versions of C++.

Can't find the floppies - and the FTP server went away.

[DixieDem]

15. LOL! I can TOTALLY relate to this!

I'm not too sure the yougsters on this board can. But, I got a very big laugh out of this!

Thank you! I now know that I'm NOT the only one on this board over 30 (uh-hmmm?)

[dcfirefighter]

17. Hey, I learned Fortran in school

and I'm JUST over thirty.

My friend has a sizeable maryland farm, his biggest gripe is the corn subsidy. I'll ask him if he's heard of this cross pollination problem.

Maybe we should all invest in some GM lawn grass. I'm sure after we make our millions, the public outrage will end that problem.

[hunter]

20. f2c

http://ftp.netlib.org/f2c/

From your description there's a couple of things this might have been, but it probably used f2c, which is free, and is built into quite a few projects.

This might be helpful:

http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/fortran.shtml

I used to write fortran on punched cards.

Oh yeah, Monsanto sucks. But their microscope at Disneyland was pretty cool.

http://www.yesterland.com/innersp.html

[Donailin]

18. I went through the Monsanto is the most evil corporation in the world

phase about three years ago. And I still hold that true. Google: Monsanto EVIL, you'll find plenty.

Think of it this way, they are patenting the worlds food supply. They manipulate it genetically, then make natures food obsolete and worthless. They are the mafia of food. That's about as evil as it gets, excpet for the "medicine based industries" that continually attempt to separate and patent human genetic codes of indigenous people. That's even way more evil.


Watch the movie, "The Corporation" -- they cover it all, from monsanto to big oil to big pharma and back to the US government, the entity that enables it all by passing laws that make it legal.

[enki23]

21. I worked for them a while ago,as a contractor

and i can say one thing for certain. everyone there, or damned near, was utterly incompetent.

my personal favorite was the woman they put in charge of the wet lab. i will never forget the time she tried to make us measure the volume ofa 500ml beaker with a 20 microliter pipette, by counting the squeezes. my coworker actually started doing it...

the osensible purpose of this, by the way, was so we could more accurately measure the volume of unpacked soybeans

and .there's so much more...

[enki23]

22. ostensible, btw.

trying to post from a PDA makes for some interesting errors...

[Good Company]

23. Future of Food coming to theatres

I thought you guys might want to know that The Future of Food is being released. It opens in New York at Film Forum on Sep 14
www.filmforum.org


and in Santa Monica September 16 @ Laemmle Monica 4 www.laemmle.com.

Then it's going into wider release. Their website has more info and the trailer. www.thefutureoffood.com

For those of you who've already seen it, what did you think?

[gulfcoastliberal]

24. They've entered into some kind of pact with UC Davis on GM crops

A pity. (UCD is my alma mater)

Last August, a promising new report about genetically modified corn flickered across a Web site sponsored by the corn's corporate creator, the biotechnology giant Monsanto Co.

Citing new research by the University of California, Davis, the report said corn altered to produce its own pesticide was a biotechnology bonanza - one that could make farmers across the country wealthier and reduce the use of toxic insecticides.

But there was one fact the “Biotech Knowledge Center” Web site failed to mention: Monsanto paid for the UC Davis research.

Following a pattern set by farm chemical companies in the 1960s, the biotechnology industry is mining public agricultural colleges such as UC Davis for scientific research, confidential business advice and academic support for its technology.


http://www.sacbee.com/static/live/news/projects/biotech/c3_1.html

And UC Davis, over the objections of the entire staff, also wanted one of those CDC/HS Level 5 biolabs - which did get nixed over the objections of the asshole Chancellor.


Thing on the level 5 biolab:

UC Davis fails to win $59 million grant that would have helped fund bio lab

University officials 'stunned'

By Pamela Martineau -- Bee Staff Writer

UC Davis' bid for a proposed bio lab suffered a crushing setback Thursday when federal officials denied the university funding for a critical research consortium that would have operated out of its proposed facility.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services named eight institutions that will receive five-year grants to operate Regional Centers of Excellence where scientists would study infectious diseases and defenses against bioterrorist attacks. UC Davis was not among the grant recipients.

"We're pretty stunned," said Lynne Chronister, associate vice chancellor for research administration.

She and other campus officials had envisioned the $59 million federal grant as a key component in the operation of the university's proposed National Biocontainment Laboratory.UC Davis fails to win $59 million grant that would have helped fund bio lab

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/ucdavisfailsgrant.html

UC Davis also changed its priority from academia to sports, voting (against the will of all the faculty yet again) to go from division 3 to division 1 and start athletic scholarships and build huge new stadiums on their very fertile campus lands that have been traditionally used for its original purpose: AG RESEARCH (pre-Monsanto, that is). Before being accredited as a UC, it was known as "the farm". Even as a history major I took some plant classes and learned a lot about how to grow things. Hell, they even had a class on tractor driving. A great school, but how great nowadays in the gropenfuhrer educational cuts, I'm not so sure.