de Vendômois, J.S., Roullier, F., Cellier1, D., Séralini, G.-E. 2009. A Comparison of the Effects of Three GM Corn Varieties on Mammalian Health. Int J Biol Sci 5(7):706-726
We present for the first time a comparative analysis of blood and organ system data from trials with rats fed three main commercialized genetically modified (GM) maize (NK 603, MON 810, MON 863), which are present in food and feed in the world. NK 603 has been modified to be tolerant to the broad spectrum herbicide Roundup and thus contains residues of this formulation. MON 810 and MON 863 are engineered to synthesize two different Bt toxins used as insecticides. Approximately 60 different biochemical parameters were classified per organ and measured in serum and urine after 5 and 14 weeks of feeding. GM maize-fed rats were compared first to their respective isogenic or parental non-GM equivalent control groups. This was followed by comparison to six reference groups, which had consumed various other non-GM maize varieties. We applied nonparametric methods, including multiple pairwise comparisons with a False Discovery Rate approach. Principal Component Analysis allowed the investigation of scattering of different factors (sex, weeks of feeding, diet, dose and group). Our analysis clearly reveals for the 3 GMOs new side effects linked with GM maize consumption, which were sex- and often dose-dependent. Effects were mostly associated with the kidney and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, although different between the 3 GMOs. Other effects were also noticed in the heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system. We conclude that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GM corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded.
http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm#headingA11
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Mandy Hiscocks
Amanda Hiscocks has a blog, and you can listen to an interview here:
interview: http://uppingtheanti.org/news/article/uta-interviews-mandy-hiscocks
blog: bored but not broken
interview: http://uppingtheanti.org/news/article/uta-interviews-mandy-hiscocks
blog: bored but not broken
Saturday, December 17, 2011
anguswd@sen.parl.gc; caboisvp@sen.parl.gc; cabrazep@sen.parl.gc; cacarigc@sen.parl.gc; cachampa@sen.parl.gc; cadallar@sen.parl.gc; cadawsod@sen.
parl.gc; cadebanp@sen.parl.gc; catessil@sen.parl.gc; cafortis@sen.parl.gc; cafrasej@sen.parl.gc; cahervic@sen.parl.gc; calacomd@sen.parl.gc; calacomd@sen.parl.gc; calacomd@sen.parl.gc; canolinp@sen.parl.gc; carivarm@sen.parl.gc; cajcrivest@sen.parl.gc; caseidmj@sen.parl.gc; cavernej@sen.parl.gc; cawattc@sen.parl.gc.ca
Dear Senators,
The Canadian Bar Association, representing over 37,000 lawyers across the country, has identified 10 reasons why the passage of Bill C-10 will be a mistake and a setback for Canada:
1. Ignoring reality. Decades of research and experience have shown what actually reduces crime: (a) addressing child poverty, (b) providing services for the mentally ill and those afflicted with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, (c) diverting young offenders from the adult justice system, and (d) rehabilitating prisoners, and helping them to reintegrate into society. Bill C-10 ignores these proven facts.
2. Rush job. Instead of receiving a thorough review, Bill C-10 is being rushed through Parliament purely to meet the “100-day passage” promise from the last election. Expert witnesses attempting to comment on more than 150 pages of legislation in committee hearings are cut off mid-sentence after just five minutes.
3. Spin triumphs over substance. The federal government has chosen to take a “marketing” approach to Bill C-10, rather than explaining the facts to Canadians. This campaign misrepresents the bill’s actual content and ensures that its public support is based heavily on inaccuracies.
4. No proper inspection. Contrary to government claims, some parts of Bill C-10 have received no previous study by parliamentary committee. Other sections have been studied before and were changed — but, in Bill C-10, they’re back in their original form.
5. Wasted youth. More young Canadians will spend months in custodial centres before trial, thanks to Bill C-10. Experience has shown that at-risk youth learn or reinforce criminal behaviour in custodial centres; only when diverted to community options are they more likely to be reformed.
6. Punishments eclipse the crime. The slogan for one proposal was Ending House Arrest for Serious and Violent Criminals Act, but Bill C-10 will actually also eliminate conditional sentences for minor and property offenders and instead send those people to jail. Is roughly $100,000 per year to incarcerate someone unnecessarily a good use of taxpayers’ money?
7. Training predators. Bill C-10 would force judges to incarcerate people whose offences and circumstances clearly do not warrant time in custody. Prison officials will have more latitude to disregard prisoners’ human rights, bypassing the least restrictive means to discipline and control inmates. Almost every inmate will re-enter society someday. Do we want them to come out as neighbours, or as predators hardened by their prison experience?
8. Justice system overload. Longer and harsher sentences will increase the strains on a justice system already at the breaking point. Courts and Crown prosecutors’ offices are overwhelmed as is, legal aid plans are at the breaking point, and police forces don’t have the resources to do their jobs properly. Bill C-10 addresses none of these problems and will make them much worse.
9. Victimizing the most vulnerable. With mandatory minimums replacing conditional sentences, people in remote, rural and northern communities will be shipped far from their families to serve time. Canada’s aboriginal people already represent up to 80 per cent of inmates in institutions in the Prairies, a national embarrassment that Bill C-10 will make worse.
10. How much money? With no reliable price tag for its recommendations, there is no way to responsibly decide the bill’s financial implications. What will Canadians sacrifice to pay for these initiatives? Will they be worth the cost?
Please defeat the omnibus Crime Bill. Thank you for your consideration and time,
[etc.]
Dear Senators,
The Canadian Bar Association, representing over 37,000 lawyers across the country, has identified 10 reasons why the passage of Bill C-10 will be a mistake and a setback for Canada:
1. Ignoring reality. Decades of research and experience have shown what actually reduces crime: (a) addressing child poverty, (b) providing services for the mentally ill and those afflicted with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, (c) diverting young offenders from the adult justice system, and (d) rehabilitating prisoners, and helping them to reintegrate into society. Bill C-10 ignores these proven facts.
2. Rush job. Instead of receiving a thorough review, Bill C-10 is being rushed through Parliament purely to meet the “100-day passage” promise from the last election. Expert witnesses attempting to comment on more than 150 pages of legislation in committee hearings are cut off mid-sentence after just five minutes.
3. Spin triumphs over substance. The federal government has chosen to take a “marketing” approach to Bill C-10, rather than explaining the facts to Canadians. This campaign misrepresents the bill’s actual content and ensures that its public support is based heavily on inaccuracies.
4. No proper inspection. Contrary to government claims, some parts of Bill C-10 have received no previous study by parliamentary committee. Other sections have been studied before and were changed — but, in Bill C-10, they’re back in their original form.
5. Wasted youth. More young Canadians will spend months in custodial centres before trial, thanks to Bill C-10. Experience has shown that at-risk youth learn or reinforce criminal behaviour in custodial centres; only when diverted to community options are they more likely to be reformed.
6. Punishments eclipse the crime. The slogan for one proposal was Ending House Arrest for Serious and Violent Criminals Act, but Bill C-10 will actually also eliminate conditional sentences for minor and property offenders and instead send those people to jail. Is roughly $100,000 per year to incarcerate someone unnecessarily a good use of taxpayers’ money?
7. Training predators. Bill C-10 would force judges to incarcerate people whose offences and circumstances clearly do not warrant time in custody. Prison officials will have more latitude to disregard prisoners’ human rights, bypassing the least restrictive means to discipline and control inmates. Almost every inmate will re-enter society someday. Do we want them to come out as neighbours, or as predators hardened by their prison experience?
8. Justice system overload. Longer and harsher sentences will increase the strains on a justice system already at the breaking point. Courts and Crown prosecutors’ offices are overwhelmed as is, legal aid plans are at the breaking point, and police forces don’t have the resources to do their jobs properly. Bill C-10 addresses none of these problems and will make them much worse.
9. Victimizing the most vulnerable. With mandatory minimums replacing conditional sentences, people in remote, rural and northern communities will be shipped far from their families to serve time. Canada’s aboriginal people already represent up to 80 per cent of inmates in institutions in the Prairies, a national embarrassment that Bill C-10 will make worse.
10. How much money? With no reliable price tag for its recommendations, there is no way to responsibly decide the bill’s financial implications. What will Canadians sacrifice to pay for these initiatives? Will they be worth the cost?
Please defeat the omnibus Crime Bill. Thank you for your consideration and time,
[etc.]
Thursday, November 17, 2011
protestsongs.ca
My mother is from Cape Breton Island. Our family has 7 generations who can be said to have lived there, or at least really enjoyed many long holidays there, or even years of aimless wandering in the backwoods up on the hill of Boisdale. I enjoy Cape Breton Celtic music rarely, but I have found protestsongs.ca, and I have realized that there's a whole genre of Cape Breton music that I absolutely CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF!
Friday, November 04, 2011
System change at McGill University
Many of the workers of McGill University are on strike. Secretaries, technicians, cleaning staff, etc., have been walking the picket line for months. McGill University hasn't been accommodating. I suppose it has never been the tradition for McGill to accommodate with magnanimity in such situations.
Winter is coming, the strikers are getting tired, and it seems that their fate will be to return to work, concerns unmet.
McGill University wasn't founded by men who respected the working class. McGill's pretensions and elitism seem preposterous and awful to me, given that it is a colonial Canadian institution, without much in the way of history, relatively speaking, anyway. Its pretensions are where its lack of sympathy comes from, I think.
The Teaching Assistants, including myself, and the Research Associates, may soon be forced to strike. As I understand it, a Research Assistant, who has worked at McGill for 30 years, who holds a PhD, is paid similarly to a newly hired BSc employed in a similar position at any of the other Montreal universities. That's scandalous. However, the truth is I know a few of my colleagues aren't getting paid for their work at all! Do we all at McGill need to be reminded that we all require sufficient pay to make rent & buy food, etc.? It is horribly predictable that our basic needs are often overlooked, here at the home of Canada's most highly paid administrator.
What is happening at McGill is like Occupy Wall Street, on a small scale. The smallness of the scale does not negate the significance of this event. On the contrary, this should be instructive.
What is happening here is the long-prophesied System Change. System Change is an important ingredient of Global Change, which has long been thought to be unavoidable, owing to the intersections and collisions of climatic, social, and economic crises.
I hope you can understand, as I have come to understand, that System Change asks of us all to bring into being new systems, in a way similar to what is happening at McGill. Our new arrangement must be designed to meet the concerns of the people who are parts of it.
The old systems don't work. Our environmental & economic crises are evidence of the old systemic inadequacies. There is no avoiding system change, because our systems have to change in order for them to continue. Some of those old systems will not change, and they will not survive. Systems, such as McGill University, will not continue in the manner that they were before, because the people, who are the bones and muscles of such an institutional body, just can't handle the old way (the unsympathetic & elitist way) of organizing things anymore.
Winter is coming, the strikers are getting tired, and it seems that their fate will be to return to work, concerns unmet.
McGill University wasn't founded by men who respected the working class. McGill's pretensions and elitism seem preposterous and awful to me, given that it is a colonial Canadian institution, without much in the way of history, relatively speaking, anyway. Its pretensions are where its lack of sympathy comes from, I think.
The Teaching Assistants, including myself, and the Research Associates, may soon be forced to strike. As I understand it, a Research Assistant, who has worked at McGill for 30 years, who holds a PhD, is paid similarly to a newly hired BSc employed in a similar position at any of the other Montreal universities. That's scandalous. However, the truth is I know a few of my colleagues aren't getting paid for their work at all! Do we all at McGill need to be reminded that we all require sufficient pay to make rent & buy food, etc.? It is horribly predictable that our basic needs are often overlooked, here at the home of Canada's most highly paid administrator.
What is happening at McGill is like Occupy Wall Street, on a small scale. The smallness of the scale does not negate the significance of this event. On the contrary, this should be instructive.
What is happening here is the long-prophesied System Change. System Change is an important ingredient of Global Change, which has long been thought to be unavoidable, owing to the intersections and collisions of climatic, social, and economic crises.
I hope you can understand, as I have come to understand, that System Change asks of us all to bring into being new systems, in a way similar to what is happening at McGill. Our new arrangement must be designed to meet the concerns of the people who are parts of it.
The old systems don't work. Our environmental & economic crises are evidence of the old systemic inadequacies. There is no avoiding system change, because our systems have to change in order for them to continue. Some of those old systems will not change, and they will not survive. Systems, such as McGill University, will not continue in the manner that they were before, because the people, who are the bones and muscles of such an institutional body, just can't handle the old way (the unsympathetic & elitist way) of organizing things anymore.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Decolonize Montreal
Hello,
I took the McGill Intercampus Shuttle downtown before dawn this morning.
I walked down to Square Victoria. I asked a couple of policemen - who crossed the street with me - how many tents there were at the park. N.B., there were lots and lots of tents, probably more than one hundred. They said "Oh maybe fifty. No. Maybe thirty." Shameless liars.
I recognized a very nice guy from Musquodoboit, who I see at all the protests and Anarchist Bookfairs. We watched the union conference attendees arrive. There was a very large crowd of them, and they made a few speeches in french before going back to their conference. I wouldn't mind talking to that guy all day, but he escaped for soup.
So I talked with the Global News cameraman. Donny wanted to run Global News out of the tent site, because the Global coverage has been unfair. Donny recommends the Mirror's story instead: http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/2011/10/13/cover-the-99-are-coming/
So, that's all for now. I plan to go back soon with lots of sidewalk chalk.
I took the McGill Intercampus Shuttle downtown before dawn this morning.
I walked down to Square Victoria. I asked a couple of policemen - who crossed the street with me - how many tents there were at the park. N.B., there were lots and lots of tents, probably more than one hundred. They said "Oh maybe fifty. No. Maybe thirty." Shameless liars.
I recognized a very nice guy from Musquodoboit, who I see at all the protests and Anarchist Bookfairs. We watched the union conference attendees arrive. There was a very large crowd of them, and they made a few speeches in french before going back to their conference. I wouldn't mind talking to that guy all day, but he escaped for soup.
So I talked with the Global News cameraman. Donny wanted to run Global News out of the tent site, because the Global coverage has been unfair. Donny recommends the Mirror's story instead: http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/2011/10/13/cover-the-99-are-coming/
So, that's all for now. I plan to go back soon with lots of sidewalk chalk.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Conflict Gypsy
I may want to read every document on http://www.conflictgypsy.com/
I just thought I would share that.
That is all for now ;)
I just thought I would share that.
That is all for now ;)
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