[Biofuel] Media Justice and the 99 Percent Movement
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4440 Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Extra! December 2011 Media Justice and the 99 Percent Movement How net neutrality helped Occupy Wall Street By Betty Yu It all started with one message posted on a blog on July 13, 2011. The magazine Adbusters, a not-for-profit, reader-supported, 120,000-circulation magazine that combats corporate consumerism, issued a call: On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices. On September 17, a thousand people marched to Wall Street, and then hundreds stayed to occupy Liberty Plaza in New York's Financial District. Even after a solid two weeks of this Occupation, corporate media largely blacked it out. What coverage there was depicted protesters as drug-abusing hippies (the Fox News spin-Hannity, 10/10/11), or, in the liberal version, as directionless naifs with no message (New York Times, 9/23/11). As the OWS Declaration in New York City put it, the 1 percent purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media. But grassroots, independent media outlets like Democracy Now!, Pacifica Radio, the Indypendent newspapers and public access TV channels, with a combined audience of millions, covered the Occupation from the perspective of the people-the 99 percent. These independent outlets provided a platform for protesters to talk about why they were supporting the Occupation-speaking out about rising unemployment, declining wages, diminishing quality of life, foreclosures, education budget cuts, lack of healthcare and unjust wars, just to name a few. What elevated the activism to a national and global movement, though, was the sophisticated and widespread use of social media. Independent mediamakers, citizen journalists, everyday people with camera phones were capturing the voices and faces of this burgeoning movement and uploading them to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, mostly within minutes of being captured. Group text-messaging was used to share information and media quickly. These tools for instant communication not only helped to mobilize thousands to marches and events, but also captured police brutality toward the protesters. It was only when images were disseminated of a senior New York City police official pepper-spraying peaceful women protesters, temporarily blinding them, that corporate media began paying attention. The pepper-spraying incident was documented by fellow protesters and uploaded to YouTube-where it was viewed more than 2 million times-then posted on Facebook and tweeted to be shared with the world. In the age of digital media, anyone with an Internet connection can watch OWS's General Assembly meeting on the livestream of the Occupy website. They can share an Occupy update on Facebook, or tweet it on Twitter-providing an ongoing venue for people to show support and participate virtually in the protests. One Tumblr site houses the stories of thousands of supporters who share why they are a part of the 99 percent, holding up handwritten signs and telling their stories. Of course, human, face-to-face interaction and relationship-building is irreplaceable. Social media have helped get people out of their nests and into the streets of Liberty Plaza and elsewhere, to attend a General Assembly or a working group meeting. In New York, the working groups, many of them self-organized, have grown from 10 to over 70, largely through outreach done on the Internet. People in nearly 900 cities formed MeetUp.com groups, using the OccupyTogether.org website as their central hub. The democratization of media-making tools, particularly an open and unfettered Internet, has made all this possible. Right now, though, this open access is under threat. Network neutrality is the principle that requires Internet service providers to treat all content equally, guaranteeing a level playing field for all websites and Internet technologies. Since the invention of the Internet, net neutrality has facilitated democratic participation, allowing social justice organizations, cultural workers, citizen journalists, artists and small businesses to create, share and receive information freely. Right now, the livestream of Occupy Wall Street downloads just as quickly as the website of Goldman Sachs. Without net neutrality, small businesses, nonprofits and individuals who can't afford high-speed services would have their ability to reach a mass audience online severely limited. The telecommunications corporations that provide Internet connections, like ATT, Verizon and Comcast, want to increase their already mammoth profits by controlling websites, video, content and applications. These corporations want their own sites and services to be easily
Re: [Biofuel] Algae Biofuel business develops a new production facility on the Eyre Peninsula
what's got me scratching my head is this: oloid pond mixing nanotechnology wha. . .?!? On Dec 7, 2011 9:26 AM, Darryl McMahon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.environmental-expert.com/news/algarythm-australia-270152 5 December 2011 -- Algarythm Pty Ltd is the operating company of the Darke Peak Algae Biofuel Commercialisation project. South Australian based Fishace Pty Ltd; trading as Fishace Ecological Engineering, has developed an innovative method to produce algal biomass in commercial quantities. The pilot plant will develop more energy and water efficient ways of producing micro algal cultures in association with our academic partner, the Materials and BioEnergy Group of Flinders University, Adelaide. Darke Peak is a regional township located in Central Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, some 550kms by road to the West of Adelaide. Fishace Pty Ltd owns a development approved 2.4 hectare land site adjacent to the railway track and grain silos where the production facility will be sited. The project utilises low cost, simple earth based pond systems with highly technological - Red LED Algae Photo-Bioreactors for increasing algal densities, Oloid pond mixing nanotechnology and simple biofuel processing techniques. The demonstration project is designed to produce an estimated 165 tonnes of algal biomass, refining offsite to 100,000 litres of raw biodiesel per annum. We will use local grain waste as a nutrient feedstock, culturing local saline algae species from biologically degraded land and saline groundwater. The process consists of using clay lined ponds connected by piping in gravity fed water circulative series that receives solar pumped saline groundwater not used by agriculture. Native food fish will be stocked with their wastes acting as nutrient stock for the algaculture system. The algal powder is comprised of high levels of lipids and will be sold as a dry biomass for processing to biodiesel and other by-products. Our community based mission is to develop low cost integrated algaculture and ecological solutions for local businesses including agri-business and mineral extraction industries on land unsuitable for agricultural food production. We would also like to assist in reinvigorating our local rural townships as a model for future sustainable living , with a third generation biofuel facility contributing to Small Medium Enterprise (SME) industrial clustering, producing high value cottage industry by-products such as boutique salts, glycerine, health products, food fish, carbon feedstock, to the regional economy. The decentralisation of bioenergy transport networks also greatly reduces the regional carbon footprint. Company website: http://www.algarythm.com.au/ -- Darryl McMahon Water Savers: save water, save money, save the world. http://www.econogics.com/WaterSaver/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20111209/270ce7b0/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] Monsanto's Crimes Against Humanity
http://wakeup-world.com/2011/11/10/monsantos-crimes-against-humanity/ Monsanto's Crimes Against Humanity /By Pure Energy Systems News http://pesn.com// //*/It's almost time to say goodbye to the food your grandparents consumed, because genetically modified crops have spread their toxic attributes across the globe. As their damaged genetics spread, their potential harm is being denied, and scientists who speak out are persecuted. By Hank Mills http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Hank_Mills/* Big businesses seek to produce big profits. Most big businesses will do whatever it takes to maximize their profits, despite the consequences that may result. An example of this is the biotechnology industry. Biotech companies like Monsanto are genetically engineering food crops such as corn, potatoes, tomatoes, wheat, and others; without adequate testing to insure they will not harm the humans and animals that consume them. Without adequately testing for safety while bribing the regulators and politicians, they are pushing potentially life threatening foods on the entire human population and threatening the biosphere. A couple year old documentary from 2009 called Scientists Under Attack http://www.scientistsunderattack.com/ is discussed in a recent Infowars http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Infowars_and_Prison_Planet_by_Alex_Jones YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel#p/u/5/_ENPyDuR23s. The documentary details how scientists who blew the whistle on the dangers of genetically modified foods have faced severe persecution. For example, after performing tests on mice that determined genetically modified potatoes produced multiple health problems in mice (immunity problems, regarded growth, organ failure, etc), one scientist was hailed as a hero by his employer. However, the next day, a call came in from the UK Prime Minister's office. The person who called put pressure on his employer, and the next day he was fired. During the documentary and the discussion about it on YouTube, the specific dangers of these genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are discussed. In many scientific tests, they have produced organ failure, cancer, infertility, and other illnesses in lab animals. However, Monsanto ignored the results of these tests, even when their own scientists urged them to do additional testing. It is also discussed now the FDA is in league with biotechnology companies like Monsanto, and ignores evidence of the dangers of GMO crops; and allowing GMO products to be sold unlabeled as such. One big issue the documentary addresses is the fact that the product of the one specific gene inserted into the genetically modified organism does not produce the health problems in lab animals. This is known for a fact, because the insecticides produced by the inserted gene was fed to lab animals, and did not produce toxicity. However, the insertion process used to inject the gene into the plant seems to have done general genetic damage to the organism. Instead of just one gene being changed, many genes may have been changed. Monsanto and other companies did not investigate this. Yet another danger of GMOs is that their genes can spread to other crops. When pollen is released from genetically modified crops, the wind can spread the pollen, and their genes can spread to other farms. The result is that farmers who had no desire to grow genetically modified crops end up doing so against their will. In the documentary genetic modifications are found to have spread a thousand miles, from the closest farm where genetically modified crops are grown. What makes matters worse is when companies like Monsanto find out that farms have been contaminated with their toxic genes, they sue the farmers! They demand that the farmers pay THEM money to use the genetic modifications, because they claim the farmers STOLE the genes. This is insane. The farmers should be getting money from Monsanto for having their property damaged and contaminated. *One very concerning issue brought up was the fact that Monsanto hired a PR firm that created two fake online identities, who claimed to be scientists that went around the internet pushing the agenda that GMO food is safe. This is blatant manipulation of the public debate to push an agenda that has resulted in harm to human beings.* Could certain energy companies be doing the same thing, by creating fake online personas to try and discredit free energy? It seems very possible, when there are obviously misleading individuals --- attacking every free energy claim --- going by obviously false names such as Mary Yugo, one of the first names to post comments in nearly any controversial free energy news page, such as the E-Cat. Other issues are brought up in the video as well. For example... * How almost all of certain crops in the USA (such as corn) have been contaminated due to cross pollination with GMOs.
