FDA Has Approved Cloned Meat ; The Sky REALLY IS Falling

FDA Says Cloned Animals Safe To Munch On

On Tuesday January 15, 2008, the Food and Drug Administration approved of cloned animals for human consumption.  Why are they doing this? According to the Food and Drug Administration cloned animals are as safe to eat as naturally conceived animals. The corporate controlled Feds official statement,

The food in every respect is indistinguishable from food from any other animal. It is beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be unsafe.

I don’t see a percent of the stuff that I’m sure comes across the desks of the FDA and I can imagine how cloned food might not be safe. I probably couldn’t prove it without a lot more expertise and information but I can certainly imagine. Too bad the folks we’ve tasked to safeguard the food supply of the country cannot even imagine a theoretical problem that might creep from cloned food. The outrage from certain communities is predictable and completely in order.

The same problem presents itself, however. Arm-waving aside, in the absence of a serious mass movement there is very little that can be done by regular folks to stop the corporate juggernaut controlling the FDA and the gov’t generally. The organic and natural foods people will remain up in arms about this just as they have been up in arms about the ongoing rollback on organic certification standards and just like they’ve been up in arms for decades about the pus the country drinks from the infected udders of cows on enough dope to give even Lance Armstrong a slight buzz. But none of this has really mattered and the response to this most recent cloning outrage won’t matter either without a united front. And if anyone has witnessed a protest by the organic foods/PETA crowd (it is the same people for the most part) then you know that the sounds emanating from these groups are not the rumbling of mass movement but disappointing white noise.

But this cloning conspiracy, dismal public reaction aside, will probably be remembered as a definite landmark on our collective journey to hell. It starts with identical cloning. But of course it won’t stay there. Adjustments will be made that make the animals more profitable in various ways. Capitalism always finds ways to save money, no matter the actual costs. There will be some kind of health scare or economic scare that the industry will rescue us from with this or that genetic alteration. Disease resistance to ensure herds aren’t wiped out or something like that. Then we’ll get used to safety alterations being performed. And there you have it, genetically engineered animals being digested by billions. At some point, we’ll discover this or that genetic modification may cause infertility. After, of course, said discovery has been suppressed for eleven years. Perhaps culminating in a Children of Men type scenario where women can’t get pregnant anymore. Or maybe some kind of superflu will be spawned from a decade of billions eating enhanced bacterial-resistant organisms. Who fucking knows.. But I can certainly imagine some bad deals going down. Too bad for us the FDA can’t.

Microsoft Grudgingly Assumes Expanded Big Brother Role

“The value of what we’re doing will go up rapidly as we get more partners,” said Peter Neupert, the vice president in charge of Microsoft’s health group.

—New York Times October 4th, 2007

Ehh..? And I thought they made operating systems and mp3 players! Microsoft’s ‘health group’? The NYTimes reports this unblinkingly, of course. Microsoft, software company and giant collator of private information is using that synergy to expand its Big Brother operations as a ‘health group’. Am I the only one that is bothered by this kind of thing? Microsoft says that it is,

starting its long-anticipated drive into the consumer health care market by offering free personal health records on the Web

I’m unimpressed. No–I’m sick, actually. Sick because no one is going to care about this just like no one, at least yet, seems to care that the venture capital for the social networking scheme, Facebook, was put up by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Maybe I’m overreacting. It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe this new MS venture will be, as they say, ‘really cool’!!! Next Microsoft’s ‘health group’ will link up to your Kroger Plus card so that your health insurer can instantly adjust your rates when you purchase a pack of squares or a box of Twinkies.

I’m no Luddite, but this is truly bizarre. Business Week fawns over MS’s plan and details how it might make a billion bucks a year off this newest Big Brother subsidiary. MS is calling it Health Vault and of course claims that it will be secure. And if you believe that I can sell you Dick Cheney’s waistline. Nothing is secure. And your health records won’t be either. But that isn’t my biggest concern. Why the f/k do we even need this? Oh, yeah. Efficiency. We have almost 50 million folks with absolutely no health insurance whatsoever and the US with all of its magical private market has no answer but to continue creating more uninsured people. The magical market does however have a great plan to sell those of you that still have insurance, for now, yet another service to make your life more convenient.

So what if it adds to the surveillance state. Won’t it be worth it to not have to fill out that stupid clipboard for the umpteenth time when you go visit the clinic?

Facebook and the CIA: A Match Made In Langley

For many of you out there that use Facebook this will probably be a major buzzkill.

For many of you, it won’t matter or affect how you use Facebook.

But for some, you’ll care, change your behavior in Facebook or dump the service altogether.

After watching this it is tempting to pretend it doesn’t matter. And most will I guess because historically that’s how police states develop.

Very slowly and with most folks thinking any single incident by itself isn’t that important.

With people being too naive to think anything bad could happen or too arrogant to admit that something not kosher is already in the works. Fortunately, you don’t have to believe that video because everything in it is currently easily researchable. I know that history informs us that although its easily researchable most people still won’t

1. believe the information or
2. in the case that they don’t believe it, attempt to verify it for themselves.

Even still, here is the website link to the CIA’s venture capital firm In-Q-Tel. Forget the stuff we don’t know, this website, its presence and purpose is right out there for all to see.

Today, more than ever, the Intelligence Community needs the newest and most powerful technologies for safeguarding national security, at home and around the world.

In-Q-Tel was established in 1999 as an independent, private, not-for-profit company to help the CIA and the greater US Intelligence Community (IC) to identify, acquire, and deploy cutting-edge technologies. (Facebook!)

In-Q-Tel’s mission is to deliver leading-edge capabilities to the CIA and the IC by investing in the development of promising technologies.

As the video presentation illustrates, Facebook’s money (and thus control) has flowed downward from the CIA through a series of connections just distant enough to give it deniability plausible enough for a population conditioned to scoff at or ignore anything not vetted by the officialdom of ABCNNBCBS and FOX. Facebook is Big Brother 2.0

What Now?

So what to do? The easy thing is to just delete your account. Well, actually, the easy thing in the short run is to just go back to sleep and pretend Big Brother isn’t watching. Outside of doing that, the easy thing to do is delete your account. However, if you believe this is actually a problem. That data collection and collation of this scale, the gov’t in league with private industry to watch your every online move and to provide the information to assist tracking in the real world, if you think this actually matters, just turning it off individually isn’t going to do it.

We need to post this video and spread this information to others. The best way to communicate with people being spied on via Facebook is inside Facebook. Keep your account. But instead of loading it up with your phone number, address, cc information and other things you might rather keep to yourself, use your account to spread the message of what is happening with information on the Facebook network. Post the video above on to your Facebook page. Put the link on your ‘wall’. Don’t berate people by messaging them. They will see the video and/or the link and they can make up their own minds about whether or not or probably more apt, how easy they want to make it for Big Brother to track them.

Good luck.

Africa Crashes the Party At Clinton Summit

Sharp Words From Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Zenawi At Clinton Summit

This is an issue of rights, not a question of philanthropy. We did not pollute and we deserve the right to sell our sugar here.

Shout to Chris Rabb of Afro-Netizen.  And to Prof Mary Dillard new Afro-Netizen contributitor.

YouTube Agrees To Role As Video Censor In Exchange For Ad Markets

Thailand lifts YouTube ban in exchange for implementation of nationwide censorship plan.

Same goes for YouTube in Germany and Turkey. Censorship is not evil. That is why Google, the owner of YouTube, is allowed to engage in it. It does look like they are allowing us to keep HDtv’s, Playstations and XBox’s for now.
Collective sigh of relief.
Corporations working with world governments to censor the global public?

Me worry?

Meanwhile, the paper of record holds up the Google/YouTube rear doing what they do best, help bad corporations smell like roses.

Apple iPhone Unlocked; Apple Stocks Will Move Up

Websites are bemoaning the fate of Apple now that its $600 iPhone has been unlocked. When you purchase an iPhone (for $500 or $600) you have to get a phone plan with AT&T. Now that the proprietary code locking the phone has been figured out, you can go and find your own network provider. Nobody likes service plan deals where you don’t have choice so this kind of deal makes any product less popular. Now that consumers have a way around the deal, the phone’s popularity will only increase.

How is this bad for Apple?

Call me cynical, but if I were Apple, the best of both worlds for me would be if I could have the AT&T deal for the robots who won’t bother to figure out a way to find an unlocked phone as well have the unlocking capability out there so that thinking people who don’t want to become slaves to AT&T will also pick up the iPhone.

I can’t think of any way this turns into a loser for Apple (although it is oddly being touted as such here). Even the Financial Times takes note that the iPhone has been hacked. Annoyingly, the FT’s coverage of the happening only focuses on the 17 year old who hardware hacked it by soldering, not on the much, much, much more accessible software solutions that regular people will want. They don’t discuss that. Not that they will be able to prevent the info from getting out there. And what regular folks read the Financial Times anyway?

If anyone knows how Apple loses on this deal, please enlighten me. This Robin Hood work seems as if it will have the effect of boosting iPhone sales and Apple’s stock price. All the while being characterized as something subversive which of course attracts even more buyers thinking they are getting away with something while dropping $600 into Apple’s collection plate for a brick-shaped cell phone with a battery that lasts no time at all. Suckas.