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Cop a Look at this!
Posted Feb 20, 2006
Terminator technology is the genetic modification of plants to make them produce sterile seeds. It is being developed by multinational agribusiness companies to prevent farmers from saving seeds to replant from one harvest to the next. If farmers have no choice but to buy new seeds every year, the companies are guaranteed large profits.
Farmers have warned that Terminator technology will threaten global food security and could destroy traditional farming methods in much of the world. If the Terminator genes transfer into wild plant species and non-GM crops, it could also lead to irreversible environmental damage.
A de facto moratorium currently prevents further development of these "suicide seeds" - a decision taken in 2000 by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) that products incorporating Terminator technology should not be approved for field testing or commercial use.
This moratorium is now under attack. Your help is now needed to push for a real ban on Terminator technology.
It is essential that the current UN Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) moratorium on Terminator technology is maintained and reinforced.
Although the issue will continue to be relevant throughout 2006, the all-important meeting of the UN CBD is in March 2006 so please send your letter by 1 March 2006. You can use the sample letters and email messages below as a basis, but we encourage you to use your own words to explain your concerns about Terminator technology.
Say no to Suicide seeds!!!
Lobby your MP or the British Government on Terminator technology
Terminator technology threatens the food security and livelihoods of some 1.4 billion small-scale farmers worldwide - all of whom rely on farm-saved seeds. Terminator technology is a threat to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal 1 of Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger by 2015.
.
Contact your MP:
Ask him or her to sign a parliamentary motion, EDM 1300, to
show support for a ban on Terminator technology.
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This is from Son No1's forum, something called "Psy-Forum UK" (I think. A bit like Hootoo, inasmuch as it's a sort of community based set up)
I cannot believe how any intelligent person reckons Sterile Plants are a good idea - the whole idea is totally unnatural!
(Why not sterilise our children at birth, in that case... now *That'd solve the world population problem pretty damned rapidly, wouldn't it?)
Unfortunately, I can believe that "Governments" generally are not particually comprised of anyone remotely intelligent.
I'm not sure whether to put this on the General Forum
Half of me says it'd be a good thing to do - but then, I'd like to research into it a bit more before I get my knickers in too much of a twist and start leaping up and down for no good reasen.
H'mmmm.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Feb 20, 2006
It's me age.......
Posted Feb 4, 2006
Well, I can't think of any of decent reasen, so let's pin it on being in my fourties, shall we?
Or being a Scorpio.
Or having green eyes.
Or something.
I have put my mobile phone down somewhere in the house, or in a pocket, or a handbag or somewhere (though I'm pretty certain it's in the house) and can I find it?
Can I hell as like
It's no use suggesting I ring the darned thing from my landline, because I don't know what my number is - and of course, I haven't written it down, because how often does one phone one's mobile?
And besides, even if I *did* know my number, I expect by now the battery's gone flat and needs pumping up. Or charging, or whatever the correct term is.
And...well, this is the embarrassing bit.
Everyone's phone numbers, addresses, birthdays and inside leg measurements are stored in said phone. I'll move with the times, I thought; I'm always losing my address books anyway, and I ought to make more of an effort to use these nice silvery gadgets the twenty first century offers us. I don't need to commit all those details to my memory, that's what gadgets are for.
I mean, it's not easy to misplace a mobile, now is it? I always know where my mobile is.
Yeah. Right.
I mean, it takes real skill to lose my phone. Last time I saw it was Thursday evening, sitting happilly on the kitchen table (I think, anyway)
Since then I have ripped the whole kitchen apart (I even checked the fridge, just in case, being of A Certain Age).
I have trawled the knickerlegs of the three piece suit, and behind every book on the bookshelf.
I have checked all three dressing gowns'pockets, all the handbags - and I was quite impressed with the number in my collection. Especially as I don't use the damned things very often. I have checked all the coat pockets, the jeans and skirts pockets.
And my underwear drawer, as I have a habit of putting things down my bra cups that arn't always just anatomy. Though how a mobile phone could remain in a bra that's been washed before being put away....
Oh dear.
The washing machine.
Oh surely not?
Perlees.
Before I go check, can I ask anyone on here I know to email me with their mobile numbers again, so that if I *do draw a blank, and I do need to get get a new mobile, I can at least plumb in their details again? I 'll be really careful and try not to delete the emails, honest.
We should be OK unless the PC dies on me and I lose all the info.
And...as a back up, I shall do what any sensible person used to do before the advent of mobile phones and easilly mislaid address books
I'll write the damned numbers on the wall
After all; it takes real skill to lose a wall.... doesn't it?
Discuss this Journal entry [47]
Latest reply: Feb 4, 2006
I didn't go to The Mothers, but...
Posted Jan 28, 2006
perhaps that's just as well, really.
I've had my run of pleasantly painfree living and last night was a bit of a pig, all told; obviously I've got a new "average" pain on the Scale, and it's about a constant 4 out of 10...which is what would be considered "tolerable" (stupid expression). Most of the time, it actually is, I must admit.
But last night was a decided 7 on the Richter Scale. Probably because I'm sure I glimpsed a couple of Brass Monkies meandering around the rooftops of Hernia Bay searching forlornly for their appendidges yesterday. AND about 2,00am. Quite sad they looked, too.
I shouldn't moan too much, because 2 weeks ago I'd gone off the scale and was about 13 out of 10. If nothing else an improvement on Bo Derek,
Most things are.
I was awake well early enough to phone Mum to cancel. I placated her by saying I'd try tomorrow, and she seemed alright about it. I'm making no promises, mind, as it's still cold, damp and vile out - I don't need seaweed to know this - I just consult The Back. It knows before I peer out of the window to confirm! And glimpse those poor monkies.
As it was, I put some washing in the machine to trundle whilst I had breakfast; the Plan (as such) was to eat, have a nice hot bath and then back to kip with a couple of those Old Ladies Wheat Packs nestling on the wonky bits... - in other words, a bit of a cosset till I felt OK again.
Hah!
The Washing Machine sat and looked at me and said : Nope, not playing.
I looked back and then checked the fridge to see if it was working. The Lights were't on. There was no-one home.
As an afterthought, I checked the freezer; this too was pretty taciturn.
Likewise the door intercom plug.
Lurched downstairs, clambered up the step ladder and peered at the trip switch. This was on.
O - Kay........
I waved to some nosey gits who could see my disembodied head thru the window at the top of the front door and they pretended they hadn't seen me.
Seeing as they couldn't see me, I made a rude hand gesture and crippled back down the step ladder. Quasimodo would have been proud at my turn of speed
I changed all the fuses in all the plugs.....response came there none.
Boiled up water for a cuppa (thank god for gas hobs) and rang the Agents. They promised to send an electrician around before the end of the day. I looked for flying pigs, just incase.
So I rigged up a cat's cradle of extension leads to the sockets in the living room so that the stuff in the fridge and freezer didn't go manky, settled down, and waited. It was like a kid's game of french skipping, with all the cables, so it was a bit of a restricted wait.
Amazingly the electrician turned up around noon.
He put in *three new sets of plug sockets, (obviously on offer, this month) and...get this - pumped up the pressure in the gas boiler, too.
So the heating is being a lot more efficient.
Last night, I also got a housecall from an Engineer from Mid Kent Water - I think I mentioned "here" the water pressure has been low and the loo cistern has gone on intermitttent strike. The engineer had a good check of everything, and the official opinion was:
You've got Low Water Pressure love, and you'll have to learn to live with it
and
the cistern's syphon mechanism is out of the Ark,(seepage, innit?) and is slowly dying. The whole thing needs to be replaced and the old one donated to a museum.
Hence the lack of Ooomph when you try and flush.
But it's not the waterboard's responsibility, sorry, love.
Ah...but at least I had the key words to explain what needed doing.
So I mentioned it to the Agent's Electrician (who is also their plumber, carpenter and Packed Luncher)
And he's coming back on Monday to service the Boiler properly, measure up for a new cistern (and with a bit of luck, new loo - the one we've got must be a good 30 years old, and the less said about the wear and tear of it the better) and finally - after a campagne of 15 months, I might even get a new extractor fan for the bathroom too.
Not having any windows in that place, especially in the summer, is no picnic, I'm telling you.
So all in all, a productive day; I avoided visiting mam, and inadvertently got organised a set of jobs they have needed to be done, but haven't -not because *i'm* avoiding then, but because The Agents can't be a@@ed.
They're going to love me when the bill gets presented - their workman just needs to get the repairs OK'd by the Landlady (and generally speaking, if she knows there's a problem, she's usually pretty good about getting it fixed) and voila - a new flushing bog, an extractor fan that extracts....and a Gas Boiler that's inflated properly, Korgi approved and all that.
Gawd! I'm easilly pleased!
Discuss this Journal entry [11]
Latest reply: Jan 28, 2006
Note to Self
Posted Jan 22, 2006
Right - no more excuses about not having a sense of direction, missus.
To get to the Farm Shop that does 4 caulis for a quid (and incidentally, if you keep going up the road a bit further you get to Westbrook \Outlet the EASY way) you go down the motorway until you find the Nicholas at Wade Roundabout and take whatever exit it is that takes you past Manston Airport. Matter a damn if anything else says Ramsgate, Margate, ignore them and look for the sign that says Manston.
If you don't pass Manston Airport, then you're on the wrong road and you'll be going somewhere else.
Remember that
Sarre Windmill is only up the road from Sue's...(do try and get into the RIGHT hand lane when coming off the slip road, otherwise you have to turn left to Sturry whether you want to or not)
It's one of those places you've been threatening to get to for the last 3 years, so get your finger out and go there within the next month. Drag Liam/Tom along, and if you ask him nicely he might carry a sack of flour back to the car for you.
On the way back from the Farm Shop, the roundabout that apparently takes you back to H/Bay on the motorway has a nice little surprise detour exit that takes you to a Nature Reserve... it's closed on Sundays (well it was this Sunday, anyway)
It looks a bit geriatric ...but on the plus side, it boasts a charity book shop. Not sure what breed of an animal that is, but it may well be worth investigation at some point.
Discuss this Journal entry [7]
Latest reply: Jan 22, 2006
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Posted Nov 9, 2005
Hallo lurkers everywhere!
Isn't this fun?
You've milked the conversations for all they're worth. You've made as many spiteful, provocatives comments as you can make. You've got an impressive list of charactors and they're all interweaving nicely - allusions to emails and counterplots, just to make it interesting.
It's better than any soap opera!
And for what?
What exactly is your purpose and goal?
I don't know what this vendetta is, against our mutual friend, but I'm appauled that you haven't got anything better to do with yourselves or your time
There's no reasening with school playground mentalities such as yours, so I'm not going to bother to attempt it.
But let's just make one thing very very clear.
I'd advise that none of you reply to this entry.
Well, you'd be daft to incriminate yourselves further really, wouldn't you?
Just thought I'd point it out though, just incase.
Because not one of you seem all that bright to me
Anyone who doesn't have a hidden agenda is more than welcome to join in though. The more objective, intelligent outsiders who become aware of the little clique I've written this general note to, the better!
I don't think it's going to be me who ends up looking sad whatever way it goes... do you?
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Nov 9, 2005
Moving On
Researcher U226093
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