‘Environmental genocide’: Native Americans quit talks over Keystone XL pipeline

Leaders from 11 Native American tribes stormed out of a meeting with US federal officials in Rapid City, South Dakota, to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which they say will lead to ‘environmental genocide.’

Native Americans are opposed to the 1,179-mile (1,897km) Keystone XL project – a system to transport tar sands oil from Canada and the northern United States to refineries in Texas – for various reasons, including potential irreversible damage to sacred sites, pollution, and water contamination.

Although the planned pipeline would not pass directly through any Native American reservation, tribes in proximity to the proposed system say it will violate their traditional lands and that the environmental risks of the project are simply too great.

Russ Girling, CEO of TransCanada, the company that hopes to build the pipeline, has promised in the past that Keystone XL will be “the safest pipeline ever built.”

The Indian groups, as well as other activist organizations, doubt the claim, saying the risks involved in the project are too high.

In an effort to ease their concerns, officials from the Department of State agreed to meet with tribal leaders on Thursday in the Hilton Garden Inn in Rapid City, Michigan.

Before the talks could begin, however, tribal leaders walked out, angered that the government had sent what they considered low-level representatives… via ‘Environmental genocide’: Native Americans quit talks over Keystone XL pipeline — RT USA.

Monsanto CEO trashes company’s opponents over ‘elitism’

The chairman and CEO of Monsanto Co. condemned opponents of his major biotech corporation by accusing them of ‘reverse elitism’ being spread through social media.

Just days before a major international demonstration to protest Monsanto is scheduled to occur around the globe, CEO Hugh Grant told Bloomberg this week that critics of his company are fueling anti-GMO sentiment by capitalizing on an increased public interest in how their food is produced and pushing that agenda through social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Anti-Monsanto advocates — like the ones planning to protest in 36 countries later this month — say they are opposed to, among other items, the company’s habit of heralding genetically altered crops as a solution to third-world poverty by putting profits above possible health risks. Lab-made crops that are resistant to certain chemicals and conditions are the bread and butter of Monsanto, but critics are worried that the company isn’t weighing the full impact of what spreading GMO crops could do to the environment and agriculture sector. Additionally, Monsanto’s legal habits of driving small-time farmers bankrupt over alleged patent infringement has not made them many friends within America’s traditional agriculture sector… via Monsanto CEO trashes company’s opponents over ‘elitism’ — RT USA

“Big Brother” is big business?

The odds are you are not just a face in the crowd any longer. Even if your picture isn’t plastered all over social networking and photo-sharing sites, facial recognition technology in public places is making it harder if not impossible to remain anonymous. Lesley Stahl reports on the new ways this technology is being used that even has one of its inventors calling it too intrusive. Her 60 Minutes report will be broadcast Sunday, May 19 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Professor Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon, who researches how technology impacts privacy, stunned Stahl with an experiment. He photographed random students on the campus and in short order, not only identified several of them, but in a number of cases found their personal information, including social security numbers, just using a facial recognition program he downloaded for free. Acquisti says smart-phones will make “facial searches” as common as Google searches in the future. And nearly everybody can be subject to such prying, even those who are careful about their Internet use… via “Big Brother” is big business? – CBS News

Monsanto wins landmark patent case in Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of biotech giant Monsanto, closing the door on a patent case that has pitted a smalltime farmer from Indiana against a titan of the agriculture industry.

The high court said early Monday that 75-year-old farmer Vernon Bowman of Indiana violated Monsanto’s patent rights when he purchased a mix of seeds from a grain elevator that he later planted on his Midwest farm. That mix included patented Roundup Ready soybean seeds manufactured by Monsanto that are sold under license because they can hold up against their namesake, a nasty pesticide regularly used on farms.

Bowman argued that he could do whatever he wanted with the Roundup Ready seeds since he obtained them rightfully from a grain elevator and the terms of Monsanto’s licensing agreement under the patent did not apply to him. Under Monsanto’s terms, Roundup Ready seeds can only be harvested once and must not be saved or reused.

“If they don’t want me to go to the elevator and buy that grain, then Congress should pass a law saying you can’t do it,” Bowman told RT in February… via Monsanto wins landmark patent case in Supreme Court — RT USA

EXCLUSIVE: Goldman Sachs employees concerned Bloomberg news reporters are using terminals to snoop

Talk about a nanny state.

Irked Goldman Sachs brass recently confronted Bloomberg LP over concerns reporters at the business news service have been using the company’s ubiquitous terminals to keep tabs on some employees of the Wall Street bank, The Post has learned.

The ability to spy on Bloomberg terminal users came to light recently when Goldman officials learned that at least one reporter at the news service had access to a wide array of information about customer usage, sources said.

In one instance, a Bloomberg reporter asked a Goldman executive if a partner at the bank had recently left the firm — noting casually that he hadn’t logged into his Bloomberg terminal in some time, sources added.

Goldman later learned that Bloomberg staffers could determine not only which of its employees had logged into Bloomberg’s proprietary terminals but also how many times they had used particular functions, insiders said.

The matter raised serious concerns for the firm about how secure information exchanged through the terminals within the firm actually was — and if the privacy of their business strategy had been compromised… via EXCLUSIVE: Goldman Sachs employees concerned Bloomberg news reporters are using terminals to snoop – NYPOST.com

10,962,532: U.S. Disability Beneficiaries Exceed Population of Greece

The total number of people in the United States now receiving federal disability benefits hit a record 10,962,532 million in April, which exceeds the 10,815,197 people who live in the nation of Greece.

According to newly released data from the Social Security Administration, the record 10,962,532 total disability beneficiaries in April, included a record 8,865,586 disabled workers (up from 8,853,614 in March), 1,936,236 children of disabled workers, and 160,710 spouses of disabled workers.

According to its latest census, Greece had only 10,815,197 residents.

April was the 195th straight month that the number of American workers collecting federal disability payments increased. The last time the number of Americans collecting disability decreased was in January 1997. That month the number of workers taking disability dropped by 249 people—from 4,385,623 in December 1996 to 4,385,374 in January 1997.

As the overall number of American workers collecting disability has increased, the ratio of full-time workers to disability-collecting workers has decreased.

In December 1968, 1,295,428 American workers collected disability and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65,630,000 worked full-time. Thus, there were about 51 full-time workers for each worker collecting disability. In April 2013, with a record 8,865,586 American workers collecting disability and 116,053,000 working full-time, there were only 13 Americans working full-time for each worker on disability.

via 10,962,532: U.S. Disability Beneficiaries Exceed Population of Greece | CNS News.

Gun crime has plunged, but Americans think it’s up, says study

Gun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show.

Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center.

In less than two decades, the gun murder rate has been nearly cut in half. Other gun crimes fell even more sharply, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns. Violent crime dropped steeply during the 1990s and has fallen less dramatically since the turn of the millennium.

The number of gun killings dropped 39% between 1993 and 2011, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in a separate report released Tuesday. Gun crimes that weren’t fatal fell by 69%. However, guns still remain the most common murder weapon in the United States, the report noted. Between 1993 and 2011, more than two out of three murders in the U.S. were carried out with guns, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found.

The bureau also looked into non-fatal violent crimes. Few victims of such crimes — less than 1% — reported using a firearm to defend themselves.

Despite the remarkable drop in gun crime, only 12% of Americans surveyed said gun crime had declined compared with two decades ago, according to Pew, which surveyed more than 900 adults this spring. Twenty-six percent said it had stayed the same, and 56% thought it had increased… via Gun crime has plunged, but Americans think it’s up, says study – latimes.com

Americans troubled more by governmental abuse than terrorism

New polling numbers suggest that United States citizens are on average more afraid of their own government then the threat of another terrorist attack.

Even after a pair of bombings in Boston two weeks ago injured hundreds, more Americans say they are unwilling to sacrifice constitutional liberties for security than those who are.

A handful of polls conducted in the days after the Boston Marathon bombings show that US citizens are responding much differently than in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed roughly 3,000 people. Not only are Americans more opposed now to giving up personal freedoms for the sake of security than they were after 9/11, but other statistics show that distrust against the federal government continues to climb.

Just one day after the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing, pollsters with Fox News asked a sample of Americans, “Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?” Forty-three percent of the respondents said they would, while 45 percent said no. Comparatively, 71 percent of Americans asked a similar question in October 2001 said they’d be willing to give up personal freedoms, while only 20 percent opposed at the time… via Americans troubled more by governmental abuse than terrorism — RT USA