Monsanto, Shell, Think Americans STUPID!

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Monsanto tries to kill home gardens:

I’ve been noticing an increasing uproar in the blogosphere and the agricultural news community about H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. Introduced by Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Congresswoman with indirect family ties to agricultural giant Monsanto, the bill drastically revamps and overhauls the food safety mechanisms by which the Federal government attempts to guarantee the purity and safety of the food Americans consume.

Although my default position is to be somewhat skeptical of these mass semi-panics, in this case there seems to be some meat to the complaints. Many of the elements of the bill as it stands seem to put the Federal government in a position of tremendous power over even the smallest of agricultural producers – literally, the gentleman next door growing a row of organic tomatoes – and requiring them to do business pretty much the way that the giant agricultural companies do business.

Shell oil is claiming their fuel has, tada, "Nitrogen!" Whoopido. In fourth grade you supposedly learn that 80% of the atmosphere is nitrogen. How about an explanation of just how an inert gas is used to improve performance? What compound are they adding to gasoline that wasn't already there in the first place, and exactly what is is doing, and does Shell have a patent? Or is just more marketing hype, like "our vacumn cleaner comes with a new invention, a "HOSE!" tada...