107 Nobel laureates have signed a letter urging Greenpeace to stop fighting GMOs.

The letter asks Greenpeace to cease its efforts to block introduction of a genetically engineered strain of rice that supporters say could reduce Vitamin-A deficiencies causing blindness and death in children in the developing world.

“We urge Greenpeace and its supporters to re-examine the experience of farmers and consumers worldwide with crops and foods improved through biotechnology, recognize the findings of authoritative scientific bodies and regulatory agencies, and abandon their campaign against ‘GMOs’ in general and Golden Rice in particular,” the letter states.

The letter campaign was organized by Richard Roberts, chief scientific officer of New England Biolabs and, with Phillip Sharp, the winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the discovery of genetic sequences known as introns. The campaign has a website, supportprecisionagriculture.org, that includes a running list of the signatories, and the group plans to hold a news conference Thursday morning at the National Press Club in Washington.

“We’re scientists. We understand the logic of science. It’s easy to see what Greenpeace is doing is damaging and is anti-science,” Roberts told The Washington Post. “Greenpeace initially, and then some of their allies, deliberately went out of their way to scare people. It was a way for them to raise money for their cause.”

If that’s why they’re doing it I hope they’re ashamed of themselves…but then they didn’t seem to feel much shame about stomping on the Nazca lines last year.

Nobel laureate Randy Schekman, a cell biologist at the University of California at Berkeley, told The Post, “I find it surprising that groups that are very supportive of science when it comes to global climate change, or even, for the most part, in the appreciation of the value of vaccination in preventing human disease, yet can be so dismissive of the general views of scientists when it comes to something as important as the world’s agricultural future.”

Oh well, it’s only food. I’m sure 7 billion people can easily find something for lunch.

Another one:

Well now I too have witnessed my very own racist incident. In London. An angry old 6’3″ white man shouting at a BME university lecturer (apparently Muslim, I didn’t bother to ask), and one of his BME students. He didn’t seem to mind much about the white female student.

After finishing his rant about all the Muslims coming over here to impose Sharia law, and being challenged on it, he asked why they’d all done 7/7. At that point we left, which is when he tried to become violent.

‘Glad’ (?) to say I’d got involved in the ‘discussion’ ten minutes before to offer support and will be reporting it to the police. If you find yourself a victim or witness to race hate crimes, you should too.

Ben Riley-Smith at the The Telegraph reports a febrile atmosphere in Labour politics at the moment:

Labour MPs have been forced to call in the police over death threats in the last 48 hours after they refused to back Jeremy Corbyn, The Telegraph has learnt.

Vicky Foxcroft, a Labour whip, received a call to her constituency office which said: “If she doesn’t support Corbyn I will come down to the office and kick the fuck out of you.”

Police officers had to rush her office, close the shutters and attempt to trace the call after the man said he was on his way and hung up.

Another MP received a threat to her or his child.

Lucy Powell, the former shadow education secretary, received a message telling her to kill herself after announcing she would leave the frontbench over frustrations with the leadership.

It was among a string of messages laden with expletives and personal abuse which have been passed onto police.

A fourth Labour MP said they had become so concerned with the torrent of online abuse that they have forwarded the messages to police, while scores of others raised concerns.

It’s the Twitter effect. People think this is just how you express dissent now.

Politicians and staff were said to be in tears over the abuse comes just weeks after the brutal murder of Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen who was shot and stabbed in her constituency.

A Labour source said: “Women MPs have been subjected to the most vile stuff – we’re going to rape you, kill you. There have been people in tears today.”

“Just weeks”? Not really – or only just: only just barely two weeks, which makes it not really “just weeks” but rather “just two weeks.” “Just weeks” sounds like at least five weeks. It was just the other day. It was recent. Way way way too recent to forget.

Jehovah’s Witnesses destroy an indigenous religious site in Mexico on the grounds that it’s not Christian.

Members of the Christian sect Jehovah’s Witness reportedly destroyed a sacred Indigenous archaeological heritage site in central eastern Mexico in an act of apparent religious intolerance, claiming the traditional rituals practiced at the ancient ceremonial place were “not Christian,” local media reported Monday.

I don’t suppose they claim to be Christian, either, but so what? Do other religions have to ask permission of Christian sects to practice their religion? Is that a general rule? I’d love to see what the JWs would make of some Hindu vandals smashing up their temples.

The attack on the more than 7,000 year-old Makonikha sanctuary in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo destroyed at least a dozen stone structures used as altars in the spirituality of the Otomi Indigenous people.

Apparently the JWs said yeah we did that.

Members of the Christian sect say the destruction was motivated by a belief that the ancient Indigenous religion involved devil worship. The perpetrators claim that they were following the word of god by destroying the temple site.

The ancient religion of the Otomi people traditionally holds sacred various deities including earth, water, and fire, and reveres their gods with offerings.

The Otomi people could just tear up the JWs’ sites and say they’re following the word of their gods in doing so, and how would the JWs like that? Not much, I should think.

Interesting.

Jonathan Warner ‏@JonathanRWarner 21 hours ago
London Young Labour chair took BME spot at LGBT conference because his dad’s girlfriend was black.

Christ…

Why are you currently occupying the Black member’s position when you do not have an experience of oppression on the basis that you are Black?

The open letter is from 2012 but the tweet is from yesterday. The question is a live one.

The vote to recall Harney County Judge Steve Grasty failed overwhelmingly, Peter Walker reports on Facebook.

Wham. Go home, Bundyites, you’re drunk.

Some guys have been arrested over that racist incident on the Manchester tram.

Police were made aware of alleged racial abuse at around 07:40 BST on a tram travelling towards the city centre after a video was posted online.

Two men, aged 20 and 18 and a 16-year-old boy, were detained on suspicion of affray, Greater Manchester Police said.

The video shows a man on a tram at Shudehill being called “an immigrant” and told “get back to Africa”.

The guy told them they’re young and none too bright.

One of the men continued to shout “get off the tram now”, as he spoke.

One of the group, who were holding beer bottles, then apparently approaches the man and flicks alcohol at him, as a passenger shouted: “There’s a baby there – there’s absolutely no need for that”.

As the youths got off, the victim said to himself: “Seven years in the military,” as other commuters told the three, “You are an absolute disgrace. A disgrace to England”.

Police said the suspects were being held in custody for questioning.

The guy they were shouting at is a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan. He’s lived in the UK for 18 years; his daughter was born there.

Istanbul’s turn:

A suicide gun and bomb attack on Istanbul’s main airport, one of Europe’s busiest, has killed at lest 32 people and injured 60 more.

Three attackers were involved, with one reportedly firing a Kalashnikov as they targeted an entry point to Ataturk international airport.

The BBC reporter Mark Lowen is stuck in a plane at that airport.

Two South African tourists, Paul and Susie Roos from Cape Town, were at the airport and due to fly home at the time of the explosions.

“We came up from the arrivals to the departures, up the escalator when we heard these shots going off,” Mr Roos told the Associated Press news agency.

“There was this guy going roaming around, he was dressed in black and he had a handgun.”

Don’t they all.

David Allen Green points out that the Brexit vote doesn’t automatically mean the UK will leave the EU. A referendum does not invoke Article 50. David Cameron did not invoke Article 50 on Friday. Green thinks that means it may never be invoked at all.

The referendum on EU membership was advisory not mandatory. It was deliberately drafted by Parliament not to have any legal consequences. (The last UK-wide referendum, on the AV voting system, did have such a binding provision, but this time Parliament chose not to include one).

As such, the result of the poll has no more legal standing than the result of a consultation exercise. It was a glorified opinion survey, and that is what Parliament intended it to be.

Just a chance to let off steam then? Too bad so much of the steam is so very polluted.

And now there’s this:

Kinder, gentler politics. pic.twitter.com/rb6wqMsuoi

— Lewis Parker (@LewisParkerUK) June 27, 2016

In the photo: two smiling bright and shiny young people pointing to someone wearing a Tshirt with the slogan

ERADICATE THE RIGHT WING BLAIRITE VERMIN

When was Jo Cox murdered? Ten days ago.

Guest post by Eliana Bookbinder.

At around 6 pm on Sunday June 26th, I was told that a hawk was down along the Moore Trail between Camp Marriott and Camp PMI, two of the camps on the Goshen Scout Reservation. I was off duty, but as head of the Marriott Ecology Area, I went to check on it and saw that it was not a hawk, but rather a juvenile bald eagle, hopping around on the ground covered in flies. The adult eagles were nowhere to be seen.

After about twenty minutes of texting and calls, Matt Anderson, the Director of Camp Marriott, told me just to leave the eagle there and that doing so was not a violation the Scout law (even the helpful, kind, and reverent bits, and the outdoor code to be conservation-minded), and I was not allowed to call a wildlife rehabilitation center or transport it to a wildlife veterinarian. Apparently this was because Mike Jolly, the camp superintendent, wanted to wait until a game warden could be called the next morning. Sadly game wardens don’t work on weekends (although I did try calling them, just in case). I knew that if I left the eagle out overnight that it would at best die of exposure and at worst get eaten alive by raccoons.

I checked the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service website, which recommends in this situation calling a wildlife rehabilitation center. So I disobeyed Matt and called the Wildlife Center of Virginia. The on-call veterinarian told me if I could capture the eagle safely to bring it there as soon as possible. Using towels my brother and I picked up the eagle, put it in a large Tupperware container, and started driving to the Wildlife Center. We knew we were disobeying but neither of us could leave this animal out to die.

About half way to the Wildlife Center, Matt Anderson called me and asked if I’d done it. I said yes, and he told me he might have to fire me, and I said it was worth it.

Once we got to the Wildlife Center a vet took the eagle and started assessing it. Sadly it had to be put down because it had multiple broken bones in its wing.

When we returned to camp Matt called us into his office, along with the assistant camp director. They repeatedly asked us whether we really wanted to work here, which was odd because this is my seventh summer and people don’t usually come back for that many years with a possible herniated disk if they don’t want to work here. Up until today I considered the Camp Marriott staff to be my family and the Goshen Scout Reservation to be my home. Matt also said that if we had been caught we would have endangered the reputation of the BSA and possibly gotten them fined. (Not true.)

This morning after they had us work for several hours, we met with Matt, Phil Barbash (the Goshen Scout Reservation Director), and Mike Jolly. After saying we broke federal law (which we almost certainly did not) Matt fired us for disobeying his orders. While we gathered our stuff Matt told Jeremy that “we are here to cater to the scouts’ needs, not the wildlife.” This also made no sense as we had done this on our own time.

The Boy Scouts of America has a law, an oath, a motto, a slogan, and an outdoor code. In that order, they are:

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

Be prepared.

Do a good turn daily.

As an American, I will do my best to –

• Be clean in my outdoor manners
•  Be careful with fire
• Be considerate in the outdoors, and
•  Be conservation minded.

Not taking this injured bird to an appropriate medical facility would have violated many parts of these statements. Nor could I disobey my own ethical and moral guidelines and allow a bald eagle, the symbol of our country and the highest rank in Boy Scouts, to die of shock or be eaten alive by predators.

Jael Goldfine at the National Women’s Law Center blog asks why it’s being treated as so disreputable to point out victimization.

While anti-victim sentiment has a long, ugly history in the American ethos, the last several years have been characterized by a new form of hostility towards victims. The idea that we are living in a “culture of victimhood” – which glorifies victimhood, encourages hypersensitivity, attention-seeking, and complaint – has become a mainstay within conservative thought, and the viral buzz-phrase has been wielded by liberal and conservative writers alike.

Yes. I’ve been watching that, with mixed feelings and thoughts. I often do see what the critics are getting at; there can be self-indulgent or self-obsessed versions, and that’s not a particularly healthy way to see the world. A decent politics is founded on giving a damn about other people’s problems as well as your own, so too much focus on outrages to the Self is a bad way to go. On the other hand…callous dismissiveness is not helpful either, and we do get to report injustices done to us as well as those done to other people.

Goldfine points out that the Stanford rape victim’s statement is a good place to look for why such things can be necessary.

But, perhaps, as believers in cultural victimhood would posit, by sharing her letter, she’s “playing the victim.”

My question is, why shouldn’t she?  The rape culture in our country and on our campuses makes victims of women. Why is sexual assault survivor bringing attention to her victimhood perceived as playing the victim, and not instead, as exposing the bully?

Because this is exactly what she has done: rewritten the narrative, revealing the bullies in the story, for everyone to see: Turner, who insisted the encounter was consensual; his father, who reduced her rape to a regrettable “20 minutes of action;” their lawyers who attempted to frame her as culpable in her own assault; and Judge Aaron Persky, who decided that the violation of a woman’s bodily autonomy is worth only six months in jail – the same sentence one can receive for stealing a library book.

This is the power of victimhood: to expose unjust power relations in a way that leaves the powers-that-be looking petty and shameful. To wrestle the public and moral narrative away from the dominant, default versions, which so often favor the privileged and powerful. To force confrontation with the violence women suffer in our society, and to disallow for indifference to the injustice of the systems that enable sexual violence, and protect those who commit it.

That also applies to the stories people are telling of encountering racism at the supermarket in the UK right now. We need to know.