Re: Monsanto?!
 

Directly from the monsanto website: http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pa...ave-seeds.aspx They use this clause to get farms that seeds blow into or that birds drop.

Supreme court hearing about monsanto: http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-patents-sue-farmers-547/

the supreme court case is called monsanto Vs. Farmer if you would be interested in looking up more information on it

Also Back in a believe march of 2013 the goverment passed the farmer assurance provision (otherwise know as the Monsanto protection act) that first gave them the ability to do this eventually this ended at the end of the fiscal year. but lead it to the supreme court.

And my project was on gmo's in general with the focus on monsanto, but by doing this I uncovered all this information that im presenting Then I wrote a secound short essay about buisness practices based on this. Your right in the fact that this is not 100% accurate in all regards, but I do belive based on facts that Monsanto has sued farmers for inadvertly growing there "patented seed." now I will also state that Monsanto did sue farmers for saving seeds. (which is what the supreme court okayed them to do) but have they taken advantage of this? Absolutly!

Re: Monsanto?!
 

Why did you only focus on the bail out portion and relate it to Engineering companies?

What got the big banks to the point of having to have a government bailout is the unethical part that I'm talking about. Granted, part of that is the Fed not having insight or oversight into big banking policies and keeping them in line to prevent their big cash grab from middle Americans' pockets for those of us who played by the rules and didn't bite off more than we could chew with a mortgage (there goes that can of worms).
Why does the Fed money have to be funneled through NASA to the Teams?

Re: Monsanto?!
 

Not so. Monsanto has never used that clause in cases of accidental "contamination" of fields. Monsanto has always promised that they would not do so. Monsanto is even legally bound to live up to that promise.

The suits are brought by Monsanto against farmers who do exactly what the page you linked to says will lead to their being sued: saving and replanting seeds in violation of the agreement they signed when buying the seeds. This is standard practice with any supplier of hybrid seeds, and is not anything specific to either genetically engineered seed in general or Monsanto in particular.

That's the OSGATA et al. v. Monsanto case I mentioned. It was the farmers who sued Monsanto in an attempt to prohibit Monsanto from taking action in a hypothetical case of accidental contamination. The courts ruled that the OSGATA group had no justification for bringing suit, but also ruled that Monsanto's existing promise not to sue in such cases was legally enforceable.

I can find no Supreme Court case by that name.

I don't know where you're getting your information, but it is not accurate. That provision has nothing to do with either seed-saving or crop contamination. It's about getting permission to plant crops that have had their legality for commercial use removed by court decision, allowing a growing season not to be lost while the appeals process is underway.

It's closer to 0% accurate. Your references actually show that Monsanto does not sue for inadvertent cultivation of such seeds. They are vigorous in their prosecution of those who intentionally plant Monsanto-patented seeds without having paid for them, but that's not the same thing at all.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

You covered the banks fairly well (but ignored the encouragement of bad loan practices by FNMA and certain members of Congress). In order to make a sarcastic point, I though we'd more on to more unethical behaviors by those in high places (how much did Fiat pay for Chrysler?) (and Gettlefinger Motors was a direct reference to a group that disparately benefited from political largess during that crisis). When does the money stop being tainted?

It is not "Fed money" being "funneled through NASA," it's our money, extracted from us by the taxing power of the government, funneled through the IRS, the Treasury Department and NASA, with some help from Congress at every turn. It is far more efficient for me to donate directly to a team; no bureaucrats taking a cut along the way, no decisions for or against teams by slightly interested bystanders. Pure application of the fruits of my labor to a good cause.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

The problem with Monsanto isn't that it's bad, it's that people think it's bad and Monsanto doesn't care. GMO foods on a whole get more of a bad rap because of Monsanto, and that bleeds into many other areas.
For example, take golden rice. Rice fortified with vitamins for poor people in East Asia. Leaders there rejected it due to it being "untraditional". No exactly related to Monsanto, but definitely related to their perception of GMO foods. GMO needs to have a large and positive media campaign, and currently the big name for that is Monsanto. They are indirectly/ inadvertantly letting GMO foods become negative things in the public eye.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

There are a lot of people who could question why our populace, ( posters on this message board ) doesn't understand the need to legitimately defend our borders, our nation, and our people.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

And there's a lot of folks who would question if the defense industry enabled that defense or merely profited off it.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

We the people, via the government, issue contracts to the defense industry.

We the people are responsible for the policy we enact and the contracts we issue.

We the people cannot pass the buck on to the industry and demonize them when we fail to take responsibility for our own actions.

And in the past few years we the people have decided to radically shrink our defense spending. The Air Force will be the smallest since WW2. The Army is radically shrinking. And so on.

Yet we the people continue to ravage the rest of the populace with non-defense entitlement programs that consume over 50% of the total US budget.

And BTW: The defense so called 'profits' and ROI are well understood and within acceptable standards relative to other industry segments and sectors.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

Color me confused - I don't really understand what about 80% of the comments here have to do with coopetitive robotics. Take it it chit-chat, or take it to PM.
This is a live, public, searchable forum. Real conversations have real ramifications.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

Take your political rhetoric elsewhere please.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

Basically some people are offended by certain companies or industry segments coming anywhere near kids or these robotics programs.

Depending on who is chattering, the aggrieved person may be complaining that the sponsor is involved in feeding 9 billion hungry souls, defending innocents from foreign terrorists and threats, or that grandma through her retirement fund, helped a company take a risk and develop a product that eventually earned her some retirement income through the companies profit.

So I guess the alternative is to form the "Cat Food Brigade", and shove grandma over the cliff in her wheelchair while she eats lunch from a tin of cat food........ ah, but I digress... That's an old Alan Simpson ploy...

Re: Monsanto?!
 

Okay guys, everybody calm down. Chief Delphi is the place to talk robots, not politics. While people are entitled to such opinions, here is not the place to get into a debate about them. Please take it somewhere else (slashdot.org would be an excellent place). This thread isn't about FIRST anymore, and for all intents and purposes this is a FIRST forum. Chief Delphi is one of the few bastions of the internet where it isn't flagrantly political, and preferably we can work together to keep it that way.

Thank you.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

I strongly disagree with their business practices and products, but I can say it was very generous of them to sponsor FIRST.

Re: Monsanto?!
 

We are going to take a break from this.