Monsanto is best-known for its controversial use of genetically-modified organisms, and less well-known for being involved in the story of the defoliant Agent Orange (the company's long and involved story is well told in the book and film "The World According to Monsanto", by Marie-Monique Robin.) Its shadow also looms large over the current TPP talks: the USTR's Chief Agricultural Negotiator is Islam A. Siddiqui, a former lobbyist for Monsanto. But it would seem that the company is starting to explore new fields, so to speak; as Salon reports in a fascinating and important post, Monsanto is going digital:
Monsanto spent close to $1 billion to buy the Climate Corporation, a data analytics firm. Last year the chemical and seed company also bought Precision Planting, another high-tech firm, and also launched a venture capital arm geared to fund tech start-ups.Here's the key shift that is behind that move:
Many farmers have been collecting digitized yield data on their operations since the 1990s, when high-tech farm tools first emerged. But that information would sit on a tractor or monitor until the farmer manually transferred it to his computer, or handed a USB stick to an agronomist to analyze. Now, however, smart devices can wirelessly transfer data straight to a corporation's servers, sometimes without a farmer's knowledge.Data that in isolation is of limited use suddenly becomes highly valuable when aggregated. Here, for example, are some of the ways that companies like Monsanto might use their new stores of knowledge:
details on the economic worth of a farm operation could empower Monsanto or DuPont to calculate the exact value the farm derives from its products. Monsanto already varies its prices by region, so that Illinois farmers with a bumper crop might be charged more for seeds than Texas farmers facing a drought. Bigger heaps of data would enable these companies to price discriminate more finely, not just among different geographic regions but between neighbors.
Comment: So, we're being asked to believe the anti-human, medieval state of Qatar commissioned this 'independent, lock-solid case against Assad' from an elite London law firm, and published it on the eve of peace talks, with absolutely no self-interest in swaying public opinion?
Qatar has invested $4 billion in this war to date and is poised to commit another $20 billion in the 'reconstruction' of the country it's actively annihilating: that is hardly a disinterested party, now is it? The Qatari Emirs are hell-bent on removing the al-Assads.
The London law firm they hired, Carter-Ruck, is about as reliable an 'independent' source as Tony Blair is a 'peace envoy'. Note that The Guardian didn't wanted to be tainted by association and so left the firm's name out of their article! Carter-Ruck was, curiously enough, instrumental in launching the previous propaganda maneuver against Syria (that whole shrill spiel about 'Assad's chemical weapons of mass destruction')...
As SOTT.net editor Joe Quinn pointed out here, Going by the pattern in Syria to date, we have to consider that the real reason these photographs were taken was to produce this 'independent report' for propaganda purposes; specifically, to remind people that they're supposed to perceive Bashar al-Assad as 'the new Hitler', etc.
The victims, like most others held up to Western audiences as victims of Assad's 'regime', were either tortured and killed by the foreign mercenaries funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, or they are among the tens of thousands of IRAQI torture victims under the US occupation.
Remember the hysteria generated by images of butchered children from the al-Houla massacre, for example?...
Houla massacre carried out by Syrian 'rebels', says Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Children shot, knifed, axed to death in Free Syrian Army's Houla massacre
The Houla Massacre: US-Sponsored Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"
Footage Reveals Terrorists' Role in Houla Massacre