A group of scientists and food activists is launching a campaign Thursday to change the rules that govern seeds. They're releasing 29 new varieties of crops under a new "open source pledge" that's intended to safeguard the ability of farmers, gardeners and plant breeders to share those seeds freely.

It's inspired by the example of open source software, which is freely available for anyone to use but cannot legally be converted into anyone's proprietary product.

At an event on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, backers of the new Open Source Seed Initiative will pass out 29 new varieties of 14 different crops, including carrots, kale, broccoli and quinoa. Anyone receiving the seeds must pledge not to restrict their use by means of patents, licenses or any other kind of intellectual property. In fact, any future plant that's derived from these open source seeds also has to remain freely available as well.

Irwin Goldman, a vegetable breeder at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, helped organize the campaign. It's an attempt to restore the practice of open sharing that was the rule among plant breeders when he entered the profession more than 20 years ago.

"If other breeders asked for our materials, we would send them a packet of seed, and they would do the same for us," he says. "That was a wonderful way to work, and that way of working is no longer with us."

These days, seeds are intellectual property. Some are patented as inventions. You need permission from the patent holder to use them, and you're not supposed to harvest seeds for replanting the next year.

The Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is an institute funded by the right-wing conservative Bradley Foundation. In April of 2013, the Center announced the "Bradley Freedom Prize" essay contest, in which they asked for a response to the question: "Do the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes? What amount would be fair and why?"

The following Bradley Award-losing essay submission likely inflamed the judges of the prize; rather than focusing on taxes and wealth merely in relation to the economy - the obsession of nearly all news media reports and academic literature - it instead focuses on taxes and wealth in relation to ethics, equity, and ecology.

Why Only the Rich Should be Taxed

As our country and the world face the unprecedented scourge of global climate change, the constant toxification of our air and water, and ever-increasing social and economic inequities, the few means to combat these problems exist in the form of government regulations and interventions, funded by taxes. Though the richest among us may be touted as beneficent "job creators" by ideologues and the obsequious mass media who revere them, the rich, in fact, are actually the major source of the harms and evils facing our society. Their vast industrial and corporate enterprises directly and indirectly contribute to the majority of all fossil fuel emissions, toxic pollution, worker exploitation, and income inequality. Contrary to popular opinion, the rich do not gain their wealth because they work harder or possess more skills and intellect than the rest of us; they amass profligate fortunes because they are more selfish, narcissistic, and sociopathic than others. They are rich for a specific reason. Where you or I would freely give of ourselves to help others and eschew extravagant excess, the goal of the rich is money-making, so everything they do is toward that end. Psychological studies have demonstrated that wealthy people are less altruistic than poorer people, which is precisely why they are wealthy. In this era where the United States faces the greatest income disparity in the nation's history, on top of unprecedented environmental and ecological catastrophes, it is imperative that those responsible for causing these calamities pay for them rather than benefit from them.

The rich are indeed different than the rest. They are more liable to lie, cheat, steal, and act unethically.¹ It is precisely this behavior that enables their accumulation of wealth. According to Professor Martha Stout, author of The Sociopath Next Door, "the higher you go up the ladder... the great number of sociopaths you will find there." ² Thus, it is not surprising that many of the richest, most powerful people in our society perpetrate tremendous damage and injustice. They more often lack empathy and pro-social behavior, while they take more and give less than their poorer counterparts.³ These negative attributes of the upper classes commonly manifest themselves in the form of lack of concern for the environment, for other species, and for other humans. Given that the ten richest Americans are all corporate/industrial magnates of one form or another, ⁴ it is inevitable that tremendous damage has resulted from their industrial pursuits, both due to the nature of the wealthy individuals themselves and due to the nature of corporations. In addition, since corporations are considered people as per a Supreme Court decision, it is imperative that not only rich individuals, but corporations as well bear the burden of reimbursing society for the destruction they spread.

Glenn Miller, the former North Carolina Ku Klux Klan leader, arrested in the Kansas City Jewish Community Center shootings that killed three people on Sunday, has been identified previously as an FBI informant. The FBI is known to have infiltrated the Klan time and time again since the civil rights days, during a period when J. Edgar Hoover had set his sights on flushing out supposed commies and ending the career of Martin Luther King. Miller testified for the government in a major trial where the Feds sought to convict leaders of the Far Right. In his book, A White Man Speaks Out, he claims to have been an FBI informant.

Miller is a former Vietnam vet who was a member of the American Nazi Party before turning to the North Carolina Klan. He was in the Klan caravan involved in the Greensboro massacre in 1979, where the Klan opened fire on civil rights marchers. He then formed the White Patriot Party, claiming by 1985 to have a membership of 2500 and offices in six southern states. He ran for governor of North Carolina in 1984 and got 5,000 votes.

Indiana - Thanks to more than a dozen tips, South Bend Police have developed a single person of interest in the investigation of 21 animals found dead in an alley near the 700-block of E. Indiana Ave.

Police did not name the person of interest, but say multiple tips named the same individual as a possible suspect.

Examinations are still being performed on the small animals at Purdue University, to determine exactly how the animals died. Physical evidence from the scene is also being processed.

A live horse was discovered near where rotting carcasses of around 17 animals were found at the base of cliffs in what has been described as a "planned and sinister" act.
It was initially thought the horse was also dead but it started moving and a vet had to put it down, as it was in a very bad condition.

Clare ISPCA officer Frankie Coote described the deaths of the animals - 10 horses, four cattle, and three calves - at the base of Baltard Cliffs in Doonbeg, Co Clare, as "planned and sinister".

Up to 15 of the animals were found close together at the bottom of the isolated cliffs, while another dead horse lay close by.

The case is being investigated by four separate authorities.

Thirty-year-old Dustin Theoharis in Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, recovering from his twelfth surgery - this one to reconstruct his jaw. It's unlikely he will ever fully recover from the barrage of bullets fired by police on Feb. 11, 2011. His attorney, Erik Heipt said that Theoharis suffered "a broken shoulder, 2 broken arms, broken legs, he had a compression fracture to his spine, damage to his liver and spleen."

Theoharis wasn't the guy police were after. The King County Sheriff's deputy and Washington Department of Corrections officer who shot him were at the house to arrest a man who'd violated his parole. But in a search of the house after the shooting, they surprised Theoharis in the basement room he was renting.

Cole Harrison, who was at the house, described it this way: "They (the officers) rushed into that room like they were going to get somebody. I mean they rushed down there and then all of a sudden. Boom, boom, boom, boom."

Riot police dragged away some 350 squatter families from abandoned offices in Rome amid violent clashes on Wednesday -- the latest in a rising tide of forced evictions in Italy fuelled by the economic crisis.

Several people were injured as police used truncheons to break through a large group of protesters outside the building, where squatters had barricaded themselves in and taken to the roof.

A Kansas church known for its anti-gay protests at public events plans to picket a CSU graduation ceremony and the "God-hated, without-hope young people" who it says will attend.

Westboro Baptist Church indicated in a news release that its members will stage a protest on the Fort Collins campus from 4:15-5 p.m. May 17 at the intersection of Meridian Avenue and Plum Street. Commencement ceremonies for the colleges of natural sciences and liberal arts will take place at nearby Moby Arena at 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m., respectively.

The church believes students graduating from universities in "doomed America this year are a unique generation - - unique in their filthy manner of life; unique in the lies that pervade their every thought; unique in their aggressive enabling and embracing of f--- and same-sex marriage," the news release said.

The announcement ended with: "God H8S RAM FAN BRATS!"

While CSU "absolutely disagrees" with the message of the protestors, the university also values free speech and the group's legal right to demonstrate on public areas of campus, spokesman Mike Hooker said.

"Our attention -- however - will be focused on celebrating the accomplishment of the CSU students who have worked hard to earn their degrees," he said.

The recent spritz of rain notwithstanding, California is in the midst of what Gov. Jerry Brown called "perhaps the worst drought [the state] has ever seen." And yet, despite the desperate state of affairs, every day the city of Los Angeles flushes hundreds of millions of gallons of potentially potable water out to sea.

I'm talking about treated sewage.

In 2000, Los Angeles actually completed a sewage reclamation plant capable of providing water to 120,000 homes - the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys. After being treated at the plant, reclaimed water was pumped to spreading fields near Hansen Dam, where it slowly filtered through the soil into the aquifer. (Here's a graphic.)

A new oil field with roughly 300 million tons of oil and 90 billion cubic meters of gas has been discovered in the Astrakhan region of Russia.

"The field's reserves are unprecedented, this discovery confirms the high potential of the Astrakhan region in terms of these major discoveries," Sergey Donskoy, Russia's Natural Resources Minister said on Wednesday.

The field, called "Velikoe" (The Great) was discovered by the AFB Oil and Gas Company, which will likely seek out larger partners to develop it.

Two likely candidates are Rosneft, Russia's state-owned and largest producer, and Lukoil, the country's second biggest producer.

"According to experts, given the lack of large land deposits, project participation will likely come from all major industry players. The most probable partners are Rosneft and Lukoil, which already have projects in neighboring regions," Uralsib Capital analyst Aleksey Kokin told mail.ru.