Spent far too much of today obsessively staring at tweetdeck when I should either a) have been doing work or b) have actually gone to the Rothamsted protest. Arse. Some good ol' fashioned productivity-boosting helped.

Massive police presence kept the crop safe. I very much doubt that will stop a few from going back later on and having a go. Anyway, a bunch of links from the last few days (using lovely html export from my new favourite online tool, checkvist.com).

• Communication breakdown: 'Mossome's blog' on the Rothamsted trial.
• Feeding a hungry world, Indy
• Wyoming weed scientist view: "This act, if it takes place as planned on May 27, will long be remembered as an example of what is currently wrong with the environmental movement. The anti-science faction of the environmental movement must be excised before we can hope to make any real progress in feeding the world in a sustainable manner."
• Geek Manifesto on GM: "This is rather like calling for all painkillers to be outlawed because Vioxx can have dangerous side-effects."
• Jenny Jones, Green Party london Majoral candidate, explains why she's going to the protest. So much in there I agree with!
• New age of unreason or a geek dawn? Tom Fielden, BBC.
• Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change: need "safe operating space that provides adequate nutrition for everyone without crossing critical environmental thresholds"
• Sunny Hundal on the Green Party and science. Note this comment by Adam Rutherford.
• reaction to anti-climate vs anti-GM
• GM banana research in Uganda
• GM papaya, pretty graphic pic.
• An old article by Mark Lynas on Indian farmer suicides. This is something I'd accepted, up until I heard Prof John Witcombe talking about it. Many farmers seemed happy with how GM was working out for them, from his experience. This is a topic I think needs treating with extreme care: it's incredibly emotive, and of course the large companies involved are not saints, and they have large PR coffers. But putting your buyers into a situation where they'll go bust, or leading them to take their own lives? That doesn't sound like a brilliant way to carry on selling someone seed, does it? If iphones regularly exploded, taking their owner with it, I suspect sales would be considerably less robust. That said, maybe they're pushers, with control the larger goal.
• Two thoughtful pieces (here's the second, and my comment) by Tom Chance, a Green Party guy who's into his IP philosophy.
• Nick Cohen reviews the Geek Manifesto.
• Keith Kloor: is environmentalism anti-scientific? (and the discussion it links to.)
• Why taking down GM field trials is pro-science via probably jon.
• have a cuppa pesticide
• Via Sue pointing me to chemical and nuclear mutagenesis, the internets provides: Mutation breeding and atomic gardens, where one can find 'one of gardening’s weirdest moments' (and a particularly curious example of participatory breeding...)
• Mutation breeding of durum wheat (PDF) via 4tis.
• GM is a fantasy; we need to "radically change our lives - Our ways of life must become the technique"
• African BIodiversity Network, mentioning seeds of freedom: going to be worth a look.
• Good tweet on science and the political compass. Like this reply too: "They happened to align with science once by accident. They didn't get to that position through scientific method or literacy." But fair?
• Steve Easterbrook uses systems-thinking ideas, leading him to argue destroying the crop is the right course of action. Prompts another essay-length waffly comment from me.