HR872 Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act is a Bad Bill

A new bill would amend both FIFRA and the Clean Water Act to clarify congressional intent and eliminate the requirements of a Clean Water Act permit for the use of FIFRA-registered pesticides.

The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) praised efforts by a bipartisan group in the House of Representatives to eliminate the possibility of costly and duplicative pesticide permitting requirements that are a result of a misguided decision by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in National Cotton Council v. EPA.

The 2009 Sixth Circuit court decision, in response to the National Cotton Council v. EPA, overturned the Bush Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule exempting commercial pesticide applications from the oversight provided under CWA. The decision requires NPDES permits for pesticide applications directly to or near waterways in order to reduce and eventually eliminate pollutants in the natural environment. 

Alabama Representative Martha Roby is a co-sponsor for this bill and has taken her support to YouTube because it works in favor of Big Ag and the Timber industry, the two biggest supporters and money machines for the bill to our lawmakers in an attempt to influence them to undo the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court. 

This bill was introduced by Bob Gibbs--R whose top two contributors are the mining and oil and gas industry. Two industries that are the antithesis to farming wouldn't you agree?

Who else in Alabama is supporting the bill and for how much?

Representative Mike Rogers--R  -AL 3     $32,100

Representative Spencer Bachus--R--AL 6     $12,500

Representative Roger Aderholt--R--AL 4     $9,000

Representative Jo Bonner--AL 1     $24,950

Representative Mo Brooks--R--AL 5     $1,250

Representative Mike D. Rogers--R--AL 3     $42,600

Representative Martha Roby--R--AL 2     $3,250

Representative Terri Sewell--D--AL 7     $12,400

 Here's Roby in "her own words"

And from a recent weekly column to RickyStokesNews.com:

Once our small businesses are free from the threats of tax increases and federal regulations, they will be unleashed to grow and create jobs. I talked about federal regulations with members of the Alabama Farmer’s Association this week while they were in Washington for their annual conference. I explained that our federal government is overzealous with their regulatory authority. The EPA is a top example of federal agencies run amok, as evidenced by the long laundry list of regulations that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was questioned about at an Agriculture Committee hearing.

I told members of ALFA that farmers and other businesses owners create jobs, and that I will fight hard to reduce government regulations that stand in their way. The quicker that we can get the government to stop regulating our small business owners and our farmers, the quicker we can get our country back on track. 

She uses a catch phrase that is designed to resonate; "our farmers just want to farm" but she leaves out a few things. Much of the farming in the US today is heavily subsidized by the federal government, the same government that has helped kill our small family farms. This bill is not about "small business" by any stretch of the imagination Ms. Roby, that's disingenuous on its face.

Small farmers are everyday people trying to hold onto to their smaller operations. The average Joe if you will, who probably goes to church every Sunday and is conservative politically.

Ms. Roby claims in her column that she is "fighting for conservative values." By caving to the interests of Big Ag, who has been the other destructor of small farmers, is she picking and choosing which conservatives she is "fighting" for?

Back to the subsidizing for a moment, Big Ag is a big benefactor of federal money, so they are upset now that they have to spend some of their federal handout and give it back to the government? They have to be careful and make sure they aren't polluting our watersheds in following the Sixth Circuit Court decision? Where's the problem? Oh, that's right, it's about the federal handout isn't it? And being judicious with pesticides.

Enter Charles Conner, former USDA Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and Big Ag Corn Refiners past president:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the ruling will affect nearly 365,000 pesticide applicators nationwide and cost $50 million a year to implement. Conner said that the while the impacts of the new requirements will be severe, there is little evidence that they will provide any identifiable environmental benefit.
Conner also noted that EPA has just today requested an extension of the April 9th deadline from the Sixth Circuit Court. “With less than a month to go before the deadline, it is good that the EPA has finally realized that more time will be needed,” said Conner. “We hope the Court grants this request and that Congress will use the added time to clarify the law and ensure a more common sense approach to pesticide regulation.”

Note the $50 million figure. That is not a cost to the federal government according to the CBO document, that's an estimated figure of costs to Big Ag Conner has come up with to fire supporters up to support the bill.  As for the "no identifiable environmental benefit" he claims, what is he basing that on? Is he trying to suggest that lax regulations are of an environmental benefit? We are talking about pesticides here. Poisons. Toxins.

We can tell you where his claim did not come from, the EPA, because we checked with the pesticides and water divisions. His claims were not found to have merit by the Sixth District Court, who realized there is a threat to the environment and these chemicals should be regulated under the CWA.

So it's all wordsmithing and spin isn't it?

And just to make you all feel better next time you munch on a bag of peanuts or popcorn, farmers in Georgia, Alabama and Florida have been spreading coal ash FGD Gypsum from power plants on their croplands for thirty years. Cancer rates in all three states are elevated. Is there a connection? We can't say for sure because there are already so many carcinogens filling the air in the Southeast from coal-fired power plants. But it can't be a good idea.

Thirty years. Mind-boggling and in place because of the utility and coal industries. The EPA touts the "beneficial use for agricultural applications" but admits, along with the USDA "more research is needed to ascertain the long-term risks of agricultural application."

Wouldn't it have made more sense to fully know before you acted?

Maybe that's why the EPA is revisiting the issue and doing more testing after the Kingston spill, but this falls into the heel dragging of coal ash regulation despite responses exceeding half a million to the federal agency to classify it as toxic.

Big Ag and Big Coal are not for us. They never have been, never will be. They're not for the small farmer either. We support our small farmers, not the industrialized operations. In our opinions, Martha Roby and company are looking out for big business and not the family farmer. She's pandering, along with all the other political supporters to the big money crowd and forgetting that she is supposed to represent all of her constituents equally. 

This bill is not a solution, it's a problem, it's a way to skirt responsibility and not be held accountable for harming our watersheds. It's for Big Ag not the average farmer. We're firmly against it and urge you to contact your representatives in all states who are acting as cosponsors of this bill.

Here's your link to the list, scroll down to the representatives names and let them know where you stand. The bill is on a fast track, EPA regulations are due to be implemented on April 9th.

Additional link to take action: Beyond Pesticides Daily News

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Cellulosic Biofuel is a Boondoggle-- Governor Bentley, Explain Yourself and Your Big Biomass Boligee

Biomass Plant in Michigan

We've written about the proposed biofuel plant in Boligee, Alabama before and what we really suspected it was all about--one great big federal and special interests fleece job. But Governor Mule Bentley claims it's a way for him to live up to his campaign promises of "jobs, jobs, jobs," and Alabama's press refuses to question the project. Why?

We say Governor Bentley is full of biomass with this idea and what happened in Baldwin County with the same proposal gives credibility to our argument that this is not a job creator as much as it is a money trough for certain interests at the taxpayer's expense:

MOBILE, Ala. -- Facing bankruptcy and a $10.4 million judgment from a lawsuit, Jack W. Boykin approached a city in southern Illinois last week with a project that he said would create 200 jobs.

Billy McDaniel, the mayor of Metropolis, said that Boykin — an originator of the failed and allegedly fraudulent Cello Energy in Baldwin County — inquired about an industrial park in the city that could be home to one of a half-dozen alternative fuel plants that he planned for the state.

In 2009, a federal jury in Mobile awarded $10.4 million to a company that owned a pair of paper mills in Monroe County and invested $2.5 million in Boykin’s supposedly revolutionary technology to turn wood chips and other plant matter into cheap fuel.

Two years later, testimony at the federal trial indicated that the Cello Energy plant in Bay Minette had never been completed and had produced just $17,000 worth of fuel. Lab testing showed that a batch of Cello’s fuel contained no biomass material.

Today, the plant sits quiet in Bay Minette. No one answered the phone last week. 

In a second article on Cello Fuels we can see that the Boligee proposal and the Baldwin County boondoggle mirror each other in the manner in which they were discussed and conceived:

Jack W. Boykin -- with his Baldwin County company, Cello Energy -- was one of those. He persuaded investors to pour millions of dollars into his promise to produce cheap biofuel using wood chips and plant matter, even tire scraps.

Boykin had a lot of backers. David Bransby, an Auburn University agronomy professor, vouched for Boykin’s concept. So did the Environmental Protection Agency, which once named Cello as one of two companies that largely would enable the country to produce 250 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol each year by 2011.

Thus far, no company has proven an ability to produce cellulosic biofuel in commercial quantities. *Range Fuels, a company for which Bransby served as a scientific adviser, recently closed a biofuel plant in Georgia after obtaining significant funding from the government and private sources. 

*Range fuels is another brainchild of venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, the same investor behind the proposed Boligee, Alabama CE Plant Coskata. Cello Fuels was said to be backed by $12.5 million from Khosla, although a spokesman for Khosla "denies" he was ever involved with Cello. Court proceedings seem to indicate that Khosla was involved with Cello. What is clear about Khosla is that he is on a mission to become the "Baron of Biofuels."

An assessment of Khosla from chemical engineer Robert Rapier:

"I felt like he [Khosla] came into the energy industry without a very good comprehension of if, but felt that he would apply his golden touch from Silicon Valley to show the dinosaurs how Silicon Valley innovates. I also felt like he was attracted to people who made grandiose claims, but didn’t have the proper historical perspective to determine when something was truly novel (and really worked)."

We understand the EPA's desire to support alternative fuels, but thus far all that has really happened is that millions of taxpayers dollars have been invested in companies that have gone bankrupt and not lived up to all of their grand promises that Cellulosic Ethanol (or ANY biofuel) can be produced on a viable scale, if at all. 

Edmunds Inside Line reports that Alabama-based Cello Energy, which was supposed to produce 70 percent of the EPA’s 100m gallon/year cellulosic ethanol goal, has been convicted of fraud. A jury has awarded over $10m in damages to investors after witnesses testified that Cello’s supposedly biomass-derived fuel was actually petroleum based. Furthermore, it turns out that Cello only has the capability to produce 20m gallons of its putative biofuel per year. The EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) had banked on Cello to produce 70m gallons per annum. The downside? If (when) America’s cellulosic ethanol producers fail to meet the 100m gal/year mark inn 2010, the EPA could sell credits which would increase the biofuel’s price to $3/gallon. Current futures place the fuel’s value at $1.77/gallon. Alternatively, the EPA could postpone the ramp-up to 100m gal/year… but who’s expecting that to happen? Meanwhile, so-called “second-generation” biofuels continue to act as a subsidy magnet for an industry that is wholly addicted to feedstock-based fuels and government assistance.

The Baldwin County story of Cello clearly illustrates that biomass is a huge profit source for flim-flam men who take full advantage of the race to energy alternatives. Since the Boligee biofuel project has been in the works for two years, this was obviously a Riley scheme that was passed down to Bentley.

Executive Order 37 was established by Riley in 2007 and it set up the Alabama Research Alliance Trust Fund a $10,000,000 dollar fund that was reported to use the interest on the principal to fund alternative energy projects:

“Innovative approaches are needed to make our nation energy independent and to free us from our dependence on foreign oil,” Riley said in the release. “By generating alternative energy from renewable sources, these projects will serve as an example that other governments may follow to cut energy costs and stretch taxpayer dollars.”
The grants, which were awarded from the Alabama Research Alliance Trust Fund, are being administered by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. According to the governor’s press release, interest earned from the $10 million trust fund is used to support alternative energy research in Alabama.

Riley has more than a passing interest in Bentley carrying this ball because he created the game with this Order and the slush fund that followed, so of course it's a great idea because it's Riley's idea.

When it comes to economic development, let's face it, Bentley isn't the sharpest tack in the toolbox. That's why he's surrounded himself with men who seem to control what he does and he makes a huge misstep in carrying on Riley era pie-in-the-sky deals without fully understanding them beyond what Bob Riley tells him. After all, it was Riley who told the Bentley administration this about economic development deals in the works:

"If they have any questions about our economic deals all Governor Bentley has to do is call me and I'll confirm to him what was discussed about a particular project. I'm always just a phone call away."

That's a convenient way to make sure your prey gets into the 'trap,' in addition to paving the way for Big Luther to ride to the governorship in 2014. Why do we say that? This is why, in addition to the ridiculousness of CE in Alabama and its real 'viability' on a mass scale:

Riley also predicted the term of his successor; Dr. Robert Bentley would be “a disaster” making it easy for Strange to be successful in 2014.

If we have said it once, we'll say it again, better watch your Bass Doc, you're getting dangerously close to one of many well-planned gotchas.

Bentley is just not smart enough to question the validity of Riley's previously brokered deals. Or maybe he's just going along with the Mules that he surrounded himself with who are in place to be sure that previous deals to fleece Alabama and the US taxpayers, while they laugh all the way to the bank, stay on course.

So, that leaves us with our original question when Governor Bentley announced the project for Boligee, Alabama--who will really benefit from the Boligee boondoggle?
And why isn't the Alabama media asking the right questions about the Coskata project?

**Coskata partnered with Monsanto subsidiary Ceres, Inc. to provide cellulosic switchgrass stock for it's Pittsburgh plant. This link provides compelling evidence that to solve one problem, we'll create others that won't be without serious repercussions.
Facts about biomass plants that are not being discussed. 
An Unsustainable Idea (see part 6)

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Monsato Goon USDA Head Tom Vilsack Slapped With Lawsuit for Alfalfa Deregulation

The Center for Food Safety fights back against the corporatism of Monsanto.

The Center for Food Safety has announced an immediate challenge to the USDA’s unregulated approval of Monsanto’s genetically-modified (GMO) alfalfa.

“All farmers should be on notice that we will be suing again, so before they make their seed buying decisions, I would certainly caution them that we will be in court,” CFS’s Andrew Kimbrell told Agri-Pulse.com. “And I think that anybody who looks at our past record over the last five years will realize that we haven’t lost yet.”

Press Release

Washington, D.C. – January 27, 2011 –

ROGUE AGENCY CHOOSES “BUSINESS AS USUAL” OVER SOUND SCIENCE
CENTER ANNOUNCES IMMEDIATE LEGAL CHALLENGE TO USDA’S FLAWED ASSESSMENT

 The Center for Food Safety criticized the announcement today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that it will once again allow unlimited, nation-wide commercial planting of Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa, despite the many risks to organic and conventional farmers USDA acknowledged in its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS).  

On a call today with stakeholders, Secretary Vilsack reiterated the concerns surrounding purity and access to non-GE seed, yet the Agency’s decision still places the entire burden for preventing contamination on non-GE farmers, with no protections for food producers, consumers and exporters.

“We’re disappointed with USDA’s decision and we will be back in court representing the interest of farmers, preservation of the environment, and consumer choice” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety. “USDA has become a rogue agency in its regulation of biotech crops and its decision to appease the few companies who seek to benefit from this technology comes despite increasing evidence that GE alfalfa will threaten the rights of farmers and consumers, as well as damage the environment.”

On Monday, the Center sent an open letter to Secretary Vilsack calling on USDA to base its decision on sound science and the interests of farmers, and to avoid rushing the process to meet the marketing timelines or sales targets of Monsanto, Forage Genetics or other entities.

CFS also addressed several key points that were not properly assessed in the FEIS, among them were:
Liability, Implementation and Oversight — Citing over 200 past contamination episodes that have cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales, CFS demands that liability for financial losses incurred by farmers due to transgenic contamination be assigned to the crop developers.  CFS also calls on USDA to take a more active oversight role to ensure that any stewardship plans are properly implemented and enforced.

Roundup Ready alfalfa will substantially increase herbicide use – USDA’s assessment misrepresented conventional alfalfa as utilizing more herbicides than it does, which in turn provided a false rationale for introducing herbicide-promoting Roundup Ready alfalfa.  In fact, USDA’s own data shows that just 7% of alfalfa hay acres are treated with herbicides.  

USDA’s projections in the FEIS show that substantial adoption of Roundup Ready alfalfa would trigger large increases in herbicide use of up to 23 million lbs. per year.

Harms from glyphosate-resistant weeds – USDA’s sloppy and unscientific treatment of glyphosate-resistant (GR) weeds ignored the significant contribution that RR alfalfa could make to their rapid evolution.  USDA failed to analyze how GR weeds fostered by currently grown RR crops are increasing herbicide use; spurring more use of soil-eroding tillage; and reducing farmer income through increased weed control costs, an essential baseline analysis.

“We in the farm sector are dissatisfied but not surprised at the lack of courage from USDA to stop Roundup Ready alfalfa and defend family farmers,” said Pat Trask, conventional alfalfa grower and plaintiff in the alfalfa litigation.

The FEIS comes in response to a 2007 lawsuit brought by CFS, in which a federal court ruled that the USDA’s approval of GE alfalfa violated environmental laws by failing to analyze risks such as the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa, the evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds, and increased use of glyphosate herbicide, sold by Monsanto as Roundup. 

The Court banned new plantings of GE alfalfa until USDA completed a more comprehensive assessment of these impacts. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals twice affirmed the national ban on GE alfalfa planting.  In June 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Alfalfa until and unless future deregulation occurs.

“Last spring more than 200,000 people submitted comments to the USDA highly critical of the substance and conclusions of its Draft EIS on GE Alfalfa,” said Kimbrell.  “Clearly the USDA was not listening to the public or farmers but rather to just a handful of corporations.”
                                                        
The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents over 175,000 members across the nation. 

One of the 'intended consequences' of the war in Iraq was to allow the country, which is considered the cradle of the beginnings of all agriculture, to be taken over by US corporate giants, Cargill and Monsanto through Order 81. 

You never heard any of this in the mainstream press and that is because.....? Maybe they were too busy telling us that all Iraq was good for was growing Poppys for narcotics. They did not tell anyone the truth about that, because the US government didn't want them too. Why tell on yourself, right? And besides Monsanto wouldn't like the information being on the evening news, better to just distract the lefties with body bags and dead civilians.

And it worked like a charm.

It has caused the ruin of thousands of acres of some of the world's most fertile land and a way of life that goes back ten thousand years. (video link)

For the first time in history, Iraq can no longer feed itself.

America, through the USDA, is handing over the country to Monsanto so that they will have free rein over our agriculture, farming and seed supplies.They have the big farmers on board with their scheme because they're saving money on diesel costs with herbicide embedded crops. We understand that, the saving money part that is, but at what final cost to these farmers? (Read the soil analysis from GMO crops and the irreversible damage to the land to get the point.)

Time to pay attention people and raise some hell with your representatives (who all voted for SB 510) and the USDA. Monsanto is all about profit and control no matter how they spin their message, and the American public does itself a huge disservice by thinking this is an issue isolated to fringe groups and tree-huggers.

This is YOUR issue and it will be YOUR problem if you don't wake up and speak up!

Posted by Winger

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Monsanto Receives Full Deregulation From Vilsack's USDA For Roundup Ready Alfalfa

The Obama Administration continues to appease Big Ag despite known risks and *Alabama is following right along in lock step manner to the Monsanto drumbeat.
*(document linked from Auburn University Agricultural Dept. www.ag.auburn edu)

Monsanto shill supreme, USDA Head Tom Vilsack pushed hard for his favorite corporate demon, the dreaded Monsanto, to further gain total control of US agriculture with this latest power bestowal by granting full deregulation for Monsanto's genetically modified Alfalfa:

Organic and sustainable farming advocates were disappointed by the decision. "This creates a perplexing situation when the market calls for a supply of crops free of genetic engineering. The organic standards prohibit the use of genetic engineering, and consumers will not tolerate the accidental presence of genetic engineered materials in organic products yet GE crops continue to proliferate unchecked," said Christine Bushway, executive director and CEO of the Organic Trade Association in a statement.

Bill Tomson and Scott Kilman of the Wall Street Journal reported that Vilsack's rejection of a compromise proposal--partial deregulation, which was vehemently opposed by biotech companies and only tepidly accepted by non-GE interests--was the result of an Obama administration review of "burdensome" regulations.

Sources familiar with the negotiations at USDA, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Food Safety News they believe the White House asked Vilsack to drop proposed regulations so the administration would appear more friendly to big business.The White House did not respond for comment.

Read more here

Vanity Fair covered this issue in an investigative piece from May 2008 aptly entitled "Monsanto's Harvest of Fear" that is a compelling read and an in-depth probe into the frightening power that Monsanto has and wants.

And thanks to this latest ruling from the USDA, in conjunction with the false Food and Safety Bill that passed in the lame duck session of Congress, they are well on their way to getting it.

There were two choices here for Obama and the USDA: partially regulate the Monsanto Alfalfa or don't regulate it at all.

"...deregulation as one option and the other deregulation accompanied by a combination of isolation distances and geographic restrictions on the production of GE alfalfa seed and, in some locations, hay."

Obviously they made the wrong one for us, but it was the right one for Monsanto and future campaign contributions to spineless politicians on both sides of the aisle.

More consequences of the wrongheaded ruling reported by Grist.org:

Alfalfa is a prolific pollinator, meaning that GM alfalfa can easily cross-breed with non-GM alfalfa. If organic producers find their crop contaminated with GM material, they risk losing their organic certification and, likely, their livelihoods. The organic dairy industry, which relies on a steady supply of organic alfalfa, would also be imperiled.
The second problem is so-called "superweeds" -- weeds that develop resistance to Roundup, Monsanto's flagship herbicide. Such weeds are already rampant in the South, where Monsanto's Roundup Ready cotton holds sway, and are moving into the Corn Belt, which is blanketed by the tens of millions of acres with the agrichemical giant's corn and soy seeds. The rise of superweeds is unleashing a virtual monsoon of dodgy poison cocktails onto affected farmland.

It's worth checking out this recent Food & Water Watch report on the gusher of cash the biotech industry spends on D.C. lobbying. The industry spent more than a half billion dollars on lobbying between 1999 and 2009, FWW reports. In 2009 alone, the GMO giants dropped a cool $71 million pushing its agenda. It's also worth noting the number of Monsanto-related people now working in key policy positions in the USDA

Welcome to the Hope and Change of the best government that corporate money can buy. Let's all sit back and watch Alabama Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan become the next "farmer friendly politician" who caves into the corporate world of deceit that is Monsanto.

Scientific study on the dangers of GM crops and "Terminator Technology" from Dr. Mae-Won Ho and Professor Joe Cummins, Institute of Science in Society, London: "Chronicle of an Ecological Disaster Foretold"

No Alabama newspapers have taken Senators Shelby and Sessions to task for their last minute vote switching on the Monsanto backed Food Safety Bill and both senators offices continue to claim they were firmly against the bill. They lie.

They're hiding behind one of the first votes in November 2010 which recorded both as casting "Nay" votes. But another vote occurred in December of 2010 that was strictly a voice vote, no pesky records to point to later, that passed unanimously without a single "Nay" vote.

The infamous Senate Bill 510 “Food Safety Bill” was passed by the US Senate Monday night in a sneaky, last minute voice vote. All Senators voted for it, Republicans and Democrats alike. Not a single U.S. Senator — not even Senator (Dr.) Tom Coburn-R, one of the bill's loudest opponents — objected to its passage.

This last-minute sneak vote of unanimous consent is widely considered a betrayal of food freedom by the public and the few Republicans who had opposed this bill abruptly voted in favor of it. TheHill.com posted their report on this unexpected turn of events late last night and has since been overrun by comments from steaming mad members of the public who feel utterly betrayed by their Senators.

Moral of the story: what Monsanto wants, Monsanto gets.

Here's a Monsanto blog featuring an AU senior who's obviously fully indoctrinated in Monsanto's propaganda. Any guesses where she learned it from?

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"Starlicide"--Hundreds of Birds in Yankton, South Dakota Poisoned by USDA

KTIV reports, video below:

Some had thought 200 starlings found dead in Yankton's Riverside park had frozen to death. But they were actually poisoned on purpose, by the US Department of Agriculture.

The USDA said this is not a "common practice" and they "usually do this in the winter."

It's not common but we usually do it? Come again?

Many people believe the recent bird deaths were due to some sort of poisoning by governmental activities, but this mass killing is the only admittance of government involvement that the media has reported to the public in the current news cycles.

It's not, however, the first incident that the government has admitted to, and it turns out that poisoning Starlings seems to be a pattern of theirs. In fact, they seem to be in the business of animal killing at the urging of the agricultural industry. Environmentalists have been calling for an end to this practice, but their concerns are ignored.

Animals killed in 2009 under USDA programs other than birds:
27,000 beavers, 1700 bobcats, 81,000 coyotes, 2,000 gray foxes, 336 mountain lions, 1900 woodchucks, 130 porcupines, 12,000 raccoons, 20,000 squirrels, 30,000 wild pigs, 478 wolves and the "unintentional" poisoning of one Bald Eagle.

Starlicide is the primary poison (there are others) developed specifically for this "practice" that's been instituted to appease farmers and Big Ag and is supposedly "necessary" in the name of public health--the USDA claims the "bird droppings in agricultural feed are a health risk."

But the components of the poison, they claim, are not.

Starlicide (manufactured by Purina Mills)

Chemical Name

3-chloro-p-toluidine hydrochloride 

Other Names

3-chloro-4-methyl benzylnamine hydrochloride, CPTH, DRC-1339 

A question to consider is this: If we spread chicken manure on fields as fertilizer then what is in the starling's waste that is so harmful? Poison from the government perhaps?

In January 2009 New Jersey residents cry "It's raining birds!" January 29, 2009 press release from Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr., 6th District NJ, to the USDA requesting an investigation into bird culling in Somerset County, NJ.

A collection of links to stories about the controversial practice of bird culling.

We think this may be the most plausible explanation for part of the recent spate of Aflockalypse events and are not all surprised to find that, as presumed by many sources, the government is most likely the real culprit.

If we could connect the dots, then why couldn't the mainstream media do the same, and present the numerous back stories on this issue instead of going along with the blaming it on such nonsense as fireworks, overeating and birds flying into Semi-trucks?



WTVY.com--Alabama Department of Agriculture probing additional bird deaths in Alabama.

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Some States Still Value Their Farmland Despite Financial Hard Times--NPR Reports

With the recent reports coming out on the *predicted coming food shortages we think this is a very prudent idea whose time has come to be seriously considered and placed higher on the priority list than hard rock mining is in real benefits to many. Not just the uber rich mining corporations and road builders.

* (This one FOX got right, no pun intended, but they are very late out of the gate.)

With limestone mining in particular, we lose hundred of thousands of acres of prime farmland every year and the promises of reclamation never seem to effectively materialize. You cannot replace prime farmland with a suitable substitute for agriculture once it has been rendered devoid of what made it so fertile to begin with--the underlying minerals.
From a recent NPR report:

Despite tough financial times following the worst recession in decades, some states continue to spend millions of dollars to preserve American farmland and stem its rapid loss to development and suburban sprawl.

Advocates say the preservation efforts are needed to ensure food is available locally if the national distribution system is ever disrupted. They also say it helps maintain a way of life important to many Americans.

Twenty-five states have farmland preservation programs, and nearly half of them are in the densely populated Northeast, where the loss of fields to housing developments and shopping malls has been rapid and pressing. After losing 21 percent of its farmland in less than two decades, Connecticut increased spending on preservation efforts.

In the northeast, they're on the right path and may be ahead of the curve if the food shortages become widespread. At least we hope they will, and are not squeezed out by Big Ag with the recent passage of SB 510 that basically handed over control of the food supplies to Monsanto and ConAg among others.

In our opinion, there could not have been worse timing for that bill with the dire reports of globalists warning of "food riots" and skyrocketing wholesale food prices.

From the Telegraph UK:

The cause of such alarm? On Wednesday, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported that global food prices had hit a record high and were likely to go on rising, entering what Abdolreza Abbassian, its senior grains economist, called “danger territory”.

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, warns that the rising prices are “a threat to global growth and social stability”, and Nicolas Sarkozy has identified them as a priority for the G20, which he chairs this year.

That is bad enough for Britain, adding to the inflationary pressures from the soaring cost of oil and other commodities, not to mention the VAT increase. But for the world’s poor, who have to spend 80 per cent of their income on food, it could be catastrophic.

Are we coming to a crossroads of sorts where we need to re-examine what's more important right now? Mining or farmland? We believe it's worthy of discussion since most of the materials extracted from the US wind up in foreign markets, and what we give up to support those markets might be the very thing we really need in the near future to sustain us here at home.

*Another side issue of how perilous it is to be a black farmer in Georgia.

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SB 510 Passes the House Minus 73 Votes

One sixth of the House of Representatives skipped out early and did not vote in some of the last lame duck legislation of 2010. SB 510 (disguised as HR 2751) passed the House by 216-144 and is on its way to becoming law without 73 votes.

Those 73 votes, if they had all been "nays," would have defeated the bill with one vote to spare. What will happen next? Get ready for skyrocketing food prices and greater importation of produce outside the US where regulations are lax.

Nothing about this bill is good.

Here are some of the unintended consequences of all this:

• An INCREASE in the importation of fresh produce from other countries.

• A worsening of the agricultural trade imbalance between the U.S. and other nations.

• An INCREASE in the pesticide contamination of fresh produce sold at U.S. grocery stores.

• An INCREASE in agriculture jobs in Mexico, Chile, Peru and elsewhere, even while agriculture jobs are lost in the USA.

• A DECREASE in the overall safety of the food supply because now the proportion of foods imported from foreign countries with little or no regulatory oversight will greatly expand compared to U.S. grown foods.

We think that it is a travesty that the bill "passed" minus so many votes and it should result in an automatic nullification, but with Monsanto thugs in high places in the Obama WH, we won't hold our breath.

To ensure that the bill would pass the media (led by CBS as the "breaker") dutifully released a news story about the next terrorist threat to America: our food supplies. There's nothing like evening news driven scare tactics to twist a few arms on the eve of the vote. This was a transparent scheme originating from the WH, Homeland Security and Monsanto to ensure submission from the House and propagandizing America into accepting this bill.

This is just another whittling away of our freedoms by the government who wants to assure us all that we need protection from another supposed threat and the only entity who can really do that is Big Brother. "If you give up your freedoms you'll be safer."

Crapola.

Let's have a look at who skipped out in Alabama. Two congressional members who were defeated of course, after all since they won't be in office why bother to hang around Capitol Hill and do the jobs they were sent there to do?

Who are these cads from Alabama?

Bobby Bright-D

Parker Griffith-D

You're a disgrace both of you, along with all of your cohorts who decided to skip town early and not bother to vote. Your absence serves as a glaring example of how unfit 90% of the politicians sent to Washington are and why our government is broken beyond repair. Representative government is non-existent in our current times and we can clearly see why.

Here's a listing of all of the jackwagons who bailed on the SB 510 vote

The nine defeated Democrats missing in action were:  
John Adler (N.J.)
Bobby Bright (Ala.)
Brian Baird (Wash.)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S.D.)
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (Mich.)
Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio)
Michael McMahon (N.Y.)
Harry Mitchell (Ariz.)
Solomon Ortiz (Texas)
The three Republicans were
Joseph Cao (La.)
Parker Griffith (Ala.)
Bob Inglis (S.C.)

Also among the no-shows Tuesday were 15 retiring members, including Reps.
Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.),
Marion Berry (D-Ark.)
Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.),
Steve Buyer (R-Ind.)
Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.)
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)
Mary Fallin (R-Okla.)
Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)
Paul Hodes (D-N.H.)
Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.)
Charlie Melancon (D-La.)
Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) 
John Linder (R-Ga.)
George Radanovich (R-Calif.) 
John Tanner (D-Tenn.)
Forty-six other members were not present, including 24 Democrats and 22 Republicans.

We would like to add that Senators Shelby and Sessions each received "contributions" of $70,000 plus to vote for this bill, which they did this past Sunday evening in a surprise unanimous voice vote by the republican senators.  

The November 30th vote on SB 510 records Shelby and Sessions as "nays," but the unanimous voice vote undid the political cover they were hoping to hide under. 

Calls to both senator's offices confirm the lie that they voted against it in the end. When questioned about the Sunday night vote, both offices placed us on hold for well over 20 minutes. Calling back yielded the same treatment.

Someone does not like questions it seems.

Both of Alabama's senators ran unopposed and did not need the money for their campaigns, yet they took Monsanto's money and gave them something in return for their "generosity."

They gave the rest of us something too, but we didn't get a kiss first. 

2010 will go down as a dark year in America for many reasons, but we fear this one will have some very dire consequences that none of us will realize until the damage is done and irreversible. America has been for the most part completely asleep on on SB 510 and has failed to fully understand what it will mean.

We can now see the future and it is a genetically modified nightmare called Monsanto and the systematic expansion of intrusion by the government into areas of our lives they should have absolutely no control over. EVER.

"Control the food, control the people." Henry Kissinger

Think we're over the top about this? 

Take a look at what happened to a Georgia farmer just this year.

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"Cathedrals of the Natural World"--Ancient Trees in England

A beautiful gallery from the Guardian UK and the glorious ancient trees of England. 

Living proof that we can still walk with giants, but for how much longer?

Photograph: Paul Wakefield/NTPL

A view under a sunlit chestnut tree with moving leaves among the ancient trees of Hatfield Forest, Essex.

 "Hatfield is the only intact Royal Hunting Forest in Europe, dating back to the Norman kings ... Walking with ancient trees can give you a real sense of history and the things that they've seen through the centuries"

National Trust website inviting the public to visit the places where these ancient forests/trees are located. That's not something you will see in America with the possible exception of the California Redwoods.

A Study in Contrasts

In America we have a bit less respect for trees and their vital link to biodiversity thanks to Big Timber and their appetite for destruction under the guise of bio fuels. Along with China, Belgium and a few other regions in the world, we're now encouraging the planting of genetically modified trees, especially in the South.

Policies supporting the use of "biomass" - wood, agriculture residues, waste, manure and more as "green" substitutes for petroleum are supported by big agribusiness, forestry and biotechnology industries. They  envision a "bioeconomy" where massive refineries use risky "synthetic biology" to convert biomass into biofuels, bioenergy, bioplastics, chemicals and bioproducts. Others propose using charcoal (aka biochar) to "sequester carbon" in soils. These trends create massive new demands for land and are causing land grabs around the world.

Read more here: Southern US States Targeted for Genetically Engineered Tree Plantations.

Some groups are serious about putting an end to this before it grows bigger and have filed suit to stop this dangerous practice that we know far too little about to move ahead with. In typical big business fashion, corporations of paper and forestry combined have instituted "test plots" throughout the South through the ArborGen program despite the controversy.

GM trees are the latest development of scientific forestry. Invented in Europe around 200 years ago, scientific forestry aims to redesign forests to suit the needs of the timber industry. The vast monoculture industrial tree plantations marching across landscapes in the South are perhaps the most extreme application of this forestry science. In the process local people have seen their farmland and forests converted to industrial tree monocultures.

Research into GM trees will not help local people. Instead, forestry scientists are responding to their industrial masters' demands for more efficient plantations.

When faced with criticism of their research into GM trees, forestry scientists have a standard answer: The critic is not an expert and therefore is not really entitled to comment. The science behind GM research is fiendishly complicated. Scientific reports are often written in an technical, academic style which is simply incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't spent years wrapping their heads round the subject. 

Yet when asked about their work, some forestry scientists seem strangely reluctant to explain what they are doing.

That was in in the early 2000s, since then they've gotten much more adept with their propaganda and claim they're doing this "in such small acreage plots that nothing can possibly go wrong."

How many times have we heard that line before?