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30 Nov 2010 11:08

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U.S.: Lame-duck Senate passes food-safety bill with bipartisan love

  • good A food-safety regulation bill, made necessary in the wake of multiple salmonella crises, passed the Senate with bipartisan support.
  • bad The bill may not benefit organic or small-scale farmers, who could be treated to similar levels of scrutiny to the agricultural giants.
  • worse The bill was held up for months by GOP Senator Tom Coburn, who apparently thinks you should eat contaminated peanut butter. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Jul 2010 22:42

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U.S.: Arnold Schwarzenegger terminates hope of farm worker overtime

  • cause California’s legislature passed a bill giving farm workers the same right to an 40-hour workweek as everyone else. It would’ve been the first of its kind in the nation.
  • reaction Ah-nold vetoed it, saying that the rules don’t really work for farming – something, surprisingly, both organic farmers and big agriculture corporations agree on. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

20 Jul 2010 22:49

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Politics: Shirley Sherrod: USDA’s political football switches sides twice

  • right Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government ran a video of this unknown USDA worker who claimed that she denied a white person help. The right gets angry.
  • left Fearing a political backlash in the wake of the whole NAACP/Tea Party thing, the USDA quickly fires her. Sherrod says the White House pulled the trigger.
  • right It comes out that the video was heavily edited by Breitbart’s folks, giving the right ammunition to attack the White House for firing her. They just can’t win. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 May 2010 21:13

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World: Be glad you’re not Mongolian, don’t have to clean up this mess

Unless you are. In which case we feel really awful that a rough winter killed all of your livestock. The country’s entire economy could feel the ripple effects of this. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Aug 2009 11:56

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World: Athens is dealing with some pretty nasty wildfires right now

The fires, in Athens’ northern suburbs, have destroyed 30,000 acres of forest and farming fields and forced thousands from their homes. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 Jul 2009 10:55

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Offbeat: The world’s stupidest woman tries to solve California’s problems

  • Stupid things this woman says in this video:
    1. “I think we should make a perfect pesticide for the crops.”
    2. “We need the food because it’s food and stuff.”
    3. “And the businesses downtown really need to lower their rent, because of the rent was lower, those people would really have their own businesses.”
    4. “They’re very good at making things … they’re like experts.”
    5. “We can make things … the machine can make it for us.”
    6. “On the East Coast, they have slaves and believe in Made in China … on the new West Coast, we don’t believe in that, we believe in the union, and that’s what we are.”
    7. “The Bush administration, which is really good …”
    8. “You can grow every kind of fruit and vegetable you want. They have fruit trees and vegetable trees; that’s where fruits and vegetables come from.”
    9. “Growing food is so good … for the people.”
    10.“The food is free … so we should just sell it at the farmer’s market.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

24 Jul 2009 11:15

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Offbeat, World: Scientific method at work: Does naked girls + farming = rain?

  • That’s what some farmers in India are trying. The farmers, located in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, told their unmarried daughters to get naked and plow the fields after sunset in an attempt to embarrass the gods and convince them to bring on monsoon weather. The farmers are currently in the midst to the worst start of monsoon season in eight decades. Might as well work the nudity angle, right? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
 
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