Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. federal court has ruled for the first time that manure from livestock facilities can be regulated as solid waste, a decision hailed by environmentalists as opening the door to potential legal challenges against facilities across the country. A large dairy in Washington state, Cow Palace Dairy, polluted ground water by over applying manure to soil, ruled Judge Thomas Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington on Wednesday. "The practices of this mega-dairy are no different than thousands of others across the country," said Jessica Culpepper, an attorney at Public Justice,...

Almost six years after the passage of the stimulus package, taxpayer dollars have finally found their way into a shovel ready project: $60,000 to haul horse manure. Sold as an opportunity to bring America into the “21st century,” the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus, is now being used to remove wild horse manure off of public lands.

Michael Jordan was interviewed by Ahmad Rashad recently about who his dream foursome would entail (if he was included in the four) and President Obama isn't getting an invite. "I've never played with Obama but I would," said Jordan. "But no, that's okay, I'd take him out. He's a hack, it would be all day playing with him. "Don't worry about it," said Jordan. "I never said he wasn't a great politician, I'm just saying he's a sh---- golfer."

A new study says Europe's first farmers used far more sophisticated practices than was previously thought. A research team led by the University of Oxford has found that Neolithic farmers manured and watered their crops as early as 6,000 BC. It had always been assumed that manure wasn't used as a fertiliser until Iron Age and Roman times. However, this new research shows that enriched levels of nitrogen-15, a stable isotope abundant in manure, have been found in the charred cereal grains and pulse seeds taken from 13 Neolithic sites around Europe. The findings are published in the early edition...

Halt of crop farming in Fukushima forces manure to accumulate on cattle farms At his cattle farm, Kazunori Mizunoya looks at a cow knee deep in its own excrement in the Fukushima Prefecture village of Nakajima on Oct. 20. (Mainichi) FUKUSHIMA -- Two months after a government ban on beef was lifted, cattle farmers here are growing increasingly desperate as nearby vegetable farmers have halted production due to the ongoing nuclear disaster, leaving nowhere to take the accumulating manure that was previously used as fertilizer. "When vegetable farmers are pushed into a dead end, there's a domino effect that puts...

Investigators said they are still searching for the source of the manure.

Traffic jams stink. Especially when they are caused by manure. Howard County highway crews had to hold their breath while they hustled to clean up a manure spill that stretched 1.5 miles on Sunday. The spill stretched from Main Street in Ellicot City to Frederick Road in Baltimore County. Howard County Fire Battalion Chief Eric D. Proctor tells the BaltimoreSun that crews spent nearly three hours cleaning up the liquid manure. The spill prompted street closures while crews cleaned the pavement. Investigators said they are still searching for the source of the manure. A worker at an Ellicot City wine...

The Capitol – especially during the last, hectic days of any legislative session – is a bottom-line kind of place. Its occupants, whether legislators or lobbyists, are entirely focused on passing, defeating or amending bills. They respect those most adept at pulling legislative levers to reach their goals, and disdain those who complain about process. They practice, in other words, the adage attributed to Otto von Bismarck that "laws are like sausages; it's better not to see them being made." One doesn't have to be naive or squeamish, however, to be appalled at how the Legislature ignores its own rules...

ALBION, Ind. (AP) -- Police said that officers searching for a man wanted on methamphetamine charges found him hiding neck-deep in a liquid manure pit at a northeastern Indiana farm. Noble County sheriff's deputies thought they'd lost the man until an officer spotted him in the tank beneath an outbuilding floor on the farm near Albion.

For you city slickers, this is a manure spreader. (For environutters, it is an "organic waste recycling applicator" for "sustainable" agriculture practices) --This was the only implement John Deere ever made that they would not stand behind!

ALBERT LEA, Minn.- A Minnesota farmer's wife has received a valentine possibly only a farmer's wife could appreciate -- a half-mile-wide heart outlined in cow manure. Bruce Andersland spent hours with a manure spreader hitched to his tractor Wednesday and Thursday creating the heart, the Albert Lea Tribune, Minn., reported. It is in a square-mile field 12 miles outside of Albert Lea that has belonged to his family for 87 years. Once he finished the job, Andersland hired a pilot to take a picture of the heart from the air, the only place to see it properly. Beth Andersland, who...

For his wife this Valentine’s Day, a farmer has created a half-mile wide arrow-pierced heart recognizable from the sky about 12 miles southwest of Albert Lea. Following plans he jotted on scratch paper, Bruce Andersland drove his tractor and manure spreader earlier this week in the special shape for his wife, Beth.

Good afternoon to all of you gardeners. I apologize for the late post today. Well the last days of October are upon us and the garden is finally tilled for the last time this year. I seeded it with an annual rye grass. I also started rebuilding my compost pile. The oak and pecan trees have yet to drop their leaves so I will have to wait for their contribution to the compost pile until November.

John Cornyn knows better than you conservative boobs and he wants you to know it. In commenting about the NRSC’s endorsement of Charlie Crist, Cornyn said “I need to constantly remind some of my very conservative friends who want to sort of purify the party – and, in so doing, cast us in a permanent minority status – that Ronald Reagan said the person who votes with me 80 percent of the time is my friend and ally, not a 20 percent traitor,” Cornyn says. But contrast that with this statement from Cornyn in the same article: n 2010, cting...

Bluffton, In - Authorities say a Bluffton man apparently drowned when a skid loader he was operating fell into a manure lagoon in Wells County. An Indiana conservation officer says 23 yr old Nicholas Cruz had been cleaning out a cattle lot at Sunny Park Dairy and dumping manure into the lagoon when he apparently lost control of the skid loader.

BUTTE, Mont.-- Democrats are criticizing a 38-year-old man who parked a trailer load of manure across the street from Whitehall's Democratic campaign office to protest presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Terry Reed, who owns a construction and excavation company in Whitehall, parked the trailer near the office on Saturday. He also posted a sign in the manure mocking Obama's "change we can believe in" slogan as "a load of crap." "I think Obama's plan is just one big old poop sandwich and we're all going to have to take a bite," he said.

Transcript Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech Published: August 28, 2008 The following is the transcript of Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, as recorded by CQ Transcriptions.

RUTLAND— If everything works as well as projected, the Jordan Dairy Farm may one day make money from its manure as well as from its milk. A three-month feasibility study at the farm concluded that an on-site anaerobic digester and generator would produce sufficient energy to cover the farm’s monthly electric bill of $2,400. Carbon credits and green energy credits, which are required by state law for Massachusetts electric utilities, may make the digester profitable for the farm, if enough energy is generated to sell to the power company. As a result of the study, the Massachusetts Dairy Energy group,...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German farmer angry with police for trying to confiscate his tractor wrecked three patrol cars and evaded capture for seven hours before an elite unit managed to arrest him, a police spokesman said Wednesday. The farmer, 53, was pulled over by police for driving his tractor without a license, despite several previous warnings. The officers called in three patrol cars for help before asking the farmer to get out of his vehicle. He refused, and proceeded to ram the cars with his tractor, making full use of its attached muck spreader and hydraulic fork. Officers were...

Norridgewock - Everywhere Richard White looked Monday there were big clumps of dried, smelly chicken manure. It was hanging from his mailbox, sloshed all over his snowmobile, lying next to his well and dried on his garage door more than 30 feet across the yard. Two vehicles parked nearby looked like they had been through a very sloppy and thick mud run. "There's stuff still 20 feet up the tree," White said, pointing. "It was like a tsunami wave of hot chicken (manure)." The pungent odor of the nitrogen-concentrated chicken excrement still hung in the air at White's 441 Walker...