Free Republic

Henry Kissinger was reported to have said, “Control the food and you control the people.” Controlling people is as simple as controlling food, water and energy through a variety of controls. “No Farmers No Food,” the bumper sticker distributed by The Adopt a Farm Family ministry, is a message of warning. The Adopt ministry was started by Mary Myers, wife of Peter Myers, former Deputy Secretary of Agriculture who served in the Reagan Administration. She confided to me that God had instructed her to “watch over the food.” At that time there appeared to be no reason for concern. Now...

It is interesting how, in the aftermath of the past year’s run-up in oil prices, we have been hearing less and less talk of “globalization” from the chattering classes. Why is this? On the surface, there are several reasons. First, the topic high oil prices presents an easy segue to bring up the annointed’s favorite mantra: green technologies and the need to continue de-industrializing America. We can all get high-paying “green” jobs to replace the textile, manufacturing, computer programming, and bio-tech jobs which have been developed in the United States and then shipped offshore. And the high oil prices themselves...

I will debunk the debunking in bold. AJStrata's text will be normal instead of italicized for easier reading. AJStrata: Days ago I looked into the forged Obama Birth Certificate Myth and realized it was all BS. Basically, we have a lot of people running around making mistakes and then trying to pretend revelations that destroyed their first claims are exposing other, new issues. All I see are people making wild claims, being proved wrong, and then moving onto new wild claims - to be proved wrong again. As proof of this pattern let me point to one of these ‘experts’...

Clint Brown began planting vegetables at age 4. His then babysitter, a retired gentlemen with an interest in gardening, got him started. Now 17, Clint has his own gardening business -- a venture that began four years ago with a bumper green bean crop and success at the Le Mars farmer's market. "He sold them so fast,"said Audrey Brown, Clint's mom. "I think that's what got him hooked." Clint's gardens are on his parent's Audrey and Steve Brown's farm west of Merrill. In April 2006 Clint got serious about his gardening business by building his first high tunnel structure, which...

Global Intrigue + More Will Escalate Food Prices Drastically: What Will A Loaf Of Bread Cost Next Year? RFFM.org Guest Commentary by Joyce Morrison The mere thought of a food shortage in America is unthinkable…or is it? Headlines read, “Planting season weather perplexing for farmers.” “Weather may cut yields,” “Further spike in food costs feared due to floods,” “Food shortages,” -- these are headlines preparing us for the fact we will no longer have the cheapest, safest food in the world. All spring the breadbasket of America has been deluged with floods, wind storms, tornados, heavy rain and hail. Illinois...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Jacques Diouf charged that “Americans grow fat while the world starves” and demanded a “redistribution of food.” The problem stems from capitalism, Diouf said. “Under capitalism, pure greed runs rampant,” he asserted. “Food that should be going to the undernourished poor in the Third World is being sold to obese Americans for profit.” Diouf suggested that world hunger could be ended if food were parceled out based on need. “Everyone should get the food he needs, whether he is able to pay for it or not,” Diouf declared. “Those who are able to...

Taking beer-making to a whole new sphere, Japan's famous Sapporo Holdings Ltd. plans to launch a beer in November that's literally from out of this world. The brewery will collaborate with scientists at the Okayama University in Japan to concoct this unearthly beverage from a third generation of barley grains that spent five months on the International Space Station in 2006. Does the barley taste any different? Apparently, no. In fact, scientists have not found a difference in the genetic make-up of the earth-grown and space-grown barley yet, according to Manabu Sugimoto, an Okayama University biologist who has been part...

My apologies to all for the lateness of this post --- it has just been a week from you now where here. As we all morph into this holiday weekend, I would like to remind you all to take a moment to remember why this is a "holiday" weekend. Yes, we're all going to enjoy our cookouts and the 3 day weekend (well some have 3 day weekends) but I do ask that each of us take a moment and salute those for whome this weekend remembers.

The Republicans in Congress continue to baffle me. They are spending all of their time trying to use the marketing tool of “re-branding” the party, while at the same time they refuse to vote against terrible public policy. The most recent example is the disastrous farm bill that the Senate passed overwhelmingly. The House has already passed the bill, and although President Bush will veto it, Congress will likely override the veto. As long as the Republicans in Congress pay lip service to conservatism while voting like liberals, they deserve to lose in November. Those leading the Republicans down the...

From: Dalrymple, Neil [mailto:Neil.Dalrymple@xxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 9:00 AM Subject: We are in the wrong job perhaps.. Rt Hon David Miliband MP Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Nobel House 17 Smith Square London SW1P 3JR 11th March 2008 Dear Secretary of State, My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would now like to join the "not rearing pigs" business. In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on,...

A couple of weeks ago I emailed the following to my FL congress crittters. How high must fuel and food costs go before you reverse your opposition to domestic oil drilling and support for Soviet style ethanol tariffs and subsidies? Here is what Sen Bill Nelson (Rat - Fl) had to say: "Dear (Jacquerie), Thank you for contacting me regarding drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge. As a native Floridian, I realize the importance of protecting our natural habitats and preserving environmentally sensitive lands. Just as I oppose drilling off Florida, I...

The "safety" argument can be extended so that pretty much anything is justified. The New York Department of Agriculture and Markets has in the last few weeks helped demonstrate the problem more vividly than any of us ever could imagine, though. While the agency has been preparing its legal arguments over the last few weeks in preparation for trying to throw Barb and Steve Smith into jail for insisting on proper search warrant protection, Ag and Markets has quietly been playing another game with two other New York raw milk farmers, Jerry Snyder and Chuck Phippen—depriving them of their right...

The search warrant used by NY's Department of Agriculture and Markets to go after raw-milk producers Barb and Steve Smith in December had more holes than Swiss cheese. Gary Cox of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund has put together a motion that might best be termed “Search Warrants 101.” He argues that the December search warrant the Smiths supposedly defied in December “is facially defective…and must be quashed.”

New York state continues to tighten the screws on Barb and Steve Smith, the operators of Meadowsweet Dairy in Lodi. Over what? Over their decision to establish a herd share organized as a limited liability company, and make raw milk dairy products available exclusively to the LLC’s 120-plus shareholders. The immediate issue concerns a search warrant issued to the NY Department of Agriculture and Markets in December...Now Ag and Markets has returned to the state judge who issued the warrant, and obtained a “show cause” order as to why the Smiths shouldn’t be held in contempt of court...

(Note: Below the Federal Register text, which has been carefully reformatted for ease of reading, is a list of acronyms which are used throughout the text, but are sometimes/often not explained. A few pertinent definitions follow the list of acronyms. A thimbleful of Language Deception has been placed in red bold. The reader is asked to ferret out the rest. Lest anyone forget, the real reason for America's national forests: "And now, first and foremost, you can never afford to forget for a moment what is the object of our forest policy. That object is not to preserve forests because...

As you may have read, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R - Texas) slipped an amendment into the latest omnibus spending bill to revoke all mandates that a border fence be built. I've ripped this from Gates of Vienna since I didn't get the email from the Center for Individual Freedom: Forget the fence.. It’s gone… Last month -- when they thought you weren’t looking -- the U.S. Senate passed a $555 billion omnibus spending bill that contained a tiny amendment revoking the mandate that the fence be built as originally specified. And guess who slyly slipped in the amendment to gut...

The wolf affair is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, OUTRAGEOUS, AND A MORTAL WOUND TO NOT ONLY RURAL AMERICA BUT THE RULE OF LAW AND FREEDOM. The problem is THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT, it must be dramatically rewritten or repealed (like Prohibition). So Ex-Congressman Pombo tried the teensiest amendment and was condemned by (guess who?) THE DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE. Not only was he characterized as an extremist, the DOW et al spent millions to defeat him by such tactics as accusing him of supporting abortion (a lie) and homosexual marriage (also a lie) on papers placed on windshields in Church parking lots (a violation...

2006— January is a resting time in the garden, for us and the soil. A brief respite- a time for reflection and planning, a time for winding down from the holidays as well as a time for beginning to gear up for the coming spring. Looking back on the year just passed; can you believe the weather extremes? Copious amounts of rain, a late spring and an even later fall. Hard to believe we didn’t get a killing frost until well into December, that even in December there were still leaves on the trees. As for reflecting and thinking back,...

You gotta love a guy who will stand in the middle of Iowa farmland and refuse to pander to the subsidy-hungry ag industry: AKD: What will you do for the farmers of Bremer County? FT: (laughs) AKD: You knew this was coming, right? FT: I would continue to enjoy the fruits of their labor. I've been looking all over Iowa for a bad steak and I can't find it. Been trying my best. It's not a matter of what I would do for the farmers. Farmers are not looking for a president to hand them something. Farmers want fair treatment...

1. Rep. Steve King, (R-IA), endorses Fred Dalton Thompson (pace Bob Kerrey, we're using middle names today). King is one of those conservative politicians who drives the more established media crazy with his gut-generated utterances. He is very well respected in Western Iowa, however, and his endorsement provides critical validation of Thompson's conservativism. WTF? Mitt Romney's team gathered at the back of the room, expecting his endorsement. But at the last moment, King said he had chosen Thompson. Good for Thompson, who is well on his way to a third place finish in Iowa, and horrible, horrible news for Mitt...

We just buried a 58 year old very healthy Amish man who died from a spider bite. I need some Freeper help as I am just an entomologisit. The question is: would any spider bite result in a large blood clot?

It's time for an economics lesson: With each purchase of an American product — whether manufactured, grown or mined — American workers and retirees benefit along with the federal, state and local governments, the Social Security trust fund and Medicare. With the purchase of a foreign-made product, all of the above suffer a net loss. After World War II, American workers were the best paid in the world, and the middle class was the wealthiest. America was the breadbasket of the world, and its manufacturing was the most efficient. What happened? Look at us now. America has become a nation...

"Fred Thompson's immigration plan seems to include a contradiction. He promises to bolster border security, yet his plan relies on "attrition through enforcement", or the self-deportation of illegals going back to Mexico. Illegals can not exit through a secure border, nor is it likely that they will attempt to if they have no way to prove they are leaving instead of entering (and would be arrested). Is this plan realistic? If no, which is more important, border security or reduction of the illegal population and business enforcement?" -- Mike_M Answer: First of all, it might be a "contradiction" if he...

History repeats itself with anti-Jewish propaganda. How Genocide Was Made Acceptable to the Masses On November 10th, 1938, the Führer made an important speech to the German press. Although he made no direct reference either to the Reichskristallnacht itself or to Jews in general, the whole speech can be regarded as his comments upon the lack of support for the pogrom he was getting from the German public. Hitler rebuked the propaganda makers... ...Joseph Goebbels had ordered ritual Jewish slaughtering to be filmed in the Lodz ghetto, and when he saw the rushes of these scenes on October 16, 1939,...

Ten white farmers were hauled into court in Zimbabwe charged with unauthorized growing of crops on their land. To outside observers, the charges seem bizarre. The country is experiencing severe food shortages. Millions of people will starve if food aid is not received within the next few months. The farmers are charged with violating the “Consequential Provisions Act,” which decreed that white farmers’ land and homes be expropriated and turned over to blacks by September 30 of this year. The courtroom was crowded by dictator Robert Mugabe’s supporters demanding “their share” of the loot. Didymus Mutasa, the Mugabe’s Lands Minister,...

Last night on the David Letterman show, his redundant spot about Bush's poor speaking abilities featured a statement about the immigration debate. The president was leaning over the podium whining that some farmer (Is that what they call transnational corporate agriculture now?) met him at Air Force One, suffering mightily, because ' he can't find no body to pull them onions fer him....' Well isn't that special? The president must have been in Georgia. Vidalia Onions are a big crop with even BIGGER owners with political ties, who have pulled off destroying employer sanctions of illegal aliens hires before. This...

According to John Lane of PETH: People for the Ethical Treatment of Hops, hop plants form communities and emotional attachments, so harvesting living hops is an act of cruelty. I'd like to think this is a joke, but if green nutjobs think animals have rights, is thinking the same about plants too much of a stretch? Put down that beer... the plant police are coming! Expect a "protected" species bill from Barbara Bonkers any day now... and millions of starving greenies around the world as they exercise their "compassion."

China said it had discovered many safety problems with products imported from the United States. "Inspection and quarantine units in various areas have discovered a large number of quality and safety problems with imports from the U.S.," said Chu En Lai, Quality Administrator of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine Administration. "We have reported this to the U.S. side and demanded that it look into the causes and adopt effective measures to ensure that a situation like this does not repeat itself." Chu explained that products from the U.S. lacked what he called “precautionary additives.” “For example, American products typically do...

At the beginning of the year the GOP had a ‘big three’ group of presidential contenders: John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. McCain and Giuliani dominated the polls, but Romney was putting together a very professional campaign under the radar and looked poised to strike. The only discussion about an outsider joining this group focused on Newt Gingrich. Giuliani had not officially joined the race, and some believed that if he did, or if Gingrich jumped in, Romney would not be able to stand the competition. He was the ‘anti-McCain’, and all it needed was someone with a higher...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Kenny J. Wallis President of KeepArkansasLegal Little Rock, Arkansas 501-412-4063keeparkansaslegalkeeparkansaslegal@yahoo.com"The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican 'wetbacks' to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government."- Dwight Eisenhower. Little Rock, AR – June 20 2007- KeepArkansasLegal would like to disprove one of the biggest lies being repeated by illegal alien supporters; that our economy depends on illegal aliens. On June 20 2007, Farm Lobby groups in...

Food for thought. If they were to pass this bill for the mexicans to become legal. whom will work the farms. they will come out of the dark and they will demand better paying jobs, even more healthcare, and the right to vote. Here's what i think build the fence. give the 20+ million and their kids 60 days to get out and wait in line to come back in. I here that the goverment can not remove this many people. I ask this of the gov. YOU HAVE NOT TRIED. HEY MR> PREZ. CAN I BREAK THE LAWS OF...

My name is Darlene Fitzgerald and I have over 20 years of combined law enforcement experience in the military, private industry and as a Special Agent, and in 1999 I resigned in protest because I refused to work for an agency that is worse than the people I put in jail. In 1998 I was in charge of a U.S. Customs task force operating an extensive investigation called Operation Rite Rail. We uncovered tons of narcotics and contraband being facilitated into the U.S. from Mexico via railroad tanker cars - with the apparent approval of U.S. Customs managers. Just a...

Its 790 pages of confusion. S. 1348, The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act is an attempt to bring impenetrable opaqueness to a subject that is already unclear.

Right Wing News has an excellent post about how the Amnesty Immigration Bill died yesterday. After the 2nd cloture vote failure at noon on Thursday, Harry Reid could not get unanimous consent to call up amendments to the bill because Jim DeMint refused to give his consent. This was extremely problematic for Reid because he wanted to get in votes on 6 more amendments before the last try at a cloture vote. At that point, all the senators who were participants in the "Grand Compromise" AKA the "Masters of the Universe" by the opponents of the bill, leaned on DeMint...

My friend put together a video to take on McCain immigration stance. Let's keep up this effort to shut down the Kennedy wing of the Republican party. Please check it and give tips which I'll pass on. I told him to add a soundtrack and a bit more narration or much less (only to end it). anyways, please enjoy and link wherever you can so we can get some attention to the Cornyn ammendment that failed thanks to Senators Like John McCain. Disgraceful.

I’ve concluded that John Edwards and Laura Ingraham are right. That may sound like a strange source of consensus — a liberal presidential candidate agreeing with a conservative radio talk show host — but bear with me. Edwards has made his “two Americas” theme the cornerstone of his presidential campaign. He should know. A multi-millionaire former trial lawyer, Edwards lives in a mansion and sports $400 haircuts while charging in excess of $50,000 for speeches on the subject of “poverty in America” to breathless university crowds. But he assures us that he has never forgotten his meager origins and wants...

"In Their Own Words" 4th in a series by Joyce Morrison, property rights activist To commemorate RFFM.org's 15 years of service to the conservative community, we will be conducting a series of monthly interviews throughout 2007 with some of the most influential leaders in the pro-family/conservative movement. RFFM.org's national director, Daniel Zanoza, will conduct Q + A sessions with the aim of educating our readers as to some of the views held by those who work tirelessly to reach their stated goals. RFFM.org will also describe the mission statements of those who work for organizations or detail the expertise of...

In the past I have been critical of the knee-jerk environmental claim that global climate change is simply a result of man made factors. The notion that man is preponderating nature by way of his carbon output strikes me as premature. Throw in the disinclination of the left to even talk about nuclear power– a very acceptable alternative to fossil fuels– and you can see my nihilism to the established environmental talking points. Furthermore, when cyclical solar and weather patterns are factored in and the most vocal proponents of lifestyle changes leave far greater carbon footprints than the uncleansed masses,...

Those of us who have been involved in property rights battles appreciated Helen Chenoweth-Hage. What a great loss to all of us due to her untimely fatal accident last year. Talk about your dream ticket for the presidential race. A poster from Idaho, Helen's home state, on a polictical forum states: "We are very particular about our conservatives.We like principles and backbone. We elected Helen Chenoweth/Hage and Bill Sali. Helen loved Duncan Hunter and spoke of him often, that is why I loved him before he ever decided to run." Helen and Duncan had a great appreciation for each other...

Members of Bnei Akiva, an Israeli youth movement, saw their efforts to begin to undo some of the ecological damage done to the region over the millennia undone when thousands of the trees they had planted were uprooted by Arabs protesting that “Jews are vandalizing sacred Muslim lands.” This latest attempt to prevent the reforestation of the area is a repeat of uprootings of trees planted two tears ago. “The desert is Allah’s beloved land,” said Mushad Numbskuhl, as he brandished one of the uprooted saplings. “The desert is where Mohammed first heard the word of God. The Jews are...

Meat has become a rare commodity in Venezuelan supermarkets. Government price controls have driven all but the least palatable scraps, like chicken feet, from the marketplace. President Hugo Chavez blamed the food supply problems on unscrupulous capitalists. “These greedy pigs insist they must make a profit if they are to be able to serve their customers,” Chavez said. “They defy my decree that need must take precedence over profit. Their pleas that they cannot afford to take the losses will not turn me away from my determination to bring socialism to my country.” “We will confiscate every business, we will...

I don't know how many State of the Union Addresses since 1973 have pledged commitment to energy independence, but to quote Jim Ignatowski when he was asked how many different illicit drugs he had ingested in his lifetime, it's "exactly a lot." It was still a surprise, however, when our current President touted ethanol last week citing the sustainability myth as just one of its many indisputable virtues. Science aside, the numbers on ethanol are staggering. Today, the federal subsidy stands at 51 cents per gallon. The most optimistic projections regarding the effects on greenhouse gases are estimated at 5%,...

Dateline 06 December 2006 As we turn our attention to buying presents for friends and relatives the age-old problem arises. Everyone except John Kerry’s wife knows at least one person who is richer than they are. How do you buy a present for someone who has everything they might want, except for a handful of things that are out of your price range? The answer is simple: buy them a goat. I am guessing here, but probably your friend does not have a goat already, but if so, buy them another. You can never have too many goats. I should...

There has been an "unprecedented outbreak" of anthrax in Canada (plus a case or two on the US side of the border). So far, animals are the sole casualties,but the speed with which the outbreak is spreading is disturbing: Is this a natural event...or something else ?

"The Kyoto initiatives to save the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off until better times," he said. "The global temperature maximum has been reached on Earth, and Earth's global temperature will decline to a climatic minimum even without the Kyoto protocol." Algore is not going to like this. Read more: "Russian Scientist Predicts Global Cooling" h/t Mike C.

...We’ve all seen or heard of some of the more perverse forms of so-called art that go on display. Statues created from excrement, etc. But how’s about a woman who feels that she’s being artistic by lying around with a dead pig? That was a new one for me, and I’ve seen a lot...

Okay, I just finished reading an article in Jewish World Review about a University of Illinois professor named Yuanhui Zhang who has found a way to extract crude oil from pig manure. No folks, I'm not kidding. Let's think through the ramifications of this, shall we?

The Hairy Beast created this blog five days ago, and readership has been light, as expected. But something strange happened today - the hit counter started spinning like Linda Blair’s head! Suddenly hundreds of people were viewing this blog! And it’s still going! For the first few hours The Hairy Beast indulged himself in the fantasy it was merely his genius catching on. But then he noticed that most of the hits were coming from search engines whose terms were: The Beast The Maine Beast maine news beast beast found in maine The Hairy Beast maintains his lair Southern New...

A 40-foot log used by protesters to block access to the Mike's Gulch timber salvage sale in Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest was illegally cut from a nearby botanical area, according to forest officials. The tree was used to block the Eight Dollar Road bridge spanning the Illinois River. The Silver Creek Co. paid $300,052 for the fire-killed timber that was damaged by the 2002 "Biscuit" fire. Woodrow "Woody" Forest, a member of the Oxygen Collective environmental group, said his group was committed to stop the logging. "We aren't fooling around," said Forest. "We're going to stop this logging even...

As is the case with a group think machine that is only interested in discushing shared ideas and beliefs without respect to reason or facts, the people involved with the Free Republic are dictated by their own sets of preowned views and beliefs. Anything that implies the USA to be wrong in its foreign policy is considered unacceptable and the member who made anti American remarks is swiftly banned from the forum. I am sorry to say this but most of you in the forum are low lifes whose knowledge and world understanding is distorted at best and hence you...