USDA Owns ‘Organic’ Name! Stifles Farmers Markets
Submitted by Lois Rain on July 8, 2011 – 6:08 pmNo Comment
An Arizona farmer shares what he has to do to sell his organic goods at a farmers market.
The USDA claims in writing that they own the “organic” name. Farmers have to use “homegrown” instead to promote their organic goods at local markets.
A 10-page agreement must be filled out completely and submitted prior to booth rental. The agreement must include all permits, certifications, a “crop plan” and a “proposed farm visit schedule.” It has to include a map of the farm location with cross streets, land marks, and mile posts for accurate location.
Most of us want some kind of process to make sure we’re buying organic, but what these farmers have to do to sell a few carrots is almost too much to bear. It’s a wonder they even bother anymore.
The process effects the high costs of true organic food, yet the USDA does not crack down on typical grocery goods bearing the “organic” name without proof. Nor do they regulate other English speaking countries stealing the “organic” name.
The video shows how the markets are centrally planned and politically controlled so that local farmers are tracked and everyone get’s their cut.
Political control Freaks take over Farmers Market
Sunday, July 10, 2011
USDA Owns ‘Organic’ Name! Stifles Farmers Markets | Health Freedom Alliance
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Global warming or new ice age: YOU'RE paying for our politicians' hysteria | Mail Online
Global warming? A new ice age? The only certainty is that YOU'RE paying for the hysteria of our politicians
Last updated at 10:01 AM on 6th July 2011
Who would possibly have thought it? The latest news is that the world may be threatened by a sharp drop in temperatures, possibly so severe that it could herald a new mini ice age.
And one reason being put forward for this is that all the pollution being chucked out by thousands of coal-fired power stations may be blocking the sun's heat from the Earth.
Dr Robert Kaufman of Boston University blamed China this week. 'During the Chinese economic expansion there was a huge increase in sulphur emissions,' he said. And this was the cause of global cooling.
Ice age on its way? The latest news is that we may be threatened by a sharp drop in temperature
But hang on a moment. Aren't these new climate scaremongers the very same people who only a few years back were telling us that the planet was in danger of being fried to a crisp by runaway global warming?
And wasn't it on their say so that the world's politicians, led by our own here in Britain, were committing us to spending hundreds of billions of pounds to save the planet from the catastrophic warming caused by those same evil power stations?
The question this extraordinary turn of events raises is whether any of these supposed experts actually have the faintest idea what they are talking about.
But perhaps the most bizarre thing about this latest twist in the ongoing climate scare story is the way it takes us precisely back to where it all started 40 years ago.
All of us today have become so accustomed to the notion of global warming that it is hard to believe that in the Seventies, U.S. scientists began to warn us the world was heading for a cooling so severe it might even herald a new ice age.
Make your minds up: For years, scientists were telling us about global warming
This was because for 30 years, after a sharp rise earlier in the 20th century, global temperatures had markedly dropped.
And the cause of this cooling, it was argued by the U.S. scientists, led by climatologists Stephen Schneider and James Hansen, was all the sulphur dioxide and other particulates being chucked out by burning fossil fuels — notably those from coal-fired power stations.
Fifteen years later, the very same scientists were at the forefront of the great panic over global warming.
Schneider, who became Professor of environmental biology and global change at Stanford University, argued this time that the damage was being done not by soot and sulphur preventing the sun's heat reaching the earth, but by carbon dioxide and other 'greenhouse gases', which were trapping heat.
It was men such as Schneider and Hansen who, at the end of the Eighties, so terrified the politicians with their theory that CO2 equalled global warming that, within a few years, the world's leaders were gathering in vast conferences in Rio and Kyoto to sign treaties that committed us to massive cuts in the CO2 emissions on which the global economy depended.
For a while it seemed that the theory they had programmed into dozens of computer models was being confirmed by the evidence. CO2 levels continued to rise and temperatures appeared to follow suit.
But then, more recently, it became obvious that something had gone seriously awry with the theory.
Sure, CO2 in the atmosphere was still continuing to rise. But no longer were temperatures rising in synch, as the computer models predicted they should.
The basic theory was that as CO2 levels go up, the average temperatures go up too
By 2007, as temperatures temporarily plummeted by as much as their entire net rise in the 20th century, experts were beginning to question the global warming orthodoxy.
An increasing number of breakaway climatologists were saying the cause of that late 20th century rise in temperatures might not be CO2 at all.
Perhaps, they suggested, there were other factors responsible for shaping the earth's climate — such as fluctuations in radiation from the sun and shifts in the world's major ocean currents.
So, some of those on the warm-ist side of the argument came up with a compromise theory.
Maybe, they agreed, the world was now heading for a period of cooling, but the effect of these natural factors was only to 'mask the underlying warming trend'.
Within a decade or two, the warming produced by man-made CO2 would come back worse than ever.
Britain is not alone in enduring three of its coldest winters for decades in the last few years
In the past few years, as much of the world has endured three of its coldest winters for decades, it has become almost comical to see how, whatever our weather does to us, the warm-ists still manage to cling on to their pet theory.
Whatever happens now, whether it is hot or cold, whether we get heatwaves or record snowfalls, floods or droughts, sooner or later we hear those familiar little voices piping up to tell us that the blame for all these 'extreme weather events' still lies on 'disruption' to the climate caused by the sinful activities of mankind.
They're all at it — from the environmental activists of Greenpeace, the WWF and their allies in the BBC and the Met Office, to those thousands of scientists across the world who have received billions in funding from governments investing in climate change research and prevention — all still battling to keep in being the greatest scare story in the history of the world.
The truth is that it becomes ever more obvious that none of them really has a clue as to what is responsible for the changes in our climate. They can't even tell us what global temperatures will be next month or next year, let alone what they will be in 100 years' time, as they like to pretend their computer models can predict. But the really terrifying thing about all this is that our politicians have become so locked into the scare story that there is not yet the slightest sign they are prepared to notice the reality now crowding in on them on every side — that global warming is by no means a certainty.
Three years ago, when the hysteria over global warming was still at its height, our own British politicians voted almost unanimously for the Climate Change Act committing us, uniquely in the world, to cut our CO2 emissions by 80 per cent within 40 years.
Even on the Government's own figures, showing that this will cost us up to £18 billion every year until 2050, it is by far the most expensive law ever passed by Parliament.
We are also committed to meet an EU target that, within a mere nine years, we must generate a third of our electricity from 'renewables' — mainly by spending £200 billion on building thousands more windmills so useless that, last weekend, they could produce only half a per cent of the power we actually needed.
As our politicians continually impose on us ever higher taxes and other costs supposedly in the cause of 'fighting climate change' — costs that have already helped to increase every family's energy bills by an average £200 a year — they have been carried away by a collective fantasy that has no parallel in history.
And all this is happening in the name of a theory so fraudulent that the same people who told us the world is about to fry unless we close down all those power stations are now telling us the same power stations may be heading us into a new ice age.
Truly, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. And short of some massive injection of common sense from the British people, it seems the rest of us are condemned to live in it.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Shivering Britain: Little Ice Age could be on its way | Mail Online
Is Britain about to be plunged into a Little Ice Age?
Last updated at 8:15 AM on 4th July 2011
Scientists think Britain and Europe could be in for a chilly few years predicting a 'Little Ice Age' could be on its way in just a few decades time.
Average temperatures in Britain could fall by two degrees centigrade, according to the study led by Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at Reading University, because of a drop in the amount of sunspot activity.
Sunspots are darker patches seen in the sun's surface which are caused by small areas of magnetic activity which disrupts the normal flow of intensely heated gases.
Scientists have discovered that a drop in sunspots, pictured in black could block winds that can keep Europe from excessive cold in winter
But last year, Professor Lockwood discovered that a drop in sunspots could block winds that can keep Europe from excessive cold in winter, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Professor Lockwood's team looked at the sun's activity of the past 9,300 years using Met Office data.
His findings, published by the Institute of Physics, (IoP) showed that in the next 50 years there is a one in 10 chance of the sun returning to conditions seen between 1645 and 1715 when the River Thames in London regularly froze over, as did the Baltic Sea.
Known as the Maunder Minimum during these years astronomers could not see any sunspots and Europe endured unusually harsh winters which came to be known as the Little Ice Age.
A scene from the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow where temperatures dropped freezing New York
Professor Lockwood's findings could mean the average winter temperature could drop below 2.5C, compared to the average British winter now of 5C, the newspaper reported.
In June, three different studies all concluded that sunspot activity looks set to decline over the next 10 years.
Experts said the next upswing in sunspot activity, which follows an 11-year cycle, will not be as strong as normal - or might not even happen at all.
The findings were presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's solar physics division.
They said a decrease in global warming might result in the years after 2020, the approximate time when sunspots are expected to disappear for years, maybe even decades.
Snowy weather brings a Scottish road to a standstill last year. Scientists say the average winter temperature could drop below 2.5C, compared to the average British winter now of 5C
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The New Era of “All Natural” False Flag Disasters | Pakalert Press
by Zen Gardner
On 9/11 the premise for explaining the dramatic ritual that unfolded before the world was that steel structures can collapse into dust from jet fuel fires. Never before has a steel structure collapsed from any kind of fire nor has one since, yet that day 3 huge buildings dropped like rocks into their own footprints–one, building 7 that didn’t come down till the afternoon, did it even without jet fuel. No problem. Buildings fall from fire. We get it.
And the world fell for it.
Enter the Nuclear Factor
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Nuclear reactors have never before been destroyed or triggered into a mega crisis by floods. Now we have several incidents under way in Japan, with a threat to two more in Nebraska right on their heels.
Easier to swallow now, isn’t it? That’s how you do it–set a spectacular precedent, then run with it.
BTW, you say the Tsunami was an exception? Why was their back up generator put in the basement? Why are there so many questions surrounding faulty construction, strange equipment malfunctions and explosions at the reactors?
Yet the world believes it was “all natural”…despite the strangeness, nonsequiturs and news blackout.
Open the Spigot
No go on to explain why the US Army Corps of Engineers and all their resources deliberately flood massive areas near these Nebraska nuclear facilities, but don’t have enough foresight to protect one simple compound housing a massive nuclear arsenal?
Oh, they put up a rubber berm balloon, but oops, there was an “accident”.
And the world swallows it again. After all, floods trigger reactors, we get it.
Then Why Not Fires, Too?
Now let’s go to Los Alamos. The area has been hit by wildfires before, yet they’ve kept the largest stockpile of nukes in the country sitting next to the rest of their nuclear research facilities. And in what? Frikking canvas buildings!
Don’t worry, it’s a “natural disaster”. Just like the others. Nothing to wonder about, back to sleep people.
Ooops…Might Have An Accident Here…..
This is a perfect illustration. The PTBs don’t even give things a chance of not happening. They don’t even take the chance that the mouse won’t take the cheese—they’ll lower him on to the trap! Same with today’s world. Put reactors in the way of hazards, irradiate people for “safety”, produce junk food, bad drugs, GMO crops and poison the air and water and what do you know? Sick and dying people. They’ll say it was just an accident once found out, always do.
We know better.
Anything make sense to you?
Well, we don’t find out the insanity of how they’ve laid things out just ripe for disaster until something like this happens, then it’s too late. The government also claimed they had no idea airplanes could be used as weapons to hit the twin towers and the other targets. Right.
But that small stuff’s just buffering. You have to protect your big lie with lots of smaller ones. The 9/11 discussion was quickly diverted to “Who did this to us?”
That kerosene can’t melt steel, never mind pulverize thousands of tons of concrete, fixtures and office furniture, and then vaporize thousands of people scattering microscopic bone fragments several blocks away isn’t important. We saw those planes and THEY did it! Classic.
And Now “The Natural Way”
They’ve done it before and they know they can do it again. All you need is a BIG ENOUGH LIE. Fukushima was BIG….VERY big. It still doesn’t add up that buildings were barely damaged in the region yet a tsunami of unprecedented magnitude could be generated like that.
Check this story from an Israeli newspaper. Dead giveaway of this natural disaster conditioning.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is indelibly etched in historical memory as the hatching site of the Manhattan Project, the effort which created the first atomic bomb. The world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenal is still located there. Now a raging wildfire has forced the evacuation of the surrounding town of Los Alamos (population 12,000)..
Given the recent Japanese disaster at Fukushima, the fear of course is that a natural disaster can morph into a nuclear one.Source
Of course, the instilled fear and assumption this is “all natural” morphing now. Brainwash, rinse, repeat.
A Decades Old Recipe for Disaster
Not only are reactors perched in precarious geological zones, many of them are running over capacity, and are overdue for maintenance and/or were scheduled to have been replaced years ago. Talk about a recipe for disaster.
What were they thinking? Or were they.
This from AP on June 27:
More than 90 of the nation’s 104 operating reactors have been allowed to run at higher power levels for many years, raising the radiation risk in a major accident. In an ongoing investigative series, the AP has reported that aging plants, their lives extended by industry and regulators, are prone to breakdowns that could lead to accidents.
And because the federal government has failed to find a location for permanent storage of spent fuel, thousands of tons of highly radioactive used reactor rods are kept in pools onsite and more is stored there all the time.
Who Needs A Nuclear Attack?
Looks like this country was mined for disaster 50 years ago. All it took was a Fukushima to start the ball rolling, giving the impression “natural events” are triggering these nuclear disasters. Suddenly, we have a flood threatening two reactors in the midwest, and a massive fire threatening a seemingly stacked nuclear dump in Los Alamos.
Sorry, this is all too pat.
Conclusion
The Japan earthquake leading to a nuclear emergency gives a perfect cover to the general populace. The fact that suddenly a similar submerging of pumps and fuel rod holding tanks happens right in its wake therefore is digestible to most. Same with the fire. They’re jamming this false conditioning into our heads.
A lot of us were thinking they might try a mini-nuke in a US or European city as the next false flag. Looks like the Japan experiment was successful so they’ve utilized their geoengineering technology to continue the job, using their atmospheric heaters to trigger earthquakes and steer violent weather into volatile areas.
And now you don’t even need terrorists to blame–you can blame nature. Apparently the PTBs think they’ve got a pretty good grip on her.
We’ll see about that.
Made you laugh, didn’t it?! Good, we need to relax, this stuff can get overwhelming.
But don’t worry, they can’t win, just make a mess of things for awhile until the new wave of consciousness takes over.
And oh how they’re afraid of it!
Keep raising your consciousness levels and that of those around you – it’s working!
Love, Zen
OilSlick.com | Record Oil Supplies?
Record Oil Supplies?
Jim Brown
Click here to email Jim BrownSunday, June 19, 2011 Printer Friendly Version
The American Petroleum Institute (API) said last week that U.S. oil supplies rose to the highest levels in 31 years for the month of May. In the EIA report for May 27th crude oil in inventory rose to 373.8 million barrels and a level not seen since mid 2009. Before 2009 you have to go back to 1990 for a higher inventory number. The reason for the rise in inventories is two fold. Since the 2008 recession that resulted in a 9.1% technical unemployment rate and the 16.5% U5 unemployment rate the consumption of gasoline in the USA has slowed dramatically. Post recession the rising gasoline prices have continued to weigh on consumption. With nearly 20 million people out of work the amount of daily commuting has dropped considerably.
Moody's 30-year chart of oil inventories
This lack of consumption coupled with the increase of production from Canadian Oil Sands and shale oil plays like the Bakken, Eagle Ford and the Marcellus has allowed inventories to increase to the point where storage is starting to be a problem.
The employment problem is not going away any time soon. The pace of job creation is extremely anemic for this stage of a normal recovery. Recessions as the result of a financial crisis always take longer to recover but recent economics suggest we may not even be in the recovery stage yet.
The Philly Fed report and the New York Empire survey last week posted numbers that represented a contraction of activity in those regions consistent with a new recessionary dip. The fear of a double dip recession had nearly evaporated until high gasoline prices in April and early May slammed the door shut on recovery hopes. Now those fears are returning and thanks to the problems in Japan and Europe they are being magnified in the local press.
If the economy is weak today as a result of the Japanese earthquake then we should begin to see a rebound in the numbers in the July reports. That could be a big question mark because we are seeing an increased number of earnings warnings and signs the U.S. consumer has gone back into hiding at the blue collar level. Wal-Mart and other stores that sell to that demographic are reporting declines in same store sales as a result of higher fuel prices in addition to the high unemployment levels.
Does this mean oil prices are about to fall off a cliff even further than they fell last week? I don't believe so. At least we have not seen any fundamental reasons for a continued decline in oil prices. Barclay's and Dahlman Rose both raised their estimates for spending on oil and gas exploration in 2011 to more than half a trillion dollars for 2011. The $529 billion estimate from Barclay's was significantly higher than the $490 billion they forecasted in December.
The reason for these rising numbers is the increased activity because of higher oil prices. Demand may be sluggish in the USA but it is rising quickly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The IEA raised their estimate for demand for OPEC oil in Q3 by 400,000 barrels per day to a level that is 1.5 mbpd LESS than OPEC is currently producing.
This is the golden age for oil companies. With Brent over $113 and expected to rise to $130 by year end the race to produce more oil is accelerating. Unfortunately the deepwater oil and oil produced from harsh environments and expensive shale wells is costing more to produce. It is estimated the marginal cost of oil discovered today is $85 per barrel. If oil prices decline below that level those projects will be put on the back burner until prices recover. They should not have to wait long because any oil discovered today in an offshore deepwater environment will not likely be ready for production or another 5-7 years thanks to the extreme cost and complexity of producing oil in more than 5,000 feet of water.
Wells in the Gulf are being drilled to record depths and at temperatures that are melting drill bits. The Blackbeard well being drilled by McMoran in the Gulf is targeting depths over 34,000 feet at a cost of more than $190 million and this is actually a shallow water well in only 70-feet of water.
Costs are going up but so is demand. The U.S. is in a funk compared to the rest of the world. Eventually our economy will begin to improve but it may take years to return to any semblance of normal. During that period the demand from around the globe will continue to rise and force our fuel pries higher. This will slow our recovery and prolong the pain.
The U.S. is the largest oil consumer in the world so any tightness in crude supplies will affect us more than anyone else. This is something analysts have warned about for years. You can't have 5% of the population and consume 23% of the oil and be insulated from the global impact of shortages.
Some believe the rest of this decade could be a lost decade for the U.S. with lackluster growth and a rising poverty class. I could easily see that happening, especially given the changes that need to occur to cut government spending and reduce the budget. When the government cuts spending people get laid off. We also know there will likely be a tax hike soon depending on how the 2012 elections play out. What we don't need is higher taxes in a near recession. We already have higher taxes in the form of $4 gasoline and we can see how that is working to depress the economy.
The IMF cut its growth prospects for the U.S. last week to 2.5% in 2011 and 2.7% in 2012. Obviously the IMF does not have a good record of predicting economic outcomes but I think they could be high in this case. The Fed will publish its quarterly economic update on Wednesday and analysts believe they will slash estimates based on comments from Fed officials like "frustratingly slow" and "uneven" progress. Estimates for unemployment may rise to 9.4% from 8.4% in the last forecast.
The IMF is predicting global growth at 4.3% for 2011 including a 9.6% target for China. Which do you think has a bigger impact on global oil demand? China with 1.3 billion people growing at 9.6% or the USA at 300 million growing at 2.5%. Obviously China is the main factor here. Chinese oil demand has grown by 800,000 bpd in May over May 2010. They are only track to grow by 1.0 mbpd in 2011 and another 1.2 mbpd in 2012 despite the current effort to slow their inflation rate. India is right behind them.
India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp just announced plans to spend $39 billion starting in 2012 to meet exploding demand for oil in Asia's third largest economy. India is just getting into the global land rush for oil. While India is a decade or more behind China in modernization the move into the technological age is accelerating rapidly. Some believe India will eventually outpace China to become the biggest economy on the planet and consume the most goods. Obviously that is decades away but the acceleration has begun. When the resource wars begin late in this decade those will be the two 800-lb gorillas going at it head to head.
The U.S. needs to accelerate its exploration and production of reserves closer to home and partner with Brazil and Mexico to develop their assets. Having production close to home will be easier to protect than crude coming from half way around the world from unstable countries. North America is expected to see production increase by 1.5 mbpd by 2016 with the majority of that coming from Canadian oil sands. Mexican production is expected to decline by another 400,000 bpd by 2016 due to the lack of major projects in the pipeline. Mexico is handicapped by laws that prevent foreign companies from independent exploration and without the profit motive to drive exploration they could cease being an exporter by the end of the decade.
BP released their annual energy report showing oil demand rebounded sharply in 2010 by +2.7 mbpd after declining in 2008 and 2009. Production only rose by +1.8 mbpd. Demand rose to 87.4 mbpd in 2010. It is expected to rise to more than 89.3 mbpd in 2011 and more than 90 mbpd in 2012 assuming we can find the production to meet those numbers.
The IEA said they don't expect Libyan production to be fully restored until 2015 due to damage to oil facilities and pipelines. Current production is 200,000 bpd, down from 1.4 mbpd. Knocking a million barrels per day out of our existing production capability is going to hurt as we head into the high use third quarter.
I continue to get emails from readers that disagree with the concept that supply shortages are just around the corner. Most believe we can just poke a few more holes in the Gulf and have all the oil we need a few weeks later. Only a little bit of research would show that a deepwater discovery in the Gulf takes a minimum of 5-7 years and sometimes 10 years before significant production begins. Over that period global demand is increasing at the rate of 1.5 mbpd. Do the math and you will see the fallacy of that view.
Readers may not believe everything I discuss in these pages but I am firmly convinced the U.S. may be stumbling like a drunk through this recovery process but the global economy is on track and steering us towards a global conclusion to the peak oil story.
Jim Brown
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The OilSlick Newsletter is based on the expectations for global oil production of light sweet crude to peak and begin to decline in the 2012-2013 timeframe. I am calling this "Peak Sweet™" instead of Peak Oil. This is the point where global production of conventional light sweet crude supplies can no longer be supplemented by enough oil sands production, deepwater oil production, biofuels and natural gas liquids to offset the decline in existing fields. The roughly 6% annual decline of existing production due to depletion is larger than the rate of new discoveries and new production being added each year. The Peak Sweet™ countdown clock is ticking and time is growing short. Peak Oil will arrive shortly thereafter. Are you prepared?
Complaint alleges police tasered, beat mentally handicapped Ohio teen | The Raw Story
Complaint alleges police tasered, beat mentally handicapped Ohio teen
Thursday, June 30th, 2011 -- 10:45 amJesse Kersey, a 17-year-old mentally handicapped boy, was riding his bicycle near his home in Dayton, Ohio last Saturday when officer Willie Hooper pulled him over to talk.
A civil complaint filed in Dayton County this week alleges that Hooper then became confused by the boy's speech impediment and began to shout at Kersey, causing the boy to begin walking back to his mother's home.
That's when Hooper called in backup, causing "an upward of 20" officers to rush onto the scene. As Kersey made his way back home, a neighbor allegedly attempted to tell Hooper about the boy's disability, but was told to return home or face arrest.
Then, according to the complaint, just as Kersey was approaching his front door, officers fired their Tasers into his back
"Once inside the house, defendant Hooper and defendant Howard began to struggle with Jesse, who was standing against the back door with his hands up in front of his face, saying 'Please quit, please quit,'" the complaint explains.
But Hooper did not, allegedly punching the boy on the chest and thigh, then pepper-spraying him in the face.
The complaint adds that Jesse was "hogtied" before being put into a police car and taken to jail.
He was later charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest, but the charges were dropped after Jesse was declared incompetent.
Read the full complaint (PDF).
Image credit: Flickr commons.
(H/T: Courthouse News)
