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A light at the end of the tunnel….
….signaling the demise of ethanol? The corn-based product has been probably the worst fraud environmentalists have inflicted on us. Ethanol is more of a pollutant than the gasoline it’s supposed to help clean up. And meeting the so-called “demand” has driven up the price of corn to the point where it’s caused starvation in the rest of the world…and food riots. I put the word “demand” in quotes because there’s no real demand….just a government mandate. Fuel companies have been ordered to use more ethanol than they need or buy “ethanol credits”. (A Texas sharpie was recently convicted of selling credits for an ethanol plant that existed only in his imagination. Bilked…
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What a wonderful world….
….so why do we keep insisting on messing it up? I know, corny and all that but still, wouldn’t it be nice….. http://www.youtube.com/embed/auSo1MyWf8g?rel=0 Thanks to our dear friend, Gisela, in Koenigswinter, Germany for the link.
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It’s about time….
….safe food advocates are turning their fire on President Obama and Congressional Democrats for their “patty cake” deal with Monsanto. With all the talk about sequestration, the powers-that-be made sure last week that the dollars keep rolling to the chemical giant. Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski snuck the pro-genetically engineered language into a massive continuing resolution and it sailed through, apparently without anyone noticing the amendment. At least, that’s what they’re all saying on Capitol Hill. http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Critics-slam-Obama-for-protecting-Monsanto-200599011.html We note that while Monsanto’s relationship with the Obama Administration could be described as “incestuous”, it’s only closer in degree from past Republican administrations. Last we knew, at least three former Monsanto executives are…
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You’ll have to decide…
…whom to believe. The government and scientific establishment, of course, says “eat less red meat”. There are many dissenters though, and we’re in that camp, who think we should eat all the red meat we can. And all the fat, too! What’s strange is that just about all the research demonstrates that it’s sugar, which is linked to most of our health problems. And nothing pumps sugar into our cells more efficiently than carbohydrates. We worry constantly about air quality but reducing pollution has had no appreciable effect on cancer rates and heart disease. Sugar consumption, meanwhile, has soared in recent decades while the FDA and its pals in Big Food keep pointing our…
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Saving the planet….
….not exactly a humble goal, but that’s what is at stake. The earth’s surface has been turning into a vast desert, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere every year than all the fossil fuel engines combined. This “browning” of the planet is the cause of all the hunger, suffering and war than we can possibly deal with. Strangely, while largely blamed for all our environmental woes, it is the lowly cow that holds the key to the problem. (I wanted to write: “our survival”) As pollyanish as it may sound, we do believe that grass fed beef is the answer. Good for your personal health, a grazing cow is good for the…
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Goodby grass; hello corn…
A college study indicates the high price of corn and soybeans, thanks to the bio-fuel demand, is robbing us of grass and wetlands at an alarming rate. The research was by a team from South Dakota State University and it says we’re losing grasslands at the rate of five per cent a year. That is a major ecological threat and, according to the scientists, it would take us decades to recover from the setback to natural carbon sequestration, even if we wanted to. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/02/13/1215404110.short?rss=1 This is all the handiwork of Big Government and Big Ag, of course. As a blogger often puts it: “the country is in the very best…
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A Monsanto take down….
….it’s been awhile, but we haven’t forgotten Monsanto. Still riding high and still wreaking havoc on the earth and its creatures. Here’s a rundown on the latest from health blogger Dr. Joseph Mercola: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/01/12/ge-crops-affect-soil-fertility.aspx?e_cid=20130112_DNL_art_1
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Rub a little dirt in it….
….or better yet eat it. I’ve read things like this before, but never in so august a journal as the New York Times. Turns out those chemicals we spray on things or rub on our hands to prevent disease are (guess what) leaving us more vulnerable to disease. Microbes may cause disease but it’s also microbes that fight the bad bugs and you don’t want to wipe them out. Here’s a link to the full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/opinion/lets-add-a-little-dirt-to-our-diet.html?_r=2&emc=eta1&utm_source=August+2012+Enews&utm_campaign=FCA+August+2012+Enews&utm_medium=email This isn’t exactly a scientific breakthrough. I remember some years back (okay, like maybe 50) when as horrified parents we saw one of our progeny eating dirt and ran to the pediatrician. Compounding…
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It’s a fact….
Several articles have come to our attention that we thought you might like to hear about, the first in the newsletter of Animal Welfare Approved. It’s a discussion of a study by the United Kingdom’s National Trust, which manages a bazillion acres of land and overseas both conventional and natural cattle production. The Trust wanted to get to the bottom line of the controversy over the effect on the environment by the two types of management. Big Ag there (and here) has launched a campaign claiming that actually feed lot production is easiest on the environment because the cattle are fattened more quickly….thus less methane gas emission. The Trust…and Animal…
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Nature is always right…
One of the lessons of farming is that you don’t fight nature….and it’s time for us to recognize that we ‘re in the summer dry spell. Maybe drought. Whatever. While the grass still looks good and there’s plenty of it, you can feel the dryness in the hardening ground. And you certainly see the water reduced to a trickle in our young bull pasture. In our area, the forecast is now for several days of more than 100 so we’re tanking our first steps. Not really our first. Earlier this year we did reduce the size of the herd slightly looking to future growth with our new English calves. So…