We were deeply gratified to learn that Portugal, as we understand it from local sources, a small colony on the west coast of Europe of the famous Azores Islands, has made lobbyist Dennis Cardoza a Grand Officer of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator.
We assume that the distinguished Order includes many other promoters of lady mud wrestling and other such diversions for the gentry. -- BLJ
________ has to grow (or else it is in crisis) and its very logic and motivated force impels growth.
________ has to grow (or else it is in crisis) and its very logic and motivated force impels growth.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/if-you-thought-nafta-was-bad-you-aint-seen-nothing-yet/#more-20955
Although no one in the media seems to be talking about it, a meeting is taking place in Virginia that could cement the same economic interests that lead us to the 2007 crisis. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being negotiated by 13 countries would lead to increased gas exports and increased imported foods, while undermining our domestic laws and increasing the financialization of nature.
Read More »
The ongoing food fight between massive biotech companies and grassroots activists has continued on the west coast, with a monumental vote on the mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods looming in California this November.
The GMO-free movement took home an important victory on August 16 against canola in the latest round between the two sides, as GMO canola plantings were halted due to a successful lawsuit in Oregon.
Read More »
Our colleague, Steve Burke, founder of Protect our Water (POW), Vance Kennedy and Al Brizard -- two other veteran public activists in Stanislaus County -- joined forces to produce a very convincing argument against Modesto Irrigation District's proposed water transfer to San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. They write from the authoritative view that MID is a local public utility created by the Wright Act of 1887, written by C.C. Wright, state assemblyman from Modesto at the time. The act was the first in the US to create publicly governed irrigation districts to combat private water pirates like Henry Miller of Miller Lux Cattle Company, who bought riverfront land wherever he could, gaining control of the river's water through the law of riparian rights.
Read More »To single out the California dairy industry, as it is so proud to often single iteslf out as the highest earning commodity in the state and tops in the nation, the grand scale on which it is practiced in California has guaranteed pollution of groundwater from manure and air from deisel-truck produced particulate smog.
Tulare is the top dairy producing county in the nation; Merced is second. Given the progrss of the dairy industry, Merced can expect to move up in the ranks of air and groundwater pollution as our noble "stewards of the land" increase their profits at the expense of our health and safety.
Badlands Journal editorial board
5-3-12
Fresno Bee
Valley water agencies look at farming contamination
By Mark Grossi
http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/05/03/2824626/valley-water-agencies-look-at.html
is it out of our minds?
Badlands Journal editorial board
4-26-12
Commondreams.org
America's Mad Cow Crisis
by John Stauber
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/26-1
Americans might remember that when the first mad cow was confirmed in the United States in December, 2003, it was major news. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had been petitioned for years by lawyers from farm and consumer groups I worked with to stop the cannibal feeding practices that transmit this horrible, always fatal, human and animal dementia. When the first cow was found in Washington state, the government said it would stop such feeding, and the media went away. But once the cameras were off and the reporters were gone nothing substantial changed.
Merced Irrigation District! This group, which can't even handle its normal irrigation business without the odor of scandal, is supposed to be able to negotiate its relicensing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission? The state Department of Water Resources trusts MID to lead, plan and administer the Integrated Regional Water Management Plan (IRWMP "Ear-wimp")?
MID is a very shaky organization.
Following her dishonorable role in attempting to bankrupt the environmental groups that publicly sued the Riverside Motorsports Park project near her dairy while she and other farmers hid behind them and schemed against them, Suzy Hultgren was miraculously appointed to the county farm bureau board of directors and soon after won election to the board of the Merced Irrigation District. Evidently, her extensive family, with roots here and there all over the county, has decided to make Suzy its public face. Included in that family is her cousin, John Sweigard, who left his position on the west side as general manager of the Patterson Irrigation District and board member on the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority board.
So, in a year with a 55-percent snowpack in the Sierras and cuts in delivery amounts to irrigators in the district, MID sells 15,000 acre-feet to the San Luis Water District. The two public proponents of the sale are Sweigard, former board member of the SLDMWA, and Hultgren, his cousin, with Hicham Eltal, assistant general manager, trotting on behind.
Read More »...as in the California Milk Advisory Board don't have none.
In a deposition obtained from PETA, Domenic Carinalli, owner of Domenic Carinalli Dairy & Vineyard in Sebastopol and member of the California Milk Advisory Board, said that, to his knowledge, the milk board hasn't received any information to verify its claim that "California dairy producers care deeply about the health, comfort and safety of their cows." He said at the board meetings he attended the health of cows was never discussed.
Carinalli also said he was unaware that the board was prohibited from making false marketing claims.
-- Merced Sun-Star, March 28, 2012
Perhaps an explanation for why the dairy industry labors under such ethical disadvantage is provided by the article below signed by a prominent Merced County dairyman. One says "signed" because it involves a new dairy-price formula and, as the dairyman's father once explained to this reporter, there are very few dairymen who actually understand the price structure of their own industry. The article is a propaganda piece from some national dairy organization claiming that reforms are being made.
Read More »That new program reorients federal dairy programs from an emphasis on price to a focus on maintaining adequate margins -- the difference between what it costs to produce milk and what farmers get when they sell it. -- Veldhuis
