Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>]

Geez, I can't keep track of who I sent what but here's the current list of 
the crap they are trying to push through and have pushed through:

FYI, for those who want to know just what hijinks their government is up to,
you need to read the following before this becomes the United States of
Monsanto!

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714

Relevant to this are:

H.R. 875:  Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009

H.R. 814:  TRACE Act of 2009

H.R. 815:  Safe and Fair Enforcement and Recall for Meat, Poultry and Food
Act of 2009

S. 425:  A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to provide
for the establishment of a traceability system for food, . . .

H.R. 759:  Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2009

You can track all these bills and read the text for each at
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-875&tab=related

And here is more stuff that is going to be related as it is all about
tracking and control:

Smart Grid: Government spying targets Rural America

       http://rfdamerica.com/?p=333

       I've been reading the stimulus bill. When I saw the term Smart Grid
on page 232 of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," I
stopped reading so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. If you haven't heard
about Smart Grid, listen up. Smart Grid is closely related to the National
Animal Identification System (NAIS), and both programs are designed to spy
on Americans. Even more disturbing than the purpose of these
government-condoned intrusions into our lives is the fact that the Obama
Administration feels that  Smart Grid is so important that it had to be
funded in the stimulus package-which is supposed to be used for emergencies
only. What's the emergency? Why does Smart Grid need to be implemented
within 60 days of the bill passing? Here come the answers, and none of them
are good.
       What is Smart Grid?
       Smart Grid is part of a global initiative to manage information, all
information. This is not some dire fictional prediction; it exists right
now, right here in the United States , and thanks to President Obama, the
Secretary of the Treasury can lend the Western Area Power Administration
(WAPA), a division of the Department of Energy, $3.25 billion to implement
Smart Grid:
         "(B) the Secretary shall, without further
         appropriation and 'without fiscal year limitation, loan to the
Western Area Power Administration, on such terms as may be fixed by the
Administrator and the Secretary, such sums (not to exceed, in the aggregate
(including deferred interest),$3,250,000,000-in outstanding repayable
balances at anyone time) as, in the judgment of the Administrator, are from
time to time required for the purpose of [...] In carrying out the
initiative, the Secretary shall provide financial support to smart grid
demonstration projects in urban, suburban, tribal, and rural areas,
including areas where electric system assets are controlled by nonprofit
entities and areas where
         electric system assets are controlled by investor- owned
utilities.
       Ostensibly, Smart Grid is about energy efficiency and climate
change. This intelligent power grid gathers information about individual
energy use via sensors embedded in the transmission lines and in homes and
businesses. The government, via WAPA, will know what temperature you keep
your home or business at. If you keep your domicile warmer or cooler than
the temperature approved by the federal government, you pay more. To some,
this is an acceptable arrangement, until they discover what else Smart Grid
can do.


       What's in your closet?
       According to IBM, one of the two corporations which will receive
most of the money (the other is GE),
         The world is becoming instrumented. By 2010, there will be a
billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent.
         The world is becoming interconnected. With a trillion networked
things-cars, roadways, pipelines, appliances, pharmaceuticals and even
livestock-the amount of information created by those interactions grows
exponentially.
         All things are becoming intelligent. Algorithms and powerful
systems can analyze and turn those mountains of data into actual decisions
and actions that make the world work better. Smarter.
       Did you catch that? Smart Grid will allow the government to collect
information about you, your habits, and possessions. All they need are a few
sensors to know what is in your refrigerator; how long you spend in the
bathroom; if you smoke in your home; if you drink alcohol in your home; and
how many people are in your home or business at any one time. Science
fiction? Don't bet on it. IBM knows different.
       And if the above statements aren't enough to get you thinking, how
about this:
         Nanotechnology e-textiles for biomonitoring and wearable
electronics-
         If current research is an indicator, wearable electronics will go
far beyond just very small electronic devices or wearable, flexible
computers. Not only will these devices be embedded in textile substrates but
an electronics device or system could ultimately become the fabric itself.
Electronic textiles (e-textiles) will allow the design and production of a
new generation of garments with distributed sensors and electronic
functions. Such e-textiles will have the revolutionary ability to sense,
act, store, emit, and move - think biomedical monitoring functions or new
man-machine interfaces - while ideally leveraging an existing low-cost
textile manufacturing infrastructure.
       Here's the scenario: you buy a pair of socks, using your credit or
debit card (cash is already being discouraged). Because of Smart Grid, your
house will be able to read the bar code on those socks as you bring them
through the door and add them to a list it keeps of your clothes; size,
price, origin, when worn, etc. The computer that controls your home's
thermostat and lights also controls your wardrobe, budget, social habits,
and even your eating habits. The refrigerator reads the bar codes on your
food. Someone with access to that information knows when you eat, what you
eat, what you paid for it, and how long something has been in the fridge.


       If you're like me, and do a lot of canning, you're probably
thinking, "so what?" That's what my initial thought was. It can't read a bar
code if there isn't one. Hmmm. What if your home's computer believed that
based on how many people live in the home there's not enough food being
purchased? How long do you think it would take the electronic nanny to
notify child protective services or other authorities?
       Again, this isn't science fiction. It's happening right now in South
Bend, Indiana, and Florida and California. Now that President Obama's
spending package has been pushed down our windpipes, effectively choking off
any opposition, look for development of an electronic super nanny by Big
Brother. This is change we can believe in? It's change alright rural America
, and it's coming for you. Notice on GE's page there are no pictures of
urban or suburban dwellings, only a rural home? An oversight? Not according
to Alan Keyes.
       I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Keyes in the summer of 2008.
He told me then that rural people should understand that there is a
concerted effort to remove all control from rural areas and concentrate it
in Washington D.C. After reading about the billions of dollars the White
House has allocated to watching its rural citizens, I'd say he hit the nail
on the head. We are the targets; the lonely little home on GE's website
might as well have a bull's eye on the roof. Dr. Keyes told me the
Illuminati who are running D.C. are worried about rural people because we
are exposed to less media than our urban counterparts: we're harder to
control.
       Apocalypse now
       One of the largest components of Smart Grid is already being
implemented by the USDA; it's called the National Animal Identification
System (NAIS) it requires farmers to implant a RFID tag into the body of all
of their livestock-cows, pigs, goats, chickens, sheep, all livestock. The
NAIS threatens to destroy small-scale family farms. If you're not familiar
with the NAIS, here are a couple of resources: Downsize DC, NAIS: Too little
too late? and NAIS: Let's do some fuzzy math. Coupled with Smart Grid, the
NAIS strengthens the ability of Government officials to control rural
Americans as completely as they control people in the cities.
       Remember, President Obama believes implementing Smart Grid is
urgent. He wants the program to expand quickly, with all of us on the
thinking grid by 2011. All of us. Resistance is futile.

Feel free to forward.

Lynda
"Facts don't cease to exist because they are ignored."  Aldous Huxley

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "bobf" <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:36 PM
Subject: [Homestead] NAIS -- NYT Editorial


> There is a good editorial in today's NYT concerning why NAIS benefits big 
> ag and hurts the small farmer.  It is written by the farmer who wrote “The 
> Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook” .  While good, the article has not one word 
> about fourth ammendment or other privacy or gov't intrusive issues.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
> Tag, We’re It
>
> BY SHANNON HAYES
>
> Published: March 10, 2009
> Warnerville, N.Y.
>
> AT first glance, the plan by the federal Department of Agriculture to 
> battle disease among farm animals is a technological marvel: we farmers 
> tag every head of livestock in the country with ID chips and the 
> department electronically tracks the animals’ whereabouts. If disease 
> breaks out, the department can identify within 48 hours which animals are 
> ill, where they are, and what other animals have been exposed.
>
> At a time when diseases like mad cow and bird flu have made consumers 
> worried about food safety, being able to quickly track down the cause of 
> an outbreak seems like a good idea. Unfortunately, the plan, which is 
> called the National Animal Identification System and is the subject of a 
> House subcommittee hearing today, would end up rewarding the factory farms 
> whose practices encourage disease while crippling small farms and the 
> local food movement.
>
> For factory farms, the costs of following the procedures for the system 
> would be negligible. These operations already use computer technology, and 
> under the system, swine and poultry that move through a production chain 
> at the same time could be given a single number. On small, traditional 
> farms like my family’s, each animal would require its own number. That 
> means the cost of tracking 1,000 animals moving together through a factory 
> system would be roughly equal to the expense that a small farmer would 
> incur for tracking one animal.
>
> These ID chips are estimated to cost $1.50 to $3 each, depending on the 
> quantity purchased. A rudimentary machine to read the tags may be $100 to 
> $200. It is expected that most reporting would have to be done online 
> (requiring monthly Internet fees), then there would be the fee for the 
> database subscription; together that would cost about $500 to $1,000 
> (conservatively) per year per premise. I estimate the combined cost for 
> our farm at $10,000 annually — that’s 10 percent of our gross receipts.
>
> Imagine the reporting nightmare we would face each May, when 100 ewes give 
> birth to 200 lambs out on pasture, and then six weeks later, when those 
> pastures are grazed off and the entire flock must be herded a mile up the 
> road to a second farm that we rent.
>
> Add to that the arrival every three weeks of 300 chicks, the three 
> 500-pound sows that will each give birth to about 10 piglets out in the 
> pastures twice per year (and that will attack anyone who comes near their 
> babies more fiercely than a junkyard pit bull), then a batch of 100 baby 
> turkeys, and the free-roaming laying hens. Additional tagging and 
> record-keeping would be required for the geese and guinea fowl that nest 
> somewhere behind the barn and in the hedgerows, occasionally visiting the 
> neighbors’ farms, hatching broods of goslings and keets that run wild all 
> summer long.
>
> Each time one of those animals is sold or dies, or is trucked to a 
> slaughterhouse, we would have to notify the Agriculture Department. And 
> there would be penalties if we failed to account for a lamb quietly stolen 
> by a coyote, and medical bills if we were injured when trying to come 
> between a protective sow and her piglets so we could tag them.
>
> For my family, the upshot would be more expenses and a lot more time 
> swearing at the computer. The burden would be even worse for rural 
> families that don’t farm full-time, but make ends meet by keeping a flock 
> of chickens or a cow for milk. The cost of participating in the system 
> would make backyard farming prohibitively expensive.
>
> So who would gain if the identification system eventually becomes 
> mandatory, as the Agriculture Department has hoped? It would help 
> exporters by soothing the fears of foreign consumers who have shunned 
> American beef. Other beneficiaries would include manufacturers of animal 
> tracking systems that stand to garner hefty profits for tracking the 
> hundreds of millions of this country’s farm animals. It would also give 
> industrial agriculture a stamp of approval despite its use of antibiotics, 
> confinement and unnatural feeding practices that increase the threat of 
> disease.
>
> At the same time, the system would hurt small pasture-based livestock 
> farms like my family’s, even though our grazing practices and natural 
> farming methods help thwart the spread of illnesses. And when small farms 
> are full participants in a local food system, tracking a diseased animal 
> doesn’t require an exorbitantly expensive national database.
>
> Cheaper and more effective than an identification system would be a 
> nationwide effort to train farmers and veterinarians about proper 
> management, bio-security practices and disease recognition. But best of 
> all would be prevention. To heighten our food security, we should limit 
> industrial agriculture and stimulate the growth of small farms and 
> backyard food production around the country.
>
> The burden for a program that would safeguard agribusiness interests would 
> be disproportionately shouldered by small farmers, rural families and 
> consumers of locally produced food. Worse yet, that burden would force 
> many rural Americans to lose our way of life.
>
> Shannon Hayes, a farmer, is the author of “The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook” 
> and the forthcoming “Radical Homemakers.”
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/opinion/11hayes.html
>
>
>
>
>
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