30 Nov 2006
Corn Prices Surge to 10-Year Highs

This may be good news for grain farmers, but watch out! Higher food prices are on the way. The feed I buy for my chickens has gone up by a penny a pound since July, and more increases are on the way.

The upshot of all this is that it's not caused by market forces, really. It's another government intervention, and a stupid one at that:

David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains.

Ethanol is not going to make us "energy independent" - it's going to give us higher food prices, higher taxes and make us more dependent on foreign oil than ever. In other words, just a classic bureaucratic bungle.

Corn prices on the Chicago Board of Trade rose sharply to 10-year highs Thursday, on concerns about the size of the U.S. corn crop and ongoing demand for ethanol.

(link) [Examiner.com]

11:14 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link

29 Nov 2006
Universal Wants a Slice of Apple's iPod Pie

There's another name for this kind of semi-legal shakedown: it's called "extortion". I daresay that the real repositories for all the "stolen" music are the record companies themselves, who've managed to steal it from both the artists and the public. Perhaps it's time for us to get paid for their theft...

According to a Reuters report, Universal is now taking the precedent set by Microsoft's Zune and moving to force Apple to include a royalty payment with each iPod. In the words of Universal Music's Doug Morris, "These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,. So it's time to get paid for it." Does Microsoft's precedent mean the start of a slippery slope that will add a "pirate tax" to every piece of hardware that touches digital music?

(link) [Slashdot]

21:57 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Judge Says U.S. Money Violates Rights of the Blind

I'm sure that traffic signals are discriminatory, too. How can blind drivers accurately tell when the light has changed?

AP - The government discriminates against blind people by printing money that all looks and feels the same, a federal judge said Tuesday in a ruling that could change the face of American currency.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

08:04 /Politics | 2 comments | permanent link

28 Nov 2006
Canada backs Quebec nationhood

This is really getting eerie: I've blogged about the prescience of this tome before, but this one takes the cake: if you've still managed to avoid reading Friday by all means you should do so now. I think it's predictive accuracy level has passed those of all the sacred religious texts I've perused.

Canada's parliament approves a government motion recognising Quebec's people as a nation within Canada.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

18:04 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Truce declared in peace wreath battle

Proof positive that you don't own the land or a home that comes with restrictive covenants, you're just renting it. And paying taxes on it. And being held liable for any accidents that occur on it.

Ownership entails control: no control, no ownership. It's that simple. Covenants decreeing that only members of a certain race could occupy the property have been declared unenforceable: all restrictive covenants should be similarly deemed.

A subdivision has withdrawn its threat of $25 daily fines against a homeowner who put a Christmas wreath shaped like a peace sign on the front of her home.

(link) [CNN]

18:02 /Politics | 2 comments | permanent link

Free or Farmed, When Is a Fish Really Organic?

Of course free, wild fish can't be "organic" - they're not controlled, and labeling, be it of fish, vegetables or people, is all about control.

The products we sell here at Hammerstead are labeled "farm fresh" or "natural" or "free range" or "grass fed" - and I invite my customers to come out and inspect the property for themselves. We try to apply as little control as is practical to our livestock - and beyond disease control, fencing and chicken feed they're pretty "wild" and natural. I believe that this approach makes better tasting food that's better for you.

Wild fish, whose living conditions are not controlled, are not likely to meet the requirements for an “organic” label.

(link) [New York Times]

08:43 /Agriculture | 2 comments | permanent link

Afghan drug war will take a generation to win: study

Mark this date on your calendar: by December 2026 Afghanistan will no longer be producing opium poppies. Or marijuana. After all, those plants have only been cultivated there for the last 4000 years - surely it'll only take us twenty to eradicate the trade and force the happy Afghan farmers to grow cotton instead...

And if you believe that, I daresay you've been using some popular Afghan products!

Reuters - Afghanistan will take a generation to wipe out the opium trade, which is fed by graft and the grip of a small but increasingly powerful band of drug lords with political connections, a new U.N. and World Bank report says.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

08:23 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Nov 2006
Lot's Got's Done

around here yesterday, but unfortunately no blog post. Oh, well! All I wanted to do after I got inside was relax - I fixed fences, hatches and gates, replaced lights and loaded sheep. It was too pretty a day to waste, especially as snow is supposedly on the way for Thursday.

We sold off the rest of our Scottish Blackface sheep yesterday: they finished paying for the hay for the rest of the critters for the winter, so it's a good thing. We still have a few Horned Dorset's left, and the sheep in the Zoo Crew, but we're working our way out of the ovine biz, at least for the time being.

Still don't know when I'll be starting on the new job - should find out today. But I really wanted to get the hatches battened down for winter around here before I start trekking to Indy on a 9 to 5. Once I start that trip it'll be weekend work only on the farm, and that's going to be interesting, to say the least.

08:20 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

25 Nov 2006
Check Your Judgments, Eh?

Fascinating take on identity and anonymity on the 'Net. While is emphasis is on "adult communities", it's certainly applicable to all of our Internet activities - as Ben Franklin said (and this article quotes) "Three can keep a secret, if two are dead."

A conference about identity on the Internet almost succeeds in squashing the sex-positive optimism that usually permeates Sex Drive. Commentary by Regina Lynn.

(link) [Wired News: Top Stories]

08:14 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Giant Colonel Sanders visible from space

Well, this settles it. If we ever want to contact an alien civilization, we'll have to go to them. Because if they come here and see this, they'll keep right on going!

Kentucky Fried Chicken reckons it's the first company whose logo is visible from space after piecing together a huge mosaic of Colonel Sanders in the Nevada desert.

(link) [The Register]

08:10 /Humor | 2 comments | permanent link

'Crusader' takes on eBay to stop relics sales

Whoa! This guy is concerned that:

"...we want to make a point. They are taking the same position as Judas. They are selling out the church."

Perhaps he needs to broaden her horizons a bit - after all, eBay is not alone in making a buck off Holy Mother Church: a Google search turns up nearly 3 million hits for the term "Catholic sales"!

And if he's concerned about the thirty pieces of silver that ebay will collect for selling these imaginary bone bits, perhaps he needs to scale the amount up in his search for the real modern replacement for the original spiritual huckster turned religious profiteer. In an article from May of 2005, the Financial Times stated:

While it is not a corporation, the Church's financial assets, spending and workforce dwarf those of the largest companies in the world. In the US alone (with about 7 per cent of the world's Catholics), the Church has operating expenses of more than $100bn a year, employs more than one million people and controls an investment portfolio (including property) which, while not publicly disclosed, is probably of equally daunting proportions. Scaled up, the church could well be approaching a $1 trillion enterprise worldwide.

Summation: "boundless hypocrisy" doesn't begin to do this case justice.

Hardly an hour goes by without Thomas Serafin or one of his cyber-sleuths checking what eBay has to offer.

(link) [CNN.com]

08:06 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

24 Nov 2006
Trusted or Treacherous Computing?

Apparently, we shan't ever be allowed to own media - it's all going to be licensed, and what few rights we have left under current copyright law will go the way of the dodo.

Just because Richard Stallman is paranoid doesn't mean Microsoft's not out to get you. For a hint about the possible end-game of Microsoft's Trusted Computing Initiative, check out the patent application published Thanksgiving Day for Trusted License Removal, in which Microsoft describes how to revoke rights to render based on 'who the user is, where the user is located, what type of computing device or other playback device the user is using, what rendering application is calling the copy protection system, the date, the time, etc.' So much for Microsoft's you-should-have-control assurances.

(link) [Slashdot]

21:51 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Whew!

Today was the first day up at the Dull's Tree Farm this year - and I unloaded nearly 4 tons of hay before I left for the gig. I'm bushed. But it was a good day - the petting "Zoo Crew" we've put together is really a pretty special bunch, all gentle and friendly, and all with personalty plus. Annie and Pig made the cute cut, as did the goats (of course) and the inscrutable llama. We took Link, too, but Cory just doesn't have the right disposition for a festival crowd. Which is essentially what this is.

Things were slow today - the weather was exceptional, and it was thought that most folk believed it too warm to cut a Yule tree. There were folks running around in shorts! In Indiana, in November! Last year the temperature was below zero and we had snow already. Go figure.

One new addition this year is a gumball machine that we purchased to dispense sweet feed by the handful. For a quarter. Kids love to feed the critters, and this gives me a way to ration the amount they get fed, not to mention what they get fed. And it keeps on collecting the cash even when I can't be there - which is sweet. It's earned a permanent place in our lineup already!

I'll try to get some pix up in the next few weeks of the setup and the crew. But for right now it's a hot shower and a warm bed for me.

21:44 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

23 Nov 2006
Book Lovers Seek Lovers, Buttered or Plain

Man, The London Review of Books sounds like a publication that would be fun to read just for the "Personals" ... you can find the latest here. My favorite from this issue:

Young, charming, thoughtful, attractive, sporty, zesty, intelligent. None of these are me, but if you’d like to spend an afternoon or more considering alternative adjectives to be applied to 53-year old cantankerous dipshit, write now to box no 2202

Despite the articles assertion, it's not just the British who can appreciate this kind of reverse psychology. In fact, it really reminds me of the advertising strategy I spotted on a local bar's marquee: "Warm beer, lousy food, high prices - Come on in!". The parking lot was full.

Perhaps only someone from Britain could genuinely believe that a personal ad beginning, “Baste me in butter and call me Slappy,” might lead to romance with an actual, nonincarcerated person.

(link) [New York Times]

08:38 /Humor | 2 comments | permanent link

For Rare Few, Taste Is in the Ear of the Beholder

Nothing new here: I used to do this all the time, back in the 70's, when Tim Leary still had all the answers...

Julia Simner, a cognitive neuropsychologist, has identified 10 people who involuntarily “taste” words when they hear them.

(link) [New York Times]

07:56 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link