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What you need to know about new credit card rules
http://current.com/items/92189917_what-you-need-to-know-about-new-credit-card-rules.htm?xid=45
On Monday, new federal regulations will take effect, changing the relationship between you and your card issuer.

The changes are part of the Credit Card Act of 2009, signed into law last May. Congress approved the legislation to end what consumer groups have called unfair and deceptive business practices. But critics say the heavier regulations will make credit cards more costly for everyone.

The Killing Fields - the battle to feed factory farms
The rapid spread of animal feed plantations across South America is wiping out rainforests and destroying the communities who have lived on the land for centuries. The Killing Fields lifts the lid on the battle to feed our factory farms.

Court approves raw milk co-op

Michael Schmidt -Glencolton Farms

Glencolton Farms starts its own study on raw versus pasteurized milk.

The Bovine

Seventy truckloads of meat bypassing Canada’s border inspection process since January 4th, 2010, faced NO real consequences or government action

Enviropigs “Trojan Horse” transgenics?
Excerpt from a National Post story by Sarah Schmidt titled “Genetically engineered pigs a step closer to dinner plate“:

Marler Clark reviews developments in recent raw milk controversy in Ontario

Here’s an excerpt from a recent story by Kristeva Dowling on the Ontario raw milk situation, with Michael Schmidt:
“Ontario made pasteurization of milk mandatory in 1938, but Health Canada did not make it mandatory until 1991. Canada bans the sale of raw milk but not its consumption.

Talking ’bout “food freedom” — and that doesn’t mean how many days of the year you will have to work to pay off your supermarket grocery bills for the year
A letter to the Brantford Expositor:

“A lot of folks believe that raw milk is bad and big brother should ban it and anyone drinking it, processing it or daring to say anything good about it….”
That’s how Bruce of “Bruce on the Bruce” blog opens his post titled “The Milkman’s being milked and we are being suckered!”.

Food police go after raw cheese makers — is it an economic war of attrition?
The following is excerpted from a Chelsea Green blog post by David E. Gumpert titled “Food Police Send Message to Raw Milk Cheese Makers: You Can Run But You Can’t Hide; Behind FTCLDF Criticism”:

U.S. psychiatrist contends that the same “emotional plague” that led to Wilhelm Reich’s imprisonment in 1957 is behind “official” opposition to raw milk today

Orgonomist blog author Richard Schwartzman, D.O. has been a practicing psychiatrist and psychiatric orgone therapist for more than 35 years.

Wilhem Reich -- radical thinker, scientist, pioneer, died in 1957, while he was being held in a U.S. prison.

In a post titled “The Government vs Raw Milk“, he explores the parallels between the “mentality” of FDA officials who presided over the imprisonment and destruction of orgone pioneer Wilhelm Reich, and the mindset behind the forces currently arrayed against raw milk.

80% favour raw milk sales in Yahoo poll
Yahoo news is asking whether raw milk sales should be prohibited.

Health care costs over time--how the US became so different & why conservatives can't fix it
http://current.com/items/92189482_health-care-costs-over-time-how-the-us-became-so-different-why-conservatives-cant-fix-it.htm?xid=45
( I consider the Democratic Party the other conservative party. In Canada the Liberal party is the other conservative party, in the U.K., Labour, etc. )

Richest 400 Taxpayers See Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved
http://current.com/items/92183632_richest-400-taxpayers-see-incomes-double-tax-rates-halved.htm

Do you have to be Jewish to report on Israel for the New York Times?

This reporter, who, unlike me, spends lots of time with the main press corps in Jerusalem, then made some interesting points. He wishes to remain anonymous but has agreed to my passing on his observations. He calls Bronner’s situation “the rule, not the exception”, adding: “I can think of a dozen foreign bureau chiefs, responsible for covering both Israel and the Palestinians, who have served in the Israeli army, and another dozen who like Bronner have kids in the Israeli army.”
He added that it is very common to hear Western reporters boasting to one another about their “Zionist” credentials, their service in the Israeli army or the loyal service of their children. “Comments like that are very common at Foreign Press Association gatherings [in Israel] among the senior, agenda-setting, elite journalists.”

Try to stay clear of Craigslist scams
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35356076/ns/technology_and_science-tech_andgadgets
One fellow even started a recreational blog called Exposing Scam Artists Who Use Craigslist, which is devoted to shining a light on the seedy underbelly of Craig Newmark's paradise. (Here's a 2004 interview with Craig. Note the last question and Craig's answer regarding his faith in mankind.)

The jobs section is well known for tricking otherwise intelligent people into unfortunate situations. Two of the most common ploys are to ask for up-front training fees and to solicit personal information (often via a legitimate-looking Web site) for "direct deposit" or "background check" purposes.

In a truly off-the-wall case, one guy hoodwinked 79 professionals into working for weeks on a sham project. Promising a $21,000 salary for two months worth of work, the charlatan set up a fake company, hired the group via e-mail, assigned seemingly real work and tricked a lot of people into giving up their time and personal information. It seems the entire effort was undertaken in the hopes of getting a woman's attention.

The lesson: Posts that offer high income with little to no experience, telecommuting without meeting your boss, initial fees and hiring without an interview are giant red flags that, in combination, should send you running.
( It sounds like the online variation of 'training' scams selling 'educational programs'. You'll be 'educated' out of pocket. )

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Quantum Physics Breakthrough: Scientists Find an Equation for Materials Innovation
Princeton engineers have made a breakthrough in an 80-year-old quandary in quantum physics, paving the way for the development of new materials that could make electronic devices smaller and cars more energy efficient.
By reworking a theory first proposed by physicists in the 1920s, the researchers discovered a new way to predict important characteristics of a new material before it's been created. The new formula allows computers to model the properties of a material up to 100,000 times faster than previously possible and vastly expands the range of properties scientists can study.

CARNIVOROUS PLANTS COULD YIELD LIFE-SAVING DRUGS
compounds that are natural anti-fungal agents

Ancient DNA Reveals Caribou History Linked to Volcanic Eruption
DNA recovered from ancient caribou bones reveals a possible link between several small unique caribou herds and a massive volcanic eruption that blanketed much of the Alaskan Yukon territory in a thick layer of ash 1,000 years ago, reports research published in Molecular Ecology.

Image by Fozzeee via Flickr

Round bales are what I'm playing with at this time of year, using a garbage-truck style loading system and flat spoons to hold 20 6' diameter 5' deep bales per load : up to 14.3 Tonnes, or 16 Tons.. Drought has driven up the price ( $120/bale a couple of miles from here! $70 bales have actually been sold instead of asked, however. 'Normal' would be more like $40-60 ) and killed quantities. Locally yield is about 1 bale per acre...instead of 4 to 6. Poor market price from previous years, loss of PMU barns for female hormones from horses, Mad Cow Disease and export to the U.S. drying up over past years have changed the grassland and herds of cows to fields of grain.Hay price is rather academic : first you have to find some.

Independent Farmers Feel Squeezed By Milk Cartel

The price of raw milk paid to farmers has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years. Dairy farms are going under across the country, and a few dairymen have grown so desperate they've taken their own lives.

As the crisis deepens, criticism grows that dairy giants are trying to monopolize the industry, to the detriment of independent farmers and consumers.

Shorty Miller owns a small dairy in central Texas. Like nearly every other dairy farmer in America, she's angry. Milk prices in the supermarket have come down only slightly, but the price she gets for the raw milk from her Holsteins has dropped nearly in half.

Borden milk is $3.99 a gallon. Oak Farms, which is bottled locally, is $3.49 a gallon, and that's a sale price," Miller says, pointing to cartons of milk in the dairy case at Brookshire's Grocery in McGregor, Texas.

How long can Miller's dairy hold out being squeezed the way it is?

"Depends on how long the bankers will work with us. If we want to put up everything we've worked 40 years for, we can hold out a little longer. But do we want to?" Miller says. "I don't think the American public realizes where the milk comes from. Or what they're going to do if we don't have fresh milk."

Joel Greeno runs a dairy farmer near Kendall, Wis., and also founded a medium-sized dairy co-op. An activist for family farms, Greeno is one of many dairy farmers who accuse Dairy Farmers of America is hurting independent farmers.

As the dairy industry concentrates into fewer and fewer players, some farmers complain it's killing off independents and reducing options for consumers who want to buy locally.

And they're speaking out.

Rebecca Goodman and her husband run a 120-year-old dairy in Sauk County, Wis.

"We all worship at the altar of the free market — that's what we're taught as good Americans," Goodman said on the air. "But I don't know what is free about a handful of companies controlling the process from beginning to end."

In the 30 years Hardin has been writing about the dairy industry, he has chronicled the decline of the family farm and the rise of "Big Milk." Hardin believes the fundamental problem with the dairy industry is a lack of honest competition and too little government oversight.

Milk By The Numbers

22.2 billion — Gallons of raw milk produced annually by American dairy farmers

21 — Gallons of milk consumed annually per capita in the United States

4,600 — Number of dairy farms that have been closing each year for the past two decades

648,000 — Number of dairymen in America in 1970

60,000 — Number of dairymen left in America today

104 — Percent of growth of large dairy farms (more than 2,000 cattle) between 2000 and 2006

$12.5 billion — Net sales of Dean Foods, nation's largest processor of fluid milk, in 2008

31 — Percent gain in Dean Foods' profits in second quarter of 2009

40-50 — Percent drop in prices paid for raw milk to dairy farmers in 2009 compared to 2008

2 — Number of California dairy farmers who have committed suicide in 2009

Sources: USDA, Dean Foods, National Milk Producers Federation, NPR interviews with dairymen

"That's why we have reached, in my opinion, the point we have reached, where farm prices are so abysmal," Hardin says. "And we know the money is in the marketplace — we see what the consumer's paying for these dairy products. If the farmer would get a fair share of that, we wouldn't be having this discussion."

Pass the prion: Inherited mutation leads to spontaneous prion infectivity
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/pass-prion-inherited-mutation-leads-spontaneous-prion-infectivity-24454.html

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A new study with transgenic mice provides the first concrete evidence that a disease-associated prion protein mutation in an otherwise normal mammalian brain can generate a unique self-perpetuating transmissible agent that is infectious to other animals.

NPR Health Blog

Employer Health Insurance Costs Keep Rising

Big insurers surveyed by Aon Consulting figure the cost of health coverage provided by employers will rise more than 10 percent between spring of this year and next.

Your boss might make you pay more to get coverage, reduce your benefits or dole out a smaller raise (if anybody even gets those anymore).

Free online textbooks are now available

Calling online textbooks a boon to student achievement and school district coffers, state Education Secretary Glen Thomas announced Tuesday that 10 free digital high school math and science texts are available for use in California classrooms.

But the likelihood of students tapping into them is virtually nonexistent, primarily because of school districts' textbook approval policies and teacher-training needs, educators said.

Web Firms Find Paths To Profits: Free Vs. Fees

Cave Sleepers: mom, dad and three kids in a 17,000-square-foot surprise

photogallery

House price rise hits 5 year high - England and Wales

The Energy Matrix – A Solution to Pollution

The price of our power needs to represent the cost of creation – namely we must include the environmental cost of production and the externalities they cause. In the case of a coal-fired power station, this would incorporate the environmental impact of extracting raw coal, its delivery and the cost of carbon and pollution produced. Renewable energy sources should not be excluded from this examination – we must also lay the same ground rules and establish the environmental cost of a solar field or a new dam. It is only when we can accurately measure the true holistic cost of the power we consume that we can start to determine its value. It is only when we understand the true value of consuming energy that we can judge what constitutes wise usage. If it suddenly costs $100 more to fly from New York to San Francisco (because the true cost of producing energy at 37,000ft has a greater cost), it would better enable the consumer to make a decision about the value of their journey.

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