I don’t suppose it’s much of a revelation for me to acknowledge that blogging is a learn-as-you-go routine for me. I’m gratified that many individuals have found useful information and conversation here. It’s especially gratifying to know that so much of the benefit people realize comes from the experiences and knowledge that readers have been kind enough to share.
Because blogging is still a relatively new endeavor, there aren’t a lot of hard-and-fast rules. So I’ve come to trust my instinct in much of what I do here.
My decision to require registration was more instinctive than anything else. I sensed that an increasing number of discussions were being impeded by personal insults and inappropriate off-subject comments. I sensed that registration might help restore more of a sense of responsibility, and thereby civility–in the spirit of the guidelines David Kendall’s comment links to (“There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation…”)
The registration definitely wasn’t intended as a way to impose tight rules or give me a way to monitor people more closely, as Don Neeper suggests. I leave such matters to our bureaucrats. In fact, I’ve suggested to a few people who wrote me to complain about the registration that they consider signing on with phony names. The idea here is hopefully develop more of a sense of “ownership” of comments that goes with a consistent identity, whether true or false. I think everyone appreciates comments like those from people like Hugh Betcha and milk farmer, and I hope they’ll continue.
There’s nothing set in stone about the registration process. I’m open to changing it, or getting rid of it, as time goes on. But I would like to give it a reasonable trial.
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What happens when a country goes bankrupt? For an early clue, there’s a terrifying story from Bloomberg about rapidly developing food shortages in Iceland. It seems that the country’s currency has become nearly worthless in global markets, so overseas wholesalers won’t sell to Iceland’s retailers without payment in something other than the Icelandic currency (though a loan from Russia may tide the country over for a while).
What do you do if you are a citizen of Iceland? It seems as if you’ll need to either be growing some of your own food and/or be prepared to spend a huge percentage of your earnings on food and other essentials. If you want to travel abroad, you’ll need to have access to foreign currency or, even better, to gold.
Which brings me to another subject. I’ve been seeing recurring postings about shortages of gold coins and bullion in the U.S. and around the world. No one seems to be able to explain why–the price of gold has actually been pretty level over the last couple months–other than the fact that increasing numbers of Americans and others don’t want to be caught in the same position as those in Iceland.
If we’ve learned anything over the past couple of years it is this: If the government doesn’t want us to have access to some particular item, it’s probably because the product has lots of benefits that are helpful for ordinary people, but not necessarily for corporate interests. That’s why the “paradigm shift” Linda Diane Feldt describes in her comment on my previous post is well under way.
The retail price of gold and silver coins for sale at coin shops and web sites have for years been base on the London spot price plus a small markup for dealers to make a profit. The London spot price is a reflection of the gold and silver PAPER market trading and leasing of PMs. However due to the surging demand and short supply for physically held PMs the real retail price of physical PMs have decoupled from the spot price. There has been a great need recently for many who have held paper PMs to raise cash to cover other paper losses resulting in downward pressure on PM prices.
Demand has skyrocketted, coin shop supply is nearly nonexistant and there are shipping delay of months from the online sites but the price of gold in the last couple of months is down 20% and silver is down 40%. There is a foul odor here because this defies all normal market forces.
The PMs writers all say manipulation and heavy selling are the cause and will soon fail with gold and silver prices soaring. There is recent article on the GATA site that indicates possible government suppression of PM prices.
It is MHO and have stated so that the story of REAL MILK and REAL MONEY have the same theme and the same type of beneficial rewards.
For anyone interested here are a few sites with many articles that will tell the story about REAL MONEY and the robbery that we all have been victims of via the fiat paper money system.
Just Google The Silver Bear Cafe
321 Gold
GATA
Are we on the verge of a depression or is it a recession? During the depression many starved. Pellagra was prevalent in America, probably due to high consumption of corn and low protien intake. Simple vitimin deficiencies caused illness and/or deaths. Do people of today know what to look for and do they eat balanced diets? I know my diet is not always as it should to be considered healthy. With the costs of foods increasing here in the US, along with lost jobs, will that cause people to consume increasingly poor diets?
"Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn’t make money running a whore house and selling booze? "
I recieved this in an email the other day, thought it was struck a nerve in reference to the bailout.
Former US Comptroller General David Walker stated on the Bill Mahr show that the US has a $40 trillion dollars in OFF BALANCE SHEET LIABILITIES resulting in a $50 trillion dollar national debt and growing daily. How do we even grasp such numbers?
If the math is correct think about this. A dollar is 6 inches long it would take 10580 to equal one mile, the earth is 25000 miles in diameter so it would take 264.5 million to circle the earth once. Therefore $50 trillion IOU dollars laid end to end would circle the earth 189 times. How much is the interest we pay on $50 trillion dollars?
WHO WILL BAIL THE TAX PAYERS OUT AND HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
It will take more than the minor hurdles that rude, selfish, and vindictive fear mongerers precipitate, to prevent me from speaking out in regards to Truth.
We appreciate the opportunity to contribute, and can only hope that this blog, along with the comments being made, are making a difference in uncovering the truth about Natures Perfect Food, and the lies that are being proffered to conceal it.
Law,I mean common law, is a simple and a beautiful thing.It’s purpose is to enable us to live together in peace.It is all about our responsibilities to each other.In every interaction with another we must take responsibility for our actions and sometimes gently remind others of their responsibility to us.This is especially true when interacting with people who think they are in a position of authority.Sometimes they forget that they are public servants.In a traffic stop or in a court room there are rules that each party must follow in order to settle differences without violence.
When the red and blue lights started flashing,my responsibility was to pull over at the first spot that I judged to be safe.Safe, to me, is not on the side of the expressway with cars and semis a few feet away flying past at 70 mph.I took the next exit and stopped 50 yards short of the stop sign where the little traffic there was moved at 20 mph.I might have gone 3/4 of a mile with him glued to my bumper.I didn’t intend to give my consent to the search of my van,so to make this clear,I stepped out of the van ,locked the doors and put the keys in my pocket.I was driving an extra tall panel van with a refrigeration unit on the top.It was carrying a cargo of fresh food from our farm to farm supporters in the city.
To say he was upset with me would have been an understatement.He expected me to pull over on the shoulder of the expressway and to stay in the truck.I knew I had done the right thing because here it was relatively quiet and we could pay attention to what eachother was saying instead of being fearful of the traffic.After yelling at me about not stopping sooner and about getting out of the truck he demanded my ID etc.Now,I read the rule book so I know what is supposed to come next.He should have said good afternoon.I am officer ________ and I have pulled you over because__________________.Ok, no hard feelings,so I remind him by asking why did you stop me.We volleyed back and forth over this question and the demand for ID.At one point he said that I was supposed to comply with his orders.I responded "Oh are you giving me orders now?"He abandoned the demand for ID and told me:
"you are driving a commercial vehicle with no D O T number on it and no sign that tells what your business is." This was good news,because I happened to know just what the Federal and State motor vehicle codes said about commercial vehicles.
I asked him " Do you know what the legal definition of a commercial motor vehicle is?"
I think it was at this point that he became impatient with my questions.He grabbed me and handcuffed me ,took my keys out of my pocket and sat me down in the passenger seat of his police SUV.I protested the search without my permission.Inside the SUV he again asked me for my name.I asked if I was under arrest.He responded that I was and that I was going to jail. I asked him what I was being charged with. I told him that the requirement for a D O T number did not apply to my van since it’s GVW was under 10,000 lbs.He then fabricated a state law that required markings stating the business if the GVW was 5000 lbs or more.I asked him to show me that law.Next time,if a police officer does something like this I will ask him if he knows that gross negligence is equal to fraud.Gross negligence is when a police officer is enforcing a law when he doesn’t know what the law says.About this time he decided to call for backup, because he didn’t know how to deal with my questions.When his supervisor arrived,I could see right away that he was completely relaxed and more than a little amused by the whole situation.He talked to the Officer and then asked me what all of the fuss was about.I asked to be told why I had been stopped,why I was handcuffed and why I was being arrested.They took my keys and opened the front of the van.They only wanted to find my drivers license in order to identify me.They found it and opened the rear door of the van briefly, long enough to see a few crates of onions and potatoes.The milk was not visible from the rear doors ,only from the side door.Then the supervisor came over to me and asked why I had refused to Identify myself.
The reason is clear to me.Since the officer had the responsibility to me to clearly articulate the legitimate reason for stopping me and the reason he gave was not legitimate then the traffic stop was illegal and I had no obligation to identify my self nor to let them search me or the truck.
They removed the handcuffs,I thanked them.Then seargent _____ _______,with a smile said "do you have any more questions?" I thought for a moment. "yes" "What can I do to keep this from happening again?" The rookie officer said "I won’t stop you again,now that I know who you are." The seargent had a good suggestion.He recommended that I put some lettering on the truck that said "NOT FOR HIRE".This would let them know that this was not a commercial truck.Even better,I have decided to put the "NOT FOR HIRE" lettering on and also travel only on the secondary roads from now on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?th&emc=th
From what I’ve seen around the interwebs, there’s no place else where there’s such an animated and intelligent conversation about raw milk issues as right here. I’ve been meaning to join the discussion for a while now, but Don’s comment above prompted me to do it now.
From what I’ve read around the web, Michael Schmidt is unique in not allowing himself to be cowed by the actions of governments. He’s telling the press that he intends to keep right on fulfilling his contractual obligations to cowshare holders. i was in court with him today and when the discussion came round to sentencing, Michael asked the judge to give him the maximum sentence. However the judge declined to allow him to "throw himself on the sword of York Region" for political reasons.
The really nasty thing about this recent court case (for contempt) is that it can’t address the fundamental things he was charged with nearly two years ago now. That’ll be in January 2009. Meanwhile, according to the court order that he ‘s now convicted of violating, he’s essentially supposed to have shut down his livelihood for what, for two years, while the courts get around to processing his case.
Anyway, every time Michael appears in court, he gets massive positive publicity from local and national media. And the public opinion as reflected in the comments sections of local websites, like CTV, is more and more overwhelmingly positive. I just looked at the CTV site and they’ve closed the comments section — I dont’ know why, too many favourable comments, or their server couldn’t handle the traffic. I know Vince Laforet clocked over 500 comments on his post about a new Canon 5D camera, so I don’t know why the CTV site can only handle 50 or 100. My guess is they didn’t want the public to see just how overwhelming the support is for Michael’s case.
If you want to follow the blow by blow developments in the case, point your browser to http://thebovine.wordpress.com . We’ll be doing press reviews over the next day or so and Michael will have a statement on the outcome probably tomorrow.
And feel free to add your 2 cents worth to the discussions.
Is it even thinkable that this could ever happen to us here in the USA? There are some talking heads on CNBC that are now advising us to buy on the dips its a buying opportunity of a lifetime. However if one looks at the a chart plotting the stock market actions from 1929 thru 1933 it mirrors todays market begining in the summer of 2007. There are also a few not on TV of course that are warning that within a year TBills could default, also the world is now facing derivative defaults in the $1.25 QUADRILLION dollar range.
If only half of the above latter warning happens we wont need to worry about the local RAW MILK RAIDERS they will be just as destitute as we are.
CNBC just announced SEARS to close some stores, Circuit City said to close 100 stores Caterpillar to layoff employees, city government of Chicago to shut down for 6 days employees wont get paid and on and on. A new Merril Lynch manager that worked for 2 months and is laid off receiving a $25 million dollar severence pay package.
Paulson visited the NYSE today and stated the bailout is going well.
"A NATION OF SHEEP WILL BEGET A GOVERNMENT OF WOLVES"
EDWARD R MURROW
There is very little arable land in Iceland (hardly any trees, either) though sheep and goats are a good food resource, as are the puffins and fish/seafood. At least they have renewable energy, thanks to geothermal resources and living on top of the Atlantic Ridge, and active break in the earth’s crust.
So, I wonder how Iceland will receive aid from Europe and the US. Sacks of surplus grain, like the starving poor of Africa receive? Financial assistance? Overseas investment?
Will there be an Icelandic diaspora as the youth seek opportunities elsewhere, leaving their elders to hold the country together? Icelandic immigrants would probably be welcomed anywhere, with their nearly universal literacy and fluency in English (the Reykjavik teens sounded nearly like they were from California) and high levels of education. Or will they stick tight and fight for survival together?