NAIS Isn’t Official, Is It? To Tami Mascho, It’s Looking Like a Well-Oiled Machine

Source: David Gumpert, The Complete Patient.

Last week, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund sponsored a teleseminar about the National Animal Identification System. One of the speakers was John Carter, a fifth-generation Australian cattleman, who spoke about the Australian experience with its equivalent of NAIS.

It was a frightening talk, about how Australia has assembled an army of bureaucrats to enforce premises and cattle registration. Not only are the costs much higher than originally estimated, but many of the government’s records are inaccurate, leading to long and frustrating efforts to correct things, if they can even be corrected. It sounded like Big Brother run amok, and if I understood correctly, the Australian system just applies to cattle, not to all farm animals, as the current NAIS model is envisioned.

I also thought about the story I had heard just prior to the teleseminar, of Tami Mascho’s experience buying a miniature Nubian goat.

Tami lives in upstate New York on an acre of land and has raised Nubian goats for the last 13 years, mostly as a hobby. She milks a few to supply her family of eight and sells a few kids each spring.

Three months ago, she ordered a Nubian goat from Wisconsin. The seller went through the required process of having the goat examined and vaccinated by a veterinarian, and filed required forms in connection with tuberculosis eradication with Wisconsin and New York agriculture agencies, so the goat could be shipped to Tami.

A few weeks after the goat arrived safely in New York, Tami had a visit from an agent from New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets. “She asked me a few questions about how many goats I have and what I do with them. She was taking some notes. But I never signed anything.”

In late March, Tami received a packet of materials in the mail from NY Ag and Markets—including a letter that “serves as notification that your business has been successfully registered” with NAIS and a “Certificate of Registration” (pictured above).

The problem with all this, from Tami’s viewpoint, is that not only did she not request a premises identification number, but she is against NAIS and wants nothing to do with it.

She wrote the state nearly two months ago to opt out of the system. But, surprise, surprise, that hasn’t gone nearly as smoothly as the registration. No one’s responded to her letter. When she calls to find out where things stand, she gets “the runaround,” she says. “They say they are backed up and haven’t been able to get to it.”

Sounds a little like when you want to cancel your cable TV, or your life insurance, doesn’t it? Signing up goes so quickly and smoothly, and opting out, well, that seems to be so complicated.

Update on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 03:52PM by The Complete Patient

As a couple of people noted in the comments following this posting, Mary Zanoni, a long-time and outspoken NAIS opponent, has filed suit against the USDA over its refusal to fulfill Freedom of Information Act requests. I have posted the suit here.

Marines to begin martial law training in Indianapolis

Source: dailynewscasters.

Under the guise of urban warfare training the 26th Expeditionary Unit an elite group of U.S. Marines will conduct a martial law training exercise at 26 “surrendered” locations in central Indiana from June 4th thru the 17th. While state officials and media are doing their best to assure the public that this military takeover of civilian property is somehow a good thing, ignoring the Posse Comitatus Act which fundamentally prohibits these types of exercises. These two weeks of training are also a contradiction of military tradition against deployments among the civilian population dating back to the end of the Civil War. Why then are the citizens of Indianapolis and six other Indiana towns being made to take part in two weeks of patrols and ambushes?

Local news station WTHR 6 reports, “That in the interest of national security the sights and sounds of war will be brought to Indianapolis.” Why do residents of Indianapolis need to learn the sights and sounds of war? Could it be a conditioning process? Considering that numerous urban training environments which exist within military bases in the U. S. and around the globe the explanation of “a need to train in realistic urban zones” is doubtful. More likely the real purpose is to condition the civilian population and military personnel to living under martial law. Too many this hypotheses may sound farfetched, that is until you realize the plans for martial law and the detention of U.S. citizens have already been made. (Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,” gives the executive the power to invoke martial law.)

Most Americans are completely unaware of the Continuity of Government Commission created in the fall of 2002 to study and make recommendations for the continuity of government institutions after a catastrophic attack. This commission is made up primarily of professional lobbyists. The plans approved from this commission advocates a constitutional amendment calling for the appointment of individuals to the House of Representatives to fill the seats of dead or incapacitated members, a first in American history. I will say that again: our representative government will cease to exist as individuals to the House of Representatives will be appointed and not elected. An examination of the proposal reveals that it is both unnecessary and dangerous.

It saddens this U.S. Army veteran to see our Armed Forces misused by those who have no respect for our nation’s laws or traditions.

US, Israel and the media charade on Iran!

By Debbie Menon, Khaleej Times.

The US actions on the ground in the past six years speak louder than words, but, the world media has been busily debating and discussing the smoke and mirrors which US-Israel throws out in its charade. Peace Laureates Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu et al have been lamenting and wringing their hands about the truth, in recent weeks. But everyone will continue swallowing the stories and distractions thrown up by US-Israel charade, as if they were the real thing, which they are not.

US and Israel have been effectively and efficiently destroying Palestine now for sixty years, and the debate and discussions in the media still go on today, just as serious and hopeful as ever, as if it were real; and now they talk about the same threat from Iran that they spoke of Iraq, as if it were real! C’mon!

The mainstream media will ignore a lot of facts and history which say that the Iran objective is not a question of policy change, nuclear armament or disarmament, or even simple regime change in Iran, but is, instead the same as it has always been, to wit: Israel wants Iran destroyed as a state and Balkanized in the manner in which they have done Palestine, and the US has done in Iraq and will settle for nothing less! All else is wind. A charade!

The name of the game is “Destroy Iran”. Not because it is a threat to Israel, because it isn’t, not because they are a nuclear threat, for they aren’t; but simply because it stands in the way of Israeli domination of the entire Middle East, and all that oil under their soil belongs to America, anyway, so let’s go get it like they did Iraq!

To rationalise, discuss, describe and debate the non-issues of policy, regime change, nuclear weaponry, peaceful nuclear power development and all this US-Israeli cover story which US mainstream media peddles is to play into the hands of the US-Israel propaganda campaign, as if it were real, and ignore their actual motives and objectives: Destroy Iran! Utterly!

Most mainstream journalists have always been fence straddlers, go along-get along types, and has, and have simply failed to come to grips with the bottom line in this US-Israel plot either because they are too ignorant, too timid, or like their jobs too much. So while everyone else bickers and dickers over the non-issues which these journalists and their brothers write about, the US-Israeli, Zionist-American panzer is on the road and rolling and their target is Teheran. Keep your eye on the left hand, and you will never see what the right hand is doing… it is picking your pocket, and stealing the rabbit out of your hat.

The Zionist plan is incredible; the ramblings of anti-Semites, madmen, a phoney anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about ‘The Elders Of Zion’ who do not even exist, and all of that…so, the Plan is not real. But what is happening on the ground, and has been happening for 60 and more years, is real. And when you compare notes, it sounds as if someone is playing the score perfectly and not missing a single note!

It looks like the same thing, and is having the same affect whether “planned” or not! One by one, create dissention and division among each and all of Israel’s neighbors, until they are so embroiled in their own turmoil that they are not only no longer a threat to Israel, but a pushover like Palestine for eventual occupation. Well, Palestine has not become the “pushover” they thought it was going to be, but Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, et al have become.

There are parallels, between the media rhetoric about Iraq’s nuclear threat prior to the US invasion and the rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear programme today. In repeatedly misinterpreting the statements of Iran’s Ahmadinejad, the US-Israel media paints him as the Hitler of the Middle East. There was no reality check before Iraq and there is no reality check now.

The Iranian military is a fifth rate force, equivalent to a National Guard army with no defensive capabilities or ability to take troops across water. Iran has no air force because US sanctions prevent Iran from buying spare parts for its aircraft. And Iran is left with virtually navy after the US sank the Iranian fleet in an unpublicised attack during the first Gulf War in 1991. The endless sanctions imposed on Iran are really about the US-Israel campaign to cripple Iran’s economy.

Concerning Iran’s nuclear threat, Mohamed ElBaradei of IAEA has repeatedly said that there is no evidence of Iran using nuclear material for military use. But – as in the case of Iraq in 2003 – the US Administration argues that Iran has dangerous intentions concerning nuclear ambitions. The administration seems to think that this is enough to justify a US intervention. The “threat” that the US would have the world believe is not consistent with reality.

The excuses, arguments, issues, et al, are all a charade and have nothing to do with the why and what, of what America and Israel are doing to all these states in the Middle East, and what they are going to do to Iran. Iran has been around a helluva lot longer than America and most of Europe. They have had better days. Why should they dance to some petty carnival fiddler’s tunes when they have a history of having had some of the finest orchestras that the world has ever known?

The much-talked about Mafioso offer made recently to Iran by the six power nations “that just cannot be refused,” works only in places like America, and American movies. When offered to men of principle, who have centuries of moral conviction and history behind them, it’s a laughingstock proposition…the suggestion of a fool!

With the failure of US leadership in the Middle East, or more correctly, their diminishing ability to “twist arms,” and make offers which no one can refuse, there seems to be a power vacuum. In such a situation, there is the possibility that the Middle Eastern countries themselves might work out their problems – as they did in Lebanon last week. An even-handed settlement is what Qatar put together. It succeeded.

It is possible. Whether it is probable, we will never know until they have been given the opportunity to try. They have never had, or been allowed the opportunity, so what is there to lose except of course Western hegemony which has been the real obstacle to Middle East peace and prosperity, since the days of Richard Coeur de Leon?

The patient has been sick for a long, long time. He will be a long time recovering!

Study secretly tracks cell phone users outside US

By Seth Borenstein, Yahoo News.

WASHINGTON – Researchers secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people outside the United States through their cell phone use and concluded that most people rarely stray more than a few miles from home.

The first-of-its-kind study by Northeastern University raises privacy and ethical questions for its monitoring methods, which would be illegal in the United States.

It also yielded somewhat surprising results that reveal how little people move around in their daily lives. Nearly three-quarters of those studied mainly stayed within a 20-mile-wide circle for half a year.

The scientists would not say where the study was done, only describing the location as an industrialized nation.

Researchers used cell phone towers to track individuals’ locations whenever they made or received phone calls and text messages over six months. In a second set of records, researchers took another 206 cell phones that had tracking devices in them and got records for their locations every two hours over a week’s time period.

The study was based on cell phone records from a private company, whose name also was not disclosed.

Study co-author Cesar Hidalgo, a physics researcher at Northeastern, said he and his colleagues didn’t know the individual phone numbers because they were disguised into “ugly” 26-digit-and-letter codes.

That type of nonconsensual tracking would be illegal in the United States, according to Rob Kenny, a spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission. Consensual tracking, however, is legal and even marketed as a special feature by some U.S. cell phone providers.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Nature, opens up the field of human-tracking for science and calls attention to what experts said is an emerging issue of locational privacy.

“This is a new step for science,” said study co-author Albert-Lazlo Barabasi, director of Northeastern’s Center for Complex Network Research. “For the first time we have a chance to really objectively follow certain aspects of human behavior.”

Barabasi said he spent nearly half his time on the study worrying about privacy issues. Researchers didn’t know which phone numbers were involved. They were not able to say precisely where people were, just which nearby cell phone tower was relaying the calls, which could be a matter of blocks or miles. They started with 6 million phone numbers and chose the 100,000 at random to provide “an extra layer” of anonymity for the research subjects, he said.

Barabasi said he did not check with any ethics panel. Hidalgo said they were not required to do so because the experiment involved physics, not biology. However, had they done so, they might have gotten an earful, suggested bioethicist Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania.

“There is plenty going on here that sets off ethical alarm bells about privacy and trustworthiness,” Caplan said.

Studies done on normal behavior at public places is “fair game for researchers” as long as no one can figure out identities, Caplan said in an e-mail.

“So if I fight at a soccer match or walk through 30th Street train station in Philly, I can be studied,” Caplan wrote. “But my cell phone is not public. My cell phone is personal. Tracking it and thus its owner is an active intrusion into personal privacy.”

Paul Stephens, policy director at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego, said the nonconsensual part of the study raises the Big Brother issue.

“It certainly is a major concern for people who basically don’t like to be tracked and shouldn’t be tracked without their knowledge,” Stephens said.

Study co-author Hidalgo said there is a difference between being a statistic – such as how many people buy a certain brand of computer – and a specific example. The people tracked in the study are more statistics than examples.

“In the wrong hands the data could be misused,” Hidalgo said. “But in scientists’ hands you’re trying to look at broad patterns…. We’re not trying to do evil things. We’re trying to make the world a little better.”

Knowing people’s travel patterns can help design better transportation systems and give doctors guidance in fighting the spread of contagious diseases, he said.

The results also tell us something new about ourselves, including that we tend to go to the same places repeatedly, he said.

“Despite the fact that we think of ourselves as spontaneous and unpredictable … we do have our patterns we move along and for the vast majority of people it’s a short distance,” Barabasi said.

The study found that nearly half of the people in the study pretty much keep to a circle little more than six miles wide and that 83 percent of the people tracked mostly stay within a 37-mile wide circle.

But then there are the people who are the travel equivalent of the super-rich, said Hidalgo, who travels more than 150 miles every weekend to visit his girlfriend. Nearly 3 percent of the population regularly go beyond a 200-mile wide circle. Less than 1 percent of people travel often out of a 621-mile circle.

But most people like to stay much closer to home. Hidalgo said he understands why: “There’s a lot of people who don’t like hectic lives. Travel is such a hassle.”

Are tomatoes the kickoff to food-illness season?

Source: The Ethicurean.

Ugh. Looks like our industrial food system is cranking out the salmonella for broad distribution again. That’s the word from the latest Food and Drug Administration consumer alert. The current culprit: tomatoes. Where? Texas and New Mexico. Oh, and maybe Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, and Utah, too.

Thank goodness I know my tomato growers. You can know yours, too. Check out Local Harvest and the Eatwell Guide. It’s also not too late to plant your own.

House Democrats cut unemployment extension to fund wars

Proving yet again that there’s only one political party in the U.S., The War Party.

By John Byrne, The Raw Story.

Seeking to find a way to win over fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” members of their own caucus, House Democrats are planning to ax a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits to find a way to pay for the Iraq war.

The move comes against the wishes of the Senate: the unemployment benefit passed without incident there, with 75 senators supporting the final bill.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told the Washington Post yesterday that the unemployment insurance provision would “probably not” be part of the final package of war and domestic spending.

The bill provides funding for President Bush’s Iraq and Afghan wars. It also provides a new educational benefit for military servicemembers — at $52 billion. The Senate has passed Bush’s war bill already, at $250 billion for 10 years; the House bill settles at $165 billion, and also includes funding for some domestic measures.

Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) oppose the military educational benefit, saying it is too expensive and will drain troops from active service. The benefit, introduced by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), offers enough money to cover all university charges, up to the cost of the most expensive public university in a veteran’s home state.

Hoyer told the Post the final version of the bill won’t come to the House floor until at least next week, while members negotiate between the chambers.

With Reuters