Author: Harold

Writer’s Block: Book review

None. If I were the librarian at a school there’s nothing I’d ban outright, nor prevent a student from borrowing via inter-library loan.
I can’t state, however, that my own personal prejudices wouldn’t color the collection and limit immediate choice, though I’d try my best.

Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell: Really fascinating series of articles on the “take this survey” method of paying for online games.

Steak House or Gay Bar?: This is a great party game.

Amazon.com: Verbatim 8x 4.7 GB DVD+R Digital Movie Spindle (25 Discs): Electronics: I love these for burning video for DVD playback.

Researchers to perform sex change operation on papaya: Standard GMO stuff, but great headline.

Ring species – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: This settles the debate I was having with myself over whether dogs could be considered a single species or a multitude.

How to Make a Wood Walking Cane: Video Series | eHow Videos:

Canes & Walking Sticks:

Make Your Own Walking Sticks – How to Craft Canes and Staffs from Rustic to Fancy: With my Achilles tendon injury I’ve been considering using a cane for the times I need to just stand still and I’m rather determined to just make my own instead of buying one.

Clearing some tabs

Rental Goats Clear Brush Better, Beat Cosmonauts in Space Race | GOOD: Awesome

PLoS ONE: Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time: …

“Do I have the right to refuse this search?” | Homeland Security Watch: Awesome column about the effectiveness of airport security.

Lenore Skenazy: As Goes Halloween, So Goes Childhood: Free-range children taste so much better than regular ones.
Seriously though, I have to wonder if the scare-mongering behind tainted candy wasn’t started by the candy manufacturers.

Make: Online : Low Resolution: Awesome costume.

Current Mood: 😡angry

Keep Big Ag out of the White House – Say No to Monsanto – CropLife

Got this from one of my mailing lists

Dear Friend,

A serious breach of trust has occurred.

During his campaign, President Obama routinely spoke about closing the revolving door between powerful corporate interests and government service. And now we are finding he hasn’t lived up to his word.

Click here to keep to Big Ag out of the White House:  http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/65?akid=.40351.cHSwz9&t=1&referring_akid=.85947.ek_8ER&source=taf

Last month, Obama nominated two “Big Ag” power brokers–Roger Beachy and Islam Siddiqui–to key government positions, putting agribusiness executives in charge of our country’s agricultural research and trade policy.

As the former head of the Donald Danforth Plant Research Center in St. Louis, MO, Beachy has led a long career of promoting failed GMO technologies and working closely Monsanto. Now the head of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Beachy controls where research funds are spent in the U.S. This is not good news for proponents of sustainable and organic agriculture.

For his part, Siddiqui, who last month was nominated to be the Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the Office of the US Trade Representative, has been a registered pesticide lobbyist and most recently the Vice President of Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America. In a previous stint at the USDA, Siddiqui was responsible for trying to set the national organic standards to allow irradiation, sewage sludge and GMOs to be considered “organic.” Fortunately, over 230,000 outraged Americans rose up and stopped this.

Most recently, Siddiqui’s CropLife MidAmerica sent First Lady Michelle Obama a letter saying that her “organic” garden made the pesticide lobby group “shudder”. Who would have thought months later that President Obama would be trying to give a lobbyist like Siddiqui a job?

While Beachy is already at work at the USDA, Sidduiqi must be confirmed by the Senate. We have until Nov. 4th, (when the Senate Finance Committee will vote) to make a difference.

Please join us in telling the President that this isn’t the change we were hoping for: we don’t want Big Ag running the show any more.  Please help us to gather our goal of 50,00 signatures before Siddiqui’s nomination next week.

Click here to add your voice.  http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/65?akid=.40351.cHSwz9&t=1&referring_akid=.85947.ek_8ER&source=taf

Please forward this email to at least 5 of your friends and ask them to sign up at Food Democracy Now!.  Let’s keep Obama honest about who he puts in positions of power.