It’s About Making Babies!

View from the Porch‘s Tam alerts to this piece of Big Government Tyranny. Thanks, Tam. It turns out the proposed NAIS – National Animal Identification System – was an inspiration to bozos buying votes with fear.

Linn Cohen-Cole gives a good rundown on this scary piece of tyranny, Goodbye Farmers Markets, CSAs, and Roadside Stands

The full text of the bill is at GovTrack.us H.R. 875: Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009

We just had people die, and disrupt lots and lots of food and lives, from the e. coli in peanut butter. So, what could be more safe than to require everyone that grows food and sells it off their farm – register with a new federal agency – the Food Safety Administration.

This registration includes random, at least annual, federal inspection. Safety records have to be in order. $1,000,000 fines. Per offense.

That is, they *really* want to punish anyone with the capital and assets to produce food.

From Crptogon’s review of the proposed law:

Does this really apply to fruit and vegetables? Yes.

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

…

(12) FOOD- The term ‘food’ means a product intended to be used for food or drink for a human or an animal and components thereof.

How does this affect farmers who just sell fruit and vegetables at farmers markets?

SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

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(9) CATEGORY 5 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term ‘category 5 food establishment’ means a food establishment that stores, holds, or transports food products prior to delivery for retail sale.

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13) FOOD ESTABLISHMENT-

(A) IN GENERAL- The term ‘food establishment’ means a slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse, or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores, or transports food or food ingredients.

That is, if you grow it, and you take it off your property to sell – you are a food establishment. If you haul your corn or wheat to the elevator, if you haul your cows to the sale barn – you are a food establishment.

If you grow it and someone else hauls it off – you are still a food production facility, and the FSA will be watching your records and premises. It is forbidden to forbid entry by FSA to inspect the operation or copy records. It is forbidden to fail to register.

Monsanto – GMO and “Better living through the chemistry we sell”.

It is interesting to note, among the rationale’s for this bill (emphasis added).

SEC. 2. FINDINGS; PURPOSES.

(a) Findings- Congress finds that–

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(5) the task of preserving the safety of the food supply of the United States faces tremendous pressures with regard to–

(A) emerging pathogens and other contaminants and the ability to detect all forms of contamination;

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(E) maintenance of rigorous inspection of the domestic food processing and food service industries;

(6) Federal food safety standard setting, inspection, enforcement, and research efforts should be based on the best available science and public health considerations, and food safety resources should be systematically deployed in ways that most effectively prevent food-borne illness;

Note that the wife of the author of this bill works for Monsanto.

Also under Findings; Purposes:

(b) Purposes- The purposes of this Act are–

(1) to establish an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services to be known as the ‘Food Safety Administration’ to–

(A) regulate food safety and labeling to strengthen the protection of the public health;

…

(C) lead an integrated, systemwide approach to food safety and to make more effective and efficient use of resources to prevent food-borne illness;

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(4) to establish that food establishments have responsibility to ensure that all stages of production, processing, and distribution of their products or products under their control satisfy the requirements of this law.

(5) CATEGORY 1 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term ‘category 1 food establishment’ … that slaughters, for the purpose of producing food, animals that are not subject to inspection under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or poultry that are not subject to inspection under the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

(6) CATEGORY 2 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term ‘category 2 food establishment’ means a seafood processing establishment or other food establishment (other than a category 1 establishment) not subject to inspection under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, or the Egg Products Inspection Act, that processes raw seafood or other raw animal products, whether fresh or frozen, or other products that the Administrator determines by regulation to pose a significant risk of hazardous contamination.

…

(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.

Notice the Cat 2 establishment includes whole milk, currently used for organic products such as soap, and for pet food. The pet food angle means, yep, feds watch that operation, too. Prepare to document and record.

Don’t let the “farm, ranch” list throw you. If you have something that goes into food for people or animals to sell or barter – you are a farm or ranch. Get ready to register.

Or protest this insanity – let your Congressman and Senators know you won’t be happy if this “change” gets passed.

I know, I know. “It does no good to stand and yell “You’re stupid!” at the village idiot.” You aren’t helping the idiot, and you make yourself look silly, yelling and being useless.

See, Tam, at View from the Porch, decries Liberty Girl‘s post about “The Day The Earth Got Slightly Dizzy.” Tam, on “Just when you think you’ve heard the dumbest thing ever…“:

Folks, I think we’ve finally found people who are actually too dumb to qualify for a new career as Soylent Green.

The topic: Electricity generating windvane farms. Specifically – opponents. Liberty Girl is ridiculing health concerns, Tam is amazed at the lack of insight, lack of fact, and lack of knowledge in Liberty Girl’s passionate rebuttal of detractors of her, apparently beloved, windvane farms.

My own understanding is that, after federal subsidies for windvane generators run out – they barely pay for themselves, mostly. Like many enterprises, some few are cost effective most of the time.

Back to the flying fur. Read Liberty Girl’s piece, it looks almost reasonable, if snide, arrogant, and disrespectful of opposing opinions. I am sure you have seen similar pot shots taken in sound bites on the news, many times.

I am not a scientist. There are a few points that I disagree with Libery Girl about. About a comment of the wind vanes through the sun could cause seizures:

Oh. Mah. Gad.

First off, what kind of a moron is standing there watching turbine blades going around?? A work-shirking Class Two moron, that’s what kind.

I believe the condition is called “photo-triggered epileptic seizure”. Flashing lights, early video games first started identifying people that had been blissfully unaware they had epilepsy. Who knew. Remember those annoying blinking ads we used to see on so many sites? TV found they weren’t allowed to discount the photo-triggered seizure thing, and follow guidelines to avoid causing the seizures. So I think on this point, Libery Girl is not just insensitive, but quite firmly – wrong. Good call, Tam.

On Liberty Girl’s other pointed critique, the report she cites discusses sub-sonic sound effect on people. I had understood that subsonics triggered everything from feelings of terror and paranoia to panic attacks. Apparently Liberty Girl didn’t bother checking on this line of concern, either.

Yeah, not so much. Just a work-shirking moron of a doctor and his cohorts, all who appear to have waaay too much fucking Intertubes-surfing time. If I were the administration of that hospital, I’d be Asking Some Questions.

I am not sure why Liberty Girl was so troubled by the SunJournal article. The article lists some expressed concerns about a new project near Roxbury, ME, and how state and local authorities have responded so far.

Liberty Girl just looks so silly, standing there yelling “You’re stupid!”, not helping those she yells at and looking useless. I question her ability to identify the village idiot, too, but that is just me.

If you missed Tam’s reference to Soylent Green, this is the company / substance / food at the heart of the classic 1973 Charleton Heston movie – it is processed dead people (and some just considered “extra”).