USDA finds largest organic dairy perpetrating fraud fails to levy fines or yank certification
Watchdog: Organic Community “Taking the Law into Its Own Hands”
CORNUCOPIA, WI: Announcing the filing of additional legal complaints with the USDA, and threatening civil litigation, the nation's most aggressive organic watchdog, The Cornucopia Institute, blasted the USDA for not penalizing the industry's largest organic milk producer after government regulators found that they have perpetrated consumer fraud by violating the federal organic labeling law.
On August 29, the USDA announced that Colorado-based Aurora Organic Dairy had willfully violated 14 provisions of the regulations of Organic Food Production Act. Aurora operates a dairy processing facility in Colorado and five giant factory-farms in Texas and Colorado. The USDA investigation began after the agency was alerted to organic irregularities at Aurora’s operations over two years ago.
CORNUCOPIA, WI: Announcing the filing of additional legal complaints with the USDA, and threatening civil litigation, the nation's most aggressive organic watchdog, The Cornucopia Institute, blasted the USDA for not penalizing the industry's largest organic milk producer after government regulators found that they have perpetrated consumer fraud by violating the federal organic labeling law.
On August 29, the USDA announced that Colorado-based Aurora Organic Dairy had willfully violated 14 provisions of the regulations of Organic Food Production Act. Aurora operates a dairy processing facility in Colorado and five giant factory-farms in Texas and Colorado. The USDA investigation began after the agency was alerted to organic irregularities at Aurora’s operations over two years ago.
Here’s the smell of the blood still
When Martin Luther King Jr. publicly referred to “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government,” he had no way of knowing that his description would ring so true 40 years later. As the autumn of 2007 begins, the reality of Uncle Sam as an unhinged mega-killer haunts a large minority of Americans. Many who can remember the horrific era of the Vietnam War are nearly incredulous that we could now be living in a time of similarly deranged official policy.
Despite all the differences, the deep parallels between the two war efforts inform us that the basic madness of entrenched power in our midst is not about miscalculations or bad management or quagmires. The continuity tells us much more than we would probably like to know about the obstacles to decency that confront us every day.
The incredulity and numbing, the frequent bobbing-and-weaving of our own consciousness, the hollow comforts of passivity, insulate us from hard truths and harsher realities than we might ever have expected to need to confront -- about our country and about ourselves.
Despite all the differences, the deep parallels between the two war efforts inform us that the basic madness of entrenched power in our midst is not about miscalculations or bad management or quagmires. The continuity tells us much more than we would probably like to know about the obstacles to decency that confront us every day.
The incredulity and numbing, the frequent bobbing-and-weaving of our own consciousness, the hollow comforts of passivity, insulate us from hard truths and harsher realities than we might ever have expected to need to confront -- about our country and about ourselves.
Six years on
Six years it has been. Six years so very long ago, and six years still very short.
A child born that terrible blue sky morning prepares this September to head off to school. A freshman made suddenly aware the meaning of real terror after living only in terror of her first days at high school is now an upperclassman at college. A sixteen acre hole in the heart of a nation slowly fills with concrete and rebar, a sky-scraping phoenix soon to rise from the ashes.
Six years in which so very much is different, and six years in which too much is the same.
We all remember where we were and what we felt on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when calamity glided down upon us out of a clear blue sky. We remember the feelings of fear and trembling, of sadness and loss. Most of all we remember the images, the so many awful images indelibly seared on our souls.
A child born that terrible blue sky morning prepares this September to head off to school. A freshman made suddenly aware the meaning of real terror after living only in terror of her first days at high school is now an upperclassman at college. A sixteen acre hole in the heart of a nation slowly fills with concrete and rebar, a sky-scraping phoenix soon to rise from the ashes.
Six years in which so very much is different, and six years in which too much is the same.
We all remember where we were and what we felt on the morning of September 11th, 2001, when calamity glided down upon us out of a clear blue sky. We remember the feelings of fear and trembling, of sadness and loss. Most of all we remember the images, the so many awful images indelibly seared on our souls.
Why doesn't the GOP want Ohio's voting machines tested?
Ohio Republicans have blocked a proposal to test electronic voting machines prior to the 2008 presidential primary.
By a 4-3 vote, Republicans on Ohio’s State Controlling Board blocked Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s proposed $1.8 million unbid contract for voting machine testing. Brunner had already set aside the $1.8 million for the test. Her specific request to the Controlling Board was a waiver for competitive bidding. Her office had hoped to complete all testing by November 30, 2007.
A former judge, Brunner is successor to the infamous J. Kenneth Blackwell, who helped engineer the theft of Ohio's electoral votes for George W. Bush in 2004. Brunner won election as a reform candidate, vowing to guarantee the public access to the polls---and an accurate vote count---in 2008.
In California, Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen recently completed an extensive testing of that state's electronic voting machines. She decertified many of them and is on course to rework how America's biggest state casts and counts its ballots.
By a 4-3 vote, Republicans on Ohio’s State Controlling Board blocked Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s proposed $1.8 million unbid contract for voting machine testing. Brunner had already set aside the $1.8 million for the test. Her specific request to the Controlling Board was a waiver for competitive bidding. Her office had hoped to complete all testing by November 30, 2007.
A former judge, Brunner is successor to the infamous J. Kenneth Blackwell, who helped engineer the theft of Ohio's electoral votes for George W. Bush in 2004. Brunner won election as a reform candidate, vowing to guarantee the public access to the polls---and an accurate vote count---in 2008.
In California, Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen recently completed an extensive testing of that state's electronic voting machines. She decertified many of them and is on course to rework how America's biggest state casts and counts its ballots.
The military draft: a moral abomination
An article in Newsweek, "Why We Need a Draft: A Marine's Lament," stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest online recently. It was written by a marine who fought in Fallujah, Iraq, and actually gave a pretty compelling overview of the practical need for selective service.
I'm sure the marine was right - forcing you or other people to kill or be killed next to him would have been good in the battles he fought in. In fact, I don't doubt that a few million more soldiers would be quite beneficial to the military - and to the foreign policy ambitions of the US government.
On the other hand, many Americans also persuasively argue against the draft, saying it's unnecessary or ineffective in defending America or engaging in foreign interventions. These arguments might very well be sound, and have their place.
Arguments about military "needs" or "benefits" aside, it seems that there's always plenty of politicians who absolutely love the concept of mandatory service to the state. To these types, the government IS America, and loving one's country is serving the state.
CONSTITUTIONAL ARGUMENTS
I'm sure the marine was right - forcing you or other people to kill or be killed next to him would have been good in the battles he fought in. In fact, I don't doubt that a few million more soldiers would be quite beneficial to the military - and to the foreign policy ambitions of the US government.
On the other hand, many Americans also persuasively argue against the draft, saying it's unnecessary or ineffective in defending America or engaging in foreign interventions. These arguments might very well be sound, and have their place.
Arguments about military "needs" or "benefits" aside, it seems that there's always plenty of politicians who absolutely love the concept of mandatory service to the state. To these types, the government IS America, and loving one's country is serving the state.
CONSTITUTIONAL ARGUMENTS
Six years of 9/11 as a license to kill
It evokes a tragedy that marks an epoch. From the outset, the warfare state has exploited "9/11," a label at once too facile and too laden with historic weight -- giving further power to the tacit political axiom that perception is reality.
Often it seems that media coverage is all about perception, especially when the underlying agendas are wired into huge profits and geopolitical leverage. If you associate a Big Mac or a Whopper with a happy meal or some other kind of great time, you’re more likely to buy it. If you connect 9/11 with a need for taking military action and curtailing civil liberties, you’re more likely to buy what the purveyors of war and authoritarian government have been selling for the past half-dozen years.
Often it seems that media coverage is all about perception, especially when the underlying agendas are wired into huge profits and geopolitical leverage. If you associate a Big Mac or a Whopper with a happy meal or some other kind of great time, you’re more likely to buy it. If you connect 9/11 with a need for taking military action and curtailing civil liberties, you’re more likely to buy what the purveyors of war and authoritarian government have been selling for the past half-dozen years.
Wild weather creates chances for political progress
It's hard to keep up with the crazed weather. As I write, a heat wave has killed over 50 people in the Midwest and South, with temperatures reaching 112 degrees in Evening Shade, Arkansas. Torrential storms have flooded Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and South Dakota. California has its second largest wildfire ever. Texas and Kansas are battening down for new storms, while still recovering from last month's floods, along with Oklahoma, which is now getting flooded again. A few weeks before, a massive rainstorm closed down the New York City subways. That doesn't count over 2,000 dead and millions displaced in India and Bangladesh floods, runaway forest fires in Greece, the hottest-ever temperature in Japan, or unprecedented melting of Arctic icecaps. Tomorrow the weather will ricochet off the charts someplace else.