Monday, March 23, 2009

On the flipside.

Okay, Now Everyone Calm Down. An article by Roy Huntington of American HandGunner stating maybe we shouldn't hoard Ammo.
The buying frenzy going on in our industry right now surpasses anything that went on when Clinton got into office. Dealers who might normally sell two or three AR-type rifles a month report selling literally, “hundreds.” I attended the Tulsa, Okla. gunshow recently (the biggest one going these days) and can report there was not an unsold round of .223, 9mm or .45 to be seen. One dealer told me he sold, “Over 175,000 rounds in 45 minutes this morning.” It sort of reminds me of the run on banks after the stock market crash — which led to the depression.Do you remember about 20 years ago when there was a rumor toilet paper was going to be in short supply? And sure enough, all the toilet paper in every supply stream was sold out immediately causing — you guessed it — a shortage of toilet paper, when there would normally have been plenty.And we’re doing it again. Yes, the democrats are in office, and every time they take on the “gun culture” they got their noses bloodied. Am I concerned about Obama and what he and his peers may do? You bet. But think about this: their hands are full right now with war, economy, jobs and all those hundreds of promises they made during the months prior to the elections. The very last thing they want to do right now is take on millions of angry gun-owning Americans (many of whom, it seems, stayed home on election day allowing this to happen?!?). While some in our industry are clapping their hands raking in the dough, with sales going through the roof, we forget what happened before. I hope they are banking most of it, because it lasts a year, maybe a bit more, then bang, the lid shuts. Every consumer out there will have spent their ten-year gun-wad buying cases of .223 and ARs by the truck-full. Mom’s unhappy with all that spending and the kids still need shoes. Meanwhile, the guns and ammo are collecting dust. And if they outlaw those guns, how many of you think they’ll let us keep the ones we bought in our frenzy? Go ahead, put your hands up. How many? So … we need to calm down. Spend as you normally would, support your local dealers, order that gun you’ve always wanted, go hunting, shoot some ammo, buy reloading components, get that new holster, but don’t be a lemming. I know many of you will disagree. But, I’m very concerned about a year or two from now, when dealer’s doors are shut permanently because there’s little business, and manufacturers are laying people off and going out of business. It happened with the frenzy that occurred with Clinton’s election, and it’s happening again. Are we destined to repeat history? It makes better sense to be well-informed, united and strong —in business, in knowledge and in numbers — to tackle the long-term fight that is surely ahead of us. It will be impossible for Obama to deliver on the countless vaporous promises he and his party made. And we’ll be watching, and when his supporters realize they made a terrible mistake, I think they’ll distance themselves — fast. And the “former” darling of the press will then become the target. Arguably, the most under-qualified and inexperienced candidate ever to be elected to this office has the power now, and I hope they’re smug about what they’ve done to this great country, but he’s not a god and we still have the checks and balances in place. I don’t wish them failure, I won’t taunt, I won’t do anything but wish for a successful term — unlike the concerted attack they’ve made on the Bush administration since the very beginning. I want them to be successful when it comes to the economy, our safety and our strength as a country — and I’ll even help. But now it’s put-up or shut-up time, as the saying goes. And we need to be smart to keep our industry strong.But don’t mess with my gun rights, Mr. President. Just don’t.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

And now our food!

If they can't grab our guns it will be GROUND CONTROL Lose your property for growing food?Big Brother legislation could mean prosecution, fines up to $1 million
Posted: March 16, 20098:56 pm Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Some small farms and organic food growers could be placed under direct supervision of the federal government under new legislation making its way through Congress.
Food Safety Modernization Act
House Resolution 875, or the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced by Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., in February. DeLauro's husband, Stanley Greenburg, works for Monsanto – the world's leading producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seed.
DeLauro's act has 39 co-sponsors and was referred to the House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 4. It calls for the creation of a Food Safety Administration to allow the government to regulate food production at all levels – and even mandates property seizure, fines of up to $1 million per offense and criminal prosecution for producers, manufacturers and distributors who fail to comply with regulations.
Michael Olson, host of the Food Chain radio show and author of "Metro Farm," told WND the government should focus on regulating food production in countries such as China and Mexico rather than burdening small and organic farmers in the U.S. with overreaching regulations.
"We need somebody to watch over us when we're eating food that comes from thousands and thousands of miles away. We need some help there," he said. "But when food comes from our neighbors or from farmers who we know, we don't need all of those rules. If your neighbor sells you something that is bad and you get sick, you are going to get your hands on that farmer, and that will be the end of it. It regulates itself."
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The legislation would establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services "to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."
Federal regulators will be tasked with ensuring that food producers, processors and distributors – both large and small – prevent and minimize food safety hazards such as food-borne illnesses and contaminants such as bacteria, chemicals, natural toxins or manufactured toxicants, viruses, parasites, prions, physical hazards or other human pathogens.
Under the legislation's broad wording, slaughterhouses, seafood processing plants, establishments that process, store, hold or transport all categories of food products prior to delivery for retail sale, farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, aquaculture facilities and confined animal-feeding operations would be subject to strict government regulation.
Government inspectors would be required to visit and examine food production facilities, including small farms, to ensure compliance. They would review food safety records and conduct surveillance of animals, plants, products or the environment.
"What the government will do is bring in industry experts to tell them how to manage all this stuff," Olson said. "It's industry that's telling government how to set these things up. What it always boils down to is who can afford to have the most influence over the government. It would be those companies that have sufficient economies of scale to be able to afford the influence – which is, of course, industrial agriculture."
Farms and food producers would be forced to submit copies of all records to federal inspectors upon request to determine whether food is contaminated, to ensure they are in compliance with food safety laws and to maintain government tracking records. Refusal to register, permit inspector access or testing of food or equipment would be prohibited.
"What is going to happen is that local agriculture will end up suffering through some onerous protocols designed for international agriculture that they simply don't need," Olson said. "Thus, it will be a way for industrial agriculture to manage local agriculture."
Under the act, every food producer must have a written food safety plan describing likely hazards and preventative controls they have implemented and must abide by "minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water."
"That opens a whole can of worms," Olson said. "I think that's where people are starting to freak out about losing organic agriculture. Who is going to decide what the minimum standards are for fertilization or anything else? The government is going to bring in big industry and say we are setting up these protocols, so what do you think we should do? Who is it going to bring in to ask? The government will bring in people who have economies of scale who have that kind of influence."
DeLauro's act calls for the Food Safety Administration to create a "national traceability system" to retrieve history, use and location of each food product through all stages of production, processing and distribution.
Olson believes the regulations could create unjustifiable financial hardships for small farmers and run them out of business.
"That is often the purpose of rules and regulations: to get rid of your competition," he said. "Only people who are very, very large can afford to comply. They can hire one person to do paperwork. There's a specialization of labor there, and when you are very small, you can't afford to do all of these things."
Olson said despite good intentions behind the legislation, this act could devastate small U.S. farms.
"Every time we pass a rule or a law or a regulation to make the world a better place, it seems like what we do is subsidize production offshore," he said. "We tell farmers they can no longer drive diesel tractors because they make bad smoke. Well, essentially what we're doing is giving China a subsidy to grow our crops for us, or Mexico or anyone else."
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Section 304 of the Food Safety Modernization Act establishes a group of "experts and stakeholders from Federal, State, and local food safety and health agencies, the food industry, consumer organizations, and academia" to make recommendations for improving food-borne illness surveillance.
According to the act, "Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law … may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act."
Each violation and each separate day the producer is in defiance of the law would be considered a separate offense and an additional penalty. The act suggests federal administrators consider the gravity of the violation, the degree of responsibility and the size and type of business when determining penalties.
Criminal sanctions may be imposed if contaminated food causes serious illness or death, and offenders may face fines and imprisonment of up to 10 years.
"It's just frightening what can happen with good intentions," Olson said. "It's probably the most radical notions on the face of this Earth, but local agriculture doesn't need government because it takes care of itself."
Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act
Another "food safety" bill that has organic and small farmers worried is Senate Bill 425, or the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act, sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
Brown's bill is backed by lobbyists for Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson. It was introduced in September and has been referred to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Some say the legislation could also put small farmers out of business.
Like HR 875, the measure establishes a nationwide "traceability system" monitored by the Food and Drug Administration for all stages of manufacturing, processing, packaging and distribution of food. It would cost $40 million over three years.
"We must ensure that the federal government has the ability and authority to protect the public, given the global nature of the food supply," Brown said when he introduced the bill. He suggested the FDA and USDA have power to declare mandatory recalls.
The government would track food shipped in interstate commerce through a recordkeeping and audit system, a secure, online database or registered identification. Each farmer or producer would be required to maintain records regarding the purchase, sale and identification of their products.
A 13-member advisory committee of food safety and tracking technology experts, representatives of the food industry, consumer advocates and government officials would assist in implementing the traceability system.
The bill calls for the committee to establish a national database or registry operated by the Food and Drug Administration. It also proposes an electronic records database to identify sales of food and its ingredients "establishing that the food and its ingredients were grown, prepared, handled, manufactured, processed, distributed, shipped, warehoused, imported, and conveyed under conditions that ensure the safety of the food."
It states, "The records should include an electronic statement with the date of, and the names and addresses of all parties to, each prior sale, purchase, or trade, and any other information as appropriate."
If government inspectors find that a food item is not in compliance, they may force producers to cease distribution, recall the item or confiscate it.
"If the postal service can track a package from my office in Washington to my office in Cincinnati, we should be able to do the same for food products," Sen. Brown said in a Sept. 4, 2008, statement. "Families that are struggling with the high cost of groceries should not also have to worry about the safety of their food. This legislation gives the government the resources it needs to protect the public."
Recalls of contaminated food are usually voluntary; however, in his weekly radio address on March 15, President Obama announced he's forming a Food Safety Working Group to propose new laws and stop corruption of the nation's food.
The group will review, update and enforce food safety laws, which Obama said "have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt."
The president said outbreaks from contaminated foods, such as a recent salmonella outbreak among consumers of peanut products, have occurred more frequently in recent years due to outdated regulations, fewer inspectors, scaled back inspections and a lack of information sharing between government agencies.
"In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president but as a parent," Obama said. "No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they buy will cause them harm."
The blogosphere is buzzing with comments on the legislation, including the following:
Obama and his cronies or his puppetmasters are trying to take total control – nationalize everything, disarm the populace, control food, etc. We are seeing the formation of a total police state.
Well ... that's not very " green " of Obama. What's his real agenda?
This is getting way out of hand! Isn't it enough the FDA already allows poisons in our foods?
If you're starving, no number of guns will enable you to stay free. That's the whole idea behind this legislation. He who controls the food really makes the rules.
The government is terrified of the tax loss. Imagine all the tax dollars lost if people actually grew their own vegetables! Imagine if people actually coordinated their efforts with family, friends and neighbors. People could be in no time eating for the price of their own effort. ... Oh the horror of it all! The last thing the government wants is for us to be self-sufficient.
They want to make you dependent upon government. I say no way! already the government is giving away taxes from my great great grandchildren and now they want to take away my food, my semi-auto rifles, my right to alternative holistic medicine? We need a revolution, sheeple! Wake up! They want fascism ... can you not see that?
The screening processes will make it very expensive for smaller farmers, where bigger agriculture corporations can foot the bill.
If anything it just increases accountability, which is arguably a good thing. It pretty much says they'll only confiscate your property if there are questions of contamination and you don't comply with their inspections. I think the severity of this has been blown out of proportion by a lot of conjecture.
Don't waste your time calling the criminals in D.C. and begging them to act like humans. This will end with a bloody revolt.
The more I examine this (on the surface) seemingly innocuous bill the more I hate it. It is a coward's ploy to push out of business small farms and farmers markets without actually making them illegal because many will choose not to operate due to the compliance issue.our food.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

And now it begins!

Obama Wants Gun BansNever mind that the Supreme Court recently declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. The Obama administration plans to reinstate the Clinton administration ban on so-called "assault weapons" that expired in 2004 under the ban's sunset provision. They have other gun controls measures in mind as well. "As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters on February 25. Holder said that re-banning "assault weapons" would not only be good for America, it would help Mexico, which is currently plagued by gun violence among drug cartels. Of course, the certain way to stop such Drug War-caused violence would be to end the War on Drugs, but Holder chose not to explore that approach. Holder also neglected to explain why American freedom should be limited at the request of a foreign nation. Most glaringly, he did not explain how the federal government, utterly unable to stop immigrants or drugs from freely crossing the border, could somehow be successful in stopping weapons from doing so. "Assault weapons" are not the only victim-disarmament measures the Obama administration wants to see, Holder says. "I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets, and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent, would be something that would be permitted under Heller," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing. ("Heller" refers to the Supreme Court ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller, which declared the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms.) "Assault weapons," "cop-killer bullets," and "gun show loopholes" are all lurid, bogus, deceptive anti-gun propaganda terms. In the past, legislation to "control" these made-up menaces have been Trojan Horse laws -- vehicles with wide-reaching, Draconian gun control elements hidden in their language. The term "assault weapon," as used by Holder, has no real meaning, as such guns are semi-automatic firearms that look different -- sometimes more "military" -- than traditional hunting and self-defense guns, but possess no additional firepower. Thus the guns were essentially banned for cosmetic reasons, and the ban was often derided as the "ugly gun law." The propaganda term "assault weapon" leads the public to often confuse these weapons with automatic weapons, i.e., machine guns, though they are not. This confusion, of course, is often deliberately encouraged by anti-gun forces. "A semi-automatic is a quintessential self-defense firearm owned by American citizens in this country," said Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, in response to Holder's remarks. "I think it is clearly covered under Heller and it's clearly, I think, protected by the Constitution." "Cop killer bullets" have never killed a cop, and laws to ban them would arguably ban vast amounts of conventional ammunition. The "gun show loophole" merely allows citizens who are not licensed firearm dealers to sell guns at gun shows. It is not a "loophole"; the current law was deliberately written to protect such private exchanges from government control. Check the links above for more information on these topics, which are sure to be widely debated in the days and weeks ahead.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

I want a Divorce

DIVORCE AGREEMENT
THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM. OUTSTANDING.
Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:
We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.
Here is a model separation agreement:
Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.
We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NR A and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).
We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .
You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.
We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N.. but we will no longer be paying the bill.
We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.
You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.
We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.
Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other likeminded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you ANWAR which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.
Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American