31 Dec 2003
Happy New Year!
I'm still posting on pico directly to the server, but should have a syncing mechanism in place by tomorrow evening that will allow me to post (to this server) the stuff I've been putting up locally. I have a posting method running on AmphetaDesk, and I have all my permission problems solved. Lot's to report, but we have folks over to play cards and welcome the new year in, so I'd best be going. I do like this system, alot.

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29 Dec 2003
Well, here I am! Moved at last, and maybe moved for good...
I still have some permission type problems, though, and getting the blasted calendar to work correctly has proven to be almost not worth the trouble. Oh well, it's done now. Let's see how this looks. I entering directly on the server: in Pico - I have yet to quite get my posting tools up to snuff. Just been too busy trying to get the blog to run.

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28 Dec 2003
Blood is Milk, Deer aren't Ruminants

This article goes into some depth as to how BSE has entered the food supply - and it's a tale of simple, raw greed, and an utter disregard for enything except selling every bit of every cow, despite warnings and signs that this would lead to disaster.

Here's a quote from the piece:

But critics say the regulation leaves glaring loopholes. Rendered cattle can be fed to pigs and chickens, which can then be fed back to cows. Cow blood, which cannot be guaranteed free of disease, is widely fed to calves as a "milk replacer." Deer that may be infected with disease can be rendered into cattle feed. Enforcement of the regulation, they say, has been lax.

What's worse, though, is the absolute state of denial about prion biology that the USDA seems to be in:

He said regulators in both countries believed that mad cow illness was akin to a viral disease that "comes from the outside" and can be stopped by putting animals into quarantine.

Prion diseases are only transmitted by eating or ingesting brain matter from infected animals - quarantine won't do a damn thing to keep it from spreading.

This is a case of an industry run amok - trying at all costs, including public health and safety, to maintain it's current position and profit margins. It's a recipie for long term disaster.

Despite Mad-Cow Warnings, Industry Resisted Safeguards. A look at how the crisis developed also reveals broader problems that could complicate efforts to restore consumer confidence and to ensure that no other tainted meat enters the food supply. By Christopher Drew, Elizabeth Becker and Sandra Blakeslee. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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Moving Day Gets Closer

Should be moving the blog in a day or so - I've made it back to March in the archives, cleaning stuff up. Watch this space for details...

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PETA Goes Over the Top (again)

I heard about this in several places the other day, but was unable to find a link to the actual offensive material. Well, thanks to Gut Rumbles I can now exhibit the latest insanity from the PETA people:

Your Mommy Kills Animals

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26 Dec 2003
Denis, Easter, and Christmas

I'd heard this tale of the years (related here via rogue classicism) before, but not in so much detail. Fascinating read...

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Boxing Day

I think Secular Blasphemy is right on the origins of this holiday, despite what Snopes has to say.

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Christmas, 2003

What a busy Christmas Day! As usual, dinner next door with the in-laws, and the usual euchre until late. I'm beat...

One thing I did notice, however. Due to our financial situation (or rather, lack thereof) we had no shopping to do for this holiday. Rather, we made candies and other craft type products and gave them as gifts. It was not only seemingly better received, but it was a lot less stress on us as well.

Some meat went to my mom (fresh bratwurst), some pickled peppers (jalapenos and Scotch bonnets) to my brother in law and some homemade soaps to my sister in law. I gave my daughter Courtney a set of Time-Life books on the "weird and unknown" that she had greatly enjoyed when she was a child - she'll share them with her family now.

I managed to talk with and/or see all my children and grandchildren today: family is the true spirit ofthe Yuletide, and that we had in abundance today.

Not to sound too trite, but despite the rather grim outlook for cash, I count us still amoung the rich and blessed.

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25 Dec 2003
Madness

The amount of sheer ignorance expressed by consumers (and by the reporters themselves) in this brewing brouhaha is nothing short of incredible.

For example, it is true that the USDA banned the use of downer cattle carcasses in feed to prevent mad cow outbreaks. Neither article and none of the experts quoted in them even raises the obvious question: why are we feeding cattle meat and byproducts in the first place? They're herbivores, after all, not prone in the natural state to browsing about animal protein.

We feed them that way beause, in order to maintain the production level of the "factory farm", we deprive them of nearly all natural grazing activity and force them to slaughter weight in an inordinately short period of time.

There are only 5 major feedlots in the US, processing something like 80% of our beef. One infected animal in this enviroment is a big deal - especially since it should be obvious that, with an incubation period measured in years, one known case probably represents thousands yet undetected.

I raise Scottish Highland cattle: I have ten beasts on 12 acres, and I rotational graze them with like minded farmers locally. None of our cows is ever fed even grain, much less meat byproducts: they eat what cattle are supposed to eat, the natural grasses and legumes that adorn my tended pastures. None of them, nor any of their ancestors, have ever even so much as seen a commercial feedlot. They're as natural a cow as you can get - takes three years to get to slaughter weight, instead of the 18 months for "modern" breeds and methods.

Oh well: I have a freezer full of perfectly safe beef. I can guarantee it because I raised it myself, and hauled it to the local slaughterhouse myself, and supervised the processing myself. My customers can rest as easy as I do with their beef, too, as they can (and most have) visit the farm at any time, and see the entire operation from stem to stern. Open source farming - and like open source programming, it not only produces a better product, but a more secure one as well.

We are paying the price for decades of consolidation in agriculture. This is the end result of driving the family farm out of business, and replacing it with corporate entities devoted solely to production at the lowest possible cost. The chickens have come home to roost in the feedlot.

After mad-cow find, concern with prevention. Critics say US can do more to safeguard US beef. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]

Diseased Cow's Origin Is Traced as Nations Ban U.S. Beef. Federal officials raced on Wednesday to find out where a Washington state cow, apparently infected with mad cow disease, was born and may have been infected. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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24 Dec 2003
Get in the Wayback Machine

Whoa! My first was a COSMAC ELF - built it from scratch, with 256 bytes of RAM. There's a guy in the referenced article actually had one too! Bizarre!

First Computers [Slashdot]

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Moving News

Whew! I completed a major redesign of haxton.org today - in preparation to mving the blog over there. Figured I'd take the opportunity to get rid of some of the darkness hanging around - lightened the backgrounds, redid the menus, added all my stories from here to there.

I also made it back thru November putting titles on these posts to make indexing in Blosxom easier. What a royal pain! The only time Radio uses titles is in the RSS feed - otherwise they're ignored. Blosxom depends on titles to build it's indices - hence the problem.

The export tool by Andy Fragen is quite useful - not perfect, but very, very appreciated!

I also managed to get AmphetaDesk running on the Big Mac as a daemon (of sorts). Hacked a little Perl - I'm no Perl God, but I am getting fairly proficient at hacking on Perl sources. Now I gotta do a bit of hacking to get a "post" button for the blasted thing operating, and a bit more to get an automatic "upstreaming" function for my new setup.

Lot's to do, but it's gonna be fun.

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It's Here

This could actually be good news for us. Our cows are safe - we don't feed them ground up downer sheep, as is the common practice in large feedlots! But it'll be bad for the beef industry as a whole, no doubt. We'll have to see how this shakes out...

First Suspected U.S. Case of Mad Cow Disease Under Investigation. The first-ever U.S. case of mad cow disease is suspected in a single cow in Washington state, but the American food supply is safe, the agriculture secretary said. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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Public Potties

The Green Man has a funny little bit on Toilet Pseudo-exhibitionism. I remember seeing a bit on TV about an establishment (an ice cream parlour, if I recall correctly) that had a similar installation with one way mirrors... pretty weird. Don't think I could do it.

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More Wally World Madness

To quote Walt Kelly's Pogo - "We have met the enemy and they is us!"

How many folks are aware that Wal-Mart Corp. alone is responsible for nearly 10% of the US trade deficit?

Wal-Mart rollout - or rollback?. The Inglewood community is resisting the retail giant's expansion in California. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]

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23 Dec 2003
A Legal Battle of Mythic Proportions

This is bound to be a legal battle of mythic proportions! Opps, I wonder if they can sue me for that?

Mythic sues Microsoft over Mythica. Names too close - unlike Lindows/ Windows... [The Register]

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