Forbidden Fruit

News Flash!: food prices are soaring.  So naturally, the people at the top are trying desperately to find a solution and avert a world food shortage, right?  Sure they are, for four million people.  Dr. Despommier, an obviously brilliant professor from Columbia University, has invented the "skyscraper farm" - 21 stories of "farm land" that would be easily set up in an urban situation...(Agenda 21 anyone?  And 21 stories?  Nice.)  

This magnificent skyscraper could feed four million people, and, "With the world's population expected to increase to 3 billion by 2050 and almost 80 per cent of farming land in use, the idea has never been more relevant."  So, while I've never been very good at math, I am left scratching my head and wondering how they are going to feed the other two billion nine hundred and ninety-six million people leftover?  At first read of the article, I thought they were talking about one skyscraper.  Well they go on to say "skyscrapers", plural.  But are they really going to bother to build more of these when one will probably fit their needs?  

Dr. Despommier (and do I really need to say it - pomme is the French word for apple) went on to say, "Vertical farming practised on a large scale in urban centres has great potential to supply enough food in a sustainable fashion to comfortably feed all of humankind for the foreseeable future."

So I guess the real question is what constitutes "all of humankind"?

The Big Top Is Coming To Your Town!

According to Emily Post's book of etiquette, polite society never discusses politics or religion.  Though I may be reaching for a long gone era, what have we been left with instead?  We live in the most PC society ever created yet we also have an "anything goes" policy at the same time.  Now, I'm not saying people can't talk about whatever they want, in fact, I encourage candid, thoughtful and respectful discussions at all times.  However, as the "election" nears, I am faced with more and more stupidity, slogans and dialectic nonsense.  If only people could be so passionate about something that actually matters, that isn't just a circus.   My question though, is:  how do you deal with people stuck in the joke of the presidential election?  Today at work a customer at the bar asked me "So, are you going to vote?"  What kind of a question is that in the first place?  Even if I was still a member of the walking dead, shouldn't I be slightly off-put by such an invasion of privacy?  Or is this an acceptable question these days?  He couldn't very well ask me which candidate I was going to "vote" for, so he snuck it in sideways instead.  

Can anyone think of a better response than, "Excuse me, I have to fill the snack mix" ?  I thought of a couple more, such as "Oh, I'm not a U.S. citizen, actually."  And "Are you kidding?!"  Or the ever popular repeating of a question to make the person feel like a jackass for asking it in the first place, "Am I going to vote?  Am I going to vote...hmmm....am...I...going...to...vote?  Is that what you asked me?"   Well,  since I'm trying not to fall into the "us" and "them" trap, which is exactly what the elite want (divide and conquer, etc.) I will try to think of some kinder responses, aside from just outright lying, "Of course I'm going to vote!"  

I think the non-citizen one is pretty good though.  Hell, I'm from Canada.  

Goodnight, eh!

The Government Really Wants to Be Held Accountable

The FOI is committed to open government. And it's a good thing too, because inquiring citizens want to know what their government is up to. Or do they? Unless it's on American Idol or Lost, I'm pretty sure they don't care. But if you are one of the few who do care, you can read all about your rights at the Freedom of Information Act's website, which is sponsored by the University of Missouri and the Missouri School of Journalism. Not quite sure why their finger gets to be in the freedom pie, but that may be beside point. What I really want to tell you about is the FBI's helpful compliance with the FOI act. Apparently anyone can obtain any declassified FBI file by following these simple steps:

from www.newstrench.com -

Write the FBI and request, by name and file number, the one or ones you are interested in under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (5 USC 552):

FBI Freedom of Information Act Office
Records Information Dissemination Section
Federal Bureau of Investigation
70 Marcel Drive
Winchester, VA 22602-4843
http://foia.fbi.gov/

List which files you want, mention if you are a member of the press, and tell the FBI that you agree to pay reasonable fees up to $25 without additional permission so that they can process your request. In some cases, members of the media can request and receive a waiver of fees otherwise charged under FOIA. To receive a fee waiver, members of the media must explain to the FBI how release of the information will further the public understanding of how government works, and how you intend to disseminate that information. Standard copying fees for FBI Freedom of Information material are 10¢/page, with the first 100 pages free.

You can ask for the file in electronic (pdf) form on a CD-ROM instead, for which the FBI typically charges $15 per disk.

Over the past several years, the FBI has been declassifying and transferring old files to The National Archives and Records Administration, including SOME (but not all) of the files noted on this website. If the FBI informs you that the files you seek have been transferred to The National Archives, please note that the National Archives charges reproduction costs at 50¢ per page, and the first 100 pages are not free.

National Archives and Records Administration
Civilian Records, Room 2600
8601 Adelphi Rd.
College Park, MD 20740-6000

Also, files of more recent vintage (1940s and later) require screening for personal information, names of informants, and Grand Jury information, which are exempt from disclosure at the National Archives.

Those files available from the National Archives may be viewed free of charge at Archives II in College Park, Maryland. It is best to check with the Archives by mail to ensure that the documents are available for public viewing.


So that's all you have to do! But silly me I thought freedom of information meant it was free? I can be so naive sometimes. To further complicate matters, I checked out the FOI website's FOI Letter Generator, in which you can choose from a long list of government agencies. However the FBI is not on the list. So does this mean the FBI is allowed to charge for FOI documents, or is it a simple case of the people running the newstrench.com site squeezing out dollars from unsuspecting inquiring minds? I can hardly keep up with the government these days, let alone individual scam artists. So please, if the newstrench.com crew happens to read this, would they please set the record straight?

The Youth League Has Your Name On Their List

The Youth League, the Green Youth, the Green Police? Anyway you put it, George Orwell would be proud of his foresight.

Schoolchildren in Britain are being paid (well) to spy on neighbors and report them for "environmental crimes".   And since Britain sets the bar for everyone else, you can expect these little policeman to be in America and everywhere else soon (if they're not already).  £500 (about $1000) is the going rate for good little citizens' reports, and what kid couldn't use that kind of money, right?  What they would use it for, I'm not sure, but I remember being 8 years old, and $1000 wasn't even on my radar.  Perhaps their eco-conscious parents will encourage them to save up for college, so that they can go on to become eco-conscious worker bees and work for environmentally sound corporations and drive little hybrids all around town while they shop...but wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.  If things continue in this Orwellian manner, there will be no trendy hybrids, nor anymore hedonistic shopping sprees.
Agenda 21 will take care of that.  With no private transportation and only an electronic system of "credits" that will be issued each week (instead of money that you can save), maybe the eco-friendly can congratulate themselves on a system finally well managed.  Shamu will be so happy.

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

This blog is about the world, the state it is in, how it got here, and where it's (most likely) going.  There are a million things to talk about, and there is no easy place to start.  I thought however, that a good exercise for myself and others, would be to write out a list of our given values and beliefs.  From the mundane and beyond, I have started a list for myself:

recycling - good

plastic bags - bad

organically grown food - good

oil - bad?

money - has value

overweight - bad

thin - good

yoga - good

cholesterol - bad

soy - good

vegetarian - good

vegan - better

eco-friendly - good

carbon footprint (whatever that actually means) - very, very bad

carbon offsets - very, very good  

youth - good

the New Age - good

school - good

college - better

prescription drugs - good

hybrid cars - excellent

The United Nations/helping poor unfortunates - good

bottled water - good

fluoride toothpaste - good

vaccinations - good

vaccinations for third world countries  - very good

abortion, or at least pro-choice - good

evolution - good!

therapy - good

cities - good

feminism/womens liberation movement - good

This is just a start, and I encourage you to make your own list, or at least examine this one, and ask yourself, "where did these ideas come from?"  

In future blogs I will be revisiting each of these concepts individually, to examine where the ideas came from, and what they are meant to promote.