Well, I work on BIG daries, I own my own beef cows, and my past is in beef operations of all sizes... I can say that producers of all sizes are against the NAIS in any form they choose to present it. For my big dairy customers: It is all they can do to get employees who can write down numbers acuarately enough to use a simple numbered eartag system with any accuracy much less reporting the results to the USDA. No matter what I am trying to look at when I deal with records on big dairies I expect to see a ten-percent margin of error due to employees making mistakes... The USDA has not come up with a way to overcome that and their system won't work until they do. As far as my small beef herd: The hassles of just having the herd itself are almost not worth it. It would just take a little bit of government to get me to throw up my hands and tear out the pasture and plant citrus. As far as my past with beef operations: Ain't no way in **** the USDA is gonna track those animals! I used to help on a ranch whose strategy to control inbreeding was to ride out into the backcountry and shoot every bull over three years old that didn't have a brand... The country was so tough that they couldn't even gather all of their cattle to work them. There are more ranches like that than we realize and they can't survive if they are expected to track every single animal.

Hmmm, thatÂs what it looks like to me, too. Section 3, paragraph 13 says "EXCLUSIONS- For the purposes of registration, the term 'food establishment' does not include a food production facility as defined in paragraph (14), restaurant, other retail food establishment, nonprofit food establishment in which food is prepared for or served directly to the consumer, or fishing vessel..." And, as mentioned above, paragraph 14 defines food production facilities: "The term 'food production facility' means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation." In trying to sort this out, I also found this article, if itÂs helpful: The Truth about HR875 This is a puzzling issue, since there is such a lot of information against this bill on the internet, and many folks donÂt seem to agree on what it means. (I may need to do more reading.) Even if this particular bill doesn't affect our greenhouses and home gardens, I agree legislation like this can be twisted to cause problems if the scope isnÂt carefully watched by "regular folks." It reminds me a lot of the crazy Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) that was overwhelmingly passed last August, and was to go into effect Feb. 10. It required ridiculously expensive tests for lead by government labs for every component (and every color) of any item manufactured for children. Sounds good, but as written, it would have put many small businesses, craftspeople, publishers, and kidÂs resale (thrift) stores out of business. Because of public outcry, it has now been delayed for one year, so that gives craftspeople and others more time to try to affect the outcome. Generally IÂm happy to see discussions like this. Too much legislation is passed without any understanding of how it will impact the lives of real people, and the only way to apply the brakes is for regular folks to pay attention and get vocal.

Pat, before taking on your issues, let me distill my philosphy in one sentence: the individual reigns supreme, but borders matter. Without much exposition, this means that every person has value, but even the US has limited resources, so we need to take care of ourselves first, and expect other countries to take care of thiers. And then help where we can. But in real life, there is a power struggle between groups that want power. Republicans-Democrats, China vs. US, US vs. Radical Muslims, corporations vs. government, rich vs. poor, etc.. The last one is probably more misunderstood than most people realize. I was raised in Texas, my family was laizze-faire in their outlook. I was raised middle class Baptist, and "the Lord helps those who help themselves." My mother never has understood that isn't a Bible verse, but rather a saying from I believe Benjamin Franklin. (Too lazy to look it up right now.) We had a good life. And I feel lucky because I still do. From this, I do think everybody ought to do the very best they can to support and help themselves. It matters. But the first eye opening book that I read was a paper back my dad got in 1973, maybe 76, titled, "Why SOBs succeed and Nice Guys Fail in Small Business" (perhaps slightly different from this). This book showed how the laws, even in that time, were manipulated to favor those in power. It gave an example of a boondoggle bill that was passed by congress and signed by the president that affected only ONE company. And saved them millions. Additionally, it showed how laws were passed to keep competition low in certain industries. It also pointed out how a rich person may give a million to charity, and be hailed as a great philantrophist, but still be worth $100 million more and get a tax break to boot! Rare is the rich person who really hurts his financial position for charity! The best example of this today would be Bill Gates. I think he gave some few hundred million for immunization of the poor. Maybe it was a couple of billion. Wow, how generous! In the meantime, he was just estimated to be worth $52 billion! He didn't really hurt hisself. And he never will. Anyway, before I buy hook, line, and sinker into something, I like to look at the power-money trail. What does it gain the person pushing an agenda? This is why I have a healthy mistrust of environuts, oil execs, and even doctors. I have nothing against Marshall, but he runs an organic farm. Any wonder why a lot of his posts deal with GMOs and Monsanto? Doesn't mean he can't have good information. But I temper his information with his motives, and want hard data to support his stance. Of course, that's from everybody on everything. Finally, I'm human. I have my own motives. I want cheaper gas. I want more money. I want, I want, I want, I want. But I try to temper that with caring for others. Most people do. And being human, I have limited intelligence. I get things wrong sometimes. Right now, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if their were alternative energy sources for vehicles that are not being developed and marketed because of the oil/auto industry. In 2000, Toyota made the Insight. A/C, room for 2 plus a small trunk, and 70+ miles a gallon. But sales have lagged. Even now. And the Prius and others that followed have gotten worse gas mileage, not better. Anyway, windfall profit tax has Carter written all over it. But that name works for me. Instead of taxes, how about freezing the price, or having a SIMPLE (no political boondoggle) formula that sets prices? That would benefit most people. Although, not the poorest people. I wouldn't suspend tax cuts for those who make less than $100,000.00. The truly wealthy make much more than that. I'd probably graduate the increase until you reached $160,000.00 or so. These numbers are arbitrary, but they are fairly high because of people who live in expensive areas, such as San Fran, New York, and the like. Unlike O'Reilly and most Republicans, I realize income redistribution happens. Unfortunately, it seems to be going to the wealthy too much, and not to the middle class and poor. But I want to protect jobs, and the private sector, so I don't think I'd be too radical. Just some quick thoughts...

There won't be a big debate here on the Garden Party, and I very much am in accord with Jeff Goodell, The trouble is that the shareholders in the oil and coal and fracking industries are not about to give up their holdings and hope for more money. We also have the many people who hate any change, can't see farther than their back fence and if they don't see it on their front porch is does not exist.