I should be sleeping right now.

[the_wanlorn]

I'm in Indiana, visiting cornfields and her husband. We're going to the zoo tomorrow, and I should be sleeping.

Instead, I'm reading Mad Sheep and just getting angrier and angrier and angrier.

I want to find out what Obama's views on this type of shit are. And McCain's. And whoever else is running who is not them. Because you know what? I'd throw in with a baby murdering child rapist if they promised that the government would never be allowed to do this again.

The worst part about reading non-fiction is that you know how it ends. I'm only a third of the way through the book, and I want to believe that in the end, good will triumph because evil is dumb. Except I know it doesn't. I know that the USDA plugs its ears and sings at the top of its voice and stomps all over this family farm and no one helps them.

This? Is not America. This is not the land of the free, this is not a place where the little man is left alone. This country is the homeless guy who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and turned his life around and now believes that all other homeless guys are just lazy worthless sods because they won't do the same.

Arthur Harvey hasn't paid federal taxes in almost 50 years. I'm trying to figure out what the equivalent 'fuck you' to the USDA is.

Comments

[svtdragon.livejournal.com]

Indiana? Why would you come here?

Oh, I get it: to see corn fields. :-P

If you more specifically define "this type of shit" I can look through Obama's policy docs for you.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha, yeah. One of my friends lives out here, so I came out to visit. THERE IS SO MUCH CORN WTF. Everywhere you go there are HUGE CORN AND SOYBEAN FIELDS. It's really boring. Also: not tasty.

"this type of shit" is, really, anything that involves family farms and the regulations pertaining to them, and anything about the ability of the USDA to stomp all over family farms and require them to follow insane regulations down to the letter when they turn a blind eye to factory farms' transgressions.

I don't even know where to start looking for anything related to that. :(

[shadowkitty.livejournal.com]

A neighbour of ours had to have his whole herd culled because of mad cow disease. Although they did have it. And they were cows. Don't they get compensation in America? That doesn't seem fair.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean, it's one thing when there is actual honest-to-god mad cow disease present.

They get compensated "fair market value", which is judged by the USDA. Which is cool when, say, they're not talking about your entire business and life. The projected income for the family over the next ten years, had they kept their sheep, was upwards of 2 million dollars.

You can brin,g in your own appraiser (plus the two USDA appraisers) to evaluate the fair market value but as far as I can tell the USDA doesn't have to listen to your appraiser. At least, in this case they didn't.

But then, this case was a fuckarow from the beginning. When the family finally got the information (after filing multiple FOIAs), every single one of their sheep (two flocks) tested negative. And this was after a barrage of tests that are never given to cattle. If the cattle show negative on the first two tests, they're marked as negative.

Plus, the entire basis for this thing starting was an experiment in England that was looking for BSE in sheep brains. They had the brains of sheep that'd been euthanized because of scrapie, and found BSE prions in them, and were liek HOLY FUCK MUST STUDY THIS.

Four years later, they figure out the the brains they'd been studying? That'd been from sheep with scrapie?

Were cow brains. Sheep can't get BSE. Can you spell 'witch hunt'?

[shadowkitty.livejournal.com]

Heh, I remember the sheep fuck up. Man, the Tory government was stupid.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

IT TOOK THEM FOUR YEARS TO FIGURE OUT IT WASN'T SHEEP BRAINS. WTF!

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

I always want to work at places like this. It's totally misguided of me, but I always think that, just maybe, I could make a change.

Of course, in reality I would only be able to change things if I were a bureaucrat, and it would take 20 years.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

inorite? You'd only be able to change things if you got into a position of power, and that takes forever, and by then you'd be Stockholm syndromed into agreeing with them. :(

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

I KNOW.

That totally happened while I was at Starbucks. It wasn't bad in terms of omg I'm drinking the kool-aid bad - for instance, they put out a press release about Ethiopian coffee, and rather than toeing the line I did my own research and worked out both sides of the issue. But at the same time, things I would've stomped my feet at I ended up shrugging off.

I applied at the BLM around the time they were first floating that "Let's euth the mustangs!" thing. I've got a rather brilliant idea, I think, but the only way to enact it would require me to grab the reins of the organization and piss off a LOT of well-connected people.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

And they'd just destroy you.

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

I would be partly pissing off ranchers. They would fucking shoot me, and my horses.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

I have this ridiculous hate-love relationship with ranchers. A lot of them are taking care of the wild mustangs. But...

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

Basically, my main thing is we need to move the horses out of the massive desert of suck that is Nevada - that would alleviate a lot of the hands on watering and feeding. But to do that, I either want to stick 'em on national parks or stick 'em places that ranchers want their cattle.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

I don't really get why they can't share land with the cattle. I mean, it's not like horses and cows are mortal enemies, right?

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

THEY TOTES CAN, it's just that...like, in pastures, you have to rotate them or they get chewed up and the grass dies. And I think if you're using the same range over and over, it's the same thing.

THEORETICALLY, anyway. I know there's also a huge problem between cattle/horse/sheep ranchers, because sheep kill the grass but somehow it's easier to blame it on the horses no one owns/the prairie dogs/the ferrets/etc.

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Oh man, sheep do fine if they're rotated often enough, otherwise they eat eat eat until it's just dirt.

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

Speaking of eating dirt, Fugly recently wrote about a horse with an awful case of sand colic, and rec'd a supplement that you MUST use to prevent it.

What was really interesting was how half the comments went on to denounce said supplement and went on to dissect sand colic/how it works/how to stop it/etc. I learned a lot in five minutes!

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Ho shit, really? LL to that entry?

[emiweebee.livejournal.com]

http://fuglyhorseoftheday.blogspot.com/2008/08/thor-doesnt-need-10000-thor-needs.html

[the-wanlorn.livejournal.com]

Awesooooooome.