Now is the time for all good people, farmers, chefs, retailers and consumers, to be going to the Federal Register regarding mandating the National Animal Identification System for veterinarian care. The scope of this comment is quite narrow. Focus on just the issue. Below is my comment:
I oppose this ruling of making NAIS mandatory for disease programs. This is one of those unintended consequences rules - what what is being done makes it so many people will not work with vets and won’t report disease. A beautiful example of what we don’t want happening. Big Brother’s heavy hand just pushes people all the wrong ways. Instead if we want information about disease we should be making it easier for people to work voluntarily with existing disease tracking programs. No need to waste hundreds of millions of dollars alienating millions of small farmers. NAIS is Not An Incredibly Smart program.
Go to the Federal Register, click on the yellow/orange balloon to leave a comment, fill in the fields, click “Next/Step” and confirm by pressing “Submit” at the bottom. They are very picky. Jump through the hoops, over the hurdles and be sure your voice is heard.
Well I just did add my voice to the SMALL amount that have posted…….it took maybe 5 min. If your reading my post and haven’t go do it….we need numbers folks…….
Scott
Send this link far and wide……we will be out of time before you know it.
Comment Scott — March 14, 2009 @ 8:53 pm
I want to go to the register but I am so affraid of giving out my information. I don’t want to put myself on one of their lists. What is the safety on this site? I have tried to leave my comments without having to give my history. Is their a better way?
[Have no fear, we are already on their lists in N different ways. If you vote, if you have a driver’s license, if you immigrated, if you were born here, if i you have a SSnumber, etc. Speak up, leave a comment, your voice is important. -WJ]
Comment Beverly — March 15, 2009 @ 4:21 am
Beverly,
Be brave and speak up. It’s impossible to hide anyway.
Comment Barbara — March 15, 2009 @ 8:30 am
i left my 2 scents!
Comment esbee — March 15, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
Beverly, thanks for bringing that up. I get paranoid too. Barbara and WJ, you are right. So I spoke.
Comment Leanna Clark — March 15, 2009 @ 10:13 pm
Anyone who is afraid to comment negatively against ‘our’ government, please take note of the increasing number of citizens who are doing just that!
Now, more than ever, SPEAK OUT. Make this again a land of free and home of brave.
Thanks
Comment nedlud — March 16, 2009 @ 5:59 am
our constitution guarantees freedom of speech….that actually means the freedom from retaliation from the govt to make a political speed expressing your opinions, not the freedom to make child-porn or say filth in books and movies, like so many of the fringe have had court cases over…AND the courts rule in their favor…so speak up!!!!
Comment esbee — March 16, 2009 @ 8:19 am
strange, I posted a comment today was given a number after submission yet I can’t find my message on their comment listings.
[I have had that happen. I believe the USDA moderates comments before letting them post on the web site. This prevents spammers. I do the same thing for exactly the same reason. There were two spammers trying to comment right before you comment above. Some even get through with the math test although that does seem to catch the vast majority lowering my moderation work load. I have read that spammers hire people to act like they’re spambots pretending they’re people. So goes the arms race. I blacklist the IP’s of the spammers so they can’t repeat the offense. -WJ]
Comment DeniseA — March 16, 2009 @ 1:12 pm
so Walter are you saying that my comment was treated as ’spam’ and won’t get processed?
[No, rather there is a human being at the USDA, or their web site center, who is reading each and every comment before it is posted to their web site. This causes a delay, just as there is here on NoNAIS.org and my other blog SugarMtnFarm. My guess is that since today is the last day for comments they are getting flooded and the human can’t keep up with the comments. At this point it is 6:21 PM ET so any new comments may be holding in the queue until someone reads them and releases them onto the web site in the next day (or few days). If it were somehow possible to fry all the spammers none of this would be necessary. Sadly, as programmers on the side of all that is good and right get better at filtering spam the programmers on the dark side get better at writing spambots which is why they employ people in some cases to help with the spamming like I had mentioned before. An arms race - they’ll do anything to get you to see their clients’ ads for artificial insemination, milking equipment, credit cards or what ever the human equivelant is… :) In short, I suspect your comment will be there by the end of the week. Cheers, -WJ]
Comment DeniseA — March 16, 2009 @ 2:24 pm
Yes they went from 5477 at about ten this morning to over 6000 by 3:00pm. Hopefully the are getting inundated. I did not see any comments FOR Nais,and I read well over a hundred before the computer got too slow. did anyone else see any comments FOR NAIS?
Comment Snazy snezy — March 16, 2009 @ 6:26 pm
ok Walter thanks for explaining.
on a side note:
did anyone get to watch the Documentary premier “Death On A Factory Farm” last night or read this article in the NYT’s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/opinion/12kristof.html?_r=2&em
the HBO documentary is a
harrowing, disturbing depiction of the treatment of hogs on a Ohio farm(worst I’ve seen), who would want to feed their family meat from that operation, all the more compelling reason for Americans to get seriously educated and informed about the nation’s food supply, how it is produced, treated and processed and how the gov’t is beholden to NOT look out for their best interest.
check it out if you haven’t seen it.
Comment DeniseA — March 17, 2009 @ 7:08 am