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.

[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]

[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]

Now, more than ever, SPEAK OUT. Make this again a land of free and home of brave.

Thanks

[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]