Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Walter at NoNAIS.org brings us some interesting information about the need for NAIS. All along the government has proclaimed that Nais is necessary to control diseases like BSE. According to the US Food and Drug Administration;

Are the protective measures in place sufficient to ensure the safety of the human food supply in light of the June 2005 BSE positive cow?

Yes, the protective measures put into place in July 2004 by FDA ensure that cattle materials that carry the highest risk of transmitting the agent that causes BSE are excluded from human food, including dietary supplements, and cosmetics. These measures, along with similar measures established by USDA, provide a uniform national BSE policy and ensure the safety of human food.

Is the food in the U.S. likely to be a BSE risk to consumers?

FDA and other federal agencies have had preventive measures in place to reduce the U.S. consumer's risk of exposure to any BSE-contaminated meat and food products. Since 1989, USDA has prohibited the importation of live animals and animal products from BSE-positive countries. Subsequently, USDA expanded the ban to include both countries with BSE and countries at risk for BSE. Since 1997, FDA has prohibited the use of most mammalian protein in the manufacture of ruminant feed. In 2004, FDA issued a rule prohibiting the use of certain cattle materials in human food and cosmetics, and USDA issued a rule prohibiting certain cattle materials from use as human food.

So, it seems that all measures are all ready in affect to protect the consumers from BSE. Why does the Government want the NAIS then? As a prelude to numbering all people in the US maybe. It's not as far fetched as you think.

Instead of generating either unnecessary alarm or a false sense of security regarding these fundamental issues, the best course is to empower people with the truth. Dick Thornburgh

Boy it got warm around here yesterday. What little snow there was on the hillside above the corral broke and overflowed my diversion ditch and was flowing down through the corral. What a mess it was making in the corral.



I felt like some farmer tending his irrigation walking around with my shovel diverting water so it didn't make too big of mess in the corral. Once I got it flowing through the corral I worked on the diversion ditch and finally after a couple of hours picking at the frozen ground got the water flowing through it like it should. Walking around with a shovel tending water. Bah, farmers do that.

I called a well driller back in December about drilling a new well in one place out in a summer pasture. He said he would get back to me at the end on January. I finally heard from him yesterday. I guess he got January and February mixed up. He wanted to come out and drill the well next week. I told him to call me when he is closer but that it is wet enough I don't think he could get his rig in. He was very surprised by this. He said as dry as everyone was he was sure he could get out here. I told him it wasn't real wet out here but it was slick enough his rig would never make it. Never assume just because "every place else" is dry to think we are. Most of the time we have a "little" more.

I don't know when I will be able to get the driller in. Eventually I will and more money will be out of my pocket drilling a new well. Better that than the cows dying of thirst though.

Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy. Napoleon Bonaparte

I could make a lot of comments about this program that some one has dreamed up but I won't. Suffice it to say that easiest way to deal with the problem of BVD-PI cattle, cattle that are persistently infected with Bovine Virus Diarrhoea, is watching your cattle a little more closely and culling poor producing animals. For some reason cows that are BVD-PI have smaller calves in the spring and more often lose their calves in the spring so if you cull in the spring everything that doesn't have a calf, or has a really poor calf, BVD won't be a problem in your herd. No need for expensive tests or procedures. Too simple for most people though. They like to make things harder than they need to be.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires. Lao Tzu