Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

If you have paid any attention to me at all, you know I don't support the governments NAIS efforts. We don't need the government mandating yet another expensive program that us producers can't afford to implement for them.

Yesterday I worked my replacement heifers, heifer calves that I am keeping to make cows out of, and as part of the process I had a veterinarian on hand to bangs (Brucellosis) vaccinate them. Now Bangs vaccination requires a vet to do it. He tattoos the animals ear with his tattoo identifying he done it and then puts a metal tag in their ear with a unique identification number along with giving them their vaccination of course.

I asked the vet why the unique id number on the bangs tag couldn't be used as part of the NAIS system. It is a unique number that is sent into the government identifying an animal to a person and I have personally seen it used to track a critter as mine in less than 24 hours. He informed me that technically it should work just as well if not better than the proposed NAIS if the government just handled the paperwork right. According to him to many states do not file the paperwork right, a lot of it finds file 13, so that it is not useful for tracking purposes.

So, instead of throwing a lot of money away devising a new system, why can't we throw some of it at the existing Bangs system to fix the paperwork problems on the government level to track breeding age cows through the US? One of the main reasons behind NAIS is BSE. Since this disease is not transfered from cow to cow and only occurs in older cattle, usually breeding stock, wouldn't it make since to fix the broken system instead of reinventing the wheel?

Typical government inefficiency. Don't fix the broken, just make a new bureaucracy.

Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us. P. J. O'Rourke

Cross-posted to No Mandatory Animal ID

Let's try this again, almost done and I lost the whole thing.

I swear My Darling Wife just loves to pick a fight sometimes. School hasn't even started yet and she is fighting with them. It could get interesting.

The High School mailed out the enrollment forms a couple of weeks ago and My Darling Wife was reviewing them and got upset when the asked for our daughters Social Security Number (SSN). We make a habit of not handing out our SSN around here so she wasn't going to put it on the form but decided to call the school and find out why they needed it. When she got a hold of the appropriate person at school she asked her just that, "why do you need my kids SSN on the enrollment form?" The gal on the other end responded that the State Office of Public Instruction (OPI) required it and that we "had to give the number to her." My Darling Wife politely informed her that by law the SSN can not be used for routine identification and that the first step in identity theft is getting somebodies SSN. Because of this the Government and security experts tell you never to give your SSN out unless necessary so why is this necessary. The women told her again, "The OPI requires it and you have to give it to us." My Wife asked for the law or document number or any kind of reference to this requirement so she could check out what statue provides for the demanding of the SSN by the state. The women said "It is not my job to give you that kind of information" and hung up on My Wife.

My Wife was a little upset at this point and decided to get a hold of the OPI and ask them why they needed the SSN and what law provided for this information to be gathered. Come to find out, the OPI does not require the SSN at all. Armed with this information she got a hold of the school again a few days later and asked the same question about the SSN. She got the same response, "the OPI demands it." She then unleashed upon the women and informed her the OPI does not require a students SSN and that she had the documentation to prove it. The women, in all of her bureaucratic inertia, insisted that her OPI tech, whatever that is, says they need the SSN and that "you have to give it to us!!!! My Wife informed her that the State didn't require it and she wasn't providing it. The women then informed her that they would call the student to the office on a daily basis, if not two or three times a day, and demand that the student provide them the number. My Wife said that our child does not know her SSN and they can demand all they want, she won't give it to them. The women said you wait and see, we will get it out of her. My Wife informed her that she would be contacting the appropriate authorities regarding the threat she just made on our daughters life and that her attitude was unnecessary. The women then informed her that the principal would have to get involved. My Darling Wife laughed at her and told her, "I might have been afraid of the Principal when I was in school myself, but now I am an adult and he is just a person like anyone else and he doesn't scare me one bit, bring him on." At this point the women was on the verge of tears just repeating the mantra that we had to give it to them. My Wife finally asked if their was another option for this number if the parent would not give it. The women mentioned that we could put our child's Drivers License Number down. My Wife said okay, that's what I will do. The women said that they would be asking our daughter for her SSN and to expect it. She told the women to just try, after the threats she made, we were more than ready to take them on.

How this will all turn out remains to be seen. We take turns every year filling these forms out and last year I did them. I followed my normal practice of completely ignoring the SSN part and not filling it out. I do that on all the objectionable parts of the enrollment form every time I fill them out, leave parts blank. At the end I always state that the parts left blank are on purpose and that I fell they do not need the information they are requesting and if there is a problem to call me. I have never heard from them so I guess it was okay.You can either fight bureaucrats, like My Darling Wife is doing, or ignore them, like I do. It might be more fun to fight them, but it's better on your blood pressure to ignore them. I guess it is all personal choice.

The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power. John Berger

USDA abandons private database concept for NAIS

USDA, after hearing strong opposition from the industry, has abandoned its earlier decision to allow a single private entity to manage the livestock movement database in connection with the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

But that wasn't the only major announcement from the agency concerning NAIS:

The agency's NAIS coordinator, Neil Hammerchmidt, told last week's meeting of R-CALF USA that there won't be a mandatory ID program by 2009, as previously announced.

And, he said, USDA attorneys are researching whether they have the legal authority to require producers to report livestock movement to a private entity.

This sure looks to me like a bunch of Government speak. I will attempt to decipher it.

"Since people don't like the idea of a private database we will just have the government keep the database and announce that there will be no mandatory program reporting to a private database. This will lull all the opposition to this program, like R-CALF, into thinking it won't be mandatory program down the line in 2009."

Yes, all they are saying is that they won't have a mandatory program that reports to a private database, not that there won't be a program. We need to keep up the pressure on this issue to stop the USDA from handing over production of all our food to the big corporations and factory farms who support the NAIS system. Remember, no ear tag ever stopped a disease.

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. Milton Friedman