Monthly Archives: January 2005

Buy Local & Live Free: Tired Tomatoes

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Our wonderful farmer’s market supports Robin Good’s statement that we should “Buy local and Live Free”. Good provides a useful illustration:

It?s gotten to the point where much of our nourishment depends on a handful of giants.
And they?re shipping foods an average of 1500 miles to reach your plate, a practice that strains anyone?s notion of ?fresh.?
But a quiet revolution is in the air, and we the eaters hold the power for change.
The typical Tom (tomato) is exhausted by the time he gets to market.
1500 miles from field to fork ? that?s the trek made by the average fruit or vegetable these days. Because of the need to hold up over distances, our foods are bred, not for taste but for transport ? their ability to handle the long haul. And what do we eaters get? Tired tomatoes

Yesterday’s winter farmer’s market included a big stack of tomatoes, potatoes, cheeses, honey, spinach, apples, eggs, pork and beef.

Biodiesel & Willie Nelson

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Wired News:

“There is really no need going around starting wars over oil. We have it here at home. We have the necessary product, the farmers can grow it,” said Nelson, who organized Farm Aid two decades ago to draw attention to the plight of American agriculture.
Nelson told The Associated Press in an interview last week that he began learning about the product a few years ago after his wife purchased a biodiesel-burning car in Hawaii, where the star has a home.
“I got on the computer and punched in biodiesel and found out this could be the future,” said Nelson, who now uses the fuel for his cars and tour buses.
Peter Bell, a Texas biodiesel supplier, struck up a friendship with Nelson after filling up one of the tour buses, and the business partnership came together just before Christmas.

Fat links: alltheweb Clusty | Google | MSN | Teoma | Yahoo

Our Tax Dollars at Work: FBI’s $170M failed Computer System

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Erich Lichtblau:

The development is a major setback for the F.B.I. in a decade-long struggle to escape a paper-driven culture and replace antiquated computer systems that have hobbled counterterrorism and criminal investigations. Robert S. Mueller III, the bureau’s director, along with members of the Sept. 11 commission and other national security experts, have said the success of that effort is critical to domestic security.
“It’s immensely disappointing to learn of this type of failure,” Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, said in an interview. “The F.B.I. cannot share information and manage their cases effectively without a top-flight computer system, and we on the commission got assurances again and again from the F.B.I. that they were getting on top of this problem. It’s very, very disappointing to see that they’re not.”

Investors supporting spyware

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Ben Edelman’s page is a great example of the internet’s enormous “power to the people” potential. Edelman lists the firms producing spyware along with their investors. Check it out. Wikipedia:

Strictly defined, spyware consists of computer software that gathers and reports information about a computer user without the user’s knowledge or consent. More broadly, the term spyware can refer to a wide range of related malware products which fall outside the strict definition of spyware. These products perform many different functions, including the delivery of unrequested advertising (pop-up ads in particular), harvesting private information, re-routing page requests to illegally claim commercial site referral fees, and installing stealth phone dialers.

Clusty fat link: spyware.