Free Republic

Many in the White House press corps have a raging case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It flared up again when the White House released images of the commemorative eggs that will be available for purchase to celebrate the annual White House Easter Egg roll. Pastel versions of the official egg are $8.50. A gold version is $14.95. The eggs will feature the signature of President Trump and First lady Melania Trump. The seemingly innocuous announcement triggered public hackles from mainstream media reporters. New York Times reporter Julie Davis: “Forget those silly pastel/rainbow colors of White House East Egg Rolls past;...

The world population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. China and India, the two largest countries in the world, have populations totalling around one billion. In four years, by 2022, India is predicted to have the largest population in the world, surpassing China. This means we need new ways to grow food that are smarter and helps regulate our use of land, water and energy in order to feed the planet and avoid a global food crisis. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute believe the answer lies in sensors, artificial intelligence (AI) and robots. In a new...

Proponents and opponents of legalizing pot in Illinois are firing up their talking points after a proposal to legalize the sale of weed for recreational purposes sprouted up this week. Opponents of legalizing, regulating and taxing pot say they don’t care how much revenue it could generate for Illinois’ failed finances. Amendments to bills in the House and Senate this week would allow for the sale of recreational marijuana with a $50 tax per ounce. That would be on top of any sales tax. Supporters says it could generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the state. Democratic...

At the Ranch in Arizona, I keep water trickling for a water hole. It is the only reliable water for about three miles in any direction.  I have a game camera there, and sometimes obtain interesting photographs, like the bobcat and coyote interaction above from a couple of months ago.  The water hole is about 15 yards from the backstop of the pistol range.  Some of the water pipe was exposed over the last few years. My bother and I were at the range, shooting 170 grain cast lead .40 caliber projectiles at a half silhouette steel target.   After...

Princeton economics professor emeritus and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton has been running around making an extraordinary claim: “Being really poor in America is in some ways worse than being really poor in India or Africa," he recently told the National Association for Business Economics. Asked about those comments in an interview with the Atlantic, Deaton doubled down: "If you had to choose between living in a poor village in India and living in the Mississippi Delta or in a suburb of Milwaukee in a trailer park, I'm not sure who would have the better life." This claim was qualified—Deaton is...

When you think of milk, what first comes to your mind? If you’re a millennial, you probably think of strong bones, Got Milk? commercials, or maybe eating your favorite cereal while watching cartoons on a Saturday morning. What about racism? White nationalism? If you’re having trouble finding the connection between these institutions and milk, you’re not alone. You, along with the rest of the nation, have been so accustomed to hearing the benefits of milk that you probably didn’t even realize the subtle racism hidden in our health facts. It may not surprise you that the United States was founded...

<p>On a rooftop in the Jewish-Arab Tel Aviv neighborhood of Jaffa, a former military technologist and an ex-journalist sit in a transparent bio-dome where their robot is busy learning how to grow food.</p> <p>Flux IoT’s Eddy, a robot measuring less than a foot tall and resembling a life buoy, is built with military-grade sensors and armed with image-processing technology.</p>

My Lady Jean and have a nice little ranch near Denver. On our tender little 35 acres, we have ten alpacas. They belong to the Camelid family, llamas, vicuña and the true humpty humpers. They're cute too, so Lady Jean is happy. We're expecting a baby "cria" in May. Our first breeding try. We have all females except one old gelded male, Andy. You don't keep the boys and girls together as the boys will go through a fence if he gets the right wink! We have two years of fleece, they get shorn once a year and yield around...

Humans have needs, but we need some things more than others. Back in the 1940s, American psychologist Abraham Maslow famously classified human needs into a hierarchy, often shown as a pyramid. At the foundation are our physiological needs: air, water, food, etc. Only when these needs are met can we reach upward to more and more refined stages of material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual fulfillment. You could say, the very existence of civilization depends on the stability of the bottom layer. It’s thus no accident that a huge part of the economy exists to fill these basic needs. Even smart...

HARRISBURG (March 6, 2017) – Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said today Pennsylvania should strongly consider regulating and taxing marijuana to benefit from a booming industry expected to be worth $20 billion and employ more than 280,000 in the next decade. “The regulation and taxation of the marijuana train has rumbled out of the station, and it is time to add a stop in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” DePasquale said during a news conference at the state capitol. “I make this recommendation because it is a more sane policy to deal with a critical issue facing the state. Other states are...

Indoor farming is a popular subject in the media, and a booming industry with new farmers joining the game every day. In fact, there are growing conferences held solely for indoor farmers, their suppliers, influencers, and resources. But many are still left with questions about the indoor farm. •Just what makes an indoor farm an indoor farm? •What makes indoor farming so popular? •What potential does indoor farming really have in the future? •How will I interact with indoor farms? Dr. Nate has an overview for you. What is indoor farming all about?(VIDEO-AT-LINK) What is indoor farming? Indoor farms take...

It appears that one of the most visible achievements of Michelle Obama’s legacy as first lady will live on in the Trump White House: her garden. First lady Melania Trump announced last week that she would preserve the White House vegetable garden planted in 2009. It came as a surprise to many nutrition advocates and food policy experts, who had expressed fears that Michelle Obama’s garden and the health and nutrition initiatives it symbolized could be endangered under the Trump administration. Some advocates, including Michael Jacobson, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, are lauding the new...

According to ganjapreneur Rick Byrd, the future of farming is tall, dirtless and local. Byrd’s vision of skyscraper farms to feed city dwellers begins with a much different kind of crop: marijuana. The 45-year-old is chief executive officer and founder of Pure Agrobusiness Inc., a company that sells equipment to grow legal cannabis, a market worth $6 billion in 2016 and expected to reach $50 billion by 2026, according to Cowen & Co. Because cannabis has higher profit margins than food, and pot is mostly grown inside, Byrd said he hopes the innovations perfected by PureAgro, with the help of...

ALBANY - The lead state Senate sponsor of New York's medical marijuana law has written to President Trump asking that the feds allow such state programs to continue. Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island) wrote to Trump on Dec. 9 when he was President-elect encouraging him to direct his Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions "to respect the wishes of the citizens and elected officials of 29 states and allow carefully regulated and closely monitored medical cannabis programs to continue without undue interference from the federal government." Despite the growing number of states allowing some type of marijuana use, the drug...

A total of 133 organizations and companies from the food and agriculture sector, which supports more than 15 million jobs nationally, sent President Donald J. Trump a letter this week expressing their eagerness to work with his Administration to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), while preserving and expanding the gains achieved to date. “U.S. food and agricultural exports have produced a trade surplus for nearly 50 years,” the letter notes. “Consistent growth over this period resulted in over $130 billion worth of exports, which created $423 billion in U.S. economic activity in 2015.” The letter also noted...

Marijuana legalization advocates and industry actors remain optimistic about the incoming Trump administration's attitude towards pot, despite some less-than-reassuring comments from the man who will soon be charged with enforcing drug laws in America. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump's nominee for U.S. Attorney General, in a confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee this week said he could not commit to not enforcing federal marijuana laws when at the helm of the Department of Justice. He didn't say he would crack down on cannabis, either. "I won't commit to never enforcing federal law...but absolutely it's a problem...

Bunge North American is planning to build its first new U.S. processing plant in 15 years to meet growing demand for soy products. The company is considering locations in Ohio and Indiana for the plant, which is expected to go on line by the end of 2019. No cost estimates for the project were disclosed. Tim Gallagher, executive vice president, Oilseed Value Chain for Bunge, said the company saw a need to expand its footprint in the Eastern U.S. — a key market. "A state-of-the-art facility in the Eastern Corn Belt that incorporates the latest productivity, safety and sustainability features...

FRESNO — Days after Donald Trump won the White House vowing to deport millions of people in the country illegally and fortify the Mexican border, California farmer Kevin Herman ordered nearly $600,000 in new equipment, cutting the number of workers he’ll need starting with the next harvest. Herman, who grows figs, persimmons and almonds in the nation’s most productive farming state, said Trump’s comments pushed him to make the purchase, larger than he would have otherwise. “No doubt about it,” Herman said. “I probably wouldn’t have spent as much or bought as much machinery as I did.”(continued)

For Randy King, the argument for indoor farming in Canada is just common sense. For one, Canada is a northern country with long winters. Two, during those long winters almost all fruit and vegetables in Canadian grocery stores are imported from Central America, Mexico or California. Three, wouldn’t it be better if Canadians grew their own fruits and veggies? “I think this is the way of the future for growing produce in northern regions,” said King, co-owner of West Grow Farms, a company with plans to build an indoor farm near Edmonton. “In order to gain food sovereignty, we need...

People were poor by today's standards, so why do people remember the plantation life fondly? The answer is simple: community, purpose, sacrifice and meaning. Allow me to connect two apparently unconnected dots. Dot #1: The last sugar plantation in Hawaii is closing down, ending more than a century of plantation life in the 50th state. Dot #2: a new study found that Nearly 95% of all new jobs during Obama era were part-time, or contract. The research by economists Lawrence Katz of Harvard University and Alan Krueger at Princeton University shows that the proportion of workers throughout the U.S., during...