I'm traveling!

My mother-in-law wants to go home to the UK to visit her remaining brothers and sisters but doesn't want to go alone, so I offered to go with her. We're leaving in just over a week and will be over there for two weeks. After I hang with the peeps for a few days, I'm jetting! Got a 4 day BritRail pass and many Marriott points to use. Going to Wales and then on to London. What I see in between, well, that depends on where the day takes me.

I'm taking my laptop with me and hope to post impressions from the road. I'd really like to know what the fine citizens really think of Americans. I mean to drink many pints of Guiness to get to the bottom of that truth.

Hen

Musical chairs Vermont style

Good news!!!!! Jim Jeffords isn't going to seek re-election in 2006. Yipee! Good bye, Jeff. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

What this does, in essence, is create an opportunity for a four seat game of political musical chairs. Gov. Douglas (R) might be interested in running for the seat. So might Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie (R), who when asked if he'd be interested in running gave the polite equivalent of "You bet your ass" as his answer.

The downside is that Bernie Sanders, Socialist, can feature himself in the Senate. Not good. He has not been an asset to Vermont, though the farmers think so.

In truth, the prospect of this shift makes me consider signing up to help with the campaign.

Day-light Savings Time??

The day they announced that Congress may pass an altered version of Daylights Savings Time, the local NBC affiliate interviewed a real Vermonter dairy farmer to see what he thought about the proposal. Well, he didn't like to think it would pass because DST is very hard on his cows. How so? It takes them a long time to adjust to the change - getting fed an hour earlier or later as the case may be - and their milk production goes down. Cows are fussy creatures, you see, and become accustomed to having life be the same every day.

God, I love Vermont.

Hen

Food, getting the priorites straight

It was reported yesterday that studies showed milk and meat from cloned cows posed no problems. "A study by UConn researchers say the meat and milk are essentially identical to that from animals that reproduced normally." The word that bothers me is "essentially". In any report I heard yesterday they never described what is different. People, get ready. It won't be long until we don't know the source of any of our foods.

In the meantime, honeybees, who are responsible for pollinating vital crops are facing serious declines because of varroa mite infestations. Seems to me that the honeybees are more important than cloning cows. Being a beekeeper myself, I have seen the effects of mites and it's not pretty. There is a real danger of honeybees becoming endangered. Read this article about it. Imagine a world with no watermelons, blueberries, strawberries, pecans or beans.

I'm telling you, we need to get our priorities right.

Hen

Clucking Points

• Over at Wikipedia, the free "encyclopedia" the article about Terri Shiavo is under fire from the BlogsforTerri folks for not having a neutral point of view. The article is extremely biased. Wikipedia allows a reader to edit articles but in every instance, including my own edit updating the polls to include the Zogby poll, the edits were taken out and the original restored. Check it out, it's very interesting.

• European Food Supplements Directive Declared Invalid.

• Note to Fox News: All news all the time? It's become obsessive. First it was Robert Blake, then Kobe Bryant and Scott Peterson, then Michael Jackson, then Terri Schiavo, then The Pope. What has happened to "Fair and Balanced"? They've become more of an event coverage channel.

• I am no music critic, that's for sure. I think this years group of American Idol singers are, by and large, awful.
  

Hen

How clean is your milk?

Raw milk can be healthier than current American staple.

Actually the headline should read Raw Milk IS Healthier than current American staple but I understand why they wouldn't go all the way out on the limb. None the less, the truth about milk is beginning to come to light. We've been without milk for months because the cows get dried off for the winter and I miss it, but the spring is coming and I can wait a few more weeks. That first raw milk from grass fed cows who have been eating the first growth of spring grass is practically yellow with wholesome butterfat. It tastes very much like melted ice cream.

Young girls, having been raised on store milk loaded with growth hormones, develop and begin their monthlies much earlier than girls raised on raw milk or milk without the growth hormones. Young boys also have problems from the growth hormone by earlier sexual development and can grow breasts from the estrogen that is in the growth hormone. Young people who are raised on low fat, 1% or 2% store bought milk suffer later in life from neurological problems because they've been deprived of fat that feeds growing neurological pathways. They are even encouraging new mothers to feed their babies low fat food products. It scares the heck out of me.

Hen

In good company

It has always seemed to me that "public" persons seem to die in threes. Johny Cochran, Terri Schiavo and the Pope's death seems imminent. Just interesting to note.