The poll is closed on the question, “As a consumer would you buy produce that was clearly marked as irradiated?” 67% of you said you would not buy irradiated produce. The result is only a surprise to me in the sense that the total was not higher. This means that supporters of irradiated produce have a lot of work to do to sell consumers in irradiation. The next poll question is about the Supreme Courts decision on voter IDs.
By DEBORAH HASTINGS – 19 hours ago
The Supreme Court's refusal to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box could disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other state's to pass similar laws, voting advocates said Monday.
The court, in a splintered 6-3 ruling Monday, said Indiana's law, which took effect in 2006 and requires voters to present a state or federal photo ID card at the ballot box, does not violate the First or 14th amendments. The court said the law served as a justifiable protection to the electoral process.
"It's especially worrisome that the court has sent a signal making it easier to put up barriers to people voting," said Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school. "There's a real risk that people will see this as a green light to pass restrictive voter ID laws in other states."
More than 20 states require some type of identification at the polls. But only Georgia and Indiana require government-issued photo IDs. In recent years, appellate courts have upheld bitterly fought identification laws in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, but none is as stringent as the Indiana law.
By Deborah Rich
the list of structural barriers goes on. Because there isn't good regional market and pricing data for organic crops, organic growers pay a five percent penalty surcharge on crop insurance premiums. When organic growers incur an insured loss, they are repaid at conventional crop prices even though conventional prices are usually far lower than organic prices. And without solid third party data to back up their estimates, organic farmers have difficulty convincing loan officers that their projected yields and revenues are reasonable.
Many regions lack the distribution infrastructure even to supply organic farmers with compost. "Organic is highly geocentric," says Steve Diver, who worked for 18 years for the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA). "The organic infrastructure sucks to hell for most of the heartland of the country." In California, Diver says, farmers can pick up the phone and order whatever soil amendments they need, in whatever quantities, from a local dealer who will deliver the goods right to the farm. But in many parts of the South, five to six farmers have to band together, order a 22-ton semi-truck load from out of state, then off-load the product into their own vehicles and truck it home.
