#agricultural licensing requirements

[farmerstrend]

The Future of Ndengu Farming in Kenya: How the Mung Beans Bill 2022 Could Shape the Industry

Kenyan mung bean or ndengu farmers will require licenses from the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) if a new Bill becomes law. The Mung Beans Bill 2022, seeking to promote growth and development of the mung bean industry, proposes that every grower shall register with the relevant county executive committee (CEC) member in charge of agriculture, with each CEC member required to maintain a…

[mxjackparker]

The only way in which selling sex is exceptional as a form of work is that it involves having sex.

Sex work is not more emotionally intimate than all other forms of work. Emotional intimacy can be involved in therapy, care work, and writing about deeply personal topics.

Sex work is not the only form of work which can involve genital contact. This happens in medical environments, care work and when giving genital piercings.

Sex work is not uniquely dangerous. Fishing, construction and underwater welding all have high fatality and injury rates.

Sex work is not more prone to trafficking than all other forms of work. People are trafficked in huge numbers in the agricultural industry and for the manufacture of textiles.

Sex work is not the only form of work which involves frequent sexual harassment. People are often sexually harassed whilst doing bar work, waiting tables and providing health care and social assistance.

Sex work is not the only type of work that is criminalized. Other types of work like busking without a license, drug dealing, con artistry and any kind of job which requires authorisation form a third party where that isn't obtained.

Stop it with the sex work exceptionalism! Treat it like other work.

[mariacallous]

Today, the US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against farming equipment manufacturer Deere & Company��makers of the iconic green John Deere tractors, harvesters, and mowers—citing its longtime reluctance to keep its customers from fixing their own machines.

“Farmers rely on their agricultural equipment to earn a living and feed their families,” FTC chair Lina Khan wrote in a statement alongside the full complaint. “Unfair repair restrictions can mean farmers face unnecessary delays during tight planting and harvest windows.”

The FTC’s main complaint here centers around a software problem. Deere places limitations on its operational software, meaning certain features and calibrations on its tractors can only be unlocked by mechanics who have the right digital key. Deere only licenses those keys to its authorized dealers, meaning farmers often can’t take their tractors to more convenient third-party mechanics or just fix a problem themselves. The suit would require John Deere to stop the practice of limiting what repair features its customers can use and make them available to those outside official dealerships.

Kyle Wiens is the CEO of the repair advocacy retailer iFixit and an occasional WIRED contributor who first wrote about John Deere’s repair-averse tactics in 2015. In an interview today, he noted how frustrated farmers get when they try to fix something that has gone wrong, only to run into Deere's policy.

“When you have a thing that doesn’t work, if you’re 10 minutes from the store, it’s not a big deal,” Wiens says. “If the store is three hours away, which it is for farmers in most of the country, it’s a huge problem.”

The other difficulty is that US copyright protections prevent anyone but John Deere from making software that counteracts the restrictions the company has put on its platform. Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 makes it so people can’t legally counteract technological measures that fall under its protections. John Deere’s equipment falls under that copyright policy.

“Not only are they being anti-competitive, it's literally illegal to compete with them,” Wiens says.

Deere in the Headlights

Wiens says that even though there has been a decade of pushback against John Deere from farmers and repairability advocates, the customers using the company’s machines have not seen much benefit from all that discourse.

“Things really have not gotten better for farmers,” Wiens says. “Even with all of the noise around a right to repair over the years, nothing has materially changed for farmers on the ground yet.”

This suit against Deere, he thinks, will be different.

“This has to be the thing that does it,” Wiens says. “The FTC is not going to settle until John Deere makes the software available. This is a step in the right direction.”

Deere’s reluctance to make its products more accessible has angered many of its customers, and even garnered generally bipartisan congressional support for reparability in the agricultural space. The FTC alleges John Deere also violated legislation passed by the Colorado state government in 2023 that requires farm equipment sold in the state to make operational software accessible to users.

“Deere’s unlawful business practices have inflated farmers’ repair costs and degraded farmers’ ability to obtain timely repairs,” the suit reads.

Deere & Company did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Instead, the company forwarded its statement about the FTC's lawsuit. The statement reads, in part: “Deere remains fully committed to ensuring that customers have the highest quality equipment, reliable customer service and that they, along with independent repair technicians, have access to tools and resources that can help diagnose, maintain and repair our customers’ machines. Deere’s commitment to these ideals will not waiver even as it fights against the FTC’s meritless claims.”

Elsewhere in the statement, Deere accused the FTC of "brazen partisanship" filed on the "eve of a change in administration" from chair Lina Khan to FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson. The company also pointed to an announcement, made yesterday, about an expansion to its repairability program that lets independent technicians reprogram the electronic controllers on Deere equipment.

Nathan Proctor, senior director for the Campaign for the Right to Repair at the advocacy group US PIRG, wrote a statement lauding the FTC’s decision. He thinks this case, no matter how it turns out, will be a positive step for the right to repair movement more broadly.

“I think this discovery process will paint a picture that will make it very clear that their equipment is programmed to monopolize certain repair functions,” Proctor tells WIRED. “And I expect that Deere will either fix the problem or pay the price. I don’t know how long that is going to take. But this is such an important milestone, because once the genie’s out of the bottle, there’s no getting it back in.”

[whencyclopedia]

Repartimiento

The Repartimiento system was a distribution of rights to Spanish colonialists and municipalities, which allowed them to extract forced but low-paid labour from local communities in conquered territories. Designed to replace the inefficient encomienda system, the repartimiento system was eventually only used for crucial industries such as food and cloth production and precious metal mining.

The Encomienda System

When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World in the 16th century, they searched for and shared out the resources they came across. Initially, this was gold, silver, and other precious materials, but as the European colonization of the Americas got underway, labour and slaves became just as valuable. The right to extract labour from a local population – used for working agricultural lands, particularly plantations, and mines – was awarded by the Spanish colonial administration as a license called an encomienda. The license applied to the individual holder and was not tied to any specific area of land, even a town could hold an encomienda. In return for this free labour, the Europeans were expected to give military protection to their labourers and to offer them the opportunity to be converted to Christianity. A holder of an encomienda, therefore, had to fund a parish priest. Although the system was very close to slavery, license-holders could not sell their labourers. The pope had prohibited the slavery of indigenous Americans in 1537, but this scruple clearly did not apply to imported Africans.

From the viewpoint of the Spanish, the encomienda system worked for a while, but it was highly inefficient. Many indigenous peoples, understandably, made attempts to escape. Many were unused and unsuited to working on large-scale agricultural schemes. European-born diseases devastated local populations making it much more difficult to find the labour the Spanish required. Overexploitation of the labourers they could find – literally working and starving them to death – became such a problem that voices in the Establishment back in Spain began to be raised in protest. It was noted, too, that many license-holders did not fulfil their spiritual obligations to their labourers. Bodies like the Council of the Indies, which managed all of Spain's colonies, began to search for a better alternative to the encomienda system. The twin aims of colonization were the extraction of resources and the saving of souls by converting local peoples to Christianity. The encomienda system seemed to be failing on both fronts. The answer the authorities came up with was the repartimiento system.

With rapacious conquistadors and unprincipled settlers eager to extract all they could from colonies, any attempt at change was bound to face practical problems. The first attempt to abolish the encomienda system came in 1542, and a set of New Laws hoped to reduce its application. These attempts failed. The next serious attempt at reform came in 1573 when Philip II of Spain (r. 1556-1598) outlawed any use of the encomienda system in any new territories. Although it was no longer a major aspect of the colonial economy by the end of the 16th century, it was not until the 18th century that the encomienda system finally died out.

Continue reading...

[fatehbaz]

The link between warfare and technological innovation has been well documented [...]. World War II was a particularly intense crucible of technological change, and the repurposing of military technologies and industries in the forging of a new post-war consumer [economy] is crucial [...]. Processes of technological bricolage turned the machines of war onto the natural world as global powers competed to cement their economic and imperial hegemony. In Great Britain’s post-war “groundnut scheme” in its East African territories (1946-51), this collision of nature, military hardware, and technical expertise was part of efforts to both produce more fats for the British diet and to demonstrate to the world (most importantly the United States) that, through a newly energized science-led developmentalism, British colonialism still had a “progressive” role to play in the postwar world.

The aim was to produce millions of tons of peanuts across Tanganyika using the latest methods of advanced scientific agriculture. The environmental conditions in the north, where the scheme was to begin, were known to be especially trying, not least the dry climate [...]. But faith in the power of mechanized agriculture was such that any natural limits were thought to be readily surmountable.

The groundnut scheme was to be, as its Director put it in an interview with the Tanganyika Standard, a “war” with nature, and an “economic Battle of Alamein” waged over some three million acres by an army of colonial technicians - many recruited from military ranks - and local laborers, for many of whom the scheme represented their first entry into the wage labor market.

But it wasn’t just the rhetoric of war that was repurposed.

Lancaster bombers were kitted out to survey and discover “new country” in East Africa for agricultural development. [...] [T]ractors and bulldozers from military surplus stores in Egypt proved unable to tackle the hard ground and tough vegetation, so the planners turned to a novel solution: repurposing surplus Sherman M4A2 tanks. The Vickers-Armstrong factory in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne set about rearranging key elements of the tanks’ construction [...]. The tractors, christened “Shervicks” for their hybrid origins, were [...] thought to be particularly suited to large-scale earth-moving and to the kind of heavy duty “bush clearing” that was required in Tanganyika.

Officials sought to dismiss concerns that large-scale bush clearing would have wider environmental consequences, using the well-worn colonial trope that any observed changes in local climate or erosion patterns were due to the “primitive” agricultural practices of the locals, not to the earth-moving practices of the colonists.  [...] As the plants continued to wilt in the sun, [...] [t]he stakes were high. As [J.R.] of the Colonial Development Corporation put it in a letter: “Our standing as an Imperial power in Africa is to a substantial extent bound up with the future of this scheme. To abandon it would be a humiliating blow to our prestige everywhere.” The only option left was to try and bend the weather itself to the scheme’s will, by seeding the clouds for rain. [...] “Balloon bombs” (photographic film canisters tethered to weather balloons) and a repurposed Royal Navy flare gun were used to target individual clouds [...]. The scheme itself has survived as a cautionary tale of governmental hubris, but it is instructive too as a case study of how technologies of war have been turned against other foes.

---

All text above by: Martin Mahony. “The Enemy is Nature: Military Machines and Technological Bricolage in Britain’s ‘Great Agricultural Experiment.’“ Environment and Society Portal, Arcadia (Spring 2021), no. 11. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. doi:10.5282/rcc/9191. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Images and their captions are shown unaltered as they originally appear in Mahony's article. Public Domain Mark 1.0 License for images: creativecommons dot org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/]

[darkwood-sleddog]

AVENUES FOR CONTACTING REGARDING THE NEW CDC DOG IMPORTATION RULING

The CDC recently released their newly revised rules applying to all dogs wishing to enter the United States. This includes stricter paperwork and veterinary record requirements within a certain timeframe, implantation of a specific type of microchip PRIOR to rabies vaccination and a hardline restriction on any dog younger than six months. You can view all the new requirements HERE.

It is my belief that several aspects of the new ruling require additional review and nuance that is not being taken, specifically the 6 month of age rule which in my opinion is over regulatory as dogs can be fully inoculated against rabies at four months of age.

The new ruling makes very little if any distinction of dogs coming from high risk rabies countries and dogs coming from no/low risk rabies countries. The reasoning outlined in the ruling is to "streamline" the process of importation by making the requirements the same across all areas of import. This is unreasonable to countries that have no rabies present as they pose no risk.

Additionally, these rules do not take into account the shared land borders between the United States, Canada and Mexico and treats Canada and Mexico like other foreign bodies which is unreasonable. People living in border areas often cross between the US and Canada/Mexico on a frequent basis. There is no fencing at the Canadian border and wildlife of any health status can cross freely on both the northern and southern border. There are also border towns and enclaves that have an increased frequency of border crossings for daily life that need to be taken into account in regards to the paperwork requirements.

And Finally, I take big issue with the fact the ruling and reasonings behind several of the restrictions addressing the concerns of hobbyist and ethical dog breeders regarding the restriction on age of import will put on genetic diversity of dog breeds. Many breeders would rather place a puppy in an equally good home in a country where the puppy can be home at the critical young age than hold on to a dog for months. This will also prevent sport dog, service dog, and working dog puppies from being properly socialized into their future roles. Not only does the CDC make no exception for service dogs, dogs of military families, or any dog in this instance, but they addressed hobbyist and preservation breeder's concerns by stating that the USDA already has rules limited dog imports to 6 months of age for commercial breeding. Note that commercial breeding and what requires a USDA license is very specifically outlined by the USDA which does make exceptions for hobbyist breeding. The CDC ruling talks about commercial and hobbyist breeding as the same thing, referring specifically to the USDA even though the USDA themselves make specific distinctions. The CDC ruling equates hobby breeding with commercial breeding directly, with no acknowledgment that even if they were the same the puppy can be and is often most often already purchased and legally owned by the client/new owner so breeder requirements would no longer be applicable.

There are many other individual concerns. These are just my top concerns.

What can you do?

HERE is a change.org petition by Jaye Foucher that outlines similar concerns that I share as well as ones more specific to sled dog teams traveling and those that frequently do business in Alaska.

CONTACT the CDC directly and voice any concerns you have.

Contact your REPRESENTATIVES and SENATORS, especially if you live in a border state. Phone OR email would be fine. I personally prefer email as it provides a written record of the communication. While the CDC is not full of elected officials, the Senate and House recently passed an Agriculture bill titled "The Healthy Dog Importation Act" where many of the new restrictions are echoed and reiterated on a legislative level.

[jewishbarbies]

random things I would do if elected president, in no particular order:

ban LED headlights nationwide, no exceptions

make it illegal to donate to a political campaign if yearly income is above 100k

forgive all student debt (college, medical school, law school, etc.)

ban PACs and super PACs

require a special license for pickup trucks of a certain size with a specific drivers test

mandatory yearly drivers tests for people over the age of 55

make it illegal for politicians to use all social media in an official capacity

install a free public railway that connects all major cities in all 50 states

give Hawaii back to indigenous Hawaiians along with a promise of monetary reparations and/or supplies for an agreed upon period of time

give Puerto Rico back to the Puerto Ricans with monetary incentives for american citizens who move back to the states

ban the purchase of single family homes by any corporate entity in all 50 states

create a care program for migrants and refugees with housing, food, and supplies along with free English classes and courses on their preferred job field (with credits applied if enrolling in college plus a more streamlined path to citizenship starting with a work/school visa) paid for by taxes they’re already going to be paying working here anyway

complete overhaul of the american prison system with an implementation of rehab and mental health facilities, community projects, education and job training with no sentence longer than the completion of these courses/treatments unless for high crimes and special cases

bring home economics, culinary, and finance courses to middle and high schools with specialized AP courses for fields like human/veterinary medicine, law, engineering, environmental science, etc.

create a federally funded program for college students who want to become teachers, including specialized classes, free tuition, and sign on bonuses when employed at your first school as a one time tax credit with proof of employment

run federally funded educational tours and classes with volunteer opportunities at all national parks, with $10 general admission at all parks

require cities with a population over 1k to allocate funds/resources for warming stations, homeless and women’s shelters within city limits and maintain them year round

ban all fireworks no exceptions nationwide

mandatory voting in state and federal elections

executive order to make it illegal for politicians to earn more than the average yearly salary in their state/county/district/etc. at all levels of government

mandatory college education requirements for running for political office

anti inflation laws preventing the selling of goods and services for more than double the cost nationwide

make food waste in the agriculture industries illegal with tax credits for donating unsellable but edible food to shelters, churches, charities, and food banks

increase indigenous sovereignty in all 50 states, with regulations to prevent price gauging and predatory sale prices of goods and services to reservations, and increased legal protections for recognized tribes

work with local tribes to create programs delivering food, water, medicine, and supplies to households on reservations that sign up, 1-2 times a month like a food bank

create a federal agency of environmental scientists, biologists, etc. that work with indigenous peoples and maintain/protect land and local ecosystems in all 50 states through any means necessary with cooperation of the indigenous people

create additional tax credits for families, people with disabilities, students of any kind, home buyers, and farmers/agricultural workers

free school lunches in all schools in all 50 states

this is a non exhaustive fantasy list, don’t take it seriously. I’ll probably add more things I think of later.

[beardedmrbean]

Bodega cat ‘certification’ plan seeks vet care for four-legged deli workers: ‘Most of them are abused’

The creator of an Instagram account dedicated to profiling the Big Apple’s deli cats is now championing a measure to protect them – as advocates say a concerning lack of regulations lead to many of the city’s feline workers not being properly taken care of.

Dan Rimada, founder of @BodegaCatsofNewYork, launched an online petition last month to create a “certification program” to eliminate health department fines on “responsible” bodega cat owners and establish a city-backed $30,000 Bodega Cats Support Fund for medical and other resources.

“Bodega cats have long been an iconic part of New York City’s soul—they keep shops pest-free, brighten our streets, and offer comfort to communities,” Rimada said in the petition, which has amassed nearly 5,000 signatures to date. “Yet outdated health codes and inconsistent care practices leave many of these cats at risk and burden small business owners with unfair fines.”

“Through years of hands-on experience, I’ve witnessed both the charm of well-cared-for bodega cats and the harsh reality of neglect when standards aren’t met,” Rimada added.

The city’s Department of Health directed The Post for comment to the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets, which said it “has not been approached about this effort” yet.

Live animals are not allowed in food service establishments, according to New York City health code.

“The majority of bodega cats that I’ve seen were not properly taken care of,” said independent animal rescuer Tiff Winton, who helped save a cat left behind in a shuttered deli last summer and has since aided several dumped deli cats in the Bronx.

“As much as bodega cats are beloved in New York, most of them are abused and neglected,” she told The Post, adding that she’s seen malnourished, medically neglected and even abandoned deli pets.

Winton attributes the alleged neglect largely to a lack of responsibility and knowledge, and argues the cost-prohibitive nature of veterinary care is a non-factor given the number of free and low-cost services through various nonprofits in the Big Apple.

The certification program would require owners to take a free, multilingual online training course about responsible pet care and food safety, according to the petition.

“There needs to be some sort of process that holds bodega owners accountable for their pets,” she said. “If you have a dog, you have to get a license for it … but there’s no regulations for [cats], nobody is watching if anyone is taking care of them.

“I think it’s partially cultural, it’s partially carelessness – they don’t have the cat because they want to have a pet, it has a function,” she added, alluding to the tradition of keeping store cats as mouse trappers.

Workers at Rodriguez Deli in Williamsburg, Brooklyn told The Post that its cat Ashley last went to the veterinarian two years ago — and reportedly hasn’t required a visit since.

“She is behind on her vaccines,” one worker admitted. She said she wasn’t sure if the bodega would be interested in participating in a certification program, and referred The Post to the owner.

The proposed program would also protect owners who meet standards like regular vet check-ups, proper feeding and safe environments from fines from the city, despite the illegal practice. It would rely on both self-certification and “community-triggered” spot-checks from rescuers, as well as create an online reporting portal for concerns, the petition reads.

The program, which would be funded through a discretionary funding request in City Council, would launch in 15 bodegas to start and collect data on cat health, owner participation and community response before an expansion.

Funds would also be garnered through annual fees around $150 from participating bodega owners and be managed by local veterinary organizations.

A similar petition was launched in 2016 to “legalize” bodega cats with more than 5,800 supporters – but garnered no response from then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, who the petition was addressed to.

Council members Tiffany Cabán, Julie Menin, and Shekar Krishnan have been asked to support the pilot program, according to a project proposal shared with The Post – though none returned a request for comment from The Post regarding whether or not they’ll take up the cause.

About $20,000 of the discretionary funding, if approved, would go towards medical care like spay and neuter services, vaccines and emergency treatment, the proposal states. 

The remaining funds would be split on stipends and travel reimbursements for animal rescuers working on the ground – who oftentimes pay for emergency vet care in the thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, according to Winton.

“We’re not funded at all by the city or anyone – some of the rescues are lucky enough to get small grants – but it’s really a labor of love,” the rescuer said.

Winton recounted the rescue last week of a tuxedo cat on death’s door from a Hell’s Kitchen deli – and a local nonprofit is now helping rescuers like her foot the $7,500 bill after a vet diagnosed the feline with a severe urinary tract infection and blockage. 

“They watched this happen, for days they let this go on and on — and they did nothing,” Winton said, adding the cat was rescued “just hours away from dying.”

While the rescuer contends that $30,000 won’t go very far considering the costly nature of some treatments, Winton contends any support from legislation to regulate – or educate – would help the cause.

“The bodega cat issue, to me, seems like it’s solvable: It’s regulation, education, some sort of program where [owners] have to register their cats and keep up to date on vaccines and have them clean and neutered,” Winton said.

They’re simple things that they should be required to do, just like they’re required to wash their hands before they make a sandwich.”

[darkmaga-returns]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a conditional license approval for an inactivated avian flu (bird flu) vaccine to be administered to chickens eaten by Americans. The license is being granted due to H5N1 influenza virus infections spreading in U.S. poultry. The United States has avoided giving H5N1 vaccine to until now.

The license was granted to Zoetis, Inc. a New Jersey-based producer of medicine and vaccines for pets and livestock. The company is the largest animal drug and vaccine producer worldwide and was previously owned by Pfizer, Inc. Their bird flu vaccine contains a killed version of the H5N2 variant that the company developed in an effort to stop circulating variants of the H5N1 virus among poultry.1

H1N1 is a type A influenza virus that was associated with the “swine flu” pandemic of 2009 and is easily spread between humans.2 H5N1 is a type A influenza virus usually infecting birds that can rarely cause “bird flu” in humans, who come in direct contact with infected birds.3

A conditional license from the FDA does not mean that the bird flu vaccine is approved for commercial use or that poultry farmers can purchase it at this time. The manufacturer still will be required to receive final approval from the USDA before it can be used in commercial poultry.4 5

Five Drug Companies Developing mRNA Bird Flu Shots for Humans

There are five drug companies developing an H5N1 biological product labeled a “vaccine” using mRNA technology to prevent H5N1 infections in humans, including GlaxoSmithKline/CureVac; Sanofi, Moderna and Arcturus Therapeutics. The Arcturus Therapeutics product is a self-amplifying mRNA “vaccine” candidate currently in clinical trials funded by the Department of Health and Human Service’s (DHSS) Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).6

[chaifootsteps]

"I first met Tokitae (also known as Toki, Lolita and Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut), a female orca who had been captured off the coast of Washington, in 1987. I was a biology graduate student at my first professional conference, and the scientific society hosting this event held the opening reception at the Seaquarium.

Toki was 20 feet long and 7,000 pounds, and should have been in the Salish Sea traveling 40 miles a day and diving 500 feet deep with her mother and siblings. Yet there we were, a few hundred marine mammal scientists who mostly did field research, watching this magnificent being perform silly tricks in a bathtub.

That’s not really an exaggeration in Toki’s case. Toki’s tank was the smallest enclosure in the world for her species. It was only 35 feet at its widest point and 80 feet long. It was 20 feet at its deepest; if Toki hung vertically in the water, her tail flukes touched bottom. Captured in 1970 when she was 4 or 5 years old, she lived in this tiny space for 53 years.

The federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), administered by the US Department of Agriculture, has a ludicrous requirement for tank width — only twice the length of an average adult orca (or 48 feet). But Toki’s tank didn’t even meet that weak standard. For years, the USDA offered various excuses for not taking steps to revoke the exhibitor’s license. None of them made sense, as the tank was plainly not to code. Activists repeatedly tried to sue the USDA for failing to enforce the law, without success.

Toki’s was a strange, lonely life. Despite many campaigns to repatriate her to her family (the L pod in Puget Sound), years passed. The stadium around her slowly and literally crumbled.

The ‘Blackfish’ Effect,” named after the 2013 documentary that eventually reached tens of millions of people globally, has shifted the captive cetacean paradigm in the past decade. Businesses have severed ties with marine theme parks, and policymakers have passed laws ending the commercial display of orcas and other cetacean species. SeaWorld, the company that built its brand on Shamu, is phasing out orca display — no longer capturing, breeding or trading them.

And still Toki languished in the South Florida heat. The Seaquarium’s two owners during Toki’s first 52 years there were adamant that she would never leave the park and disdainfully dismissed talk of returning her to her family.

In March 2022, however, Toki’s outlook finally seemed brighter. The Seaquarium was sold to a company whose business model relied primarily on swim-with-dolphin encounters. An orca didn’t fit that model, and these owners were willing to let her go. Efforts could finally begin in earnest to return her home. The Lummi Tribe, who gave her the name Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut and considered her a relative, had prepared detailed plans for a seaside sanctuary in the Salish Sea.

Then, last month, Toki died. The hope felt by so many that she would finally go home disappeared in an instant.

Captivity robs orcas of a true life in the deep open sea. It robs them of family, of purpose, of change and challenge. Captivity is tremendous monotony for these socially complex, wide-ranging, intelligent animals. We should not perpetuate that.

Zoos and aquariums long ago relegated dancing bears and tricycle-riding chimps to circuses, but still claim that cetacean shows — loud extravaganzas featuring leaping orcas and cavorting dolphins — are educational (they are not). The industry could and should invest in seaside sanctuaries — it’s a win-win choice, as the industry would be heroes and the animals’ welfare would improve.

Let Toki’s miserable, isolated life and sad death mean something for her fellow captives. These amazing beings should not have to die to finally be free."

Dr. Naomi Rose is senior scientist (marine mammal biology) for the Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, D.C.

[samuiattorney]

US-Thailand Treaty of Amity

The U.S.-Thailand Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations, signed in 1966, grants American businesses unique benefits in Thailand, including the ability to own and operate businesses with minimal restrictions compared to other foreign entities. The treaty promotes economic cooperation between the two nations while exempting U.S. investors from the limitations imposed by the Foreign Business Act (FBA) B.E. 2542 (1999).

1. Key Benefits of the Treaty

The Treaty of Amity provides several advantages to U.S. companies operating in Thailand:

1.1 Majority Ownership Rights

Unlike other foreign investors, U.S. companies can hold 100% ownership in most business sectors without requiring Thai partners.

This contrasts with the Foreign Business Act, which generally limits foreign ownership to 49%, requiring a Thai majority shareholder.

1.2 National Treatment

U.S. businesses receive equal treatment as Thai companies, ensuring a level playing field in licensing, taxation, and business regulations.

1.3 Exemptions from Foreign Business Restrictions

The treaty exempts U.S. companies from the restrictions imposed on foreign businesses in Thailand under the FBA.

2. Limitations and Restrictions

Despite its benefits, the treaty has certain exclusions that prevent U.S. companies from participating in specific industries:

2.1 Restricted Sectors

U.S. businesses cannot engage in:

Land ownership (except for approved BOI-promoted activities).

Trading and exploiting natural resources (forestry, fisheries, mining).

Domestic trade in agriculture and livestock.

Media and broadcasting industries.

2.2 Need for Treaty Certification

To claim benefits under the treaty, U.S. businesses must obtain certification from the U.S. Commercial Service and register with the Thai Ministry of Commerce.

3. Registration Process for Treaty of Amity Certification

Business Incorporation:

Register the company in Thailand as a Thai Limited Company.

U.S. Commercial Service Certification:

Submit proof of majority U.S. ownership.

Application to the Ministry of Commerce:

After U.S. certification, register with the Thai Department of Business Development (DBD).

Approval & Business Licensing:

Upon approval, the company receives its Foreign Business Certificate (FBC), allowing full operations under the treaty.

4. Comparison with Other Foreign Investment Options

Investment TypeForeign Ownership CapSpecial BenefitsTreaty of Amity (U.S.)Up to 100%National treatment, minimal restrictionsBOI-Promoted BusinessUp to 100% (case-by-case)Tax incentives, work permit benefitsForeign Business License (FBL)Up to 49% (higher with approval)Requires compliance with Foreign Business Act

5. Future of the Treaty

The Treaty of Amity remains in effect but is subject to potential renegotiation as Thailand continues to liberalize trade policies and adhere to ASEAN and WTO regulations.

While it still provides a competitive edge for U.S. businesses, companies should evaluate whether other investment routes, such as BOI promotion, offer better tax incentives or operational flexibility.

Conclusion

The U.S.-Thailand Treaty of Amity offers unparalleled advantages for American investors seeking full business ownership in Thailand. However, companies must navigate the registration process carefully and be aware of restricted sectors. As Thailand’s economic policies evolve, businesses should continually assess whether the treaty remains the best option for their investment needs.

[farmerstrend]

Macadamia Farmers Beware: Kenya Steps Up Crackdown on Illegal Macadamia Exports, Traders Face Arrest

The Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) warns macadamia industry players against harvesting, trading, or processing immature nuts, threatening legal action, license revocation, and prosecution to protect Kenya’s market integrity. Kenya’s macadamia industry faces strict regulations as AFA cracks down on illegal harvesting and smuggling. Violators risk hefty penalties, including revoked licenses…

[freeced]

Hailing Frequencies (Part 1)

[art by @pockamune]

Lylack fiddled with the controls. There wasn't really anything to do with them right then, so the fiddling was redundant. Like playing an electric fiddle that wasn't plugged in. Electric fiddle, Lylack thought. Electric griddle. Mm...

The lanky springhare stretched both legs out onto the control panel and looked to their left, where a monument of empty Zapfood boxes regarded them balefully. It had been too long since the last stop, Lylack decided. Stocking up on packaged food didn't mean stocking up on proper meals, and the sooner they got to where they were going, the better. Back home, they would have simply stopped off at whatever highway diner happened along, confident that, wherever you are in the world, a pancake is more or less flat and edible.

Only, they weren't in the world anymore. They were in space, and whatever its charms, the vastness of the interstellar universe meant it wasn't just lacking in diners, it was lacking in everything. Between the little life-preserving systems ringed around their favorite life-sustaining stars, you weren't looking for friendly rest stop billboards so much as for two full atoms to rub together. There was nothing. And...

No one.

Lylack wouldn't have told you they were an introvert. You never would have had the chance to ask. For as long as they could remember, they had been burrowed away working on their little pet projects and flights of fancy, taking in society as a snorkel takes in air: a regrettable necessity that prevents its wearer from diving even further out of sight. It wasn't a question of how often they felt the need to be around other people, but how often their presence was required. In fact, it was one of the main reasons they had taken this job as an intergalactic bar delivery driver—the solitude, they assumed, would be comforting. And as it turned out, it was.

Yet, thought Lylack, as they checked the scanners for the millionth pointless time. Yet.

There was a difference between solitude and being all alone. It didn't set in right away, and it had a habit of fading from your mind when you were back on solid ground again. But these times, these long hauls, halfway between somewhere and somewhere else, just as far from anything as anything could be—this wasn't just a quiet place to think, it was a silence so intense it laid a blanket on your brain. Dimensions lost their shape, time became confused and seemed to go on only when you looked the other way. The clear sense of identity that tended to emerge from contemplation lost its balance way out here, unsure of the borders between the fathomless recesses of your mind and the beckoning infinity of space. At least, it did without a couple decent meals to spice things up.

Lylack glanced back over at the stack of Zapfood boxes over there on the floor. The portside cabin deck, they tried to glue into their brain. Not for the first time this trip, they considered going back into the cargo area to liberate a case of what this whole workaday voyage was supposed to be about.

Any decently advanced outpost had a food substantiator capable of synthesizing anything a bar or club might need—everything, that is, except the alcohol it made its money on. It was true that some quaint little places here and there still brewed their drinks the old fashioned way, but by and large, an operation of that kind relied on too many moving parts when you considered that most planets didn't even have an atmosphere thick enough to support traditional agriculture, never mind a business-minded person who might be carrying such antiquated expertise. To synthesize alcoholic drinks, then, as was standard practice, you needed a Wine, Beer, and Spirits Substantiator (WBSS) and a license to operate it, both items prohibitively expensive for any average establishment to bear up on its own. (There were also similar machines and licenses for other controlled substances—Lylack didn't concern themselves with these because it was enough headache remembering their own employer's ones.)

In fact, there was no actual difference in hardware between a regular food substantiator and one labeled as a WBSS, but manufacturers were required to lock unauthorized features safely away from consumer use. Tampering with a food substantiator with the intent to create illegal goods was punishable by severe fines, or, if done with intent to sell, imprisonment. The law, as is typical, ended up as a matter of cost, and it was far easier for most bar owners to turn a profit ordering their stock from light years away than to invest in legal manufacture locally or risk getting caught up in the aftermath of a smuggling operation gone bad.

It was a long way of convincing themselves that this delivery job was necessary, Lylack decided. They didn't decide whether their job actually was necessary, though. Not now. That was too much to think about out here where a vague sense of purpose could be the only line towing you along. Here where navigating scattered asteroids would feel like walking happily among a crowded room. Here where you'd give anything to see the screen light up with anything you hadn't entered in yourself. Here where—

It was lighting up.

Lylack scrambled to pull their legs back off the panel, and in so doing, lost their balance completely, tumbling backwards over the captain's chair and accidentally mashing keys as their long feet bounced off the controls. A comm link opened.

Lylack bounded back up behind the chair, their black-tipped ears making the first appearance, followed by a mess of purple hair and deep brown eyes that looked inquisitively up at the viewing screen. "Hello?" they said, squinting at the fuzzy image wavering in front of them until it resolved into a fuzzy face that squinted back before opening its own eyes wide.

The face opened its mouth as the comm speaker chattered to life. "Lylack?" it asked hesitantly, in a voice that cracked like sweet milk tea poured over lots of ice.

"Lylack, is that you?"

[mariacallous]

If you've been wondering when you’ll be able to order the flame-throwing robot that Ohio-based Throwflame first announced last summer, that day has finally arrived. The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as “the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog” is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420.

Thermonator is a quadruped robot with an ARC flamethrower mounted to its back, fueled by gasoline or napalm. It features a one-hour battery, a 30-foot flame-throwing range, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for remote control through a smartphone.

It also includes a Lidar sensor for mapping and obstacle avoidance, laser sighting, and first-person-view navigation through an onboard camera. The product appears to integrate a version of the Unitree Go2 robot quadruped that retails alone for $1,600 in its base configuration.

The company lists possible applications of the new robot as "wildfire control and prevention," "agricultural management," "ecological conservation," "snow and ice removal," and "entertainment and SFX." But most of all, it sets things on fire in a variety of real-world scenarios.

Back in 2018, Elon Musk made the news for offering an official Boring Company flamethrower that reportedly sold 10,000 units in 48 hours. It sparked some controversy, because flamethrowers can also double as weapons or potentially start wildfires.

Flamethrowers are not specifically regulated in 48 US states, although general product liability and criminal laws may still apply to their use and sale. They are not considered firearms by federal agencies. Specific restrictions exist in Maryland, where flamethrowers require a Federal Firearms License to own, and California, where the range of flamethrowers cannot exceed 10 feet.

Even so, to state the obvious, flamethrowers can easily burn both things and people, starting fires and wreaking havoc if not used safely. Accordingly, the Thermonator might be one Christmas present you should skip for little Johnny this year.

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Florida no-shade law endangers airport workers, farmworkers (usatoday.com)

It's no secret that our governor is a sack of shit. But I just wanted to talk about this law, because GOD does it piss me off. DeSantis' lax policies towards COVID restrictions in a densely populated and tourism-heavy state, as well as his targeting of queer people and immigrants in a state with a heavy immigrant population (more on that later) have already put lives at risk, but this is a new low, even for him.

So, this is Florida. The state notorious for being very fucking hot in the summer. And with climate change getting worse, our weather is only getting hotter. So DeSantis and co decide to strip heat protections from workers?? The article states that this was a move to target Miami-Dade, a progressive-leaning county, which was the only one to require heat protections to begin with. Miami-Dade also has an especially high population of Latin American immigrants, whom DeSantis has also targeted- there was, of course, the issue of Florida and Texas transporting Venezuelan migrants to progressive states possibly without their knowing consent, and a law that invalidates the drivers' licenses of undocumented immigrants- which is currently causing an exodus of immigrant workers from the state, to whom Florida largely owes its prominent agriculture industry- 37% of Florida agricultural workers are immigrants, as well as 23% of construction workers and 14% of service workers. Agriculture alone is a huge industry in Florida, with the agricultural sector contributing over $7.74 billion to the economy in 2021. Not only is this new law discriminatory and inhumane; it's also putting a large segment of the state's economy at risk, with many immigrants forced to find work elsewhere in a state that's becoming increasingly hostile towards them. In 2023, according to sources cited in the article I linked at the top, 2,000 people across the US died of heat-related illnesses, with an 88% rise in Florida between the years 2019 and 2022. With worsening climate change, that number will likely continue to rise.

I've been haunted today by something that happened this morning. My mom was out for a walk, and she came home dizzy and feeling like she was going to faint. She said it was heat exhaustion, and she'd passed out from it before. Thankfully, we brought her some water, a washcloth, and a sports drink, and she was fine, but she was out for a short exercise in 95 F (35 C) weather and was already experiencing health issues. I couldn't imagine how much worse it would have been to be performing intensive manual labor all day in this weather, without any protections. I've lived here all my life; I know Florida weather, which is why I believe a law like this should infuriate anyone who's spent any amount of time here.

[chutzpahhooplah]

Thinking about radical unschooling tonight, and imo society isn't built to support unschooled adults anymore. My grandfather got by being functionally illiterate because he was a working adult in rural Alabama in the 60s-80s. You could 100% get by with an X for a signature and employment at any number of agricultural jobs, AND there wasn't a written requirement for a driver's license.

No one can comfortably or securely do that now. It sets you up for victimhood and being taken advantage of by the people who are able to navigate the world securely. The education system is very broken, but it takes a level of work to fix it that you don't see a lot of RU parents put forth.