Something to think about on this tax day... where will more than a quarter trillion dollars go over the next few years?

^{Answer: The [Food &] Farm Bill.}

The corn kernels you eat, whether on the cob, frozen or canned is sweet corn and is less than 2/10th of 1% of the corn grown.

Independent Lens will be showing the documentary film, King Corn (lots of really good stuff to explore at that link) which was released last October. About a couple guys who buy an acre to see what it takes to grow corn. This is an important film (and pretty fun) since the [Food &] Farm Bill is currently in Congress being reconciled (not too late to call).

 THE PROFIT DRIVEN INDUSTRIAL FOOD COMPLEX
There's actually a huge deficit in nutrition since corn has been tampered with. It's bred for energy (starch) but not actual food value. It gets cows and other animals fat in a hurry which is good for other food industries on the bottom line (though they too are nutritionally deficient in comparison to their more humanely raised counterparts)

So, what do we really think industrial corn does for us whether eaten directly or indirectly via a factory farmed animal? We end up fat yet still hungry. Why? We need to eat more to meet our bodies vitamin and mineral needs.

I've been calling that, Starving Obesity.

~~~~

The following is slightly reworked from another comment I made several weeks ago and have recycled several times threatening each time to turn it into a diary. One thing I've learned in life is don't make empty threats so here goes:

.... .... .... .... ....

I'm posting this as the fluffy bunny tale end of the diary I posted several hours ago but didn't have room for to include all I wanted so cut short. Please consider this a complementary companion diary to my earlier one:

Uncage the Chocolate Easter Bunny: Modern Child Slavery
by CSI Bentonville
Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 02:27:04 PM EDT

Bonus is that it's a non-can-did-ate diary to occupy those with insomnia overnight. :)

It takes
10 full
cacao
pods
to make
6 bars
of chocolate.

The Irony of Valentine's Day is that so much of what we give as gifts are awash in pain and suffering. It does not have to be that way.

THE TOPICS:
In this diary I'll talk about possible gifts for your Valentines as well as alternatives, providing many options and further reading at your discretion. Among the topics included are:

♥ Flowers
♥ Non-Sweets
♥ Chocolate
♥ Coffee
♥ Doing Without
♥ Dinner & a Show
♥ Jewelry
♥ Wine
♥ How to find "Love" and support kossoks too

Part of how I ended up at dKos was finding out how Republican the grocery store Safeway was. I already despised Wal-Mart (and more with each new thing I discovered about them) but was still to discover just how neck-deep in Neo-Con they are.

Essentially, I didn't want another damn dollar of mine going to support Bushco keeping them in power. As Dr. Phil would say:

This is not a can-did-ate diary... well, not really though it does have them in it.

Where I intended to go with this as originally encouraged from my posting of a comment in an open thread has morphed with the dawning of the day and happenings here at dKos both general and specific.

Basically I felt the need to highlight this issue because I was banned from an internet site, SisterTalk by Genia Stevens purporting to be about feminism and further to specifically speak up for the issue of Domestic Violence.

Last Monday, after the Superbowl, Bill in Portland Maine reminded me about the Mars candy bar family with his diary.

I'd already been avoiding Mars, Inc for a number of reasons mostly for being one of the 18 families behind the Estate Tax Repeal who are conning us with astro-turf groups, lobbying and campaign donations among other things.

Then, a diary on Saturday heavily featured Godiva chocolates owned by Campbell's, another of the 18 behind the push to repeal of the estate tax.

There's this big holiday coming up. If you haven't figured it out yet I'd like to introduce some products with ideals we share to break the chains of Republican companies that don't need our gold to finance politics against us.

Slip into something more comfy then follow me into my boudoir for some ideas that may help you hold onto your values while expressing the value you hold for the special people in your life.

This is my first time; be gentle with me.

Wherein CSI goes up two letters and transforms into CSK Bentonville.

So this started with a cryptic reply to me in C&J. Then a phone call. I don't much answer my phone. Half the time it's because I can't find it. The other half is because I don't want to talk to whoever is on the other end or they won't tell me who they are (probably because they are one of those I don't want to talk to).

Seems csk had other things he needed to do and yet he needed to get his DIDS diary up too. Yeah, I still think it's a plot but... I do want to help out a friend (now get off my back everyone!).

In fact our little csk seemed so in need he offered to give me access to his account so I could post under his name if I was feeling too queasy. I was excited by that prospect. But the moment I started talking about all the comments I could put up saying what a great kossok CSI Bentonville is, our csk changed his mind a bit on that idea.

So what to do?

Well, it's rerun season. So without further ado come with me into The Villa for some repeats.