It's not so much the population gain making intensive farming necessary.......or at least wasn't when the practise started, it was economics, and being taught in agricultural universities like religion. The concept of an acre's production or even a tree's potential production seems like such a simple concept, but it isn't. It should seem to be a no-brainer that a hundred bushels off a plot, verses ten, should be a good thing.....right? Well, it depends on what and how you do it and concerns an issue of burning bridges behind you. Agriculture is big business. Big, big multi-national business and it overlaps other industries in conglomerates and it funds all sorts of grants and grows all sorts of research and essentially has directed what has become of our farming sector. I was studying agriculture when the tide was turning in that direction and was being embraced at university level without question towards intensive farming. Not because it was necessary in our country, but because it was profitable (more so to the supply, seed and chemical business, than the farmer, btw) I think of Orwell's "Animal Farm" and I think of the horse. That is what we are doing to our (family farmers) and farmland. It was not done out of necessity to feed the starving multitude like seems to be the general concensus here, but choice and is profit driven. You all have heard of farms being paid not to produce to their potential? It wouldn't exist if we had to use intensive production to feed our people. What has happened to farming is exactly parallel to what has happened to every other business in this country, and that is the failure of myriads of smaller independent producers who simply could not compete with the capital and backing of corporations. In this case the factory farms. If you look to other countries in Europe, you will find they have finally awakened to farmland protection and trusts to keep arable land in banks for future needs. It's not so popular here. When a small farm starts struggling and throws in the towel, they don't have any incentive to put it in a trust to keep the land value cheap enough so another farmer can buy it. It's sold to a developer and fertile farmland ends up under macadam or McMansions. It's a very short-term and nearsighted choice. Think monocultures and think the lack of genetic diversity. Think the Irish potato famine. Then think of what will become of our food suppliers who are obliged to plant the latest seed provided by one or two companies who produce it for half the world, who have it under patent, and who comes up with things like terminator genes to protect their profit. We need to be independent with our food supply. We will lose that capability one day, just like we lost the ability to be independent with our energy supplies. When we do that, we depend on "developing" countries to supply us and then whine when they cut down rain forests to do it. What's going to happen when there are no more countries to develop?

Thank you Dea and Magic and thanks again Mallory! BTW, HOW did you possibly know WHO we were talking about? LOL Its not a criminal activity I guess we are talking about but a simple case of he said, she said. She is claiming he said she could have this weekend and he said no possible way did I say that. Long story short she screwed him out of not one but two weekends visits. So it will be an entire month again without them seeing each other. He will be checking with his attorney on this but before looking to buy any equipment he wants to be sure its legal.... I dunno why you couldn't open the link I posted, but I copied and will paste it here just incase.... The federal law makes it unlawful to record telephone conversations except in one party consent cases which permit one party consent recording by state law. What that means is a person can record their own telephone conversations without the knowledge or consent of the other party in those states that allow one party consent. It's important to understand the difference between what has become known as one party consent and two party or all party consent. One party consent simply means that one party to the conversation must have knowledge and give consent to the recording. Two party or all party consent means that every party to the conversation must have knowledge and give consent to the recording. There are twelve states that require all party consent. They are: California Connecticut Delaware Florida Illinois Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Montana New Hampshire Pennsylvania Washington There are 38 states that permit one party consent. They are: Alaska Arkansas Colorado District of Columbia Georgia Hawaii Idaho Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Nebraska Nevada New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming In all 50 states and through federal law, it's considered illegal to record telephone conversations outside of one party consent. There are a couple of exceptions. In the state of California, one party consent can be applied only under circumstances in which one party is involved in criminal activity which would include extortion or blackmail. In the state of Arizona, the subscriber to a telephone service can record telephone conversations with no party consent when criminal activity is involved. Other than those two known exceptions, all other recordings outside of those states that permit one party consent are a violation of state and federal law. The question is often asked by clients if they can record the telephone conversations of their spouse in a domestic case or the conversations of their children concerning drug usage. In both of these cases, the answer is it's unlawful. Many clients will complain that they own the telephone and pay the telephone bill so they should therefore have a right to record what they want. However, the law doesn't address who owns the phone nor who pays the phone bill. It only addresses the use of one party and all party consent. Anything outside of that is a violation of state law and federal wiretapping law. The Federal Communications Commission goes further into details on recording telephone conversations and states that the party recording must give verbal notification before the recording and that there must be a beep tone on the line to indicate that the line is being recorded,. Business Recordings Federal law permits businesses to monitor phone calls that are business related when the monitoring is part or the ordinary course of business. When the content of the telephone conversation is of a personal nature, the monitoring must stop. In those cases of two party consent states, this exemption may be voided. Calls Crossing State Lines Calls that cross state lines become complicated legal issues especially when one state is a one party consent state and the other state is an all party consent state. What has happened is that you didn't violate the law in the one party consent state and violated the law in the all party consent state. Moreover, since the call went across a state line, the federal laws would certainly apply. The most famous case involving this type of issue is the Linda Trip case. You will recall that Linda Trip recorded the telephone conversations of Monica Lewinski concerning her relationship with President Clinton. Trip was in Maryland and Lewinski was in DC. Note that Maryland is an all party consent state while DC is a one party consent state. The law is actually quite fuzzy on these issues. The recorder is advised to assume that the sticker law would apply. Cell Phones And Wireless Phones Cell and wireless telephones transmit conversation through the air like a radio does. You hear old stories of spying using scanners locked onto a wireless telephone frequency with an attached voice activated tape recorder connected to it to eavesdrop on the conversation. Until certainly, the laws concerning this activity was fuzzy. However, federal law now makes it illegal to record both wireless and cell phone conversations outside of one party consent. You used to be able to go into places like Radio Shack and purchase scanners that would lock onto the frequencies needed to pick up wireless and cell phone conversations. These scanners are now illegal to sell or be in possession of. STATE-BY-STATE ALPHABETICAL LIST Alabama - One Party Alaska - One Party Arkansas - One Party California - All Party Colorado - One Party Connecticut - All Party Delaware - All Party District of Columbia - One Party Florida - All Party Georgia - One Party Hawaii - One Party Idaho - One Party Illinois - All Party Indiana - One Party Iowa - One Party Kansas - One Party Kentucky - One Party Louisiana - One Party Maine - One Party Maryland - All Party Massachusetts - All Party Michigan - All Party Minnesota - One Party Mississippi - One Party Missouri - One Party Montana - All Party Nebraska - One Party Nevada - One Party New Hampshire - All Party New Jersey - One Party New Mexico - One Party New York - One Party North Carolina - One Party North Dakota - One Party Ohio - One Party Oklahoma - One Party Oregon - One Party Pennsylvania - All Party Rhode Island - One Party South Carolina - One Party South Dakota - One Party Tennessee - One Party Texas - One Party Utah - One Party Vermont - One Party Virginia - One Party Washington - All Party West Virginia - One Party Wisconsin - One Party Wyoming - One Party

Thanks, all. I'm not very worried... much. :) Kath - she is allowed to receive mail and packages but none of those specific items. I have already written a letter of support and will send some stamps but I don't think I will send her anything other than that. The army will provide her with all she needs. snidely - "Dear Mom and Dad. Here are all my things. I will work hard to be sure that nothing else gets shipped back to you in a box, myself included". Very cute, but not funny! lol Just to add... she will be home for Christmas Exodus on Dec. 20th-3th. So I wasn't meaning to say I wouldn't be giving her anything for Christmas. :) This post was edited by moonie_57 on Sat, Nov 22, 14 at 21:21

Well, next time you guys get a phone call from someone claiming to be from IRS and asking for money, here's what you should do: 1. If you think you might owe taxes, call the IRS. They can help you set up a payment arrangement. 2. If you get a call and you know it's a scam, refer the call to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. 3. File a complaint with the FTC through their website. 4. Expose the phone scam by reporting it to Callercenter.com. Submit a complaint and warn others. Remember that the IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers to discuss tax issue and demand immediate payment.