The media are abuzz with billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he is raising gourmet beef from wagyu cows on his Hawaiian “ranch,” feeding them beer and macadamia nuts. This contrasts sharply with fellow billionaire farming dabbler Bill Gates, who uses conventional chemical technologies and fancies himself the creator of a new synthetic factory meat.

Pundits are attacking Zuckerberg from both sides of the political aisle: The right calls him an elitist dining on fine foods; the left says he’s a climate destroyer. But what if he is, in fact, neither? Perhaps instead of insulting Farmer Mark, we should thank him for highlighting agricultural truths that are common knowledge for most farmers.

This is not to say Zuckerberg is not an elitist. Worth an estimated $130.6 billion, dining on beef fed better than most humans, and owning 1,500 acres on a small Hawaiian island, he displays the pinnacle of exclusivity. But even elitists need to eat, and he should perhaps be credited with undertaking the challenges of farming rather than just using hirelings – he claims he is involving his family in the actual dirty work, which would be the very best possible thing he could do as a father (billionaire or no).

It is a simple enough American liberty to raise one’s own food – anyone can raise a wagyu (if zoning and space permit), though they might be short on macadamia meal and cow-beer. Zuckerberg’s venture is a gift: It exposes the lies being leveled against cows and farmers alike, contrasting the Gates/World Economic Forum messaging about bovines and fake meat with the traditional farming methods that nurture soils with local agriculture. Zuckerberg’s farm is a poke in the eye to the likes of AOC and recently dethroned climate “envoy” John Kerry.

Bill Gates displays a very different billionaire’s farm. Gates did not buy property to try his hand at eating well; he bought up over two hundred thousand acres of US farmland across 18 states as an investment. Mr. Gates does not advocate organic farming, either. Instead, he embraces the unsustainable GMO technologies and accompanying chemical saturation of soils that causes erosion, water loss, and pollution. He invests billions in synthetic factory meat, which will be “cultured” from destructive monoculture crops like corn and soy, requiring saturation of millions of acres with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and bee-killing pesticides.

Zuckerberg’s undertaking contrasts sharply with the Gates vision and has attracted the ire of Mark’s would-be liberal supporters, who attack him (and all farmers) for destroying the climate by raising cows. Multiple news outlets reported the words of Mitch Jones, deputy director at Food & Water Watch, who argued, “Raising cattle on water-hungry macadamia nuts and beer showcases the excesses of the wealthy. What we need is genuine agricultural reform, which addresses the inequalities in our food system and the reality of a warming climate.”

PETA representative Shalin Gala posted on social media, “Mark Zuckerberg announces he’s now ‘started raising cattle’ on his Hawaiian estate, feeding them beer, then slaughtering them. Mark, the Dark Ages are calling and want you back.”

The attacks on cows as “climate-damaging” have mainly gone unchallenged except by Irish and Dutch farmers. Whether or not it was his intention, Zuckerberg is now a vitally needed cow apologist. His farming methods are not necessarily climate-destroying. Well-managed water resources for both nuts and cows can be part of a soil-building, climate-healing agriculture.

Hawaii imports some 85-90% of its food. Raising produce locally, whether for himself or others, is how Zuckerberg can support the region’s economy and culture (agriculture) as well as the climate – his beef will not be grown in faraway nations and then shipped to his island. He is not employing synthetic fertilizers or herbicides (unless for the nuts or beer inputs). He is not raising his cows on delicate open ranges or crammed into a concentrated animal feed operation (CAFO).

Instead of praising him, climate warriors across the internet are zeroing in on a number of questionable statistics regarding the dangers of the Meta CEO’s farming methodology. Some cite Vice’s 2014 article that says cows produce 132 gallons of methane gas daily. Others that “cattle farming contributes 3.7 percent to global greenhouse gas emissions,” as Essa News reports in response to Zuckerberg’s farming practices. “Methane is a harmful greenhouse gas, causing about 85 times more warming than carbon dioxide,” the site adds.

This is the Big Cow Lie. The relative impact of methane versus carbon dioxide is an arbitrary measure, but even per the Environmental Protection Agency, methane is only 30 times more potent over 100 years than carbon dioxide, not 85. Notably, the EPA also calculates nitrous oxide is 273 times more potent over a century than carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide is released in significant quantities by the synthetic fertilizers Bill Gates favors and that Mark Zuckerberg is avoiding by pasturing cows.

Pastured cows sequester both carbon and methane in the soils upon which they dine and defecate. Their manure rebuilds depleted soils and feeds the microbial soil life upon which plant and animal (and human) health depend. There is no technological replacement for cow manure: only soil- and climate-destroying industrial agricultural processes like those endorsed by Bill Gates and the WEF.

The Facebook founder should be praised for raising and eating his own cows. Sure, he’s an elitist, but the more he raises and learns about gentle bovines, the more he may also raise a voice to truly save the world – with cows, not by culling them from the food chain as rival faux farmer Bill Gates advocates. Growing his own food in Hawaii will educate Mark Zuckerberg and others, defend traditional farmers, and bring the discussion of cows back down to earth.

The post A Tale of Two Billionaire Farmers appeared first on Granite Grok.

In 2021 a woke school board decided their school logo – a Susquehannock warrior – was offensive and ignorant. They erased it and, with it, the visible history of the people it honored. Since then, the locals replaced those board members with seven new ones (there are nine members on the board).

I’m guessing this wasn’t the only straw on the proverbial camel’s back. Masks, lockdowns, quarantines, vaccines, emote learning – I didn’t look, but if you were a betting man or woman, if they were moved to erase the native history, then the rest was already the new normal.

As noted, the citizens did what not enough citizens do and made a few changes. According to the reporting five of the seven new members were elected last November. When the motion came to return the Susquehannock warrior to its place of honor, those seven voted yes – the other two voted no.

“It took a lot of bravery for people in York County to stand up and fight back against the agenda, like David against Goliath, and the difference they made is incredible,” Billeaudeaux said.

“The SYCSD school board stands as a role model and blueprint for other communities fighting for their Native names and imagery,” the Native American Guardians Association said in a statement after it presented its case last week at the board meeting.

“This movement was about erasing Native American culture and I wasn’t about to stand for it,” said Jennifer Henkel, who has three children in the district and serves on the board.

Not everyone was happy, but then those people are rarely happy, so why ruin everyone else’s fun?

And there’s a lesson to be learned. Keep finding and supporting candidates for school board and defense, and support those you get into office. Then, find some more until you have the majority. At that point, you then remain the superintendent and all the excessive numbers of administrators that they work at your leisure and will do as instructed, or you remove them and replace them.

Or, just remove them. In New England, we have SAUs, and there is no practical reason for them but to waste money and launder cultural Marxism into the curriculum. Anyone who wants to lower local property taxes who doesn’t address excess administrative overhead has another agenda.

They are also more likely to erase all evidence of recent native history if you still have any. I won’t revisit the reasoning here, but you are encouraged to do so in the comments.

The post Flip a School Board – Get Your Native American Warrior Back appeared first on Granite Grok.

The Debt Clock does not have much impact on Americans and appears to not have much effect on politicians. The digits keep spinning, the numbers keep climbing, and there seems to be no number large enough to garner concern.

At the turn of the century, just 24 years ago, the National Debt stood at $5 Trillion, and we wondered what we were doing to our future generations. We were strapping them with a debt they would never be able to repay. After 9/11 and the pandemic, the debt exploded to $34 trillion, and nobody has a plan to stop the spinning wheel or pay down the money owed. It is irresponsible, and the guilt falls on both Parties.

To put this number into perspective, the debt equals $103,000 for every man, woman, and child in our country. Biden wants to forgive Student Loans; maybe he should forgive our share of the National Debt. Biden often claims that he has reduced our debt when, in fact, his administration has added $9 Trillion in three years. Over $900 billion a year in interest, yet nobody seems concerned. Forget irresponsible. It is criminal. America and Americans do not seem phased, but the rest of the world is, and they are taking steps to protect themselves.

The dollar has been the gold standard for international trading for decades. For example, petroleum has been valued in dollars per barrel, but that is changing. The Russians, Arabs, Chinese, India, and even Brazil are joining forces to create an international currency to replace the dollar. This will render the dollar worthless. This action by our allies and adversaries alike indicates a loss in credibility of the American monetary system and a conception that the United States may not be capable of paying its bills. This negativity is virgin territory for America and should concern us all.

BRICS is putting pressure on the U.S. monetary system, but what is more of a concern for anyone paying attention is the lack of urgency on behalf of Washington to change its habits. Every time we get to a debt ceiling decision, the minority Party folds, and a continuing resolution is voted on, which kicks the can down the road for later action, or the Parties reach a compromise and raise the debt ceiling. Nobody and neither Party has the guts to hold their position, let the government shut down, and negotiate a serious bill that will fund the government, not the pork, and hold the debt ceiling where it stands.

Just like we do with our household budget, we have to trim expenses. We need to get realistic about what we have coming in and not outspend it. The pork has to stop, and when your reps brag about funds they are bringing back to the state, you have to ask at what cost. It is not their money they are generously giving us; it is our money, and we need people in office who will be better stewards of our money. Foreign governments know we are not being wise with our tax dollars, so it is time to insist our reps get the message.

The post Think The Debt Clock Is No Big Deal, Think Again appeared first on Granite Grok.

Investigative journalists are dropping like a congressional aide’s pants across the U.S. as main stream media lays-off thousands.

Fake news powerhouse the L.A. Times has nearly emptied its Washington D.C. bureau just months before what many consider the biggest election year in American history.  This shocking move has many of the journalists questioning the real reason behind the mass exodus.

“I had no idea this was coming” a shocked Alexandria Ortega-Churchill bemoaned as she placed her remaining office items into her 100% organic hemp Lululemon grocery tote.  Despite being an investigative journalist neither she nor her colleagues had caught wind of the company’s declining readership and ad revenue.  Explaining they just wrote the stories they were told to write and preferred to get their news from Tik-tok, the group of journalists admittedly didn’t bother to read their own publication, let alone any of the others forecasting news media’s burgeoning climate change.

Never ones to get off message the rumors of systemic racism as the cause began to circulate among those given their parting papers.  “I don’t see too many white people leaving the office, do you?” complained Tykesha Barnes whose most famous piece “Being On-Time Is White Supremacy” won a Poo-lister Prize.  Poo-lister Prizes are awarded to journalists whose contribution to the field is considered on par with bathroom tissue.

Also stunned by the news was Washington bureau reporter Tayler Lorentz who appeared inconsolable after hearing her fans would no longer be able to read her feminist opinions.  Consistently identifying white men as the problem in society and calling them racist may be popular with her Millennial and Gen Z audiences but not with the old white guys signing her paychecks apparently.  A besotted and benighted Lorentz barely managed to Tweet / X an image of her weeping hysterically while holding up her resume.

Speaking of resumes the Vermont Daily Chronicle, despite the national trend of losing journalists, has seen record growth over the last year doubling its number of employees and adding a social media department.  It remains atop the list of conservative publications in Vermont thanks in part to having zero competitors.  Despite running the risk of anti-trust litigation as a monopoly, Chief Editor In-Chief Guy Page remains undaunted.

“Our readership makes up less than 1% of the state where fewer and fewer people are learning to read, so I’m not that worried about it” a resolute Page told Banana’s Media via a now unlocatable email.  Page also informed us he has seen a record number of resumes come in from the sea of jobless journalists recently let go.

“The pool is incredibly wide but not very deep” he noted.  When asked whether or not he was able to find any good hires he answered simply “no”.  Pressing him to explain why he told us about the key questions he asks potential candidates, such as “Is America a democracy or republic?” “Can you identify fake news from the real thing?” and “Would you put real maple syrup on your pancakes if Aunt Jemima was on the bottle?”

“Most of them are so confused they don’t even bother to answer.  If I have any doubt I simply hold up a picture of Donald Trump and note their reaction, which is almost always to flail into a raging conniption fit.”  So far not one of the over twelve hundred applicants has received a follow up interview with the cagey editor.

Not wanting to sully his outfit’s reputation by adding infamous purveyors of fake news beyond his lone Truly Professional Fake News Reporter (Johnny Bananas), seems like a sound business decision given the recent trend in avoiding such problematic employees.  Page wanted to make clear that, although Mr. Bananas is a regular contributor to the Chronicle, he is not a paid employee.

“I can’t imagine anyone would pay that guy – he just makes things up. Take this article for example” Page commented before rushing off to do real journalism by talking to people even less trustworthy than members of the media, namely members of Vermont’s legislative body.

When asked to respond to his editors comments Mr. Bananas declined stating he was too busy working on unionizing his fellow employees.

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