LibertySaves

Sweet corn, grown with no pesticides or herbicides. My field is never tilled. I cover it with horse manure compost every fall, and I cover that with straw. When I weed it by hand, the weeds are left to decompose right in place as a mulch. Squash and beans grow alongside the corn, and everything is planted by hand.

It can be done. We don’t need Monsanto. We need human labor right there, side by side with the plants. We don’t need massive petroleum powered agriculture, we need people working small horticultural plots, gaining knowledge of their specific land and it’s needs. Our land needs to be enclosed by wild space, fecund and full of birds, and bats, and insects, and snakes, and turtles, and all of the other beings that make an ecosystem function.

We can make a desert of the earth in an attempt to get high yields of low quality crops so a few corporations can temporarily get great financial returns, or we can have people spend their days bringing their food into existence, getting in touch with their bio regions, and building healthy soil and ecosystems for generations to come.

“Like a perfectly crafted poem, it managed to illuminate the human condition in a few deft strokes.”

Netflix blames internet providers for streaming speed

Ars Technica: Users are now reporting seeing screen messages from Netflix that directly blame internet service providers for streaming speed problems.

“#1 According to an analysis of U.S. government numbers conducted by Terrence P. Jeffrey, there are 86 million full-time private sector workers in the United States paying taxes to support the government, and nearly 148 million Americans that are receiving benefits from the government each month.  How long can such a lopsided system possibly continue?

One day before Crimea votes on whether to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, Ukrainian officials are accusing Russia of invading mainland Ukraine.

Tomorrow, voters in Crimea will cast their ballots on a referendum that will declare the peninsula’s independence from Ukraine and request annexation by Russia. Ahead of the vote on the widely condemned measure, it’s been a tense, eventful day in the region. Here are the major developments:

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has accused Russia of invading mainland Ukraine. This is the first reported presence of Russian troops beyond the Crimean peninsula.

As many as 50,000 Russian protestors marched through Moscow to rally against Russian action and intervention in Ukraine. Russian authorities suggested that only 3,000 participated.

A vote by the United Nations Security Council to invalidate the Crimean referendum was scuttled after Russia used its veto. 

A bipartisan delegation of U.S. Senators visited Kiev to express solidarity with the new Ukrainian government and to renew blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 There were reports of violence in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where two people were killed and a dozen injured in a shootout earlier this morning.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovfailed to reach an agreement yesterday evening on how to solve the crisis.

For more of our ongoing coverage, see our live blog below: 

Update:

3:24 p.m.: Samantha Power, the American Ambassador to the United Nations,responded to a question about reports of possible Russian troop movements in south Ukraine:

"Obviously if Russia has compounded what it has done in Crimea by crossing into south Ukraine that would be an outrageous escalation."

2:55 p.m.: Reuters reports that today’s opposition protests in Moscow were the largest in over two years. The invasion and annexation of Crimea is popular in Russia, but could also galvanize Putin’s opponents. The Moscow demonstration has been characterized as “a sign that his [Putin’s] intervention in Ukraine might provide a rallying point for an opposition movement that had run out of steam.”

2:07 p.m.: In a potentially explosive development, Ukrainian officials are now accusing Russia of dispatching troops onto the Ukrainian mainland. This would mark the first presence of troops outside the Crimean peninsula. 

Ukraine’s foreign ministry issued a protest against the troop landing in the Kherson region near Crimea, and demanded an immediate withdrawal. The ministry said about 80 troops had landed along with four helicopter gunships and three armored vehicles. It said Ukraine “reserves the right to use all necessary measures to stop the military invasion by Russia.”

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that “Ukraine reserves the right to use all necessary measures to stop the military invasion by Russia.”

12:37 p.m.: The United Nations Security Council has just voted on a resolution that would affirm Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty. Not surprisingly, the measure didn’t pass because Russia vetoed it. For those keeping tabs, China abstained.

The resolution would have invalidated tomorrow’s referendum in Crimea over its potential secession from Ukraine—at least in the eyes of the United Nations.

Samantha Power, the American Ambassador to the United Nations, had words about it:

In another symbolic measure, the Ukrainian parliament voted to dissolve the Crimean Supreme Council, which led the charge for tomorrow’s referendum.

Original post:

One day before Crimea votes on whether to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, 50,000 demonstrators gathered in Moscow to protest Russian intervention in Ukraine.

Marchers carried placards reading “Putin, get out of Ukraine” and others comparing Russia’s move on Crimea with the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland as Europe rushed headlong into World War II.

You could call this a surprise twist. Sweden’s foreign minister was duly impressed:

Meanwhile in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which has been the site of some pro-Kremlin and pro-Kiev clashes, two people were killed in a shootout earlier today. Each side has chimed in as Russia claims the violence is due to ultranationalist Ukrainians and Ukrainian officials characterize the flare-ups as premeditated Russian activity.

Just hours before, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry failed to reach an agreement with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in a meeting about how best to end the crisis in Ukraine ahead of the Crimea vote. Needless to say, this will be an eventful weekend.