Cloudiest Cities & Targeting Crop Insurance

Cloudiest Cities & Targeting Crop Insurance plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Here’s a hot news flash! The northwest has the cloudiest cities in the U.S. A recent study conducted by the website, Sperling’s Best Places, looked at the percentages of cloudy days over a one-year period. The winner...or perhaps loser - Juneau, Alaska followed by Anchorage...then Olympia and Seattle in Washington and finally to Portland. Now back to something you didn’t already know.

Crop insurance is again the target of critics in and out of Congress who charge the program’s wasteful and ripe for deficit-reducing cuts. A New York Times piece and a letter from former House Ag Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Rosa Delauro take aim at crop insurance. National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson says the reason for the latest attacks is obvious.

JOHNSON: Crop insurance is a larger cost item now in the farm bill than all the other safety net programs put together. It costs more than the conservation programs and so it’s where the money is.

Johnson argues crop insurance is also the biggest piece of the safety net right now - plus - farmers pay twice as much for insurance when corn is eight-dollars versus four-dollars.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

As publicity stunts go this one must certainly take the cake. I’m referring to PETA’s most recent request of Hasbro to replace the traditional Scottish Terrier dog token with that of a “pound puppy”, in other words a shelter mixed breed dog. PETA jumped on this idea after Hasbro announced plans to replace one of its Monopoly game tokens in an effort to “freshen the brand”. Of course PETA would jump on such a great opportunity to bring awareness to their cause. Just when you think they can’t get any sillier they go and demand that the Monopoly game Scotty dog be changed in order to save mutts everywhere, and put an end to the monopolization of the pet world by purebred dogs. In fact, PETA’s letter to Hasbro attacked several well loved breeds for their physical flaws, German Shepherds, Pugs, and of course Scotties, stating that “buying purebred dogs is pointless, out of touch, and thoughtless”. Of course, according to PETA having pets of any kind, purebred or otherwise, goes against its ideology of “total animal liberation”. So I guess it all falls back to what PETA leader Ingrid Newkirk said about the group in 2003, they are just “complete press sluts” and yes everything they do is a publicity stunt.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.