by Blogbot

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By Nicole Powers

America devotes an inordinate amount of resources to its wars on controlled substances; namely its wars on drugs – and raw milk. Yep, you read that right. The prohibition of alcohol may have ended in the US in 1933 with the passage of the Twenty-First Amendment, but it’s still alive and kicking when it comes to unpasteurized milk.

The retail sale of raw milk for human consumption is illegal in the vast majority of states, and though some states do permit direct farm sales and/or herd shares, federal laws prohibit the sale and transport of raw milk across state lines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers unpasteurized milk or cream –– and any uncooked products made from it, such as cheese, yogurt, and ice cream –– to be categorically unsafe. Their official line is that “raw milk can harbor dangerous microorganisms that can pose serious health risks to you and your family.”

However, by their own figures, a mere “800 people in the United States have gotten sick from drinking raw milk or eating cheese made from raw milk since 1998.” When you compare those numbers to the statistics on alcohol and cigarettes – which can be bought legally in all 50 states – the government’s position on the sale of raw milk appears to be inconsistent to say the very least. And the discrimination against raw dairy is even more profound when the health benefits are taken into consideration. But while the fight to decriminalize other controlled substances grabs headlines and galvanizes support, few are even aware of the prohibition against real milk. Kristin Canty, a small farm advocate from Massachusetts, hopes to change that with her compelling new documentary, Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Family Farms.

Canty didn’t set out to make a film, merely to heal her son, who suffered from asthma and severe allergies. When traditional medicine failed to help, she embarked on a voyage of discovery that led her to raw milk. While fighting to heal her sick child, she also had to fight the seemingly unreasonable and intransigent attitude our government has towards healthy-minded boutique farmers who produce this hard to come by commodity in the face of much adversity. Frustrated and angered by reports of raids, and shocked at the increasing ferocity of the persecution of those who were doing nothing more than producing fresh food, Canty was compelled to expose the truth. For her, it wasn’t just about the disparity in treatment between big agriculture (whose factory methods have actually been responsible for the majority of serious food scares in recent years) and the mom & pop organic and sustainable operations, but an issue of a mother’s right to choose healthy food.

Read our exclusive interview with Kristin Canty on SuicideGirls.com.

**UPDATE**
Following the multi-agency armed raid on Venice Beach, CA fresh food collective Rawesome, which resulted in 3 arrests (see story), there will be a series of special screenings of Farmageddon at the Electric Lodge cinema on Saturday, August 20 (see details). Proceeds will go to the Rawesome Community Fund.

Hiky Suicide in Habitat

• INTO: Life.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Friends, music, living, art, baby bunnies, Snapple Apple.
• MAKES ME SAD: Love.
• HOBBIES: Ceramics, painting, drawing, knitting, guzzling coffee.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Mascara, Arizona iced teas, stuffed animals, my Hello Kitty goods.
• I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: Straight chillin’.

Get to know Hiky better over at SuicideGirls.com!

by Morgan

Hello again, fellow gamers! This month I’d like to bring you a variety of very different games, ranging from cute to badass. I’ve spent a lot of time this month neglecting WoW but playing some extremely fun games nonetheless. Here’s a selection of the best games I’ve played recently:

1. Touch Cats – iOS devices – Free

Most gamers have some sort of guilty pleasure game they enjoy. For me it’s pet simulation games. Sadly there aren’t many good free ones available. That’s why I was delighted to discover Touch Cats! It’s a basic pet game: you feed, groom and play with the cats you adopt to increase their happiness bar. You can check in on the game once a week or many times a day, though, with the game’s daily goals, checking in a couple of times a day has its rewards. There’s a lot about the game that makes me recommend it. At the top of the list are the missions you can send your cats on. Your cats can regularly search your virtual home for coins and items, and the items can be used for detective and rescue missions the animals can go on to collect rewards (generally clothing items and coins). Connected to this is another plus: the social aspect of the game. You can complete these missions solo or recruit friends and random users to help you. Once you’ve added friends you can also send your cats to visit other kitties in your neighborhood. All in all, Touch Cats is a simple yet adorable and addictive game.

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by SG’s Team Agony feat. Smythe and Casca

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q: There’s this guy that I’ve been into since I meet him. After I broke up with my BF we started to fool around but haven’t kissed or fucked. I thought he was into me and so did everyone else, so I finally told him I liked him. He said that he wasn’t interested in me like that. It’s been about a month since I told him I liked him, and I’m not over it. I don’t even understand why I liked him in the first place, or why he showed that he was into me but said differently. Could you please help make sense of all this? I would like to move on but it seems like I can’t.

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by Aaron Colter

Goddamn people are dumb. It’s getting old.

I was reading a news article about Anonymous in which some supposed expert, Gabriella Coleman, made sweeping generalizations about the motives of the loose collective. While discussing the skill sets of those involved, she talked about how some are programmers or security researchers, while others “are skilled at video editing and design.”

My fucking eyes rolled so hard I thought the right one was going to pop clean-out of the damn socket. O RLY? Like fucking iMovie and Photoshop? Like that shit is super hard to figure out?

Embarrassing. The government is arresting kids for playing what is the equivalent of a high school prank on a mass scale (if you’re phishing for a Mr. Big in the hacker world – I hear Rupert Murdoch’s a pretty soft target these days). And it remains to be seen if they’re even arresting the correct people. (In response to the FBI’s arrests, hackers have released loads of data that was obtained from ManTech – a security firm paid over $100 million by our government for clearly failing to protect NATO information.)

But regardless of whether they’ve got the right Guy (pun intended), they’re doing it wrong.

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by Keith Daniels

Lindi Ortega is a singer-songwriter from Canada with an incredible voice that brings to mind both Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. She’s been kicking around the music industry for a decade or more, slowly climbing the rungs and paying her dues as backup on tours with Kevin Costner and the Killers’ Brandon Flowers. Despite the recent setback of being dropped from her first major label deal with Interscope, she’s finally getting some well-deserved recognition. Her new record, Little Red Boots, was highlighted on NPR, which is how I heard of it.

She talked to SuicideGirls recently about those little red boots, how getting dropped from a major was a blessing in disguise, and how dinosaurs evolved into birds.

Read our exclusive interview with Lindi Ortegae on SuicideGirls.com.