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Nicaragua Creates Innovative Agricultural Information System With Open Source
johanneswilm writes "Nicaragua is the second-poorest country of the Americas. It is now also the Latin American country with the most capable web-based information system for agriculture, thanks to open source software. ALBAstryde itself is open source, and it is based on Django and jQuery. It allows the user to play with the data, and its reach is further extended by a net of radio stations which are broadcasting the numbers to remote peasants, who thereby, for the first time ever, get up to date data on prices and general production levels in the country. The implementation for the ministry of agriculture of Nicaragua already contains live data."
Nicaragua's climate is not best suited for coca... Pot would probably be best
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Citations needed
Here you go:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/867178/posts
Supermarkets where I am actually sell stuff like liver and gizzards just the way they sell chicken wings, fillets etc.
I think that's why in my country they often have to import stuff to make sausages, nuggets or patties. The fresh "misc" meat has enough value and actually gets sold in significant quantities.
Whereas in more "squeamish" countries, they have to disguise the stuff, or convert them to pet food.
If you eat more of an animal without having to disguise it, it means less wastage and better efficiency. A single animal can feed more people, and there's less spent on hiding the "unsightly" bits.
About boosting output, have a look at what Chile did with Project Cybersyn during the Allende reign.
Of course, when the CIA-backed coup took place (Project FUBELT/Track II, the first thing the USA-installed puppet dictator Pinochet did was to dismantle the project.
The Cybersyn project itself was not a reason for the coup. It was collateral damage. But having a more efficient way of governing and routing around damage such as outside-sponsosred strikes in this little leftist country was obviously anti-business, and therefore anti-USA.
A note from the 2009 reconstruction of Cybersyn:
Interestingly enough, the coup happened at September 11. The year was 1973.
To sum up the data: Per Capita Income in "Blue" states is 20% higher then in Red States and Graduation rates are 5.4% higher. Violent and Property crime are 11.1% and 10.1% higher respectively in states controlled by Republican Legislatures. In terms of taxation, "Blue" States overwhelmingly pay far more in taxes then they receive in federal outlays, with the money going to "Red" states. Interestingly, under pretty much every measure of administrative efficiency, Democratic governments do better then Republican ones, by a sizeable margin.
Brush it off as the price of hedonist sin? 9 out of 10 of the states with the lowest divorce rates are blue states, while all 10 out of 10 of the top 10 states are red states. All of the top 16 states with the highest abortion rates voted for Bush, while 9 out of 10 of the states with the lowest rates voted for Kerry.
Unlike you, I'm not going to be a dick and assume Correlation-->Causation, but for what it's worth, the evidence is on my side, not yours.
Other nitpicks:
1) When my home state, Florida, got hit by Hurricanes in 2004, crop yields fell by 40%. But unlike Nicaragua, we were part of a large country, most of which was not hit by a Hurricane, that was able to carry us through for our eating needs. Nicaragua meanwhile, is roughly the size of Miami-Dade county. When it gets hit by a hurricane, the entire country gets hit. And so without importing food from elsewhere, famine is inevitable. It's a little inexplicable that this didn't occur to you in your analysis.
2) "There was no famine in New Orleans. There was a major break down in law and order and other failures of the local government."
Don't rewrite history. I remember when it took days and days for the government to get *anybody* to the Superdrome as 20,000 people were in dire need of food and water. We spend more on our military then literally every other country combined, but we couldn't air drop food and water onto a large stationary target on our territory? (And don't mention security. Our National Guard manages to run humanitarian efforts in Fallujah under heavy weapon fire). It was a terrible display of incompetence, and voters saw it too, with the disaster triggering a huge structural decrease in Bush's approval ratings.
3) Unless the pre-Katrina government of New Orleans engaged in policies that nationalized the means of production, then calling them "Socialist" makes you look like a dumbass.
Something changes for the better in Nicaragua (from almost no agricultural information to some publicly available agricultural information). You start throwing shit at the Sandinists and their 1980's agricultural policies. Man, this was over twenty years ago. Why not just be happy that something changes for the good?
And if you refer to back then, you should do it properly. Did you know that:
* a major (but never realised) 1980's Sandinist priority was feeding the population, more than increasing the agricultural trade surplus
* the US government was convicted by the International Court of Justice, amongst others for actively supporting the Contra terrorists and mining Nicaraguan harbours
* one of the Contra's main targets as a terrorist organisation was the agricultural sector
Oh, since Pinochet only murdered around 3000 people, that doesn't count as slaughter? And the fact that these murders went on for decades somehow doesn't count as generations?
Your tired of this thread because I've handed you your ass on a platter.
If you ever care to try your hand at debating me again, I have posts I can link back to to show what kind of a person you are. Mi the Murderer, that's what we'll call you.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton