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(Reuters) - President Francois Hollande's Socialist government unveiled sharp tax hikes on business and the rich on Friday in a 2013 budget aimed at showing France has the fiscal rigor to remain at the core of the euro zone.

The package will recoup 30 billion euros ($39 billion) for the public purse with a goal of narrowing the deficit to 3.0 percent of national output next year from 4.5 percent this year - France's toughest single belt-tightening in 30 years.

But with record unemployment and a barrage of data pointing to economic stagnation, there are fears the deficit target will slip as France falls short of the modest 0.8 percent economic growth rate on which it is banking for next year.

The U.S. congressman who held 22 hearings over a year and a half that tracked public backlash against the Transportation Security Administration said he’s ready to offer legislation to save the agency from itself.

“The truth is this is a very dangerous world,” Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Transportation Security Subcommittee, said in an interview. “TSA not surviving isn’t an option. We have got to make it, though, smarter and leaner.”

The Alabama Republican said he plans to offer a proposal next year, and its chances will improve if Republicans win control of the Senate in the November elections. The legislation would be shaped to force change onto a reluctant agency and congressional Democrats while blunting calls from within his own party to eliminate the TSA altogether, he said.

The legislation would give airports more power to hire private contractors for screening and make it tougher for the TSA to refuse, Rogers says. It also would scale back passenger pat-downs; require changes in how the agency buys screening equipment; mandate periodic reassessments of security procedures; and possibly eliminate the agency’s list of items that can’t be carried onto planes, he said.

The cost of genetically-modified (GM) corn and soy feed for conventional cattle is surging so high, and availability plunging so low, as a result of persistent drought conditions and resultant crop failures that conventional feedlot farmers are having to seek out less expensive and more plentiful alternatives. But such alternatives are not exactly the types of things you would typically expect a farmer to feed his animals: corn syrup-laden gummy worms, nutrient-devoid marshmallows, and chemical-laden ice cream sprinkles are among the many junk foods now being served to American cattle.

The Vancouver Sun reports via Reuters that a whole new “alternative” feed market is emerging out of the ongoing crop crunch, as farmers all across the U.S. are running out of common feed options for their herds. Because corn-based feeds are now too expensive or simply unavailable, feedlot operators in Indiana, North Dakota, and elsewhere are buying leftover candy scraps, pastries, extruded cereals, gummy snacks, and even food waste to feed to their cows, which end up directly fueling the production of conventional meat and dairy products sold nationwide to American consumers.

“Brokers are gathering up discarded food products and putting them out for the highest bid to feed lot operators and dairy producers, who are scrambling to keep their animals fed,” says Reuters....

According to establishment officials, the concept of the Sovereign Man philosophy is a direct threat to the authority of the State. Depending upon your perception of reality and the degree of legitimacy for government, given to the prevailing order, fundamental inalienable rights of the individual may vary widely. In the extreme, government statists consider most if not all natural rights as capricious and arbitrary, if conflicts challenge the dictates of the regime. This unending and interminable struggle to defend undeniable individual basic rights drives bureaucrats to use unconscionable measures to coerce citizen compliance. 

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