RITF

By Mark Krikorian on June 24, 2011

That's "Rotting In The Fields" — the F1 key on farm lobbyists' keyboards. I dealt with this fairy tale at some length here, and 24ahead.com has an index of RITF articles. The latest dupe to fall for this trick is Adam Ozimek at Megan McArdle's blog, who links to an Atlanta Journal Constitution column bemoaning the state's wicked, wicked immigration law (which may or may not go into effect July 1):

Thanks to the resulting labor shortage, Georgia farmers have been forced to leave millions of dollars' worth of blueberries, onions, melons and other crops unharvested and RITF.


Okay, I substituted the abbreviation, but it saves space!