Okay, so technically this is a typhoon not a hurricane. But I could not resist the irony.
People who watch the oil markets have been worrying because they say that one strong Hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico could send gas prices sky high in the US. Now there is a Category 5 typhoon heading towards Click Here to continue reading.
I had heard about this girl before, but I had always assumed the tale was exaggerated. After all, you would have to have such an improbable amount of control over a unicycle, rolling globe, and kickups. But then the other night I found this video. It’s one of those videos I can hardly believe even as I’m watching it. Rather than explain the tricks in detail, I’ll just let you watch it.
Makes me wonder how much truth there is in the other “big fish” stories that circus performers tell.
This week’s poem was written by Gerard Manley Hopkins and it is called God’s Grandeur. For some reason, it is the poem that came to mind when thinking about this week’s essay.
In American, the word conservative can mean so many things in a political context as to be practically meaningless. There are conservatives who believe in relatively open borders and who celebrate immigration and there are conservatives who want a wall around the entire country. There are conservatives who want a strong federal government that will fight evil both here and abroad and there are conservatives who would prefer that the federal government barely exist.
One thing that seems to unite them all though, is a disdain for that false civility know as political correctness. That is what this week’s rant is all about.
For this weeks essay we have selected The Silverware Thief’s tale of a trip to the past. The Silverware Thief has that rare gift of making you feel like you have been to where he has been and seen what he has seen.
As one of our rants of the week here at the Ethereal Voice, we selected an article by Joel Salatin called, “Everything I want to do is illegal.” It is all about how regulation keeps the little guy out of the market place.
A recent NY Times article demonstrates that this is no accident…..
The Agriculture Department tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.
Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.
The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.
A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on and said the government didn’t have the authority to restrict it.
Basically, the meat industry is afraid that Creekstone is going to get a competitive advantage by testing all their meat and they are trying to use the Government to stop them. Shows how free market the Bush administration is.
This just in from the BBC….
Firefighters in Greater Manchester are facing disciplinary action over claims they slept on a station floor instead of their new reclining chairs.
Three men, based in Bury, are being investigated for “involvement in the use of unauthorised rest facilities”.
It is claimed they broke regulations by using sleeping bags on the floor rather than the £400 chairs.
The chairs were installed as part of modernisation programme to replace all beds in the region’s 41 fire stations.
You really have read the rest of the article. It is just unbelievable.
The real crime here is that they took away the guys beds and gave them chairs to sleep on. If I worked a 15 hour shift, I would want a real bed.
As people who follow Iran know, the country is currently dealing with a high inflation rate. So what do they go and do? The Lebanese Daily Star has the answer….
Iran’s moderate press and economists Thursday slammed a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to slash interest rates, describing the move as incomprehensible” and risking “economic suicide.”
The rate cut, which economists said could overheat an already inflationary economy, appeared to have been taken without the knowledge of Iran’s economy minister, who had said exactly the opposite just hours earlier.
“Economic suicide for banks,” the Mardomsalari (Democracy) newspaper said of Tuesday’s move.
“The economy minister and the head of the Central Bank have to explain this decision since this decree is incomprehensible for economists,” Saeed Shirkavand, economy minister in the previous reformist government, was quoted as saying.
Apparently this decision was made the normal way that decision are made when one madman is calling the shots (this from the Guardian)….
Iran’s financial system suffered a fresh jolt yesterday with panic selling on the stock market after the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, abruptly ordered banks to cut interest rates sharply, despite surging inflation.
The order, which Mr Ahmadinejad issued by telephone during a visit to Belarus and which flew in the face of expert advice – has triggered warnings of a financial crisis and spiralling corruption amid fears of a capital flight from the country’s lending institutions.
The main thing that worries me: If they are stupid enough to do this, what else are they stupid enough to do?
I am not Robert Frost’s biggest fan, but when I search my mind for a poem to go with this week’s essay and rant I could think of no better than The Self-seeker.
This week’s rant comes from the one and only Joel Salatin who is famous for popularizing pastured poultry among other things. I have heard Mr. Salatin speak and I have to say he was one of the most charismatic speakers I have ever heard.
That is not nessearly a good thing in my book. I have an ingrained suspicion of charismatic types. I am always wondering how they are trying to blind me.
Ingrained suspicion aside, I have to say that I agree with Salatin’s complaint in this rant. The government, not the market place, is destroying the small family farm in this country.