Let me get this straight... U.S. taxpayers give Israel billions of dollars per year. Without any warning, Israel, using U.S. made weapons, destroys Lebanon, striking civilian infrastructure at will, closing all means of escape and stranding tens of thousands of Americans in a swirling sh*tstorm. And what is the U.S. State Department's response to the stranded people?

You better be sitting down for this one:

The State Department added that the government would not provide free transportation but could provide repatriation loans "to those in financial need."
posted by Kevin at 6:18 PM

The Iranian strategic military plan for engaging the United States must include crippling oil exports from the Persian Gulf. Iran is (probably) in a position to close the Strait of Hormuz, the most strategically important waterway in the world.

While the U.S. Navy has already pledged to keep the strait open, there is no way to know if that will be possible if Iran does indeed decide to go with a scorched earth policy:

The United States would ensure the free flow of oil and trade through the Strait of Hormuz if passage was threatened, its top navy commander in the Gulf told Reuters on Monday.

Iran has a commanding position on the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic channel at the mouth of the Gulf that is a conduit for close to two-fifths of globally traded oil.

"What you are looking for here is confidence and relying on us to provide clearance of the straits, to ensure the strait remains free," Vice Admiral Patrick M. Walsh, in charge of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said in an interview.

"I can offer you our unequivocal commitment that that is our goal, that that's our job," he said, speaking by telephone from Manama, Bahrain.

Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned last month that oil exports in the Gulf could be jeopardized if Washington made a "wrong move" against Tehran were the dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions to escalate.

This is the good news.

The bad news is that Iran wouldn't have to sink a bunch of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to bring the whole damn bigtop crashing down.

If the Strait of Hormuz is the most strategically important waterway in the world, what's the most strategically important facility in the world?

Ras Tanura:

As much as 80% of the near 9 million barrels of oil a day pumped out by Saudi is believed to end up being piped from fields such as Ghawar to Ras Tanura in the Gulf to be loaded on to supertankers bound for the west.

If Iran manages to damage the deep water oil loading facility at Ras Tanura...

Well, I hope your bicycle is in good working order.
posted by Kevin at 5:00 PM

MW is one of a small number of hardcore Cryptogon supporters. With generosity spanning years, his regular contributions help to keep Cryptogon open and free to all.

Thanks, MW, for everything.
posted by Kevin at 4:37 AM

Cryptogon---and thousands of other sites---have been telling this story for years, but that has just been a bunch of tinfoil hat, conspiracy theory nonsense unsuitable for discussion in polite circles... Except for now, it's on U.S. Federal Reserve letterhead.

Have a nice day:

The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank.

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds".

...

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

Related: Is the United States Bankrupt? PDF

Related: Cheneys Betting on Bad News?

Research Credit: Life After the Oil Crash and MC
posted by Kevin at 4:05 AM

I did a quick look to see if I could spot any obvious reasons why Lash had to be eliminated. The guy was so connected you can just take your pick... Who knows!?

A former Bush administration official, after arguing violently with his wife Thursday night, shot and killed his 12-year-old son inside their McLean home, then turned a shotgun on himself and committed suicide, Fairfax County police said.

William H. Lash III, 45, was an assistant secretary of commerce from 2001 until last year, then returned to teach at George Mason University Law School in Arlington, where he had begun as a professor in 1994. His wife, Sharon K. Zackula, fled the house before the shootings, and police said yesterday they were not sure what ignited the murder-suicide in a first-floor bedroom.

...

Lash's resume was long and quintessential of the Washington elite -- an Ivy League pedigree, high-powered law firms, a presidential appointment, think tanks, boards of directors, guest spots on television news programs, and prestigious university positions.

He had an undergraduate degree from Yale University, a law degree from Harvard University. He clerked for a New Jersey Supreme Court justice. He served as counsel to the chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission during the Reagan years, worked for the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson and served on the boards of directors of private and publicly traded corporations. In 1994, he found a place in academia on the GMU law faculty.

But check out this weirdly prescient exchange between Lash and a Russian trade official:

In an unusual acknowledgment of the thuggish climate, a Russian trade official, Dmitry Beskurnikov, during negotiations in July with William Lash, an assistant United States commerce secretary, explained, "People that don't understand the rules get killed." According to Lash, who later told reporters of the exchange, Lash asked Beskurnikov whether he meant that rule-breakers would face financial disaster. Beskurnikov clarified: "No, physically killed."

And their children, too.
posted by Kevin at 3:31 AM

In case you were wondering what the lunatic, death cult Christians had in mind for your tax money:

More than 3,000 pro-Israel evangelical Christians will be in town next week for a "Washington/Israel summit" to push the Bush administration toward stronger support for the Jewish state.

In other news, Israel is indiscriminately slaughtering Lebanese civilians, right now, with American made weapons.

What would Jesus do?

A baby was sliced into three and body parts hung from olive trees as the full force of Israeli military might hit rural southern Lebanon Thursday.

In the deadliest Israeli strikes in a decade, at least 47 people were killed.

As the south came under a relentless air assault that destroyed vital bridges linking one area to another, ordinary life came to a standstill as terror-stricken residents hid indoors and businesses remained closed.

The silence that reigned over southern Lebanon was broken only by the sounds of violence and its aftermath - bomb blasts and the wail of ambulance sirens.

Israel's offensive, prompted by the capture of two of its soldiers by the group Hizbollah in a bid to secure a swap of prisoners, was the most serious since it ended 22 years of occupation in southern Lebanon in 2000.

On a charred mattress rest the remains of a burned baby girl, her arm to one side. Her upper body is at one end of the bed and her lower body at the other.

Police said the 10-month-old and six other family members were killed when an Israeli missile hit their home in the usually quiet village of Baflay, near the coastal city of Tyre.

The baby, whose name has not yet been released, was taken to a hospital morgue in Tyre. Her body has not yet been claimed by relatives.

As dawn broke over the sleepy village of Dweir, near the main central market town of Nabatiyeh, tragedy hit the household of Adel Akkash, a Shiite Muslim cleric.

An Israeli missile destroyed his home, and neighbours who rushed to help met with a gruesome scene. Akkash, his wife and their seven young children were all dead.

Relief workers were called in to recover the remains of Akkash's seven children from the family olive grove, an AFP correspondent said. Small severed body parts were recovered from the branches of olive trees, and placed in plastic bags.

Eleven members of another family - including five children - met a similar fate in Zibqine, a small village southeast of Tyre.

A missile destroyed the home of a former mayor of the village who died a few years ago, burying his entire family under the rubble.

Hours after the attack, the dusty bodies of his wife, children and nephews were retrieved from the debris by relief workers who took them to a hospital morgue.

Three other relatives were found wounded, and taken to hospital.

"We were all hiding in the shelter when the house was destroyed by the Israeli jets," one of them told AFP.

"What did we do to deserve this barbaric attack on civilians? There are no resistance [fighters] here," he said.

Police said Israeli air strikes also killed two civilians in Baraashit, five in Shour and three in Srifa, three villages near Tyre.

Six civilians were wounded and taken to hospital after air strikes destroyed three houses in the village of Maarub, east of Tyre, police said.

"The Israelis are suffocating us. They destroyed our roads and bridges. We cannot even flee," said southern resident Ahmad Kamel.

"They are killing civilians because they cannot kill Hizbollah fighters. They want to bring us back to the occupation era. We cannot take this injustice any more. Will the world continue to watch them kill children without doing anything?" asked Jamil Hassan.

Research Credit: KH
posted by Kevin at 2:34 AM

How weird is it going to get? Friend, you aint seen nothin yet:

Karla Comfort received a lot of looks and even some salutes from people when she drove from Benton, Ark., to Camp Pendleton, Calif., in her newly-painted, custom Hummer H3 March 2. The vehicle is adorned with the likeness of her son, 20-year-old Lance Cpl. John M. Holmason, and nine other Marines with F Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division who where all killed by the same improvised explosive device blast in Fallujah, Iraq, in December.

Via: Idleworm
posted by Kevin at 7:12 PM

The full horror of the U.S. is most visible in stories like this. This is what the killing of the future looks like:

"Our goal is to really get military families with young children ... to talk about the different stages of deployment with their children, not only talk about it but prepare them for it," said Jeanette Betancourt, vice president of content design at Sesame Workshop, which produces Sesame Street.

Sesame Workshop has produced a DVD, in both English and Spanish, that will be distributed free to military families next month. CEO Gary Knell was to announce details Friday in Houston, joined by officials of Wal-Mart, which has committed $1.5 million to the project.

Karla Sketch, the family readiness coordinator at Fort Campbell, an Army base on the Kentucky-Tennessee line, says parents often request coloring books, pamphlets or any materials that will help them discuss a soldier's absence on a kid's level.

Many parents, she said, are afraid of saying the wrong thing and frightening their children. "Are they going to tell their kids too much? Are they going to tell them enough? Some parents are new to the military. They don't even understand it themselves," Sketch said.

The DVD shows Elmo and his parents preparing for Elmo's dad to be deployed, though it doesn't say where he's going.

The characters discuss their feelings, exchange keepsakes and review the reasons why Elmo can't go, too. They promise to think about one another often, and keep up their regular practice of saying goodnight to the moon.

"Elmo, you know, no matter where I am, I'll still be able to see the moon, just like you," his dad says.
posted by Kevin at 6:59 PM

CNN:

Israeli airstrikes and artillery hammered hundreds of targets in Lebanon, including two strikes on the Beirut airport, where helicopter gunships left craters in runways and turned fuel tanks into fireballs.

Keep this quote, from Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in mind:

We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.'

posted by Kevin at 7:24 PM

Just sit back and enjoy the show.
posted by Kevin at 3:45 PM

While you were busy watching World War III get under way in and around Israel, and oil crossing up above $75 again, some interesting Enron-related wet work was making headlines in Britain.

Who's next?

Neil Coulbeck, who was found dead yesterday, worked for the National Westminster Bank in America at the time the Enron scandal broke six years ago.

A high-flyer who had written books on business and finance, he became a colleague and friend of the three accused men, who worked for the bank's corporate finance arm, Greenwich NatWest.

Although he would have had oversight of the NatWest Three's dealings with Enron, it is unclear how much he knew about the affair. The FBI clearly felt he could provide evidence against the three, and there were claims last night that he was under pressure after repeated meetings with US agents.

Mr Coulbeck was NatWest's chief operational officer in America until the bank was taken over by Royal Bank of Scotland in 2000.

He was responsible for the approval of US transactions that the various divisions of NatWest put forward, and was a member of the executive committee that approved such transactions.

By the time he left America in June 2001 he was RBS's head of financial markets for North America and was a director of Greenwich NatWest.

On his return to London he became the head of trading and investments at RBS, but left the firm in 2004.

Related: Kenny Boy Dies of Heart Attack

Research Credit: West
posted by Kevin at 6:46 PM

Israeli tanks and troops invaded southern Lebanon today amid a series of military disasters for the government in Jerusalem after Hizbullah captured two soldiers and killed several others - compounding a political crisis over an abducted soldier held in Gaza. The Israeli air force killed a family of nine, including seven children, in a large bomb attack on a Gaza City house.

Hizbullah said it would not exchange the two captured soldiers until Israel agrees to release all Arab prisoners. Palestinian militias holding Corporal Gilad Shalit in the Gaza Strip have demanded that all Palestinian women and young people held in Israeli jails be freed.

Several other Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting after the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, ordered his forces into Lebanon in an attempt to rescue the soldiers captured today. He called an emergency meeting of his security cabinet.
posted by Kevin at 5:43 AM

There's a moment of shock when I see that someone has sent in a $100 contribution.

$100.

Some Cryptogon readers like to contribute here and there, when they can. DE decided to let it rip in one shot.

Then we have Miss GW. She's been sending $25 donations for months. This month, she kicked it up to $30.

These contributions (and all of the others that have been flowing in so generously) are impacting our lives in very tangible ways.

You guys are buying Becky and me time. You're giving us the chance to get our income streams flowing. We don't need to make much money off of this land, BUT, we have to make some money. The property tax man never stops calling, electricity, autofuel, galvanized nails, heirloom seeds, a pitchfork, etc. etc. This path is heavily laden with expenses. When you have a fixed sum of cash and it's only going one way---out---the pressure is definitely on. The Matrix has us, even out here. While its grip isn't as tight as it was back in the U.S., it has a grip on us nonetheless.

Becky and I are trying to get our heads around how expensive it's going to be to buy the dairy cows. We're going to be risking a substantial (for us) pile of precious cash on those cows and that venture working out.

Paul, of bacon fame, has a few cow legs hanging up in his tractor shed. I asked, "What's the story with that?"

"Ah, a cow got pinched in a gate. Tore up a nerve along her spine. I had to turn her into $600 worth of dog food."

That made me think pretty hard. Paul has something like 120 cows (many of them now in calf). Occasionally, bad things happen on farms. Becky and I, well, we can't afford an outcome like that if we only buy two cows. We have to be able to raise calves on them. We have to be able to sell those calves later on when they're on pasture.

I'm getting that same knotted up feeling in my gut that I used to get from playing the markets. In other words, we're back to risking capital to make profits. THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THIS. (Well, of course, there's always the option of getting a job again, once my immigration status is sorted out.) When that property tax bill shows up, Becky and I can't offer the warlord a side of beef to clear our account. Nope. That thing demands the coin of the realm. It's that simple.

We're having to invest some our cash in a venture based on unpredictable biological systems that A) we really don't have much experience with, and, B) in some ways have been damaged by insane behavior (overbreeding, overcrowding, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, poor stewardship). I've been reading, Organic Dairy Farming: A Resource for Farmers, by Jody Padgham, in a desperate attempt to get a clue!

There's a sane way to do it, and there's an insane way to do it. There's a dairy industrial complex that has sprung up around trying to make insane practices viable and profitable. And that thing is everywhere. Most farmers don't know any other way. We're basically going to be rolling the dice on cows that have been brought up under the insane paradigm and hoping that we can transition them to our low density, low impact, heavy metal and petrochemical free operation.

Unfortunately, some of the practices in diarying damage the calves in the first days of life, necessitating pharmacological treatments later on. Padgham's book, and my experience with the steers, seems to indicate a simple point: trying to do it outside of the way nature intended is stupid and futile. But here we are.

Why not just buy organic cows? Organics (especially livestock) really isn't that big where we are. Dairy operations up here are (as far as I know) exclusively conventional and go hand in hand with pesticide use and a jab schedule for the beasts that is, quite simply, incredible. (At least these cows are on pasture, unlike in the U.S. There are no feed lots anywhere up here.) It seems like dealing with anything organic means an initial doubling of costs. Potentially, we could buy organic cows, run into problems and be out double what we would have spent on conventional cows.

Am I complaining? Absolutely not one bit at all. Would I prefer my cubicle, headset and multiple computer systems whirring away in front of me, making some ghoulish corporation's stock holders even wealthier? F no. That wasn't living, in my opinion.

The point of me telling this story is, quite simply, that it will be easier for Becky and me to go into that dairy cow purchase with a few extra coins in reserve.

Thanks, DE and GW.
posted by Kevin at 2:57 AM

Any pesticide exposure... Uh, how about regularly eating food that has been bathed in pesticides? Does that count as, "any pesticide exposure"?

People who have been exposed to pesticides are 70 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than those who haven't, according to a new study. The results suggest that any pesticide exposure, whether occupationally related or not, will increase a person's risk of the disease. This means that using pesticides in the home or garden may have similarly harmful effects as working with the chemicals on a farm or as a pest controller.
posted by Kevin at 4:28 PM

The FDA really is concerned with your health and safety. Really:

Several years ago a clinical trial of a blood substitute called PolyHeme finished with worrisome results. Ten of 81 patients who received the fake blood suffered a heart attack within seven days, and two of those died. None of the 71 patients in the trial who received real blood were found to have had a heart attack.

PolyHeme's maker, Northfield Laboratories Inc., quietly shut down the trial and didn't publicly disclose the results, which are described in internal documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. It decided the heart attacks might have been due to doctor inexperience in using PolyHeme, not a problem with the product itself.

Now Northfield is in the middle of a new trial. A Food and Drug Administration official, Jay Epstein, calls the earlier data "alarming" but not sufficient to stop Northfield from trying out its product on hundreds of trauma patients.

The FDA is allowing Northfield to test its blood substitute without the consent of the trauma patients, who often are unconscious. In lieu of patient consent, the 31 medical centers testing the product are required to carry out community-awareness campaigns about the trials. Several hospitals have told community meetings that previous trials showed PolyHeme to be safe, failing to mention the 10 heart attacks in their printed materials.

Some veteran doctors are concerned about the push by Northfield, of Evanston, Ill., to test its product without publicly disclosing earlier results. Ronald M. Fairman, chief of vascular surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, says he repeatedly urged the company to publish the data but got nowhere. "Even now, it remains frustrating the multicenter results were not disclosed,"; he says.
posted by Kevin at 4:11 PM

Servicemen were deliberately subjected to lethal doses of poison in secret tests at Porton Down, an official report will admit this week.

The Ministry of Defence is now braced for a flood of compensation claims from volunteers used in trials at its chemical weapons research centre.

The long-delayed "historical survey" of Porton Down finds that at least five sets of trials "may not have met the ethical standards required," The Independent on Sunday has learnt. They include one trial in which drops of a poison were placed on the skin of volunteers at a dosage level believed at the time to be fatal.

Another test saw six soldiers severely injured after their genitals were exposed to mustard gas to test prototype protective underwear.

The trial, in which an RAF serviceman, Ronald Maddison, died in agony after being given sarin, is also condemned in a list of cases in which scientists were acting "at the edge of their knowledge".

Ministers commissioned the report into Porton Down six years ago, under pressure from volunteers who were convinced that they had suffered long-term health damage.
posted by Kevin at 4:03 PM

Cryptogon reader SB updated and expanded a post from uncensored.co.nz about New Zealand's martial law contingency planning re: pandemic flu outbreak.

The official action plan indicates that full spectrum PSYOP is being planned that will frighten New Zealanders into accepting a martial law situation; including travel restrictions, confiscation of private property, forced vaccinations and much, much more.

I've stated, from the beginning, that this global avian flu scare is an unmitigated scam. But don't take my word for it:

Bird Flu "Pandemic" Antidote: Wash Hands

Spain: Bird Flu Sparking Human Epidemic Is 'Science Fiction'

STRATFOR on Bird Flu: Calm Down

The New Zealand government, however, is following a different script. According to New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Action Plan, Version 14, National Health Emergency Plan: Infectious Diseases, Appendix III:

"The vaccine strategy is to immunise all New Zealanders once supplies are available."

And here are a couple of interesting excerpts from Bills Digest No 1363: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness):

Fines and prison for refusing to do what the 'Health Protection Officer' tells you to do:

Section 72 creates offences, punishable by imprisonment for up to 6 months, a fine of up to $4,000, or both for-

...doing anything forbidden by a Medical Officer of Health or a Health Protection Officer under section 70 or section 71; or
...failing or refusing to comply with, or delaying complying with, a direction or requirement of a Medical Officer of Health or a Health Protection Officer given in the exercise of powers or functions under section 70 or section 71; or
...doing, or delaying ceasing to do, a thing prohibited or forbidden by a Medical Officer of Health or a Health Protection Officer in the exercise of powers or functions under section 70 or section 71.

Assembly:

...require to be closed, until further order or for a fixed period, all premises within the district (or a stated area of the district) of any stated kind or description...

...require to be closed, until further order or for a fixed period, all premises within the district...

...forbid people to congregate in outdoor places of amusement or recreation of any stated kind or description (whether public or private) within the district (or a stated area of the district)...

Private property:

Powers of Medical Officer of Health on outbreak of infectious disease...by requisition in writing served on its owner or occupier, take possession of, occupy, and use any land or building (whether public or private) that in his or her opinion is required for the accommodation and treatment of patients [or] is required for the storage or disposal of bodies...

...by requisition in writing served on the owner or other person for the time being in charge of it, take possession of and use any vehicle, whether public or private...

Now, how are They going to get Kiwis to buy into this load of nonsense? Simple. They're going to frighten the crap out of people. Pay special attention to how much emphasis is going into the PSYOP component in the Pandemic Action Plan:

Know that we are preparing for a pandemic at some time

Routine media monitoring

Develop media plan for ensuing phases

Extension of key messages to cement public expectation of significant changes in the event of a pandemic

Constant promulgation of key messages via all media

Provide user-friendly version of FAQs for talkback hosts/general media use/leafletting

Secure Family Health Diary slot / television awareness

Introduce dedicated 0800 number with regular monitoring of calls used to refresh scripts

Initiate web, talkback and all media monitoring

Initiate wide distribution of short videos

Secure broadcast of short videos

Increase frequency of media updates

Review and formalise all media and comms protocols

Initiate production of new materials for paid media advertising in next/ensuing phases

Note: move to "authority figure" presenter recommended here

Initiate buying plan for national media for next phase

Secure media buy/finalise production for high-frequency, radio-loaded campaign

Accelerate production of media materials

Intensified media monitoring

Implement multi-media campaign fronted by trusted authority figure

Review and promulgation new key messages reflecting health action e.g. on vaccines, community assessment centres/isolation centres etc

Ongoing evaluation/freshening paid media campaign(s)

Ongoing review communications strategy, with special reference to audiences and key messages, incorporating material all feedback loops

I hope New Zealanders spread this information far, wide and fast. Take it from someone who escaped the U.S.: You don't want this legislation to unfurl in New Zealand.

Supporting documents (will be mirrored if necessary):

Bills Digest No 1363: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness)

New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Action Plan, Version 14, National Health Emergency Plan: Infectious Diseases, Appendix III

Research Credit and Special Thanks for His Efforts: SB
posted by Kevin at 5:38 PM

These two can be as silly as snakes, but we managed to move them about 1km down the road to a neighboring farm with a cattle yard and loading race. Our neighbor, Terry, from up the road, helped us do it.

We didn't have any working dogs on the job. It was just me, Becky and Terry. I was pretty sure that if we managed to get these steers out of the paddock and down to the road, they would be gone. But we managed to move them, no problem. Becky and Terry walked behind them. I hopped in Terry's ute and drove ahead. In case they took off tare-@ssing down the road, I blocked the escape with the ute and kindof angled the thing toward the gate we wanted them to enter.

The steers went right through the open gate.

I commented to Terry that I was surprised that it went so easily. Terry said, "Well, mate, it was either going to go like it did, or it would have gone to custard."

I'm glad it didn't go to custard.

We're now contemplating the purchase of (probably) two dairy cows, onto which we will hook a couple of calves. I'm going to have to build a loading race of our own.
posted by Kevin at 3:12 AM