This BBC article suggests I’m not the only one to have noticed.

Foot and mouth continues to spread, and the more it does so the more furious I get. The rampant spread of this disease seems to me to be primarily a result of the closure of small abattoirs, which has in turn resulted in a need to transport livestock long distances for slaughter. The virus responsible can be carried by wind – in a worst case scenario we can imagine that every point on the transport route could be a source of a disease vector. Good grief. If we still had small, local abattoirs then, when the disease was originally detected, it could have been contained while the rest of the country got on with life. As it is, agriculture in the UK is grinding to a halt. Intensive farming, unnecessary transportation – can’t people see that high yield, high profit farming is just asking for this sort of thing? And, given that the livestock would recover given the opportunity, where is the economic advantage in slaughtering them? The losses being caused by the slaughter and movement restrictions are huge. Gah!

I’ve just been reading up on foot and mouth disease at the Ministry of Agrictulture, Fisheries and Food website. Particularly the answer in the FAQ about things that the public can do to help. This is a horrible disease, which results in the slaughter of many animals to prevent an economic catastrophe, and while it is not something that can affect humans, farming in this country is having enough trouble as it is. My heart goes out to all the farmers caught up in this, particularly as while there is compensation for animals slaughtered and feedstuff seized, there is no compensation for loss of earnings due to movement restrictions. As soon as an infected animal is discovered, movement to and from the premises is banned, so farmers are losing vast amounts of money for as long as these restrictions are imposed. Please, please, please think about the farmers and how they are struggling, and obey any movement restrictions. So you may have to put off visiting your favourite prehistoric monument or not go on some of your favourite walks for a while. It is terribly important. And remember – British meat is still safe.

File not found! Story of my life. Heh.

This story about a bloke trying to get his Nike shoes personalised with the word "sweatshop" has been doing the rounds a fair bit recently. It does make me wonder how stupid Nike think people are. They really are getting quite offensive. I hadn’t heard that second story until this morning. Of course, they’re not the only ones. Adidas came under the spotlight in the Mark Thomas Product last series, and found themselves face to face with some rather bright schoolkids. The schoolkids have since set up their own website dealing with the issue of human rights in a global economy ruled by money-grabbing bastards. Give it a look. Teenagers often surprise because they go with what their hearts tell them rather than getting stuck in the grey areas.

This is where we’re going today. I’m all excited. The ravens should be flying. Now if I can just get the boys out of bed so that we’re not late, we can drive off to Gloucestershire.

Better print off a map.

I was in Sainsbury’s the day before yesterday, buying some salmon for dinner because I’m being a good little girl and trying to stick to my high protein diet, and I noticed that they are still selling cod. I mean, given the cod restrictions, there is part of me that feels there is something unethical in selling a fish that is practically an endangered species. I refuse to buy cod these days. The poor buggers have a hard enough time as it is. I mean, what about this poor sod? I really do think that the Icelandic approach has to be considered as the only sensible way forward if we want there to be a cod fishery in the future at all.

Is nothing sacred? We take the piss out of Bush for his "Fortress America" and his appalling reputation for environmental matters and yet we still have this sort of thing going on over here. A china clay quarry on Dartmoor National Park? What sort of insanity is that? Not only is there the issue of what would happen to Dartmoor, but the precedent it would set is completely intolerable. This isn’t a big country. We really can’t afford to put industry above the environment any more or else all we’ll have left is an industrial and post-industrial environment. I don’t particularly want to live in a country where everything is brown field rather than green field. Gah!

Goddammit! You & Yours are discussing Tetra again, that mad idea to provide a communications system for the emergency services that broadcasts at 17.6Hz. I was hoping to find something on the BBC news site about it, but can I find anything at all? Not bloody likely.

Dearie me. Is this the opposite of a rant, do you think? My review of “A Richer Dust” has been posted to Amazon. At this rate I might want to become an associate and trying getting some money.