Feb.28, 2001, filed under Miscellany
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!
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Singularity
~something that is singular as (a) a separate unit, or (b) unusual or distinctive manner or behavior; PECULIARITY;
~the quality or state of being singular;
~a point at which the derivative of a given function of a complex variable does not exist but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists;
~a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole. Sight
