Helping the Tea Party Out!!!

          In the HUFFINGTON POST Mark Gongloff points out that Government Shutdown helped the Tea Party in certain ways. THe Republicans did back down after a 16 day shutdown that ended with raising the debt ceiling and averted financial default.  But this agreement will fund agencies through mid-January.  He secondly states that the harsh spending cuts are still in place and that recovery from this recession is the weakest since 1948. These cuts will affect areas like medical and science research funding and services that help the poor, sick and elderly. 

          He then argues that if the U.S. continues doing what it is doing the rating could be Stripped and force investors to not invest and cause issues with the global market. John Chambers the global head of S&P said, “If the government does discontinue debt-servicing, unless it is cured immediately, it goes into ‘selective default’,” which is the lowest S&P's 20 grades of untrustworthiness. There is only one other country is Selective default and that is Grenada. With this rating the world’s superpower is now second best.

          His final argument is that the government shutdown will continue to hurt economic growth. The Study by Macroeconomic states that the government crisis has cost the U.S. economy about 900,000 jobs and raised unemployment by 0.6 percent. With both sides seeming to never come to an agreement, I think that come the middle of January both political parties are going to be at a standstill once more. I believe the biggest problem with the the government is the political parties not being able to agree with there own. A Fox news poll was taken shortly after the shutdown had begun and made clear that The republican party clearly has issues within its own ranks. Being prior military gave me a very good experience of what it is actually like to be be furloughed and not get paid. The people at the highest political position should be figuring out how to fix our problems rather than fight. 

residential impact of poor urban farming ordinance

After reading an article, “Urban farms with slaughterhouses not suitable for single family zoning,” by the Editorial Board at the Austin American Statesman, I was left on the fence line about in that I agree with most, but not all of the authors’ side. When it comes down to the current urban farms ordinance that states urban farms can raise chickens, one would assume that if you are raising chickens, there will come a day when you are to slaughter and clean the chickens in an effort to be self sustainable. However, the lack of specification of restrictions, (or lack there of) in the current ordinance seems mindless in my opinion. 

In specifying that slaughter houses be permitted in the ordinance, so long as restrictions are specified as well would indeed be an improvement and the thought of The Planning commission standing deaf to the objections of homeowners is wrong and needs to be addressed. Is The planning commission to simply out rule any slaughtering of chickens in residential neighborhoods? Not without a strong wave of opinion from the other side. Do we as individuals not have the right to raise and grow our own food? To know where and how it was raised?

I do however agree with the Editorial Board in that “a commercial slaughterhouse goes too far.” I say , though, commercial slaughterhouse. As far as slaughtering and cleaning chickens that an individual has raised on his own farm, it’s all part of self-sustainability. But what is sustainable about a commercial “urban” slaughterhouse?

“a commercial slaughterhouse goes too far.”