Agriculture depends on seasonal labor because you don’t keep hired help on when there is nothing for them to do. In the US farmers have become dependent on cheap workers from Mexico to harvest crops, and sheep farmers in Britain have been dependent on Australian shearers. Thanks to the Global War on Terror™, that labor force is no longer readily available.

Australian Broadcasting writes that the UK knocks back Australia’s baa-rmy army

Each year, Britain relies on hundreds of Australian and New Zealand sheep shearers who work on UK farms in the summer.

But strict new visa requirements have stopped the flow of workers into Britain from outside the European Union.

The UK is now faced with a critical shortage of shearers and the prospect of serious health and welfare issues that emerge if sheeps’ fleeces are not cut.
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[Read more →]

Joel Pett in the Lexington Herald-Leader has the ultimate answer to the teabaggers’ complaints.

This is just what what the wingers are really asking for, and it is available cheap.

If you think the tea parties were historical distortions, Australian Broadcasting has a new entry: ‘Bring back private pirate hunters’

A US politician known for broadsides at US foreign policy says Somali piracy has an age-old solution: “Letters of marque” empowering private citizens to chase the seaborne scoundrels from the oceans.

Republican representative Ron Paul and a handful of conservative theorists say it’s time that the US Congress used the technique – pioneered by European powers hundreds of years ago as a way to wage naval warfare on the cheap.

We are one of the few countries that hasn’t banned letters of marque, therefore, they are not recognized by most of the world, who would take a dim view of the practice and might sink the privateers as another type of pirate, or try them as pirates if they are apprehended. Further, the profit was the booty of the pirates, and these pirates have only open boats with a few weapons, so where’s the profit?

Why does every bad idea of the last thousand years have to be tried again?

The Times-Picayune has the latest installment of Governor Jindal quest to find green leafy things, this time in New York City and Boston, always known for their concern for good government in Louisiana.

The governor [AKA पीयूष “बॉबी” जिन्दल] is under time constraints because of the looming start of the 60-day legislative session. As the T-P reminds us: “State law forbids governors from raising money during the session, and 30 days thereafter.”

Yes, he is restricted to only 9 months a year for fund raising, which is a major impediment to someone who is not running for President in 2012.