May 6 2012

Aporia Politico: California is the worst state for business, but…The best for the meteor rush?

Bad news for anyone in California…

Hoping to start a new business?

You live in the absolute WORST possible state for businesses…

Of any kind.

Sucks, right?

[via LATimes] So much for the idea of West is best. In an annual survey, executives ranked California as the worst place to do business for the eighth year in a row.

Chief Executive magazine has only been conducting its survey for eight years. Texas has been top-ranked every year.

The survey considered responses from 650 business leaders, who graded states on factors such as taxes, regulations, living environment and more.

Texas and second-ranked Florida have the highest migration rates in the nation for 2001 through 2009. California has lost 1.5 million people over the same period.

Also in the top 10: North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Utah.

California narrowly edged out New York in what the survey called “the ninth circle of business hell,” [Hello - High Taxes!] sharing the bottom five spots with Illinois, Massachusetts and Michigan. [Read More]

Fear not…

All hope is NOT lost.

For those living in California, looking to make SOME money in the Sunshine state?

There are other options.

meteors.

[via BBC] One of the most important meteor strikes in a generation has brought treasure-hunters flocking to a small town in northern California for the second time in 150 years.

The great gold rush began in the Coloma Valley in 1848, and now a meteor rush is underway as stardust fragments sell for 20 times the price of gold.

The meteorite is thought to have been the size of a minivan as it hit the earth’s atmosphere and broke up, scattering rare rocks across the California countryside.

It is a very rare type of meteor containing water and the building blocks of life, so collectors are paying as much as $1,000 (£600) a gram for prime specimens.

The locals have been searching fields, hillsides and even their own back gardens to cash in on the gift from above. [Read More]

[Click HERE to watch video!]

What?

I said there were ‘options’…

I never said they were GOOD options.

There is nothing I can give you
which you have not;
but there is much, very much, that,
while I cannot give it, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts
find rest in today. Take heaven!
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in
this present instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within our reach is joy.
There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see,
and to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by
their covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard.
Remove the covering and you will find beneath it
a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel's hand
that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow,
or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there, the gift is there,
and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.
Our joys, too; be not content with them as joys.
They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty,
beneath its covering, that you will find
earth but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have,
and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together,
wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you.
Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem
and with the prayer that for you, now and forever,
the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

"My friend.--Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.--Your friend, Dracula."

4 May--I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count, directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could not understand my German.

This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did.

He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further. It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask anyone else, for it was all very mysterious and not by any means comforting.

Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a hysterical way: "Must you go? Oh! Young Herr, must you go?" She was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again:

"Do you know what day it is?" I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head as she said again:

"Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is?"

On my saying that I did not understand, she went on:

"It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?" She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally, she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting.

It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it.

I tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go.

She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me.

I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind.

She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck and said, "For your mother's sake," and went out of the room.

I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my neck.

Whether it is the old lady's fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual.

~Dracula, Bram Stoker, Chapter 1

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Aporia Politico: California is the worst state for business, but…The best for the meteor rush?

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