"Bell weather"

Apparently, Time (in partnership with CNN) are now hiring mature-looking junior high-schoolers to blog on the presidential campaign.

If the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s 100 Club dinner is any bell weather – Barack Obama will handily win here. When Obama, the dinner’s last speaker, took the stage the crowd surged forward chanting “O-bam-a” and “Fired Up, Ready to Go!” So many people pressed toward the stage that an announcer asked people to “please take their seats for safety concerns.”

As one commenter said, "...aren't words supposed to be your profession?"

Very big sigh.

"Wether" is the correct term for a male castrated goat. Like most other male animals that have been neutered, it becomes more tame and easier to handle, since it's no longer interested in girl goats and mainly just wants to eat and sleep. Rattle the feed bucket, and it comes running, since it can't get distracted by the girls.

If you put a bell on the wether's neck, it wil jingle jangle loudly when the wether runs for the food. Eventually all the other goats, who may still be making the sign of the four-legged wildebeast somewhere out there in the pasture, will learn that when they hear that loud bell jingling, it's food time.

You train your tame wether to follow you. All the other goats are tricked into following the sound of the bell.

Bellwether.

via Shooting the Messenger