Southwestern Idaho's largest ground-beef butcher plant: Going
once, going twice, gone!  "I would imagine they'll be some very
disheartened people," says rancher Rick Link.  Count Link among
the disheartened. He runs a couple hundred head in Sweet, ID,
and depends on XL Beef to provide one of the biggest cuts of his
business. Now that the Nampa yard's closing, it's going to cost
Link and other ranchers a pretty penny to bring their animals to
slaughter.  "The prices are good," Link says, "but by the time
you factor in your trucking costs, we might as well be back to
pre-1990 prices."  Turmoil in the Middle East has the price of
diesel on the rise.  To read the entire article, link here.