Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Heard around the area.

"The piece I need costs $5.00 in Hardin but I can get it for $2.50 at Wal-Mart in Billings so I have to run to Billings today to save some money."

Fact: Billings is 50 miles from Hardin, so it is a 100 mile round trip in a vehicle that gets 13 miles per gallon with gas at around $2.20 a gallon.

It just don't figure.

Seriousness is stupidity sent to college. P.J. O'Rourke

There has been a lot of talk over the past few months about the Social Security system. The President is destroying/saving the system depending on who you talk to and people are trying to figure the whole situation out. The one thing that both sides of the debate agree on is that the system will run out of money down the road, about 2041 is the current estimate, and something probably needs done but what to do is where the real debate lays.

The stated reason that Social Security is going to run out of money is that there is not enough young people coming along paying the bills for the older people that are retiring. Keeping this fact in mind I think Australia has the solution for our Social Security problem. Pay people to have more kids.

In announcing the payments in May 2004, Treasurer Peter Costello told the country: "You go home and do your patriotic duty tonight."

The father of three suggested that two children per couple was not enough to combat the effects of an aging population: "You should have ... one for your husband, one for your wife, and one for your country."

Instead of having "one for your country" though we could make it "one for the Social Security system" or "one for those who can't anymore" or some such thing. Does anybody else have a better slogan? This sure sounds like a plan to me .

Any solution to a problem changes the problem. R.W. Johnson

Real good way to get a feel for how people think. Ban people from your speeches that don't agree with you. Must really need to pump up his self worth to do such things.

I wonder if the President has ever heard of free speech?

Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant. Gustave Flaubert

I see not everyone in Japan is afraid of US beef.

Japanese fans of beef-and-rice bowl dishes have collected some 1.19 million signatures in a petition demanding that Japan lift a 15-month-old ban on U.S. beef, Kyodo news agency reported

We keep getting a step closer to maybe opening up this important market to US beef. The article mentions that some "US lawmakers have said Washington should impose trade sanctions if the Japanese market is not re-opened soon." I disagree, it is getting closer to opening every day, just let things work themselves out.

Time flies like an arrow; the days and nights alternate as fast as a weaver's shuttle. Chinese proverb

I don't give Gov. Brian Schweitzer">The Second Coming much credit but I give him a BZ for this.

Governor signs malpractice bills

It's a start.

I believe it was a good job,
Despite this possible horror: that they might prefer the
Preservation of their law in all its sick dignity and their knives
To the continuation of their creed
And their lives.

Gwendolyn Brooks

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Chinese proverb.

We have a long ways to go but the journey has begun.

State's income growth 9th best

I am going to have to watch myself here. I have just found out about the Apostrophe Protection Society in today's Billings Gazette and I don't want them coming after me. Beware everybody on that apostrophe use, they might get you.

I bring you a warning. Every one of you listening to my voice. Tell the world. Tell this to everybody wherever they are: Watch the skies. Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies. Charles Lederer

Now here is a new debate that I have heard nothing about until now, Pharmacists' Rights (free subscription required). This amounts to a Pharmacists right to deny a women a birth control prescription if it violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.

How smart it is to jump into a conversation about "reproductive rights" after My Darling Wife and I so enraged Patia over our stand that all people are created equal whether they are men, women, white, black, red, yellow, purple, or green may not be real brilliant but I find this Pharmacists' Rights so unbelievable as to defy imagination.

Don't get me wrong, Pharmacists have the right to their moral convictions but I have no concept what the problem is with dispensing birth control pills. Aren't there enough unwanted children in the world without adding more to the mix? Birth control pills, whether you agree with todays moral code or not that allows casual sex with no commitments as a part of everyday life, are one bullet in a range of products to help women who don't want to have children. This is very important and Pharmacists denying them to women appears to me to fall into the category of hurting people instead of helping them.

Now the morning after pill discussed in the article falls under a little different category. Does life actually start at the moment of fertilization or once the egg attaches itself to the womb? That's a question we will never know the answer to but everybody has their own idea on the situation. I feel until the egg attaches itself to the womb it is not actually a life so any probation about taking a life does not apply. I can understand where other people might feel different which is why I say this falls a little different.

What is so unbelievable about all of this is the Pharmacists not transferring the prescription to another pharmacy if they will not fill it. This has to violate some kind of law or ethical code. I can't believe that it doesn't. While I may not agree with a Pharmacists personal moral or religious beliefs that keeps them from filling a prescription, I can understand their stand but not agree with it, but to not transfer the prescription is wrong, period.

I just can't understand what is going on in society that leads to such things. If you want to help people, help them, don't use religion to hurt them. That's not what Christianity today should be about even though more and more it is being used that way. How sad.

Laws, religions, creeds, and systems of ethics, instead of making society better than its best unit, make it worse than its average unit, because they are never up to date. George Bernard Shaw

Lord, You have arisen forever
In my heart!

May the sunrise
Remind me to shine in Your light.

May the caress of a gentle breeze
Remind me of Your compassion.

May the fragrance of a flower
Remind me to blossom in Your love.

May the singing of birds
Bring a song of joy to my lips.

And in the closing of each day
May I remember to quietly pray.

Wherever I am, whatever I do
May my thoughts in joy return to You!

Susan Kramer

There has been a lot of stink about female blogger not being included in an interview called Blogs, Bloggers, and Blogging. I guess I am confused. I think everyone would be happy the blogging is becoming more popularized. But to me it is becoming like a 4th grade argument on who is better the boys or the girls. I try so hard to teach my kids there is good and bad in everyone. Blue, black white, green, purple, male, female, cows, horses or cats. And then reasonably sane people are arguing such whether boy or girl bloggers are better or should be included in the interview.

I am probably going to get some arrows shot at me for this statement but I always thought that by the time we were adults that we were but past the girls are better/boys are better crap.

I do post here at Sam's blog and I do have my own but we have agreed that they are two separate things. We have completely different feel to our blogs.

But what do I know. I am a simple SAHM who married a dumb cowboy.

A few comments and questions on the Terri Schiavo debate. No commentary is necessary or allowed, just thoughts. Continue reading "Terri Schiavo" »

I have mentioned more than once how I believe the large Meatpackers control the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). I know you think that it's just the rantings of a madman when I say it but check this out.

A Miles City meat processor praised a national group's plan to join his lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture, saying it will add legitimacy to his complaint the USDA unfairly protects large meatpackers.

He is being a little more circumspect in his wording but it means the same thing as I said, the big meatpackers control, the USDA! The people supposed to be watching the meatpackers to protect consumers are failing at their job. Interesting to see how this turns out.

I fail to see what fun, what satisfaction
A God can find in laughing at how badly
Men fumble at the possibilities....

Robert Frost

Another picture courtesy of My Darling Wife.



For full effect click on the thumbnail.

There once was a successful rancher who died and left everything to his devoted wife. The widow was determined to keep the ranch and make a go of it. But she knew she couldn't do it by herself, so she decided to place an ad in the newspaper for a ranch hand. Finding somebody was hard and only two men applied for the job. One was gay and the other a drunk. She thought long and hard about it, and when no one else applied, she decided to hire the gay guy, figuring he would be more dependable and it would be safer to have him around the place than the drunk. Continue reading "A Rancher's Hired Hand" »

No, don't worry, I don't get the day off, no such thing when ranching. My oldest has been going to public school for eight years now and for the first time the schools sent the buses home early. The highway was just a glare of ice and was in horrible shape. The bus driver called later in the evening and informed us the bus would not be running this morning either. I guess that means my daughter will get an extra day off over the Easter break. She really needs the break from school. The other kids are really starting to get to her. She's happy, I don't know about my Darling Wife though, she has to deal more with the hellions when they're home.

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! William Shakespeare