Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

A man was walking home alone late one foggy night, when behind him he hears:

BUMP...

BUMP...

BUMP...

Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.

BUMP...


BUMP...


BUMP...



Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him


FASTER...


FASTER...



BUMP...




BUMP...



BUMP...


He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him.



However, the casket crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping





clappity-BUMP...



clappity-BUMP...



clappity-BUMP...


on his heels, the terrified man runs.


Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in. His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps.



With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door.


Bumping and clapping toward him.



The man screams and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is a bottle of Vicks formula 44 cough syrup!




Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket...



and, Continue reading "Halloween" »

We got a little bit of snow yesterday and some cold temperatures. The cows really thought it was winter. This morning it is 0 degrees Fahrenheit here. Brr. I'm sure the cows are going to be wanting to come home for a bale of hay. I'll make them stay out and graze a bit yet, it isn't that bad yet. Taken 10/30/2006.

We took a little drive on Sunday and took some pictures, here is one of them.



We stopped by Crow Agency and visited the Apsaalooke Nation Veterans Memorial. I have been wanting to stop by here for quite a while now and am glad I finally did. Taken in Crow Agency on 10/29/2006.

Unlicensed Tester butchered neighbor's animals, wasn't cited

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jon Tester never had a state-required license for the butchering business he ran at his Big Sandy-area farm, but state records show an inspector visited the shop, but did not cite Tester for breaking the law.

Tester cut meat on an outbuilding on his family farm beginning in the late 1970s. He took the butcher business over from his father, Tester said, who first started cutting meat in the family's basement in the 1950s to make extra money. Tester took the business over after he and his wife assumed the family farm, he said, and realized they couldn't make enough money farming.

Sorry, I might not be a fan of Tester but this is nothing. One Neighbor helping out others, even if money changed hands, is the Montana way of doing things and is no big deal. Being visited by inspectors and never being ticketed again is not a surprise. Sounds like the way I am used to things being done in Montana. The only weird thing here is Jon's decision to close down the business when he ran for State Senate. Being as a Montana legislator is a part time job, they meet for 90 days every other year and get paid peanuts, you would think he could be able to keep it open. Did he know he was breaking the law and that was the reason for getting out of the buisness? I doubt it, but it's still curious.

You want much ado about something, here it is.

Abramoff friend describes Burns staff's ties to lobbyist

A Republican media consultant and friend of indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff recently wrote a letter to a Montana newspaper saying Burns' staff ate so many free meals at Abramoff's restaurant, people joked they would have "starved to death" without the lobbyist.

"Frankly, it was widely viewed in D.C. that Mr. Abramoff effectively exerted implicit control over Mr. Burns whenever he and his team needed to get something accomplished," reads the letter, which was sent to the Whitefish Pilot last week.

Now this is a lot more damning than the claims against Tester. I will point out that just because Burns's staff cozied up to Abramoff doesn't mean Burns himself did. The implication is there and the appearance of impropriety is there which really makes it hard to doubt, but a does not always equal b so who knows. This is something of significance though where the Tester claims are smoke.

Politics, much ado about nothing.

Take our politicians: they're a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches the first prize. Saul Bellow

We took a little drive on Sunday and took some pictures, here is one of them.



I've mentioned the trouble the beet farmers having getting their beets out of the ground. Here you see they are finally able to get them mudded out of the fields. They were working like mad all up and down the valley. Believe me they are fighting the mud, but winning. Taken in the Big Horn Valley on 10/29/2006.

1st U.S. beef shipment arrives in SKorea

The first shipment of U.S. beef in nearly three years arrived in South Korea on Monday after the country lifted an import ban triggered by fears of mad cow disease, the Agriculture Ministry said.

The nine-ton shipment of American beef was processed at a Kansas slaughterhouse and arrived on a Monday morning flight, said Lee Sang-kil, a director-general at the ministry.

This is defenitly good news. With demand for beef slacking off in the US we need to develop the forign markets to keep beef prices strong.

One of the problems with getting beef into South Korea is their demand that the plants that handle cattle that go to South Korea not handle Canadian cattle, or keep them separate, since South Korea doesn't allow Canadian beef. Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) would solve this problem but the President and Congress don't want it. Montana's Congressional delegation has been trying to get it working for years but has had no luck so if COOL interests a person, contact your Congressional delegation. Support is needed outside of Montana for this.

If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another. Winston Churchill

Bug causes Microsoft to push Vista RTM to Nov. 8

PC manufacturers that expected to get their hands on the final version of Windows Vista on Wednesday have to wait a couple more weeks for the OS, according to sources familiar with the company's plans.

Microsoft Corp. originally targeted Wednesday for Vista's release to manufacturing, but a last-minute bug that "took most of the Vista team by surprise," caused an unexpected delay, said Ethan Allen, a quality assurance lead at a Seattle high-tech company that tests its products for Vista. Allen also oversees http://thehotfix.net/.

Allen said the Vista team discovered the bug, which "would totally crash the system, requiring a complete reinstall," in Vista Build 5824 on Friday, Oct. 13. The team fixed the bug a week later in Vista Build 5840, he said, but it delayed the delivery of the OS to PC makers.

Vista looks to me like its going to be a big problem for Bill Gates. Beware of Vista. Linux rules.

Death solves all problems - no man, no problem. Joseph Stalin

I voted absentee a little while ago because it is easier and quicker for me. When i was done I looked at the envelope and felt the weight and knew that it was going to take more than one stamp to return it so I put two on it and sent it in. I guess I am smarter than the average voter though.

Postage sought for ballots

A 39-cent stamp isn't enough to cover postage for some absentee ballots in Missoula County.

About 950 of the roughly 5,000 ballots received at the elections office as of Tuesday had arrived with postage due.

"The main thing is we truly want to get these ballots back, so we have absorbed the cost," said Debbie Merseal, elections office supervisor.

That cost is roughly $245 so far, she said.
The U.S. Postal Service charges 63 cents to deliver most completed ballots, a fact the elections office is stamping on its mailings now that it knows. The first 4,000 of nearly 13,000 and counting went out without the message.

The discrepancy caught the county by surprise.

Duh. It was obvious here that the ballot was needed extra postage. People should think, but that is too much to ask I guess.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. Dwight D. Eisenhower

I've always wondered how Daylight Savings Time saved energy. It never made sense to me. Know I see the answer.

Daylight Saving Time Yields Massive Daylight Surplus

Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman announced Monday that the country's seven-month-long effort to conserve sunshine has resulted in the largest national daylight surplus since October 2005.

"We have built up over 200 hours of this precious, life-giving resource," said Bodman, noting that "the sun's rays are not going to last forever." "We have decided it would be most prudent not to squander this valuable daylight by distributing it to Americans, instead suggesting that they all just wake up a little earlier."

Bodman said the surplus will be stored in the Strategic Daylight Reserve—a system of opaque, sealed-off underground tanks located in Arizona—and only tapped in the case of the sun burning out or a particularly rainy afternoon.

It all goes in the Strategic Daylight Reserve. Makes as much sense as Daylight Savings Time.

The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. Albert Einstein

One of the things that always catches my eye is talk of a drought. I know and understand the problems this situation causes. Australia is experiencing one this year and it is pretty bad. How bad is it?

EMERGENCY supplies of grain will be imported to feed drought-stricken stock, as forecasts for Australia's winter crops and livestock are slashed by $6.2billion.

The downturn is so severe it could knock 0.7per cent off national economic growth. The Government's commodities forecaster yesterday issued its third downgrade of crop estimates in seven months.

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Rural Economics predicted the smallest wheat crop in more than a decade and massive falls in barley and canola crops. Grazing stock will suffer "severe consequences".

This article from down under has the particulars but what strikes me is the .7% downturn in economic growth being forecasted. I bet it turns out to be even bigger than that. This just goes to show you how important agriculture can be to a country.

Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were a cause indeed to weep. William C. Bryant

I have an external hard drive sitting on my computer desk that I use for picture backups. It gets very warm and one of the cats has discovered it and loves to lay on it to keep warm. This morning I told My Darling Wife, "There's a cat laying on my hard drive."

She gets this really funny smirk on her face and says, "Does it feel good for you?"

Some people's children just have a dirty mind.

If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning. Mae West

If you look real close there is a coyote in the center of this picture (best viewed large, click on picture). The only thing I had on hand to shoot the coyote with was my camera. Taken 10/22/2006.

This one goes in the No Shit Sherlock file.

Cattle market affecting ranchers

Now who would have every guessed that the cattle market affects ranchers. This is like flash news. Us dumb ranchers just be tooo stopid to know this obviously. I'm happy for the update.

It's obvious, but perhaps worth saying, that happiness has virtually nothing to do with the state of your intellect. Daniel K. Moran

Tester Would Boost Budget by $89.4 Billion, Burns by $1.2 Billion, NTUF Study of Candidates' Platforms Shows

As Montana Senate candidates Jon Tester and Conrad Burns court voters down the final campaign stretch, taxpayers can look to their platforms for real distinctions: that's the assessment of a study released today by the non-partisan National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), which found that roughly $88 billion separates the federal budget agendas of the candidates.

"Scripted debates and political platitudes abound during most campaigns, but voters still care about the bottom line, their tax dollars," said NTUF Senior Policy Analyst and study author Demian Brady. "Now citizens have hard data to evaluate the candidates' stances on federal spending."

In preparing his analysis, Brady used the campaign websites and news reports of the two leading contenders in the Montana U.S. Senate race to gather information on proposals that could impact federal spending. He then verified these items against independent sources like the Congressional Budget Office. Brady also cross-checked items through NTUF's BillTally system, which since 1991 has computed a net annual agenda for Members of Congress based on their sponsorship of bills. Among the findings:

-- State Sen. Jon Tester has offered a total of 26 separate proposals that would affect federal spending, 9 of which would raise federal outlays and only one of which would reduce them: a bill to re-import prescription drugs from Canada that the government scores as a $220 million savings. If enacted simultaneously, these items would result in a net overall annual spending hike of $89.4 billion (16 provisions have an indeterminate price).

-- Sen. Conrad Burns's agenda of 11 budget-related items constitutes a net yearly spending increase of at least $1.2 billion, driven by his support for medical malpractice and health insurance reform that would result in $931 million of yearly taxpayer savings. Like Tester, Burns's blueprint has proposals whose cost cannot be identified (a total of three), though Brady notes that four of Burns's 11 policies would drive outlays upward.

To start with I'm sure the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) has an agenda it's following. They say they are non-partisan and I don't have time to delve into it. I take no responsibility for the agenda of what is being reported.

They do bring up a very good point though. Jon Tester has been beating on Burns for not balancing the federal budget and spending "like a drunken sailor" but I've never heard how he plans on fixing the budget problems if he were elected. He has all these ideas on how to spend more of our taxpayer money but he never says where the money for his ideas is going to come from.

Shouldn't he inform us of how he is going to raise this money for his plans? Shouldn't he tell us how he plans on balancing the budget? At least Burns makes no bones that he is spending money and the budget is screwed up. A person might not like the position but he has the gonads to stand up and tell us the truth.

I would like to see some truth out of Jon Tester on this one. How are you going to pay for for an additional $89.4 billion dollars in spending you have proposed? The truth sir, not mealy mouthed platitudes, I would appreciate it.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. Albert Einstein

Another beautiful sunrise in the Big Sky Country. Taken 10/15/2006.