Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

The cows coming into the feed ground for their hay. They are sure a lot more excited about it now that there is a little snow on the ground, I am going to have to up them some. Taken 12/30/2006.

A couple of calves coming in to feed after our little snow storm. We got a couple of inches of snow is all. I guess a little is better than none at all but it sure isn't much. Taken 12/29/2006.

FDA Says Clones Are Safe To Eat

Taking a long-awaited stand in an emotionally fraught food fight, the Food and Drug Administration yesterday released a 678-page analysis concluding that milk and meat from cloned animals pose no unique risks to consumers.

The decision, subject to change after a period of public comment, stops short of approving the sale of food from clones and leaves in place for now a long-standing government request that farmers keep their clones off the market.

To start with let me say I agree with the FDA on this one. If you study how cloning is done, once you get the cell division going in the egg, the processes are no different than what we are used to in normal reproduction so the meat and milk from cloned animals would be indistinguishable from meat and milk from non-cloned animals. I know, some people will yell and scream at me at this point but it's the truth. Sometimes we have to deal with the truth whether we like it or not. There is no underlying genetic manipulation at this point with a clone so the meat is fine. There is a lot bigger question here if you ask me than whether the meat is safe to eat or not. That question is, are we wise to use cloning in our agricultural system? Will it help or hurt our animals that are entrusted to us to care for? These are the questions that should be asked, not if the meat is safe or not, I don't see that as a factor.

So, I am sure you are asking, what does he mean about the wisdom of using clones in our agricultural system? Simple, there is no such thing as the perfect animal that meets all requirements. If we find a genetically superior cow that raises large calves for a rancher to sell, what are the trade offs for this cow to be able to perform this function? The cow might not be healthy over a long term basis, or might not breed back reliably, or the calf might not grow later in life well, or something else. There are always tradeoffs in these things and they might not always be known right off the bat.

An example of what I'm talking about can be gleaned from Liz's comment on my post about Scamper being cloned. She pointed out that using AI techniques a dangerous and sometimes fatal condition known as HYPP was spread through the Quarter Horse community all through one sire that everybody thought at the time was a genetically superior creature. Is there a possibility the same thing could happen with a clone? There definitely is that possibility. Picking a genetically superior creature doesn't mean the critter isn't with out it's faults, whether they are know or unknown at the time. With the Impressive line and HYPP it was a fault that wasn't known and got spread through the gene pool to the detriment of the Quarter Horse community and is still causing problems. The same thing could happen with cloning and it could happen in an accelerated manner if cloning were to become very widespread.

I can give another less documented, more personal example of what I am talking about. When I got out of the Navy, my father was using all bulls from one particular breeder. They were not cheap bulls and it was a breeder with a very good reputation and raised very nice bulls. Dad was using these particular bulls to add length and muscle to the cattle at the time and they were doing this very well. The trade off? It turned out they also had what I call pin-asses. They threw cows that had such a small pelvic area we started having trouble with the cows calving. I finally got us away from these bulls and after awhile the problem went away. It got so bad before it turned around that I was pulling almost 100% of the calves off of our two-year old heifers because the heifers had such pin-asses bred into them. Now I pull very few calves and the problem has gone away. This is what I mean though by trade offs though. You push certain traits and there is a good chance some other trait will suffer and it might not be readily noticed at the time or the short comings might be overlooked because of the trait being pushed.

Holstein cows in the dairy industry are suffering from the trait being overlooked in my opinion. They have used breeding techniques like AI to push so hard for milk production that Holsteins now are not as healthy or hardy as they were at one time. The dairy industry has decided that milk production is more important than other considerations and have breed their cattle that way. Since I'm not in the dairy industry my viewpoint on this might be wrong but that is the way it seems to me. Overall Holsteins are not as healthy or hardy as they used to be. This has been done on purpose, but is it appropriate that we have done this and can accelerating the process with cloning cause this and other problems in our domesticated animals?

Mankind has domesticated the animals we are talking about for over 2000 years now and it is our ethical responsibility to take care of them properly. Is cloning these animals instead of using natural reproduction an ethical way to take care of these animals that we are responsible for? Is pushing one genetic characteristic at the expense of other characteristics, the breed they belong to or the whole genus of the animal the way we should be taking care of our responsibility? Awful tough question to answer if you ask me. We've changed the animals over time with selective breeding but with reproduction technologies available today we are accelerating the changes we are making to our animals faster than ever and there is no guarantee that what we are doing won't have bad consequences in the long run. By our reliance on just certain breeds for production agriculture there are even domesticated animal breeds going extinct and we are losing valuable genetic diversity in our animals every day.

By cloning we are not only in danger of losing breeds, but losing all the diversity in a breed for one animal that the experts believe to be superior. What happens to our genetic diversity when all the animals in one "breed" are all just one animal? We will then have no diversity and no fall back if there is a problem with the animal. It will also speed the extinction of the genetic diversity available in all the breeds that are now in the world that are endangered. Cloning may be a valuable tool for agriculture like they claim since it will allow us to use superior genetics to increase the production of our herds, but I don't think so. I think it is an abrogation of our responsibility for the ethical care of the animals we are entrusted with and just another example of man's belief that he knows better than God/Mother Nature. The meat of cloned animals might be indistinguishable from the meat of non-cloned animals but that doesn't mean that this is the road we need to go down. There are too many potholes in this road and is not the way mankind needs to take his animals. This road will just be too rough on them and us.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind. Albert Schweitzer

A tale of two cities for confused tourist

A 21-year-old German tourist who wanted to visit his girlfriend in the Australian metropolis Sydney landed 13,000 kilometres away near Sidney, Montana, after mistyping his destination on a flight booking Web site.

Dressed for the Australian summer in t-shirt and shorts, Tobi Gutt left Germany Saturday for a four-week holiday.

Instead of arriving "down under," Gutt found himself on a different continent and bound for the chilly state of Montana.

It appears when this poor guy bought his ticket on line he bought a ticket for Sidney, which is in Montana, instead of Sydney, Australia where he wanted to go. The computers and web took his spelling as right and sold him the ticket he asked for.

Montana in the winter had to be a hell of a shock for him when he was expecting Australia in the summer. I bet I know somebody that will check his spelling a little more closely from now on, don't you?

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time. Winston Churchill

The results are in from the Montana Weblog Awards. Here they are in abbreviated form.

Best Left Leaning Blog: A Chicken Is Not Pillage

Best Right Leaning Blog: MT Politics

Best Independent or Libertarian Blog: Dave Budge

Best Political Blog: Left In The West

Blog That Had The Most Impact on the Elections of 2006: Electric City Weblog

Montana Blog that best represents popular culture: Better Living Through Blogging

Best Montana History Blog: A History of Montana By Kodak

Blog That Best Represents a Montana Lifestyle: Thoughts From The Middle of Nowhere

Most Creative Montana Blog: Raven's Nest and Watermark (Yes, a tie)

Best Photography: Thoughts From The Middle of Nowhere

Best Written Montana Blog: A Chicken Is Not Pillage

Most Humorous Montana Blog: A Secular Franciscan Life

Best Post: You didn't think I Gave it up, Did you?, Great Falls Firefly

Best Series Of Posts: A History Lesson, Electric City Weblog

First off I would like to thank Wulfgar for doing this. He has taken the work on all himself and he deserves all our thanks for it. The nomination process was very good this year and I feel really brought in the best blogs to be voted upon. Voting was easy and the time frame for voting was great. I toyed with the idea that maybe more categories were needed but then could never decide what categories they should be. Also you then start running in to the problem of too many categories to vote for which then discourages people from voting so I guess Wulfgar has the right of it.

Second, I would like to congratulate all the winners. They might not have been the way I voted but they all deserved it. I follow all the winners, and for that fact all those nominated, on a regular basis with the exception of a couple and I now follow them all them too. This weblog award is really a valuable way to introduce yourself to new blogs you might not know and I hope you use this as a valuable resource to some really good blogs.

Third, I would like to thank all that voted for me whether I won the category or not. Your votes awe me and I don't know how to thank you enough for them. It really means a lot to me that you took the time and energy to send in votes for me. Thanks.

All action results from thought, so it is thoughts that matter. Sai Baba

The yearlings, coming two-year olds, trudging in to their feed. Trudging is the word to use to. They walk all over the pasture waiting for their feed and by the time we bring it they are trudging. Note the lack of snow when this picture was taken. Taken 12/19/2006.

Schweitzer: Budget plan works

Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he thinks his budget proposals, which include double-digit spending increases, are sustainable for future years, contrary to warnings in a new legislative analysis.

Schweitzer said much of the spending is "one-time" for such things as repairing buildings and fixing a troubled state pensions system.

The governor, during an interview Thursday with the Associated Press, responded to a Legislative Fiscal Division analysis that said the budget may set spending levels that can't be maintained.

If you wish hard enough, I guess it will be true, at least according to Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Now I'm not an expert on these things but it does seem to stretch the mind a little to think that such large increases in spending are sustainable. Let's see, cut taxes, spend more money, seems like a recipe for trouble to me.

One thing mentioned in this article is a pet peeve of mine. The bailing out of the "troubled state pensions system." This pension fund lost money in the 2001 stock market crash and now doesn't have enough money to pay for people's pensions. These people are all government employees. Why if I, as a private citizen, lose money in a stock market crash which I am holding for retirement, am I just shit out of luck and have to accept the loss but the government employees just get to take more of my tax dollars to fix their losses so they have the money they want for retirement? Shouldn't they just have to take their lumps like the rest of us do when the stock market has troubles? Seems only fair to me, but fair doesn't apply to government employees obviously and my money gets used to bail them out instead of being used by me for maybe my retirement fund. Then the government employees wonder why people have a low opinion of them. This might be one of the reasons why.

Hell, as a private citizen and business man if I cut my income and increased my spending hoping to spend my way to wealth it wouldn't work very well. Why does the government think it can? Because that's what the people like and tough decisions aren't required by the politicians. I sure hope it works out for the Governor because if it doesn't, I, and a lot of other people, as a taxpayers will pay for it.

I wish my name was Brian because maybe sometimes people would misspell my name and call me Brain. That's like a free compliment and you don't even gotta be smart to notice it. Mitch Hedberg

S. Korea Threatens To Ban U.S. Beef Again

South Korean legislators talked tough on Wednesday, warning they might reinstate a ban on U.S. beef imports if Washington continues to demand that Seoul ease its quarantine inspection standards.

“The U.S. should be aware that if the U.S. Congress continues to press with the beef quarantine issue, it will be viewed by most South Koreans as an infringement on their sovereignty,“ a statement signed by 17 South Korean lawmakers.

This is a very empty threat. They won't accept US beef any way so they might as well ban US beef and make it official. This unofficial, official ban on US beef that South Korea has is ludicrous. Close it or open it for real, quit playing games.

The words are ludicrous at times, but you add the reality to it and that gives it the balance it has. Alia Shawkat

Hey Tom, I got your package in the mail today. All I will say here is thanks, I really appreciate it.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. Gilbert K. Chesterton

I ought to know better. I do it almost every year and this year was no exception. What did I do you may ask?

I left the cows in the pine trees to long. I was trying to save hay by letting the cattle in to the upper pastures that have pine trees in them and now it has bit me. I've had three cows sluff their calves now from pine needles. For some reason about this time of year cows will browse on pine needles and there is a chemical in the needles that will cause them to abort their calf. I thought that maybe this year with no snow on the ground they would not be drawn to the pine needles and wouldn't eat them. I was wrong.

I have shut the gates to keep them confined to the pasture that doesn't have any pine trees in it, one of only a couple on the whole place, and hopefully that will cure the problem. there might be a few more sluff a calf yet due to pine needles but I shouldn't have an epidemic.

Some day I will learn to shut the gates sooner. I just wish it had been this year.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. Mark Twain

Man charged with murder of baby girl

A prosecutor told a judge Wednesday that fatal head injuries suffered by a 6-week-old infant were similar to the injuries she would have received had she been ejected from a vehicle at 50 or 60 mph.

"This baby never had a chance, your honor," Deputy County Attorney Juli Pierce told Judge Pedro Hernandez.

Robert Hans Hoffman, 20, is accused of crushing Christine Lynn Hoffman's skull after a day of heavy drinking. Hoffman made his first court appearance Wednesday on a charge of deliberate homicide. He was arrested Tuesday night.

Hanging is probably too good for this slime bucket but it would solve the problem. How people can hurt children, or anybody else, like this is beyond me. Drinking might be a factor but it's not an explanation.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor. H. L. Mencken

President signs drought warning system

President Bush has signed a bill instituting the National Integrated Drought Information System, or NADIS, an early warning system that can help reduce the impact of drought. The legislation was introduced by U.S. Senator Ben Campbell of Nebraska.

An early warning system for drought. I'll have to see this one to figure it out. I will tell you right now that my area of the country is on trouble. It was a damn dry summer, followed by a little moisture in the fall and into what is so far a very dry winter. Snow pack levels are way down around the state of Montana and with the lack of moisture last year, slight El nino for the rest of the winter, we are definitely in the early stages of drought.

Is that an early enough warning system? A little common sense and people in touch with nature will figure this out easy enough. But, you know the government, spend lots of money to figure out what the common man knows.

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.Josh Billings

A bleak, brown Christmas. Kind of depressing. Taken 12/24/2006.

"For Yellowstone bison to be involved in the big picture of bison conservation, they've got to be brucellosis-free," said Tom Roffe, a wildlife veterinarian and biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And that's why the animals here are being corralled and handled, poked and prodded.

Roffe has been pushing his agency for the past year to take a new approach to the way it manages the handful of bison herds on refuges around the West.

"We're just starting to broach that topic," he said. The goal is not specifically to create more bison, but to ensure their genetics are diverse and preserved, to keep the species healthy, to keep the options open if the time comes to open more land for bison.

For decades, people have called for restoring bison, for returning them to their natural role on the prairies. But the shaggy giants are never going to repopulate the American West, Roffe said. They'll never again wander from Texas to Montana and back.

There are just too many roads, fields and people now. But that doesn't mean there are no places for the bison, although those places haven't been identified yet. And if bison from the park are to play a part in any of that, they've got to be free of brucellosis.

I enjoyed this article. It's good to hear a federal official admit that Brucellosis is a factor in the Bison picture of Yellowstone Park. The Federal Government requires the states to control Brucellosis it is only right for the Federal Government to control the Brucellosis in the herds it controls.

You will note that what the article talks about is not a proposed solution to the Brucellosis problem in the park. It's to be used to get Brucellosis free Bison out of the park to other areas. I'm not opposed to this at all, it sounds like a decent plan. I do question where they want to start up new herds.

Are these areas where cattle do not run? If they want to keep the bison genetically pure, no cattle genes, how are they going to keep the bison from interbreeding with cattle. They are genetically similar enough to breed together. I've been told that the last bison in my area were hunted down for just this reason, they were breeding with the cattle.

This whole thing is interesting but the most interesting thing was the feds admitting that Brucellosis is a problem. It's nice to hear.

Hear reason, or she'll make you feel her. Benjamin Franklin

Sometimes critters do the damnedest things. I noticed a replacement heifer calf was limping on Sunday. I drove up to her to see what the problem was. It is a little cold and dry for foot rot so I wasn't sure what it could be. When I got up to her I figured it out. She had somehow managed to get a big iron ring over her hoof and it was stuck there. We got her in to get it off right away before her leg started to swell up making it harder to remove.



This is what the ring looked like on her foot when we went to remove it. It couldn't be a tighter fit if she tried. Where she found it and how she managed to step into it is beyond me.

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