Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Four new bulls that I bought a couple of weeks ago. Angus bulls from some little breeders in the area. They were really nice bulls that were not overfed or gussied up. A lot of the big guys over feed their bulls knowing that fat can hide a lot of problems. Not a problem with these. Taken 3/30/2008.

I see Condoleezza Rice is talking tough to South Korea about beef trade.

'The United States believes that our beef is safe and that the markets ought to be open to it all around the world,' Rice told reporters with her South Korean counterpart Yu Myung-Hwan at her side after extensive talks in Washington.

'And this has been a trade issue and we are very desirous of having beef accepted in markets, as should be the case, given its safety and our adherence to international standards concerning beef production and shipment,' she said.

Opening up South Korean markets would really help out the cattle industry in the US. With the weak dollar we would really have the competitive edge over Australia there. I hope this tough talking helps solve the issue.

Tough times don't last, tough people do, remember? Gregory Peck

Had a bum around here for about a week or so. A twin that the mom wouldn't accept. Grafted him on a two year old that lost a calf. He was a cute little guy, that's for sure. Taken 3/12/2008.

I got a call from one of my northern neighbors yesterday telling me I was marketing calves awful late. I was very confused since I haven't been selling anything, what was he talking about. Well he informed me that I had sold a calf this week at the auction yard. I told him that I had not. He then corrected me and explained how I had.

You might remember my story last fall about the weaned calves taking a long run and some of them running over 8 miles and ending up in my northern neighbors pasture. This is the same guy that was telling me about this calf. Now you might see what happened. It turns out instead of 8 head ending up in his place, nine did but the ninth was discovered until the brand inspector at the auction yards caught her. Why wasn't she discovered before this? I'm not sure.

A little more explanation might be in order here. This guy on my northern end doesn't own any cattle nowadays. He just leases his grass out. When I got my calves out last fall I told him I thought I had them all but there might be one more in with the pairs he was running on his place. My calves were easy to spot since they had no ear tags and the calves that were in there all had big ear tags in them. He said they would look them all over when they shipped the cattle out in the fall.

Well, they gathered, brand inspected and shipped all the calves to a feedlot in the fall and guess what, nobody spotted my calf. Then they were moved in the middle of winter to another feedlot, which required another official brand inspection and again, the calf was not caught. Finally, when the calves got to the auction yard the brand inspectors caught her there.

Now why the brand inspectors didn't catch her earlier, I don't know. I will eventually get the money for her sale but there are a couple of hoops to jump through first. I have to laugh and I have to be disappointed about this at the same time. Laugh, because the whole thing is funny. Disappointed because two different brand inspectors let her slip through there gaze and get shipped across county lines. I really think they need their eyes checked.

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. Beverly Sills

It has been pointed out to me that maybe I am not making myself clear about my position on the Hardin Jail I have been talking about So I thought I would try to clarify myself.

I think the whole idea of building a jail when you had no commitment to put prisoners in it was stupid. I think pointing fingers having town meetings, suing the state, and making trips to Helena to solve the problem is useless and not very effective. The way to solve this problem is to change the state law that says the jail cannot hold out of state prisoners. Getting a local Legislator to introduce such a bill when the Legislature is in session would be the way to solve the problem.

Once the bill is in Committee, then truck up local residents and pack the Capitol with people supporting it to try and move the bill through the Legislature.

This would be the way to intelligently try to solve the problem. Trying to do anything until the law is changed is spinning your wheels and not getting anything accomplished.

I hope I have made my point clear. I don't feel my opinion it is an agenda, it is just common sense.

Now that I have made my position clear, I would like to report on the latest about the jail. Gov. Brian Schweitzer has responded to those people who went to Helena to try and get support for the prison. Some interesting facts from the letter.

It has been said that the state of Montana committed to providing inmates to the facility
during Governor Martz’s Administration and that I reneged on that commitment.

The fact is that no commitment was ever made by the State of Montana to the facility. No contracts
were ever signed between the state and the facility. Further, the facility did not respond to a project
issued for competitive bid in January, 2006 by the DOC for 120 beds through the state’s “Request for
Proposal” (RFP) process. Finally, the facility did not respond to a “Sources Sought Notice” for 96
secure beds in Montana by the U. S. Marshall’s Service in 2005. According to Bill Slaughter, who
served as Director of the DOC under Governor Judy Martz and during the first year and a half of my
Administration, in testimony before the Corrections Advisory Council on February 12, 2008, “We
didn’t sign any contracts with this group; there are no e-mails or promises. I don’t know what to tell
you. I was actually surprised they were under construction.”

So, the jail was built with no promise of prisoners to fill it. This is a problem that Hardin needs to fess up to. They tried the "if we build it, they will come" approach and it has failed. Building such an expensive facility with no contracts in hand was not high on the list of wise things to do.

It has been said that as Governor, I can bring in out-of-state prisoners to open the facility.

The fact is state law does not allow a “detention center” (a fancy name in Montana law for a county
jail) such as the facility in Hardin to house out-of-state inmates. Your own city attorney requested an
Attorney General opinion on this issue. Attorney General Mike McGrath, who is elected by the
people of Montana, issued an opinion on December 3, 2007 affirming that housing out-of-state
prisoners in a detention facility is against the law. That opinion is being challenged in court by the
City of Hardin and the Two Rivers Authority. Until and unless the court overturns the Attorney
General’s opinion, it is legally binding on me as Governor as well as on all state government.

Bringing in out of state prisoners is a no-go at this time. Hardin is pursuing relief in court on this issue. Only time will tell if they will win but i feel the law is pretty clear on the issue and I don't have much hope Hardin will win.

It has been said that as Governor, I should have told you to stop the project after you started
it with no contracts for prisoners.

The fact is according to the Executive Director of the Two Rivers Authority your local government
built a “detention center.” Contrary to the opinion expressed by one member of the delegation here
last week, legally it does make a big difference what you built. Unlike prisons, the state isn’t involved
in building “detention centers.” Those are local decisions. I don’t know a sheriff, police chief or
county commissioner in Montana who wants the state Corrections Department, let alone the
Governor, to start telling them about building county jails. DOC legal counsel Diana Koch explained
the important distinction between prisons and jails to the March 11 delegation as reported in the
March 12, 2008 Big Horn County News, “We understood you were building a detention center, which
is in essence a county jail. We thought you were going to contract with your county, with other
counties and communities, maybe even with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

I'm sorry, it is not the job of the Governor or any other state official to tell a city not to build something. They assume the city has studied the issue and knows what it is doing.

You have asked me for a helping hand. Following are some alternatives the facility, by law,
can pursue.

First, the facility can respond to RFP’s issued by DOC. Montana’s Jessica’s Law, which I signed into
law after passage by the 2007 Legislature, calls for establishment of a low risk sex offender
treatment center of 116 beds. The DOC anticipates releasing the RFP this summer and expects the
selected facility to be operational in early 2009. Also, I believe that the 2009 Legislature will consider
proposals for further community corrections programs.
Second, the facility can negotiate with other detention centers in Montana to house prisoners.
Third, early last week I was briefed by the U. S. Department of Interior/Bureau of Indian Affairs on
conversations they are having with Crow Tribal Chairman Carl Venne about use of the facility. I look
forward to working with you and Chairman Venne to fully explore this alternative.

The Governor even lists some helpful ways the City of Hardin can help itself in this matter. He doesn't list my idea of changing the law about out of state prisoners, but he has some useful suggestions.

I've been told I have an agenda when it comes to the Hardin jail. I don't feel I have an agenda when it comes to the Jail. I just like pointing out stupid things Governments do. If pointing out stupidity is an agenda, so be it. Instead of pointing fingers over this issue and telling local residents they aren't supportive enough, the City needs to buckle down and solve the problem.

I think in some ways we have allowed other people to set the agenda. Other people to define who we are. Lee Scott

What's the old saying, no news is good news? Up till now calving has been going fantastic. The weather has been cooperating and the cows are calving fast and furious. The snow is gone and I have even seen the first shoots of new green grass coming in.

I do say up until now since there is a storm system moving in that could give us a couple of days of light snow fall. We will have to see what this amounts to and how it affects the cattle. Once the storm is over I am thinking of moving the yearlings out to pasture. They aren't coming into hay anymore and with the green grass starting to come they should do well on pasture.

Just busy around here is all I know. Places to go cattle to move and all is fine and dandy, if I could just get a little more sleep.

The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Irving Berlin

There has been a lot of talk about Montana losing its Essential Air Service(EAS) since Big Sky Air shutdown. EAS is a Federal Government subsidy to help airlines fly routes to places that don't have enough traffic to make it pay for airlines to run regular flights.

I see now though that since there is no EAS service, a private company is flying some of the routes to these places.

Air taxi filling void left by Big Sky

A private air charter company is stepping in to provide passenger service that was discontinued when Big Sky Airlines ceased operations earlier this month.

Big Sky Airlines had a federal contract to provide Essential Air Service to seven Montana cities: Havre, Lewistown, Glasgow, Wolf Point, Sidney, Miles City and Glendive. The company quit providing flights to Billings and Helena from those cities March 8.

Great Lakes Aviation, based in Cheyenne, Wyo., will take over the contract and flights, but not until it can get planes and pilots in place, which may be July.

In the meantime, Prairie Aviation, an FAA-certified air-taxi service, is flying people to Helena and Billings from Glasgow and Wolf Point in a four-seat Cessna 172 or a six-seat Cessna 310.

Check out the price points though. Under the government sponsored EAS, a Big Sky airline flight Glasgow to Billings "cost $303, with a $2,818 federal subsidy per flight." The private company with no Government support?

Flights from Glasgow to Billings are as low as $149 round-trip, with standby charges of $17.50 an hour as the pilot waits for the return trip.

Do we really need EAS back if private enterprise can do it this cheap? I don't know but the price points are awful interesting. It's always interesting to me how government subsidies drive the price up on things instead of bringing it down like it is supposed to. Can anyone explain this Phenomenon?

Every law is an infraction of liberty. Jeremy Bentham

A cow dragging her newborn calf to the feed ground. Taken 3/13/2008.

I know this is very unlike me but I just can't help it. My Darling Wife and I were in Billings the other day and tried out a new eating establishment in the city. The Staggering Ox. It serves what they define as sandwiches. I really hate to say this but it was the worst meal I have ever had in a restaurant.

I had The Beastie sandwich. It had roast beef, onions, sharp cheddar, Monterey jack, among other things on it and I had it with the jalapeno cheddar bread. The sandwich comes in a very odd bread container. this container makes the sandwich very hard to eat. My mouth just couldn't stretch enough to try to get a decent bite of the sandwich. I couldn't taste any jalapeno or cheddar in the bread. In fact the bread was a dry tasteless mass of dough that had no redeeming qualities. I never once spotted any cheese on the sandwich and the star of the sandwich, the roast beef, was tough and tasteless.

The menu online listed Iced tea as a drink which is what I prefer, but once in the store I found there was none and was forced to drink soda. No Iced Tea is a big o point against any eating establishment.

I ordered chips with my sandwich but never received any with my sandwich. Since the receipt wasn't itemized, I had no way of proving this so there was no chips with the meal.

Now I've been told that you should always find something good about everything and this is no exception. There was one good thing. With each sandwich you get a sauce. Believe me, this sauce is necessary to give the sandwich any taste at all. I got the sauce which was a mixture of horseradish and blue cheese. It was very good. Not so good that I will ever go back again, but good. I figure My Darling Wife can make the sauce and have a real good sandwich topper at home with it.

My darling Wife was just as displeased with her meal as I was with mine. I always try to figure out how a place could be better than it is. This one is beyond me. I don't see how it could ever be good by my definition.

Like I said, it is very unlike me to complain about a place but this time I had to mention it. I couldn't help myself. That should tell you something.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain. Maya Angelou

Wyoming Cattlemen Worry About Meatpacking Mergers

Wyoming cattlemen concerned about consolidation in the meatpacking industry said they are worried by a Brazilian company's bid to buy out two rivals and become the largest meatpacker in the U.S.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sens. Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.) and John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) have asked U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to make sure that the Justice Department closely reviews JBS SA's proposed $1.1 billion buyout of Smithfield Beef Group Inc. and National Beef Packing Co.

To start with I will say that more than Wyoming cattlemen are worried about this, cattlemen across the US are worried about JBS buyout of Smithfield and National. Hell, even the NCBA, the meat packers best friend, is asking the Justice department to take a critical look at this.

I will say I agree, this is really worrisome. The meat packers are all ready too concentrated and any further concentration will be bad for the beef industry as a whole in the US. What I really don't like is this;

That would give JBS full control of Five Rivers Ranch Cattle Feeding LLC, made up of 10 feedlots in five states with capacity for 811,000 head of cattle.

The nation's largest meatpacker would then control the nation's largest feedlot company. Many Wyoming ranchers do business with the five Colorado feedlots owned by Five Rivers.

"The feeding and meat processing sectors of the livestock industry are inextricably linked," Sens. Enzi and Barrasso, both Republicans, said in a letter to Mr. Mukasey on Friday.

"The potential for a packing company to manipulate the market with ownership of livestock is inherent, and this merger exacerbates that situation. It is imperative that a full review of the JBS acquisition include consideration of these factors."

The big packers owning the cattle before they slaughter them is really a problem. Technically the packers aren't supposed to own the cattle before they slaughter them but they find ways around the law. That doesn't make it right but that is the way it is.

Well, we will see what happens. I'm sure JBS will throw enough money at the political process to buy there way in and get this buyout through. Maybe if cattlemen make enough noise we can stop it.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence. Thomas Jefferson

Big sky, big clouds, big land.......Big Country. Taken 3/16/2008.

I would really like to know where Sen. Max Baucus got his crystal ball at.

Baucus sees economic hope coming

The nation's economic skid is close to bottoming out, Democratic Sen. Max Baucus said after a speech Tuesday, but expect some "hiccups" before the recession hits bottom

Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, spoke to a group of civic leaders and business people in a luncheon sponsored by the Helena Area Chamber of Commerce.

He said Congress has a role to play in reforming banking laws that may have led to some of the excesses behind the slump.

Don't get me wrong here, I hope he is right but I'm not too sure. This whole thing has the same feel that the Japanese economic meltdown some 15 year ago had. Both had there basis in inflated land prices and when that finally broke open the government had to scramble to attempt to bail out financial institutions to try to keep them solvent. Japan took over 10 years to work its way out of the mess. Sen. Max Baucus thinks we will be able to work out of it in months?

Maybe his crystal ball is that good. If it was me though I would keep the receipt on the damned thing. I think it might be broke.

It's not an exaggeration to say that we're on the verge of a meltdown. John Hart

The cows are really starting to calve now. There are all kinds of cute calves running around. I might be tired from the long days and short nights, but I never get tired of the miracle of life being played out at this time of year. Taken 3/16/2008.

There was an interesting story in the Gazette about a week ago about how if the candidates for Governor of the state don't have a primary challenger, they will have to give some of the campaign contributions they have received so far back. As of last reporting Gov. Brian Schweitzer had over $200,000 at risk if he didn't have a primary challenger.

It's looking like Schweitzer is going to luck out though. Two complete political unknowns are set to enter the race and challenge Gov. Brian Schweitzer in the primary.

Did Schweitzer and the Democrat party put these guys up to this to save the big load of campaign cash Brian Schweitzer is carrying? No, I really don't think so, but it is a very effective way for two people to contribute a very large amount of money to the Schweitzer campaign. Over $100,000 a piece contribution to Schweitzer's campaign just for simply filing as a candidate. That's well above the $1,000 normally an individual can contribute so it is quite the campaign contribution.

Pogreba and Neiffer say they can bring a significant debate about education issues and how the Governor is weak in this area to the front burner. Maybe they can, and maybe they can't, I don't know. What I do know is that these two individuals have to know that people are going to look at their run with a very cynical eye and a lot of criticism with the campaign cash issue in play. If they didn't realize this, I think they are in for a rude awakening.

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. Anatole France

R-CALF: Fight NAIS Down To The Last Cowboy: Australia Beef Association

R-CALF USA was fortunate to again have former president of the Australia Beef Association (ABA), John Carter, recently speak at its annual convention about the numerous problems with Australia’s mandatory National Livestock Identification System (NLIS). Below is Carter’s presentation.

“ABA is R-CALF’s sister organisation – we too, represent independent producers in the fight against multinational processors, feeble and corrupt bureaucrats and our sycophantic equivalent of your NCBA (National Cattlemen’s Beef Association). I was appalled to buy the Los Angeles Times when I landed in the U.S. and read their headline article on the Chino beef recall. I worked with USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) men from 1983 to 1994. Their integrity was admired worldwide. It appears to have gone. There will be a backlash that will help our cause.

Australia, being a desert island in the middle of a huge ocean has the least disease of any continent. Despite this, Australia has had Premises ID for cattle since 1980. We used a paper or plastic wrap-around tail tag that had to be affixed before sale. Around 1990, I got individual animal numbers put on those tags for use in producer carcass quality discovery. It was hardly ever used.

Three years ago I spoke to you in Denver. I advised you not to allow mandatory RFID to be foisted on you because it would be very costly and it wouldn’t work. I am back today to tell you that I was right.

In those three years, Australian cattle producers have been the fall guys for the international tag manufacturers. Follow the money. Put your money on self-interest – you always know that it is trying. ABA has no problem with voluntary RFID (radio frequency identification) use. If I were unfortunate enough to own a feedlot, I would use it in many ways to save (from) feeding inefficient cattle.

Mandatory tracing is an entirely different matter.

We have abandoned our efficient mandatory tail tag system for expensive chaos. No other large-producing country has mandated the RFID traceback system. All the reasons given for its introduction are now in tatters. Face-saving and blame have replaced them. Remember an ounce of prevention is worth pounds of cure. Don’t let anyone take you down this suicidal path because once you are on it, it will become the unchangeable custom and be used by your packers to discount your cattle. Its administration will cost you a fortune – all for no purpose but to increase tag-manufacturer profit and give jobs to bureaucrats.

In Australia, the tag manufacturers beat us with lies and propaganda. They provided letters to the papers signed by producers who didn’t exist amidst a flood of propaganda. At one stage, the rural press did a poll on NLIS acceptance by producers on one of its farm polls on the Internet. On Day Three the poll showed 75 percent of producers voting the NLIS as being hopeless or a failure. About 10 percent were approving. In two hours, this was reversed. Fortunately, ABA had a computer fanatic following the vote and trying to boost the negative vote. We immediately did a press release stating that the poll was being fixed. It was withdrawn and hasn’t been attempted since. Investigations showed that hackers had the poll alteration from the database team at MLA (Meat and Livestock Australia) – our Beef Board. We called for a full disclosure. MLA spent $81,000 of OUR MONEY on their auditors investigating, refused to release the results, and did not sack the two hackers. One can only presume that someone above had instructed them. A divisional head noted for his careful work resigned and was appointed as Integrity Officer by the packer organisation.

Reasons that tag manufacturers used with their stooges in Government, the packers and our NCBA equivalent.

Market Access. In 2003, we were told that we had to have mandatory RFID NLIS because the USA was getting it and we would lose market share to the U.S. in Japan and Korea. The U.S., with no RFID NLIS, is now regaining its market share in Japan and will get back into Korea despite your two cases of BSE. Australian producers are getting 60 percent of your prices. Brazil and Argentina – with no RFID NLIS – send many times Australia’s small 6,000-ton quota to Europe.

Customers are demanding it. This was a farce, as the system cannot trace beyond the packinghouse. Inquiries in Japan showed that no one was asking for it. Our packers claimed that McDonald’s required RFID NLIS. Knowing the U.S. situation, I rang the McDonald’s purchasing officer in Sydney. She denied ever making such a claim.

Disease control. The inaccuracy of the system and its slowness has shown that it would be of little use in an outbreak of exotic disease. We are supposed to inform the database of any movement of any cattle off our ranches, including to another pasture. Very few are doing it. NLIS couldn’t track a bleeding elephant through a snowfield.

Prevention of stock stealing. Australia has decided that RFID NLIS is not a legal means of identifying livestock because the tags can be easily cut out and substituted. The recent severe floods in Queensland have seen police and owners rely on the firebrand to identify the thousands of stock on other ranches. However, enthusiastic bureaucrats are demanding the producers put orange RFID tags in the ears of cattle that they have identified as theirs on other ranches before they take them home. An orange tag indicates that the beast has no whole of life accountability and will be discounted by the packers.

Carcass feedback to producers. Our packinghouses were supposed to supply feedback to the breeder who put his tag in the ear when the beast was sold for the first time. They eventually agreed to give a carcass or a live weight but many are not doing it.

The minute tag number on the outside (readable with glasses) is different to the computer number inside. Australia has been sold inferior tags by the multinationals – they think that we are stupid – I’m afraid that they are right.

It (mandatory livestock identification) hasn’t been shown to work in any major beef-producing country. The UK Auditor General’s Report on Livestock Tracking released on Nov. 12, 2003, should be compulsory reading for anyone involved. At that time they had 700 bureaucrats chasing 10 million cattle at an annual cost of $60 per head sold with 20 percent missing. The committee concluded that the system was “in complete chaos”. That is a paper trail system. The European Union’s (EU’s) IDEA trial on RFID had not found RFID to be feasible. Since then we have found the UK lamb RFID trial release (late 2006). They concluded that it would not work as well as the paper trail and would cost the lamb producers so much that they would lose their European markets. This has caused our sheep equivalent of your NCBA to say ‘NO – not without a cost-benefit analysis’, which we had unsuccessfully demanded of MLA. The sheep people don’t seem to like the idea of paying $3 for a tag for a sheep that they may sell for $1. This doesn’t seem unreasonable.

I phoned the Canadian ID Agency on Monday (Feb. 18, 2008). I was told that their system of informing on stock movement is still voluntary and that few producers send in cattle movements to the agency, as they (the producers) are not computer literate! This fact was obvious to ‘Blind Freddy’ in Australia and was uncovered in the EU trials. You can have the best computer database system in the world but it is garbage in garbage out.

Monumental Failure. When we began this war in Australia, I said that there were 200,000 who sold cattle every year. MLA and your NCBA equivalent said that there were only 60,000. We now have 160,000 on the database. We have around 27 million cattle in Australia, and the last figure on the database showed many millions unaccounted for.

Two weeks ago, I did an audit of my account on the database. In three years, I have bought 900 tags. They are on the database. I have bought 92 cattle – 79 percent are on my account. I have sold 618 (animals) – 74 percent have been taken off the account. I have had the required carcass weight at abattoir (packer) when killed on 58 percent. I have had fat depths – wildly inaccurate – given on 14 percent. I have had 20 cattle killed on my account that could not have been mine. I have had 22 recorded as deceased on ranch that never died.

I live in one of the better areas with higher stocking rates and a controlled system. I have the equal oldest registered firebrand in Australia (1853). I have tattooed every calf born with that brand since 1955. My experience would be better than most. Linda Hewitt, who addressed you last year and is now in serious floods, with her family runs 15,000 cattle. She has had error notices from the database on thousands of cattle.

We have an international embarrassment on our hands because the tag companies bribed, cajoled and fooled those in power. Those in power refused to do a cost-benefit analysis; they refused to do a trial. They mandated an impossible system and are now lying very low. They have had two small inquiries, which produced what they paid for, but with very heavy qualifications on what needed to change to make it work. No senior bureaucrat, politician or NCBA equivalent will stand up and say that it is a success. They know what any producer who goes into his account knows. It is as the UK Committee said of their system in 2003 – it is ‘in complete chaos’.

Fight this one down to the last cowboy. With 900,000 producers in 50 different state legislatures, your bureaucrats have even less chance of making it work than ours have. That isn’t the point though – you must stop the transfer of your money to multinational tag manufacturers. Follow the money and don’t be fooled as we were. I think that you will win. Good luck and thank you.”

I think this says it all. Since Australia is the only major beef producing country to fully implement a mandatory ID system the experience we glean from them is important.