Supposed to be a guy here to cut some hay this morning, but that 1.1 inches of hard rain yesterday kind of stopped that! I ain’t complaining. Pretty cool when this country looks like June, in the middle of August.

Got some gigs this week. Thursday, I go to Camp Crook for their 100 year celebration.  Then on Friday night at 5 or 7 pm, not sure which, several of us are meeting the Wagon train as it comes in to Deadwood, from Ft Pierre. We will do some music and poetry and then again on Saturday evening also.The guy who set it up will be in Camp Crook, so I will find out the correct time from him. It’s open to the public and going to be at the rodeo grounds I hear. Maybe I will see some of you at one place or another.

Chance goes to the Artist Ride on Thursday morning. Taking a young neighbor lad along who is a good hand and I think the artists will really like him as a model. Good feller and easy going.

Guess the wimmens will have to hold the fort down around here!

Rick came over and helped Chance and I doctor some yearlings. Usually I just have Chance to help me or I am by myself so it’s hard to get pictures. This time I sluffed off and let them two do a bunch and I just took pictures of the action. Here’s a few.

This was posted as it said. I think it’s the best I have ever read.

As the Supreme Court was hearing arguments for and against the Washington,

D.C., Gun Ban, this was offered as another stellar example of a letter (written by a Marine) that places the proper perspective on what a gun means to a civilized society.

Read this eloquent, profound and beautifully written letter, and pay close attention to the last paragraph …

The Gun is Civilization by Maj. L. Caudill USMC(Ret)
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either  convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories,
without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential  attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by  choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in
several ways.

Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily
employable. When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded.

I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.

It’s not about Right vs. Left, Liberal vs. Conservative, Republican vs. Democrat
It’s about supporting the U.S. Constitution.

Our old one got crashed so a nice lady has started a new for us. Here’s the link.

http://www.freepowerboards.com/ranchcountry/index.php

You still need to register. Come on over. Bound to be something to make you laff or cuss!

Oh, and I would advise you to not have anything to do with Proboards as far as forums go. That was our old system where we had Ranch Country forum and they do not want to help if there is a problem.

Wrote this. Here’s his sight.  http://neanderpundit.com/?p=2450

I thought it was so great a post I just flat stole it and am posting it here.

Beijing!

Gesundheit!

In 1980 I began my machinist’s apprenticeship at Inland Steel. I worked in the Coke Plant. While I was working there, the EPA was continually trying to shut the Coke Plant down.

You see, Inland was spending millions to try to comply with emissions standards, and they weren’t able to comply, yet.

Oh, they were making headway- from the time I started, to the time i quit, there was a HUGE change in emissions. To a point where we were no longer required to wear dust masks in areas where they had been mandatory before, etc.

Inland projected they’d meet EPA emissions standards in ten years, the EPA required four, and they eventually managed to shut them down. Took a while, but other metallurgical grade coke processes eventually came on line, and have taken up the load, but the damage to the steel industry in North America was extensive.

Now, once closed, the metallurgical-grade coke facilities in the US started to be scrapped out. And the scrap was put on ships. And those ships took it to China. I saw this with my own eyes.

China took that scrap, and you know what they did with it? they reassembled it into their own metallurgical-grade coke facilitiies.

All except the emissions shit. They melted that shit down and sold the steel.

The chinese had no intention of paying any attention to environmental restrictions. here’s a plant that was at Inland and ended up in China.

No fume hoods, no exhaust stacks with air scrubbers, no electrostatic discharge cleaning towers, no enclosed guide cars, just open coke ovens venting their pollutant to atmosphere. Not even a respirator for the poor bastard who has to stand there and work on it. Just nothing.

SO the EPA is directly responsible for the crappy air quality in Beijing, and don’t you forget it.

And maybe they will learn someday, but I doubt it.

Check out the comments under my post yesterday to see more about our beloved spotted owl.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D92BLIH83.htm

About the spotted owl. Here’s a short part of it.

“The Bush administration’s latest plan for saving the northern spotted owl from extinction while allowing a boost in old growth logging was better, but still not good enough, according to three leading professional organizations of wildlife scientists.

The Wildlife Society, the Society for Conservation Biology and the American Ornithologists Union said in independent peer reviews released Monday that the final plan adopted in May was better than the draft they flunked a year ago, but there was still no scientific basis for allowing more logging of the old growth forests where the threatened bird lives.

“Given that the northern spotted owl has been experiencing about a 4 percent annual rate of population decline for the last 15 years, any reductions from current levels of habitat protection cannot be justified,” the joint review by the Society for Conservation Biology and American Ornithologists Union said.

So if they are still in decline, what the tree huggers want done is evidently not working, right? So maybe we need to try something different?

From what I’ve read it is another owl coming in to their area’s and out competing them that are chasing the old spotted owls out. Maybe we need an owl season? Perhaps a season on idiot?

You can click on this and make this photo bigger for better viewing. Crackerjacks legs are getting much better. KInd of hard to believe, for as crooked as they were earlier. His mother is getting thin and I can’t feed her any grain to help her out as that just keeps making her milk too much and that is part of why the colts legs are crooked. Oh well, when he is older I will wean him and feed her better. She is not bred back so she will fatten up nicely.

We had three quarters of an inch of rain yesterday morning. Excellent!

He thought the dogs would be fun to play with.

Then again, maybe not!

Got up to wet and cool this morning. About 3/4 of an inch so far. Still overcast and trying to rain a little.

Chance and I tore out a section of old corral fence and replaced one rotted post on Saturday. Then we put up some sucker rod and planks to re-build it. Also went and roped and doctored on one yearling with foot rot.

Yesterday we went to church and then had a neighbor over and visited for quite a spell. We saddled up Beaver and Woody and went south and cut a bull that was supposed to be a steer. He is now!

When we got back Chance caught and saddled his colt Jake and I caught Pilgrim and we went for a ride. Then a young couple came over and Melvin and I went and looked at some hay he might be interested in putting up then I hopped in with Melvin and Trina and we went a couple hours north east of here to a rodeo. They were up in a couple of roping events and one of the guys who was clowning wanted to meet me. He and I had been visiting on the computer for the past year. He may stop in today on his way to the next rodeo he has. If he does, his boots are going to get muddy! 🙂

For those of you who don’t have a source for good beef, check out this site.

http://www.eatwild.com/index.html

Lots of info and a Iisting of where to get grass fed and fattened beef and other meats. I guess I should list our ranch, but don’t know as I am ready for that much work!

I found this on a board I go to. Trouble is, it’s just too true.

 

If this bothers you, just let the ‘new’ me know and 
I’ll tell you whatever you’d like to hear…….

I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job
of spending the money I earn than I would.

I’m voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody
is offended by it.

I’m voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad
guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good
people.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it
will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in
ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.

I’m voting Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of
millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed
to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest
away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitist
liberals need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some
fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don’t have
to hide from us over there, and when they come over here, I don’t want to have any
guns in the house to fight them off with.

I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever
I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a
gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas
at 15% isn’t.

Makes ya wonder how anyone would EVER vote Republican, now doesn’t it?