New painting.

resize%20of%20the%20trophy%20a.jpg

Just got this in an email from the artist John Phelps. These guys always amaze me in how close they can come to real life and capture all the detail better than real life. This all came out of John’s mind and he just had a few pictures of me and Chance on our horses with me leading Beaver. He added all the rest. I tried to load it in a bigger size but I guess I ain’t smart enough.
Help Lindi!

I got this in an email and thought I ought to share it. Got to give her credit, Hillary has more cajones than her husband to come back again after all this and try to get the job of running the free world!
 
 

 Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her ‘record,’ which she says includes her eight years in the White House as First Lady – or ‘co-president’ – and her seven years in the Senate. Here is a reminder of what that record includes:- As First Lady, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill Bradley and Patrick Moynihan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would ‘demonize’ anyone who opposed it. But it w as opposed; she couldn’t even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House and Senate.)– Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were forced to withdraw their names from consideration. She then chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as ‘my worst mistake.’- Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier’s radical views became known, her name had to be withdrawn.- Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster committed suicide, and Kennedy was fo rced to resign.- Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the position of director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1996, both the drug use and Hillary’s involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office, after serving seven presidents for over thirty years.- In order to open slots in the White House for her friends the Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for ‘gross mismanagement’ and their reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime – mixing personal money with White House funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours.- Another of Hillary’s assumed duties was directing the ‘bimbo eruption squad’ and scandal defense:—- She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit.—- She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr’s investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs.—- Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all.—- And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury—- And Bill was impeached by the H ouse.—- And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, ‘I do not recall,’ ‘I have no recollection,’ and ‘I don’t know’ 56 times under oath).– Hillary wrote ‘It Takes a Village,’ demonstrating her Socialist viewpoint.- Hillary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother’s clients, for a small fee, to get financial support.- Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen.- In the campaign for the Senate, Hillary played the ‘woman card’ by portraying her opponent (Lazio) as a bully picking on her.- Hillary’s husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary’s correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.)– As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. She has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11.- Hillary’s one notable vote; supporting the plan to invade Iraq, she has since disavowed.Quite a resume. Sounds more like an organized crime familys rap sheet.

More on Global Warming

My cousin emailed me this. So, who are we supposed to believe?  

The Sun Also Sets

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, February 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore’s mythical “consensus.” Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.

Related Topics: Global Warming

 Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better “eyes” with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth’s climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.And they’re worried about global cooling, not warming.Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.Tapping reports no change in the sun’s magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a “stethoscope for the sun.” But he and his colleagues need better equipment.In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun’s emissions more rapidly and accurately.As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth’s climate over time has been the sun.For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth’s temperature over the last 100 years.R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada’s Carleton University, says that “CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet’s climate on long, medium and even short time scales.”Rather, he says, “I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet.”Patterson, sharing Tapping’s concern, says: “Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth.””Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again,” Patterson says. “If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than ‘global warming’ would have had.”In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves — and not a few enemies in the global warming “community” — by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by “dramatic changes” in temperatures.A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.”The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100,” according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.The study says that “try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures.”The study concludes that if you shut down all the world’s power plants and factories, “there would not be much effect on temperatures.”

But if the sun shuts down, we’ve got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that’s hanging in the balance.   

Wearisome.

Cindy woke me early to tell me her car had a flat. “Cool, take my pickup”, was my reply. She doesn’t enjoy driving Teddy. Why, I don’t know. Used to be all she drove was pickups. So she called before she left to come home to tell me she was headed this way and that her back was killing her. Next I knew, I was interrupted on a phone call, by her, telling me she was in the ditch!  I called Dean and he came and picked me up and we took shovels chains and tow rope. Got to where she had slid in and be danged if Dean ain’t about 3/4 stuck. Man it was slickery! He worked on his pickup while I dug, drove, dug, drove, etc. 

Finally he got out and after too much shoveling I did also. Many nice people stopped to pass the time of day and see if Cindy or we needed any help. I love living in ranching country! Worked out fine, nothing was hurt on Teddy, I got some exercise and Dean stopped to eat a wonderful cinnimon roll for his reward of being a good neighbor and friend!
 I worked way too hard and my body is telling me about it. Must be time to get into shape I guess!
 By the way, this is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. So the beard is gone and I have given up cussing and throwing fits, for my Lenten observance, as I usually do at Lent. Pray for me! 

Snow!

  • Woke up to white and wind. Not a lot of wind, but enough to blow the new snow into some little drifts. Heard from a friend that drove from Rapid up to Belle Fourche area and he said the roads were a little slickery. 
  • I drove in and picked up Cindy yesterday and we went down for the last day of the stockshow. Our friends from Iowa had some extra rodeo tickets so we met up with them and went and watched the final performance.  I am not a big rodeo fan other than I like to watch the bronc riding. They had good stock and good hands and we sat in a good spot. Them Birch buckin’ horses sure are good. JJ Elshere rode Blood Brother for an 85 and they said they were going to retire him after this year. He didn’t have the trip he has in the past but still a rough, tough rascal.
  • We met up with chance and Hope and had supper and then all went to a motel room where our Iowegien friends were watching the Super Bowl. I am not, I repeat, NOT, a football fan, but it was fun to set and holler at the team that every body else wanted to lose and listen to them boo.  Did I mention I don’t think much of the city of New York? 😉
  • Got home kind of late, but now we can relax for a spell as there really isn’t anything coming up we have to go to or be at for quite a while. I think I could be a hermit if I got to have the internet! 🙂 
  • Last I knew , we were supposed to get lots of moisture from here on out. Let it come! I have hay and I need runoff and moisture for grass for the summer.

Stockshow

Went down to Rapid after chores and hooked up with my buddy from the Sandhills. We walked around and seen all the sights and watched some cattle cutting. Had a good time, tho’ we would have fun hauling rocks. Ol’ Marty is a fun guy.

Bought a new pair of Boulet boots, made in Canada. So that ought to make all my Canadian readers happy, that I helped out their economy. 😉

Struck me funny that there are all them horses there who were designed to do one thing and it’s pretty much for the amusment of mankind. Very few of them people would take any of those horses out and actually do any sorting or anything like that out in the rocks and cactus with any of them horses. They are there just for workin’ cows in a pen full of soft sand. And don’t get me wrong, I like that kind of breeding and cowy horses, but to think of all the money that was tied up in those horses and trainer fees, fuel, etc…, just so them people could play at doing what lots of us do as part of our work, pretty regularly. Amazing!

I don’t know what is gong on with the size of the letters in this post. I cut and pasted a comment and it seems to have messed it up. Hope it’s not too confusing.