Seriously delusional

When did making a profit and being successful become such an evil, criminal thing in this country?
I got into a debate on a message board (I know big mistake, the internet message boards are renowned for housing the truly stupid) about GMO's.While I do not have extensive knowledge of the topic, I do know how they affect my immediate family.
My husband sells things like BT corn. (genetically modified) My father, father in law and brother plant things like BT corn, as do the large majority of farmers in these parts. The genetic modification given to corn and soybeans is to add desirable traits; things like increased yield, drought resistance, disease resistance. These are good things. These are the things that anti-GMO activists have no clue about. They visualize a mad scientist with a syringe injecting some frankenfood quality directly into their tomatoes in the back room of a warehouse. I think these are the same people who think that their vegetables, fruits and meat are manufactured and magically appear in the back room of their local market. (I think of the lady who called the 800 number on the back of her canned tomatoes to complain that she had found a stem in the can.)
 I was trying to convey my point that the large majority of GMO's are things that I mentioned above, to the village idiot that called me out and I stated, "Things like kidnapping pedophiles getting out of jail early, $4 a gallon gas and mental health care worry me more than whether or not the corn in my corn chips had the drought resistant GMO in it." She in turn said, "We want farmers who care more about health than profit."
GET THE FUCK OUT...seriously bitch, how do I sell that one to the mortgage lender or the tuition office? I can see it now, "Oh, sorry NWMSU, I am not supposed to make a profit, as a farmer, I am only to be concerned about health, so I will pay the tuition bill with...health?" THUD...

I had to just shut my phone off and walk away. Do these fucktards not remember that last year we had a drought, second only to the "dustbowl" of the 1930's? Because of GMO's that make crops drought resistant, we were able to have somewhat of a harvest because, like my little scenario I laid out earlier, the bank still needs paid for the thousands of dollars of inputs that went into the crop. The mortgage still needs paid and the kids still need fed and contrary to what the village idiot thinks, you have to turn a profit to do that.

Do the fucktards also not realize that we are not just catering to their needs and wants and desires? We, as farmers, are called on to feed the WORLD. I seriously doubt the starving people in Haiti who get our packages of Meals from the Heartland could give two shits whether or not the soybeans used to make the soy protein meal was RoundUp Ready. 

We do not farm the way we did 30, 40 or 50 years ago. We do not teach, practice medicine, or conduct ANY business in the same fashion as the generations before us did. We also do not have the population we had 30, 40 or 50 years ago. The population continues to boom and we continue to need more yields to feed the growing populous. Pray tell village fucktard...with urban sprawl and less farmland available, how are we to feed more people unless we have genetically modified seed that allows for more growth?

But we aren't supposed to be concerned with things like that. We are supposed to be concerned about health and nothing else...profit is bad. Monsanto is evil...I get your little diatribe. (Please reference the above graphic for my response to it.)

Again, why, is making a profit and making money a bad thing? I don't get it. This little "kumbaya-everyone hold hands and everyone share equally" attitude is seriously getting out of control. These people and these attitudes scare me a hell of a lot more than any GMO could.

It's dangerous, really

There are things that are more dangerous than stupidity....ego is a fine example of that and something I witnessed, first hand today!
You see, as the majority of you know, I am a real, bonfire newspaper reporter. However, the paper I work for is a small weekly that doesn't have a whole lot of "hard hitting journalism" in it, which really, is fine with me. Why you ask? Because we are a small community in which everybody pretty much knows everybody, I am far too nice of a person to go all paparazzi-rude ass interrogation- on your ass in the middle of a tragedy or if you happen to do something naughty. Besides, I don't like confrontation, authority figures intimidate me and dammit, I want to be known as "the nice one" once in a while.
All of that paid off pretty well this week...The trial of Kendall Lee Ware was happening this week in the good ol Audubon County Courthouse and while some may think they are "the only ones who would cover it." They were dead wrong. (See above...small town, everyone knows everyone...it comes in handy sometimes.)
While it's true I wasn't in the courtroom Tuesday and Wednesday, I was there today, when it mattered. (I also didn't piss the judge off. Again the whole small town thing. I learned in 1992 when I began spending the weekends at the Richardson home that you don't fuck with the judge. You show him respect and he shows it to you.)
Yes, I wasn't wearing a fancy outfit and I didn't have a tape recorder in my pocket, but when the jury got the case and began deliberations, I was sitting in the family room, invited in there by "Little Bear's" grandpa.
You see, I don't work for a daily paper, I don't win fancy awards, I don't have a little piece of paper from a four year school with my name on it.
I do have respect. I do have kindness. I do have connections and I do have decency. I know not to poke fun at the communities around me. I know better than to bash those who work in my same industry, all in the name of trying to sell a few more copies. And...I know people. Which is how I knew exactly where and when I needed to be places today and I was in the best place possible when it mattered....in Jodi's arms hugging her and shedding a tear with her when justice was served for Little Bear. I'll take that kind of knowledge any day.

Revolting

By now, everyone in the state knows about Kathlynn Shephard, abducted and now missing near Dayton, Iowa. She and another young girl accepted a ride from a stranger and were taken to a "remote agricultural facility." The 12 year old escaped, their accuser was found dead of an apparent suicide, but Kathlynn's whereabouts are still unknown.
I think I can speak for all of us when I say, we pray she is found alive, however the longer the search lasts, the more grave things start to look.
The revolting (and that is a word that still doesn't really describe the feeling) part of this is that the kidnapper was a convicted felon. He was a registered sex offender. He kidnapped and assaulted a 21 (I think) year old woman and the next day kidnapped TWO three year olds. He should have rot in prison. Instead, he was released, for "good behavior."
I understand there is prison overcrowding, fine, I get it. But, here's a thought...lets send drug offenders to rehab and keep monsters like this where they belong for their ENTIRE sentence. There should be no "get out of jail" card for those who commit crimes against children.
People will argue that drugs destroy families, that may be the case, I don't know. What I do know is that this ghoul has destroyed the lives of five families, that we know of, and we had him in jail once, and let him go. Drug users, dealers, manufacturers/growers etc. make choices to do what they do. More often than not, they are grown adults and are conscious of what they are doing. The people who Michael Klunder abducted and abused had no choice in their situations.
I have no answers to this situation, only questions, like we all have, I would assume. Why did Klunder get released. Why, as a registered sex offender, was he living so close to a school? How did he fall through the cracks? Why did the girls accept a ride from him? And most importantly, I wonder where Kathlynn is?
I will hold my daughter a little tighter tonight. I will pray the Kathlynn is found alive and I will continue to shake my head at what this world is becoming....

Things that make you go hmmmm...

Those of you who are 90's kids now are jamming to C&C Music Factory in your heads aren't you? If not, this will help.

Things that make you go hmmmm are another one of my "random" posts. Basically a bunch of different topics that make one scratch their head and say, "Hmmmm" or in my case "What the fuck?"

Lets start with one that we can all agree on....gas prices jumped 20 cents a gallon today. The price is $3.82 per gallon. On Sunday, in Stuart at a gas station along the interstate, where gas prices are normally higher, it was $3.48....What the fuck? Oh sorry..."Hmmmmm" It's like weight on a woman. I can gain 10 pounds overnight but it takes me three weeks to lose 10 pounds.

Gas prices are jumping by 10 and 20 cents at a time and approaching the $4 mark again and no one is blaming President Obama....each time gas prices jumped five years ago, it was GWB's fault...."Hmmmmmm."

People who continuously use their children as pawns...What the fuck? (Sorry, but this one goes beyond "Hmmmm" status.) I get so inflamed about this topic that my rage is hard to put into words. A child needs the love, attention and influence of BOTH parents when and if at all possible. I don't give a shit what your excuse or reasons are for using your baby as a pawn, but its deplorable. I look at it this way...no matter what has happened between the two of you, at one time, you "laid nice" and a child was born. Swallow your stupid, egotistical pride, check your jealousy at the door and STOP abusing your child, because basically, that's what's happening when you use them as a pawn. **Time for a disclaimer....fortunately my DH and I get along famously (most days) and I have never had to go through a custody battle. HOWEVER, I see the relationship my children have with their father and I think often of the relationship I have with my dad and I would NEVER, no matter the circumstance, interfere with that, because I would be doing much more damage to my child than the assumed "payback" I would be giving to the EX.**

People who *most likely* but not always, trespass to hunt morel mushrooms then turn around and sell them for $30 a pound...Hmmmm....

Along those same lines, the morel mushroom obsession.....seriously people, why, pray tell, do you put something in your mouth that is in the same biological family as athlete's foot and jock itch? All are a fungus, but you deem one a delicacy?

Cousins....Yummm!!! (Excuse me while I go lose my lunch...) I think this warrants a WTF?

American Idol is still on television and to some, still has relevancy...Hmmmmmm. Let's be honest people..it's in it's 12th season, I believe, and other than Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson and Chris Daughtry, who didn't even win, are ANY of the winners even relevant in the music industry? Jennifer Hudson (not a winner) best known for Weight Watchers endorsement.....Fantasia, best known for her life being a Lifetime movie.....does anyone actually remember anyone else from this show?

Mommy Dearest

I pretty much stole this idea from my friend "The Brown Eyed Gem." It's a list of things I'd like for Mother's Day...getting me one or all of these things is the least you can do after the nine months of continuous vomiting, the period known as "dry heave til you piss your pants" and the oh so lovely round of ulcerative colitis...You two are lucky you're cute.
1) I would like a new gas grill. Yes, I realize this is more of a "Father's Day" type of gift, but come on, we all know who does the cooking in my household and that includes the grilling. Now, those of you screaming blasphemy at me for not fully appreciating my good old Weber Kettle grill, this mama doesn't have time to spend 45 minutes "nurturing my coals" and praying to the bar-b-que Gods that the sons of bitches stay lit and get to the appropriate "ash gray" consistency. I also do not have the patience to deal with the small forest fire type flare ups that tend to occur. I do agree that charcoal tastes better and on lazy Sunday afternoons, I have no problem embracing the Weber, but when the family want a burger, is it too much to ask to have a big, bad ass behemoth sitting there that lights with the push of a button? (I don't think so...and if you think it's too much to ask...remember ulcerative colitis...I win.)
2) I want just one day where I don't have to do an ounce of housework. One day where someone else does it. Now, I don't need basement to attic deep cleaning. I don't even need swiffered floors or an empty sink. I want one goddamned day where the dishes walk themselves back to the kitchen instead of staying dormant on the nightstand or end table. I want one day where the socks and wet towels get put in the laundry basket instead of a pile on the floor. (And socks, could you go ahead and turn yourself inside right instead of staying wadded up in a ball?) I want one single, solitary day when I don't have to change the toilet paper roll, wipe beard hair out of my bathroom sink or try to decipher what the hell that smell is and where it is coming from.
3) On the same note, I want one week of someone else "taking care of things." (I realize this is fantasy land here, but a girl can dream.) I want one week of not having to remember the dance class, golf, FFA, 4-H, soccer, tennis and work schedules. I want one week of not having to remember to buy milk or toilet paper. One week of not having to concern myself with anyone else's business, but my own.
4) Really, truly, I would like to take a shit or a hot bath without someone knocking on the bathroom door or hollering my name....

5) Ok, now I realize that all of those things are asking too much, at least from my family...so I will settle for some flowers, some jewelry, some wine, or at least let me sleep in and then order a pizza for lunch because really...this is what mommy wants...

Baaa-Baa Black Sheep

Sorry I have been neglecting things here in the Barnyard....shit must be getting deep, huh? Anyway, thought I would check in with you all today and share my utter and total disbelief at the amount of Sheeple that exist in the internet "comment section" world....and by that I mean people who have whole heartedly wrapped their tiny little minds around one particular "cause" and sputter and spit about it whenever they can even though they have ZERO actual knowledge of what they speak. They are the same type of people who, when tragedy strike, feel the need to hide in their home ensconced in bubble wrap. They piss and moan and whine and jump on every band wagon they can find.
The Governor is giving tax incentives to a new fertilizer plant coming to southeast Iowa. I read the article and postings via television and newspaper sites and then proceeded to read the comments section. Between the people screaming in horror that it will no doubt explode, just like the one in Texas, that it would only bring "low paying jobs" to the area and that "BIG AG" is Satan incarnate and is the cause for everything evil in the world from famine to Justin Beiber, I could not find one sane person with a legitimate comment.
Here's the deal folks, the counties in the southeast part of the state have the highest unemployment in all of Iowa. The only industry booming over there is meth. I have no idea what those jobs pay and those of you eating cheetos and playing on line instead of working don't either, so low pay or high pay, new jobs are a good thing. So are tax incentives. Tax incentives are a necessary evil of wooing big business, like it or not, it's how the game is played. Without those incentives, the fertilizer plant may have decided to hop the river and build in Illinois, then you same people bitching about the plant coming would be bitching because it didn't come to Iowa.
And those screaming about how "BIG AG" is the devil. I would for just ONE week, like to see EVERY business who is impacted by Iowa's ag economy shut down. Perhaps then you whack-jobs would see what agriculture does for this state and does for each and every one of us.
It was also announced this week that Mid American Energy is investing $1.9 billion in wind energy projects in the state...again there are whackadoos calling wind energy horrible and questioning what happens to those giant windmills when technology advances and the windmills are deemed useless....(THUD) Because wind is going to disappear? Because Mid American made wind, right????? Seriously....you bitch and whine and moan about coal and nuclear and fossil fuels, so we have harnessed the wind and are converting into energy and that is a bad thing too? Will you never be happy?
Le sigh....
I hate that I just talk to you people when I have something to bitch about..perhaps I will have a better story tomorrow, after all, today we being breeding season....Seeders were put in and pulled and today, the girls get A.I.'ed....That's right kids, 50-some horny heifers are roaming our pasture today. Hide your bulls.
Oh, and we weighed in the sheep and goats too, I am sure we will have many a story on the taming of those little guys. For those of you keeping score that means two steers, three breeding heifers, two market goats, two market lambs, two breeding goats, a bottle bucket calf...and a partridge in a pear tree.