Gators fight on Florida golf course 

      The UPI picked up a video taken by golfer, Barbara Mossop. The video shows two gators fighting. The reason for the fight? What are fights on a golf course usually about? 
      I can just imagine how this argument started. 
      Gator One, “Put me down for a five on that hole.” 
      Gator Two, “Are you kidding me, you shot at least an eight.”             
     Gator One, “An eight? How do you figure that?” 
      Gator Two, “Off the tee you hit into the rough behind that big oak tree. Your second shot went across the fairway into the water. You set the ball down on dry land, that’s three, then you hit into the bunker, that’s four. It took you three tries to get out of the bunker, that was five, six, and seven. And then heaven be praised, you one putted, that’s eight.” 
      Gator One, “So now you’re the scoring police? And, by the way, what did you give yourself?” 
      Gator Two, “Well---uh---six.” 
      Gator One, “Six, are you kidding me, you had six before you even got on the green, and then you four putted. How does that get to be a six?” 
      Gator Two, “Are you calling me a liar?”       Gator One, “And don’t poke me with your tail.” 
      Gator Two, “I’ll poke you with my tail if I want.” 
      Gator One, “Yeah, well, take that.” 
      Gator Two, “Oh, so now you want to bite, well, try this on for size.” And there you have two gators fighting on a golf course.

Does Anyone Care What They’re Looking For?

      Daniel Uria recently commented on a Canadian survey of UFO sightings in 2015. The report concludes that the sightings in 2015, 1,267, were the second highest in history with the only higher one being 1,981, in 2012. Mildly interesting so far. 
      Questions that were left unanswered: How does this number of sightings compare with other geographic areas around the world? Is Canada leading the pack, or is this just normal for other countries around the world? Evidently, the report didn’t think that information was of interest. 
      Another thing that would have been of interest is some speculation on why so many sightings, if in fact this is an unusual amount. The report didn’t think, or Daniel didn’t think that would be of interest to their Canadian readers. Maybe not. So that leaves us, the non-Canadian reader to draw our own conclusions, or at least ask some questions. Are the UFO’s hanging aboat Canada because they just just like Canadians? 
      Are the UFO’s hanging aboat and maybe recording the Canadian accent so they can play it on comedy TV shows back home, eh? 
      Are the UFO’s hanging aboat Canada because they consider the Canadians more closely related to them than other populations around the world? 
      Are the UFO’s hanging aboat just because they are curious about Canadian bacon?

Do They Think I’m an Idiot or What? (I really don’t expect any comments on that) 

      I find in my emails a certain amount of communications that people have forwarded to me that they have received and feel I must read for my edification and the welfare of the nation. 
      For instance, one piece stated with great fanfare, that Obama used the Quran instead of a Bible at his swearing-in ceremony when he became president. Right off I’m saying, my personnel opinion notwithstanding, Obama could not be dumb enough to do something like that. To me it was a no-brainer. One minute of research told me my hunch was right. 
      An aside: I also learned that people can use anything they want to place their hand on when taking the oath of office---a Bible, the Quran, a comic book, or nothing at all. 
      Another example: Someone forwarded to me an article about a muslin woman who was appointed a municipal district judge in New York City. The article claimed that Obama had hand-picked this attorney for the job. 
      Now it seems that municipal judges are near the bottom of the ladder as far as judges go and New York City has a plethora of them. 
      My antenna tells me that Obama has more to do than hand pick judges in the municipal court of New York. 
      Another example: I was forwarded an article the originator claims was written by the son of Billy Graham. This article didn’t say which son. (Probably doesn’t even know there are two of them.) One son is an Evangelical Christian evangelist, much like his father. The other son is also into a Christian ministry, but has had some personal problems. 
      The call-to-arms that one of these gentlemen supposedly wrote is virtually demanding an armed insurrection in this country to get it back on track, saying in part, “It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away. It will take zealots, not moderates.” 
      Give me a break. Does this sound like something either one of Billy’s sons would write? My common sense tells me, “No way!”
      An interesting fact: Not one of these three pieces of ‘critical’ information came with any kind of authorship credentials. Now if a person was serious about propagating some kind of information, wouldn’t establishing your credentials be the first thing you’d undertake? So in my opinion the lack of authorship credentials is the first clue that I’m looking at garbage that is certainly not worth my time, and most certainly not something I’d pass on to someone else, even though nearly each of these kinds of emails tries to lay a guilt trip on me if I don’t forward it on to somebody. 
      The next big question is, “Why do people keep forwarding this garbage to my email and to Lorraine’s email. What motivates them?” Coming up with an answer to that is my next project. I’ll let you know if I figure it out.

I Think We May be Overlooking A Valuable? Resource 

      After a casual and partial study of the people involved in the current presidential campaigning efforts I have come to this conclusion - - - We may be overlooking a valuable resource. Let me explain. 
      When I say we, I mean the citizens of the United States of America. Watching the current political histrionics the thought has come to mind that the only difference between the people running for office and those people incarcerated for criminal tendencies, or mental deficiencies, is that the people running for office haven’t been caught yet. 
      We have one or more candidates who are promising world-class education for anybody in the country, from preschool onward. They are also promising that the teachers of all these students will get additional world-class training. 
     Now I hear you saying, “Campaign promises? Yeah I know, promises made in the heat of trying to win the most powerful position in the world are like bird poop in an aviary. Not surprising, mostly accidental, and worth about as much.
     To carry out these promises will take mega-bucks. Why not spend some of that money in a little different way.
     And of course these promisors are depending on the government to pay for this. An aside here - the government can’t pay for anything, because it doesn’t have anything. It produces nothing, it create nothing. It does nothing to increase the wealth of the nation. But I digress into another subject. 
      One more aside - How do the current teachers, most of whom are breaking their backs to give their students a world-class education, feel about being told that what they thought they were doing is coming up so short of the mark that they need the intrusion of yet another federal financial black hole entity meddling in their profession. I mean, look at how successful? previous governmental meddling has worked. 
      I keep hearing, “Are these candidates the only choices we have? Is there no one else out there?” 
     Thus back to the possible untapped resource previously mentioned, those people incarcerated for criminal tendencies, or mental deficiencies. 
     Why not open up the campaigning for president to those so incarcerated who show an interest in politics. I mean the two mindsets are probably not that dissimilar. We may find some good candidates. The government, in the guise of equal opportunity, could furnish them with the means (I mean one more boondoggle more or less is not going to kill us), and see if we could foster more choices for us citizens.

This Has Got To Be A Marketing Nightmare

    In Poland (where else?), a company is raising funds to produce a special kind of beer, using lactic acid bacteria from the vagina of a Czeck model. (I’d guess they couldn’t find a Polish model who was willing for some brewmaster to be messing about in her vagina.)
    This company has come up with a plethora of sexy (read lewd) marketing phrases, most of which can only be used in adult venues. 
    On a new venture like this funding is always critical. They need $169,989.71 to kick off this product. They’ve been soliciting investors now for six days and have raised $12.47 cents. They don’t need the whole amount for another twenty-five days. 
    Now, let’s do the math. In six days they’ve received investment money at the rate of just a tad over $2 a day, so extrapolating that out, in the next twenty-five days they will have gathered another $51. Just a little short of their goal. That won’t even buy the swabs for gathering this model’s bacteria.
    Just another great idea down the tube for lack of capital. On the other hand, maybe in this case that would be up the tube? How would I know which way this bacteria is inclined to travel? 
    This is all from a report written by Ben Hooper and picked up by UPI.

When a Frog Used to be Just a Frog
     Here in Central  Oregon we have about 45,000 acres of agriculture land that depends on several irrigation districts for their water supply. These districts in turn depend on the Deschutes River for water. These lands get water via canals that wander around this part of the state. It seems that this system has worked for many years. Now we have a problem and this comes from the Oregon Spotted Frog. (I think it's a first cousin to the Spotted Owl) In 2014, the US Fish and Wildlife Service put this frog on an endangered species list.
     It seems the reason for the decreased number of these frogs is because during the winter months the flow in the Deschutes River is diminished in order to fill the reservoirs that then supply the water to these agriculture lands during the spring and summer.
     A report by Dylan J. Darling appearing in The Bulletin explains that the Center for Biological Diversity and the WaterWatch of Oregon have filed preliminary injunctions to get the water management organization to change their ways and leave enough water in the river, during the winter, to support this frog and its relatives.
     The report went on to say, ". . . people who draw water from the district may face abrupt and severe restrictions." That is if the injunctions are upheld.

     Now my point  -  (I can hear y'all saying, "It's about time!")

     Huge amounts of money are being spent to protect this frog, and that doesn't yet include the economic downside to the people on these 45,000 acres and the downstream economic impact if what they grow is curtailed. The cost of saving this frog could be huge. Now I have no problem with saving species from going instinct. But where do we draw the line? At which point do we say "The cost to save this frog is too much?"
     This kind of thing is happening all over the world. I'd guess that it's happening more in developed countries than the developing countries which usually don't have the resources to take care of their people and endangered species at the same time.
     And some of these problems with endangered species comes from man trying to manipulate his environment. And those manipulations were always done in the name of bettering the lives of people. One simple example is taking cane toads to Australia to solve an environmental problem.

My last point  -  (big sighs and rolling the eyes is not becoming)

     Where were the environmentalists when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth and looking for someone to save them? We could still have them with us today if someone would have just taken an interest.