# Kenny Chesneys Dad



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

In the news tonight....

Claiborne County....East Tennessee.

Regards, Mike

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/watchful-eye/kenny-chesneys-father-arrested-in-golf-club-attack_50179789


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## carcajou (Jan 28, 2011)

Slow news day or what?


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

The moral of the story is do not tell a 72 year old man with a golf club that he has to keep his dog on a leash.

If I was 32 years old and got whooped with a golf club by a 72 year old there is no way I would call the police. I would tell the fellow to walk his dog any way he saw fit.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Tim- guessing you never played soccer in elementary:

Where:

Boys and girls were on the same team.

Competitivness was discouraged.

Everyone was a winner.

Score was not kept.

Everybody got a trophy.

And ultimately society lost.

Dollars to dimes says this kid learned that way. As always, until I hear both sides, I reserve any judgment.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Not an excuse for Mr. Chesney, but I defer to a lesson from dad: he probably deserved it. Or as Dad said "you probably deserved it!"

I find that statement to ring true more and more.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Bottom line is ...don't live where you have a homeowners association. Did you notice in Mr. Chesneys booking picture that he was only 5'5" tall?

Regards, Mike


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

Vol said:


> Bottom line is ...don't live where you have a homeowners association. Did you notice in Mr. Chesneys booking picture that he was only 5'5" tall?
> 
> Regards, Mike


Reminds me of the fellow who broke down into a Karate stance and said, "I know Karate."

The little fellow said, "I know lug wrench."

Now we can add golf clubs to the great equalizer. Can make a person 40 years younger and a foot taller.

I do not know the particulars of this incident. I have a feeling tone of voice or arrogance played a role in the decision to tee off on a fellows head.

The home owners covenant probably has a rule against a fellow relieving himself off the back deck. My opinion on that is like the woman who was confronted about being over exposed. If it offends you, don't look.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

We have quite a few homeowners associations in this area. My experiance is most of the presidents are people that have an ego/power trip and are generally worthless.

The people that have real leadership skills and abilities run for local government positions. The wannabes head up the homeowners associations...


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

That is why I live in a one house gated community.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Just love how they tack on charges... "also held on vandalism under $500", probably for stomping on the sunglasses. Probably mouthed off to the cop as well, so they tacked on the charge... Usually how it goes...

I don't agree with the idea of a "homeowner's association" and if you GAVE me a new house in one tomorrow I'd put it up for sale five minutes later... I wouldn't live anywhere that I have to answer to a bunch of A-holes that tell you
what you can and cannot do on your own place. I'd live in a cardboard box on the side of the road first... but then, some people value freedom, most value security and other BS... more power to 'em... Bunch of worthless morons IMHO,
but to each his own I guess...

I like the "one house gated community" statement above. I pee off my own back porch whenever I like... LOL

Good fences make good neighbors...

Gotta say though, not much PO's me more than all these citified idiots moving in all around us... minute they buy a couple acres and build a house on it, they usually turn loose a [email protected] pack of dogs to just roam the countryside...
Texas IS a "leash-law" state... meaning that REGARDLESS of where you live, all dogs are REQUIRED to be in either a fenced-in secure enclosure (that they cannot reasonably escape from) or on a leash, chain, cable, or other RESTRAINT
at ALL TIMES... I understand like anybody would when the neighbor's dog tunnels under the pen wall and gets out-- that's not the problem... it's the [email protected] worthless drunk ******** next door that insist on having FIVE stinking mixed breed
and pit bulls that just roam the countryside at will... Dad had another neighbor's great Dane halfbreed on his porch eating his dog's food and impregnated her... TWICE! Go tell them to get their dog, and they would, but the [email protected] thing
would be back over a day or two later... Luckily it finally got flattened out on the highway, and road pizza doesn't show up in the yard anymore... I heard a cow bellering one day and went out to check on her, saw her running around in
circles turning this way and that, and as I got closer I heard barking-- turns out the ******** next door's pack of pit bull halfbreeds were about to run that cow into the ground; she had a calf and they were trying to get at it... Went
and had a talk with them, for all the good it did... saw that sort of thing several more times... Had a couple talks with them in fact about it. My 10 year old's little 4-H dog got out of her pen somehow and went missing, found her
several months later in the back pasture, what was left of her... think the neighbor dogs tore her up and killed her... Then months later I heard barking on my back porch, pit bull halfbreed on the porch attacking the barn cats that live
under the porch-- I had enough and took care of the problem. 'Nuf said...

We've got animal control, but come to find out they won't do a [email protected] thing about neighbor dogs molesting your livestock or threatening your dogs or cats or kids on your own [email protected] porch... So, I took care of the
problem myself...

Later! OL JR


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

luke strawwalker said:


> Texas IS a "leash-law" state... meaning that REGARDLESS of where you live, all dogs are REQUIRED to be in either a fenced-in secure enclosure (that they cannot reasonably escape from) or on a leash, chain, cable, or other RESTRAINT
> at ALL TIMES...
> 
> We've got animal control, but come to find out they won't do a [email protected] thing about neighbor dogs molesting your livestock or threatening your dogs or cats or kids on your own [email protected] porch... So, I took care of the
> ...


OL JR

According to my research only 2 states have a leash law that covers entire state which are Michigan and Pennsylvania. It's true some Texas cities & counties have leash laws but not the entire state.

I agree if dogs are chasing my livestock I must control the dogs myself as sheriff's deputy won't come investigate.

Later,Jim


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

The county I reside in has a leash law......and I have had to remedy situations myself thru the years....which I rather not have been forced to do..... leash law's are worthless other than the day you appear in court.

Regards, Mike


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## Lostin55 (Sep 21, 2013)

Any investigation of livestock harassing dogs takes place through a 50 mm objective lense.


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## central va farmer (Feb 14, 2015)

We keep a rifle in all the trucks for this sort of thing. I'm not going to tolerate a dog bothering my livestock.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

At least you guys are shooting troublesome dogs instead of face-whacking a person with a three wood.


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## Lostin55 (Sep 21, 2013)

It doesn't sound like the guy was beaten too seriously. By his own claim, he was struck six times with a golf club and declined medical treatment.

I would venture a guess that the old man was offering him an opportunity to change his ways, which must have failed.

As the old saying goes..... If you carry a baseball bat in your vehicle, your lawyer would appreciate it if you also had a baseball glove and a baseball too.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

edit - people new to area don't like hearing their dog will be shot if caught running loose but it's about the only way to make them tie them up.


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

slowzuki said:


> edit - people new to area don't like hearing their dog will be shot if caught running loose but it's about the only way to make them tie them up.


Our Statewide Dog Act requires all dogs in a public place to be effectively controlled which means on a leash. Better still if a dog onto private property on which there is livestock "depastured", the property owner can shoot the dog. Sometimes have to open the gate to the paddock where the sheep are. lol

Have regular problems with dogs harassing and attacking my sheep. City folks bringing too many and inappropriate dogs to the area.

A bull terrier and a long haired german shepherd from nearby regularly roamed the area, they had previously bailed up a neighbour, I had twice warned the owners. Came across them savaging a sheep, shot the bull terrier but the german shepherd escaped. The owners had a lightbulb moment and I have since only seen their dogs on their property. Lightbulb burned bright because the owners were facing over $20 K in fines. $10K for each attack (2 dogs, 1 sheep = 2 attacks), plus dogs not controlled, plus dogs on another's property without permission. Focussed their mind.

About 2 years ago a next-door neighbour's 3 dogs came on my place, chased 'em off and took a photo. Gave the photo to the neighbours and told 'em next time that I would not shoot with a camera. Got the message, dogs have not been back. Probably just as well otherwise they would get to stay, permanently.

Most recent issue involved a Kelpie and a great dane/bull mastiff cross 3/4 grown pup, very big paw prints from that one, about 2 1/2 inches across. Tracked them for over a mile and the ranger

knew of the dogs and visited the owners. Dogs went away (back to the city I think).


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

When my German shepherd was 2 she started herding the neighbors sheep. After she did it twice, without me knowing, The neighbor came over to let me know what was happening and said next time he would shoot. That week I had an Invisible Fence installed. Problem solved.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Coondle said:


> Our Statewide Dog Act requires all dogs in a public place to be effectively controlled which means on a leash. Better still if a dog onto private property on which there is livestock "depastured", the property owner can shoot the dog. Sometimes have to open the gate to the paddock where the sheep are. lol
> 
> Have regular problems with dogs harassing and attacking my sheep. City folks bringing too many and inappropriate dogs to the area.
> 
> ...


Sadly we don't have those sorts of laws here... Texas law says that a livestock owner can shoot dogs that are molesting their livestock, but sadly this country is SO overrun with "animal rights" morons that think that the life of any/every stray dog is more valuable than HUMAN life they might threaten, let alone livestock animals belonging to someone else, that if they have the opportunity they'd gladly drag a person into court and have them convicted and thrown in prison or fined out of business for "animal cruelty" rather than simply enforce simple laws requiring
animal owners be responsible for the containment and actions of their "pets". We live in a suburban area rife with new citified morons moving in around us as the older generation dies off and leaves their share of the "home place" to be divvied up amongst mostly city-living kin, who're only too happy to "cash out" and sell it in pieces for two to five acre "rachettes" and subdivisions... And as I said, when the city morons arrive on their new property, they feel it's their "right" to own five dogs and just turn them loose to roam the countryside at will, regardless
the damage they might do anywhere else...

We have "animal control" officers in this county, but they're more concerned with harassing farmers whose livestock inadvertantly gets out rather than actually solving any real problems like dogs molesting or killing livestock... Sure some guys buy a couple acres of land with 50-60 year old "fences" overgrown with brush and falling apart, and put a few head of cattle on it, which promptly graze it down and then break through these rickety fences to graze the lush roadsides, and present a hazard to all the speeding city lunatics moving in the area, and yeah something should
be done about that, but they get almost as irate about a wayward calf that squeezes under or through the wires of a good fence, or a cow that pushes on a fence til the wire pops or comes loose from the post and who then hops the fence, or some calf that takes advantage of the situation before you can fix it... At any rate, stray dogs aren't even on the radar as far as law enforcement is concerned outside the city limits... animal control will do NOTHING but threaten to prosecute you if they find out you "solved the problem yourself" in a manner they don't like (say involving firearms).
Course they won't do anything about it, but to their libtard way of thinking, YOU SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO, EITHER. So, I "plead the fifth" and won't say exactly how I "solved the problem".

Friend of my brother, his wife was whining on Facebook about her "precious pitbull that wouldn't hurt a fly" came home with a bullet wound, evidently shot by a neighbor while off "roaming the countryside". While she was whining for sympathy about her "poor precious" and threatening to sue for the $1000+ vet bills it took to "pull precious through", my brother set her straight-- don't want "fluffy" to get shot-- KEEP THEM AT HOME!!!

My sister was attacked in our own driveway as a kid by a stray dog that wandered up... she was maybe 6-8 and just wanted to pet it, but it attacked her. Fortunately Dad heard the ruckus and grabbed a pistol and put the dog down before she was seriously injured, but the remains had to be hauled to the local vet, who then cut the head off and sent it to the state lab for a rabies test, in which case she would have had to take the series of rabies shots... fortunately it came back "negative".

SO, I have little tolerance for strays on my property... I have a ten year old daughter and her little 4-H dog lives in an enclosure on our porch, along with the "barn cats" that live under the house and in the barn and come and go in the yard... NO WAY am I putting up with some idiot neighbor's pit bull crossbreds attacking cats ON MY OWN BACK PORCH and posing a threat to my daughter and her dog...

Our other place 100 miles west in Shiner, is a much more rural county-- Once we had renters in the old farmhouse on the place that we had to get evicted, and they had a pack of dogs in their yard... they loaded up their stuff one pickup load at a time and hauled it off wherever they were moving to, and on the last load, didn't seem to be interested in taking their dogs... "Take the dogs, too... I don't want them here." They loaded the dogs up, and we finished the work we were doing, changed the locks on the house, and decided it'd probably be a good idea to drop by the sheriff's office
and ask for a "frequent patrol" of the road in front of the farm for the next several weeks, since the renters weren't particularly happy about being evicted... on the way over there, we drove the back roads, and saw their pack of dogs dumped off on the side of the road a few miles away... I pointed this out to the sheriff's deputy we spoke with explaining the situation when we requested the frequent patrol, and mentioned in passing, "you might want to let animal control know to go pick up those dogs before they turn into road pizza or end up in someone's yard or chasing cows..." He
just looked at me kind of sheepishly, sizing me up now that I think about it, probably to see if he thought I was some animal rights nut or something, and said, "we don't have animal control in this county... we just let the ranchers 'handle the problems themselves as they see fit'" and left it at that...
I just gave him a knowing smile and said, "Ah, okay... Well, just thought you should know"...

Anyway... that's about the size of it... LOL

Later! OL JR


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Fortunately Australia is free of rabies, except of course if you upset me enough and I can get a bit rabid....lol.

Animal protection here has a private group recognised under statute and given prosecutorial powers; the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).

I do not like their methods and processes at all.

Had 'em called on me for allegedly not feeding my sheep enough. Entered my land, spoke to neighbours and NEVER ONCE SPOKE TO ME.

Invoked their powers of entry but not the polite trait of courtesy. Guess the operative was pretty peeved that another notch could not be added to their gun and had driven 120 miles for nought.

Only reason I knew they had been was because I saw strange tyre tracks, so enquired of the neighbour.

When on my land they could plainly see I was feeding high quality hay in plentiful quantity but that was not visible from the road. The sheep were also grazing a neighbour's property with more than adequate dry forage. To get there and to water supplies on my place they traversed a dry dusty paddock with very short hay stubble. That bare paddock is what obviously triggered the "do gooder, busy body's" complaint.

Incidentally some of those sheep were ewes and 17 years old; breeding sheep are normally all sold off between 5 and 6 years of age so their appointment with the abattoir had been delayed by at least 11 years already.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Coondle said:


> Fortunately Australia is free of rabies, except of course if you upset me enough and I can get a bit rabid....lol.
> Animal protection here has a private group recognised under statute and given prosecutorial powers; the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).
> I do not like their methods and processes at all.
> Had 'em called on me for allegedly not feeding my sheep enough. Entered my land, spoke to neighbours and NEVER ONCE SPOKE TO ME.
> ...


Yes, I feel your pain... Here in the States we have a fistful of such "do-gooder" institutions... Chief among them are the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). Of course we have tons of "nutjob groups" like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), among many others.

Of them, HSUS is probably the most troublesome for agriculture... They have no problem finding uninformed, ignorant, but attractive and well-known Hollywood stars to make sad, pitiful commercials with big-eyed puppies and sad film shot on various egregious animal abuse cases splashed all over the TV in order to separate unsuspecting people from their money... Then they use their newfound windfall to "strongarm" concessions from limp-wristed government bodies and producer groups, using the threat of launching all-out campaigns in given states to "outlaw" various practices that they do not agree with... like hog farrowing crates, and other such things... Of course this isn't their ultimate goal-- the complete annihilation of animal agriculture is their REAL goal... but most people are far too ill-informed and shallow-minded to realize they're being used...

Later! OL JR


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Sadly Luke you are right on the money about the moves to shut down agriculture.

PETA is a pita here too. Pink is a high profile advocate so I boycott any of her recordings in my futile response to her efforts to damage me financially.

Makes me wonder where they think all the food comes from and that animals are a necessary part of a balanced ecology.

Perhaps they think no animal products for clothing (leather and wool) is a good thing and they can clothe themselves with synthetic fibre but never think the synthetics come from oil and coal which themselves have a huge environmental footprint. Their logic defies belief.

US filmstars have featured recently in campaigns directed at our wool industry claiming horrific injuries and treatment of sheep by shearers. I know that our farmers will and do not tolerate animal abuse. If a shearer treated sheep like portrayed, every farmer I know of would IMMEDIATELY pay out the shearer and he/she would be out the door, and what is more the contractors would not employ such a person again.

The campaign showed footage of sheep supposedly cut to ribbons but the blood was really tomato sauce. When taken to task the campaigner considered the sham alright because there must be such damage somewhere.

I often say that many never let facts interfere with a good story but the palpable fiction peddled as fact is disgraceful.


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

Here in Canada we have the SPCA for the animals. The sad part is that half the calls they get are not for people looking out for the animals. The calls are from people who are mad at a neighbor or someone else and make the call to get that person in trouble. The SPCA is getting tired of that and has put out public ads to try and stop this.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Hog a family member has had spca called out 3 times on her for letting boarders horses be outside in the winter. They had free access to hay water and a 3 sided shelter they just wanted to be outside. Trespassing each time to see the complaint wasn't valid. The last time they were caught on the property but managed to defuse the situation by saying the same person has phoned all 3 times and you've passed muster all three times so now the caller gets a flag set on their name and number where we just do a drive by inspection.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I had a Jersey nurse cow in a 2 acre grass paddock beside the house. The sheriff came out twice because someone had reported the cow (1) Had a big growth on her stomach (her udder) that I was neglecting and (2) was not being fed.

The animal control officer from the sheriffs department knows me. He had to come out and saw 3 tons of feed in a self feeder in the paddock. We had some freezer beef in the same fence.

One of the ladies wanted to come out and verify on her own, would not take the officers word. The sheriff asked if he could bring her out. I replied that I do not run a petting zoo and it would cost her $100 per hour for my time.

She was unwilling to put her money where her mouth was.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Yeah, makes you wonder where it's gonna all end up...

I remember reading about a rancher up in New Jersey, had a cow or bull get out on the road and of course the cops chased it all over the place and got it worked up to the point it was nuts... He was trying to get it back and it started running up the on-ramp onto the NJ Turnpike, where it would have almost certainly caused a huge pileup and probably killed some people... Guy grabbed his rifle and shot it down rather than let it run into the freeway...

Stupid cops arrested him for "animal cruelty" and he spent who knows how much trying to keep from going to prison. When he finally got off with whatever fines and "court costs" they slapped on him (In the thousands, I'm sure) he simply sold out his entire operation-- "too many people in NJ to bother messing with cows anymore..." Where the h3ll do people think the meat in their grocery store comes from?? Beef fairies?? Guess what, cupcake-- they line them up,
run them through an abattoir, and pop them in the head with a kill bolt one by one and slaughter them... At least they don't use a hammer anymore... LOL Then you've got the nutjobs whining on TV about confining sows in crates and crap like that... of course 99.8% of them have NEVER seen a live hog in their life, let alone seen how savage hogs (and other livestock) can be... nor do they consider that in the wild, razorbacks and warthogs and stuff like that frequently
will fight and tear each other to shreds, in lots of cases killing each other. And, why exactly do they think hogs have 8-12 pigs at a time and, in the wild anyway, have 2-3 litters a year?? Do they even know that hogs are so *uncaring* (if that's the right word, without anthropomorphizing it too much-- hogs are animals-- they neither care nor not care; those are human emotions). Do these idiots even know that a 500 pound sow will flop down to rest and kill half her litter
of pigs underneath her, which is why farrowing crates were invented in the first place, to prevent such things?? Now I agree that some rather 'egregious' or callous practices done *largely* in the past weren't good, and SHOULD be stopped or modified by using more humane methods, but these idiots make no distinction between the two and want to throw the baby out with the bathwater...

Of course these animal rights idiots also don't realize that MOST of the land on the Earth is NOT suitable for crop agriculture and that there's roughly 2-3 times as much land that is suitable for raising human food in the form of animal agriculture for meat, milk, and eggs that would be TOTALLY UNPRODUCTIVE and totally unsuitable for crop production... they squall about "squandering land and grain to feed animals" and the "inefficiency of feeding massive quantities of grain to livestock"
and that the "conversion inefficiency of livestock means much more forage/grain is required to produce a pound of meat than is required to produce a pound of grain/food for humans directly" and all this jazz, but the simple fact is, that even if 100% of animal agriculture went away tomorrow, only a small portion of that land would actually go into producing crops for human consumption, because most of it is unsuitable for crops other than grass or forage, and (2) most of the grain and feedstuffs
being produced for animals is NOT suitable for human consumption ANYWAY... ie only a very small amount of "field corn" is used in products for human food... most of it is used in animal feed and ethanol. If those two "wastes" of grain went away, the corn market would collapse and most of those corn acres would go away as the acres and production totals declined to a profitable level for the remaining producers. The reason there's famines and global food distribution problems isn't because
folks are feeding corn to cattle, chickens, and hogs in the 'rich countries', it's because the POOR countries have bad policies, nutjob leaders who destroy their ag industry (like Mugabe) or are dictators that do nutty things and get embargoes or sanctions slapped on them internationally, or because the people there are just too [email protected] poor to buy basic foodstuffs.

I remember the old commodity grain programs here in the US, where the gubmint was paying big payments to farmers and putting in 'set aside' (nonplanted acres) and had the loan program and stuff like that... some of which is still going on, but tapered back greatly from days gone by... Basically Uncle Sam used to "buy" the grain surpluses from the farmers in the form of payments... You'd put grain in the elevator under "loan" and take the gubmint payment, and if the price went up, "buy" it back out
of loan and sell it on the open market and keep the profit, less storage while it was in loan... Most of the time, the market never went up, and you stuck the "loan" money in the bank and let the gubmint keep it... Uncle Sam, ever in his attempts to be loved internationally, would then send thousands of tons of that grain overseas as "food aid" to developing countries experiencing famine and stuff, hoping the people there would love the US for it... course most of them STILL hate our guts and would
do nearly anything to destroy this country, but still, the idea was there...

What amazes me is that these people are SO misinformed and ignorant about how the world REALLY works... Where do they think the meat in Big Macs comes from?? Ronald McDonald's @ss?? Cause I got a tip-- "it ain't!" I read where the guy that used to play Ronald McDonald years ago retired and spent all his money buying a big ranch and buying cattle and just turned them out on it to roam and live free and die naturally in their old age-- he never sold any for beef animals into the food supply... Then you
have these PETA IDIOTS that think that EVERY farm and ranch should be *made* to do the same! AS IF! I dunno about you guys, but if the livestock industry went away, I'd get rid of the cows... I'm not baling hay and raising grass and keeping up fences for the *sheer joy* of it... LOL They gotta pay their own way and make us a little money, or they're going down the road! In the terrible drought of 96, heard a story of a guy who'd held on as long as he could, culled all he could, bought all the hay he could,
muddled through the drought and grazed out to bare dirt, was out of hay, couldn't buy any hay, and so finally loaded the whole herd up and hauled them to the sale barn... the sale barns were running 20 hour days selling cattle because the drought was so bad and the numbers were so huge, and when he pulled in, they didn't even have room to take his cattle of the trailer, so they told him "sorry, bring 'em back next week", so he snapped-- went home, opened the trailer, let them all out, crawled up on the trailer with a 30-30
Winchester, and shot them all dead one by one... last bullet in the rifle he put through his own head...

Buddy of mine that used to run a junkyard I bought parts at was telling me the story, and how stupid it was... "It'd been me, I'd have turned them all out on the road and let 'em fend for themselves, eat grass on the roadsides and wander down to the river for something to drink or whatever... better than shooting them all and then shooting yourself over it!" "Exactly right" was my thought...

If the PETA idiots got their way tomorrow, and animal agriculture was ruled "illegal", what would happen?? Well, dunno about you guys, but I'd open the gates and run every cow off the place... ain't feeding and taking care of what I don't need anymore and can't sell... Then I'd have to come up with some other way to make money. Doubt I'd go back to row crops, not with expenses like they are and crops selling dirt cheap... probably put it all in switchgrass and start rolling that up to sell to the biogas plant up the country toward Waco that I read about...

Like I said... dunno where it'll end up, but no place good that I can see... Saw where the idiots have strongarmed more of these restaurants to go "source verified" meat and eggs and stuff in their food... only buying from operations that are producing by their "animal bill of rights" and stuff (free range, grass fed, etc.) Not that I have anything against those practices... hey, if it works for you, more power to you... BUT, those things are a NICHE PRODUCT... for the yuppies willing to pay $8 bucks for a dozen free range eggs or $12 a pound for grass fed beef,
more power to 'em... BUT you can't make the ENTIRE FOOD SYSTEM operate on that principle... unless folks LIKE having to pay $12 for a lousy quarter pounder at McD's or something, because the SUPPLY from those sorts of outfits will NEVER be able to meet the huge demand and supply volumes that giant operators like McD's requires... And not *everybody* WANTS to pay $12 a pound for grass fed beef or $8 for a dozen "free range" eggs... I know *I* wouldn't pay $4-6 bucks for an egg McMuffin for breakfast just because it had a "free range" egg in it... I'd rather the chicken be
unhappy than ME be unhappy because I had to pay 6X as much for a friggin' McMuffin... LOL That's the fundamental thing these morons don't understand or take into account...

Just because it works for "Whole Foods" doesn't mean you can turn ALL the stores into "Whole Foods" and the food supply system still work. Heck the price increases and supply reductions alone would be enough to bankrupt the country...

Personally, THAT is where I think it's all going to end up... I think that "developed society" has had it SO good for SO long, that they cannot even CONCEIVE of anything "bad" happening... Maybe the answer is empty grocery store shelves and cities rioting as millions of yuppies wonder where their next meal is coming from... THEN maybe they'd see common sense and let the farmers do the farming, and stick to their own yuppie concerns... What makes me so mad about people like Kaley Cuoco putting on a cute outfit and making commercials with sad puppies and stock footage of livestock
abuse, trying to separate people from their money and make more activists for "the cause"... Ya know, we farmers aught to form protest groups that go down there to their movie and TV sets and TELL THEM HOW TO ACT, since they want to tell us how to do our work... protest all the electricity and resources they waste on these Hollywood productions, millions of bucks blown to make a friggin' movie or TV series, money that could go to feed poor people in Africa and elsewhere instead of being WASTED on big-star salaries, building sets that are torn down after the show or blown up, paying
all those big multimillion dollar studio executives and stars salaries and paying for all their fine homes and cars and luxuries, etc... friggin' HYPOCRITES...

Guess we'll see how it all shells out in the end...

Later! OL JR


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Dang Luke i think you missed your calling instead of being a farmer you should have become a "novelist"!!!


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Tx Jim said:


> Dang Luke i think you missed your calling instead of being a farmer you should have become a "novelist"!!!


LOL commentator would be more like it...

"and that's... THE WAY IT IS!!!" LOL

Later! OL JR


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

The Game Warden shared this one with me.

An elderly gent ran a bar-b-q place in a rural area the next county over. It became a popular place to eat. Good food.

He had some goats in a pasture behind the place just to keep things eaten down.

He kept the Billy in a small pen behind the restaurant.

It seems some mistook the Billy being separated as meaning he was next on the list to become a meal. The sheriff's office made several visits and could find nothing out of order.

The Game Warden was finally called and he met the county deputies at the restaurant along with the head of a local private animal rights group.

The old gent had had enough and asked the officers if it was against the law for him to process meat for his own consumption. The answer was it was his personal business.

In front of God and all around, he shot the Billy grave yard dead then cut it's throat to let it bleed out. The little group of liberals began screaming bloody murder. He just rubbed his chin and pondered aloud if one goat would be enough.

Liberals left, officers smiled and the world was once again in order.

Never had a call to his place again.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Tim/South said:


> The Game Warden shared this one with me.
> 
> An elderly gent ran a bar-b-q place in a rural area the next county over. It became a popular place to eat. Good food.
> He had some goats in a pasture behind the place just to keep things eaten down.
> ...


Thats the kind of place that earned my business.


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Luke, looks like you may be becoming a moderate as age advances and begun holding back on what you really feel. 

You sure have plenty of truths there in your commentary.

A farmer about 40 miles from me had serious cancer and admittedly had neglected his sheep a little such that a few were fly blown (Infested with maggots) which happens with even the best in our climate. RSPCA called and charged him with animal cruelty, no account taken of his circumstances, and no assistance offered or given. The milk of human kindness had dried up.

Guy never saw the court, put a hole in his head. I guess it was the straw and the camel again. Very sad that a good man doing his best ended that way.

On food supply in cities.

In these days of cutting costs, and minimal reserve stock holdings, few supermarkets and cities for that matter would have enough stock of human food to last 2 weeks.

I know governments claim to have emergency holdings of food but these are usually in unprocessed bulk commodities which still require a processing and distribution chain.

Wheat in a silo in Duluth does not become bread on a table on a table on the 30th floor of a condo in New York without quite a bit in the between: or a steer in Texas become ground beef for someone's lunch in Washington DC by magic. Oh Luke I forgot the "beef fairies" would be there.

A financial system catastrophe like the Great Depression or our finely balanced western system coming under sustained military or guerrilla disruptive attack would starve our mega-cities into submission within a month IMHO. In my part of the world the citified urban population outnumbers the rural by around 3:1, even including rural town populations in "rural". If we talk of actual farmers/ranchers that produce, the numbers would be more like 500:1 or even greater disparity.

Worldwide, the urban population outnumbers rural and the tipping point occurred a couple of years ago. The disconnection of city people from "the land" is, again IMHO, the greatest threat faced by agriculture. Animal rights groups and green groups have ideas and by sheer weight of their out of touch numbers , get heard and listened to by decision makers, to the detriment of agriculture.

We often hear of powerful farm lobby groups but they are fast becoming lobby groups only with diminishing power at the ballot box. Here in Western Australia (WA) there is an electoral redistribution taking place right now, with rural areas losing one seat in the Parliament and the metro gaining one seat, of a total 59 seats the balance will be changed from: Metro 42, rural 17, to Metro 43, rural 16. There is an allowance in the quota of voters in seats of more than 100, 000 square kilometres, so although population split is 3:1 the seat distribution has not reached that yet.

A very small voice for about 90% of the area of WA, with huge proportion of the actual wealth creation. Actual creation of something that can be consumed, not value adding with an idea or service. Never caught on to how you could actually eat and survive on an idea.

I have no doubt that the same metro ballot box power exists in many jurisdictions, although it is amplified in WA by the centralisation of population in Perth itself.

From my long-range casual observation of the State-by State voting in the US elections, the more populous states have more votes/ representatives in Congress than the lesser populated.

I know that in a bi-cameral legislature there are mechanisms supposed to redress that imbalance by having a different numbers base in the upper house (Senate). But the 2-party system can corrupt the noble ideal of equal representation by state instead of by population.

Like you Luke I too will have to wait and see how it shells out but I do not know if I will be able to wait long enough.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Agree completely, Coondle... sounds like yall and we suffer from the same maladies...

It's gonna get a LOT worse before it gets better... according to those "in the know", the cities here would be out of food in THREE DAYS if there's a nationwide disruption in transportation, power, or distribution...

The enormous numbers of totally ignorant and frankly stupid urban voters who outnumber the actual rural working voters by about probably 1000:1 is a huge problem... Open to manipulation by the greeny nutcases and animal rights crowd with NO idea about how the world REALLY works nor any clue about how to feed a country, let alone the world...

Water rights is going to be the next big battleground... Here in Texas, Austin is already pumping SO much water out of the Colorado River that it's practically a sand creek in summer anymore, not like when I was a kid and it ran deep and blue-green... So far, Texas is a 'right of capture' state, meaning whatever water is under your place belongs to you,
but that's only one vote away from being history, like a lot of things... Folks are already whining about price increases in the supermarkets and restaurants but have NO IDEA how stupid sh!t like these diesel emission regulations, dust mitigation regulations (in some places), etc. affect the cost of producing food, let alone the costs all up the supply chain,
since EVERYTHING now basically moves an average of 1200 miles between production and consumption... with the VAST majority of that by truck, which is about the least efficient way of doing it...

It's a mess and I don't see ANY realistic solution other than a MAJOR push of the 'reset button'...

As for speaking my mind... maybe I'm getting crotchety and opinionated in my old age, but as I get older, I see two things--
1) I'm older, I've lived more, I've learned more, and I'm as entitled to a right opinion as most of these know-nothing morons are to their WRONG ones...and,
2) I'm RIGHT...  LOL

Later! OL JR


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Got a tee shirt and it reads

"I am not opinionated

I am just ALWAYS right"

Makes sense to me and I did not buy it for myself 

Food security is not really on the radar but food may be an issue along with water.

Western Australia (WA) is faced with a drying climate. I do not care if you consider climate change is a fact or not but in my lifetime there sure has been a change in the weather. The rolling 5 year average rainfall in the SW of WA has fallen by 25% and runoff into metropolitan water storage has fallen by 90%, a huge problem for a metropolitan area with increasing population. The solution to date has been twofold, the first was to install 2 desalination plants with a further planned, and the second was to increase the draw-down on the groundwater aquifer. In a further response government has to some extent reduced the right of private individuals to take ground water and is moving toward removal of the right of capture. Doing it by stealth by picking off small districts one at a time so there is no concerted large-scale opposition.

In regard to food security, I recall reading sometime ago that about one million acres of prime food production land goes under urban development and bitumen roads in the USA every year and a further 1/2 million acres to salinity. Reducing land availability and increasing demand as population increases, there must be a tipping point eventually where the land left for food production is insufficient to feed the cities that sit on some of the best farmland. Often mentioned on HT is the other robber of productive farmland; the lifestyle blocks of a couple of acres with a couple of pet animals. The blocks are too big for a lawnmower and too small for a tractor, take the best quality farmland and produce nothing.

Some idjits keep propagating the myth that Australia will be the food bowl for Asia generally and China in particular. Assuming Australia has capacity to feed about 100 million people at a high level of nutrition. That means a surplus of food for about 75 million (after Oz feeds itself) and that does not feed the 1300 million in China or the 1200 million in India or even overcome the present nutrition deficit for those populations.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Coondle said:


> Got a tee shirt and it reads
> 
> "I am not opinionated
> 
> ...


Yes, quite true... the weather patterns have changed in my living memory-- and I'm 44. I remember as a kid in the 70's the beautiful fall colors of the Chinese tallow trees that grow in the fencelines and yards around here, when they'd get an early frost and turn every color imaginable... that hasn't happened in over 20 years... now we don't get any cold weather until the leaves have dried down a ruddy brown and are falling. I remember getting on the schoolbus as a kid in winter, and about freezing to death and "ice skating" on puddles that froze over during the night, or froze solid. That's happened ONCE in the last 30 years... When I was farming cotton, we'd start picking the second week of August, and we usually battled to get the cotton picked because of frequent afternoon thunderstorms and the occasional Gulf Storm (tropical storm or hurricane) that would build up and roll in on us... we'd get one at least every other year, sometimes 2-3 per year of varying strength. Now we get maybe one every 3-5 years, if that...

I don't believe the cause is as simple as "manmade global warming"; what we humans do is a pittance to what nature can do through a volcanic eruption or other things in mere moments. But I DO think things have demonstrably changed, for whatever reason.

I have to laugh every time I pick up a farm magazine here in the US or turn on RFD-TV (rural television) and see all the advertisements and jingoistic nonsense about "We farmers have to double food production in the next 50 years to feed the world". HA! That AIN'T gonna happen... All the "low hanging fruit" has been picked-- all the "easy" and "big results" improvements in agriculture have largely been made. Sure, GMO's are helping through preventing damage from pests, increasing tolerance to salinity and heat and other enviromental factors, but it's not a cure-all... it's not going to magically double yields on existing acres and allow those increases without additional inputs... Better breeding programs, improved traits, new chemistries of pesticides, better land use, more irrigation, etc. etc. etc. all help, but NONE of them are a magic bullet, nor do they add up to a magic bullet taken together... It's a fantasy.

The "Green Revolution" of the 40's, 50's, and 60's doubled yields in short order because it was the 'low hanging fruit', the easy-to-achieve improvements that yielded big results with minor increases. Mechanization, the birth of chemical fertilizers, the adoption of hybrid seeds on the majority of acres, improved varieties and breeding programs, the adoption and use of chemical pesticides, increased planting rates and better management, all those things taken together resulted in huge increases in production...

BUT, all those things have been done. All that remains is "fine tuning" of the system, that incorporates more and more exotic and difficult to achieve "improvements" (like GMO's, new chemistries of pesticides, micromanagement via "zone management" on subparts of every field, etc), which DO provide increases, but those increases are every smaller in magnitude and require ever MORE sophisticated, expensive, and difficult methods to achieve...

It's like the oil industry-- all the "easy oil" has been found and tapped... all that remains now is the stuff that is ever harder to get to, ever harder and more expensive to produce, and results in only marginal increases to the overall supply... IOW, we work harder and harder for smaller and smaller gains... This is a fundamental truth in MOST areas of human endeavor...

It's not a simple as "doubling the fertilizer" to double yields... (or any other input for that matter). The ag world has become "addicted" to low cost energy and low cost (irrigation) water... BOTH of those things are coming to an end... Overall production is very likely to FALL in coming decades, not increase dramatically. Water is becoming scarce because a couple million people want to live in an arid area best suited to goats and rangy cattle, but has pretty views and is in close proximity to Austin and San Antonio, but which sits on mountains of limestone with an insufficient water capacity to maintain that many people... so they're going to pump the rest of the state dry to keep their lawns watered and their pools full... It's a common story in most parts of the world... Las Vegas is just the most egregious example of it...

Like I said, I don't know where it's going to end up, but I know it's not going to be good...

Later! OL JR


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