Peets Hill a BozeAngeles landmark

 Trying to get away from political rants and back to talking about the beautiful town we live in. Hopefully this will last till after the debate on Wednesday. Anyways the Goat family went up  Peets hill to enjoy a cool but dry Bozeman day. First real day without Smoke

great trail access from the library parking lot and some rather odd art on the way to the trail head.

Beautiful day and not too hard a hike for the little goats. Bring a snack and a bottle of something and watch the sun set over they valley. There has been a couple Black bears in the area , but you don't have to out run the bear just the slowest person in your group

Optimism or Delusion is The Bozeman Economy turning ?

"I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed." —Mitt Romney, speaking in 2011 to unemployed people in Florida. Romney's net worth is over $200 million. 


  We are living in a  Nation of Hope and Delusion


  Something I've noticed around town the last month are new commercial construction sites, primarily chain stores but also sites being built on speculation .

Here's the New Olive Garden site





Below is the Closed Old Navy being turned into a TJ Max

 There are also several new banks being built , which always confuses me. Do banks make money  from every bank they build ? You'd think they would keep over head lower with fewer buildings and more ATM's  My question is ," is this optimism or delusion ?" 

Riding in Montana

Motorcycle rider injured, bike hits mountain lion

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Motorcycle rider injured, bike hits mountain lionAssociated Press

Posted: Monday, September 24, 2012 7:37 am

A Jefferson City man suffered head injuries when the motorcycle he was riding struck a mountain lion on Interstate 15 between Clancy and Helena.The Montana Highway Patrol tells KFBB-TV ( http://bit.ly/SpZR7d) the man and his wife were southbound between Clancy and Helena at about 8 p.m. Saturday when their motorcycle hit a mountain lion.

Troopers say neither was wearing a helmet. The man, who was driving, was flown to a Great Falls hospital for treatment of head injuries. His wife was treated for minor injuries in Helena.

The collision killed the mountain lion

Guilty of Doing Nothing

Skinhead lying

on the side walk,

bloody and still

sirens in the distance

I drive on by,

guilty of doing nothing

I think of running for congress.

When Gabrial blows his Horn

Kind of scary the Bible and Koran waving going on in the halls of power. The fundamentalists at the two extremes are pushing for  a holy war ,and it looks like the military is ramping up for it.  Make it clear that I think radical Islam has no part in the modern world, but neither does radical christianity

Iran commander: 'Nothing will remain' of Israel if it takes military action

Published September 16, 2012

Associated Press

TEHRAN –  The top commander in Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Sunday that "nothing will remain" of Israel if it takes military action against Tehran over its controversial nuclear program.
Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran's response to any attack will begin near the Israeli border. The Islamic Republic has close ties with militants in Gaza and Lebanon, both of which border Israel.
Iran has in the past made reference to the destruction of Israel but his comments at a Tehran news conference were unusually strongly worded and detailed.
He also said that Iran warned that oil shipments through the strategic Strait of Hormuz will be in jeopardy if a war breaks out between Iran and the United States. Iranian officials have previously threatened to close the waterway, the route for a fifth of the world's oil, but less frequently in recent months.
Gen. Jafari also told a news conference in Tehran Sunday that if it is attacked, Iran will no longer be committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under whose terms U.N. inspectors visit Iranian nuclear sites. He said however that this does not mean that Iran would build a nuclear weapon.
The U.S and Israel have both left open the possibility of a strike on Iran if diplomacy fails to stop what it says is a push for a nuclear weapon. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Gen. Jafari however said that Iran believes the United States won't attack Iran because it is very vulnerable and its military bases in the Middle East are within the range of Iran's missiles. Jafari also said Israel is very unlikely to take unilateral action.
Israel believes that any attack would likely unleash retaliation, in the form of Iranian missiles as well as rocket attacks by Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas on its northern and southern borders.
Jafari's comments come as U.S.-led naval forces from the West and Arab allies gather for naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf that include mine-sweeping exercises.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09/16/iran-commander-nothing-will-remain-israel-if-it-takes-military-action/?test=latestnews#ixzz26fCmIGlL

My Take: It’s time for Islamophobic evangelicals to choose

Editor's Note: Brian D. McLaren  is author of "Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World" (Jericho Books/Hachette Book Group). 

By Brian McLaren, Special to CNN
I was raised as an evangelical Christian in America, and any discussion of Christian-Jewish-Muslim relations around the world must include the phenomenon of American Islamophobia, for which large sectors of evangelical Christianity in America serve as a greenhouse.
At a time when U.S. embassies are being attacked and when people are getting killed over an offensive, adolescent and puerile film targeting Islam - beyond pathetic in its tawdriness – we must begin to own up to the reality of evangelical Islamaphobia.
Many of my own relatives receive and forward pious-sounding and alarm-bell-ringing e-mails that trumpet (IN LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS!) the evils of Islam, that call their fellow evangelicals and charismatics to prayer and “spiritual warfare” against those alleged evils, and that often - truth be told - contain lots of downright lies.
For example, one recent e-mail claimed “Egyptian Christians in Grave Danger as Muslim Brotherhood Crucifies Opponents."  Of course, that claim has been thoroughly debunked, but the sender’s website still (as of Friday) claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has “crucified those opposing" Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy "naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”
CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories
Many sincere and good-hearted evangelicals have never yet had a real Muslim friend, and now they probably never will because their minds have been so prejudiced by Islamophobic broadcasts on so-called Christian television and radio.
Janet Parshall, for example, a popular talk show host on the Moody Radio Network, frequently hosts Walid Shoebat, a Muslim-evangelical convert whose anti-Muslim claims, along with claims about his own biography, are frequently questioned.  John Hagee, a popular televangelist, also hosts Shoebat as an expert on Islam, as does the 700 Club.
Many Christian bookstores that (used to) sell my books, still sell books such as Paul Sperry’s "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" (Thomas Nelson, 2008). In so doing, they fuel conspiracy theories such as the ones U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, promoted earlier this year.
In recent days, we’ve seen how irresponsible Muslim media outlets used the tawdry 13-minute video created by a tiny handful of fringe Christian extremists to create a disgusting caricature of all Christians - and all Americans - in Muslim minds. But too few Americans realize how frequently American Christian media personalities in the U.S. similarly prejudice their hearers’ minds with mirror-image stereotypes of Muslims.
Ambassador's killing shines light on Muslim sensitivities around Prophet Mohammed
Meanwhile, many who are pastors and leaders in evangelicalism hide their heads in the current issue of Christianity Today or World Magazine, acting as if the kinds of people who host Islamophobic sentiments swim in a tiny sidestream, not in the mainstream, of our common heritage. I wish that were true.
The events of this past week, if we let them, could mark a turning point - a hitting bottom, if you will - in the complicity of evangelicalism in Islamophobia. If enough evangelicals watch or try to watch the film trailer that has sparked such outrage in the Middle East, they may move beyond the tipping point.
I tried to watch it, but I couldn’t make it halfway to the 13-minute mark. Everything about it was tawdry, pathetic, even pornographic. All but the most fundamentalist believers from my evangelical Christian tribe who watch that video will be appalled and ashamed to be associated with it.
It is hate speech. It is no different from the anti-Semitic garbage that has been all too common in Western Christian history. It is sub-Christian - beneath the dignity of anyone with a functioning moral compass.
Islamophobic evangelical Christians - and the neo-conservative Catholics and even some Jewish folks who are their unlikely political bedfellows of late - must choose.
Will they press on in their current path, letting Islamophobia spread even further amongst them? Or will they stop, rethink and seek to a more charitable approach to our Muslim neighbors? Will they realize that evangelical religious identity is under assault, not by Shariah law, not by the liberal media, not by secular humanism from the outside, but by forces within the evangelical community that infect that religious identity with hostility?
If I could get one message through to my evangelical friends, it would be this: The greatest threat to evangelicalism is evangelicals who tolerate hate and who promote hate camouflaged as piety.
No one can serve two masters. You can’t serve God and greed, nor can you serve God and fear, nor God and hate.
The broad highway of us-them thinking and the offense-outrage-revenge reaction cycle leads to self-destruction. There is a better way, the way of Christ who, when reviled, did not revile in return, who when insulted, did not insult in return, and who taught his followers to love even those who define themselves as enemies.
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Yes, “they” – the tiny minority of Muslims who turn piety into violence – have big problems of their own. But the way of Christ requires all who claim to be Christians to examine our own eyes for planks before trying to perform first aid on the eyes of others. We must admit that we have our own tiny minority whose message and methods we have not firmly, unitedly and publicly repudiated and rejected.
To choose the way of Christ is not appeasement. It is not being a “sympathizer.”
The way of Christ is a gentle strength that transcends the vicious cycles of offense-outrage-revenge.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Brian D. McLaren.

Montanans plan to invade Canada ?

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) announced on Tuesday the seizure of 18 firearms, along with weapons and ammunition, at the port of Coutts, across the border from Sweetgrass.
In a press release, the agency says that on Saturday, September 8, three U.S. residents arrived at the port of Coutts heading to Alaska in a pick-up truck and travel trailer.
When asked by CBSA officers if there were any firearms in the vehicle or trailer, the driver declared that he had seven long guns.
Officers began a routine secondary examination of the vehicle, where they discovered the following contraband concealed under a bed in the travel trailer:
- 7 rifles (restricted and non-restricted),
- 11 hand guns (restricted and prohibited),
- 9 prohibited over-capacity magazines,
- 4 flares,
- 12 non-explosive smoke grenades
- 1 incendiary grenade
- thousands of rounds of ammunition
Michael John Dorsey, 42, of Alaska, was arrested and turned over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Border Integrity section, and faces six Criminal Code and two Customs Act charges.
Last week, the border crossing was closed for several hours after a reported suspicious package was received at the Port of Coutts.

when the threat comes from our leaders

For You, O Democracy

By Walt Whitman

1819-1892

---

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America,
and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks,
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.

For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!
For you, for you I am trilling these songs.

The National Opinion

The National Opinion

　

The national opinion Is made

in the writing rooms

of the talking heads

The machine cranks out

A virus of fear and hatred

wrapped in patriotism and religion,

facts and compassion have no place.

Congress is the problem, term limits ?

Congress is in the midst of its summer recess, which might be hard to notice, because lawmakers managed to not do much even when they were in Washington.
At first blush, it’s hardly breaking news that Congress isn’t getting a whole lot accomplished. But a USA Today analysis last week underscores just how little Congress has to show for itself.
Simply put, lawmakers aren’t making many laws. Looking at the number of bills being passed into law, the current Congress is on track to be the least productive since 1947, USA Today reported.
To put it in perspective, Hawaii and Alaska weren’t even states in 1947. The Dodgers still played in Brooklyn in 1947, the year Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier.
So far this year, Congress has approved only 61 bills out of 3,914. Lawmakers apparently could only agree on 2 percent of the legislation put forth. In 2011, Congress signed off on just 90 bills.
How low are those figures? Between 1947 and 2010, Congress passed at least 125 bills every year except one; in 1995, lawmakers passed only 88 bills. But in 1996, Congress got busy, approving 245 bills.
Don’t expect a similar bounce-back this year.
Lawmakers aren’t going to spend that much time in Washington for the rest of the year. Most members of Congress are seeking re-election. Based on those numbers, one wonders what accomplishments those incumbents can tout.
Both Democrats and Republicans deserve to take the blame for this gridlock.
GOP lawmakers can say with some credibility that Senate Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, aren’t putting forth budget plans. Republicans, however, have repeatedly pushed bills that are certain to gain little or no Democratic support.
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., deserves credit for passing one of the few pieces of legislation to be signed into law. And he offers an example other lawmakers should follow much more often: He crossed party lines in seeking co-sponsors on legislation to create more jobs.
Toomey worked with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on legislation to make it easier for small companies to go public. As Toomey noted during a meeting with The Patriot-News Editorial Board last week, the two lawmakers “usually can’t agree that it’s Wednesday.”
Admittedly, the Toomey-Schumer bill is hardly the most sweeping legislation, but it offers genuine opportunities to help people. President Barack Obama signed the measure in April.
If more lawmakers crossed party lines, even on smaller bills, it might lead to better bipartisan relationships that could be useful in tackling bigger problems.
Such cooperation could certainly become useful in Harrisburg, too, which is rivaling Washington in its lack of activity in recent years.
The General Assembly under then-Gov. Ed Rendell approved 226 bills in the 2009-10 legislative session, which marked the lowest number in a quarter-century.
Some might applaud the fact that lawmakers aren’t passing too many laws, since it does reduce the possibility that they will enact bad laws.
But the small number of bills making it into law offers stark evidence that too many lawmakers are doing too little.
For many lawmakers, the lazy days of summer are simply business as usual. Voters should consider that when they cast their ballots this fall.