Not because of anything I have done except exist, I am fortunate to live on the east shore of Flathead Lake.  Someday, probably all too soon, I will inherit the house and 3 acres where I currently reside.

Being a bit frugal, I buy cheap bacon from the meat dept at a local store and make my own bacon bits.   And as whole slices the bacon is every bit as good as the name brand stuff, at one-third the cost.  Today I cooked up a one pound package I had purchased a few days ago.

Since the cast iron skillet was already the right temperature, I decided to make a 3 egg cheese and bacon bits omelet.  Then I went out on the deck overlooking the lake to eat.

Hillary's taunting of Barack for a Lincoln/Douglas style debate has now become a three (count 'em, three) state strategy.  She now wants to have a L/D debate in Montana.

Story here.

Since there are 10 primaries left (I'm using Clinton double-digit math) she has thrown down another gauntlet:

Clinton, trailing in delegates and the popular vote, has been stepping up the pressure on Obama for more debates in advance of the remaining primaries. She has been particularly strong in seeking debates before May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.

Back in mid-September, I diaried about visiting with my son before he left for Iraq.  His daughter turned 8 months old yesterday.  Today her Daddy arrived home, safe and sound.

Physically, AFAIK, he is fine.  Psychologically, he's probably okay as well.  He is pretty solid and he knows how to let bullshit slide by.  For 6 months, he and unit have been under the never-ending blare of FUX Propaganda posing as news from the outside world.  Not to mention 12 hour shifts, 6 days and one day off.  And you can't really prevent rubbing shoulders with the gung-ho types.  You just try to avoid them as best you can.

According to CNN Radio all Blackberries have been hit with an unknown outage problems.

I don't have one but I'm sure there are plenty of folks here that do.

Magnifico is off the tubes grid this weekend.  A coupla weeks ago he asked for volunteers to sub for him this weekend.  Forgetting the number one word of advice for military members, "Never volunteer for anything", I volunteered. stupid, stupid, stupid.

Anyhow, here we go with my attempt to publish one of these compendiums.

A little story of last weekend's bittersweet visit in Seattle & Whidbey Island.

Cross-posted at http://www.docudharma.com/...

There have been a number of demographic polls here lately.  Off the top of my head; one was about age, another about sexual orientation and another about geographic location.  But I don't think we have had one about income.  I searched back 2 weeks using income as the search word.  If I'm wrong please let me know and I will delete this.

What brought this to mind was in reading ToqueDeville's diary and the discussion this evening/morning. http://www.dailykos.com/...

Pardon me, I'm a luddite with the fancy-schmancy linky stuff.

In one of his responses he cites this information to buttress his assertion:  http://www.dailykos.com/...

Now that's all well and good for it's purpose, but the information is from 2004.  I've been here just over a year and it MY sense that the economic demographics of this site are possibly different now.

This will be short but McJoan's FP thread is too long.

Tonight is the final face-to-face debate between Tall-walking Jon and cowpie conrad.  It is supposed to be live on C-SPAN and to be carried by the CBS affiliates in Montana.  Come join us watch our out-going Senator deconstruct himself...again.

Tonight at 7pm Mtn Time C-SPAN will air live the debate between our man Jon and cowpie conrad.  The debate will be held in a facility at the airport in Helena.

I saw a preliminary report on the 5:30 news of what looked to be a large conference room.  I am not familiar with the Helena airport to provide a better description.

Sadly, the Libertarian candidate, Stan Jones, is unable to attend so we won't have as much of a laugh-track to liven things up.

Just a bit more below the fold.

As we all Know Chuck Roberts conflated Ned Lamont's primary win as a being for an Al Qaeda candidate.  They just spoke LIVE on Headline News a few minutes ago.

Below is my meager attempt to share what was said.

Sorry, no link.  This just happened.

The much reviled Westboro Baptist church had pledged to protest at the memorial services for the nephew of Sen. Max Baucus.  I guess they didn't know that the service would be held at the Baucus family's Siebel Ranch.  It covers thousands of acres which means the ranchhouse, etc. are set back quite a ways from the highway.

4 members of WBC showed up.  Yeah, FOUR.  And they beat feet outta there before the time for the service rolled around.

I mentioned this ad in a couple of openthreads and relevant comment threads.  Now it is finally up on his site.  Halfway through the ad a woman asks about Tester's position on withdrawing from Iraq.  The answer is about liberals mocking the deaths of American soldiers. EDIT: "that mocks American deaths"

It cites dailykos as the source of this allegation.

And we all know kos's position about this very old "news".
And we all know what the circumstances were at the time.

Deep breath here, I don't post, mostly lurk and comment.  But, this pissed me off.

This evening, a "local" news station aired a report about a woman bringing a gun (read the report) to a supportive office organization that provides services to people with mental illnesses.  In this script of the news report(some, or all, I don't know.  I missed the broadcast out of Missoula/Kalispell regarding this story in Kalispell):

http://www.kaj18.com/...

They really muffed this one.

The 2 week saga of the cat rustling thru the walls of a NYC deli has finally ended and she has been brought out to the light of day healthy and in good condition.  Her owner of a mouse-infested deli must be so happy.  (Yeah yeah, I'm in Montana so what do I know about the normalcy of mice infested food stores?)  That's not the point. Molly is free to hunt again, and I'm glad for that.

Now that this is over, what were we talking about?

This organization http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/ is front paging stories about a video from 2004 of British troops dragging 4 Iraqis into a courtyard and savagely beating them.  The 4 Iraqis were caught during British troops breaking up a riot.

I just watched part of the tape on NBC News.  Apparently, the tape is still being validated.  Al Jazeera, of course, is playing the tape often.

And you thought Muslims were unhinged about those cartoons.

I am outraged, and fearful for everyone worldwide.