Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Sorted by date Results 1401 - 1425 of 1862
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 4/18/13: Chicago wheat futures haven’t done much the last few days as far as their closing prices anyway closing within one cent of the same price each of the last three days. There have been some large intraday moves but nothing that sticks. The western Plains HRW crop is in for another round of freezing temperatures tonight however that hasn’t generated much excitement in the market. Without some new exciting development taking place soon, it looks as...
This morning I was nearly witness to an accident at the intersection of Highways 21 and 28. A large black tractor-trailer rig nearly T-boned a white SUV. It appeared to me that the accident was avoided by mere inches. The SUV had the right-of-way, but I don't know if the truck had stopped initially or if the driver just blew the stop sign. The thought of being run into by a semi is mind-boggling. I think it’s really pretty amazing that there aren’t more accidents at that inter...
When I was young my family ate a lot of Red Delicious apples. Some came out of my trusty lunchbox at school, some were straight from the refrigerator at home. The apples were big and eye-catching, but in my opinion they left something to be desired in their eating qualities. Still, they gave us a reasonably economical and convenient fruit choice, and we were glad to have them. These days there are lots of options in the stores when it comes to apples, from the traditional vari...
After reading the letter last week from the person from Spokane, it reminded me of what Martin Niemoller wrote about the Nazis in Germany. “First they came for the socialists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.” There is not that much difference now as it was then, for if...
According to our government’s 2012 survey, we have almost 700,000 government employees. Barely a third believe that promotions are based on merit. Less than that said steps are taken to deal with poor performance and just one-fifth said that pay raises are linked to good performance. The Budget Control Act of 2011, that was bi-partisan, suggests that we need to: 1) collect the $786 billion that Americans already owe in delinquent loans, fines and penalties, 2) collect the $300 billion that Americans already owe in back t...
(Editor’s note: Last week’s column did not run, so it is included in this week’s Grain Report.) Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 4/3/13: Big rally in Chicago wheat futures today, which has so far continued into the evening session, as it was rumored that China was in buying a bunch of U.S. SRW. Unfortunately, for the first time in several months, soft white prices have broken their link to Chicago futures and have refused to budge, up only five cents from yesterday, while Chicago has g...
Limestone and a couple other related sedimentary rocks are common in some parts of the country, including in Florida. The chemistry of limestone and groundwater can combine to make for sinkholes, or vertical holes in bedrock that can open up quickly. Sinkholes are caused by the fact that groundwater, percolating downward from the land surface, is acidic. And acids eat away at limestone, dissolving it. That means over time limestone bedrock can start to resemble Swiss cheese,...
It’s time to change my theme song. This realization came to me as I was driving to Spokane last week. I don’t know why epiphanies only seem to happen when I’m doing something that makes it impossible to write it down so as to remember it later. It would be nice if I could remember it later. It would be nice if I could remember anything later. Fortunately, I recently discovered that my smarter-than-me phone will record my thoughts, if only I can remember which app to selec...
Regarding Gerald Ray’s recent letter to the editor, it’s obvious to me that he has been watching way too much Fox News – you know, the channel where rich people pay rich people to tell middle-class people to blame poor people. I suggest he check out www.inthese times.com and search for “The GOP’s One Trillion Dollar Lie – How a Right-Wing Whopper About The Cost of Welfare Was Born.” He will then find that the reality expressed mathematically is: Total Spending on Welfare/Those Who Receive Benefits = $24.77 per day. This is...
I can't pass up commenting on Gerald Ray’s letter (of last week). He never even looked the report up! I have attached it. So what is a poverty income? Whenever I copy information from the Internet which I want to pass on to a friend, I type the http:// address as a reference on the page. I learned this in college. Here is an example: http://budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/budget-background? is where you will find this misleading statement by the Senate Budget Committee: “Based on data from the Congressional Res...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 4/3/13: Big rally in Chicago wheat futures today, which has so far continued into the evening session, as it was rumored that China was in buying a bunch of U.S. SRW. Unfortunately, for the first time in several months, soft white prices have broken their link to Chicago futures and have refused to budge, up only five cents from yesterday, while Chicago has gained over 30 cents. Most exporters in Portland have gone back to flat-price soft white bids...
Odessa area parents will want to know more about the Odessa School District’s new “Common Core” curriculum before subjecting their children to it. Be informed. It touts the Muslim religion over Christianity. It teaches Communism is superior to Capitalism. It includes new depths and heights in data-mining student behavior and performance. Parents can read what other parents have said about “Common Core” here: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/02/want-to-see-what-cscope-and-common-core-even-homeschooli...
Born in 1632 in the Netherlands, Antony van Leeuwenhoek was a self-taught man who made microscopes – ultimately producing some 500 of them. Microscopes consist of lenses of carefully ground class. Van Leeuwenhoek’s microscopes could magnify objects up to two hundred times. That opened up a range of investigations to him and he took advantage of the new devices he was creating to look at almost anything and everything, including bacteria he obtained from between his teeth. Van...
Thank you for printing the list of new U.S. citizens from March 24, 1938 in a recent "75 Years Ago" column. The first name in the list was that of my mother, Emma Jean Napier. Although she was born at Reardan and had lived her entire life in the state of Washington, she lost her U.S. citizenship in 1922 whe she married my father, John (Jack) Napier. They knew he was still a citizen of Scotland, but did not know of the law still in force which nullified citizenship when a U.S. citizen married a non-citizen. The law was...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 3/28/13: Well, that was a surprise! The USDA managed to find an additional 400 million bushels of corn in the bin than what was being expected, and that pulled the rug out from under the grain market. Chicago wheat futures closed down 49 cents, corn futures were locked limit down shortly after the report and will open with limits expanded to 60 cents on Sunday afternoon (happy Easter!). The acreage projections came in as expected, but it was the higher...
There are two features of this time of year that make my heart glad. One is the rapidly increasing length of the day. In September we lose daylight quickly, but in the spring we gain it all back just as rapidly. Although the same pattern is repeated each year (so you’d think I’d be used to it), I’m always somehow surprised and delighted when we get to this time of year and have early sunrises and spreading daylight in the evenings. The other part of this time of year that...
As we get closer to the celebration of “Mother’s Day,” I think of the women who have been a tremendous influence in shaping my life. My grandmother, my mother and my mother-in-law. My grandmother taught me the beauty of flowers, gardening, sewing and cooking. She had her picture in the paper many times with the flowers she grew and the garden she raised. This began my journey as a Proverbs 31 woman. My mother taught me love unconditionally. She always told her children “to be there for one another.” Even when we were far...
To Sheriff Wade Magers, Please pass along my deepest appreciation for your department’s initial effort on 11 March 13 at the crash site of the Navy EA-6B Prowler aircraft in Harrington and your support during the week-long accident investigation. Your department was instrumental in helping to control the initial crash scene and also clear the route from the crash site to Fairchild AFB in order to transfer the remains of our fallen [with] the respect they deserve. Over 100 members of our military community attended the d...
As I was reading (yet another) book that promised to have the solution to my weight problem, I realized that what I really want is to be a success story. Success stories are intended to be inspiring, I know, but when I read about other people who were a hundred pounds overweight and managed to lose it, I get depressed. Because, when it comes to my health, weight, or housekeeping, I just don’t seem to be able to stick to any kind of plan. Any individual who succeeds at changing...
Sequester. What Sequester? For two months we have heard nothing but how bad it is going to be, people will starve, people will die, schools will close, and any horrible thing you can think of. That’s all you heard from the President, the Vise President and their lap dogs in the media. Once again it was, “Do as I say, not as I do.” On a couple of recent trips overseas Vice President Biden and his entourage of 136 people stayed in a hotel in Paris for one night at a cost to the U.S. taxpayer of $585,000.50. In London for one n...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 3/22/13: Back from vacation, but after seeing what the market has done since I left, perhaps I should have stayed away. Soft white wheat basis vs. Chicago futures dropped 45 cents from late last week into this week, a result of a large producer selling at the end of last week combined with limited known export demand for white wheat going forward. The last big export news was the CCC donation tender for Bangladesh which took place last week and reportedly...
