What’s going on over at the Big Sky Blog? You can learn about the Devil’s Brigade that formed and trained in Montana; where Montana stacks up in the annual “Smart States” rankings; a cool new book called “Waking Lazarus” from Montanan T.L Hines; Cosmo mag’s “Hot Guy” of Montana; and Miss Teen USA, from Montana. And of course you can always browse through the entire Big Sky Blogroll to meet smart, beautiful, and witty Montanans from all over the state!

Drizzle this morning…but at about 8:30 am, it turned to SNOW! Forecast calls for nothing but more snow throughout the day and into tonight - up to four or five inches - we’re officially under a “snow advisory” until noon tomorrow!

The re-design itch hit me hard recently, so I installed a nifty new Theme over at the Big Sky Blog called Vistered Little. I love the tiny stars and the floating boxes and the click-easy tiled backgrounds! Oh - and Happy October to everyone! October is nearly a perfect month, for many reasons…I’m sure some of you recall at least one or two of those reasons, don’t you…?

Until last weekend, I had never seen a picture of a cat carrying a dead snake around. Now I have, courtesy of Sarpy Sam, whose cat named “Biscuit” apparently got the better of a slithering snake. And Sam has a few other fluffy critters, too, that enjoy helping out on his cattle ranch. And if you’re hankering for a tour of the beautiful country that Sam calls home, check out the rest of his albums.

Montana bloggers are profiled in a recent edition of The Missoulian; the article focuses on how Montana bloggers are taking part in the relatively high-profile Senate race between Conrad Burns and Jon Tester. In a state as large as Montana with so few people and relatively small towns, blogs certainly are becoming valuable communication tools.

UPDATE, Wednesday: yes, as Walter noted in the comments, it is the news of white racists moving to Montana - Kalispell, about 3+ hours from where I am - that prompted this post. I’ve read of them before, and am disgusted that they chose to move to Montana. In a free society, there’s not a lot the locals can do about something like this…except to be vigilant and teach their own children about true freedom and individualism.

Something very disturbing in local/state news — that I hesitate to link to, it is so despicable — brought to mind the following description of racism:

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage — the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.
Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind…is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical forces beyond his control…Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes…Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

There is almost nothing that inflames me more than racism. It is absolutely, utterly despicable, and those who subscribe to such are little more than mindless savages.

Here’s something that you don’t see too often in national news: Montana took first place! The new Miss Teen USA is none other than our very own Miss Teen Montana, aka Katie Blair from Billings, and she is the first Montanan to win the contest. Cool!

My drive home from work each day is pretty scenic. I feel very fortunate.

The most unusual headline in Montana lately was the news about an alligator in one of our lakes. I know the stereotypical “invader” of Montana is a yuppified Californian, but getting a Florida native…weird.
(via) The FBI and DHS are looking for 11 exchange students from Egypt who haven’t shown up for class at Montana State University. Hmmmm…
The nephew of Montana Senator Max Baucus was laid to rest on Sunday. Thankfully, the few jackass protesters barely registered, and the family was able to conduct the ceremony in peace.

Home safe from Helena at 11:35 pm! Great time - three hours with four cool people. We all met at The Brewhouse, which was pretty busy - and with good reason - the food was excellent! Craig was there, of course, and reported that Helena is treating him right, although he does miss the people back in Billings. Fortunately, Billings came to him last night, in the form of ever-cheerful Randy - who swung through Bozeman on the way to Helena and kidnapped Kim to bring her along! So the four of us were enjoying stimulating conversation (involving fluffy pigeons, phone-sex help desks, and other high-minded ideas) and good chow, and suddenly there were Five: Shane, from Wrong Dog’s Life Chest, showed up, too! It didn’t take us long to realize that Shane is a good guy, and a welcome addition to the Big Sky Blogosphere. He served in the Marines - thank you, Shane - and now does computer stuff for a Large Company. The conversation turned to politics, always a favorite sport, and Kim tolerated our banter with patience and a smile. I had planned to leave at about 8:30 in order to drive back to Great Falls with some daylight remaining, but with friends and conversation like this, well…I was lucky to hit the road at 10:00!

Oh, and Helena: I didn’t see a lot of it, but what I saw was beautiful. The drive down from Great Falls was amazing, of course - there’s no such thing as “bad” scenery in this region!

WHEEEEEEE! I went to the animal fair, the birds and the bees were there…well, you get the idea. I spent a few hours at the Montana State Fair today and had a great time, and snapped a few pix. I spent only $5 at the midway - on the “Guess Your Weight” game. As the carny studied me, trying to figure out how much I weighed, I subtly (hah!) sucked in my tummy, hoping to trick him into guessing much lower than my actual weight of about 205. When he showed me the number he had written down, I nearly choked: 234. Ack! But I had the last laugh, of course, because I won a prize since he guessed incorrectly. I picked a small stuffed monkey that the Missus promptly named “Rufus.”

Click the pic to see ‘em all!

I’ve mentioned Butte before, when it was featured on “The Daily Show” a few weeks ago, and it’s in the news again: this time it’s the annual celebration of Butte’s most famous son, Evel Knievel. A fellow named Roger Moore (!) has a monster-size photoset of the celebration available for viewing over at Flickr - good stuff!