Drought in 1,016 counties (Record Breaking)
TORRINGTON, Wyo. — As a relentless drought bakes prairie soil to dust and dries up streams across the country, ranchers struggling to feed their cattle are unloading them by the thousands, a wrenching decision likely to ripple from the Plains to supermarket shelves over the next year.
Heat, drought and high feed prices are leading many ranchers on the Plains to winnow their herds.
Ranchers say they are reducing their herds and selling their cattle months ahead of schedule to avoid the mounting losses of a drought that now stretches across a record-breaking 1,016 American counties. Irrigation ponds are shriveling to scummy puddles. Their pastures are brown and barren. And they say the prices of hay and other feed are soaring beyond their reach.
“If we’re running out of grass and we’re not growing enough feed crops to feed them the other six months of the year, what do you do?” asked R. Scott Barrows, director of Kansas State University’s Golden Prairie District extension office. “You liquidate.”
So, in the latest pangs of a withering heat wave that has threatened crops and sparked furious wildfires, ranchers are loading up their cattle and driving to towns like Torrington, an old byway on the Oregon Trail near the Nebraska border. They come, reluctantly, to sell.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/us/heat-forces-ranchers-to-sell-herds-to-cut-losses.html?_r=1&hp
= new reply since forum marked as read
Pay no attention to those scientists and their facts and fancy book learnin' - just believe in some lunatic prophecy like our local Clear Channel rightwinger Tom Roten and the idiotic column he cites when writing about the drought:
(Yes, he seriously thinks this photo makes him look good)
When things like this happen, many want to know who to blame. Some blame the politicians, some blame big business, and of course, many blame so-called "man-made global warming".
(...)
Of course, Christians would want to also blame legalized homosexual marriage and other national sins for God's judgment.
I don't disagree with that, but more importantly is this - what is it about US that is bringing God's judgment? A Christian's individual, sometimes "secret" sin also can bring the judgment of God.
Look in the Bible! Most of the time extreme weather was attributed to God's judgment. Here are some examples:
http://www.800wvhu.com/pages/tomroten.html?article=10255250
This may be the single most idiotic thing I've ever read. It's hard to believe that Clear Channel actually pays a guy to spew this shit for three hours every morning in WV.
I had to bury a horse a few days ago 
and the guy with the backhoe told us it took him so long because it was dusty dry down to 6 feet where he stopped. He has never seen it this dry. Bad here.
