Cows - and the newspapers 

Thank God for the native Americans who learned how to ride the horses the early explorers thoughtlessly brought with them and more flatulence was added to the large number of hoofed animals already native to the area. But, with these horses the Indians were able to ride fast and keep up with those tremendous herds of bison literally covering out great plains until the early pioneers and gold seekers began to move west and eventually reduce those large herds to almost nothing. Just think of the multi-billions of gas molecules that are now no longer being passed out into the air following our famous, earth-saving immigration west here in America.

Thank God, deer, antelope, caribou, moose, and elk have been brought under control. We are now getting less belch for the buck in the northern mountains and valleys.

Thank God the early dinosaurs were cold blooded and did not contribute one iota of burp into the early atmosphere of our Mother Earth. At least their remains, having been preserved as solid stone, have not yet revealed native gasses to indicate dinosaur flatulence. But the evolutionary change to warm blooded birds and other mammals saw the very beginnings of our earth's demise.

Thank God the Serengeti's of Africa have been relieved from the strain of millions of wildebeests, zebras, giraffes and other small and large beasties. It is hard to imagine the daily outpouring of gas from all of those very large but different groups originally spread over the broad continent of Africa.

My goodness - just think what great benefits the earth has achieved with the downfall of the wooley mammoth and our present day decline in numbers of native elephants. Now there is a disastrous belch in the making just waiting for distress in the upper and lower tract to shorten our stay here on earth and to bring into existence a heavy tax on ranchers and dairy people here in Siskiyou County in the twenty first century. We'll show them - a flatulence tax - so take that, bossie - and this is how you repay our kindness, our protection, and a high protein grain supply just brought to you - no scrounging around at all!

Shame on you John Wayne for the thousands of head of cattle you moved up from Texas to the railheads and their steady scattering all over the west. Shame on you.

I can't help but think that historians will also place the early pioneers, cattlemen and gold seekers in a very different group  now with this new science. You had better believe that there was lots of flatulence going on around those old rawhide campfires with Cooky dishing out more beans than carrots and peas or asparagus.

I've personally heard of the old 49ers changing his underwear when the trap door in back was reduced to shreds long before the rest of his maiden-form body armor wore out.