I was hot on the trail of the story. ... The National Milk Producers Federation was organizing dairy herd reductions and the federal government was footing the bill. Some facts were in place - the federation is spearheading herd reductions (it has for some time) to drive dairy prices up and the feds have included a $350 million bailout for ailing dairy operations in the 2010 Agricultural Appropriations bill.

But that's where the facts ended. The real clincher would have been the feds mandating the bailout money to fund future dairy herd kills and as a result drive dairy prices higher, possibly as high as last year's record $5-a-gallon milk. But it just didn't materialize.

I even had a name for it: Cash for Cows.

Too often, ideas don't evolve into good columns. And even after all this time, it's still difficult to lose a good column idea to even better sense.

Like these:

y It started well enough - Dick Cheney was on the prowl last May and on Face the Nation started what has become a long, drawn out attack on the administration and the Democrats in general. The column idea - "I liked him better when" - fizzled when I realized I never really liked Cheney in the first place.

y Once, after returning my Energy Star-rated "green" dishwasher for the second time because it didn't actually clean dishes unless they were pre-rinsed, I just knew the Energy Star dishwashers were a failure because the program didn't take into account the resources used (i.e. pre-rinsing) prior to the machine actually running. The only thing I couldn't find was facts to support my assumptions. To make matters worse, the dishwasher circuit board was faulty, the new one is fine. The column idea ceased to exist.

y Speaking of green energy, I saw a scandal brewing in the wild world of compact fluorescent bulbs several months ago. My assumption was Philips Electronics had only sold 61 million of its compact fluorescent light bulbs by the end of 2001 and desperately needed to drive sales. What better way than by buying off Congress and getting federal legislation mandating the energy efficient bulbs in every home? Money, scandal, light bulbs… Problem was, I couldn't find any facts to back it up. Philips, by the way, sold hundreds of millions of bulbs last year thanks to the legislation.

y Even cell phones failed to produce a cover up column that made sense when I started developing the idea. While I was writing about Sen. Tom Harkin's tough stance on cell phones as possible cancer-causing devices, I figured Harkin was taking the hard line because his friend and colleague, Sen. Kennedy, had died of brain cancer. Kennedy was an avid cell phone user. There has to be a connection, right?

Cash for cows is off the shelf for now but it may have a future - dairy herds are being killed and put into the nation's beef supply to drive dairy prices up. And yes, the feds are bailing out ailing dairy operations by handing the Department of Agriculture millions of dollars to use as they see fit. Maybe they'll use it to buy up dairy cows, slaughter them and drive dairy prices into the stratospheric range of only last year?

If so, I've got a column idea that just can't fail.

Contact Editorial Page Editor Jerry Steinley at jerry.steinley@rapidcityjournal.com or at 394-8427. Find all local columnists at: www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/opinions/