you are the one insisting ranching isnt a business

No I am not. I'm saying that a ranch DOES NOT HAVE TO BE A BUSINESS. You're the one saying that a ranch MUST be a business.

I linked to where Bush's ranch is a business.

No, you linked to where Shrub is a "gentleman rancher" STRICTLY for the tax break it provides his personal residence. Go check his tax returns; look at the line that says "profession" - does it say "rancher" on it?

You stated only farms grew food.

No, I stated that a farm GROWS food, i.e., crops, while a ranch RAISES animals, which MAY be turned into food.

To me and a lot of people a ranch by definition is a business

Which is nothing more than your OPINION, something that you have yet to PROVE.

If you own a lot of land and sit in a house in the middle of it and do not use the land to either
A: grow crops
B: graze cattle
C: mix of either of A or B
you do not have a ranch, you have an estate.

Once again, from[link|http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary|http://www.m-w.com/]

Main Entry: es\ufffdtate
Pronunciation: is-'tAt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English estat, from Old French -- more at STATE
Date: 13th century
1 : STATE, CONDITION
2 : social standing or rank especially of a high order
3 : a social or political class; specifically : one of the great classes (as the nobility, the clergy, and the commons) formerly vested with distinct political powers
4 a : the degree, quality, nature, and extent of one's interest in land or other property b (1) : POSSESSIONS, PROPERTY; especially : a person's property in land and tenements "a man of small estate" (2) : the assets and liabilities left by a person at death c : a landed property usually with a large house on it d British : PROJECT 4
5 British : STATION WAGON

Your position is that an estate is a large piece of property that is not worked. When I visited heard George Washington's Mount Vernon home, the tour guide called it an "estate", yet he grew tobacco for profit. Jefferson's "Monitcello" estate? Ditto - slaves tended his crops. There are plenty of residences of rich people in the northeast states that are called estates and do not grow crops or raise animals. There's nothing in Merriam Webster's definition about an estate being land NOT worked, leaving open the potential for an estate to BE worked.

now lets extrapolate can we. Were you at work when you posted that? If you were does your employer take a deduction for all the equipment, connect charges etc?

So let's post an example. I'm a brand new employee and my employer will put a desktop PC in my assigned cubicle for me to perform my duties. I can easily be productive with a Pentium II or Pentium III but, thanks to a proposed change in the tax laws by President Shrub, my employer decides to purchase a loaded-to-the-gills Pentium IV workstation with dual CPUs, 1 gig RAM, dual 160 gig hard drives. Lots of options, completely unnecessary, and never would have occured if it weren't for a useless incentive provided by President Shrub. The tax break accomplishes nothing but to get people to purchase more expensive things and will not help put unemployed people back to work.

Same thing with a work truck and SUVs. If Scott's parent's need to haul people or stuff around, they had other choices like pick-up trucks, work minivans, or panel trucks. Instead, he states that they purchased it with leather seats "for the dogs". It probably came with a great stereo system and other nice options too. That doesn't sound like my definition of a "work vehicle" unless their business is raising dogs or running a kennel.

You cant discriminate against rural people.

And who says I am? Your remark is completely off topic. I'm against a proposed tax break that is designed to do nothing more than get President Shrub into the good graces with the Democratic party voting United Auto Workers.

I'm still waiting for you to PROVE your contention that a "ranch by definition is a business".