Thumbs down to Montana’s quickly growing prison population.

According to a recent Justice Department report, Montana had the second-highest growth rate among all the states. The report said the number of inmates here rose by 10.4 percent over the past year.

Thumbs down to a shortage of bell ringers. The Salvation Army reports that its Christmas fund raising is falling behind this year because it can’t find enough people to stand beside its collection pots and ring bells.

Thumbs down to a Dayton, Ohio, woman for allegedly turning an urban legend into a grim reality. The woman was arrested this week on suspicion of murdering her newborn daughter by microwaving the baby in an oven.

Thumbs up to the Montana Human Rights Bureau for ruling that single people can’t be charged more for membership in a golf club than married people. Now we hope the bureau gets to work on a more blatant golf discrimination: the fact that some people actually can hit a ball straight while others can’t.