Thursday, November 22, 2007
U.K. Has `Probable' Leak of Foot-and-Mouth Disease The U.K. experienced a ``probable'' new leak of the foot-and-mouth disease virus at the same laboratory that was at the center of an outbreak in August. The incident occurred on Nov. 19 at the Merial facility at the Pirbright laboratory in Surrey, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said in an e-mailed statement. A malfunction was found in a valve on a pipe leading from a centrifuge that's used to separate the live virus from waste product, Benn said. Operations were immediately stopped and the machine and pipes decontaminated. ``Merial judged that the valve had been leaking, allowing an unintended probable release of live FMD virus into the contained drainage system, which was then pumped to the final chemical treatment facility without being heat-treated,'' Benn said. Merial's license to produce vaccines using foot-and-mouth disease was suspended. The live disease hasn't entered the environment, a government spokeswoman said in a telephone interview. The August outbreak at the same laboratory site was probably caused by faulty drainage at a research facility, the Health and Safety Executive said Sept. 7. It wasn't possible to identify which of the two units that share the laboratory site, the government-run Institute for Animal Health or Merial Animal Health Ltd., was responsible for that incident, the HSE said. Leaking pipes at the site probably contained the virus, which spread to two nearby farms after being brought to the surface by rains and contaminating the vehicles of workers renovating the site....
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
The Foundation
“Tomorrow being the day set apart by the Honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and Praise; and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgements to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us, the General... earnestly exhorts, all officers and soldiers, whose absence is not indispensably necessary, to attend with reverence the solemnities of the day.” —George Washington (December 17, 1777)
The necessity of Thanksgiving
In this era of overblown political correctness, we often hear tales of Thanksgiving that stray far afield from the truth. Contemporary textbook narratives of the first American harvest celebration portray the Pilgrim colonists as having given thanks to their Indian neighbors for teaching them how to survive in a strange new world. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the historical record, in which the colonists gave thanks to God Almighty, the Provider of their blessings.
The “First Thanksgiving” is usually depicted as the Pilgrims’ three-day feast in early November 1621. The Pilgrims, Calvinist Protestants who rejected the institutional Church of England, believed that the worship of God must originate freely in the individual soul, under no coercion. The Pilgrims left Plymouth, England, on 6 September 1620, sailing to the New World on the promise of opportunity for religious and civil liberty.
For almost three months, 102 seafarers braved the brutal elements, arriving off what is now the Massachusetts coast. On 11 December, before disembarking at Plymouth Rock, the voyagers signed the Mayflower Compact, America’s original document of civil government predicated on principles of self-government. While still anchored at Provincetown harbor, Pastor John Robinson counseled, “You are become a body politic... and are to have only them for your... governors which yourselves shall make choice of.” Governor William Bradford described the Mayflower Compact as “a combination... that when they came a shore they would use their owne libertie; for none had power to command them...”
Upon landing, the Pilgrims conducted a prayer service and quickly turned to building shelters. Malnutrition and illness during the ensuing New England winter killed nearly half their number. Through prayer and hard work, with the assistance of their Wampanoag Indian friends, the Pilgrims reaped a rich harvest in the summer of 1621, the bounty of which they shared with the Wampanoag. The celebration incorporated feasting and games, which remain holiday traditions.
Such ready abundance soon waned, however. Under demands from investors funding their endeavor, the Pilgrims had acquiesced to a disastrous arrangement holding all crops and property in common, in order to return an agreed-to half of their produce to their overseas backers. (These financiers insisted they could not trust faraway freeholders to split the colony’s profits honestly.) Within two years, Plymouth was in danger of foundering under famine, blight and drought. Colonist Edward Winslow wrote, “The most courageous were now discouraged, because God, which hitherto had been our only shield and supporter, now seemed in his anger to arm himself against us.”
Governor Bradford’s record of the history of the colony describes 1623 as a period of arduous work coupled with “a great drought... without any rain and with great heat for the most part,” lasting from spring until midsummer. The Plymouth settlers followed the Wampanoag’s recommended cultivation practices carefully, but their crops withered.
The Pilgrims soon thereafter thought better of relying solely on the physical realm, setting “a solemn day of humiliation, to seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer, in this great distress.” In affirmation of their faith and providing a great witness to the Indians, by evening of that day the skies became overcast and gentle rains fell, restoring the yield of the fields. Governor Bradford noted, “And afterwards the Lord sent to them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather as, through His blessing caused a fruitful and liberal harvest, to their no small comfort and rejoicing. For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of thanksgiving.”
Winslow noted the Pilgrims’ reaction as believing “it would be great ingratitude, if secretly we should smother up the same, or content ourselves with private thanksgiving for that, which by private prayer could not be obtained. And therefore another solemn day was set apart and appointed for that end; wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, with all thankfulness, to our good God, which dealt so graciously with us...” This was the original American Thanksgiving Day, centered not on harvest feasting (as in 1621) but on gathering together to publicly recognize the favor and provision of Almighty God.
Bradford’s diary recounts how the colonists repented of their financial folly under sway of their financiers: “At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number.”
By the mid-17th century, autumnal Thanksgivings were common throughout New England; observance of Thanksgiving Festivals spread to other colonies during the American Revolution. At other junctures of “great distress” or miraculous intervention, colonial leaders called their countrymen to offer prayerful thanks to God. The Continental Congresses, cognizant of the need for a warring country’s continuing grateful entreaties to God, proclaimed yearly Thanksgiving days during the Revolutionary War, from 1777 to 1783.
In 1789, after adopting the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, among the first official acts of Congress was approving a motion for proclamation of a national day of thanksgiving, recommending that citizens gather together and give thanks to God for their new nation’s blessings. Presidents George Washington, John Adams and James Madison followed the custom of declaring national days of thanks, though it was not officially declared again until another moment of national peril, when during the War Between the States Abraham Lincoln invited “the whole American people” to observe “a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father... with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.” In 1941, Congress set permanently November’s fourth Thursday as our official national Thanksgiving.
The Pilgrims’ temporary folly of sundering and somersaulting the material as transcendent over the spiritual conveys an important lesson that modern histories are reluctant to tell. The Founders, recognizing this, placed first among constitutionally recognized rights the free exercise of religion—faith through action.
If what we seek is a continuance of God s manifold blessings, then a day of heartfelt thanksgiving is a tiny tribute indeed.
This Thanksgiving, please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially the families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who have died in defense of American liberty.
The Foundation
“Tomorrow being the day set apart by the Honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and Praise; and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgements to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us, the General... earnestly exhorts, all officers and soldiers, whose absence is not indispensably necessary, to attend with reverence the solemnities of the day.” —George Washington (December 17, 1777)
The necessity of Thanksgiving
In this era of overblown political correctness, we often hear tales of Thanksgiving that stray far afield from the truth. Contemporary textbook narratives of the first American harvest celebration portray the Pilgrim colonists as having given thanks to their Indian neighbors for teaching them how to survive in a strange new world. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the historical record, in which the colonists gave thanks to God Almighty, the Provider of their blessings.
The “First Thanksgiving” is usually depicted as the Pilgrims’ three-day feast in early November 1621. The Pilgrims, Calvinist Protestants who rejected the institutional Church of England, believed that the worship of God must originate freely in the individual soul, under no coercion. The Pilgrims left Plymouth, England, on 6 September 1620, sailing to the New World on the promise of opportunity for religious and civil liberty.
For almost three months, 102 seafarers braved the brutal elements, arriving off what is now the Massachusetts coast. On 11 December, before disembarking at Plymouth Rock, the voyagers signed the Mayflower Compact, America’s original document of civil government predicated on principles of self-government. While still anchored at Provincetown harbor, Pastor John Robinson counseled, “You are become a body politic... and are to have only them for your... governors which yourselves shall make choice of.” Governor William Bradford described the Mayflower Compact as “a combination... that when they came a shore they would use their owne libertie; for none had power to command them...”
Upon landing, the Pilgrims conducted a prayer service and quickly turned to building shelters. Malnutrition and illness during the ensuing New England winter killed nearly half their number. Through prayer and hard work, with the assistance of their Wampanoag Indian friends, the Pilgrims reaped a rich harvest in the summer of 1621, the bounty of which they shared with the Wampanoag. The celebration incorporated feasting and games, which remain holiday traditions.
Such ready abundance soon waned, however. Under demands from investors funding their endeavor, the Pilgrims had acquiesced to a disastrous arrangement holding all crops and property in common, in order to return an agreed-to half of their produce to their overseas backers. (These financiers insisted they could not trust faraway freeholders to split the colony’s profits honestly.) Within two years, Plymouth was in danger of foundering under famine, blight and drought. Colonist Edward Winslow wrote, “The most courageous were now discouraged, because God, which hitherto had been our only shield and supporter, now seemed in his anger to arm himself against us.”
Governor Bradford’s record of the history of the colony describes 1623 as a period of arduous work coupled with “a great drought... without any rain and with great heat for the most part,” lasting from spring until midsummer. The Plymouth settlers followed the Wampanoag’s recommended cultivation practices carefully, but their crops withered.
The Pilgrims soon thereafter thought better of relying solely on the physical realm, setting “a solemn day of humiliation, to seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer, in this great distress.” In affirmation of their faith and providing a great witness to the Indians, by evening of that day the skies became overcast and gentle rains fell, restoring the yield of the fields. Governor Bradford noted, “And afterwards the Lord sent to them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather as, through His blessing caused a fruitful and liberal harvest, to their no small comfort and rejoicing. For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of thanksgiving.”
Winslow noted the Pilgrims’ reaction as believing “it would be great ingratitude, if secretly we should smother up the same, or content ourselves with private thanksgiving for that, which by private prayer could not be obtained. And therefore another solemn day was set apart and appointed for that end; wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, with all thankfulness, to our good God, which dealt so graciously with us...” This was the original American Thanksgiving Day, centered not on harvest feasting (as in 1621) but on gathering together to publicly recognize the favor and provision of Almighty God.
Bradford’s diary recounts how the colonists repented of their financial folly under sway of their financiers: “At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number.”
By the mid-17th century, autumnal Thanksgivings were common throughout New England; observance of Thanksgiving Festivals spread to other colonies during the American Revolution. At other junctures of “great distress” or miraculous intervention, colonial leaders called their countrymen to offer prayerful thanks to God. The Continental Congresses, cognizant of the need for a warring country’s continuing grateful entreaties to God, proclaimed yearly Thanksgiving days during the Revolutionary War, from 1777 to 1783.
In 1789, after adopting the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, among the first official acts of Congress was approving a motion for proclamation of a national day of thanksgiving, recommending that citizens gather together and give thanks to God for their new nation’s blessings. Presidents George Washington, John Adams and James Madison followed the custom of declaring national days of thanks, though it was not officially declared again until another moment of national peril, when during the War Between the States Abraham Lincoln invited “the whole American people” to observe “a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father... with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.” In 1941, Congress set permanently November’s fourth Thursday as our official national Thanksgiving.
The Pilgrims’ temporary folly of sundering and somersaulting the material as transcendent over the spiritual conveys an important lesson that modern histories are reluctant to tell. The Founders, recognizing this, placed first among constitutionally recognized rights the free exercise of religion—faith through action.
If what we seek is a continuance of God s manifold blessings, then a day of heartfelt thanksgiving is a tiny tribute indeed.
This Thanksgiving, please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially the families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who have died in defense of American liberty.
INDUSTRY NEWS
Dickinson research center analyzes livestock ID tags Researchers have been testing radio identification tags on cattle, to see which frequencies work best. "Other research centers and agencies are studying different frequencies, and we are in the position as one of the leads at this point," said Mick Riesinger, a livestock and biosecurity specialist at the North Dakota State University Dickinson Research Center. The animal ID system is aimed at protecting against the spread of disease. Larry Schnell, an owner of the Stockmen's Livestock Exchange in Dickinson, said the program, though not mandatory, is not popular with cattle producers. "It's a pain and fairly expensive - and the cost is all on the producer," Schnell said. "It's just another job they have to do." Riesinger tells ranchers that the goal is to track only the origin of the animal....The allure of Federal grants can corrupt university researchers.
Seventy-two live cattle over 30 months of age come into North Dakota from Canada In spite of R-CALF's filing for an emergency restraining order Nov. 16 to keep the border closed, truckloads of live Canadian cattle older than 30 months of age begin coming across the border Nov. 19. R-CALF USA, headquartered in Billings, Mont., had heard nothing from the court as of Nov. 21, said the organization's communication director Shae Dodson. “We've heard nothing yet,” Dodson said. “We do know some cattle trucks crossed the border yesterday (Nov. 19).” Ed Curlett, spokesperson for the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said more than 500 live cattle over 30 months of age crossed the border at five ports by Tuesday, Nov. 20, at 3 p.m. CT. He said the cattle were inspected and the paperwork verifying the age was checked. “There's no test for BSE in live cattle,” Curlett said but these cattle were born after a feed ban on animal parts was put into place....
State imposes new rules on Canada's cattle The Montana Department of Livestock has issued new guidelines for Canadian cattle coming into Montana. The regulations took effect Monday, the same day a new federal rule allowed cattle over 30 months of age and beef from the same to enter the United States. The new state regulations do not apply to Canadian cattle passing through the state on their way to feedlots or slaughter elsewhere, but only to animals being imported to Montana. "We are making sure all the bases are covered," said Christian Mackay, executive officer of the Livestock Department. "We do not want to be more liberal with Canada than we are with other states." The regulations apply to the diseases brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis and trichomoniasis, and they set out the testing requirements and certification needed....
Dickinson research center analyzes livestock ID tags Researchers have been testing radio identification tags on cattle, to see which frequencies work best. "Other research centers and agencies are studying different frequencies, and we are in the position as one of the leads at this point," said Mick Riesinger, a livestock and biosecurity specialist at the North Dakota State University Dickinson Research Center. The animal ID system is aimed at protecting against the spread of disease. Larry Schnell, an owner of the Stockmen's Livestock Exchange in Dickinson, said the program, though not mandatory, is not popular with cattle producers. "It's a pain and fairly expensive - and the cost is all on the producer," Schnell said. "It's just another job they have to do." Riesinger tells ranchers that the goal is to track only the origin of the animal....The allure of Federal grants can corrupt university researchers.
Seventy-two live cattle over 30 months of age come into North Dakota from Canada In spite of R-CALF's filing for an emergency restraining order Nov. 16 to keep the border closed, truckloads of live Canadian cattle older than 30 months of age begin coming across the border Nov. 19. R-CALF USA, headquartered in Billings, Mont., had heard nothing from the court as of Nov. 21, said the organization's communication director Shae Dodson. “We've heard nothing yet,” Dodson said. “We do know some cattle trucks crossed the border yesterday (Nov. 19).” Ed Curlett, spokesperson for the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said more than 500 live cattle over 30 months of age crossed the border at five ports by Tuesday, Nov. 20, at 3 p.m. CT. He said the cattle were inspected and the paperwork verifying the age was checked. “There's no test for BSE in live cattle,” Curlett said but these cattle were born after a feed ban on animal parts was put into place....
State imposes new rules on Canada's cattle The Montana Department of Livestock has issued new guidelines for Canadian cattle coming into Montana. The regulations took effect Monday, the same day a new federal rule allowed cattle over 30 months of age and beef from the same to enter the United States. The new state regulations do not apply to Canadian cattle passing through the state on their way to feedlots or slaughter elsewhere, but only to animals being imported to Montana. "We are making sure all the bases are covered," said Christian Mackay, executive officer of the Livestock Department. "We do not want to be more liberal with Canada than we are with other states." The regulations apply to the diseases brucellosis, bovine tuberculosis and trichomoniasis, and they set out the testing requirements and certification needed....
FLE
AG Must Investigate Ramos-Compean Case, Senator Says Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) wants to know why it took so long to charge the drug dealer -- used as the star witness in putting two ex-Border Patrol agents in prison -- with a second smuggling offense. Critics of the prosecution of former border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, sentenced to 11 and 12 years respectively, have long asked why the drug smuggler wasn't prosecuted. The indictment and arrest of Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila last week for smuggling drugs into the country in the fall of 2005 did not alleviate criticism of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of the Western District of Texas. Rather, some critics say it affirms their suspicion that Sutton, who prosecuted the border agents and is now prosecuting Aldrete-Davila, delayed bringing charges against Aldrete-Davila because he feared prosecuting him would jeopardize a conviction in the jury trial of Ramos and Compean. The two agents were convicted for shooting Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks in February 2005 when he tried to evade arrest. Further, the alleged smuggling occurred after Aldrete-Davila was granted immunity for attempting to smuggle more than 700 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. the day he was shot and also at a time when Aldrete-Davila had a "humanitarian pass" from the government to enter and exit the country unsupervised....
Johnny Sutton accused of suborning perjury A Border Patrol activist group is accusing U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of protecting the drug smuggler at the center of the Ramos-Compean case from facing perjury charges. Andy Ramirez, chairman of the Friends of the Border Patrol, wants a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Sutton and trial prosecutor Debra Kanof for subordination of perjury for allowing drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila to take the stand under "false pretenses." Aldrete-Davila was arrested last week at the Mexican border for alleged drug offenses committed while under immunity to testify as the star witness in the case. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are in solitary confinement in federal prisons serving 11- and 12-year terms respectively for shooting Aldrete-Davila as he fled across the border on foot after bringing 750 pounds of marijuana across the Texas border. Ramirez told WND he believes Aldrete-Davila's arrest last week clearly indicates he violated the terms of his immunity. "Sutton is still protecting Aldrete-Davila," Ramirez told WND, "otherwise the drug smuggler would have been indicted for the first drug offense and for perjury." Ramirez argued that without immunity for the Feb. 17, 2005, incident involving Ramos and Compean, Aldrete-Davila could be prosecuted not only for that smuggling attempt but also for a later attempt while using a border pass card issued by the Department of Homeland Security. Ramirez called for all the documents in the case to be unsealed....
Rendell can't sway panel on gun bills Pennsylvania's House Judiciary Committee yesterday handily defeated two key gun-control bills despite a dramatic appearance by Gov. Rendell, who implored the committee to pass tougher gun laws to curb violence, especially in crime-marred cities such as Philadelphia. Rendell's 40-minute appearance, in which he sought to refute gun-lobby arguments about weak enforcement of current laws and drive home polls indicating that most Pennsylvanians favor some forms of gun control, appeared to change few minds. Six Democrats, mostly from gun-rights strongholds in the southwest, crossed party lines to defeat the two bills. Two Republicans from the Philadelphia suburbs - Rep. Bernard O'Neill from Bucks County, and Rep. Kate Harper from Montgomery County - broke from their party to support the bill that would have limited handgun purchases to one a month. National Rifle Association lobbyist John Hohenwater said the votes clearly showed committee members had no appetite to restrict gun rights in an attempt to solve Philadelphia's crime problem....
AG Must Investigate Ramos-Compean Case, Senator Says Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) wants to know why it took so long to charge the drug dealer -- used as the star witness in putting two ex-Border Patrol agents in prison -- with a second smuggling offense. Critics of the prosecution of former border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, sentenced to 11 and 12 years respectively, have long asked why the drug smuggler wasn't prosecuted. The indictment and arrest of Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila last week for smuggling drugs into the country in the fall of 2005 did not alleviate criticism of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of the Western District of Texas. Rather, some critics say it affirms their suspicion that Sutton, who prosecuted the border agents and is now prosecuting Aldrete-Davila, delayed bringing charges against Aldrete-Davila because he feared prosecuting him would jeopardize a conviction in the jury trial of Ramos and Compean. The two agents were convicted for shooting Aldrete-Davila in the buttocks in February 2005 when he tried to evade arrest. Further, the alleged smuggling occurred after Aldrete-Davila was granted immunity for attempting to smuggle more than 700 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. the day he was shot and also at a time when Aldrete-Davila had a "humanitarian pass" from the government to enter and exit the country unsupervised....
Johnny Sutton accused of suborning perjury A Border Patrol activist group is accusing U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of protecting the drug smuggler at the center of the Ramos-Compean case from facing perjury charges. Andy Ramirez, chairman of the Friends of the Border Patrol, wants a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Sutton and trial prosecutor Debra Kanof for subordination of perjury for allowing drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila to take the stand under "false pretenses." Aldrete-Davila was arrested last week at the Mexican border for alleged drug offenses committed while under immunity to testify as the star witness in the case. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are in solitary confinement in federal prisons serving 11- and 12-year terms respectively for shooting Aldrete-Davila as he fled across the border on foot after bringing 750 pounds of marijuana across the Texas border. Ramirez told WND he believes Aldrete-Davila's arrest last week clearly indicates he violated the terms of his immunity. "Sutton is still protecting Aldrete-Davila," Ramirez told WND, "otherwise the drug smuggler would have been indicted for the first drug offense and for perjury." Ramirez argued that without immunity for the Feb. 17, 2005, incident involving Ramos and Compean, Aldrete-Davila could be prosecuted not only for that smuggling attempt but also for a later attempt while using a border pass card issued by the Department of Homeland Security. Ramirez called for all the documents in the case to be unsealed....
Rendell can't sway panel on gun bills Pennsylvania's House Judiciary Committee yesterday handily defeated two key gun-control bills despite a dramatic appearance by Gov. Rendell, who implored the committee to pass tougher gun laws to curb violence, especially in crime-marred cities such as Philadelphia. Rendell's 40-minute appearance, in which he sought to refute gun-lobby arguments about weak enforcement of current laws and drive home polls indicating that most Pennsylvanians favor some forms of gun control, appeared to change few minds. Six Democrats, mostly from gun-rights strongholds in the southwest, crossed party lines to defeat the two bills. Two Republicans from the Philadelphia suburbs - Rep. Bernard O'Neill from Bucks County, and Rep. Kate Harper from Montgomery County - broke from their party to support the bill that would have limited handgun purchases to one a month. National Rifle Association lobbyist John Hohenwater said the votes clearly showed committee members had no appetite to restrict gun rights in an attempt to solve Philadelphia's crime problem....
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Property right wrongly taken The story is so absurd, so unfair, so ludicrous, I had a difficult time believing that it could actually happen - even in Boulder. It's about a couple named Don and Susie Kirlin. They moved to the city in 1980. A few years later, the Kirlins purchased a plot of land near their residence, hoping to someday build a "dream home." Children interfered slightly with the master plan - three of them in the next few years - postponing any development of the property. As the children began to make their own way in life, the couple decided it was time to finally develop the property in late 2006. By then, it was too late. Despite owning the land, despite living only 200 yards from the property, despite hiking past it every week with their three dogs, despite spraying for weeds and fixing fences, despite paying homeowner association dues and property taxes each year, someone else had taken a shine to it. Someone powerful. Former Boulder District Judge, Boulder Mayor, RTD board member - among other elected positions - Richard McLean and his wife, attorney Edith Stevens, used an arcane common law called "adverse possession" to claim the land for their own....
Subpoenas issued over easements The Department of Regulatory Agencies has issued 30 subpoenas as part of a statewide investigation into Colorado's conservation-easement program. Issued over the past two days, the subpoenas will be used to gain information about appraisals that may have been overvalued and sales of unregulated securities. "This could place the entire conservation-easement program in jeopardy," said Rico Munn, DORA's executive director. "Coloradans value this program, and we hope to save this program." DORA's Division of Real Estate is investigating the appraisals of certain properties on which easements were obtained. The Division of Securities, also part of DORA, is investigating abuses in sales of the tax credits to investors. The subpoenas were issued to anyone involved in a transaction that is being investigated, including landowners. Munn declined to name the people or organizations under investigation. "We won't know if there's collusion (between appraisers and landowners) until after the investigation," said Fred Joseph, commissioner of the Division of Securities....
Bush administration drops effort to ease salmon protections The Bush administration has abandoned efforts pushed by the timber industry to allow more logging around salmon streams on Northwest national forests. The administration's motion to withdraw an appeal of a lawsuit brought by salmon advocates to reinstate what is known as the Aquatic Conservation Strategy of the Northwest Forest Plan was approved Tuesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In April, a federal judge ruled that the Bush administration illegally suppressed and misrepresented the views of scientists who objected to revising the salmon protections. "It's a victory for salmon protections against years of efforts by the Bush administration to roll them back on federal lands," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations....
Judge tosses $7.5 million plan Hiking and wilderness advocacy groups won a key legal victory when a federal judge threw out a U.S. Forest Service plan that would have permitted more commercial packstocking in the central Sierra Nevada. In her Oct. 30 ruling, Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte found the Forest Service's 2005 management plan for the John Muir and Ansel Adams wilderness areas "allows for significantly increased commercial packstock use in some parts of the wilderness, including areas previously recognized by the Forest Service as already heavily damaged from excessive stock use." Citing the agency's past failure to protect and restore areas damaged by commercial packstocking, Laporte further ruled it was "irrational" for the Forest Service to approve a new plan that allows for more packstocking in the future. Gary Guenther, a former backcountry ranger who now serves as the eastern Sierra representative for Wilderness Watch, one of the case's plaintiffs, called the ruling "a win-win" for anyone who loves wilderness and the High Sierra....
U.S. Forest Service employee gets 21 months An Oregon woman who embezzled more than $600,000 from the U.S. Forest Service has been sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution. Prosecutors called it by far the largest theft from an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture since the government began keeping searchable records of such crimes in 2000. Deborah Durfey of Echo oversaw and audited purchases of firefighting equipment for the Forest Service. Prosecutors say she stole the money by writing checks to her live-in boyfriend and depositing the money in a joint account she controlled. The government contended the embezzlement involved about 180 separate thefts. She pleaded guilty in June to embezzlement and tax fraud charges.
Seeds contain hope of healing Great Basin Months after huge rangeland wildfires scorched millions of acres of the interior West, the recovery of its vast sagebrush may depend on volunteers such as Rachel Morgan and Angie Robles. The friends from Caldwell, Idaho, taking a "moms' day out" Saturday, joined more than 70 other unpaid helpers to pluck and bag the ripe brown stems off waist-high sagebrush in the foothills 50 miles southeast of Boise. Hundreds more volunteers from the Idaho Fish and Game Department will follow in the coming weeks, including Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, who issued an unusual plea last month for help gathering seeds to restore fire-damaged areas. Using canvas hoppers, work gloves and even tennis rackets, volunteer and paid gatherers comb unburned zones from Duchesne, Utah, to Spring Valley, Nev., to gather more than 2 million pounds of sagebrush seeds that are smaller than cracked pepper. Land managers also will spread millions of pounds of seeds of other grasses, wildflowers and plants....
Conservationists Challenge Controversial New Rules for Forest Wildlife Rejecting a decade of restoration-based forest management, the U.S. Forest Service has unilaterally revised its guidelines for management of wildlife on national forests in Arizona and New Mexico. On November 19th, the Coconino National Forest agreed with conservationists that the first major logging project under the new guidelines required additional environmental analysis. But the agency stopped short of agreeing that the new wildlife guidelines required independent environmental review and public consideration. “The Forest Service illegally amended every forest plan in Arizona and New Mexico by failing to involve the public and state agencies prior to weakening important wildlife protections for national forests,” said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. “The new guidelines spell disaster for southwestern wildlife and old growth.” The new guidelines significantly weaken wildlife protections and could lead to dramatically increased logging of large, old-growth trees. The amended guidelines could signal a new round of timber wars in the Southwest....
Aerial Firefighting The United States Forest Service is the largest user of aerial firefighting aircraft. They deploy a variety of aircraft in order to fight wildfires. The range of aircraft includes smaller helicopters to large DC-10 aircraft. On a local level, some police agencies use their aircraft to fight small wildfires. These small wildfires are not confined to rural areas. The New York City Police Department Aviation Unit (NYPD) conducts approximately 25 aerial firefighting operations a year within the borders of the City of New York. Aerial firefighting missions can certainly be considered high risk. Not only does the flight crew have to contend with the usual safety of flight issues, they now have to fly fairly low, often very close to smoke and flying debris. Teamwork is essential for the safe and effective completion of these missions. When an aircraft is called to a scene to assist with aerial firefighting operations, there are many considerations for the flight crew. Where exactly do fire ground commanders want the water drops? Are there any persons in the drop area? Considering that a load of water can weigh up to 1500 lbs, the danger to persons or property on the ground becomes obvious. What are the wind conditions? In short, the mission becomes a complex consideration of risk vs. benefit. The missions are not carried out lightly....
A deadly showdown with the Means clan The deadliest feud in Texas inflamed DeWitt County after the Civil War. The feud was between the Taylors, ex-Confederates, and the Suttons, who were allied with radical Republicans who controlled state government. As many as 200 people may have been killed in the Sutton-Taylor feud, which lasted a decade. The gunslinger John Wesley Hardin was in the Taylor faction. After the violence spilled over into adjacent counties, a Texas Ranger said, "It takes five large counties to bound DeWitt -- and it is an awful strain to hold it all in." A blood feud closer to Corpus Christi pitted the Garner and Means families in San Patricio County. The story of this feud is told in the history of San Patricio County by Keith Guthrie. In 1876, ranchers around Meansville near Odem agreed to have their cattle dipped to control ticks. All the cattle were treated except for those owned by Col. William Means, former sheriff and founder of Meansville, who refused to have his cattle dipped. Sheriff Ed Garner hired cowboys to round up Means' cattle and have them dipped. The colonel was billed $35 for expenses, which he refused to pay. Soon after this, three of Means' six sons shot up a dance at Papalote and Sheriff Garner led a posse to arrest them. The posse surrounded Means' house and ordered the hell-raisers to come out. Instead, Col. Means came out with a rifle. Garner said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Shots were fired and Means was killed....
Subpoenas issued over easements The Department of Regulatory Agencies has issued 30 subpoenas as part of a statewide investigation into Colorado's conservation-easement program. Issued over the past two days, the subpoenas will be used to gain information about appraisals that may have been overvalued and sales of unregulated securities. "This could place the entire conservation-easement program in jeopardy," said Rico Munn, DORA's executive director. "Coloradans value this program, and we hope to save this program." DORA's Division of Real Estate is investigating the appraisals of certain properties on which easements were obtained. The Division of Securities, also part of DORA, is investigating abuses in sales of the tax credits to investors. The subpoenas were issued to anyone involved in a transaction that is being investigated, including landowners. Munn declined to name the people or organizations under investigation. "We won't know if there's collusion (between appraisers and landowners) until after the investigation," said Fred Joseph, commissioner of the Division of Securities....
Bush administration drops effort to ease salmon protections The Bush administration has abandoned efforts pushed by the timber industry to allow more logging around salmon streams on Northwest national forests. The administration's motion to withdraw an appeal of a lawsuit brought by salmon advocates to reinstate what is known as the Aquatic Conservation Strategy of the Northwest Forest Plan was approved Tuesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In April, a federal judge ruled that the Bush administration illegally suppressed and misrepresented the views of scientists who objected to revising the salmon protections. "It's a victory for salmon protections against years of efforts by the Bush administration to roll them back on federal lands," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations....
Judge tosses $7.5 million plan Hiking and wilderness advocacy groups won a key legal victory when a federal judge threw out a U.S. Forest Service plan that would have permitted more commercial packstocking in the central Sierra Nevada. In her Oct. 30 ruling, Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte found the Forest Service's 2005 management plan for the John Muir and Ansel Adams wilderness areas "allows for significantly increased commercial packstock use in some parts of the wilderness, including areas previously recognized by the Forest Service as already heavily damaged from excessive stock use." Citing the agency's past failure to protect and restore areas damaged by commercial packstocking, Laporte further ruled it was "irrational" for the Forest Service to approve a new plan that allows for more packstocking in the future. Gary Guenther, a former backcountry ranger who now serves as the eastern Sierra representative for Wilderness Watch, one of the case's plaintiffs, called the ruling "a win-win" for anyone who loves wilderness and the High Sierra....
U.S. Forest Service employee gets 21 months An Oregon woman who embezzled more than $600,000 from the U.S. Forest Service has been sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution. Prosecutors called it by far the largest theft from an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture since the government began keeping searchable records of such crimes in 2000. Deborah Durfey of Echo oversaw and audited purchases of firefighting equipment for the Forest Service. Prosecutors say she stole the money by writing checks to her live-in boyfriend and depositing the money in a joint account she controlled. The government contended the embezzlement involved about 180 separate thefts. She pleaded guilty in June to embezzlement and tax fraud charges.
Seeds contain hope of healing Great Basin Months after huge rangeland wildfires scorched millions of acres of the interior West, the recovery of its vast sagebrush may depend on volunteers such as Rachel Morgan and Angie Robles. The friends from Caldwell, Idaho, taking a "moms' day out" Saturday, joined more than 70 other unpaid helpers to pluck and bag the ripe brown stems off waist-high sagebrush in the foothills 50 miles southeast of Boise. Hundreds more volunteers from the Idaho Fish and Game Department will follow in the coming weeks, including Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, who issued an unusual plea last month for help gathering seeds to restore fire-damaged areas. Using canvas hoppers, work gloves and even tennis rackets, volunteer and paid gatherers comb unburned zones from Duchesne, Utah, to Spring Valley, Nev., to gather more than 2 million pounds of sagebrush seeds that are smaller than cracked pepper. Land managers also will spread millions of pounds of seeds of other grasses, wildflowers and plants....
Conservationists Challenge Controversial New Rules for Forest Wildlife Rejecting a decade of restoration-based forest management, the U.S. Forest Service has unilaterally revised its guidelines for management of wildlife on national forests in Arizona and New Mexico. On November 19th, the Coconino National Forest agreed with conservationists that the first major logging project under the new guidelines required additional environmental analysis. But the agency stopped short of agreeing that the new wildlife guidelines required independent environmental review and public consideration. “The Forest Service illegally amended every forest plan in Arizona and New Mexico by failing to involve the public and state agencies prior to weakening important wildlife protections for national forests,” said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. “The new guidelines spell disaster for southwestern wildlife and old growth.” The new guidelines significantly weaken wildlife protections and could lead to dramatically increased logging of large, old-growth trees. The amended guidelines could signal a new round of timber wars in the Southwest....
Aerial Firefighting The United States Forest Service is the largest user of aerial firefighting aircraft. They deploy a variety of aircraft in order to fight wildfires. The range of aircraft includes smaller helicopters to large DC-10 aircraft. On a local level, some police agencies use their aircraft to fight small wildfires. These small wildfires are not confined to rural areas. The New York City Police Department Aviation Unit (NYPD) conducts approximately 25 aerial firefighting operations a year within the borders of the City of New York. Aerial firefighting missions can certainly be considered high risk. Not only does the flight crew have to contend with the usual safety of flight issues, they now have to fly fairly low, often very close to smoke and flying debris. Teamwork is essential for the safe and effective completion of these missions. When an aircraft is called to a scene to assist with aerial firefighting operations, there are many considerations for the flight crew. Where exactly do fire ground commanders want the water drops? Are there any persons in the drop area? Considering that a load of water can weigh up to 1500 lbs, the danger to persons or property on the ground becomes obvious. What are the wind conditions? In short, the mission becomes a complex consideration of risk vs. benefit. The missions are not carried out lightly....
A deadly showdown with the Means clan The deadliest feud in Texas inflamed DeWitt County after the Civil War. The feud was between the Taylors, ex-Confederates, and the Suttons, who were allied with radical Republicans who controlled state government. As many as 200 people may have been killed in the Sutton-Taylor feud, which lasted a decade. The gunslinger John Wesley Hardin was in the Taylor faction. After the violence spilled over into adjacent counties, a Texas Ranger said, "It takes five large counties to bound DeWitt -- and it is an awful strain to hold it all in." A blood feud closer to Corpus Christi pitted the Garner and Means families in San Patricio County. The story of this feud is told in the history of San Patricio County by Keith Guthrie. In 1876, ranchers around Meansville near Odem agreed to have their cattle dipped to control ticks. All the cattle were treated except for those owned by Col. William Means, former sheriff and founder of Meansville, who refused to have his cattle dipped. Sheriff Ed Garner hired cowboys to round up Means' cattle and have them dipped. The colonel was billed $35 for expenses, which he refused to pay. Soon after this, three of Means' six sons shot up a dance at Papalote and Sheriff Garner led a posse to arrest them. The posse surrounded Means' house and ordered the hell-raisers to come out. Instead, Col. Means came out with a rifle. Garner said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Shots were fired and Means was killed....
FLE
Police to search for guns in homes Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms. The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households. In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager's parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave. If officers find a gun, police said, they will not charge the teenager with unlawful gun possession, unless the firearm is linked to a shooting or homicide....
Wiretap Issue Leads Judge to Warn of Retrial in Terror Case A federal judge warned Tuesday that if the government did not allow lawyers to review classified material on possible wiretapping of an Islamic scholar convicted of inciting terrorism, she might order a new trial for him. The unexpected development is the latest legal complication involving the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program, which has produced challenges from criminal defendants as well as civil lawsuits against the government and phone carriers. Lawyers for Ali al-Timimi, an Islamic scholar in Northern Virginia sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for inciting his followers to commit acts of terrorism, maintain that he may have been illegally wiretapped by the agency as part of its program of eavesdropping without warrants that was approved by President Bush soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. In April 2006, four months after the N.S.A. program was publicly disclosed, an appellate court directed the trial judge in Mr. Timimi’s case to reconsider it in light of his lawyers’ accusations. But the issue has been bogged down in court for 18 months, with intelligence officials making a series of classified appearances before the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, to explain the government’s position. Lawyers for Mr. Timimi and even the trial prosecutors have not been allowed to hear the closed-door discussions....
U.S. Customs delays ambulance at border An ambulance rushing a heart attack victim to Detroit from a Windsor hospital ill-equipped to perform life-saving surgery was stopped for secondary inspection Monday by U.S. Customs, despite the fact it carried a man fighting for his life. Rick Laporte, 49 -- who twice had been brought back to life with defibrillators -- was being rushed across the border when a U.S. border guard ignored protocol at the Detroit portion of the tunnel and forced the ambulance -- with siren and lights flashing -- to pull over. U.S. Customs officers at the secondary inspection site told the ambulance driver to go inside the office to produce identification, said a frustrated Larry Amlin, of Windsor Essex EMS. Other guards told the paramedic crew to open the back doors of the ambulance, then asked Laporte to verbally confirm his identify, said Lauzon. She learned afterward of the incident from Laporte, who survived his life-saving emergency angioplasty surgery at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital. Amlin said the ambulance, according to well-established protocol, received a police escort to the tunnel entrance with several intersections blocked off to help speed the trip. Tunnel traffic was shut down and, after the ambulance arrived at the border crossing, a tunnel company pickup truck with flashing lights, led it to a designated U.S. Customs lane where it was supposed to be waved through....
Texas Gov. Rick Perry Revives Controversial Border WebCam Program A popular, but controversial Web site set up so anyone with Internet access can help keep watch over the porous U.S. southern border is scheduled to be back up and running early next year. The site run by the State of Texas, www.Texasborderwatch.com — which is now dark — is getting a $3 million no-strings-attached cash infusion that will be used to pay for the citizen-watch program, Gov. Rick Perry's office said Monday. The site drew 28 million hits in a one-month test run last November, averaging about 43,000 hits per hour, according to information posted on the program Web site and confirmed by Perry's office. The popularity crashed the computer servers and flooded law enforcement officials with tipster information. But the program's effectiveness remains to be seen. During the test-run, the program generated about 13,000 e-mails to law-enforcement, leading only to the arrest of 10 illegal immigrants. Despite the mixed results, Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle told FOX News Texas is moving forward with the program, which includes about 200 "strategically" placed cameras along the border. The state will also be seeking bidders in the coming weeks to run the system, which will also include a server system that would be able to handle higher traffic than the one tested in November 2006....
Supreme Court to rule on right to keep handguns at home The Supreme Court set the stage Tuesday for a historic ruling on whether the fiercely debated 2nd Amendment protects the rights of Americans to keep handguns at home. The justices said they would review an appeals court decision that struck down a 31-year-old ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. The case will be heard early next year and decided by next summer. While outright bans on the private possession of guns are rare, many cities and states regulate firearms. If the high court rules in favor of gun owners, the decision could open the door to challenges to regulations and restrictions on firearms across the nation. In their appeal, District of Columbia officials say their ban on easily concealed handguns dates back to 1858. And they argue handguns are involved in most violent crime. Under the city ordinance passed in 1976, residents may keep shotguns or hunting rifles at home, but these weapons must be disassembled or have trigger locks. Handguns are illegal, except in the hands of police officers. Six city residents challenged the ordinance as unconstitutional and said it denied them the right to have "functional firearms" at home for self defense....
Police to search for guns in homes Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms. The program, which is already raising questions about civil liberties, is based on the premise that parents are so fearful of gun violence and the possibility that their own teenagers will be caught up in it that they will turn to police for help, even in their own households. In the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager's parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave. If officers find a gun, police said, they will not charge the teenager with unlawful gun possession, unless the firearm is linked to a shooting or homicide....
Wiretap Issue Leads Judge to Warn of Retrial in Terror Case A federal judge warned Tuesday that if the government did not allow lawyers to review classified material on possible wiretapping of an Islamic scholar convicted of inciting terrorism, she might order a new trial for him. The unexpected development is the latest legal complication involving the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program, which has produced challenges from criminal defendants as well as civil lawsuits against the government and phone carriers. Lawyers for Ali al-Timimi, an Islamic scholar in Northern Virginia sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for inciting his followers to commit acts of terrorism, maintain that he may have been illegally wiretapped by the agency as part of its program of eavesdropping without warrants that was approved by President Bush soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. In April 2006, four months after the N.S.A. program was publicly disclosed, an appellate court directed the trial judge in Mr. Timimi’s case to reconsider it in light of his lawyers’ accusations. But the issue has been bogged down in court for 18 months, with intelligence officials making a series of classified appearances before the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, to explain the government’s position. Lawyers for Mr. Timimi and even the trial prosecutors have not been allowed to hear the closed-door discussions....
U.S. Customs delays ambulance at border An ambulance rushing a heart attack victim to Detroit from a Windsor hospital ill-equipped to perform life-saving surgery was stopped for secondary inspection Monday by U.S. Customs, despite the fact it carried a man fighting for his life. Rick Laporte, 49 -- who twice had been brought back to life with defibrillators -- was being rushed across the border when a U.S. border guard ignored protocol at the Detroit portion of the tunnel and forced the ambulance -- with siren and lights flashing -- to pull over. U.S. Customs officers at the secondary inspection site told the ambulance driver to go inside the office to produce identification, said a frustrated Larry Amlin, of Windsor Essex EMS. Other guards told the paramedic crew to open the back doors of the ambulance, then asked Laporte to verbally confirm his identify, said Lauzon. She learned afterward of the incident from Laporte, who survived his life-saving emergency angioplasty surgery at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital. Amlin said the ambulance, according to well-established protocol, received a police escort to the tunnel entrance with several intersections blocked off to help speed the trip. Tunnel traffic was shut down and, after the ambulance arrived at the border crossing, a tunnel company pickup truck with flashing lights, led it to a designated U.S. Customs lane where it was supposed to be waved through....
Texas Gov. Rick Perry Revives Controversial Border WebCam Program A popular, but controversial Web site set up so anyone with Internet access can help keep watch over the porous U.S. southern border is scheduled to be back up and running early next year. The site run by the State of Texas, www.Texasborderwatch.com — which is now dark — is getting a $3 million no-strings-attached cash infusion that will be used to pay for the citizen-watch program, Gov. Rick Perry's office said Monday. The site drew 28 million hits in a one-month test run last November, averaging about 43,000 hits per hour, according to information posted on the program Web site and confirmed by Perry's office. The popularity crashed the computer servers and flooded law enforcement officials with tipster information. But the program's effectiveness remains to be seen. During the test-run, the program generated about 13,000 e-mails to law-enforcement, leading only to the arrest of 10 illegal immigrants. Despite the mixed results, Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle told FOX News Texas is moving forward with the program, which includes about 200 "strategically" placed cameras along the border. The state will also be seeking bidders in the coming weeks to run the system, which will also include a server system that would be able to handle higher traffic than the one tested in November 2006....
Supreme Court to rule on right to keep handguns at home The Supreme Court set the stage Tuesday for a historic ruling on whether the fiercely debated 2nd Amendment protects the rights of Americans to keep handguns at home. The justices said they would review an appeals court decision that struck down a 31-year-old ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. The case will be heard early next year and decided by next summer. While outright bans on the private possession of guns are rare, many cities and states regulate firearms. If the high court rules in favor of gun owners, the decision could open the door to challenges to regulations and restrictions on firearms across the nation. In their appeal, District of Columbia officials say their ban on easily concealed handguns dates back to 1858. And they argue handguns are involved in most violent crime. Under the city ordinance passed in 1976, residents may keep shotguns or hunting rifles at home, but these weapons must be disassembled or have trigger locks. Handguns are illegal, except in the hands of police officers. Six city residents challenged the ordinance as unconstitutional and said it denied them the right to have "functional firearms" at home for self defense....
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
America's water war "Resource wars" are things that happen elsewhere. We don't usually think of our country as water poor or imagine that "resource wars" might be applied as a description to various state and local governments in the Southwest, Southeast or upper Midwest now fighting tooth and nail for previously shared water. And yet, "war" may not be a bad metaphor for what's on the horizon. According to the National Climate Data Center, federal officials have declared 43 percent of the contiguous U.S. to be in "moderate to extreme drought." Already, Sonny Perdue of Georgia is embroiled in an ever more bitter conflict with the governors of Florida and Alabama, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers, over the flow of water into and out of the Atlanta area. He's hardly alone. After all, the Southwest is in the grips of what, according to Davis, some climatologists are terming a "'mega-drought,' even the 'worst in 500 years.'" More shockingly, he writes, such conditions may actually represent the region's new "normal weather." The upper Midwest is also in rainfall-shortage mode, with water levels at all the Great Lakes dropping unnervingly. The water level of Lake Superior, for instance, has fallen to the "lowest point on record for this time of year." (Notice, by the way, how many "records" are being set nationally and globally in these drought years; how many places are already beginning to push beyond history, which means beyond any reference point we have.) And then there's the Southeast, 26 percent of which, according to the National Weather Service, is in a state of "exceptional" drought, its most extreme category, and 78 percent of which is "drought-affected." We're talking here about a region normally considered rich in water resources setting a bevy of records for dryness....
Predator poisons up in air Federal regulators are asking for public comment on a petition to ban two forms of poisoning used to kill livestock predators. The Environmental Protection agency is responding to concerns of environmental groups that say the poisoning devices intended for species such as coyotes threaten birds, wolves and dogs as well. The devices have been used for decades as a means to help ranchers prevent losses. But on Friday, the EPA gave notice it will take public comment on canceling the program. The move comes nearly a year after a coalition of conservation and health groups led by Boulder-based Sinapu submitted a 53-page petition highlighting a litany of concerns with the poisons that ranged from danger to California condors to terrorism risks. The federal government distributes baited, spring-loaded traps made to spray a mist in the face of coyote that bites down on it. The traps, known as M-44, are placed in the ground. Another poison distributed by the government is used in livestock collars that release the poison when a predator tries to bite the animal's neck....
Who Owns Montana? - ATV and equestrian use in the Pryor Mountains The Pryor Mountains are often overlooked by the Beartooths towering over from the West, but they are now taking center stage as the Forest Service looks to finalize a draft travel management plan for the range. The proposal is pitting ATV users versus backcountry horsemen and other wilderness advocates hoping to limit the use of off road vehicles in the Pryors. Dick Walton is heading up the Pryors Coalition, a group composed of the Audobon Society, the Montana Wilderness Association, and the Beartooth Backcountry Horsemen. Walton is working to limit the presence of off road vehicle trails, trails he says have doubled since the current plan was first written. "We are not against motorized use in the Pryors, but we want to preserve it so the motorized use doesn't dominate the landscape," says Walton. Randy Thom, meanwhile, started the Park City Recreation Association- in part to educate ATV users about how best to protect the land....
Tons of sand cleared More than 13,200 tons of river-clogging traction sand was cleaned-up along Interstate 70 this year on Vail Pass, between East Vail and Shrine Pass. That’s around double the amount of traction sand actually put down by the Colorado Department of Transportation last winter in that area, said Ken Wissel, a deputy maintenance superintendent for the region. The sand, which is used to keep icy and snow-packed roads safe during cold weather, has a profound environmental impact. It eventually seeps into Black Gore Creek below the highway, smothers insects, harms fish and eventually settles in Gore Creek, the trout stream that flows through Vail. Much of the sand is caught in sediment basins along I-70 and Black Gore Creek. The basins though require regular cleaning, or else more sand will end up in the water where it does its damage. “There’s 30 years of sand out there, so there’s plenty to clean up,” Wissel said....
Forest Service finds it easier to be green You might think that an agency dedicated to conservation would be ahead of the curve when it comes to having eco-friendly operations. But the U.S. Forest Service, just as many of us ordinary folks, has only recently come to a realization of how much it can do to change its habits and conserve resources. This past week, at a national conference held in Denver, the agency launched its nationwide effort to integrate sustainability into its day-to-day operations. The changes, big and small, came out of a "green" movement started here in the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain region. It's going to take a while to turn around a bureaucracy as large and entrenched as the Forest Service, but the energy and enthusiasm of those involved is laudable and shows an introspective quality that you don't often see in government. "I think somehow, as part of society, we got complacent," said Rick Cables, Rocky Mountain regional forester. "We didn't notice. We didn't think about it." Now, they are looking at a spectrum of ways to reduce what they call the service's environmental footprint....
Conservation Groups Ask Forest Service to Protect Key Southwest Rivers A coalition of conservationists led by the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Forest Service to immediately protect two ecologically critical river corridors in Arizona and New Mexico from continued damage by off-road vehicles. The San Francisco and Blue Rivers are two crown jewels of the Southwest that are rich in cultural resources, wildlife habitat, and opportunities for quiet recreation; yet portions of these rivers that flow through the Apache-Sitgreaves and Gila National Forests are threatened by ongoing and increasing abuse by off-road vehicles. The petition cites the need for immediate action based on the Forest Service’s duty to protect the area’s outstanding ecological and quiet recreational values from potentially irreparable harm. Closing the Frisco-Blue area would also help to ensure the agency’s compliance with the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Forest Management Act. “If there were only one place on the forest where off-road vehicles should not be allowed, it would be in riparian areas, especially along the perennial flow of water down the San Francisco River Canyon,” said Dutch Salmon, chairman of the Gila Conservation Coalition. The Forest Service is in the midst of a travel-planning process, set to be completed by 2009, whereby each forest is charged with designating routes, trails, and areas as open to off-road vehicle use and prohibiting such use in more sensitive areas....
Air operations report is dearth of details Cal Fire's analysis of air operations during last month's firestorms lacks the critical details it was supposed to provide, leaving officials with an incomplete look at what went wrong as they try to prepare for the next disaster. Among the missing details: a reason for grounding all available military aircraft in San Diego County on the first day of last month's wildfires. Cal Fire Director Ruben Grijalva referred to the report at the 2007 Wildfire Response Roundtable, a closed-door meeting Saturday at Cuyamaca College in El Cajon. Grijalva, members of the military and the San Diego County congressional delegation began to establish new aerial firefighting policies at the meeting. The consensus from the meeting was that much of the problem stemmed from a lack of military helicopter managers, better known as “spotters.” Cal Fire has trained and certified 39 spotters, who are required to be on board military helicopters to help pilots position water drops and communicate with firefighters in the air and on the ground....
New US-Canada Cattle Trade Upsets Some Canadian cattle over 30 months of age will be allowed into the U.S. market starting Monday, despite criticism from some domestic ranchers worried about mad cow disease. No one knows for sure how the decision will affect U.S. ranchers or foreign markets, which have yet to fully recover from the discovery of an infected cow in 2003. One cattlemen's group didn't wait to find out, filing an emergency request Friday for a temporary restraining order to block the rule from taking effect. In May 2003, the United States closed the border to cattle imports from Canada after an Alberta cow was confirmed with mad cow disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. The border between the world's largest trade partners reopened for Canadian beef from younger cattle within months of the original ban, and live cattle under the age of 30 months have been allowed to move across the border since July 2005. But the border has remained closed to older cattle until now. Agriculture officials have said the change is firmly based in science and ensures that U.S. regulators will protect the country against the disease. Critics counter that the federal government has failed to fully investigate the potential impact to U.S. ranchers and their export markets....
Older Canadian cattle start to come across border Older cattle from Canada began moving across the border into the United States on Monday, despite last-minute court appeals by some U.S. cattle groups and ranchers concerned about mad cow disease in Canada. Ten plaintiffs, including R-CALF USA, the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association and other groups and individual ranchers, on Friday asked U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann of Aberdeen for an emergency restraining order to keep the border closed. They were still waiting for word from Kornmann on Monday afternoon, according to Shae Dodson, communications director for R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America). Meanwhile, at least one shipment of Canadian cattle came across the border Monday, according to Ed Curlett, a spokesman for the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Curlett said Monday that he didn't know how many cattle were in the shipment or where they crossed....
Here comes the cavalry As a kid, I spent several summers on a big grain farm in eastern Alberta. Sometimes I would see older kids riding their horses by the side of the road with a blaring portable radio strapped to a saddle pommel. Maybe they still do that in Alberta, or maybe the country kids all have iPods now. Either way, they're not hearing a lot of songs about rural life when they listen to country radio. Cowboy songs have pretty much disappeared from mainstream country music, and the horses are gone too. It's a long way, culturally speaking, from Wilf Carter's The Fate of the Old Strawberry Roan to Carrie Underwood's Jesus, Take the Wheel. It took someone with real cowboy blood in his veins to round up the ponies and get them running again, through some brand new western songs. Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!, the latest album by Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans on Stony Plain Records, takes a sophisticated look at our ancient relationship with horses, in fields of peace and of war. Lund has a couple of generations of ranchers and cowboys in his family. His face is lightly scarred from his own adventures as a ranch kid and junior rodeo rider in southern Alberta....
It's All Trew: Military editions are book rarities I consider myself an avid reader, book-nut or reading addict. I have to be to keep writing columns each week. Recently, I discovered a type of book I had never heard of before. They are called the "Armed Services Editions." ASEs were published by a firm called Editions For The Armed Services, Incorporated, a nonprofit group established in 1942 by The Council On Books In Wartime. Made up of publishers, librarians and booksellers, they chose and oversaw the printing of 120,000,000 volumes to be distributed exclusively to members of the American Armed Forces in wartime. Classed as U.S. Government property, these books were not to be sold off-base or made available to civilians. To prevent mistaken identity, ASEs took on a different form from the common paperback books of the day. The covers were not adorned in color but left plain. The books were regular size paperbacks but the text and covers were printed horizontal form instead of the regular vertical format. Containing 200 to 300 pages, each had two columns of text instead of one like the regular books. A total of 1324 titles were produced and distributed from 1943 to 1947. The government paid six cents each, splitting a one-cent royalty with authors and the regular publisher when the work was not in the public domain....
Predator poisons up in air Federal regulators are asking for public comment on a petition to ban two forms of poisoning used to kill livestock predators. The Environmental Protection agency is responding to concerns of environmental groups that say the poisoning devices intended for species such as coyotes threaten birds, wolves and dogs as well. The devices have been used for decades as a means to help ranchers prevent losses. But on Friday, the EPA gave notice it will take public comment on canceling the program. The move comes nearly a year after a coalition of conservation and health groups led by Boulder-based Sinapu submitted a 53-page petition highlighting a litany of concerns with the poisons that ranged from danger to California condors to terrorism risks. The federal government distributes baited, spring-loaded traps made to spray a mist in the face of coyote that bites down on it. The traps, known as M-44, are placed in the ground. Another poison distributed by the government is used in livestock collars that release the poison when a predator tries to bite the animal's neck....
Who Owns Montana? - ATV and equestrian use in the Pryor Mountains The Pryor Mountains are often overlooked by the Beartooths towering over from the West, but they are now taking center stage as the Forest Service looks to finalize a draft travel management plan for the range. The proposal is pitting ATV users versus backcountry horsemen and other wilderness advocates hoping to limit the use of off road vehicles in the Pryors. Dick Walton is heading up the Pryors Coalition, a group composed of the Audobon Society, the Montana Wilderness Association, and the Beartooth Backcountry Horsemen. Walton is working to limit the presence of off road vehicle trails, trails he says have doubled since the current plan was first written. "We are not against motorized use in the Pryors, but we want to preserve it so the motorized use doesn't dominate the landscape," says Walton. Randy Thom, meanwhile, started the Park City Recreation Association- in part to educate ATV users about how best to protect the land....
Tons of sand cleared More than 13,200 tons of river-clogging traction sand was cleaned-up along Interstate 70 this year on Vail Pass, between East Vail and Shrine Pass. That’s around double the amount of traction sand actually put down by the Colorado Department of Transportation last winter in that area, said Ken Wissel, a deputy maintenance superintendent for the region. The sand, which is used to keep icy and snow-packed roads safe during cold weather, has a profound environmental impact. It eventually seeps into Black Gore Creek below the highway, smothers insects, harms fish and eventually settles in Gore Creek, the trout stream that flows through Vail. Much of the sand is caught in sediment basins along I-70 and Black Gore Creek. The basins though require regular cleaning, or else more sand will end up in the water where it does its damage. “There’s 30 years of sand out there, so there’s plenty to clean up,” Wissel said....
Forest Service finds it easier to be green You might think that an agency dedicated to conservation would be ahead of the curve when it comes to having eco-friendly operations. But the U.S. Forest Service, just as many of us ordinary folks, has only recently come to a realization of how much it can do to change its habits and conserve resources. This past week, at a national conference held in Denver, the agency launched its nationwide effort to integrate sustainability into its day-to-day operations. The changes, big and small, came out of a "green" movement started here in the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain region. It's going to take a while to turn around a bureaucracy as large and entrenched as the Forest Service, but the energy and enthusiasm of those involved is laudable and shows an introspective quality that you don't often see in government. "I think somehow, as part of society, we got complacent," said Rick Cables, Rocky Mountain regional forester. "We didn't notice. We didn't think about it." Now, they are looking at a spectrum of ways to reduce what they call the service's environmental footprint....
Conservation Groups Ask Forest Service to Protect Key Southwest Rivers A coalition of conservationists led by the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Forest Service to immediately protect two ecologically critical river corridors in Arizona and New Mexico from continued damage by off-road vehicles. The San Francisco and Blue Rivers are two crown jewels of the Southwest that are rich in cultural resources, wildlife habitat, and opportunities for quiet recreation; yet portions of these rivers that flow through the Apache-Sitgreaves and Gila National Forests are threatened by ongoing and increasing abuse by off-road vehicles. The petition cites the need for immediate action based on the Forest Service’s duty to protect the area’s outstanding ecological and quiet recreational values from potentially irreparable harm. Closing the Frisco-Blue area would also help to ensure the agency’s compliance with the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Forest Management Act. “If there were only one place on the forest where off-road vehicles should not be allowed, it would be in riparian areas, especially along the perennial flow of water down the San Francisco River Canyon,” said Dutch Salmon, chairman of the Gila Conservation Coalition. The Forest Service is in the midst of a travel-planning process, set to be completed by 2009, whereby each forest is charged with designating routes, trails, and areas as open to off-road vehicle use and prohibiting such use in more sensitive areas....
Air operations report is dearth of details Cal Fire's analysis of air operations during last month's firestorms lacks the critical details it was supposed to provide, leaving officials with an incomplete look at what went wrong as they try to prepare for the next disaster. Among the missing details: a reason for grounding all available military aircraft in San Diego County on the first day of last month's wildfires. Cal Fire Director Ruben Grijalva referred to the report at the 2007 Wildfire Response Roundtable, a closed-door meeting Saturday at Cuyamaca College in El Cajon. Grijalva, members of the military and the San Diego County congressional delegation began to establish new aerial firefighting policies at the meeting. The consensus from the meeting was that much of the problem stemmed from a lack of military helicopter managers, better known as “spotters.” Cal Fire has trained and certified 39 spotters, who are required to be on board military helicopters to help pilots position water drops and communicate with firefighters in the air and on the ground....
New US-Canada Cattle Trade Upsets Some Canadian cattle over 30 months of age will be allowed into the U.S. market starting Monday, despite criticism from some domestic ranchers worried about mad cow disease. No one knows for sure how the decision will affect U.S. ranchers or foreign markets, which have yet to fully recover from the discovery of an infected cow in 2003. One cattlemen's group didn't wait to find out, filing an emergency request Friday for a temporary restraining order to block the rule from taking effect. In May 2003, the United States closed the border to cattle imports from Canada after an Alberta cow was confirmed with mad cow disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. The border between the world's largest trade partners reopened for Canadian beef from younger cattle within months of the original ban, and live cattle under the age of 30 months have been allowed to move across the border since July 2005. But the border has remained closed to older cattle until now. Agriculture officials have said the change is firmly based in science and ensures that U.S. regulators will protect the country against the disease. Critics counter that the federal government has failed to fully investigate the potential impact to U.S. ranchers and their export markets....
Older Canadian cattle start to come across border Older cattle from Canada began moving across the border into the United States on Monday, despite last-minute court appeals by some U.S. cattle groups and ranchers concerned about mad cow disease in Canada. Ten plaintiffs, including R-CALF USA, the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association and other groups and individual ranchers, on Friday asked U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann of Aberdeen for an emergency restraining order to keep the border closed. They were still waiting for word from Kornmann on Monday afternoon, according to Shae Dodson, communications director for R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America). Meanwhile, at least one shipment of Canadian cattle came across the border Monday, according to Ed Curlett, a spokesman for the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Curlett said Monday that he didn't know how many cattle were in the shipment or where they crossed....
Here comes the cavalry As a kid, I spent several summers on a big grain farm in eastern Alberta. Sometimes I would see older kids riding their horses by the side of the road with a blaring portable radio strapped to a saddle pommel. Maybe they still do that in Alberta, or maybe the country kids all have iPods now. Either way, they're not hearing a lot of songs about rural life when they listen to country radio. Cowboy songs have pretty much disappeared from mainstream country music, and the horses are gone too. It's a long way, culturally speaking, from Wilf Carter's The Fate of the Old Strawberry Roan to Carrie Underwood's Jesus, Take the Wheel. It took someone with real cowboy blood in his veins to round up the ponies and get them running again, through some brand new western songs. Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!, the latest album by Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans on Stony Plain Records, takes a sophisticated look at our ancient relationship with horses, in fields of peace and of war. Lund has a couple of generations of ranchers and cowboys in his family. His face is lightly scarred from his own adventures as a ranch kid and junior rodeo rider in southern Alberta....
It's All Trew: Military editions are book rarities I consider myself an avid reader, book-nut or reading addict. I have to be to keep writing columns each week. Recently, I discovered a type of book I had never heard of before. They are called the "Armed Services Editions." ASEs were published by a firm called Editions For The Armed Services, Incorporated, a nonprofit group established in 1942 by The Council On Books In Wartime. Made up of publishers, librarians and booksellers, they chose and oversaw the printing of 120,000,000 volumes to be distributed exclusively to members of the American Armed Forces in wartime. Classed as U.S. Government property, these books were not to be sold off-base or made available to civilians. To prevent mistaken identity, ASEs took on a different form from the common paperback books of the day. The covers were not adorned in color but left plain. The books were regular size paperbacks but the text and covers were printed horizontal form instead of the regular vertical format. Containing 200 to 300 pages, each had two columns of text instead of one like the regular books. A total of 1324 titles were produced and distributed from 1943 to 1947. The government paid six cents each, splitting a one-cent royalty with authors and the regular publisher when the work was not in the public domain....
FLE
A Meaner, Nastier TSA Just in time for Thanksgiving’s travelling throngs, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has agreed to "introduce ‘more aggressive, visible and unpredictable security measures’" at airports. Apparently, molesting the handicapped, groping grandmothers, and killing passengers don’t suffice. CBS News fears that "...a team of terrorists working together could easily beat the system. ‘If you start to break up all the components [of an IED or IID] over several different people, and you bring them in in different ways, on your person, in your carry-on luggage, how is a TSA screener supposed to put all those pieces together?’ says CBS News security analyst Paul Kurtz." But the Feds take a contrary lesson from the TSA’s inability to detect "components": screeners should abuse us serfs more "aggressively" and "unpredictably." Why is it that every time the TSA fails, passengers pay the price? This is only the latest of the agency’s scandals. Its incompetence and chicanery have been hogging headlines for weeks now. In October, USA Today "obtained" a "classified report." It said screeners’ "failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers" in 60% of the tests run at Chicago O’Hare last year and in 75% of those at Los Angeles International. Such jaw-dropping scores are about average for the TSA: screeners routinely miss most of what agents try to smuggle. And that’s despite cheating. Though they aren’t supposed to know that they’re being tested, let alone the investigators’ identities, what contraband they’re carrying and where they’ve stashed it, screeners are often alerted to all those details. And have been for years. But only recently did we learn who’s cluing them in. Earlier this month, NBC News reported that "those tipoffs may have come from high officials" at the TSA – specifically, from Mike Restovich, Assistant Administrator of Security Operations. On April 28, 2006, he emailed "Federal Security Directors" at airports nationwide a "NOTICE OF POSSIBLE SECURITY TEST." Mike advised that "This information is provided for your situational awareness."....
Lawyer Groups to Flag Cases Needing Review Two umbrella groups for criminal defense lawyers announced yesterday that they will independently review cases nationwide where the FBI used a discredited bullet-matching science and will try to assist defendants who might have been wrongly convicted. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Network said they were creating a task force of lawyers in response to a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes." That investigation, published yesterday and today, found that the FBI has not taken steps to alert hundreds of defendants that they may have been convicted through the use of comparative bullet-lead analysis, a forensic tool that was discarded two years ago. The FBI decided late last week to begin its own nationwide review of cases over the last three decades in which its experts matched bullets by checking lead content. It has promised to alert prosecutors to any instance of misleading testimony. The two legal groups said they will assist the FBI in identifying cases that need testimony reviews....
Agents' pardon urged of Bush Top conservatives have joined ranking House leaders in their bid to pressure the president to pardon two Border Patrol agents imprisoned for the nonfatal shooting of a Mexican drug smuggler in El Paso, Texas, in 2005. In a letter that was delivered today to the White House, 31 major conservative petitioners joined a campaign led by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and presidential candidate, asking President Bush to pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean before Thanksgiving. The letter comes on the heels of the arrest of admitted drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila on charges of trafficking marijuana while he was profiting from the federal immunity deal as the star witness in the shooting case against the agents. "History has proven that the mere words and deeds of a president can change the course of history and profoundly affect both the tone and direction of the nation's moral character for generations to come," said the letter signed by 31 petitioners, mostly from Christian conservative groups and national-security organizations. "The impact of a president's silence can have the same dramatic and devastating results. That is why we find your continued silence on the issue of a presidential pardon for Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean of great concern," it said....
Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor in New Encryption Standard? Random numbers are critical for cryptography: for encryption keys, random authentication challenges, initialization vectors, nonces, key-agreement schemes, generating prime numbers and so on. Break the random-number generator, and most of the time you break the entire security system. Which is why you should worry about a new random-number standard that includes an algorithm that is slow, badly designed and just might contain a backdoor for the National Security Agency. The NSA has always been intimately involved in U.S. cryptography standards -- it is, after all, expert in making and breaking secret codes. So the agency's participation in the NIST (the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology) standard is not sinister in itself. It's only when you look under the hood at the NSA's contribution that questions arise. But today there's an even bigger stink brewing around Dual_EC_DRBG. In an informal presentation (.pdf) at the CRYPTO 2007 conference in August, Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson showed that the algorithm contains a weakness that can only be described a backdoor. This is how it works....
A Meaner, Nastier TSA Just in time for Thanksgiving’s travelling throngs, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has agreed to "introduce ‘more aggressive, visible and unpredictable security measures’" at airports. Apparently, molesting the handicapped, groping grandmothers, and killing passengers don’t suffice. CBS News fears that "...a team of terrorists working together could easily beat the system. ‘If you start to break up all the components [of an IED or IID] over several different people, and you bring them in in different ways, on your person, in your carry-on luggage, how is a TSA screener supposed to put all those pieces together?’ says CBS News security analyst Paul Kurtz." But the Feds take a contrary lesson from the TSA’s inability to detect "components": screeners should abuse us serfs more "aggressively" and "unpredictably." Why is it that every time the TSA fails, passengers pay the price? This is only the latest of the agency’s scandals. Its incompetence and chicanery have been hogging headlines for weeks now. In October, USA Today "obtained" a "classified report." It said screeners’ "failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers" in 60% of the tests run at Chicago O’Hare last year and in 75% of those at Los Angeles International. Such jaw-dropping scores are about average for the TSA: screeners routinely miss most of what agents try to smuggle. And that’s despite cheating. Though they aren’t supposed to know that they’re being tested, let alone the investigators’ identities, what contraband they’re carrying and where they’ve stashed it, screeners are often alerted to all those details. And have been for years. But only recently did we learn who’s cluing them in. Earlier this month, NBC News reported that "those tipoffs may have come from high officials" at the TSA – specifically, from Mike Restovich, Assistant Administrator of Security Operations. On April 28, 2006, he emailed "Federal Security Directors" at airports nationwide a "NOTICE OF POSSIBLE SECURITY TEST." Mike advised that "This information is provided for your situational awareness."....
Lawyer Groups to Flag Cases Needing Review Two umbrella groups for criminal defense lawyers announced yesterday that they will independently review cases nationwide where the FBI used a discredited bullet-matching science and will try to assist defendants who might have been wrongly convicted. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Network said they were creating a task force of lawyers in response to a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes." That investigation, published yesterday and today, found that the FBI has not taken steps to alert hundreds of defendants that they may have been convicted through the use of comparative bullet-lead analysis, a forensic tool that was discarded two years ago. The FBI decided late last week to begin its own nationwide review of cases over the last three decades in which its experts matched bullets by checking lead content. It has promised to alert prosecutors to any instance of misleading testimony. The two legal groups said they will assist the FBI in identifying cases that need testimony reviews....
Agents' pardon urged of Bush Top conservatives have joined ranking House leaders in their bid to pressure the president to pardon two Border Patrol agents imprisoned for the nonfatal shooting of a Mexican drug smuggler in El Paso, Texas, in 2005. In a letter that was delivered today to the White House, 31 major conservative petitioners joined a campaign led by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and presidential candidate, asking President Bush to pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean before Thanksgiving. The letter comes on the heels of the arrest of admitted drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila on charges of trafficking marijuana while he was profiting from the federal immunity deal as the star witness in the shooting case against the agents. "History has proven that the mere words and deeds of a president can change the course of history and profoundly affect both the tone and direction of the nation's moral character for generations to come," said the letter signed by 31 petitioners, mostly from Christian conservative groups and national-security organizations. "The impact of a president's silence can have the same dramatic and devastating results. That is why we find your continued silence on the issue of a presidential pardon for Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean of great concern," it said....
Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor in New Encryption Standard? Random numbers are critical for cryptography: for encryption keys, random authentication challenges, initialization vectors, nonces, key-agreement schemes, generating prime numbers and so on. Break the random-number generator, and most of the time you break the entire security system. Which is why you should worry about a new random-number standard that includes an algorithm that is slow, badly designed and just might contain a backdoor for the National Security Agency. The NSA has always been intimately involved in U.S. cryptography standards -- it is, after all, expert in making and breaking secret codes. So the agency's participation in the NIST (the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology) standard is not sinister in itself. It's only when you look under the hood at the NSA's contribution that questions arise. But today there's an even bigger stink brewing around Dual_EC_DRBG. In an informal presentation (.pdf) at the CRYPTO 2007 conference in August, Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson showed that the algorithm contains a weakness that can only be described a backdoor. This is how it works....
Monday, November 19, 2007
NEWS ROUNDUP
Idaho ranchers learn to live with wolves John Faulkner was still finding sheep in October that had been scattered by marauding wolves near Fairfield. Wolves attacked Cascade cattle rancher Phil Davis' herd six times this summer, killing five calves. And Hailey sheep rancher Mike Stevens had to scramble to find another place for his sheep when wolves built a den in the middle of his grazing allotment. When the federal government was planning to move wolves into Idaho, no group opposed that more than Northern Rockies ranchers. They used their political clout to delay the release of wolves into Idaho and Yellowstone National Park for more than a decade. They went to court in 1995 in a last-ditch effort to keep out the controversial predators their grandfathers had eliminated at the turn of the century. Finally, when wolves were rapidly expanding beyond Idaho's backcountry, ranchers helped persuade the Idaho Legislature in 2002 to pass a plan to manage them, including additional authority for ranchers to kill wolves that attack livestock. Now, federal officials may soon remove wolves from the protection of the Endangered Species Act, which would give Idaho and other states control over the animals. Faulkner, Davis and Stevens have different views of the wolves that came into the state and their lives over the past decade. Each has learned to live with the wolves, but all say it's not easy. "This summer we had five different packs working our sheep," said Faulkner, a Gooding sheep rancher. "These wolves are becoming a hell of a problem."....
Wyoming commission approves gray wolf management plan Over the objections of environmental groups, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission unanimously approved a plan Friday under which the state would manage gray wolves once the animals are no longer under federal protection. ''This state has a reputation for being able to manage wildlife and manage them well,'' commission president Bill Williams said. ''I think we have to ask everyone to take a bit of a leap of faith here.'' Wyoming's plan will be submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which rejected the state's first proposal for not adequately protecting wolves. The federal agency must approve the state plan in order for it to move forward with removing special protections for wolves under the Endangered Species Act. The agency has already approved state management plans in Montana and Idaho, where the wolves are also located. Wyoming's latest management plan has been criticized by environmentalists who say it falls short of providing wolves with protections and adequate habitat....
Lawsuit challenges federal decision on status of fish Groups demanding federal protection for a species of fish in southwestern Montana have filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's refusal to declare the fluvial arctic grayling endangered. The suit by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Federation of Fly Fishers and the Western Watersheds Project says it was not scientific findings but a manipulative administrator that led the service to deny the fish protection under the Endangered Species Act early this year. An assistant regional director at the service's Denver office said he was able to state "point blank" Thursday that the claim is unfounded. Mike Stempel at the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Denver said in a telephone interview Thursday that MacDonald "had zero influence on this (grayling) decision." He said the Fish and Wildlife Service identified several months ago issues in which MacDonald "intervened in a way that she probably shouldn't have." Creatures at the center of those issues included lynx and prairie dogs, but not grayling, Stempel said. He said three people at the Denver office, including him, decided that listing grayling under the Endangered Species Act was inappropriate. That decision was scientifically based, said Stempel, Fish and Wildlife's assistant regional director for fisheries and ecological services....
Dispersed campsite access rule draws fire The distance campers and hunters can travel off-road to get to a dispersed campsite is sharply reduced in the new travel plans for Lewis and Clark National Forest, but the impact of the change is in dispute. "I don't think we're being terribly restrictive with this," said Dick Schwecke, the forest's travel plan program leader. Existing campsites and roads leading to them will not be shut down, he said. The intent of the change, rather, is to prevent new, illegal roads from being forged in the forest by those seeking dispersed campsites — those not united in a formal campground. Sportsmen don't see it that way. They say John Q. Camper's use of the forest for dispersed camping — a prized activity for hundreds of campers and hunters — will be restricted. They're planning to appeal the change....
Rocky Mountain Power puts end to plant in American Fork Canyon Rocky Mountain Power, which owned and operated a hydroelectric project in American Fork Canyon, gave the title and water rights to two federal agencies Friday, finishing a decommissioning of the project. The company decommissioned the plant, which was built in the early 20th century, due to relicensing issues with the federal government. Realizing the the new licenses were not economical, Rocky Mountain Power decided to remove the facility, said Bob Atwood, the project manager. The plant stopped producing electricity in 2004 after a landslide knocked out a main flow line, Atwood said. Since it was near to the decommissioning time, they decided not to spend the money to fix the lines. Decisions to get rid of renewable sources of energy, such as a hydro-electric project, aren't taken lightly or made quickly, said Dave Eskelsen, manager and communications director for Rocky Mountain Power. Hydroelectric plants hold many advantages since the energy is renewable and water doesn't release carbon byproducts or other harmful materials into the air....
Feinstein takes on fire prevention Sen. Dianne Feinstein unveiled a series of fire prevention and disaster relief bills in Washington on Friday that were inspired by this fall's Southern California wildfires. The package's centerpiece, the Fire Safe Community Act, calls for the creation of national guidelines to help communities in hazardous areas reduce the risk of wildfires. The bill would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create a set of guidelines for suggested water supplies, proper home construction materials, defensible space, proper management of flammable brush and trees and infrastructure standards, according to a statement from Feinstein, D-Calif. Communities working to meet the guidelines would be eligible to receive money from a $25 million federal grant program under the proposed legislation. The Fire Safe Community Act would provide $15 million in grants -- on a 50-50 cost sharing basis -- to states that develop or update maps identifying communities at the greatest risk of wildfires. The federal government would reimburse up to 90 percent of the firefighting and emergency services costs to local and state fire departments that follow the new guidelines....
Pace of energy drilling expands in Western Montana One of nature's great observers, Meriwether Lewis, kept detailed journals of Montana's native wealth when he passed through more than two centuries ago. Flora and fauna, nothing escaped his notice. Except for one natural wonder lying deep beneath the landscape, one that today is producing both riches and controversy. Fossil fuels. Much of Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, a wilderness largely unchanged since Lewis and Clark's expedition, was protected from energy development last year after a high-profile push by citizens and legislators. Many of Montana's other prairies, peaks and watersheds, though, have proved to be gushers for the oil and natural gas industry as it expands its search for more domestic energy sources. Their next shot at reserving some of the state's fossil fuels comes Nov. 27, when the federal Bureau of Land Management hosts another round of bidding in a drilling expansion that's producing record amounts of revenue in the Big Sky state. But those profits may be coming at a cost....
Dems try to raise their odds "What happens here, stays here." Western Democrats hope the slogan that has boosted business on the Las Vegas Strip doesn't ring true in the race for the American presidency. Nevada's caucuses on Jan. 19 position the state as a likely third in the national lineup and relevant for the first time in presidential politics. The early slot on the primary calendar has prompted candidates - mostly Democrats - not only to show up, but finally to speak out on water shortages, growth, mining, wilderness protection and other challenges facing the Interior West. "We are on message about the things the voters of the West care about," party chairman Howard Dean said Tuesday in Denver. But, if the candidates' performances two days later were any indication, that message is hardly resounding. In the first presidential debate ever in Nevada, Democrats addressed the dangers of Chinese toys, possible war with Iran and immigration, but touched only on one specifically Western issue - a proposed nuclear waste dump here, which the pack of seven all oppose....
Gas pipeline could cross roadless area The federal government may be little more than a month away from authorizing construction of a natural gas pipeline through a roadless area, something environmentalists say could have national implications. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service this week issued a final environmental impact statement for the Bull Mountain Pipeline, which would run from northwest Gunnison County to the Divide Creek area south of Silt. The study calls for the pipeline to cross about eight miles of roadless areas in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests and the White River National Forest. It would follow the right of way of a smaller, 1980s-era pipeline. The study reaffirms the findings of a prior, draft study. Several environmental groups say the proposal would violate the 2001 roadless rule....
Out of the wild If our love affair with the fabled Kiger mustang, perhaps the most sought-after wild horse in the West, can be summed up by a single person, then listen to Betty Linnell. As owner of the Double L Kigers and Three Creeks Ranch outside Medford, she bought her first Kiger in 1993 and fell so hard for the breed that she eventually sold off all her quarter horses and replaced them with Kigers. "It was their beauty and their romantic history linking them to the historic Spanish mustangs that first caught our eye," Linnell says. "But it was after using them, after seeing their stamina to go all day chasing cows in rugged terrain, that we really got hooked on them." Now she breeds and sells them nationwide. Thirty years after a group of wild horses was moved to the isolated Kiger Gorge on Steens Mountain because of similarities to the Spanish horses brought to North America centuries ago, hundreds of people have become, like Linnell, smitten with the breed and its lore. But not all wild mustangs are so popular. The federal Bureau of Land Management oversees an estimated 31,000 wild horses in 10 Western states. Because the horse faces no predator in the wild, other than mountain lions, herds would double every five years if not culled. To keep a balance between horses and habitat, excess animals are offered for adoption through public auctions, but not all find a home. Of the roughly $38 million spent on the program, more than half goes to caring for the 22,000 older horses that haven't been adopted and live on ranches primarily in Oklahoma, where each horse costs the government about $1.27 a day....
Abandoned horses pose dilemna for ranchers Ranchers in the old West saw their herds of horses depleted by rustlers. Today, it's different. Increasingly, people are abandoning unwanted domestic horses on ranches and public lands. High hay prices and the closure this fall of the nation's last domestic horsemeat processing facility in Illinois may be partly to blame. Malheur County Undersheriff Brian Wolfe tries to identify owners of the abandoned hoses and charge them with animal abandonment or animal abuse but 90% of the horses are not branded. But even trucking horses to Mexico and Canada for slaughter may end. Congress is considering legislation to prohibit killing and processing horses for human consumption or transporting them across international boundaries for that purpose.
Schweitzer says he's dropping brucellosis plan Gov. Brian Schweitzer says he's abandoning his "split state" idea for control of the veterinary disease brucellosis, in Montana. During the Montana-Montana State Football game in Bozeman yesterday, Schweitzer told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that the cattle industry lacked the consensus needed for his idea to succeed. For the past two years, Schweitzer has sought to establish a special buffer zone around Yellowstone National Park. Some of its bison carry brucellosis, and there are Montana ranchers who worry bison leaving Yellowstone will transmit the disease to cattle. Under the split-state plan, if a cattle herd was found infected with brucellosis, only ranchers within the greater Yellowstone area would be forced to put their animals through costly tests before export. The rest of the state would keep the brucellosis-free status held by Montana since 1985....
Mexican rancher to clone prize fighting bull A Mexican cattle rancher aims to clone a fighting bull so brave its life was spared in the world's biggest bull ring. Texan livestock cloning company ViaGen has taken samples from the ears and feet of 17-year-old Zalamero to reproduce its genetics in Canadian laboratories, owner Jose Manuel Fernandez said on Friday. Zalamero, or Fawner, has fathered around 100 offspring. "We believe this animal deserves to keep reproducing himself," Fernandez said. "We are going to do four copies because two cattle ranchers have asked me for them and I am going to keep two," he told Reuters. Zalamero fought in the world's biggest bull ring in Mexico City in 1994 and became an "indultado," one of the few bulls allowed to live because of its bravery....
Deciding the legacy of Sitting Bull When Sitting Bull’s name passes the lips of Ernie LaPointe, the words great-grandfather follow. For many people, Sitting Bull is a famed Indian spiritual leader. His name is said in the same breath as George Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn. But, the man depicted in movies and books is different from the man LaPointe’s mother told him about as a child. “I kept quiet about this,” he said. “It was my mother’s wish not to brag about it.” His mother is Angeline LaPointe, who is the daughter of Sitting Bull’s youngest daughter, Standing Holy. But, Sitting Bull’s family tree has many branches. He had four wives and adopted his sister’s son. The family of his fourth wife and his adopted son make equal claim to Sitting Bull’s heritage....
At 83, former Gov. Bruce King keeps faith with his first realm: the ranch Tawny fields, dotted with black Angus and white Charolais cattle, unfold into the distance on either side of the gravel road as the Chevy Silverado rumbles into a mostly sunny New Mexico morning. Bruce King — former New Mexico governor, state political icon, life-long rancher — is riding shotgun. He's the first to see the white momma cow standing at the cattle guard just beyond the crossroads ahead. "That's one the cowboys missed," he says. "She went back looking for her calf." This is the King Brothers Ranch, 80,000 acres spread out around the small community of Stanley, just north of Moriarty and 40 miles south of Santa Fe. Bruce King, 83, owns the ranch with his brothers Sam, 85, and Don, 77. Bruce King, a Democrat, served 12 years as governor, a record, and he was, in his day, the state's most recognized public figure. He rubbed elbows and slapped backs with the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and thousands of others who were less famous....
Molly Gloss’s “The Hearts of Horses” The Hearts of Horses, the moving and evocative new novel by Oregon writer Molly Gloss, begins with the classic “a stranger comes to town” set up: A tall, lone rider gallops into the fictional Elwha County in Eastern Oregon and begins “looking for horses that need breaking out.” But the year is 1917, and most young ranch hands have gone to fight in World War I, so the rider seeking work is a woman, 19-year-old Martha Lessen. The narrator informs us that it wasn’t uncommon for young women to train horses in that era. “Those girls could break horses as well as any man,” Gloss writes, “but they had their own ways of doing it, not such a bucking Wild West show. They went about it so quiet and deliberate, children would get tired of watching and go off to do something else.” George Bliss is the first rancher to hire Martha to gentle a pair of horses. Although he at first seems to be a bit skeptical of Martha, who wears the “old fashioned cowboy trappings” of “fringed batwing chaps” and a “showy big platter of a hat,” he is soon convinced enough by the skills she displays to advertise her services to his neighbors. He proposes she set up a “circle ride,” training a number of horses dispersed throughout the county in a circuit, riding a horse from one barn to the next, providing Martha with a “winter’s worth of work” that would result in all the neighbors’ horses becoming conditioned for the saddle by spring....
Idaho ranchers learn to live with wolves John Faulkner was still finding sheep in October that had been scattered by marauding wolves near Fairfield. Wolves attacked Cascade cattle rancher Phil Davis' herd six times this summer, killing five calves. And Hailey sheep rancher Mike Stevens had to scramble to find another place for his sheep when wolves built a den in the middle of his grazing allotment. When the federal government was planning to move wolves into Idaho, no group opposed that more than Northern Rockies ranchers. They used their political clout to delay the release of wolves into Idaho and Yellowstone National Park for more than a decade. They went to court in 1995 in a last-ditch effort to keep out the controversial predators their grandfathers had eliminated at the turn of the century. Finally, when wolves were rapidly expanding beyond Idaho's backcountry, ranchers helped persuade the Idaho Legislature in 2002 to pass a plan to manage them, including additional authority for ranchers to kill wolves that attack livestock. Now, federal officials may soon remove wolves from the protection of the Endangered Species Act, which would give Idaho and other states control over the animals. Faulkner, Davis and Stevens have different views of the wolves that came into the state and their lives over the past decade. Each has learned to live with the wolves, but all say it's not easy. "This summer we had five different packs working our sheep," said Faulkner, a Gooding sheep rancher. "These wolves are becoming a hell of a problem."....
Wyoming commission approves gray wolf management plan Over the objections of environmental groups, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission unanimously approved a plan Friday under which the state would manage gray wolves once the animals are no longer under federal protection. ''This state has a reputation for being able to manage wildlife and manage them well,'' commission president Bill Williams said. ''I think we have to ask everyone to take a bit of a leap of faith here.'' Wyoming's plan will be submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which rejected the state's first proposal for not adequately protecting wolves. The federal agency must approve the state plan in order for it to move forward with removing special protections for wolves under the Endangered Species Act. The agency has already approved state management plans in Montana and Idaho, where the wolves are also located. Wyoming's latest management plan has been criticized by environmentalists who say it falls short of providing wolves with protections and adequate habitat....
Lawsuit challenges federal decision on status of fish Groups demanding federal protection for a species of fish in southwestern Montana have filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's refusal to declare the fluvial arctic grayling endangered. The suit by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Federation of Fly Fishers and the Western Watersheds Project says it was not scientific findings but a manipulative administrator that led the service to deny the fish protection under the Endangered Species Act early this year. An assistant regional director at the service's Denver office said he was able to state "point blank" Thursday that the claim is unfounded. Mike Stempel at the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Denver said in a telephone interview Thursday that MacDonald "had zero influence on this (grayling) decision." He said the Fish and Wildlife Service identified several months ago issues in which MacDonald "intervened in a way that she probably shouldn't have." Creatures at the center of those issues included lynx and prairie dogs, but not grayling, Stempel said. He said three people at the Denver office, including him, decided that listing grayling under the Endangered Species Act was inappropriate. That decision was scientifically based, said Stempel, Fish and Wildlife's assistant regional director for fisheries and ecological services....
Dispersed campsite access rule draws fire The distance campers and hunters can travel off-road to get to a dispersed campsite is sharply reduced in the new travel plans for Lewis and Clark National Forest, but the impact of the change is in dispute. "I don't think we're being terribly restrictive with this," said Dick Schwecke, the forest's travel plan program leader. Existing campsites and roads leading to them will not be shut down, he said. The intent of the change, rather, is to prevent new, illegal roads from being forged in the forest by those seeking dispersed campsites — those not united in a formal campground. Sportsmen don't see it that way. They say John Q. Camper's use of the forest for dispersed camping — a prized activity for hundreds of campers and hunters — will be restricted. They're planning to appeal the change....
Rocky Mountain Power puts end to plant in American Fork Canyon Rocky Mountain Power, which owned and operated a hydroelectric project in American Fork Canyon, gave the title and water rights to two federal agencies Friday, finishing a decommissioning of the project. The company decommissioned the plant, which was built in the early 20th century, due to relicensing issues with the federal government. Realizing the the new licenses were not economical, Rocky Mountain Power decided to remove the facility, said Bob Atwood, the project manager. The plant stopped producing electricity in 2004 after a landslide knocked out a main flow line, Atwood said. Since it was near to the decommissioning time, they decided not to spend the money to fix the lines. Decisions to get rid of renewable sources of energy, such as a hydro-electric project, aren't taken lightly or made quickly, said Dave Eskelsen, manager and communications director for Rocky Mountain Power. Hydroelectric plants hold many advantages since the energy is renewable and water doesn't release carbon byproducts or other harmful materials into the air....
Feinstein takes on fire prevention Sen. Dianne Feinstein unveiled a series of fire prevention and disaster relief bills in Washington on Friday that were inspired by this fall's Southern California wildfires. The package's centerpiece, the Fire Safe Community Act, calls for the creation of national guidelines to help communities in hazardous areas reduce the risk of wildfires. The bill would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create a set of guidelines for suggested water supplies, proper home construction materials, defensible space, proper management of flammable brush and trees and infrastructure standards, according to a statement from Feinstein, D-Calif. Communities working to meet the guidelines would be eligible to receive money from a $25 million federal grant program under the proposed legislation. The Fire Safe Community Act would provide $15 million in grants -- on a 50-50 cost sharing basis -- to states that develop or update maps identifying communities at the greatest risk of wildfires. The federal government would reimburse up to 90 percent of the firefighting and emergency services costs to local and state fire departments that follow the new guidelines....
Pace of energy drilling expands in Western Montana One of nature's great observers, Meriwether Lewis, kept detailed journals of Montana's native wealth when he passed through more than two centuries ago. Flora and fauna, nothing escaped his notice. Except for one natural wonder lying deep beneath the landscape, one that today is producing both riches and controversy. Fossil fuels. Much of Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, a wilderness largely unchanged since Lewis and Clark's expedition, was protected from energy development last year after a high-profile push by citizens and legislators. Many of Montana's other prairies, peaks and watersheds, though, have proved to be gushers for the oil and natural gas industry as it expands its search for more domestic energy sources. Their next shot at reserving some of the state's fossil fuels comes Nov. 27, when the federal Bureau of Land Management hosts another round of bidding in a drilling expansion that's producing record amounts of revenue in the Big Sky state. But those profits may be coming at a cost....
Dems try to raise their odds "What happens here, stays here." Western Democrats hope the slogan that has boosted business on the Las Vegas Strip doesn't ring true in the race for the American presidency. Nevada's caucuses on Jan. 19 position the state as a likely third in the national lineup and relevant for the first time in presidential politics. The early slot on the primary calendar has prompted candidates - mostly Democrats - not only to show up, but finally to speak out on water shortages, growth, mining, wilderness protection and other challenges facing the Interior West. "We are on message about the things the voters of the West care about," party chairman Howard Dean said Tuesday in Denver. But, if the candidates' performances two days later were any indication, that message is hardly resounding. In the first presidential debate ever in Nevada, Democrats addressed the dangers of Chinese toys, possible war with Iran and immigration, but touched only on one specifically Western issue - a proposed nuclear waste dump here, which the pack of seven all oppose....
Gas pipeline could cross roadless area The federal government may be little more than a month away from authorizing construction of a natural gas pipeline through a roadless area, something environmentalists say could have national implications. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service this week issued a final environmental impact statement for the Bull Mountain Pipeline, which would run from northwest Gunnison County to the Divide Creek area south of Silt. The study calls for the pipeline to cross about eight miles of roadless areas in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests and the White River National Forest. It would follow the right of way of a smaller, 1980s-era pipeline. The study reaffirms the findings of a prior, draft study. Several environmental groups say the proposal would violate the 2001 roadless rule....
Out of the wild If our love affair with the fabled Kiger mustang, perhaps the most sought-after wild horse in the West, can be summed up by a single person, then listen to Betty Linnell. As owner of the Double L Kigers and Three Creeks Ranch outside Medford, she bought her first Kiger in 1993 and fell so hard for the breed that she eventually sold off all her quarter horses and replaced them with Kigers. "It was their beauty and their romantic history linking them to the historic Spanish mustangs that first caught our eye," Linnell says. "But it was after using them, after seeing their stamina to go all day chasing cows in rugged terrain, that we really got hooked on them." Now she breeds and sells them nationwide. Thirty years after a group of wild horses was moved to the isolated Kiger Gorge on Steens Mountain because of similarities to the Spanish horses brought to North America centuries ago, hundreds of people have become, like Linnell, smitten with the breed and its lore. But not all wild mustangs are so popular. The federal Bureau of Land Management oversees an estimated 31,000 wild horses in 10 Western states. Because the horse faces no predator in the wild, other than mountain lions, herds would double every five years if not culled. To keep a balance between horses and habitat, excess animals are offered for adoption through public auctions, but not all find a home. Of the roughly $38 million spent on the program, more than half goes to caring for the 22,000 older horses that haven't been adopted and live on ranches primarily in Oklahoma, where each horse costs the government about $1.27 a day....
Abandoned horses pose dilemna for ranchers Ranchers in the old West saw their herds of horses depleted by rustlers. Today, it's different. Increasingly, people are abandoning unwanted domestic horses on ranches and public lands. High hay prices and the closure this fall of the nation's last domestic horsemeat processing facility in Illinois may be partly to blame. Malheur County Undersheriff Brian Wolfe tries to identify owners of the abandoned hoses and charge them with animal abandonment or animal abuse but 90% of the horses are not branded. But even trucking horses to Mexico and Canada for slaughter may end. Congress is considering legislation to prohibit killing and processing horses for human consumption or transporting them across international boundaries for that purpose.
Schweitzer says he's dropping brucellosis plan Gov. Brian Schweitzer says he's abandoning his "split state" idea for control of the veterinary disease brucellosis, in Montana. During the Montana-Montana State Football game in Bozeman yesterday, Schweitzer told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that the cattle industry lacked the consensus needed for his idea to succeed. For the past two years, Schweitzer has sought to establish a special buffer zone around Yellowstone National Park. Some of its bison carry brucellosis, and there are Montana ranchers who worry bison leaving Yellowstone will transmit the disease to cattle. Under the split-state plan, if a cattle herd was found infected with brucellosis, only ranchers within the greater Yellowstone area would be forced to put their animals through costly tests before export. The rest of the state would keep the brucellosis-free status held by Montana since 1985....
Mexican rancher to clone prize fighting bull A Mexican cattle rancher aims to clone a fighting bull so brave its life was spared in the world's biggest bull ring. Texan livestock cloning company ViaGen has taken samples from the ears and feet of 17-year-old Zalamero to reproduce its genetics in Canadian laboratories, owner Jose Manuel Fernandez said on Friday. Zalamero, or Fawner, has fathered around 100 offspring. "We believe this animal deserves to keep reproducing himself," Fernandez said. "We are going to do four copies because two cattle ranchers have asked me for them and I am going to keep two," he told Reuters. Zalamero fought in the world's biggest bull ring in Mexico City in 1994 and became an "indultado," one of the few bulls allowed to live because of its bravery....
Deciding the legacy of Sitting Bull When Sitting Bull’s name passes the lips of Ernie LaPointe, the words great-grandfather follow. For many people, Sitting Bull is a famed Indian spiritual leader. His name is said in the same breath as George Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn. But, the man depicted in movies and books is different from the man LaPointe’s mother told him about as a child. “I kept quiet about this,” he said. “It was my mother’s wish not to brag about it.” His mother is Angeline LaPointe, who is the daughter of Sitting Bull’s youngest daughter, Standing Holy. But, Sitting Bull’s family tree has many branches. He had four wives and adopted his sister’s son. The family of his fourth wife and his adopted son make equal claim to Sitting Bull’s heritage....
At 83, former Gov. Bruce King keeps faith with his first realm: the ranch Tawny fields, dotted with black Angus and white Charolais cattle, unfold into the distance on either side of the gravel road as the Chevy Silverado rumbles into a mostly sunny New Mexico morning. Bruce King — former New Mexico governor, state political icon, life-long rancher — is riding shotgun. He's the first to see the white momma cow standing at the cattle guard just beyond the crossroads ahead. "That's one the cowboys missed," he says. "She went back looking for her calf." This is the King Brothers Ranch, 80,000 acres spread out around the small community of Stanley, just north of Moriarty and 40 miles south of Santa Fe. Bruce King, 83, owns the ranch with his brothers Sam, 85, and Don, 77. Bruce King, a Democrat, served 12 years as governor, a record, and he was, in his day, the state's most recognized public figure. He rubbed elbows and slapped backs with the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and thousands of others who were less famous....
Molly Gloss’s “The Hearts of Horses” The Hearts of Horses, the moving and evocative new novel by Oregon writer Molly Gloss, begins with the classic “a stranger comes to town” set up: A tall, lone rider gallops into the fictional Elwha County in Eastern Oregon and begins “looking for horses that need breaking out.” But the year is 1917, and most young ranch hands have gone to fight in World War I, so the rider seeking work is a woman, 19-year-old Martha Lessen. The narrator informs us that it wasn’t uncommon for young women to train horses in that era. “Those girls could break horses as well as any man,” Gloss writes, “but they had their own ways of doing it, not such a bucking Wild West show. They went about it so quiet and deliberate, children would get tired of watching and go off to do something else.” George Bliss is the first rancher to hire Martha to gentle a pair of horses. Although he at first seems to be a bit skeptical of Martha, who wears the “old fashioned cowboy trappings” of “fringed batwing chaps” and a “showy big platter of a hat,” he is soon convinced enough by the skills she displays to advertise her services to his neighbors. He proposes she set up a “circle ride,” training a number of horses dispersed throughout the county in a circuit, riding a horse from one barn to the next, providing Martha with a “winter’s worth of work” that would result in all the neighbors’ horses becoming conditioned for the saddle by spring....
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Gathering strays to Sam's Place
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy
By Julie Carter
Cowboys are all about strays. They round them up, rope, brand and doctor them, and in some mirrored reflection of the universe, you could say they become one and the same.
The dictionary de-fines a stray as a domestic animal wandering at large, homeless and without an owner. That pretty much sums up the cowboy with a question mark in the area of ³domestic.² Thanksgiving holiday in my world has become a gathering of strays.
The once solidly-grounded-in-family-tradition celebration has migrated to a collection of eclectic folk all hoping to spend the day with friends doing something or nothing, whichever works.
Let’s face it folks. The world has spun fast enough to scatter families to the wind and put hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles between their table and yours.
Easy travel, corporate employment and the lure of metropolitan paychecks have whisked away the kinfolk from their rural roots to suburbia. There they thrive with two and a half kids, a poofed and pedigreed dog, a boat and a feng shui backyard.
Buck Owens had a hit song in the late ¹60s with lyrics that said “There’s always a party at Sam’s Place, that’s where the gang all hangs around.” I’m headed to almost such a place this Thanksgiving.
While I don’t expect to find Hootchy-kootchy Hattie from Cincinnati or Shimmy-Shakin’ Tina who hails from Pasadena, I¹m pretty sure Sally the good ole girl from Stephenville will be there to keep things beautiful and blonde.
Also in attendance at the turkey carving will be the crazy uncle, the class clown, the smart kids, a rodeo drifter or two and a couple of team roping partners who haven’t yet found anyone else to rope with them or to invite them to dinner.
In the cowboy world of roping and rodeo, all gatherings begin with some sort of timed event, usually a roping. At a cowboy Thanksgiving dinner, it is expected that you’ll bring along your horse and rope to finish out the day.
Dan, our favorite team roper hero, says that his family gatherings have always started this way. This works out well since his family is full of rodeo ropers of all ages, sizes and speeds.
However, this year the timed event was put on hold. Seems Granddad, who is in charge of the stock contracting, has, so far, only come up with one milk cow, a one-horned Hereford steer, a goat and two small donkeys.
Dan was mighty disappointed, as he has a brand new heel rope that he reports to be stiff enough to poke a cat out from under the trailer house. But with hope renewed, he’ll head on down to “Sam’s Place” and try this new nylon weapon out on a few unsuspecting Corrientes.
Thanksgiving will give many of us that opportunity in the true spirit of gratefulness for good friends and a bountiful table.
In the late afternoon sun, we will all waddle to the arena, moaning deliriously over the mental and physical memory of a magnificent meal.
If you can¹t be with the ones you love, love the ones you are with.
When I begin to recall the things for which I¹m thankful, first on the list is life and the chance to experience joy and laughter.
Whether you spend your Thanksgiving with Mom, Pop and the cousins or quietly with the remote control, bag of Fritos and bean dip, my wish for you is that it is a joyful day.
Happy Thanksgiving from all the strays down at Sam’s Place.
Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com. Let her book, Cowgirl Sass & Savvy, be the perfect Christmas gift for someone on your list!
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy
By Julie Carter
Cowboys are all about strays. They round them up, rope, brand and doctor them, and in some mirrored reflection of the universe, you could say they become one and the same.
The dictionary de-fines a stray as a domestic animal wandering at large, homeless and without an owner. That pretty much sums up the cowboy with a question mark in the area of ³domestic.² Thanksgiving holiday in my world has become a gathering of strays.
The once solidly-grounded-in-family-tradition celebration has migrated to a collection of eclectic folk all hoping to spend the day with friends doing something or nothing, whichever works.
Let’s face it folks. The world has spun fast enough to scatter families to the wind and put hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles between their table and yours.
Easy travel, corporate employment and the lure of metropolitan paychecks have whisked away the kinfolk from their rural roots to suburbia. There they thrive with two and a half kids, a poofed and pedigreed dog, a boat and a feng shui backyard.
Buck Owens had a hit song in the late ¹60s with lyrics that said “There’s always a party at Sam’s Place, that’s where the gang all hangs around.” I’m headed to almost such a place this Thanksgiving.
While I don’t expect to find Hootchy-kootchy Hattie from Cincinnati or Shimmy-Shakin’ Tina who hails from Pasadena, I¹m pretty sure Sally the good ole girl from Stephenville will be there to keep things beautiful and blonde.
Also in attendance at the turkey carving will be the crazy uncle, the class clown, the smart kids, a rodeo drifter or two and a couple of team roping partners who haven’t yet found anyone else to rope with them or to invite them to dinner.
In the cowboy world of roping and rodeo, all gatherings begin with some sort of timed event, usually a roping. At a cowboy Thanksgiving dinner, it is expected that you’ll bring along your horse and rope to finish out the day.
Dan, our favorite team roper hero, says that his family gatherings have always started this way. This works out well since his family is full of rodeo ropers of all ages, sizes and speeds.
However, this year the timed event was put on hold. Seems Granddad, who is in charge of the stock contracting, has, so far, only come up with one milk cow, a one-horned Hereford steer, a goat and two small donkeys.
Dan was mighty disappointed, as he has a brand new heel rope that he reports to be stiff enough to poke a cat out from under the trailer house. But with hope renewed, he’ll head on down to “Sam’s Place” and try this new nylon weapon out on a few unsuspecting Corrientes.
Thanksgiving will give many of us that opportunity in the true spirit of gratefulness for good friends and a bountiful table.
In the late afternoon sun, we will all waddle to the arena, moaning deliriously over the mental and physical memory of a magnificent meal.
If you can¹t be with the ones you love, love the ones you are with.
When I begin to recall the things for which I¹m thankful, first on the list is life and the chance to experience joy and laughter.
Whether you spend your Thanksgiving with Mom, Pop and the cousins or quietly with the remote control, bag of Fritos and bean dip, my wish for you is that it is a joyful day.
Happy Thanksgiving from all the strays down at Sam’s Place.
Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com. Let her book, Cowgirl Sass & Savvy, be the perfect Christmas gift for someone on your list!
OPINION/COMMENTARY
Don't Look to Government to Cool Down the Planet Part of the problem is the IPCC itself. Reiter points out, "It's the inter-governmental panel on climate change. It's governments who nominate people. It's inherently political. Many of the scientists are on the IPCC because they view global warming as a problem that needs to be fixed. They have a vested interest." Phillip Stott, professor of biogeography at the University of London, says that the global warming debate has become the new "grand narrative" of the environmental movement. "It's something for people to get excited about and protest. It's more about emotion than science." While the scientists thrash things out, what are the rest of us to do? There are good reasons to begin with a presumption against government action. As coercive monopolies that spend other people's money taken by force, governments are uniquely unqualified to solve problems. They are riddled by ignorance, perverse incentives, incompetence and self-serving. The synthetic-fuels program during the Carter years consumed billions of dollars and was finally disbanded as a failure. The push for ethanol today is more driven by special interests than good sense -- it's boosting food prices while producing a fuel of dubious environmental quality. Even if the climate really needs cooling down, government can't be counted on to accomplish that....
Ignore Al Gore - but not his Nobel friends While Gore was creating alarm with his belief that a 20-foot-high wall of water would inundate low-lying cities, the IPCC showed us we should realistically prepare for a rise of one foot or so by the end of the century. Beyond the dramatic difference, it is also worth putting that one foot in perspective. Over the last 150 years, sea levels rose about one foot - yet, did we notice? Most tellingly, while Gore was raising fears about the Gulf Stream halting and a new Ice Age starting, the scientists discounted the prospect entirely. The Gulf Stream takes warm water from around Mexico and pushes it toward Europe. Around 8,000 years ago, a melting lake in the region of the present-day Canadian Great Lakes broke through and a massive torrent of cold, fresh water flooded into the North Atlantic, significantly slowing the Gulf Stream for around 400 years. Gore worries that Greenland's ice shelves could melt and do the same thing again. Ice in Greenland is obviously melting. But over the next century, it'll spill 1,000 times less water into the ocean than occurred 8,000 years ago. It will have a negligible effect on the Gulf Stream. In his movie An Inconvenient Truth, Gore claimed that scientists were discovering that the current is "surprisingly fragile". However, the IPCC scientists write in their 2007 report: "None of the current models simulates an abrupt reduction or shut-down" of the Gulf Stream....
Global Warming Bill Could Cost Every U.S. Man, Woman and Child Up to $494 Annually Imagine what you could do with an extra $400 or $500 a year – save for retirement, fill your gasoline tank several extra times or buy a plane ticket for vacation. Now multiply that amount by every member in your immediate family. It could add up to a lot of extra money. But not so fast. A bill introduced in the Senate by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) would require companies to scale back greenhouse-gas emissions to 2005 levels by 2012 and 1990 levels by 2020 – and that bill would come with a hefty price tag. One analysis of that bill by CRA International, an international business consulting firm, predicts the Lieberman-Warner bill could cost $4 trillion to $6 trillion over the next 40 years, according to an editorial in the November 11 Washington Times. If that bill were passed and made law, the tax would cost every man, woman and child – more than 303 million Americans – $494 a year, a significant burden on the U.S. economy....
Don't Look to Government to Cool Down the Planet Part of the problem is the IPCC itself. Reiter points out, "It's the inter-governmental panel on climate change. It's governments who nominate people. It's inherently political. Many of the scientists are on the IPCC because they view global warming as a problem that needs to be fixed. They have a vested interest." Phillip Stott, professor of biogeography at the University of London, says that the global warming debate has become the new "grand narrative" of the environmental movement. "It's something for people to get excited about and protest. It's more about emotion than science." While the scientists thrash things out, what are the rest of us to do? There are good reasons to begin with a presumption against government action. As coercive monopolies that spend other people's money taken by force, governments are uniquely unqualified to solve problems. They are riddled by ignorance, perverse incentives, incompetence and self-serving. The synthetic-fuels program during the Carter years consumed billions of dollars and was finally disbanded as a failure. The push for ethanol today is more driven by special interests than good sense -- it's boosting food prices while producing a fuel of dubious environmental quality. Even if the climate really needs cooling down, government can't be counted on to accomplish that....
Ignore Al Gore - but not his Nobel friends While Gore was creating alarm with his belief that a 20-foot-high wall of water would inundate low-lying cities, the IPCC showed us we should realistically prepare for a rise of one foot or so by the end of the century. Beyond the dramatic difference, it is also worth putting that one foot in perspective. Over the last 150 years, sea levels rose about one foot - yet, did we notice? Most tellingly, while Gore was raising fears about the Gulf Stream halting and a new Ice Age starting, the scientists discounted the prospect entirely. The Gulf Stream takes warm water from around Mexico and pushes it toward Europe. Around 8,000 years ago, a melting lake in the region of the present-day Canadian Great Lakes broke through and a massive torrent of cold, fresh water flooded into the North Atlantic, significantly slowing the Gulf Stream for around 400 years. Gore worries that Greenland's ice shelves could melt and do the same thing again. Ice in Greenland is obviously melting. But over the next century, it'll spill 1,000 times less water into the ocean than occurred 8,000 years ago. It will have a negligible effect on the Gulf Stream. In his movie An Inconvenient Truth, Gore claimed that scientists were discovering that the current is "surprisingly fragile". However, the IPCC scientists write in their 2007 report: "None of the current models simulates an abrupt reduction or shut-down" of the Gulf Stream....
Global Warming Bill Could Cost Every U.S. Man, Woman and Child Up to $494 Annually Imagine what you could do with an extra $400 or $500 a year – save for retirement, fill your gasoline tank several extra times or buy a plane ticket for vacation. Now multiply that amount by every member in your immediate family. It could add up to a lot of extra money. But not so fast. A bill introduced in the Senate by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) would require companies to scale back greenhouse-gas emissions to 2005 levels by 2012 and 1990 levels by 2020 – and that bill would come with a hefty price tag. One analysis of that bill by CRA International, an international business consulting firm, predicts the Lieberman-Warner bill could cost $4 trillion to $6 trillion over the next 40 years, according to an editorial in the November 11 Washington Times. If that bill were passed and made law, the tax would cost every man, woman and child – more than 303 million Americans – $494 a year, a significant burden on the U.S. economy....
FLE
In event of emergency ... call out the military? New federal legislation shows the Bush administration has begun systematically putting in place authorization for the president to federalize the National Guard and use the U.S. military in domestic emergency situations. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (H.R. 1585) requires the secretary of defense to prepare and submit to Congress by March 1, 2008, and each subsequent March 1 a plan to coordinate the use of the National Guard and members of the Armed Forces on active duty when responding to natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters. Section 1806 of H.R. 1585 requires the secretary of defense to prepare two versions of the plan, one using only members of the National Guard, and one using both members of the National Guard and members of the regular components of the armed services. WND also has reported Section 1076 of the John Warner Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2007 grants the president the right to commandeer federal troops or state National Guard to use them domestically. The language of Section 1076 appears to nullify the Posse Comitatus Act, in that the language allows the president to federalize the National Guard or use the U.S. military in a wide range of emergencies, including natural disasters, epidemics, or other public health emergencies, terrorist attacks, insurrections, or domestic violence, including conspiracies to commit domestic violence. Critics are concerned that when legal infrastructure for the president to involve the military in a domestic emergency situation, or to federalize the National Guard, is in place, a president intent on a power grab could declare a national emergency under NSPD-51 or HSPD-20, and impose federal martial law, by-passing civilian control....
General would deploy troops on U.S. soil The commander of USNORTHCOM says he's prepared to obey any order from the president to deploy U.S. troops on American soil in response to a domestic emergency. "If he were to choose to declare a national emergency, then clearly we at USNORTHCOM would be able to operate in that environment, in response to direct orders from the secretary of defense," Gen. Victor E. "Gene" Renuart told WND at his Peterson Air Force Base headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo. "But, I'm not sure that would ever be a routine event, and certainly it would be a minority event," he added in an interview conducted during a simulation of a multi-pronged terrorist attack. USNORTHCOM was established in 2002 with responsibility for a "homeland defense" area that includes the U.S., Canada, Mexico, parts of the Caribbean and waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans contiguous to the U.S....
Drug smuggler arrested for 2nd marijuana load Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, the drug smuggler who testified for the prosecution during the trials for Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, has been arrested on charges of bringing more than 750 pounds of marijuana into the United States. Aldrete-Davila was arrested today at the El Paso border crossing on charges involving what has become know as the "second load," in which he smuggled a second 750-pound load of marijuana into the U.S. after he was given immunity by the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, for the first load. As WND reported, Cipriano Ortiz-Hernando, the stash house operator in the "second load" brought across the border by Aldrete-Davila, pleaded guilty in El Paso in August to federal drug charges. WND also reported on a Nov. 21, 2005, memo by DHS Special Agent Christopher Sanchez indicating DEA investigators conducted a "knock and talk" with Ortiz-Hernandez in Clinton, Texas, Oct. 23, 2005, in which they learned of Aldrete-Davila's second operation....
U.S. Thwarts 19 Terrorist Attacks Against America Since 9/11 Criticisms of post-9/11 efforts to protect the United States from attack range from claims that America is more vulnerable than ever to the contention that the transnational terrorist danger is vastly over-hyped.[1] A review of publicly available information on at least 19 terrorist conspiracies thwarted by U.S. law enforcement suggests that the truth lies somewhere in between these two arguments. U.S. agencies are actively combating individuals and groups that are intent on killing Americans and plotting mayhem to foster violent extremist political and religious agendas. A review of the data suggests several important conclusions: * Combating terrorism is essential for keeping America safe, free, and prosperous. * Counterterrorism operations have uncovered threats that in some cases, although less sophisticated than the 9/11 attacks and at most loosely affiliated with "al-Qaeda" central, could have resulted in significant loss of life and property if they had been conducted successfully. * The best means to prevent terrorist attacks is effective intelligence collection, information sharing, and coordinated, determined counterterrorism operations that can stop attacks before they are mounted. * Effective operations often require federal, state, local, and international cooperation....
Secret trials for terrorists, says US judge A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being "hog-tied" by the US constitution. Judge Richard Posner, a supposedly liberal-leaning jurist regarded by many as a future US Supreme Court candidate, said traditional concepts of criminal justice were inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat and the US had "over-invested" in them. His proposed "big brother" solutions flabbergasted delegates at the Australian Bar Association's biennial conference, where David Hicks's lawyer, Major Michael Mori, is to be awarded honorary life membership. "We have to fight terrorism with our strengths, and our strengths evolve around technology, including the technology of surveillance," said Justice Posner, a prolific legal scholar who sits on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. "Are there terrorist plots that are at a formative stage among the large US Muslim community of two to three million people? In the 600,000 Canadian Muslim population, are there people planning attacks on the US? "What we have to do is discover the extent of the terrorist threat to the US. There is a danger, and it demands a rethinking of some of our conventional views on the limits of national security measures....
FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found. The science, known as comparative bullet-lead analysis, was first used after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The technique used chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup. In 2004, however, the nation's most prestigious scientific body concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI's testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." Specifically, the National Academy of Sciences said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence." A year later, the bureau abandoned the analysis. But the FBI lab has never gone back to determine how many times its scientists misled jurors. Internal memos show that the bureau's managers were aware by 2004 that testimony had been overstated in a large number of trials. In a smaller number of cases, the experts had made false matches based on a faulty statistical analysis of the elements contained in different lead samples, documents show....
In event of emergency ... call out the military? New federal legislation shows the Bush administration has begun systematically putting in place authorization for the president to federalize the National Guard and use the U.S. military in domestic emergency situations. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (H.R. 1585) requires the secretary of defense to prepare and submit to Congress by March 1, 2008, and each subsequent March 1 a plan to coordinate the use of the National Guard and members of the Armed Forces on active duty when responding to natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters. Section 1806 of H.R. 1585 requires the secretary of defense to prepare two versions of the plan, one using only members of the National Guard, and one using both members of the National Guard and members of the regular components of the armed services. WND also has reported Section 1076 of the John Warner Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2007 grants the president the right to commandeer federal troops or state National Guard to use them domestically. The language of Section 1076 appears to nullify the Posse Comitatus Act, in that the language allows the president to federalize the National Guard or use the U.S. military in a wide range of emergencies, including natural disasters, epidemics, or other public health emergencies, terrorist attacks, insurrections, or domestic violence, including conspiracies to commit domestic violence. Critics are concerned that when legal infrastructure for the president to involve the military in a domestic emergency situation, or to federalize the National Guard, is in place, a president intent on a power grab could declare a national emergency under NSPD-51 or HSPD-20, and impose federal martial law, by-passing civilian control....
General would deploy troops on U.S. soil The commander of USNORTHCOM says he's prepared to obey any order from the president to deploy U.S. troops on American soil in response to a domestic emergency. "If he were to choose to declare a national emergency, then clearly we at USNORTHCOM would be able to operate in that environment, in response to direct orders from the secretary of defense," Gen. Victor E. "Gene" Renuart told WND at his Peterson Air Force Base headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo. "But, I'm not sure that would ever be a routine event, and certainly it would be a minority event," he added in an interview conducted during a simulation of a multi-pronged terrorist attack. USNORTHCOM was established in 2002 with responsibility for a "homeland defense" area that includes the U.S., Canada, Mexico, parts of the Caribbean and waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans contiguous to the U.S....
Drug smuggler arrested for 2nd marijuana load Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, the drug smuggler who testified for the prosecution during the trials for Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, has been arrested on charges of bringing more than 750 pounds of marijuana into the United States. Aldrete-Davila was arrested today at the El Paso border crossing on charges involving what has become know as the "second load," in which he smuggled a second 750-pound load of marijuana into the U.S. after he was given immunity by the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, for the first load. As WND reported, Cipriano Ortiz-Hernando, the stash house operator in the "second load" brought across the border by Aldrete-Davila, pleaded guilty in El Paso in August to federal drug charges. WND also reported on a Nov. 21, 2005, memo by DHS Special Agent Christopher Sanchez indicating DEA investigators conducted a "knock and talk" with Ortiz-Hernandez in Clinton, Texas, Oct. 23, 2005, in which they learned of Aldrete-Davila's second operation....
U.S. Thwarts 19 Terrorist Attacks Against America Since 9/11 Criticisms of post-9/11 efforts to protect the United States from attack range from claims that America is more vulnerable than ever to the contention that the transnational terrorist danger is vastly over-hyped.[1] A review of publicly available information on at least 19 terrorist conspiracies thwarted by U.S. law enforcement suggests that the truth lies somewhere in between these two arguments. U.S. agencies are actively combating individuals and groups that are intent on killing Americans and plotting mayhem to foster violent extremist political and religious agendas. A review of the data suggests several important conclusions: * Combating terrorism is essential for keeping America safe, free, and prosperous. * Counterterrorism operations have uncovered threats that in some cases, although less sophisticated than the 9/11 attacks and at most loosely affiliated with "al-Qaeda" central, could have resulted in significant loss of life and property if they had been conducted successfully. * The best means to prevent terrorist attacks is effective intelligence collection, information sharing, and coordinated, determined counterterrorism operations that can stop attacks before they are mounted. * Effective operations often require federal, state, local, and international cooperation....
Secret trials for terrorists, says US judge A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being "hog-tied" by the US constitution. Judge Richard Posner, a supposedly liberal-leaning jurist regarded by many as a future US Supreme Court candidate, said traditional concepts of criminal justice were inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat and the US had "over-invested" in them. His proposed "big brother" solutions flabbergasted delegates at the Australian Bar Association's biennial conference, where David Hicks's lawyer, Major Michael Mori, is to be awarded honorary life membership. "We have to fight terrorism with our strengths, and our strengths evolve around technology, including the technology of surveillance," said Justice Posner, a prolific legal scholar who sits on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. "Are there terrorist plots that are at a formative stage among the large US Muslim community of two to three million people? In the 600,000 Canadian Muslim population, are there people planning attacks on the US? "What we have to do is discover the extent of the terrorist threat to the US. There is a danger, and it demands a rethinking of some of our conventional views on the limits of national security measures....
FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found. The science, known as comparative bullet-lead analysis, was first used after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The technique used chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup. In 2004, however, the nation's most prestigious scientific body concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI's testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." Specifically, the National Academy of Sciences said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence." A year later, the bureau abandoned the analysis. But the FBI lab has never gone back to determine how many times its scientists misled jurors. Internal memos show that the bureau's managers were aware by 2004 that testimony had been overstated in a large number of trials. In a smaller number of cases, the experts had made false matches based on a faulty statistical analysis of the elements contained in different lead samples, documents show....
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