EFF sues U.S. over NSA surveillance program The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Bush administration on behalf of AT&T customers to halt what it called the "massively illegal" warrantless surveillance of Americans' Internet and telephone communications. In addition to suing the National Security Agency, the nonprofit Internet advocacy group also names President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, as well as others. "For years, the NSA has been engaged in a massive and massively illegal fishing expedition through AT&T's domestic networks and databases of customer records," senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston said in a statement. "Our goal in this new case against the government, as in our case against AT&T, is to dismantle this dragnet surveillance program as soon as possible."....

Anthrax Suspect Didn't Act Alone, Leahy Posits Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) yesterday broke a years-long public silence about the anthrax-mailing case to cast doubt on the FBI's assertion that a bioweapons researcher acted as the lone culprit in the deadly attacks. Leahy, one of two congressional addressees of poison-laced letters in the fall of 2001, did not offer reasons for his suspicions, which could heighten calls for an independent review of the evidence that authorities gathered against Bruce E. Ivins. "If he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people," Leahy told FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III at a hearing yesterday. "I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact. I believe that there are others who can be charged with murder."....

TSA is testing X-ray portal for vehicles A new X-ray technology is being tested that could stop potential terrorists from blowing up a car bomb at one of the nation's airports, homeland-security officials say. The Transportation Security Administration is running a test at a North Carolina ferry terminal of a 21-foot-high archlike machine that shoots low-intensity X-rays at cars as they pass through. The photos show whether explosives or drugs might be in the car. The technology, called backscatter X-ray, is in use at several airports to screen passengers. Privacy advocates have denounced scanning people as invasive because the X-rays can see through clothes. Melissa Ngo, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who focuses on privacy issues, says using the technology for cars could pave the way for Big Brother government spying....If this is just an "anti-terrorism" device, why are they scanning for drugs?

NRA wins battle in House, but might not get to fight in Senate The legislative gun that the National Rifle Association (NRA) put to the head of the District of Columbia government might not have any bullets. The NRA won a decisive, bipartisan victory in the House on Wednesday on a bill that strips the District of Columbia’s government of much of its ability to regulate guns. But there is no agreement to bring the bill to the floor in the Senate — and with only seven legislative days left on the schedule, it is unlikely the bill will get floor time this year. The bill, which according to District supporters represented unfair meddling by Congress in city matters, could get wrapped into a continuing resolution — must-pass legislation that keeps the government operating when Congress leaves. But even advocates of the bill concede that’s unlikely. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), who has sponsored a similar bill in the Senate, was circulating a letter for signatures Wednesday urging Reid to bring up the bill before Congress goes home for the year. That could be more likely if there is a lame-duck session after the election. Hutchison is seeking out the 55 senators who signed a letter to the Supreme Court urging it to toss out D.C.’s handgun ban. The high court did just that in June....

Gun control target practice Gun control has suddenly emerged as the toxic issue of the 2008 presidential campaign, endangering Barack Obama's appeal among Democratic blue-collar and labor union households. The freshman Illinois senator has a long record of favoring gun bans in Chicaghttp and Washington, D.C., and a raft of other gun control bills that are anathema to gun owners, hunters and sportsmen alike. He insists now he supports Second Amendment gun rights to keep and bear arms that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld when it struck down the D.C. gun ban in June. But he refused to join 77 of his colleagues who signed a friend of the court brief to end the weapons ban and remains sympathetic to a broad range of gun ban statutes. Yet the Obama campaign has been running ads in key states with large populations of gun owners and hunters, insisting he supports the right to own a gun. He cannot run away from his record. The McCain campaign, the Republican National Committee and the nearly 4 million-member National Rifle Association are blanketing the country with ads, Web site videos and other broadsides detailing his record - especially in battleground states where gun controls are political poison....

POST-HELLER JUNK SCIENCE The recent Supreme Court decision concerning the Washington, D.C. handgun ban, District of Columbia v. Heller, is a big win for American gun owners because simply banning firearms is no longer an option. Now that an individual right to arms has been confirmed by the Supreme Court, firearm prohibitionists can only accomplish their goal of civilian disarmament by regulating the Second Amendment out of existence. In order to do this, they must frighten the public into demanding such strict regulation that possessing firearms, legally, becomes onerous. This fear can be created by emphasizing the costs to society of private firearm ownership, while hiding the benefits. Biased research has been, and now will continue to be, a favorite tactic that will permit gun-banners to chip away at our Second Amendment rights by showing the need for one new "reasonable" regulation after another....

THE TORT BAR'S COMEBACK After 20 years of state and federal efforts to reform a runaway legal system, the trial bar is reviving the monster, says the Wall Street Journal. At the federal level, lawyers and law firms invested in 2006 more than $85 million to get pro-lawsuit Democrats elected. Congress's new leadership has begun a political repayment plan -- packing legislation with provisions to increase the number and size of lawsuits. So far, this effort has been largely stymied by President Bush's veto threat. The tort bar sees 2008 as the real prize; it has already thrown $107 million toward increasing Democratic majorities. The trial barons are making more progress at the state level, as described in a report by the American Tort Reform Association....

U.N. agency eyes curbs on Internet anonymity A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous. The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public. The potential for eroding Internet users' right to remain anonymous, which is protected by law in the United States and recognized in international law by groups such as the Council of Europe, has alarmed some technologists and privacy advocates. Also affected may be services such as the Tor anonymizing network....

Note To Readers

Blogger is all screwed up tonight. Even the dates and time are wrong on my posts. I give up for this round.

Inspector General Starts Investigation Into Improper Coordination Between NLCS Employees & Environmental Advocacy Organizations

U.S. Rep Rob Bishop (R-Utah), called on the Interior Department to act quickly to halt any improper activities involving the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) and environmental advocacy organizations.

Bishop is the Ranking Member on the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee.

Department officials have told Bishop’s office that the Department’s Inspector General has started an investigation into the NLCS, a division of the Bureau of Land management, after reviewing documents related to the agency.

Bishop further asked that employees involved in the investigation step aside from their positions and relinquish their duties until the investigation is completed by the Inspector General.

Federal law generally prohibits federal employees from using appropriated funds or their official positions to lobby Congress. Emails and other documents being reviewed by the Department show extensive coordination between top NLCS officials and lobbyists for environmental groups.

“The Department must insist that any employee involved in violations of the Anti-Lobbying Law step aside until the Inspector General or the Justice Department has reviewed his or her conduct,” Bishop said. “Just as the employees of the royalty-in-kind program at MMS learned, we will not tolerate misconduct by public officials.”

Federal law generally prohibits federal employees from using appropriated funds or their official positions to lobby Congress. Emails and other documents being reviewed by the Department show extensive coordination between top NLCS officials and lobbyists for environmental groups.

Wildlife Fence Troubles Tijeras Officials Officials with the village of Tijeras are taking on a fence. The five-mile-long wildlife fence along Interstate 40 near Tijeras designed to reduce the number of collisions between vehicles and wildlife is not just something of an eyesore, and it may be making things worse, according to Mayor Gloria Chavez. She said she and some of the village councilors feel that animals that used to cross the freeway hit the fence, become confused and linger around Tijeras. Chavez added that she thinks the wildlife may be hanging around Old Route 66, which is not fenced, and getting hit there. According to the Department of Game and Fish, there have been only a handful of collisions, two deer and a bear, since the fence went up in summer of 2007, but Chavez said she doesn't think all the collisions are being reported. "We need to compile more data," she said, "We just don't want to see wildlife getting killed, first of all, and then (wildlife) lingering here … especially with the safety of the kids at school." She referred to an incident in August when Roosevelt Middle School and A. Montoya Elementary School were on lockdown for over an hour....

Concession on offshore energy drilling clears path for quiet exit for senators Two parties that started September headed for a bitter clash that could have shut down the government are now preparing for a quiet departure as each tries to shift into campaign mode. Democrats have given in to GOP demands to lift a decades-old ban on expanding offshore drilling, paving the way for must-pass legislation to keep the government running after Oct. 1. Several senior Republicans say that concession makes it highly unlikely that the GOP will block the measure — and effectively shut down the government — even if the legislation includes other provisions the conference opposes. Meanwhile, Senate GOP and Democratic leaders have brokered a major deal to extend business tax breaks, patch the alternative minimum tax and renew dozens of expiring energy provisions — a bill each side said was necessary to complete before Election Day....

Democrats' Drilling Bill Angers Environmental Purists All summer long, House Republicans staged weekly news conferences outside the Capitol calling for more offshore oil drilling. And they were usually met by an assortment of environmental protesters chanting in unison, trying to drown out the GOP's pro-drilling voices. Some even wore polar bear costumes to protest Arctic drilling proposals. But then Democrats approved a bill Tuesday that could lead to drilling just 50 miles off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, reversing the party's long-standing opposition to exploration of the outer continental shelf. Now the usually united environmentalist front has begun to show some cracks. Those who supported the Democratic legislation are viewed on and off Capitol Hill as the pragmatic allies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Chief among them is the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank founded by former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta. Also falling into that category was the Sierra Club, an elder statesman among environmental groups whose motto is "explore, enjoy and protect the planet." Its top officials argued that ending the total ban on offshore drilling was a fair tradeoff for funding the transition to renewable resources. The purists who bemoaned Pelosi's legislation were led by Environment America, formed in 2007 as a collection of groups, including those formerly associated with various state Public Interest Research Groups. Environment America left no doubt where it stands: "Increased offshore oil drilling would threaten our beloved coasts and beaches with chronic pollution and potentially catastrophic spills while doing little to increase our energy supply and nothing to help Americans deal with energy costs." And once Pelosi added more drilling in the oil shale of the Mountain West to her bill, the National Wildlife Federation joined the call to arms: "Oil shale is a double disaster -- not only for America's western wilderness and water supply, but for our climate."....

Administration rips Democrats' energy bill as waste of time The White House slammed an energy bill that the House of Representatives passed Tuesday night, calling it a waste of time. The administration accused House Democrats of lacing the bill with "poison pills" that demonstrate a "lack of seriousness about expanding access to the vast domestic energy resources" off U.S. coasts. "Many of the other provisions contained in this bill are taken from other House bills that failed to pass through the Congress, or have been subject to veto threats," the Executive Office of the President said in a statement Tuesday night as the House voted on the bill, officially known as House Resolution 6899....

Drill-Shy Congress House Democrats have passed an "oil drilling bill" that bans drilling where most of the oil is. President Bush and congressional Republicans — especially John McCain — can't let them get away with it. Those who recognize that our reliance on foreign oil from regimes that fund or facilitate terrorists constitutes an ever-more-serious threat to our national and economic security are hailing Oct. 1 as American Energy Freedom Day. On that first day of the new fiscal year, the congressional prohibitions expire on offshore drilling for oil and natural gas, as well as for the oil shale available in Western states. The Democratic-controlled, do-nothing Congress for once is frantic to do something before that deadline hits. In a big election year, with summer gas prices exceeding $4 a gallon, voters won't swallow an extension of the ban. So Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday had the House of Representatives pass legislation she unveiled less than 24 hours earlier, with Republicans blocked from offering amendments....

NASA: Arctic sea ice at second-lowest level on record NASA has issued a preliminary report confirming environmentalists' fears of disappearing sea ice at the Arctic. Sea ice is the thick permanent ice formed by frozen ocean water that remains even as seasonal ice melts away in the summer. In the past, it has covered about 60 percent of the Arctic. The sea ice at the Arctic has now been found to have melted away by as much as half, according to a preliminary report issued Tuesday by NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado. "According to NASA-processed satellite microwave data, this perennial ice used to cover 50 to 60 percent of the Arctic, but this winter it covered less than 30 percent," NASA said in a statement. It is the second-smallest amount of coverage since NASA began monitoring the situation in 1979. The Artic's sea ice coverage this September is about 33 percent below average, compared with the record low of 39 percent below average recorded in 2007....

Documents suggest congressman used clout to fight forest-fire charges A senior federal official who was fearful of incurring a congressman's wrath sent his subordinates on a mad dash earlier this year to retrieve a certified letter demanding that the lawmaker pay a $5,773 fine for starting a fire that burned 20 acres of a South Carolina national forest. Mark Rey, the undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment, said he didn't want Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., a member of the House Natural Resources subcommittee that oversees the management of the country's national parks and forests, to get the March 12 letter before he testified to the subcommittee. ''I'd just as soon have him not take a chunk of hide out of me,'' Rey said in an interview Wednesday. ``I don't think that rises to the level of a smoking gun. I think it rises to the level of a dripping water gun. Two days of justice delayed is not justice denied.'' Internal agency documents obtained by McClatchy document Brown's fierce, four-year protest of a criminal negligence citation and civil damages collection for a controlled burn he started on his property in March 2004 that spread to the adjoining Francis Marion National Forest....

Ag groups appeal sage grouse ruling Livestock and farming groups in four Western states are challenging a ruling by a federal judge in Idaho who ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider whether sage grouse deserve federal protections. The government decided against adding the bird to the endangered species list in 2005, a move that allowed ranchers and the oil and gas industry to escape stiff regulations. An environmental group sued in federal court last year to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to revisit its decision on the sage grouse, a chicken-sized bird with long pointed tail feathers. Scientists say the popular game bird is on the decline and the population has plummeted in the face of accelerating oil and gas exploration in the West. West Nile virus, drought and residential development have also taken a toll on the bird. In December, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled in favor of the Western Watersheds Project, saying the federal agency had ignored expert advice and failed to use "best science" in its sage grouse decision. Last week, attorneys with Sacramento, Calif.-based Pacific Legal Foundation appealed that decision in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of ranching, livestock and farming groups in Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and Nevada. The appeal seeks to overturn the decision on a minor detail, a 60-day notice that attorneys for the Western Watersheds Project failed to file in federal court in advance of their formal lawsuit....

Wolves could be reintroduced to Scottish Highlands Following the successful reintroduction to the wild of birds such as red kites and white-tailed sea eagles, experts are meeting near Inverness to discuss whether wolves, boars and big cats should be next to be re-established. Dan Pulpett, from the environmental campaign group Trees for Life, said:"It is not just about trying to recreate the past but moving forward to re-establish healthy eco-systems in which these animals will play a crucial role. "There are also clear cultural and economic benefits. Lynx reintroduced in Switzerland and Germany have given tourism there a major boost." Mr Pulpett dismissed fears that the reintroduction of the creatures could pose a serious threat to Scottish people....

Farm groups worried about labeling law Farm groups are protesting the Agriculture Department's use of a new food labeling law, saying it has loopholes that could confuse consumers about where their meat comes from. The compromise laid out different types of labels, including one that would tag meat from animals that are born, raised and slaughtered in the United States as products of this country. Another label would spell out multiple countries of origin, such as "Product of U.S., Mexico and Canada." Farm groups say the new law as written by the Agriculture Department would allow meatpackers to label all beef and pork with multiple countries of origin - even meat that was born, raised and slaughtered in the United States. That could make it easier and cheaper for the meatpackers but eliminate the competitive advantage for ranchers who raise the U.S. meat....

Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act delayed Horse activists are still waiting on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to finish revisions on a bill that could put an end to horse transportation to foreign slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. The Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act of 2008 was to be reviewed by the committee on Wednesday morning, but was delayed until further notice because of revisions that were discussed at the same hearing. The proposed bill would prohibit the selling of horses for human consumption in the United States and the transportation of horses for slaughter to Mexico and Canada....

Horse slaughter bill concerns some veterinarians Some regional veterinarians are concerned that a bill banning horse owners from knowingly sending the animals to slaughter would increase abuse and neglect. “It’s doing a terrible, terrible disservice to the horses that slaughter isn’t available anymore in the U.S.,” said Kathy Thornton, a quarter-horse breeder at the Vale Creek Ranch south of Billings. “They are going down to places like Mexico where there aren’t any rules.” Doug Corey, an Oregon horse veterinarian and a former president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, says the legislation will do more harm than good. “We’re definitely not pro-slaughter. We’re pro-horse,” he said. “We’d love to see every horse taken care of.” But, he said, making slaughter a crime would force some people to turn their domestic horses loose to face death on the roads or starvation. Corey said increased hay costs and lower horse resale prices are making it harder to care for the animals....

FWS: Wolf population decreasing or 'static'
For the first time since reintroduction, the wolf population in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho is decreasing or at best is static, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The mid-year wolf population was estimated at 1,545 in 2007. This year the estimate is 1,455, which means a decrease of 90. Since wolf re-introduction 10 years ago, the population has grown an average of 24 percent a year, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. This year 400 pups were expected to survive to adulthood, but that's not happening. In the greater Yellowstone area, pups are dying at a high rate, the FWS said. The cause of those deaths is suspected to be distemper contracted from domestic dogs....

Feds back down on delisting wolves The federal government plans to withdraw a rule that removed wolves in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and parts of Utah, Oregon and Washington from the endangered species list. If U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula agrees, a lawsuit filed by environmentalists will end, and federal biologists will get a chance to rewrite the plan to meet objections the judge made. Molloy's preliminary injunction July 17 temporarily relisted wolves and put a halt to plans in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to open hunting seasons on the animals. Since that decision, the estimated 2,000 wolves in the Northern Rockies have been under federal management. Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's top wolf manager, acknowledged the Bush administration had failed to explain why it was confident it could delist wolves without endangering the species again. Before the agency can issue a new rule, it must address Molloy's concerns, Bangs said. "There's going to be a thorough, fine-toothed comb going through it to decide what we can do better," Bangs said. The Natural Resources Defense Council and 11 other wolf advocacy groups demonstrated they would likely win the case on the merits of their arguments, Molloy said in his July opinion....

House approves offshore drilling bill Election-year jitters over high gasoline prices prompted House Democrats on Tuesday to push through a broad energy plan that for the first time in more than a quarter of a century would allow oil and gas drilling off the East and West coasts. The fate of the legislation, which Republican members contended would produce little new domestic oil, remains uncertain. The politically sensitive issue of offshore drilling may only be resolved as part of a budget bill that Congress must approve before it adjourns at month's end. The measure, which was approved 236-189, would allow states to authorize drilling 50 to 100 miles from their coasts. The federal government would be allowed to approve drilling 100 to 200 miles from shore....

Democrats Still Aren't Serious About Drilling After a five-week paid vacation, Democrats are back in Washington and claiming that they want to do something about oil prices. But the problem is that their plan, which passed the House yesterday and will likely come up for a vote in the Senate later this week, will not produce a single drop of oil. Why? Because it does nothing about environmental groups that are suing to stop drilling. The Democratic proposal is not a death-bed conversion, it's designed to solve their political problem. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her members in August that they can say they are in favor of drilling, but that she wouldn't allow a vote on a drilling bill. Now that she has been forced to, she knows her environmental allies will block new drilling from going forward....

House Passes Backroom Energy Bill Democrats introduced a 290-page energy bill at 9:45 p.m. Monday night which passed 236-189 Tuesday evening -- just over 24 hours after the bill was filed. The bill reportedly did not go through any committees or subcommittees, and Democratic leaders are not allowing a single amendment to be offered. If passed by both houses, the bill would keep 80 percent to 88 percent of known domestic reserves permanently off limits. States would not receive any revenue by allowing offshore drilling, and electricity costs would increase and potentially double in certain states, Republican opponents say. There would be no drilling allowed less than 50 miles offshore -- where experts predict 80 percent to 88 percent of America’s domestic reserves are located. The bill also lacks litigation reform needed to ensure leases will not be tied up by environmentalist-driven lawsuits and makes no provisions for nuclear or clean coal energy....

Senate ‘Gang’ Pushes for Drilling As the House passed legislation late Tuesday designed to loosen restrictions on offshore oil production, some Senate Republicans were pushing for more drilling as part of a bipartisan energy plan. “We’re trying to be more aggressive on drilling,” said South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham , an original member of the group, which has grown to 20 senators, 10 from each party. The group, originally convened by North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad and Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss , had sketched out a plan to let Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas opt into drilling off their shores as part of a broader package including an estimated $84 billion in investments in conservation and efficiency, offset by cutting tax breaks to oil and gas companies....

Fish and Wildlife Service Proposes 300% Increase in California Red-legged Frog Critical Habitat The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) today opened a 60-day comment period on a new plan to designate 1.8 million acres as critical habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog (Rana aurora draytonii), an area that is 300 per cent larger than a 2006 designation for the species. The new proposal is the result of a rigorous scientific review conducted by Region 8 (California-Nevada) biologists, at the direction of Service Director Dale Hall. In July 2007 Hall told the Region's biologists to independently review a 2006 critical habitat rule and propose changes if, in their scientific judgment, changes were needed to assure the scientific integrity of the plan. Hall took that step after concluding that there may have inappropriate influence on the 2006 rule by former Department of Interior personnel....

ND ranchers support ban on hunting rights sale Property rights advocates are squaring off with sportsmen and ranchers as the state Legislature decides whether to extend a ban on selling the right to hunt on property separately from the land itself. The ban — the only one of its kind in the nation — has support from the group that represents the state's beef cattle industry, the North Dakota Stockmen's Association, but its foes predict more opposition as people learn more about it. "I don't think it's a legislator's business to determine what somebody should be or shouldn't be able to do with their land," said Rep. Duane DeKrey. Last year, the Legislature overwhelmingly voted to bar landowners from permanently selling the right to hunt on their property without selling the land itself along with it. The restrictions expire June 30. The Legislature's interim Natural Resources Committee, which has been studying the issue during the past year, has recommended making them permanent. North Dakota law allows landowners to sell other property rights separately, including the right to mine coal, graze livestock, pump water and explore for oil....

Ore. hunters report being stalked by cougars Stories of hunters being stalked by cougars in northeastern Oregon have raised concerns that the big cats may be losing their fear of humans. Sebastian Combs, a 28-year-old ranch hand from Haines, reported being stalked by a cougar along the North Powder River. And bow hunter Chad Davis of Hermiston killed a cougar with an arrow after the cat came within 15 yards of him. The state's fish and wildlife department says the cougar population has doubled to 6,000 since 1994, the year hunting them with hounds was banned. Cougar populations in northeastern Oregon are especially thick, and many complaints have come from cattlemen, sheep ranchers and people with pets that have been killed by cougars. Hunters killed 308 cougars statewide last year - up from 288 in 2006.

DNA study finds more grizzlies than expected The majestic grizzly bear, once king of the Western wilderness but threatened with extinction for a third of a century, has roared back in Montana. The finding, from a $4.8 million, five-year study of grizzly bear DNA described by Republican presidential candidate John McCain as pork barrel spending, could help ease restrictions on oil and gas drilling, logging and other development. Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday that there are approximately 765 bears in northwestern Montana. That's the largest population of grizzly bears documented there in more than 30 years, and a sign that the species could be at long last recovering. The first-ever scientific census shattered earlier estimates that said there were at least 250 to 350 bears roaming an 8 million-acre area stretching from north of Missoula to the Canadian border. More recent data placed the minimum population at around 563 bears. "This is 2 1/2 times the number of bears previously estimated," said Katherine Kendall, the lead researcher, who said the results speak for themselves. "There is no evidence that the population size was ever severely reduced."....

At The Helm of Burning Man The Burning Man Project began on Baker Beach in San Francisco with a modest 8-foot human-shaped effigy in honor of the summer solstice. The formerly underground event has since grown into an 8-day, $10 million-dollar celebration of self-expression that draws over 47,000 people to a dry lake bed in the Black Rock Desert, 120 miles north of Reno, Nevada. There is no electricity, water or cellphone service for miles. The event concludes on Labor Day weekend with the burning of a 40-foot tall effigy, the burning man. Afterwards, all traces of the event are removed completely so as to minimize the impact on the environment. Dennis Nishi spoke with founder Larry Harvey about how he became the founder and organizer of Burning Man. Edited excerpts follow....

Grazing sheep to protect Carson City from wildfire Next spring, four-legged firefighters will gather in the hills west of Carson City in a battle against an invading grass that's boosting the risk of wildfire. For the fourth straight year, sheep will be used to munch away at fields of grasses growing in an area already seared by fire near Nevada's capital. "The idea is to use sheep to hit that area a little harder," said Genny Wilson, chief of the U.S. Forest Service's Carson Ranger District. The primary target is cheatgrass, an invasive annual grass that first appeared in Nevada in 1906 and has since spread across tens of millions of acres in the Great Basin, crowding out native vegetation on many hills and fields in Northern Nevada. The stuff thrives in areas already burned by fire and when dry can fuel future fires in the same place. "Its flammability is like gasoline," said Mike Dondero, state fire management officer. Experts have mowed and used herbicides and toxic fungus to battle the spread of cheatgrass. Sheep grazing is another tool being tried. After a successful 1999 test on Carson City's C Hill by the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, sheep have been used to graze the region in 2006, 2007 and 2008....

Independent panel to study anthrax case The FBI will ask a group of independent scientists to review evidence from the government's anthrax investigation that concluded an Army researcher masterminded the deadly 2001 biological attacks. The FBI and National Academy of Sciences have been discussing whether to do an independent review, likely costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, of the DNA analysis that led investigators to Dr. Bruce Ivins. On Tuesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller says he will request the review. Kearney said it will likely take several weeks to develop a project scope before the review is under way. Generally, Academy studies take six to 18 months to complete, and are done by teams of volunteer and staff scientists, he said. Studies of the size and expertise that is expected for the anthrax review usually cost at least several hundred thousand dollars and possibly up to $1 million, and are funded by the federal government, Kearney said....

Congress Says DHS Oversaw $15 Billion in Failed Contracts n the five years since it was created, the Department of Homeland Security has overseen roughly $15 billion worth of failed contracts for projects ranging from airport baggage-screening to trailers for Hurricane Katrina evacuees, according to congressional data to be released today. The contracts wound up over-budget, delayed or canceled after millions of dollars had already been spent, according to figures and documents prepared by the House Committee on Homeland Security. A panel of experts is to testify today before the House Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight on how to fix problems with the DHS acquisitions process. The experts are to talk about a series of problem projects: About $351 million was wasted and not properly overseen in the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater program after ships were built and then scrapped, according to Homeland Security committee staffers and oversight agency reports. A $1.5 billion Boeing program to help secure U.S. borders with electronic sensors and other equipment is being shelved after it was over-budget, late and had technology problems. A $10 billion program called US VISIT, a computer system designed to record the entry and exit of visitors to the United States at airports and border crossings, is behind schedule and not being managed well, according to figures prepared by the committee staff. And $200 million was mismanaged and poorly spent in buying trailers from Bechtel and Fluor for Hurricane Katrina, according to committee staffers, the GAO and other oversight reports. "You're talking about a third of the agency's contracting spending that's resulted in failed contracts," said Scott Amey, a lawyer for the Project on Government Oversight who is expected to testify today....

U.S. House, D.C. Council Wrestle Over Gun Control The struggle to regulate guns in the District in light of a historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling sparked competing legislative efforts yesterday as members of Congress debated taking control of the issue and the D.C. Council implored them to leave it in local hands. On the most significant day of legislative activity on gun control since the high court ended the District's 32-year-old handgun ban in June, the council voted unanimously to ease some contentious firearms restrictions while the U.S. House of Representatives considered a more dramatic measure that would limit the city's power to regulate guns. The issue of gun control in the nation's capital has been the focus of intense, often tortuous debate for two months, since the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to own firearms. The court also held that local governments could impose reasonable restrictions. The House was debating a bill last night that would scrap almost all locally imposed gun control rules in the District, including the new handgun registration process. It would also severely limit city officials' ability to enact any future measure that goes beyond the firearms restrictions in federal law. The measure is expected to go to a vote today....

In FBI data, the real crime is the number of drug arrests The latest FBI crime figures are out, and while there's plenty to mull over, perhaps the saddest news is that nonviolent activities -- involving drugs, in particular -- that violate nobody's rights and pose no threat to anybody else, rank so highly in terms of sheer numbers of arrests. According to the FBI, "Law enforcement made more arrests for drug abuse violations (an estimated 1.8 million arrests, or 13.0 percent of the total number of arrests) than for any other offense in 2007." Marijuana arrests set another all-time record in 2007, totaling 872,720 — that’s a marijuana arrest every 36 seconds. Arrests for marijuana possession totaled 775,138, greatly exceeding arrests for all violent crimes combined, which totaled 597,447....

Rosenbergs’ Sons Accept That Father Was a Spy They were the most famous orphans of the cold war, only 6 and 10 years old in 1953 when their parents were executed at Sing Sing for delivering atomic-bomb secrets to the Soviet Union. Then they were whisked from an unwanted limelight to urban anonymity and eventually to suburban obscurity. Adopting their foster parents’ surname, they staked their own claim to radical campus politics in the 1960s. Then in 1973, they emerged to reclaim their identities as the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, determined to vindicate their parents. Now, confronted with the surprising confession last week of Morton Sobell, Julius Rosenberg’s City College classmate and co-defendant, the brothers have admitted to a painful conclusion: that their father was a spy....

Getting to 'yes' on more offshore drilling? Not yet To get to "yes" on sweeping new energy legislation, US lawmakers this week will first have to neutralize "poison pills" that both sides acknowledge could yet scuttle passage of any bill. Foremost among these are big caveats top Democrats want in return for relaxing a decades-old moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling in most US waters, including rolling back $17 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil and cutting states out of any royalties from new lease sales off their coasts. Democrats see their proposal as a compromise, a way to expand offshore production in an environmentally responsible way. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid both said they would allow votes on proposals to expand oil and gas drilling off the coasts of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. That represents a shift for Speaker Pelosi, who in the summer vowed to block a vote on lifting the offshore-drilling ban. Republicans, though, see the proposed caveats as undermining their aim to drill as much oil as fast as possible. "Drill, baby, drill" emerged as a GOP rallying cry at their party's national convention earlier this month. House Democrats are expected to release details of their comprehensive energy proposal this week. The bill is expected to give states the option of permitting drilling at least 50 miles off their shores. Even when states refuse consent, Washington could authorize drilling at least 100 miles offshore....

The Rural/Urban Energy Divide Last week the Santa Barbara city council voted 5 - 1 to affirm its opposition to offshore oil drilling. The measure was passed to counter an August 26th Santa Barbara county supervisor’s vote in favor offshore oil drilling. While both votes were completely symbolic, they do point to a clear fault line in the energy debate. As blue as the entire state of California is, many of its counties, like Santa Barbara, actually reflect the voting patterns of the nation as a whole. The city of Santa Barbara is urban, wealthy, and is represented in Congress by Rep. Louis Capps (D). The inland county of Santa Barbara is rural, hosts many farmers, ranchers, and factories, and is represented by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R). When it comes to issues like energy and the environment the wealthy urbanites just have different priorities than the working class rural voters. The USA Today reported earlier this year high energy prices are a double-whammy for many rural residents: “They often pay more than people who live in cities and suburbs because of the expense of hauling fuel to their communities, and they must drive greater distances for life’s necessities: work, groceries, medical care and, of course, gas.”....

Taxpayers cheated out of royalty payments by gas, oil companies, says GAO report On the heels of revelations about the drugs-and-sex culture plaguing the federal collection of oil and gas royalties comes a new report that says a flawed accounting system could be costing taxpayers billions. The Government Accountability Office found that slipshod operations at the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service have hampered the agency's ability to keep track of how much energy companies are extracting from public lands, including those in eastern Utah. Accurate production reports are necessary for proper collection of royalties. The GAO said that because the computerized accounting systems at Denver-based MMS are inadequate, billions of dollars may be slipping through bureaucratic fingers. But how much taxpayer money might have been lost cannot be calculated because the accounting programs don't allow for that kind of backtracking, GAO spokesman Frank Rusco said Monday...They can't tell how bad it is because they can't measure what's been done. By all means, let's transfer more assets to these folks.

Idaho has hopes for land sale to Forest Service Idaho is hoping the proposed sale of three state-owned backcountry ranches to the U.S. Forest Service will kickstart a $50 million “Land Legacy Trust” announced by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter last year, aimed at protecting ranches, timberland and wildlife habitat. Of 30 surplus properties the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has identified, the ranches are the first to make a list of those eligible in 2009 for money from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, created in 1965 to use some royalties from offshore oil and gas leases for conservation. Still, state and federal officials say securing the entire $14 million requested by the Forest Service to buy the three ranches deep in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness will be a tough sell, due to intense national competition among projects and because Congress has limited payouts from the Land and Water Conservation Fund...Idaho acquired the Cameron Ranch, the Marble Creek Ranch and the Cougar Ranch as part of efforts starting in 1938 to bolster elk and mule deer habitat for hunters. It now wants to sell these wilderness inholdings because their locations would make them easier for the Forest Service to manage...Fish and Game is also considering working with groups such as the Trust for Public Lands and The Nature Conservancy to find alternative ways to transfer surplus state parcels to federal control...The Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management or other government agencies, rather than wealthy individuals, are targeted as buyers, the agency has said.

Otter was a Republican congressman with a laudable conservative record. Read the article though, and you will see that Otter, as a Republican Governor in a western state, is promoting the following:

1.Increased congressional congressional funding to the Land & Water Conservation Fund, so that the state can
2.Sell more land to the feds and
3.Acquire more property interests in private land

By transferring assets to the feds and acquiring assets from the private sector, we will have a larger public estate and a diminished private estate.

Why did I register as a Republican way back in 1973? I seen to remember something about private property and limited government.

It would appear the only difference between the R's & D's on these issues is the extent to which it is done, not whether it should be done at all.

NM game director's hunting license may be revoked The head of New Mexico's Game and Fish Department could lose his hunting license for two years after he was accused of illegally shooting a deer on private land. An independent hearing officer heard testimony Monday about a November 2007 incident in which director Bruce Thompson shot a deer on the Diamond T Ranch west of Roswell. It's illegal to hunt on private property in New Mexico without permission from the landowner. The state Game Commission, which has the final say, will likely consider the hearing officer's recommendation at its Oct. 2 meeting....Let's transfer more assets to him too.

Neither U.S. Nor Mexico Imposes Food Safety Rules on Farms Exporting to U.S. At the end of a dirt road in northern Mexico, the conveyer belts processing hundreds of tons of vegetables a year for U.S. and Mexican markets are open to the elements, protected only by a corrugated metal roof. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration suspects this packing plant, its warehouse in McAllen, Texas, and a farm in Mexico are among the sources of the United States' largest outbreak of food-borne illness in a decade, which infected at least 1,440 people with a rare form of salmonella. A plant manager confirmed to The Associated Press that workers handling chili peppers aren't required to separate them according to the sanitary conditions in which they were grown, offering a possible explanation for how such a rare strain of salmonella could have caused such a large outbreak....

After Ike, livestock dying for lack of water State agriculture agent Tyler Fitzgerald barely had time to talk Monday as he clambered across storm-ravaged pastureland in Chambers County near the Gulf Coast. Fitzgerald was busy trying to save cattle, horses and other animal survivors left in the muddy wake of Hurricane Ike, which caused 15- to 18-foot surges of ocean water to pour across the farms and ranches along the Southeast Texas coast over the weekend. "I don't have any statistics yet," Fitzgerald said through the sputterings of a weather-weakened cell phone. "But we have a lot of dead animals."....

20,000 cattle, horses wandering in SE Texas At least 20,000 head of livestock roamed loose throughout several Southeast Texas counties Monday, said state officials who are working to get feed and water to the cattle and horses that have been without either since Hurricane Ike came ashore Saturday. Agriculture and animal health officials said Ike's winds and storm surge tore down fences throughout Chambers, Jefferson and Orange counties, allowing the livestock to flee from enclosed pastures — and away from water sources. Dead cows lay stiff on the sides of roads in Orange County....

Woman who started wildfire says it was symbolic The former U.S. Forest Service employee who started the worst wildfire in Colorado's recorded history testified Friday she burned the letter blamed for igniting the blaze as a "symbolic gesture" of her failing marriage. Terry Lynn Barton took the stand in a lawsuit brought by insurance companies that want the federal government to cover about $7 million they paid out in claims from the 2002 Hayman fire. The companies argued the federal government is at fault because of Barton failed in her responsibility to extinguish the blaze before it spread. Barton was working as a fire spotter for the Forest Service. Barton pleaded guilty to state and federal arson charges and served six years in prison. She was released in June. She testified the letter she burned in a campground was from her estranged husband, apologizing and asking to stay with her. But an attorney for the government said Friday that Barton previously claimed her husband's letter told her "she was Satan and breaking the family up."....

The endangered Endangered Species Act The core of the act's safety net is the requirement that, before any federal agency (such as the U.S. Forest Service or the Department of Transportation) can take an action that may affect protected species, it must first consult with federal wildlife scientists to ensure that its action will not negatively affect them. This "consultation" requirement is widely regarded as the statute's most effective conservation tool. Last month, the outgoing Bush administration proposed drastically altering that requirement. So instead of being required to consult with independent scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service, federal agencies would be allowed to consult with themselves. Under such "self-consultations," agencies could decide, entirely on their own, that their actions would not have any negative effects on protected wildlife....

Graffiti on peaks marks a new issue for officials U.S. Forest Service officials and fourteener advocates are decrying several recent felt-tip pen inscriptions left on Colorado's highest peak. "Graffiti is something new," said Forest Service peak manager Loretta McEllhiney, who is investigating the incidents on 14,440-foot Mount Elbert near Leadville. Leaving graffiti on national forest land is considered a form of vandalism. Offenders can be charged with defacing government property, similar to shooting bullet holes in a Forest Service sign, McEllhiney said. Authorities didn't have to look far for one of the culprits, Lewis Daugherty of Fort Collins, who left his full name and e-mail address on a summit boulder in early August....

Wolf Legislation Officials with Montana's Fish Wildlife and Parks said last year wolves killed 183 cattle and 213 sheep in Montana Wyoming and Idaho. New legislation would offer ranchers federal subsidies for these losses but Hammond said it might not be worth the trouble. "It's hard to prove a wolf kill," Hammond said. "If you don't find it immediately, it's hard to tell what killed 'em." He added that wolves are more destructive that some might think. "Anytime a herd of predators gets working on cattle, they damage as much as they kill because they'll run a bunch over a cut bank through a fence and damage the animals," Hammond said. "You'll find them with a broken leg or cut open. They'll do more of that than actually killing them." He said cattle often eat less when predators are around because they're stressed. This can affect a rancher's bottom line. "When the herd gets nervous, they don't gain weight," he said. "That adds up to a lot of money at a dollar a pound." The proposed bill does have some money for ranchers to buy guard dogs to protest the herd, but Hammond said he's always afraid there's a catch. "Every time you have your handout to the government they stick a hook in it," he said....A pretty savvy fellow.

Nobody wins in elk/rancher conflict When Moffat County rancher Rodney Culverwell was convicted last week for his illegal killing in February of 16 elk that were feeding on his haystack, it’s hard to say who won and who lost. Culverwell, who maintained during his trial in Craig that he was acting to protect his property and his cattle from the hungry elk, certainly lost in the eyes of court and faces some pretty stiff penalties. He could be sentenced to three years in jail and up to $100,000 for each of four felonies along with miscellaneous fines and penalties for other less-serious wildlife crimes. But his conviction carries a bitter-sweet note, even for those who feel he over-stepped his rights. The fact Culverwell even had to appear in court, or decided it necessary to kill the elk after he felt the Division of Wildlife wasn’t doing enough to protect him or other ranchers, bespeaks the long-standing conflicts between ranchers and elk in northwest Colorado....

Eco-terrorists don't deserve sympathy We don't know what, if anything, self-described anarchist Kevin Tucker told a federal grand jury on Tuesday. Yet it's reassuring to know that the U.S. Attorney's Office continues to investigate a series of eco-terrorism crimes that struck Erie and northwestern Pennsylvania in 2002 and 2003. Members of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the crimes, which included torching sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks at a Girard dealership; setting fire to a crane at a Wintergreen Gorge construction site; releasing foxes from a Greenfield Township ranch; destroying two northwestern Pennsylvania farm fields; setting fire to a U.S. Forest Service research station in Warren County; setting fire to a fur barn in Harborcreek, and releasing breeding minks at the same farm....

Land board would amplify local voices But a committee proposed by Shasta County Supervisor David Kehoe is no joke. Prompted in part by this summer’s explosive wave of wildfires and the resulting debate about fuel management on public lands, Kehoe wants to create a committee to birddog the management of federal lands on behalf of county residents. 0This is such a plainly fine idea that you wonder why the county didn’t do it years ago. About 40 percent of the land in Shasta County is under the stewardship of the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. Those lands include our top tourist destinations, locals’ favorite playgrounds, rangelands and a much-diminished but still substantial amount of working timber. They also supply the fuel for our annual summertime plague of wildfires, offer hideouts for increasingly ambitious marijuana growers, and cause an unfortunate dependence on decisions made by bureaucrats and politicians three time zones away. Kehoe said he’d like to see a committee focus on forests and fuel management on the public land surrounding our rural communities, but also recreation, roads and trails, and other uses. It would create a forum for discussion of public lands management and give greater voice to local residents. And Kehoe stressed that the county should include diverse representatives, not just create “a lobby group for increased timber harvesting” — though he’d favor more logging....

BLM releases final western Wyo drilling plan The Bureau of Land Management has settled on a final plan for drilling 4,400 more wells in an area of western Wyoming rich in natural gas, wildlife and scenery. Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the plan released Friday for the Pinedale Anticline provides better protections, more government control and specifics not found in previous agreements with the BLM. "It is our expectation that this becomes the new floor for our expectations for working with both industry and BLM," Freudenthal said. Residents and conservation groups have voiced concern about how the expanded oil and gas development proposed by Shell, Ultra Resources and Questar on the 200,000-acre Anticline would affect wildlife and air and water quality....

NWMA's Skaer says November general election will be significant for U.S. miners, explorers Northwest Mining Association Executive Director Laura Skaer recently reminded Nevada miners that the November general election will have major significance for U.S. miners with the election of a new U.S. President and a new Congress. In a presentation to the recent Nevada Mining Association convention at Lake Tahoe, Skaer said the bad news for mining is that key western senators, supportive of the domestic mining industry are retiring including powerful New Mexico senator Pete Domenici, Colorado Republican U.S. Senator Wayne Allard, and Idaho Senator Larry Craig. However, pro-mining Alaska U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski will probably replace Domenici as the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Skaer noted. Meanwhile, Skaer advised that a new presidential administration-no matter who wins-will probably appoint a new Secretary of the Interior to replace Dirk Kempthorne....

The Sun King Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, thinks he has a partial solution to America's dependence on high-priced foreign oil. But he says liberals and environmentalists are rejecting it. Mr. Rohrabacher -- who notes 130 pending applications for solar power projects on federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management -- has introduced a bill to allow the building of such plants without environmental-impact studies. He tells me that though the BLM has lifted a moratorium on new solar projects on public land that it imposed in 2005, applications are still being clogged up in a bureaucratic pipeline and no new permits have been issued to date. "We need solutions on many levels, and freeing up solar power bottlenecks is one of them," he says. Environmental groups also oppose it, saying large swaths of vegetation could be disrupted because a sizeable solar power facility requires up to two square miles of land. "If not properly scrutinized, the solar plants have the potential to destroy wildlife habitat, affect water resources, limit outdoor recreation opportunities and prove to be eyesores," is how the Daily Pilot, a local newspaper in Mr. Rohrabacher's Orange County district, summarized the objections of local environmentalists....

Biofuels Market Growing Pains Greater Than Seen First-generation ethanol and biodiesel have carved a space in the global fuel market, but their growth is dogged by unclear regulation, adverse consumer perception, need for investment in supply chain and risk-management tools, consulting firm Accenture said in a report due for release Monday. "There are a lot of pieces that need to come together to make it feasible," said Melissa Stark, London-based global lead of biofuels for Accenture and author of the study titled "Biofuel's Time of Transition," in an interview with Clean Technology Insight. In the firm's second in-depth study of biofuels, Accenture found that the "growing pains" for the industry are bigger than the analysts had expected when they published the first study in 2007. While most of the elements to make biofuels a global industry are in place, they will need to evolve to support its growth....

Scientific Discovery In Canada Holds Promise Of BSE Test For Live Animals Scientists at the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory have made a discovery that could lead to the ability to perform accurate diagnostic tests on live animals for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) as opposed to only being able to test them post-mortem, as is the current option. Working with scientists from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's BSE Reference Laboratories, the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health in Germany, and the University of Manitoba, the researchers found that changed levels of a protein in cattle urine indicates the presence of BSE with 100 per cent accuracy in a small sample set. It was also determined that changes in the relative abundance of a set of proteins corresponded with the advancement of the disease. "We are hopeful that at some point in the future the knowledge gained from this study will make it possible to test live cattle," explains Dr. David Knox, NML scientist and lead researcher on the study published in Proteome Science. "It also may be possible to develop similar tests for other Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) in other species, including humans."....

That battle over the Texas-New Mexico boundary line We all know that the Rio Grande separates the United States from Mexico, the river in itself permanently marking the international boundary between two great nations. But what many of us do not understand, or stop to think about, is that two or three miles of that river, right here where we live, also separates West Texas from New Mexico. In other words, a brief portion of that Rio Grande marks a "two-state" boundary. But the issue never entered into controversy until New Mexico was admitted to the Union in 1912. Then, in 1913, the State of New Mexico, in the Supreme Court of the United States, filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas involving the rightful location of the Texas-New Mexico boundary beginning at a point somewhat west of Anthony and encompassing a distance of roughly 20 miles. And complicating all this was the issue of where, exactly, was the river supposed to flow? New Mexico stated that it originally flowed farther east, whereas Texas argued that it had originally flowed farther west, therefore the valley differences, as argued between the two parties, amounted to approximately four miles. And to complicate matters even more, the Upper Valley land showed centuries of scars, the land displaying evidence of several centuries-old, abandoned river- beds....

Veterinarian has magic touch with horses When a horse is in pain on the Peninsula, its owners often call veterinarian Dr. Nancy Elliot. Her medical kit contains no test tubes or portable X-ray machine, however. Just some acupuncture needles and a steady pair of hands. Elliot, a licensed horse veterinarian, switched from a traditional practice to treating horses with a combination of acupuncture and chiropractic techniques 20 years ago and never looked back. She concedes that her speciality may seem unusual to nonhorse people — she's the only veterinarian on the Peninsula exclusively devoted to both methods — but horse owners swear by her touch. On the surface, the jeans-clad, blond-haired Pescadero resident looks more like a rancher than a practitioner of Eastern medicine. But Elliot got hooked on it when she graduated from veterinary school in 1988 and started working at Peninsula Equine Medical Center. There she met a self-taught horse chiropractor and noticed how horses responded to her. "I could go over to a horse and touch his body and find things that were not right. She would work on him. She had this ease with the horses in a way I had never seen." Elliot also noticed how many cases would fall into a "grey area" — situations where a vet would be able to treat the symptoms but not the underlying cause of a chronic injury. The idea of working with a horse's body through movement to promote its own healing tendencies appealed to her, and acupuncture became an essential part of that vision as well....

Annie Proulx's latest short stories focus on the new West Annie Proulx's third collection of Wyoming stories, "Fine Just the Way It Is," proves one thing above all: Her love affair with her adopted state has been a boon for fiction set in the American West. East Coast critics have tended to stamp Western fiction automatically as regional, but Proulx's writing is difficult to pigeonhole even when her geographic focus is small, as these nine stories attest, as did her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Shipping News," set in Newfoundland. Although her Wyoming characters are often Western types -- ranchers, cowpokes, bull riders -- most live in a new West, where history and myth inform rather than define their lives. They are regional in the way Faulkner's characters are regional: Grounded in a specific culture and place, they struggle with illusions, disappointments and hopes common to us all....

Lucky Billy John Vernon. Houghton Mifflin, $24 (304p)Billy the Kid rides again in this literary retelling of his legendary and bloody career. The story begins with his bold escape from the Lincoln, N.Mex., jail in April 1881, then flashes back to his capture by former friend Sheriff Pat Garrett. The narrative travels back and forth between Billy’s final escape and his earlier role in the Lincoln County war. Although the novel touches on familiar incidents in Billy’s life, it also hews close to historical research in showing how the war for control of Lincoln County between the Murphy-Dolan Irish merchant ring and upstart English rancher/merchant John Tunstall was a continuation of Anglo-Irish enmity. After Tunstall is murdered, Billy goes gunning for members of the Irish ring. A pardon from New Mexico territorial governor Gen. Lew Wallace comes to naught, and the familiar story grinds to its inevitable end. Although Doyle makes dramatic use of research into Anglo-Irish tensions in the Old West, the Billy presented here is too one-dimensional to make us understand why his legend continues to hold sway in the popular imagination 127 years after his death.

Open season on winter warmth
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

Since winter seems to be just around the corner, the subject of "meatier women" has frequently begun creeping into the cowboys' vocabulary.

It has to be a throwback gene to the cave man days and the survival of the guy with the "warmest" wife.

Dan the team roper is reminding his friends that he lives alone and has an old, drafty trailer house which is conducive to, and an incentive for, snuggling for winter survival. He is clear that, under those circumstances, the anorexic-type woman is completely out of the question.

With all his good friends, you are sure to know they will fix him up better than he could ever have imagined.

One idea was that he troll the buffet lines in town for the love of his life, but that scared him speechless when a photo preview was included with the email suggestion.

Another offered herself up with the caveat of considerable age, an extremely accurate cowboy B.S. detector and a large cast iron skillet.

Dan thought it might be OK, but she had to bring her own microwave. You ll recall he recently blew his up in the tater tot explosion.

Not long ago, Dan's ole buddy Donnie called him and said he was moving back to the area. Dan began recalling "the best of Donnie" stories.

Dan and Donnie were working on a ranch, but not living there. In money-saving mode, Donnie rode a Moped to and from his job.

A Great Dane on the route liked to chase the motor-scooter cowboy.

One morning, Donnie came limping into work, somewhat bloodied up. "You know, I have no idea if that Great Dane is still in the ditch underneath that Moped," he said.

At lunch, they took a ranch truck down to the crash site and sorted everything out. Dog 1, Moped 0. Donnie got a truck.

Donnie invited everybody over to eat one night. He was going to cook it up himself. The gang showed up and he handed them each a bowl teeming with unidentified ingredients. Someone finally asked. Ranch Style Beans and tuna fish.

When he called, Donnie told Dan he had been shopping in the horse trading magazines because as soon as he moved back, he wanted to take up roping again with Dan and his pals.

He said, as he understands horse ads, there are two categories, "He's a good'un," and "He has a world of potential."

"Don't want none of them potential ones, that sounds like work," Donnie said. When Dan asked him if he was looking for heading or heeling horse, Donnie said it didn't matter, he had decided to get the cheapest "he s a good 'un" he could find.

Dan reminded him that he never was very good at roping and Donnie's response was, "Don't matter. I'm mostly in it for the beer drinkin' . I figure six or eight 12-packs and I'll have this team roping thing down."

When Dan asked Donnie how many times he'd been married, he said, "Four and half."

"How do you figure to have been married a half a time?" Dan asked.

"Well," Donnie explained, "I've been married four times in a church building. Then one time I got drunk in Oklahoma and had some sort of Indian ceremony with a fat woman. I might have been getting married then."

Likely, it was close to winter when that happened. Wonder if she had a microwave? Dan, perhaps, could give her a call.

Turning Horse Owners Into Illegal Traffickers

The Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has scheduled a vote at 10:00 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 10 on H.R. 6598, a bill that in some cases would criminalize selling horses. The only hearing held on the bill was before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in July.

Last month, we noted the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) was supporting this bill to outlaw the knowing possession, sale, delivery or transport of horses for slaughter for human consumption across state lines or international borders, punishable with fines and prison terms from one-three years (AFF Sentinel Vol.5#36-"A Challenger Hits Its Stride- Part II" 8/29/08). Now suddenly the bill is scheduled for a vote as one of the first things Congress works on this session.

So horses, which, so far, are legal to own, would be a class of property that could land one in jail if one sells them without proper research. Let's examine the implications of the term "knowingly" in this legislation. When a prosecutor charges one with knowing that someone who bought his surplus horse was going to somehow cause that horse to be eventually eaten by humans, how is one to prove he didn't know?

Proving a negative to a zealous government officer is never easy. Aside from the hassle of charges and expense of hiring attorneys, will the courts accept, "I didn't know," as a defense? What will be the burden of proof for a cowboy before a jury of sob sisters and emotional citizens evaluating his possible criminal complicity?

Being or playing dumb seldom works for hardworking citizens, just habitual criminals. In order to avoid a charge of "knowingly" selling a horse, a horse owner would have to start researching anyone who attempts to buy horses from him, to make sure he is not a slaughter buyer or an agent masquerading as a regular horse buyer. Will not knowing become negligence and guilt?

What knowledge does a horse seller have at an auction? Will horse auctions now have to conduct background investigations of buyers before issuing bidder numbers?

Will selling horses become too dangerous or costly? Will horses the kids have outgrown or proven too high strung for ranch work simply be taken out to the back pasture and shot, denied a useful life somewhere where its abilities and temperament fit better because of fear? Will people not want to risk selling to someone who turns out to be an "undercover investigator" for HSUS or an overzealous prosecutor?

Why was this bill's hearing held before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security? Could it be that appropriate committees who should know about animals and agriculture have no interest in trying to put animal owners and caretakers in jail, except under existing cruelty statutes? Is this bill before a Crime subcommittee because activists and some lawmakers consider it a crime if an animal does not die of old age?

Short of hiring a veterinarian and arranging for disposal at a cost of several hundred dollars or being struck by lightning, are other means of death for horses to be considered a crime perpetrated by animal owners? That someone may not have the money or want to spend the money or actually wish to receive money for the unwanted horse to perhaps pay for feed for other horses -- is to be criminalized. Perhaps next will be a requirement that anyone who buys a horse be also required to pay a deposit to cover the euthanasia and disposal fee of that horse.

Can an American citizen legally own a horse or not? Extremists hold that one cannot own animals. In Boulder, Co. one cannot legally own an animal but only be its guardian. If one can legally own a horse, it would seem the Constitution would protect the owner who wanted to sell his property.

Liz Ross of the Animal Welfare Institute said this bill was germane to the Subcommittee on Crime as legal action to "criminalize equine cruelty." We disagree. While equine cruelty might be their target, putting horse owners into a class of traffickers like drug pushers is zealotry. Is there another instance in which owning property is legal but selling it might not be? Are horses to be sometimes lumped in with illegal property -- like drugs, nuclear weapons, stolen goods or humans - that are illegal to sell?

What rights - or what animals - could be targeted next?

Cattle Health: Is Tuberculosis A Re-Emerging Disease?

Historically, tuberculosis has been a major problem in the United States. It has caused economic losses to livestock producers and serious loss of life to the American public. Because of its potential for great harm it has been the focus of efforts that had virtually eliminated it in this country by the last half of the 1900’s. The public almost got to the point where people didn’t need to fear TB. Pasteurization regulations for milk and dairy products were initiated because the bacteria cannot survive the heat process. The current meat inspection laws were put in place largely to catch infected animals before their meat entered the food chain. Today, there is no danger of contracting the disease from legal meat or dairy products, yet the disease seems to be making a significant comeback due to several unrelated factors.

Most cases of bovine tuberculosis are diagnosed at post mortem inspection of cattle and bison at packing plants. When a diagnosis has been made, state and federal authorities then test the herd of origin and other herds that may have had contact with the herd of origin. States apply for and are granted levels of certified status, which then determines the extent that producers must participate in eradication and monitoring programs. The highest level is TB Free. This allows for relatively unrestricted movement, both interstate and within the state. With the finding of two cases of TB within a state in a four year time period, the level is moved down to MAA, or Modified Accredited Advanced. This requires more testing, especially in interstate shipment. The finding of three or more cases within one year moves a state’s status down to Modified Accredited. This requires all breeding animals to be tested within 60 days of shipment and a whole herd test within 12 months. In addition all feeder animals must have a test prior to movement. Oklahoma is currently TB Free, but we did have a confirmed case in 2006, so one more case by 2010 would see a decrease in status here.

Currently, several states have undergone downgrades, or are preparing for them. Minnesota has had 11 cases in cattle herds and 17 white-tailed deer cases since 2005. Michigan has had a large problem in their deer population with spread to cattle and at least to one deer hunter. California has recently been downgraded after finding tuberculosis in three Fresno county herds. Before deciding that this is all a long way from home, consider that our neighbor, New Mexico, is also having difficulties. Eddy county and Curry county in Eastern New Mexico have had cases. Seven other herds have been designated potential high risk TB herds. In Curry county, approximately 11,500 cows were depopulated. While most of the problems have been in dairy herds, the 2006 case in Oklahoma was a beef cow in a beef herd. So what accounts for this upswing?

One of the biggest factors may be a change in how wildlife populations are managed. Historically, cases of TB in wildlife were considered to occur occasionally as spread from cattle. It was accepted that TB couldn’t maintain itself in free roaming wildlife. In recent years, however, hunters have used feeding and development of food plots to pull deer into areas and baiting to bring them together at selected points. The pendulum has now swung to where deer are serving as a reservoir for cattle due to increased population density and animal to animal contact. According to Dr. Stephen Schmitt, veterinarian in charge of Michigan’s Wildlife Disease Laboratory, “If you treat wildlife like livestock, you’re liable to get a livestock disease.” When Michigan enacted laws making feeding or baiting of deer illegal in problem areas and redesigned hunting seasons to reduce the deer population to what the land could naturally carry, they greatly reduced the incidence of the disease.

Another factor to consider is that as more cattle movement occurs, it becomes more important to be able to document the movement. It makes a lot of difference what kind of area cattle are moving from, and it is important to be able to identify the animals. Veterinarians within the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry feel like it is quite possible that the 2006 case of TB confirmed in Oklahoma was actually a cow that came in from another state. The rancher had purchased cows from a neighboring state, but because the individual animals identity could not be confirmed as a part of that shipment, Oklahoma was credited with the case.

A third possibility is just starting to be considered by health professionals. TB has long been considered to be a disease transferred from cattle to man, but now researchers are looking at the opposite. It may be that people who reside in other countries where they contract the disease from consuming unpasteurized milk or uninspected meat can carry the disease into this country and introduce it into cattle. In Mexico, TB is widespread and Mycobacterium bovis, the organism that causes bovine TB, affects about 17% of the cattle herds. While human to cattle transmission is still theoretical in the U.S, it has been documented in South Africa where tribesmen contract the disease in their home areas and then carry it to the more populated areas where they are employed to work with livestock.

So what does this mean to Oklahoma cattlemen and what can we do to safeguard our TB Free status? When you add cattle to your herd make sure that they are long time Oklahoma resident cattle, or be sure you determine their true point of origin. Use a permanent ID system, such as a brucellosis test tag or calfhood vaccinate test tag to identify these additions to your herd. These tags may take an extra effort to record and file but it could help save a lot of grief in the future. Apply careful consideration before enacting or allowing wildlife management plans that include feeding, baiting or increasing wildlife populations. Be careful when screening workers or others that may come in contact with your cattle. If you don’t know the person or their health status, consider requiring a TB test as a condition of employment.

There is no reason for undue alarm or public fear of TB danger, but we have had one case, and we don’t need another. The regulatory veterinarians at the Oklahoma State Veterinarian’s Office are working hard to ensure the safety of our herd with the least possible restriction to movement. Common sense management and some eyes-open awareness can help them achieve this goal.

Source: Dave Sparks, DVM, Area Extension Food-Animal Quality and Health Specialist

Conflict Over Spying Led White House to Brink A burst of ferocity stunned the room into silence. No other word for it: The vice president's attorney was shouting. "The president doesn't want this! [1] You are not going to see the opinions. You are out . . . of . . . your . . . lane!" Five government lawyers had gathered around a small conference table in the Justice Department command center. Four were expected. David S. Addington, counsel to Vice President Cheney, got wind of the meeting and invited himself. If Addington smelled revolt, he was not far wrong. Unwelcome questions about warrantless domestic surveillance had begun to find their voice. Cheney and his counsel would struggle for months to quash the legal insurgency. By the time President Bush became aware of it, his No. 2 had stoked dissent into flat-out rebellion. The president would face a dilemma, and the presidency itself a historic test. Cheney would come close to leading them off a cliff, man and office both [2]. On this second Monday in December 2003, Addington's targets were a pair of would-be auditors from the National Security Agency. He had displeasure to spare for their Justice Department hosts....

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Ex-FBI Agent Faces Trial in 1982 Murder John J. Connolly was hundreds of miles away in 1982 when gambling executive John Callahan's bullet-riddled body was discovered in the trunk of his Cadillac at Miami's airport. The admitted shooter said he never met Connolly, the disgraced ex-FBI man at the heart of the agency's sordid dealings with Boston's Winter Hill Gang. Yet Connolly will stand trial on murder and conspiracy charges this month as if he had pulled the trigger himself, because prosecutors say he secretly gave information that was crucial in setting up the hit. Jury selection is to begin Monday in Connolly's trial, which figures to rehash some of the ugliest episodes in the Boston FBI's handling of the gang, once led by James J. "Whitey" Bulger and convicted killer Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi. For years, both were top FBI informants on rival Italian mobsters. Connolly was their handler, and he made sure they were shielded from prosecution for murder and many other crimes. That eventually sent him to federal prison on a racketeering conviction. A congressional investigation concluded in 2003 that the FBI's relationship with Bulger and his cohorts "must be considered one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement."....

Lawmakers Seek Anthrax Details A month after the F.B.I. declared that an Army scientist was the anthrax killer, leading members of Congress are demanding more information about the seven-year investigation, saying they do not think the bureau has proved its case. In a letter sent Friday to Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Democratic leaders of the House Judiciary Committee said that “important and lingering questions remain that are crucial for you to address, especially since there will never be a trial to examine the facts of the case.” The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, committed suicide in July, and Mr. Mueller is likely to face demands for additional answers about the anthrax case when he appears before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on Sept. 16 and 17. “My conclusion at this point is that it’s very much an open matter,” Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate committee, said of the strength of the case against Dr. Ivins, a microbiologist at the Army’s biodefense laboratory who worked on anthrax vaccines. “There are some very serious questions that have yet to be answered and need to be made public.”....