Saturday, November 03, 2012

The Westerner's Radio Theater #51

Today Ranch Radio brings you the Jan. 21, 1950 broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry and a 1950 broadcast of Hopalong Cassidy.





Threatened Fish Returned to NM Wilderness

Gila trout
After a few miles of sloshing around in metal containers on the backs of mules, the first batch of Gila trout has been safely returned to wilderness streams in southwestern New Mexico. The pack train will deliver another 3,000 of the federal protected fish deeper into the wilderness on Monday. The work marks the successful ending of a rescue mission that started more than four months ago, when the largest wildfire in New Mexico's recorded history was bearing down on Gila National Forest. Among the concerns at the time was the potential flooding of the forest's streams — home to the trout — with ash and charred debris. The trout were scooped up and ferried out of the wilderness via helicopter then trucked to a hatchery on the other end of the state for safe keeping. Since the fire, wildlife managers have been monitoring conditions across the Gila to see when the trout could be brought back. Tincher said the agency was able to use emergency funding to pay for the rescue and return.
Silvery Minnow
Meanwhile, along the Rio Grande in central New Mexico and West Texas, biologists are releasing hundreds of thousands of endangered Rio Grande silvery minnows. Around 100,000 have already been released at Big Bend National Park. Nearly 300,000 more will be released in New Mexico next week. Most of the minnows are coming from a national hatchery in southern New Mexico, where employees spent almost three weeks inserting small pink and yellow tags under the scales of each minnow so they can be tracked upon release. Recent surveys reflect the drought's toll on the minnow. Four of 20 monitoring sites along the Middle Rio Grande were dry in September, and minnows were found at only three of the remaining 16 sites, according to the Bureau of Reclamation...more

Friday, November 02, 2012

U.S. Shed 9,000 Mining, Energy Jobs in October, 17,000 Since May


Buried in Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the country’s unemployment situation was this disheartening fact: 9,000 employees of the mining and resource extraction sector lost their jobs in October. That brings total job losses in that sector to 17,000 since May, according to BLS. “Mining lost 9,000 jobs in October, with most of the decline occurring in support activities for mining,” BLS reported Friday morning. “Since May of this year, employment in mining has decreased by 17,000.” Energy has become a hot-button issue of late as the country debates major regulations on industries that fall under BLS’s “mining” rubric and taxpayer incentives for other energy sectors. While the president often touts his policies as friendly to the conventional fuel industry, BLS’s numbers suggest the sector is hitting a financial rough patch...more

What you didn't know about newest NM senator

State Sen. Pat Woods, who took office last week, says he has packed a lifetime of lessons into the last eight months. "I guess I got a Ph.D. in politics," said Woods, R-Broadview. Woods enters the Legislature as a bigger-than-life character, thanks in part to a fellow Republican, Gov. Susana Martinez. She used her influence in the Senate primary to try to defeat Woods, sending money and her political might to help his opponent, Angie Spears. More important, the Martinez forces went negative against Woods, a tactic that backfired. A friend to most in the Clovis area, Woods seemed to pick up votes as the attacks against him escalated. Unopposed in next week's general election, he took office early. Former foe Martinez appointed him as the senator for Senate District 7 after incumbent Clint Harden resigned in October. As a senator, Woods said he would approach the job cautiously, listening and learning before introducing legislation. But he said a concept he heard about in Utah fascinated him. The idea is for states to reclaim certain federal land within their borders. BLM and Forest Service property would revert to state or private control. Woods said such a system might invigorate New Mexico's rural economy through more farming, ranching and logging. He also said he recognized that such a dramatic change would require approval from Congress. But the possibilities of using the land to improve the economy excite him. "Local control is the best government," Woods said...more

Obama Administration Mandates Oil Firms Hire Sea Turtle Observers

The Department of Interior (DOI) is requiring private oil companies to hire marine mammal and sea turtle monitors if the companies are granted a lease to drill offshore. A marine mammal observer’s job is to watch for whales, dolphins, and similar sea creatures and to advise on minimizing the underwater noise created by offshore drilling, which can affect the sea mammals. The DOI announced in a press release last week that it will open up 20 million acres in the Western Gulf of Mexico for an oil and gas lease sale to be held Nov. 28, which is part of the administration’s “Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012–2017 (Five Year Program).” The terms of the sale, which were finalized by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), include several environmental safeguards. “These terms include measures to protect the environment, such as stipulations requiring that operators protect biologically sensitive features and provide trained observers to monitor marine mammals and sea turtles to ensure compliance and restrict operations when conditions warrant,” the release said...more

War on Coal Costs Heinrich Navajo Support

The Navajo Nation Council has declared its support for Heather Wilson for U.S. Senate.  An October 17, 2012, letter signed by Johnny Naize, the Speaker of the Navajo Nation Council, while not explicitly calling upon tribal members to vote for Wilson, sends a clear message that the leaders of the largest Native American tribe in the country support her over Democratic opponent, Rep. Martin Heinrich.  They left nothing to guess when they wrote to Wilson, “Our Nation and our Navajo people are in dire need of leaders such as you who can advocate for sensible solutions and sustainable economic development.” You can read the Navajo endorsement of Wilson here. How did Heinrich lose what most people thought was a lock on a reliable Democratic voting bloc?  Look to the “war on coal” for an explanation. Mitt Romney has been making “the war on coal” a pillar of his assault on Barack Obama’s policies as he tries to win votes in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.  New Mexico may be the western front in that war, and it’s far from quiet.  Ground zero has been PNM’s San Juan Generating Station which burns coal.  About 70% of New Mexico’s electricity is produced from coal. The Obama administration has been pushing PNM to impose $750 million of upgrades on its San Juan generating station to battle haze.  The State of New Mexico has joined PNM in fighting for less costly technology which it argues effectively accomplishes the same objectives...more

Obama backers put carbon tax and other global warming efforts atop re-election agenda

While even he admits disappointment in his first-term record on the fight against climate change, President Obama continues to enjoy strong support from environmentalists who say they are confident he can deliver a carbon tax and other far-reaching measures against global warming in a second term. New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg provided the most recent evidence of that Thursday, announcing his endorsement of Mr. Obama’s re-election bid in large part because he is “a president to lead on climate change.” Mr. Obama has also received endorsements from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, maintaining much of the support he cultivated during his first White House run four years ago. That support has held steady despite several high-profile failures and major setbacks, including the failure to get a cap-and-trade greenhouse gas bill through the Democrat-dominated Congress of his first two years in office...more

Eco-Taxes? Study Financed by U.S. Treasury Will Link Tax Code to Carbon Emissions

Coming soon: a green tax code for American businesses and individual taxpayers alike? A major tax study currently being sponsored by the U.S. Treasury will give environmental activists a powerful new weapon in their campaign to alter the entire American economic and social landscape in the name of halting “climate change”—including the possible levying of new carbon taxes. That campaign is bound to intensify in the aftermath of Nov. 6’s presidential election, regardless of who wins the race, as the nation faces the challenge of deficit reduction and tax reform that will be required to overhaul the country’s over-strained finances. Environmental advocates and others are likely to raise such innovative mechanisms as carbon taxes and major shifts in tax rates and incentives as part of the process—and the impending study may well provide them with important ammunition. Under the bland title of Effects of Provisions in the Internal Revenue Code on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, the $1.5 million study is being carried out under the auspices of the National Academy of Science (NAS). Originally planned to take two years, the ambitious project aims to take an inventory of the U.S. tax code in terms of the effects of its most important provisions on the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions—a huge and complicated exercise in environmental and economic modelling. The study itself will not be available until after the election...more

Lawmaker urges feds to monitor Hezbollah in Mexico

The presidential campaign has featured plenty of talk about terrorism in the Middle East, but one lawmaker is warning that the federal government is ignoring a growing Hezbollah presence in Mexico, with the Lebanese terror group increasingly joining forces with drug cartels. One report shows hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners living in Mexico, and a small percentage of them may be radicals using routes established by drug networks to sneak into the U.S. The ties linking Mexico to Islamic terrorism were underscored earlier this year when an alleged Iranian operative plotted to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in Washington using a hired gun on loan from a Mexican drug cartel. Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) says the mounting evidence of a Hezbollah presence in Mexico is being ignored by the Department of Homeland Security. The incidents fueling Myrick's frustration include the Oct. 17 guilty plea in Manhattan Federal Court of a suspect plotting to pay $1.5 million to a suspected hitman for the Los Zetas Cartel, who was actually a DEA informant, to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. by bombing a busy Washington, D.C., restaurant the ambassador frequents. “The dangerous connection between drug trafficking and terrorism cannot be overstated, and this case is yet another example of DEA’s unique role in identifying potentially deadly networks that wish to harm innocent Americans and our allies worldwide," said DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart following Arbabsiar’s court appearance. Speculation of these groups operating in Mexico eventually became more tangible in the fall of 2010, when the Tucson Police Department published an International Terrorism Situational Awareness for Hezbollah in Mexico citing the arrest of Jameel Nasar in Tijuana in July 2010, who attempted to establish a Hezbollah network in Mexico and South America. The previous year, Jamal Yousef was arrested in New York City, where it was learned that 100 M16 rifles, 100 AR15 rifles, 200 hand grenades, C4 explosive and anti-tank ammunition were stolen from Iraq by his cousin, an alleged Hezbollah member, and stored in Mexico. The Diario de Quinatana Roo newspaper said it has uncovered information from Wikileaks that, as far back as 2009, Hezbollah cells were using drug trafficking routes to reach the U.S...more

Mexican think tank says Colorado, Washington, Oregon pot legalization would cut cartel profit

A study released Wednesday by a respected Mexican think tank asserts that proposals to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Colorado, Oregon and Washington could cut Mexican drug cartels' earnings from traffic to the U.S. by as much as 30 percent. Opponents questioned some of the study's assumptions, saying the proposals could also offer new opportunities for cartels to operate inside the U.S. and replace any profit lost to a drop in international smuggling. The ballot measures to be decided on Nov. 6 would allow adults to possess small amounts of pot under a regimen of state regulation and taxation. Polls have shown tight races in Washington and Colorado, with Washington's measure appearing to have the best chance of passing. Oregon's measure, which would impose the fewest regulations, does not appear likely to pass. The study by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute, "If Our Neighbors Legalize," assumes that legalization in any state would allow growers there to produce marijuana relatively cheaply and create an illicit flow to other states, where the drug could be made available at cheaper prices and higher quality than Mexican marijuana smuggled across the international border. The report, based on previous studies by U.S. experts including those at the RAND Corporation, assumes that Mexican cartels earn more than $6 billion a year from drug smuggling to the U.S...more

Thursday, November 01, 2012

More Than A Dozen Luxury Hybrids Caught Fire And Exploded In New Jersey Port After Sandy

Approximately 16 of the $100,000+ Fisker Karma extended-range luxury hybrids were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey last night when water from Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge apparently breached the port and submerged the vehicles. As Jalopnik has exclusively learned, the cars then caught fire and burned to the ground. Our source tells us they were “first submerged in a storm surge and then caught fire, exploded.” This wouldn’t be the first time the vehicles, which use a small gasoline engine to charge batteries that provide energy to two electric motors, had an issue with sudden combustion. The vehicle, despite only being in limited production, has already experienced numerous fires due to equipment failures and electrical shorts. How, exactly, they caught fire after being submerged in sea water is unclear. It’s possible the salt water caused a short that led to a fire...more


See more info and pics at Jlopnik


China Blocks Protection of Antarctica’s Waters: Report

Some 1.2 million people asked the 25 member governments of the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR, composed of 24 countries and the EU) to take action during their annual meeting this week to conserve Antarctic marine ecosystems. Most of them answered this call and were prepared to work on proposals for marine protected areas and reserves in the ecologically important Ross Sea and East Antarctic regions. Ultimately, however, the Antarctic conservation aspirations of the majority of CCAMLR members were reportedly blocked by just a few countries, under the leadership of China. CCAMLR requires consensus on all decisions, which allows a small minority to stifle the aims of the majority. Nevertheless, the meeting closed on Thursday without any new MPAs designated, to the disappointment of the countries that had put forward proposals, the environmental community, and those 1.2 million people. So what happened? It seems some countries are putting economic gain over conservation, even though CCAMLR is first and foremost a conservation body (as its name implies). According to a report in The Australian, a major Australian newspaper, China blocked all MPA proposals this year due to its desire to maintain access to fishing. Interestingly enough, China does not currently fish in any of the areas proposed for MPAs, meaning that it would be prioritizing potential economic gain over certain conservation benefit...more

Join the Communist Party to protect your access to natural resources?  Otherwise, it appears the so-called "free nations" will block that access. 

Clean Water Act at 40: Is it failing to meet new pollution challenges?

...The Cuyahoga was then so polluted that the surface occasionally caught fire. Erie was considered a “dead” lake; in summer floating mats of stinking blue-green algae consumed so much oxygen in the water that large areas of the lake were rendered lifeless. But in 1972 Congress passed the Clean Water Act, one of the most far-reaching and ambitious environmental laws ever enacted in the United States. The act cut industrial pollution, set new goals for the health of the nation’s waters, and provided billions of dollars to help cities build and upgrade sewage treatment plants. Now, 40 years later, Lake Erie is once more in trouble. In recent summers large blooms of toxic algae have returned. In 2011, the worst year so far, there were days when the algae was so thick that Unger couldn’t take his customers fishing. He once drove his 27-foot Sportcraft boat 14 miles straight north from Cleveland before he gave up and turned back. “I never got out of the algae,” he says. The recovery and decline of the Lake Erie ecosystem offer a vivid illustration of both the successes and failures of the Clean Water Act in cleaning up and protecting the nation’s waters. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that in 1972 two-thirds of the waters in America were unfit for fishing or swimming. Today, it says, that amount has been cut in half, to one-third. At the same time, shortcomings in the Clean Water Act and its implementation have left the nation with problems that are being addressed too slowly or hardly at all, experts and environmental advocates say. Here's a synopsis of some of these problems...more

So what are these "problems" and "shortcomings" with the act?  Agriculture of course.

 The act left largely untouched the leading cause of pollution today, known as “nonpoint” pollution. The largest source of this is runoff from agriculture. Each year, for example, fertilizer from Midwestern cornfields washes down the Mississippi River and creates a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. Farm runoff is an ongoing problem in many smaller bodies of water, including Chesapeake Bay, Lake Erie, and many other lakes and rivers around the country. Under the Clean Water Act, states have been identifying thousands of bodies of water polluted by excess nutrients from agriculture. But the act gives the federal government little power to regulate agricultural pollution. “We keep talking about plans, but there’s very little execution,” says Mr. Hines. Environmental regulation in the United States dates to the 19th century. But the Clean Water Act was different in that it greatly expanded federal powers to curb pollution, a job previously left to the states. By allowing private citizens to bring lawsuits over pollution, the Clean Water Act also opened up new opportunities for citizen action.

If Obama is returned to office, we can expect a big push in this direction, through regulation instead of legislation.

Appeals Court Orders Feds To File In Property Rights Case

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit today ordered the United States to respond to a motion by a Wyoming man who seeks to overturn a ruling by a Wyoming federal district court in favor of the U.S. Forest Service in a dispute over whether his land may be used as a federal trail. The order comes one day after the man filed a motion urging the appeals court to reverse a ruling by a three-judge panel. Marvin Brandt of Fox Park, Wyoming, claims title to a railroad right-of-way and a road that accesses his property. The land claimed by the United States was used as a railroad right-of-way from 1904 until 1995, the railroad then abandoned it; all tracks and ties were removed by 2000; thereafter, the Forest Service abandoned what was once a road. The Wyoming court ruled, over Mr. Brandt’s objections, that the Forest Service retained a reversionary interest in the railroad right-of-way pursuant to two federal statutes and that the Forest Service did not abandon the road despite a gate, fence, and trees where the road once was and obliteration of the road. The panel held that it was required by court precedent to uphold the ruling. “This is encouraging news,” said William Perry Pendley, president of Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF); MSLF represents Mr. Brandt...more

Artifact Prices Draw Looters

Across the West, authorities are struggling to stop the looting of Indian antiquities. The thefts have continued despite a 2009 federal crackdown that resulted in more than 20 people being indicted in Utah. The case generated headlines due to the large number of charges, as well as the suicides of two defendants and a third man who reportedly was an informant in the case. Steep prices for artifacts and high rural unemployment have made digging for antiquities a popular pastime in places like eastern California, Nevada and Utah, where deserts have preserved painted pots for thousands of years. Figures on artifact thefts are sketchy, said Todd Swain, a National Park Service investigator who specializes in looting cases. Most incidents never get reported. Federal agencies in the West often have only one or two criminal investigators to cover areas approaching a million square miles. In 2010, the last year for which data are available, the National Park Service tallied about 400 instances of artifact-looting in its parks nationwide, up from fewer than 300 in 2009, Mr. Swain said. The Forest Service in 2010 tallied about 50 incidents, down from about 150 the year before. Mr. Swain said the number of reported incidents can vary widely from year to year, and he estimated that as few as 20% of such thefts are reported...more

But I thought these lands were federalized to protect such things as this?  Too bad they are not on private property where they could really be protected.

Song Of The Day #962



Ranch Radio will do what we are famous for, and that is dustin' off some old 78s. The tune today is Sweet Fiddle Blues by the Tune Wranglers.

The song was recorded in San Antonio on Sept. 29, 1938 and that's  Leonard Seago on the fiddle and the vocal.  It was released as Bluebird B-7992.

The Kremlin’s New Internet Surveillance Plan Goes Live Today

On the surface, it’s all about protecting Russian kids from internet pedophiles. In reality, the Kremlin’s new “Single Register” of banned websites, which goes into effect today, will wind up blocking all kinds of online political speech. And, thanks to the spread of new internet-monitoring technologies, the Register could well become a tool for spying on millions of Russians. Signed into law by Vladimir Putin on July 28, the internet-filtering measure contains a single, innocuous-sounding paragraph that allows those compiling the Register to draw on court decisions relating to the banning of websites. The problem is, the courts have ruled to block more than child pornographers’ sites. The judges have also agreed to online bans on political extremists and opponents of the Putin regime. The new system is modeled on the one that is used to block extremist and terrorist bank accounts. The Roskomnadzor (the Agency for the Supervision of Information Technology, Communications and Mass Media) gathers not only court decisions to outlaw sites or pages, but also data submitted by three government agencies: the Interior Ministry, the Federal Antidrug Agency and the Federal Service for the Supervision of Consumer Rights and Public Welfare. Most importantly, however, the new Roskomnadzor system introduces DPI (deep packet inspection) on a nationwide scale. Although DPI is not mentioned in the law, the Ministry of Communications — along with the biggest internet corporations active in Russia — concluded in August that the only way to implement the law was through deep packet inspection. Most digital inspection tools only look at the “headers” on a packet of data –- where it’s going, and where it came from. DPI allows network providers to peer into the digital packets composing a message or transmission over a network. “You open the envelope, not just read the address on a letter,” said an engineer dealing with DPI. It allows ISPs not only to monitor the traffic, but to filter it, suppressing particular services or content. DPI has also elicited concern from leading privacy groups over how this highly intrusive technology will be used by governments...more

Position Open



The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association has an opening for a full-time (+) position for a solutions-oriented person who has great organizational, computer, and personal communication skills who is interested in dealing with membership, the public, decision makers at all levels…. and other duties as assigned.

If you have interest or know someone who is, please submit resumes to nmcga@nmagriculture.org !

Caren Cowan
Executive Director
New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association
P.O. Box 7517
Albuquerque NM 87194
505.247.0584 office
505.842.1766 fax

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Thompson Divide debate

A key dispute within the dispute over proposed oil and gas development in the Thompson Divide area involves dozens of leases issued in national forest roadless areas there in 2003.  That was two years after President Bill Clinton, in one of his final acts as president, declared a national forest rule to protect roadless areas from development. Such leases in the Thompson Divide area and elsewhere have gained the nickname of “gap” leases because they were issued at a time when the legal status of the national roadless rule was in question because of prior court rulings later being upheld. Gary Osier, a former Forest Service employee who served as forest minerals specialist for the White River National Forest, said energy companies had been “badgering him to death” during the 1990s to make some of the areas in question available for leasing, but he postponed acting for years. “There was this rumor of this roadless rule and we were told to hold off,” he said. Then, after the national rule was implemented, a Wyoming judge found it to be null and void. Osier said he consulted with the regional Forest Service office, which talked to officials in Washington, D.C., who said the land should be offered for leasing. “That was the legal opinion at that point in time,” he said. Despite that Forest Service decision during the Bush administration, the battle over the 2001 rule continued to play out in court, with sometimes-conflicting rulings. But last year, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over both Wyoming and Colorado, ruled in favor of the national rule, which also was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. And this month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to last year’s 10th Circuit Court ruling, meaning the national rule was upheld “as the law of the land”...more

 “There was this rumor of this roadless rule and we were told to hold off,” he said.

This is an example of why so many folks don't trust the land management agencies.  In this instance you have a land use plan which allows leasing, but they were told to "hold off" because of a "rumor".

So why have a land use plan?  Impose the agenda now and bring the plans into compliance later.  

They should be called Rumor Areas instead of Roadless Areas.

.

George Lucas Is Still The Proud Owner Of Skywalker Ranch - photos

George Lucas may have sold the rights to Star Wars, but he's still the proud owner of the 4,700-acre Skywalker Ranch. The director has spent around $100 million developing the impressive property north of San Francisco since 1978. Although he doesn't live there (at least as of 2002), Lucas uses the land as a retreat, as well as work and studio space. Now with his $4 billion windfall from selling Lucasfilm, perhaps Lucas will spend more money building his dreamland...more


While his ranch is in Ca. it reminds me of a typical ranch in NM.  For instance his ranch, like most in NM, has a ranch house designed in the 1869 Victorian style.


He has also picked up another NM ranch tradition: a fitness center complete with racquetball courts and a swimming pool.


Now you know why ranchers oppose wilderness. Racquetball is not allowed because the noise violates the soundscape and ruins the wilderness experience for Jeff, Nathan and Darla, and most importantly, the only way you can fill the swimming pool is with a bucket.
 

Finally, our dirty little secret is out.

Emails show Obama admin used DOE loan money to help Harry Reid’s 2010 campaign

President Obama claims that political considerations did not influence the Energy Department’s green energy loan program, but newly-released internal emails show that his administration subsidized Nevada companies in order to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., win his 2010 reelection campaign. “And these are decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics,” Obama said last week when asked about the green companies that have gone bankrupt despite receiving taxpayer support. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released DOE emails today that compromise Obama’s position on two counts: one, the emails show that Obama himself was involved in approving loans; two, DOE officials were keenly aware of the political interests at stake, as they regarded the loans as a way for the White House to help Reid by giving him a way to brag about bringing federal money into Nevada. Messages from late in 2010 demonstrate that DOE officials were concerned that President Obama’s personal desire to get DOE loans approved was putting tax payer money at risk...more

Robert O. Anderson Rode High With ARCO And Ranches

In his first 16 years drilling for oil, Robert O. Anderson came up dry 200 times. But having done his homework on the Empire-Abo field in New Mexico, he had an educated hunch that eventually his investment would pay off. In 1957 it did, big time. Anderson's find uncorked a quarter-billion-barrel reserve, one of the biggest in North America. He built on that to create the nation's sixth-largest oil company, ARCO. Anderson (1917-2007) was born in Chicago, where his banker father built a reputation for successfully lending to wildcatters, the independent oil explorers who were colorful figures in a risky business. When Anderson spent a summer in Texas laying an oil pipeline, he knew it was the industry he wanted to be in. "I liked the opportunities for initiative, experiment, independence and an outdoor life," he said in Kenneth Harris' book "The Wildcatter." "We were too young to be conscious of money in the depths of the Depression." Graduating from the University of Chicago with a degree in economics in 1939, Anderson read intensively about geology while working as a management trainee at an oil company in Chicago. He began looking for a small refinery that wasn't reaching its potential. He found one in December 1941, convincing his father to put up $150,000 — worth $2.3 million today — to buy a half-share in Malco Refining in New Mexico. As the new vice president, he experimented with equipment and processes and within six months had taken production from 1,500 barrels a day to 4,000...Meanwhile, he spent much of his time where his heart was — on his ranches. By the late 1960s their size across New Mexico and Texas totaled over 1 million acres — three-quarters the size of Delaware. With 120,000 head of cattle and innumerable sheep, the ranches brought in $50 million in revenue a year. He made sure to dirty his hands with his cowboys for 12-hour days whenever he could, according to Paul Patterson in "Hardhat and Stetson."...more

Ranchers saddle up for another fight against JBS

A leading trade group for U.S. cattle raisers is calling on the Department of Justice to block a deal that could result in JBS USA, whose parent company is the world's largest meat packer, becoming the largest processor here. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and USDA Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration Administrator Larry Mitchell, R-CALF USA requested that the U.S. government "immediately initiate an investigation to determine the potential effects" that JBS USA's potential acquisition of two Canadian beef packing plants a Canadian feedlot and the two U.S. beef packing plants owned by Canada's XL Foods Inc. will have on competition on the U.S. live cattle market and the consumer beef market. R-Calf said the two Canadian beef packing plants and the Canadian feedlot are major beef and/or cattle exporters to the U.S. JBS USA, a subsidiary of Brazil-based JBS SA, on Oct. 17 announced an agreement to manage one of XL Food's Canadian operations. The agreement also provides JBS USA an exclusive option to purchase XL's Canadian and U.S. operations for $100 million, split evenly between cash and JBS SA shares. JBS USA immediately began managing XL Lakeside, a beef processing plant in Brooks, Alberta, Canada, with capacity to process 4,000 head of cattle daily. The option gives JBS USA right to purchase the Lakeside packing plant as well as a beef packing plant in Calgary, Alberta; a feedlot in Brooks, Alberta, and the adjacent farmland acreage; a beef packing plant in Omaha, Neb.; and a beef packing plant in Nampa, Idaho...more

Baxter Black - Cowboy Ghost Story


Listen up while Baxter spins the tale of the cowboy ghost roamin' the desert for some spare body parts.

My version of this is on his The Big One That Got Away Blues and it appears it may still be available on the 2 CD set Cowboy Mentality plus The Big One That Got Away Blues.


Song Of The Day #961



Ranch Radio brings you a Halloween Special with Salty Holmes and The Ghost Song.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Al Gore blames Hurricane Sandy on 'global warming'

While it did not take long it was expected. Former vice president Al Gore put out a statement on his blog on Tuesday and blamed the intensity of Hurricane Sandy on "global warming pollution."
Gore concluded at the end of his blog that "dirty energy makes dirty weather.":
Hurricane Sandy is a disturbing sign of things to come. We must heed this warning and act quickly to solve the climate crisis. Dirty energy makes dirty weather.
New York and New England were hit with powerful hurricanes in 1821 and 1938. In 1821, the hurricane was called, The Great September Gale. In 1938, the hurricane, aptly named the Long Island Expressslammed New York and New England with winds of up to 120 MPH. The Berkshire Eagle lists other hurricanes and tropical storms dating back to 1635 that have hit the east coast...more

Washington Considers Another Impact Of Wolves: Skinny Cows

Washington ranchers who can show that wolves are making their cattle lose weight could get reimbursed under a new proposal. The rule before the Fish and Wildlife Commission would expand a compensation program for ranchers living in wolf country. Washington’s cattle ranchers aren’t the first to complain about skinny livestock. Ranchers in Idaho and Oregon also say the reintroduction of wolves has made sheep and cattle move more and eat less. That translates into the bottom line, says Dave Ware. He’s the game manager with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. “The way that a rancher gets paid in the fall when they bring their cattle from the range is by weight ... so much per pound,” Ware says. Washington would be the first state in the Northwest to compensate ranchers for livestock weight loss, not just livestock killed by wolves. The plan would also expand compensation for livestock loss to more types of animals, including herd dogs, llamas, alpacas and goats, even for noncommercial livestock owners. Top priority for compensation would go to people who take preventive measures...more

Judge rejects mandatory minimum sentences for ranchers convicted of arson

Rejecting mandatory minimum five-year sentences as “grossly disproportionate” to the crimes, a federal judge today sentenced an Eastern Oregon rancher to three months in prison and his adult son to one year and a day for deliberately setting fires on federal land. A federal jury in June convicted the Harney County pair after a two-week trial in Pendleton. Jurors convicted Dwight Hammond Jr., 70, on a single count of arson for “intentionally and maliciously” setting the 2001 Hardie-Hammond Fire in the Steens Mountain federal management and protection area. They convicted Steven Dwight Hammond, 43, of the same crime and of a second arson count for similarly setting the 2006 Krumbo Butte Fire. It burned in the same area and in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The jury acquitted both men on arson charges in two 2006 fires. U.S. Judge Michael Hogan agreed with the Hammonds’ defense lawyers that setting fire to juniper trees and sagebrush in the wilderness was not the type of crime that Congress had in mind when it set mandatory sentences of five to 20 years for anyone who “maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy by means of fire” any federal property. The mandate was part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. link

Here you have another example of the feds using a statute supposedly to fight to terrorism, and instead turning it on our own citizens.  Kudos to the judge and US Attorney Papagni should be ashamed of himself.


Guilty plea from illegal alien in Brian Terry murder

An illegal alien faces life in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday to first-degree murder in the slaying of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Manuel Osorio-Arellanes has been in federal custody since the night he was wounded in the gun battle that claimed Terry’s life and ignited the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious 22 months ago. According to CBS News, Osorio-Arellanes entered the guilty plea in exchange for an agreement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office not to seek the death penalty. The Arizona Daily Star published the plea agreement. Osorio-Arellanes admitted entering this country illegally to rob drug traffickers, and that he and his accomplices ran into Terry and other Border Patrol agents on the night of Dec. 14, 2010, when the gun battle occurred...more

Poor Jimmy Bason: Former NM Gov. Richardson to lobby for Calif., not NM, spaceport

Former Gov. Bill Richardson, who championed development of New Mexico’s spaceport, is going to work for California’s spaceport. The Albuquerque Journal reports Richardson will sign a contract to lobby for Mojave Air and Space Port. Officials told the paper he is being hired to help them get so-called informed consent legislation passed. New Mexico has been trying for two years to get the same law passed, but has been blocked by trial lawyers in the Legislature. The law would exempt space craft parts suppliers from most civil lawsuits...more

The new ethanol: A debate over corn, oil and progress

The Obama administration must decide in coming weeks if it will temporarily lift requirements to blend ethanol into the nation’s gasoline supply. The issue has been largely dormant on the campaign trail, but it’s critical to the success or failure of the next generation of biofuel plants under construction today that won’t rely on corn to make fuel. A public comment period ended in early October, and now the administration must decide by Nov. 13 whether or not to temporarily suspend the Renewable Fuel Standard, created in 2005 and modified in 2007 to help the ethanol industry get off the ground by requiring its use in gasoline. Ethanol is required to be blended into gasoline to help keep pollution down, and it has the added benefit of lowering dependence on crude oil, about half of it imported and the other half drilled domestically. The governors of Arkansas, North Carolina and several other states want the ethanol mandate suspended amid rising corn prices brought about by this summer’s punishing drought. Governors of corn states are opposed. The administration is widely expected to reject the request for a one-year suspension of ethanol mandates, but the move is actually just an opening salvo in a much larger fight that’s coming in the next Congress over the Renewable Fuel Standard. That debate comes just as the ethanol industry readies to launch commercial-scale, next-generation biofuels. Also at issue: Whether mandates, passed in 2005 when oil demand was at its peak, are realistic given falling energy consumption, a boom in low-cost natural gas production, rising corn prices and improvements in the fuel efficiency of cars...more

AQHA/PRCA Horses of the Year Announced

The American Quarter Horse Association and the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association announced their picks for Horse of The Year. The top 25 contestants in each timed-event category vote for their favorite horses, and this year's winners are a mixture of new and seasoned victors. Trevor Brazile's horse Lite My Dynamite, affectionately known as "Sic Em," was awarded his fist Horse of the Year honor in the team roping - heading category. This win was a first for both the horse and the 16-time world champion Brazile. Other first-time winners included steer wrestler Les Shepperson's mount Dillon's Dash and steer roper Chance Kelton's horse White Hot Ike. Kelton said of his equine partner, "He was a good team roping horse, but he just didn't quite have the speed that a fella needs to win in PRCA rodeos." The heeling category saw a repeat winner in Jade Corkill's horse Fine Snip of Doc, while tie-down roper Clint Cooper's mount Eightys Sport won for the third straight year. Mary Walker's horse Perculatin won this year's coveted barrel racing Horse of the Year, an inaugural win for both horse and rider. link

Song Of The Day #960


Today Ranch Radio brings you the Merle Travis 1946 recording of Divorce Me C.O.D.

War on fossil fuel: 9th Circuit hands greens another victory

Natural gas, once lauded by environmentalists as the "good fossil fuel," now is derided as dirty, dangerous and running amok. "The bigger recent news is that one of the most powerful environmental lobbies, the Sierra Club, is mounting a major campaign to kill the industry," the Wall Street Journal reported, back on May 31. "The battle plan is called 'Beyond Natural Gas,' and Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune announced the goal in an interview with the National Journal this month: 'We're going to be preventing new gas plants from being built wherever we can.' " It thus should come as no surprise that a contingent of conservation groups and Indian tribes sued the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in federal court, recently, arguing the agencies didn't do enough to protect the habitat of the Lahontan cutthroat trout and other federally protected fish when they allowed Ruby Pipeline LLC to build a $3 billion, 678-mile natural gas pipeline across Northern Nevada. The 42-inch pipe connects the gas shale fields of Opal, Wyo., to a distribution terminal in Mali, Ore. Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in favor of the Center for Biological Diversity, the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe of Nevada, Defenders of Wildlife, Great Basin Resource Watch, the Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter, et al., ordering the BLM to vacate the decision that allowed the pipeline's construction in 2010. The court also directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rewrite its biological opinion for the project, holding that was key to the BLM's flawed record of decision-making...But let's not be naive. This is just part of a full-court press designed to slow or stall development of the resources and technologies that would reduce energy costs and thus help America's economy and population grow. This country needs more judges who are skeptical of such means-to-an-end litigation, for which we all pay dearly...more

PETA wants sign to memorialize fish killed in crash

An Irvine resident is requesting that the city install a sign to memorialize the hundreds of fish killed in a traffic crash in early October as they were being taken to Irvine Ranch Market. In the letter, Dina Kourda, on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, asks the city's street maintenance superintendent to place the sign at the site of the crash on Walnut and Yale avenues. The sign would read, "In memory of hundreds of fish who suffered and died at this spot," to remind tractor-trailer drivers of their responsibility to the animals who are "hauled to their deaths every day," according to the letter provided by PETA...more

Monday, October 29, 2012

Sheep industry in turmoil after suffering huge fallout - video

The sheep industry across the West is facing what some consider a crisis, threatening the survival of ranching operations. Extreme volatility in prices has combined with the effects of a harsh drought to make this a brutal year in the sheep business. "I'm in my 60s and this is the worst year I've ever seen," said Doug Livingston, a retired sheep rancher who now works as a sheep broker. Livingston is trying to help an eastern Utah rancher sell out his herd and get out of the business. "I think there's a lot of ranchers, sheepmen, who would give it up if they could," he said. "But there are no buyers." It's an ironic and baffling twist for embattled sheep ranchers, so much so that some have demanded a federal investigation. A year ago, the price of lambs intended for slaughter was soaring to all-time record levels. This year, the bottom fell out. As one sheepman put it, "everything went down the toilet." The price now for lamb "on the hoof" is about half to a third of what it was a year ago, according to Sanpete County rancher Phil Allred. A fifth-generation sheepman, Allred said he's sure many ranchers would sell out if they could. "It does threaten the future of it," he said. "For me, myself, I'm old enough that if I didn't have three sons working with me, I wouldn't be here."...more

Here's the KSL news report:


Western Communities Boiling Over Water Quality

Communities across the West are demanding limits on oil shale drilling along the Colorado River over concerns the thirst for oil could lead to polluted water supplies for millions of people. The worries have prompted proposals to limit acreage available for leasing. Officials in Nevada and Arizona sent letters to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar expressing concerns about the need to protect Colorado River water quality and quantity. Others back a Bureau of Land Management proposal to sharply reduce acreage available for possible leasing in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Chris Treese, spokesman for the Colorado River Water Conservation District, said the concerns are overblown. “They’re not going to see any change in their water quality – none,” said Treese, whose group is in western Colorado. The BLM said some of the potential impacts will be analyzed as part of the individual leasing authorization process...more

Mexico’s Drug Lords Ramp Up Their Arsenals with RPGs

When a Mexican SWAT team stopped a stolen Cadillac van in the border city of Piedras Negras, it was not a surprise when they were greeted by a tirade of bullets as the criminals blasted and ran. But after they kicked open the trunk, the officers realized they could have been victims of more catastrophic firepower. The gunmen had been in possession of an arsenal of weapons that included three Soviet-made antitank rockets complete with an RPG-7 shoulder-fired launcher. If the criminals had got a rocket off, they could easily have blown the SWAT vehicle to pieces. RPG-7s can also take out helicopters and were used in the Black Hawk Down episode in Somalia in 1993. The rockets, found on Saturday, are part of an increasingly destructive array of weaponry wielded by Mexican drug cartels, like the feared Zetas, in reaction to attacks on them by police and soldiers. While security forces have taken down several key cartel bosses this year, gunmen have struck back, setting off five car bombs, hundreds of fragmentation grenades and several shoulder-fired rockets. Soldiers even seized one homemade three-ton tank with a revolving gun turret. When Mexican marines on Oct. 7 claimed to have killed Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano, he was also alleged to be found with an RPG-7. (Lazcano’s corpse was stolen from the morgue, and the Zetas are now believed to be led by his No. 2, Miguel TreviƱo.)...more

GAO Report: Understaffed Border Crossings Threaten U.S. Agriculture

A new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that understaffing at official U.S. border crossings not only endangers national security, but it also poses a real threat to America's agriculture industry. According the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the greatest risk to agriculture involves exotic pests and foreign animal diseases - the threats that border inspectors are supposed to prevent from entering the country. The most recent GAO report found that 78.4 percent of agriculture inspection supervisors reported that staffing levels are a very major challenge to achieving the agency's inspections goal to intercept pests and diseased livestock. These failures put untold numbers of agricultural jobs in danger because of the lack of adequate staffing at the U.S. border. The GAO report on agricultural inspections at the border crossings repeated its prior recommendation for a 32 percent increase in the total number of agricultural inspectors; detailed that Homeland Security officials do not have the resources to increase staff above replacement levels; and reported that the Department has not developed a plan to assess the risk of fiscal constraints on their ability to appropriately staff for inspections and protect the U.S. agricultural sector from disaster...more

Decency demands an end to all ethanol fuel requirements now

Last year six million children starved to death around the world — again. On top of this, Worldhunger.org reports that 925 million people went hungry in 2010 worldwide. Incredibly at the same time that millions of children are dying from malnutrition worldwide, the U.S. government in its war on fossil fuels has continued to push and promote the growing and burning of potential life-saving corn in our gas tanks. When we pull up to the gas pump and see that the gas has been mixed with up to fifteen percent ethanol, that is corn converted to fuel for your car. This federal government mandate for ethanol use is now coming under fire as politicians react to the rising corn prices resulting from this summer’s drought that wiped out one sixth of our nation’s corn crop. Governors of seven states have already requested that the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waive the ethanol mandate as the production of vehicle fuel consumes more and more of the corn crop at the expense of livestock and the hungry around the world. The insanity of our federal government continuing to demand that corn be turned into fuel is brought home even more directly when you consider that the head of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization argued that it is lifting the grain price worldwide even before the drought. These price rises are particularly impactful in areas that depend upon grains for basic survival. All courtesy of a big, all knowing U.S. government that for the past three decades has chosen to promote the burning of corn as a bio-fuel solution to our energy needs at a cost of $45 billion over the last 30 years. In 2011 alone corn ethanol subsidies ate up $6 billion in taxpayer dollars. Contrast this with Brazil, where it wasn’t the government which drove the bio-fuel industry, it was the private sector. With abundant sugar cane to easily turn into bio-fuel, Brazilians drive flex fuel vehicles that burn both traditional oil or sugarcane ethanol. Why did this occur in Brazil, but not in the United States?...more

EU acts against harm from biofuel crops

The EU is changing its policy on biofuels to encourage energy production from waste rather than from food crops. The European Commission says clearing land in order to plant biofuel crops can often cancel out the environmental benefits of biofuel. In some cases forests are chopped down. BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin says some environmentalists had supported the biofuel laws in the first instance, before the side-effects became understood. The UN has appointed a special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, who has sharply criticised the direct and indirect effects of biofuels on the poor. Now the EU is trying to shift biofuel production from food crops to farm waste, algae and straw. Clearing land to plant food for biofuel releases the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) through ploughing and can involve deforestation, which reduces the "carbon sinks" - the trees that absorb CO2...more