Monday, March 18, 2024

Holy cow! Jr. Market Steer Grand Champion sells for $1 million, ties record

 

The 2024 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Jr. Market Steer brought out the big bucks!

This year’s champion, a Simmental raised by Blaize Benson of San Angelo, Texas, sold for $1 million, tying a HLSR record. The donors for the sale were Barbra and Don Jordan, Laura and Steve McNear and Chris and Lisa Cunningham.

...Blaize and his family have shown at the Rodeo every year since 2017, except for 2020. Chelsie Benson, Blaize’s mother, said this achievement will have a lasting impact on her son.

“He works really hard, and we’ve done this since he was eight. It doesn’t go this way very often; I know this is a core memory that he’ll have forever.”...more

Beloved bullfighter and clown Leon Coffee announces retirement from Houston Rodeo

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The time has come for the end of a staple at RodeoHouston. Beloved rodeo clown and barrel man Leon Coffee has announced his retirement. Coffee, the cherished clown and ProRodeo Hall of Fame inductee, is set to hang up the face paint and his signature barrel at the end of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

The bullfighting clown has painted his face for decades and got big laughs at rodeos nationwide. But despite the makeup and the silly costume, being a rodeo clown is no funny business.

"I'm the barrel man. I'm an island in a sea of sharks," said Coffee. "I've got to be out-of-the-way and ready to get in the way if needed."

"I don't fear those bulls. I have a healthy respect for their ability to hurt me," said Coffee. "But I also have a very healthy respect for my ability to get around them. You're looking at that bull, and you're going, okay, it's a big game of tag, let's see who's going to get there first. You know, those bulls run 40 miles an hour, and the fastest man in the world can only run 30. And I ain't him," Coffee said in a 2022 interview with ABC13.

Coffee's talent didn't just stop at the Houston Rodeo. He performed at nearly 30 to 45 rodeos every year.

"Simply put, Leon Coffee is the heart of the rodeo; he dedicated his life to protecting cowboys first as a bullfighter, then as a barrel man."

Coffee will take his final crawl and bow at RodeoHouston on Sunday but says it won't be his last rodeo. He says you will see him at the rodeo each year from now on...more


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See the interview below where he gives the actual reason for his retirement. Also see the expression on his face when the crowd gave him a standing ovation.

I got to meet and visit with Coffee the year that Jim Dewey Brown had him here for the NMSU rodeo. What a great experience that was.


https://abc13.com/community-events/legendary-bullfighter-rodeo-clown-leon-coffee-announces-retirement/14532851/


 

 


Saturday, March 16, 2024

Methane: the tricky hunt for hidden emissions - why does agriculture's contribution remain so elusive?

 

A new satellite will measure global methane emissions, but why does agriculture's contribution remain so elusive?

The team behind the world's most advanced methane-monitoring satellite, MethaneSat, are keen on metaphors about cleaning. "About the size of a washing machine," was how environmental scientist Steven Wofsy, described the orbiting object at a press conference ahead of its launch. "Like a push-broom," was his phrase for its capacity to scan the surface of the Earth.

The metaphors are apt. Methane is a particularly dirty greenhouse gas, driving about 30% of the heating the planet has experienced so far. It breaks down in the atmosphere in just 12 years, which is much sooner than the centuries taken by CO2 – but it is also around 80 times more powerful over a 20-year time span...

With 60% of global methane emissions coming from human activities, reductions are essential to reaching the world's climate change targets. Equally, if not addressed in a timely way, it could contribute to the passing of dangerous tipping points that lead to rapid and irreversible change around the globe. 

MethaneSat aims to help by providing an independent source of methane monitoring, with a primary focus on methane leaked from oil and gas fields – such as the recent, months-long mega leak in Kazakhstan, which resulted in the release of 127,000 tonnes of the potent gas. By supplementing existing satellite data with even more precise measurements, MethaneSat hopes to provide a near-comprehensive view of global leaks...more

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And of course, the primary focus is on ag

Yet the oil and gas industry is also far from the only source of human-caused methane emissions. Agriculture is in fact the largest human source of methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, at almost 40%. Energy is in second at around 37%, and waste in third.

Within agriculture, flooded rice fields account for 8% of total human-linked emissions, but belches and manure from livestock are the biggest contributors, with cattle the biggest single offenders. In California, the non-profit coalition Climate Trace found that one single cattle feedlot produced more methane than the state's biggest oil and gas fields.

According to Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, a biogeochemical scientist at National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, who is leading MethaneSat's agricultural research, that capacity will only increase in relation to agriculture too. The new satellite's ability to map methane at a precision of 2 ppb (parts per billion) means it will be the first satellite well suited to measuring agricultural emissions, she says. "That number might not mean a lot to your readers, but to me it is the same precision I could get from an instrument on the ground – which is extraordinary."

...Conversely, agriculture's methane output is more elusive. Aerial remote sensing measurements, such as those taken from aircraft or drones, can capture methane leaks, says Aaron Davitt, principal analyst on remote sensing for the non-profit WattTime, but these technologies can only be deployed in limited regions for limited amounts of time.

Mexican Military Incursions On US Soil Worry Border Agents

 


Just before 8:30 a.m. Jan. 26, two figures dressed in camouflage and carrying military assault rifles crossed an international border, making their way on foot through the quiet desert terrain, unaware that they were under the constant watch of authorities in the country they had just entered.

Within minutes a border patrol agent confronted the two men. Weapons were drawn. Asked for identification, the two men provided their names — which didn't correspond with the names on their uniforms. After a brief, tense standoff, the two men retreated back across the border just as reinforcements were arriving.

...The armed incursion occurred on United States soil, outside Sasabe, Ariz., just north of the U.S.–Mexico border. Drug dealers and migrants use a large wildlife preserve to the east and the empty desert to the west of Sasabe as trafficking corridors.

Both Mexican and U.S. border agents have crossed over the border in this area, pursuing suspects. But according to officials familiar with the situation, border crossings by members of either military are rare. In a January letter to the head of Customs and Border Protection about the incident, Sen. Tom Coburn asked if the agency has "concerns that some members of the Mexican Military could be providing security and/or intelligence to Drug Trafficking Organizations." The Sinaloa Cartel, widely considered one of the world's most powerful drug syndicates, operates along the Sasabe stretch of the border...more

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But who were they, really?

Olaya said the two men identified themselves as members of the Mexican military's 80th Battalion. But the names they gave didn't match the names on their uniforms. Additionally, the men informed Olaya "that they had been pursing [sic] three subjects that were seen in the area." The incident report does not indicate that the video surveillance system had seen any other individuals in the area.

By this time, according to the incident report, officials at the border patrol were trying to contact Mexican military officials. "At approximately 0926 Supervisory Border Patrol Agent (SBPA) George Serrano … was contacted and apprised of the situation. SBPA Serrano attempted to make contact with the headquarters of SEDENA 45th Military Zone," which covers the area around Sasabe. "A voice message was left at the office," the incident report says.

Two minutes later, "both Mexican Military personnel turned southbound after they saw other [Border Patrol] units westbound toward BPA Olaya." Within seven minutes, the two men had crossed back into Mexico.

Did US reverse-engineer alien spacecraft? And other Pentagon report takeaways

 

A long-awaited Pentagon report on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) concluded Friday that there is no evidence the U.S. has reverse-engineered alien spacecraft and rebutted claims that Washington is hiding off-world technology or extraterrestrial biological material.

The first volume of an investigation from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), called the Historical Record Report, debunks claims of alien or unexplainable UAP, more commonly known as UFOs.

It also attributes the persistence that the U.S. is hiding extraterrestrial material to a culture fascinated by aliens, a community trying to prove there is secret alien technology, the misidentification of common objects or other defense technology, and general distrust in the federal government...more

 

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Fury in Germany as 120k trees in fairytale forest felled to make way for wind farm

 

Conservationists in Germany are incensed as 120,000 trees in an ancient forest have started to be felled in order to make way for a wind farm.

The forest in Sababurg, Reinhardswald, which is in the central German state of Hesse, is said to be an inspiration for the Brothers Grimm mythical tales, but now it’s being destroyed to facilitate the country’s latest green energy project.

The site of the tree-toppling is next to the famous Sleeping Beauty Castle, which takes its name due to its fairytale architecture and its proximity to the mystical forest.

 However, now the castle will be in close proximity to a field of wind turbines...more

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This is almost funny. Why? Because the real fairytale is the program of the enviros.

NAFBF Applauds SEC for Sparing Farms from Wall Street Rules

 

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) responded to American Farm Bureau Federation’s (AFBF) concerns and affirmed that regulations intended for Wall Street should not extend to America’s family farms. The SEC voted today on its final climate disclosure rule and removed the Scope 3 reporting requirement, which would have required public companies to report the greenhouse gas emissions of their supply chain.

Since the rule was first proposed two years ago, AFBF led the charge for the removal of Scope 3. Farm Bureau members sent almost 20,000 messages to the SEC and Capitol Hill, sharing their perspectives of how Scope 3 reporting would affect their farms.

“AFBF thanks SEC Chair Gary Gensler and his staff for their diligence in researching the unintended consequences of an overreaching Scope 3 requirement,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall. “Farmers are committed to protecting the natural resources they’ve been entrusted with, and they continue to advance climate-smart agriculture, but they cannot afford to hire compliance officers just to handle SEC reporting requirements. This is especially true for small farms that would have likely been squeezed out of the supply chain...more