NOTE TO READERS

I leave today for Guthrie, Oklahoma to attend the Timed Event Championship. Blogging will be intermittent until I return home Monday.

House committee opposes Army plans to expand A House committee voted 7-4 Tuesday to side with southeast Colorado ranchers who oppose Fort Carson's planned Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site expansion, even though the representatives acknowledged the state cannot halt the federal government's taking of the vast acreage through eminent domain. "We got in there the part we wanted," said State Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, the bill's sponsor, taking a half-a-loaf-is-better-than-no-loaf approach to the vote after almost four hours of testimony. He said language to guarantee that ranchers are paid fair prices for the land, which in some cases has been in families for generations, will be added to his bill as it advances. Lon Robertson, a Branson rancher who is president of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition, said the hearing "got attention for the issue." He said the vote "makes a statement." An unusual coalition of patriotic ranching families, who cited the veterans in their families, and anti-war activists, who bashed the Army, joined ranks to support the bill....
Wyoming ranchers forming independent group A new, independent cattle producers' organization has scheduled an organizational meeting. The Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming plans to meet at 2 p.m. March 20 at the Goose Egg Inn southwest of Casper, organizers of the group said. "Ranchers and landowners in Wyoming feel they don't have a voice that's adequately representing them," said one organizer, Judy McCullough, a Moorcroft rancher. She said the group would be made up of Wyoming ranchers solely for the purpose of representing Wyoming's beef producers. "Cattlemen in Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota have all formed independent producers' groups over the past few years," she said. "We think the time is right for Wyoming ranchers to do it, too."....
Fireworks at Nev Ag Board A meeting of a state board launching a search for a new director of the Nevada Department of Agriculture erupted Tuesday with newly aired allegations of discrimination, obstruction of justice and radically motivated politics. It began when a state lab supervisor, whose May 2006 complaint about alleged gender discrimination prompted a probe of the director who resigned last month, urged state Agriculture Board chairman Benny Romero to step down as well. Rink's comments, which she read from a letter she delivered to the board Tuesday, were applauded by about a dozen members of the Nevada Live Stock Association crowded into a small conference room at the USDA Farm Service Agency in Reno. The association - a private property rights' advocacy group - long has been at odds with Henderson and other leaders of the state agency over enforcement of U.S. livestock grazing regulations on federal land in Nevada. It's allies included the late U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho and her late husband, Wayne Hage, a leader of Nevada's Sagebrush Rebellion whose daughter, Ramona Morrison, is still active with the group. Romero told The Associated Press after the meeting he believed Henderson's resignation stemmed primarily from political pressure from the "radical" association as opposed to fallout from an audit of the department last year or the findings of a personnel investigation initiated after Rink's complaint last spring....
Jones shows his appreciation for Texas Rangers Tommy Lee Jones didn't write a speech for his appearance as guest speaker at the Loan Some Dough fund raiser for the Texas Ranger Association Foundation. His reasoning was logical and received an appreciative response from those there: He didn't think he could tell the Texas Rangers anything about their organization that they didn't already know. He had decided to talk about his experiences with the Texas Rangers and began his informal speech with the words: "As an 8th generation Texan and owner of a horse and cattle ranch and father of two children and husband of a precious wife, I'm so glad you are here." Jones then told a modern horror story. Not the kind that has supernatural elements, but one that was all too real and far scarier than any fictional tale seen on the silver screen. It did contain what this writer calls 21st century vampires, those bottom feeders who have no respect for an individual's right to privacy. The perpetrators were scattered across the United States and in several foreign countries. They posted on the Internet pictures of Jones's ranch, including directions on how to trespass, as well as pictures of his children and his wife. They maligned his wife's character "even to the point she ought to be killed," Jones said....
Green Sex You've heard of green cars, green tourism and green weddings. Now Canadians should ready themselves for green sex. For those who like to make love to the soundtrack of the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Greenpeace has released a list of strategies for "getting it on for the good of the planet," suggesting "you can be a bomb in bed without nuking the planet." TreeHugger, an online magazine edited by Ontario's Michael Graham Richard, has just published a guide on "how to green your sex life." And throughout Canada and the U.S., people who want to pleasure the planet can now buy everything from bamboo bed sheets to organic lubricant and "eco-undies." "Green living is getting sexy," says Jacob Gordon, author of TreeHugger.com's recent green guide for the bedroom....

Jimbo, while you are hobnobbin' with all the politicians and lobbyists in D.C., I'll be in Oklahoma with the best timed event cowboys in the world riding some of the top horseflesh around. I wouldn't trade places with you for the world. Will be lookin' at you real close the next time I see you, to make sure you haven't turned....green.