Sunday, October 07, 2007

Heelers by any other name
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy

By Julie Carter

Today we will look through the magnifying glass at team ropers, specifically the heeling end of the team.

There are three basic reasons that team-roping headers choose the heelers they do.

Top of the list is that they might actually have the skills to consistently catch the heels at which they throw their rope and, thereby, help win some money. This is the only reason ever actually stated in public, in front of people.

Not far down that list in second place is the fact that it helps if the heeler is fun and even better if he/she is a friend. It just makes being around them easy and entertaining, so why not enter up together?

This is actually the most common cause of most teams in most ropings today.

The third basis for selection, one that is not often discussed but holds true, is that a heeler might be selected for prestige.

If he has a famous, or even nearly famous name, a header might be inclined to dupe him into roping with him just to make the stories better later.

This last reason is illustrated by the sheer number of popular so-called "celebrity ropings" where, for an astronomical fee, a roper can be partnered with one of the "pro" boys from the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association standings. This motive can be categorized as the "image enhancement" mode of roping.

The low-budget ropers have to dole out their funds evenly over the number of times they are allowed to enter a particular roping. Often a selected "hit list" is phoned far in advance of a roping to book teams to the best ability of the pocketbook.

When the funds won't allow for the "celebrity" status roping, the next best choice is image enhancement. A flashy-looking blonde on a prestigious blue roan horse will draw appreciative stares wherever she goes.

When you can round one of those up that can also catch, is fun and a friend, nobody seems to care who does or doesn't go to the pay window. "I had a lot of fun," is a good enough payoff.

Clearly roping is not about actually catching the cattle since, after all, they are already captured in the a pen and then the chute.

And they have been known to cause a certain amount of trouble getting them in and then out of the chute. Even that part of it can be downright dangerous as demonstrated by our resident heeling team roper Dan.

Short on chute-help on this particular day, Dan was going to run the remote control that opens the chute and lets the steer out.

It's about the size of a stop watch and hangs handily around one's neck on an unbreakable parachute cord. Handy, if you are just standing on the ground, potentially lethal if you are in hot pursuit of the steer in front of you.

As they left the box, the header neatly laid his loop over the horns of the steer, setting him up and turning left.

Dan handily laid his heel loop in front of the steer's fast-peddling hind feet and picked them up just like he knew what he was doing.

Headed to the saddle horn to dally as the slack pulled tight, he realized the tail of his rope was tangled in the parachute cord of the remote - the one that was still around his neck.

The header, not yet seeing the wreck about to happen, kept his horse in a powerful forward motion, taking the steer with him.

Dan, long-legged and lithe, bailed off his horse and began running behind the steer, rope in hand, in an effort to keep it from pulling the cord tight and hanging him in the arena dirt.

Fortunately for all, the header saw "something" wasn't right as soon as he recognized Dan was afoot and somehow "connected" to the steer.

Everybody got pulled up, untangled and lived to tell about it.

The tales after the event were worse than the wreck itself. Dan, who is often labeled with undignified notoriety, won't live this one down for a long time.

Who says you need a tree to have a hangin'?

See Julie’s Web site a julie-carter.com. Blog is updated regularly – maybe soon. J

Saturday, October 06, 2007

I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth. The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming. Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before"....
EPA approves 1-year use of pesticide The Environmental Protection Agency gave the go-ahead for one-year use of a new agricultural pesticide Friday, saying its own scientific review overrides health concerns expressed by more than 50 chemists and other scientists. Methyl iodide, also known as iodomethane, will be allowed to control soil pests "under highly restrictive provisions governing its use," the EPA said in a statement. "When used according to EPA's strict procedures, iodomethane is not only an effective pesticide, but also meets the health and safety standards for registering pesticides," the agency said. Methyl iodide was developed by Tokyo-based Arysta LifeScience Corp. as an alternative to the widely used fumigant methyl bromide, which has been banned under an international treaty because it depletes the ozone layer. Like methyl bromide, the new product, to be sold under the name MIDAS, kills off weeds and soil pests before planting a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The EPA said its decision was based on four years of risk assessment studies, constituting "one of the most thorough analyses ever completed by the agency for a pesticide registration action."....
After Extensive Beef Recall, Topps Goes Out of Business Topps Meat Company, one of the country’s largest manufacturers of frozen hamburgers, said yesterday that it was going out of business a week after it pulled back more than 21.7 million pounds of ground beef products in one of the largest meat recalls in recent years. In a statement, Anthony D’Urso, the chief operating officer at Topps, in Elizabeth, N.J., said that the company “cannot overcome the reality of a recall this large.” He added, “This has been a shocking and sobering experience for everyone.” Executives at Topps, which made frozen hamburgers and other meat products for supermarkets and mass merchandisers, declined to discuss how and why the company collapsed so quickly, or whether they could have taken steps earlier to protect consumers or to head off the plant’s closure. But Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for the United States Department of Agriculture, said yesterday that on Thursday the department had served Topps with a “notice of intended enforcement,” a move just short of suspending the rest of the company’s meat production. Topps had stopped producing ground meat as of Sept. 26, but had continued to produce meat products like steaks....
Sam's Club recalls Cargill-made hamburgers in U.S. Sam's Club is pulling frozen hamburgers made by agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. from its stores shelves across the United States as Minnesota health officials investigate four cases of E. coli associated with the burgers. In a statement dated Friday, Sam's Club owner Wal-Mart Stores Inc said the warehouse club is removing the American Chef's Selection Angus Beef patties from U.S. locations and giving refunds to customers who already purchased the burgers. All four cases of E. coli being investigated occurred in children, the Minnesota Department of Health said in a statement. The cases are associated with eating ground beef patties purchased from Sam's Club stores in late August and September. Sam's Club customers should return or destroy any American Chef's Selection Angus Beef purchased from Sam's Club since August 26, the department of health said. Cargill said the hamburgers were manufactured at its plant in Butler, Wisconsin....
Where’s the beef? Ag groups push to end restriction on meat, poultry Laws from the 1960s banning sales and shipment of state-inspected meat and poultry across state lines have long been a source of grief for producers; but in this new farm bill year, the issue is back on the front burner in Washington. Leading the charge to abandon the restriction is the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. Roger Johnson, president of the organization and the North Dakota ag commissioner, said the restriction is outdated, punitive and senseless. In the first place, state inspections, by law, must meet or exceed federal inspection standards, he said. And imported meat and poultry from 38 foreign countries with far less rigorous safety inspection standards than state inspection programs can be freely shipped and sold anywhere in the United States....

Friday, October 05, 2007

NASA Examines Arctic Sea Ice Changes Leading to Record Low in 2007 A new NASA-led study found a 23-percent loss in the extent of the Arctic's thick, year-round sea ice cover during the past two winters. This drastic reduction of perennial winter sea ice is the primary cause of this summer's fastest-ever sea ice retreat on record and subsequent smallest-ever extent of total Arctic coverage. Between winter 2005 and winter 2007, the perennial ice shrunk by an area the size of Texas and California combined. This severe loss continues a trend of rapid decreases in perennial ice extent in this decade. Study results will be published Oct. 4 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters. "The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said....Hmmmm, I thought all this melting was caused by global warming. Have you seen news coverage of this NASA report? Hat tip to newsbusters.

Scientists See Politics in Spotted Owl Plan More than 100 independent scientists suggested yesterday that political pressure may have led federal officials to water down protections for the northern spotted owl in a recently revised recovery plan for the threatened bird. Six separate peer reviews, five of them funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all suggest that the agency's revised plan downplayed the importance of protecting old-growth forest in the plan to manage a species that ranges from the Canadian border in Washington state to Northern California. Yesterday, 113 scientists sent a letter urging the Interior Department to redo its draft recovery plan, while 23 congressional Democrats sent a similar missive questioning whether political appointees altered the plan. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) also asked the Government Accountability Office to explore the matter. "We are greatly concerned that, according to scientific peer review recently conducted by owl experts and three of the nation's leading scientific societies, much of this science was ignored," the scientists wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. The question of how to protect the northern spotted owl, which makes its home in commercially valuable forests and has been listed as threatened since 1990, has dogged policymakers for nearly two decades. The Fish and Wildlife Service first designated critical habitat for the bird in 1992, and in 1994 the Clinton administration protected more than 7 million acres of federal land for the owl and roughly 400 other species....
NOTE TO READERS

The power was out here yesterday evening and last night.
I participate in the ASMS newsgroup for folks with multiple sclerosis. They had many questions about what had happened and how I was doing, as have many of you. I'm known as Cowboy there, and here is what I posted to the newsgroup.

THE SAGA OF COWBOY & THE BACLOFEN PUMP

First, thanks to everyone for your kind comments, thoughts and prayers.

My spasticity and clonus had slowly worsened over the years. It had almost pulled me out of my wheelchair a coupla times, it had thrown me out of bed, and it had put me on the floor when transferring from the bed to the wheelchair.

So, I was given two choices. Either I got a baclofen pump or sweet Sharon was gonna put me out to pasture and put a new stud in the barn.

I had the test procedure done in August. They measure your spasticity, give you an epidural of baclofen, and then test your spasticity at 30 minutes, and at 1, 2 and four hours. It worked.

The epidural was no fun. First, they weren't set up for a handicapped person (and this was at a hospital in El Paso) so they had to get two guys from the ER to lift me from the wc to the gurney. The doc tried to do it with me sitting up and he couldn't do it, mumbling something about me having a "boney" back.

They then wheeled the gurney into another room, put me on another apparatus and flipped me on my stomach. The doc had some kind of x-ray device they put over my back and the doc finally got it in (sweet Sharon counted the holes, it took six tries). I guess the local anesthetic had started to wear off, because I felt a nice hot, searing pain shoot up my back and down my right leg. The doc is lucky I didn't take my "boney" right fist and apply it six times to some appropriate places.

Went back to El Paso on Sept. 18th to have the baclofen pump surgery. For those of you who don't know, they cut you open, make a pouch on the inside of your stomach skin where they place the pump, then run a catheter to the spinal cord. I really didn't like the place in El Paso, so arranged to have it done outpatient, and was then transported by ambulance to the Rehab Hospital of Southern NM in Las Cruces. It's a classy place, was released on Saturday.

On Monday I started getting the neurological headache. Then laid flat for 80 hours and with the doctor's permission got up. Three days later here came the headache again. So, this last Tuesday it was back to El Paso for a blood patch.

Now get this. The nurse who checked me in at pre-op said I should lay flat for 24 hours after the procedure. When I asked the doc, he said they would lay me flat for 30 minutes after the procedure, then I could go about my normal activites. He said there was something in the spinal fluid that caused the blood to clot very quickly, and 30 minutes flat was plenty. When the ambulance arrived to take me home, my discharge orders from that nurse was "take it easy for a couple of days." Perhaps that will give you an inkling why I don't care for El Paso. If that doesn't, the next will.

If you are wondering about the ambulance, my pickup is set up with a lift that gets me in on the driver's side. I can't get in on the passenger side. The doc's office said I would have an IV sedative so I couldn't drive home. I called BCBS, who is aware of my situation (my caseworkder used to raise and train quarter horses) and they said they would pay for the ambulance if the doc would sign the orders. I called the doc's office to tell them about the orders and they said this was strictly an outpatient facility and that facility refused to deal with the ambulance companies. I then inquired about how the hell did they think I was gonna get home. The doc's office then said if I would agree to a local anesthetic, I could drive home. I then called BCBS and told them I wouldn't need the ambulance. BCBS was adamant that I should not drive home the 50 plus miles after the procedure. So here I was, with a doc and a medical facility denying me a medical service an insurance company insisted on and was willing to pay for. Now what kind of switcheroo is that?

Well, about this time sweet Sharon entered the fray and for some unknown reason the doc's office had a change of attitude and I rode home in an ambulance. I had such an interesting conversation with one of the EMTs that I forgot something. It was my intention to ask them, when they turned off the highway and down the road to my place, to turn on the flashing lights and siren. Thought I would give the neighbors a little thrill.

Since it was a slow leak, I probably won't know till this weekend if the procedure worked.

End of saga....hopefully.

P.S. The baclofen pump is working beautifully. Hope I can keep it.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

After almost 40 years, some Utah waterways may get federal recognition, protection From wide, chocolate-colored rivers flowing through redrock deserts to pristine bubbling creeks in high-elevation meadows, Utah's moving waters provide thrills, spills and an ability to quench all kinds of thirsts. When it comes to wild and scenic settings, Utah rivers are second to none. Federal recognition and accompanying protection of those rivers is another story. More than 11,400 miles of rivers in the United States have been designated as part of the Wild and Scenic Rivers (WSR) system since an act of Congress in 1968, but not 1 inch of Utah water is on the list. That could change in the coming years. As as part of updating their management plans, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have identified more than 200 segments of Utah waterways for possible designation in the WSR system. Water is important in Utah - the second driest state in the nation - and that may partially explain why no waterways in the state have made the list during the 39 years since the act became law. Everyone from anglers and recreationalists to farmers and ranchers and local, state and federal governments have a vested interest in water....
Should Forest Service ease restrictions on recreational use at Mount St. Helens? Mark Smith owns a lodge and campsite about 20 miles from Mount St. Helens, but he says it's not always the volcano that draws his guests. Some, in fact, never go up to see the mountain or the several visitor centers. Instead, Eco Park Resort visitors come to enjoy nature in a breathtaking setting. As Smith calls it, they want "to commune with nature." For decades people throughout the Northwest did the same, but that changed when Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980. Since then, safety and scientific restrictions in the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument have limited the access that Smith and thousands of Southwest Washington residents once enjoyed. While researchers and conservationists call the monument a priceless scientific gift to the nation, Smith and others say they're tired of a gift they can look at but can't touch. Roughly one-third of the 110,000-acre monument is restricted for research, meaning visitors can't venture off established trails or camp overnight. And while hunting is permitted on about half the land, motorized vehicles in some areas are forbidden....
S.D. Stockgrowers Meet Under Secretary Mark Rey Stockgrowers and guests alike were able to present the frustrations they have in trying to encourage management of the prairie dog’s explosive population on government owned land which then extends over to private lands. The statement was made that although the state management plan calls for 199,000 acres of prairie dog populated land, in South Dakota we now have 625,000 acres and that the 2010 goal for the nation is 1.6 million acres. South Dakota is nearing the halfway mark for the entire nation. Secretary Rey discussed a plan to utilize a combination of the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) explaining that it could help reduce the number of prairie dogs while at the same time repairing the damaged soil. Regarding national forests and timber management, Secretary Rey explained that timber sales and fire management are still serious problems, but that they are making headway. He feels that they have accomplished approximately one third of their goal for fuel reduction and that they should reach it in about 7 or 8 years....
Lake poisoning seems to have worked to kill invasive pike There may be something that is still alive in Lake Davis, but crews with the state Department of Fish and Game have not yet found it. Game wardens in an armada of 25 boats poured 16,000 gallons of the fish poison rotenone into the scenic Sierra reservoir a week ago in an attempt to exterminate a voracious invader known as the northern pike. Some 41,000 pounds of dead fish have since been scooped from the lake at the northern headwaters of the Feather River in Plumas County. The carefully hatched plan was to kill virtually every living thing in the high Sierra lake and its tributaries, assuring that the pike would be exterminated. "No one wants chemicals dumped in their lake to kill fish and we don't like doing it, but you have to look at the big picture," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game. "It's something we needed to do and we gave it our best shot." Drastic measures were the only surefire way to get rid of the pike, which had wiped out the area's famous trout, destroying the local tourist economy....
Four-wheelers should be part of forest solution No sooner had everyone settled into their seats at the Foothill Middle School cafeteria when somebody in the back lobbed this barb in the direction of Sierra National Forest supervisor Ed Cole: "How come you're kicking us out of the forest?" Cole calmly denied the accusation, but it was too late. The confrontational tone of Thursday's public forum regarding the forest's controversial Off-Highway Vehicle Route Designation Plan had already been set. Local four-wheel drive enthusiasts are livid because they believe trails they've enjoyed for decades are being taken away for no good reason. Forest officials insist they're not taking anything away. They contend they're doing everything they can to include as many trails as possible to the designated system, albeit through a complex, mind-numbing bureaucratic process. Which side is right? It depends which side of the roll bar you sit on....
Court decision likely to slow project Opponents of a major real estate play next to the Wolf Creek Ski Area in southern Colorado have won a court ruling. A Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Mineral County commissioners wrongly approved the project, called the Village at Wolf Creek, because the road that was then the sole means of access is unsuitable for year-round use. The road is covered by as much as 10 feet of snow. Because of that faulty premise for approval, Mineral County must review the project again, but this time with the proper information. Colorado Wild, one of the two environmental groups that filed the lawsuit, described the court decision as a "small step in the right decision," according to Ryan Demmy Bidwell, the group's executive director. While there is no reason to believe Mineral County won't approve the project again, the decision still is "quite important in its larger implications," Bidwell added. He explained that Mineral County's approval was then cited by the U.S. Forest Service as the grounds for permitting another road across Forest Service land to the private inholding. By treating the real-estate development as a foregone conclusion, the Forest Service argued that it therefore did not have to address the impact of the real estate development on surrounding federal lands. Colorado Wild argues that it does....
Brown sentenced An Alton woman who tried to hire someone to kill her husband was sentenced Sept. 25 to seven years and three months in federal prison. According to a press release issued by the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Kari J. Brown, 37, will not be eligible for parole under the sentence. She pleaded guilty to crossing state lines to hire a man to kill her husband, or murder-for-hire. Brown admitted contacting a man, who in reality was an undercover U.S. Forest Service agent on Feb. 25, 2006, about killing Randy Brown, her husband. She met with the undercover officer several days later and gave him a picture of her husband offering him $10,000 to do the killing....The FS is always crying they don't have enough law enforcement personnel. What does being an undercover agent in a murder for hire case have to do with protecting Federal lands?
Judge Rules Against Gore Climate Film Only in England. Here, where there are no standards for the truth, a case like this could never happen. In England truth is justiciable. The verdict is still to come. But this from judge Mr. Justice Burton "said he would be saying that Gore's Oscar-winning film does promote 'partisan political views'." "The case arises from a decision in February by the then Education Secretary Alan Johnson that DVDs of the film would be sent to all secondary schools in England, along with a multimedia CD produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs containing two short films about climate change and an animation about the carbon cycle." "David Miliband, who was Environment-Secretary when the school packs were announced, said at the time: 'The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over.' "But during the three-day hearing, the court heard that the critically-acclaimed film contains a number of inaccuracies, exaggerations and statements about global warming for which there is currently insufficient scientific evidence."....
Lawsuit challenges move to ban powerboats Raising a banner of states' rights and access for the disabled, Lane County resident Steve Stewart on Tuesday announced that he is suing to overturn the federal government's ban on gas-powered boats at Waldo Lake. The U.S. Forest Service, which instituted the ban, "appears to have an elitist view of who should have the opportunity to use and enjoy Waldo Lake," Stewart said at a news conference at the Hilton Eugene. For nearly two decades, the Forest Service considered a ban on gas engines at the pristine lake that's high in the Cascades near Oakridge. The agency surveyed hundreds of people who flock to the pristine lake each summer for recreation. Local Forest Service managers decided in favor of a ban in April. The regional forester reviewed and upheld the ban in July. The Forest Service designated the lake "semiprimitive, nonmotorized" where the public can experience peace and tranquillity. The ban is to take effect in 2009....
Editorial - Court confirms that the public has a voice in road dispute Not only governments, but groups interested in the environment and even ordinary people have a right to join in lawsuits that will decide ownership of roads on public lands. Seems like a no-brainer, but it took a ruling of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to explain to San Juan County and the state of Utah that the public has a legitimate interest in how land owned by all Americans is used, and often abused. The state and county are suing the National Park Service because it closed Salt Creek Road in Canyonlands National Park to four-wheelers that were damaging park land. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance tried to join the lawsuit, but government lawyers argued that only the two parties laying claim to the road had that right. Excuse us, but to imply that ordinary citizens, the taxpayers who fund the federal and local agencies, have no legal interest is patently ludicrous. The public, and, by extension, the advocacy groups that go to court to protect the public's land, should not be excluded from seeking judicial redress.We understand why some rural Utah counties see SUWA as the enemy in their fight to control the federal land that comprises so much of central and southern Utah. For its part, the environmental advocacy group rightly worries about overuse by motorized recreationists and overgrazing by ranchers. Too often, the battle is fought at the expense of a fragile desert landscape that is a national treasure....
Herd gone, ranchers turn to governor On a single terrible day last July, Jim and Sandy Morgan sold off their entire Bridger-area ranch's stock of nearly 600 cows, calves and bulls, liquidating them, they say, at a fire-sale price to be slaughtered. They did so, the young couple told Gov. Brian Schweitzer Tuesday, because they had the bad luck to be the first Montanans in decades to find a case of the dreaded cattle disease brucellosis in their herd. They thought if they eradicated all their animals, they would spare Montana from losing its hard-earned brucellosis-free status. The couple, along with Sandy Morgan's parents, state Rep. Bruce Malcolm, R-Emigrant, and his wife, Connie, told Schweitzer they felt they paid a dear price for the state and appealed to the governor to help them stay in ranching, which has been the family business for three generations. "We have a ranch mortgage we've got absolutely no way to pay for," Jim Morgan said. "We don't want to point fingers; we just want to get help."....
Judge halts cattle plan To graze or not to graze? That's the issue a federal administrative judge confronted Monday when he halted a plan by the federal Bureau of Land Management to increase the number of cattle allowed to graze on thousands of acres near here. The BLM wants to increase cattle-grazing to a former level on land recognized as critical habitat for the desert tortoise. The land is located south of the 15 Freeway. The plaintiffs - the Center for Biological Diversity and other California conservation groups - say the decision is a small victory. But the lawsuit is still undecided, and bureau officials are confident they'll eventually prevail. At issue is whether 130 more cows and a few horses should be allowed to graze on about 152,000 acres of private, state and federal land. The terms are part of the BLM's 10-year lease contract that was renewed in September with private ranchers and other lessees. More than 100,000 acres in that land area is designated as the bureau's Desert Wildlife Management Area and lies within the California Desert Conservation Area. The current allotment is 172 cows and a few horses. Only 25 head of cattle are grazing the land, according to Anthony Chavez, rangeland management specialist at the BLM's Barstow field office....
City of Laguna Beach Retains Local Control over Coastal Development Permit for St. Catherine of Siena Parish School Orange County Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Bauer ruled late Monday that the California Coastal Commission does not have authority over the proposed remodeling plans of the Laguna Beach Catholic school, St. Catherine of Siena Parish School. “This ruling keeps decision making over local land use in Laguna Beach where it belongs: with local, community and civic leaders,” said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Paul J. Beard II, who represents St. Catherine of Siena Parish School in this case. “This ruling recognizes that the Coastal Commission doesn’t have the legal authority to interfere in these local matters. The school is now able to proceed with presenting its environmentally responsible reconstruction plans to city officials, without intrusion from a state bureaucracy.” Last year, after the school first put forward reconstruction plans to city officials for the 50-year-old landmark school, the Coastal Commission suddenly declared that it had authority to hear an appeal of the City’s decision. In challenging the Commission’s attempt to intrude, PLF attorneys noted that the California Coastal Act recognizes that local coastal permitting decisions should, whenever possible, be left to local governments. Although the Commission attempted to classify two drainage ditches on the school’s property as “streams” giving it jurisdiction, PLF attorneys pointed out that the City’s Commission-certified local coastal program and map clearly show no drainage ditch or stream within 100 feet of the school project....
National Property Rights Organization Launches Lawsuit Under Arizona’s Proposition 207 In a lawsuit invoking Proposition 207, Arizona’s new property rights initiative, Flagstaff firefighter Jon Regner and three other residents are asking for compensation for new City rules that restrict them from upgrading their homes and property. Jon Regner, Paul Turner, Bob Richards, and Margaret Allen are represented by attorneys with Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, the nation’s premiere legal organization dedicated to property rights and limited government. They’re suing under a new state law, Proposition 207, approved in November, 2006, by almost 2/3 of the voters of Arizona. The new law requires just compensation for people whose property value is decreased due to government restrictions on their property rights. “Arizona voters spoke with a united voice last November in enacting Proposition 207,” said Timothy Sandefur, one of the attorneys representing Regner and the other property owners. “They said property owners should not be exploited in this way by bureaucrats. If the government takes away your property rights, it should compensate you for that taking. Unfortunately, the City of Flagstaff doesn’t think it’s necessary to comply with state law.” Regner planned to renovate his home, and to add a second story to the smaller house behind his, so that he could rent it out. But under the City’s new “Historic Overlay Ordinance,” property owners in his Flagstaff neighborhood are not allowed to refurbish their property without permission from a special government board. The ordinance also sets severe height and size restrictions on homes: landowners may not have structures higher than 25-feet tall or roofs at less than a 45-degree angle. The new restrictions mean Regner cannot go through with his plans. But the City refused to answer Regner’s requests for compensation....
FLE

Informants, Bombs and Lessons In a case built largely on the use of a planted informant, a federal jury in Sacramento, Calif., on Sept. 27 found environmental activist Eric McDavid guilty of conspiring to damage property by using explosives. McDavid, 29, was accused of planning to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to damage the U.S. Forest Service Institute of Forest Genetics, the Nimbus Dam, cellular telephone towers and electric power stations, among other targets. Some of the group's plans -- such as bombing the Nimbus Dam -- seem idealistic and far beyond what it could possibly achieve with its rudimentary capabilities and limited resources. Members had also discussed fantastical plans such as attacking a ball bearing factory in an effort to halt the production of automobiles, spilling a tractor-trailer of jam on a highway to interrupt the transportation of goods and storming into a bank and burning all the money instead of robbing it. That said, the testimony of Weiner, Jenson and Anna in this case illustrates a couple of emerging trends in the radical environmental and animal rights movements: the increasing use of violence -- specifically the use of explosives and timed incendiary devices -- and the growing disregard for human life. Not surprisingly, law enforcement and security officers are not the only ones who have learned from this case. As they did in "The Family" case earlier in 2007, activists on the radical fringe followed the McDavid case closely to study how law enforcement uses confidential informants. Information of this nature is then used to provide instruction on how to detect confidential informants, and thus thwart law enforcement efforts to penetrate radical groups....
Some border cities block access to border-fence land Mayors along the Texas-Mexico border have begun a quiet protest of the federal government's plans to build a fence along the border: Some are refusing access to their land. Mayors in Brownsville, Del Rio and El Paso have denied or limited access to some parts of their city property to Department of Homeland Security workers assigned to begin surveys or other preliminary work on the fence Congress has authorized to keep out illegal immigrants. Eagle Pass has denied a request from federal officials to build a portion of the wall within its city limits. Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada said Tuesday that he refused two weeks ago to sign documents granting federal workers permission to begin work if it was to be on city property. Del Rio granted limited access and El Paso allowed workers only on its outskirts, said Monica Weisberg Stewart of the Texas Border Coalition, a group that represents local officials. "This is exercising our rights. This is our property," Ahumada said. "We are not going to make it easy for them." In Eagle Pass, Mayor Chad Foster said his city has refused the U.S. Border Patrol's request to build 1 1/4 miles of fencing as part of a project that includes light towers and a new road for border patrols....

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

NOTE TO READERS

Procedure went ok, will take several days to see if it worked.
Should be more extensive posting tomorrow.

Rancher Kills Wolf to Save Cattle, Violates Endangered Species Act
A Montana rancher killed a wolf to protect his cattle herd, and now federal officials say he violated the Endangered Species Act. This apparently extreme instance led one conservative analyst to claim that the act is doing more harm than good, because it forces landowners to "shoot, shovel and shut up." Roger Lang is a California entrepreneur who owns the 18,000-acre Sun Ranch, south of Ennis, Mont. Over the last 10 years he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help ensure that his ranch is set up and operates legally, especially in conformity with the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Lang has experimented with fences, herders, and other nonfatal means to prevent his livestock from being killed by wolves, which had virtually been wiped out in the area during the 1970s but were reintroduced by federal officials in 1994. After five yearling heifers were killed this summer, Lang decided to become more aggressive in dealing with the pack, which numbered 13 wolves, including seven pups. "That's a lot of mouths to feed," the ranch owner, who obtained a permit to kill two adult wolves on his property, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Instead, Lang's employees, shooting from a distance, killed a pup in July and wounded the pack's alpha female. As a result of those injuries, the female was unable to run with the pack and spent the next two weeks hovering near the rancher's cattle, seeking easy prey. But an employee on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) saw the wounded animal and began chasing it. After hitting the wolf several times, the employee pinned it under the vehicle, Lang said....
Water Markets & Ideologies of the West
The Bozeman-based Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC), a non-profit think tank at the forefront of “free-market environmentalism,” held their annual conference for journalists this past weekend in Big Sky. Sixteen of us—folks from Maine to Seattle—convened to consider worldwide water scarcity and contamination problems and how markets can inject incentives to help solve them. There were a dozen or so presenters, their topics ranging from big-picture issues such as global water supply, climate change, and domestic water quality to the very specific: payments-for-environmental-services schemes in Bolivia, removing dilapidated dams to turn a profit, a market to reduce agricultural nutrient pollution. It’s intriguing stuff for any conservationist, no matter your stance on the reach or limits of markets. What piqued my interest most, and perhaps most relevant to conservation in Montana, was the discussion of water markets in the West—the idea of selling, leasing or donating water rights for instream use. It’s not a new idea, but it’s one gaining momentum....
Feds, state at odds over California-Arizona transmission line The U.S. Department of Energy opened the door Tuesday for an electricity transmission line between California and Arizona one month after it was denied by state officials. At issue is what is called a "congested corridor," where energy transmission is lower than the necessary amount between states. The DOE designated the area a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 states that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decisions on transmission corridors designated by DOE supersede those of state government. By deeming the area a congested corridor, FERC has the power to overturn the Arizona Corporation Commission's decision against the 230-mile transmission line that would connect Palo Verde Nuclear Generating station to Devers, Calif. The $545 million line would supply the Los Angles area with 1,200 megawatts of power. Southern California Edison Co. would partner with Arizona Public Service Co. to build the line....
Feathers fly over pollution legislation Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson is raising a stink over manure. Fed up with manure runoff from farms polluting his state’s waterways, Edmondson is suing a batch of upstream poultry farms, including several owned by Tyson Foods, which he says have been irresponsible with their waste management and should be prosecuted under the Superfund law. The suit, which has been ongoing since 2005, has set off a panic in the agriculture community and a lobbying frenzy on Capitol Hill, where many fear the case will open the door for other large-scale or factory farms to be penalized with hefty pollution taxes. Edmondson, a Democrat, testified at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meeting last month, where lawmakers considered whether massive quantities of manure from confined animal feeding operations should be considered toxic waste under Superfund laws....
Meat recalls point to possibility threat is growing Last week's recall of 21.7 million pounds of frozen hamburger because of potential E. coli contamination is bound to fuel concern that E. coli outbreaks may be on the rise in the USA's meat industry for the first time this decade. The ground beef recall by Topps Meat is second in size only to Hudson Foods' 1997 recall of 25 million pounds of ground beef. And it comes just three months after a recall of 5.7 million pounds of ground beef tied to E. coli. The Topps recall has been linked to 27 reported illnesses, three confirmed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. The beef industry suffered its E. coli crisis in the early 1990s. But it tightened food-safety standards and reduced outbreaks so successfully that even critics held it up as a model of what industry could do. But the American Meat Institute (AMI) says it noticed a slight rise in positive E. coli tests by the government this summer and so met with industry leaders. "It's caused us to pause," says Randy Huffman, vice president of the AMI Foundation. "We've redoubled our efforts and focused on the things that work." The USDA sample-tests about 8,000 products a year for the deadly E. coli O157:H7 strain identified in the Topps recall. The rate of positive tests has shrunk about 73% since 2000 but trended up in 2007 compared with the past three years. Huffman says the rise could simply be a "random event." But Bill Marler, the nation's leading E. coli plaintiff's attorney, says, "Something has changed, and it has not changed for the better."....
Ranch-Raised and Arena-Savvy Mike Major of Fowler, Colorado, the source for "Make a Major Improvement," our September print feature on shoulder control, has spent his entire life horseback and working cattle. The ranch-raised horseman brings all that riding experience to the competitive arena and has since he was a youngster. Mike broke his first colt at age 7 and by 9 was starting many colts for use on the family's New Mexico ranch. He also jockeyed his father's horses in match races, but by 13 had outgrown that occupation. That's when he went to work for cattleman and cutter Bob Lee. A few short years later, Mike was running another ranch his father had purchased, and had begun showing cutting horses and attending junior and high-school rodeos. Buddy Major, Mike's father and a top professional calf roper and rancher, shared his skills with his son. Mike, who still team ropes today, roped professionally for a few years and spent 14 years riding bulls and saddle broncs. Throughout the 1990s, he competed in ranch rodeos and by 2002 had focused on working cow-horse competition, followed by ranch-horse versatility events. "But I've always ridden cow horses and always bred horses for ranch work and cutting," Mike says. "In a sense, I've been working toward cow-horse and versatility competition all my life, although I really got serious about it seven years ago." In 1990, Mike purchased the old Flying A Ranch, which Gene Autry once owned and Harry Knight operated. There, Mike and wife Holly operate Major Cattle Company, which includes about 1,000 yearlings and a horse-breeding operation, as well as the mother-cow herd on their Belen, New Mexico, ranch....
No Horsing Around for Students at Cowboy College Jim German has wanted to be a cowboy since he was a little boy. And for six days last month he became one. For his vacation, the 59-year-old San Francisco man enrolled himself in the Arizona Cowboy College - a small ranch at the edge of Scottsdale that gives ordinary people the chance to experience the true cowboy lifestyle. ``I've dreamed about this all the time, but I never had the opportunity,'' says German, covered in a thin layer of dust from a 20-mile horse ride. ``Here, for one week, I get to live out my dreams.'' German is one of 2,000 students who have attended the college since it opened in 1989. Unlike a typical dude ranch, the one-of-a-kind college markets itself as the true cowboy experience _ students sleep under the stars and learn horsemanship skills including riding, roping and shoeing. ``We don't play cowboy here,'' says Rocco Wachman, senior instructor at the school. `We do an old-fashioned day's job. I really show them how life was like 100 years ago.'' And amid the changing landscape of the Sonoran Desert, the college is helping keep a small part of the cowboy lifestyle alive....
School in the saddles at Colorado's Chico Basin Ranch
The first sound a city slicker hears at 5:30 a.m. at Chico Basin Ranch is ... nothing. No television. No traffic whizzing by. Then, a thousand sounds. Insects dance. Songbirds call, and then their calls fracture into at least 10 distinct voices, like a feathery cocktail party. Geese honk. Cattle bleat. A horse sighs. The wind howls a long way off, as it gathers force across the prairie, like a wave. Only 35 miles southeast of Colorado Springs, this ranch resides in an odd place between the city and the Old West. Brian Wyka and his teenage daughter, Lauren, of Sarasota, Fla., begin to stir in the Holmes Bunkhouse. Once a family home, it now hosts visitors from all over the world. Chico Basin, an 87,000-acre working ranch, flings open its gates to visitors who come to play cowboy, to meet the mythical West, to ride horses and to earn calluses....Bleating cattle?

Monday, October 01, 2007

NOTE TO READERS

Still experiencing leakage from the spinal cord, so tomorrow I'm off to El Paso to have a blood patch procedure done.

Let's hope it works.