Monday, December 07, 2009

Climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes & "carbon dating" by prostitutes

Ms Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden." And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen. "The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it's very Danish." The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers. As well 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders, the Danish capital will be blessed by the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Daryl Hannah, Helena Christensen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Prince Charles. A Republican US senator, Jim Inhofe, is jetting in at the head of an anti-climate-change "Truth Squad." The top hotels – all fully booked at £650 a night – are readying their Climate Convention menus of (no doubt sustainable) scallops, foie gras and sculpted caviar wedges...

My, my, these folks don't seem to be environmentally conscientius. What will the carbon footprint be of this momentous meeting?

According to the organisers, the eleven-day conference, including the participants' travel, will create a total of 41,000 tonnes of "carbon dioxide equivalent", equal to the amount produced over the same period by a city the size of Middlesbrough.

A gathering of this size always creates a demand for extracurricular activities - in other words sex. But sex is carbon neutral, right? Yes, but the Danish prostitutes are upset:

And this being Scandinavia, even the prostitutes are doing their bit for the planet. Outraged by a council postcard urging delegates to "be sustainable, don't buy sex," the local sex workers' union – they have unions here – has announced that all its 1,400 members will give free intercourse to anyone with a climate conference delegate's pass. The term "carbon dating" just took on an entirely new meaning.

Looks like the only free trade to be discussed will be between the delegates and the prostitutes.

So what if you want to protest these doings? They've taken care of that too:


Denmark has taken delivery of its first-ever water-cannon – one of the newspapers is running a competition to suggest names for it – plus sweeping new police powers. The authorities have been proudly showing us their new temporary prison, 360 cages in a disused brewery, housing 4,000 detainees.

So sex is free but speech isn't.

Depending on on which side you advocate, you'll either be whored or hosed.

Actually, our only hope is that with all the free sex going on nothing else will get done. I wasn't part of the Free Sex Movement in the 60's, but I'm damn sure all for it in Copenhagen.


Check it out here.

The Scientific Tragedy of Climategate

Consider researcher Tom Wigley’s email describing his adjustments to mid-20th century global temperature data in order to lower an inconvenient warming "blip." According to the global warming hypothesis, late 20th century man-made warming was supposed to be faster than earlier natural warming. But the data show rapid "natural" warming in the 1930s. Adjusting the 1940 temperature blip downward makes a better-looking trend line in support of the notion of rapidly accelerating man-made warming. Collecting and evaluating temperature data requires the exercise of scientific judgment, but Wigley's emails suggest a convenient correction of 0.15 degree Celsius that fits the man-made global warming hypothesis. The adjustment may be reasonable—changes in instrumentation might need to be accounted for—but all raw data and the methodologies used to adjust them should be publicly available so others can check them to make sure. In another set of troubling emails, the CRU crew and associates discussed how to freeze out researchers and editors who expressed doubts about the man-made climate change. For example, an email from CRU’s leader Phil Jones saying that he and Kevin Trenberth would keep two dissenting scientific articles out of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s next report "even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" In addition, the CRU crew evidently plotted to remove journal editors with whom they disagreed and suppress the publication of articles that they disliked. If they actually succeeded, this compounds the tragedy. Eliminating dissenting voices distorts the peer review process and the resulting scientific literature. The world's policymakers rarely enjoy access to complete information, but the Climategate emails suggest they have been robbed of the chance to get the best information available...read more

Backlash by sceptics gains ground after 'Climategate'

The resurgent climate sceptic movement claimed its first political scalp this week when Australia's opposition Liberal party dumped its leader, Malcolm Turnbull, over his support for the federal government's climate change legislation. At the same time the sceptics have been making hay with the "Climategate scandal" - the release a week ago by computer hackers of thousands of e-mails sent to and from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK. The timing of Climategate, just before next week's Copenhagen negotiations, could hardly be worse for the majority seeking an agreement to limit carbon emissions. The sceptics claim that the e-mails show a conspiracy to manipulate and suppress data that do not support the cause for man-made global warming - a charge vigorously denied by mainstream climate scientists. Lorraine Whitmarsh, an environmental psychologist at Cardiff University in Wales, says opinion worldwide is becoming more polarised, with supporters of more rightwing parties more likely to doubt the need for action on climate change. But Prof Whitmarsh warns climate scientists that the negative impact of Climategate may be long-lasting. "It may resonate for a long time and support the doubters," she says. "The Great Global Warming Swindle [a sceptical television programme broadcast in 2007] is still having an effect today."...read more

Burning our forests is the best way to save them

Here's the prescription for our catastrophically burned forests: Burn them again ... and again. In Southern Arizona, scientists and land managers are enlisting environmentalists and residents of threatened settlements to support an effort to make the forests safer and healthier by reintroducing fire on a "landscape scale" to our Sky Island mountains and the grassy plains beneath them. The Coronado National Forest -- where the U.S. Forest Service manages nearly 1.8 million acres of old-growth forests, rolling grasslands and semi-arid deserts -- is creating those landscape-scale burn programs, dubbed "FireScape," for most of its 17 Sky Island mountain ranges. Plans would increase the number of planned fires and would make more use of "resource benefit" fires, in which the Forest Service doesn't immediately extinguish naturally occurring fires. It's a fairly easy call in the most remote ranges, but it will take finesse and scientific expertise to pull it off on two troubled mountain ranges...read more

Federal officials look for ways to make wolf recovery a success in the Southwest

A decade has passed since the federal government began returning endangered Mexican wolves to their historic range in the Southwest. It hasn't worked out — for the wolves, for ranchers, for conservationists or for federal biologists. And that has resulted in frustration and resentment by many involved in the reintroduction program along the Arizona-New Mexico border, a landscape of sprawling pine and spruce forests, cold-water lakes and clear streams. "I believe in being a good steward of the land and preserving it for generations to come, but this is ridiculous," said Ed Wehrheim, who heads the county commission in Catron County, in the heart of wolf country. "I've had ranchers' wives come to me just bawling because everything they and their parents have worked for is going down the drain." Four ranches have gone out of business since the wolf reintroduction began and another four are expected to do the same before next summer, Wehrheim said. The region has been hit by drought and cattle prices aren't what they used to be, but Wehrheim said pressure from environmentalists and hundreds of livestock kills by Mexican gray wolves over the past decade have only made things worse. Environmentalists argue that grazing practices are part of the problem and the wolf reintroduction program has failed because of mismanagement by the federal government...read more

Colo. regulators hash out gas-well water rights

Water regulators are close to solving a fight between gas drillers and ranchers, who say coalbed methane wells are draining their water rights. State Engineer Dick Wolfe held hearings last week to develop a computer model that will tell him which gas wells need extra attention. The hearings will conclude Dec. 16 with a discussion of wells in the San Juan Basin. The dispute started in 2005, when two Southwest Colorado ranching families, William and Elizabeth Vance and James and Mary Fitzgerald, sued the state, claiming nearby gas wells had siphoned water from their springs. In April, the state Supreme Court ruled for the couples, which opened up the possibility that every gas and oil well in the state would have to get a water well permit and submit to regulation by the state engineer. The Legislature acted quickly to direct Wolfe's office to limit the number of gas wells that would need regulation. Energy companies have argued that most gas wells are much deeper than the water table, so they should be excluded as “nontributary" water. Wolfe conducted hearings last week on technical issues around a computer model his staff will use. Sarah Klahn, lawyer for the Vance and Fitzgerald families, wants the model to be tweaked, especially for the edges of gas fields, where the gas formations outcrop and come close to the underground water that feeds streams...read more

Sheepman fighting to save flock

...But there he was a week ago Friday, featured in an article with the headline, "Ranching, Recreation Collide in the Great Outdoors." The story is about an incident from the summer of 2008, when two of Robinson's dogs were accused of attacking a woman riding a mountain bike. The assault resulted in injuries and a court action that branded Robinson — a good man his wife, Cheri, described to the Times as "a Sunday school teacher who has no record" — a criminal. He was found guilty of a misdemeanor, fined, ordered to pay restitution and, in lieu of jail time, sentenced to 200 hours community service. Now, Sam Robinson is fighting back. Robinson has seen this fight long coming. Slowly but steadily, he's watched civilization's advancements intrude on his ability to protect his sheep. First there was the environmentalist-inspired government ban in the 1970s on all toxicants, meaning you couldn't poison the mountain lions, coyotes, bears and other natural predators of the herd. Next came a crusade led by animal rights groups that resulted in a government ban on steel-jawed traps, followed by outlawing all baiting and scent lures. All that was left for a sheepman to defend his herd was to shoot predators during a legal hunting season or when they were caught in the act. It was like telling a store owner he couldn't lock the door when he went home at night. But then the government advised Robinson of a new option that was enjoying some success elsewhere: livestock protection dogs...read more

A cowboy's tale

Will Rogers had sage advice for friend and co-star Joel McCrea: The best way to get perspective on Hollywood is on the back of a horse while herding cattle. McCrea, who appeared in 90 films, heeded his mentor’s suggestion and bought an expanse of land in Thousand Oaks. The working ranch served as a home for himself and his wife, actress Frances Dee, and their sons, and became a rural refuge for friends Gary Cooper, Katherine Hepburn and Alfred Hitchcock. The public will have the chance in a year to explore part of the 76-year-old ranch, where Hollywood intersected with the Old West. “This ranch is a great piece of California history, and that’s what we want people to be exposed to,” said Wyatt McCrea, the grandson of Joel McCrea and Dee. “This is just our little effort to keep that pioneering spirit alive.” Sitting in an office with his cowboy hat hanging from a chair back and a signed portrait of Will Rogers behind him, McCrea said in a recent interview his grandfather acted in order to ranch. The elder McCrea, born in south Pasadena, starred in “Sullivan’s Travels,” “The Virginian” and “Foreign Correspondent.” One year he listed his profession as rancher on his income tax returns, prompting the Internal Revenue Service to audit him. Joel McCrea, who bought his first horse at age 10, held out his calloused hands to the auditor and asked if an actor would have hands like that. The IRS dropped the audit...read more

For Lewistown rancher, training cattle dogs uses same rules as life

One of Carl's favorite things to do during the day is to work with his dogs. He loves dogs and likes to train them to work his cattle. He teaches them to respond to both voice commands and hand signals. “That way, if you're around a bunch of bawling cattle, they still know what you want them to do,” Carl said. Carl explained that if the people you're working with can't hear you over the noise, chances are the dogs won't hear you either. Most of his dogs are Australian Shepherds, descended from the first one he purchased from a breeder back in 1995. Carl likes the way they worked the cattle. The breeder raised national champion stock dogs. “I listened to the breeders and trainers and watched them work their dogs, and I asked a lot of questions,” he said. Recently he purchased a Hangin' Tree Cow Dog out of Portland, Ore. The male pup is not quite six months old, tall and leggy with a short fine coat. He plans on cross-breeding the male with his females in the hopes of producing a taller dog with a thinner coat, without losing working ability. “Having these qualities they can travel in the rough breaks country a little longer. They'll be bigger build in order to cover more country and their hair won't let them get over-heated or collect as many burrs,” he said...read more

Endorsing lifelong lessons

The lessons John David Fields Jr. learned in life started early and haven’t stopped. Growing up on a ranch in Sonora, Fields learned to raise sheep, goats and cattle, but Fields said his father also taught him lifelong lessons. “My father was of the old school,” he said. “He’d tell me, ‘Your word is your bond. Your handshake is as good as a contract. You treat everyone the way you want to be treated.’” But Fields, 62, said the best advice he ever received came from a Sutton County rancher named Bryan Hunt. “He told me, ‘When you shake somebody’s hand, look them straight in the eye.’” Hunt had a way of teaching what he preached, Fields said. The old rancher could make a coin seemingly disappear, and when Hunt shook hands with youngsters, he’d have a quarter tucked in his palm. “If you looked him straight in the eye while you shook, he’d turn loose of that coin,” Fields remembered. “If you didn’t look him in the eye, you didn’t get the quarter.”...read more

‘Half Broke Horses’

There are “Half Broke Horses” of the human variety in Jeannette Walls’ new book of that name—Walls, her mother and her grandmother among them. All three are tough, intelligent, and often running on pluck, but it is Walls’ spirited grandmother who holds center stage here, a woman born in 1901 in the gritty horse lands of the American West. Lily Casey Smith was a force, it seems, from birth. She was not yet 20 when she became known as “the mustang-breaking, poker-playing, horse-race-winning schoolmarm of Coconino County.” She wasn’t much older when she took up the automobile, became a rum runner, then a biplane pilot. She was a rancher for years, a wife and mother of two (including the wild and willful Rosemary, later known as Rose Mary). She was, in short, a sort of Sarah Palin of her day: People always knew when the outspoken Lily was around — as they would her daughter Rosemary and, in turn, Rosemary’s daughter, Jeannette. We know because we remember all three women from Walls’ widely read memoir, “The Glass Castle.” In fact, “Half Broke Horses” is a prequel to the earlier book, giving us only a reversal in time and the teller...read more

H-Bar History

In the early days before the coming of the railroad, the ranch located closest to Clovis and Portales was the H-Bar. The H-Bar, located where the Portales Country Club now stands, was established by some unlikely cowmen, and associated with some wild characters in its early days. It was 1884, just 16 years since the end of the Civil War and three years since the death of Billy the Kid, that a group of Missourians traveled south to become cattle ranchers on the Llano Estacado. These compadres from Cass County, Missouri, were W. G. and W. C. Urton, J. D. Cooley, and Lee Easley. They formed the Cass Land and Cattle Company and set up their operation on the Pecos River at Cedar Canyon, 60 miles northeast of the present site of Roswell. With them came a close acquaintance, Dr. Hadley Winfrey. Winfrey had been sent to Pecos County by his brother, Dr. Caleb Winfrey, who had decided to move to the Southwest in search of a more healthy climate. So in 1884, Hadley went ahead with his fellow Missourians to gather up a herd. Col. Jack Potter, noted cowboy, author and historian, knew the Winfreys well. He worked on the roundup spring and summer with Hadley Winfrey throughout the Pecos roundups, when Hadley was gathering the cattle to move to the plains...read more

It's All Trew: For your vocabulary pleasure

Historians continually write of nesters, settlers, settlements and free-range cattlemen. Exactly what were the origins of these terms? # The term "nester" was first applied to families who chose a plot of land clearing the brush for farming. They cut the large trees to build shelters, then piled the brush from this, plus the brush cleared from the land around the edges of their property, to act as a fence of sorts for protection for their crops. Others, like the cowboys, thought the new farms looked like huge bird nests, hence the title of nesters. # The first white people in America were the explorers, trappers, Mountain Men and soldiers all leading mostly a nomadic life. When families began to arrive, the nomadic way of life ceased as people began to "settle down," thus the term "settler" was born. When settlers gathered in close proximity, it became a "settlement." # A "free-range rancher" was a product of a short period of time beginning when the Indians were placed on reservations. There were no fences, except natural terrain barriers; land titles were scarce and hard to recognize. They considered all the range free to graze their cattle. This all came to an end when barbed wire was invented. This product provided landowners an economical way to delineate their boundaries and protect their crops, thus ending the free-range concept...read more

Cartoon - School Vending Machines

Song Of The Day #195

Ranch Radio hopes to get your heart pumpin' and your feet tappin' this Monday morning with the 1939 recording of Beaumont Rag by Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys.

The instrumental tune is available on their 4 disc box set Take Me Back to Tulsa by Proper Records and on the wonderful 11 disc + dvd + book San Antonio Rose by Bear Family Records.


Sunday, December 06, 2009

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Equal opportunity cowgirl

Julie Carter

It didn't take an act of Congress to give cowgirls their equal opportunity rights in their work at the ranch.

Since cowgirl time began, the women of the range have been afforded the opportunity to work side by side with their male counterparts.

The weather never made the issue debatable. She was allowed to freeze her backside off in the same West Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, or Dakotas blizzard as he was.

Her circle for the day included ice just as thick to axe through and the same drifts to drive or ride through.

Her frost-encrusted eyelashes, batting over blue eyes, never turned an ounce of sympathy or empathy with any of the other chilled-down hands as they moved a herd of mother cows and calves in a spring snowstorm.

Dust boiling from a droughty country side as the winds whipped across the landscape never offered a preference for what gender the rider was when she got sandblasted, dirt stuck to eyes and nostrils and teeth turned brown with grit.

The start before daylight, the stop long past sundown carried no clause for shorter hours for the fairer sex.

In fact, more often than not, she started earlier and ended later, as she first tended to arrangements for provisions to last the day and the cleanup at the end of the day. It's not a complaint, just a fact.

A charging cow in the alley will just as quickly run over the one wearing chaps and mascara as she will the one who hollers at her in a deep voice, then laughs when the denim bottom is last seen baling over the fence into the weeds.

The bulls will knock down the gate she is holding with no regard to the fact she's a mother and has plans to live to raise her children, preferably not as a quadriplegic.

The real equalizer in the operation has always been the horses. And, this is where the cowboys will, and they can't help it because it is how they are, claim a superior notion that they can ride what the little woman can't.

Sometimes true, sometimes not.

I remember my dad warning me not to ride a horse he'd just bought in a herd of several he brought home.

"You stay off that horse," he said. "Even the cowboys at the ranch I bought him from are afraid of him and for good reason."

The local hands murmured and warned me. Eagle's reputation had traveled the information highway common to ranch hands.

You can see where this is going. I was 15 and bullet proof, or horse proof as it were.

As soon as nobody was looking, I had the tall, leggy dun saddled and in a long trot to the south, so my mother couldn't see me from the house.

Never knew why, but nothing happened. It never did and when Dad got over being mad at me, Eagle and I covered lots of miles at a long trot.

Recently a friend of mine was hurt seriously when her horse bucked her off at the ranch. She's been healing and will return to ride by springtime, but the best medicine she got came in the form of recent news.

The "outlaw" that had put her on the ground was sent to a cowboy for some miles, wet saddle blankets and manners. Seems that was going along fairly well until this same horse dusted that cowboy's britches in the dirt as well.

"That son-of-gun sure can buck," he said. The radiant light had come on. The cowgirl hadn't "fallen" off in a crow-hopping event ... dang if she hadn't actually been bucked down by a real bucker. Victories for the cowgirl sometimes come in odd ways.

This was one of them.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net

Song Of The Day #194

Our Gospel song this Sunday morning is Face To Face by the great bluegrass singer Claire Lynch. It's on her 12 track CD Whatcha Gonna Do.

Police Tapped Sprint Customer GPS Data 8 Million Times In A Year

Under a new system set up by Sprint, law enforcement agencies have gotten GPS data from the company about its wireless customers 8 million times in about a year, raising a host of questions about consumer privacy, transparency, and oversight of how police obtain location data. What this means -- and what many wireless customers no doubt do not realize -- is that with a few keystrokes, police can determine in real time the location of a cell phone user through automated systems set up by the phone companies. And while a Sprint spokesman told us customers can shield themselves from surveillance by simply switching off the GPS function of their phones, one expert told TPM that the company and other carriers almost certainly have the power to remotely switch the function back on. To be clear, you can think of there being two types of GPS (global positioning system). One is the handy software on your mobile device that tells you where you are and helps give driving directions. But there's also GPS capability in all cell phones sold today, required by a federal regulation so if you dial 911 from an unknown location, authorities can find you. Sprint says the 8 million requests represent "thousands" of individual customers -- it won't say how many exactly -- and that the company follows the law. It's not clear, however, if warrants are always needed, or whether they have been obtained by police for all the cases...read more

Sprint manager: ‘Half’ of all police surveillance includes text messaging

According to a graduate student's research into the spying policies of major U.S. telecommunications companies, at a recent security conference a Sprint surveillance manager told a group of onlookers that half of all police requests include the target's text messages. Half of millions -- including some 8 million automated, web-based requests for GPS location, all in just over a year's time. The revelation was made by Indiana University grad Christopher Soghoian, as part of his PhD dissertation published Dec. 1, 2009. He attributes the stunning number to Paul Taylor, an Electronic Surveillance Manager with Sprint Nextel, who was speaking recently at the Washington, D.C. International Securities Systems conference, otherwise known as ISS World. "He’s talking about the wonderful automated backend Sprint runs for law enforcement, LSite, which allows investigators to rapidly retrieve information directly, without the burden of having to get a human being to respond to every specific request for data," added Julian Sanchez at the Cato Institute...read more

Lawsuit seeks information on federal surveillance of social networking sites

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the University of California, Berkeley's Samuelson Clinic have filed a lawsuit (PDF document) against six government agencies, seeking information on their use of social networking sites for data collection and surveillance. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It invoked the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in seeking information from the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Treasury, Central Intelligence Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The eight-page complaint lists several media reports about law enforcement's use of social sites for surveillance purposes. One of the reports includes an Associated Press story about police searching Facebook photos for evidence of underage drinking and watching YouTube videos to identify suspected rioters. Another example cited in the compliant is a story in The New York Times about the FBI searching the house of s social worker because of Twitter messages he sent during the G-20 summit about police movements in the city. For instance, there is no information on how such searches are conducted, or whether they involve specific targets or are broader in scope, Witnov said. "We don't know if they are searching for the top twenty most wanted criminals or are just scanning," such sites he said. Similarly there is no information on whether such searches are being enabled by automated information gathering and data visualization tools. One of the articles talks about the Secret Service immediately spotting the opening of social network account by a fugitive. The fact that it was "immediately spotted" is interesting, Witnov said...read more

Homeland Security or Homeland Enslavement?

By now, most readers are familiar with the story of how a Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, crashed the White House State Dinner last Tuesday evening. President and Mrs. Obama were entertaining Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the first official State Dinner of the new administration. The Salahis were not on the invited guest list, but were still allowed to walk right into the White House. They even had face-to-face conversations with both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Photographs of the Salahis with the President and Vice President have been published in numerous newspapers and on hundreds of web sites. I wonder if the American people are thinking this episode through? Think of it: in the post-9/11 world, a world that has invented the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), body scanners, retina readers, the Patriot Act, hundreds of laws and regulations restricting the freedoms and liberties of the American people, thousands of cameras photographing our public movements, and satellite spy devices, a couple can walk right into the White House and meet the President and Vice President without being invited! Is there something wrong with this picture, or what?...read more

A New Alliance for Criminal Justice Reform? Don't Count On It.

New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak had legal and political opinion websites buzzing last week with a front-page article about non-traditional left-right alliances that may be emerging on criminal justice issues. In particular, Liptak's piece focused on a project started by the conservative Heritage Foundation that aims to combat what the think tank calls overcriminalization, a broad term that includes the federalization of crime, the expansion of state and local criminal codes, and the ramping up of police and prosecutorial power. The time would certainly seem to be ripe for new left-right alliances on criminal justice reform. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a new bill from Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) that would create a national criminal justice commission to review all aspects of America's police, criminal courts, and prisons. Webb's bill comes on the heels of a sobering set of developments. The U.S. has for some time now accumulated the world's largest prison population, both proportionally and overall. DNA testing continues to clear people wrongly convicted and imprisoned for violent crimes. And the federal criminal code has swelled from the three laws proscribed in the Constitution to, by one estimate, more than 4,000 laws today. Still, the prospect of any sort of lasting alliance seems unlikely, mostly because conservatives, libertarians, and liberals view the legal system in fundamentally different ways...read more

Turner blasts REAL ID Act

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Doug Turner blasted the REAL ID Act which could force New Mexicans to use a passport for domestic travel after the new year if the state is not granted an extension. This is because New Mexico drivers licenses would not reach the standards of the REAL ID Act. Turner, who was the campaign manager for libertarian governor Gary Johnson, wrote in an op-ed sent to media this afternoon, “you don’t have to read the newspaper every day to see that state autonomy in our country is waning.” Turner compared the legislation to Soviet-era policies, writing, “Since our nation’s founding, we have never had special documentation or permission to cross state lines. It was the Soviet bloc nations where you had to have numerous papers, signatures and stamps in order to travel across state borders.” Turner admits however, that “it is a stretch to suggest that we are now living in a Neo-Soviet Union.” Citing costs for passports, $130 after postage and photo fees Turner asks, “Who has this kind of money right now? Who really thinks all this aggravation will even make us one iota safer?” Much of the op-ed isn’t about cost, however, but government intrusion. “Like all of the other government bills we are currently being forced to swallow, the REAL ID legislation trespasses on our personal freedom, privacy, states’ rights and is yet another increase to the cost of living,” Turner wrote...read more

E-mail stirs fears of hijacking 'dry run'

An airline is fending off charges fueled by a widely circulated e-mail that an incident on a flight from Atlanta to Houston, reported by news media as minor, actually bore the marks of a "dry run" by Muslim terrorists. of a purported passenger on AirTran Flight 297 on Nov. 17, bolstered by a separate investigation by Northeast Intelligence Network, contends that about a dozen Muslim men in "full attire" who were spread throughout the jet as it taxied to the runway caused a disturbance prompting pilots to return to the gate and bring law enforcement officers onboard. The airline, at its InsideAirTran website, denied many of the claims made in the e-mail, which purportedly was written by a passenger, Tedd Petruna of Houston, and circulated by a friend, A. Gene Hackemack. Yet questions remain, such as why was the flight crew was changed after a supposedly minor disturbance and why several passengers were so distraught that they refused to continue on to their destination after the men involved were allowed to reboard the airplane...read more

Brussels gives CIA the power to search UK bank records

THE CIA is to be given broad access to the bank records of millions of Britons under a European Union plan to fight terrorism. The Brussels agreement, which will come into force in two months’ time, requires the 27 EU member states to grant requests for banking information made by the United States under its terrorist finance tracking programme. In a little noticed information note released last week, the EU said it had agreed that Europeans would be compelled to release the information to the CIA “as a matter of urgency”. The records will be kept in a US database for five years before being deleted. Critics say the system is “lopsided” because there is no reciprocal arrangement under which the UK authorities can easily access the bank accounts of US citizens in America. They also say the plan to sift through cross-border and domestic EU bank accounts gives US intelligence more scope to consult our bank accounts than is granted to law enforcement agencies in the UK or the rest of Europe...read more

Saturday, December 05, 2009

Safeway recalls beef in Arizona, N.M.

In cooperation with Beef Packers, Inc.'s (Cargill) recall of 22,000 pounds of fresh ground beef that may be linked to an outbreak of Salmonella, Safeway Inc. is recalling fresh ground beef products with "Sell By" dates of September 28 through October 11, 2009. The recall affects all stores in Arizona and one store in New Mexico in the city of Gallup. While the recalled product is no longer in stores, Safeway is asking its customers to check all ground beef in their freezers. The recall includes fresh ground beef products sold during the dates listed above at the full-service counter in brown butcher paper and at the self-service area wrapped on black Styrofoam trays. These products include fresh ground beef, fresh ground beef patties, fresh meat balls, fresh meat loaf and fresh bell peppers stuffed with beef and pork. These products should be discarded or returned for a full refund...read more

Obama to join climate summit on its final day

Increasingly optimistic that decisions by China and India will yield a breakthrough in international climate negotiations, President Obama announced Friday that he would take a more active and dramatically timed role at this month's climate summit in Copenhagen. Obama will push back his visit to the conference to its final scheduled day, putting him in a better position to help broker an agreement, the White House announced. The White House also said the United States would pay "its fair share" of a $10-billion-a-year, short-term financing package from wealthy nations to help developing nations adapt to rising temperatures and make the transition to low-emission energy sources. It's unclear what that share would be, but Obama included more than $1 billion for such efforts in his proposed 2010 budget. The moves come in response to recent pledges by China and India to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, White House officials said, and after Obama's consultations this week with the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Australia...read more

Friday, December 04, 2009

Cringing Over Climategate

"Science and scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my administration on a wide range of issues, including … mitigation of climate change," President Barack Obama declared in a not-so-subtle dig at his predecessor soon after assuming office. "The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process. Public officials should not suppress or alter scientific technological findings." Last week's Climategate scandal is putting Obama's promise to the test. If he wants to pass, there are two things he should do, pronto: (1) Start singing hosannas to whoever broke the scandal instead of acting like nothing has happened; and (2) Ask eco-warriors at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit next week to declare an immediate cease-fire in their war against global warming pending a complete review of the science...read more

MIT Team Asks: Is Increase in Greenhouse Gas Part of Natural Cycle?

A team of MIT scientists recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels -the first increase in ten years. What baffles the team is that this data contradicts theories stating humans are the primary source of increase in greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. Since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, however, it is probable that this may be part of a natural cycle - and not the direct result of man's contributions...read more

Forest Service Cleared in Esperanza Fire Deaths

A mix of wind-stoked flames and a lapse in awareness -- not misconduct on the fire line -- is to blame for the deaths of five Forest Service firefighters in the 2006 Esperanza Fire, a federal probe has concluded. The findings were released Thursday after months of delays by the U.S. Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General and are generally in line with previous investigations into the 43,000-acre wildfire, which tore through the hills south of Cabazon and overran the men of Forest Service Engine Crew 57. The three-year investigation centered on the actions of those who fought the blaze and could have led to criminal charges against fire personnel. But ultimately, investigators found no wrongdoing on the part of the Forest Service or Cal Fire. The agencies battled the Esperanza Fire together, but the report found that Cal Fire alone was in command of the fire. The determination that there was no misconduct was well received by some within the firefighting community, which has eagerly awaited the report's release. Investigators determined that the deaths were the result of an ill-advised decision by the crew to make a stand outside an unoccupied house, combined with extreme fire conditions fueled by Santa Ana winds. The report cited "rapid, unexpected fire behavior -- propelled by the sudden emergence of fire-related weather phenomena," as well as the location of the doomed crew...read more

Feds kill 7 wolves

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services, with authorization from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, took a control action against wolves in the Stanley area last week, shooting seven members of the Basin Butte pack. Todd Grimm, Wildlife Services' Western District supervisor, said the wolves were shot from a helicopter and plane on Nov. 23 and 24. The pack's home range is around Stanley, about 60 miles north of Ketchum. "Since July 2008, these wolves have been implicated in 14 incidents of depredation, all but four taking place on private land," Grimm said. Grimm said that in August the pack killed 36 sheep in two nights, and have also killed seven adult cows and five calves in the past year, most recently killing cows in October and November. "After the Nov. 3 depredation, [Wildlife Services] got together with Fish and Game and decided to significantly reduce the pack," Grimm said...read more

Air Force to expand training airspace in Dakotas

The U.S. Air Force is looking to quadruple the airspace in which it can it can conduct training exercises with its B-1 and B-52 bombers stationed in the Dakotas. The proposal would allow more military pilots to train locally, but some civilian pilots are concerned about the additional air traffic, and some ranchers worry flyovers by low-flying, 146-foot-long aircraft will spook their cattle. The Powder River Training Complex, centered just northwest of where South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana meet, now spans about 6,000 square miles. The space can accommodate only one or two bombers at a time, so some B-1B Lancers from South Dakota's Ellsworth Air Force Base and B-52 Stratofortress bombers from North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base have had to fly as far as Nevada for their combat exercises, said George Stone, Ellsworth's airspace manager. Nelson said he's concerned about a flare hitting one of his natural gas wells or sparking a grass fire, and he worries about how falling debris will affect sheep that are lambing. "Having airplanes thunder over the top of them at 500 feet dropping magnesium flares and chaff is not going to be conducive to a good lamb crop,'' he said...read more

Plan aims to protect tallgrass prairie

A conservation initiative seeks to preserve up to 1 million acres of tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills — some of the last stands of tallgrass in the nation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering buying voluntary conservation easements in 14 Kansas counties. Participating landowners would have control over day-to-day operations on their land, and be able to pass it on or sell it. The easements would prevent landowners from developing the land for residential or commercial use. The plan, still being developed, also might govern how much or where wind-energy operations could be placed, said Amy Thornburg with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver. The purchase, which would have to be approved by the secretary of the Interior, would be funded with proceeds collected by the federal government from offshore oil and gas leases. If the program is approved, Elam said, it would most likely begin in 2011...read more

Judge orders construction of Nevada gold mine halted

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ordered a temporary halt to construction at Barrick Gold of North America’s Cortez Hills Mine in Lander County, Nev. The ruling is a blow to Barrick, which has nearly completed construction of the Cortez Hills facilities and is developing the open pit with an expectation of production beginning early next year. It’s a victory for environmental organizations and Western Shoshone tribes that filed an appeal after the U.S. District Court in Reno denied their request for an injunction against the project. “We think it’s very significant. How long it stays in place is another question,” said Julie Cavanaugh Bill of the Western Shoshone Defense Project, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over its approval of the Cortez Hills project. “We’re very pleased, but we feel bad for the contractors and workers.” Barrick and Bureau of Land Management officials declined comment early Thursday evening. The three-panel appeals court in San Francisco approved the appeal,claiming the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to perform sufficient study of dewatering impacts and potential mercury air emissions for ore transport at the mine...read more

EPA financial requirements could slam explorers and other U.S. small miners

EPA's intention to propose regulations requiring hardrock mining companies to post financial assurance with the agency has got explorers and miners fighting mad. During an environmental panel at the Northwest Mining Association meeting in Reno, National Mining Associate General Counsel Tammy Bridgeford accused the EPA of exaggerating "potential exposures and risk from modern mining operations." The agency's CERCLA Financial Responsibility Initiative for the Hardrock Mining Industry is aimed at improving financial assurance for new and operating hardrock mines and for mine site cleanups. EPA contends it is spending "significant resources on environmental review and permitting of new and operating mines and on mine clean ups." While well-funded mining operations have completed mine reclamation, the EPA claims, "there are many examples where mine operators have failed to make adequate financial provisions for closure costs and this has resulted in the abandonment of sites in unsafe and unacceptable environmental conditions. In these cases, state and federal agencies bear the financial burden of cleaning up the site." The EPA chose hardrock mining as its first priority for developing financial responsibility requirements for Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), more commonly known as Superfund...read more

America's Great Horse Culture in Peril

It's near midnight as a two-tier cattle truck climbs a hill 50 miles from Tulsa, OK, grinding and spitting from its lumbering load. The grueling 1,000 mile trek that began at a horse auction near Waukegon, Illinois is far from over, as the truck's destination is a Texas holding pen earmarked for slaughter-bound horses nearly 355 miles away. If the truck makes it across the state line, it will deliver nearly 50 horses----yearlings, pregnant mares, registered Thoroughbreds, purebred Arabians, wild Mustangs and ponies, Appaloosas, and newly born foals to a Mexican slaughter house. While these equines have individual stories and backgrounds, they share one commonality: They were all purchased at auction by what is known in the industry as "kill buyers" who are fulfilling independent contracts with the slaughter house. As many as 22 horses have already died en route due to kicking injuries, water and food deprivation, and suffocation since departing the auction nearly 72 hours earlier. This scene is not set in the Dust Bowl era. The overweight, fragile truck is not filled with John Steinbeck's endearing "Joad" family seeking a better life . It's a glimpse into the all too real underworld of horse slaughter transport to plants located in Mexico and Canada-----fostering a highly egregious form of animal cruelty that continues unabated in the U.S. despite years of bitter public and political opposition...read more

Gives you some insight on why they are winning.

Livestock leaders: Fight back with social media

The nation's ranchers are coming increasingly under attack from animal rights activists, leaders of the Kansas Livestock Association told their members at their convention Thursday. And one of the main ways to fight back? Blogging, tweeting and writing on Facebook. It may not have been welcome news for many in the room. "You may not think you're cut out for that," KLA vice president Todd Domer told them, "but you better get cut out for it. It's the future of the business." He and other industry leaders see the industry and the rancher lifestyle as under attack from Internet-savvy activists who are playing on the public's ignorance with biased or incorrect information. Fighting back means getting the message out that ranchers produce beef and other meats in a safe and humane fashion. Ranchers start with a big advantage: more than 97 percent of Americans eat meat and prefer beef, said Dan Thompson, director of Kansas State University's Beef Cattle Institute. "We're the home team," he said. But questions have been raised in the minds of many Americans by animal rights activists. People wonder whether the food is safe and the animals are well treated...read more

TSCRA Opposes House Bill To Extend Estate Tax

The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA) expressed strong disappointment today after the U.S. House of Representatives failed to truly reform the estate tax, also known as the death tax. The House passed H.R. 4154, a bill that if signed into law, will permanently extend the estate tax at the 2009 levels, without provisions to adjust it for inflation. The House bill will freeze the estate tax rate at its current level of 45 percent, a level that will hurt Texas ranchers who wish to pass their cattle operations on to their children and grandchildren. Virtually all ranchers are affected by the estate tax, as over 97 percent have been ranching for more than one generation and nearly 15 percent ranch on land that has been in their family for more than 100 years. The estate tax is considered one of the leading causes of the breakup of multi-generation family operations, as these estates are five to 20 times more likely to incur estate taxes, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. TSCRA strongly supports a full repeal of the estate tax; however, until this is a possibility, TSCRA supports lower tax rates, higher estate exemptions, and agricultural and wildlife production exemptions...read more

Song Of The Day #193

On The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine recorded in 1951 by Hal "Lone Pine" & Betty Cody is our tune this Friday.

The song is available on their 30 track CD On The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine.

I hope you like it, cause it's in their twice and just keeps playing, and I'm too damn tired to fix it.



Thursday, December 03, 2009

Obama science advisers grilled over hacked e-mails

House Republicans pointed to controversial e-mails leaked from climate scientists and said it was evidence of corruption. Top administration scientists looking at the same thing found no such sign, saying it doesn't change the fact that the world is warming. The e-mails from a British university's climate center were obtained by computer hackers and posted online about two weeks ago. Climate change skeptics contend the messages reveal that researchers manipulated and suppressed data and stifled dissent, and conservative bloggers are dubbing it "Climategate." In the first Capitol Hill airing of the issue, House Republicans Wednesday read excerpts from at least eight of the e-mails, saying they showed the world needs to re-examine experts' claims that the science on warming is settled. One e-mail from 2003 was by John Holdren, then of Harvard University and now the president's science adviser. The exploding controversy led Phil Jones to step aside as head of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, the source of the e-mail exchanges. The university is investigating the matter. Penn State University also is looking into e-mails by its own researcher, Michael Mann. House Republicans asked for a separate hearing or investigation into the issue, but were rebuffed by Democrats. "These e-mails show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit," said U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. The science is proper and this is about a small fraction of research on the issue, said Holdren, a physicist who has studied climate change...read more

Hage saga government at its worst

The case of Nevada rancher Wayne Hage should serve as a warning to all farmers and ranchers who depend on the cooperation of the federal government to make a living. What Hage and his family went through during 30-plus years of fighting with the government can best be described as a nightmare. In 1991, Hage sued the federal government in an attempt to regain access to the national forest grazing allotments. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed with the government that the cattle were trespassing. However, in 2008, the court also agreed with Hage's lawyers that the government had taken his water rights, ditch rights-of-way, roads, water facilities and other structures. As compensation, the court ordered the government to pay Hage $4.22 million. It a final act of petulence, the government went back to court and asked the judge to reduce that award. The government claimed there was no proof Hage had built the fences, trails, pipelines and other facilities. He could only be compensated if he could prove he had built the facilities. Since Hage had died in 2006, the government's lawyers apparently thought they had a good chance of escaping from the damage it had done to Hage and his family. They were wrong. In a final twist, Senior Judge Loren Smith turned the government's request on its ear. Instead of reducing the judgment, he added $150,000 to the $4.22 million already awarded...read more

The editorial goes on to call this the "saddest chapter in the history of the U.S. Forest Service" and hopes "it is also one the federal government chooses not to repeat." It may not be the saddest chapter, but it is the saddest one brought to light as a result of the intellect and fortitude of Wayne Hage. The feds will repeat this and worse, unless there are others out there with the courage and wherewithall to stand up to them. It will, unfortunately, take more than one victory to push back the feds and they will employ all their powers to keep this case from setting a precedent. You just watch'em.

Bedkes file suit for '07 cattle seizure

Three Oakley residents are suing the federal government and Cassia County officials for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by seizing 31 head of cattle and selling them at auction in 2007. The lawsuit was filed Aug. 20 in U.S. District Court by Jared K. Bedke, Bruce Byron Bedke and Martha Jean Bedke, who live in the Oakley Basin, against the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Idaho State Brand Inspector, various Cassia County and sheriff’s office employees, along with other defendants. The Bedkes are seeking $1.5 million in actual and punitive damages along with their costs and fees, according to district court records. The suit claims that BLM unfairly managed the Goose Creek Group Allotment, south of Oakley, where the Bedkes and other ranchers grazed livestock. It charges that BLM allegedly exceeded its authority when it divided the range into private allotments. The plaintiffs claim that created the hardship of moving their cattle 20 miles instead of the usual two miles. Court records say Bruce Bedke refused to sign a new contract requiring him to maintain the fences surrounding his portion of the allotment and bear the entire cost. The lawsuit claims that although a group of ranchers enlisted BLM in 1963 to mediate the division of rangeland, it was not public land. According to the complaint the Bedkes allege there was no court order or warrant issued allowing the seizure of the cattle. They say they met with the Cassia County sheriff to request he protect their private property rights. The Bedkes also asked a Cassia County district judge to grant a temporary restraining order, which was denied...read more

Federal agency says prairie dogs not endangered

Black-tailed prairie dogs were denied protection under the Endangered Species Act on Wednesday after federal officials concluded the once prevalent species shows signs of rebounding. Decades of poisoning, shootings, the plague and loss of habitat to agriculture are blamed for a dramatic drop in prairie dog numbers since the early 1900s, from roughly one billion animals to an estimated 24 million today. In 2007, the New Mexico-based environmental activist group WildEarth Guardians petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the animal as threatened or endangered. But the agency said Wednesday the population is slowly spreading despite continued pressure from sickness and deliberate killings. "They reached a low point in approximately 1961 and have bounced back pretty good since then," said Joy Gober, the Fish and Wildlife biologist who drafted the decision. A representative of WildEarth Guardians said a federal court challenge to the ruling was likely...read more

The Dominoes Fall

The architect of climate fraud steps down, the creator of the infamous "hockey stick" is investigated, and Australia's parliament defeats cap-and-trade. We love the smell of truth in the morning. As the high priests of what Czech President Vaclav Klaus has called a "religion" prepare their pilgrimage to worship the earth goddess Gaia in Copenhagen, complete with humanity being sacrificed, the heresy of climate truth is finally being heard. The gospel of climate change, once expressed with the messianic fervor of an Elmer Gantry by Al Gore, is now expressed with the stammering incoherence of an Elmer Fudd by the defenders of doctored and destroyed data. This environmental house of cards has started to collapse and hopefully heads have begun to roll. Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, fast becoming the Bernie Madoff of climate change research, has agreed to step aside for a time while his and the perfidy of his peers are reviewed. He should be gone permanently...read more

Cap-And-Trade Loss A Stunner In Aussie Vote

Cap-and-trade in Australia — which just a week ago was declared a certainty — is officially dead. This is the first major climate change turnaround anywhere in the Western world, with significant implications for our domestic debate. Combined with the Climate-gate e-mails revealing the data suppression and deceit underpinning "scientific consensus," the whole climate change alarmism house of cards is coming crashing down. Early last week, the leader of Australia's conservative opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, announced that he had reached agreement with the government to implement cap-and-trade, thus binding his party to support it in parliament en bloc. The agreement was signed, sealed and delivered — cap-and-trade would become law with bipartisan support. Its passage was a certainty. The elite rejoiced. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the Senate: The Australian public woke up. The days that followed were simply stunning. An unprecedented, uncoordinated and spontaneous grass-roots campaign erupted to force the opposition to reverse course. Political offices went into meltdown, unable to cope with the torrent of phone calls, faxes and e-mails opposing what was effectively a massive tax hike. By the end of the week, 14 members of the opposition leadership had resigned in protest. As the public outcry intensified, Turnbull refused to back down, staking his entire reputation and future on his passionate support for cap-and-trade. He violently attacked true conservatives, and repeatedly cried out that to win government you must be "moderate." So on early Tuesday morning, opposition parliamentarians met and voted to replace him. For the first time since 1916, the leader of a major Australian political party was deposed on the grounds of just one policy decision: the decision to support cap-and-trade...read more

Court rejects lawsuit over polar bears

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ruled against an environmental group that had sued the federal government for allowing oil industry activities to occur in areas that polar bears also use. The bears are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The appeals court upheld a lower-court decision against the Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment. The two environmental groups argued that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service wrongly issued regulations that allow oil industry activity along the Beaufort Sea coast that could accidentally harass or kill polar bears. The appeals court said the wildlife service found that past interaction between the bears and the oil industry has been minimal. The industry mostly operates on land, far from the ice floes that polar bears prefer, that the industry activity is unlikely to impede bear movement and that no bears had been killed by industrial activity since 1993, the wildlife service concluded, according to the appeals court...read more

Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Dept. of Envt’l Protection

TAKINGS CLAUSE, JUDICIAL TAKINGS, ACCRETION, COASTAL PROPERTY, FEDERALISM

In order to combat beach erosion, the Florida Legislature passed the Beach and Shore Preservation Act. The act authorized local municipalities to restore the coastline by adding sand, creating a temporary buffer against erosion. Petitioner Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. (“SBR”) claims that Respondents Florida Department of Environmental Protection, et al. (“Florida”) misused the statute in order to unconstitutionally appropriate private beaches for public use without just compensation. SBR alleges that the Florida Supreme Court violated the due process and takings clauses by suddenly and unpredictably changing state substantive law to deprive SBR of its private property without compensation. SBR asks the court, for the first time, to explicitly articulate a doctrine of “judicial takings” in order to address the growing problem of state judiciaries redefining property rights out of existence so that states can avoid compensating property owners. Florida argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should avoid interfering in state court interpretation of state law out of respect for federalism. Florida contends that, even if there were a situation where a doctrine of judicial takings should be imposed, this is not one of them, because the Florida Supreme Court properly followed common law precedent...read more

Ted Turner gets OK for Yellowstone bison on ranch

Montana’s wildlife agency has given preliminary approval to a plan calling for 74 bison from Yellowstone National Park to go to billionaire Ted Turner’s private ranch. Officials hope to eventually use the bison to establish new herds on public lands. But conservationists see the move as privatizing Montana wildlife. The bison have been held in federal quarantine for the past several years to make sure they don’t have the animal disease brucellosis. Turner offered to hold them for five years — the duration of the quarantine program — in exchange for keeping 90 percent of their offspring. That could amount to about 190 animals to offset his costs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the quarantine in Corwin Springs, Mont., also opposes the move. Turner Enterprises general manager Russell Miller said Ted Turner stepped in after Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer asked if he would consider submitting a proposal for the animals. Turner wanted to help the state after prior efforts to relocate the Yellowstone bison had failed, Miller said. The animals would be kept on a 12,000-acre parcel within the billionaire’s 113,000-acre ranch south of Bozeman. State officials were initially reluctant to put the animals on private land. But McDonald said the bison faced possible slaughter if no home was found...read more

Ely mayor charged with entering BWCA illegally

Ely Mayor Roger Skraba faces three federal counts of wilderness violations in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Skraba, 48, was charged Nov. 9 with three misdemeanors in U.S. District Court in Duluth. One is for entering the northeastern Minnesota wilderness without a permit, another is for possessing or using a motor vehicle in it, and the third is for removing property. The alleged violations occurred on Crooked Lake on March 22, 2007, before Skraba began a two-year term as mayor of Ely, gateway city to the popular federal wilderness area. He also served an earlier term. Skraba is owner and guide for YaTaHey Outdoors, a wilderness guide and snowmobile rental company. In a telephone interview, Skraba said he isn't able to address the charges because he doesn't know the specifics and a public defender appointed a week ago to defend him has told him not to say anything. "A Forest Service agent apparently has information I was in the Boundary Waters with the snowmobile,'' he said. "I don't know. I can't say...read more

Who Are Those Guys?

According to a recent story from AP, a pilot flying over remote Malheur County, Oregon, caught a rare glimpse of part of a gang of five or six men thought to be responsible for the theft of approximately "1,240 cattle worth $1.2 million over the last three years from Malheur County ranches." Another 500 in Nevada are missing, plus more in Owyhee County, Idaho. The pilot observed two proficient horsemen driving roughly 125 cows across the empty landscape. The riders seemed to purposely not look up as the plane buzzed them. They just kept riding and finally the plane veered off. Unfortunately, the pilot didn't bother to report the sighting for a week. That sighting was last spring, and none have occurred since, though the rustling continues. It's a cliché to say that cattle rustling is as old as the West, but it is. Probably related to the weak economy, rustling cases in Texas alone have almost tripled in one year, from roughly 2,400 in 2007 to 6,400 in 2008. The country is as tough as Deputy Wroten's opinion of the rustlers. It's about 25,000 square miles of mostly Bureau of Land Management (BLM) federal holdings leased for grazing to ranchers in Southeastern Oregon, Southwestern Idaho, and Northern Nevada...read more

Ag Groups Call for Death to NAIS

One cannot help but wonder if the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has bitten off more than it can chew when it comes to tracking animals. Five years and $147 million after USDA opted to implement an animal tracking system based on the Australian model, it's far from a done deal. In fact, in late November, USDA and Congress both received letters signed by 100 agricultural groups advocating death for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). NAIS, says the letter from the Ag groups, "is an ill-conceived, burdensome, and badly implemented solution for achieving the national objective of improving animal disease prevention and control in the United States." Australia, the second largest exporter of beef from a continent that is "Mad Cow" free, has a "birth-to-death" tracking system for its farm animals that uses a national database to keep track of every ownership change. The system, which was up and running by 2006, uses an encrypted ear tag that uses a 15-digit number to identify the animal. The tag transmits the number to machines whenever animals are moved or sold, and the data is ultimately uploaded to the national database of Australia's 28 million head of cattle. Canada opted for a system that is not as comprehensive as Australia's, but rather "bookends" the ownership records at birth and immediately prior to slaughter...read more

Book Chronicles Life of West Texas Rancher Turned Outlaw on the Run

In the dying days of the Old West, the true-life story of West Texas rancher Noah Wilkerson earned a small, but captivating, place in the era’s history. In the new book, Guilty…But Not As Charged, Wilkerson’s life became a case of Old West justice when he went from family man to a convicted murderer for a crime he may — or may not — have committed. A self-made man with little formal education living in Coleman County, Texas, Wilkerson was a headstrong landowner used to doing things his way and answering to no one. Nothing about Noah suggested timidity. A man of few words, Wilkerson never really “fit in” with those around him. Nevertheless, he owned a successful cattle and horse ranch as well as a home for his wife and nine children. His ordinary life, however, suddenly became entangled with many questions and few answers when a debatable arrest and conviction for murder led him to a new existence — as an outlaw on the run with a price over his head. Leaving his family and home life behind, Wilkerson escaped from jail and traveled through three states before being tracked down. The result of years of research and numerous interviews with members of the Wilkerson family tree, Guilty… But Not As Charged is a fascinating, well-documented examination of this somewhat complex man whose decisions ultimately put him on the wrong end of a lawman’s gun...read more

Song Of The Day #192

This morning Ranch Radio brings you The Blackboard Of My Heart recorded in 1956 by Hank Thompson.

My version is from his 12 disc box set Hank Thompson & His Brazos Valley Boys (1946-1964) which has been discontinued and is now very expensive.


Wednesday, December 02, 2009

A tribal attempt to protect Mount Taylor sparks a battle over ancient claims to the land

From the top of Mount Taylor, mountains, valleys and mesas unfold into the hazy blue distance; on clear days, you can see all the way to Arizona. The Navajo call the 11,301-foot-tall peak Tsoodzil, and say it marks one of the four directional boundaries of their spiritual world. The Acoma, who call it Kaweshtima, believe it was created by two sisters who also gave life to plants and animals; it's still home to beings such as Shakak, the Spirit of Winter and the North. To the Zuni, the mountain is Dewankwin Kyaba:chu Yalannee. So, two years ago, the Zuni joined the pueblos of Acoma and Laguna, Arizona's Hopi Tribe and the Navajo Nation in asking the state of New Mexico to protect this hodgepodge of federal, state and private lands as a traditional cultural property. The TCP designation seemed like the best way to protect the mountain because it doesn't restrict public access, says Theresa Pasqual, historic preservation officer for Acoma Pueblo, the lead sponsor. The mountain remains open for everything from grazing and wood-gathering to hiking, snowmobiling and mountain biking. Even so, the proposal didn't sit right with many local landowners. It violates private property rights, says Joy Burns, whose family has been running cattle on Mount Taylor for generations. Today, her family's Elkins Ranch spreads across some 16,000 acres on the east side of the mountain, right below the summit --smack-dab within the TCP's boundaries. "If I file the necessary papers and get the necessary permits, I don't think that any group should be able to tell us about my property," she says. The issue of uranium mining aside, she fears the designation will affect her family's ability to log or hunt on their own lands. It's not fair, she says. Indeed, as the process moved along, it started rumors of a "land grab." Tempers began to simmer. Then, into the midst of this growing furor, stepped a Christian self-help author who promotes energy development in the name of the Lord...read more

U.K. Climate Scientist Steps Down; Penn State Inquiry on Mann

The British scientist at the heart of a scandal over climate-change research temporarily stepped down Tuesday as director of a prominent research group amid an internal probe that follows the release of hacked emails involving him and other scientists. The University of East Anglia in the U.K. said Phil Jones, head of the university's Climatic Research Unit, had decided to step aside from the director's post, less than a week before world leaders are set to meet for a climate summit in Copenhagen. The two-week conference, sponsored by the United Nations, is supposed to come up with tougher policies to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and slow global warming. The need for such action has been buttressed in large part by research by Dr. Jones and his colleagues in East Anglia and around the world. But hackers recently stole emails and documents from the East Anglia center that suggested Dr. Jones and other like-minded scientists tried to squelch the views of dissenting researchers and possibly manipulated or destroyed data. The fallout from the hacked emails is spreading beyond the U.K. Also Tuesday, Penn State University confirmed that Michael Mann -- a climate scientist on its faculty who figures prominently in the emails -- is under "inquiry" by the university. Dr. Mann's work reconstructing historic global temperatures has, over the past decade, become a focal point of debate. Penn State said in a statement that its inquiry, which stems from disclosed emails written by Dr. Mann, is a preliminary step to determine whether a full investigation is needed...read more

The Convergence of "Health Care" & "Climate Change"

The Climate and Health Council, a collaboration of worldwide health organisations including the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society of Medicine, believes there is a direct link between climate change and better health. Their controversial plan would see GPs and nurses give out advice to their patients on how to lower their carbon footprint. The Council believes that climate change “threatens to radically undermine the health of all peoples”. It believes health professionals are ideally placed to promote change because “we have ethical responsibility…..as well as the capacity to influence people and our political representatives to take the necessary action”...read more

You knew it was coming. Nationalize the health care system and the politicians will soon be pushing their agenda through your physician and other health care providers.

Forest Service 'Dramatically Reshaping' Plans in Response to Climate Change

Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell has directed the agency's regions and research stations to jointly produce draft "landscape conservation action plans" by March 1 to guide its day-to-day response to climate change. In a memo (pdf) earlier this month requesting the plans, Tidwell said climate change is "dramatically reshaping" how the agency will deliver on its mission of sustaining the health and diversity of the nation's forests. He focused particularly on water management. "Responding to the challenges of climate change in providing water and water-related ecosystem services is one of the most urgent tasks facing us as an agency," Tidwell wrote. "History will judge us by how well we respond to these challenges." Tidwell said the agency's task is to translate the overall strategic framework for responding to climate change, which was released last month, into its daily operations. He directed regional foresters and station directors to work together to prepare "aggressive and well-coordinated" area-specific action plans for landscape conservation...read more

Salazar Plots Cautious Course at Interior

When President Obama appointed the former Colorado senator Ken Salazar as Interior secretary almost a year ago, he said that he was taking the helm of the federal government’s most troubled agency. Mr. Obama directed Mr. Salazar to reverse eight years of Bush administration actions on lands, energy, mining and endangered species and to end a culture of coziness with industries the agency was supposed to regulate. He also ordered Mr. Salazar to find ways to tap the abundant sources of energy - wind, solar, hydro and geothermal - on public lands as a way of fighting climate change and fostering energy independence. The Interior Department, responsible for roughly a fifth of the land mass of the United States, has in recent years been wracked by scandal, bad morale, obsolete technology and lack of a clear policy direction. Mr. Salazar, a modest fifth-generation rancher who favors cowboy hats and bolo ties, moved quickly to undo many of his predecessors’ policies with a series of legal and administrative actions. But his cautious approach to many contentious issues, like hunting of the gray wolf and oil drilling on sensitive lands, has exposed him to criticism from the left and the right. Environmental advocates complain he has been too timid on a number of resource issues, while oil and timber interests have criticized his policies as too protectionist...read more

Forest Service to Reconsider Night Flying

Los Angeles County's aerial firefighters are proud of the skill that lets them pinpoint water and flame-retardant drops after the sun goes down. Now they want the U.S. Forest Service to let them show what they can do. The Forest Service agreed on Tuesday to review its longstanding rule against aerial drops after dark above National Forest Service land. The rule is intended to keep firefighters safe and reduce the chance of an accident that could actually make matters worse, often deep inside national forests. But the agency budged at least a little because of formal requests from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The county's aerial firefighters regularly do their job after dark, most recently and dramatically in late August when an evening blaze threatened million dollar homes on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. That blaze was out in a few hours. One month later, when the massive, 250-square mile Station Fire killed two firefighters and destroyed 89 homes, mostly near Glendale, county firefighters said they could have done more to stop the blaze if they had been allowed to fly after dark above National Forest Service land near L.A. County's foothill communities. The county's formal review of the Station Fire said as much...read more

Director of the Bureau of Land Management: Who Is Bob Abbey?

Confirmed on August 6, 2009, President Obama’s Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is a twenty-five year veteran of the agency who was put forward for the position by Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the powerful Senate Majority Leader. Born circa 1951 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Abbey is a 1969 graduate of Clarksdale High School. He went on to earn a B.S. in Resource Management from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1973. Abbey spent more than 32 years in public service, working with state and federal land management agencies before retiring from the federal government in July 2005. Straight out of college, Abbey took a job with the Mississippi State Park system, where he worked for more than four years before accepting a position with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi. In that job, he first interacted with the BLM, to which he soon applied for a job. Abbey was hired by BLM in 1980 for a position in its Casper, Wyoming, field office. Between 1980 and 1992, Abbey worked there, moving on to positions as assistant district manager in Yuma, Arizona and as budget analyst in Washington, D.C. In 1992, Abbey was promoted to head of the Jackson, Mississippi, field office, where he remained into 1995, when he was named acting state BLM director in Colorado, where he served from 1995 through 1997. From 1997 to 2005, Abbey served as the Nevada State Director for BLM, providing oversight for 48 million acres of public land managed by the bureau in the state. Abbey retired in July 2005, after which he became a partner in a private consulting firm called Abbey, Stubbs, & Ford, LLC, which had offices in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. He also served as a member of the University of Nevada College of Agriculture Dean’s Advisory Committee and as a board member on several statewide and national non-profit organizations, including Friends of Nevada Wilderness...read more

Colo. lawmakers seek to extend Pinon Canyon ban

Four members of Colorado's congressional delegation are asking lawmakers to extend a ban on spending money to expand the Army's Pinon Canyon training site. Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet and Reps. John Salazar and Betsy Markey asked a House-Senate conference committee on Tuesday to renew the ban through September 2010. The four Democrats cite unanswered questions about the need. The current ban expires Dec. 18. It's been in place since 2007. The Army wants to expand the site from 238,000 acres, or 370 square miles, to 338,000 acres, or 525 square miles. Commanders say they need the space for new weapons and tactics and additional soldiers. Ranchers fear the loss of so much agricultural land and say the Army hasn't demonstrated the need for it. AP

Activist at Utah oil auction to assert new defense

The federal government has acknowledged it never prosecuted anyone who failed to pay a bid for drilling rights in Utah until a college student offered his bogus bids in an act of environmental defiance. The admission is giving defense lawyers for Tim DeChristopher hope they can get the two felony charges against him dismissed based on an argument of selective prosecution. DeChristopher has said he offered bids last December that he couldn't cover to protect public lands between Arches and Canyonlands national parks in Utah, and to draw attention to climate change. Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they had disclosed a number of cases where drilling companies or land agents made bids at Utah auctions they didn't cover financially. The reasons weren't immediately clear. Defense lawyers said that shows the government is unfairly singling out DeChristopher for prosecution. Government lawyers dispute that and said DeChristopher — unlike other bidders — showed intent to violate the law...read more

Montana ranchers seek to curb residential wells

Ranchers in Montana are asking state officials to stop giving away water use rights to tens of thousands of new homes being built in areas once dominated by agriculture. Across the arid West, residential subdivisions and agricultural interests are vying for control of water supplies that have emerged as one of the region's most coveted natural resources. In the latest skirmish between the two groups, a group of Montana ranch owners on Tuesday filed a petition with the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, charging the state's water rules were stacked against them. The rules allow the small wells used by each house within larger subdivisions to qualify for exemptions from laws that otherwise give precedence to the "senior" rights of farms and ranches. Rancher Polly Rex says that's a loophole that could ultimately rob her of the means to grow hay and water her livestock. AP

PETA Wants to Help U.S. Troops Take a Bite Out of Bin Laden

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is featuring a vegan chocolate candy stamped with the likeness of Osama bin Laden in its holiday gift catalog. This is the same animal "rights" group that gave President Barack Obama a catch-and-release insect trap after he was shown swatting a fly during a television interview. The “Bin Laden Bites” are being marketed as dairy-free “delights” that will give U.S. troops in Afghanistan a way to get “some sweet revenge by taking a bite out of Osama’s head.” “We decided to include the chocolates in PETA’s catalog in memory of the animals who died of starvation and dehydration when their guardians were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center,” Rajt said, noting that some animals were left without care after their owners died in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. PETA says other animals died when apartments were sealed off following the attacks, including dogs, cats, “companion” rats and mice, guinea pigs, gerbils, rabbits, and fish...read more

Baxter Black: 'Tis the season to be thankful

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for many things large and small. For instance, on the world stage, I am thankful that Saddam Hussein finally got what he had coming. But I'm also thankful for more personal things like the fact that there are still airports and convenience stores that have pay phones. They are as rare as a kind word for a legislator, but they are essential to us Verizaphobes. I'm thankful that we have not had a terrorist act in our country since Sept. 11, because of the strength and dedication of our troops stationed around the world in harm's way. On a small note, it is comforting that I can still find a restaurant that is not a chain store. One where the chef is really a chef and not a reheater! I'm thankful to see roads being built and repaired as part of our economic stimulus plan. It's long overdue, and it is creating jobs. Less world-shaking, I'm thankful I have friends and family who care enough to remind me of an anniversary, birthday or obscure bank holiday that I probably would have forgotten. I think it stems from being part of the agrarian community where every day is a holiday, or a work day, depending on your point of view. The livestock need fed rain or shine, Sunday or Monday, July 4 or April 15...read more

Song Of The Day #191













Today's tune on Ranch Radio is Ridin' The Same Old Range by Andy Parker and The Plainsmen.

My version of the song is on the 40 track 2 CD collection Call Of The Rollin' Plains. Amazon is not offering it, but they do have the 27 track CD Texas Belle by the group.


Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Leaked emails won't harm UN climate body, says chairman

There is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair said today. Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panel's fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007. The emails were made public this month after a hacker illegally obtained them from servers at the university. Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered. "The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said...read more

Arctic ice meltdown remains severe: Scientist

Studies suggesting the Arctic sea ice has made a modest recovery following its record-setting retreat in 2007 are misleading and underestimate the severity of the polar meltdown, says one of Canada's top ice scientists. David Barber, Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, says satellite images used to track the overall extent of Arctic ice don't adequately perceive how weak and "rotten" the region's older, thicker, multi-year ice cover has become. His findings, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggest a transformative change in Arctic ecosystems is accelerating and that safe shipping in polar waters during the summer and fall will begin much sooner than many experts predict. "In 2008 and 2009 satellite data showed a growth in Arctic sea ice extension leaving some to reckon global warming was reversing," states a summary of the research. "Contrary to what satellites recently suggested, we are actually speeding up the loss of the remaining, healthy, multi-year sea ice."...read more

National parks seek share in discoveries

A soon-to-be-implemented policy for scientists who are permitted to conduct research in national parks will give the National Park Service a share of profits from their work. The policy is expected to go into effect early next year following more than a decade of concern and a lawsuit over "bioprospecting" in Yellowstone National Park. Bioprospecting -- a hybrid of the words "biodiversity" and "prospecting" -- is the search for organisms that promise scientific breakthroughs in medicine and chemistry. "This is about the public, which owns places like Yellowstone, getting some kind of benefit if someone has a commercial product based on research which started in the park," Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said. The new "benefits sharing" policy does not specify what percentage of profit the National Park Service should receive in every case. But a document released Monday outlining the policy offers a rough estimate of the potential benefit to the park system -- between $635,000 and $3.9 million a year, eventually. The policy applies to all 84 million acres in the national park system, including the more than 200 parks hosting independent research. In those parks, including Yellowstone, the main quarry of bioprospectors is bacteria...read more