Monday, November 07, 2011

Sheriff's rhetoric alarms enviros and game dept.

At a recent rally of at least 700 farmers, tea party members and conservative activists, Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey spoke in almost revolutionary terms, framing the actions of federal and state regulators as threats the county's livelihood. His message drew hearty applause from the audience, many of whom feel literally under attack. But it worries American Indian tribe members, fisheries regulators and environmentalists in a legal and policy fight to protect salmon. They say the rhetoric might inflame a tense situation, leading to possible retaliation from those who might take Lopey's message too far. Lopey, a retired Army Reserve colonel who served in Afghanistan, likened efforts at dam removal and restrictions on irrigation water and access to public forest land to friendly fire. The crowd cheered when he said he was sworn to protect the U.S. Constitution and the citizenry from all enemies, "both foreign and domestic." "We are, right now, in a fight for our survival," he told them. "We are fighting not only for ourselves. More importantly, we're fighting for the survival of our counties, of our local communities and our children and our grandchildren. If we don't save things like agriculture and we let them take our water and land and push us off, we won't have any public safety. We'll have no quality of life. We'll have nothing." At his side were seven other sheriffs from Northern California and Southern Oregon, including those representing Shasta, Tehama and Trinity counties. Each later echoed Lopey's concerns that environmental regulation is causing a direct threat to their constituents' safety...more

Enviro Erica Terence said the Sheriff's speech follows a pattern of intimidation toward people who don't share the county's point of view, and would "elevate the rights of some people over the rights of others."  Now that's humorous.  Her ilk have been promoting the rights of animals & plants over people's right to property or to sustain a living and along comes a public servant who doesn't share her view and she is "alarmed".  Personally, I'm tired of these eat roots & shoots, hug your heifer types doing more than just intimidating ag producers.  They've been putting them out of business, destroying families, ruining school districts and generally running roughshod over rural America and I'm pleased to see the Sheriff offer a lawful challenge.

Then along comes Dept. of Fish & Game Assistant Chief Mike Carion who told the paper his wardens have heard of "vague threats" for about a year, although not from a particular person or group.  Now if it didn't come from a person, nor from a group of persons, then where the hell did it come from...the fish?  Either Carion was born silly and had a relapse, or the salmon have finally figured out  these envirocrats are not their friend.





Wind Farms Disrupting Radar, Scientists Say

Rain Storm or Wind Farm?
Wind farms, along with solar power and other alternative energy sources, are supposed to produce the energy of tomorrow. Evidence indicates that their countless whirring fan blades produce something else: "blank spots" that distort radar readings. Now government agencies that depend on radar -- such as the Department of Defense and the National Weather Service -- are spending millions in a scramble to preserve their detection capabilities. A four-star Air Force general recently spelled out the problem to Dave Beloite, the director of the Department of Defense’s Energy Siting Clearinghouse. "Look there’s a radar here -- one of our network of Homeland surveillance radars -- and [if you build this wind farm] you essentially are going to put my eyes out in the Northwestern corner of the United States,” Beloite related during a web conference in April. Spinning wind turbines make it hard to detect incoming planes. To avoid that problem, military officials have blocked wind farm construction near their radars -- and in some cases later allowed them after politicians protested. Shepherd’s Flat, a wind farm under construction in Oregon, was initially held up by a government notice that the farm would “seriously impair the ability of the (DoD) to detect, monitor and safely conduct air operations." Then Oregon’s senators got involved. In addition to the cost of the radar development, taxpayers are on the hook for more than $1 billion in subsidies for the construction of the Shepherd’s Flat wind farm, according to a 2010 memo from Larry Summers and two other White House economic advisors...more

Mo. residents upset by order to move lake homes

Nearly every year, Patsy Riley has gotten unsolicited offers for her house on Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks with its spectacular views of tree-lined bluffs and its ample shoreline, but she never wanted to leave. Now, she and hundreds of her neighbors wonder what will become of their homes after a federal agency declared that many structures built close to the lake may have to go. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, citing restrictions on private developments around dams, says thousands of residences, decks, patios and boathouses appear to encroach on land belonging to the hydroelectric project in violation of federal regulations. The announcement has triggered panic in the area's lakefront communities and led to a growing battle among regulators, a utility company, land attorneys and the state's congressional delegation. Officials say they are searching for a way to settle the issue without mass evictions. "We are mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore," said Riley, who has lived at the lake for more than 30 years and estimates about half of her neighborhood is threatened...more

Back In the Game: Hunting trips aimed at healing combat veterans' spirits

On a recent day in South Texas, a fresh-faced Marine from Kemp, Texas, sits at a local rancher’s dining room table, talking about hunting and fishing. Sitting in a wheelchair, he also recounts in his steady Texas drawl how he lost his legs June 27. Lance Cpl. Jeff Knight, 23, was on his second tour in Afghanistan when the blast from an improvised explosive device sheered off both legs at the knee. It was just two months before his birthday, and Knight, a combat engineer, had been sweeping for mines during a patrol. The recounting is one of the few moments in the conversation in which his hint of a smile fades and his tone becomes serious. With his black cowboy hat propped on the table nearby, and the black gloves that help with his grip still on his hands, Knight talks not only about what happened to him, but also about the need to move forward. “The only thing you want is to just have what you had back … There’s nothing like getting just a little glimmer of that sense of normalcy,” he says. And that is just what Knight and others are doing in South Texas, as participants in a hunting and fishing excursion sponsored by the nonprofit Combat Marine Outdoors organization...more

Chart of the Week: U.S. Debt on Track to Fuel Economic Crisis Like Greece




Heritage

EPA to probe gas drilling's toll on drinking water

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday released the outlines of its long-awaited probe into whether hydraulic fracturing — the unconventional drilling technique that's led to a boom in domestic natural gas production — is contaminating drinking-water supplies. Investigators will try to determine the impact of large-scale water withdrawals, aboveground spills of drilling fluids, and the fracturing process itself on water quality and quantity in states where tens of thousands of wells have been drilled in recent years. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves the high-pressure injection of millions of gallons of water, along with sand and chemical additives, deep underground to extract natural gas trapped in shale rock. Energy companies have greatly expanded their use of fracking as they tap previously unreachable shale deposits, including the lucrative Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania and neighboring states. The industry has long contended that fracking is safe, but environmentalists and some residents who live near drilling sites say it has poisoned groundwater. The EPA study, mandated by Congress last year, is the agency's first look at the impact of fracking in shale deposits...more

More articles

Montana - Yellowstone Bison relocation delayed 

Ca. - Ranchers and religious pray for rain in San Isidro 

Oregon's wolf challenge, Washington's future?

Colo. - BLM plan could affect river access in Summit County

Colo. - Bighorn Sheep Blocking Plans for Alabaster Mine

Conservationists challenge ‘excessive logging’ in Black Hills

Song Of The Day #706


 Its Swingin' Monday on Ranch Radio and we bring you George Strait & Dean Dillon performing West Texas Town.

The tune is on his 12 track CD Troubadour.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Joe Delk & Family honored by the Western Swing Guild

In 1922 fiddlers Eck Robertson & Henry Gilliland recorded Arkansas Traveler and Turkey in the Straw for Victor Records, the first commercial recording of country music.

In 1923 Fiddlin’ John Carson had a country hit with Little Log Cabin in the Lane.

In 1934 seventeen year old fiddler Forrest Delk, while returning from a rained out dance had to jump gullies to get home.  From then on his band was called The Gully Jumpers.

In 2011 Joe Delk and his sons were recognized by the Western Swing Guild for their contributions to country music.

That’s 77 years of fiddlin’ and playing country dance music by the Delk Family.

The early country string bands originated in the Southern Appalachian Mountains and usually had the fiddle (Ireland), the guitar (Spain), the mandolin (Italy), the banjo (Africa) and the dulcimer (Germany).  From this emanated traditional country music and the “hot string bands”, later dubbed Western Swing.

The Western Swing Guild was founded by a group of dedicated musicians for the purpose of “preserving and promoting an integral part of American music history—the genres of music known as Western Swing and Traditional Country.”


This fall Joe Baker, President of the Western Swing Guild, and steel guitarist Jimmy Tomlinson surprised Joe Delk and his boys (Neal, Mark & Byron) by presenting them with a plaque honoring them for three generations of contributions to Traditional Country and Western Swing Music.   Baker told me, “the Delks were chosen in September, 2011 for their musical background beginning with Joe Delk’s father, Forrest, and then Joe and his three sons Mark, Byron, and Neal."  He continued, “the Delks musical history dates back to over 70 years. The WSG was honored to recognize the entire Delk family for they're contributions.”




In response, Joe Delk said, “The recognition of Delk Family Music by the Western Swing Guild is a testament to Forrest Delk’s legacy of playing traditional dance music for country folks.  My dad played for dances from 1934 until he died in 1996 and it never was about anything more than the love of music and folks having a good time dancing.  It was his way of giving back to the community.  He was, and still is, my inspiration.  Joe also said, "the recognition of my sons Neal, Mark and Byron by the Western Swing Guild, acknowledging their continuing contribution to the legacy of western swing dance music is the “icing on the cake” for me. I am so blessed to be in this place.”

Figuring she was in a unique place as both wife and mother, I asked Diane Delk what her feelings were about the whole thing. She obliged by saying, “I am one proud mamma! To see Joe and my boys be recognized for their music is certainly one of my greatest moments. What an amazing journey this has been.”




I’ve had the pleasure of dancing to Forrest Delk and to Joe Delk and his boys.  The first time I met Joe, 46 years ago, Joe had a fiddle in his hand.  I had a Coors in mine.  Many miles and moons have passed since then, but I’d like to add my admiration and thanks to him and his family for all they’ve done to preserve great music and our western way of life.




I’d also encourage everyone who enjoys the kind of music featured here at The Westerner to join The Western Swing Guild and help promote and preserve the music we love.  Just go to their website and sign up for their free newsletter.  And you can keep up with the Delk Band by visiting their website.




And the fiddle plays...

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy


Camo and ammo up!

 By Julie Carter

Something about the cool fall air that brings out the plaid jackets, crockpot recipes and the smell of cedar burning in a wood stove. It is also Mother Nature’s call-of-the-wild to the world of hunters.

The primal instinct to hunt and kill “a little winter meat” as it is said around here, rises up like sap in a maple tree. It is one of the few things I can think of that brings out in men the same stalk, kill and drag-it-home instinct now as it did in the days of cave men.

Die-hard hunters look offended if you ask them, “You going hunting this year?”  In their minds it is a national holiday and they really do believe that. Hunting season is marked on the calendar before anything else for the year.

Of course they are going hunting. Any more silly questions?

I’ve known men to quit a job in order to have the time off to go hunting. Another who would injure himself just enough to qualify for some paid time off which, of course, he used to go hunting.  It is an addiction gone Neanderthal. 

Good help is hard to find if you are working the real-man, hunter-type of guys. They have their priorities.

There was a time when hunting kept food on the table, whether the table was a rock in a cave or crudely built slab table in a log cabin.  However, today the cost of the sport far outweighs any justification said hunter can ever give you for the little dab of meat he may or may not salvage from what he killed.

Today it is big business, as in mega-bucks, depended-upon income for an entire industry that has been built around it.

Between the hunters who come to hunt on their own and the guides and outfitters who bring in even more from geographical locations further away, hunting draws income to the coffers of businesses from one end of town to other.  Just try elbowing your way through the camouflaged shoppers at Wal-Mart just before or during a hunt.

Signs announcing the sale of licenses, food and beer flash up and down the streets and often free meals are offered to the hunters by grateful merchants. One fella said he spent $200 in gas driving from burg to burg to take part in the good deal on meals. He wasn’t a hunter, just an eater.

The motels and restaurants are a sea of camouflage. As one local commented when he went into the grocery store to get a loaf of bread and the line was long with hunters, “I decided it was faster to go home and make biscuits.”

I grew up in a family of hunters. We lived in the mountains, so the hunters hunted early in the mornings, did a days work, squeezed in some hunting before sundown and slept in their own beds each night. It was a generational skill passed on from the days of needing that “winter meat.”

My grandmother used to laugh when the hunters would come home empty handed, telling tales of the big tracks they saw but no elk. “Well I guess we’ll just cook up some track soup,” she would say.

One of the best things that has evolved over the years in this hunting deal is now the women can and do say “you killed it, you clean it.” No Wilma Flintstone dresses hanging around this outfit.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com

The Pending Cataclysm

Incoherent Leadership
The Pending Cataclysm
The Underlying System Obstacles
By Stephen L. Wilmeth


     Sometime during the week of October 23, 2011 the Earth’s population was expected to reach seven billion.  At the current rate of increase, the population should surpass nine billion by 2050.
     In Washington Hill testimony recently, the Executive Director of the Alliance to End World Hunger, Tony Hall, reported that more people die each day from hunger than the deaths of AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.  In the same day of testimony, former USDA Secretary Dan Glickman reminded the assemblage that the United States has an ongoing humanitarian obligation regarding the world hunger issue in addition to addressing the more than 45 million Americans who are already on Food Stamp assistance.
     If the forecast is correct, the world has less than 40 years to deal with the onslaught of another two billion people.  That is a net gain of 1.5 people per second until that date is reached. With such an expectation, what should be included in a conceptual array of provisions, laws, policies, and regulations that must be in place to deal with the future food demand?
     Surprisingly, Suzy Friedman of the Environmental Defense Fund offered some fairly common sense advice.  “We can’t put unrealistic demands on farmers that make them lose money, or they won’t be around long enough to keep raising us food,” she said.
     The equally logical suggestions . . . suggestions that work to relieve the constraints upon future production opportunities were not offered.  In fact, the overview of the growth curve was presented with the environmentally correct posturing that American Agriculture has come to expect from its leadership.  “We must face the increasing population growth by decreasing the agricultural footprint,” presented testimony concluded!
      The posturing that is being orchestrated from Washington is not setting the stage for opportunities to expand resource horizons for increasing production . . . the stage has been set to force increases from an ever diminishing resource base.  
      Facing the issues
      The most important example of how government leadership is shaping the playing field for the future is in the production of ethanol.  In 2011, the demand from government mandated ethanol production will consume over 40% of the nation’s corn crop.  From essentially a nonuse alternative, nearly half of the entire nation’s primary production is now diverted from direct food source channels to inefficient fuel alternatives.  Part one of the pending debacle is in play.
      Sitting at the breakfast table with the husband and wife farm or ranch team discussing the insanity of the world they face, they could respond with great authority the measures that constrain their ability to enhance production.  First, they would be worried about line items in their annual budget.  Fuel costs would be a monthly factor. Electricity bills would be matched with those fuel costs.  Quarterly insurance payments would gnaw at their stomachs.  Monthly, quarterly, semiannually, and annually scheduled taxes would be next on the list.  Labor, or the absence thereof, would be high on the list.  Land payments would be next.  Federal and state grazing fees would be flagged.  Irrigation District annual fixed costs would be received late in the year.  Seed, feed, herbicide, fertilizer, supplement, and mineral bills would be stacked in the current file.  Repairs would be next.  Association fees, dues, subscriptions, and donations would worry the harried bill payer.   
     Finally, their personal expenses would be addressed.  Insurance, utilities, and food bills are ongoing like any household.
     If asked how they could envision expanding their revenue stream for the opportunity to include a child in their operation yet another discussion would be revealed.  A whole series of worries and pending expenditures would come into play.  They could recite verse and line about feared acronyms the general public has no knowledge.  NEPA, ESA, OSHA, EPA, USFWS, USFS, ACEC, WSA, RAC, RMP, USDA, and CWA would be topics of discussion.  They could also talk about federal and state work orders and estate taxes. 
    Those from the border areas can talk about OTM, FOB, PAIC, and know the names of Sector Chiefs.  They can also talk about S.1689, S.1024, and H.1505.  Confused?  Collectively, part two of the debacle in play.
     The Governmental Web expands
     If the underlying dilemma Agriculture faces could be encapsulated, perhaps it could be framed by three topics in the news last week.  Those topics include the Administration’s accelerating onslaught on the removal of basic, vital resources from the system; the manifestation of growing social controls of agricultural family units; and the anemic, almost laughable attempt to halt the recruitment shortfall of future farmers and ranchers.               
     Since Secretary Salazar has been at the helm of the Department of Interior, he has overseen the designation of three new national parks, over 1000 miles of scenic rivers, and the addition of two million acres of designated wilderness.  In addition, he has announced that the Administration is set to unveil 100 new projects . . . two in each state.  Shall we join in the elation of this pending escapade?  It is merely the tip of the iceberg that lies symbolically beneath the real plan.
     During the run up of the diversion of nearly half of the nation’s corn crop away from food channels into fuel channels, the industry has increased corn productivity about 5.6%.  To maintain par with the diversion, the industry needed to elevate production nearly eight times that amount.  Implicit in this trend is the dilemma forced upon the greater system when the environmental juggernaut systematically removes resources from the system that cannot be replaced.  The greatest example is the removal of upwards of 70% of the historic levels of cattle on wide expanses of the West.  The foundation of those removals has been predicated and amplified through the retirement of lands from productive opportunities in the zest to save the natural world so heralded by Secretary Salazar and his troops.
     The pending change in Department of Labor child labor orders poses an outright threat to historic Agriculture.  If America is blind to the fact that farmers are not creations of the educational system but stem from the presence of children sitting around tables on farmsteads across this country, it is in for a rude awakening.  Those children become the best farmers in the world because there is continuity in those family units.  They learn the system from the ground up, and, if their presence on the farm is managed by some wage order that denies their parents the supervision and the parental care that is natural and God given, those children will no longer be tied to the land.  The suggestion by this government that it has the right to differentiate and modify parental supervision of their children on the farm through loopholes in business structure is not only preposterous it is outright dangerous.  It is un-American.   
      Finally, how should the news be assessed in last week’s bipartisan effort to enhance the recruitment of future farmers and ranchers into the industry?  The name of the effort is ‘The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act’, but what about the reality of the effort?  What about the irony?  What about the hypocrisy?
     For years the meaningful components of American Agriculture have been neglected.  Research funding in production Agriculture has been slashed.  Those funds have been diverted to human health matters, environmental theory, and social agenda advancements.  The USDA has been transformed into a clearinghouse of wealth redistribution.  Food stamps, environmental boondoggles, and bureaucratic growth have been advanced through trade offs in farm subsidies and the appearance of concern for the direction and the stability of the industry.  Part three of the debacle is exposed.  Little actual investment has been concentrated on the improvement and renewal of our precarious system.
     The Reality
     How is the next real green revolution going to happen?  Where are the infrastructure enhancements? 
     There has not been a water project conceptualized and built in recent memory.  The clear mission of Interior and USDA is to hold steady or reduce the production level expectations of their respective managed lands.  There is a general absence of selective capital investment directed toward any increased production.  The majority of federal investments are wrapped around good intentions but spent on social engineering.  There is no progress by the ineffective Congress in blunting the regulation juggernaut.  There is a demonstrated silent, but shared complicity by Congress to condemn the testimony that suggests agriculture’s footprint must be diminished.  There is unchallenged and shared vilification of the industry by those who are purported to be the government interface with the industry. 
     In truth, there has been a systematic and progressive dismantling of the world’s greatest agricultural system.  The policies have been mismanaged, and  . . . positioned for catastrophic food production shortfalls.


Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.  “The government conceived by the Founders was a system not predicated on what a united government could do for the people . . . but what a united people could do for themselves.”

GOP Hypocrisy on Energy Subsidies?

When the Solyndra scandal broke in September, I wrote that “Republicans should be careful when casting stones given their past and present support for energy subsidies.” The left has been ripping congressional Republicans for making political hay of the Solyndra affair after having lobbied the Department of Energy to bestow their constituents with similar taxpayer handouts. ThinkProgress released a report that documents letters sent by 62 Republican members of Congress to Energy officials groveling for subsidies. Are these Republicans hypocrites? I’d say that it depends. I think the members who justified their request on the basis of “job creation” while criticizing the Obama administration for justifying its stimulus packages on the same grounds belong in the “yes” column. Also belonging in the “yes” column are those subsidy-seeking members who have chastised the administration for engaging in “crony capitalism” and “picking winners and losers.” On the other hand, I don’t think the sole act of criticizing the Solyndra deal while begging Energy for money necessarily makes one a hypocrite...more

Senate Spares Rural Development Subsidies

An amendment to a Senate appropriations bill introduced by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would have reduced funding for rural development subsidies at the Department of Agriculture by $1 billion was easily voted down today. Only 13 Republicans voted to cut the program. Thirty-two Republicans joined all Democrats in voting to spare it, including minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), ranking budget committee member Jeff Sessions (R-AL), and tea party favorite Marco Rubio (R-FL). This was a business-as-usual vote that will receive virtually no media attention. However, it is a vote that symbolizes just how unserious most policymakers are when it comes to making specific spending cuts. That’s to be expected with the Democrats. On the other hand, Republicans generally talk a good game about the need to cut spending and they rarely miss an opportunity to criticize the Obama administration for its reckless profligacy. Republicans instead fall back on their support of a Balanced Budget Amendment and other reforms like biennial budgeting...more

Song Of The Day #705

Ranch Radio's Gospel tune this Sunday morning is Glorious Home by Doc & Chickie Williams.





Saturday, November 05, 2011

Taxpayers Fund Impractical Cracker Barrel EV Recharging Scheme

If you were going to run a pilot project that deploys charging stations in a network to enhance the use of electric vehicles, what kind of establishments would you locate them at? Whose customers might be most interested in that amenity? Certainly Starbucks comes to mind, as might sustainability-crazy Walmart – but how about Cracker Barrel? It’s true, the down-home chain of Old Country Store restaurants was chosen by Ecotality for a practice run in Tennessee as part of The EV Project, which is funded with a $115 million Department of Energy grant to create infrastructure to support EVs like the Nissan Leaf. The rollout features a dozen so-called “fast chargers,” which means they can provide an electric “fill-up” in 30 minutes, with the idea that an EV owner could consume his Cracker Barrel Sampler and a couple of sweet tea refills while the Leaf gets its electric infusion...more

And of course U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican who has fallen for every environmental scheme placed under his nose, has to show up for a photo op:

“There is enough unused electricity at night that we can plug in half our cars and trucks without building a single new power plant,” Alexander said, “and forward-thinking companies like Cracker Barrel are making it even easier to drive electric vehicles by allowing customers to charge them up while we eat, work, shop or otherwise go about our days. Electric vehicles are the best solution to $4 gasoline — and plugging in my Nissan Leaf gives me the patriotic pleasure of not sending money overseas to people trying to blow us up.”

Then the author really has some fun with the enviro Senator:


Unused electricity? Does Alexander think it gets thrown out with the uneaten chicken ‘n dumplins’ at night? And if he thinks EVs are the best solution to $4-per-gallon gasoline, he has probably also embraced the fantasy that bright sunshine and mountain breezes are enough to keep his Leaf running strong. Meanwhile the rest of us, who are steeped in reality, are the ones left to fight for the right to drill for fossil fuels on our own lands and shores, which is the real answer to high gasoline prices.

And oh yes, the quick charge won't work on the Chevy Volt. The D.C. Deep Thinkers are at it again and taking advantage of us poor old tax-paying crackers.

White House Fires Back at 'Overbroad' Subpoena on Solyndra Documents

The White House on Friday all but refused to turn over the documents House Republicans have subpoenaed on bankrupt solar firm Solyndra, firing off a letter saying the request would put an "unreasonable burden on the president's ability to meet his constitutional duties." The feisty response appears to set up a clash between congressional investigators and the White House over the sprawling probe into Solyndra's finances and the administration's involvement in the decision to provide the struggling company a $528 million loan with taxpayer money. White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, in her letter, scolded GOP lawmakers for demanding more documents, noting the Obama administration has already turned over 85,000 pages of documents in the course of their investigation. Without explicitly refusing to comply with the subpoena, Ruemmler repeatedly described the order as "overbroad."...more

The Westerner's Radio Theater #008


Our feature today is an Eddy Arnold Show from 1956.

After Years of Conflict, a New Dynamic in Wolf Country

Yet the dynamic between ranchers and conservationists has begun to change, and Mr. Peterson is surprised to find himself acting as a grudging mediator. The turning point came early this year as lawmakers from some Western states were demanding that the government remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list, and cede control of the animal in Montana and Idaho to state governments. In April, they succeeded by attaching a rider to a budget bill. Aghast, some environmental groups had a moment of reckoning. Had they gone too far in using the Endangered Species Act as a cudgel instead of forging compromises with ranchers? So a handful began reaching out to ranchers, offering them money and tools to fend off wolves without killing them. And some ranchers, mindful that tough federal restrictions could be reimposed if wolf numbers dwindle again, have been listening. Tentative partnerships are cropping up, and a few that already existed are looking to expand. Working through Mr. Peterson, People and Carnivores, a new nonprofit group that promotes “co-existence,” has built a five-mile, $15,000 electric fence adorned with flags to protect calves on a neighbor’s property. This summer, it helped pay for a mounted rider to patrol 20 square miles of grazing land shared by three ranches near Mr. Peterson’s as a deterrent. “A lot of my neighbors think I am wet behind the ears to take money from these people,” said Mr. Peterson, who has not yet accepted aid for himself. “But the wolf is here to stay now, and my feeling is that those people who want it here should share the costs.”...more

Friday, November 04, 2011

Keystone Pipeline Delay Puts Energy Future On Hold

The president who often lets policy decisions be driven by others now says the pipeline to bring Canada's tar sands oil to America is his decision to make. So make it already, Mr. President. An increasingly peeved Canada may not wait for the U.S. to remain its best customer, a promise Obama made Brazil as it pursued offshore drilling we were curtailing. "What will happen if there wasn't approval — and we think there will be — is that we'll simply have to intensify our efforts to sell the oil elsewhere," Joe Oliver, Canada's natural resource minister, told Reuters. That elsewhere is China. As we've noted, Sinopec, a Chinese state-controlled oil company, has a stake in a $5.5 billion plan to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific Coast province of British Columbia. Alberta's finance minister met this month with Sinopec and CNOOC, China's other big oil company, and representatives of China's banks. Unlike issues such as ObamaCare, which the White House let Congress run with, the Keystone ball has been squarely placed in the president's court by Obama himself. Will he dismiss a loyal ally and friend if it means offending his environmentalist base? He hasn't exactly been a profile in courage...more

Chasm wide on Grand Canyon uranium mining

The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, 18 miles wide and a mile deep, which is roughly the size of the gap between the Obama administration and Western Republicans on the issue of uranium mining in Northern Arizona. Western Republicans are fighting to stop Interior Secretary Ken Salazar from slapping a 20-year moratorium on any new mining claims for yellowcake uranium on 1.1 million acres of land around the Grand Canyon National Park. A two-year ban instated in 2009 is scheduled to expire in December. A House Natural Resources subcommittee held a hearing Thursday on the Republican-sponsored Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011, which would block the effort to ban uranium mining in the region. Robert Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management, said at the hearing that the area is too sensitive to accommodate expanded mining. The Colorado River, which runs through the canyon, delivers water to 26 million people in seven states, raising the stakes for any contamination that might result from a mining mishap. Rep. Rob Bishop, Utah Republican who chairs the subcommittee on national parks, forest and public lands, accused the Obama administration of bowing to environmental groups by pushing a policy “based purely on political pressure and not sound science.” Republicans say concerns about environmental damage are unfounded. The Interior Department’s draft environmental impact study showed that uranium mineral development would post “little, if any, threat to the park or water quality in the region,” according to an Oct. 12 letter to Mr. Salazar from Republicans. At the same time, Republicans say, allowing more uranium mining would dovetail with the administration’s clean-energy efforts. At a time when the U.S. imports 90 percent of its uranium, the Grand Canyon region could help the nation reach its goal of becoming more energy self-sufficient...more

The problem is the law that allows the Secretary to withdraw that amount of acreage. They need to fix the law (Section 204(c) of FLPMA), not just that one withdrawal.

Gas Against Wind

Which would you rather have in the view from your house? A thing about the size of a domestic garage, or eight towers twice the height of Nelson’s column with blades noisily thrumming the air. The energy they can produce over ten years is similar: eight wind turbines of 2.5-megawatts (working at roughly 25% capacity) roughly equal the output of an average Pennsylvania shale gas well (converted to electricity at 50% efficiency) in its first ten years. Difficult choice? Let’s make it easier. The gas well can be hidden in a hollow, behind a hedge. The eight wind turbines must be on top of hills, because that is where the wind blows, visible for up to 40 miles. And they require the construction of new pylons marching to the towns; the gas well is connected by an underground pipe. Still can’t make up your mind? The wind farm requires eight tonnes of an element called neodymium, which is produced only in Inner Mongolia, by boiling ores in acid leaving lakes of radioactive tailings so toxic no creature goes near them. Not convinced? The gas well requires no subsidy – in fact it pays a hefty tax to the government – whereas the wind turbines each cost you a substantial add-on to your electricity bill... Wind power costs three times as much as gas-fired power. Make that nine times if the wind farm is offshore. And that’s assuming the cost of decommissioning the wind farm is left to your children – few will last 25 years...more

New report identifies nation's 101 top conservation projects

An Interior Department report released Thursday identifies 101 high-priority conservation projects across the nation as part of President Barack Obama's initiative to protect public lands, but it says most will have to find funding somewhere besides the U.S. government. The report outlines two projects in each state and one in the District of Columbia in various stages of development, ranging from the creation of an all-season trail system in Alaska's Denali National Park to the completion of a 32-mile trail through urban areas in central Florida. Representatives from all 50 states who were asked to identify specific projects in which the federal government could form partnerships as part of the America's Great Outdoors Initiative. Some could be completed within in a few years, while others would take several decades, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. Salazar said he didn't know the total cost, and the report says the federal agency won't be able to fund most of them, "given the fiscal constraints facing the federal government."...more

EPA chief’s toxic emissions

It is time for Lisa P. Jackson to resign. Last Friday at Howard University, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) railed against the coal industry, saying, “In [the coal industry’s] entire history - 50, 60, 70 years or even 30 - they never found the time or the reason to clean up their act. They’re literally on life support. And the people keeping them on life support are all of us.” This is patently false, of course, as emissions from U.S. coal-fired power plants are quite heavily regulated. Those emissions controls are the reason U.S. air is clean and safe and why, say, the air in regulation-free China is not. As West Virginia’s Republican Rep. David B. McKinley pointed out, to the extent that the coal industry is “on life support,” it is Ms. Jackson’s EPA and the rest of the Obama administration that has put it there with a slew of proposed and finalized anti-coal regulations. A week before, Ms. Jackson appeared on “Real Time With Bill Maher,” where she said, “We’re actually at the point in many areas of this country where, on a hot summer day, the best advice we can give you is don’t go outside. Don’t breathe the air, it might kill you.” But there is no scientific or medical evidence to support this statement - not now or even when the EPA was organized and the Clean Air Act was amended to its current form in 1970. Akin to shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, her inflammatory rhetoric actually serves to undermine all the efforts put forth and money spent by government and industry to clean the air the past 40 years...more

Regulation is this Halloween’s goblin

American entrepreneurs and small business owners have good reason to be scared this Halloween. According to a new Gallup poll, small business owners consider “complying with government regulations” to be the greatest problem they face. Why? Because the current administration and government bureaucrats simply can’t get enough of scaring the bejesus out of entrepreneurs with calls for more regulations. The March 2010 health care legislation (not-so-affectionately known as “Obamacare”) is an appropriate bogeyman. Rammed through Congress with little public support, it continues to cast a pall of uncertainty throughout the economy, as thousands of its implementing regulations have yet to be written. As a result, firms are holding back on hiring employees and engaging in new projects until they know how the rules will affect them. Of the legislation’s 907 pages, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) already has managed to turn just six of those, regarding the Medicare shared savings program, into a whopping 429 pages of new rules. At that rate, businesses can expect to face 71.5 regulations per page and almost 65,000 new regulations as a result of this legislation. Businesses are certain about one thing: more taxes. According to a July 2011 poll by the National Federation of Small Businesses (NFIB), more than 75 percent of small businesses believe that their taxes will increase in order to pay for Obama’s health care overhaul. They just don’t know by how much...more

New Mexico Town Tops Magazine's Millionaires List

A northern New Mexico city is No. 1 one among the places "Where Millionaires Live in America." The November edition of Kiplinger ranks Los Alamos the top millionaire town based on a recent report by Phoenix Marketing International, a company that follows wealthy residents. According to the report's findings, there are 885 millionaire households among Los Alamos' 18,000 or so residents. That gives the city an 11.7 percent concentration of millionaires. Los Alamos beat out Naples, Fla., and Bridgeport, Conn., which were ranked two and three respectively. The report says nearly 130 Los Alamos households had at least $5 million in investable assets...more

I was sure it would be Santa Fe and never would have thought of Los Alamos.

Cargill: Inside the quiet giant that rules the food business

With $119.5 billion in revenues in its most recent fiscal year, ended May 31, Cargill is bigger by half than its nearest publicly held rival in the food production industry, Archer Daniels Midland. If Cargill were public, it would have ranked No. 18 on this year's Fortune 500, between AIG and IBM. Over the past decade, a period when the S&P 500's revenues have grown 31%, Cargill's sales have more than doubled. But those numbers alone don't begin to capture the scope of Cargill's impact on our daily lives. You don't have to love Egg McMuffins (McDonald's (MCD, Fortune 500) buys many of its eggs in liquid form from Cargill) or hamburgers (Cargill's facilities can slaughter more cattle than anyone else's in the U.S.) or sub sandwiches (No. 8 in pork, No. 3 in turkey) to ingest Cargill products on a regular basis. Whatever you ate or drank today -- a candy bar, pretzels, soup from a can, ice cream, yogurt, chewing gum, beer -- chances are it included a little something from Cargill's menu of food additives. Its $50 billion "ingredients" business touches pretty much anything salted, sweetened, preserved, fortified, emulsified, or texturized, or anything whose raw taste or smell had to be masked in order to make it palatable. Cargill's roots lie in the ancient, risky business of buying, storing, and selling grain. William Wallace Cargill, the second son of a Scottish sea captain, started with a single warehouse in Conover, Iowa, in 1865. Conover is a ghost town now, but Cargill still deals heavily in grain. Wherever it grows and wherever it goes...more

Song Of The Day #704

Ranch Radio this morning brings you (Oh Baby Mine) I Get So Lonely, recorded in 1954 by Johnnie & Jack.

Jack is Jack Anglin and Johnnie is Johnnie Wright, husband of Kitty Wells. The duo started playing together in 1938, and continued in the business until Jack Anglin was killed in a car wreck on his way to Patsy Cline's funeral.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Officials Bust Drug-Smuggling Ring Linked to Mexican Cartel

Law enforcement officials on Monday announced the breakup of a massive drug-smuggling ring that used lookouts on hilltops in southern Arizona to move huge quantities of marijuana and other drugs across the Mexican border to users throughout the United States. Over the last month and a half, federal, state and local officials have arrested 6 people, from organizational bosses to stash-house guards to those who transported the drugs in backpacks and in vehicles, the authorities said. All were linked to the Sinaloa cartel run by Joaquín Guzmán, Mexico’s richest and most wanted outlaw, who goes by the nickname El Chapo, the authorities said. Speaking at a news conference on Monday, officials estimated that the ring had been in operation for at least five years and had generated more than $2 billion in profits by smuggling more than 3 million pounds of marijuana, 20,000 pounds of cocaine and 10,000 pounds of heroin into the United States. Such large smuggling rings usually use tractor-trailers to get their contraband across, the authorities said, but this operation relied mostly on migrants on foot straining under their loads. The authorities acknowledged that the huge smuggling ring took place under their noses. The drugs would be carried across the border in relatively small quantities and then transported north to a network of stash houses in the Phoenix area. From there, the contraband would be sold to distributors nationwide. The route was through the most desolate desert areas of southern Arizona, including the sprawling Tohono O’odham Indian reservation, between Yuma and Nogales. Spotters with radios or cellphones were used to point out the presence of law enforcement and divert loads, the authorities said...more

Now comes the part of most interest to NM: authorities say there will be a "shift" because of increased enforcement. They are currently moving our way and that will happen for sure if Bingaman gets his "perfect corridor" Wilderness bill through Congress. The article continues:

While calling the arrests a blow to the smugglers, the authorities were cautious in declaring victory. “I expect there will be a shift,” said Matthew Allen, special agent in charge of Arizona for the Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. “One investigation is not going to put them out of business. We have to continually adapt.”

Texas AG: Mexican cartels 'spilling over' border

Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott sent a letter to President Obama on Wednesday warning that Mexican cartel violence is increasingly "spilling over" the border and calling for more security. Abbott cited a "deadly shootout" involving "cartel operatives" last weekend in the town of Elsa, about 250 miles south of San Antonio, in which a Hidalgo County sheriff's deputy was shot three times. Sheriff's officials have said the deputy was wearing a protective vest and is expected to recover. Two suspects were charged Wednesday in connection with the attempted drug deal and kidnapping, a contract job to recover a lost load of marijuana for the Gulf Cartel, according to a KRGV-Rio Grande Valley interview with Hidalgo Sheriff Lupe Trevino. Carlos Zavala and Carlos Juan Hernandez were charged with three counts of aggravated kidnapping and two counts of criminal attempted capital murder. "Thankfully the officer survived, but the Hidalgo County Sheriff confirmed that the shooting spilled over from ongoing drug wars involving the Gulf Cartel in Mexico," Abbott said, noting the shooting was not an isolated incident. During the last two weeks, he said, three "high-level cartel leaders" have been arrested while hiding in Texas. Last week, Border Patrol agents arrested Eudoxio Ramos Garcia, 34, the Gulf Cartel's former plaza boss, or regional commander, in Rio Grande City, according to a newspaper in the border town of McAllen, The Monitor. Ramos had been in Texas only a few days at the time of his arrest and had paid $500 to cross the border illegally because his visa had expired. The day before Ramos' arrest, agents near Santa Maria arrested Jose Luis Zuniga Hernandez, "Comandante Wicho," on a weapons charge, believing he was at one point the plaza boss for Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from the Texas border town of Brownsville, according to The Monitor. The monitor also reported that on Oct. 20, ICE agents arrested Rafael “El Junior” Cardenas Vela, after a traffic stop by Port Isabel police. Cardenas is the nephew of Osiel Cárdenas Guillen, the former Gulf Cartel kingpin extradited to the U.S. in 2006 and sentenced last year to 25 years in a U.S. prison. Abbott listed a number of other incidents earlier this year involving cartel violence along the Texas border, including:

-- In September, a man was killed when "cartel operatives" exchanged gunfire between vehicles driving down a highway in McAllen.

-- In June, drug smugglers in Mexico fired upon Texas law enforcement officers near the border community of Abram.

-- In May, U.S. Border Patrol agents near Mission, Texas, came under fire from across the border.

-- In January, highway workers repairing a road near a known drug-smuggling route were fired upon from the southern side of the border near Fort Hancock.

Mexico cartels extend U.S. reach

As dawn broke, police smashed down doors of 52 different houses across California to discover automatic rifles, a grenade launcher and 20 kilos of cocaine, allegedly smuggled by Mexican cartels into the United States. The cocaine and guns seized in the raids, which happened last month, were in the possession of members of a California motorcycle gang. Mexican cartels have long operated in the United States and forged ties on a smaller level with American gangs, using them to sell drugs on street corners. A report by the National Drug Intelligence Center said that Mexican cartels already operate in more than 1,000 U.S. cities — or almost every urban area in the United States. But this recent bust, the culmination of an 18-month probe codenamed “Operation Simple Green,” underscores one of many ways that Mexican drug cartels have strengthened their ties with American gangs, broadening their reach into the U.S. and changing the dynamics of the U.S.-Mexican drug trade. The development comes amid fears that the relentless drug violence in Mexico could spill over the Rio Grande...more

Texas Sheriff Says Shootout Was “Spill Over” of Mexico’s Drug Violence

After a shootout left a deputy seriously injured and a Mexican man dead, the local county sheriff is saying it was linked to a nearby dispute involving the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico’s largest drug trafficking gangs. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino said the violent dispute “spilled over” into the U.S. from Mexico, saying it’s the first time he’s been able to point to an incident and say the violence from Mexico has finally crossed the border...more

Mexican drug cartels operating in Colo.

The same drug cartels causing chaos on the U.S./Mexico border are also active in Colorado. 9Wants to Know examined a situation report from the US Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center, which says the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels are active in five Colorado cities. Those cities are Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, and Longmont. Sylvia Longmire, author of the book "Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars," says the cartels mainly operate under the radar in Colorado, although they are believed to be responsible for much of the ongoing violence plaguing the border. "What's happening along the border is crucial for folks in Denver to understand because the cartels have a physical presence in Denver and they are trafficking the majority of the drugs that are circulating throughout the city," Longmire said...more

Kidnapped Man Rescued From Trunk Of Car At Texas Border Crossing

Police at a South Texas border crossing rescued a bound and gagged man from the trunk of a car headed for Mexico. The incident happened early Tuesday at the Hidalgo border crossing, seven miles south of McAllen. Police Capt. Robert Vela said an officer who was monitoring Mexico-bound traffic spotted a car driven by an unusually young male. When he stopped the car, he heard a thumping noise coming from the trunk. The driver was removed from the car and handcuffed. When officers opened the trunk, they found a man who was gagged and whose arms and ankles were bound...more

Mexico troops seize catapults used to fling pot

The Mexican army says soldiers have seized two catapults that were being used by drug smugglers to fling packages of marijuana across the border into Arizona. A military statement Tuesday says an anonymous tip led troops to a house in the border city of Agua Prieta where they found a catapult in the bed of a pickup and another inside the house. It says soldiers also seized 1.4 tons during Monday's raid in Agua Prieta, which is across the border from Douglas, Ariz...more

Killings of US citizens in Mexico hit eight-year high

According to data from the US State Department, the first six months of 2011 represented the most deadly period of the past eight years for US citizens in Mexico. From January 4 to June 11 of this year, 65 Americans were killed in Mexico, a 300 percent increase since 2003. This figure comes from La Opinion, which gained access to a report compiled by the US State Department. As the paper notes, the actual number of deaths may be higher in reality, as the figures only refer to voluntarily reported deaths...more

Cuba legalizes sale, purchase of private property

Cuba announced Thursday it will allow real estate to be bought and sold for the first time since the early days of the revolution, the most important reform yet in a series of free-market changes under President Raul Castro. The law, which takes effect Nov. 10, applies to citizens living in Cuba and permanent residents only, according to a red-letter headline on the front page of Thursday's Communist Party daily Granma and details published in the government's Official Gazette. The law limits Cubans to owning one home in the city and another in the country, an effort to prevent the accumulation of large real estate holdings. It requires that all real estate transactions be made through Cuban bank accounts so that they can be better regulated, and says the transactions will be subject to bank commissions...more

Dust bowl looms if US Southwest drought plans fail

THEY like their beef in Texas. So when Texan ranchers started offloading their cattle at bargain prices because pastures were parched - as they did this summer - it was a clear sign that this was no ordinary drought. While rains in October brought some relief, further drought is forecast, which will add to losses already exceeding $5 billion. The bigger question is whether the Texan rancher's pain is a harbinger of things to come for the entire Southwest - and if so, what the broader impact on Americans living in the region will be. Climate models indicate that the Southwest will get drier in the coming decades, threatening water supplies already under pressure from a growing population and ageing infrastructure. The most alarming projections come from a team led by Richard Seager of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. They ran 19 climate simulations, averaged out across the entire Southwest, and came to a stark conclusion: that conditions matching the 1930s Dust Bowl and the multi-year droughts of the 1950s "will become the new climatology of the American Southwest" within decades (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1139601)...more

Inspector General: Green energy stimulus program plagued by problems

Inspector General Gregory Friedman, testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's panel on stimulus oversight, called the program "at odds with realities." Among other things:

° $35 billion in stimulus overwhelmed DOE's $27 billion budget
° More than half the weatherization projects audited failed
° Of the roughly 125,000 workers eligible for green jobs training, only 40 percent received it and only 8,035 participants landed jobs
° Of those placed, only 1,336 participants had retained employment for more than 6 months – or about two percent of the planned 69,717

That means 60% were lucky...their time wasn't wasted.
He also testified that 45% of the money hasn't been spent...yet.

And, this story says the I.G. has launches criminal probe into more than 100 Energy Dept. loans