Tuesday, January 07, 2014

Taking an Ax to Traditional Forest Management





Wildfires destroyed an estimated 6,500 square miles of U.S. forest lands in 2013, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. One reason fires blaze through so much land is poor wildfire management from the U.S. Forest Service. But instead of continuing to try to tweak the ossified bureaucracy, we should borrow an idea from public-education reformers: Create “charter forests,” like charter schools.

Washington has known about the mismanagement of the Forest Service—whose 35,000 employees are responsible for approximately 10% of land in the U.S.—for years. In 1998, for example, the Government Accountability Office reported that “catastrophic wildfires threaten resources and communities” throughout the West. Much of the problem, it concluded, was the fact that “the Forest Service’s decision making process is broken.” Fifteen years later, it still is.

The Forest Service understands that it has serious problems. In a 2002 report, the agency lamented that it was operating “within a statutory, regulatory, and administrative framework that has kept the agency from effectively addressing rapid declines in forest health.” The total forest acres burned in 11 western states set new records successively in 1988, 1996, 2000, 2006, 2007 and 2012.

In part, a philosophical shift is to blame for these terrible records. During the 1990s, the Forest Service’s old philosophy of “multiple use management” of forests was succeeded by a new outlook of “ecosystem management.” This placed ecological goals above more utilitarian considerations, resulting in a radical curtailing of timber harvesting, forest thinning and other more aggressive actions that would have helped to address the continuing fire problem.

Desperate for improvement, in 2009 Congress enacted the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act, or Flame, which required the secretaries of agriculture and interior to develop a “National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy.” Typical of the glacial pace of federal bureaucracy, the report is still not final, more than three years after its statutory deadline.

What’s needed is a new management model for the national forests, the type public-education reformers have been experimenting with for more than two decades. Charter schools are one of the few reform initiatives supported by both parties. That’s because charter schools work: Recent research at Harvard, MIT and Princeton has confirmed that well-run charter schools are achieving remarkable success compared with traditional public schools in improving the educational achievements of disadvantaged students in inner cities. The secret is autonomy. Freed from the bureaucratic straitjacket of teachers unions, charter-school leaders can hire and fire teachers more freely. They can also enforce standards for teachers and students that might spark protests and union grievances at a traditional public school. Charter schools take more risks, but they are held accountable for the results.

This is the model that the U.S. Forest Service needs. Certain federal forest lands, while still “owned” by the federal government, would be managed independently as charter forests. A decentralized charter forest would operate under the control of a local board of directors, which might include local government officials, economists, environmentalists, and recreational and commercial users of forest resources.

Like a charter school, which receives public support according to the number of students enrolled, a charter forest would receive federal funds to support its operations as determined by some appropriate formula based on criteria such as the size of the forest area, the ways in which it is used, and past federal spending. The charter-forest managers, like a charter-school principal, would have freedom to hire and fire employees, bypassing cumbersome federal civil-service procedures.

The charter forest also would be exempt from current requirements for public land-use planning and the writing of environmental impact statements. These requirements long ago ceased to perform their ostensible function of improving public land decision making. They have instead become open invitations for litigation—effectively transferring much of the management control over national forests to litigants and federal judges. Charter forests would operate under federal oversight, including broad land-use goals and performance standards relating to the maintenance of environmental quality. But they would have the flexibility to develop and implement innovative solutions to the severe problems of forest fire, spreading disease and other threats today to national forests, especially in the West.

In a 2013 survey, two million federal workers were asked about the quality of leadership, the level of morale, and other management conditions in their agencies. The responses ranked the Forest Service as worse than 260 out of 300 similar federal agencies.

Given this—and the long record of past failure—aren’t charter forests worth a try?


Robert H. Nelson is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and author of the latest book, The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America. He is also of Environmental Policy in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University, and he has been Staff Economist for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs; Visiting Senior Fellow, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Member of Economics Staff, Office of Policy Analysis, U.S. Department of the Interior; Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Chairman of Interior Department Task Force on Indian Economic Development; and Staff Economist, Twentieth Century Fund.

Source

An Ax?  No, its more like a file.  I do like the concept though:  take a proven model and apply it to federal land management.  Full disclosure - I worked with Nelson at Interior and have always admired his work.  And the Forest Service's own employees ranked it at 260 out of 300 agencies as a place to work?  That's not good for anybody.


Utah Gets Ready To Do Without the Feds

by

 Sometimes, I suspect that a century from now, representatives of the government of the rump remains of the United States of America will go to Salt Lake City to beg the Republic of Deseret for kinder terms on a loan to fund the continuing U.S. war on anything innovative or profitable. The American representatives will have to order chips and salsa before they'll be served the 3.2 beer in which they'll drown their sorrows over the progress of the negotiations. Their hosts will drive a hard bargain, still nursing resentment over long-gone dominance by D.C. Utah is already establishing the grounds for that future meeting. Like most westerners, Utahns are pissed about federal control of land and purse strings. Unlike most, though, they seem serious about reshaping that relationship.

In 2012, Utah passed the Transfer of Public Lands Act, essentially demanding that the federal government surrender the two-thirds of the state controlled by Washington, D.C. Other western states are considering similar measures, but Utah paved the way.

But Utah is preparing to go a step further and plans for a future that isn't funded by federal largesse. The state passed a series of bills as part of a Financial Ready Utah movement. The problem, as the group backing the move explains, is that "More than 40 cents of every dollar the state of Utah spends comes from the federal government that borrows and/orprints more than 40 cents of every dollar it sends to Utah." Since "The current fiscal trajectory of the federal government is unsustainable," (a point agreed to by the Congressional Budget Office), Utahns foresee a day when whatever they want done will have to be paid by local funds.

Recently, Reason Foundation Director of Government Reform Leonard Gilroy interviewed Utah State Representative Ken Ivory, who plays a key role in increasing his state's autonomy. Ivory links his role in taking local control of public land in the state to the state's need for increased financial self-reliance...

Ivory says the enabling acts authorizing statehood for western states, including Utah, contain the same language about transfer of public lands from the federal government to state authorities as the enabling acts for states such as Nebraska. But the transfers took place for Nebraska and other states, and not for their counterparts further west. That's the lynchpin for the drive to take control of lands that are now claimed by the federal government, and to gain the financial benefits from them.

That's not a universally accepted legal interpretation of the enabling acts, but there's no doubt that federal dominance economically hobbles the western states. There's also no doubt that greater financial independence would allow for more policy variation and experimentation at the state level—especially in a region that is rather ideologically distinct from the East. It would also help to insulate states from the ongoing fiscal disaster in Washington, D.C.

Read the rest of the very interesting interview here.



Owners of planned horse slaughterhouse to sue New Mexico official for slander

Owners of a planned horse slaughterhouse in New Mexico that would be the first such facility to operate in the United States in years filed notice on Monday of their plan to sue the state attorney general for slander over his efforts to block the plant from opening. State Attorney General Gary King last month sued and secured a temporary restraining order against Valley Meat Co, which had planned to convert its cattle slaughterhouse in Roswell, New Mexico, to one processing horsemeat beginning on Jan. 1. Characterizing King's lawsuit as a libelous act of political grandstanding, an attorney for Valley Meat said the company would likely seek several million dollars in damages in a suit it plans to file next month. The lawsuit will claim slander, harassment and malicious abuse of process, according to the letter of intent. "He defamed a whole product and a whole industry," Valley Meat Co attorney A. Blair Dunn said of King. "My clients are not horrible environmental actors like he's trying to claim." The move is the latest in an ongoing legal battle that has pitted opponents of horse slaughter against an industry fighting to regain a foothold in the United States. A spokesman for the attorney general, a Democrat who has announced plans to run for New Mexico governor in 2014, dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous and insisted it would not sway his boss from fighting to keep the facility from opening...more

What a neat move.  Go, Mr. Dunn, Go. 



There's another politician who's used their office to oppose this private venture and that is Gov. Martinez (see here).   Ironically, I couldn't help but notice that in the Gov's budget released today there's an item to provide $2.6 million in tax benefits to "startup" firms.   Guess that will only apply to firms she personally likes.

To both Martinez & King I would say you have every right to voice your opinion about this or any business.  But it is an abuse of your office to go after a business either administratively (Martinez) or legally (King) that you personally don't "like".  Its just that type of political interference that has placed NM dead last in economic freedom.

Changing tact to tackle Placitas feral horse issue

Finding a workable solution to the thorny issue of free-roaming horses in Placitas has proved a tough nut to crack, even for an organization that specializes in consensus building. Sandoval County leaders in September awarded New Mexico First – whose website says “We bring people together and find common ground” – a $23,500 contract to work with a task force of community members and government representatives to find mutually acceptable ways for dealing with the horses. Placitas residents have been sharply divided between those who support the horses’ right to roam free and others who claim they damage property and pose a safety risk to local traffic. Agencies such as the federal Bureau of Land Management and the state Livestock Board have taken a hands-off approach because no one claims ownership of the horses. But after the initial meeting in November with the roughly two-dozen-member task force, New Mexico First dropped its planned group information-gathering strategy, amended its county contract and canceled further group meetings. It will instead gather input through individual interviews with task force members. Organization president Heather Balas said in an interview that the organization was overwhelmed with a deluge of emails and calls critical of representation, meeting procedures and whether video-recording was allowed...more


The article says the Attorney General's office attended the November meeting.  That leads to a logical, common sense, bipartisan, middle of the road solution to this problem:  Gary King should move these horses to his property and then decide whether to turn  them out, feed them or sell them.  Come on Gary, put New Mexico First as the group's  name says, and not your political agenda.

Chicago Ban on Gun Sales Within City Struck Down by Judge

A Chicago law prohibiting the sale of guns within the third-most populous U.S. city was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge. “Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms,” U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang wrote in a decision yesterday. The judge said he was delaying the effect of his ruling to allow the city time to seek a stay during an appeal or, if it elects to forgo an appeal, to consider and enact sales restrictions “short of a complete ban.” The ordinance, adopted in 2010 after the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision invalidated a ban on gun possession within the city, allowed only the transfer of firearms through inheritance, prohibiting even gifts among family members. There were 415 murders and 1,864 shooting incidents last year, according to Chicago police, in the city of 2.7 million where President Barack Obama’s political career began. The right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment must also include the right to acquire a firearm, Chang said...more

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1180

Its Country Classics Week on Ranch Radio and here's the #1 Song from 1948:  Eddy Arnold - Bouquet of Roses.  That was a fabulous year for Arnold, where 6 out of the 7 top Billboard tunes were by him.

http://youtu.be/UIdqZn01V0A

Monday, January 06, 2014

Happy New Year! Feds list 141 new regulations in only three days

It’s a new year and you know what that means — new regulations. The Obama administration has wasted no time in writing them. The website Regulations.gov lists 141 regulations that have been posted by federal agencies in the last three days alone. Of these regulations, 119 are “rulemaking,” meaning they establish a new rule. Twenty-three are “non-rulemaking,” meaning the regulations does not establish a new rule. The largest group of regulations have to do with energy and environmental issues, many of them issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. One new EPA regulation is an amendment to a rule on hazardous emissions from lead smelters. The EPA has come under fire from lawmakers for cracking down on emissions from coal plants and other carbon-heavy fuels and materials. The agency is also working on 134 major and minor regulations that will take effect in the coming years. Another new regulation from the Energy Department that has been listed since the new year  establishes “test procedures for residential furnace fans.” The Energy Department under new leadership from Secretary Ernest Moniz has been less of a lightning rod for controversy, but the department has still been active in pushing for more regulations...more

Interior Department dissolves National Blueways System amid widespread criticism

A U.S. Interior Department program intended to recognize conservation efforts along the nation's waterways was dissolved on Friday amid opposition from landowners and politicians who feared it would lead to increased regulations and possible land seizures. The National Blueways System was created in May 2012 under President Barack Obama's America's Great Outdoors Initiative. The program was voluntary, didn't include any new regulations, and a designation — bestowed on only two rivers, one of which was dropped last year because of local opposition — brought no additional funding. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in a statement that her agency decided to disband the program, which was formed by her predecessor, Ken Salazar, after a departmental review. "The National Blueways Committee will be deactivated, but the department will continue to encourage collaborative, community-based watershed partnerships that support sustainable and healthy water supplies," department spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said. AP

Salvage of Burned Timber in Full Swing on Private Lands

Salvage logging on lands burned by last summer's Douglas Complex wildfire in southwestern Oregon is in full swing on privately owned forests, but not on public lands. The News-Review reports Roseburg Forest Products has cut 8 million board feet from its lands outside Glendale, while the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is still in the planning process. The difference points out the contrast between logging under the Oregon Forest Practices Act and logging on public lands. Private landowners can start logging 15 days after filing a plan with the state. On BLM lands, federal environmental laws require a lengthy planning process that includes the public. The Douglas Complex fires burned through 76 square miles on a patchwork of public and private lands. KAJO

NSA statement does not deny 'spying' on members of Congress

The National Security Agency on Saturday released a statement in answer to questions from a senator about whether it “has spied, or is … currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials”, in which it did not deny collecting communications from legislators of the US Congress to whom it says it is accountable. In a letter dated 3 January, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont defined “spying” as “gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business”. The agency has been at the centre of political controversy since a former contractor, Edward Snowden, released thousands of documents on its activities to media outlets including the Guardian.
In its statement, which comes as the NSA gears up for a make-or-break legislative battle over the scope of its surveillance powers, the agency pointed to “privacy protections” which it says it keeps on all Americans' phone records. The statement read: “NSA’s authorities to collect signals intelligence data include procedures that protect the privacy of US persons. Such protections are built into and cut across the entire process.  Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all US persons. NSA is fully committed to transparency with Congress. Our interaction with Congress has been extensive both before and since the media disclosures began last June...more

 Even if they denied it, would you believe them?

China says over 8 million acres of land too polluted to farm

About 3.33 million hectares (8 million acres) of China's farmland is too polluted to grow crops, a government official said on Monday, highlighting the risk facing agriculture after three decades of rapid industrial growth. China has been under pressure to improve its urban environment following a spate of pollution scares. But cleaning up rural regions could be an even bigger challenge as the government tries to reverse damage done by years of urban and industrial encroachment and ensure food supplies for a growing population. Wang Shiyuan, the vice-minister of land and resources, told a news briefing that China was determined to rectify the problem and had committed "tens of billions of yuan" a year to pilot projects aimed at rehabilitating contaminated land and underground water supplies. The area of China's contaminated land is about the same size as Belgium. Wang said no more planting would be allowed on it as the government was determined to prevent toxic metals entering the food chain...more

The Chicoms  are central planners deluxe and look what it has brought them in environmental devastation.  Makes you wonder why the enviros are so anti private property and free markets and so pro central planning.

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1179

Its Swingin' Monday on Ranch Radio and here's BR5-49 with Out Of Habit.  The tune is on their 1998 CD Big Backyard Beat Show.

http://youtu.be/KZqponrtA38

Sunday, January 05, 2014

Horse slaughterhouse blocked 10 more days

Rick De Los Santos of Valley Meat
A state judge has extended for another 10 days his order blocking the planned opening of a horse slaughterhouse in Roswell. State District Judge Matthew Wilson on Friday ordered that the ban remain in place and scheduled a Jan. 13 hearing in the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Gary King, who claims that Valley Meat Co. is poised to violate state laws on water quality and food and consumer safety. “We’ve been going through this for two years now, and so … we’ll see what happens in 10 days,” Valley Meat owner Rick De Los Santos said Friday after the judge’s ruling in Santa Fe. He estimated the plant could be ready to open within a couple of weeks if the restraining order were lifted. De Los Santos said the facility has a contract with a Canadian company he declined to name that will supply the horses and take the meat. Valley Meat’s lawyer, Blair Dunn, argued at Friday’s hearing that the state court lacked jurisdiction in the case. He said the attorney general’s “real goal is to harass this company” because he disagrees with the premise of horse slaughter. Dunn also called it a “politically driven issue,” noting that King, a Democrat running for governor, is promoting his opposition to the slaughterhouse on his campaign website...more

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy



Through a ranch wife’s eyes

by Julie Carter

I pulled into the post office today and parked just to my right was the very epitome of the vehicle you might envision for the “rancher gone to town.”

There sat a flatbed ranch pickup loaded to the gills. The back of the bed was heavy with a stack of mineral blocks, a big bale of hay and a few sacks of horse feed. Squeezed to the front were a water jug, a cooler, an unidentifiable plastic box and two curious dogs who kept watching the post office door.

The headache rack was neatly organized with everything a man might need while away from the house -- a handyman jack locked to the frame, a couple of catch ropes tied up to the rack, chains, a come-a-long and assorted tie strings for tying gates shut, mufflers up or a calf down.

Now this version of a ranch pickup was newer than your average rusted beat up feed pickup that comes to town. His wife has a job in town so in theory, he can now afford an upgrade -- in pickups, not in a wife. You might be a rancher’s wife if your job in town is considered “ranch subsidy.”

Meanwhile back at the ranch, you might be a rancher’s wife if you know how to change the flat on your pickup but can’t because the spare is in use on the flatbed pickup.

You might be a rancher’s wife if directions to your house include words like miles, cattle guards, gravel road and “last.” The word “last” can precede many things such as house, hill, left turn, mailbox or cedar tree by a large rock.

You might be a rancher’s wife if your stock tank doubles as a swimming pool, the storage shed is a barn, and you buy antiques because they match the rest of your furniture.

A ranch wife’s job in town often provides other advantages to the relationship besides financial improvement. The in-the-corral working relationship, of which was rocky at best, is now non-existent because of the aforementioned job in town.  The neighbors seven miles away no longer hear the yelling and cussing and the dog finally quit hiding under the barn about a month after she went to work.

You might be a rancher’s wife if duct tape is always on your list, the weekly paper comes a week late and the veterinarian, feed company and parts house is on speed dial.

A rancher’s wife will always have a shopping list that includes three sizes of engine filters, tires, chains, spark plugs and shotgun shells.  And the best one, “get me a part that looks just like this one here,” as he hands her something wrapped in a shop rag - a greasy diesel smelling odd-shaped object even he can’t even name. “And make sure it’s for the right year model.”

There is much comfort in seeing those ranch pickups in town from time to time. You have to know that there is still life across the cattle guard somewhere and that as long as the wife can keep a good job in town, it will continue.

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

Pick ‘em, choose ‘em, and destroy ‘em!



Horses, Apaches, and exclusionary sovereignty
America’s premier welfare State
Pick ‘em, choose ‘em, and destroy ‘em!
By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            A Canadian free market think tank, the Fraser Institute, released its annual “Economic Freedom of North America” report for 2013. Leaving Mexico out of the survey to deal with its corruption and drug war debacles, the report chronicles the best and worst places in North America to conduct business. The survey condenses the data and computes a value for economic freedom. The data is arranged into ten components. That array emphasizes size of government, takings and discriminatory taxation, and labor market freedom.
            New Mexico, O’ Fair New Mexico, ranks dead last in economic freedom. What a distinction that is. Aside from the computed results of the study, three current examples add to the substance of the findings. The examples can be termed ‘pick ‘em’, ‘choose ‘em’, and ‘destroy ‘em’. To those who face the onslaught, the understanding is complete.
            Pick ‘em
            Day after day, trucks loaded with horses leave Morton, Texas headed for Mexico. Those trucks aren’t hauling horses to a roping or to a sanctioned endurance ride. The endurance ride those horses are bound for is a one way trip to slaughter. Naïve Americans, including the Governor and the Attorney General of New Mexico, Susana Martinez and Gary King, respectively, have taken personal positions that commercial horse slaughter is at odds with their state’s traditions and values.
            Are you kidding?
            The values implicit in the responsibilities of horse care are surpassed only by those in the care of human beings. There is not a rancher alive who has not walked to a favored old horse simply emotionally pummeled knowing it is his and his only responsibility to end the suffering of that loyal friend. It is the fulfillment of an unwritten contract.
Furthermore, in the absence of direct personal responsibility, that person would universally defer only to the most humane method to accomplish the same end when that life ending circumstance becomes necessary.
I cringe at the reality of Mexican horse slaughter.
            The state, however, remains at war with Valley Meat Company in Roswell that has been forced to run a juggernaut of obstacles trying to become the only regional equine slaughter plant. In that role, they would operate under the guidelines of the USDA, on American soil, and under strictest rules and regulations.
            What a political, special interest debacle this has become!
            What is equally disgusting is to discuss this with the folks who buy and move horses to Mexico for slaughter. They support the governor and the A.G. in their efforts to disallow the business. They want the conditions of current stability. They don’t want the robbery emanating from fees and regulatory burdens New Mexico would pile on the process.
Today, every horse in the commercial slaughter channel is being killed. The system is working albeit it isn’t under the professed best practices, most humane approach. The buyers and facilitators are paying the fees including the mordida crossing the horses into Mexico. They know the game and control the outcome. Dealing with the state of New Mexico poses a moving target. They’d rather deal with the corruption of Mexico.
So, horses will likely continue to face the horrors of Mexican death while New Mexico upholds some imaginary tradition and … candidates posturing for future campaigns.
            Choose ‘Em
            I have a letter describing my great grandmother’s memory of her experience facing Geronimo. The year was 1885 and her family, the Shelleys, had been warned that Apaches were approaching. In preparation, they gathered two families and two other men who were in the district for the purpose of mineral exploration.
            Sure enough, Indians were observed up the creek stealing horses. The decision was made to make for the Gila River. At Cliff, there would be added protection with more numbers of defenders.
            Everyone, including children, was expected to carry a gun. In the retreat away from the war party sightings, they observed more Indians to their front taking cover for ambush along the trail. With no choice, the party backtracked to a one room log cabin and set about setting up a defense. They gathered wood, filled a door barrier with rocks, and broke chink out of the walls to form rifle ports.
They waited.
            By nightfall, no Indian had tested the cabin’s defenses. While the men stood watch, the women put the children under the bed and then squeezed together on top of it and tried to sleep. Hours later, a huge calamity arose. The children and women started screaming and attempted to escape from the bed. Indians must have dug their way through the roof and dropped on the bed where they were slaughtering the women and children!
            Somebody struck a match and the chaos was unraveled. The women collapsed the bed onto the sleeping children. No one was killed, but everybody was scared out of ten years of growth. Someone finally laughed. The story ended with the group making their way to Cliff where a cavalry unit from Ft. Bayard had arrived to bolster the defense.
            Geronimo and his band went on to string together one of the most epic life and death sagas in all of history. Ask any American who the most famous warrior was, and, arguably, Geronimo will be a leading candidate. The chase and the chapters of the story of his final surrender in Skeleton Canyon near the border are monumental.
            The outright fear of his ability as a war leader, as witnessed by the actual words of those who faced him, prompted further action. He would never again be allowed to escape incarceration and continue a reign of terror. The United States put him and his followers on a train and shipped them to Florida. Their remnants were eventually relocated to Oklahoma with a stop in Alabama.
The 700 or so legal descendents never returned to their homeland until they sought the purchase of 30 acres of land along I10 east of Deming in Luna County. It is there they now face an old nemesis … New Mexico. The location of their toehold of homeland is within a line of sight of two geographic features that remind passing motorist of their once dominance. One is the overhanging rock on the east slope of the Florida Mountains to the west and the other is the flat topped Massacre Peak to the northeast. In the former, they gathered to watch General Crooke and his cavalry pursue them in the Geronimo chase and in the latter they massacred a caravan of merchants from what is now Juarez. Good, bad or indifferent, both attach their permanence to this land of their ancestry.
They want to build a gambling casino on their ‘homeland’ where upwards of 15,000 vehicles pass daily. New Mexico stands steadfast against the move on the basis of horse trades that pose threatened termination of educational pledges if the casino is built. It doesn’t matter that Luna County is named among the 20 most at risk counties in the nation. The state is again caught in a game.
What is more, the state demonstrates no inclination to imagine what the return of the Chiricahuas would pose to national interest. The impact and allure that could be created in welcoming this band of mysterious, historical people home could be immense. Hollywood alone has built a mystique around these people that has world stage implications. Gambling aside, this act has star power beyond a casino.
But, New Mexico demonstrates the liberal propensity to choose who is allowed to succeed rather than allowing businesses to seek and create regional advantages. Taking handouts is a way of life for the state. Fostering a robust business environment is completely foreign.
Destroy ‘em
 In the backdrop of Luna County’s ‘Apacheria’, lays some 90,000 acres of state trust lands and private improvements and holdings that will become landlocked if Senator Udall’s (D-NM) wilderness legislation is passed. He is orchestrating another grand taking. When the Chiricahua verbal history is related, lessons should remind us of the wisdom of the great white fathers in Washington. The lessons the Tribe could pass to the 95 plus families that derive direct livelihood from the lands threatened can be drawn from history. It would be direct and simple.
The lesson would start with the expected blind eye from the state of New Mexico offering protection. Remember, the state depends on the federal government for 36% of its budget from federal revenue transfers. There is no appetite to jeopardize subsidies to stand for something constitutional. The statement would end in narration.
“Beware … sovereignty means nothing if you are caught on the wrong side of a liberal power play.”

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “I have a whole lot more empathy for the Chiricahuas than I ever expected … both of us … the cowboy and the Indians can watch in unity this federal assault from the top of Massacre Peak.”

Dogs align themselves with Earth’s magnetic field when it comes time to poop

Dogs have been found to be sensitive to Earth's magnetic field, and apparently align themselves along the magnetic north-south axis before they defecate. Czech and German researchers studied 70 dogs during 1,893 defecations and 5,582 urinations over the course of two years, and found that when the Earth's magnetic field was stable the dogs chose to align themselves with it. When it was unstable, such as during a solar flare, the dogs would become confused. Their findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology, show that the dogs were sensitive to the polarity of the field, though not as much to its intensity. Dogs on leashes, however, do not consistently align themselves as such, mainly doing so when they are free to choose. Researchers are yet to figure out why dogs exhibit this preference...more
 
Apparently the magnetic field is really strong in one corner of our pasture.

I'll bet Little Tommy YouDull will tell us if you get lost in his Organ Mtns-Desert Peaks Wilderness, just watch your dog poop.  Who needs a "mechanical" device like GPS when you've got DPS...dog positioning system. 

I've noticed Sharon exhibiting the same behavior, which is why I hardly ever let her off the leash.


IMF paper warns of 'savings tax' and mass write-offs as West's debt hits 200-year high

Much of the Western world will require defaults, a savings tax and higher inflation to clear the way for recovery as debt levels reach a 200-year high, according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF working paper said debt burdens in developed nations have become extreme by any historical measure and will require a wave of haircuts, either negotiated 1930s-style write-offs or the standard mix of measures used by the IMF in its “toolkit” for emerging market blow-ups. “The size of the problem suggests that restructurings will be needed, for example, in the periphery of Europe, far beyond anything discussed in public to this point,” said the paper, by Harvard professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. The paper said policy elites in the West are still clinging to the illusion that rich countries are different from poorer regions and can therefore chip away at their debts with a blend of austerity cuts, growth, and tinkering (“forbearance”). But the paper says this mantra borders on “collective amnesia” of European and US history, and is built on “overly optimistic” assumptions that risk doing far more damage to credibility in the end. It is causing the crisis to drag on, blocking a lasting solution. “This denial has led to policies that in some cases risk exacerbating the final costs,” it said. The paper says the Western debt burden is now so big that rich states will need same tonic of debt haircuts, higher inflation and financial repression - defined as an “opaque tax on savers” - as used in countless IMF rescues for emerging markets. “The magnitude of the overall debt problem facing advanced economies today is difficult to overstate. The current central government debt in advanced economies is approaching a two-century high-water mark,” they said...more

Producers Panic as Ethanol Mandate Loses Support

Ethanol producers are panicking amid speculation that the ethanol mandate could be drastically reduced or scrapped entirely this year as the biofuel loses its allure and bipartisan allies and former friends team up against it. December saw California Democrat Dianne Feinstein—a renewable fuel champion--coordinate efforts with Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn to come up with a Senate bill to get rid of ethanol from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), citing fears that corn-based fuel production mandates will harm livestock producers.  In November, Washington proposed cutting the biofuels mandate for 2014 by 16% to 15.21 billion gallons. This would be the first cut in biofuels requirements, which were ideally set to grow each year with incremental increases in renewable fuel targets laid out in a 2007 law. For renewable fuel targets, this represents a major setback because not only is 15.21 billion gallons for 2014 much less than the originally intended 18.15 billion gallons, it is also less than this year’s mandate of 16.55 billion gallons...more

 Excellent!  Some good news for a change.

2,500 Pigs Join Debate Over Farms vs. Scenery

Anita Hudson’s moment of realization came early this year when she saw cement trucks whizzing past her home in this blip of an Ozark town. For Sam Dye, it was when an employee at the school where he once was principal pointed out bulldozers clearing a wooded area in the distance. For many months, Ms. Hudson and Mr. Dye had been among those who brushed off rumors that a large hog farm would be built here in the scenic watershed of the Buffalo River. But now they were confronting reality: a farm that could house as many as 6,500 hogs was being built near them, within the pristine ecosystem of the Buffalo — designated America’s first “national river” and overseen by the National Park Service. Since then, the operation, C&H Hog Farms — which began producing piglets for the agricultural giant Cargill in the spring — has divided the community, drawn scrutiny from environmentalists, politicians, and state and federal officials, and left many wondering how one of the largest hog operations in the so-called Natural State ended up in the heart of a major tourist area. For environmentalists, the development of the Mount Judea (pronounced Judy) hog farm provides a stark example of what they see as lax oversight of such farms by state and federal regulators. Many of them were dismayed last year, for instance, when the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew proposed regulations that would have required all concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, to submit “basic operational information” and would have increased the number of such farms that require permits. But C&H Hog Farms has many supporters, who say that these farms have long dotted the watershed without causing major environmental damage. They argue that the owners of C&H followed all the required steps to obtain a permit and will do all they can to make sure that the farm does not hurt the ecosystem. The controversy simmers as a report released in October by a group of Harvard-led scientists found that nitrogen levels were too high in about half of the country’s national parks — in large part because of ammonia emitted into the air by agricultural operations, which can deprive fish of oxygen or drive out some vegetation in an ecosystem. This phenomenon is expected to worsen in coming decades as corporate farming increases, according to the report...more