Friday, July 07, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Basin water rights disputed Utah officials have accelerated their timetable to reach an agreement with Nevada over the sharing of groundwater resources under the border the two states share in the Great Basin. Residents of Utah's west desert, and some environmentalists, are wondering why. "They said they weren't in any hurry to get this done; now they seem to be in a terrific hurry," Trout Creek rancher Ken Hill said this week.he apparent impetus for the shift: pressure from Southern Nevada Water Authority officials, who are seeking to build a 200-mile pipeline from the Snake and Spring valleys near Great Basin National Park that would send 25,000 acre-feet of water annually to Las Vegas. Utah water rights officials are now targeting September for completing at least the framework of an agreement. "I wouldn't go so far as to say we'll sign an agreement [by September], but it's obvious that [southern Nevada] hasn't been comfortable with our timeline," Boyd Clayton, an assistant engineer with the state's Division of Water Rights, said Thursday. "They would like us to move faster and have indicated that." Who's applying the leverage? Environmental groups and others detect the hand of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. They say the Senate Democratic leader, whose son Rory is a member of the SNWA board, has been playing political hardball with Utah officials to get the deal done.....
Habitat projects a top priority for elk foundation In an effort to preserve and improve wildlife habitat across the state, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is helping to fund 22 projects in Wyoming this year, awarding $227,000 in grants. Working with ranchers, state agencies and other partners, the foundation is assisting with prescribed burns, water development projects, weed control efforts and other programs that may seem small but end up making a big difference. "The projects are important for a variety of species, not just elk," said Jerry Altermatt, a Wyoming Game and Fish biologist working with the foundation on habitat conservation....
Property rights advocates turn in signatures for initiative Initiative 933 supporters, many wearing cowboy hats and boots, gathered on the steps of the state Capitol Thursday cheering as a John Deere tractor hauled in their load of 40 boxes of petitions holding more than 315,000 signatures to submit to the secretary of state. The initiative requires local government to pay any landowner who has been "harmed," economically or otherwise, by any kind of regulation passed since 1996 that has limited what they can do on their land. In effect, it would negate the last decade of environmental protection and growth management rules passed in Washington. The Washington Farm Bureau, the measure's main proponent, hailed the strong support as a sign that Washington voters need relief from restrictive government regulations on private property. Washington Farm Bureau President Steve Appel, said property rights are a critical issue for farmers and ranchers in Washington who have seen the use and the value of their property damaged by government regulations. Appel said the I-933 gives voters the chance to tell government that it needs to understand the impact that laws and regulations have on private property and provide compensation when laws and regulations harm property values....
West Texas landowner initiatives advance Literally thousands of West Texas farmers and ranchers have been meeting in community centers, churches, abandoned gymnasiums, and other gathering places in several counties. The sessions involve Q&A sessions with county officials, legal counsel, and WTWEC advisors, as West Texans explore the pros and cons of wind energy development. From the Concho Valley to the Red River to the Texas Panhandle and all points in between, West Texas ranchers, farmers, and county leaders are organizing, marketing, and building wind energy projects. This intensity and depth of action is in stark contrast to other areas of the U.S. and even South Texas, where wind projects continue to face stiff in my back yard opposition. In fact, in many West Texas areas, the battle cry is often “Put them in my front yard "Please.”....
Company out to dig up more water Farmers who rely on North Poudre Irrigation Co. water for their fields might end up with the water they expected to receive for the growing season after all. The North Poudre board of directors decided Wednesday to look into borrowing water from local municipalities and water districts to cover a projected shortfall of 5,000 to 6,000 acre feet of water farmers were told would be available for their crops. If the water is available, it would be moved into the irrigation company’s system of reservoirs and canals for use this year with the understanding that it would be paid back next year, board members said....
Fence researcher deters hungry wildlife with woven wire Roy Fenster may have fencing in his blood, but he has also left his blood in fences. "I had eight stitches from a barbed wire fence once," said the Montana State University graduate student with plenty of shock and ahhhh memories. "I have been shocked a lot of times, but never electrocuted," he joked. Fenster used to build electric, barbed wire, smooth wire and woven wire fences while working for farmers in Nebraska. He then went on to build 4,800 feet more as part of his master's degree research at MSU. He wanted to find the best way to modify fences to keep deer and elk out of pastures and crops. "If ranchers could keep elk out of critical pasture, ranchers wouldn't be so opposed to elk," said Jim Knight, Fenster's advisor and an MSU Extension Wildlife Specialist. "They would be more tolerant of elk." Fenster started his project in 2004 by finding four Montana ranches with livestock and large numbers of elk or deer....
Looters still ravaging ancient Arizona An Arizona State Land Department investigator and an Arizona State University archaeologist looked intently out the windows of the small aircraft as it circled a desert wash above ancient gravesites. Soon, the two men saw the telltale signs: makeshift roads, heavy equipment, a series of linear cuts. "Look at all those holes; they weren't there before," archaeologist Keith Kintigh said. "That's where they're digging." Experts fear looting of ancient Native American burial sites in Arizona is on the rise, though Land Department investigator Brad Geeck said there are no hard statistics to track those trends. "Every year, the calls seem to increase." The rewards, experts say, outweigh the risks. A single intact pot can bring as much as $75,000. Desecrating human remains to get to the pot is a misdemeanor, with a fine of less than $500....
Foes imaginary, real at Piñon site Army Maj. Milford Beagle stood in a mock forward operating base and looked over a map that pinpointed the locations of three enemy forces operating in the vast war zone: Muhammed's Army, QJBR and Muqfada's Militia. Outside his camp, troops wearing 40 pounds of gear in near 100-degree heat searched for insurgents on 236,300 acres of the austere, arid landscape of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson. In Beagle's eyes, the desert training ground - roughly the same size as Rocky Mountain National Park - was the perfect place to get 3,500 troops from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team ready last month for a fall deployment to Iraq. With an additional 10,000 troops moving to Fort Carson in the next two years, officials want to expand Piñon Canyon by more than 400,000 acres - making it the Army's largest training site. That plan has run into a buzz saw of opposition from a group of about 500 farmers and ranchers. The Piñon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition says the Army has not articulated the need for so much property and has not been forthright about its plans. "If I wanted to deal with you on some land that you had, we would enter into an open and honest discussion. ... But there's none of that open discussion, it's just not there," said coalition leader Lon Robertson....So if we are really looking at future plans to pull troops out of Iraq, why do we need more land to train more troops? I thought the emphasis was on training Iraqi troops, not ours.
Climate change making ominous mark on Midwest Snow sometimes piled so high in the 1960s and 1970s that Gladstone, Mo., postman Bob Drayer couldn't pull his truck up to mailboxes. In the early 1980s, Mary Beth Kirkham crunched across campus on ice cleats at Kansas State University, where she teaches in the Department of Agronomy. "I've given away my ice cleats; we don't have those cold winters anymore," Kirkham said. Although skeptics say our changing weather is just part of a natural cycle, many scientists say winter's diminished fury here is the most visible piece of evidence in the Midwest of global warming. But there are other signs as well. Wildlife and plants native to the South, such as the armadillo and the southern magnolia, now are thriving here. Flowers bloom two weeks earlier than usual, bird migration timetables are out of whack, and heat and drought have dropped many lake and river levels below normal for several years. "This is a much, much bigger issue" than what most people understand, said Ronald P. Neilson, an internationally recognized bioclimatologist at the USDA Forest Service in Oregon. "Haste is important."....
Global warming triggers fatal wildfires in Western US The never-ending warning signals that refer to the increased level of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere (which produces the famous “green-house effect”) are now having a new “buddy”: the wildfires. Scientists found after an intensive study that wildfires in the US have become more dangerous in the last 35 years. The main reason for this is the rise in temperatures, especially in the western part of the US. The global warming was found to be even more important than the forest management programs (which means the use of wood from forests for different industrial activities or the eradication of entire forested areas for agricultural purposes). One of the most important conclusions that the team of scientists came up with is that temperatures in the West for a period between 1987 and 2003 were not less than 1.5 degrees higher than the temperatures registered in the previous 17 years (1970-1987). The scientists discovered that, in fact, the seasonal temperatures were the warmest since record-keeping started in 1895. They were measured for the summer and spring period. A climate researcher, Anthony Westerling, who led the research while at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, said that "It all fits together. The [fire] seasons do start earlier and run longer. It is consistent with a changing climate."....
Rainbow Family number peaks at 15,000 An estimated 15,000 people showed up at the peak of the Rainbow Family's gathering in the mountains of northern Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service said Thursday. The agency said officers had written a total of 584 citations, including 298 for camping without a permit and 181 for drug-related violations. Officials refused to grant the loosely organized, nationwide band a permit, citing fire danger. The weeklong gathering officially started Saturday. The Forest Service said it is gathering data for a rehabilitation plan for the estimated 4-square-mile area of the Routt National Forest where the group is camping. Officials said their concerns include compacted or eroded soil, water pollution and stream bank damage, abandoned dogs and vehicles and trails worn into the forest....
Bill would limit comment on logging Fuel-reduction logging and controlled-burn Forest Service projects on at least 1.2 million public acres would be exempt from the public comment and appeals process under a provision included in a spending bill that a key Senate committee recently approved. Forest Service officials say the measure would reduce the cost and time for high-priority projects but environmentalists cried foul, saying it would cut the public out of decisions affecting public lands. The measure would allow the Forest Service to exempt from the comment and appeals process controlled-burn projects of up to 4,500 acres and fuel-reduction logging projects of up to 1,000 acres. The provision, authored by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., would effectively overturn a court ruling that requires such projects to be subject to public comment. The congressional action comes as the matter remains under litigation, with arguments made in a federal appeals court last month....
Judge won't halt forest thinning A federal judge here has denied a request by two environmental groups to block a project to thin a heavily forested area in the Bitterroot Valley. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, in a decision dated last Friday, declined to issue a preliminary injunction for the project. He said the WildWest Institute and the Friends of the Bitterroot were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the U.S. Forest Service violated procedures of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act. Matthew Koehler, the WildWest Institute's executive director, said Wednesday his group was reviewing its options, which may include an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We were disappointed," Koehler said of Molloy's ruling. The case involved the contentious Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuel Reduction Project, Montana's first hazardous materials reduction project under the Bush administration's Healthy Forests initiative....
Wild Horses in the Wild - Targets of Ruthless Exploiters I am disturbed by the distortions of truth put out by enemies of wild horses in the American West. Extreme prejudice distorts their view of the life of horses in the wild. Instead, with closed minds, they disregard the many positive aspects of the natural, free life of horses. They should read my book, "Wild Horses: Living Symbols of Freedom" to get a fairer picture and stop listening to the bar room philosophies of public land exploiters who are blinded to the true ecological value of wild horses by their own possessive interests. Some aspects of wild horse behavior may seen harsh, yet they prove to be wise in the long run. For example, when a stallion prevents its male progeny from re-entering his band, he prevents inbreeding. The bachelors soon accept this rejection and go off to form their own bands, when sufficient habitat is available. The problem today is that people with vested interests in the livestock and game hunting industries are concocting all sorts of lies and distortions to denigrate wild horses in the wild....
Million-dollar moth: State spends $1m annually for 137-year-old mistake Etienne Leopold Trouvelot was apparently inquisitive, talented and well-regarded in his day. But he is not well-regarded in our day. Because of his mistake 137 years ago, Washington state expends $1 million annually in a war without end against gypsy moths. "We spend more right now to detect and eradicate gypsy moths than any other insect," state Department of Agriculture spokesman John Lundberg said Wednesday. As moths, gypsy moths are only interested in reproducing. But as caterpillars in the spring, they eat forest canopies, litter parks with droppings and give humans rashes. In the Northeast United States, leaf-eating gypsy moths can't be stopped. Officials can only hope to contain them. Trouvelot accidentally released European gypsy moths in 1869 from his home in Medford, Mass. Trouvelot understood the hazards non-native species pose to ecosystems and alerted city officials. The news of moths on the loose didn't incite action, however. "They kind of blew him off," Lundberg said. "They said, 'We have caterpillars around here all the time.' " Trouvelot had gone back to France by the time gypsy moths stripped Medford's trees bare a decade later....
Salamander ruling disputed Five environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the federal government Thursday, challenging its decision not to extend Endangered Species Act protection to a pair of north state amphibians. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in April that it would not list either the Siskiyou Mountain or Scott Bar salamanders as endangered or threatened species, saying California and the U.S. Forest Service already have protections in place. But those protections could disappear, the environmental groups contend. "They substantially relied on protections that are on the chopping block and are in the process of being eliminated," said Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups in the lawsuit. The state is in the process of removing the Siskiyou Mountain salamander from its threatened species list. Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service is rewriting its "survey and manage" rules, which require influences on animals such as the salamanders to be taken into account before a timber sale goes through....
Ceremony needs space: Public asked to respect voluntary closure in forest An American Indian coming-of-age ceremony that hasn't been practiced in its entirety since the 1920s will usher a girl into womanhood starting Saturday. But planning the age-old rite in the 21st century has come with growing pains of its own, said Caleen Sisk-Franco, spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu. "Isn't it ironic that it's the Fourth of July, 2006, and we're still begging around for our rights," Sisk-Franco said this week. "We're still not there yet." The ceremony site -- once the tribe's traditional area -- is now managed by the U.S. Forest Service and a campsite concessionaire. As a popular piece of public land, the 120-member tribe can't use it as freely as it once did. As a result, the tribe says, the government has failed to honor its religious rights. Shasta-Trinity National Forest officials last week asked that the public respect a voluntary closure from Saturday to Tuesday, from McCloud Bridge to about one mile south. District Ranger Kristi Cottini said that because the area is public land, it cannot be completely blocked off....
DDT: The Bald Eagle Lie While the AP acknowledged the fact that bald eagle populations “were considered a nuisance and routinely shot by hunters, farmers and fishermen” – spurring a 1940 federal law protecting bald eagles – the AP underplayed the significance of hunting and human encroachment and erroneously blamed DDT for the eagles’ near demise. As early as 1921, the journal Ecology reported that bald eagles were threatened with extinction – 22 years before DDT production even began. According to a report in the National Museum Bulletin, the bald eagle reportedly had vanished from New England by 1937 – 10 years before widespread use of the pesticide. But by 1960 – 20 years after the Bald Eagle Protection Act and at the peak of DDT use – the Audubon Society reported counting 25 percent more eagles than in its pre-1941 census. U.S. Forest Service studies reported an increase in nesting bald eagle productivity from 51 in 1964 to 107 in 1970, according to the 1970 Annual Report on Bald Eagle Status. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service attributed bald eagle population reductions to a “widespread loss of suitable habitat,” but noted that “illegal shooting continues to be the leading cause of direct mortality in both adult and immature bald eagles,” according to a 1978 report in the Endangered Species Tech Bulletin. A 1984 National Wildlife Federation publication listed hunting, power line electrocution, collisions in flight and poisoning from eating ducks containing lead shot as the leading causes of eagle deaths....
Recent fires on Gila cost millions to fight Fires in recent weeks on the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico have cost millions of dollars to fight, according to Forest Service officials. They say two fires detected on June 2nd and June 19th cost about $11.5 million together. The cost to fight two other fires that became known as the Reserve Complex was put at $6.3 million. Forest Service spokeswoman Loretta Benavidez says firefighters and support personnel who fought blazes in the Gila for the past month came from 36 states. They say more than 2,200 people were involved in the suppression efforts. Wildfires in the Gila this year have charred more than 83,000 acres.
Poison plan appealed Two conservation groups are appealing the Flathead National Forest’s decision to authorize the poisoning of 21 lakes in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and the Jewel Basin Hiking Area. In an appeal filed last month, Wilderness Watch and Friends of the Wild Swan allege that the Forest Service’s approval of the South Fork Flathead Watershed Westslope Cutthroat Trout Conservation Program violates provisions of the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act and the Endangered Species Act. The plan authorizes the state Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) to use poisons and motorized equipment to remove hybrid cutthroat trout from mountain lakes, and then restock those historically fishless lakes with genetically pure populations of Westslope cutthroat trout. The groups also claim the Forest Service’s authorization to use helicopters, aircraft, outboard motors, pumps and mixers in Jewel Basin and the Bob violates the agency’s own forest plan, which does not allow motorized equipment in plan-identified grizzly bear “core areas” while bears are out of their dens....
Border Fight Focuses on Water, Not Immigration For more than 100 years, as their names imply, Calexico and its much larger sister city, Mexicali, south of the border, have embraced each other with a bonhomie born of mutual need and satisfaction in the infernal desert. The pedestrian gate into Mexico clangs ceaselessly as Mexicans lug back bulging bags from Wal-Mart and 99 Cent Stores in Calexico. The line into the United States slogs along, steady but slower, through an air-conditioned foyer as men and women trudge off to work and, during the school year, children wear the universal face that greets the coming day. Now, the ties that bind Calexico and Mexicali are being tested as a 20-year dispute over the rights to water leaking into Mexico from a canal on the American side is reaching a peak. Though the raging debate over illegal immigration in the United States has not upset border relations here, some say the fight over water could affect the number of Mexicans who try to cross here illegally. To slake the ever-growing thirst of San Diego, 100 miles to the west, the United States has a plan to replace a 23-mile segment of the earthen All-American Canal, which the federal government owns and the Colorado River feeds, with a concrete-lined parallel trough. The $225 million project would send more water to San Diego, by cutting off billions of leaked gallons — enough for 112,000 households a year — that have helped irrigate Mexican farms since the 1940's.....
Enlarged livestock district is petition's aim Greensprings landowners have banded together to place 4,400 acres in the Cascade Mountains off-limits to grazing cattle. "We have no property rights when it comes to cows and cowboys," said Leon Kincaid, who owns two parcels totaling 32 acres that he says have suffered thousands of dollars in damage over the past 21 years from cattle. Kincaid and other property owners, including the Green Springs Inn, are part of a petition sent to Jackson County that would enlarge the existing Greensprings Livestock District. A livestock district, according to Oregon law, places the burden on cattle ranchers to keep their animals out of the designated land. More than 100 affected properties along Highway 66 now fall under open-range law, which places the burden on landowners to keep cattle out....
USDA won't send mad cow experts for Canada probe The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Thursday it will not send any experts to take part in Canada's investigation of its latest case of mad cow disease, saying it was confident in Canada's food safety measures. Canada confirmed the case on Tuesday, in an older crossbreed beef cow. It was the country's sixth native-born case of the disease since 2003. Canada said the cow was born "well before" the 1997 ban on use of cattle protein in cattle feed, one of the major safeguards in North America against spread of the disease. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency invited USDA to take part in the investigation of the new case. "Based on our confidence of the food safety measures in place in Canada and our previous audits of the system, we have determined that it is not necessary to send any U.S. experts to participate in this epidemiological investigation at this time," said USDA chief veterinarian John Clifford in a statement. Clifford said "we do not expect that this latest case would cause any disruption in our trade in beef or beef products from Canada."....
Canada cows complicate US, Seoul beef trade South Korea has told the Bush administration it will not resume beef trade until U.S. slaughterhouses segregate Canadian beef products, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday. South Korea closed its borders to U.S. beef in December 2003 after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was reported. The United States has since brought into effect a number of food preparation safeguards but South Korean government officials are concerned about the effects of mingling U.S. and Canadian beef. Canada, which confirmed its sixth home-grown case of mad cow disease on Tuesday, ships cattle and beef from animals under 30 months old into the United States. It has seen twice as many cases of mad cow as the United States, which has a much larger herd. "The Korean audit team found problems in U.S. slaughter procedures, such as the (lack of) segregation of Canadian beef," the source said. "Seoul is discussing and waiting for the U.S. to take measures on that issue. Any time the issue is solved (it will) start importing U.S. beef." No-one from the U.S. Agriculture Department was immediately available for comment....
High Tech Cow Tracking A Utah company hopes its new technology will change the face of the country's meat supply forever. One hundred million head of cattle make up the sources of America's beef. It's "what's for dinner" but Mad Cow, Hoof and Mouth disease, E. coli and antibiotics all should be concerns for consumers. Using wireless technology, North Salt Lake company Tek-Vet tags bovine with a remote box that simply sees if a cow has a fever or if they're too cold. "The cowboys are watching the cows and they go check them all the time. This also acts as a validation, when they think might be sick they can go check on them here." Tek-Vet CTO Richard Keene says the rancher, cowboy or farmer tracks via the Internet each individual cow in their herd. "If we plan to export, we are going to have to have a system like this." So what does this mean to you as the consumer? How about cows not pumped full of antibiotics? And the ability to check out where your New York Strip came from. "You'll be able to buy that piece of meat and go online and put in that animal identifier and find out the entire history of that animal."....
Getting an education Sue and I, along with quite a few of our friends the same age, are beginning to experience a new sensation. We're grandparents. This situation actually began several years ago. It has been wonderful, don't get me wrong. Lately, though, the whole grandparent thing has taken an odd turn. As proud grandparents we looked forward to the first time the kids rolled over, took their first step and uttered their first word. Pretty normal stuff. The first step rapidly evolved into chasing them everywhere, and not being able to keep up with them. It's talking with them, however, that has turned the most interesting. Random babbling has become sentences. Sentences became questions. Eventually, grandparents and grandkids began to have conversations. This is when things began to get a little weird....
On The Edge of Common Sense: 'Da Vinci Code' taken literally, although author indicates he made it up "President Kennedy's assassination was a government cover up," pronounces conspiracy theorists. "I made it up,' shouts Oliver Stone. "I can actually speak Wookie,"proclaims a dedicated Star Wars fan. "I made it up!" shouts George Lucas. "The Da Vinci Code, a saga that plays at the heart of western religion," opines one reviewer. "I made it up," shouts Dan Brown. Although I congratulate Mr. Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, for writing such an appealing book, I am stunned that so many ignore him and take it seriously. Reporters and commentators pose questions with the gravity normally reserved for the North Korean nuclear threat or a coal mine cave in. "Is it possible the Apostle John was really a woman? "Is it true Constantine invented the genuflect?" "Did Da Vinci really paint the face on the barroom floor?" "Who left the tip at the Last Supper?"....
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Basin water rights disputed Utah officials have accelerated their timetable to reach an agreement with Nevada over the sharing of groundwater resources under the border the two states share in the Great Basin. Residents of Utah's west desert, and some environmentalists, are wondering why. "They said they weren't in any hurry to get this done; now they seem to be in a terrific hurry," Trout Creek rancher Ken Hill said this week.he apparent impetus for the shift: pressure from Southern Nevada Water Authority officials, who are seeking to build a 200-mile pipeline from the Snake and Spring valleys near Great Basin National Park that would send 25,000 acre-feet of water annually to Las Vegas. Utah water rights officials are now targeting September for completing at least the framework of an agreement. "I wouldn't go so far as to say we'll sign an agreement [by September], but it's obvious that [southern Nevada] hasn't been comfortable with our timeline," Boyd Clayton, an assistant engineer with the state's Division of Water Rights, said Thursday. "They would like us to move faster and have indicated that." Who's applying the leverage? Environmental groups and others detect the hand of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. They say the Senate Democratic leader, whose son Rory is a member of the SNWA board, has been playing political hardball with Utah officials to get the deal done.....
Habitat projects a top priority for elk foundation In an effort to preserve and improve wildlife habitat across the state, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is helping to fund 22 projects in Wyoming this year, awarding $227,000 in grants. Working with ranchers, state agencies and other partners, the foundation is assisting with prescribed burns, water development projects, weed control efforts and other programs that may seem small but end up making a big difference. "The projects are important for a variety of species, not just elk," said Jerry Altermatt, a Wyoming Game and Fish biologist working with the foundation on habitat conservation....
Property rights advocates turn in signatures for initiative Initiative 933 supporters, many wearing cowboy hats and boots, gathered on the steps of the state Capitol Thursday cheering as a John Deere tractor hauled in their load of 40 boxes of petitions holding more than 315,000 signatures to submit to the secretary of state. The initiative requires local government to pay any landowner who has been "harmed," economically or otherwise, by any kind of regulation passed since 1996 that has limited what they can do on their land. In effect, it would negate the last decade of environmental protection and growth management rules passed in Washington. The Washington Farm Bureau, the measure's main proponent, hailed the strong support as a sign that Washington voters need relief from restrictive government regulations on private property. Washington Farm Bureau President Steve Appel, said property rights are a critical issue for farmers and ranchers in Washington who have seen the use and the value of their property damaged by government regulations. Appel said the I-933 gives voters the chance to tell government that it needs to understand the impact that laws and regulations have on private property and provide compensation when laws and regulations harm property values....
West Texas landowner initiatives advance Literally thousands of West Texas farmers and ranchers have been meeting in community centers, churches, abandoned gymnasiums, and other gathering places in several counties. The sessions involve Q&A sessions with county officials, legal counsel, and WTWEC advisors, as West Texans explore the pros and cons of wind energy development. From the Concho Valley to the Red River to the Texas Panhandle and all points in between, West Texas ranchers, farmers, and county leaders are organizing, marketing, and building wind energy projects. This intensity and depth of action is in stark contrast to other areas of the U.S. and even South Texas, where wind projects continue to face stiff in my back yard opposition. In fact, in many West Texas areas, the battle cry is often “Put them in my front yard "Please.”....
Company out to dig up more water Farmers who rely on North Poudre Irrigation Co. water for their fields might end up with the water they expected to receive for the growing season after all. The North Poudre board of directors decided Wednesday to look into borrowing water from local municipalities and water districts to cover a projected shortfall of 5,000 to 6,000 acre feet of water farmers were told would be available for their crops. If the water is available, it would be moved into the irrigation company’s system of reservoirs and canals for use this year with the understanding that it would be paid back next year, board members said....
Fence researcher deters hungry wildlife with woven wire Roy Fenster may have fencing in his blood, but he has also left his blood in fences. "I had eight stitches from a barbed wire fence once," said the Montana State University graduate student with plenty of shock and ahhhh memories. "I have been shocked a lot of times, but never electrocuted," he joked. Fenster used to build electric, barbed wire, smooth wire and woven wire fences while working for farmers in Nebraska. He then went on to build 4,800 feet more as part of his master's degree research at MSU. He wanted to find the best way to modify fences to keep deer and elk out of pastures and crops. "If ranchers could keep elk out of critical pasture, ranchers wouldn't be so opposed to elk," said Jim Knight, Fenster's advisor and an MSU Extension Wildlife Specialist. "They would be more tolerant of elk." Fenster started his project in 2004 by finding four Montana ranches with livestock and large numbers of elk or deer....
Looters still ravaging ancient Arizona An Arizona State Land Department investigator and an Arizona State University archaeologist looked intently out the windows of the small aircraft as it circled a desert wash above ancient gravesites. Soon, the two men saw the telltale signs: makeshift roads, heavy equipment, a series of linear cuts. "Look at all those holes; they weren't there before," archaeologist Keith Kintigh said. "That's where they're digging." Experts fear looting of ancient Native American burial sites in Arizona is on the rise, though Land Department investigator Brad Geeck said there are no hard statistics to track those trends. "Every year, the calls seem to increase." The rewards, experts say, outweigh the risks. A single intact pot can bring as much as $75,000. Desecrating human remains to get to the pot is a misdemeanor, with a fine of less than $500....
Foes imaginary, real at Piñon site Army Maj. Milford Beagle stood in a mock forward operating base and looked over a map that pinpointed the locations of three enemy forces operating in the vast war zone: Muhammed's Army, QJBR and Muqfada's Militia. Outside his camp, troops wearing 40 pounds of gear in near 100-degree heat searched for insurgents on 236,300 acres of the austere, arid landscape of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, 150 miles southeast of Fort Carson. In Beagle's eyes, the desert training ground - roughly the same size as Rocky Mountain National Park - was the perfect place to get 3,500 troops from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team ready last month for a fall deployment to Iraq. With an additional 10,000 troops moving to Fort Carson in the next two years, officials want to expand Piñon Canyon by more than 400,000 acres - making it the Army's largest training site. That plan has run into a buzz saw of opposition from a group of about 500 farmers and ranchers. The Piñon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition says the Army has not articulated the need for so much property and has not been forthright about its plans. "If I wanted to deal with you on some land that you had, we would enter into an open and honest discussion. ... But there's none of that open discussion, it's just not there," said coalition leader Lon Robertson....So if we are really looking at future plans to pull troops out of Iraq, why do we need more land to train more troops? I thought the emphasis was on training Iraqi troops, not ours.
Climate change making ominous mark on Midwest Snow sometimes piled so high in the 1960s and 1970s that Gladstone, Mo., postman Bob Drayer couldn't pull his truck up to mailboxes. In the early 1980s, Mary Beth Kirkham crunched across campus on ice cleats at Kansas State University, where she teaches in the Department of Agronomy. "I've given away my ice cleats; we don't have those cold winters anymore," Kirkham said. Although skeptics say our changing weather is just part of a natural cycle, many scientists say winter's diminished fury here is the most visible piece of evidence in the Midwest of global warming. But there are other signs as well. Wildlife and plants native to the South, such as the armadillo and the southern magnolia, now are thriving here. Flowers bloom two weeks earlier than usual, bird migration timetables are out of whack, and heat and drought have dropped many lake and river levels below normal for several years. "This is a much, much bigger issue" than what most people understand, said Ronald P. Neilson, an internationally recognized bioclimatologist at the USDA Forest Service in Oregon. "Haste is important."....
Global warming triggers fatal wildfires in Western US The never-ending warning signals that refer to the increased level of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere (which produces the famous “green-house effect”) are now having a new “buddy”: the wildfires. Scientists found after an intensive study that wildfires in the US have become more dangerous in the last 35 years. The main reason for this is the rise in temperatures, especially in the western part of the US. The global warming was found to be even more important than the forest management programs (which means the use of wood from forests for different industrial activities or the eradication of entire forested areas for agricultural purposes). One of the most important conclusions that the team of scientists came up with is that temperatures in the West for a period between 1987 and 2003 were not less than 1.5 degrees higher than the temperatures registered in the previous 17 years (1970-1987). The scientists discovered that, in fact, the seasonal temperatures were the warmest since record-keeping started in 1895. They were measured for the summer and spring period. A climate researcher, Anthony Westerling, who led the research while at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, said that "It all fits together. The [fire] seasons do start earlier and run longer. It is consistent with a changing climate."....
Rainbow Family number peaks at 15,000 An estimated 15,000 people showed up at the peak of the Rainbow Family's gathering in the mountains of northern Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service said Thursday. The agency said officers had written a total of 584 citations, including 298 for camping without a permit and 181 for drug-related violations. Officials refused to grant the loosely organized, nationwide band a permit, citing fire danger. The weeklong gathering officially started Saturday. The Forest Service said it is gathering data for a rehabilitation plan for the estimated 4-square-mile area of the Routt National Forest where the group is camping. Officials said their concerns include compacted or eroded soil, water pollution and stream bank damage, abandoned dogs and vehicles and trails worn into the forest....
Bill would limit comment on logging Fuel-reduction logging and controlled-burn Forest Service projects on at least 1.2 million public acres would be exempt from the public comment and appeals process under a provision included in a spending bill that a key Senate committee recently approved. Forest Service officials say the measure would reduce the cost and time for high-priority projects but environmentalists cried foul, saying it would cut the public out of decisions affecting public lands. The measure would allow the Forest Service to exempt from the comment and appeals process controlled-burn projects of up to 4,500 acres and fuel-reduction logging projects of up to 1,000 acres. The provision, authored by Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., would effectively overturn a court ruling that requires such projects to be subject to public comment. The congressional action comes as the matter remains under litigation, with arguments made in a federal appeals court last month....
Judge won't halt forest thinning A federal judge here has denied a request by two environmental groups to block a project to thin a heavily forested area in the Bitterroot Valley. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, in a decision dated last Friday, declined to issue a preliminary injunction for the project. He said the WildWest Institute and the Friends of the Bitterroot were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their claims that the U.S. Forest Service violated procedures of the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act. Matthew Koehler, the WildWest Institute's executive director, said Wednesday his group was reviewing its options, which may include an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We were disappointed," Koehler said of Molloy's ruling. The case involved the contentious Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuel Reduction Project, Montana's first hazardous materials reduction project under the Bush administration's Healthy Forests initiative....
Wild Horses in the Wild - Targets of Ruthless Exploiters I am disturbed by the distortions of truth put out by enemies of wild horses in the American West. Extreme prejudice distorts their view of the life of horses in the wild. Instead, with closed minds, they disregard the many positive aspects of the natural, free life of horses. They should read my book, "Wild Horses: Living Symbols of Freedom" to get a fairer picture and stop listening to the bar room philosophies of public land exploiters who are blinded to the true ecological value of wild horses by their own possessive interests. Some aspects of wild horse behavior may seen harsh, yet they prove to be wise in the long run. For example, when a stallion prevents its male progeny from re-entering his band, he prevents inbreeding. The bachelors soon accept this rejection and go off to form their own bands, when sufficient habitat is available. The problem today is that people with vested interests in the livestock and game hunting industries are concocting all sorts of lies and distortions to denigrate wild horses in the wild....
Million-dollar moth: State spends $1m annually for 137-year-old mistake Etienne Leopold Trouvelot was apparently inquisitive, talented and well-regarded in his day. But he is not well-regarded in our day. Because of his mistake 137 years ago, Washington state expends $1 million annually in a war without end against gypsy moths. "We spend more right now to detect and eradicate gypsy moths than any other insect," state Department of Agriculture spokesman John Lundberg said Wednesday. As moths, gypsy moths are only interested in reproducing. But as caterpillars in the spring, they eat forest canopies, litter parks with droppings and give humans rashes. In the Northeast United States, leaf-eating gypsy moths can't be stopped. Officials can only hope to contain them. Trouvelot accidentally released European gypsy moths in 1869 from his home in Medford, Mass. Trouvelot understood the hazards non-native species pose to ecosystems and alerted city officials. The news of moths on the loose didn't incite action, however. "They kind of blew him off," Lundberg said. "They said, 'We have caterpillars around here all the time.' " Trouvelot had gone back to France by the time gypsy moths stripped Medford's trees bare a decade later....
Salamander ruling disputed Five environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the federal government Thursday, challenging its decision not to extend Endangered Species Act protection to a pair of north state amphibians. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in April that it would not list either the Siskiyou Mountain or Scott Bar salamanders as endangered or threatened species, saying California and the U.S. Forest Service already have protections in place. But those protections could disappear, the environmental groups contend. "They substantially relied on protections that are on the chopping block and are in the process of being eliminated," said Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups in the lawsuit. The state is in the process of removing the Siskiyou Mountain salamander from its threatened species list. Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service is rewriting its "survey and manage" rules, which require influences on animals such as the salamanders to be taken into account before a timber sale goes through....
Ceremony needs space: Public asked to respect voluntary closure in forest An American Indian coming-of-age ceremony that hasn't been practiced in its entirety since the 1920s will usher a girl into womanhood starting Saturday. But planning the age-old rite in the 21st century has come with growing pains of its own, said Caleen Sisk-Franco, spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu. "Isn't it ironic that it's the Fourth of July, 2006, and we're still begging around for our rights," Sisk-Franco said this week. "We're still not there yet." The ceremony site -- once the tribe's traditional area -- is now managed by the U.S. Forest Service and a campsite concessionaire. As a popular piece of public land, the 120-member tribe can't use it as freely as it once did. As a result, the tribe says, the government has failed to honor its religious rights. Shasta-Trinity National Forest officials last week asked that the public respect a voluntary closure from Saturday to Tuesday, from McCloud Bridge to about one mile south. District Ranger Kristi Cottini said that because the area is public land, it cannot be completely blocked off....
DDT: The Bald Eagle Lie While the AP acknowledged the fact that bald eagle populations “were considered a nuisance and routinely shot by hunters, farmers and fishermen” – spurring a 1940 federal law protecting bald eagles – the AP underplayed the significance of hunting and human encroachment and erroneously blamed DDT for the eagles’ near demise. As early as 1921, the journal Ecology reported that bald eagles were threatened with extinction – 22 years before DDT production even began. According to a report in the National Museum Bulletin, the bald eagle reportedly had vanished from New England by 1937 – 10 years before widespread use of the pesticide. But by 1960 – 20 years after the Bald Eagle Protection Act and at the peak of DDT use – the Audubon Society reported counting 25 percent more eagles than in its pre-1941 census. U.S. Forest Service studies reported an increase in nesting bald eagle productivity from 51 in 1964 to 107 in 1970, according to the 1970 Annual Report on Bald Eagle Status. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service attributed bald eagle population reductions to a “widespread loss of suitable habitat,” but noted that “illegal shooting continues to be the leading cause of direct mortality in both adult and immature bald eagles,” according to a 1978 report in the Endangered Species Tech Bulletin. A 1984 National Wildlife Federation publication listed hunting, power line electrocution, collisions in flight and poisoning from eating ducks containing lead shot as the leading causes of eagle deaths....
Recent fires on Gila cost millions to fight Fires in recent weeks on the Gila National Forest of southwestern New Mexico have cost millions of dollars to fight, according to Forest Service officials. They say two fires detected on June 2nd and June 19th cost about $11.5 million together. The cost to fight two other fires that became known as the Reserve Complex was put at $6.3 million. Forest Service spokeswoman Loretta Benavidez says firefighters and support personnel who fought blazes in the Gila for the past month came from 36 states. They say more than 2,200 people were involved in the suppression efforts. Wildfires in the Gila this year have charred more than 83,000 acres.
Poison plan appealed Two conservation groups are appealing the Flathead National Forest’s decision to authorize the poisoning of 21 lakes in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and the Jewel Basin Hiking Area. In an appeal filed last month, Wilderness Watch and Friends of the Wild Swan allege that the Forest Service’s approval of the South Fork Flathead Watershed Westslope Cutthroat Trout Conservation Program violates provisions of the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act and the Endangered Species Act. The plan authorizes the state Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) to use poisons and motorized equipment to remove hybrid cutthroat trout from mountain lakes, and then restock those historically fishless lakes with genetically pure populations of Westslope cutthroat trout. The groups also claim the Forest Service’s authorization to use helicopters, aircraft, outboard motors, pumps and mixers in Jewel Basin and the Bob violates the agency’s own forest plan, which does not allow motorized equipment in plan-identified grizzly bear “core areas” while bears are out of their dens....
Border Fight Focuses on Water, Not Immigration For more than 100 years, as their names imply, Calexico and its much larger sister city, Mexicali, south of the border, have embraced each other with a bonhomie born of mutual need and satisfaction in the infernal desert. The pedestrian gate into Mexico clangs ceaselessly as Mexicans lug back bulging bags from Wal-Mart and 99 Cent Stores in Calexico. The line into the United States slogs along, steady but slower, through an air-conditioned foyer as men and women trudge off to work and, during the school year, children wear the universal face that greets the coming day. Now, the ties that bind Calexico and Mexicali are being tested as a 20-year dispute over the rights to water leaking into Mexico from a canal on the American side is reaching a peak. Though the raging debate over illegal immigration in the United States has not upset border relations here, some say the fight over water could affect the number of Mexicans who try to cross here illegally. To slake the ever-growing thirst of San Diego, 100 miles to the west, the United States has a plan to replace a 23-mile segment of the earthen All-American Canal, which the federal government owns and the Colorado River feeds, with a concrete-lined parallel trough. The $225 million project would send more water to San Diego, by cutting off billions of leaked gallons — enough for 112,000 households a year — that have helped irrigate Mexican farms since the 1940's.....
Enlarged livestock district is petition's aim Greensprings landowners have banded together to place 4,400 acres in the Cascade Mountains off-limits to grazing cattle. "We have no property rights when it comes to cows and cowboys," said Leon Kincaid, who owns two parcels totaling 32 acres that he says have suffered thousands of dollars in damage over the past 21 years from cattle. Kincaid and other property owners, including the Green Springs Inn, are part of a petition sent to Jackson County that would enlarge the existing Greensprings Livestock District. A livestock district, according to Oregon law, places the burden on cattle ranchers to keep their animals out of the designated land. More than 100 affected properties along Highway 66 now fall under open-range law, which places the burden on landowners to keep cattle out....
USDA won't send mad cow experts for Canada probe The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Thursday it will not send any experts to take part in Canada's investigation of its latest case of mad cow disease, saying it was confident in Canada's food safety measures. Canada confirmed the case on Tuesday, in an older crossbreed beef cow. It was the country's sixth native-born case of the disease since 2003. Canada said the cow was born "well before" the 1997 ban on use of cattle protein in cattle feed, one of the major safeguards in North America against spread of the disease. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency invited USDA to take part in the investigation of the new case. "Based on our confidence of the food safety measures in place in Canada and our previous audits of the system, we have determined that it is not necessary to send any U.S. experts to participate in this epidemiological investigation at this time," said USDA chief veterinarian John Clifford in a statement. Clifford said "we do not expect that this latest case would cause any disruption in our trade in beef or beef products from Canada."....
Canada cows complicate US, Seoul beef trade South Korea has told the Bush administration it will not resume beef trade until U.S. slaughterhouses segregate Canadian beef products, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday. South Korea closed its borders to U.S. beef in December 2003 after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was reported. The United States has since brought into effect a number of food preparation safeguards but South Korean government officials are concerned about the effects of mingling U.S. and Canadian beef. Canada, which confirmed its sixth home-grown case of mad cow disease on Tuesday, ships cattle and beef from animals under 30 months old into the United States. It has seen twice as many cases of mad cow as the United States, which has a much larger herd. "The Korean audit team found problems in U.S. slaughter procedures, such as the (lack of) segregation of Canadian beef," the source said. "Seoul is discussing and waiting for the U.S. to take measures on that issue. Any time the issue is solved (it will) start importing U.S. beef." No-one from the U.S. Agriculture Department was immediately available for comment....
High Tech Cow Tracking A Utah company hopes its new technology will change the face of the country's meat supply forever. One hundred million head of cattle make up the sources of America's beef. It's "what's for dinner" but Mad Cow, Hoof and Mouth disease, E. coli and antibiotics all should be concerns for consumers. Using wireless technology, North Salt Lake company Tek-Vet tags bovine with a remote box that simply sees if a cow has a fever or if they're too cold. "The cowboys are watching the cows and they go check them all the time. This also acts as a validation, when they think might be sick they can go check on them here." Tek-Vet CTO Richard Keene says the rancher, cowboy or farmer tracks via the Internet each individual cow in their herd. "If we plan to export, we are going to have to have a system like this." So what does this mean to you as the consumer? How about cows not pumped full of antibiotics? And the ability to check out where your New York Strip came from. "You'll be able to buy that piece of meat and go online and put in that animal identifier and find out the entire history of that animal."....
Getting an education Sue and I, along with quite a few of our friends the same age, are beginning to experience a new sensation. We're grandparents. This situation actually began several years ago. It has been wonderful, don't get me wrong. Lately, though, the whole grandparent thing has taken an odd turn. As proud grandparents we looked forward to the first time the kids rolled over, took their first step and uttered their first word. Pretty normal stuff. The first step rapidly evolved into chasing them everywhere, and not being able to keep up with them. It's talking with them, however, that has turned the most interesting. Random babbling has become sentences. Sentences became questions. Eventually, grandparents and grandkids began to have conversations. This is when things began to get a little weird....
On The Edge of Common Sense: 'Da Vinci Code' taken literally, although author indicates he made it up "President Kennedy's assassination was a government cover up," pronounces conspiracy theorists. "I made it up,' shouts Oliver Stone. "I can actually speak Wookie,"proclaims a dedicated Star Wars fan. "I made it up!" shouts George Lucas. "The Da Vinci Code, a saga that plays at the heart of western religion," opines one reviewer. "I made it up," shouts Dan Brown. Although I congratulate Mr. Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, for writing such an appealing book, I am stunned that so many ignore him and take it seriously. Reporters and commentators pose questions with the gravity normally reserved for the North Korean nuclear threat or a coal mine cave in. "Is it possible the Apostle John was really a woman? "Is it true Constantine invented the genuflect?" "Did Da Vinci really paint the face on the barroom floor?" "Who left the tip at the Last Supper?"....
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Thursday, July 06, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Firefighters battle blazes with new tools Water-logged easterners may not believe it, but much of the country is unseasonably dry. Moisture levels are below average in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, and Wyoming, and much of the Great Plains from Oklahoma to North Dakota is experiencing drought as well. In all, one-fourth of the US is facing moderate-to-extreme drought conditions, which brings the threat of fire. "The long-term moisture deficits and high fuel loadings are producing critically high fire potential, particularly in the higher elevation timber," researchers at the University of Arizona's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth reported recently. As a result, the number of fires and the acreage burned have set 10-year highs. The number of acres burned so far is more than twice the average over the past decade, according to the National Inter-agency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. One 40,000-acre fire even threatened the University of Nevada Fire Science Academy, giving students the kind of on-the-job training they hadn't counted on. Wildfire detection and management have gone through a renaissance of sorts in recent years, experts say. Rotating digital cameras are replacing human lookouts posted in lonely mountain towers. Satellites, computers, remote automated weather stations, and lightning strike detectors are among the new tools used to monitor, map, and model fires....
New Mexico drought putting native fish in danger Chuck Dentino hovered over a small pool of stagnant water on the Rio de las Vacas and watched a few small fish dart from one end to the other. They had nowhere else to go. The stream bed that meandered above the 10-foot diameter pool and below it was bone dry for as far as the eye could see. “The only thing holding water are these pools,” said Dentino, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “It's the last place the fish have to hang out.” Had it not been for a 2004 Forest Service habitat restoration project that created a series of pools along the Jemez Mountain stream, there would in fact be no place for fish to survive. Record drought is taking its toll on northern New Mexico's high country waterways, some of which are “drying up like mad,” according to Dentino. Reduced water flows are in turn threatening dwindling populations of the native Rio Grande cutthroat trout – the state fish – that biologists and conservationists have been working hard to save....
Rainbow Family's prayer for peace goes undisturbed by authorities Federal and Routt County authorities kept a low profile Tuesday as thousands of Rainbow Family and Living Light members gathered for their traditional Circle of Peace prayer service. The U.S. Forest Service expected Tuesday to be the biggest gathering day for the nomadic group because of the prayer service. About 10,000 members of the Rainbow Family have showed up for the weeklong event, which is half of what the Forest Service and Routt County sheriff's deputies expected. "We're going to be low-key (Tuesday)," said Diann Ritschard, information officer for the Routt National Forest. "The Colorado State Patrol is still on the highways providing public safety. We're still doing walk-throughs, but the Forest Service is not in any way going to disturb the peace prayer." Authorities said they expect an exodus of the thousands of Rainbow Family members out of Routt National Forest to begin after Tuesday's prayer service. The low-key enforcement was a change for Forest Service officers, who have struggled since last month with the droves of people congregating in a four-square-mile area about 35 miles north of Steamboat Springs. Officers have had to issue more than 500 violation notices to Rainbow Family members since June 12 for illegally occupying U.S. forest land without obtaining a special-use permit. The permit was denied because of the high fire dangers. The group's presence ended up displacing other forest-service visitors who did obtain the proper permits, Ritschard said....Try grazing without a permit or having a Christian gathering without a permit and see how "low-key" the Forest Service is.
Rainbow Gathering includes eclectic souls In case you're wondering, here at the 35th Annual National Rainbow Gathering in the Routt/Medicine Bow National Forest, the Rainbow Family of Living Light keeps its members well-fed, safe and conscious of how they approach the thousands of acres of U.S. National Forest they are temporarily inhabiting. The members - anyone not a cop or a Forest Service official - spent the last week setting up a spur-of-the-moment community, complete with group kitchens and a main circle where many gather each night at 6 p.m. to share meals, and discourse about ... well, being well-fed, safe and conscious. The dishwashing areas, compost heaps and toilets are works in progress that involve a little science, muscle and some shovels. Everyone holds hands and chants "Om" in a collective wish for peace before the food gets delivered by the kitchens. There are a county's worth of people out here in the woods, hiking, on average, from 2 to 6 miles between the designated parking areas and their chosen campsites. It's safe to say that there's at least 10,000 people here - if not 15,000 or 20,000....
Loggers, land interests work to create healthy forests Bob and Jacqui Johnson and Daniel Teare have been logging ponderosa pine trees in the Hay Camp Mesa area in Dolores since December 2005 and will continue for a few more weeks. The roughly 50 trees hauled daily from the forest to the mill at Intermountain Resources in Montrose helps the struggling local timber industry. It also moves the forest one step closer to its original natural setting. In an example of history repeating, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management are relying on past forest management to deliver healthy forests and a restored logging industry. They're doing it through a partnership of unlikely allies in the wood-production, forest-management, alternative-energy and economic-development industries. Locally, the Ponderosa Pine Forest Partnership covers 8,000 acres under contract in the Mancos-Dolores district of the San Juan National Forest. "In order to create a more healthy forest today, the agency felt that we needed to design stands that better reflected the stand structure that existed in the pre-settlement period," said Phil Kemp, forester for the Dolores Public Lands Center....
Editorial: Congress quashes land selloff Congress isn't having one of its all-star years, but a Senate committee made a good decision last week when it quietly approved a spending bill for the Interior Department and the Forest Service that does not include the Bush administration's ill-conceived plan to sell off some federal lands. Several weeks ago, a House committee made a similar determination. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, had proposed selling 150,000 to 200,000 acres to raise $800 million for rural schools hurt by lagging federal timber sales. Then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton suggested selling an unspecified amount of Bureau of Land Management acreage worth $40 million a year to fund conservation programs and reduce the deficit. In Colorado, the for-sale list included 21,000 acres, including tracts overlooking Rocky Mountain National Park and along the scenic road to Mount Evans. Other parts of the proposal highlighted the slapdash work behind it - one California landowner reported that a parcel she'd already bought from the government was on the list....
Appeals court halts clear-cut in Utah The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has halted planned clear-cut logging on the Aquarius Plateau near Escalante, ruling the Forest Service did not present evidence supporting its claim that the project would help the northern goshawk population. The goshawk is considered a sensitive species, which means its populations are declining and any decision about the forest must consider the effect on the species. The plan was to log 3,307 acres of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir and 669 acres of aspen forest, including clear-cutting of 440 acres of Engelmann spruce and 112 acres of aspen. The Forest Service argued that clear-cutting would not harm the goshawk population, which has gone from 68 nesting pairs in 1982 to 30 or fewer in 2002, the last year measured. However, the court’s ruling handed down Thursday that that was contrary to recommendations of a report that the Forest Service itself had deemed to be the best available science overall. That report said thinning out trees, not clear-cutting, would be the best strategy to preserve habitat....
Protections are threatened with extinction Yet, another sneak attack on the act's provisions has been initiated by anti-environmentalists in the House, which passed HR4200, a bill that would suspend environmental and scientific analysis in order to expedite logging and clear-cutting in our national forests following wildland fires. The bill would also suspend the Endangered Species Act's requirement that federal agencies consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prior to logging the habitat of endangered species. As such, tens of thousands of acres of critical habitat could be logged before it is determined that such actions may cause extinction. The Senate version of the bill, S2709, which could see a vote soon, is being led by the anti-environmental Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., though some key Democrats with a history of allegiance to the timber industry, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have not yet made clear their positions. The legislation attempts to take advantage of the public's misunderstanding of wildland fires, implying that forests burned are forests "destroyed." Nothing could be further from the truth....
Birds Going Extinct Faster Due to Human Activities Human activities have caused some 500 bird species worldwide to go extinct over the past five millennia, and 21st-century extinction rates likely will accelerate to approximately 10 additional species per year unless societies take action to reverse the trend, according to a new report. Without the influence of humans, the expected extinction rate for birds would be roughly one species per century, according to Stuart Pimm, professor of conservation ecology at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, who is one of the report's principal authors. "What our study does, for the first time, is provide a well-justified and careful estimate of how much faster bird species are going extinct now than they did before humans began altering their environments," said Pimm, whose research group pioneered the approach of estimating extinction rates on a per-year basis. "Extinction rates for birds are hugely important, because people really care about birds," he said. "People enjoy them, and bird watching is a big industry. So we know the rates of bird extinctions better than the rates for other groups of species." "Habitat destruction, selective hunting, invasive alien species and global warming are all affecting natural populations of plants and animals adversely," added Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, who is co-principal author of the report and a longtime collaborator with Pimm....
Grizzly Attacks Idaho Man An Idaho man is recovering after being attacked by a grizzly bear. The unidentified man was walking Monday morning along the Targhee Creek Trail when a bear appeared. The US Forest Service says the bear woofed twice and charged the hiker. They say he dropped to the ground and the bear ran over him. Then the bear returned and bit the hiker on the right hip and shoulder and then ran away. The hiker was able to travel back down to the trailhead and drove to West Yellowstone for treatment. The Caribou-Targhee Forest and Idaho Fish and Game are reviewing the incident....
Bring Back Bigfoot On June 18, he spent an hour telling 60 people about his 34-year search for Bigfoot. The occasion was the Bigfoot Rendezvous in Pocatello, where 100 people from Texas all the way to British Columbia shelled out $55 each to hear Bigfoot experts. Mionczynski isn't wild-eyed, soft-bellied, and he can't tell you which X-Files episode featured Agent Scully getting whisked into Heaven by E.T. He's a lean mountain man who had his first Bigfoot encounter as a U.S. Forest Service bear researcher. He's been hunting for hard evidence--a Bigfoot carcass--ever since. It was 1972. On a bright moonlit night, Mionczynski was sleeping alone in a 6-foot tall nylon tent deep in the southern end of the Wind River range. He jumped awake when a bear poked its nose into the tent's side. "I whacked it in the nose with my hand," Mionczynski recalled, as though nothing is extraordinary about bear-whacking. The beast retreated to a "dog-haired" pine thicket behind the tent, close enough for Mionczynski to hear breathing. Six breaths a minute. Much slower than an active bear. The beast poked its nose against the tent again. Mionczynski whacked it again. The third assault came from above when the thing pushed the tent's top, collapsing it. In the moonlight, Mionczynski didn't see a bear paw settling on top of his tent. "I saw the silhouette of a hand with an opposable thumb," a hand twice the size of a man's, Mionczynski said....
State faces lawsuit over lynx trapping An animal protection organization is preparing to sue the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in federal court for failure to adequately protect endangered or threatened species from incidental trapping. The California-based Animal Protection Institute issued a notice of intent to sue in April and is awaiting a formal response from the state of Minnesota as well as the Department of the Interior. Camilla Fox, API’s director of wildlife programs, said endangered species, like the Canada lynx, the gray wolf, and the bald eagle are being accidentally trapped in Minnesota and that state officials have done too little to prevent the incidental take of protected birds and animals. Her group is asking the DNR to prohibit the use of snares, conibear, and leghold traps as part of its effort to protect these species. Fox said her organization’s research has found records of at least seven lynx accidentally trapped on the Superior National Forest since 2002, although all but two of the animals were later released. The group also cites records that 24 Bald Eagles were brought to the Minnesota Raptor Center over the past fifteen years, after being caught in traps. She said at least half of those birds had to be destroyed. DNR officials say they’ve taken steps to reduce accidental trapping of lynx....
Wolf center shifts educational focus If you go to the International Wolf Center in Ely this year, you are likely to learn about some new aspects and challenges of wolf conservation. The center is still committed to advancing wolf survival through education, but in a world where wolves have exceeded population recovery goals in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and the northern Rockies , the issue is no longer “will the wolf survive?” Now it is more a question of whether humans coexist with the predator and whether wolves have wild habitat to live in as humans continue to turn forests and foothills into housing complexes. The center’s new “Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21st Century” exhibit highlights these new wolf conservation challenges and demonstrates a shift in the center’s educational strategy. “We are a small organization based solely in Minnesota, so we have been looking for ways to maximize our impact,” said IWC Assistant Director Jim Williams. To do this, the center has been prioritizing projects that they feel will have the biggest impact on wolf populations on the ground in two key geographic areas: the upper Midwest and the southwestern states of Arizona and New Mexico. “In the Midwest, we are entering the post-endangered species era,” said Williams. “And in the southwest, they are in the early stages of wolf recovery, but have run into barriers.” In each of these regions, the Ely-based Center is working to be a leader on wolf issues....
Navy Continues Up to 300 Detonations Per Year in Puget Sound The U.S. Navy sets off between 180 and 300 underwater explosive charges each year in some of the most sensitive waters of Puget Sound, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Despite promises, four years ago after PEER first revealed the existence of the extensive Puget Sound demolition program, to conduct environmental reviews, measures to protect threatened or endangered marine mammals, fish and aquatic plants have yet to materialize. Several times each month, the U.S. Navy detonates live explosives deep underwater to provide "realistic" training for its divers in destroying and disabling mines. Unfortunately, the detonations also blow up marine life. In one exercise, for example, involving a five-pound explosive charge set off near Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, observers counted 5,000 dead fish on the surface but estimated that up to another 20,000 fish died and sank out of sight to the seabed. The Navy conducts approximately 60 demolition exercises each year, at least three every month, using three to five C4 plastic explosives, far more powerful than dynamite, in packets ranging in size from five to 20 pounds, often set off with 20 pound blasting charges. Since 2002, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the two civilian agencies charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act, have urged the Navy to undertake alternative training practices to minimize damage to marine life, such as using bubble curtains or other containers to minimize blast impacts, or conducting the training in quarries, lakes or the open ocean rather than in the waters of Puget Sound, a designated Essential Fish Habitat under the Sustainable Fisheries Act....
Invasive plants on rampage It says a lot about the state of the battle against invasive plant species in Utah and the West that officials talk wistfully about earning a draw. Beating them back, at the moment anyway, is out of the question. Cheatgrass has turned vast stretches of the state - particularly the Great Basin and Mojave regions - into a tinderbox. Tamarisk has swallowed riparian areas almost whole, sucking up hundreds of thousands of gallons of water in the process, and Russian olive is gaining on tamarisk to the point that some say it will soon be the mother of all invasive plant species. But because of budget and personnel limitations, federal and state agencies are unable to really put much of a dent in the two-decade rampage of these primary offenders. Rather, the strategy has been to hold them at bay until the day comes that they can start eradicating them. "Right now, we're in a preventative mode, trying to keep it from taking over additional areas," says Verlin Smith, the chief of renewable resources for the Bureau of Land Management's state office. Most of the BLM's efforts are currently devoted to battling cheatgrass, which looks lovely and green swaying in the sunshine of spring, but turns dry and brittle come summer - just in time for the start of the wildfire season....
BLM wild horse birth control, bait-trapping plan concerns some The Bureau of Land Management plans to give 24 older wild horses birth control shots as part of an ongoing effort to help limit the population and address concerns about conditions on the Pryor Mountain horse range in Montana and Wyoming. The agency, which has used birth control in select mares since 2001, also plans for the first time to use mineral or protein blocks as bait to trap and capture up to 22 horses that would be put up for adoption later this summer. Half those horses are to be bachelor stallions and the other half yearlings. So-called bait trapping is less intrusive than traditional roundups, and, when combined with the planned birth control regimen, “will help keep the population of the herd in balance with the range,” Sandy Brooks, field manager of the BLM's Billings office, said Wednesday. Some wild horse advocates say they understood BLM's use of birth control would eliminate the need for rounding up and removing horses from the land. One advocate, who argues the agency's overall management is flawed and will lead to a population too small to be genetically viable, vowed to do “everything legally possible” to keep the program – which is slated to begin as early as Monday – from moving forward....
Conservation deals await feds More than 3,000 acres of prime agricultural land in Carson Valley has been earmarked for conservation easements through the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. Another 1,360 acres could be approved during the upcoming Round 7. That's music to the ears of many Douglas County residents, but the Bureau of Land Management hasn't completed one agreement despite the availability of funding. Commissioner Kelly Kite said local Bureau of Land Management officials are supportive, but once the process is out of local hands nothing seems to come of it. "We've been getting rosy reports for a couple of years now, but no money," he said. "We have a lot of people depending on them coming through. I don't know what we can do to make it happen, but it hasn't yet." The funding is acquired from the sale of public land in and around Las Vegas. A small portion is set aside for education and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, but the balance is set aside in a special account for projects throughout the state in a number of categories, including parks and trails, conservation easements and environmentally sensitive land acquisitions. A portion can be used to purchase the development rights on ranch lands, thus preserving that open space in perpetuity....
Reptile's numbers steadily declining Nearly every Texan has a favorite childhood story about collecting horny toads. But the once-abundant state reptile, known to scientists as the horned lizard, has seen a steady decline in recent decades. For the past few years, a West Texas A&M University biology professor and his students have studied the Texas Horned Lizard at the Pantex Plant to learn more about the oft-elusive reptiles. Just what's causing the horned lizards' decline continues to elude researchers. The Texas Horned Lizard is rarely seen in areas of Texas east of Interstate 35. The harvester ant, the horned lizard's feast of choice, is the bane of many homeowners, who often kill off ant mounds with pesticides. House cats, predators and highways also take their toll....
Company plans wells in region Questar Corp. said it plans to drill 4,000 oil and gas wells in a 150,000-acre area along the Colorado-Wyoming border over the next 30 years. Drilling could start as early as 2008, the Salt Lake City-based company said Wednesday. About 60 percent of the drilling would take place in Wyoming, while the rest would be in northwestern Colorado, said Vincent Rigatti, Questar Market Resources general manager. The majority of the wells would pump natural gas. He said most of the sites are on Bureau of Land Management property. BLM could issue a final environmental impact statement by June 2007 and give the company permission to drill in early 2008, he said. Rigatti said he has been discussing the plans with local officials and doesn't expect fierce opposition because drilling has taken place there since 1920s.
Energy bill offsets oil, gas companies A provision in a House-passed energy bill would take steps to reduce the time energy companies say they waste waiting for the government to act on permits to drill or mine for oil, gas and coal. Interior Department officials have said they are struggling to keep up with the growing mountain of applications for permits to drill on public land. But House members say they worry that government workers sometimes unnecessarily drag their feet as they consider applications. Under the House energy bill approved last week, the government would have to buy back leases -- and pay restitution in some cases -- if it delays action. "This provision will put pressure on state and federal agencies to act expeditiously and fairly on permit requests (and) appeals," said Charles Isom, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who proposed the measure. Environmentalists say the provision effectively creates a new entitlement program for energy companies, and pushes the government to approve permits at the expense of the environment and local communities. They are especially concerned because failing to act on an application would be treated as a breach of contract under the bill, potentially enabling a company to be compensated for more than just the cost of the lease....
BLM office dealing with high worker turnover A 25 percent turnover rate at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's bustling Buffalo Field Office has prompted the agency to borrow employees from field offices in Casper, Worland, Newcastle and even Miles City, Mont. Assistant Field Manager Richard Zander says some of the turnover results from northeast Wyoming's coalbed methane boom. The field office staff has grown from 23 to 83 over the past decade. "There is a certain amount of burnout here," Zander said. Zander himself is the latest to go. After more than 28 years with the BLM, Zander, 57, retired Monday to open an environmental consulting firm in Buffalo. He said last year's turnover rate was about 9 percent, but the rate since October has been around 25 percent. The turnover might not let up, either. Over the next five years, half of the BLM's management-level employees will be eligible to retire. That's a concern as the agency competes with energy development companies for young talent. BLM Director Kathleen Clarke told a congressional panel last week that the agency is fighting an "uphill battle" trying to get on top of a massive workload created by ever-increasing energy development. In just the past three years, the number of oil and gas drilling applications to the BLM increased 82 percent. More than half of those are in Wyoming, according to the agency....
Tackling 10,000-year-old mystery Ten thousand years ago, a band of nomadic hunters stampeded 600 bison off the edge of a small cliff then speared and butchered the beasts before hauling off the meat. Or maybe not. Maybe, instead, a lightning bolt or a swift-moving grass fire killed the whole herd, and their remains were quickly buried beneath wind-blown sand and silt. A few decades later, hunters camped on the buried bison remains, leaving behind stone spear points and tools that, over the millennia, have mixed with the animal bones. Those conflicting interpretations confronted University of Colorado archaeology students last month at the Hudson-Meng Bison Kill on the Oglala National Grassland, about 330 miles northeast of Denver....
GOP Ads Go Green It's not often you see Republicans trying to run to the left of a Democrat on environmental issues, but that's exactly where a pair of new TV ads are aimed in the gubernatorial race between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides. Two ads were released this morning by the California Republican Party on their website. No word yet on whether there's any real money being handed over to air these ads, or whether making a splash in the political media was the main goal. The pro-Arnold ad (see it here) uses some pretty well-known environmental issues from the Schwarzenegger era: creation of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, support for more solar powered homes, and exploration into vehicles that use hydrogen fuel. None of these have been fully completed (though the conservancy is the farthest along), but all are part of the governor's pitch that he's as green as they get in Republican circles. The Republican Party says the ads will air on TV statewide, but won't say with what frequency....
Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth Al Gore calls global warming an "inconvenient truth," as if merely recognizing it could put us on a path to a solution. That's an illusion. The real truth is that we don't know enough to relieve global warming, and -- barring major technological breakthroughs -- we can't do much about it. This was obvious nine years ago; it's still obvious. Let me explain. From 2003 to 2050, the world's population is projected to grow from 6.4 billion people to 9.1 billion, a 42 percent increase. If energy use per person and technology remain the same, total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (mainly, carbon dioxide) will be 42 percent higher in 2050. But that's too low, because societies that grow richer use more energy. Unless we condemn the world's poor to their present poverty -- and freeze everyone else's living standards -- we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050. Just keeping annual greenhouse gas emissions constant means that the world must somehow offset these huge increases. There are two ways: Improve energy efficiency, or shift to energy sources with lower (or no) greenhouse emissions. Intuitively, you sense this is tough....
A Convenient Lie When he was in college, atmospheric-science professor John Christy was told, "it was a certainty that by the year 2000, the world would be starving and out of energy." That prediction has gone the way of so many others. But environmentalists continue to warn us that we face environmental disaster if we don't accept the economic disaster called the Kyoto treaty. Lawyers from the Natural Resources Defense Council (another environmental group with more lawyers than scientists) explain: "Sea levels will rise, flooding coastal areas." And Al Gore's new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," depicts a future in which cities are submerged by rising sea levels. Wow. But many scientists laugh at the panic. Christy says, "Doomsday prophecies grabbed headlines but have proven to be completely false. Similar pronouncements today about catastrophes due to human-induced climate change sound all too familiar." But the media can't get enough of doomsday....
Sheep trails catch state’s attention Idaho is historically known for range sheep operations, and still has more than any other state in the nation, even though the number of operators have sharply decreased over the last century. That means the state is criss-crossed by countless old sheep trails, once used by bands every spring as their herders moved the animals from lowland winter range to high mountain summer range and back down each fall. In an era of expanding urbanization, some trails cross state endowment lands that are right in the path of development. There should be a way to set aside at least one or two acres of that land to be saved for a sheep bedding ground and continuation of the trail, said rancher John Peavey. That probably won’t be possible unless the state Land Board sets formal policy allowing it, said Tracy Behrens, state rangeland manager for the Idaho Department of Land. “We are under a constitutional mandate to get market value for those state endowment lands,” Behrens said. “Some of those properties are worth millions today.” The exchange was one of several during the annual range tour sponsored by the Idaho Wool Growers Association. Nearly 200 members and guests attended the all-day tour, which concentrated on private, state and federal land where Jouglard Sheep Co. operates....
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Firefighters battle blazes with new tools Water-logged easterners may not believe it, but much of the country is unseasonably dry. Moisture levels are below average in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, and Wyoming, and much of the Great Plains from Oklahoma to North Dakota is experiencing drought as well. In all, one-fourth of the US is facing moderate-to-extreme drought conditions, which brings the threat of fire. "The long-term moisture deficits and high fuel loadings are producing critically high fire potential, particularly in the higher elevation timber," researchers at the University of Arizona's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth reported recently. As a result, the number of fires and the acreage burned have set 10-year highs. The number of acres burned so far is more than twice the average over the past decade, according to the National Inter-agency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. One 40,000-acre fire even threatened the University of Nevada Fire Science Academy, giving students the kind of on-the-job training they hadn't counted on. Wildfire detection and management have gone through a renaissance of sorts in recent years, experts say. Rotating digital cameras are replacing human lookouts posted in lonely mountain towers. Satellites, computers, remote automated weather stations, and lightning strike detectors are among the new tools used to monitor, map, and model fires....
New Mexico drought putting native fish in danger Chuck Dentino hovered over a small pool of stagnant water on the Rio de las Vacas and watched a few small fish dart from one end to the other. They had nowhere else to go. The stream bed that meandered above the 10-foot diameter pool and below it was bone dry for as far as the eye could see. “The only thing holding water are these pools,” said Dentino, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “It's the last place the fish have to hang out.” Had it not been for a 2004 Forest Service habitat restoration project that created a series of pools along the Jemez Mountain stream, there would in fact be no place for fish to survive. Record drought is taking its toll on northern New Mexico's high country waterways, some of which are “drying up like mad,” according to Dentino. Reduced water flows are in turn threatening dwindling populations of the native Rio Grande cutthroat trout – the state fish – that biologists and conservationists have been working hard to save....
Rainbow Family's prayer for peace goes undisturbed by authorities Federal and Routt County authorities kept a low profile Tuesday as thousands of Rainbow Family and Living Light members gathered for their traditional Circle of Peace prayer service. The U.S. Forest Service expected Tuesday to be the biggest gathering day for the nomadic group because of the prayer service. About 10,000 members of the Rainbow Family have showed up for the weeklong event, which is half of what the Forest Service and Routt County sheriff's deputies expected. "We're going to be low-key (Tuesday)," said Diann Ritschard, information officer for the Routt National Forest. "The Colorado State Patrol is still on the highways providing public safety. We're still doing walk-throughs, but the Forest Service is not in any way going to disturb the peace prayer." Authorities said they expect an exodus of the thousands of Rainbow Family members out of Routt National Forest to begin after Tuesday's prayer service. The low-key enforcement was a change for Forest Service officers, who have struggled since last month with the droves of people congregating in a four-square-mile area about 35 miles north of Steamboat Springs. Officers have had to issue more than 500 violation notices to Rainbow Family members since June 12 for illegally occupying U.S. forest land without obtaining a special-use permit. The permit was denied because of the high fire dangers. The group's presence ended up displacing other forest-service visitors who did obtain the proper permits, Ritschard said....Try grazing without a permit or having a Christian gathering without a permit and see how "low-key" the Forest Service is.
Rainbow Gathering includes eclectic souls In case you're wondering, here at the 35th Annual National Rainbow Gathering in the Routt/Medicine Bow National Forest, the Rainbow Family of Living Light keeps its members well-fed, safe and conscious of how they approach the thousands of acres of U.S. National Forest they are temporarily inhabiting. The members - anyone not a cop or a Forest Service official - spent the last week setting up a spur-of-the-moment community, complete with group kitchens and a main circle where many gather each night at 6 p.m. to share meals, and discourse about ... well, being well-fed, safe and conscious. The dishwashing areas, compost heaps and toilets are works in progress that involve a little science, muscle and some shovels. Everyone holds hands and chants "Om" in a collective wish for peace before the food gets delivered by the kitchens. There are a county's worth of people out here in the woods, hiking, on average, from 2 to 6 miles between the designated parking areas and their chosen campsites. It's safe to say that there's at least 10,000 people here - if not 15,000 or 20,000....
Loggers, land interests work to create healthy forests Bob and Jacqui Johnson and Daniel Teare have been logging ponderosa pine trees in the Hay Camp Mesa area in Dolores since December 2005 and will continue for a few more weeks. The roughly 50 trees hauled daily from the forest to the mill at Intermountain Resources in Montrose helps the struggling local timber industry. It also moves the forest one step closer to its original natural setting. In an example of history repeating, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management are relying on past forest management to deliver healthy forests and a restored logging industry. They're doing it through a partnership of unlikely allies in the wood-production, forest-management, alternative-energy and economic-development industries. Locally, the Ponderosa Pine Forest Partnership covers 8,000 acres under contract in the Mancos-Dolores district of the San Juan National Forest. "In order to create a more healthy forest today, the agency felt that we needed to design stands that better reflected the stand structure that existed in the pre-settlement period," said Phil Kemp, forester for the Dolores Public Lands Center....
Editorial: Congress quashes land selloff Congress isn't having one of its all-star years, but a Senate committee made a good decision last week when it quietly approved a spending bill for the Interior Department and the Forest Service that does not include the Bush administration's ill-conceived plan to sell off some federal lands. Several weeks ago, a House committee made a similar determination. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who oversees the Forest Service, had proposed selling 150,000 to 200,000 acres to raise $800 million for rural schools hurt by lagging federal timber sales. Then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton suggested selling an unspecified amount of Bureau of Land Management acreage worth $40 million a year to fund conservation programs and reduce the deficit. In Colorado, the for-sale list included 21,000 acres, including tracts overlooking Rocky Mountain National Park and along the scenic road to Mount Evans. Other parts of the proposal highlighted the slapdash work behind it - one California landowner reported that a parcel she'd already bought from the government was on the list....
Appeals court halts clear-cut in Utah The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has halted planned clear-cut logging on the Aquarius Plateau near Escalante, ruling the Forest Service did not present evidence supporting its claim that the project would help the northern goshawk population. The goshawk is considered a sensitive species, which means its populations are declining and any decision about the forest must consider the effect on the species. The plan was to log 3,307 acres of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir and 669 acres of aspen forest, including clear-cutting of 440 acres of Engelmann spruce and 112 acres of aspen. The Forest Service argued that clear-cutting would not harm the goshawk population, which has gone from 68 nesting pairs in 1982 to 30 or fewer in 2002, the last year measured. However, the court’s ruling handed down Thursday that that was contrary to recommendations of a report that the Forest Service itself had deemed to be the best available science overall. That report said thinning out trees, not clear-cutting, would be the best strategy to preserve habitat....
Protections are threatened with extinction Yet, another sneak attack on the act's provisions has been initiated by anti-environmentalists in the House, which passed HR4200, a bill that would suspend environmental and scientific analysis in order to expedite logging and clear-cutting in our national forests following wildland fires. The bill would also suspend the Endangered Species Act's requirement that federal agencies consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service prior to logging the habitat of endangered species. As such, tens of thousands of acres of critical habitat could be logged before it is determined that such actions may cause extinction. The Senate version of the bill, S2709, which could see a vote soon, is being led by the anti-environmental Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., though some key Democrats with a history of allegiance to the timber industry, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have not yet made clear their positions. The legislation attempts to take advantage of the public's misunderstanding of wildland fires, implying that forests burned are forests "destroyed." Nothing could be further from the truth....
Birds Going Extinct Faster Due to Human Activities Human activities have caused some 500 bird species worldwide to go extinct over the past five millennia, and 21st-century extinction rates likely will accelerate to approximately 10 additional species per year unless societies take action to reverse the trend, according to a new report. Without the influence of humans, the expected extinction rate for birds would be roughly one species per century, according to Stuart Pimm, professor of conservation ecology at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, who is one of the report's principal authors. "What our study does, for the first time, is provide a well-justified and careful estimate of how much faster bird species are going extinct now than they did before humans began altering their environments," said Pimm, whose research group pioneered the approach of estimating extinction rates on a per-year basis. "Extinction rates for birds are hugely important, because people really care about birds," he said. "People enjoy them, and bird watching is a big industry. So we know the rates of bird extinctions better than the rates for other groups of species." "Habitat destruction, selective hunting, invasive alien species and global warming are all affecting natural populations of plants and animals adversely," added Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, who is co-principal author of the report and a longtime collaborator with Pimm....
Grizzly Attacks Idaho Man An Idaho man is recovering after being attacked by a grizzly bear. The unidentified man was walking Monday morning along the Targhee Creek Trail when a bear appeared. The US Forest Service says the bear woofed twice and charged the hiker. They say he dropped to the ground and the bear ran over him. Then the bear returned and bit the hiker on the right hip and shoulder and then ran away. The hiker was able to travel back down to the trailhead and drove to West Yellowstone for treatment. The Caribou-Targhee Forest and Idaho Fish and Game are reviewing the incident....
Bring Back Bigfoot On June 18, he spent an hour telling 60 people about his 34-year search for Bigfoot. The occasion was the Bigfoot Rendezvous in Pocatello, where 100 people from Texas all the way to British Columbia shelled out $55 each to hear Bigfoot experts. Mionczynski isn't wild-eyed, soft-bellied, and he can't tell you which X-Files episode featured Agent Scully getting whisked into Heaven by E.T. He's a lean mountain man who had his first Bigfoot encounter as a U.S. Forest Service bear researcher. He's been hunting for hard evidence--a Bigfoot carcass--ever since. It was 1972. On a bright moonlit night, Mionczynski was sleeping alone in a 6-foot tall nylon tent deep in the southern end of the Wind River range. He jumped awake when a bear poked its nose into the tent's side. "I whacked it in the nose with my hand," Mionczynski recalled, as though nothing is extraordinary about bear-whacking. The beast retreated to a "dog-haired" pine thicket behind the tent, close enough for Mionczynski to hear breathing. Six breaths a minute. Much slower than an active bear. The beast poked its nose against the tent again. Mionczynski whacked it again. The third assault came from above when the thing pushed the tent's top, collapsing it. In the moonlight, Mionczynski didn't see a bear paw settling on top of his tent. "I saw the silhouette of a hand with an opposable thumb," a hand twice the size of a man's, Mionczynski said....
State faces lawsuit over lynx trapping An animal protection organization is preparing to sue the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in federal court for failure to adequately protect endangered or threatened species from incidental trapping. The California-based Animal Protection Institute issued a notice of intent to sue in April and is awaiting a formal response from the state of Minnesota as well as the Department of the Interior. Camilla Fox, API’s director of wildlife programs, said endangered species, like the Canada lynx, the gray wolf, and the bald eagle are being accidentally trapped in Minnesota and that state officials have done too little to prevent the incidental take of protected birds and animals. Her group is asking the DNR to prohibit the use of snares, conibear, and leghold traps as part of its effort to protect these species. Fox said her organization’s research has found records of at least seven lynx accidentally trapped on the Superior National Forest since 2002, although all but two of the animals were later released. The group also cites records that 24 Bald Eagles were brought to the Minnesota Raptor Center over the past fifteen years, after being caught in traps. She said at least half of those birds had to be destroyed. DNR officials say they’ve taken steps to reduce accidental trapping of lynx....
Wolf center shifts educational focus If you go to the International Wolf Center in Ely this year, you are likely to learn about some new aspects and challenges of wolf conservation. The center is still committed to advancing wolf survival through education, but in a world where wolves have exceeded population recovery goals in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and the northern Rockies , the issue is no longer “will the wolf survive?” Now it is more a question of whether humans coexist with the predator and whether wolves have wild habitat to live in as humans continue to turn forests and foothills into housing complexes. The center’s new “Wolves and Wild Lands in the 21st Century” exhibit highlights these new wolf conservation challenges and demonstrates a shift in the center’s educational strategy. “We are a small organization based solely in Minnesota, so we have been looking for ways to maximize our impact,” said IWC Assistant Director Jim Williams. To do this, the center has been prioritizing projects that they feel will have the biggest impact on wolf populations on the ground in two key geographic areas: the upper Midwest and the southwestern states of Arizona and New Mexico. “In the Midwest, we are entering the post-endangered species era,” said Williams. “And in the southwest, they are in the early stages of wolf recovery, but have run into barriers.” In each of these regions, the Ely-based Center is working to be a leader on wolf issues....
Navy Continues Up to 300 Detonations Per Year in Puget Sound The U.S. Navy sets off between 180 and 300 underwater explosive charges each year in some of the most sensitive waters of Puget Sound, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Despite promises, four years ago after PEER first revealed the existence of the extensive Puget Sound demolition program, to conduct environmental reviews, measures to protect threatened or endangered marine mammals, fish and aquatic plants have yet to materialize. Several times each month, the U.S. Navy detonates live explosives deep underwater to provide "realistic" training for its divers in destroying and disabling mines. Unfortunately, the detonations also blow up marine life. In one exercise, for example, involving a five-pound explosive charge set off near Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, observers counted 5,000 dead fish on the surface but estimated that up to another 20,000 fish died and sank out of sight to the seabed. The Navy conducts approximately 60 demolition exercises each year, at least three every month, using three to five C4 plastic explosives, far more powerful than dynamite, in packets ranging in size from five to 20 pounds, often set off with 20 pound blasting charges. Since 2002, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the two civilian agencies charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act, have urged the Navy to undertake alternative training practices to minimize damage to marine life, such as using bubble curtains or other containers to minimize blast impacts, or conducting the training in quarries, lakes or the open ocean rather than in the waters of Puget Sound, a designated Essential Fish Habitat under the Sustainable Fisheries Act....
Invasive plants on rampage It says a lot about the state of the battle against invasive plant species in Utah and the West that officials talk wistfully about earning a draw. Beating them back, at the moment anyway, is out of the question. Cheatgrass has turned vast stretches of the state - particularly the Great Basin and Mojave regions - into a tinderbox. Tamarisk has swallowed riparian areas almost whole, sucking up hundreds of thousands of gallons of water in the process, and Russian olive is gaining on tamarisk to the point that some say it will soon be the mother of all invasive plant species. But because of budget and personnel limitations, federal and state agencies are unable to really put much of a dent in the two-decade rampage of these primary offenders. Rather, the strategy has been to hold them at bay until the day comes that they can start eradicating them. "Right now, we're in a preventative mode, trying to keep it from taking over additional areas," says Verlin Smith, the chief of renewable resources for the Bureau of Land Management's state office. Most of the BLM's efforts are currently devoted to battling cheatgrass, which looks lovely and green swaying in the sunshine of spring, but turns dry and brittle come summer - just in time for the start of the wildfire season....
BLM wild horse birth control, bait-trapping plan concerns some The Bureau of Land Management plans to give 24 older wild horses birth control shots as part of an ongoing effort to help limit the population and address concerns about conditions on the Pryor Mountain horse range in Montana and Wyoming. The agency, which has used birth control in select mares since 2001, also plans for the first time to use mineral or protein blocks as bait to trap and capture up to 22 horses that would be put up for adoption later this summer. Half those horses are to be bachelor stallions and the other half yearlings. So-called bait trapping is less intrusive than traditional roundups, and, when combined with the planned birth control regimen, “will help keep the population of the herd in balance with the range,” Sandy Brooks, field manager of the BLM's Billings office, said Wednesday. Some wild horse advocates say they understood BLM's use of birth control would eliminate the need for rounding up and removing horses from the land. One advocate, who argues the agency's overall management is flawed and will lead to a population too small to be genetically viable, vowed to do “everything legally possible” to keep the program – which is slated to begin as early as Monday – from moving forward....
Conservation deals await feds More than 3,000 acres of prime agricultural land in Carson Valley has been earmarked for conservation easements through the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act. Another 1,360 acres could be approved during the upcoming Round 7. That's music to the ears of many Douglas County residents, but the Bureau of Land Management hasn't completed one agreement despite the availability of funding. Commissioner Kelly Kite said local Bureau of Land Management officials are supportive, but once the process is out of local hands nothing seems to come of it. "We've been getting rosy reports for a couple of years now, but no money," he said. "We have a lot of people depending on them coming through. I don't know what we can do to make it happen, but it hasn't yet." The funding is acquired from the sale of public land in and around Las Vegas. A small portion is set aside for education and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, but the balance is set aside in a special account for projects throughout the state in a number of categories, including parks and trails, conservation easements and environmentally sensitive land acquisitions. A portion can be used to purchase the development rights on ranch lands, thus preserving that open space in perpetuity....
Reptile's numbers steadily declining Nearly every Texan has a favorite childhood story about collecting horny toads. But the once-abundant state reptile, known to scientists as the horned lizard, has seen a steady decline in recent decades. For the past few years, a West Texas A&M University biology professor and his students have studied the Texas Horned Lizard at the Pantex Plant to learn more about the oft-elusive reptiles. Just what's causing the horned lizards' decline continues to elude researchers. The Texas Horned Lizard is rarely seen in areas of Texas east of Interstate 35. The harvester ant, the horned lizard's feast of choice, is the bane of many homeowners, who often kill off ant mounds with pesticides. House cats, predators and highways also take their toll....
Company plans wells in region Questar Corp. said it plans to drill 4,000 oil and gas wells in a 150,000-acre area along the Colorado-Wyoming border over the next 30 years. Drilling could start as early as 2008, the Salt Lake City-based company said Wednesday. About 60 percent of the drilling would take place in Wyoming, while the rest would be in northwestern Colorado, said Vincent Rigatti, Questar Market Resources general manager. The majority of the wells would pump natural gas. He said most of the sites are on Bureau of Land Management property. BLM could issue a final environmental impact statement by June 2007 and give the company permission to drill in early 2008, he said. Rigatti said he has been discussing the plans with local officials and doesn't expect fierce opposition because drilling has taken place there since 1920s.
Energy bill offsets oil, gas companies A provision in a House-passed energy bill would take steps to reduce the time energy companies say they waste waiting for the government to act on permits to drill or mine for oil, gas and coal. Interior Department officials have said they are struggling to keep up with the growing mountain of applications for permits to drill on public land. But House members say they worry that government workers sometimes unnecessarily drag their feet as they consider applications. Under the House energy bill approved last week, the government would have to buy back leases -- and pay restitution in some cases -- if it delays action. "This provision will put pressure on state and federal agencies to act expeditiously and fairly on permit requests (and) appeals," said Charles Isom, a spokesman for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who proposed the measure. Environmentalists say the provision effectively creates a new entitlement program for energy companies, and pushes the government to approve permits at the expense of the environment and local communities. They are especially concerned because failing to act on an application would be treated as a breach of contract under the bill, potentially enabling a company to be compensated for more than just the cost of the lease....
BLM office dealing with high worker turnover A 25 percent turnover rate at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's bustling Buffalo Field Office has prompted the agency to borrow employees from field offices in Casper, Worland, Newcastle and even Miles City, Mont. Assistant Field Manager Richard Zander says some of the turnover results from northeast Wyoming's coalbed methane boom. The field office staff has grown from 23 to 83 over the past decade. "There is a certain amount of burnout here," Zander said. Zander himself is the latest to go. After more than 28 years with the BLM, Zander, 57, retired Monday to open an environmental consulting firm in Buffalo. He said last year's turnover rate was about 9 percent, but the rate since October has been around 25 percent. The turnover might not let up, either. Over the next five years, half of the BLM's management-level employees will be eligible to retire. That's a concern as the agency competes with energy development companies for young talent. BLM Director Kathleen Clarke told a congressional panel last week that the agency is fighting an "uphill battle" trying to get on top of a massive workload created by ever-increasing energy development. In just the past three years, the number of oil and gas drilling applications to the BLM increased 82 percent. More than half of those are in Wyoming, according to the agency....
Tackling 10,000-year-old mystery Ten thousand years ago, a band of nomadic hunters stampeded 600 bison off the edge of a small cliff then speared and butchered the beasts before hauling off the meat. Or maybe not. Maybe, instead, a lightning bolt or a swift-moving grass fire killed the whole herd, and their remains were quickly buried beneath wind-blown sand and silt. A few decades later, hunters camped on the buried bison remains, leaving behind stone spear points and tools that, over the millennia, have mixed with the animal bones. Those conflicting interpretations confronted University of Colorado archaeology students last month at the Hudson-Meng Bison Kill on the Oglala National Grassland, about 330 miles northeast of Denver....
GOP Ads Go Green It's not often you see Republicans trying to run to the left of a Democrat on environmental issues, but that's exactly where a pair of new TV ads are aimed in the gubernatorial race between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides. Two ads were released this morning by the California Republican Party on their website. No word yet on whether there's any real money being handed over to air these ads, or whether making a splash in the political media was the main goal. The pro-Arnold ad (see it here) uses some pretty well-known environmental issues from the Schwarzenegger era: creation of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, support for more solar powered homes, and exploration into vehicles that use hydrogen fuel. None of these have been fully completed (though the conservancy is the farthest along), but all are part of the governor's pitch that he's as green as they get in Republican circles. The Republican Party says the ads will air on TV statewide, but won't say with what frequency....
Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth Al Gore calls global warming an "inconvenient truth," as if merely recognizing it could put us on a path to a solution. That's an illusion. The real truth is that we don't know enough to relieve global warming, and -- barring major technological breakthroughs -- we can't do much about it. This was obvious nine years ago; it's still obvious. Let me explain. From 2003 to 2050, the world's population is projected to grow from 6.4 billion people to 9.1 billion, a 42 percent increase. If energy use per person and technology remain the same, total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (mainly, carbon dioxide) will be 42 percent higher in 2050. But that's too low, because societies that grow richer use more energy. Unless we condemn the world's poor to their present poverty -- and freeze everyone else's living standards -- we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050. Just keeping annual greenhouse gas emissions constant means that the world must somehow offset these huge increases. There are two ways: Improve energy efficiency, or shift to energy sources with lower (or no) greenhouse emissions. Intuitively, you sense this is tough....
A Convenient Lie When he was in college, atmospheric-science professor John Christy was told, "it was a certainty that by the year 2000, the world would be starving and out of energy." That prediction has gone the way of so many others. But environmentalists continue to warn us that we face environmental disaster if we don't accept the economic disaster called the Kyoto treaty. Lawyers from the Natural Resources Defense Council (another environmental group with more lawyers than scientists) explain: "Sea levels will rise, flooding coastal areas." And Al Gore's new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," depicts a future in which cities are submerged by rising sea levels. Wow. But many scientists laugh at the panic. Christy says, "Doomsday prophecies grabbed headlines but have proven to be completely false. Similar pronouncements today about catastrophes due to human-induced climate change sound all too familiar." But the media can't get enough of doomsday....
Sheep trails catch state’s attention Idaho is historically known for range sheep operations, and still has more than any other state in the nation, even though the number of operators have sharply decreased over the last century. That means the state is criss-crossed by countless old sheep trails, once used by bands every spring as their herders moved the animals from lowland winter range to high mountain summer range and back down each fall. In an era of expanding urbanization, some trails cross state endowment lands that are right in the path of development. There should be a way to set aside at least one or two acres of that land to be saved for a sheep bedding ground and continuation of the trail, said rancher John Peavey. That probably won’t be possible unless the state Land Board sets formal policy allowing it, said Tracy Behrens, state rangeland manager for the Idaho Department of Land. “We are under a constitutional mandate to get market value for those state endowment lands,” Behrens said. “Some of those properties are worth millions today.” The exchange was one of several during the annual range tour sponsored by the Idaho Wool Growers Association. Nearly 200 members and guests attended the all-day tour, which concentrated on private, state and federal land where Jouglard Sheep Co. operates....
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Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Stubborn Cowboys
Elmer Kelton was voted "Great Western Writer of All Time" by the Western Writers of America, a daunting title to work under, though he bears it modestly. There is, after all, that modifying adjective: Western. Kelton, who turned 80 in April, has his academic champions, but he acknowledges that "the Western field is a literary ghetto. Critics don't read a Western unless the book is contemptuous of its subject matter. If you write out of love for your subject matter they'll dismiss you." Elmer Kelton loves his subject matter. He was born to it, after all. And if the Western is a ghetto, it is a remarkably rich ghetto populated by the likes of Edward Abbey (The Brave Cowboy), Jack Schaefer (Shane), Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove), and other novelists whose mortal sin, it seems, is setting their tales in open spaces rather than in the confines of the faculty lounge or city tenement. Elmer Kelton has an utter mastery of his subject; a distinctive, even arresting, point of view; and a narrative talent honed by writing for the Western pulps. His best work, The Time It Never Rained (1973), can be read as character study, regional literature, and philosophical novel: find me a navel-gazing New Yorker writer who has squeezed out a single book as rich, layered, and unsettling. Following a lunch of--what else?--thick steaks, I spoke with Elmer Kelton in his study in the home he and his wife built half a century ago in the ranching town of San Angelo, Texas. His library overspills with books on Texas, cattle, and the West; his musical tastes run to Bob Wills, Roy Acuff, Willie Nelson, and Bill Monroe. He reels off the original lineup of the "Sons of the Pioneers." His father, a ranch foreman named Buck Kelton, came from a line of cowboys; his mother, Bea, was a schoolteacher whose male relatives worked as roustabouts in the oil fields....
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Elmer Kelton was voted "Great Western Writer of All Time" by the Western Writers of America, a daunting title to work under, though he bears it modestly. There is, after all, that modifying adjective: Western. Kelton, who turned 80 in April, has his academic champions, but he acknowledges that "the Western field is a literary ghetto. Critics don't read a Western unless the book is contemptuous of its subject matter. If you write out of love for your subject matter they'll dismiss you." Elmer Kelton loves his subject matter. He was born to it, after all. And if the Western is a ghetto, it is a remarkably rich ghetto populated by the likes of Edward Abbey (The Brave Cowboy), Jack Schaefer (Shane), Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove), and other novelists whose mortal sin, it seems, is setting their tales in open spaces rather than in the confines of the faculty lounge or city tenement. Elmer Kelton has an utter mastery of his subject; a distinctive, even arresting, point of view; and a narrative talent honed by writing for the Western pulps. His best work, The Time It Never Rained (1973), can be read as character study, regional literature, and philosophical novel: find me a navel-gazing New Yorker writer who has squeezed out a single book as rich, layered, and unsettling. Following a lunch of--what else?--thick steaks, I spoke with Elmer Kelton in his study in the home he and his wife built half a century ago in the ranching town of San Angelo, Texas. His library overspills with books on Texas, cattle, and the West; his musical tastes run to Bob Wills, Roy Acuff, Willie Nelson, and Bill Monroe. He reels off the original lineup of the "Sons of the Pioneers." His father, a ranch foreman named Buck Kelton, came from a line of cowboys; his mother, Bea, was a schoolteacher whose male relatives worked as roustabouts in the oil fields....
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Fighting Bureaucrats Out West
William Perry Pendley is an imposing figure. A big, rangy six-foot-five-or-so, decked out in Western garb, he looks just as hard-bitten as a lawyer as he must have during his many years in the Marine Corps. Pendley has to be tough these days. He spends most of his time fighting the federal government. “People back East just don’t understand the kind of struggles we have to undergo out here just to get access to our own resources,” he says, relaxing among the many artifacts of Western art in his spacious Denver office. “More than 70 percent of the land in some states is still owned by the federal government. The idea was that government ownership was supposed to guarantee multiple use and public access, but more and more it’s a matter of Washington bureaucrats shutting off access so that people back East can imagine that everything out here is still wild and free.” For nearly two decades now, Pendley has been president and chief legal officer of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which has been in the forefront of the Sagebrush Rebellion since the 1980s. Having just published his memoir—Warriors for the West, a selection of the Conservative Book Club—Pendley is more than willing to reminisce, particularly since most of the battles are still being fought. “The Carter and Clinton administrations were the most aggressive about locking up federal land but there’s a bureaucratic inertia,” says Pendley. “The President can change a few people at the top but mostly these agencies are staffed with bright, baby-faced lawyers just out of law school who are eager to carry on the radical environmental crusade.”....
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William Perry Pendley is an imposing figure. A big, rangy six-foot-five-or-so, decked out in Western garb, he looks just as hard-bitten as a lawyer as he must have during his many years in the Marine Corps. Pendley has to be tough these days. He spends most of his time fighting the federal government. “People back East just don’t understand the kind of struggles we have to undergo out here just to get access to our own resources,” he says, relaxing among the many artifacts of Western art in his spacious Denver office. “More than 70 percent of the land in some states is still owned by the federal government. The idea was that government ownership was supposed to guarantee multiple use and public access, but more and more it’s a matter of Washington bureaucrats shutting off access so that people back East can imagine that everything out here is still wild and free.” For nearly two decades now, Pendley has been president and chief legal officer of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which has been in the forefront of the Sagebrush Rebellion since the 1980s. Having just published his memoir—Warriors for the West, a selection of the Conservative Book Club—Pendley is more than willing to reminisce, particularly since most of the battles are still being fought. “The Carter and Clinton administrations were the most aggressive about locking up federal land but there’s a bureaucratic inertia,” says Pendley. “The President can change a few people at the top but mostly these agencies are staffed with bright, baby-faced lawyers just out of law school who are eager to carry on the radical environmental crusade.”....
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NEWS ROUNDUP
Judge bars shrill Navy sonar The Navy is forbidden to use an intense form of sonar -- known to have spooked Puget Sound orcas in the past -- during combat exercises this month in the Pacific, a federal judge ruled Monday. Environmentalists suing to halt the sonar use offered "considerable convincing scientific evidence" that the exercise would harm or even kill whales, porpoises and other marine creatures, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruled in Los Angeles in granting a temporary restraining order. Among the areas the Navy had previously obtained permission to use the midfrequency sonar were the biologically rich waters of the northwest Hawaiian Islands. Last month, President Bush proposed creating the largest marine sanctuary on the planet there. "Whales and other marine species shouldn't have to die for practice. The Navy can accomplish its national security mission in a manner that's consistent with environmental protection," said Joel Reynolds, a Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer involved in the case. "It simply makes no sense for the Navy not to incorporate the full range of practical, common-sense measures available to it to reduce the harm to whales, porpoises and other marine creatures." The Navy was preparing a statement in response to the ruling, Navy spokesman Lt. John Gay said, but it was not available by late Monday. In the past, though, the service has said a new generation of super-quiet submarines is being developed by nations such as Iran and North Korea. "Without active sonar, our young men and women serving aboard ships are blind and vulnerable to attack from submarines," the Navy said in a 2003 statement responding to a study in the science journal Nature that said naval sonar kills whales....
Boom life Spurred by energy prices that have more than tripled in the past three years, a drilling boom has swept the Rocky Mountain West. Last year, more than 29 million acres in federal land in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico were leased to energy companies. The four states also issued almost 20,000 drilling permits. As drilling rigs and pumpjacks fleck the region's landscape, the energy boom also is tugging at the West's social fabric and transforming lives. From a New Mexico rancher fighting to preserve his cultural heritage to a 19-year-old Colorado roughneck enjoying the cash windfall, Westerners are living in a changing land. A New Mexico rancher says he won't give up the battle to keep land his ancestors settled in the 1860s. Gilbert Armenta - New Mexico rancher, coal miner and descendant of Mexican settlers - watched the whitecap-filled San Juan River as it cut across his land. "The river out there, the river does what it wants," said Armenta, a gray-felt cowboy hat shielding the midday glare. "And now I'm suddenly responsible for it flooding?" he asked. "It's intimidation." Armenta, 59, is locked in a legal fight with XTO Energy Inc., which operates 12 natural-gas wells on his 144-acre ranch. The Houston-based company sued Armenta in January, claiming he cost them more than $300,000 by refusing to allow them access to the property....
Profiting From an Oil Boom, but Keeping a Cautious Eye The 100-year-old Clear Creek Ranch has largely been skipped over by the periodic oil booms that have swept this state since a gusher prompted the first bout of oil fever in the early 1900's. This time, though, is different. Surging oil and gas prices have ignited a drilling frenzy. Every two weeks, crews punch a new well into a field that includes Clear Creek and a neighboring ranch. The pace would be much faster if the drillers could bring in a second moveable rig, but they cannot get one. With national oil production at a high pitch for the first time in more than a quarter-century, oil rigs are in short supply. The drilling surge is producing a tidy income for Clear Creek, even though the ranch owns only a tiny percentage of the oil and gas rights in the field, said Rob Hendry, who owns the ranch with his wife and two sons. Royalties are about $4,000 a month, or roughly what it costs Clear Creek to cover higher prices for gasoline and diesel fuel used to raise cattle on the 180,000-acre spread. A second, larger revenue stream comes from another oil-related business that Mr. Hendry created, a construction company that uses earth movers, bulldozers and other heavy equipment to level sections of ranch land to accommodate a moveable drilling rig that is as tall as a 15-story building. Each well site his construction unit builds earns $20,000 for the ranch, Mr. Hendry said....
Rehberg opposes drilling ban on Front Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg is breaking with fellow GOP Sen. Conrad Burns and a recent poll by a Republican firm to oppose a moratorium on drilling on the Rocky Mountain Front. In a statement released to Lee Newspapers Monday, Rehberg said it would be "unwise to summarily close off areas that could be part of an energy solution for our country." Rehberg's statement came less than a week after Burns changed his earlier position and pushed new federal legislation that forbids any new oil and gas development along the Front - the celebrated stretch from near Lincoln to Glacier National Park where the Rocky Mountains jut out above the high plains. Burns' legislation would also retire any existing oil and gas drilling permits should they expire or be acquired by non-drilling outfits. Burns had previously opposed a permanent moratorium for drilling permits along the Front. Rehberg struck a middle ground in his statement....
Conservation groups fear oil, gas rigs will hurt Utah forest land For decades, the plundering hooves of cattle and sheep ruined trout streams and habitat around this 17,000-acre reservoir. Stream channeling and the deliberate poisoning of willows that protect their banks only made things worse. Much of the damage has been turned around, but a new threat from oil and gas development could reverse progress made in this mountainous patch of national forest 60 miles southeast of Salt Lake City famous for its trout streams, big-game habitat and roadless stretches. A water user's group that gave up all but the water and mineral rights to land around here is awarding exploration leases to oil and gas companies. The Uinta National Forest is doing an impact study on opening up to 778,000 more acres for energy leasing. What's more, a federally designated “energy corridor” running just south of Strawberry Reservoir could hasten oil and gas development by laying pipelines in the ground....
Expert touts wolf changes Increased vigilance and denser livestock herds grazing on public land could help reduce losses to wolves, a wolf researcher says. Biologists made some erroneous assumptions about wolf behavior around cattle and sheep during the wolf reintroduction planning process in the late 1980s, Timm Kaminski told an audience at the AMK Ranch in Grand Teton National Park. Kaminski worked on those plans as a biologist with the Mountain Livestock Cooperative. He said researchers thought most wolf packs would remain deep in wilderness areas in Yellowstone and central Idaho. "Most packs moved out to the boundary areas where there is grazing," he said. "We didn't anticipate that. There's been a fair amount of conflict. Reconciling the conflict has been torturous for some." Early planners also thought that wolves wouldn't eat livestock as long as they lived near an abundance of natural prey. "Wrong, wrong, wrong," he said. Wolf predation on livestock has increased dramatically since 2003. In the Yellowstone area, 20 of 27 packs that overlapped grazing lands killed livestock in 2004. That year, wolf control officials killed seven packs. By 2005, 32 packs killed livestock, and officials had to kill 10 packs....
Trust land's future on ballot Get ready for a showdown. Two plans to overhaul the State Land Department, Arizona's biggest landowner, will be on November's ballot. Voters will have to slog through pages of proposals to make their decision on how the state agency should preserve, develop and permit grazing on its 9 million acres. If history repeats itself and confused voters say no to both, efforts to preserve land in urban areas would be halted. Revenue to public schools, the beneficiary of state land sales, could slow. And development near cities could be hampered. "People recognize by reforming the laws the State Land Department must operate under, there's the potential to make more money for Arizona and education," said Mark Winkleman, commissioner of the state agency. "But there is the possibility voters will get confused and nothing will come out of this." If voters approve both plans, the one with the most votes wins. But parts of the losing plan could wind up winning if the measure selected by voters doesn't have a similar provision. For example, one plan would form a board of trustees. If that one were to lose, a board still likely would be created because the other proposal has no plan for one. The Land Department is one of Arizona's biggest real estate players, but it must still operate by the laws that created it more than 100 years ago....
Judge listens to arguments in forest suit The fate of Montana's first hazardous fuels project under the Bush administration's Healthy Forests Restoration Act was debated Friday before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula. Missoula's Wildwest Institute and Ravalli County-based Friends of the Bitterroot want a preliminary injunction to stop the Forest Service from moving forward with its Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuels Reduction project. The Forest Service wants to offer the timber for sale this month, with actual work starting near the end of summer or early fall. Following a two-hour hearing, Molloy promised his decision on the injunction would come soon....
Clean Water Act Sanity on the Horizon? The June 19 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision in the double cases of Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was another slow step in the long overdue reform of the application of the Clean Water Act’s Section 404 and the rediscovery of the 5th Amendment. The court agreed in principle that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers had vastly overreached in their interpretation and application of the CWA. Unfortunately, the ruling was not as clear cut as it might have been because of the wavering of Justice Anthony Kennedy. But, nonetheless, it should lead to improvements in the administration of the law. Section 404 of the CWA gave the government authority to protect the “navigable waters” of the United States, by having the sole authority to grant permits to allow the discharge of dredged or fill material into navigable waters. This was then extended to the tributaries of navigable waters and eventually even to completely isolated intrastate non-navigable waters. The latter included isolated small ponds or prairie “potholes” on farm and ranchland in the Great Plains which might support a pair of nesting ducks, vernal pools on a rancher’s land in California’s Central Valley which might fill with water for a few months after winter rains, a man-made stock-watering pond or a borrow pit or a quarry, or even a low area in a field that had been farmed for corn for a century, but which, following heavy rains, might hold water for a few weeks -- totally isolated, sometimes by scores of miles, from any stream, let alone a navigable stream. The Wall Street Journal’s Max Boot has referred to this CWA-EPA-Army Corps axis as “The Wetlands Gestapo” for very good reason....
Oregon school tests junipers' thirst level The anecdotal wisdom in eastern Oregon is that juniper trees suck the water out of country that's parched to start with. Now an Oregon State University test that will compare two 300-acre plots aims to pin down the effect of the gnarled trees on high desert environments that characterize much of the land east of the Cascade Range. Junipers are native to the territory, but not in large numbers. They have spread rapidly along with livestock grazing and fire suppression. Rancher Lynee Breese of Prineville remembers that her husband's grandmother kept a garden fed by groundwater. "But as the juniper came in, it utilized the water," Breese said. "The well went dry." The two 300-acre plots are an outdoor laboratory to document that sort of observation....
Low flows on Big Hole cause concerns for fish The Big Hole Watershed Committee is asking irrigators to quit pulling water from the upper Big Hole River because low flows could harm a threatened fish in the river. A dry May and June and increased demand for irrigation have caused the river to drop dramatically in recent days. "Nobody thought it was going to go this fast," said Randy Smith, a cattle rancher near Glen and a member of the committee, which works to keep water in the river to keep fluvial arctic grayling off the federal endangered species list. Committee members are trying to get the word out to ranchers in the upper Big Hole to cut back on irrigation if possible, said committee director Noorjahan Parwana....
A look at one family who went to bat for the land Bouncing down the gravel road that runs through his family's land, Randy Rusk steers his dusty Ford pickup with one hand and alternates shifting gears and pointing with the other. There, to the north, is the ranch that once belonged to Frank Kennicott, who registered the state's first cattle brand, back when this still was the Colorado Territory. There's the old house where Rusk grew up and where his parents, now 86, still live, and the once-grand Beckwith Ranch, where Rusk and other young ranchers gathered back in the day to dance, tell stories and "get all pie-eyed and fall over." And to the west, carved into a dark slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, are the light green veins that Rusk's wife, Claricy, calls "the scar." It was there that developers in the late 1970s cleared trees to open a ski area called Conquistador. To hear Rusk tell it, Conquistador was the beginning of the end for the Wet Mountain Valley, about 80 miles southwest of Colorado Springs....
Ranchers find silver lining in conservation cloud Darrell Wood drove slowly across his land near Chico in Northern California, a battered cowboy hat pulled down over his forehead, his eyes darting back and forth as he sized up the Black Angus cattle grazing nearby. In the back of his truck, three border collies stood at attention, ready to work. The cattle looked in prime shape as they stood in lush pasturage dotted with sapphire vernal pools. Large flocks of northern pintails dabbled in the water, while white-tailed kites hovered overhead and red-winged blackbirds called from the sedges along the pools. "This ecosystem is like anything else," said Wood, gesturing across the gently rolling plain that stretches all the way to the foothills of the Sierra. "Properly managed, it flourishes. Improperly managed, things start falling apart. We're doing everything we can to manage it properly." Not too many years ago, that kind of talk might have sounded strange coming from a cattleman. But Wood represents a new breed of rancher. He and hundreds of other ranchers and farmers in California and across the nation are part of a growing private initiative that "embeds" wildlife habitat into the working agricultural landscape....
Kunzler to stand trial in fall Benson rancher Darrell Kunzler will stand trial on manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges in November, after his attorney announced that he couldn’t reach a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors on Monday. Kunzler, 70, faces the charges that stem from a November 2004 incident when a Washington woman was killed after crashing into one of his Black Angus cows on state Road 30 west of Logan. Kimberly Dawn Johnson, a 40-year-old mother of six, was killed, while several of her children who were in the vehicle with her survived. When Kunzler was bound over on the charges last year, Utah Highway Patrol officials testified that Kunzler exhibited a 30-year pattern of failing to contain his livestock, despite repeated requests by law enforcement....
Steps being taken to reduce roaming cattle A cow was hit and killed shortly after 8:30 p.m. Monday, June 26. The cow was walking along the East Frontage Road of I-19 in the Rio Rico Industrial Park. Rio Rico residents have long complained about cattle roaming the streets and yards of the community. Arizona is an open range state and the law protects the rights of cattle owners and does not require ranches to be fenced. Now, one of several area ranchers, Milo DeWitt, working with his landlord, Rio Rico Properties, is taking steps to reduce the problem. DeWitt leases about 3,200 acres from Rio Rico Properties. He is installing more fences, while reducing the number of cattle he runs, said Guy Tobin, president of Rio Rico Properties. In recent weeks he has sold 100 head of cattle, Tobin said. Another 100 head are leaving in the next week. "In approximately a year, he's going to phase out the cattle and concentrate on his horses and agricultural projects," Tobin said....
Cowgirl spirit Rose Cambra Freitas said she and her daughter wanted to provide a western activity for the youth of Maui when they began the "Maui All-Girls and Junior Boys And Girls Rodeo" in 1974. "My family all love the rodeo. It's our way of life," she said. "It teaches them discipline and sportsmanship." Because of her efforts, Freitas will become the first woman from Hawaii to be inducted in the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, this fall. Some inducted in the past include Annie Oakley, Dale Evans and Sacagawea. Freitas, 74, a rancher and still a rodeo competitor, is being inducted with four others, including the late Esther Morris, who successfully fought for women's right to vote in the Wyoming Territory in 1869. The museum plans to fly Freitas to Texas in October for the induction ceremonies....
NFSR finds new home in New Mexico The 2006 National Finals Steer Roping, scheduled for Nov. 3-4, will move to the Lea County Events Center near Hobbs, N.M., after five years in Amarillo, Texas. This year's event will mark the first time the NFSR has been held in the state of New Mexico since 1960. "Our expectations are to put on the best National Finals Steer Roping that has ever been," said Randy McCormick, Lea County Commissioner. "It's an exciting time in Lea County, and we have a lot of growth going on. We're going to shine up our best boots, and hopefully people will want to come back to Lea County again." The first National Finals Steer Roping was held in 1959 in Clayton, N.M., in the northeastern corner of New Mexico about 350 miles north of Hobbs. It remained in Clayton for two years before moving to Laramie, Wyo., for a year. In 1962, the NFSR moved to Douglas, Wyo., and then spent the next two years in Pawhuska, Okla. The event remained in the state of Oklahoma until 1969 with Vinita hosting the event from 1965-66 and McAlester from 1967-68....
Tall in the Saddle Jerry Croft is a cowboy, and he can prove it. “I’ve chased wild horses, chased wild cows, I’ve been in shootouts and I’ve lived with Indians,” he says like someone describing their summer vacation. “I shot a guy in the leg in Wyoming once, but we won’t get into that... then one of the big outfits I worked for was called Uncle Sam and went to Vietnam for a couple of years.” Croft tends to take things easier nowadays, content to make a living by crafting some of the highest-quality saddles in the country in his workshop just south of Deadwood. Despite the commercial success of Croft’s Saddelry, Croft can’t help but think back to his early years working on the range. “I’m really proud that I was a real, true cowboy,” he says. “I’m prouder that I rode bad country, I rode bad horses, I chased wild cows, than anything else.” Standing in his workshop, the smell of oiled leather and fresh wood permeating the air, listening to the rough tenor of his throaty voice, it’s hard to imagine that Croft has been anything but a cowboy....
Trew:Texas politics has history of confusion If you are one of the many Texans who consider the current Texas political scene ridiculous, "whoa-up" and listen. It’s not the first time. In fact, it might be considered about normal. Excerpts from the book "Texas Boundaries"by Luke Gournay explains the evolution of our state from a Spanish conquest to an American state. It’s no wonder we find it all so confusing. Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, combining the early states of Texas and Coahuila. “Heated politics” eventually divided these two states into three departments lasting from 1824 to 1834. "Political unrest" began in 1832, leading to the formation of counties within the department to allow more local governance. “Political differences” grew heated again as larger towns and communities demanded more local power within their boundaries. More "political unhappiness"finally allowed precincts to operate as subdivisions within municipalities. Are you confused yet? In 1836, at the convention at Washington on the Brazos, 23 municipalities voted to call themselves governmental districts and declared their independence from Mexico....
It’s The Pitts: Better Safe Than Sore For those of you who believe it is better to be safe than stylish comes word that a firm is making air bags for horses. Well, not for horses actually, but for the people who ride them. The Hit-Air Vest attaches by a cord to your saddle and when your horse tries to send you into the funeral parlor the cord pulls the plug on your air vest which then inflates to protect your spine, neck and internal organs upon impact. Next thing you know they’ll be putting seat belts on saddles. Oh wait a minute, they already do. If companies really want to take all the “fun” out of being a cowboy why not have saddles with ejection seats so that when a horse sends the rider on an unscheduled flight into outer space he or she would come floating back to earth for a soft landing? Bureaucrats won’t be satisfied until they take all the risk out of everything. That is a problem for cowboys because they are engaged in a very dangerous career. In the future I can see OSHA mandating that panels be padded and horseshoers be made to wear bulletproof vests. Needles will be made dull, like restaurant steak knives that won’t even cut gravy. Trees and rocks on ranches will have to have plastic barrels filled with sand around them like you see on freeways and we’ll have to place red safety cones around all construction areas. Horses will have to have expensive anti-kick-back devices like they put on chain saws and all machinery will have to have automatic shut off devices, like my lawn mower, so that when a mechanically impaired cowboy tries to run any piece of equipment it will automatically shut off. The thought occurs to me that there are other potentially profitable safety ideas that could be applied to the cowboy trade....
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Judge bars shrill Navy sonar The Navy is forbidden to use an intense form of sonar -- known to have spooked Puget Sound orcas in the past -- during combat exercises this month in the Pacific, a federal judge ruled Monday. Environmentalists suing to halt the sonar use offered "considerable convincing scientific evidence" that the exercise would harm or even kill whales, porpoises and other marine creatures, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruled in Los Angeles in granting a temporary restraining order. Among the areas the Navy had previously obtained permission to use the midfrequency sonar were the biologically rich waters of the northwest Hawaiian Islands. Last month, President Bush proposed creating the largest marine sanctuary on the planet there. "Whales and other marine species shouldn't have to die for practice. The Navy can accomplish its national security mission in a manner that's consistent with environmental protection," said Joel Reynolds, a Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer involved in the case. "It simply makes no sense for the Navy not to incorporate the full range of practical, common-sense measures available to it to reduce the harm to whales, porpoises and other marine creatures." The Navy was preparing a statement in response to the ruling, Navy spokesman Lt. John Gay said, but it was not available by late Monday. In the past, though, the service has said a new generation of super-quiet submarines is being developed by nations such as Iran and North Korea. "Without active sonar, our young men and women serving aboard ships are blind and vulnerable to attack from submarines," the Navy said in a 2003 statement responding to a study in the science journal Nature that said naval sonar kills whales....
Boom life Spurred by energy prices that have more than tripled in the past three years, a drilling boom has swept the Rocky Mountain West. Last year, more than 29 million acres in federal land in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico were leased to energy companies. The four states also issued almost 20,000 drilling permits. As drilling rigs and pumpjacks fleck the region's landscape, the energy boom also is tugging at the West's social fabric and transforming lives. From a New Mexico rancher fighting to preserve his cultural heritage to a 19-year-old Colorado roughneck enjoying the cash windfall, Westerners are living in a changing land. A New Mexico rancher says he won't give up the battle to keep land his ancestors settled in the 1860s. Gilbert Armenta - New Mexico rancher, coal miner and descendant of Mexican settlers - watched the whitecap-filled San Juan River as it cut across his land. "The river out there, the river does what it wants," said Armenta, a gray-felt cowboy hat shielding the midday glare. "And now I'm suddenly responsible for it flooding?" he asked. "It's intimidation." Armenta, 59, is locked in a legal fight with XTO Energy Inc., which operates 12 natural-gas wells on his 144-acre ranch. The Houston-based company sued Armenta in January, claiming he cost them more than $300,000 by refusing to allow them access to the property....
Profiting From an Oil Boom, but Keeping a Cautious Eye The 100-year-old Clear Creek Ranch has largely been skipped over by the periodic oil booms that have swept this state since a gusher prompted the first bout of oil fever in the early 1900's. This time, though, is different. Surging oil and gas prices have ignited a drilling frenzy. Every two weeks, crews punch a new well into a field that includes Clear Creek and a neighboring ranch. The pace would be much faster if the drillers could bring in a second moveable rig, but they cannot get one. With national oil production at a high pitch for the first time in more than a quarter-century, oil rigs are in short supply. The drilling surge is producing a tidy income for Clear Creek, even though the ranch owns only a tiny percentage of the oil and gas rights in the field, said Rob Hendry, who owns the ranch with his wife and two sons. Royalties are about $4,000 a month, or roughly what it costs Clear Creek to cover higher prices for gasoline and diesel fuel used to raise cattle on the 180,000-acre spread. A second, larger revenue stream comes from another oil-related business that Mr. Hendry created, a construction company that uses earth movers, bulldozers and other heavy equipment to level sections of ranch land to accommodate a moveable drilling rig that is as tall as a 15-story building. Each well site his construction unit builds earns $20,000 for the ranch, Mr. Hendry said....
Rehberg opposes drilling ban on Front Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg is breaking with fellow GOP Sen. Conrad Burns and a recent poll by a Republican firm to oppose a moratorium on drilling on the Rocky Mountain Front. In a statement released to Lee Newspapers Monday, Rehberg said it would be "unwise to summarily close off areas that could be part of an energy solution for our country." Rehberg's statement came less than a week after Burns changed his earlier position and pushed new federal legislation that forbids any new oil and gas development along the Front - the celebrated stretch from near Lincoln to Glacier National Park where the Rocky Mountains jut out above the high plains. Burns' legislation would also retire any existing oil and gas drilling permits should they expire or be acquired by non-drilling outfits. Burns had previously opposed a permanent moratorium for drilling permits along the Front. Rehberg struck a middle ground in his statement....
Conservation groups fear oil, gas rigs will hurt Utah forest land For decades, the plundering hooves of cattle and sheep ruined trout streams and habitat around this 17,000-acre reservoir. Stream channeling and the deliberate poisoning of willows that protect their banks only made things worse. Much of the damage has been turned around, but a new threat from oil and gas development could reverse progress made in this mountainous patch of national forest 60 miles southeast of Salt Lake City famous for its trout streams, big-game habitat and roadless stretches. A water user's group that gave up all but the water and mineral rights to land around here is awarding exploration leases to oil and gas companies. The Uinta National Forest is doing an impact study on opening up to 778,000 more acres for energy leasing. What's more, a federally designated “energy corridor” running just south of Strawberry Reservoir could hasten oil and gas development by laying pipelines in the ground....
Expert touts wolf changes Increased vigilance and denser livestock herds grazing on public land could help reduce losses to wolves, a wolf researcher says. Biologists made some erroneous assumptions about wolf behavior around cattle and sheep during the wolf reintroduction planning process in the late 1980s, Timm Kaminski told an audience at the AMK Ranch in Grand Teton National Park. Kaminski worked on those plans as a biologist with the Mountain Livestock Cooperative. He said researchers thought most wolf packs would remain deep in wilderness areas in Yellowstone and central Idaho. "Most packs moved out to the boundary areas where there is grazing," he said. "We didn't anticipate that. There's been a fair amount of conflict. Reconciling the conflict has been torturous for some." Early planners also thought that wolves wouldn't eat livestock as long as they lived near an abundance of natural prey. "Wrong, wrong, wrong," he said. Wolf predation on livestock has increased dramatically since 2003. In the Yellowstone area, 20 of 27 packs that overlapped grazing lands killed livestock in 2004. That year, wolf control officials killed seven packs. By 2005, 32 packs killed livestock, and officials had to kill 10 packs....
Trust land's future on ballot Get ready for a showdown. Two plans to overhaul the State Land Department, Arizona's biggest landowner, will be on November's ballot. Voters will have to slog through pages of proposals to make their decision on how the state agency should preserve, develop and permit grazing on its 9 million acres. If history repeats itself and confused voters say no to both, efforts to preserve land in urban areas would be halted. Revenue to public schools, the beneficiary of state land sales, could slow. And development near cities could be hampered. "People recognize by reforming the laws the State Land Department must operate under, there's the potential to make more money for Arizona and education," said Mark Winkleman, commissioner of the state agency. "But there is the possibility voters will get confused and nothing will come out of this." If voters approve both plans, the one with the most votes wins. But parts of the losing plan could wind up winning if the measure selected by voters doesn't have a similar provision. For example, one plan would form a board of trustees. If that one were to lose, a board still likely would be created because the other proposal has no plan for one. The Land Department is one of Arizona's biggest real estate players, but it must still operate by the laws that created it more than 100 years ago....
Judge listens to arguments in forest suit The fate of Montana's first hazardous fuels project under the Bush administration's Healthy Forests Restoration Act was debated Friday before U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula. Missoula's Wildwest Institute and Ravalli County-based Friends of the Bitterroot want a preliminary injunction to stop the Forest Service from moving forward with its Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuels Reduction project. The Forest Service wants to offer the timber for sale this month, with actual work starting near the end of summer or early fall. Following a two-hour hearing, Molloy promised his decision on the injunction would come soon....
Clean Water Act Sanity on the Horizon? The June 19 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision in the double cases of Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was another slow step in the long overdue reform of the application of the Clean Water Act’s Section 404 and the rediscovery of the 5th Amendment. The court agreed in principle that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers had vastly overreached in their interpretation and application of the CWA. Unfortunately, the ruling was not as clear cut as it might have been because of the wavering of Justice Anthony Kennedy. But, nonetheless, it should lead to improvements in the administration of the law. Section 404 of the CWA gave the government authority to protect the “navigable waters” of the United States, by having the sole authority to grant permits to allow the discharge of dredged or fill material into navigable waters. This was then extended to the tributaries of navigable waters and eventually even to completely isolated intrastate non-navigable waters. The latter included isolated small ponds or prairie “potholes” on farm and ranchland in the Great Plains which might support a pair of nesting ducks, vernal pools on a rancher’s land in California’s Central Valley which might fill with water for a few months after winter rains, a man-made stock-watering pond or a borrow pit or a quarry, or even a low area in a field that had been farmed for corn for a century, but which, following heavy rains, might hold water for a few weeks -- totally isolated, sometimes by scores of miles, from any stream, let alone a navigable stream. The Wall Street Journal’s Max Boot has referred to this CWA-EPA-Army Corps axis as “The Wetlands Gestapo” for very good reason....
Oregon school tests junipers' thirst level The anecdotal wisdom in eastern Oregon is that juniper trees suck the water out of country that's parched to start with. Now an Oregon State University test that will compare two 300-acre plots aims to pin down the effect of the gnarled trees on high desert environments that characterize much of the land east of the Cascade Range. Junipers are native to the territory, but not in large numbers. They have spread rapidly along with livestock grazing and fire suppression. Rancher Lynee Breese of Prineville remembers that her husband's grandmother kept a garden fed by groundwater. "But as the juniper came in, it utilized the water," Breese said. "The well went dry." The two 300-acre plots are an outdoor laboratory to document that sort of observation....
Low flows on Big Hole cause concerns for fish The Big Hole Watershed Committee is asking irrigators to quit pulling water from the upper Big Hole River because low flows could harm a threatened fish in the river. A dry May and June and increased demand for irrigation have caused the river to drop dramatically in recent days. "Nobody thought it was going to go this fast," said Randy Smith, a cattle rancher near Glen and a member of the committee, which works to keep water in the river to keep fluvial arctic grayling off the federal endangered species list. Committee members are trying to get the word out to ranchers in the upper Big Hole to cut back on irrigation if possible, said committee director Noorjahan Parwana....
A look at one family who went to bat for the land Bouncing down the gravel road that runs through his family's land, Randy Rusk steers his dusty Ford pickup with one hand and alternates shifting gears and pointing with the other. There, to the north, is the ranch that once belonged to Frank Kennicott, who registered the state's first cattle brand, back when this still was the Colorado Territory. There's the old house where Rusk grew up and where his parents, now 86, still live, and the once-grand Beckwith Ranch, where Rusk and other young ranchers gathered back in the day to dance, tell stories and "get all pie-eyed and fall over." And to the west, carved into a dark slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, are the light green veins that Rusk's wife, Claricy, calls "the scar." It was there that developers in the late 1970s cleared trees to open a ski area called Conquistador. To hear Rusk tell it, Conquistador was the beginning of the end for the Wet Mountain Valley, about 80 miles southwest of Colorado Springs....
Ranchers find silver lining in conservation cloud Darrell Wood drove slowly across his land near Chico in Northern California, a battered cowboy hat pulled down over his forehead, his eyes darting back and forth as he sized up the Black Angus cattle grazing nearby. In the back of his truck, three border collies stood at attention, ready to work. The cattle looked in prime shape as they stood in lush pasturage dotted with sapphire vernal pools. Large flocks of northern pintails dabbled in the water, while white-tailed kites hovered overhead and red-winged blackbirds called from the sedges along the pools. "This ecosystem is like anything else," said Wood, gesturing across the gently rolling plain that stretches all the way to the foothills of the Sierra. "Properly managed, it flourishes. Improperly managed, things start falling apart. We're doing everything we can to manage it properly." Not too many years ago, that kind of talk might have sounded strange coming from a cattleman. But Wood represents a new breed of rancher. He and hundreds of other ranchers and farmers in California and across the nation are part of a growing private initiative that "embeds" wildlife habitat into the working agricultural landscape....
Kunzler to stand trial in fall Benson rancher Darrell Kunzler will stand trial on manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges in November, after his attorney announced that he couldn’t reach a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors on Monday. Kunzler, 70, faces the charges that stem from a November 2004 incident when a Washington woman was killed after crashing into one of his Black Angus cows on state Road 30 west of Logan. Kimberly Dawn Johnson, a 40-year-old mother of six, was killed, while several of her children who were in the vehicle with her survived. When Kunzler was bound over on the charges last year, Utah Highway Patrol officials testified that Kunzler exhibited a 30-year pattern of failing to contain his livestock, despite repeated requests by law enforcement....
Steps being taken to reduce roaming cattle A cow was hit and killed shortly after 8:30 p.m. Monday, June 26. The cow was walking along the East Frontage Road of I-19 in the Rio Rico Industrial Park. Rio Rico residents have long complained about cattle roaming the streets and yards of the community. Arizona is an open range state and the law protects the rights of cattle owners and does not require ranches to be fenced. Now, one of several area ranchers, Milo DeWitt, working with his landlord, Rio Rico Properties, is taking steps to reduce the problem. DeWitt leases about 3,200 acres from Rio Rico Properties. He is installing more fences, while reducing the number of cattle he runs, said Guy Tobin, president of Rio Rico Properties. In recent weeks he has sold 100 head of cattle, Tobin said. Another 100 head are leaving in the next week. "In approximately a year, he's going to phase out the cattle and concentrate on his horses and agricultural projects," Tobin said....
Cowgirl spirit Rose Cambra Freitas said she and her daughter wanted to provide a western activity for the youth of Maui when they began the "Maui All-Girls and Junior Boys And Girls Rodeo" in 1974. "My family all love the rodeo. It's our way of life," she said. "It teaches them discipline and sportsmanship." Because of her efforts, Freitas will become the first woman from Hawaii to be inducted in the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, this fall. Some inducted in the past include Annie Oakley, Dale Evans and Sacagawea. Freitas, 74, a rancher and still a rodeo competitor, is being inducted with four others, including the late Esther Morris, who successfully fought for women's right to vote in the Wyoming Territory in 1869. The museum plans to fly Freitas to Texas in October for the induction ceremonies....
NFSR finds new home in New Mexico The 2006 National Finals Steer Roping, scheduled for Nov. 3-4, will move to the Lea County Events Center near Hobbs, N.M., after five years in Amarillo, Texas. This year's event will mark the first time the NFSR has been held in the state of New Mexico since 1960. "Our expectations are to put on the best National Finals Steer Roping that has ever been," said Randy McCormick, Lea County Commissioner. "It's an exciting time in Lea County, and we have a lot of growth going on. We're going to shine up our best boots, and hopefully people will want to come back to Lea County again." The first National Finals Steer Roping was held in 1959 in Clayton, N.M., in the northeastern corner of New Mexico about 350 miles north of Hobbs. It remained in Clayton for two years before moving to Laramie, Wyo., for a year. In 1962, the NFSR moved to Douglas, Wyo., and then spent the next two years in Pawhuska, Okla. The event remained in the state of Oklahoma until 1969 with Vinita hosting the event from 1965-66 and McAlester from 1967-68....
Tall in the Saddle Jerry Croft is a cowboy, and he can prove it. “I’ve chased wild horses, chased wild cows, I’ve been in shootouts and I’ve lived with Indians,” he says like someone describing their summer vacation. “I shot a guy in the leg in Wyoming once, but we won’t get into that... then one of the big outfits I worked for was called Uncle Sam and went to Vietnam for a couple of years.” Croft tends to take things easier nowadays, content to make a living by crafting some of the highest-quality saddles in the country in his workshop just south of Deadwood. Despite the commercial success of Croft’s Saddelry, Croft can’t help but think back to his early years working on the range. “I’m really proud that I was a real, true cowboy,” he says. “I’m prouder that I rode bad country, I rode bad horses, I chased wild cows, than anything else.” Standing in his workshop, the smell of oiled leather and fresh wood permeating the air, listening to the rough tenor of his throaty voice, it’s hard to imagine that Croft has been anything but a cowboy....
Trew:Texas politics has history of confusion If you are one of the many Texans who consider the current Texas political scene ridiculous, "whoa-up" and listen. It’s not the first time. In fact, it might be considered about normal. Excerpts from the book "Texas Boundaries"by Luke Gournay explains the evolution of our state from a Spanish conquest to an American state. It’s no wonder we find it all so confusing. Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, combining the early states of Texas and Coahuila. “Heated politics” eventually divided these two states into three departments lasting from 1824 to 1834. "Political unrest" began in 1832, leading to the formation of counties within the department to allow more local governance. “Political differences” grew heated again as larger towns and communities demanded more local power within their boundaries. More "political unhappiness"finally allowed precincts to operate as subdivisions within municipalities. Are you confused yet? In 1836, at the convention at Washington on the Brazos, 23 municipalities voted to call themselves governmental districts and declared their independence from Mexico....
It’s The Pitts: Better Safe Than Sore For those of you who believe it is better to be safe than stylish comes word that a firm is making air bags for horses. Well, not for horses actually, but for the people who ride them. The Hit-Air Vest attaches by a cord to your saddle and when your horse tries to send you into the funeral parlor the cord pulls the plug on your air vest which then inflates to protect your spine, neck and internal organs upon impact. Next thing you know they’ll be putting seat belts on saddles. Oh wait a minute, they already do. If companies really want to take all the “fun” out of being a cowboy why not have saddles with ejection seats so that when a horse sends the rider on an unscheduled flight into outer space he or she would come floating back to earth for a soft landing? Bureaucrats won’t be satisfied until they take all the risk out of everything. That is a problem for cowboys because they are engaged in a very dangerous career. In the future I can see OSHA mandating that panels be padded and horseshoers be made to wear bulletproof vests. Needles will be made dull, like restaurant steak knives that won’t even cut gravy. Trees and rocks on ranches will have to have plastic barrels filled with sand around them like you see on freeways and we’ll have to place red safety cones around all construction areas. Horses will have to have expensive anti-kick-back devices like they put on chain saws and all machinery will have to have automatic shut off devices, like my lawn mower, so that when a mechanically impaired cowboy tries to run any piece of equipment it will automatically shut off. The thought occurs to me that there are other potentially profitable safety ideas that could be applied to the cowboy trade....
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MAD COW DISEASE
Canada confirms its 6th case of mad cow disease
Canada confirmed on Tuesday its sixth case of mad cow disease and said it would investigate where the cow was born and what other animals may have eaten the same feed. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said test results confirmed what was suspected last week. The animal was at least 15 years of age and was born before Canada implemented restrictions on potentially dangerous feed in 1997. Mad cow disease is believed to spread through feed, when cows eat the contaminated tissue of other cattle. Humans can get a related disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, in similar fashion--by eating meat contaminated with mad cow. There have been more than 150 human deaths worldwide linked to the variant. Two of the six confirmed mad cow cases in Canada have involved animals infected after 1997, when a ban was instituted on the use of cattle parts in feed for cattle, or other ruminants such as sheep and goats. The agency says Canada's food supply is safe, and the level of mad cow disease in the national cattle herd is very low. Canada has an estimated national herd of 17 million cattle....
Appeals court sets dates in Canada-cattle case
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Billings, Mont., has set a schedule for hearing the appeal of R-Calf USA's lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the import of cattle under the age of 30 months from Canada. The Kansas Cattlemen's Association is affiliated with R-Calf. The grassroots cattlemen's group has long opposed the import of Canadian cattle for market reasons, and especially since the discovery of mad cow disease in Canada in May 2003. The much larger mainstream Kansas Livestock Association has supported Canadian imports, a position also taken by its national affiliate, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. In July 2005, the 9th Circuit ruled against R-Calf, ordering that USDA had decision-making authority. R-Calf contends there has never been a thorough review of the case because USDA has had inconsistent statements in the past on the risk of mad cow disease. "We hope the 9th Circuit will remand the case so we can have a full review of the scientific evidence submitted in our case," said R-Calf USA president Chuck Kiker. "The ultimate decision should be based on science, not on a presumption that USDA's judgments were right just because it is a government entity."....
R-CALF commends Canada for cattle-feed regulations
Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, the cattlemen's group that has battled to ban Canadian cattle from the United States because of mad cow disease concerns, is praising Canada for announcing new feed regulations aimed at curbing the disease's spread. Canada announced last week that it would ban the use of all specified risk materials from all animal feed - not only cattle feed - in order to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, within the Canadian cattle herd. Specified risk materials are cattle parts including brain and central-nervous-system tissue in cattle older than a certain age. Animal scientists believe that BSE is caused when cattle eat feed with bone meal containing ruminant offal contaminated with BSE. The U.S. and Canada banned such risk materials from cattle feed in 1997. R-CALF is pursuing ongoing litigation to prevent the U.S. from declaring Canada a minimal-risk country for BSE because of its concern that the Canadian feed ban has not been appropriately implemented and that it has been insufficient. "Although we have been calling on both Canada and the U.S. to do even more to strengthen their respective feed bans than what Canada is presently proposing, we commend Canada for taking the lead to bolster its resistance against the spread of the disease within its cattle-feeding system," said R-CALF vice president and Region 6 director Max Thornsberry, a veterinarian....
Japanese inspectors visit US meatpacking plants
Japanese health officials have began inspecting meatpacking plants in the US ahead of the country's plan to lift the ban on US meat imports. The ministers visited the Greeley, Colorado plant of major meatpacker Swift & Company and found that the US meat processor was in a good position to satisfy Japanese food-safety guidelines that need to be met if they are to resume beef exports to Japan. Following the visit Japan's senior vice ministers of agriculture and health said the US meatpackers are progressing with their efforts to stop the transmission of mad cow disease into beef shipments to Japan. The inspection follows the agreement between Japan and the US on June 21 that Japan will lift its reinstated ban on US beef imports after inspecting US meatpacking plants to confirm safeguard measures against bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease. On December 12, 2005 Japan ended its original import ban on US beef, first imposed in 2003 after the discovery of the first US case of mad cow disease. It reinstated the ban January 20, 2006 after prohibited backbone parts were discovered in a veal shipment at Narita airport. The inspection at the Swift plant is part of Japan's investigation of 35 meat-processing facilities across the US that began in late June....
U.S.: No deal yet on resuming beef trade with China
U.S. officials said Friday that it was premature for China to announce an end to a mad cow disease-related ban on American beef as it began accepting restricted imports. China's government said Friday that it had resumed limited imports after a 2 ½-year ban imposed after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease. China said it would accept only boneless cuts of beef from cattle under 30 months of age. Officials in the United States are pushing for a full resumption of trade. Agriculture Department spokesman Ed Loyd said there is no such deal. Chinese negotiators had indicated they would follow guidelines of the World Organization for Animal Health, which would allow a broader resumption of beef shipments, Loyd said. The U.S. and China have yet to agree on a protocol, he added.
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Canada confirms its 6th case of mad cow disease
Canada confirmed on Tuesday its sixth case of mad cow disease and said it would investigate where the cow was born and what other animals may have eaten the same feed. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said test results confirmed what was suspected last week. The animal was at least 15 years of age and was born before Canada implemented restrictions on potentially dangerous feed in 1997. Mad cow disease is believed to spread through feed, when cows eat the contaminated tissue of other cattle. Humans can get a related disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, in similar fashion--by eating meat contaminated with mad cow. There have been more than 150 human deaths worldwide linked to the variant. Two of the six confirmed mad cow cases in Canada have involved animals infected after 1997, when a ban was instituted on the use of cattle parts in feed for cattle, or other ruminants such as sheep and goats. The agency says Canada's food supply is safe, and the level of mad cow disease in the national cattle herd is very low. Canada has an estimated national herd of 17 million cattle....
Appeals court sets dates in Canada-cattle case
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Billings, Mont., has set a schedule for hearing the appeal of R-Calf USA's lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the import of cattle under the age of 30 months from Canada. The Kansas Cattlemen's Association is affiliated with R-Calf. The grassroots cattlemen's group has long opposed the import of Canadian cattle for market reasons, and especially since the discovery of mad cow disease in Canada in May 2003. The much larger mainstream Kansas Livestock Association has supported Canadian imports, a position also taken by its national affiliate, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. In July 2005, the 9th Circuit ruled against R-Calf, ordering that USDA had decision-making authority. R-Calf contends there has never been a thorough review of the case because USDA has had inconsistent statements in the past on the risk of mad cow disease. "We hope the 9th Circuit will remand the case so we can have a full review of the scientific evidence submitted in our case," said R-Calf USA president Chuck Kiker. "The ultimate decision should be based on science, not on a presumption that USDA's judgments were right just because it is a government entity."....
R-CALF commends Canada for cattle-feed regulations
Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, the cattlemen's group that has battled to ban Canadian cattle from the United States because of mad cow disease concerns, is praising Canada for announcing new feed regulations aimed at curbing the disease's spread. Canada announced last week that it would ban the use of all specified risk materials from all animal feed - not only cattle feed - in order to prevent the spread of mad cow disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, within the Canadian cattle herd. Specified risk materials are cattle parts including brain and central-nervous-system tissue in cattle older than a certain age. Animal scientists believe that BSE is caused when cattle eat feed with bone meal containing ruminant offal contaminated with BSE. The U.S. and Canada banned such risk materials from cattle feed in 1997. R-CALF is pursuing ongoing litigation to prevent the U.S. from declaring Canada a minimal-risk country for BSE because of its concern that the Canadian feed ban has not been appropriately implemented and that it has been insufficient. "Although we have been calling on both Canada and the U.S. to do even more to strengthen their respective feed bans than what Canada is presently proposing, we commend Canada for taking the lead to bolster its resistance against the spread of the disease within its cattle-feeding system," said R-CALF vice president and Region 6 director Max Thornsberry, a veterinarian....
Japanese inspectors visit US meatpacking plants
Japanese health officials have began inspecting meatpacking plants in the US ahead of the country's plan to lift the ban on US meat imports. The ministers visited the Greeley, Colorado plant of major meatpacker Swift & Company and found that the US meat processor was in a good position to satisfy Japanese food-safety guidelines that need to be met if they are to resume beef exports to Japan. Following the visit Japan's senior vice ministers of agriculture and health said the US meatpackers are progressing with their efforts to stop the transmission of mad cow disease into beef shipments to Japan. The inspection follows the agreement between Japan and the US on June 21 that Japan will lift its reinstated ban on US beef imports after inspecting US meatpacking plants to confirm safeguard measures against bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease. On December 12, 2005 Japan ended its original import ban on US beef, first imposed in 2003 after the discovery of the first US case of mad cow disease. It reinstated the ban January 20, 2006 after prohibited backbone parts were discovered in a veal shipment at Narita airport. The inspection at the Swift plant is part of Japan's investigation of 35 meat-processing facilities across the US that began in late June....
U.S.: No deal yet on resuming beef trade with China
U.S. officials said Friday that it was premature for China to announce an end to a mad cow disease-related ban on American beef as it began accepting restricted imports. China's government said Friday that it had resumed limited imports after a 2 ½-year ban imposed after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease. China said it would accept only boneless cuts of beef from cattle under 30 months of age. Officials in the United States are pushing for a full resumption of trade. Agriculture Department spokesman Ed Loyd said there is no such deal. Chinese negotiators had indicated they would follow guidelines of the World Organization for Animal Health, which would allow a broader resumption of beef shipments, Loyd said. The U.S. and China have yet to agree on a protocol, he added.
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Tuesday, July 04, 2006
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
The Quality of a Free Man
by Claire Wolfe
I sit at the Hilltop Hermitage, high in the pines. I'm here to ask, and hopefully answer, some of the Great Questions about freedom.
Two come immediately to mind and I'm going to deal with the first one in this column.
That question is, "What are the qualities of a free man?"
I'm saying "man" unapologetically. That's how the question poses itself to me. My every attempt to impose political correctness by writing "person" or "human being" falls flat.
I believe I know why. Freedom requires what might once have been called "manly virtues" -- though in reality it doesn't matter what shape of body they come in.
Asking ourselves to live up to ideals is old-fashioned. Almost Victorian. This is an age of "anything goes" -- which can be fine and fun. But it's not enough. We need those "manly virtues" -- plus a few extras.
So bear with me, sisters and brothers-in-freedom alike. The list I'm about to propose is inclusive.
I'm beginning the freedom quest here for a simple reason: Freedom comes from free individuals, not the other way around. Seek Libertopia without first seeking within and the horse stumbles over the cart in her path and breaks her leg. Every time.
So without further ado I propose:
12 QUALITIES OF A FREE MAN
THE FIVE OUTWARD-LOOKING VIRTUES
The free man within society
A free man:
Keeps his word. A good man's word was once his bond. Now we expect our credit score to be our bond -- but such data measures only one infinitesimal part of us. You cannot build feedom on a base of lies or habitual unreliability. Free men mean what they say and do what they promise.
Does unto others as he would have them do unto him. Helps those who help themselves. Commits random acts of decency. Aids those who are striving to be free. Does not meddle in the non-violent behavior of others, but is is a good neighbor and powerful ally when one is needed.
Shuns indebtedness. This means more than shunning debt (though that, too). A free man owns his own life and thinks carefully before giving any part of it away. He rejects false loyalties and guilt trips (unwarranted claims on his life energies). If he accepts a favor he pays it back or pays it forward so others benefit by the aid he received.
Rejects coercive power. He neither seeks power over others nor accepts the right of others to hold such coercive power. You will never hear him say, "There ought to be a law." He sees humanity not as an ignorant mass to be managed or mothered, but as individuals capable of running their own lives.
Is independent and self-responsible. A free man prefers the risks and rewards of self-reliance to the temptations of "security" provided by others. He takes care of himself and his family. The ultimate corollary to this virtue is self-defense; a free man does not delegate responsibility for his own sustenance, and certainly not for his own survival.
THE FIVE INTERIOR VIRTUES
The free man within
A free man:
Solves problems creatively. Thinks out of the box. Is fascinated by new ideas. Is perpetually self-educating. Anyone who spends a large chunk of his life sitting and whining about all the factors holding him back is by definition neither free nor ready to free himself.
Acts with daily courage and fortitude. While we await the jackboot in the door, tyranny arrives in daily demands for our collaboration. We require courage to say, "No, I won't give that information"; "I have no interest in working for somebody who forces me to pee in a bottle"; "I won't pay you to kill people in my name"; "My baby doesn't need a government inventory number"; "That's politically correct nonsense"; "Not without a warrant, you won't"; or "It's time for you to stand up and take care of yourself." Free people own that kind of courage. It's food for their souls. (Which is why I list it as an Interior Virtue rather than an Outward-Looking one.)
Lives by well-considered principles. A free man doesn't just parrot "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not steal." He doesn't behave just because he fears God or government may be watching. He has examined his morality. He knows why he acts or refrains from acting. Sound principles also provide the platform for standing up with courage and saying, "No" to intolerable acts.
Seeks balanced excellence. It may be a fine thing to make a million dollars or build a better mousetrap (or a more efficient solar cell or an innovative computer game). Free people do those things better than serfs. But our life is our #1 creation. Truly free people put as much energy into becoming good, wise human beings as they do into material accomplishments. To do otherwise is to remain off balance -- and therefore very easy for "authorities" to push over.
Loves life. No, this does not mean a free man always goes around with a happy-face painted on his mug. It does mean that conscious, human life is the foundation of freedom. Despite its manifold flaws, human life is a miracle to be appreciated and defended against forces that waste or destroy it.
THE TWO FOUNDATION VIRTUES
What all the rest is built on
A free man:
Is self-aware. He knows who he is, what he loves, what he finds intolerable. Knows his own inner drivers, good or ill. Self-knowledge enables us to set satisfying goals and effective boundaries. It shows us our true path. Without self-understanding, we find ourselves constantly in bad relationships and bad jobs, living in conditions we hate -- unable to say no and unable to articulate why we want to say no.
Has a spiritual center. A few years ago I'd never have put spirituality on any list of a free man's traits. Now, I see it's a foundation stone. Spirituality doesn't necessarily mean religion. A person can be spiritual without even believing in God. Spirituality is simply the sense that an individual life has a deeper meaning than is evident on the surface. When daily temptations, disappointments, or demands for collaboration threaten to push us off course, transcendent purpose keeps us walking the path.
There it is. A free man is, in his own realm, an astonishingly civilized and moral being. To those who live by controlling others, however, he is a wild beast who can't be tamed and who is too tough to make good prey.
A free man is also the cause of freedom. The sole cause of it.
When we have sufficient free individuals, political, social, and institutional freedoms will follow. They will arise not through revolution or politically driven reform, but from who we are and the choices we make every day.
We don't require superhumans. We don't even require a majority of free people. We do, however, require a larger minority of free individuals than we have today. "Doing our own thing" is one part of being free. But lasting freedom is a consequence of that old-fashioned and presently out-of-favor ideal: personal character.
We require that to create what so many of us crave: freedom that lasts.
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The Quality of a Free Man
by Claire Wolfe
I sit at the Hilltop Hermitage, high in the pines. I'm here to ask, and hopefully answer, some of the Great Questions about freedom.
Two come immediately to mind and I'm going to deal with the first one in this column.
That question is, "What are the qualities of a free man?"
I'm saying "man" unapologetically. That's how the question poses itself to me. My every attempt to impose political correctness by writing "person" or "human being" falls flat.
I believe I know why. Freedom requires what might once have been called "manly virtues" -- though in reality it doesn't matter what shape of body they come in.
Asking ourselves to live up to ideals is old-fashioned. Almost Victorian. This is an age of "anything goes" -- which can be fine and fun. But it's not enough. We need those "manly virtues" -- plus a few extras.
So bear with me, sisters and brothers-in-freedom alike. The list I'm about to propose is inclusive.
I'm beginning the freedom quest here for a simple reason: Freedom comes from free individuals, not the other way around. Seek Libertopia without first seeking within and the horse stumbles over the cart in her path and breaks her leg. Every time.
So without further ado I propose:
12 QUALITIES OF A FREE MAN
THE FIVE OUTWARD-LOOKING VIRTUES
The free man within society
A free man:
Keeps his word. A good man's word was once his bond. Now we expect our credit score to be our bond -- but such data measures only one infinitesimal part of us. You cannot build feedom on a base of lies or habitual unreliability. Free men mean what they say and do what they promise.
Does unto others as he would have them do unto him. Helps those who help themselves. Commits random acts of decency. Aids those who are striving to be free. Does not meddle in the non-violent behavior of others, but is is a good neighbor and powerful ally when one is needed.
Shuns indebtedness. This means more than shunning debt (though that, too). A free man owns his own life and thinks carefully before giving any part of it away. He rejects false loyalties and guilt trips (unwarranted claims on his life energies). If he accepts a favor he pays it back or pays it forward so others benefit by the aid he received.
Rejects coercive power. He neither seeks power over others nor accepts the right of others to hold such coercive power. You will never hear him say, "There ought to be a law." He sees humanity not as an ignorant mass to be managed or mothered, but as individuals capable of running their own lives.
Is independent and self-responsible. A free man prefers the risks and rewards of self-reliance to the temptations of "security" provided by others. He takes care of himself and his family. The ultimate corollary to this virtue is self-defense; a free man does not delegate responsibility for his own sustenance, and certainly not for his own survival.
THE FIVE INTERIOR VIRTUES
The free man within
A free man:
Solves problems creatively. Thinks out of the box. Is fascinated by new ideas. Is perpetually self-educating. Anyone who spends a large chunk of his life sitting and whining about all the factors holding him back is by definition neither free nor ready to free himself.
Acts with daily courage and fortitude. While we await the jackboot in the door, tyranny arrives in daily demands for our collaboration. We require courage to say, "No, I won't give that information"; "I have no interest in working for somebody who forces me to pee in a bottle"; "I won't pay you to kill people in my name"; "My baby doesn't need a government inventory number"; "That's politically correct nonsense"; "Not without a warrant, you won't"; or "It's time for you to stand up and take care of yourself." Free people own that kind of courage. It's food for their souls. (Which is why I list it as an Interior Virtue rather than an Outward-Looking one.)
Lives by well-considered principles. A free man doesn't just parrot "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not steal." He doesn't behave just because he fears God or government may be watching. He has examined his morality. He knows why he acts or refrains from acting. Sound principles also provide the platform for standing up with courage and saying, "No" to intolerable acts.
Seeks balanced excellence. It may be a fine thing to make a million dollars or build a better mousetrap (or a more efficient solar cell or an innovative computer game). Free people do those things better than serfs. But our life is our #1 creation. Truly free people put as much energy into becoming good, wise human beings as they do into material accomplishments. To do otherwise is to remain off balance -- and therefore very easy for "authorities" to push over.
Loves life. No, this does not mean a free man always goes around with a happy-face painted on his mug. It does mean that conscious, human life is the foundation of freedom. Despite its manifold flaws, human life is a miracle to be appreciated and defended against forces that waste or destroy it.
THE TWO FOUNDATION VIRTUES
What all the rest is built on
A free man:
Is self-aware. He knows who he is, what he loves, what he finds intolerable. Knows his own inner drivers, good or ill. Self-knowledge enables us to set satisfying goals and effective boundaries. It shows us our true path. Without self-understanding, we find ourselves constantly in bad relationships and bad jobs, living in conditions we hate -- unable to say no and unable to articulate why we want to say no.
Has a spiritual center. A few years ago I'd never have put spirituality on any list of a free man's traits. Now, I see it's a foundation stone. Spirituality doesn't necessarily mean religion. A person can be spiritual without even believing in God. Spirituality is simply the sense that an individual life has a deeper meaning than is evident on the surface. When daily temptations, disappointments, or demands for collaboration threaten to push us off course, transcendent purpose keeps us walking the path.
There it is. A free man is, in his own realm, an astonishingly civilized and moral being. To those who live by controlling others, however, he is a wild beast who can't be tamed and who is too tough to make good prey.
A free man is also the cause of freedom. The sole cause of it.
When we have sufficient free individuals, political, social, and institutional freedoms will follow. They will arise not through revolution or politically driven reform, but from who we are and the choices we make every day.
We don't require superhumans. We don't even require a majority of free people. We do, however, require a larger minority of free individuals than we have today. "Doing our own thing" is one part of being free. But lasting freedom is a consequence of that old-fashioned and presently out-of-favor ideal: personal character.
We require that to create what so many of us crave: freedom that lasts.
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Sunday, July 02, 2006
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Creative cowboy math
By Julie Carter
Every now and then someone forces the cowboy to do a little scratchin' on paper.
He'll call it a tally sheet and prefers to keep his figuring on his left hand glove or the right leg of his chaps.
For the purpose of this story, I'll target the team ropers. Don't worry; they are used to the abuse.
If someone with a bookkeeping background were to put the ropers "figgers" on paper, it would read something like "Income and Expense Statement, Profit Center: Competition Roping."
The expense column would have a long list of "must haves" that total to a shocking number that the cowboy will qualify with "estimate only - exact records are not important." It is hard to tell which comes first, the rope, the horse or the rig. They are listed here in no particular order of importance.
Expense:
Top-notch #1 winning rope horse $10,000
Back-up practice horse $9,500
Three-horse slant aluminum trailer $30,000
Two-seater truck to pull trailer $40,000
Ten practice Corrientes $5,000
Worthless Blue Heeler dog named Radar $200
Arena to practice and socialize in $5,000
Hydraulic chute (cheaper than a divorce) $3,500
Roping school with Nat'l Finals winner $700
Different roping school with good teacher $700
Entry fees (to date) $900
Equipment upgrade:
· New saddle $1,200
· EXTREME go and slow bit, $125
· Polyethylene urethane no-pressure saddle pad, $125
· A box of "no miss" ropes $250
Image enhancement:
· Space-age biothane tie down $20
· Straw hat (came with full-size George Strait pic) $70
· Headstall with turquoise $200
Total estimated expense $116,490
Income:
First in the average at Mineral Wells, Texas, 3:14 p.m., Sunday, May 1, 2006 $228
Picture frame (gift from admirer) $0
Total income (exact figure) $228
Of course this doesn't take any depreciation into account including the much depreciated wife who tries to keep up with it all.
Roping - what used to be a poor-boy sport - no longer is.
In Texas, where anything can happen and usually does, the classier covered arenas are now offering golf tournaments in conjunction with their ropings. One arena has a swimming pool, two restaurants, a western store, basketball court and is adding a softball field.
It is hard to find an arena in that area that you would recognize as such - built with 2" x 12" boards and used bull wire.
You cannot go to a roping in an open top trailer, single seat pickup and a ranch horse-you would not be allowed in the gate even if you could whup the entire list of entries. You won't find a single gunny sack girth in the bunch of them.
In spite of the math, every rodeo ground in America will be covered over in trucks, trailers, hats, and swinging ropes this July 4th holiday. Its Cowboy Christmas time and the cowboys are on the road 24/7 trying to win their share of the loot.
I'd like to designate the Fourth of July as "Be kind to a rodeo cowboy" holiday. They don't all win, they can't all afford it but they all love it with a passion only they feel and no one understands.
When the rodeo cowboy lays his hat on his heart in honor of the American flag, let us tip our hats to them for being an enduring part of American history.
Even the team ropers.
© Julie Carter 2006
The Country Doctor
by Larry Gabriel
Country doctors are not a thing of the past, but I have not seen much publicity about these unsung heroes of rural America.
Most of the world probably thinks there are no doctors who still make houses call in the middle of the night, do what needs doing and send you a reasonable bill at the end of the month.
They don't come out of medical school with the normal six figure income of most doctors. Many begin their careers in jobs that pay about $50 thousand dollars a year. Their mean salary is about $75 thousand a year.
They don't fit the rich doctor stereotype, partly because they can't afford it. They don't live in mansions, just a normal house. They don't drive a Mercedes, just a pickup truck (and quite often one with a lot of dents in it). They don't care about that stuff anyway.
Quite often they are the most highly educated person in a small town, but they normally don't become president of the social clubs or school boards. They are too busy making those emergency calls for routine fees.
They don't have the same prestige as a country club pediatrician, nor even the same dress and mannerisms in most cases. You rarely see their picture in the paper, but fame is not their goal anyway.
Maybe all this is related to the oath they are required to take:
Being admitted to the profession of veterinary medicine, I solemnly swear to use my scientific knowledge and skills for the benefit of society through the protection of animal health, the relief of animal suffering, the conservation of animal resources, the promotion of public health, and the advancement of medical knowledge. I will practice my profession conscientiously, with dignity, and in keeping with the principles of veterinary medical ethics. I accept as a lifelong obligation the continual improvement of my professional knowledge and competence.
When you think about it, it is really quite amazing that these people invest close to a hundred thousand dollars and twenty years in an education and move to rural America. There are only 27 veterinary medical schools in the United States. It is more difficult to get into one of them than it is to get into a normal medical school.
Yet, after all their struggle, work and time invested, they still come to the middle of the prairie to be a country vet. Many are known simply as "Doc".
The next time you see "Doc", you might want to let him (or her) know just how much we appreciate what they passed up just to share life with us on the prairies of Dakota.
They could have chosen the money in medicine, but they chose a life instead of a lifestyle.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
Received via email:
THE YEAR 1906
The year is 1906.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1906:
The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.
The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US. took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!
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Creative cowboy math
By Julie Carter
Every now and then someone forces the cowboy to do a little scratchin' on paper.
He'll call it a tally sheet and prefers to keep his figuring on his left hand glove or the right leg of his chaps.
For the purpose of this story, I'll target the team ropers. Don't worry; they are used to the abuse.
If someone with a bookkeeping background were to put the ropers "figgers" on paper, it would read something like "Income and Expense Statement, Profit Center: Competition Roping."
The expense column would have a long list of "must haves" that total to a shocking number that the cowboy will qualify with "estimate only - exact records are not important." It is hard to tell which comes first, the rope, the horse or the rig. They are listed here in no particular order of importance.
Expense:
Top-notch #1 winning rope horse $10,000
Back-up practice horse $9,500
Three-horse slant aluminum trailer $30,000
Two-seater truck to pull trailer $40,000
Ten practice Corrientes $5,000
Worthless Blue Heeler dog named Radar $200
Arena to practice and socialize in $5,000
Hydraulic chute (cheaper than a divorce) $3,500
Roping school with Nat'l Finals winner $700
Different roping school with good teacher $700
Entry fees (to date) $900
Equipment upgrade:
· New saddle $1,200
· EXTREME go and slow bit, $125
· Polyethylene urethane no-pressure saddle pad, $125
· A box of "no miss" ropes $250
Image enhancement:
· Space-age biothane tie down $20
· Straw hat (came with full-size George Strait pic) $70
· Headstall with turquoise $200
Total estimated expense $116,490
Income:
First in the average at Mineral Wells, Texas, 3:14 p.m., Sunday, May 1, 2006 $228
Picture frame (gift from admirer) $0
Total income (exact figure) $228
Of course this doesn't take any depreciation into account including the much depreciated wife who tries to keep up with it all.
Roping - what used to be a poor-boy sport - no longer is.
In Texas, where anything can happen and usually does, the classier covered arenas are now offering golf tournaments in conjunction with their ropings. One arena has a swimming pool, two restaurants, a western store, basketball court and is adding a softball field.
It is hard to find an arena in that area that you would recognize as such - built with 2" x 12" boards and used bull wire.
You cannot go to a roping in an open top trailer, single seat pickup and a ranch horse-you would not be allowed in the gate even if you could whup the entire list of entries. You won't find a single gunny sack girth in the bunch of them.
In spite of the math, every rodeo ground in America will be covered over in trucks, trailers, hats, and swinging ropes this July 4th holiday. Its Cowboy Christmas time and the cowboys are on the road 24/7 trying to win their share of the loot.
I'd like to designate the Fourth of July as "Be kind to a rodeo cowboy" holiday. They don't all win, they can't all afford it but they all love it with a passion only they feel and no one understands.
When the rodeo cowboy lays his hat on his heart in honor of the American flag, let us tip our hats to them for being an enduring part of American history.
Even the team ropers.
© Julie Carter 2006
The Country Doctor
by Larry Gabriel
Country doctors are not a thing of the past, but I have not seen much publicity about these unsung heroes of rural America.
Most of the world probably thinks there are no doctors who still make houses call in the middle of the night, do what needs doing and send you a reasonable bill at the end of the month.
They don't come out of medical school with the normal six figure income of most doctors. Many begin their careers in jobs that pay about $50 thousand dollars a year. Their mean salary is about $75 thousand a year.
They don't fit the rich doctor stereotype, partly because they can't afford it. They don't live in mansions, just a normal house. They don't drive a Mercedes, just a pickup truck (and quite often one with a lot of dents in it). They don't care about that stuff anyway.
Quite often they are the most highly educated person in a small town, but they normally don't become president of the social clubs or school boards. They are too busy making those emergency calls for routine fees.
They don't have the same prestige as a country club pediatrician, nor even the same dress and mannerisms in most cases. You rarely see their picture in the paper, but fame is not their goal anyway.
Maybe all this is related to the oath they are required to take:
Being admitted to the profession of veterinary medicine, I solemnly swear to use my scientific knowledge and skills for the benefit of society through the protection of animal health, the relief of animal suffering, the conservation of animal resources, the promotion of public health, and the advancement of medical knowledge. I will practice my profession conscientiously, with dignity, and in keeping with the principles of veterinary medical ethics. I accept as a lifelong obligation the continual improvement of my professional knowledge and competence.
When you think about it, it is really quite amazing that these people invest close to a hundred thousand dollars and twenty years in an education and move to rural America. There are only 27 veterinary medical schools in the United States. It is more difficult to get into one of them than it is to get into a normal medical school.
Yet, after all their struggle, work and time invested, they still come to the middle of the prairie to be a country vet. Many are known simply as "Doc".
The next time you see "Doc", you might want to let him (or her) know just how much we appreciate what they passed up just to share life with us on the prairies of Dakota.
They could have chosen the money in medicine, but they chose a life instead of a lifestyle.
Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture
Received via email:
THE YEAR 1906
The year is 1906.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1906:
The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.
The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the US. took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!
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FLE
Federal official charged with immigration fraud A immigration supervisor in the Washington district office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was charged yesterday with immigration fraud for issuing naturalized citizenship certificates to people who didn't earn them. Robert T. Schofield appeared in a federal court in Alexandria yesterday and awaited a bond hearing today. Court papers filed in support of search warrant applications said that at least 23 persons may have illegitimately obtained naturalization certificates from Mr. Schofield. "This agency has zero tolerance for anyone who might betray the confidence of the American people by compromising the integrity of our immigration system," said Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of USCIS. "This alleged behavior in no way represents the honor and ethics of the work force at USCIS. We will continue to cooperate fully with authorities in this ongoing investigation." A spokeswoman for USCIS said Mr. Schofield has worked for the agency since 1976 and was a first line supervisory adjudications officer. That means he oversaw other immigration adjudicators who rule on applications ranging from citizenship to companies seeking permission to import foreign workers. It's the second time this month a USCIS employee was arrested in a high-profile immigration scam. The FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York announced June 7 they had arrested Phillip A. Browne, a USCIS employee who conspired with his sister to sell green cards based on sham marriages....
Ex-N.Y. Police Chief Admits to Taking Gifts Bernard B. Kerik, whose rise from New York beat cop to head of the Department of Homeland Security was derailed by ethics questions, dodged prison Friday in a plea bargain by admitting he took $165,000 in gifts from a company attempting to do business with the city. Kerik, at a 10-minute hearing in state Supreme Court in the Bronx, pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanors under a deal that allows him to continue without interruption his new career as a Middle East security consultant. Kerik acknowledged accepting renovations on his Bronx apartment from a company attempting to land city contracts -- Interstate Industrial Corp., a business reputedly linked to organized crime. And he admitted failing to report a $28,000 loan from a real estate developer, as required by city law. The transgressions occurred while Kerik was head of the city Correction Department. In entering his plea, Kerik admitted speaking to city officials about Interstate, but he never acknowledged a link between the renovations and his support of the company. Outside court, Kerik showed no sign of remorse and offered no apology....
State Tracked Protesters in the Name of Security Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office in charge of protecting California against terrorism has tracked demonstrations staged by political and antiwar groups, a practice that senior law enforcement officials say is an abuse of civil liberties. The Times obtained reports prepared for the state Office of Homeland Security in recent months that contain details on the whereabouts and purpose of a number of political demonstrations throughout California. The source of the information is listed in some cases as federal law enforcement agencies, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, an investigative arm of the U.S. Homeland Security department. Political activities cited in the reports include: • An animal rights rally outside a Canadian consulate office in San Francisco to protest the hunting of seals. • A demonstration in Walnut Creek at which U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) and other officials spoke against the war in Iraq. • A Women's International League for Peace and Freedom gathering at a courthouse in Santa Barbara in support of an antiwar protester — a 56-year-old Salinas woman — facing federal trespassing charges. California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer's office learned of the monitoring activity more than two months ago. On Friday, a spokesman condemned the actions, saying they violated the groups' constitutional right of free speech. "When people exercise their 1st Amendment rights to rally, march and protest, they should not have to worry that intelligence officials are watching them or their activities are in any way being painted with the terrorism brush," Lockyer spokesman Tom Dresslar said in an interview....
Gitmo win likely cost Navy lawyer his caree Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift -- the Navy lawyer who beat the president of the United States in a pivotal Supreme Court battle over trying alleged terrorists -- figures he'll probably have to find a new job. Of course, it's always risky to compare your boss to King George III. Swift made the analogy to the court, saying President Bush had overstepped his authority when he bypassed Congress and set up illegal military tribunals to try Guantanamo detainees such as Swift's alleged al-Qaida client, Salim Ahmed Hamdan. The justices agreed, ruling 5-3 Thursday in favor of dismantling the current tribunal system. Despite his spectacular success, with the assistance of attorneys from the Seattle firm Perkins Coie, Swift thinks his military career is coming to an end. The 44-year-old Judge Advocate General officer, who was recently named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the country by The National Law Journal, was passed over for promotion last year as the high-profile case was making headlines around the world. "I may be one of the most influential lawyers in America," the Seattle University Law School graduate said, "but I won't be in the military much longer. That irony did strike me." Swift's future in the Navy now rests with another promotion board that is expected to render its decision in the next couple of weeks. Under the military's system, officers need to be promoted at regularly scheduled intervals or their service careers are essentially over....
Airport security slammed in Congress U.S. lawmakers this week called the TSA's baggage screening and bomb detection systems inadequate. The failure rates of some Transportation Security Administration programs indicated the potential for dire consequences, a leading GOP congressman said according to the GovExec.com report. "The system we now have in place, the failure rate (to detect explosives)] is just disastrous," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Detailed information on failure rates was classified, the lawmakers said. In addition, TSA's baggage handlers we injured on the job more often than employees at other federal agencies, Mica said at a hearing. He cited an Occupational Safety and Health Administration report that said 16 percent of TSA baggage screeners were injured at work. Systems that kept luggage out of screeners' hands and on conveyor belts would be faster and safer, Mica said. Some baggage examination machines require too much staffing, as well, he said. Mica also urged the agency to look into a more standard and consistent screening system. "TSA unfortunately created a hodgepodge of systems," he said, calling for an investigation into the agency's screening contracts....
Base intruder caught with guidance system Military police at an Arizona base took 45 minutes to respond to a Tucson police call about an intruder because officers could not find the right key. A $78,000 navigation system for a Navy anti-submarine plane was allegedly later found in the intruder's home, the Arizona Daily Star reports. The incident at the Davis-Monahan Base began June 13 when police spotted a man they later identified as Christopher Howard inside the perimeter fence in an area known as "the boneyard," an aircraft storage area. Because Tucson officers had no power to make an arrest, they held Howard until they were told military police could not get to the area, when they released him with a warning to stay off the base. The FBI later arrested Howard on suspicion of stealing government property, the Daily Star said. Howard claimed to be an aircraft buff who had entered the base in an area where the fence was missing to get a closer look at the planes, the newspaper reported....
Emergency network goes unused First responders are not using the Homeland Security Department's new communication network and instead are relying on the telephone when terrorist situations arise. A report by the department's inspector general released yesterday says very few of the thousands of officials registered to access the network use the secure Web site to share information. Registered users say the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) "does not provide them the situational awareness they need to manage or respond to emergency operations or terrorist-related events," the report said. Federal officials created the HSIN after the September 11 terrorist attacks to share information with law enforcement, emergency management, fire departments, local homeland security officials, the National Guard and counterterrorism officials. The Web site has 10 portals that provide classified information, law-enforcement analysis, and data on international incidents and emergency management. The report says that in December, fewer than 100 of nearly 10,000 registered users of the counterterrorism portal logged on to the site and 40 of more than 4,000 users of the emergency-management portal checked the site. During the London bombings in July, users needed timely information on whether the attacks were suicide bombings so transportation security could be adjusted on local levels. "However, the information provided on HSIN was no more useful or timely than information available via public news sources," the report said....
The Total Information Awareness program was killed in 2003, but its spawn present bigger threats to privacy THE DISCLOSURE this week of a secret databank operation tracking international financial transactions has caused renewed concerns about civil liberties in the United States. But this program is just the latest in a series of secret surveillance programs, databanks and domestic operations justified as part of the war on terror. Disclosed individually over the course of the last year, they have become almost routine. Yet, when considered collectively, they present a far more troubling picture, and one that should be vaguely familiar. Civil liberty-minded citizens may recall the president's plan to create the Total Information Awareness program, a massive databank with the ability to follow citizens in real time by their check-card purchases, bank transactions, medical bills and other electronic means. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, was assigned this task, but after its work was made public, Congress put a stop to it in September 2003 as a danger to privacy and civil liberties. However, when Congress disbanded the Total Information Awareness program, it did not prohibit further research on such databanks, or even the use of individual databanks. And, according to a recent study by the National Journal, the Bush administration used that loophole to break the program into smaller parts, transferring some parts to the National Security Agency, classifying the work and renaming parts of it as the Research Development and Experimental Collaboration program. It was long suspected that Total Information Awareness survived, and the disclosure this week of another massive databank operation has only reinforced that fear. The spawn of DARPA seem to be turning up in secret programs spread throughout agencies. The administration learned that it could not create a network of databanks in one comprehensive system, but it could achieve the same results by creating smaller systems that could be easily daisy-chained at a later date into the same kind of massive computer bank that Congress thought it had shut down. It is DARPA, albeit with assembly required for the ultimate user....
Analysis: Wartime Powers Face Scrutiny The Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo puts the brakes on what has been a sharp expansion of executive powers and raises fresh questions about other aspects of President Bush's war-on-terror policy. The 5-3 decision was a frontal assault on Bush's tactics and a reaffirmation of the court's own role in a system where power is shared among three branches of government. "What it says is that the court has a viable interest in remaining the ultimate authority on the law," said Charles Rose, a constitutional law professor at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla. Other administration anti-terror programs, including a warrantless eavesdropping program that worries even some Republicans, "are based on the same interpretation of presidential authority in a time of war" rejected in the Guantanamo case, Rose said. Legal and presidential scholars saw the decision as a check on the president's assertion of expanded wartime powers. They likened it to the court's 1952 rejection of President Truman's efforts to take over a strike-closed steel mill by claiming its steel production was necessary to the U.S. war effort in Korea. Similarly, the Supreme Court rejected President Nixon's claim in the early 1970s of broad wartime power to authorize warrantless wiretap surveillance of domestic groups opposed to the Vietnam war, such as the Black Panthers. "The Supreme Court normally does not reverse the president during wartime," said Stephen J. Wayne, a Georgetown University professor and presidential expert. "But this president has claimed a lot of power, much of it under the guise of the state of war that we're in against terrorists. And I think what the Supreme Court is saying is that you've gone too far."....
Court's Ruling Is Likely to Force Negotiations Over Presidential Power The Supreme Court's Guantánamo ruling on Thursday was the most significant setback yet for the Bush administration's contention that the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath have justified one of the broadest expansions of presidential power in American history. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney spent much of their first term bypassing Congress in the service of what they labeled a "different kind of war." Now they will almost certainly plunge into negotiations they previously spurned, over the extent of the president's powers, this time in the midst of a midterm election in which Mr. Bush's wartime strategies and their consequences have emerged as a potent issue. The ruling bolsters those in Congress who for months have been trying to force the White House into a retreat from its claims that Mr. Bush not only has the unilateral authority as commander in chief to determine how suspected terrorists are tried, but also to set the rules for domestic wiretapping, for interrogating prisoners and for pursuing a global fight against terror that many suspect could stretch for as long as the cold war did. What the court's 5-to-3 decision declared, in essence, was that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had overreached and must now either use the established rules of courts-martial or go back to Congress — this time with vastly diminished leverage — to win approval for the military commissions that Mr. Bush argues are the best way to keep the nation safe. For Mr. Bush, this is not the first such setback. The court ruled two years ago that the giant prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was not beyond the reach of American courts and that prisoners there had some minimal rights....
THE COURT'S STUNNING HAMDAN DECISION or much of American history, the Supreme Court has refused to resolve the most fundamental conflicts between individual rights and national security. Instead it has required Congress explicitly to authorize any presidential intrusion into the domain of civil liberty--even when national security is threatened. In this way, the Court has enlisted the separation of powers on behalf of individual liberty. The Court's stunning decision in the Hamdan case is a ringing endorsement of this simple practice. In brief, the Court ruled that in the absence of clear congressional permission, or some kind of emergency, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces may not try a suspected terrorist in special military commissions. The Court so ruled without resolving the largest constitutional questions and hence without forbidding Congress and the president, acting together, to use military tribunals as they see fit. The Court's analysis came in three parts. First, the Court said that under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Congress authorized the president to use commissions only in special circumstances. To be sure, the president can use such commissions to determine whether an alleged enemy has violated the law of war. But the particular charges against Hamdan claimed no violation of the law of war. Instead the government alleged only that he "conspired" to violate that law. The problem is that Congress has never identified "conspiracy" as a war crime--and no precedent establishes it as such. In the Court's view, this shortcoming illustrates the broader problem, which is that without specific congressional authorization, the president must establish some kind of "military necessity" for the use of special commissions. There was no such necessity here. After all, Hamdan's tribunal was not appointed by a commander in the battlefield, but by a retired general far from active hostilities. Second, the Court emphasized that Hamdan's trial would not guarantee him the right to be informed of the evidence against him--a right that is guaranteed in court-martial proceedings....
Courts, Congress Resist Growing White House Power As demonstrated by yesterday's landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the legality of military tribunals to try "enemy combatants," the administration of President George W. Bush has consistently sought to expand the power of the presidency in the name of the "global war on terror." The president has claimed he has "inherent rights" under the U.S. Constitution to do "whatever it takes" to protect the U.S. public during times of war – even if that means issuing "signing statements" that have the effect of ignoring or modifying laws passed by Congress, or invoking the so-called state secrets privilege to keep potentially embarrassing cases from getting to court. A "signing statement" is language a president can use to modify or effectively nullify laws passed by Congress. Signing statements have been sparingly used since the early days of the Republic, but President Bush has dramatically increased their use during his six years in office. Invoking the state secrets privilege – claiming that disclosure of sensitive information in a court trial would endanger national security – is another tactic frequently used by the Bush administration to stop potentially embarrassing lawsuits against the government. Many of these suits are brought by government employees who allege fraud, mismanagement, or other unlawful conduct, so the state secrets privilege has successfully been invoked by the government to silence "whistleblowers." But now a member of the president's own Republican Party is pushing back against the administration by introducing a bill to limit what he considers abuse of the state secrets tactic. Christopher Shays, a longtime Republican member of Congress from a heavily Democratic district in Connecticut, believes that the state secrets provision has been used too frequently and with too little public protection. In particular, he is concerned that it will continue to be used to block whistleblower cases. "If the very people you're suing are the ones who get to use the state secrets privilege, it's a stacked deck," says Shays, who has long been a proponent of limiting government secrecy....
USA Today: Call Database Not So Broad USA Today acknowledged in a "note to our readers" Friday that it could not establish that BellSouth or Verizon contracted with the National Security Agency to provide it with customer calling records, as it previously reported. But spokesman Steve Anderson said "this is an important story that holds up well. At the heart of our report is the fact that NSA is collecting phone call records of millions of Americans." "What we address in the editors' note," he said, "deals with the fact that we originally reported that the telephone companies were working under contract with the NSA. We've concluded that we cannot establish that BellSouth or Verizon entered into a contract with the NSA to provide the bulk calling records." In an accompanying story, the newspaper reported Friday that lawmakers on House and Senate intelligence committees have said that while the NSA has amassed a huge database calling records, cooperation with the NSA by telephone companies was not as extensive USA Today initially reported on May 11....
The Basic Questions The Financial Spying Program, how many people has it caught? Who are they? Where are they? What has been done about them? Did it catch anyone that could not have been caught another way? What was the cost per catch? Would that expenditure in time, effort and money, been better applied elsewhere? Did it catch anyone that was part of 9/11? Al Qaeda spent a lot of money on 9/11. They spent a lot of money elsewhere. How many of the Al Qaeda’s backers has this program found? More than one? Why haven’t they been arrested? Who are they? Where are they? The wiretaps without warrants program, how many people did it catch? How many operations did it interrupt? How many arrests or captures did it lead to? What did it cost? What does it continue to cost?....
DON'T FALL FOR THE BUNKUM OF "EMERGENCY POWERS" In the ancient Roman Republic, the Senate could appoint a temporary dictator, and invest him with specific and often sweeping powers, to deal with extraordinary conditions. And on both sides of the wall behind the Speaker’s desk in the United States House of Representatives are prominently displayed Roman fasces: an ax within a bundle of sticks, symbolizing the plenitude of governmental power—a classical representation of Mao Tse-tung’s epigram that “[p]olitical power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” The illusions of modern politicians aside, however, that historical allusion does not invest Congress with all the powers of the Roman Senate, let alone a license to arm the President with the authority of an ancient Roman dictator—or of a latter-day Duce. The modern doctrine of “emergency powers” is striking because—unlike the authority of the ancient Roman Senate to appoint a dictator—“emergency powers” lack both a specific source in the Constitution and a definition. Obviously, if the Constitution contained a clause explicitly delegating to Congress “emergency powers,” delineating the content of such powers, and setting out specific conditions under which they could be exercised, by whom, and for what purposes, no one could complain. No such provision exists in the Constitution, however. Today, officeholders simply announce that an “emergency” exists and that they are assuming “emergency powers” to deal with it—with both the erstwhile “emergency” and the “powers” unilaterally defined by them without reference to anything in the Constitution. To any legally literate individual, this situation should be intolerable....
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Federal official charged with immigration fraud A immigration supervisor in the Washington district office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was charged yesterday with immigration fraud for issuing naturalized citizenship certificates to people who didn't earn them. Robert T. Schofield appeared in a federal court in Alexandria yesterday and awaited a bond hearing today. Court papers filed in support of search warrant applications said that at least 23 persons may have illegitimately obtained naturalization certificates from Mr. Schofield. "This agency has zero tolerance for anyone who might betray the confidence of the American people by compromising the integrity of our immigration system," said Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of USCIS. "This alleged behavior in no way represents the honor and ethics of the work force at USCIS. We will continue to cooperate fully with authorities in this ongoing investigation." A spokeswoman for USCIS said Mr. Schofield has worked for the agency since 1976 and was a first line supervisory adjudications officer. That means he oversaw other immigration adjudicators who rule on applications ranging from citizenship to companies seeking permission to import foreign workers. It's the second time this month a USCIS employee was arrested in a high-profile immigration scam. The FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York announced June 7 they had arrested Phillip A. Browne, a USCIS employee who conspired with his sister to sell green cards based on sham marriages....
Ex-N.Y. Police Chief Admits to Taking Gifts Bernard B. Kerik, whose rise from New York beat cop to head of the Department of Homeland Security was derailed by ethics questions, dodged prison Friday in a plea bargain by admitting he took $165,000 in gifts from a company attempting to do business with the city. Kerik, at a 10-minute hearing in state Supreme Court in the Bronx, pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanors under a deal that allows him to continue without interruption his new career as a Middle East security consultant. Kerik acknowledged accepting renovations on his Bronx apartment from a company attempting to land city contracts -- Interstate Industrial Corp., a business reputedly linked to organized crime. And he admitted failing to report a $28,000 loan from a real estate developer, as required by city law. The transgressions occurred while Kerik was head of the city Correction Department. In entering his plea, Kerik admitted speaking to city officials about Interstate, but he never acknowledged a link between the renovations and his support of the company. Outside court, Kerik showed no sign of remorse and offered no apology....
State Tracked Protesters in the Name of Security Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office in charge of protecting California against terrorism has tracked demonstrations staged by political and antiwar groups, a practice that senior law enforcement officials say is an abuse of civil liberties. The Times obtained reports prepared for the state Office of Homeland Security in recent months that contain details on the whereabouts and purpose of a number of political demonstrations throughout California. The source of the information is listed in some cases as federal law enforcement agencies, including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, an investigative arm of the U.S. Homeland Security department. Political activities cited in the reports include: • An animal rights rally outside a Canadian consulate office in San Francisco to protest the hunting of seals. • A demonstration in Walnut Creek at which U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) and other officials spoke against the war in Iraq. • A Women's International League for Peace and Freedom gathering at a courthouse in Santa Barbara in support of an antiwar protester — a 56-year-old Salinas woman — facing federal trespassing charges. California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer's office learned of the monitoring activity more than two months ago. On Friday, a spokesman condemned the actions, saying they violated the groups' constitutional right of free speech. "When people exercise their 1st Amendment rights to rally, march and protest, they should not have to worry that intelligence officials are watching them or their activities are in any way being painted with the terrorism brush," Lockyer spokesman Tom Dresslar said in an interview....
Gitmo win likely cost Navy lawyer his caree Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift -- the Navy lawyer who beat the president of the United States in a pivotal Supreme Court battle over trying alleged terrorists -- figures he'll probably have to find a new job. Of course, it's always risky to compare your boss to King George III. Swift made the analogy to the court, saying President Bush had overstepped his authority when he bypassed Congress and set up illegal military tribunals to try Guantanamo detainees such as Swift's alleged al-Qaida client, Salim Ahmed Hamdan. The justices agreed, ruling 5-3 Thursday in favor of dismantling the current tribunal system. Despite his spectacular success, with the assistance of attorneys from the Seattle firm Perkins Coie, Swift thinks his military career is coming to an end. The 44-year-old Judge Advocate General officer, who was recently named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the country by The National Law Journal, was passed over for promotion last year as the high-profile case was making headlines around the world. "I may be one of the most influential lawyers in America," the Seattle University Law School graduate said, "but I won't be in the military much longer. That irony did strike me." Swift's future in the Navy now rests with another promotion board that is expected to render its decision in the next couple of weeks. Under the military's system, officers need to be promoted at regularly scheduled intervals or their service careers are essentially over....
Airport security slammed in Congress U.S. lawmakers this week called the TSA's baggage screening and bomb detection systems inadequate. The failure rates of some Transportation Security Administration programs indicated the potential for dire consequences, a leading GOP congressman said according to the GovExec.com report. "The system we now have in place, the failure rate (to detect explosives)] is just disastrous," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Detailed information on failure rates was classified, the lawmakers said. In addition, TSA's baggage handlers we injured on the job more often than employees at other federal agencies, Mica said at a hearing. He cited an Occupational Safety and Health Administration report that said 16 percent of TSA baggage screeners were injured at work. Systems that kept luggage out of screeners' hands and on conveyor belts would be faster and safer, Mica said. Some baggage examination machines require too much staffing, as well, he said. Mica also urged the agency to look into a more standard and consistent screening system. "TSA unfortunately created a hodgepodge of systems," he said, calling for an investigation into the agency's screening contracts....
Base intruder caught with guidance system Military police at an Arizona base took 45 minutes to respond to a Tucson police call about an intruder because officers could not find the right key. A $78,000 navigation system for a Navy anti-submarine plane was allegedly later found in the intruder's home, the Arizona Daily Star reports. The incident at the Davis-Monahan Base began June 13 when police spotted a man they later identified as Christopher Howard inside the perimeter fence in an area known as "the boneyard," an aircraft storage area. Because Tucson officers had no power to make an arrest, they held Howard until they were told military police could not get to the area, when they released him with a warning to stay off the base. The FBI later arrested Howard on suspicion of stealing government property, the Daily Star said. Howard claimed to be an aircraft buff who had entered the base in an area where the fence was missing to get a closer look at the planes, the newspaper reported....
Emergency network goes unused First responders are not using the Homeland Security Department's new communication network and instead are relying on the telephone when terrorist situations arise. A report by the department's inspector general released yesterday says very few of the thousands of officials registered to access the network use the secure Web site to share information. Registered users say the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) "does not provide them the situational awareness they need to manage or respond to emergency operations or terrorist-related events," the report said. Federal officials created the HSIN after the September 11 terrorist attacks to share information with law enforcement, emergency management, fire departments, local homeland security officials, the National Guard and counterterrorism officials. The Web site has 10 portals that provide classified information, law-enforcement analysis, and data on international incidents and emergency management. The report says that in December, fewer than 100 of nearly 10,000 registered users of the counterterrorism portal logged on to the site and 40 of more than 4,000 users of the emergency-management portal checked the site. During the London bombings in July, users needed timely information on whether the attacks were suicide bombings so transportation security could be adjusted on local levels. "However, the information provided on HSIN was no more useful or timely than information available via public news sources," the report said....
The Total Information Awareness program was killed in 2003, but its spawn present bigger threats to privacy THE DISCLOSURE this week of a secret databank operation tracking international financial transactions has caused renewed concerns about civil liberties in the United States. But this program is just the latest in a series of secret surveillance programs, databanks and domestic operations justified as part of the war on terror. Disclosed individually over the course of the last year, they have become almost routine. Yet, when considered collectively, they present a far more troubling picture, and one that should be vaguely familiar. Civil liberty-minded citizens may recall the president's plan to create the Total Information Awareness program, a massive databank with the ability to follow citizens in real time by their check-card purchases, bank transactions, medical bills and other electronic means. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, was assigned this task, but after its work was made public, Congress put a stop to it in September 2003 as a danger to privacy and civil liberties. However, when Congress disbanded the Total Information Awareness program, it did not prohibit further research on such databanks, or even the use of individual databanks. And, according to a recent study by the National Journal, the Bush administration used that loophole to break the program into smaller parts, transferring some parts to the National Security Agency, classifying the work and renaming parts of it as the Research Development and Experimental Collaboration program. It was long suspected that Total Information Awareness survived, and the disclosure this week of another massive databank operation has only reinforced that fear. The spawn of DARPA seem to be turning up in secret programs spread throughout agencies. The administration learned that it could not create a network of databanks in one comprehensive system, but it could achieve the same results by creating smaller systems that could be easily daisy-chained at a later date into the same kind of massive computer bank that Congress thought it had shut down. It is DARPA, albeit with assembly required for the ultimate user....
Analysis: Wartime Powers Face Scrutiny The Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo puts the brakes on what has been a sharp expansion of executive powers and raises fresh questions about other aspects of President Bush's war-on-terror policy. The 5-3 decision was a frontal assault on Bush's tactics and a reaffirmation of the court's own role in a system where power is shared among three branches of government. "What it says is that the court has a viable interest in remaining the ultimate authority on the law," said Charles Rose, a constitutional law professor at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Fla. Other administration anti-terror programs, including a warrantless eavesdropping program that worries even some Republicans, "are based on the same interpretation of presidential authority in a time of war" rejected in the Guantanamo case, Rose said. Legal and presidential scholars saw the decision as a check on the president's assertion of expanded wartime powers. They likened it to the court's 1952 rejection of President Truman's efforts to take over a strike-closed steel mill by claiming its steel production was necessary to the U.S. war effort in Korea. Similarly, the Supreme Court rejected President Nixon's claim in the early 1970s of broad wartime power to authorize warrantless wiretap surveillance of domestic groups opposed to the Vietnam war, such as the Black Panthers. "The Supreme Court normally does not reverse the president during wartime," said Stephen J. Wayne, a Georgetown University professor and presidential expert. "But this president has claimed a lot of power, much of it under the guise of the state of war that we're in against terrorists. And I think what the Supreme Court is saying is that you've gone too far."....
Court's Ruling Is Likely to Force Negotiations Over Presidential Power The Supreme Court's Guantánamo ruling on Thursday was the most significant setback yet for the Bush administration's contention that the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath have justified one of the broadest expansions of presidential power in American history. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney spent much of their first term bypassing Congress in the service of what they labeled a "different kind of war." Now they will almost certainly plunge into negotiations they previously spurned, over the extent of the president's powers, this time in the midst of a midterm election in which Mr. Bush's wartime strategies and their consequences have emerged as a potent issue. The ruling bolsters those in Congress who for months have been trying to force the White House into a retreat from its claims that Mr. Bush not only has the unilateral authority as commander in chief to determine how suspected terrorists are tried, but also to set the rules for domestic wiretapping, for interrogating prisoners and for pursuing a global fight against terror that many suspect could stretch for as long as the cold war did. What the court's 5-to-3 decision declared, in essence, was that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had overreached and must now either use the established rules of courts-martial or go back to Congress — this time with vastly diminished leverage — to win approval for the military commissions that Mr. Bush argues are the best way to keep the nation safe. For Mr. Bush, this is not the first such setback. The court ruled two years ago that the giant prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was not beyond the reach of American courts and that prisoners there had some minimal rights....
THE COURT'S STUNNING HAMDAN DECISION or much of American history, the Supreme Court has refused to resolve the most fundamental conflicts between individual rights and national security. Instead it has required Congress explicitly to authorize any presidential intrusion into the domain of civil liberty--even when national security is threatened. In this way, the Court has enlisted the separation of powers on behalf of individual liberty. The Court's stunning decision in the Hamdan case is a ringing endorsement of this simple practice. In brief, the Court ruled that in the absence of clear congressional permission, or some kind of emergency, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces may not try a suspected terrorist in special military commissions. The Court so ruled without resolving the largest constitutional questions and hence without forbidding Congress and the president, acting together, to use military tribunals as they see fit. The Court's analysis came in three parts. First, the Court said that under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Congress authorized the president to use commissions only in special circumstances. To be sure, the president can use such commissions to determine whether an alleged enemy has violated the law of war. But the particular charges against Hamdan claimed no violation of the law of war. Instead the government alleged only that he "conspired" to violate that law. The problem is that Congress has never identified "conspiracy" as a war crime--and no precedent establishes it as such. In the Court's view, this shortcoming illustrates the broader problem, which is that without specific congressional authorization, the president must establish some kind of "military necessity" for the use of special commissions. There was no such necessity here. After all, Hamdan's tribunal was not appointed by a commander in the battlefield, but by a retired general far from active hostilities. Second, the Court emphasized that Hamdan's trial would not guarantee him the right to be informed of the evidence against him--a right that is guaranteed in court-martial proceedings....
Courts, Congress Resist Growing White House Power As demonstrated by yesterday's landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the legality of military tribunals to try "enemy combatants," the administration of President George W. Bush has consistently sought to expand the power of the presidency in the name of the "global war on terror." The president has claimed he has "inherent rights" under the U.S. Constitution to do "whatever it takes" to protect the U.S. public during times of war – even if that means issuing "signing statements" that have the effect of ignoring or modifying laws passed by Congress, or invoking the so-called state secrets privilege to keep potentially embarrassing cases from getting to court. A "signing statement" is language a president can use to modify or effectively nullify laws passed by Congress. Signing statements have been sparingly used since the early days of the Republic, but President Bush has dramatically increased their use during his six years in office. Invoking the state secrets privilege – claiming that disclosure of sensitive information in a court trial would endanger national security – is another tactic frequently used by the Bush administration to stop potentially embarrassing lawsuits against the government. Many of these suits are brought by government employees who allege fraud, mismanagement, or other unlawful conduct, so the state secrets privilege has successfully been invoked by the government to silence "whistleblowers." But now a member of the president's own Republican Party is pushing back against the administration by introducing a bill to limit what he considers abuse of the state secrets tactic. Christopher Shays, a longtime Republican member of Congress from a heavily Democratic district in Connecticut, believes that the state secrets provision has been used too frequently and with too little public protection. In particular, he is concerned that it will continue to be used to block whistleblower cases. "If the very people you're suing are the ones who get to use the state secrets privilege, it's a stacked deck," says Shays, who has long been a proponent of limiting government secrecy....
USA Today: Call Database Not So Broad USA Today acknowledged in a "note to our readers" Friday that it could not establish that BellSouth or Verizon contracted with the National Security Agency to provide it with customer calling records, as it previously reported. But spokesman Steve Anderson said "this is an important story that holds up well. At the heart of our report is the fact that NSA is collecting phone call records of millions of Americans." "What we address in the editors' note," he said, "deals with the fact that we originally reported that the telephone companies were working under contract with the NSA. We've concluded that we cannot establish that BellSouth or Verizon entered into a contract with the NSA to provide the bulk calling records." In an accompanying story, the newspaper reported Friday that lawmakers on House and Senate intelligence committees have said that while the NSA has amassed a huge database calling records, cooperation with the NSA by telephone companies was not as extensive USA Today initially reported on May 11....
The Basic Questions The Financial Spying Program, how many people has it caught? Who are they? Where are they? What has been done about them? Did it catch anyone that could not have been caught another way? What was the cost per catch? Would that expenditure in time, effort and money, been better applied elsewhere? Did it catch anyone that was part of 9/11? Al Qaeda spent a lot of money on 9/11. They spent a lot of money elsewhere. How many of the Al Qaeda’s backers has this program found? More than one? Why haven’t they been arrested? Who are they? Where are they? The wiretaps without warrants program, how many people did it catch? How many operations did it interrupt? How many arrests or captures did it lead to? What did it cost? What does it continue to cost?....
DON'T FALL FOR THE BUNKUM OF "EMERGENCY POWERS" In the ancient Roman Republic, the Senate could appoint a temporary dictator, and invest him with specific and often sweeping powers, to deal with extraordinary conditions. And on both sides of the wall behind the Speaker’s desk in the United States House of Representatives are prominently displayed Roman fasces: an ax within a bundle of sticks, symbolizing the plenitude of governmental power—a classical representation of Mao Tse-tung’s epigram that “[p]olitical power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” The illusions of modern politicians aside, however, that historical allusion does not invest Congress with all the powers of the Roman Senate, let alone a license to arm the President with the authority of an ancient Roman dictator—or of a latter-day Duce. The modern doctrine of “emergency powers” is striking because—unlike the authority of the ancient Roman Senate to appoint a dictator—“emergency powers” lack both a specific source in the Constitution and a definition. Obviously, if the Constitution contained a clause explicitly delegating to Congress “emergency powers,” delineating the content of such powers, and setting out specific conditions under which they could be exercised, by whom, and for what purposes, no one could complain. No such provision exists in the Constitution, however. Today, officeholders simply announce that an “emergency” exists and that they are assuming “emergency powers” to deal with it—with both the erstwhile “emergency” and the “powers” unilaterally defined by them without reference to anything in the Constitution. To any legally literate individual, this situation should be intolerable....
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