NEWS ROUNDUP

Democrats move to protect species act Rep. Norm Dicks and senior Democrats warned the Interior Department on Wednesday against making major changes in the Endangered Species Act without involving Congress. The quick and unambiguous response came one day after reports that the Interior Department has been working for months to reinterpret the 1973 law in a way that environmentalists said would gut the primary tool for protecting plants and animals on the verge of extinction. The Bush administration and some Republicans have been working for years to change the act, which they say is onerous and overly expensive for landowners. At each step, however, Congress has blocked the changes. The new approach would change the law unilaterally by changing the way it is interpreted. Those changes surfaced in a 117-page document and in departmental memos that discuss ways to restrict the law without needing congressional approval....
Report Says Interior Official Overrode Work of Scientists A top-ranking official overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service at the Interior Department rode roughshod over agency scientists, and decisions made on her watch may not survive court challenges, investigators within the Interior Department have found. Their report, sent to Congress this week by the department’s inspector general, does not accuse the official, Julie A. MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, of any crime. But it does find that she violated federal rules when she sent internal agency documents to industry lobbyists. Ms. MacDonald, an engineer by training, has provoked complaints from some wildlife biologists and lawyers in the agency for aggressive advocacy for industries’ views of the science that underlies agency decisions. The words of more than a dozen high-ranking career employees, from Interior Department headquarters and regional offices in California and Oregon, who are quoted usually by title in the report, describe a manager determined to see that agency findings and the underlying science conform with policy goals....
Federal officials seek critical habitat for Pecos sunflower The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to designate as critical habitat nearly 1,600 acres for the Pecos sunflower — a native plant protected under the Endangered Species Act. The showy plant survives in fewer than two dozen locations in the desert wetlands of New Mexico and West Texas. The critical habitat include areas of Chaves, Cibola, Guadalupe, Socorro and Valencia counties in New Mexico, and Pecos and Reeves counties in Texas. "The future of this plant can be secured through habitat protection, restoration projects and maintenance of core populations," said Benjamin Tuggle, Southwest regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service. Public comments on the proposal are being accepted until May 29....
Judge denies listing of westslope cutthroat A federal judge has ruled the westslope cutthroat trout does not merit the protection of the Endangered Species Act, likely ending environmental groups' decade-long effort to gain protection for the fish. U.S. District Judge Emmett G. Sullivan issued his ruling Monday in Washington, D.C. "We don't have any immediate plans to appeal it," said Sean Regnerus, water program coordinator for American Wildlands, a national group based in Bozeman, and one of several that sought the listing. Sullivan's ruling came down on the side of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a debate over whether crossbred westslope cutthroats counted as cutthroats. Montana and other western states that study westslope cutthroat populations define the fish as those with at least 80 percent westslope cutthroat genes, Interior Department officials have said. That same definition was used in the federal study....
Adopt the carrot approach to endangered species recovery Carrots could become farmers' new favorite vegetable if the Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2007 is adopted. It proposes offering farmers "carrots" for protecting endangered species rather than beating them with a stick for not protecting them. The bipartisan act provides for tax credits for landowners who own habitat or incur costs to recover species and who are a party to a qualifying agreement. Grant income received by a landowner to do a conservation project also won't be included in taxable income. Political commentators are calling the approach "groundbreaking," but it's only so because the concept of offering incentives rather than pressing down with the heavy weight of regulation hasn't been used enough when it comes to endangered species. "ESRA," as it's called, has the support of nearly a hundred property rights, environmental, resource, and hunting and fishing groups, including the American Farm Bureau. More than 80 percent of endangered species live on private property--much of it owned by farmers or ranchers--so it makes sense to offer property owners an incentive to care for endangered critters and plants. Farmers and ranchers are some of the best stewards of the land and the vast majority want to enjoy the listed species found on their property. But they have been put off by restrictions on the use of their land by Endangered Species Act regulations....
Groups fight wolf bounty Alaska's offer of $150 for each wolf killed under its predator control program is nothing more than an illegal bounty and should be stopped immediately, conservation groups said Tuesday in court filings. The groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the Alaska Chapter of the Sierra Club and Friends of Animals, are asking a state Superior Court to stop the state of Alaska from offering the cash payments in what Defenders describes as a "poorly disguised bounty program." "Such a program is clearly illegal," the court document says. "Over two decades ago, the Legislature revoked any authority the defendants had to pay bounties to hunters."....
Editorial - Grizzlies are ESA success story The federal government’s announcement that the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear population shall be removed from the Endangered Species List is a significant milestone. Whether it will actually happen remains to be seen. Environmental groups are aligning for litigation that could delay actual delisting for months if not years. Predictably. One conservation group, however, is saying that it’s time to embrace success when it arrives, and allow for a species to be managed and protected without the Endangered Species Act. National Wildlife Federation spokesman David Miller said the act should be used as “emergency room treatment” rather than a long-term management strategy. We couldn’t agree more. The ESA shouldn’t be wielded as the cudgel of a perpetual litigation industry, which it has been so far....
CRY WOLF Congressman Mark Udall has seen wolves in the wild. “I felt fortunate to have the opportunity to see wolves in their natural habitat, and I reflected on how much wolves exemplify the wilderness experience,” he recounts in the foreword to Comeback Wolves, a 2005 collection of stories and poems that support wolf restoration in the West. The words exemplify Udall’s appreciation for and alliance with conservation causes. But with his eye on a Senate run — and a need to build statewide political appeal — the five-term congressman from Eldorado Springs is sending mixed signals to environmentalists. In February, he introduced legislation that would allow licensed hunters to kill elk inside Rocky Mountain National Park, carrying out a park plan to thin the binging herd. The bill offers a twist, however, on the National Park Service’s proposal to hire government sharpshooters to cull the local elk population. But both the Park Service plan and Udall’s bill perplex wolf supporters, who believe the predators’ return to the park could most effectively thin the elk herd and balance the park’s ecosystem. Wolf recovery in Yellowstone National Park and elsewhere back up their argument....
Divide Widening Over Gray Wolf Program State Game Commission members on Wednesday got an earful of the sharp differences between supporters and opponents of the endangered Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program. But Catron County officials, ranchers and some hunters said the wolves are killing livestock, threatening the viability of some ranches, thinning elk herds and frightening children and parents. Catron County Commissioner Ed Wehrheim requested that all "habituated wolves"— those that appear to show no fear of humans— be removed from the recovery area. Arizona psychiatrist Julia Martin, who interviewed Catron County children at the commission's request, said most of those she interviewed startled more easily than before wolf reintroduction and were more "clingy" with parents. Some parents now prohibit their children from playing outside unsupervised and in the woods, she said. Nine-year-old Stacy Miller of the Diamond Creek area of Catron County said she saw a wolf "ripping (her dog) to shreds" outside her family's ranch home....
Appeals court upholds water for fish before farms A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a ruling forcing a federal irrigation project to boost flows in the Klamath River to help threatened salmon even if it means shutting off water to farms. Winter snowpack and reservoir levels this year hold enough water to provide irrigation as well as flows to sustain Klamath River coho salmon, said Cecil Lesley, chief of the water and lands division of the Klamath Basin office of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. But the ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco could set up a repeat of the 2001 irrigation shut-off to farms on the Klamath Reclamation Project the next time drought hits southern Oregon and Northern California. Farmers had sought to lift an injunction imposed last year by U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong in Oakland, Calif., which said irrigators will have to do without water in years when there is not enough for both farms and fish....
Energy Department Fined $1 Million The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday fined the federal Energy Department $1.1 million over violations of an agreement to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation, the nation's most polluted nuclear site. The fine involved operations at a landfill that is the primary repository for contaminated soils, debris and other hazardous and radioactive waste from cleanup operations across the site. After first shutting down operations upon discovery of the failures, the EPA has permitted the landfill to resume operations under strict oversight. The EPA pointed out problems in a letter to the Energy Department on Tuesday, saying that workers did not perform weekly inspections that would reduce the risk of leaks in landfill liners and that operations did not comply with tests on compacted waste for structural stability. The violations did not release any radioactive waste, said Nick Ceto, the EPA's Hanford Project Manager....
Senate approves extension of timber payments The Senate on Wednesday approved a plan to extend payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging. The Senate plan would authorize about $2.8 billion to continue the county payments law through 2011. Another $1.9 billion would be directed to rural states through a proposal to fund fully the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program, which reimburses state and local governments for federally owned property. The plan, approved 75-22, faces an uncertain fate because it is attached to an emergency spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush has vowed to veto the bill because it contains a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Even so, Western lawmakers were ecstatic....
Uranium Ignites ‘Gold Rush’ in the West The revival of uranium mining in the West, though, has less to do with the renewed interest in nuclear power as an alternative to greenhouse-gas-belching coal plants than to the convoluted economics and intense speculation surrounding the metal that has pushed up the price of uranium to levels not seen since the heyday of the industry in the mid-1970s. Prices for processed uranium ore, also called U308, or yellowcake, are rising rapidly. Yellowcake is trading at $90 a pound, nearing the record high, adjusted for inflation, of about $120 in the mid-1970s. The price has more than doubled in the last six months alone. As recently as late 2002, it was below $10....
Park service revises Sylvan snowmobile proposal A revised winter-use plan for Yellowstone National Park would allow snowmobiles and snowcoaches to cross Sylvan Pass near the park’s East Entrance next winter but not after that. A draft plan released in December drew heavy criticism from Cody residents and others worried about losing wintertime tourism. Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash said the draft plan wasn’t clear about whether access would be allowed this coming winter. “We remedied that in the version for public review,” he said. The National Park Service released the revised plan Tuesday. Park officials are concerned about avalanches on Sylvan Pass. They say that besides potentially threatening traffic on the route, avalanches are a risk for park employees who fire a howitzer to release snow under controlled conditions....
Are you looking at me? The dog-sized toad Environmentalists trying to wipe out the cane toad, one of Australia's worst pests, have captured one of the biggest specimens ever seen here: a male the size of a small dog. The giant cane toad, one of dozens engaged in a "breeding frenzy" in the northern city of Darwin, is 8 inches long, weighs nearly 2lb, and has a body as big as a football. "It's huge, to put it mildly," said Graeme Sawyer, the co-ordinator of the group FrogWatch, which conducts regular nocturnal hunts for the toxic creatures. The biggest toads are usually females, but this one was a rampant male... I would hate to meet his big sister." Cane toads were introduced into Queensland in the 1930s in an effort to control cane beetles ravaging the sugar crop. While the beetle still thrives, the toads have fanned out across the continent, ravaging populations of native fauna including snakes, goanna lizards and quolls (cat-sized marsupials). Their skin is poisonous, so animals that eat them die....
Judge adds odd twist to rancher's sentence Cattleman Darrell Kunzler will spend one month in jail and another month surveying fences along Cache County roadways under a state judge's sentence imposed Wednesday. Kunzler, 72, had pleaded no contest to a class A misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment in connection with the November 2004 accident that killed a 40-year-old Washington woman. A felony charge of manslaughter will be dismissed in two years if Kunzler continues to keep his cattle off roadways. First District Judge Gordon Low said he wants Kunzler to spend 200 hours of community service determining whether Cache County fences are reasonably sufficient to keep cattle off of roadways, and the judge ordered him to report the results to the animals' owners, the county attorney and Department of Corrections....
City to seek AG's opinion on cattle issue The Fernley City Council took no action on an agenda item to create a bill to establish penalties for damage created by cattle within the City of Fernley. Instead, at the advice of City Attorney Paul Taggart, the city will request an opinion from the Nevada Attorney Generals Office concerning whether the city can establish a law to declare it illegal for cattle owners to allow their cattle to roam in the City of Fernley, which may cause property damage or personal injury, and if such acts do occur, the cattle owner would face a misdemeanor charge. The city attorney told cattle owners, Dellis Bone and Don Alt that the city was not banning open grazing but making it unlawful for cattle to roam in city subdivisions. The issue came to light following complaints from Desert Bluff subdivision property owners that found Bone's bulls grazing on their lawns....
Japan supermarket chain resumes sales of U.S. beef A Tokyo supermarket on Thursday became the first major Japanese outlet to resume sales of U.S. beef since a ban was lifted last summer, and one of its first customers was the U.S. ambassador to Japan. The United States has exported beef to Japan since a ban imposed due to mad cow concerns was lifted in July 2006, but sales have been sluggish due in part to trade restrictions and consumer concerns about food safety. "I've been waiting all week to come out here," U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer said at a Seiyu Ltd. (8268.T: Quote, Profile, Research) store in downtown Tokyo. The resumption of sales came a day after U.S. President George W. Bush told American ranchers that Japan, once its top export market for beef, and South Korea should fully open their markets to U.S. beef. Bush's remarks fueled the view that beef would again be a hot topic at a meeting expected to take place between the U.S. president and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, in late April or early May....

NEWS

Voters oppose eminent domain The backlash against eminent domain is so great that two-thirds of Ohio voters would ban the government taking of private property, even for public projects such as roads. That's one finding of a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, just as state lawmakers were fleshing out the details of the most significant property rights bill in decades. Lawmakers are reacting to recent U.S. and Ohio supreme court rulings on the use of eminent domain for economic development - that is, taking property from one private owner to give it to another. "Rarely do we see numbers this lopsided," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Polling Institute at the Hamden, Conn. university, which conducts independent state-level polls in swing states. "Voters just do not like eminent domain."....
Eminent anger Two-thirds of Ohio voters would ban the use of public domain even for such public projects as roads, says a Quinnipiac University poll released last week. The press release summed up the poll's findings thusly: Ohio voters support 78 - 17 percent setting limits on government use of eminent domain. In other questions on this issue: * Voters oppose 65 - 32 percent using government's eminent domain power to take private property for public projects such as roads; * Voters oppose 82 - 14 percent using eminent domain to take property for economic development; * Voters say 50 - 30 percent that government has abused eminent domain in the past. Interestingly, opposition to the use of eminent domain for public use projects pulls a majority of support across Republicans, Democrats and Independents -- but is highest for Democrats at 67 percent, defying the stereotype that donkey-party voters are generally government-friendly. Hostility to the use of eminent domain for economic development is so overwhelming across the board that it should simply put the issue off the table for discussion by politicians....
Why Monsanto loves ethanol For some time, How the World Works has been convinced that the rush to biofuels will significantly boost the ongoing rollout of genetically modified organisms. There's just too much money at stake in the energy business for it to be otherwise. The popularity of the latest biotech crops is a perfect illustration of this. These seeds aren't cheap -- they are top-of-the-line products. But for well-financed farmers and industrial-scale agribusinesses aiming to cash in on ethanol demand, seed costs are not a significant barrier. It seems reasonable to expect, in the not-too-distant future, quadruple- and quintuple- and sextuple-stacked hybrids that do all kinds of fancy things such as incorporate herbicide resistance, targeted pesticides, and modifications that make the corn cheaper and easier to industrially transform into ethanol. As more and more modifications are incorporated into a single organism, our ability to understand and predict how wide-scale proliferation of those organisms will affect the greater environment will become even more difficult than it already is. So maybe "treadmill" isn't the best metaphor to describe the current dynamic. A rocket launch into territory unknown might offer a more appropriate analogy....
Grazing geese damaging north coast ranch lands Ranchers along the north coast have their hands full this year as they grapple with the growing Aleutian goose population. Nearly 100,000 of the geese have descended on lush North Coast pastures, devouring cultivated grass that ranchers rely on to fatten their cattle in the spring. "It's just like locusts," said Jay Russ, a fifth-generation cattle rancher in Ferndale, located about 20 miles south of Eureka. Russ claims the hungry grazing geese have cost him $40,000 to $60,000 in lost feed over the past five years. A late-season hunt provided the ranchers with some relief, when an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 geese were killed, but it is unclear whether such hunts will become a permanent solution. Damage by the geese to fertile grazing land between Humboldt Bay and the Mad River is estimated at $200,000 to $400,000 a year, according to Mitch Farro, projects manager for the Pacific Coast Fish, Wildlife and Wetlands Restoration Association....
Montana may join Wyo wolf suit Some Democrats cried foul Tuesday over plans to send $150,000 to a Wyoming law firm so the Legislature can join a brewing lawsuit over the failure to remove wolves from the endangered species list. The House endorsed the plan to help the Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd challenge the federal government over the wolf issue. Supporters said the lawsuit, not yet filed, will give the state a seat at the table as an anticipated decision to delist moves into the courtroom. Opponents said the lawsuit would be a waste of money since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is already working hard to delist wolves. They argued it is particularly wrong to pay a Wyoming law firm to do the work, and to send another $50,000 to beef up legislative staff to monitor the lawsuit. The House endorsed the bill to join the lawsuit on a 58-41 vote, with some Democrats joining Republican backers of the plan....
Wildlife group considers fate of grizzly payment program With Yellowstone-area grizzlies poised to come off the endangered species list, a conservation group is deciding what to do about its program to pay ranchers for livestock killed by the bears. Since 1999, Defenders of Wildlife has cut checks for about $9,500 for cows and sheep confirmed to have been killed by grizzlies in the Montana and Idaho portions of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Payments have been scant in recent years because of fewer reported losses in the two states. The group paid $210 in 2005 for one ewe killed by grizzlies and two in Idaho that were probably killed by grizzlies. There were no payments last year. Part of the decline was because fall foods for grizzlies were abundant this year, allowing the bears to stay out of low-lying areas where they're more apt to get into trouble with livestock. Also, a 74,000-acre sheep grazing allotment south of Big Timber was retired last year. There had been numerous conflicts with predators in the past....
Montana dream sours for some rural dwellers From day one, Kurt Voight knew there was a problem. Sixteen years later, Voight and some of his fellow subdivision residents still clash with a neighbor who allows his cattle to graze on their property. "We all understand and appreciate the fact that the openness of this country is due to the stewardship of ranchers," Voight said. "But we feel this guy is taking advantage of an antiquated law that was never intended to do this." Open grazing is not the only problem for residents of many of the area's rural subdivisions, but it's one that represents the age-old tug of war between private property rights, regulations and just plain good neighborliness....
Study Links Beef to Lower Sperm Count A new study suggests that men whose mothers ate lots of beef during pregnancy may have lower sperm counts than other men. The researchers say residues of hormones given to beef to promote growth may be a factor, but that's not certain. The beef industry disputes that theory. "Nothing from this study changes the fact that during pregnancy, naturally nutrient-rich beef is a vital part of a healthy, wholesome diet for a mother and her child," Mary K. Young, MS, RD, tells WebMD in an emailed statement. Young is the executive director of nutrition for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA). Fifty-one moms reported eating beef more than seven times per week during pregnancy. The average sperm concentration for their adult sons was 24% lower than men whose moms ate beef less often during pregnancy, the study shows. In addition, about 17% of men whose moms ate beef more than seven times weekly during pregnancy had sperm concentrations in the "subfertile" range, the researchers note. However, all of the men fathered children without medical treatment, according to the study....

Experiencing some internet access/performance issues...will try to get the rest of the news up tomorrow.

FLE

Christian Group Files Request for Pictures of Border Patrol Agent's Beating A Christian group has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to have the photographs of the beating of Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos released to the public. As Cybercast News Service reported, Ramos and fellow Border Patrol Agent Jose Compean were sentenced to 11 and 12 years, respectively, for shooting a suspected drug smuggler. "I believe once the photographs of this disgusting event are released, the anger that is growing among the American people about this case will reach a boiling point," said Rev. Don Swarthout, president of Christians Reviving America's Values (CRAVE). "And President Bush will have no choice but to pardon Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean," Swarthout added. Ramos was severely beaten while sleeping in his Mississippi prison as several illegal aliens reportedly shouted, "Kill the Border Patrol agent."....
FBI Director Mueller Defends Bureau's War on Terror Performance to Senate Panel FBI Director Robert Mueller labored Tuesday to persuade skeptical senators that the FBI can properly use its terrorism-era authority to gather telephone, e-mail and financial records of Americans and foreigners while pursuing terrorists. "We're going to be re-examining the broad authorities we granted the FBI in the Patriot Act," Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told Mueller. Citing the inspector general report on national security letters and his previous reports criticizing FBI reporting of terrorist cases, of weapons and laptops losses, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said, "Every time we turn around there is another enormous failure by the bureau." "There's another headline virtually on a daily basis," Specter added, citing a Washington Post report Tuesday that agents had submitted inaccurate data to a court that issues warrants for foreign intelligence surveillance. "The question arises as to whether any director can handle this job and whether the bureau itself can handle the job," Specter said, proposing that the panel give serious consideration to establishing a separate domestic intelligence agency like Britain's MI-5. In 1986, Congress first authorized FBI agents to obtain electronic records without approval from a judge, using national security letters. The letters can be used to acquire e-mails, telephone, travel records and financial information, like credit and bank transactions. They can be sent to telephone and Internet access companies, universities, public interest organizations, nearly all libraries, financial and credit companies. In 2001, the Patriot Act eliminated any requirement that the records belong to someone under suspicion. Now an innocent person's records can be obtained if FBI field agents consider them relevant to an ongoing terrorism or spying investigation....
FBI chief blames computers for privacy flap FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday said secret "national security letters" are invaluable in unearthing telephone and e-mail logs and blamed computer snafus for deceiving Congress about how often the technique is used. This is not the first time the FBI's aging computers have become the subject of controversy. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft once blamed neglected, incompatible systems for hindering agents' ability to gather and share intelligence on terrorists. Internal audits have subsequently shown that the bureau has wasted over $100 million on computer upgrades that never worked....
DOJ Controversy Undermines FBI's Efforts The political fallout over Justice Department missteps has sidetracked fledgling discussions aimed at helping the FBI establish itself as a pre-eminent domestic intelligence agency. A classified FBI report said last year that existing laws on electronic surveillance are inadequate to investigate homegrown Islamic extremists. In little-noticed testimony, FBI Director Robert Mueller raised the issue before the Senate several months ago. Proposing a dramatic departure from current practice, Mueller said he would like to explore using the process set up under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to obtain secret warrants for searches and wiretaps for suspects who do not meet the law's current requirements but still present that type of intelligence threat. Civil liberties advocates say the Justice Department and FBI already have plenty of power to investigate intelligence cases. Kate Martin, head of the Center for National Security Studies, noted that the Justice Department has prosecuted a number of people who haven't done anything yet but have been in the early stage of planning attacks. "That is evidence that the FBI has the tools they need," she said....
FBI's 'misleading' wiretap suppressed In mid-2004, based on information from a confidential informant, FBI agent Scott Wenther submitted a 42-page sworn affidavit asking a federal magistrate judge for a wiretap of Rice's mobile phone. Wenther's request was approved. There was just one problem with some of the information in Wenther's affidavit: it was not true. Spurred by repeated requests by the defense attorneys, U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell eventually took a critical look at Wenther's claims. Russell ruled: • Wenther claimed that "physical investigation of the subjects of this investigation has been conducted." But Wenther later acknowledged in a subsequent hearing that Rice had never been the subject of physical surveillance and they didn't even know where he was. • Wenther claimed that "members of this criminal organization with known violent histories routinely carry firearms and wear bullet-resistant vests." But in reality, the FBI did not know whether Rice carried a gun. • Wenther claimed that "physical surveillance has also corroborated information provided by" an FBI informant. But that was a misleading reference to an entirely different suspect, not Rice himself. The sworn affidavit submitted by the FBI, in other words, was designed to fool the courts into approving surveillance of Rice based in part on misdirection and fabrications. Russell, the judge, took a dim view of Wenther's creativity....
Governor signs 'castle doctrine' deadly force bill Gov. Rick Perry signed into law Tuesday a bill that gives Texans a stronger legal right to defend themselves with deadly force in their homes, cars and workplaces. Both chambers of the Legislature overwhelmingly approved the measure earlier this month. The bill, backed by the National Rifle Association, states that a person has no duty to retreat from an intruder before using deadly force. The building or vehicle must be occupied at the time for the deadly force provision to apply, and the person using force cannot provoke the attacker or be involved in criminal activity at the time. Some refer to the measure as the "castle doctrine," drawing from the idea that a man's home is his castle and that he should have the right to defend it. Fifteen other states have passed similar laws. Texas is the first state to pass such a law this year, said Rep. Joe Driver, a Garland Republican who sponsored the measure....
N. Myrtle Beach gun shop settles NYC suit over sales Three more U.S. gun shops have settled a lawsuit accusing them of selling too many firearms that later fell into the hands of New York criminals. The shops, in Marietta, Ga., Youngstown, Ohio, and North Myrtle Beach were among 27 gun dealers sued by the city of New York last year as part of its unorthodox legal battle against the firearms industry. Twelve of the sued dealers have settled. Each of those shops agreed to allow a city-appointed inspector to monitor its future sales and provide extra training to store personnel. Managers and owners at the shops said financial considerations prompted their decision to settle....
Judge pulls gun in Florida court A Jacksonville, Fla., judge drew his handgun when an accused child molester was attacked by an alleged victim's father in court. "I didn't know if he was going after me or the bailiffs or the defendant," Circuit Judge John Merrett told The (Jacksonville, Fla.) Times-Union. The father, who had not seen the defendant before the court appearance, hurdled a railing and landed several punches on the handcuffed and shackled man before bailiffs restored order. Merrett said that once he saw the situation was under control, he handed his gun to the court clerk and asked her to lock it in a drawer. Merrett has a concealed weapon permit and said he'd do the same thing again, the newspaper reported. But Duval County Public Defender Bill White said the incident was frightening. He plans to talk to the chief judge about whether judges should be armed in court....
Understanding the Realities of REAL ID The proposed regulations issued by the Department of Homeland Security on March 9th "punted" on REAL ID’s most important technology, security, and privacy problems. At the same time, the Department’s own analysis helps reveal that REAL ID is a loser -- it would cost more to implement than it would add to our country’s protections. Of utmost importance, the DHS proposal lays the groundwork for systematic tracking of Americans based on their race. The bar code system standard that DHS calls for in the regulation includes machine-readable information about race and ethnicity. This is deeply concerning and unwise. Federal law and regulation should not promote a nationalID system that can track people by race. History has too many devastating examples of identification systems used to divide people based on religion, tribe, and race...Though many states have already voted to refuse the REAL ID Act, some have been waiting to see what they would find in the regulations issued by the Department of Homeland Security. Now that the regulations are out, it is clear that the states have been left holding the bag. Were they to comply with the REAL ID Act, states would have to cross a mine-field of complicated and expensive technology decisions. They would face enormous, possibly insurmountable privacy and data security challenges. But the Department of Homeland Security avoided these issues by carefully observing the constraints of federalism even though the REAL ID law was crafted specifically to destroy the distinctions between state and federal responsibilities...The privacy and data security consequences arising from REAL ID are immense, increasingly well understood, and probably insurmountable. The increased data collection and data retention required of states is concerning. Requiring states to maintain databases of foundational identity documents will create an incredibly attractive target to criminal organizations, hackers, and other wrongdoers. The breach of a state’s entire database, containing copies of birth certificates and various other documents and information, could topple the identity system we use in the United States today. The best data security is not creating large databases of sensitive and valuable information in the first place. The requirement that states transfer information from their databases to each other is concerning. This exposes the security weaknesses of each state to the security weaknesses of all the others. There are ways to limit the consequences of having a logical national database of driver information, but there is no way to ameliorate all the consequences of the REAL ID Act requirement that information about every American driver be made available to every other state....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Sweeping changes to global climate seen by 2100: study Many of the world's climate zones will vanish entirely by 2100, or be replaced by new, previously unseen ones, if global warming continues as expected, a study released Monday said. Rising temperatures will force existing climate zones toward higher latitudes and higher elevations, squeezing out climates at the colder extremes, and leaving room for unfamiliar climes around the equator, the study predicted. "Our findings are a logical outcome of global warming scenarios that are driven by continued emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases," said Jack Williams, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of the paper. Williams and colleagues from the University of Wyoming based their predictions on computer models that translate carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions into climate change. The emissions' estimates were taken from a report issued by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in February. The models suggest that the climate zones covering as much as 48 percent of the earth's landmass could disappear by 2100....
24% Consider Al Gore Global Warming Expert Former Vice President Al Gore (D) received a warm welcome on Capitol Hill last week for his testimony on the environment and Global Warming. However, while he is now an Academy Award winner and celebrity activist, just 24% of Americans consider Gore an expert on Global Warming. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 1,000 adults found that 47% say he is not an expert on the topic (see crosstabs). In fact, just 36% of Americans say that Gore knows what he is talking about when it comes to the environment and Global Warming. Thirty-one percent (31%) say he does not know what he is talking about while 33% are not sure. Women, by a 2-to-1 margin, say Gore knows what he is talking about. Men, by a similar margin, say he does not....
Riches await as Earth's icy north melts Barren and uninhabited, Hans Island is very hard to find on a map. Yet these days the Frisbee-shaped rock in the Arctic is much in demand — so much so that Canada and Denmark have both staked their claim to it with flags and warships. The reason: an international race for oil, fish, diamonds and shipping routes, accelerated by the impact of global warming on Earth's frozen north. The latest report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the ice cap is warming faster than the rest of the planet and ice is receding, partly due to greenhouse gases. It's a catastrophic scenario for the Arctic ecosystem, for polar bears and other wildlife, and for Inuit populations whose ancient cultures depend on frozen waters. But some see a lucrative silver lining of riches waiting to be snatched from the deep, and the prospect of timesaving sea lanes that could transform the shipping industry the way the Suez Canal did in the 19th century. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. Russia reportedly sees the potential of minerals in its slice of the Arctic sector approaching $2 trillion....
Heat invades cool heights over Arizona desert High above the desert floor, this little alpine town has long served as a natural air-conditioned retreat for people in Tucson, one of the so-called sky islands of southern Arizona. When it is 105 degrees in the city, it is at least 20 degrees cooler up here near the 9,157-foot summit of Mount Lemmon. But for the past 10 years or so, things have been unraveling. Winter snows melt away earlier, longtime residents say, making for an erratic season at the nearby ski resort, the most southern in the nation. Legions of predatory insects have taken to the forest that mantles the upper mountain, killing trees weakened by record heat. And in 2003, a fire burned for a month, destroying much of the town and scarring more than 87,000 acres. The next year, another fire swept over 32,000 acres. The American Southwest has been warming for nearly 30 years, according to records that date to the late 19th century. And the region is in the midst of an eight-year drought. Both developments could be within the range of natural events. But what has convinced many scientists that the current spate of higher temperatures is not just another swing in the weather has been the near collapse of the sky islands and other high, formerly green havens that poke above the desert....
Scientist says he has cloned 2 wolves A former collaborator of disgraced South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk claimed Monday to have succeeded in cloning wolves. The two wolves were born Oct. 18 and 26 in 2005, said Lee Byeong-chun, a veterinary professor of Seoul National University, according to the university's office of research affairs. DNA tests showed the two wolves — named Snuwolf and Snuwolffy — are clones, the office said, adding the results would be published in the journal Cloning and Stem Cells. The team did not immediately provide any independent verification of the DNA tests. Prof. Lee's team succeeded in cloning a female dog, an Afghan hound named Bona, last year after creating the world's first cloned dog in 2005....
Ferret transplant may wait a year Plans to reintroduce the endangered black-footed ferret to Thunder Basin National Grassland may not happen this fall as originally thought. But, agencies participating in the project are optimistic that they will be able to bring the ferrets back next year. “Certainly we will move as quickly as we can, but it’s getting down to the wire for this fall,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Mary Jennings said. “If not this fall, then next year.” The agency is working to make sure adequate numbers of prairie dogs are thriving on the grassland, and solidifying support from landowners neighboring the grassland. Prairie dogs are the black-footed ferrets’ primary food source. A devastating outbreak of plague in 2001-02 decimated prairie dog numbers, although colonies are rebuilding well, said Misty Hays, deputy district ranger for the U.S. Forest Service’s Douglas Ranger District....
Opponents rally around groundwater study Opponents of Las Vegas' bid to take water from along the Utah-Nevada border say the first scientific peek at the proposal backs up their contention that it's a bad deal for Utah. The U.S. Geological Survey offered a sneak preview Monday of the agency's upcoming study of groundwater resources in the Great Basin. Ranchers, conservationists and local government officials have been eagerly awaiting the report because of what it may portend for the proposal by southern Nevada water officials to tap aquifers in the state's eastern valleys and pump it to Las Vegas via a pipeline network. The preliminary findings: There is more groundwater in the Snake Valley - which straddles Utah and Nevada - than originally thought. But there is also apparently more water flowing between Great Basin aquifers than has been historically assumed, meaning Snake Valley could eventually be impacted by groundwater pumping in neighboring Spring Valley, and perhaps elsewhere....
Congress to eye Colo. wildlife bill A Colorado bill designed to reduce the impact of oil and gas drilling on wildlife could serve as a model for federal law, state Rep. Dan Gibbs will tell a House committee today. Gibbs, D-Silverthorne, is scheduled to appear at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on how a surge in oil and gas drilling in the West is affecting the environment. Gibbs' bill, which passed the state House on Monday, would require Colorado's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to consult the Colorado Division of Wildlife on the effects of drilling on such things as animal habitats and mating. Concerns about the effects of drilling have united hunting and wildlife interests, who were previous political foes. The House committee is looking at ways to balance oil and gas development and environmental interests, said Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, who is on the panel. "This is becoming a bigger issue as we see more oil and gas development in the West," Pacheco said....
Ozone monitor to be installed on Aspen Mountain Come Friday, local officials will have another tool -- a nondescript gray, plastic box adorned with a protruding tube -- to help them get a handle on whether local and regional pollution is affecting air in nearby wilderness areas and other pristine high-altitude lands of the White River National Forest surrounding Aspen. The gray box, an active ozone monitor to be installed on Aspen Mountain, will record data on high-altitude ambient concentrations of ozone -- a compound produced when sunlight cooks byproducts of fossil fuel burning and other combustion called nitrous oxides -- said plant physiologist Bob Musselman of the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins. Musselman and physical scientist John Korfmacher, also of the Rocky Mountain Research Station, are collaborating with Andrea Holland-Sears of the White River National Forest to look at ozone in remote, high areas of the forest, Korfmacher said. "It's something the forest wants to keep an eye on," he explained, citing growing public and agency concerns about the possible impacts of increasing air pollution from expanding communities, traffic, and the booming oil and gas industry in western Garfield County....
Foreman: Conservation Movement Must Return To Roots In a recent column, I argued that nature conservationists who work to protect wilderness areas and wild species should be called conservationists, and that resource conservationists, who wish to domesticate and manage lands and species for the benefit and use of humans, should be called resourcists. I also believe that nature conservationists are different birds than environmentalists, who work to protect human health from the ravages of industrialization,and that therefore there is not a single “environmental movement.” When environmentalists turn their attention from the so-called “built environment” to nature, they can take either a conservationist or a resourcist pathway. I’ve named environmentalists who have a utilitarian resourcist view “enviro-resourcists.” And I’ve ruffled some feathers with this view. I’ve ruffled even more feathers lately by warning that enviro-resourcists have been slowing gaining control of conservation groups, thereby undercutting and weakening our effectiveness, and that nature lovers need to take back the conservation family....
Editorial - Abramoff scandal just won't go away Former Deputy Interior Secretary Steven Griles' guilty plea to obstruction of justice last week marked another disgraceful chapter in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal. It also served as a reminder of how poorly the Interior Department and thus the West have been served during the Bush administration's six years in office. Griles became the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in connection with Abramoff - a still-unraveling scandal that has tentacles all over Washington. Norton, a former Colorado attorney general, resigned from Bush's Cabinet in 2006. However, there's never been any evidence that Norton knew that Abramoff or others were using her name to solicit funds from Indian tribes. She now works as a general counsel for oil giant Royal Dutch Shell - part of the same industry that was near and dear to Interior's heart. Norton was attacked by environmentalists as Interior secretary for her pro-development policies regarding oil and gas, coal and timber....
Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or mining. In recent months, the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone to extraordinary efforts to keep drafts of regulatory changes from the public. All copies of the working document were given a number corresponding to a person, so that leaked copies could be traced to that individual. An e-mail sent in March from an assistant regional director at the Fish and Wildlife Service to agency staff, asking for comments on and corrections to the first draft, underscored the concern with secrecy: "Please Keep close hold for now. Dale [Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] does not want this stuff leaking out to stir up discontent based on speculation." Many Fish and Wildlife Service employees believe the draft is not based on "defensible science," says a federal employee who asked to remain anonymous. Yet "there is genuine fear of retaliation for communicating that to the media. People are afraid for their jobs." Chris Tollefson, a spokesperson for the service, says that while it's accurate to characterize the agency as trying to keep the draft under wraps, the agency has every intention of communicating with the public about the proposed changes; the draft just hasn't been ready. And, he adds, it could still be changed as part of a forthcoming formal review process....
Sea lions return to dam's fish buffet line They're back -- the California sea lions that drive federal officials and fishermen to distraction by parking themselves at the Bonneville Dam to feast on spring chinook salmon as they swim up the Columbia River to spawn. Government employees dragged out the usual arsenal of large firecrackers, obnoxious noises and rubber bullets to fend off Steller sea lions, who prefer sturgeon, and reported some success. But the same tactics have famously flopped in the past against the California sea lions, who, like the Stellers, are federally protected and seem to know it. They prey on salmon that school up at the base of the dam waiting to go up the fish ladders toward spawning grounds. So far there's no sign of C404, the California sea lion who approached celebrity status by figuring out how to get into the dam's fish ladders for easy pickings. But officials are watching for him....
Editorial - A Delta water crisis? A lone judge in Alameda County is threatening to shut down the water pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that sustain 18 million Southern Californians and millions of acres of agriculture. Judge Frank Roesch's tentative ruling, which would give the state 60 days to comply, is fairly simple. Of all the paperwork on file at the Sacramento headquarters of the State Water Project (operator of the Delta pumps), there is not the "incidental take" permit that clearly shows compliance with the state Endangered Species Act. No permit, no pumping, is Roesch's logic. It is unlikely that the water pumps, the largest in the nation, will soon fall silent because of the court ruling. But the very possibility is enough to cause a political tsunami throughout the system. Developments throughout Southern California are based on a legal foundation that the State Water Project is a lawful, reliable source of supply. All kinds of business interests typically indifferent to Delta issues are about to become very interested. They will find that the Delta's stakeholders are in the early stages of considering anew how to manage the estuary. This lawsuit puts even more pressure on that process to be successful....
Protection, acre by acre For the past decade, San Diego conservationist Camille Armstrong and her colleagues have combed California for pristine parcels that might deserve the nation's most restrictive land-use designation. They've pored over maps, snapped stacks of photographs, camped far and wide across the backcountry, consulted managers of land-use agencies and lobbied politicians. They've found a big-time backer in Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., head of the Senate's environment committee. Recently, Boxer introduced her statewide wilderness blueprint for the fourth time. It proposes that more than 2.4 million acres of California – including about 45,000 acres in San Diego County – be designated as federal wilderness. It's the largest of several wilderness bills introduced in Congress this year....
Former chiefs rap snowmobiles Seven of the eight living men and women who’ve served as National Park Service directors have joined in a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne urging him to move away from snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park. The letter was released Monday, the day before Yellowstone’s winter use draft environmental impact statement was set for release. The plan is expected to call for allowing up to 720 snowmobiles a day in the park. Spanning every Democratic and Republican presidential administration from Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton, the seven former Park Service leaders said the proposal would undercut Kempthorne’s commitment to emphasize conservation in the national parks....
National Parks Plan Big Fee Increases The federal government has a financial plan for the national parks, but they didn’t want to release it to the public the agency serves. Instead, a few concerned citizens have to wade through the laborious process of obtaining documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Now that Scott Silver of Wild Wilderness and friends did the digging for us, we know what many of us have suspected all along. The National Park Service (NPS) has a multi-year plan to keep raising fees. About 60 percent (88 of 147) of our parks and monuments have scheduled fee increases this year or in 2008. Most of the rest plan an increase for 2009. In the end, many parks will double or even triple fees. And who says inflation is only 2.5 percent?....
Cloned Cattle Yield Test-Tube Herds for U.S. Sirloins, Milk Mark Walton, head of the world's largest animal cloning company, sees his biotechnology lab in Austin, Texas, as the next frontier in food production. Nine months ago, scientists at Walton's closely held ViaGen Inc. extracted genetic information from customers' prized cattle and transferred the DNA into bovine eggs to make embryos. Now, 75 miles away at the 300-acre Hillman Ranch in the town of Cameron, surrogate mother cows, carrying the embryos, are giving birth to calves that are clones of the clients' finest cattle. This generation of test-tube bulls and cows may be the first whose elite genes end up in America's meat and milk. U.S. regulators are set to approve the cloning of animals for the food supply as early as this year. This action will open the way for food producers to use copies of genetically superior animals to make bigger, stronger herds and, perhaps, tastier products....
It's All Trew: Sausage came in a variety of flavors History reveals that each ethnic group of emigrants coming to America probably brought a special recipe for making sausage native to their respective country. Sometimes, sausage recipes like the languages spoken, differed from village to village within the same country. When we cook sausage either by frying, baking, boiling or smoking, we often change the taste again. Sausage is the ultimate all-purpose meat. Trew family traditions date back to the Depression days, when we participated in community hog and beef butchering days in early Ochiltree County. Too young to remember sausage ingredients, I do remember mother frying sausage patties, placing them into crocks then pouring hot lard on top to preserve. I also remember fishing around in the gooey lard later trying to find patties for meals. Depending on your location, other meats were sometimes added to the ground pork. Families with active hunters and available game put venison or elk meat into their sausage mixes adding a "gamey" flavor. Some added ground beef to keep sausage from being so greasy. Link sausage made by stuffing the meat into long casing and smoking presented a different shape and taste entirely. Last, we must not forget adding rabbit. During the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, when times were the hardest, jackrabbits and cottontail rabbits were often added to sausage recipes. Cottontail rabbit numbers seemed to never vary much. There were always a few around the outbuildings providing a break from the beef and beans menu....

FLE

U.S. Can't Account for 600,000 Fugitives Teams assigned to make sure foreigners ordered out of the United States actually leave have a backlog of more than 600,000 cases and can't accurately account for the fugitives' whereabouts, the government reported Monday. The report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general found that the effectiveness of teams assigned to find the fugitives was hampered by "insufficient detention capacity, limitations of an immigration database and inadequate working space." Even though more than $204 million was allocated for 52 fugitive operations teams since 2003, a backlog of 623,292 cases existed as of August of 2006, the report said. The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has been estimated at between 11.5 million and 12 million. About 5.4 percent of them are believed to be "fugitive aliens," those who have failed to leave the country after being ordered out. The inspector general found there is not enough bed space available to detain such fugitives and that agents are hampered by an inaccurate database. Other factors that limit the teams' effectiveness are insufficient staffing, the report said....
Border Inspector Gets Nearly 6 Years An American border inspector was sentenced Monday to nearly six years in prison for taking cash and cars from smugglers, allowing them to shuttle illegal immigrants from Mexico into the United States. Richard Elizalda, a 10-year veteran of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, worked at the world's busiest border crossing, the San Ysidro Port of Entry between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego. Investigators said he sent text messages directing smugglers to his inspection lane, then waved their vehicles through. In return, he received as much as $1,000 for each immigrant, totaling $120,000 in cash starting in 2004. "This is a terrible thing that you did," U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns said. "You're one of the gatekeepers of the safety and security of the United States and you abdicated that role." Elizalda was arrested in June....
Chertoff praises "enhanced" WA licenses for border crossings High-security driver's licenses aimed at letting U.S. citizens return from Canada without a passport could be adopted elsewhere if Washington state's experiment works, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday. The pilot project, signed into law by Gov. Chris Gregoire and formally approved by Chertoff on Friday, calls for Washington to begin issuing new "enhanced" driver's licenses in January. They will look much like conventional driver's licenses, but will be loaded with proof of citizenship and other information that can be easily scanned at the border. Radio frequency ID chips and other advanced security features also would make the enhanced licenses less vulnerable to forgery. At about $40, they also would be less expensive than a $97 passport. Chertoff's endorsement of the pilot project comes as border states prepare for new federal security requirements mandating a passport for travelers - including U.S. citizens - who enter the country by sea or land from elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere....
Ordinary Customers Flagged as Terrorists Private businesses such as rental and mortgage companies and car dealers are checking the names of customers against a list of suspected terrorists and drug traffickers made publicly available by the Treasury Department, sometimes denying services to ordinary people whose names are similar to those on the list. The Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of "specially designated nationals" has long been used by banks and other financial institutions to block financial transactions of drug dealers and other criminals. But an executive order issued by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has expanded the list and its consequences in unforeseen ways. Businesses have used it to screen applicants for home and car loans, apartments and even exercise equipment, according to interviews and a report by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area to be issued today. "The way in which the list is being used goes far beyond contexts in which it has a link to national security," said Shirin Sinnar, the report's author. "The government is effectively conscripting private businesses into the war on terrorism but doing so without making sure that businesses don't trample on individual rights."....
Gun shop aims at city, but misfires Of all the gun shops being sued by Mayor Bloomberg, only one dealer is demanding to see evidence that New York City has suffered financially because of mayhem inflicted with illegal firearms. The demand by an attorney for Bob Moates Sports Shop in Virginia was promptly rejected yesterday by a federal judge, who advised the lawyer to buy a newspaper. "You can pick up the newspaper any day and there are people being killed on the streets of New York," said Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein. "Policemen, bystanders ... and in a substantial number of cases these are by illegal guns," an incredulous Weinstein continued. Richard Gardiner, the attorney for Bob Moates, tried to argue that the Bloomberg administration must demonstrate, for the case to go forward, that guns bought at the Midlothian shop have caused more than $75,000 in harm. But the judge cut him off. "One gun, one bullet is enough," Weinstein shot back. Bloomberg has filed federal lawsuits against 27 out-of-state dealers accusing them of illegally peddling weapons that end up in the hands of New York criminals....
Webb Aide Arrested for Gun Possession An aide to Sen. Jim Webb was arrested Monday when he entered a Senate office building with a loaded pistol belonging to the senator. Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said the aide was charged with carrying a pistol without a license and possessing an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition. The office of Webb, D-Va., identified the aide as Phillip Thompson and said he was "a former Marine, a long-term friend and trusted employee of the senator." A congressional official briefed on the incident said Webb gave the gun to Thompson when the assistant drove him to an airport earlier in the day. Thompson, upon entering the Senate building, forgot he was carrying the weapon. "To our knowledge, this incident was an oversight," Webb's office said in a statement. It said it had no other details.

NEWS ROUNDUP

Green donor or dirty money? Loch Wade fears his adopted hometown of Boulder is about to lose control of its destiny. Once just a bend in the breathtakingly beautiful road above Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, the fast-growing community is home to a $1.2 million Nature Conservancy project to protect the local watershed and preserve the community's ranching heritage. Some locals view the deal as a solution. But Wade worries that, with some funding for that project coming from the controversial nuclear waste company EnergySolutions, it is only a matter of time before locals find well-heeled outsiders writing future plans for their town. "The thing that concerns me is that The Nature Conservancy will be the proverbial 800-pound gorilla," said Wade, a shop owner, craftsman and summertime watermaster....
Oil, gas royalty fight rages across Colorado Royalty owners are feeling shortchanged by Colorado's multibillion-dollar energy industry. Years ago, landowners with mineral rights were grateful for any royalty fee they received from oil and gas drilling on their land. But as the energy giants cash in on the latest oil and gas boom and take bigger paychecks to the banks, royalty owners say they want a fairer portion of the windfall. They allege that companies make unlawful deductions from the royalty checks. For example, they say companies often deduct costs to gather or squeeze excess water from gas at wellheads when those expenses ought to be paid by the companies. The royalty owners also complain that companies charge higher interstate pipeline costs than in past years. Rising costs not only eat into royalty checks but also push up the price of gas paid by consumers. "Our No. 1 issue is that the price of natural gas at the wellhead and burner tip keep getting farther away from each other," said Jerry Simmons, executive director of the National Association of Royalty Owners. "Pipeline companies are adding fees that royalty owners don't see because of confidential contracts between oil and gas producers and those companies....
SNWA buys Spring Valley ranches and stock Folks in White Pine County will have to come up with a new insult. The Southern Nevada Water Authority can't be accused of being all hat and no cattle anymore. The wholesale water supplier for the Las Vegas Valley will soon own about $3.3 million worth of livestock as part of its latest acquisition in Spring Valley, the White Pine County watershed at the northern end of a proposed pipeline to Las Vegas. The authority board on Thursday, March 15, approved more than $43.5 million to purchase the 11,800-acre El Tejon ranch and the 1,560-acre Huntsman ranch. The two spreads about 250 miles north of Las Vegas come with 1,881 cattle and 4,290 sheep. It is the first livestock to be purchased by the water authority, which has paid almost $79 million for seven Spring Valley ranches over the past eight months. "You are now members of the National Cattlemen's Association and the Nevada Cattlemen's Association," Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy told board members after the vote....
Land management: A new rangeland recipe Does your rangeland look like it's about to become a dust bowl? Are the grasses sparse and stubby, greening up only for a few short weeks during the rainy season? If so, you might conclude your land has been overgrazed. The logical response would seem to be to pull livestock off the land and let it rest for a few years. But maybe the problem is that you just aren't running enough cattle. This is the counter-intuitive solution ranchers are likely to get from Holistic Management International. If the advice the Albuquerque-based group offers range managers around the world wasn't rooted in decades of practical application, it might seem mere wishful thinking. But land managers who have tried the approach say otherwise....
Colo. House opposes Pinon Canyon land seizure Even though they know they can't prevent it, the Colorado House voted Friday to send a message to the U.S. Army over its plans to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site in Southeast Colorado. Under a bill that received preliminary House approval, lawmakers voted to remove its consent to the "exclusive jurisdiction" right the federal government has under the U.S. Constitution on any of the 418,000 acres it wants to use to expand the training site. While no state has the constitutional authority to supercede the federal government's condemnation rights, the measure is intended to make it "less desirable" for the Army to acquire land that way, supporters of the bill said. "The bill simply follows the Constitution of the United States, which says that before the federal government can acquire any property in a state, consent must be given by that state," said Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, who introduced HB1069. "The Constitution guarantees us to the right to life, liberty and property."....
Hear the call of the wild Imagine the bumping bass you hear at a stoplight when a teenager behind the wheel wants to share thumping music with the world. Only this is in the darkness of a remote ridge some 3,200 feet above sea level in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest's upper Applegate River drainage. These low booms are the calls of a great gray owl coming from an mp3 player placed on the hood of a green U.S. Forest Service pickup truck parked on an old logging road by Scott Bodle, wildlife biologist for the Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District. "The calls act as a male challenge," Bodle explained. "We are trying to bring out their territorial aggression. We are trying to get them to come in....
Legal definition leaves mountain bikers out of wilderness areas From the Fourth of July Lake trail, mountain bikers catch some of the widest views of the comb-like peaks of the Boulder-White Cloud mountains, but only if they can take their eyes off the wrist-twisting shale as the trail cuts across the picturesque Alpine basin. So fat-tire aficionados were dismayed last year at the introduction in Congress of the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act, which would have barred mountain bikes from Fourth of July and 85 miles of other nearby singletrack. The bill passed in the House of Representatives but died with no action taken in the Senate. Still, it's a vexing paradox for the International Mountain Bike Association, whose mission largely is to preserve trails in wild areas across the country. Since the 1980s, the legal definition of wilderness has prohibited mechanized transportation such as snowmobiles, all terrain vehicles and - inexplicably to some - mountain bikes. So now, the association finds itself battling wilderness bills and tangling with conservationists in Idaho, California, Montana and the corridors of Congress....
Working to Diagnose Marine Animal Die-Off In the summer and fall of 2005, marine animals suddenly started dying off the southwest Florida coast, with scores of bottlenose dolphins, manatees and turtles washing up on shore. In October alone, 22 dolphins became stranded and died, compared with the usual monthly average of three. Hoping to unravel the mystery, nearly 50 researchers, part of the Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events, commissioned a study of the deaths. After taking samples from 130 stranded dolphins, they concluded that red tide -- an algae bloom that creates a neurotoxin known as brevetoxin -- caused the massive die-off. In the 16 years since it was formed under the auspices of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the working group has investigated scores of similar events. It is detecting a rising number of die-offs -- at the moment the panel is handling eight such cases simultaneously, an unprecedented high that reflects the environmental pressures on marine mammals and the nation's increasingly broad scientific stranding network....
Kennard firefighter sentenced for arson United States Attorney Matthew D. Orwig announced today that a 33-year-old Kennard firefighter has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison for setting arson fires in the Eastern District of Texas. RYAN JAMES EFF was found guilty in November 2006 of setting three arson fires in the Davy Crockett National Forest. United States District Judge Ron Clark sentenced Eff to seven years in federal prison for each of the three fires. The sentences will run concurrently. Judge Clark also ordered Eff to pay $73,512.00 in restitution. Eff was immediately remanded into custody. According to information presented by prosecutors, Eff was employed as a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and assigned to perform firefighter duties in the federally owned Davy Crockett National Forest....
Laverty for AS/FWP The President intends to nominate R. Lyle Laverty, of Colorado, to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Commissioner of the United States Section of the Great Lakes Fishing Commission (Official of the United States Government). Mr. Laverty currently serves as Director of Colorado State Parks. Prior to this, he served as Associate Deputy Chief of the United States Forest Service. Earlier in his career, he served as Regional Forester of the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States Forest Service. Mr. Laverty received his bachelor's degree from Humboldt State University and his master's degree from George Mason University.
Drilling critics get D.C. hearing Congress is asking Westerners to talk about their efforts to protect wildlife and the interests of hunters and anglers in the face of the energy boom cascading through the Rockies from Montana to New Mexico. A Wyoming man is among seven people, including an energy company official, invited to speak Tuesday before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. The topic: Conflicts between sportsmen and energy developers on federal lands. "This hearing is planned as a forum for the folks who want to ensure that public lands continue to provide hunting and fishing opportunities for future generations," Rahall said in a written statement. That goal has united the "hook and bullet" crowd -- anglers and hunters -- with environmentalists who don't want to see energy development overwhelm public lands, which make up 30 percent or more of many Rocky Mountain states. The unlikely allies have rallied around such spots as the Wyoming Range in western Wyoming, the Roan Plateau in western Colorado and the Otero Mesa in southeastern New Mexico -- all considered significant sources of oil and gas as well as important wildlife habitat....
Fishing, hunting groups protest sale of Montana petroleum leases Some leading Montana conservation groups are protesting the planned sale of federal petroleum leases in the Beaverhead River corridor, a magnet for anglers. Montana Trout Unlimited, the Montana Wildlife Federation and others Friday sent the U.S. Bureau of Land Management a letter challenging the agency's auction set for this Tuesday in Billings. Lands covered by the leases total 27,000 acres. Anglers find the Beaverhead River extraordinarily appealing and do not spend time and money there "to fish amongst wells, pads, pipelines, heavy machinery, industrial noise and wastewater ponds," the groups wrote Gene Terland, state director of the BLM. Like the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, which earlier sent the BLM a letter against the leasing, the groups say the federal agency did not assess adequately how drilling for oil and gas stands to affect fish and wildlife. The letter Friday follows a formal appeal filed by Montana Trout Unlimited....
County stonewalling conservation efforts For three years, San Bernardino County has quietly blocked nonprofit land conservancies from acquiring tax-defaulted desert land and giving it to federal preserves. Under state law, nonprofits and public entities can apply to redeem defaulted properties before they are sold at public auction. Instead of being considered by the board, however, the status of 90 parcels accounting for at least 2,500 acres remains pending. The de-facto policy was established around three years ago at the request of then-1st District Supervisor Bill Postmus and his chief of staff and successor, Brad Mitzelfelt. Although the Mojave Preserve is an asset to his district, Mitzelfelt said, it doesn't make sense to help conservancies expand it by removing property from county tax rolls. "Private property ownership, in really the most desirable parts of the desert, is a public benefit," he said. "Once we lose it, we'll never get it back."....
Road issue stalls subdivision in middle of woods A private property owner plans to put a 20-acre subdivision on four old mining claims covering about 70 acres in the middle of Bureau of Land Management property west of Clancy. Jack Frazier already has preliminary approval from the Jefferson County Commission for his subdivision, noted Mike Hoffman, assistant county planner and Joe Schmaus, Frazier’s consultant. The only thing blocking the subdivision is approval from the BLM to widen and flatten a logging road that leads to the parcel. The Sheep Mountain Road, which accesses the proposed subdivision, was created by the BLM for logging purposes. BLM officials say it’s about 14 feet wide, with grades of 15 to 20 percent....
Last building at Mustang Ranch destroyed The last remaining building on the grounds where the infamous Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada once stood has gone up in flames.
The 48-room, 20-thousand-square-foot structure has been destroyed as part of a training exercise for firefighters. The Mustang Ranch was Nevada's first legal brothel. But the government padlocked it in 1999 after years of tax problems. In 2003, the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off building for 86-hundred dollars to brothel owner Dennis Hof. He had hoped to use it as a museum but it was too expensive to move, so he donated it to the firefighters. The B-L-M plans to return the Mustang Ranch land to a natural state and use it for public access to the Truckee River....There are several comments I could make here, but I'll just leave it alone.
'Don't shoot at it; kill it' On his way to feed cattle on his ranch near Miller last spring, Jim McCann saw two critters with a wary reputation emerge from the brush. "These two idiots ran out of the brush and just looked at me," he said. "These two guys just stood there." He didn't hesitate. He fired his .357 Magnum and bagged two feral hogs. To any cattleman wanting to protect his herd, that's the only way to react, McCann said. "I highly encourage anyone out there, if they see one, kill it," he said. "Don't shoot at it; kill it." That's what state law allows and what the Missouri Department of Conservation has encouraged to decrease the spread of feral hogs, now estimated to number up to 10,000 in the state. A 2003 News-Leader story put the number at 5,000....
State kills 257 wild hogs, but eradication unlikely Aerial hunters approved by the state shot and killed 257 wild hogs in Kansas during a two-day hunt last week, but experts say the troublesome swine will continue to wreak havoc in the state. An estimated 2,000 feral hogs make Kansas home, while Missouri might have as many as 10,000. Nationally, feral swine are estimated to number 4 million and cause nearly $1 billion in damage. The hogs are blamed for stealing field crops, ruining wetlands and potentially spreading disease to livestock. And they have no natural predator, meaning they can reproduce with little or nothing to stop them. Although many hunters would like to go after the hogs, the state of Kansas has banned such hunting, hoping to take away the incentive for people to release the hogs into the wild. But landowners say they are still constantly asked by hunters for permission to hunt the hogs....
Crocodile fossil hunt is big fish story A walk into the high desert of Oregon has netted an amateur paleontologist a heck of a fish story, and perhaps some unexpected insight into a Native American totem animal. "That morning, what I saw was a skull weathered out of a hillside," says Andrew Bland of the North American Research Group (NARG), a hobbyists' group looking for fossils last year on a rancher's land in eastern Oregon's Crook County. "I followed it up the hillside and saw there was a lot of it. Then I got excited." Digging into the hillside over a day and a half, the team uncovered almost half of a six to eight-foot long crocodile, Thalattosuchia, which lived more than 160 million years ago during the Jurassic era. Remarkably, the croc had a fish tail, which along with the needle teeth found in the skull must have made it a swift predator at sea. Most intriguing, the fossil croc bears a striking resemblance to the totem animal of Native American tribes, the Kiowa, Sioux, Pomo of northern California and others, says Adrienne Mayor, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, author of Fossil Legends of the First Americans. A University of Oregon artist's depiction of the crocodile greatly resembles the Kiowa artist Silverhorn's 1891-94 sketch of a water monster with scales, a long narrow head with needle teeth and a forked fish-tail drawn to illustrate water serpent legends, Mayor says. The Pomo Indians described a fish-tailed, needle-toothed water monster called Bagil, as well....
Navajo Nation watches ID tracking technology take hold Maybe someone should tell Little Bo Peep. If she'd used the radio identification tags Navajo Nation cattle and sheep ranchers are required to put on their livestock, Peep might have been able to hold on to her sheep. "There are a lot of neat things we can do," said Scott Bender, a veterinarian with the Chinle, Ariz., Veterinary Clinic. The Navajo Nation is bringing technology into the lives of its ranchers, using it to assess herd health, ensure meat quality, find lost animals and locate farms in the rural reservation, where farms often lack addresses. Navajo ranchers are adopting the technology, though not without suspicion. "Opinions vary," said sheep rancher Alton Henderson, 40, of Crownpoint. "Some people feel like it's an invasion of privacy."....
Dwindling breed evokes memories of Montana's rich ranching history The son of bull royalty, Prince Domino IX lived and died on the Willow Creek Ranch at the base of the Highwood Mountains near Belt. Weighing more than a ton, his wide back and square body sat short to the ground — the epitome of the Hereford breed. His strong genes have since passed on to his more than 6 million descendants. "That's what a bull should look like," said Jack Hoover, whose father bought the bull for $5,000 in the 1920s. These days, few do. Once as much a part of Montana's landscape as the prairies it grazed, the Hereford has been replaced. Forty years ago, Montana Hereford breeders registered 23,000 calves a year. Today that's dropped to just 3,000. Driven by aggressive and clever marketing, Angus is king, and Montana is the capital of the kingdom. The state has five of the country's largest Angus breeders and claims more registered Angus cattle than any other state....
A View from the Past That little Agnes Fortier, the twelve year old daughter of Francois Fortier, a rancher living near Hazen, killed a full grown bobcat yesterday with a piece of firewood. The little girl entered the woodshed which was some distance from the house, to secure material for the kitchen stove, when the cat, attracted by the smell of mutton, hanging spitted from the beams, sprang upon her, lacerating her face and neck. Torn by the claws of the ferocious animal the child put up a game fight. Churchill County Eagle - March 14, 1907

Coming home again

By Julie Carter

I am the favorite daughter and the favorite sister. My brothers will have to agree with both statements because I am the only girl in our family of four children.

I am also the eldest of the pack of mountain children, which sounds better than hillbillies, but really, that's what we were.

This weekend we will all be under the same roof for the first time in a dozen years.

I'm not sure how that happens; how a family once so close can get so scattered and caught up in life that we forget to come home, but it has.

My mother is ecstatic about the gathering; as well she should and would be.

As all mothers will do, she will feed us well, give us sage advice and tell us stories from the old days we've probably heard multiple times.

And best of all, she will scold us like she did when we were all under the age of 12. There is something comforting about that.

The teasing and the bantering will be non-stop. The grandchildren will hear tales about their parents that will amaze and delight them. They are old enough now to have an adult concept of their parents as children.

They also begin to understand why their parents are smart enough to know what they are up to; that parents really aren't clairvoyant, just experienced.

We will once again prove that tattling to your parents is not something that stops with adulthood.

People who are now getting AARP propaganda in the mail will still find delight in reminding their mother just how bad their brother or sister was as a teen.

"Mom did you ever know that Julie was really not at her friend's house like she said she was? You knew about that party, right?"

"Mom, did Lonnie ever tell you about the time .... ?" This conversation could take half the weekend.

"Mom, you do know that Bruce wasn't really sick because of your fried chicken, right? Fried chicken doesn't give you a hangover."

"Mom, we know Jim is your favorite but only because he's the baby. He's not really any better than we are. He just got away with it more often."

Sibling relationships slide right into adulthood without much adjustment.

I'm still the bossy older sister with little tolerance for their nonsense and have lost none of my ability to tell them so. They have lost none of their ability to ignore me.

The three "boys" will size each other up for what life has dealt them in the way of careers, wives and children.

After that short assessment is over, they'll all hit the cookie jar looking for mom's specialty-chocolate chip cookies.

The visit probably won't be long enough, but maybe it will fuel the desire to do it again before a decade passes by.

We aren't special or unique. Nor are we any less or any more dysfunctional than most families.

What we are is family. And for that, we do know we are blessed. Even if we don't always show it.

©2007 Julie Carter

OPINION/COMMENTARY

An Inconvenient Economic Truth

AS THEY STRUGGLE to cope with voters' new concern about global warming, the world's politicians seem to be standing in front of Snow White's mirror asking, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is the greenest of all?" while desperately chanting the Everly Brothers hit, "Let it be me." Australia's Prime Minister John Howard opened the bidding by banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs, starting in 2010; Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Angela Merkel are competing for the anti-global warming leadership of Europe, while the British prime minister-to-be entertains Al Gore for what can only be an ample lunch; Tory leader David Cameron is erecting windmills on his house and targeting air travel, with people who fly most often (read: wealth-generating businessmen) to be taxed at the highest rate; California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has converted one of his Hummers to hydrogen and another to biofuel, and says the environmental movement is taking off just like the body-building movement once did; and George W. Bush is lavishing billions of taxpayers' money on America's already-cosseted farmers to get them to grow more corn. All of these plans have two features in common: rationing and new costs....


Who really owns beachfront property?

Few places in the world offer a more spectacular view than the Gulf of Mexico, seen from the top floor of a beachfront condominium in Naples, Fla. That's why – we'll call him Charlie – chose to live in this condo, three miles north of the Naples pier. It was a beautiful March day when Charlie noticed a county truck with four workers driving on the beach in front of his condo. The workers were driving stakes into the ground. Charlie, and other residents of the building, asked the workers not to drive the truck onto their private property and not to put stakes into the ground. The workers said they were identifying where sea oats, an endangered species, would be planted. Charlie and the other residents, again, asked the workers to get off their private property. Presently, another county truck arrived, and the project manager, an employee of Collier County, emerged and, according to Charlie, announced that the property in question was "owned by the federal government."....


TRUTH ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING TOO INCONVENIENT FOR GORE

While former Vice President Al Gore did his best to limit his exposure while testifying at Congressional hearings, he cannot hide from the various mistakes, misstatements and outright falsehoods in his movie and books on global warming, says H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

There are several instances where Gore is out-of- step with science, says Burnett:

* Gore implies that human-caused global warming is instigating a decline in the snow pack on Mount Kilimanjaro; however, according to studies in the International Journal of Climatology and the Journal of Geophysical Research, the retreat began in the late 19th century -- before most human greenhouse gases were emitted.
* Gore also says that human-caused global warming poses a threat of extinction to polar bears; yet current polar bear numbers have increased dramatically, from around 5,000 polar bears in the mid- century to between 22,000 and 25,000 today.

Additionally, Gore has implied that in the near future global warming threatens to raise sea levels between 20 and 40 feet, swamping coastlines and creating 200 million refugees:

* However, the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report provides a high estimate of only 17 inches of sea level rise in the next century -- less than half its previous high estimate.
* And a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology by a NASA scientist concludes the glacial loss is occurring slowly: 0.05 millimeters on average per year. At that rate, it will take a millennium for the oceans to rise 5 centimeters (roughly 2 inches) and 20,000 years to rise a full meter.

Source: "Truth About Global Warming Too Inconvenient for Gore," National Center for Policy Analysis, March 21, 2007.

For text:http://www.pr-inside.com/truth-about-global-warming-too-inconvenient-r72576.htm



Gore on the Rocks

As international celebrity and film star Al Gore prepared to testify about global warming on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, it was already apparent that the hot air may be leaking out of the global-warming balloon. After a year of concentrated effort that includes a multimillion-dollar p.r. campaign on top of An Inconvenient Truth and slavish media coverage parroting the climate-alarmist line, recent polls show that public opinion has barely budged. Only about a third of Americans, according to a recent Gallup survey, are agitated about climate change, and even people who say the environment is their most important issue rank climate change behind air and water quality in importance. Meanwhile a backlash in the scientific community has begun. Last week, New York Times veteran science reporter William Broad filed a devastating article about scientists who are “alarmed” at Gore’s alarmism; Gore’s account of global warming goes far beyond the evidence. The dissents from Gore’s extremism, Broad explained, “come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists” who have “no political ax to grind.” It appears Gore refused to be interviewed directly for the article; he responded to e-mail questions only. This backlash has been quietly building for a while....


A Milestone of a Mistake: Inconvenient CAFE Truths

Demands for tighter auto fuel-economy standards are a major part of the global-warming bandwagon, and the newly unveiled Markey-Platts bill on auto fuel economy is being touted by environmentalists as a “bipartisan milestone” on the issue. Unfortunately, it’s a milestone of a mistake. It continues a central tradition of proponents of this program, known as CAFE (for corporate average fuel economy)—namely, never admit that CAFE has any impact on auto safety. In fact, CAFE is a well-established killer of a regulation, because it restricts the production of larger, more crashworthy vehicles. According to the National Academy of Sciences 2002 study of CAFE, this downsizing effect contributes to about 2,000 deaths per year—a huge toll for a program that’s been in effect for three decades. But according to the Markey-Platts bill, the NAS study “clearly states that fuel economy can be increased without negatively impacting the safety of America’s cars and trucks”. Actually, the study doesn’t say that at all. It does suggest that new technology can allow CAFE to be increased without further downsizing, but that’s quite a bit different from say CAFE will stop killing people. The NAS study does not conclude that new technology will allow a reversal of the downsizing that’s already occurred under CAFE. Second, the study never addresses the more fundamental point that more stringent standards would very likely restrict the upsizing of the new-vehicle fleet. That upsizing—an increase in average vehicle size and weight—is something that many consumers will want if (or, more likely, when) gas prices stabilize or fall in the future. The more stringent the CAFE standards are, the less the auto industry will be able to respond to that demand. In short, more stringent CAFE standards will be even more deadly than the current ones, and the NAS report is no basis for pretending otherwise....


Don't knuckle under to the enviro-luddites

In spiritually weak moments, I sometimes envy the blind faith of the environ-zealots, even if the object of their faith is hardly sacred. For all their self-congratulation over their allegiance to science and the scientific method, they flatly violate the spirit of scientific inquiry in their approach to environmental issues. Of course they cloak all of their claims with the cover of science. They accompany their manifestos with endorsements from hundreds or thousands of scientists, who serve as the functional equivalent of human shields to insulate their extreme claims from scrutiny by the not yet converted. Never mind that many of the credentialed signatories are anything but experts on climate science. They are scientists, and they buy into the dogma. End of discussion. Never mind that the reports said to be the final word on these subjects are sometimes crafted by results-oriented, ideologically intoxicated bureaucrats and published before the signatories have had the opportunity to read them. What matters is that the bishops of this secular cult have issued an edict proclaiming that a consensus on global warming has been reached: It is occurring, human behavior is contributing substantially to it and radical alterations of that behavior are mandated as a moral imperative....


Ethanol isn't worth getting pumped up about, but oil shale might be

There are no easy answers, but we can develop new sources of power. First, though, we need to move past one attempted solution that simply isn't working: ethanol. Because ethanol comes from homegrown corn (much of it from right here in Illinois) politicians love to pretend that adding ethanol will reduce the need for foreign oil. That's why President Bush recently called for quadrupling the amount of ethanol we use. But ethanol can't solve our energy problems. For one thing, it's expensive to refine ethanol, and it's difficult to add it to the existing fuel supply. That all costs money, which was reflected in last year's higher prices at the pump. Also, scientists have shown that burning ethanol actually wastes money. Cornell University professor David Pimentel found that processing corn into ethanol requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel it produces. Others disagree on the exact percentage, but there's no doubt it takes a significant amount of energy to produce ethanol. "There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel," Pimentel says. And, of course, ethanol costs drivers, too. The federal government says that cars burning gasoline mixed with ethanol get fewer miles per gallon. That means more fill-ups, more often....

FLE

Illegals to sue imprisoned deputy sheriff In a case eerily reminiscent of the controversial jailing of Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos while the illegal-alien drug-smuggler they wounded went free, two illegal aliens are now suing imprisoned Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez for injuries from shell fragments that struck them as the officer shot at the tires of a van in which they escaped from a routine traffic stop. Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia and Candido Garcia-Perez are preparing to file a civil lawsuit against Hernandez and Sheriff Don G. Letsinger, possibly seeking millions of dollars in damages for alleged violation of their civil rights. Jimmy Parks, defense attorney for Hernandez, told WND the lawsuit "has just become standard operating procedure down here on the border." WND has obtained a copy of a draft complaint to be filed in the U.S. District Court in Del Rio, Texas, against Hernandez and Letsinger, both individually and in their official capacities. Parks said he was not surprised by the lawsuit and expects "the illegal aliens are going to sue for millions in this case."....
Border Crossers Rarely Prosecuted Guidelines issued by U.S. attorneys in Texas showed that most illegal immigrants crossing into the state had to be arrested at least six times before federal authorities would prosecute them, according to an internal Justice Department memo. The disclosure provides a rare view of how federal authorities attempt to curb illegal immigration. The memo was released this week in response to a congressional investigation of the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. It is unclear when the memo was written, but the Justice Department reviewed the guidelines sometime after a February 2005 performance review of Carol Lam, the top federal prosecutor in San Diego from 2002 until she was fired last month. Some Republican lawmakers had complained that Lam failed to aggressively prosecute immigration violations. The memo was written in response to Justice Department inquiries about immigration prosecutions by the five U.S. attorney offices that cover the 2,000-mile border - San Diego, Phoenix, San Antonio, Houston and Albuquerque, N.M. Guidelines vary by office, but migrants with no criminal records who have not been deported by an immigration judge will almost certainly be turned back to Mexico "numerous times" before getting prosecuted, according to another Justice Department memo dated Nov. 22, 2005. Those "voluntary returns" are booked on administrative, not criminal, violations. Parts of the other memo are blacked out, so it's unclear whether the document refers to U.S. attorneys in Houston or San Antonio. The memo says one Texas district prosecutes migrants if the Border Patrol catches them at least six to eight times. The other district prosecutes after someone is caught at least seven times....I wonder what the guidelines were in NM?
TSA Employees Accused of Thefts at LAX Misdemeanor theft cases are being filed against 10 employees and a transient suspected of pilfering the personal property of travelers at LAX, including hotel heiress Paris Hilton and singer Keyshia Cole, the City Attorney's Office announced today. Most of the alleged thieves are employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration, said Nick Velasquez of the City Attorney's Office. A news conference is planned at LAX tomorrow morning to discuss details of the investigation and charges. "We're a public law office, so whenever there's a significant announcement or a significant legal actions being taken, it's our duty and obligation to tell the public ... that we are working to ensure the safety and security of travelers at LAX," Velasquez said. Eight of the defendants are TSA employees who work at Los Angeles International Airport and two are employees of an LAX subcontractor, Velasquez said....
Congress Urged to Move Carefully on DC Gun Ban Attempts by "well-meaning members of Congress" to repeal the 1976 Washington, D.C., gun ban could backfire by keeping the case out of the U.S. Supreme Court, said attorneys representing six D.C. residents in a high-profile Second Amendment case. "We appreciate that the Second Amendment's many friends in Congress want to express themselves on the D.C. gun ban, and there are ways in which Congress can have a tremendously positive impact," said Alan Gura, lead counsel in Parker v. District of Columbia, which challenged the 1976 D.C. gun ban. But "Congress has to act very carefully," Gura told Cybercast News Service after a panel discussion of the case. "A congressional repeal of the D.C. gun ban right now could erase the recent court victory," he said, referring to the March 9 ruling by U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that said the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. "All of our hard work would be wasted," Gura warned. "We have to work with the members of Congress to make sure that if they want to express themselves legislatively on the D.C. gun ban, they can do so in a way that preserves the issue for litigation, Gura said. Second Amendment supporters have waited many years for the right case to bring before the U.S. Supreme Court. Their goal is for the highest court in the land to interpret the Second Amendment in a way that reinforces the constitutional right of individuals to own guns....
Terror Database Has Quadrupled In Four Years Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world -- field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip -- arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation's central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects. Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States. It is the wellspring for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates, created to close one of the key intelligence gaps revealed after Sept. 11, 2001: the failure of federal agencies to share what they knew about al-Qaeda operatives. But in addressing one problem, TIDE has spawned others. Ballooning from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000, the growing database threatens to overwhelm the people who manage it. "The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control," said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean. "Where am I going to be, where is my successor going to be, five years down the road?" TIDE has also created concerns about secrecy, errors and privacy. The list marks the first time foreigners and U.S. citizens are combined in an intelligence database. The bar for inclusion is low, and once someone is on the list, it is virtually impossible to get off it. At any stage, the process can lead to "horror stories" of mixed-up names and unconfirmed information, Travers acknowledged....
My National Security Letter Gag Order The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me. Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled. Rather than turn over the information, I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and in April 2004 I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn't abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters. Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie. I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation....
City Police Spied Broadly Before G.O.P. Convention For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews. From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show. They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms. From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence. But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show....