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House Panels Reject Appeal on Eavesdropping Two Congressional panels today rejected President Bush’s request to renew without added restrictions his administration’s broad eavesdropping authority, and instead adopted a measure that gives federal judges greater oversight authority over foreign electronic surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency. The bill approved by the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees was along straight party lines, just as they split to defeat the administration’s proposal. The legislation, sponsored by Representative John Conyers of Michigan and Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, the chairmen of the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, respectively, conspicuously did not contain two provisions demanded by the White House. One would have provided retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that had helped the N.SA. to conduct eavesdropping without warrants. A second would have made the surveillance program permanent — instead, the legislation expires in two years. As the administration has sought, the legislation provides authority for the government to obtain “basket” or “umbrella” warrants for bundles of overseas communications. But White House and Justice Department officials nonetheless criticized the legislation because of the greater authority it gives to a special foreign intelligence surveillance court. The House legislation sets up various categories of court intervention and oversight of electronic surveillance. It continues the policy of not requiring a warrant for intercepting communications between foreigners outside of the United States. It also continues the policy of requiring a warrant from a special foreign intelligence surveillance court when the officials are targeting people in the United States. For a third category of intercepts—bundles of communications by groups of people—the legislation permits the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to authorize surveillance for up to a year but only with tight supervision by the foreign intelligence court. The court is required to review procedures to assure that they are reasonably designed to monitor only people outside the United States. The legislation also requires quarterly audits of the program by the Justice Department’s inspector general that would be shared with the foreign intelligence court and Congress....
Investigation looks at airport-screener testing A federal investigator has launched a probe into whether security screeners at six airports have cheated on covert tests run by undercover agents trying to sneak weapons through checkpoints. Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner said he is investigating whether screeners were tipped off to tests that determine how well airport workers find guns, bombs and knives. The broad investigation follows Skinner's findings that screeners at airports in San Francisco and Jackson, Miss., had been told in advance of undercover tests in 2003 and 2004. Skinner is investigating "whether (screeners) at other airports received advance notice of any covert testing," spokeswoman Tamara Faulkner said Thursday. The probe was welcomed by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Last year, he called for an investigation into Jackson-Evers International Airport in his home state after media reports of wrongdoing. Cheating "weakens our security systems at airports," Thompson said....
Death row dispute puts Bush at odds with Texas Supreme Court justices engaged in robust arguments Wednesday over a Texas gang rape and murder. The case has grown into a dispute of international magnitude that goes to the core of the president's powers. A Texas official told the justices states do not need to follow an international court order to hear the appeal of a Mexican citizen on its death row. Lawyers for the prisoner and the Bush administration countered that Texas must help meet U.S. treaty obligations by granting the appeal. The case places Bush, a death penalty supporter, at odds with the state he used to govern. Jose Medellin was convicted of murder and sentenced to die for the rape and strangling of two teenage girls who stumbled into a gang initiation as they walked home from a friend's house in 1993. After he exhausted his regular appeals, Medellin, a Mexican who lived most of his life in Texas, sought a new hearing because he was not told of his right to contact a local Mexican representative when he was arrested. The right to contact a representative, called a consul, is spelled out in the Vienna Convention, a 1969 international treaty signed by the United States....
Judge Suspends Key Bush Effort in Immigration A federal judge in San Francisco ordered an indefinite delay yesterday of a central measure of the Bush administration’s new strategy to curb illegal immigration. The judge, Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California, said the government had failed to follow proper procedures for issuing a new rule that would have forced employers to fire workers if their Social Security numbers could not be verified within three months. Judge Breyer chastised the Department of Homeland Security for making a policy change with “massive ramifications” for employers, without giving any legal explanation or conducting a required survey of the costs and impact for small businesses. Under the rule issued by the department, which had been scheduled to take effect last month, employers would have to fire workers within 90 days after receiving a notice from the Social Security Administration that an employee’s identity information did not match the agency’s records. Illegal immigrants often present false Social Security information when applying for jobs. The rule, announced with fanfare in August by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, was the linchpin of the administration’s effort to crack down on illegal immigration by denying jobs to the immigrants. It is part of a campaign of stepped-up enforcement since broader immigration legislation favored by President Bush was rejected by Congress in June....

Effort in U.S. Congress to Block Canadian Rule 2 Expected to Fail Several senators have recently introduced resolutions to block older Canadian cattle and beef products from crossing the border again on Nov. 19. However, even if the resolutions were to be approved by Congress – by no means a certainty – President George Bush would veto them and there would not be the votes to override that action, congressional sources said. USDA said last month it wants to resume imports of Canadian cattle and products from cattle over thirty months of age. Younger Canadian cattle have been allowed into the U.S. since July 2005. U.S. officials say the threat from Canadian products is "negligible," despite the country's 10 BSE cases. The American risk assessment assumes Canada will have more in the future. There have been three cases in the U.S.. Officials said they expect only about 75,000 Canadian cows will actually cross the border in the first year, down from an early estimate of 650,000, partly because of the challenges of proving their age. The U.S. considers March 1999 to be the date when a feed ban in Canada to halt the spread of the disease became effective, so cows born after that are welcome....
U.S. officials study Japan for lessons on imports Increasing concerns about the safety of Chinese products have the U.S. government looking at the tough approaches taken by another Asian country, Japan. Japan engages in far more rigorous testing of Chinese imports, particularly food, than the United States, but the innovation getting the most attention is its system for screening Chinese producers even before they ship to Japan. The program is the product of Japan's longer experience with Chinese safety problems, going back to the discovery five years ago of high levels of pesticides on frozen spinach from China. "Japan is five years ahead of the rest of the world in dealing with quality problems from China," said Tatsuya Kakita, the author of several books here on food safety. "The world can learn from Japan." The country, which imports about 15 percent of its food from China, has focused its efforts so far on food safety. But some Japanese and U.S. officials and safety experts say that similar methods may also work for many Chinese exports, not only seafood and processed vegetables but also nonfood items like medicines, toys and paint....
Senate Finance Cmte. Approves Package To Boost Farm Bill Funding The Senate Finance Committee approved the "Heartland, Habitat, Harvest, and Horticulture Act of 2007," a package aimed at bolstering the funding available to the Senate Ag Committee to write its version of the next farm bill. The package was approved 17-4, and will create a trust fund to help ranchers and farmers hurt by crop and livestock losses, convert several conservation payment programs into fully-offset tax credit programs, and offer additional incentives for rural economic development and energy-related tax relief to aid agricultural producers. The $5.1 billion ag disaster aid trust fund was pushed by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.)....Go here to view the Committee summary.
MCA backs brucellosis split Most ranchers in this part of the state have spoken harshly of Gov. Brian Schweitzer's plans to create a “split state” category for brucellosis control. However, one statewide ranching group approved a measure last week saying the idea deserves formal consideration. “Not all ranchers are at risk of their cattle contracting the disease and they should not shoulder the burden of brucellosis testing if there is an alternative plan available,” said Kim Baker, vice president of the Montana Cattlemens Association, which has about 2,000 members statewide. Schweitzer has favored working with the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which regulates brucellosis issues, to lay the groundwork for establishing what he calls a “hot zone” around Yellowstone National Park, where bison and elk harbor the disease. The Cattlemens' measure is an interim policy that calls for the Montana Department of Livestock to start moving on that complicated process. If the paperwork is done before another case of brucellosis is detected in cattle, that could mean the entire state would not lose its brucellosis-free status because it could be divided into two zones....
Stakes High In Fight Against The Cattle Fever Tick Livestock health officials say it could cost upwards of $13 million and take as long as two years to stop an incursion of fever ticks into the formerly fever tick free areas of five counties along the Texas-Mexico border. The fever tick, less than a 1/8-inch long, is capable of carrying and transmitting ‘babesia,’ a blood parasite deadly to cattle. “For most of the country, the fever tick has been pushed out of sight, out of mind, since the 1940s. This tick, however, is capable of transmitting a foreign animal disease and it’s sitting in our backyard,” said Dr. Bob Hillman, Texas’ state veterinarian and executive director of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), the state’s livestock and poultry health regulatory agency. “If we can’t stop it, the fever tick could spread from coast to coast, except the arid lands of New Mexico and Arizona, and as far north as Washington D.C.,” stressed Dr. Hillman. “As the tick spreads, so will the need for personnel and resources. Win the battle along the Rio Grande in Texas, and other states won’t have to fight the war.” The TAHC has placed temporary fever tick quarantines on 1116.3 square miles in five Texas border counties, including parts of Starr and Zapata counties, and a contiguous area encompassing parts of Maverick, Dimmit and Webb Counties. In addition, an 852-square mile permanent quarantine zone butts up against the Rio Grande from Del Rio to Brownsville and is under the management of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 60-person Fever Tick Force....
ConAgra Closes Pot Pie Plant Due To Salmonella Concerns ConAgra Foods Inc. (CAG) voluntarily stopped production at the Missouri plant that makes its Banquet pot pies after health officials said the pies may be linked to 139 cases of salmonella in 30 states, including Wisconsin. ConAgra officials believe the company's pies are safe if they're cooked properly, but the Omaha-based company told consumers Tuesday not to eat its chicken or turkey pot pies until the government and company investigations are complete. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also issued a health alert Tuesday afternoon to warn consumers about the link between the company's product and the salmonella cases. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been tracking reports of the salmonella cases since Wednesday. A CDC spokeswoman said the largest numbers of salmonella cases had been reported in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Missouri....
U.S. Beef Is Safe, Says South Korean Ag Minister South Korea's agriculture minister told local media Wednesday that U.S. beef poses no significant health risk, a statement sure to please Washington officials seeking to revise Seoul's import rules. USDA Press Secretary Keith Williams has confirmed that the two countries will hold technical talks for two days beginning Thursday at the National Veterinary Research & Quarantine Service located in Anyang, just south of Seoul. "They will discuss measures for revising the import health protocol for U.S. beef," he told Meatingplace.com. South Korea Agriculture Minister Im Sang-gyu told a local radio station that the government plans to renegotiate its rules because U.S. beef poses no health threat, reflecting the World Organization for Animal Health's designation of the United States as a "controlled risk" region for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Yonhap News reported. "While concerns are being raised about whether American beef is safe, most experts agree that risks do not warrant trade restrictions," he reportedly said. Im also said that although the recent discovery of a box of backbones in a Seoul-bound shipment of U.S. beef halted imports, it doesn't affect efforts to change South Korea's sanitary and phytosanitary standards....
AFBF: Retail Food Prices Up 2 Percent In Third Quarter Retail food prices at the supermarket increased slightly in the third quarter of 2007, according to the latest American Farm Bureau Federation Marketbasket Survey. The informal survey shows the total cost of 16 basic grocery items in the third quarter of 2007 was $44.03, up about 2 percent or $1.08 from the second quarter of 2007. Of the 16 items surveyed, eight increased, seven decreased and one stayed the same in average price compared to the 2007 second-quarter survey. Compared to one year ago, the overall cost for the marketbasket items showed an increase of about 7 percent. For the second quarter in a row, regular whole milk showed the largest quarter-to-quarter price increase, up 48 cents to $3.94 per gallon, followed by cheddar cheese, which rose 35 cents per pound to $4.07....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Idaho Lieutenant Governor Announces Bid to Succeed Craig GOP Lt. Gov. Jim Risch of Idaho announced his candidacy Tuesday for the U.S. Senate seat now held by fellow Republican Larry E. Craig, who has said he will step down after completing his term next year. Risch was widely viewed as Republican Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s top choice candidate to fill out Craig’s Senate term had the senator kept to his pledge to resign from Congress if he was unable to withdraw his guilty plea to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from an airport restroom sex sting. An attorney and rancher, Risch is a member of the Idaho Cattleman’s Association, the American and Idaho Angus Association, and the National Rifle Association. Craig is a rancher and has been an NRA board member. During his seven-month term as governor, Risch won over skeptics and made major inroads in the environmental community as a surprise ally in the fight to keep Idaho’s wild places pristine. Risch “became a new kind of conservative — one who held true to Republican tenets, but with greener, environmentally minded leanings,” the (Twin Falls) Times-News said in an editorial....
Railroad into Montana coal country gets OK from feds Federal officials on Tuesday announced approval of the final stretch of a long-delayed $341 million rail line that could open southeastern Montana's vast but largely untapped coal fields to more intensive development. The Tongue River Railroad, first proposed in 1983, would run 130 miles from Miles City to Decker _ into the heart of the coal-rich Powder River Basin along the Montana-Wyoming border. Area landowners have fiercely fought the proposed line fearing it could industrialize a rural area now dominated by agriculture. Permits from state and federal agencies are still needed, and rights of way through private and public property must be secured before the line could be built. Also, an unresolved 1998 federal lawsuit hangs over the project, meaning the line could get tied up in court before construction begins. But a railroad attorney said Tuesday's federal go-ahead was crucial and will allow the Tongue River Railroad Co. to start lining up a customer base that can deliver a steady supply of coal. The could include the state of Montana, which has a roughly 40 percent stake in a 1.4 billion-ton coal tract located off the proposed line in an area known as Otter Creek....
The Clean Water Act--Misinterpretation and misimplementation Acting on an overly broad interpretation of the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) issued a cease and desist order on our family farm in the spring of 2004. We were planning to transition a parcel of grazing pasture into winegrapes and were accused of deep-ripping the ground and filling and destroying waters of the United States. In reality, we had simply disked the ground once annually as part of our normal and routine farming practices to reduce the fire hazard and regenerate the grasses for winter cattle feed. The ACE claimed that there were wet areas on our property subject to the Clean Water Act (CWA) and our proposed transition from pasture to grapes violated the "prior converted cropland" provision of the CWA. The cease and desist order remained in place for two years, during which time we were not able to graze cattle or begin planting the vineyard as planned. We lost two years' worth of production income, in addition to hours of time and energy spent proving the parcel did not contain "navigable intrastate waters of the U.S." that were subject to the CWA. Unfortunately, this is not the only experience we've had where the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act has been misinterpreted and misimplemented to the detriment of our family farm. Now, that jurisdiction could be broadened even further....
Endangered foxes released on island off Santa Barbara Ten island fox pups have been released into the wild, the last of a group reared in captivity as part of an effort to restore the endangered species. The pups scurried into wooded canyons Monday at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. in the middle of this 96-square-mile island off Santa Barbara, said Tim Coonan, a biologist with the National Park Service. There were once 1,500 foxes, but their numbers dwindled to as few as 80 because of pigs and turkeys brought to the island by ranchers. The turkeys and pigs provided prey for golden eagles, which in turn also began feasting on the foxes. The fox population has since rebounded to more than 300 with the help of the breeding program, Coonan said. About 85 foxes have been raised in captivity and released since 2003....
Coyotes getting ugly, kill pets Coyotes are running amok in an Aurora neighborhood, in some cases jumping fences and killing people's pets, according to one City Council member who wants the problem fixed. "They've been raiding yards and taking small pets," said Councilman Larry Beer, who said he's getting calls from constituents. He said Monday he knows of at least six incidents of "coyote-on- pet predatory activity." But Beer found out recently that getting rid of the coyotes is complicated. The coyotes in question have been seen frolicking behind the 11th and 12th holes of the Aurora Hills Golf Course and along the Highline Canal Trail in the Park East neighborhood. Phyllis Rider, whose house faces the trail, said she knows of three instances in which coyotes have killed small dogs within two blocks of her since January....
Hunter attacked by bear A lower Michigan man was in stable condition Monday in a Marquette hospital after being bitten by a bear in Ontonagon County on Sunday. Steve Remsing, 53, of Sterling Heights, was being treated at Marquette General Hospital after being transferred from Ontonagon Memorial Hospital. Michigan State Police from the L'Anse post responded to the report of Remsing being bitten by the bear near Courtney Lake in Bohemia Township. Police said Remsing was hunting when he shot a large black bear while it was in a tree, where it had been chased by a pack of dogs. The bear fell from the tree and started fighting with a dog that had treed it. When Remsing tried to stop the fight between the bear and the dog, the bear attacked him, police said. Another hunter in the party, Shane Majors of Roscommon, jumped on the bear and stabbed it with a knife until it stopped attacking Remsing, police said. The bear then ran off a short distance and died....
Colorado wildfire frequency tied to ocean temperature patterns For years, skiers have tuned in to long-range weather outlooks to determine whether an El Niño or La Niña might bring a bountiful powder season. Along with shaping winter precipitation patterns, recent research suggests that the shifts in sea surface temperatures can also be tied to the frequency and intensity of forest fires. For forests like Summit County's subalpine lodgepole pines, drought conditions induced by La Niña, and even temperature shifts in the Atlantic Ocean, could be a bigger factor than previously thought. After studying the historic recurrence of fire in Rocky Mountain National Park and comparing that data with climate records, Forest Service scientists concluded in a recent study that fire occurred more frequently than expected during La Niña conditions. Another large-scale pattern that may be equally significant for Colorado is a change in Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures. The Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation, as it's known, is not as understood as the Pacific El Niño/La Niña phenomenon. But the shift in temperatures does affect drought conditions in Colorado and other parts of the U.S....
Judge tells federal agency to reconsider Oregon coho protection The federal agency overseeing restoration of declining salmon in the Northwest must take another look at its decision not to protect Oregon coastal coho under the Endangered Species Act. U.S. District Judge Garr M. King in Portland affirmed a magistrate's findings earlier this year that NOAA Fisheries was arbitrary and capricious and did not rely on the best available science when it decided to leave Oregon coastal coho off the threatened species list. The agency has until Dec. 8 to make a decision. It will consider whether to appeal, said spokesman Brian Gorman. Putting Oregon coastal coho back on the threatened species list would add another layer of regulation to logging and other land use decisions on federal, state and private lands in the central Oregon Coast Range. That would include the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's plan to ramp up logging in Western Oregon to boost federal revenues paid to timber-dependent counties. Once a staple of Oregon's commercial salmon fleet, with historic population estimates of 2 million fish, Oregon coastal coho went into steep decline in the 1990s, bottoming out around 14,000, due to a combination of overfishing, loss of habitat to logging and agriculture, misguided hatchery practices and poor ocean conditions. In recent years numbers have rebounded....
Federal government rejects Palouse earthworm petition The federal government said Tuesday that a petition to protect the giant Palouse earthworm as an endangered species does not contain enough scientific data to conclude that such protection is warranted. The petition seeking threatened or endangered status for the rarely seen worm _ which can grow as long as 3 feet and spit at attackers _ was filed on August 30, 2006, by environmental groups. "We share the petitioners' concern for the species," said Susan Martin, supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office in Spokane. "While we will not be initiating an in-depth status review at this time, we will continue to cooperate with others to monitor the species." The decision upset conservationists, who blamed the Bush administration. The giant Palouse earthworm was first discovered in 1897 near Pullman, Wash. Although only a few specimens have been collected, it was thought to be abundant in the Palouse. But the last confirmed sighting of the species was in 2005 by a University of Idaho researcher. Previously, the giant worm had not been seen since 1988. There is little about the worm in the scientific record. Information regarding the range, distribution, population size and status of the worm is limited, preventing the assessment of population trends, the agency said....
Wolf/livestock conflicts ease Although September can mark a busy time for wolf and livestock conflicts, Wyoming had a quiet month, ending a relatively quiet summer in the wolf world. Representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they took an "aggressive" stance and killed problem wolves immediately. Those wolves were generally in areas where livestock depredations were chronic, and in areas outside where wolves would receive some protection once they're removed from the federal endangered species list. Mike Jimenez, Wyoming's wolf coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said this year there were 29 confirmed cattle kills and 16 sheep depredations by wolves, compared with 123 cattle and 38 sheep last year. And this year officials killed 52 wolves so far, compared with 44 for all of 2006. "I looked at the data over the years, and what happens is we have some packs that chronically, year after year after year, cause problems," Jimenez said. "If we respond more aggressively, we can reduce livestock depredations."....

Investigators discover plot to murder Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a controversial figure known nationwide for his tough stance against illegal immigration. Now, authorities have uncovered a plot to kill him, and a Douglas rancher is one of the investigative leads. The investigation began in Yuma when police were tipped off by a confidential source, whom they trust, that someone was out to get Sheriff Joe. Following that lead, authorities began to unravel a plan that stretched deep into Mexico and to a well-known drug cartel that many fear. According to documents, authorities have three investigative leads: Miguel Escalante, the head of a Mexican drug cartel, Elias Bermudez, host of a radio show and an immigration rights advocate, and Roger Barnett, a Douglas rancher. A confidential source tipped off Yuma police that Mexican hitmen known as Los Zetas were "hired by Mexican drug czar Hector Escalante to cross into the U.S. and kill Sheriff Arpaio."....

PHIL HARVEY

Eldon Phillips (Phil) Harvey, 82, of Charlottesville, VA and Upper St. Regis, NY, died on Monday October 8, 2007, in Upper St. Regis, NY, after a lengthy illness. He was born on October 29, 1924 in El Paso, TX to Charles Milton Harvey and Maude Phillips Harvey, and lived there until the past few years.

Phil, as he was known to family and friends, graduated from Austin High School in El Paso, and attended the University of Texas at Austin, until joining the U. S. Army Air Corps in 1943 during World War II. He was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant, and after a brief time as a flight instructor in AT-6 aircraft, was sent to the South Pacific Theater of the war to fly P-51 Mustangs. He was stationed at several bases, including Tinian, Guam, Saipan, and Iwo Jima, where he served as Squadron Commander of the 549th Night Fighter Squadron. In October 1946, Phil returned to El Paso to complete his education, earning a degree in Economics from Texas Western College, now UTEP.

He met Patricia F. Grambling and they were married at St. Clements’ Church on April 24, 1948, a marriage that would last over 59 years, raising 3 sons. Phil wanted to pursue a career in ranching and agriculture, as the family had ranches at Carrizozo, Claunch, and Corona, NM where they raised commercial Hereford cattle, ranches at Alamogordo and Cloudcroft, NM where the registered Hereford herd was operated, and Harvey Farms at Hill, NM, north of Las Cruces, growing cotton, alfalfa, vegetables, and other crops. In order to efficiently manage the ranches, he bought an AT-6 airplane to fly quickly from El Paso to the ranch at Carrizozo, as well as other places for meetings and an occasional bull sale. The ranching business led to Phil’s strong involvement in several livestock associations, including the American National Cattlemen’s Association, now the NCA, where he served as a committee chairman for many years, and the New Mexico Cattle Grower’s Association, where he served as Secretary-Treasurer for over 25 years, from the late 1950’s until the 1970’s, and as President from 1978-80. He was also a member of the American Hereford Assn., New Mexico Hereford Assn., and was appointed to the Federal Land Law Review Commission by the Secretary of the Interior. It was during this time that Phil was also Chairman of the White Sands Ranchers Committee, spending untold hours writing, testifying, and traveling to Washington, DC, going to Congress and the Pentagon, to get just compensation for the families that had their ranches taken by the Federal Government to establish White Sands Missile Range. Phil was one of the foremost public lands experts in the entire nation, and was a strong advocate for free enterprise and private property rights.

Phil Harvey was a dedicated Christian and family man who was extremely unselfish, not only to his family, but to others, as well. He served on the Salvation Army Board of Directors, the Southwest Children’s Home Board of Directors, and was active at Trinity Methodist Church. In addition, Phil was a member of El Paso Masonic Lodge 130, and was a 32nd degree Scottish Rite Mason. He spent countless hours with Patricia, his devoted wife, and their 3 boys, Phillip Jr., Allen, and Patrick, riding at the ranches, hunting, working cattle, taking wonderful vacations to all parts of the country, seeing almost every state, and teaching his sons as much as he could from his vast knowledge about almost anything one can think of. In recent years he has been equally dedicated to his 5 grandchildren and loved them all dearly.

He is survived by his wife Patricia Grambling Harvey, his 3 sons, Eldon P. (Phil) Harvey, Jr. and his wife Carlitta of Mesilla, NM; Allen G. Harvey and his wife Julie of Midland, TX; and Patrick L. Harvey and his wife Lisa of Scottsdale, AZ, and 5 grandchildren: Elizabeth Harvey Abrams and her husband Matt of Arlington, VA; E. Phil Harvey III and his wife Charity of Las Cruces NM; Margaret M. Harvey of Mesilla, NM; Jessica H. Harvey of San Francisco, CA; Allen G. Harvey, Jr. of New York, NY; and 2 step-grandchildren: Andrew Carlson of Scottsdale, AZ; and Jeffrey Carlson of Scottsdale, AZ.

The funeral service will be held Friday October 12, 2007 at 1:30 PM at St. Clements’ Church, 810 N. Campbell St., El Paso, TX with burial immediately following at Evergreen Cemetery, 4301 Alameda, El Paso, TX. Pall Bearers are Phil Harvey, Jr., Phil Harvey III, Allen Harvey, Allen Harvey, Jr., Patrick Harvey, and Will Harvey. Honorary Pall Bearers are: John Grambling, Paul Harvey, Jr., Bill Littlefield, Warren Burns, Dick Dobbs, Tom Mason, and Dean Rhoads. Arrangements are made by Sunset Funeral Homes West, 480 N. Resler, El Paso, TX 79912. In lieu of flowers, it is requested that contributions be made to the American Lung Association.

GAO

Agricultural Quarantine Inspection Program: Management Problems May Increase Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Diseases, by Lisa R. Shames, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture, House Committee on Agriculture. GAO-08-96T, October 3.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-96T

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d0896thigh.pdf

Environmental Right-to-Know: EPA's Recent Rule Could Reduce Availability of Toxic Chemical Information Used to Assess Environmental Justice, by John B. Stephenson, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, House Committee on Energy and Commerce. GAO-08-115T, October 4.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-115T

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08115thigh.pdf

Wildland Fire Management: Better Information and a Systematic Process Could Improve Agencies' Approach to Allocating Fuel Reduction Funds and Selecting Projects. GAO-07-1168, September 28.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-1168

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d071168high.pdf

NEWS ROUNDUP

Hunter mauled by bear north of Gardiner A bow hunter was mauled by a grizzly bear north of Gardiner this morning. It prompted the Forest Service to close the Beattie Gulch area for the second time in three weeks. Mel Frost is a spokeswoman with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. She says the man was bow hunting for elk with two friends when a grizzly bear with three cubs "got a whiff of him" and rolled him over. The hunter had some bites on his shoulder and leg, but wasn't injured too badly. The mauling occurred within a mile of where another bow hunter was mauled by a grizzly with three cubs on September 14th. Officials say there's no way to find out of the same bear was involved....
Money allows bear study in western Montana to continue Wildlife biologists can track where grizzly bears roam in Montana using radio and satellite collars for another five years, thanks to some funding from the U.S. Forest Service. The "genetic population study" has been under way since 2004, and is aimed at giving researchers a better idea of bear populations and migration patterns in northwest Montana. However, last spring, officials with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks said they wouldn't have enough cash on hand to keep the multiyear study going beyond 2007. Officials say the Forest Service has come to the rescue with a promise to contribute nearly $400,000 to the program.
Wolves in the fold: Ranchers struggle to co-exist with an old Montana predator Gayla Skaw tells of the day last winter when her husband Lee and a neighboring rancher were in the hills cutting wood. Half a mile or more away, gray wolves from the Willow Creek pack were lying in snow in an open meadow. The men watched them through spotting scopes. “Pretty soon they got up and kind of started running along,” Gayla said. “Lee said the sun was shining on them and the snow was blowing up and he said, ‘You know, they were beautiful. It's hard to hate them. “ ‘But at the same time, you don't want them out there in your cows.' ” Cultures, world views and even centuries are colliding in this ranching country now that the wolves have arrived. They're spinoffs of packs reintroduced in central Idaho a decade or more ago, and they're in hot water. Nine wolves from the burgeoning Sapphire pack west of Philipsburg and the Bearmouth pack southwest of Drummond were killed by federal agents in a two-week span in September. The Bearmouth pack was eradicated, while the Sapphire pack was trimmed to 14, 11 of them adults, according to Liz Bradley, a wolf management specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The Willow Creek pack is between the other two. “They've denned on private property the last couple of years, and there have been a lot of concerns from those landowners,” Bradley said....
Judge dismisses rancher's lawsuit A federal judge has dismissed a long-running lawsuit between a Wyoming rancher and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over federal land grazing permits. U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Brimmer of Cheyenne on Friday granted a judgment against Harvey Frank Robbins Jr., who sued six BLM employees of trying to coerce him into granting an easement on a road leading to the Shoshone National Forest. Brimmer dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled. In the case, Robbins had maintained that BLM workers pulled his grazing permits and otherwise persecuted him to try to get him to give the government road access. Robbins, who owns 55,000 acres of private land and leases about 55,000 acres from the BLM, has filed a number of lawsuits against the federal government. In this case, Robbins had appealed a decision from the U.S. District of Wyoming to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which sided with his contention that federal employees are not immune from lawsuits under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law. Government attorneys appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 in June that Robbins, of Thermopolis, did not have that right to sue individual federal employees. That decision sent the case back to the 10th Circuit and then to Wyoming for Brimmer to act on the Supreme Court's opinion....
BLM Director Backs Western Drilling The Bush administration foresees no letup in the aggressive pace for Western oil and gas drilling, despite some voter backlash from people tired of seeing more and more rigs in their Rocky Mountain states. "There's absolutely no doubt that the interest in oil and gas is going to continue. I mean, it is where it is," Jim Caswell, the new director of the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. He took office in August. Public lands managed by BLM produce 18 percent of the nation's natural gas and five percent of its oil. BLM manages 258 million acres, about one-eighth of the land in the United States. Most of that land — grasslands, forests, high mountains, arctic tundra and deserts — is in the West. It also oversees about 700 million acres of minerals below the land's surface. Five basins in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico contain the nation's largest onshore reserves of natural gas. BLM has been approving about one of every four applications it receives for permits to drill. But states also approve leases; in Montana, about 120 of the 750 wells producing coalbed methane are on federal leases....
Salazar Hears From Both Sides On Pinon Canyon Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar is hearing from both sides on the Pinon Canyon issue: those who think his bills on expanding the military training site went too far and those who don't think they went far enough. The Democrat and fellow Sen. Wayne Allard, a Republican, teamed up on a bill requiring the Army to study whether it needs to nearly triple its 368-square-mile training site in southeast Colorado. The two split on a second bill requiring the Army to wait a year to push ahead with the expansion, with Salazar backing it and Allard opposed. Many people at a public meeting Saturday on the Colorado State University-Pueblo campus said they were unhappy with the bill giving the Army six months to justify its plan to enlarge the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. "We think you should take that amendment back that allows the Army another opportunity to expand," said Lon Robertson, president of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition. Residents of southeast Colorado fear that nearly 200 ranches and farms could be wiped out by the proposed expansion near La Junta. They and other property owners also worry the Army will force them to sell their land, despite assurances from the military that it hopes to get the acreage from willing sellers....
Permian Basin rancher wants to transform land into wind farm Through his own initiative, J.B. Whatley hopes to transform his ranch into a wind farm. "Nearly two years ago, I erected a big MET tower, put all the equipment on it and started recording wind to see if the potential was here for wind development," Whatley said. A MET is a meteorological tower that measures wind speed. His was 270 feet at its center -- as tall as one of the turbines. Most ranchers sign with a developer and they do the wind study to see if they're interested. Instead, Whatley hired a lawyer to put out bids to companies. He signed with American Shoreline of Corpus Christi to develop the $340 million 2W Whatley Ranch Wind project. "I just took a chance. I've got a little entrepreneurial spirit about it. I thought, 'I'll find out for myself, that way I'll know,'" Whatley said. PSEG of New Jersey is considering participating in project, proposed for 1,650 acres in Andrews and Ector counties. Turbines could be up and running by December 2009, company spokeswoman Jennifer Kramer said. 2W Wind LLC proposes to construct 80 to 106 wind turbines, Andrews County Judge Richard Dolgener said. Andrews County commissioners have approved a resolution to authorize a reinvestment zone in the area....
Sharp price drop puts brakes on ethanol boom A 40 percent drop in the price of ethanol this year is reining in the galloping growth of the industry and adding a twist to the debate over the future of biofuels. The wholesale price of ethanol is about $1.50, down from about $2.50 late last year. Along with high corn prices, that is pinching the profits of ethanol companies and pushing them to scale back their expansion plans. Brookings-based VeraSun announced last week it would suspend construction at a plant in Reynolds, Ind. - one of the five it is building - because of poor market conditions. Some in the industry say the declining price is part of a normal swing, accentuated by the undue influence of oil companies. But transportation issues and an increasingly complex marketplace also factor in, leaving plenty of room to keep arguing the politics of ethanol. Observers widely agree that basic supply and demand is driving the price decline. Production of ethanol grew from 1.6 billion gallons in 2001 to 4.9 billion in 2006 and could reach 6.5 billion this year....
Judge says land goes back to Williamson Co. family A judge ruled Friday in a Williamson County land dispute that the land goes back to the family. The fight was over land rancher Will Wilson gave away ten years ago. In 1991 he deeded an area of less than three acres to a California-based conservancy group. The Archeological Conservancy was supposed to protect Native American artifacts buried there. The judge ruled that the Conservancy did not live up to conditions in the original agreement. The family thought the land would be open to the public, but the Conservancy said they do not publicize such sites in order to protect them. Two years after his father's death, Will Wilson, Jr claimed the land was his, sparking the court battle. According to him, his father was unhappy with the Conservancy's work and had filed court papers backing out of the deal. Will Wilson, Jr. said the family will wait to see if there is an appeal....
Seattle man rides a trail that leads back to 1848 It wasn't about the money back in 1848, when Francis X. Aubry entered cowboy lore by winning $1,000 on a horse race. Then, the 26-year-old rode 800 miles on the Santa Fe Trail across streams, prairies and high country — even encountering a scalped dead man — in a record-setting five days, 15 hours. And it wasn't about the money for Seattle developer Scott Griffin, 47, who recently won the 2007 version of the Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race. If you haven't heard of the 2007 event, that's because this was the inaugural race, dreamed up by Rob Phillips, of Lawrence, Kan. Phillips, 62, is a onetime hotel owner who describes himself as, "I guess, a little bit of a promoter ... I like horses and I like history." And if it brought in some tourism, that was great, too. Griffin won an engraved cowboy belt buckle. There were no cash prizes. For that belt buckle, Griffin rode 515 miles in a race that went from Sept. 3 to Sept. 15. Griffin is now back home, after trailering his two horses to where they're kept at a ranch in California....
How a Western changed the way Cubans speak For most American fans of classic Western cinema, Delmer Davies' 3:10 to Yuma (1957) is simply a cult favorite, one recently rescued from obscurity by the $55 million remake that is packing multiplexes from coast to coast. In Cuba, however, the original 3:10 to Yuma has had a major impact on everyday conversation. Take a walk down any of Havana's main thoroughfares and you'll hear American visitors hailed as yumas, while the United States itself is affectionately dubbed La Yuma. You won't find those phrases in any state-issued dictionary, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro stubbornly opts for the more derisive yanqui in his own public speeches, but outside of bureaucratic circles it's yuma that holds sway. How on earth did this happen? During the late 1950s, American-owned "United" firms such as the United Fruit Company maintained high-profile holdings in Cuba. Since the word united doesn't exactly roll off the tongue in Spanish, Cubans adopted the moniker La Yunay. Likewise, when referring to their neighbor across the Florida Straits, Cubans sometimes opted for a Spanglish version of United States—Yunay Estey—rather than the formal Estados Unidos. When the original 3:10 to Yuma hit Cuban cinemas, it inspired a spin on the already extant yunay, and the new slang term quickly took off....

Heelers by any other name
Cowgirl Sass And Savvy

By Julie Carter

Today we will look through the magnifying glass at team ropers, specifically the heeling end of the team.

There are three basic reasons that team-roping headers choose the heelers they do.

Top of the list is that they might actually have the skills to consistently catch the heels at which they throw their rope and, thereby, help win some money. This is the only reason ever actually stated in public, in front of people.

Not far down that list in second place is the fact that it helps if the heeler is fun and even better if he/she is a friend. It just makes being around them easy and entertaining, so why not enter up together?

This is actually the most common cause of most teams in most ropings today.

The third basis for selection, one that is not often discussed but holds true, is that a heeler might be selected for prestige.

If he has a famous, or even nearly famous name, a header might be inclined to dupe him into roping with him just to make the stories better later.

This last reason is illustrated by the sheer number of popular so-called "celebrity ropings" where, for an astronomical fee, a roper can be partnered with one of the "pro" boys from the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association standings. This motive can be categorized as the "image enhancement" mode of roping.

The low-budget ropers have to dole out their funds evenly over the number of times they are allowed to enter a particular roping. Often a selected "hit list" is phoned far in advance of a roping to book teams to the best ability of the pocketbook.

When the funds won't allow for the "celebrity" status roping, the next best choice is image enhancement. A flashy-looking blonde on a prestigious blue roan horse will draw appreciative stares wherever she goes.

When you can round one of those up that can also catch, is fun and a friend, nobody seems to care who does or doesn't go to the pay window. "I had a lot of fun," is a good enough payoff.

Clearly roping is not about actually catching the cattle since, after all, they are already captured in the a pen and then the chute.

And they have been known to cause a certain amount of trouble getting them in and then out of the chute. Even that part of it can be downright dangerous as demonstrated by our resident heeling team roper Dan.

Short on chute-help on this particular day, Dan was going to run the remote control that opens the chute and lets the steer out.

It's about the size of a stop watch and hangs handily around one's neck on an unbreakable parachute cord. Handy, if you are just standing on the ground, potentially lethal if you are in hot pursuit of the steer in front of you.

As they left the box, the header neatly laid his loop over the horns of the steer, setting him up and turning left.

Dan handily laid his heel loop in front of the steer's fast-peddling hind feet and picked them up just like he knew what he was doing.

Headed to the saddle horn to dally as the slack pulled tight, he realized the tail of his rope was tangled in the parachute cord of the remote - the one that was still around his neck.

The header, not yet seeing the wreck about to happen, kept his horse in a powerful forward motion, taking the steer with him.

Dan, long-legged and lithe, bailed off his horse and began running behind the steer, rope in hand, in an effort to keep it from pulling the cord tight and hanging him in the arena dirt.

Fortunately for all, the header saw "something" wasn't right as soon as he recognized Dan was afoot and somehow "connected" to the steer.

Everybody got pulled up, untangled and lived to tell about it.

The tales after the event were worse than the wreck itself. Dan, who is often labeled with undignified notoriety, won't live this one down for a long time.

Who says you need a tree to have a hangin'?

See Julie’s Web site a julie-carter.com. Blog is updated regularly – maybe soon. J

I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth. The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming. Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be "a very important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before"....

EPA approves 1-year use of pesticide The Environmental Protection Agency gave the go-ahead for one-year use of a new agricultural pesticide Friday, saying its own scientific review overrides health concerns expressed by more than 50 chemists and other scientists. Methyl iodide, also known as iodomethane, will be allowed to control soil pests "under highly restrictive provisions governing its use," the EPA said in a statement. "When used according to EPA's strict procedures, iodomethane is not only an effective pesticide, but also meets the health and safety standards for registering pesticides," the agency said. Methyl iodide was developed by Tokyo-based Arysta LifeScience Corp. as an alternative to the widely used fumigant methyl bromide, which has been banned under an international treaty because it depletes the ozone layer. Like methyl bromide, the new product, to be sold under the name MIDAS, kills off weeds and soil pests before planting a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The EPA said its decision was based on four years of risk assessment studies, constituting "one of the most thorough analyses ever completed by the agency for a pesticide registration action."....

After Extensive Beef Recall, Topps Goes Out of Business Topps Meat Company, one of the country’s largest manufacturers of frozen hamburgers, said yesterday that it was going out of business a week after it pulled back more than 21.7 million pounds of ground beef products in one of the largest meat recalls in recent years. In a statement, Anthony D’Urso, the chief operating officer at Topps, in Elizabeth, N.J., said that the company “cannot overcome the reality of a recall this large.” He added, “This has been a shocking and sobering experience for everyone.” Executives at Topps, which made frozen hamburgers and other meat products for supermarkets and mass merchandisers, declined to discuss how and why the company collapsed so quickly, or whether they could have taken steps earlier to protect consumers or to head off the plant’s closure. But Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for the United States Department of Agriculture, said yesterday that on Thursday the department had served Topps with a “notice of intended enforcement,” a move just short of suspending the rest of the company’s meat production. Topps had stopped producing ground meat as of Sept. 26, but had continued to produce meat products like steaks....
Sam's Club recalls Cargill-made hamburgers in U.S. Sam's Club is pulling frozen hamburgers made by agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. from its stores shelves across the United States as Minnesota health officials investigate four cases of E. coli associated with the burgers. In a statement dated Friday, Sam's Club owner Wal-Mart Stores Inc said the warehouse club is removing the American Chef's Selection Angus Beef patties from U.S. locations and giving refunds to customers who already purchased the burgers. All four cases of E. coli being investigated occurred in children, the Minnesota Department of Health said in a statement. The cases are associated with eating ground beef patties purchased from Sam's Club stores in late August and September. Sam's Club customers should return or destroy any American Chef's Selection Angus Beef purchased from Sam's Club since August 26, the department of health said. Cargill said the hamburgers were manufactured at its plant in Butler, Wisconsin....
Where’s the beef? Ag groups push to end restriction on meat, poultry Laws from the 1960s banning sales and shipment of state-inspected meat and poultry across state lines have long been a source of grief for producers; but in this new farm bill year, the issue is back on the front burner in Washington. Leading the charge to abandon the restriction is the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. Roger Johnson, president of the organization and the North Dakota ag commissioner, said the restriction is outdated, punitive and senseless. In the first place, state inspections, by law, must meet or exceed federal inspection standards, he said. And imported meat and poultry from 38 foreign countries with far less rigorous safety inspection standards than state inspection programs can be freely shipped and sold anywhere in the United States....

NASA Examines Arctic Sea Ice Changes Leading to Record Low in 2007 A new NASA-led study found a 23-percent loss in the extent of the Arctic's thick, year-round sea ice cover during the past two winters. This drastic reduction of perennial winter sea ice is the primary cause of this summer's fastest-ever sea ice retreat on record and subsequent smallest-ever extent of total Arctic coverage. Between winter 2005 and winter 2007, the perennial ice shrunk by an area the size of Texas and California combined. This severe loss continues a trend of rapid decreases in perennial ice extent in this decade. Study results will be published Oct. 4 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters. "The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said....Hmmmm, I thought all this melting was caused by global warming. Have you seen news coverage of this NASA report? Hat tip to newsbusters.

Scientists See Politics in Spotted Owl Plan More than 100 independent scientists suggested yesterday that political pressure may have led federal officials to water down protections for the northern spotted owl in a recently revised recovery plan for the threatened bird. Six separate peer reviews, five of them funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all suggest that the agency's revised plan downplayed the importance of protecting old-growth forest in the plan to manage a species that ranges from the Canadian border in Washington state to Northern California. Yesterday, 113 scientists sent a letter urging the Interior Department to redo its draft recovery plan, while 23 congressional Democrats sent a similar missive questioning whether political appointees altered the plan. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) also asked the Government Accountability Office to explore the matter. "We are greatly concerned that, according to scientific peer review recently conducted by owl experts and three of the nation's leading scientific societies, much of this science was ignored," the scientists wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. The question of how to protect the northern spotted owl, which makes its home in commercially valuable forests and has been listed as threatened since 1990, has dogged policymakers for nearly two decades. The Fish and Wildlife Service first designated critical habitat for the bird in 1992, and in 1994 the Clinton administration protected more than 7 million acres of federal land for the owl and roughly 400 other species....

NOTE TO READERS

The power was out here yesterday evening and last night.

I participate in the ASMS newsgroup for folks with multiple sclerosis. They had many questions about what had happened and how I was doing, as have many of you. I'm known as Cowboy there, and here is what I posted to the newsgroup.

THE SAGA OF COWBOY & THE BACLOFEN PUMP

First, thanks to everyone for your kind comments, thoughts and prayers.

My spasticity and clonus had slowly worsened over the years. It had almost pulled me out of my wheelchair a coupla times, it had thrown me out of bed, and it had put me on the floor when transferring from the bed to the wheelchair.

So, I was given two choices. Either I got a baclofen pump or sweet Sharon was gonna put me out to pasture and put a new stud in the barn.

I had the test procedure done in August. They measure your spasticity, give you an epidural of baclofen, and then test your spasticity at 30 minutes, and at 1, 2 and four hours. It worked.

The epidural was no fun. First, they weren't set up for a handicapped person (and this was at a hospital in El Paso) so they had to get two guys from the ER to lift me from the wc to the gurney. The doc tried to do it with me sitting up and he couldn't do it, mumbling something about me having a "boney" back.

They then wheeled the gurney into another room, put me on another apparatus and flipped me on my stomach. The doc had some kind of x-ray device they put over my back and the doc finally got it in (sweet Sharon counted the holes, it took six tries). I guess the local anesthetic had started to wear off, because I felt a nice hot, searing pain shoot up my back and down my right leg. The doc is lucky I didn't take my "boney" right fist and apply it six times to some appropriate places.

Went back to El Paso on Sept. 18th to have the baclofen pump surgery. For those of you who don't know, they cut you open, make a pouch on the inside of your stomach skin where they place the pump, then run a catheter to the spinal cord. I really didn't like the place in El Paso, so arranged to have it done outpatient, and was then transported by ambulance to the Rehab Hospital of Southern NM in Las Cruces. It's a classy place, was released on Saturday.

On Monday I started getting the neurological headache. Then laid flat for 80 hours and with the doctor's permission got up. Three days later here came the headache again. So, this last Tuesday it was back to El Paso for a blood patch.

Now get this. The nurse who checked me in at pre-op said I should lay flat for 24 hours after the procedure. When I asked the doc, he said they would lay me flat for 30 minutes after the procedure, then I could go about my normal activites. He said there was something in the spinal fluid that caused the blood to clot very quickly, and 30 minutes flat was plenty. When the ambulance arrived to take me home, my discharge orders from that nurse was "take it easy for a couple of days." Perhaps that will give you an inkling why I don't care for El Paso. If that doesn't, the next will.

If you are wondering about the ambulance, my pickup is set up with a lift that gets me in on the driver's side. I can't get in on the passenger side. The doc's office said I would have an IV sedative so I couldn't drive home. I called BCBS, who is aware of my situation (my caseworkder used to raise and train quarter horses) and they said they would pay for the ambulance if the doc would sign the orders. I called the doc's office to tell them about the orders and they said this was strictly an outpatient facility and that facility refused to deal with the ambulance companies. I then inquired about how the hell did they think I was gonna get home. The doc's office then said if I would agree to a local anesthetic, I could drive home. I then called BCBS and told them I wouldn't need the ambulance. BCBS was adamant that I should not drive home the 50 plus miles after the procedure. So here I was, with a doc and a medical facility denying me a medical service an insurance company insisted on and was willing to pay for. Now what kind of switcheroo is that?

Well, about this time sweet Sharon entered the fray and for some unknown reason the doc's office had a change of attitude and I rode home in an ambulance. I had such an interesting conversation with one of the EMTs that I forgot something. It was my intention to ask them, when they turned off the highway and down the road to my place, to turn on the flashing lights and siren. Thought I would give the neighbors a little thrill.

Since it was a slow leak, I probably won't know till this weekend if the procedure worked.

End of saga....hopefully.

P.S. The baclofen pump is working beautifully. Hope I can keep it.

After almost 40 years, some Utah waterways may get federal recognition, protection From wide, chocolate-colored rivers flowing through redrock deserts to pristine bubbling creeks in high-elevation meadows, Utah's moving waters provide thrills, spills and an ability to quench all kinds of thirsts. When it comes to wild and scenic settings, Utah rivers are second to none. Federal recognition and accompanying protection of those rivers is another story. More than 11,400 miles of rivers in the United States have been designated as part of the Wild and Scenic Rivers (WSR) system since an act of Congress in 1968, but not 1 inch of Utah water is on the list. That could change in the coming years. As as part of updating their management plans, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have identified more than 200 segments of Utah waterways for possible designation in the WSR system. Water is important in Utah - the second driest state in the nation - and that may partially explain why no waterways in the state have made the list during the 39 years since the act became law. Everyone from anglers and recreationalists to farmers and ranchers and local, state and federal governments have a vested interest in water....
Should Forest Service ease restrictions on recreational use at Mount St. Helens? Mark Smith owns a lodge and campsite about 20 miles from Mount St. Helens, but he says it's not always the volcano that draws his guests. Some, in fact, never go up to see the mountain or the several visitor centers. Instead, Eco Park Resort visitors come to enjoy nature in a breathtaking setting. As Smith calls it, they want "to commune with nature." For decades people throughout the Northwest did the same, but that changed when Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980. Since then, safety and scientific restrictions in the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument have limited the access that Smith and thousands of Southwest Washington residents once enjoyed. While researchers and conservationists call the monument a priceless scientific gift to the nation, Smith and others say they're tired of a gift they can look at but can't touch. Roughly one-third of the 110,000-acre monument is restricted for research, meaning visitors can't venture off established trails or camp overnight. And while hunting is permitted on about half the land, motorized vehicles in some areas are forbidden....
S.D. Stockgrowers Meet Under Secretary Mark Rey Stockgrowers and guests alike were able to present the frustrations they have in trying to encourage management of the prairie dog’s explosive population on government owned land which then extends over to private lands. The statement was made that although the state management plan calls for 199,000 acres of prairie dog populated land, in South Dakota we now have 625,000 acres and that the 2010 goal for the nation is 1.6 million acres. South Dakota is nearing the halfway mark for the entire nation. Secretary Rey discussed a plan to utilize a combination of the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) explaining that it could help reduce the number of prairie dogs while at the same time repairing the damaged soil. Regarding national forests and timber management, Secretary Rey explained that timber sales and fire management are still serious problems, but that they are making headway. He feels that they have accomplished approximately one third of their goal for fuel reduction and that they should reach it in about 7 or 8 years....
Lake poisoning seems to have worked to kill invasive pike There may be something that is still alive in Lake Davis, but crews with the state Department of Fish and Game have not yet found it. Game wardens in an armada of 25 boats poured 16,000 gallons of the fish poison rotenone into the scenic Sierra reservoir a week ago in an attempt to exterminate a voracious invader known as the northern pike. Some 41,000 pounds of dead fish have since been scooped from the lake at the northern headwaters of the Feather River in Plumas County. The carefully hatched plan was to kill virtually every living thing in the high Sierra lake and its tributaries, assuring that the pike would be exterminated. "No one wants chemicals dumped in their lake to kill fish and we don't like doing it, but you have to look at the big picture," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game. "It's something we needed to do and we gave it our best shot." Drastic measures were the only surefire way to get rid of the pike, which had wiped out the area's famous trout, destroying the local tourist economy....
Four-wheelers should be part of forest solution No sooner had everyone settled into their seats at the Foothill Middle School cafeteria when somebody in the back lobbed this barb in the direction of Sierra National Forest supervisor Ed Cole: "How come you're kicking us out of the forest?" Cole calmly denied the accusation, but it was too late. The confrontational tone of Thursday's public forum regarding the forest's controversial Off-Highway Vehicle Route Designation Plan had already been set. Local four-wheel drive enthusiasts are livid because they believe trails they've enjoyed for decades are being taken away for no good reason. Forest officials insist they're not taking anything away. They contend they're doing everything they can to include as many trails as possible to the designated system, albeit through a complex, mind-numbing bureaucratic process. Which side is right? It depends which side of the roll bar you sit on....
Court decision likely to slow project Opponents of a major real estate play next to the Wolf Creek Ski Area in southern Colorado have won a court ruling. A Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that Mineral County commissioners wrongly approved the project, called the Village at Wolf Creek, because the road that was then the sole means of access is unsuitable for year-round use. The road is covered by as much as 10 feet of snow. Because of that faulty premise for approval, Mineral County must review the project again, but this time with the proper information. Colorado Wild, one of the two environmental groups that filed the lawsuit, described the court decision as a "small step in the right decision," according to Ryan Demmy Bidwell, the group's executive director. While there is no reason to believe Mineral County won't approve the project again, the decision still is "quite important in its larger implications," Bidwell added. He explained that Mineral County's approval was then cited by the U.S. Forest Service as the grounds for permitting another road across Forest Service land to the private inholding. By treating the real-estate development as a foregone conclusion, the Forest Service argued that it therefore did not have to address the impact of the real estate development on surrounding federal lands. Colorado Wild argues that it does....
Brown sentenced An Alton woman who tried to hire someone to kill her husband was sentenced Sept. 25 to seven years and three months in federal prison. According to a press release issued by the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, Kari J. Brown, 37, will not be eligible for parole under the sentence. She pleaded guilty to crossing state lines to hire a man to kill her husband, or murder-for-hire. Brown admitted contacting a man, who in reality was an undercover U.S. Forest Service agent on Feb. 25, 2006, about killing Randy Brown, her husband. She met with the undercover officer several days later and gave him a picture of her husband offering him $10,000 to do the killing....The FS is always crying they don't have enough law enforcement personnel. What does being an undercover agent in a murder for hire case have to do with protecting Federal lands?
Judge Rules Against Gore Climate Film Only in England. Here, where there are no standards for the truth, a case like this could never happen. In England truth is justiciable. The verdict is still to come. But this from judge Mr. Justice Burton "said he would be saying that Gore's Oscar-winning film does promote 'partisan political views'." "The case arises from a decision in February by the then Education Secretary Alan Johnson that DVDs of the film would be sent to all secondary schools in England, along with a multimedia CD produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs containing two short films about climate change and an animation about the carbon cycle." "David Miliband, who was Environment-Secretary when the school packs were announced, said at the time: 'The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over.' "But during the three-day hearing, the court heard that the critically-acclaimed film contains a number of inaccuracies, exaggerations and statements about global warming for which there is currently insufficient scientific evidence."....
Lawsuit challenges move to ban powerboats Raising a banner of states' rights and access for the disabled, Lane County resident Steve Stewart on Tuesday announced that he is suing to overturn the federal government's ban on gas-powered boats at Waldo Lake. The U.S. Forest Service, which instituted the ban, "appears to have an elitist view of who should have the opportunity to use and enjoy Waldo Lake," Stewart said at a news conference at the Hilton Eugene. For nearly two decades, the Forest Service considered a ban on gas engines at the pristine lake that's high in the Cascades near Oakridge. The agency surveyed hundreds of people who flock to the pristine lake each summer for recreation. Local Forest Service managers decided in favor of a ban in April. The regional forester reviewed and upheld the ban in July. The Forest Service designated the lake "semiprimitive, nonmotorized" where the public can experience peace and tranquillity. The ban is to take effect in 2009....
Editorial - Court confirms that the public has a voice in road dispute Not only governments, but groups interested in the environment and even ordinary people have a right to join in lawsuits that will decide ownership of roads on public lands. Seems like a no-brainer, but it took a ruling of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to explain to San Juan County and the state of Utah that the public has a legitimate interest in how land owned by all Americans is used, and often abused. The state and county are suing the National Park Service because it closed Salt Creek Road in Canyonlands National Park to four-wheelers that were damaging park land. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance tried to join the lawsuit, but government lawyers argued that only the two parties laying claim to the road had that right. Excuse us, but to imply that ordinary citizens, the taxpayers who fund the federal and local agencies, have no legal interest is patently ludicrous. The public, and, by extension, the advocacy groups that go to court to protect the public's land, should not be excluded from seeking judicial redress.We understand why some rural Utah counties see SUWA as the enemy in their fight to control the federal land that comprises so much of central and southern Utah. For its part, the environmental advocacy group rightly worries about overuse by motorized recreationists and overgrazing by ranchers. Too often, the battle is fought at the expense of a fragile desert landscape that is a national treasure....
Herd gone, ranchers turn to governor On a single terrible day last July, Jim and Sandy Morgan sold off their entire Bridger-area ranch's stock of nearly 600 cows, calves and bulls, liquidating them, they say, at a fire-sale price to be slaughtered. They did so, the young couple told Gov. Brian Schweitzer Tuesday, because they had the bad luck to be the first Montanans in decades to find a case of the dreaded cattle disease brucellosis in their herd. They thought if they eradicated all their animals, they would spare Montana from losing its hard-earned brucellosis-free status. The couple, along with Sandy Morgan's parents, state Rep. Bruce Malcolm, R-Emigrant, and his wife, Connie, told Schweitzer they felt they paid a dear price for the state and appealed to the governor to help them stay in ranching, which has been the family business for three generations. "We have a ranch mortgage we've got absolutely no way to pay for," Jim Morgan said. "We don't want to point fingers; we just want to get help."....
Judge halts cattle plan To graze or not to graze? That's the issue a federal administrative judge confronted Monday when he halted a plan by the federal Bureau of Land Management to increase the number of cattle allowed to graze on thousands of acres near here. The BLM wants to increase cattle-grazing to a former level on land recognized as critical habitat for the desert tortoise. The land is located south of the 15 Freeway. The plaintiffs - the Center for Biological Diversity and other California conservation groups - say the decision is a small victory. But the lawsuit is still undecided, and bureau officials are confident they'll eventually prevail. At issue is whether 130 more cows and a few horses should be allowed to graze on about 152,000 acres of private, state and federal land. The terms are part of the BLM's 10-year lease contract that was renewed in September with private ranchers and other lessees. More than 100,000 acres in that land area is designated as the bureau's Desert Wildlife Management Area and lies within the California Desert Conservation Area. The current allotment is 172 cows and a few horses. Only 25 head of cattle are grazing the land, according to Anthony Chavez, rangeland management specialist at the BLM's Barstow field office....

City of Laguna Beach Retains Local Control over Coastal Development Permit for St. Catherine of Siena Parish School Orange County Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Bauer ruled late Monday that the California Coastal Commission does not have authority over the proposed remodeling plans of the Laguna Beach Catholic school, St. Catherine of Siena Parish School. “This ruling keeps decision making over local land use in Laguna Beach where it belongs: with local, community and civic leaders,” said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Paul J. Beard II, who represents St. Catherine of Siena Parish School in this case. “This ruling recognizes that the Coastal Commission doesn’t have the legal authority to interfere in these local matters. The school is now able to proceed with presenting its environmentally responsible reconstruction plans to city officials, without intrusion from a state bureaucracy.” Last year, after the school first put forward reconstruction plans to city officials for the 50-year-old landmark school, the Coastal Commission suddenly declared that it had authority to hear an appeal of the City’s decision. In challenging the Commission’s attempt to intrude, PLF attorneys noted that the California Coastal Act recognizes that local coastal permitting decisions should, whenever possible, be left to local governments. Although the Commission attempted to classify two drainage ditches on the school’s property as “streams” giving it jurisdiction, PLF attorneys pointed out that the City’s Commission-certified local coastal program and map clearly show no drainage ditch or stream within 100 feet of the school project....
National Property Rights Organization Launches Lawsuit Under Arizona’s Proposition 207 In a lawsuit invoking Proposition 207, Arizona’s new property rights initiative, Flagstaff firefighter Jon Regner and three other residents are asking for compensation for new City rules that restrict them from upgrading their homes and property. Jon Regner, Paul Turner, Bob Richards, and Margaret Allen are represented by attorneys with Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, the nation’s premiere legal organization dedicated to property rights and limited government. They’re suing under a new state law, Proposition 207, approved in November, 2006, by almost 2/3 of the voters of Arizona. The new law requires just compensation for people whose property value is decreased due to government restrictions on their property rights. “Arizona voters spoke with a united voice last November in enacting Proposition 207,” said Timothy Sandefur, one of the attorneys representing Regner and the other property owners. “They said property owners should not be exploited in this way by bureaucrats. If the government takes away your property rights, it should compensate you for that taking. Unfortunately, the City of Flagstaff doesn’t think it’s necessary to comply with state law.” Regner planned to renovate his home, and to add a second story to the smaller house behind his, so that he could rent it out. But under the City’s new “Historic Overlay Ordinance,” property owners in his Flagstaff neighborhood are not allowed to refurbish their property without permission from a special government board. The ordinance also sets severe height and size restrictions on homes: landowners may not have structures higher than 25-feet tall or roofs at less than a 45-degree angle. The new restrictions mean Regner cannot go through with his plans. But the City refused to answer Regner’s requests for compensation....

FLE

Informants, Bombs and Lessons In a case built largely on the use of a planted informant, a federal jury in Sacramento, Calif., on Sept. 27 found environmental activist Eric McDavid guilty of conspiring to damage property by using explosives. McDavid, 29, was accused of planning to use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to damage the U.S. Forest Service Institute of Forest Genetics, the Nimbus Dam, cellular telephone towers and electric power stations, among other targets. Some of the group's plans -- such as bombing the Nimbus Dam -- seem idealistic and far beyond what it could possibly achieve with its rudimentary capabilities and limited resources. Members had also discussed fantastical plans such as attacking a ball bearing factory in an effort to halt the production of automobiles, spilling a tractor-trailer of jam on a highway to interrupt the transportation of goods and storming into a bank and burning all the money instead of robbing it. That said, the testimony of Weiner, Jenson and Anna in this case illustrates a couple of emerging trends in the radical environmental and animal rights movements: the increasing use of violence -- specifically the use of explosives and timed incendiary devices -- and the growing disregard for human life. Not surprisingly, law enforcement and security officers are not the only ones who have learned from this case. As they did in "The Family" case earlier in 2007, activists on the radical fringe followed the McDavid case closely to study how law enforcement uses confidential informants. Information of this nature is then used to provide instruction on how to detect confidential informants, and thus thwart law enforcement efforts to penetrate radical groups....
Some border cities block access to border-fence land Mayors along the Texas-Mexico border have begun a quiet protest of the federal government's plans to build a fence along the border: Some are refusing access to their land. Mayors in Brownsville, Del Rio and El Paso have denied or limited access to some parts of their city property to Department of Homeland Security workers assigned to begin surveys or other preliminary work on the fence Congress has authorized to keep out illegal immigrants. Eagle Pass has denied a request from federal officials to build a portion of the wall within its city limits. Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada said Tuesday that he refused two weeks ago to sign documents granting federal workers permission to begin work if it was to be on city property. Del Rio granted limited access and El Paso allowed workers only on its outskirts, said Monica Weisberg Stewart of the Texas Border Coalition, a group that represents local officials. "This is exercising our rights. This is our property," Ahumada said. "We are not going to make it easy for them." In Eagle Pass, Mayor Chad Foster said his city has refused the U.S. Border Patrol's request to build 1 1/4 miles of fencing as part of a project that includes light towers and a new road for border patrols....

NOTE TO READERS

Procedure went ok, will take several days to see if it worked.
Should be more extensive posting tomorrow.

Rancher Kills Wolf to Save Cattle, Violates Endangered Species Act A Montana rancher killed a wolf to protect his cattle herd, and now federal officials say he violated the Endangered Species Act. This apparently extreme instance led one conservative analyst to claim that the act is doing more harm than good, because it forces landowners to "shoot, shovel and shut up." Roger Lang is a California entrepreneur who owns the 18,000-acre Sun Ranch, south of Ennis, Mont. Over the last 10 years he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help ensure that his ranch is set up and operates legally, especially in conformity with the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Lang has experimented with fences, herders, and other nonfatal means to prevent his livestock from being killed by wolves, which had virtually been wiped out in the area during the 1970s but were reintroduced by federal officials in 1994. After five yearling heifers were killed this summer, Lang decided to become more aggressive in dealing with the pack, which numbered 13 wolves, including seven pups. "That's a lot of mouths to feed," the ranch owner, who obtained a permit to kill two adult wolves on his property, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Instead, Lang's employees, shooting from a distance, killed a pup in July and wounded the pack's alpha female. As a result of those injuries, the female was unable to run with the pack and spent the next two weeks hovering near the rancher's cattle, seeking easy prey. But an employee on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) saw the wounded animal and began chasing it. After hitting the wolf several times, the employee pinned it under the vehicle, Lang said....
Water Markets & Ideologies of the West The Bozeman-based Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC), a non-profit think tank at the forefront of “free-market environmentalism,” held their annual conference for journalists this past weekend in Big Sky. Sixteen of us—folks from Maine to Seattle—convened to consider worldwide water scarcity and contamination problems and how markets can inject incentives to help solve them. There were a dozen or so presenters, their topics ranging from big-picture issues such as global water supply, climate change, and domestic water quality to the very specific: payments-for-environmental-services schemes in Bolivia, removing dilapidated dams to turn a profit, a market to reduce agricultural nutrient pollution. It’s intriguing stuff for any conservationist, no matter your stance on the reach or limits of markets. What piqued my interest most, and perhaps most relevant to conservation in Montana, was the discussion of water markets in the West—the idea of selling, leasing or donating water rights for instream use. It’s not a new idea, but it’s one gaining momentum....
Feds, state at odds over California-Arizona transmission line The U.S. Department of Energy opened the door Tuesday for an electricity transmission line between California and Arizona one month after it was denied by state officials. At issue is what is called a "congested corridor," where energy transmission is lower than the necessary amount between states. The DOE designated the area a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 states that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decisions on transmission corridors designated by DOE supersede those of state government. By deeming the area a congested corridor, FERC has the power to overturn the Arizona Corporation Commission's decision against the 230-mile transmission line that would connect Palo Verde Nuclear Generating station to Devers, Calif. The $545 million line would supply the Los Angles area with 1,200 megawatts of power. Southern California Edison Co. would partner with Arizona Public Service Co. to build the line....
Feathers fly over pollution legislation Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson is raising a stink over manure. Fed up with manure runoff from farms polluting his state’s waterways, Edmondson is suing a batch of upstream poultry farms, including several owned by Tyson Foods, which he says have been irresponsible with their waste management and should be prosecuted under the Superfund law. The suit, which has been ongoing since 2005, has set off a panic in the agriculture community and a lobbying frenzy on Capitol Hill, where many fear the case will open the door for other large-scale or factory farms to be penalized with hefty pollution taxes. Edmondson, a Democrat, testified at a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meeting last month, where lawmakers considered whether massive quantities of manure from confined animal feeding operations should be considered toxic waste under Superfund laws....
Meat recalls point to possibility threat is growing Last week's recall of 21.7 million pounds of frozen hamburger because of potential E. coli contamination is bound to fuel concern that E. coli outbreaks may be on the rise in the USA's meat industry for the first time this decade. The ground beef recall by Topps Meat is second in size only to Hudson Foods' 1997 recall of 25 million pounds of ground beef. And it comes just three months after a recall of 5.7 million pounds of ground beef tied to E. coli. The Topps recall has been linked to 27 reported illnesses, three confirmed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. The beef industry suffered its E. coli crisis in the early 1990s. But it tightened food-safety standards and reduced outbreaks so successfully that even critics held it up as a model of what industry could do. But the American Meat Institute (AMI) says it noticed a slight rise in positive E. coli tests by the government this summer and so met with industry leaders. "It's caused us to pause," says Randy Huffman, vice president of the AMI Foundation. "We've redoubled our efforts and focused on the things that work." The USDA sample-tests about 8,000 products a year for the deadly E. coli O157:H7 strain identified in the Topps recall. The rate of positive tests has shrunk about 73% since 2000 but trended up in 2007 compared with the past three years. Huffman says the rise could simply be a "random event." But Bill Marler, the nation's leading E. coli plaintiff's attorney, says, "Something has changed, and it has not changed for the better."....
Ranch-Raised and Arena-Savvy Mike Major of Fowler, Colorado, the source for "Make a Major Improvement," our September print feature on shoulder control, has spent his entire life horseback and working cattle. The ranch-raised horseman brings all that riding experience to the competitive arena and has since he was a youngster. Mike broke his first colt at age 7 and by 9 was starting many colts for use on the family's New Mexico ranch. He also jockeyed his father's horses in match races, but by 13 had outgrown that occupation. That's when he went to work for cattleman and cutter Bob Lee. A few short years later, Mike was running another ranch his father had purchased, and had begun showing cutting horses and attending junior and high-school rodeos. Buddy Major, Mike's father and a top professional calf roper and rancher, shared his skills with his son. Mike, who still team ropes today, roped professionally for a few years and spent 14 years riding bulls and saddle broncs. Throughout the 1990s, he competed in ranch rodeos and by 2002 had focused on working cow-horse competition, followed by ranch-horse versatility events. "But I've always ridden cow horses and always bred horses for ranch work and cutting," Mike says. "In a sense, I've been working toward cow-horse and versatility competition all my life, although I really got serious about it seven years ago." In 1990, Mike purchased the old Flying A Ranch, which Gene Autry once owned and Harry Knight operated. There, Mike and wife Holly operate Major Cattle Company, which includes about 1,000 yearlings and a horse-breeding operation, as well as the mother-cow herd on their Belen, New Mexico, ranch....
No Horsing Around for Students at Cowboy College Jim German has wanted to be a cowboy since he was a little boy. And for six days last month he became one. For his vacation, the 59-year-old San Francisco man enrolled himself in the Arizona Cowboy College - a small ranch at the edge of Scottsdale that gives ordinary people the chance to experience the true cowboy lifestyle. ``I've dreamed about this all the time, but I never had the opportunity,'' says German, covered in a thin layer of dust from a 20-mile horse ride. ``Here, for one week, I get to live out my dreams.'' German is one of 2,000 students who have attended the college since it opened in 1989. Unlike a typical dude ranch, the one-of-a-kind college markets itself as the true cowboy experience _ students sleep under the stars and learn horsemanship skills including riding, roping and shoeing. ``We don't play cowboy here,'' says Rocco Wachman, senior instructor at the school. `We do an old-fashioned day's job. I really show them how life was like 100 years ago.'' And amid the changing landscape of the Sonoran Desert, the college is helping keep a small part of the cowboy lifestyle alive....
School in the saddles at Colorado's Chico Basin Ranch The first sound a city slicker hears at 5:30 a.m. at Chico Basin Ranch is ... nothing. No television. No traffic whizzing by. Then, a thousand sounds. Insects dance. Songbirds call, and then their calls fracture into at least 10 distinct voices, like a feathery cocktail party. Geese honk. Cattle bleat. A horse sighs. The wind howls a long way off, as it gathers force across the prairie, like a wave. Only 35 miles southeast of Colorado Springs, this ranch resides in an odd place between the city and the Old West. Brian Wyka and his teenage daughter, Lauren, of Sarasota, Fla., begin to stir in the Holmes Bunkhouse. Once a family home, it now hosts visitors from all over the world. Chico Basin, an 87,000-acre working ranch, flings open its gates to visitors who come to play cowboy, to meet the mythical West, to ride horses and to earn calluses....Bleating cattle?

NOTE TO READERS

Still experiencing leakage from the spinal cord, so tomorrow I'm off to El Paso to have a blood patch procedure done.

Let's hope it works.

NOTE TO READERS

Still experiencing some problems, but doing better. Will see the Dr. Tuesday, and hope to spend more time blogging tomorrow.