Gore claims scriptural mandate on environmental issues Protecting the earth from global warming is a mandatory part of following Jesus, former Vice President Al Gore said at a "Stewardship of the Earth" luncheon Jan. 31 during the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta. "This is not a political issue," Gore told a crowd of approximately 2,500 paying attendees. "It is a moral issue. It is an ethical issue. It is a spiritual issue." Gore quoted Scripture several times in his speech and repeated his views that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere are causing a global climate crisis. Gore produced an Academy Award-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," which also dealt with global climate change and is being shown at the New Baptist Covenant meeting. Gore, citing Luke 12:54-57 for scriptural support, argued that it is dishonest for anyone to claim that global warming is merely a theory rather than a scientific fact. "The evidence is there," he said. "The signal is on the mountain. The trumpet has blown. The scientists are screaming from the rooftops. The ice is melting. The land is parched. The seas are rising. The storms are getting stronger. Why do we not judge what is right?"....
U.S. close to decision on polar bears The Bush administration is nearing a decision that would officially acknowledge the environmental damage of global warming, and name its first potential victim: the polar bear. The Interior Department may act as soon as this week on its year-old proposal to make the polar bear the first species to be listed as threatened with extinction because of melting ice due to a warming planet. Both sides agree that conservationists finally have the poster species they have sought to use the Endangered Species Act as a lever to force federal limits on the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, and possibly to battle smokestack industry projects far from the Arctic. Federal government scientists have presented increasingly compelling evidence that the top predator at the top of the world is doomed if the polar regions get warmer and sea ice continues to melt as forecast. Two-thirds of the population could be gone by mid-century if current trends continue, experts say. Bears are beholden to sea ice, where they perch so they can pounce on unsuspecting seals, their primary food. Meanwhile, opposing forces representing the oil and gas industry, manufacturing and property-rights advocates have begun threatening counter-suits over the potential listing. "This is going to be the mother of all test cases," said Alison Rieser, a lawyer and ocean policy professor at the University of Hawaii. "The legal question is whether the emissions of a proposed power plant can be tied to the cumulative effect of carbon dioxide, which is adversely affecting sea ice -- critical polar bear habitat."....
Nelson says he’d fight to the death to protect ethanol tariff Eliminating the tariff on ethanol imports, an idea that the secretary of the Energy Department hinted this week the administration might push, seems to have as much future as a cornstalk in front of a combine. The combine in this case would be Congress, which would have to approve any effort to end the 54-cent tariff on ethanol prematurely. The tariff would expire at the end of this year unless Congress extends the tariff, which protects the domestic ethanol industry. Midwestern senators repeatedly have said they will resist efforts to attack the tariffs, and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) on Wednesday indicated he wasn’t about to entertain a new effort to kill the protection. Eliminating the tariff would be of particular benefit to ethanol producers in Brazil, who produce sugarcane ethanol that is cheaper than the U.S. corn-based variety. Energy experts have argued one easy step policymakers could take to cut dependence on foreign oil and limit greenhouse gas emissions is to eliminate the ethanol tariff, opening the U.S. market to sugarcane ethanol. Domestic ethanol producers, who already benefit from a federal tax break and renewable fuel production mandates, have lobbied aggressively in recent years to maintain the tariff protection as well. But livestock producers and meat processors, who are paying high prices for feed because of the ethanol-fueled bump in crop prices, have lobbied for the tariff to be eliminated....
Feds faulted in Indian trust accounting A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the Interior Department has "unreasonably delayed" its accounting for billions of dollars owed to Indian landholders. The federal agency "has not, and cannot, remedy the breach" of its responsibilities to account for the Indian money, U.S. District Judge James Robertson said in a 165-page decision in a federal lawsuit claiming mismanagement of Indian trust funds. "Indeed, it is now clear that completion of the required accounting is an impossible task" for the department, Robertson said, adding that he would schedule a hearing next month to discuss ways to solve the problem. He added that his conclusion that Interior is unable to perform an adequate accounting does not mean that the task is hopeless. "It does mean that a remedy must be found for the department's unrepaired, and irreparable, breach of its fiduciary duty over the last century. And it does mean that the time has come to bring this suit to a close," he said....
Global warming solution hurts people more than warming Participants in President Bush's international climate conference this week in Hawaii should know that the "solution" to global warming -- expensive energy -- slows economic growth, at enormous human cost. In fact, evidence suggests that policies to fight global warming are worse for human welfare than rising temperatures. By now it is common knowledge that climate change is caused by the combustion of fossil fuels, which releases heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But fossil fuels generate 85 percent of the world's energy because they are the cheapest sources of energy on earth. So a move towards green energy is a move away from cheap energy. Not everyone admits the stark economic realities of fighting climate change. Representative from the European Union, for example, seem oblivious to the costs of the policies they propose. During negotiations last December in Bali, Indonesia, EU officials demanded that the world commit to steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. According to the International Energy Agency, the costs of meeting the EU's proposal are staggering. The IEA says that it would require the construction of 30 new nuclear power plants, 17,000 wind turbines, 400 biomass plants, two hydroelectric dams the size of China's Three Gorges Dam, and 42 coal fired power plants equipped with still-experimental systems to sequester their carbon-dioxide emissions undergroundeach year from 2013 to 2030. Of course, alternative energy sources cost more than conventional generation from fossil fuels -- that's why a green energy future is an expensive energy future....
A ‘Bold’ Step to Capture an Elusive Gas Falters CAPTURING heat-trapping emissions from coal-fired power plants is on nearly every climate expert’s menu for a planet whose inhabitants all want a plugged-in lifestyle. So there was much enthusiasm five years ago when the Bush administration said it would pursue “one of the boldest steps our nation has taken toward a pollution-free energy future” by building a commercial-scale coal-fire plant that would emit no carbon dioxide — the greenhouse gas that makes those plants major contributors to global warming. That bold step forward stumbled last week. With the budget of the so-called FutureGen project having nearly doubled, to $1.8 billion, and the government responsible for more than 70 percent of the eventual bill, the administration completely revamped the project. The Energy Department said it would pay for the gas-capturing technology, but industry would have to build and pay for the commercial plants that use the technology. Plans for the experimental plant were scratched....
Area once devoid of elk has grown rich in wildlife Gary Leppink, 61, said he's seen his neighborhood come full circle in his lifetime. Born and raised in the Two Dot area at the eastern base of the Crazy Mountains, Leppink now works for rancher Mac White. "Now there are hundreds of elk," Leppink said, and he has heard credible accounts of wolf sightings in the area. But when Leppink rode horseback in the area in the early 1960s, he was amazed to see one elk, and nobody believed his account. "The homesteaders shot 'em all out," Leppink said. "That's what they ate. "Now we've come full circle; the elk and the wolves are back." White's mother reportedly shot the last wolf in the area in the 1920s, when she was 16. The wolf had attacked a group of horses, White said. Now the wolf's snarling head is mounted on the Whites' fireplace, a reminder of days gone by....
Let the Managers, Manage The ink isn’t even dry yet on the new rules in the Federal Register to be published this week, regarding how Montana, Idaho and Wyoming can further manage the wolves and already several environmental groups are suing. All of this began back in 1995 when the infamous “buttinsky” from Arizona, Bruce Babbitt, enlisted all his authority as Secretary of the Interior to bring about one of the most contentious and divisive federal mandates the West has endured by reintroducing gray wolves into the Yellowstone National Park ecosystem. Since that day, the wolf has thrived and now numbers more than 200 packs in these three states with a conservative head count of more than 1500. Many in the game management community have hailed this reintroduction program as a success. Even Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, recently called the wolf population in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, “robust and resilient.” But never mind the experts opinions and their well-worn management plans, the do-gooders in the environmental community are engaging in legal action to thwart what has been a long effort of planning for just this situation....
Roosevelt lawsuit fuels water-rights bill debate All the city of Roosevelt wanted was to give people in town a clean drink of water. Instead, the city is spending tens of thousands of dollars in court to protect water rights that could be lost because it - like most other cities in Utah - hasn't kept up with the letter of state water law. Roosevelt also has become an unwilling poster child for a water-law reform bill now before the Legislature that, if passed, would limit the power of the state Engineer's Office and challenge a basic principle that helped settle the West. Some, especially those who support HB51, say it's about time the notion of "first in time, first in right" loosened its grip on Western water. But others, including Utah Department of Natural Resources, the Utah Farm Bureau, the attorney general's office and the Utah Water Users Association, say the bill would encourage water hoarding and speculation and ensure never-ending court fights. Which is too bad, said Roosevelt City Manager Brad Hancock, because the bill could have included a better solution. For now, though, the city has to defend itself in court, he said, because State Engineer Jerry Olds has threatened the city's future by dangling the nearly unmentionable possibility of water forfeiture....
Study: Elk, cattle could share land For years, ranchers, hunters and other Elkhorn Mountain users debated whether the 300,000-acre mountain range south of Helena could adequately support both elk and cattle. In recent drought years, ranchers were told to pull their cattle off public lands early, or take them up later than normal, to ensure elk had enough forage for the winter. That meant ranchers had to feed hay to the cattle or use private grazing grounds longer, which cuts into profits in a business with a slim margin anyway. As part of an effort to move the conversation forward, the Elkhorn Working Group, composed of ranchers, state and federal officials and others, asked the Ecosystem Research Group to study grazing, grass and the overlap of use between cattle and elk. “The Elkhorns are a wildlife management unit, which includes elk but also livestock use,” noted Denise Pengroth, the Elkhorns coordinator for the Helena National Forest. “After two years of discussion by the Elkhorn Working Group — which was borne as a result of the conflict between elk use in the Elkhorns and livestock — we felt we needed to understand the distribution of elk and cattle and where they overlap.” What the study found, according to ERG scientists Mike Hollis and Greg Kennett, is that while both cattle and elk use similar grounds at times, there also are areas where they don’t compete and there seems to be enough forage overall to support them both. “We have a whole series of specific recommendations that are kind of technical, but the major findings were that you can still manage for those terrific elk herds and accommodate cattle grazing, and not impact the elk herds,” Kennett said....
Fire retardant could promote noxious weed growth, study finds Retardant commonly dropped from aircraft may help slow a wildfire's progress, but it also could promote the growth of noxious weeds across Montana's native grasslands, according to a new study. The study is being conducted by Salish Kootenai College student Levi Besaw and Giles Thelan, a research specialist at the University of Montana's plant ecology laboratory. They found that the slurry could ultimately worsen grassland fires by promoting the growth of weeds. "By no means does this suggest that retardant should be eliminated as a method for fire control, only that there may be an environmental cost" to native grasslands, said Besaw, the study's lead researcher. The pair are studying the effects on annual and perennial plants from 13,000 gallons of fire retardant that was dropped on Missoula's Mount Jumbo during a July 4, 2006 fire. Preliminary results show the retardant's fertilizer-like nutrients have significantly helped cheatgrass and tumbleweed mustard, both exotic annual species, to replace native perennial grasses on the mountainside. The weeds benefit from the jolt of nitrogen and phosphorous in the slurry, which native and exotic perennials ignore because they are accustomed to nutrient-poor soils, Besaw said....
Cyclists weigh wilderness proposal im Kral reflected the concerns of many mountain bikers to a U.S. Forest Service proposal to recommend wilderness designation for the Hermosa Creek area. "I think we'd like to see protection," Kral said. "But we don't want to be excluded." The meeting came in reaction to the Dec. 14 release of a major update to the forest plan for the San Juan National Forest. The draft plan recommends designating Hermosa Creek as a wilderness area, a distinction that allows hiking, camping, skiing, horseback riding and myriad other activities - but not mountain biking. The Wilderness Act of 1964 bans "mechanical transport" on wilderness areas. That is typically interpreted to prohibit mountain biking, said Mark Stiles, forest supervisor for the San Juan National Forest. The law predates modern mountain biking. What makes mountain bikers nervous, they say, is that the Hermosa Creek area happens to be a mountain-biking paradise. It reaches miles into the Colorado Trail and includes such favorite trails as Bear Creek, Indian Ridge, Corral Draw and Shark's Tooth. Van Abel and others want an alternative designation that would protect the area while allowing mountain biking....
Agency rejects landowner's proposed land swap The Forest Service has rejected a new proposal by Two Dot landowner Mac White that would have granted the public walk-in access to national forest lands near Big Elk Canyon on the east side of the Crazy Mountains. White's most recent proposal involved a series of land trades that swapped state, private and forest lands to consolidate some holdings and, in the process, get him access to his inholdings in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. In return, he'd allow the public to walk across a mile section of his land to access Big Elk Canyon. "I can't get to my own property right now," White said. White's talks with the Forest Service have spanned about seven years. The last chapter took place in 2006, when then-Sen. Conrad Burns attached a rider to a Department of Interior bill that would have granted White access to his inholdings in exchange for the Forest Service gaining "administrative access" to Big Elk Canyon. Administrative access allows only the Forest Service access to manage its lands, not public access. Burns' office later said the measure was only a way to pressure the parties to negotiate a deal. But the Forest Service wasn't interested in the proposal, saying that by law the agency is required to demand reciprocity, or access to its land, in exchange for allowing White access to his property....
‘Over the River’ proposal now available online The controversial “Over the River” project by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude is back in the news, with the duo’s official design proposal now available online. The 2,000-page proposal details a plan to drape seven miles of the Arkansas River with shimmering fabric during the summer of 2012. The artists are working their way through a maze of approvals before the project can begin. Christo and Jeanne-Claude already have worked on the project for more than a decade. After extensive searching throughout the United States, the artists said they found the perfect site for the project in Bighorn Canyon to the west of Cañon City. Over the River would involve installing cables, anchors and fabric, which would be removed after the exhibit ends. Project supporters say the venture could attract up to 250,000 people and be a major boost to the economy. On the other hand, an opposition group — Rags Over the Arkansas River Inc. — has organized with the arguments traffic congestion could drive away wildlife and hurt businesses that depend on the Arkansas River canyon. Public safety during the installation, duration and removal of the project also has been questioned....
Marvel strikes back at state Fish and Game department If environmentalist Jon Marvel never shoved a Fish and Game commissioner after a meeting in December, he certainly shoved back Friday. Marvel fired off his own response Friday to an Idaho Department of Fish and Game memo sent this week to employees statewide telling them to avoid telephone communications with the renowned activist. The response was sent to Fish and Game Director Cal Groen and Fish and Game Commissioner Cam Wheeler. In it, Marvel requests the directive be withdrawn and demands the agency apologize for making an "inflammatory charge" that he "assaulted" Commissioner Wayne Wright at a Dec. 17 wolf management hearing in Hailey, and for saying "that I have a history of making threats to IDFG employees." Marvel, who leads the environmental group Western Watersheds Project, said the department acted as a "judge, jury and figurative executioner" with a "star chamber-like proceeding without any due process" for him on the matter. Fish and Game Deputy Director Virgil Moore issued the memo after the Dec. 17 meeting about the federal delisting of wolves. After the meeting, Wright and Marvel had a confrontation, and Wright said that Marvel shoved him. Moore, who witnessed the Dec. 17 confrontation, said Wright's account, and a Fish and Game officer's description of an argumentative Marvel phone call from a previous occasion, prompted the memo....
Park Police Rebuked For Weak Security The U.S. Park Police have failed to adequately protect such national landmarks as the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument and are plagued by low morale, poor leadership and bad organization, according to a new government report. The force is understaffed, insufficiently trained and woefully equipped, the report by the Interior Department's inspector general concludes. Hallowed sites on the Mall are weakly guarded and vulnerable to terrorist attack, the inspector general's office found. The report includes a photograph of what it says is an officer apparently sleeping in a patrol vehicle at the Jefferson Memorial. It describes a Park Police officer doing a crossword puzzle. And it recounts someone leaving a suitcase against the south wall of the Washington Monument, where it sat unattended for five minutes until its owner reclaimed it....
GM unveils hybrid pickups General Motors Corp. will introduce a new hybrid full-size pickup and a concept hybrid truck this week at the Chicago Auto Show, betting that pickup drivers have been itching to jump on the hybrid bandwagon. GM says the 2009 GMC Sierra hybrid gets a 25 percent improvement in fuel economy without compromising performance, while its GMC Denali XT concept _ a low-slung, muscular utility vehicle _ gets 50 percent better fuel economy than a comparable small pickup. The Sierra is the next large GM vehicle to get the company's new two-mode hybrid system, which has also been introduced on the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon sport utility vehicles and the Chevrolet Silverado pickup. The SUVs are expected to go on sale early this year, while the Silverado and Sierra are scheduled to hit the market at the end of 2008. The two-mode system got a lot of buzz late last year at the Los Angeles Auto Show, where the hybrid Chevrolet Tahoe was named the 2008 Green Car of the Year by the Green Car Journal....
Inhaling Pig Brains May Be Cause of New Illness A new disease has surfaced in 12 people among the 1,300 employees at the factory run by Quality Pork Processors about 100 miles south of Minneapolis. The ailment is characterized by sensations of burning, numbness and weakness in the arms and legs. For most, this is unpleasant but not disabling. For a few, however, the ailment has made walking difficult and work impossible. The symptoms have slowly lessened in severity, but in none of the sufferers has it disappeared completely. The packing house, in Austin, Minn. (pop. 23,000), slaughters 1,900 pigs a day, working two meat-cutting shifts and one clean-up shift. Virtually everything is used, including ears, entrails and bone. The 12 sufferers of the neurological illness -- most are Hispanic immigrants -- all work at or near the "head table" where the animals' severed heads are processed. One of the steps in that part of the operation involves removing the pigs' brains with compressed air forced into the skull through the hole where the spinal cord enters. The brains are then packed and sent to markets in Korea and China as food....
Earl Butz, Ex-U.S. Agriculture Secretary, Dies at 98 Earl Butz, the U.S. secretary of agriculture who was forced to resign after telling an obscenity- laced racist joke in 1976, died yesterday in Washington. He was 98 and the oldest living former Cabinet member. Butz, who died in his sleep, had been in failing health for the past couple of weeks, said Randy Woodson, dean of Purdue University's College of Agriculture. He had flown to Washington from his home in a retirement community in Indiana on Jan. 30 to visit his son's family, Woodson said. Butz was named to head the Department of Agriculture in 1971 by President Richard Nixon. He remained in the Cabinet under President Gerald Ford after Nixon resigned in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal. Butz encouraged farm production and promoted exports of surpluses. He exhorted farmers to ``plant fence row to fence row'' to meet global demand, helping to drive down surging food costs....
Schoolkids learn they’re all cowboys To poet Bunny Dryden, everyone is a cowboy, if even just a little bit. Third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students at Carmichael Elementary School got a lesson in cowboy culture Friday from Dryden and musicians Rena Randall and the Due West Trio, Tim O’Connor, Dave Bertoglio and Dave Gibson. Other poets and musicians of the 2008 Cochise Cowboy Poetry and Music Gathering performed at schools across the county to start the 16th annual event, which goes on today and Sunday. While outfitted in her cowboy hat, chaps and boots, Dryden spoke about the purpose of cowboy’s “duds.” Although spurs may look intimidating, they’re used to guide the horse, not hurt it, she said. Dryden helped explain some common cowboy vocabulary, too. Lariat is another word for rope, and dogies is the cowboy term for calves, she said. And “cowboy” stands for pride and responsibility, no matter if that cowboy is a boy or girl, she said. That idea inspired her poem “There ain’t no gender in ‘Cowboy.’ ” Dryden, a rancher’s wife from Thatcher, began writing poetry to document ranch history and life. Now she enjoys sharing it with children to honor that heritage. “We wouldn’t have this beautiful valley if it wasn’t for those who came before us,” she said....
Is an Old Man With Pig Spleens More Accurate than Doppler Radar? In today’s world of high technology and focus on the future, every once in a while it’s refreshing to take a deep breath and return to the more natural ways of our ancestors. That’s why I’m advocating that the National Weather Service be replaced by an old Ukranian man and several pig spleens. And if the man’s claims are to be believed, we’d actually get more accurate weather forecasts. Paul Smokov, an 84 year old cattle rancher from Steele, N.D., claims that he has forecasted the weather with 85% accuracy by observing the shape of pig spleens. The National Weather Service, with their millions in high tech equipment, is about 60% accurate. Smokov may be the last pig spleen weather forecaster left in North America. The editor of the Old Farmer’s Almanac said the only other spleen reader she had come in contact with had died in Saskatchewan, Canada last year. Smokov learned the subtle art of spleen reading from his parents, Ukranian immigrants who arrived in the US in the early 20th century. With weather being so important to farmers, and a decades long lack of electricity at the family ranch denying radio forecasts, the family kept the practice of spleen forecasting alive....
Bootman: 'I just wanted to give people something to look at' Boots, of every color, every size, every style, follow the county road along the Bohlender farm south of here. Dale Bohlender, 81, is living in the house in La Salle -- the same house he was born in -- and a few years ago, he started putting boots on his fence posts. Now there are more than 200 boots on more than 200 posts along Weld County Road 39 and on other parts of Bohlender's property. "I just wanted to give people something to look at as they drove by," Bohlender said. "Then people started adding their own boots and shoes, and it just grew." There are other boot fences, and legend has grown that farmers and ranchers put boots on the fence top so the human scent will keep away destructive wildlife such as coyotes and raccoons....

Jake’s hard-won lesson
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

By Julie Carter

One day a cowboy and his horse learned a hard-won lesson.

My friend Maurice is a rancher from a few decades ago. He was a cowboy because it was part of the job. He never did think he was real punchy ­ he just got the work done.

In 1946, he came home from the Army to find his brothers breaking a young horse they named "Jake." Maurice said that in those days on the ranch, they usually had several horses that could work in harness to do light duty in the hay fields, and be ridden to move cattle when needed.

Sometimes these horses were more like misfits. They were too big and clumsy to be good saddle horses, but not heavy enough to excel at work in a harness.

Jake was such a horse. His feet were oversized platters and his head was too big, Roman nose included. Even though he wasn¹t much to look at, he filled a need, so they decided to break him to the harness and a saddle.

A most memorable ride on Jake happened when Maurice and his brothers were gathering cows one day. Maurice was riding Jake in a hackamore, trying to teach him to neck rein, when he suddenly developed a nasty little habit.

When Maurice tried to rein him to the left, he would rear straight up and then run full speed to the right. He would eventually get him stopped, turned around and headed back to the cattle. At this point, everything was dandy until that left turn came up again. Jake would repeat the process with full intent of malice.

As luck would have it, Maurice came near a cedar tree, which happened to have a broken limb hanging within reach. It was about the size of a small "persuader," so he grabbed it as he rode past.

The next time Jake reared up and took off, he gave him a cowboy tap to the head with the new persuader. He must have hit a sensitive spot, because Jake was suddenly, and completely, unconscious ­ at a dead run.

Usually when a running horse goes down, the front end goes down first and the rider dives headlong into the dirt and rocks as the horse takes a forward roll.

Jake dropped on both ends at the same time and made a slithering halt, dust boiling up all around.

Fortunately, neither Maurice nor Jake was hurt, and as soon as Jake came to his senses, they went on about their business.

Maurice is sure not many cowboys have experienced this phenomenon because few have recorded events of horses passing out under them at a high rate of speed.

“I hesitated to tell this story because I¹m not sure about the statute of limitations on animal cruelty,² said Maurice. ³But it¹s been near 65 years and, besides, there is the possibility that I was experiencing temporary insanity at the moment of contact. Hopefully, I won¹t be prosecuted.”

He went on to say, “There was a happy ending to the story. Jake and I underwent total attitude adjustments. Jake lived a long life and never pulled his little trick again. I have reached my 80s and never hit another horse on the head.”

Maurice said his only regret was he was sure had lost any chance of earning the title “Horse Whisperer.”


Visit Julie’s Web site, see her book at www.julie-carter.com

FLE

FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds spills her secrets Most Americans have never heard of Sibel Edmonds, and if the U.S. government has its way, they never will. The former FBI translator turned whistleblower tells a chilling story of corruption at Washington’s highest levels—sale of nuclear secrets, shielding of terrorist suspects, illegal arms transfers, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, espionage. She may be a first-rate fabulist, but Edmonds’s account is full of dates, places, and names. And if she is to be believed, a treasonous plot to embed moles in American military and nuclear installations and pass sensitive intelligence to Israeli, Pakistani, and Turkish sources was facilitated by figures in the upper echelons of the State and Defense Departments. Her charges could be easily confirmed or dismissed if classified government documents were made available to investigators. But Congress has refused to act, and the Justice Department has shrouded Edmonds’s case in the state-secrets privilege, a rarely used measure so sweeping that it precludes even a closed hearing attended only by officials with top-secret security clearances. According to the Department of Justice, such an investigation “could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the United States.” After five years of thwarted legal challenges and fruitless attempts to launch a congressional investigation, Sibel Edmonds is telling her story, though her defiance could land her in jail. After reading its November piece about Louai al-Sakka, an al-Qaeda terrorist who trained 9/11 hijackers in Turkey, Edmonds approached the Sunday Times of London. On Jan. 6, the Times, a Murdoch-owned paper that does not normally encourage exposés damaging to the Bush administration, featured a long article. The news quickly spread around the world, with follow-ups appearing in Israel, Europe, India, Pakistan, Turkey, and Japan—but not in the United States.[...] Over nearly six months, Edmonds listened with increasing unease to hundreds of intercepted phone calls between Turkish, Pakistani, Israeli, and American officials. When she voiced concerns about the processing of this intelligence—among other irregularities, one of the other translators maintained a friendship with one of the FBI’s “high value” targets—she was threatened. After exhausting all appeals through her own chain of command, Edmonds approached the two Department of Justice agencies with oversight of the FBI and sent faxes to Sens. Chuck Grassley and Patrick Leahy on the Judiciary Committee. The next day, she was called in for a polygraph. According to a DOJ inspector general’s report, the test found that “she was not deceptive in her answers.” But two weeks later, Edmonds was fired; her home computer was seized; her family in Turkey was visited by police and threatened with arrest if they did not submit to questioning about an unspecified “intelligence matter.” When Edmonds’s attorney filed suit to obtain the documents related to her firing, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft imposed the state-secrets gag order. Since then, she has been subjected to another federal order, which not only silenced her, but retroactively classified the statements she eventually made before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the 9/11 Commission....
The Fear Factory As Shareef cursed America and Jews, he was under almost constant surveillance by the Joint Terrorism Task Force for the Northern District of Illinois. Since 9/11, the number of such outfits across the country has tripled. With more than 2,000 FBI agents now assigned to 102 task forces, the JTTFs have effectively become a vast, quasi-secret arm of the federal government, granted sweeping new powers that outstrip those of any other law-enforcement agency. The JTTFs consist not only of local police, FBI special agents and federal investigators from Immigration and the IRS, but covert operatives from the CIA. The task forces have thus effectively destroyed the "wall" that historically existed between law enforcement and intelligence-gathering. Under the Bush administration, the JTTFs have been turned into a domestic spy agency, like Britain's MI5 —one with the powers of arrest. But a closer inspection of the cases brought by JTTFs reveals that most of the prosecutions had one thing in common: The defendants posed little if any demonstrable threat to anyone or anything. According to a study by the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law, only ten percent of the 619 "terrorist" cases brought by the federal government have resulted in convictions on "terrorism-related" charges —a category so broad as to be meaningless. In the past year, none of the convictions involved jihadist terror plots targeting America....
Hiding From REAL ID Take the REAL ID Act, the sputtering effort to unite Americans under a common banner of department of motor vehicle regulations and porous databases. In common purpose, it has united the Amish, gun owners, and advocates for victims of domestic abuse, all of whom want to see it killed. Though severely hobbled by a state-level revolt, REAL ID is set to enter its first phase in May, when states that have not applied for extensions will be required to comply with new requirements for issuing licenses. Amish groups and other religiously sensitive groups suggest that REAL ID portends the mark of the beast, and those who receive it will be thrown into eternal abyss. Appealing as it is to view REAL ID author Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) as an agent of Satan, it is probably the victims of domestic abuse who provide the best case study in the plan’s overreach. Organizations such as the National Network to End Domestic Violence contend that stores of half-guarded data would empower stalkers, violent exes, and obsessive abusers hunting for information. Abuse survivors are living repudiations of the assumption that only criminals need seek the comforts of anonymity. But try telling that to the Department of Homeland Security....
Bush prods Congress on eavesdropping law Sternly prodding Congress, President Bush said Thursday that lawmakers are jeopardizing the nation's safety by failing to lock in a government eavesdropping law. The president signed what Congress has given him so far — a 15-day extension of the law that allows government surveillance of suspected terrorists. But he said Congress should urgently pass a permanent law, on his terms, to safeguard the country. "I expect members of both political parties to get this work done so our professionals can protect the American people," Bush said in a speech here about the threat of terrorism. The law in question allows eavesdropping of phone calls and e-mails involving people in the U.S. Bush and Congress are at odds over an update of the law, mainly whether to give legal immunity to companies that helped the government spy on customers....
Top-secret Livermore anti-germ lab opens A high-security laboratory where deadly microbes are being grown by scientists seeking defenses against terrorist attacks began operating in Livermore last week without public announcement, and opponents said Friday that they will go to federal court in an effort to close the facility down. Built inside the closed campus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the facility has been controversial ever since it was first proposed by homeland security officials more than five years ago. The facility is known as a Biosafety-level 3 laboratory where highly trained workers, high-tech airlocks and extremely rigorous safety measures are required by federal rules in order to contain any of more than 40 potentially lethal disease-causing bacteria, viruses and fungi stored inside. The National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency of the Energy Department, which oversees the Livermore site, announced Monday only that it had "granted approval" for Livermore to begin operating its new biosafety laboratory. But the announcement did not disclose that the facility had already opened and that its scientists had begun working there the previous Friday....
Freedom for thought we hate Having been removed as editor of my college newspaper at Boston's Northeastern University by the president who thought I took the First Amendment too seriously, I have been a First Amendment enthusiast ever since, including writing books about it. I can now attest that the most accurate and enlivening account of its history and often extraordinary resilience is the newly published "Freedom for the Thought That We Hate" by Anthony Lewis. Part of the title comes from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' warning of the most powerful need of the First Amendment, especially in times of national danger and epidemics of speech-suppressing political correctness: "If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate." I commend the title and the Lewis book to Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is still trying to get his expanded "hate speech" legislation to become law. It adds extra prison time not for the actual conviction for violent acts but for the "hateful" speech accompanying them as interpreted by police and prosecutors. Once our republic began, James Madison expected that no American would be punished for his "thoughts." But "hate crimes" laws vigorously and incredibly supported by the American Civil Liberties Union are what Madison feared....
Houston Prosecutor Admits He Deleted E-Mail Messages The embattled Harris County district attorney admitted before a federal judge here Friday that in violation of two subpoenas and a court order, he deleted as many as 3,500 e-mail messages sought in a civil rights lawsuit. He said he thought the messages were available on backup files. Appearing at a contempt hearing in Federal District Court, the district attorney, Charles A. Rosenthal Jr., appeared to open himself to possible perjury charges by acknowledging that in earlier sworn testimony he had provided false information about how he deleted some messages. He called his earlier testimony “an error.” Clearly irked, Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt told Mr. Rosenthal, “In fact it can be a crime to destroy documents; it can be obstruction of justice. “You prosecute people for that,” the judge reminded Mr. Rosenthal. The messages were sought as part of a lawsuit Mr. Kelley filed on behalf of two brothers, Sean and Erik Ibarra, who claim they were falsely arrested and brutalized after photographing sheriff’s deputies raiding a neighbor’s house in 2002....

Western U.S. Faces Drought Crisis, Warming Study Says The U.S. West will see devastating droughts as global warming reduces the amount of mountain snow and causes the snow that does fall to melt earlier in the year, a new study says. By storing moisture in the form of snow, mountains act as huge natural reservoirs, releasing water into rivers long into the summer dry season. "We're losing that reservoir," said research leader Tim Barnett, an oceanographer and climate researcher at the University of California, San Diego. "Spring runoff is getting earlier and earlier in the year, so you have to let water go over the dams into the ocean." Summers are also becoming hotter and longer. "That dries things out more and leads to fires," Barnett added. "Our results are not good news for those living in the western United States," the scientists write in their report, which appears in today's online edition of the journal Science. Barnett and his team used computer models to study water flow in Western rivers over the past 50 years. The researchers found that the changes currently affecting the U.S. West have less than a one percent chance of being due to natural variability, Barnett told National Geographic News. His team verified that by running a variety of control tests under pre-industrial conditions that mimicked known natural cycles. What's been occurring recently, he said, is different from natural variability and is driven by the buildup of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. The study also found that more changes are on tap for Western snowpacks....
Canada to become next OPEC The United States' oil dependence on Canada, already America's largest supplier, is about to grow under a plan to build a new pipeline to transport oil from the tar sands of Alberta into the central part of the nation. TransCanada Corporation, a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, has announced the TransCanada Keystone Pipeline has been given a final Environmental Impact Statement approval from the U.S. Department of State because of the limited adverse environmental impacts that are expected. The approval is the result of nearly two years of analysis of the project proposal by more than a dozen U.S. federal agencies and other interested stakeholders. Now that the EIS is finished, TransCanada expects to receive authorization soon to begin the construction and operation of the pipeline at the U.S./Canada border crossing. According to the Energy Information Administration, the leading suppliers of U.S. oil in Nov. 2007 were: Canada, 2.431 million barrels per day; Saudi Arabia, 1.620 million barrels per day; Mexico, 1.581 million barrels per day; Venezuela, 1.381 million barrels per day; and Nigeria, 1.306 million barrels per day. According to Canada's Globe and Mail, by 2015 and the completion of the project, Canadian oil exports to the U.S. are expected to increase to three million barrels a day. Plans also are under way to extend Canadian pipelines down to the Texas Gulf Coast where the Texas refineries used to processing the "heavy" and "sour" oil processed from Mexico and Venezuela are well suited to process the sticky crude produced from Alberta's oil sands....
Discovery backs theory oil not 'fossil fuel' A study published in Science Magazine today presents new evidence supporting the abiotic theory for the origin of oil, which asserts oil is a natural product the Earth generates constantly rather than a "fossil fuel" derived from decaying ancient forests and dead dinosaurs. The lead scientist on the study – Giora Proskurowski of the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle – says the hydrogen-rich fluids venting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the Lost City Hydrothermal Field were produced by the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in the mantle of the earth. The abiotic theory of the origin of oil directly challenges the conventional scientific theory that hydrocarbons are organic in nature, created by the deterioration of biological material deposited millions of years ago in sedimentary rock and converted to hydrocarbons under intense heat and pressure. Proskurowski found hydrocarbons containing carbon-13 isotopes that appeared to be formed from the mantle of the Earth, rather than from biological material settled on the ocean floor. Carbon 13 is the carbon isotope scientists associate with abiotic origin, compared to Carbon 12 that scientists typically associate with biological origin....
Senate Takes Up Polar Bear Cause The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing Wednesday to look into the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's delay in listing the polar bear as an endangered species. Most Democrats on the committee want the bear listed as endangered while some Republicans have criticized the idea as a stealth means of implementing regulations to combat climate change. The Department of the Interior indicated earlier this month that it would not meet the Jan. 9, 2008 deadline for classifying the bear, and it asked for 30 additional days to consider. Environmentalists, however, are concerned that the listing has been delayed to allow the sale of polar bear habitat along the Chukchi Sea for oil and gas exploration. The sale is currently scheduled for Feb. 6. Andrew Wetzler, director of the Endangered Species Project at the liberal Natural Resources Defense Council, testified that polar bears "stand on the brink of extinction."....
Stoned in Santa Barbara Seventy-five miles northeast of the building, in Santa Maria, there are still men with the skills that built Santa Barbara and its courthouse. One of them is Hank Antolini, the son of Italian immigrant Giovanni Antolini. It was old Giovanni who supplied the stone and supervised the work on the courthouse. Stone had been his own father's craft, and his father's before him, curling back through centuries in Italy. Now Hank, Giovanni's son, and Paul, his grandson, carry on the trade. "Stone," Hank Antolini says, "is the only thing that lasts. History couldn't be written without stone." In 1953 Hank found a nearby deposit of the rare and coveted Santa Maria stone, a type often requested by Frank Lloyd Wright and still used by architects in custom work. The Antolinis today restrict themselves to mining that deposit, located about 30 miles from and 3,000 feet above the city of Santa Maria, surrounded by the Los Padres National Forest. Hank and his son dig into their land, Colson Quarry, themselves; their five workers are driven to and from work every day by Paul, and enjoy both profit-sharing and pension plans. But G. Antolini & Sons may soon have no work for anyone. Santa Barbara County planning officials have been conducting an unrelenting regulatory crusade against the Antolinis for years, and the Antolinis aren't confident it will end until they are forced to close their mine. They've been struggling to keep afloat on a sea of extremely expensive bureaucratic requirements--report after report, plan after plan, hearing after hearing--while attempting all the while to run their small business. "It makes running your business like fighting a guerilla war," says Paul, Hank's 35-year-old son. "You never know what they're going to hit you with next." Santa Barbara County is a place where trying to build a luxury hotel can lead to a 15-year approval and lawsuit process; where constructing a McDonald's camp for cancer-stricken kids can be halted by strict permitting conditions; where even greenhouses and raspberry farms are considered an industrial blight....
Grouse need more help, biologists agree Wildlife biologists from five Western states have reached consensus on the latest science regarding sage grouse and energy development. Despite much bristling from those in the oil and gas industry in recent months, the science does indicate that the current level of federal restrictions on the industry is not enough to adequately protect the iconic bird. State biologists from Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, North Dakota and Utah recently issued a 10-page report to their supervisors that includes recommendations to urge the Bureau of Land Management to base future stipulations on the science. The science includes the research of biologists Matthew Holloran, David Naugle and more than a dozen other published works. According to Naugle's studies in the Powder River Basin, the density and pace of coal-bed methane development is devastating sage grouse, "over and above those of habitat loss caused by wildfire, sagebrush control, or conversion of sagebrush to pasture or cropland. Moreover, the extent of CBM development explained lek (breeding ground) inactivity better than power lines, pre-existing roads, or West Nile virus mortality."....
Lion kitten dies in study Hound dogs released to tree a 7-month-old cougar last Friday unexpectedly caught and killed the kitten -- an episode that is almost unheard of, according to scientists involved in an ongoing mountain lion research project in northwest Wyoming. The accident happened when biologists from Craighead Beringia South's Teton Cougar Project were trying to capture and collar the kitten of an already radio-collared female cougar in the northwest section of Grand Teton National Park, near Moran Junction. For this particular capture, the Teton Cougar Project was working in concert with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the National Park Service. Teton Cougar Project biologists had been tracking the collared cat and its kitten for a couple of weeks after notifying Game and Fish that the carnivores were making frequent visits to a private ranch within the national park, where the owners keep horses. Howard Quigley, leader of the project, said everyone involved is devastated by the loss of the kitten....
Elk trap themselves When it comes to Mother Nature, sometimes things don’t go as planned. Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials drove to the Fall Creek elk feedground Tuesday morning in anticipation of a second attempt to lure elk into a trap for capture, only to find the elk had already triggered the trap, complete with nearly 300 elk inside. Exactly what happened remains a mystery, but the rope holding the trap gates open was severed, so the gates slammed shut, trapping the elk inside as they munched on hay that had been placed to bait them into the facility. Tuesday’s effort was part of the third year of a "test-and-removal" pilot project for the Pinedale elk herd. The project was a key recommendation of the Governor’s Brucellosis Coordination Team, with the goal of reducing brucellosis rates in the elk herd, and reducing the risk of transmitting the disease from elk to cattle....
A River Restored: Pulling the Plug A puff of white smoke and a cheering throng marked the official demise of Marmot Dam last summer. Portland General Electric's decision to breach the 94-year-old dam on the Sandy River fit into a recent pattern of utilities choosing to ditch relatively small energy-producing dams to help salmon. But what happens after the dignitaries go home, and a century's worth of mud, rocks and debris tumbles down the river? Researchers are only now learning what happens when you pull the plug. In the case of the Sandy, researchers are tracking the deposition of an estimated 1 million cubic yards of material - nearly 100,000 dump truck loads - that had piled up against the upriver side of the 47-foot-tall dam. On a brisk but clear morning last week, iridescent green water ran atop a bed of river-rounded rocks. Several large gravel bars formed small islands between alders and hulking fir trees rising above both banks. In short, it looked like a river. "This shows that river systems are really dynamic and pretty resilient," said Jon Major, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Vancouver. "They'll recover much faster than people think they might."....
Suit Seeks to Block Oil Search Off Alaska A coalition of environmental organizations and Inupiaq native groups filed suit in federal court in Anchorage on Thursday to force the Interior Department to do a new analysis of the environmental consequences of oil and gas exploration in the Chukchi Sea, off northwestern Alaska. The plaintiffs hope to stop plans to develop 29 million acres, which they argue could harm the endangered bowhead whale, a staple of subsistence hunting, and the polar bear, which is under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The current environmental assessment, the suit says, fails to adequately analyze the impact of the lease sale in the context of a warming climate. The assessment also “understates the potential impacts of oil and gas development,” including the risks of an oil spill, the suit says. The sale of leases in the Chukchi Sea is scheduled to take place next week. While the lawsuit does not seek to block the sale, should the judge agree with the environmental and native groups that the original environmental assessment was flawed, any leases might be voided....
Study: More cars hitting wildlife on highways in Colorado, nationwide Between seven and fifteen elk are hit and killed each winter on U.S. 36 between Boulder and Lyons. The elk are part of the North Boulder Elk herd which spends its summers near the Continental Divide and then travels 17 miles to wintering grounds on either side of the heavily traveled highway. Now Boulder County officials want to protect the herd and motorists from the type of wildlife-vehicle collisions that each year kill more than 200 U.S. motorists and injure thousands more with an annual cost of $200 million to society, according to the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. The collisions, according to a Montana State University study released Wednesday and submitted to Congress by the Federal Highway Administration, says that wildlife-vehicle collisions often kill the animals and "can pose a threat to the very survival of certain species." The study identified 21 federally listed threatened or endangered species in the United States for which road mortality is "one of the major threats to their survival." The report says that accidents between wildlife/domestic animals and vehicles between 1990 and 2004 increased by 50 percent - from less than 200,000 per year in 1990 to 300,000 in 2004. These accidents now represent approximately five percent or one in 20 of all motor vehicle collisions. The study suggests ways that both drivers can the wildlife can be protected. Among the suggestions are wildlife warning signs, animal detection systems, wildlife fencing and wildlife underpasses and overpasses....More wildlife, more cars and I'll be damned if they didn't find more collisions. Go here to read this important and much-needed study.
Point Reyes rangers all revved up about electric cars The latest endangered species to find refuge at the Point Reyes National Seashore feeds on sunlight, is friendly to both humans and the environment and could make a resurgence after being threatened with extinction. Automaker Toyota has told the national park it can keep five RAV4 electric vehicles that rangers have used for the past three years. "Our personnel have traveled 14,636 miles in vehicles that are nonpolluting because they're not using gasoline," said William Shook, chief of natural resources at the national seashore. "We've been in talks with the program manager at Toyota to keep renewing our agreement, and now Toyota is going to let us keep them as long as we like." The park has decorated its vehicles with scenes that showcase the national seashore, including a sea lion, a spotted owl, a tide pool and the Point Reyes lighthouse. They're fueled by four charging stations throughout the park, which are linked to five photovoltaic panels on park buildings, allowing the cars to be powered by the sun....I just chickened out and deleted my comment here. No use getting sued or publicly pilloried.
U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This report details the scientists debunking polar bear endangerment fears and features a sampling of the latest peer-reviewed science detailing the natural causes of recent Arctic ice changes. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts.(LINK) Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Taylor said. “It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.” Evolutionary Biologist and Paleozoologist Dr. Susan Crockford of University of Victoria in Canada has published a number of papers in peer-reviewed academic journals. “Polar bears, for example, survived several episodes of much warmer climate over the last 10,000 years than exists today,” Crockford wrote. “There is no evidence to suggest that the polar bear or its food supply is in danger of disappearing entirely with increased Arctic warming, regardless of the dire fairy-tale scenarios predicted by computer models.”....
Polar bear protection tops list for bio center's 'new' chief Saving the polar bear and getting more members top the priority list for Tucson's Center for Biological Diversity, says its new director. Kieran Suckling, a founder of the center, resumed the executive director's job this week after the resignation of Michael Finkelstein. Finkelstein was director for three years before resigning for what he said were personal and professional reasons. Suckling, 43, the group's science and policy director under Finkelstein, said getting the polar bear in the Arctic listed as a threatened species is a key step toward focusing the center on global conservation issues. Under Finkelstein, the center's membership grew from 15,000 to 45,000, its annual budget jumped from $2.8 million to nearly $6 million, and the staff expanded from 34 to 58....
Farmers sue in fight over water After months of losing fights over how much water can be pumped to farms from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a coalition of farm groups is striking back with a federal lawsuit blaming state agencies for endangering native fish in the Delta. In a suit filed in Sacramento federal court, the groups ask for a halt to California's practice of maintaining predatory, nonnative striped bass in the Delta for the benefit of fishermen, claiming the policy violates the Endangered Species Act. The bass feed on spring- and winter-run chinook salmon, steelhead and Delta smelt – all protected by the Endangered Species Act – and their dwindling populations harm the overall health of the estuary, ultimately resulting in reduced water deliveries to farmers, the lawsuit charges. "Allowing this destruction to continue when the populations of several of these species – including the Delta smelt – are crashing is outrageous," said Michael Boccadoro, spokesman for the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, the lead plaintiff in the suit filed late Tuesday. Biologists already are concerned about drastic reductions in the Sacramento River's fall chinook salmon run, saying it is near collapse. Sport fishermen, however, scoffed Wednesday at the lawsuit's thesis, saying the real threat to the Delta is all the water channeled to farmers through the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project....
Country of origin labeling proceeding to September implementation The COOL law is full speed ahead, with implementation starting midnight Sept. 30, 2008. COOL is an acronym for country of origin labeling. Further delays in implementation are unlikely at this point, but the proposed language in the current farm bill should ease compliance for livestock producers, meat processors and retailers. Under the law, retailers have to prove country of origin by a label on the package or be fined $1,000 per item. They have to comply with an audit which establishes a three-label system for meat products that would differentiate completely domestic products from completely foreign products. The changes in the rules will make segregation, labeling, and record-keeping easier with RFID tagged animals and changes to the audit verification and enforcement rules further specify what business records may suffice for country of origin labeling. The easy way is to use commercial databases built for the task. Even produce farmers will need audit records to comply with COOL. Perhaps most important among the changes for cattle producers is a grandfather clause that considers all animals in the U.S. on Jan. 1, 2008 to be of U.S. origin. But sheep, swine, veal, goat, poultry, fish will need immediate recordkeeping to manage the COOL law as they come to market in a shorter time frame. Still, cattle producers will need to maintain documentation of origin by RFID tagging and branding (using their existing business records) from birth to slaughter and move those records thru stockyards intact from this point forward and or by using a commercial database where animal RFID tag records can be searched by processors and retailers....
Farmers Clog Mexico City; Protest Lifting Of Corn Tariffs Thousands of farmers on foot and on lumbering tractors clogged Mexico City Thursday to protest the lifting of corn tariffs under a free trade agreement, which they say is hurting their pockets. "No corn, no country" was the byword of the protest plastered in signs on tractors and buses, as the angry farmers, some of them leading herds of cattle through the streets, demanded equal treatment with farmers in the U.S. and Canada. While it was mostly peaceful, some tension existed late Wednesday when a column of slow-moving tractors ground to a reluctant halt before a phalanx of anti-riot police that barred access to the Zocalo, the city's main square. Some 1,500 police have fanned out across the city to prevent any unrest stemming from the protest, as farmers from across the country have made their way here, some on foot for 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles), since Jan. 18. A provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement lifting tariffs on corn - Mexico's staple food - kicked in on Jan. 1, 14 years after the agreement between the three neighbors came into being. Many farmers in Mexico have been against NAFTA from the start, but their protest has escalated as the date for lifting corn tariffs approached....

FLE

Student disciplined for pen with gun company logo A student has been threatened with a 3-day suspension from school for bringing to campus, and using, a pen with the corporate logo of the Glock company, a large stylized "G" with the letters "lock" inside. Cooler heads eventually prevailed, and the father reports that he was successful in convincing the school officials to not only withdraw the threat, but also the formal reprimand that already had been placed in his son's educational file. "Sounds like under this policy, any student or teacher with the last name of Winchester, Remington, and possibly even Smith (Smith & Wesson) would not even be allowed to attend or work at the school,"....
Credit card company: No more buying guns A major credit card company has issued a letter to a gun dealer canceling his payment processing services because of corporate concerns firearms were being sold to consumers in other states, in "a non face-to-face environment." Now the move has raised the ire of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. "Your anti-gun corporate policy is based on ignorance of the law applicable to the sale of firearms," the NSSF wrote in response to the action taken by First Data Corp., which operates Citi Merchant Services. "It is perfectly legal, in fact commonplace, for a federal firearms licensee in one state to sell a firearm to a non-licensee (consumer) from another state," the foundation continued. "What you fail to appreciate is that the firearm is not shipped in interstate commerce directly to the consumer. Rather, as required by federal law, the firearm is shipped by the selling licensee to another federal firearms licensee in the state of residence of the consumer … The consumer acquires the firearm from that licensed dealer in a face-to-face transaction…."....
On Thursday, documents are needed to enter U.S. Starting Thursday, telling a customs agent you're a citizen will no longer be enough to enter the United States. For years, customs agents have accepted verbal declarations at border crossings, but a new rule taking effect this week requires documents to prove identity and citizenship. The simplest way to comply is to carry a passport or a driver's license and birth certificate, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection will accept combinations of about two dozen valid documents. Nothing changes for Mexican nationals and people living in the United States under permanent resident-alien status, who must already show documentation. The new rules requiring proof of citizenship apply to U.S. and Canadian citizens. The Homeland Security Department first proposed the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative in the fall of 2005. Under the original plan, anyone crossing the border into the U.S. by any means of travel was required to carry a passport by Dec. 31, 2007. But that requirement got pushed back to 2009 because of confusion and delays in issuing passports. The new rule that takes effect Thursday is a phase of the overall initiative....

Congress helps itself, again Let us pause to salute the US Congress, whose members have once again shown themselves capable of surmounting partisan friction and institutional gridlock when it comes to serving a group of Americans they care about deeply: themselves. When the 110th Congress returned from its holiday recess two weeks ago, the mountain of unfinished business it had left behind in 2007 was still waiting - everything from judicial nominations to bilateral trade agreements to the terrorist surveillance program to the farm bill. But the gentlemen and gentlewomen of the House and Senate made sure that nothing would impede what has become almost an annual tradition: the hike in their own salaries. When the sun rose on Jan. 1, so did congressional pay, from $165,200 to $169,300 - a tidy little jump of $4,100. This marks the ninth raise Congress has given itself over the past decade. With the exception of 1999 and 2007, every New Year's Day since 1998 has triggered a boost in congressional salaries of between $3,100 and $4,900. While the median income of US families has increased by around $11,000 since 1998, the income of their representatives in Washington has increased by more than $30,000. Considering that the latter work for the former, the imbalance between them is striking. It is also unconstitutional. Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution authorizes Congress to pay itself with public funds, but the 27th Amendment circumscribes that authority. It provides: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." The amendment limits the power of Congress to change its salary by preventing any pay raise from taking effect until the voters have had their say. Members of the House and Senate are free to alter the next Congress's salary, but they are prohibited from enlarging their own....

Judge tosses Katrina lawsuit against Engineer Corps A federal judge in New Orleans on Wednesday dismissed a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the failure of the city's levee system during Hurricane Katrina's floods in 2005. U.S. Judge Stanwood Duval ruled that the Corps, which designed and built the levees and floodwalls meant to keep the below-sea-level city from being inundated, was shielded by a 1928 law that protects the federal government from lawsuits over flood control projects. In his ruling, Duval scolded the agency for "its failure to accomplish what was its task." "Millions of dollars were squandered in building a levee system ... which was known to be inadequate by the Corps' own calculations," Duval wrote in his ruling, issued in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana....All that, and they are still immune. Remember that the next time a politician lectures you about "personal responsibility". Making the gov't responsible for it's actions would be a good start.
Corn on the Mob All over the world, food prices are on the rise. For most of the late 1990s and up until 2005, the price of beans on the Chicago Board of Trade had remained stable at about $5 a bushel. Since then, they have shot up over 150 percent, to around $13. Corn has doubled, to $5. Wheat prices have tripled. It all started with the 2005 Energy Policy Act, passed by a Republican congress and signed by a Republican president, mandating that an increasing amount of ethanol be admixed with gasoline. The bill was sold as a road to "energy independence" and as lowering the amount of carbon dioxide we emit, reducing dreaded global warming. By now, 15 percent of our corn crop is being distilled, diverted from the proper purpose for such distillates (i.e. drinking), combusted, and sent out your car's tailpipe. The Act required production of four billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, increasing by approximately 700 million gallons each succeeding year. Enter those familiar characters supply, demand, and price. Supply tightens, prices escalate, and more and more farmers divert cropland from other crops (mainly soybeans and wheat) to corn. In the U.S., most crops are turned into animal feed, but in poorer countries, such as Indonesia (soybeans) or Mexico (corn for tortillas) they are consumed directly. IT'S ONLY GOING to get worse. As if to add more 200-proof to the fire, President Bush, citing global warming in his 2007 State of the Union speech, called for production of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017, displacing 20 percent of our current gasoline consumption with this intoxicating elixir. This is five times the amount mandated in the 2005 Energy Act. He claimed that this would help us get off Middle Eastern oil....
Seashore deer culling resumes The hunters were out with their high-powered rifles but nobody among the growing legion of opponents spotted any deer being killed at Point Reyes. It is no secret, though, that blood is mixing with the rain at the Point Reyes National Seashore this week. Park officials acknowledged Wednesday that gun-toting contractors have resumed what is the most intensive campaign in park history to get rid of exotic deer. The news prompted several protests, including a demonstration Wednesday by nearly two dozen children, and helicopter overflights in an attempt to capture the carnage on video. The National Park Service approved a plan last year to get rid of about 1,100 fallow and axis deer using a combination of contraception and high-powered rifles. A Connecticut company, White Buffalo Inc., was hired to do the shooting. About 400 fallow deer were killed in the late summer and fall, park officials said. At least 80 does have been captured and sterilized with an experimental contraceptive drug called GonaCon....
Appeals court upholds $10.2 million award to injured snowmobiler A federal appeals court panel has upheld a lower court's decision ordering the U.S. Forest Service and a snowmobiler to pay more than 10 million dollars to a Michigan man who suffered severe brain injuries when he was struck by a snowmobile near West Yellowstone in 1996. The panel's ruling stems from a 2004 decision by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula. Molloy ruled that the Forest Service must pay 40 percent of the award for the crash, which left Brian Musselman of Hope, Michigan, with permanent disabilities. Molloy said the Forest Service failed to fix dangerous conditions along the groomed trail where the crash occurred, or warn snowmobilers of the hazard. He also assigned 50 percent of the liability to Jamie Leinberger of Bay City, Michigan, one of two snowmobilers Musselman's family originally sued. The Forest Service appealed Molloy's ruling. But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Molloy, in an opinion issued today....The Forest Service is being held accountable...reckon they will appeal again?...the BLM appealed their "accountability" case all the way to the Supreme Court and won.
Senate panel backs Oregon, Idaho deals A Senate committee Wednesday endorsed an Idaho land swap and a plan to create federal wilderness protection for nearly 14,000 acres of national forest land along Oregon's southern coast. The Copper Salmon Wilderness, proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will be included a huge public lands bill to be debated by the Senate. The measure was among 42 separate bills approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Seventeen bills -- including the Oregon measure and the Idaho land exchange -- will be combined in a measure that includes about 60 individual land bills, Senate aides said Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring the bill to the Senate floor soon....
N.M. plans to restore high-mountain toad New Mexico environmental officials said they will reintroduce the boreal toad into the state in hopes of restoring the high-mountain amphibian to the region. There have been no reports of the toad in New Mexico since 1996, and the last confirmed sighting was 10 years before that, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. Leland Pierce of the state Fish and Game Department said biologists continue to look for the toads but are almost certain they are locally extinct. The closest confirmed wild population is in Colorado. The toad -- 2 to 4 inches long, black and covered with red warts -- might seem unattractive. But it is the only toad found more than 10,000 feet above sea level. The Colorado Department of Wildlife has been breeding the toad and can supply New Mexico with tadpoles, Pierce said. If the U.S. Forest Service approves the plan, New Mexico could begin its recovery plan this spring. Biologists suspect the chytrid fungus wiped out New Mexico's toads....
Bill on track for off-road enforcement State wildlife rangers could give tickets to illegal off-road riders under a bill that gained new strength in the House on Tuesday. Colorado has 14 million acres of national forests and 8 million acres run by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, but only 18 forest rangers and eight BLM officers dedicated to law enforcement, said Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison. "That's a million acres per officer. Obviously, they can't be everywhere," said Curry, sponsor of House Bill 1069. The bill would let state and county officers enforce federal laws on all-terrain vehicles. It was weakened last week in the agriculture committee, when opponents amended it to require the federal government to post signs whenever a trail is closed to motorized vehicles. Representatives were angry about a change in the way the Forest Service allows all-terrain vehicles. Trails used to be open unless marked closed. Now, everything is closed unless a trail is specifically marked open. Curry convinced the full House to strip off that amendment Tuesday and pass her bill on a voice vote. It still faces one more recorded vote in the House, which could come as early as today....
Group threatens suit over cattle grazing An environmental group announced plans Wednesday to sue Washington state if it approves a proposal to allow cattle grazing on portions of Central Washington's Whisky Dick Wildlife Area, a parcel of rural sagebrush situated between the state's two remaining sage grouse populations. The Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project contends that the state must first produce an environmental impact statement before allowing 160 cattle to forage on two pastures in the Whisky Dick area, about 110 miles east of Seattle. The two pastures proposed as grazing land comprise 8,418 acres of the 28,549-acre wildlife area, a rolling series of ridges and canyons above the mid-Columbia River. Under the proposal, grazing would occur for 30 days this spring. Fish and Wildlife officials say the grazing management plan is part of a larger process to improve land management in the area with the cooperation of local landowners, conservation and environmental groups, and others. Moderate grazing by livestock removes older, rank grass and increases the availability of more-nutritious spring or fall regrowth for elk, thereby reducing chances elk will forage on farmland, according to Fish and Wildlife. The area in question has not been grazed by livestock for 10 years....
Interior orders mineral royalty reforms after report US Interior Secretary Dirk A. Kempthorne, after receiving the final report of an independent study panel on Jan. 25, ordered immediate implementation of recommended mineral management reforms that can be carried out administratively. The report, having more than 100 recommendations, came from a bipartisan panel the secretary formed last year which was cochaired by former US senators Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) and Jake Garn (R-Utah). "Where it is within our power to do so, the responsible officials will take action to rectify identified problems. However, other recommendations may require further study or legislative action," Kempthorne said. His directive to Minerals Management Service Director Randall B. Luthi and Bureau of Land Management Director James L. Caswell also orders the two agencies to develop action plans based on the report's recommendations and submit a progress report within 30 days. The recommendations, to be implemented immediately, include additional ethics training for all MMS employees, especially those who deal with oil, gas, and other lessees in a regulatory, collections, or enforcement role....
Video of workers abusing cows raises food safety questions A video showing California slaughterhouse workers abusing dairy cows -- a violation that raises questions about U.S. food safety -- was released by the Humane Society of the United States on Wednesday. The video, which one lawmaker said raises questions about the safety of the nation's food supply, shows Hallmark Meat Packing Co. workers administering repeated electric shocks to the downed cows -- animals that are too sick, weak or otherwise unable to stand on their own. Workers are seen kicking cows, jabbing them near their eyes, ramming them with a forklift and shooting high-intensity water up their noses in an effort to force them to their feet for slaughter. The society says the video was shot last year by an undercover investigator who wore a hidden camera under his clothes when he worked at the facility. Hallmark Meat Packing Co., based in Chino, California, sells beef to its sister company, Westland Meat, which distributes it to various federal programs, including the National School Lunch Program. Downed cows are more easily contaminated and may carry diseases harmful to consumers. U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations prohibit allowing disabled or contaminated animals into the food supply. Officials said they would investigate....Go here to see the video.
The bovine TB challenge When bovine tuberculosis showed up in a northern Minnesota cattle herd, state officials acted quickly to slaughter the herd and stop the disease. They believed it was an isolated case. It's been nearly three years since that first case of bovine TB, and last week the disease was found in a ninth cattle herd. TB has also been found in 17 wild whitetail deer, including four killed last fall. "With every year that we continue to find infected herds and infected deer it becomes more of a challenge," says Minnesota State Veterinarian Bill Hartman. "We were hopeful we would be able to go up there and eliminate the infection from the cattle rapidly and do the same with the deer. Continuing to find herds this far into it is certainly not a good thing," Hartman says. Controlling TB in a cattle herd is less complicated than fighting the disease in wild deer. An infected herd can be quarantined and slaughtered. Minnesota used a special hunting season and federal sharpshooters in an effort to kill hundreds of deer around farms where TB was found. But a recent aerial survey found the deer population in the area is nearly the same as a year ago....
An orphan becomes the King of Texas An eight-year-old boy in New York City was apprenticed to a jeweler. His parents, Irish immigrants, died when he was five. He worked for the jeweler two years before he ran away and hid in a ship bound for Mobile. It was 1834. After four days at sea, the boy was found and taken to the captain of the Desdemona. The boy said his name was Richard King and that he ran away because he didn't like minding the jeweler's kid. The captain made him his cabin boy to earn his passage. When the ship docked at Mobile, the captain found King a job on an Alabama steamboat. A few years later, the steamboat captain sent King to school in Connecticut, but he left school and returned to the riverboat life, this time in Florida, where he met Mifflin Kenedy, captain of the steamboat Champion. Kenedy took the Champion to New Orleans and then up the Mississippi. He had been hired to select boats for Zachary Taylor's campaign in Mexico. Kenedy wrote his friend King, urging him to join him on the Rio Grande. King arrived in 1847 and became the pilot on the Corvette. King and Kenedy spent the war ferrying supplies up the Rio Grande. After the war, the two formed a partnership with Charles Stillman and bought three surplus Army steamboats. On July 10, 1850, King celebrated his 26th birthday at Miller's Hotel in Brownsville. Two years later, King rode north to attend the Lone Star Fair at Corpus Christi. After passing the alkali flats (El Desierto de los Muertos), the land opened into prairie covered with rich grass. King's party camped near a creek named Santa Gertrudis. King supposedly was struck by the idea that this was ideal cattle country; perhaps there was an epiphany, a thought that, "Here it is; and here is all that is to come." Grass and possibilities. King talked it over with his friend, Capt. Robert E. Lee, who told him it wasn't Virginia, but it was a country with a future. In July 1853, King bought 15,000 acres, part of the Santa Gertrudis grant, from the heirs of Juan Mendiola. He paid two cents an acre.

States, environmental groups ask EPA to impose emission standards A coalition of states and environmental groups is urging the federal government to curb greenhouse gases from tractors, snowmobiles, riding lawn mowers and other off-road vehicles. California, Connecticut, Oregon, New Jersey and Pennsylvania plan to file a petition Tuesday asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop emission standards for construction and farm machinery, logging equipment, outdoor power equipment, recreational vehicles and lawn and garden equipment. Off-road vehicles were responsible for about 220 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2007, or roughly the same amount of emissions produced by 40 millions cars, according to California Attorney General Jerry Brown. The EPA also is reviewing other requests filed last year by the same groups to regulate emissions from cargo ships, cruise liners and aircraft....
Property-rights measure qualifies for June ballot A Farm Bureau-sponsored drive for enhanced property-rights protection gained added momentum this month, as an initiative to enact meaningful reforms qualified for the statewide ballot. The measure, known as the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act, will appear on the June ballot. The measure would allow government to take or damage private property only for a stated public use. It would specifically prohibit a government agency from condemning private property in order to turn around and sell it to another private owner. It also requires agencies condemning property to provide just compensation to owners, including reasonable relocation expenses and payment for temporary business losses. "Our measure provides a sensible solution by continuing to allow use of eminent domain for legitimate public needs such as roads, schools and water projects," Mosebar said....
Humans banned on federal lands near Gunnison The federal Bureau of Land Management announced today it has closed federal public lands in the Gunnison Basin to human activity where a series of snowstorms and minus 40 temperatures have stressed wildlife. Mel Lloyd, BLM spokeswoman, said today that such closures don't happen often. "Rarely, if ever, has it happened in Colorado in the last 30 years," said Lloyd. "BLM managers don't like to implement these types of closures, but because of the weather and the herd numbers, it is important." She added that BLM officials haven't seen "snow levels like this since the early 80s and they are approaching the levels of the early 70s." The BLM manages 600,000 acres of land in the Gunnison Basin. Last week, the BLM closed the lands to motorized vehicles with the aim of protecting endangered herds of pronghorn antelope, mule deer, big horn sheep and elk. But the BLM said that other types of human activity near the herds called for today's immediate ban on all human activity now through May 15. Lloyd said that the current closures may overlap into closures in the Gunnison Basin that customarily run from mid-March to mid-May and are used to protect the Gunnison Sage Grouse, a BLM "sensitive species." Because of the depth of snowpack, the length of the BLM closure could be extended several weeks longer, she said....
Green group backs corridor plan A federal plan to designate energy corridors through 11 Western states won support from a Laramie environmental group Wednesday despite being harshly criticized by speakers in Albuquerque, N.M., on Friday. Erik Molvar of Biodiversity Conservation Alliance said at a public hearing on the plan that his group commends the federal agencies in charge of the project for taking Wyoming's vast wildlife and nature reserves into account and altering corridor locations based on them. The project to designate routes for power lines and natural gas pipelines is part of an energy bill Congress passed in 2005 to provide more energy to Western states. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and several other federal agencies are overseeing the process. The areas designated by the federal agencies are only "potential" locations for power lines and oil, natural gas and hydrogen pipelines, the Department of Energy's Laverne Kyriss said. She said the aim for the 6,055 miles of energy corridors would be to improve energy reliability and relieve congestion. The corridors as they're proposed right now would mostly cross federal land. About 86 percent would cross BLM land, and another 11 percent would cover U.S. Forest Service land. Any private, state or tribal land that is involved would require more discussion, officials said....
Dead trees may fuel future It could be a solution to Colorado's 1.5 million acres of dead and dying lodgepole pine trees struck by an infestation of mountain pine beetles: turning the rotting trees into ethanol. Canadian companies Lignol Innovations and Suncor Energy plan to build Colorado's first cellulosic ethanol plant, which would convert beetle-kill and other wood residues into motor fuel. The $88 million project received the federal government's blessing Tuesday, with the U.S. Department of Energy announcing its decision to foot more than a third of the total bill, or $30 million. The plant, to be completed by 2012, could be built in Commerce City. "For this plant in particular, its use of beetle-kill was one of the factors considered during evaluation for federal investment," said Kevin Craig, a DOE project manager. The plant's potential for commercialization, its technology and a byproduct of the process, lignin, which is used to make lubricants and other industrial products, were other factors that helped attract federal dollars, Craig added....
This is no time to step back from the Roadless Rule While researching a new book last spring, I had the opportunity and pleasure of interviewing Dale Bosworth, chief of the Forest Service. I found him to be an honest, straightforward, forthcoming, and, at times, courageous man. So when I read that he had agreed to the repeal of the Clinton-era Roadless Rule on our national forests--a ruling he supported as a career forester in the Clinton administration--I was shocked. I wrote to Chief Bosworth, suggesting that if he couldn’t deter the Bush administration from its reversal of this epic act of conservation, he should consider resigning in protest. This public act of conscience would draw attention to a tragic step backward. In response, he called me to talk. That the chief of the Forest Service would reach out like this impressed me once again. His willingness to discuss big issues with ordinary citizens and his openness about his beliefs were rare and refreshing. Bosworth expressed two concerns about the original ruling: This sweeping rule, he said, which preserves more than 58 million roadless acres on national forests from further road-building, left no room for boundary adjustments based on what’s really out there. And, he added, the Forest Service needed more outreach to locals who were feeling disenfranchised. He assured me that "we don’t need more roads, we need to decommission roads." He said that large timber companies are dinosaurs with little remaining power, and that our 58 million acres of roadless public lands are not in danger. I was not reassured....
New U.S. Forest Service data reveals positive gains The most recent USDA Forest Service data confirms that US forestland is roughly as abundant today as it was 100 years ago. The Forest Services Resource Planning Act 2007 (RPA data) reveals both state and regional increases in forestland across the country. Among the key findings in the report are: -- There are 750 million acres of forestland in the U.S. today, about the same as in 1907. -- 11 states had increases of over 25% over the last century, and nine had increases of over 30% -- Overall, forestland in the northern U.S. has increased by almost 30%. For more details go here.
Ptarmigan ‘potty break' could bring fines, costs The owner of a Canadian helicopter that crash landed atop Ptarmigan Mountain on Nov. 6, 2007, may face a citation and fines in connection with the incident. Ron Ostrom, law enforcement officer for the Shoshone Forest, said last week a preliminary investigation of the rough landing that disabled the chopper has been completed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He said the agency's preliminary findings, which have been posted on its Web site, indicate the chopper deliberately set down on the mountaintop for what forest officials have termed a “potty break,” as opposed to a malfunction or forced landing. But they set down in the Washakie Wilderness, an area where motorized vehicles are prohibited. The 2001 Agusta A-119 helicopter was unable to leave the mountaintop because its skids were damaged in the landing. When the occupants discovered the damage, they called for help and had to be plucked off Ptarmigan by search and rescue and medical personnel. Apparently the helicopter's three nearly full fuel tanks were damaged during the rocky landing, and fuel spilled both on top of the mountain and at two airports where the craft later was taken, Yellowstone Regional Airport in Cody and the Bozeman airport, Ostrom said. He said when snow and weather conditions allow a landing on Ptarmigan Mountain this summer, the Forest Service plans to return to the crash site via a rented helicopter to determine just how much fuel may have spilled from the tanks. Ostrom said estimates now range from a couple of gallons to as much as 50 gallons. He said if the amount is determined to be the greater, based on dead grass and other indicators in the area where the craft set down, the owner could be billed for all costs associated with a hazardous materials clean-up...Could be the costliest crap in the history of The West.
House panel hears of vain efforts on Delta smelt Millions of dollars and untold gallons of water have failed to save the environmentally prominent Delta smelt, officials acknowledged Tuesday. In a sobering assessment, state and federal officials told a House panel that their big investment in the smelt hasn't paid off yet. The concession comes as officials contemplate spending an additional $10 billion or more for new California water projects and related environmental work. "Obviously, we haven't had the success with the Delta smelt that we would have wanted," Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Robert Johnson said. "It has declined significantly." The tiny Delta smelt found in the sprawling estuary where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers meet has taken on an outsized importance for farmers and politicians....
BLM to Auction Impounded Cattle The Bureau of Land Management is accepting bids to sell 58 head of impounded cattle. Bids must be submitted by 9 a.m., Friday, Feb. 1. The livestock will be offered in three lots: 21 dry cows; eight cows with calves; and 21 calves/yearlings. Successful bidders will receive a certificate of brand inspection for transport and ownership from the Nevada Brand Inspector. The livestock are available for inspection through Thursday, Jan. 31 at 4 p.m. Inspections are available by appointment only by calling Amanda DeForest at the Winnemucca Field Office (775) 623-1500. A sale packet is available on-line at www.blm.gov/nv. On Jan. 25, the BLM issued the owner of the impounded cattle a notice of public sale. The owners may redeem the livestock up until the sale time.
California Chinook Salmon Numbers Hit Record Low California Central Valley fall Chinook salmon stocks appear to be undergoing a "significant decline," said Pacific Fishery Management Council Director Donald McIsaac today. Dr. McIsaac warned that if the low abundance is confirmed, all marine and freshwater fisheries that target these salmon stocks could be affected. "The low returns are particularly distressing since this stock has consistently been the healthy work horse for salmon fisheries off California and most of Oregon," he said. The Pacific Council is a federal advisory panel responsible for managing fisheries off the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington. Chinook salmon are also called king, spring, or tyee salmon, and are the largest of the Pacific salmon....
Legal war rages over 3-foot-long, spitting worm Described in 1897 by a taxonomist as "very abundant" a now rarely-found 3-foot-long worm that spits and smells like lilies is at the center of a legal dispute between conservationists and the U.S. government. When Frank Smith discovered the giant Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus) in 1897, he described it as "very abundant." Nowadays, however, sightings of the worm are rare. The only recent confirmed worm sighting was made in 2005 by a University of Idaho researcher. Before that, the giant worm had not been spotted in 17 years, since 1988. It reportedly grows up to three feet long and has a peculiar flowery smell (Driloleirus is Latin for "lily-like worm"). The cream-colored or pinkish-white worm lived in permanent burrows as deep as 15 feet and spat at attackers. "This worm is the stuff that legends and fairy tales are made of. A pity we're losing it," said Steve Paulson, a board member of Friends of the Clearwater, a conservation group based in Moscow, Idaho. Unlike the European earthworms now common across the United States, the giant Palouse earthworm is native to the Americas. Specifically, the giant worm dwelled in the prairies of the Palouse, the area of the northwest United States. The Palouse has been dramatically altered by farming practices, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noted....
Gas pipelines have few rules, property owners discover The roar of an uninvited bulldozer woke up George and Barbara Woodroof on a recent Tuesday morning. Mr. Woodroof took a last look outside his bedroom window at the hill covered with oak trees. A week later, bulldozers had cleared hundreds of trees and a wide swath of nature on the couple's property to make way for a 36-inch-wide, high-pressure natural gas line that passes 290 feet from their home. The Woodroofs don't want the pipeline, but they can't stop Houston-based Energy Transfer Partners from taking their land. Neither can county or state officials. Neither can most courts. The reach of the gas-drilling boom in Denton and Tarrant counties extends to properties miles from the nearest gas wells, adding a twist to the long-running debate over Texas' eminent domain laws. Gas companies often use eminent domain powers similar to governments' to acquire land for pipelines. But unlike government, for-profit businesses condemn land largely without oversight or democratic process. They don't typically go through public hearings, environmental reviews or impact studies. Gas companies need only to fill out a one-page form and pay landowners for whatever land they take – a system far more lax than federal standards....hat tip to Julie Smithson
$9.25M Verdict in Cattle Case Reversed Cattle ranchers who won a $9.25 million federal jury verdict against four large meat packers failed to show that the companies intentionally manipulated or controlled prices, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's 2006 ruling in favor of the ranchers, who had said in their lawsuit that large meat packing companies underpaid producers for live cattle. The ranchers had claimed that the packers knew or should have known of the USDA's error. The appeals court ruled that the ranchers produced no evidence that the packers intentionally violated the Packers and Stockyards Act by manipulating or controlling, or attempting to manipulate or control, cattle prices. To prove a violation, a plaintiff must show that a packer intentionally committed unlawful conduct, the panel said in its ruling. "Therefore, the district court erred when it instructed the jury that a showing of intent was not required and reversal of the district court is necessary," the judges said. From April 2, 2001, to May 11, 2001, the U.S. Department of Agriculture misreported the boxed beef cutout prices for choice and select cuts of meat. The lawsuit alleged the meatpackers knowingly used that information to pay less to cattle producers than they would have if the cutouts were correct. The packers denied knowing about the faulty reports before the USDA acknowledged them....
Helmet Use on the Rise in Rodeo Nearly eight seconds into the ride at a rodeo this month, a wildly bucking, 1,400-pound bull named Bruiser thrust a horn toward Justin Koon's face and tossed him into the air. He hit the ground head first - but walked away with only minor cuts. Almost a decade ago, a similar spill left Koon with a fractured skull and in a coma. After that, he traded his cowboy hat for a protective helmet. "I would never put one on because I wanted to look like a cowboy, with my boots, long-sleeved shirt and cowboy hat," said Koon, now 24, said at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo. "Now I don't think I'd get on without one." Rodeo, a sport in which the cowboy hat is as much an icon as a bucking bronco, has been reluctant to require its riders to wear helmets. Even for children as young as 5, they remain optional under association rules. But bull riders, including some of the sport's stars, are increasingly donning their own. Rodeo officials estimate just under 40 percent of adult riders now wear helmets, up from 10 percent five years ago. Doctors and researchers say it's not enough. Studies show helmets can prevent catastrophic injuries that can end careers in a sport that paid its top bull riders up to $1.8 million last year. Some medical experts are pushing the sport to encourage adult bull and steer riders to wear helmets, and require them for riders under 18....

FLE

Justice Dept. accused of blocking Gonzales probe The government agency that enforces one of the principal laws aimed at keeping politics out of the civil service has accused the Justice Department of blocking its investigation into alleged politicizing of the department under former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales. Scott J. Bloch, head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, wrote Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey last week that the department had repeatedly "impeded" his investigation by refusing to share documents and provide answers to written questions, according to a copy of Bloch's letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The Justice Department wants Bloch to wait until its own internal investigation is completed. A department official signaled recently that the investigation is examining the possibility of criminal charges. But that, the regulator wrote, could take until the last months of the Bush administration, "when there is little hope of any corrective measures or discipline possible" being taken by his office. Bloch's allegations show how the controversy, which mostly focused on the dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006, continues to boil inside government....
Six senators urge delay of new ID rules Six senators from northern New England and New York asked the US Department of Homeland Security yesterday to delay implementation of stiff new identification requirements for people entering the United States by land from Canada. In a letter to Secretary Michael Chertoff, 19 senators said commerce will be stifled and lives disrupted if federal officials go ahead Thursday with plans to end the practice of allowing people to enter the US after showing a document, such as a driver's license, and declaring their nationality. But federal officials say the "honor system" must end now. "There is enormous downside and very little upside to the new hoops they want to put everyone through on the Canadian border," said US Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont. "These paper padlocks won't make us safer." Implementing the new rules now would violate the spirit of a law passed last month that delays until June 2009 a requirement that people carry passports or similar documents when entering the United States by land or sea, they said. The senators want Chertoff to delay the new ID requirements until the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative is fully implemented. The extra time is needed to ensure the requirements are implemented smoothly and do not disrupt commerce and lives along the border, they said....
Congress Passes Extension of Surveillance Law The House and Senate yesterday approved a 15-day extension of an expiring intelligence surveillance law and the White House backed off a threatened veto, allowing more time to resolve a dispute over the administration's proposal to immunize telephone companies from lawsuits stemming from their cooperation with warrantless wiretaps. Both chambers passed by unanimous voice votes the temporary extension of the Protect America Act, and members then left town for a one-week break. The White House gave its blessing last night to the short-term measure rather than allowing the surveillance law to expire Friday. President Bush had insisted that Congress act immediately to approve a new surveillance measure that includes the immunity provision. "We've had ample time for debate. The time to act is now," Bush told Congress in his State of the Union address Monday, the same day he threatened to veto a 30-day extension....
Greater Use of Privilege Spurs Concern The U.S. government has been increasing its use of the state secrets privilege to avoid disclosure of classified information in civil lawsuits, prompting legislation in the Senate that would provide more congressional oversight of the practice. Though there have been modest increases in the use of the state secrets privilege every decade since the 1960s, some legal scholars and members of Congress contend that the Bush administration has employed it excessively as it intervened in cases that could expose information about sensitive programs. These include the rendition of detainees to foreign countries for interrogation and cases related to the National Security Agency's use of warrantless wiretaps. The privilege allows the government to argue that lawsuits -- and the information potentially revealed by them -- could damage national security. It gives judges the power to prevent information from reaching public view or to dismiss cases even if they appear to have merit. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit legal organization that has fought the Bush administration's secrecy efforts on the NSA surveillance program, said the state secrets privilege is being abused regardless of the number of times it has been invoked. "The administration is attempting to use the privilege as a back-door immunity to obtain dismissal of any case that attempts to put the NSA wiretapping issue in front of a judge," said Bankston, who is scheduled to testify at Nadler's hearing today. "It is no secret such a program existed."....
Virginia state senator's 'Deliverance' comment riles gun-rights supporters A Bristol Virginia man sparked a statewide political reaction after he said he heard the state Senate’s majority leader insult rural gun owners while standing in a public elevator. "He turns to his companion and says, ‘You can tell we’re debating a gun bill today. Half the cast of "Deliverance" is in town,’ " said John Pierce, a local gun-rights activist who was in Richmond to lobby the General Assembly against a bill to close the so-called gun-show loophole. "I was absolutely floored. ... I think what you’re seeing is bigotry aimed at rural voters and the issues that they tend to support," Pierce said. "Deliverance" is a 1972 film based on the novel by James Dickey in which Atlanta businessmen encountered a backwoods Appalachian culture on a canoe trip in the north Georgia mountains, where rape and murder ensue. The senator’s elevator comment on Monday has been buzzing through conservative Web sites since Wednesday, when Pierce said he sent out an e-mail alert and a news release. "I believe that Sen. Saslaw and many of those who oppose gun ownership truly believe that those who believe in the right to keep and bear arms, those who hunt, those who come from a rural background, are somehow less deserving of respect than the elite urbanites that they consider themselves and their peers to be," Pierce said....
NYC, gun dealers both see benefits in gun sting ruling City officials say a federal judge helped their lawsuit against gun dealers by ruling that there was no crime in sending undercover investigators into gun shops to try to buy weapons illegally. But gun dealers see the same decision as support for their argument that they didn't do anything wrong. The sting operation was conducted two years ago. It was the basis for a civil case Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration brought against 27 gun dealers in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia. Bloomberg targeted shops that the city believes are responsible for selling guns traced back to crimes in New York City. Fifteen dealers have settled and agreed to let a special master monitor their sales. Litigation continues against several of the remaining 12 in federal court in Brooklyn. As part of the legal process, attorneys for some of the gun shops argued that the city had itself violated the law by attempting the illegal buys. Gun rights advocates and organizations like the National Rifle Association also have complained that Bloomberg's gun sting was a criminal stunt. And the Justice Department even did its own inquiry as to whether the city was out of bounds. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak said Friday the court had found "that the city's actions do not constitute a crime or fraud."....
Driver’s license privacy Actress Rebecca Schaeffer, co-star of the television series “My Sister Sam,” had a lot of admirers. One admirer, a crazy gentlemen named Robert Bardo, decided he wanted to kill the actress. Killer Bardo had no idea where the actress lived, but luckily for Bardo, the state government of California provided him with his victim’s address. Bardo went to a private investigative agency, claimed that Ms. Schaeffer was a long-lost friend, and asked for help in tracking her down. The investigative agency went to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, paid a one-dollar fee, and was told the address that Ms. Schaeffer had listed on her driver’s license. Bardo took a bus from Tucson to Los Angeles and walked 12 miles to her house. He pressed her intercom button. It was broken, so Ms. Schaffer came down to see who it was. Startled, Bardo left. He came back in an hour and pressed her intercom button again. When she came down a second time to answer the door, he shot her dead. This happened on July 18, 1989. The teenage rock star Tiffany was harassed by another deviant fan who learned her address from the motor vehicle records. Most states, including Colorado, make lots money from selling the private information in your driver’s license, auto registration, and voter registration files. Companies like Equifax buy the records, and then resell them to insurance and other companies. Some of the groups who buy facts about your private life from the state include political organizations to compile voter profiles, universities for research, the Selective Service to check compliance with draft registration, attorneys and prosecutors who want to check out defendants, witnesses, and jurors, and most of all, and companies that sell mailing lists to other companies. Plus the occasional criminal. The government makes you register to vote, register to get a driver’s license, and register to own a car. To lead a normal life, you must give the government these facts. And right now, there’s nothing to stop the State of Colorado from selling its information about you to all comers....
For Sheer Bureaucratic Stupidity, the Winner Is… Hate is a pretty strong word. But not strong enough to express how I feel about the TSA - the Transportation Security Administration or Thousands Standing Around, depending on your point of view - which runs those security checkpoints at American airports. I may fear the IRS, and I may dread the DMV - but for sheer bureaucratic stupidity and its affront to personal liberties, the TSA has earned a special place of loathing in my heart. And apparently I’m not alone. An Associated Press story this past December on MSNBC’s website is titled, “TSA draws travelers' complaints: Security screeners are the most familiar - and hated - face of government.” The story notes that TSA receives about a thousand complaints about its operations every month - which doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the number of Americans who quietly seethe at security checkpoints but don’t waste their time filing a formal complaint. Deaf ears and all that [...] The story notes that over $5 BILLION a year is being spent on airport security operations and that the vast majority of items confiscated by screeners are cigarette lighters - which at one time were deemed by the TSA to be extremely dangerous, but now are OK. Toothpaste and deodorant are apparently the new weapons of choice by the world’s most vicious, cold-hearted terrorists....