U.S. hunters, anglers lobby for climate bill

An unlikely lobbying group is pressing the U.S. Senate to curb greenhouse gas emissions: American hunting and fishing groups who fear climate change will disrupt their sport. Hunters and anglers are mainly a Republican Party constituency representing tens of millions of votes in the U.S. heartland and could help swing crucial votes as the Senate tries to pass legislation to cut carbon output. Twenty national hunting and fishing groups urged senators in a letter last month to ensure "the climate legislation you consider in the Senate both reduces greenhouse gas emissions and safeguards natural resources." Among those calling for "comprehensive" legislation were groups not usually associated with liberal causes, like the Dallas Safari Club, the National Trappers Association and Pheasants Forever...read more

Forest's death brings higher temps, researchers suspect

But there might be a more consequential impact to the carnage: The beetle kill could be accelerating regional climate change by increasing temperatures and decreasing rainfalls in Colorado, Wyoming and northern New Mexico. "The local impacts where the forest has been destroyed will be fairly dramatic," said Peter Harley, an associate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "The big question is how much of an impact will this have?" NCAR researchers are about a year into a four-year study to gauge and assess such effects. The research centers in large part on the ability of living trees to cool the air when they evaporate moisture through their leaves – a process called transpiration – and what happens to climate conditions when large numbers of trees die. Trees also help control surface temperatures by absorbing and reflecting heat from the sun. Disrupting these basic functions by destroying wide swaths of trees across the West appears to spike surface temperatures. Already the researchers have completed computer modeling studies indicating that if the millions of acres of pine trees in Colorado were to die, that could raise temperatures statewide nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit, said Christine Wiedinmyer, a NCAR scientist in Boulder and, with Harley, one of the principal investigators on the project...read more

Economy trumps climate as concern

For voters, the economy outpaces all other issues by a wide margin, according to a new Public Strategies Inc./POLITICO poll. As the nation struggles to climb out of a recession, 45 percent rated the economy as the most important issue in deciding their vote if the congressional election were held today, followed by 21 percent who said government spending, 20 percent who chose health care reform and 9 percent who said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just 4 percent ranked climate change as the top issue. Economic worries also led a majority of Americans to place jump-starting the economy ahead of concerns about the environment. Even as the Obama administration is pushing for climate protection legislation, 62 percent of those polled agreed that “economic growth should be given priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent.” The remaining 38 percent believed that “protection of the environment should be given priority, even at the risk of curbing economic growth.”...read more

Wolf hunts serve a practical function

The average American hamburger, courtesy of McDonald’s, usually costs the impoverished student about a dollar, while the cow it came from probably contained around $2,500 worth of beef. That meaty investment can be lost when wolf packs hunt from domesticated cattle herds, which is becoming a prevalent problem as pack sizes increase. The current Idaho allowance for wolf hunting is a realistic and well-planned approach to minimize human-lupine clashes as the wolf population increases during the next few years. It minimizes the reimbursements the Idaho government has to pay ranchers for cattle killed by wolves. While the losses to the cattle ranchers are not as severe as it may sound, nevertheless, the wolf packs have had a large effect since their reintroduction in 1980. Elk and deer herds that were unused to predators and quickly shrank, and as a result the availability for hunting also decreased sharply. Luckily, the current wolf packs merely cover roughly 1 percent of the total state area. Given time, it will increase sharply, and more wolves means more encroachment and lower elk and deer herd populations. Although the number of tags issued for wolves seems significant compared to the existing wolf population, they will not have as much of an effect as some people fear...read more

Environmental concerns delay solar projects in California desert

Across the desert flatlands of southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a million acres of public land. But just as some of those projects appear headed toward fruition, environmental hurdles threaten to jeopardize efforts to further tap the region's renewable energy potential. The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming. In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has urged that the state meet one-third of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020. But the presence of sensitive habitat, rare plants and imperiled creatures such as desert tortoises, bighorn sheep and flat-tailed horned lizards threatens to stall or derail some of the projects closest to securing permits. "There are significant environmental issues involved in the California gold rush-like scenario unfolding in the desert," said Peter Galvin, conservation director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "We are not going to just roll over when critical wild lands and last habitats of endangered species are in the mix." Beyond the environmental issues is a bureaucratic one: State and federal regulatory agencies are hobbled by mandatory work furloughs and a lack of experience in processing utility-scale renewable energy project applications...read more

Former Earth Liberation Front spokesman starts up 'radical' environmental magazine

Craig Rosebraugh, a longtime activist, former Earth Liberation Front spokesman and former Portland restaurateur, has started up a new quarterly magazine: "Resistance, Journal of the Earth Liberation Movement." The Arizona-based magazine isn't striving for mainstream balance; it describes itself as "radical" and names Shell oil company as its "Ecoterrorist of the Season." Today's release is the second edition, but Rosebraugh is describing it as a "national launch," saying the magazine is now available at Borders and hundreds of other stores in the United States and Canada after signing on with Disticor Distribution. Rosebraugh drew controversy for speaking for ELF, which used arson and other sabotage tactics that prosecutors consider eco-terrorism. His organic vegan restaurant, Calendula, ran into labor problems before closing. Rosebraugh, 37, is attending law school at Arizona State University and editing the magazine...read more

Park Service averages 11 searches per day

The ripest recipe for trouble in a national park? Young men hiking on a weekend who make a bad decision or two and end up hurt, exhausted, or lost. On average, 11 search-and-rescue operations are launched in national parks every day. While expenses average around $900, the price can easily jump into the thousands of dollars, according to a new analysis of search-and-rescue operations over 15 years. Travis Heggie, an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota who headed the study, also found that roughly 20 percent of the people who called for help probably would have died had they not been rescued. Nearly half of the calls for help are for hikers, often out for the day, who are caught unprepared, get hurt or sick, or underestimate the wild landscape...read more

West Slope folks more likely to be grounded in framers’ ideas

The point is that we here in the West don’t fall into either one of these dependent categories for the important reason that we are most likely to understand the minds of our founders, the spirit of the Constitution and the kind of nation it aimed to create. The farmer in Fruita, the waitress in Delta and the mechanic in Clifton often have a more fundamental understanding of the minds of our founders and what they were hoping to accomplish than all the urban politicians and big-city organizers. This is true because we live our lives in ways much closer to those of the framers than people who now dwell in most of the former colonies. We understand the need for independence and self-reliance that comes from having to count on ourselves to make our way in life. If things get more than we can handle, the person we’re most likely to turn to is our neighbor, not a far-off government agency. A rancher working stock on Dallas Divide still understands what was going through George Washington’s mind as he supervised work in his fields at Mount Vernon or John Adams at his farm during the cold Massachusetts winters. Some might wonder how that could be, when so many of our political leaders are big-city lawyers who must be well-versed in the Constitution. Our president even taught constitutional law for a while. Surely he understands its spirit. That could be true, but it all depends on the reason one studies something. Bank robber Willie Sutton studied safes, not because he admired them or wanted to improve them, but so he could get money out of them...read more

Canada, Mexico $1.3 Billion Short of Claiming COOL Harm Group Tells USDA, USTR

In a letter sent Friday that contains trade data compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 17 R-CALF USA officers, directors and committee chairs informed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk that unless Canada and Mexico can demonstrate that the U.S. country-of-origin labeling (COOL) law has reduced the value of their combined exports of live cattle and beef to the U.S. by more than $1.3 billion, those countries cannot even claim that COOL has caused them any economic harm. Both Canada and Mexico have challenged the U.S. COOL law in a complaint filed with the World Trade Organization, with Canada's most recent complaint filed Oct. 7, 2009, and Mexico's filed Oct. 9, 2009. R-CALF USA's letter contends that economic harm must be measured from a balanced trade relationship and explains that the reason Canada and Mexico cannot begin to measure an economic harm “is because these combined countries continue to enjoy the unmitigated, windfall spoils emanating from an imbalanced trade relationship with the United States, to the tune of $1.3 billion annually.”...read more ...go here to read the letter.

NCBA's statement on COOL disappointing to some

The Oct. 7 statement by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) regarding Canada's challenge of the U.S. Country of Origin Labeling Law (COOL) under the World Trade Organization (WTO) was disappointing to many cattle producers across the country, including myself. As the primary contractor for, and receiver of, Beef Checkoff funds, NCBA needs to learn to listen to our consumers and respect the hundreds of thousands of cattle producers who pay into the mandatory Beef Checkoff. With public statements clearly aimed at undermining U.S. ranchers' defense of COOL, it is little wonder that producers overwhelmingly favor changes in the Beef Checkoff structure. I am reminded of the 1998 and 1999 U.S. trade investigation cases against Canada for dumping and subsidies in the cattle industry. During the International Trade Committee hearings, Canada's attorney used NCBA statements against U.S. ranchers. Today we are hearing similar statements from this same U.S. based organization about Canada's COOL challenge, trying to show a lack of unity and support by U.S. cattle producers for COOL. You can bet that at the WTO hearings on the COOL challenge, Canada, and what is anticipated to be nearly every other importing beef country into the U.S., will use statements like the one issued last week...read more

State inspection of meat and poultry

Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is holding two public meetings on proposed regulations to implement a new program under which State-inspected establishments with 25 or fewer employees will be eligible to ship meat and poultry products in interstate commerce. The announcement will implement a directive of the 2008 Farm Bill and is one component of USDA's "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative to help develop local and regional food systems and spur economic opportunity. "These meetings will help ensure that the proposed regulations successfully open doors for small meat and poultry establishments to provide safe products to their communities." The meetings will be held by teleconference and will provide the public with an opportunity to comment on the proposed rule published on September 15, 2009...read more

Song Of The Day #161

Today Ranch Radio brings you Candy Kisses, recorded by George Morgan in 1949. It's available on several of his collections, the best being the 8 disc box set Candy Kisses.

Former Wyo. governor, US Sen. Clifford Hansen dies

Former Wyoming governor and U.S. Sen Clifford Hansen, a rancher who rode his agricultural background to political success in Cheyenne and Washington, D.C., died Tuesday night. He was 97. Hansen, a Republican, was elected governor in 1962. As governor, he supported lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, increasing retirement pay for state employees and repealing the state's ban on accepting federal aid for education. As his term as governor drew to a close in 1966, Hansen ran for the Senate, beating Democrat Teno Roncalio. In the Senate, Hansen served on the Veterans Affairs Committee, the Finance Committee and the Special Committee on Aging. He backed reservoir projects in Wyoming, designating national recreation areas and wilderness areas in Wyoming, and placing a ceiling on federal expenditures. Hansen was re-elected in 1972 and stepped down in 1978. Hansen also was president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association from 1953 to 1955 and was a University of Wyoming trustee from 1946 to 1963. In 1995, he was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame as a "Great Westerner."...read more

As a senate aide from 74-79, I got to watch Cliff Hansen in action. He was a fine gentleman with a great sense of humor.

End of the road for Salt Creek trial

Attorneys for San Juan County and the state of Utah said Friday that they have proven the Salt Creek road in Canyonlands National Park was used continuously by the public from 1949 to 1998 and, therefore, should be open to Jeeps, all-terrain vehicles and other motorized travel. Federal attorneys disputed the evidence as dated and unreliable and said that, in any case, the county hadn't filed its road claim in time to beat a statute-of-limitations deadline. The sides made their closing arguments in a trial that has spanned three weeks and included a vehicular and airborne site visit Tuesday to help U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins make his decision, which will come later in writing. The fight over the rugged route, which is largely a stream bottom in the Needles section of the park on the way to Angel Arch, has pitted off-highway-vehicle enthusiasts, the county and the state against the National Park Service and conservation organizations. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance successfully sued the park service to close the route to off-roaders due to environmental damage, a decision the park service made provisionally in 1998 and finalized in 2003. San Juan County sued to reopen a 7.5-mile stretch under Revised Statute 2477, an old mining law that granted rights of way across public land. Congress repealed the statute in 1976, but existing claims were grandfathered in, leading to a series of road-ownership disputes that must be argued road by road in federal court...read more

Forest Service To Implement Grazing Deals

The U.S. Forest Service will implement new 10-year grazing administration plans on western North Dakota’s federal grasslands even if the two major rancher associations decline to sign the deals, one of the state’s senators said. The rancher associations administer grazing on the grasslands on behalf of the Forest Service, issuing permits, collecting fees and ensuring ranchers follow management plans for areas where grazing is permitted. The Forest Service gave the Medora and McKenzie County grazing associations a one-week reprieve to make a decision on the agreements. The reprieve expired Tuesday. Keith Winter, president of the McKenzie County group, said his association has told the Forest Service what parts of the agreements it objects to and is waiting for a response. He would not detail the group’s objections. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told him late last week that the new plans would be put in place even if the grazing groups did not sign off on them, and the associations would be able to dispute portions during the next 45 days through a U.S. Department of Agriculture appeals process. Grazing will not be disrupted by the dispute over the agreements...read more

Investigation under way after ranchers build fence in national forest

Three ranchers in northern Utah are in deep trouble for building a fence and cutting a swath, as much as 65 feet wide in some parts, through a National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service has already punished the ranchers by taking away half their grazing privileges. Now, a law enforcement investigation is underway. The fence runs three and a half miles through the national forest west of Bear Lake. "I think it's egregious, and something went wrong," says Kirk Robinson, with the Western Wildlife Conservancy. It's a so-called "laydown" fence, designed so cowboys can tip the barbed wire down and lay it flat each winter to protect it from snow damage. "It's a lot of labor for us," says Round Valley rancher Stuart Wamsley, adding that he would have preferred not to build the fence. Wamsley says he and two partners were pushed to do it by the Forest Service. The fence divides their grazing permit area, so cattle will use alternating pastures each grazing season, giving vegetation a chance to recover. "It was at their insistence that we went ahead and put this fence in," Wamsley says. But the Forest Service says it bulldozed an excessive swath. Environmental and wildlife groups are outraged. They say the cut averages 40 to 65 feet wide...read more

Prairie dog plan draws ire

Ranchers and environmentalists are at odds over a plan for managing black-tailed prairie dogs on the Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeast Wyoming. Environmentalists don't like how the plan would allow prairie dogs to be killed with poison in places where they're not wanted. Ranchers counter that poisoning must be an option to keep prairie dogs from spreading and damaging ranchland by eating away the grass that grows around their colonies. "They're very damaging," said Rosanne Driskill, a rancher near Devils Tower. "They'll kill a large acreage if they get a chance." The purpose of the plan is to establish prairie dogs in large enough numbers to support a reintroduced population of black-footed ferrets. Prairie dogs are the only prey of black-footed ferrets. The first ferrets could be reintroduced to the Thunder Basin National Grassland around this time next year, said Misty Hays, deputy district ranger for the Forest Service in Douglas...read more

Democrats' hidden gas tax

There's something the Democratic lawmakers who are pushing cap-and-trade legislation don't want the public to know. The controversial climate-change legislation winding its way through Congress will impose a massive new national gas tax on the American people. We discovered this by analyzing what the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would do to gas prices and what Americans spend on gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. We found that cap-and-trade legislation will levy a $3.6 trillion gas-tax increase that will impact every American and important segments of our economy. Americans travel more than 200 million vehicle miles each month, and annually we spend nearly $1.2 trillion on gasoline and oil. The average household spends 5 percent of its annual budget on fuel. For many, gasoline is a mandatory expense. And this legislation disproportionately hits middle and lower income households that tend to have longer commutes to work and must drive in order to work. These families will be hit especially hard by the projected $1 per gallon increase for the additional gas tax the cap-and-trade legislation will bring. Several industries will be penalized more severely by the gas tax than others. Our nation's farmers and ranchers, who are tasked with producing high-quality goods for much of the world, will be harmed by Waxman-Markey's $2 trillion tax on gasoline and $1.3 trillion tax on diesel fuel. Gas- and diesel-powered equipment, ranging from tractors to combines to fertilizing systems, are the operational foundation of American farms and ranches. Under the climate-change legislation, they will face $550 million in higher fuel costs in 2020 and $1.65 billion in 2050...read more

Book is more than just pretty pictures

Laid out prone in South Dakota’s Badlands, wildlife photographer Michael Forsberg focused on burrowing owls in the prairie dog town far down the prairie. During weeks spent hunkered in Dakota dirt, Forberg’s aim shifted. “I was amazed day after day at all the wildlife I saw,’’ he said. “Not just the amount, but the diversity. Everything from dragon flies to pronghorn and a bunch in between. But I knew that people in cars screaming by off in the distance were looking over this landscape and thinking there wasn’t anything there.’’ Forsberg set out to challenge the notion that the Great Plains is a place to drive through or fly over by revealing the region in ways rarely seen or thought about. He tucked away the idea for about five years and refocused on it in 2005. More than 100,000 traveling miles later, the result is Forberg’s latest book, “Great Plains: America’s Lingering Wild.’’ The 260-page, large-format volume is Forsberg’s attempt to remind Plains people what’s out there in their big backyard — and to point out its fragility...read more

Cold War Remnant: Cancer for Baby Boomers

Even with a half century's hindsight, the U.S. government's willingness to risk the health of the nation's children seems somewhere between unfathomable and unconscionable. Between 1951 and 1962, the Atomic Energy Commission detonated more than 100 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere over its Nevada Test Site, just 65 miles from Las Vegas. The radioactive fallout menaced not only the ranchers and the miners unlucky enough to live in that remote area of southern Nevada, but -- as a new study unveiled Tuesday demonstrated -- untold millions of unsuspecting Americans as well. The winds carried Strontium-90, Iodine-129 and other lethal particles across a broad swath of the country. Infants who were bottle-fed, which was then considered the modern approach, were particularly vulnerable to the Strontium-90 that ended up in cows' milk. In 1961, as John Kennedy was poised to resume atmospheric testing after a two-year moratorium, he met with White House science adviser Jerome Wiesner in the Oval Office one rainy day. The president wondered how fallout reached the earth. Wiesner explained that it was washed out of the clouds by rain. "You mean," Kennedy asked, "it's in the rain out there?" As Wiesner tells it, the president then "looked out the window, looked very sad and didn't say a word for several minutes." Nonetheless JFK, fearful that the Soviet Union might score a nuclear breakthrough, authorized a new round of above-ground testing before negotiating the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963...read more

H1N1 flu strain found in Canadian turkey flock

Turkeys in the Canadian province of Ontario have become infected with the H1N1 flu virus, but no birds or eggs from the farm entered the food supply, provincial government officials said on Tuesday. The infection poses minimal risk to human health, Dr. Arlene King, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, said in a news conference in Toronto. However, she noted the discovery highlights the need for those who work with farm animals to be vaccinated for both seasonal flu and the pandemic H1N1 flu strain. The risk of the virus passing between people and animals is that the virus could evolve into a form against which humans have little or no immunity, King said. There is no evidence that the virus has changed, she added...read more

Tick-Transmitted Horse Disease Detected on South Texas Ranch

Texas Animal Health Commission
Box l2966 * Austin, Texas 78711 * (800) 550-8242 * FAX (512) 719-0719
Bob Hillman, DVM * Executive Director
For info, contact Carla Everett, information officer, at 1-800-550-8242, ext. 710, or ceverett@tahc.state.tx.us

A tick-borne disease known as equine piroplasmosis has been confirmed on a ranch in South Texas. Additional testing is being conducted to determine the extent of infection. Horses on the ranch are quarantined to their premises, and a thorough disease investigation is underway. Equine piroplasmosis can affect horses, donkeys, mules or zebras and cause clinical signs common to many diseases, including poor appetite and weight loss. Death losses can occur. Some infected equine animals may exhibit few or no signs of disease. Those animals that survive the acute phase of infection may continue to carry the parasite, which has been identified as Theileria equi (formerly known as Babesia equi), for long periods of time. “Although equine piroplasmosis is not considered to be endemic in the U.S., cases have been detected on occasion,” said Dr. Bob Hillman, Texas’ state veterinarian and head of the Texas Animal Health Commission, the state’s livestock and poultry health regulatory agency. “In June, equine piroplasmosis was detected in Missouri, with a related case found in Kansas. In 2008, the infection was detected in Florida. These cases have been closed.” “As many as 15 tick species are capable of carrying and transmitting the blood parasite responsible for causing equine piroplasmosis,” Dr. Hillman explained. “At this time, we do not know which species of tick is responsible for transmitting infection on the South Texas ranch. Additional blood and tick samples are being collected and will be submitted for analysis to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa.” Dr. Hillman said there is no vaccine for equine piroplasmosis, and treatment generally is not effective against this tick-borne infection. To avoid spread of the disease, it is important to eliminate contact with ticks and to prevent the transfer of blood from one equine animal to another. “Equine owners may want to consult with their veterinarians for recommendations on preventing tick infestation,” said Dr. Hillman. “If equine animals exhibit signs of illness, a veterinarian should be contacted, so appropriate samples may be collected for laboratory testing. Currently, we have no indication that this tick transmitted disease has occurred at other sites in Texas, but maintaining vigilance for this blood parasite is necessary in determining the extent of this disease situation.”

One-Armed Bandit to perform at Bullfights

The Chickasaw Nation announces the World Championship Rodeo Bullfight Finals and Concert to be held in the Pontotoc County Agri-plex in Ada. Eight-time Specialty Act of the Year John Payne “The One Armed Bandit” will be on hand Friday, Oct. 23, and Saturday, Oct. 24, with his award-winning act. John S. Payne, the notorious “One Arm Bandit,” was born to a rancher in the oil-rich town of Shidler, Okla., April 4, 1953. On June 12, 1973, after grabbing a hot wire, 7,200 volts of electricity ran through his body for 10 seconds. With fingers nearly burned off, Payne fell 25 feet. His intestines were exposed and his left thigh burned to the bone. Payne received CPR and spent the next five weeks in the Tulsa burn center. He checked himself out of the hospital and started breaking a horse he had bought during his time in the hospital. Ranch life with four brothers taught Payne to “Get out of the way or get run over” and “Get tough or Die.”...read more

Indispensable tool of the trade

An apple just tastes better if eaten with a pocket knife one slice at a time, and I doubt if any farmer or rancher ever washes his pocket knife under a faucet. To this day cowboys on the ranches still use pocket knives sharpened as a razor to castrate bull calves and ear-notch ownership in left or right ears. Sometimes the hand will sit in the shade, against a fence and cut a chew off his Tinsley or Red Man plug. Shucks, there’s no dirt on that blade, it never touches the ground. When I grew up in the late 1930s and ‘40s every schoolboy carried a pocket knife to play mumble-peg during recess or lunch time. Now they get thrown out of school if found with even a tiny fingernail knife in a pocket. I truly understand the ruling by school administrators, but isn’t it sad. No tool is more important than a knife in agriculture. It is used to scrape battery terminals, cut binder twine and rope, or in an emergency puncture a bloated cow to let off the frothy gas. Before man invented the wheel he developed a stone knife with a point and a form of scraping blade...read more

'Big Die-off' wiped out many Texas-NM cattlemen

Back during the early 1880s, much of West Texas, the state Panhandle and outlying areas extending all the way across the state, and much of New Mexico, began to be overcrowded as well as overstocked. Grass, for whatever reason, seemed to be going out of business, disappearing, sagebrush taking its place. And more than a few cattlemen decided that this might be a good time to find a different occupation. And winter wasn't any easier. Cattle during this time of year --by instinct and need -- seemed to drift southward, on occasion for a hundred miles or so, usually seeking shelter in canyons and valleys, or simply dying somewhere along the way. Therefore, in order to keep the cattle from drifting such great distances, barbed-wire fences commenced arising. While most ranchers hesitated to string the wire, they also knew they had little or no choice. In 1882, the Panhandle Stock Association followed up with a barrier extending from the New Mexico line all the way to the Canadian River breaks in Hutchinson County, Texas. By 1885, these barbed-wire fences. generally known as "Drift Fences," extended from the Texas Panhandle across New Mexico and into Indian territory (Oklahoma). One result of all this was an effective barrier, one keeping northern cattle from drifting south onto the southern ranges. But starting late in December 1885, a series of wild blizzards ripped through northern Texas and most of New Mexico, driving vast herds of cattle and other livestock south until they struck the drift fences. So all these cattle huddled themselves against the fence line. But in the process, they often froze or smothered to death...read more

Song Of The Day #160

Hank Thompson got rich singing songs based on nursery rhymes. Here he is singing Rub-A-Dub-Dub.

It's available on his 12 track CD All-Time Greatest Hits.

A shortened The Westerner

Other demands were made on my time. I'll return tomorrow with a full slate of links and The Song Of The Day.

BLM won't fight grazing ban on Idaho allotment

Federal land managers won't fight a judge's order to bar a rancher from grazing sheep on public land in western Idaho to protect the region's wild bighorns. In a filing Monday, the Bureau of Land Management agreed to live by U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill's ruling last Wednesday that forbid rancher Mick Carlson from letting his sheep graze near Partridge Creek along the Salmon River. Winmill's order was only temporary and a hearing had been scheduled for Nov. 2. The BLM now says it wants the court date canceled. Winmill wrote that Carlson's grazing could cause irreparable harm to bighorns, which wildlife managers say catch deadly diseases from their domesticated cousins. Idaho's bighorn population has dwindled by half since 1990 to 3,500 after mass die-offs. In their filing, BLM managers wrote they would conduct a new environmental analysis before deciding on the future of the Partridge Creek grazing allotment. AP

So which is it? Either the BLM couldn't overcome the legal objections in the judge's opinion which means they prepared an insufficient analysis, or the DOJ has caved to the enviro's. In either case, the BLM looks bad. It would be interesting to know what the DOI position was, as the DOJ may or may not follow it's clients wishes.

We may be looking at a return to the Clinton years. You know, when the enviro's would file suit, the administration would settle, and the enviro attorneys would collect their fees and go file suit somewhere else.

BLM wild horse ranch plan draws fire

Some Madison Valley landowners are voicing concerns about a plan to place up to 1,500 wild horses on a ranch north of Ennis. A lawyer representing several clients in the Ennis area says 1,500 horses would be far too many for the 15,000-acre Spanish Q Ranch to support. And a rancher has questioned what impact wild horses would have on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. In a letter dated Oct. 12, Big Timber attorney Jim Lippert argued to the BLM that given the climate in Madison County, every horse living there would need five acres per month to give it enough food to graze on. At that rate, 1,500 horses would quickly run out of grass, he said. “A more reasonable number of horses ... would be 250 horses,” he wrote. “The land could sustain this number of horses without damaging the land, and I would not have to refer to this program as ‘warehousing’ wild horses.” Overgrazing, Lippert wrote, would also hurt wildlife like the elk that graze on private land. Lippert said in a phone interview his numbers come from speaking with “an old time resident.” But a survey by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal agency, also suggests a 15,000-acre Ennis-area ranch would support hundreds, not thousands, of horses. Numbers provided by Carrie Mosely at the NRCS in Bozeman show a ranch the size of the Spanish Q could support a maximum of 375 horses during the seven-month growing season...read more

I guess in certain instances, overgrazing is fine with BLM and the enviro's.

Did Utah blink in Snake Valley talks?

About halfway through secret four-year negotiations on how a reluctant Utah could share the Snake Valley aquifer with Nevada, a Silver State official and a Las Vegas water utility threatened they could take the matter to court or to Congress, memos and e-mails show. The correspondence, released under an open-records request from the Great Basin Water Network, illuminates Nevada's no-surrender insistence that Snake Valley water be split 50-50, even though Utah officials believed that impossible. The documents also appear to undermine recent assurances from Mike Styler, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, that the proposed water-sharing agreement is as good for Utah as it is for Nevada. It's not, critics have said repeatedly at public meetings and in comments submitted to the Utah Division of Water Rights since the August announcement of a draft deal with Nevada to plumb the west desert. "It might be an exaggeration to say we got rolled, but we surely backtracked," said Steve Erickson of the Great Basin Water Network. "I was surprised the state backed down on all those positions and that they're advocating this agreement so adamantly when once they were opposed to them." Many critics have denounced the agreement as a giveaway to Las Vegas at the expense of an aquifer that can maintain equilibrium only with its current water drawdown...read more

The great wolf debate comes to Yakima

With two wolf packs totaling about a dozen animals and more expected in the coming years, Washington state is grappling with a proposed wolf management plan. Authors of the plan called the process that produced it wrenching and polarizing. In short: a flashpoint issue. When it comes to attitudes about wolves, there seems to be no middle ground. Hunters are afraid wolves will decimate elk and deer populations. Ranchers fear the state’s newest alpha predator will wreak havoc on their livestock. Conservationists worry that hunters and ranchers will shoot the wolves despite state or federal protections. A recently released draft management plan by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife sets minimum standards for downlisting and delisting wolves in Washington, where they are federally protected in the western two-thirds of the state and state-protected across all of Washington. It provides guidelines for moving wolves to keep their populations at sustainable and manageable limits, dictates how and when wolves may be scared off or killed, and outlines how the state will balance the wolves’ needs with the desires of sportsmen who pay hefty fees to hunt the very deer and elk the wolves do...read more

Six buy Badlands dream property

Scott Lippert of Williston and five others went home owning some dream property in the Badlands after the breakup of a big Little Missouri River ranch at auction Monday. The owner, Dean Myers, a North Dakota native and successful Atlanta developer, sold his 4,400-acre Southern Cross Ranch, figuring he'd had a good run and it was time to move on. The heavily advertised sale drew about 100 spectators and about 50 bidders, some checking in by phone and Internet. The per-acre price ranged from $550 for some crop and pasture miles west of the Badlands ranch, up to $1,625 an acre for 242 acres of irrigated river bottomland. Less than three hours after it started, Myers had $4.4 million in his pocket - just about $1,000 an acre average - and buyers like Lippert owned a piece of the Badlands. Vern Fortak, a Wyoming rancher, was who auctioneers were watching as the strongest possibility as a whole-ranch buyer, but Fortak said a phone call from Wyoming two hours into the sale discouraged the idea that the man he hoped would run it would move up to the Badlands. "It's too far away for anybody in our outfit to come up and run. I thought the price was in line, fair but not overpriced," he said. For a little less, he might have bought it anyway, he said...read more

'Split Estate’ is a must-see film for Western Slope residents

When “Split Estate,” a new documentary on the effects or oil and gas drilling on the lives and property of homeowners, farmers and ranchers who do not own their mineral rights, was previewed in Glenwood Springs, a representative of EnCana Oil & Gas complained that the material was dated, and that the film tells “only one side of the story.” But “Split Estate” makes no pretense of being “fair and balanced.” Told from the perspective of people from Garfield County, Colo., and San Juan County, N.M., who lost their health, their homes and their dreams as a consequence of drilling, this film is about the powerlessness of surface owners who don’t own their mineral rights when energy companies come to drill their property. Most of the health problems, according to the property owners, are the result of either air pollution from nearby wells, or water pollution, especially from hydraulic fracking. Despite evidence to the contrary, the industry continues to maintain that the fluids used in fracking are benign, and that drilling poses no threat to drinking water sources. The individual stories of split-estate owners are interwoven by the film with a theme of environmental degradation, as a rural area is transformed into an industrial park. The film artfully balances the individual narratives of split-estate landowners with visual images of a ravaged landscape dominated by endless drilling pads, evaporation ponds, roads and industrial compounds...read more

CNBC, Reuters fall for climate hoax Video

In a dramatic shift, the Chamber of Commerce announced Monday that it is throwing its support behind climate change legislation making its way through the U.S. Senate. Only it didn’t. An email press release announcing the change is a hoax, say Chamber officials. Several media organizations fell for it. A CNBC anchor interrupted herself mid-sentence Monday morning to announce that the network had “breaking news,” then cut away to reporter Hampton Pearson, who read from the fake press release...read more

Outside Agitator

In his book with Josh Mahan, Tree Spiker: From Earth First! To Lowbagging: My Struggles in Radical Environmental Action Roselle takes us on a journey from the days when he was the young virgin joining in on a series of progressive movements and, while at it, drinking, smoking the good herb and hoping to maybe get laid – from 1970s Yippies/Zippies/Hippies; to occupying the Nevada Nuclear Test Site the very day of a scheduled test; to major efforts to preserve the remnants of our Ancient Forests; to uphill struggles to end the trade in illegal tropical logging; to the current campaign to end the atrocity of Mountaintop Removal (MTR) coal extraction. Always entertaining, Mike also lived up to the other part of the incomparable Winona LaDuke’s late father Sun Bear’s maxim by finding out just where he could plug in and be useful. If it meant running a mimeograph machine, Mike did it. If it meant washing every dish in the sink, he did that. If the younger Yippies felt that Abbie Hoffman was getting a swelled head and not following grassroots protocol, then Mike was there to dump his once-idol Abbie in the hotel swimming pool. If it meant climbing the flagpole at Miami’s Flamingo Park during the 1972 GOP Convention and replacing Old Glory with the Viet Cong Battle Flag, well… Mike was always ready to answer the call. Soon, Mike wasn’t only joining up with groups of like-minded folks; he was co-founding some of the more radical action groups we’ve seen. He provides an engrossing tale of the founding of Earth First! and the Buckaroos behind it...read more

USDA confirms H1N1 in Minnesota pigs

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says at least one pig from Minnesota has tested positive for the H1N1 virus, the first case of a pig contracting the virus in the United States. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement Monday that USDA officials have begun to reach out to international organizations and are emphasizing that H1N1, also known as swine flu, cannot be contracted by eating pork products. The USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the presence of H1N1 after an initial test suggested that as many as three pigs may have had the virus. USDA officials say the infection of a so-called show pig doesn't indicate an infection of commercial herds because show pigs are in separate segments of the swine industry. AP

Food safety programs alter farming

With food safety regulatory change on the horizon for U.S. producers, Rabobank recently found that approximately 40 percent of farmers have begun to alter their farming practices and methods. According to a new Rabobank Farm & Ranch Survey, of those making changes, 64 percent are keeping better records, which is the first step toward better food safety. In March, President Obama created the Food Safety Working Group to upgrade food safety laws, which govern the supply chain from gate to plate. With this in mind, U.S. producers are beginning to take steps before new laws are in place. After keeping better records, other changes included researching information about better food safety practices by subscribing to topical publications (32 percent) or networking and meeting with other farmers (26 percent). Additionally, farmers are beginning to make changes to facilities (23 percent) and to processes (21 percent)...read more

NM Ranchers Worry About Water Protection Proposal

Thousands of miles of New Mexico rivers and streams would gain special protection under the federal Clean Water Act as part of a proposal being pushed by Gov. Bill Richardson and environmentalists. But ranchers worry the plan is a backdoor effort to stop grazing on public land. State environment officials have spent more than two years refining a proposal to designate rivers and streams in wilderness areas across the state as so-called "outstanding national resource waters" to protect them from degradation. No one disputes the need to protect New Mexico's water, but ranchers see the plan to designate waterways across such a broad swath of wilderness — far from pollution and cities — as another ploy by environmentalists in a decades-long battle to halt grazing on national forest lands. "This whole thing with the Clean Water Act, it's just a front. They want our land, they want our water, period," said Carlos Salazar of the Northern New Mexico Stockman's Association. The designation would allow existing activities, including grazing, to continue in wilderness areas provided landowners follow practices to ensure water quality remains high. But ranchers say the proposal is ambiguous and would establish new layers of bureaucracy that would harm New Mexico's rural economy. "People are very worried," said Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association. "Given that the wilderness areas are already protected from everything but grazing and recreational activities, what are we going to protect it from?"...read more

Another blessing of wilderness designation. Next will come applying this or a similar water rule to National Conservation Areas, Areas Of Critical Environmental Concern and any other legislative or administrative designation you can think of. Then will come state lands, game refuges, etc. This will set a terrible precedent and is nothing more than a back door approach to implementing instream flow.

Wild horse plan rekindles cattle grazing debate

A new federal proposal to manage wild horses is rekindling debate over another fixture of the Western range: cattle. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last week proposed moving thousands of mustangs to preserves in the Midwest and East to protect horse herds and the rangelands that support them. Many horse defenders and others who had been working to save the romantic symbols of the American West and might have been expected to welcome Salazar's solution instead stampeded the other way. They want Salazar to remove livestock to make room for the mustangs and argue that cows are the real threat to the range and native wildlife. "Any proposal to improve horse and burro management in the West should include removal of domestic livestock from public lands to make way for horses and burros and wildlife," said Mark Salvo of WildEarth Guardians based in Santa Fe, N.M. He said too much forage is allocated to livestock in the arid West. Wildlife ecologist Craig Downer of Nevada accused Salazar, a former rancher, of acting on behalf of those who view mustangs as taking scarce forage away from their cattle herds. Dan Gralian, president of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association, said livestock overgrazing no longer is the problem it once was and cattle don't cause more damage to the range than horses. He said 2.5 million to 3 million head of livestock graze on public lands, down from 20 million cows and 25 million sheep in 1900...read more

Rancher payments may help wolves

Hoping to ease Washington ranchers’ concern about gray wolves, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife is proposing what might be the most generous compensation in the West for livestock losses to the newly returned predators. Under the preferred plan out of five alternatives in a 249-page draft environmental impact statement released last week, a livestock producer would be entitled to the full value of livestock considered likely prey that are killed by wolves on grazing sites of at least 100 acres and half the full value on smaller sites. For animals considered less likely prey, compensation would be double the full value of the animal on larger grazing sites and the full value on smaller sites. The proposal defines livestock as cattle, pigs, horses, mules, sheep, llamas, goats, guarding animals and herding dogs...read more

Can Democrats Use National Security to Win on Climate Change?

It's also no coincidence that, in recent weeks, Democrats have been stressing this security angle as they stump for carbon legislation. As Lisa Lerer reports in Politico today, that's precisely why John Kerry, rather than Barbara Boxer, has become the face of the Senate climate bill—as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee he can (the theory goes) more credibly make this pitch to colleagues. Environmentalists, in turn, are hitching up with veterans' groups —this week, Operation Free is sending Iraq and Afghanistan vets on a 21-state tour to talk about how climate change could impact American security. Now, is this a viable strategy for 60 Senate votes? Who knows? The security frame does poll pretty well: Clean Energy Works recently commissioned a poll in Arkansas, of all places, that found overwhelming support for cap-and-trade (55 percent to 37 percent) when the oil-dependency/security pitch was stacked up against the right's "cap-and-tax" mantra. On the other hand, from a policy perspective, relying too heavily on national-security arguments could create a few knots. Bolstering energy security and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions are, after all, two distinct goals that can sometimes come into conflict...read more

Big Labor, Green Jobs

Looking for help as they drown in a sea of political irrelevance, labor heavyweights like the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO, and the Service Employees International Union have reason to believe the Obama administration will throw them a green lifeline. President Barack Obama has promised to use his office to fundamentally transform America’s energy economy, transitioning Americans away from fossil fuels and creating millions of so-called green jobs in the process. The new green economy Obama routinely invokes holds some hope for private sector unions to slow, if not even halt and reverse, their stunning declines. Obama pledged during the campaign to spend $150 billion to create green jobs, and his administration promises to spend billions more on a host of infrastructure upgrades and other energy-related stimulus projects. Attempting to capitalize on that environmental commitment, organized labor is latching on to the green jobs movement with gusto. In August, a coalition of labor unions joined with environmental organizations to launch a 50-stop tour visiting 22 states to pressure Congress to pass cap-and-trade legislation. What is organized labor’s incentive for going green? For unions, it seems a lot less about saving the planet than about saving (or at least enriching) themselves. With the federal government pledging to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on energy related projects, labor sees a chance to grab a significant portion of that money as well as to ensure that future green energy manufacturing and other green collar employment are union jobs...read more

Jaguar team ceases work amid disputes, big cat's death

The team formed to help the endangered jaguar survive in Arizona and New Mexico has ground to a standstill. The Arizona-New Mexico Jaguar Conservation Team has struggled for years because of standoffs between environmentalists and ranching interests and perceptions of bias in the team's leadership. But perhaps the knockout blow was the death this year of the last known wild jaguar in the United States. The team, formed in 1997, has ceased activities altogether, canceling two meetings this year because of the ongoing criminal investigation over the March 2 death of the jaguar known as Macho B. But long before Feb. 18, when the old jaguar stepped into a snare in the wilderness between Arivaca and Nogales, many participants had left the team, some questioning its commitment to helping an endangered species recover. The perception that it had become all talk and no action was captured by the nickname some use for the group — Jaguar Conversation Team. "It had very laudable objectives," said Warren "Bud" Starnes, a policy specialist for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture in Las Cruces. "But the enviros started pressing and pressing and pressing, trying to get maps of habitat. Then they started threatening lawsuits."...read more

Fighting Eminent Domain Abuse

Popular outrage over eminent domain abuse may have waned a bit since the Supreme Court’s poorly-reasoned Kelo ruling in 2005, but economic development takings remain incredibly unpopular throughout the country. Public opinion polls indicate that more than 80 percent of Americans oppose eminent domain for economic development, which is surprising when one considers the relative inaction on the part of state legislatures to meaningfully protect their citizens’ property rights. However, there are reasons to be optimistic. Brooklynites fighting the proposed Atlantic Yards development filed a lawsuit today challenging the legality of the Metro Transit Authority’s land handout to the private developer. In Texas, citizens will soon vote on widely-supported Proposition 11, which would amend the Texas Constitution to prevent area blight designations and condemnations, and prohibit takings for purposes of economic development. If it passes, which seems likely, Texas property owners will have some of the strongest protections against eminent domain abuse in the nation. But there is a lot of work to do. Many in this country are still largely defenseless against development takings, so the question arises: What can property owners do to take back their rights from revenue-hungry municipalities and rent-seeking developers? The law, as it stands, is against them in most respects, but there are legislative avenues worth pursuing. A few of the most politically-feasible are:...read more

U.S. Supreme Court won't hear game farm appeals

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal by Montana game farm operators over a citizens' initiative they claim amounts to an unlawful taking of their property. The news means there can be no captive shooting of deer or elk in Montana. Game farm operators earlier this year appealed a state Supreme Court ruling that said Initiative 143 does not constitute the unlawful taking of private property. Robert Lane, chief legal counsel for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, said the country's high court declined the case within the past several days. He said the Supreme Court's ruling leaves in place the Montana Supreme Court decision on I-143. That initiative was approved in 2000 by a majority of Montana citizens. It effectively ended the game farm business in Montana, primarily by outlawing the fee shooting of captive elk...read more

The Supreme Allied Commander of Corn

I think his view is, not going to run for president again, not going to get one of the gigantic jobs he was interested in in the federal government, so might as well take a new course." Well, in February, Clark found one: front-man for the ethanol industry. When a group of investors in ethanol made from rice straw approached Clark in 2007, he was intrigued. "I said, ‘Oh, I remember ethanol, I mean, I campaigned in Iowa,' and they told me before I went to Iowa, you've got to like ethanol," he said. "So I'm not against it in principle, I mean, tell me about it." Clark tried selling the idea to his partners in his "little investment bank in New York"--Rodman & Renshaw, the full-service private equity firm that he joined after the campaign--but they weren't interested. Renewable energy deals were too much of a risk; the cash flow had dried up entirely. Then, in late 2008, Clark met Jeff Broin, CEO of Sioux Falls-based POET, the largest ethanol producer in the world (and Growth Energy's animating force). Clark, who is something of a techno-geek, visited one of Broin's research labs and was impressed by the scientists running around in white coats, working on the next generation of cellulosic biofuels. He asked Broin to bring him on board. "I'm happy to talk about ethanol, I'm a big believer in this thing, but I'm a businessman!" Clark exclaimed, pounding the table for emphasis. "I want to actually build things that hire people and change America, not just talk about it." Broin decided to give him a chance--the industry had image problems, and having a four-star general out singing its praises couldn't hurt matters...read more

Uncle Sam coming at family farmers with fist full of cash

I doubt the president of the U.S. ever milked a cow, ringed a hog, pulled a calf or knows which end of a horse gets up first; however, he has a uncanny sense of direction in the field of agriculture. Yesterday, changes in the weather were the biggest headache for farmers. Today, its changing farm policy. We elect a president every four years and enact a new farm bill every five years. And, despite national and international attention, the glow of a Nobel, an economic crisis, a rancorous health care debate, education and energy, this remarkable man is making remarkable moves in agriculture. Directing taxpayer millions to hungry kids instead of millionaire farmers shifted the debate. Millionaire farmers are squealing like stuck hogs. The secretary of agriculture and the attorney general dusting off the stocker and packer act of 1921 have corporate biggies in a cold sweat. And, Uncle Sam is coming to the aid of beginning family farmers with a fist full of cash. According to the column "Credit programs aim to reverse trends" appearing in the October edition of the Progressive Farmer, Farm Service Agency loan numbers are up 896 percent from a year ago and total loan volume is up 1,271 percent as of Aug. 1. Well, la di dah! It appears Mr. Obama is well on his way to earning the Nobel of the Range -- a cowboy hat...read more

Yes, and I'm sure he'll make a beer that really does taste great and is less filling. What a load of crap. He deserves the Nobel of the Outhouse and should be awarded a dunces cap, not a cowboy hat. I'll bet those numbers are up because more producers than ever now qualify for FSA loans. FSA is the "lender of last resort" and it's those "remarkable moves in agriculture" that have put our producers in that condition.

Agricultural Act Passes Senate, Moves onto President

On Oct. 8, 2009, the United States Senate passed the final version of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 (H.R.2997). The House of Representatives approved the bill the previous day. This bill provides funding for the USDA for fiscal year 2010 and contains two provisions of interest to the horse industry. GAO Study of Horse Welfare The conference agreement accompanying this bill directs the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study the status of horse welfare as it relates to the closing of horse slaughter plants in the United States. The agreement requests the GAO to issue a report by March 1, 2010, on the current state of horse welfare in the US since horse slaughter facilities were closed. The GAO is instructed to consider how the horse industry has responded to the plant closings in terms of horse sales, exports, adoptions, and abandonments. In addition the GAO is instructed to review the impact the closures have had on farm income and state and local government organizations. USDA Inspection at Plants The bill also contains a provision prohibiting any funds from being used by the USDA to inspect horse meat for human consumption...read more

Farmington man struck by lightning rides again

Just a little more than a month after being struck by lightning in a fluke storm that killed his horse and nearly killed him, 23-year-old Carl Leigh is back in the saddle again, thanks to a generous donation by family members. He was told by doctors not to ride, but with determination and the donation of a new horse, Leigh is back doing what he loves. On Aug. 24, Leigh was struck while riding on County Road 5580. The strike killed the horse, burned Leigh's legs and head, put a bullet-sized hole in the saddle and a 6-inch hole in his hat. He doesn't remember anything about the incident. He was riding along one moment and the next thing he knew he woke up in the hospital, he said. Doctors didn't expect Leigh to survive, but he defied the odds...read more

Court upholds convictions of animal activists

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia has upheld the convictions of six animal-rights activists in a New Jersey harassment case. The six members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty were convicted in 2006 of using their Web site to incite threats and vandalism against employees of Huntingdon Life Science in Franklin Township, Somerset County. The group posted home addresses and other information about the workers on the site. Each activist was sentenced to six years in prison. Three remain in federal custody. The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled there was enough evidence to convict them of violating the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. The trial was believed to be the first to use the statute, which was enacted in 1992. AP

Silver City Museum to host 'Gila' book signing

The Silver City Museum will host a book signing with local author Nancy Coggeshall, author of "Gila Country Legend: The Life and Times of Quentin Hulse," at 2 p.m. today at the Museum Annex, 302 W. Broadway, two doors down from the museum. In the book, recently released by University of New Mexico Press, Coggeshall tells the story of the larger-than-life rural Western rancher whose reputation spread well beyond the rugged Gila Wilderness he called home. Drawing on oral history, archival sources and her personal association with Hulse and the Gila, Coggeshall brings this unique New Mexican to life. Coggeshall describes Hulse and the book on her Web site, www.nancycoggeshall.com: "A product of New Mexico's Southwest, Quentin Hulse (1926-2002) lived and worked from the bottom of Canyon Creek in the Gila River country on the northern border of the Gila Wilderness. The force of his character and personality impressed people so deeply that stories about this legendary rancher, packer, guide and hound man were told even in Tasmania and Baghdad. His photograph appeared on a tourist postcard and souvenir novelty license plate in the 1950s. The Men's Channel broadcast footage of a 1962 lion hunt with him on New Year's Day 2005; boys were named for him and a song was written about him and recorded in 2003. ...read more

Garth and his guitar

Millions of fans wish they could've seen Garth Brooks where it all started at Willie's Saloon in Stillwater, Okla. Come to Vegas and you'll get something like it. Forget the glitz, glam and pyrotechnics that typify your average Sin City show. Brooks is going to strip it down and take it back to the beginning. The man, his guitar and the songs he loves. "That's how it started in Willie's in '83, playing a show for tips," Brooks told The Associated Press on Thursday after announcing his residency at the Wynn Las Vegas resort's Encore theater. "You do your big arena show, then it's funny. You come back to that and it's come full circle." Those who have heard the show as Brooks rehearses think it's something special. The country superstar would love to take credit for the idea, but that all goes to casino owner Steve Wynn...read more

Cowboy Militia strikes partnership with Texas music

Cowboy Militia has teamed up with Ambiance Artists of Austin, Texas, in a cross-promotional relationship that benefits Texas music fans and Western aficionados alike. The affiliation will drive more country music fans to rodeo and Western wear - and vice versa - through partnerships with five hit-making Texas country music artists, including the Josh Abbott Band, Whiskey Myers and bands fronted by Kyle Bennett, Charlie Shafter and Rich O'Toole. "We play shows in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and Austin, but it's the little rural communities or rodeo towns where we really fit in," says Ambiance co-founder Bruce Kalmick. "The markets we really focus on are rural - those people are attainable and they remain fans for a longer period of time." Texas music, or alternative country, began in the 1970s with Willie and Waylon but resurged in the late 1990s and has exploded in nationwide popularity as Pat Green and others have crossed over into Nashville...read more

Rural blogs harvest truckloads of urban fans

Ree Drummond's days are spent wrangling her four children, washing jeans, chipping dried manure from boots and “frying calf nuts.” The Oklahoma cattle rancher's wife details her rural trials and tribulations – as well as photos of her rugged husband, known only as Marlboro Man, and recipes for caramel apple rolls – on her blog thepioneerwoman.com. Slickly photographed with legions of fans, The Pioneer Woman is arguably the mother of all farm girl blogs. With lively posts on everything from home schooling and country recipes to kitchen gardens and babysitting pot-bellied pigs, farm girl blogs are gaining devotees, most of them dreaming of a “simpler” life. Living alone in the Oklahoma panhandle, a blogger named Jeanie raises cattle, horses, pigs, poultry – and shrimp. The 34-year-old divorcee recounts her rituals on cowgirlscountry.blogspot.com, now a hit on the online barbecue circuit. Men are keenly interested in her smokehouse and wild game recipes – Jeanie hunts and considers herself “a fair markswoman.”...read more

It's All Trew: Dusting off pages offers up the dirt on Times gone by

Kansas Historical Society archives contain every issue of the old Dodge City Times published in the 1870s and 1880s. Browsing the many articles contained within is interesting and educational as we learn about the common happenings of that time. The term "getting away from it all" meant an entirely different thing from today, as back on Sept. 6, 1879, the Times told of a posse capturing nine horse thieves who had stolen a herd of area ranch horses. Five of the thieves were captured, while four "got away in the Rattlesnake Sand Hills." The next issue of the Times stated the four thieves who got away were buried in the hills. The Times told of a man living beside the Canadian River who made extra money by guiding and hauling travelers who needed to cross the sometimes treacherous waterway. During a recent trip across the riverbed, in which the man hauled baggage on his buckboard pulled by two horses, the first crossing was without incident. When the man retraced his tracks a few minutes later, the team and buckboard sunk out of sight almost instantly, with the man barely escaping the quicksands. Later, when he attempted to probe the spot with a long pole in an effort to recover his buckboard, no trace of the equipment or team could be found. Another article explained that a spool of barbed weighed approximately 80 to 90 pounds and contained one-fourth mile of wire. A boxcar load of wire spools weighed some 22,000 pounds, or about 275 spools of barbed wire. This amount of wire would build a three-wire fence for a distance of 23 miles. Many ranches ordered 10 to 20 carloads of wire per order...read more

Song Of The Day #159

Ranch Radio will get your foot tappin' this Monday morning with Carl Smith performing his 1951 Columbia recording (When You Feel Like Your In Love) Don't Just Stand There.

It's available on many of his collections, including The Essential Carl Smith (1950-1956) and, believe it or not, on his Don't Just Stand There: 20 Greatest Hits.

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Cowboy purchasing agent

Julie Carter

Sometimes the only required items for cowboys to fix anything are baling wire, duct tape and some old-fashioned sweat.

Occasionally, specialty items are required and that means assuming the role that in corporate America is labeled "Purchasing Agent."

In a corporate situation, that title would get you a corner office, but in the cowboy world, that gets you a pickup seat on the way to town.

One particular morning, Jess was faced with the 4-wheeler being out of commission. This vehicle was critical to his ranching operation because it was used daily to gather the roping cattle.

He dropped everything and headed to the NAPA store for a new battery.

There, he was told by the knowledgeable parts man that the exact battery he needed would be $75, but he kindly added that they were cheaper over at Walmart.

Ever frugal, Jess took his advice and headed that way.

At the Walmart battery department, located at the very back of the store, he was faced with a lady clerk.

She told Jess that in order to buy a new battery, it was store policy that he must trade in an old one.

Jess was parked out by the place in the parking lot where they sell the puppies and park the big rigs, but he dutifully walked all the way out of the store and the five miles to the back of the parking lot, making the return trip with his old battery in hand.

The lady clerk promptly uncrated a new battery, showed Jess the instructions in Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French and finally American. Together they tried to decipher them.

As it turned out, in order to activate this battery, they needed a vial of acid, something to pour it in the battery with and a trickle charger.

Faced with this complicated problem, Jess asked what the charge would be for all this equipment. The total with tax was $119.

Quick with the math, Jess lugged his old battery back out past the "puppies for sale" and returned to the parts store.

There he discovered the NAPA man had forgotten to mention all the extra equipment that would also be needed for the NAPA battery, although he did not require an old one be turned in.

All said and done, the register rang up about $20 more than the total Walmart price. Jess added that to the price the six-pack it would take to help him recover from the entire experience.

And then there is Dan

One would think that if one were at work, minding one's own business, trouble wouldn't be any closer than one's plans for the weekend.

As per the aforementioned minding one's own business at work, Dan was tending his at the implement dealership that pays him to fix and sell things along with providing him with respectable employment.

High marks for a cowboy.

One day the Fastenal rep stopped by, as sales reps tend to do. This company peddles nuts, bolts and small, seemingly useless but somebody buys it, hardware. The dealership is a regular stop for the Fastenal guy.

However, likely in a plot to create an income stimulus, they sent a blonde.

As Dan reported it, "Her waist was this big (thumbs together, hands spread out about 10 inches), and her chest was about this big (hands spread out at arms length and Dan has very long arms).

His eyes grew bigger along with the description of the measurements.

With that, he admitted that he had bought a couple hundred dollars worth of bolts.

Carol, his secretary and buddy, came by and said, "Dan, you know we never sell bolts."

Dan replied easily, "We're fixing to start."

He reported that the shapely blonde rep went into the parts room with him, looked everything over, dusted off some of the things that had never in this lifetime been moved, and then told him the store looked to her to be pretty low on inventory. He ordered them all.

Now every time somebody comes into the store and up to the parts counter to get something, the store employees are required to ask the customer if they need any bolts with that.

Stop by the store and tell Dan you need some bolts, but only if the Fastenal rep is there to preview them.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net

It's The Pitts: Dismembered

Lee Pitts

I'm not a clubby kind of guy. I don't belong to Rotary, Kiwanis, PTA, KKK, John Birch Society or Book of the Month Club. I take pride in the fact that I've been disinvited to join many groups. That's all right with me because I hate meetings.

The only drawback to my antisocial behavior was that for many years I worried that my obituary was going to be skimpy. For example: "Lee Pitts was assassinated by an angry reader and left no survivors and did not belong to any clubs, hold any offices or do anything noteworthy while he was alive." You'll agree, that's a pretty sad commentary. But now, thanks to modern marketing, I'll have plenty of clubs to list in my obituary. "Lee Pitts, aged 105, passed away peacefully while asleep. He was an active member in good standing with the Costco Club, United Mileage Plus and the Safeway Club, hardware store club and many others too numerous to mention. They all mourn his passing and will miss him." Much better sounding, don't you agree?

There are many advantages to these types of clubs. There are no meetings, you're not asked to serve on a committee, be an officer, wear a funny hat, or go to a costly convention. The biggest drawback, however, is that you have to carry around all the little plastic cards that prove you are a member. I have so many of these cards in my wallet that when I sit down I'm at a 30 degree angle.

I've never understood the concept behind buying clubs like Costco. I respect the company for selling great meat and having the nerve to ask their customers to fork over $40 a year for the privilege of giving Costco shovelfuls of money. Think about that for a moment. If someone had suggested, "I've got an idea. Why not charge folks to shop in our stores!" Wouldn't they have been branded a nut case? What other group, besides the U.S. Congress, gets away with charging people to do business with them?

Evidently consumers love the idea that they have to pay club dues in order to buy vast quantities of shop rags and toilet paper because when they open the doors at Costco you'd better not dawdle or you'll be run over like hippies at a rock concert. It must be that membership makes people feel like they are VIP's when they have to show a card to enter a store. Whatever the rationale, I think there are ways that we in agriculture can capitalize on the public's willingness to pay to do business with us.

At your next branding try charging the neighbors for the honor of helping you work your calves. Instead of feeding them a well deserved barbecue dinner after the work is done, charge them for it. Make them join your club, pay an annual fee, and if you're really brave, charge them extra for being a member of the ground crew.

I'm also thinking that auction markets could charge for the weekly show they put on. Instead of wining, dining and begging buyers and sellers for their participation, auction market operators should charge them all to join their sale barn club. Anyone entering the building must show their card. Buyers could also be charged for special VIP seating, perhaps with their name on the back of their favorite chair.

If you think it's far fetched to charge people to watch an auction you probably have not been to the Red Bluff Horse Sale where thousands pay $10 each just to watch. Or the Barrett Jackson car auctions where you must pay to get in. All this proves that auctions have hidden entertainment value. I know one fella who subscribed to Direct TV just so he could watch cattle auctions on his television. He's addicted to them. And he's a hair dresser! Instead of giving away costly catalogs for bull sales, breeders should charge prospective buyers $30 to $100 for them like they do at swanky art auctions.

If you are going to try these ideas let me know. I want to be there when an auction market operator tells an old crusty cow buyer that henceforth he has to join a club and pay $40 a year for the privilege of buying canner cows at his auction. If you survive that suggestion you might also consider charging the buyers for parking.

White House readies phone-tap case concession

The Obama administration may be on the verge of a major concession in a long-running legal battle over records about so-called telecom immunity. An email obtained by POLITICO shows that the Obama Administration is preparing for the possible release of some details of the Bush Administration’s lobbying for legislation giving telecommunications companies immunity from lawsuits over their involvement in warrantless domestic wiretapping. But even if they do release those details, the administration may press on with a legal battle to keep secret the identities of the companies involved in the program. The reported decision would be a significant reversal by President Barack Obama’s administration and followed a series of legal setbacks the government suffered recently in the FOIA case seeking the records from last year’s debate over granting immunity to the telecoms. However, the move could also be a litigating tactic to surrender some of the less sensitive information in the case in order to bolster the government’s credibility for a determined attempt to protect the most sensitive data: the names of the companies which were seeking immunity...read more

In other words, they can use public money to lobby a public entity, but the public can't see all the records.

FBI delves into DMV photos in search for fugitives

In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes. The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong. "Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union...read more

Obama's unrestrained FBI

In the last weeks of the Bush-Cheney administration, FBI Director Robert Mueller and then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed into law such unbounded expansions of the FBI's domestic surveillance powers that I was stunned. As described by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an ever-watchful guardian of the Constitution, these Attorney General's Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations authorize the FBI — without going to a court — "to open investigative 'assessments' of any American without any factual predicate or suspicion. Such 'assessments' allow the use of intrusive techniques to surreptitiously collect information on people suspected of no wrongdoing and no connection with any foreign entity. These inquiries may include the collection of information from online sources and commercial databases." President Barack Obama has expressed no objections to these radical revisions of the Constitution, a founding document he used to educate students about at the University of Chicago. His attorney general, Eric Holder, said calmly during his Senate confirmation hearing: "The guidelines are necessary because the FBI is changing its mission ... from a pure investigating agency to one that deals with national security."...read more

Democrats Take a Pass on Civil-Liberties Reform

For a minute, it almost looked like Democrats were going to put up a fight on the PATRIOT Act as it came up for reauthorization. With a majority in Congress, a clear list of reforms set out by Russ Feingold and six other Democrats in the JUSTICE Act, and a president who had presented himself as a friend to civil libertarians, it certainly seemed possible. Last week, the administration outmaneuvered most congressional efforts to strengthen civil-liberties protections in the PATRIOT Act reauthorization, inserted provisions in the Homeland Security appropriations bill that would prevent the release of torture photographs that are the subject of a pending FOIA request, and is now poised to sign a defense authorization bill that contains changes to the military commissions that fall short of what the administration itself said might be overturned by the appellate courts. While most news outlets were focused on the health-care debate and President Barack Obama's unexpected Nobel Prize win, the administration successfully foiled civil-liberties advocates' efforts to rein in Bush-era executive powers -- and with little resistance from Democrats...read more

Supreme Court to hear asset forfeiture case

Asset forfeiture is one of law enforcement's most potent weapons against drug crimes. When private property such as cars, boats, houses, and money are used in a narcotics transaction, US laws allow the police not only to seize those assets but to profit from the seizures. But a problem arises when the confiscated property belongs to someone unaware that crimes were taking place. In such instances, it can take a year or more for the owner to get back the seized property. The US Supreme Court Wednesday takes up a case examining whether a federal appeals court was right when it ruled that officials in Chicago were taking too long to return property to innocent owners. The case, Alvarez v. Smith, involves six individuals who filed a class action lawsuit challenging Illinois' Drug Asset Forfeiture Procedures Act (DAFPA). Three claims sought return of seized cash, three others involved cars. The law provides for a series of administrative steps that can take from three to six months from the time of the seizure until a forfeiture hearing is held before a judge. The plaintiffs complained that was too long for an innocent owner to wait. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The appeals court likened the situation to the right of a criminal defendant to a speedy trial...read more

California AB 962: Much more than ammo?

Must people who follow gun laws and gun rights issues are aware by now that over the weekend, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed California AB 962. AB 962 requires registration (complete with thumbprint) of purchasers of handgun ammunition, requires retailers to keep the ammunition inaccessible to customers, forbids mail order purchases of handgun ammunition, etc. Speaking of which, one gun rights advocate I know well, at his online journal Days of Our Trailers, points out that the law seems to define "ammunition" in ways that one apparently must be a statist politician to understand. (c) For purposes of this section, “ammunition” shall include, but not be limited to, any bullet, cartridge, magazine, clip, speed loader, autoloader, or projectile capable of being fired from a firearm with deadly consequence. “Ammunition” does not include blanks.. That is taken directly from the text of the legislation--I omitted subsection (b) for the sake of brevity--and seems to indicate that magazines (whether "high capacity," or not), revolver speedloaders, unloaded bullets (not whole cartridges--just the projectiles themselves), etc., will fall under the scope of this insane law...read more

Man Fired For Looking At Gun Web Sites

t's not unusual for employees to be fired for browsing pornographic Web sites at work. But a Pennsylvania gun owner named Tony Jackson may have been the first person ever fired for looking at Web sites featuring gun parts. When Jackson was searching the Web for a replacement shotgun stock, supervisor Christie Vazquez -- who admitted in a subsequent deposition to being "very anti-gun" and had quarreled with him before about politics -- noticed what he was doing. Vazquez said she was scared because it was only a few weeks after the Virginia Tech massacre (see CBS News video), so she promptly reported her colleague's Web browsing to Planco's human resources department. Vazquez also informed the HR department that Jackson owned guns and was a member of the National Rifle Association. You can guess what happened next: according to court documents, the HR representative, Jamie Davis, replied that reporting the visits to Mossberg.com and other sites was "the right thing" to do, and ordered the information technology department to investigate Jackson's Internet activity. After receiving a list of Web sites visited, Davis recommended that Jackson be placed on leave, which the company authorized. Planco disabled Jackson's front door and computer access and arranged for undercover police to be at the building the next morning...read more

Interpol and U.N. Back ‘Global Policing Doctrine’

Interpol and the United Nations are poised to become partners in fighting crime by jointly grooming a global police force that would be deployed as peacekeepers among rogue nations riven by war and organized crime, officials from both organizations say. It is the first step toward creating what Interpol calls a “global policing doctrine” that would enable Interpol and the United Nations to improve the skills of police peacekeepers, largely by sharing a secure communications network and a vast electronic trove of criminal information, including DNA records, fingerprints, photographs and fugitive notices...read more

Support Your Global Police?

Noble was thus deeply involved in the decisions that led to the avoidable deaths of six members of the Branch Davidian sect, and four ATF stormtroopers, on February 28. His involvement in the planning and execution of the siege and the final April 19 assault isn't as significant. But he played the definitive role in covering up those crimes by serving as the "lead investigator" in the Clinton administration's internal "inquiry" into the federal atrocities at Waco. So patently fraudulent was Noble's "investigation" that a second bogus inquiry was necessary: In 2000, Attorney General Reno chose former Missouri Senator John Danforth to preside over an "independent" investigation that was mounted in what proved to be a successful effort to derail the wrongful death lawsuit cited above. By that time, however, Noble – who had been given the Alexander Hamilton Award by the Treasury Department, as if anything named after that individual could be construed as an honor – had been given another coveted post with Reno's help: He was nominated to serve as secretary-general of Interpol, a position he occupies to the present day. On October 12, Noble's agency announced that it would be collaborating with the United Nations by providing technical support – including access to voluminous, detailed databases – to UN "peacekeeping" personnel, including those that belong to the world body's police force, UNPOL...read more

TSA Takes Baby Away From Mother

Mommyblogger Nic tells the horrifying story of how TSA agents took away her child because the clip on his pacifier set off the metal detector yesterday. Nic writes: Jackson was in my arms, and in the midst of getting all of our gear on the conveyor belt, my mistake was neglecting to take off my son's pacifier clip that hangs from his shirt, which is metal. The instant I walked through the metal detector with Jackson in my arms, we beeped. I knew exactly why... The male TSA agent repeated, "I'm going to have to pick him up to inspect him." I handed him my son. I handed him my son and he walked away with my child. My eyes welled up with tears, I stood up from my chair and I asked the female TSA agent, "Where is he going? Where is he taking my child? Why is he leaving?" Jackson, while being whisked away looked at the male TSA agent awkwardly and repeated "no no no no." I started crying. The TSA eventually returned the child a few minutes later but the interim period was extremely stressful for the mother. According to the TSA website, "We will not ask you to do anything that will separate you from your child or children." Looks like some agents need retraining. Consumerist

Canadian trucker fined for smoking on the job

A Canadian truck driver has been fined for smoking in his vehicle because it is considered his workplace, a police spokeswoman said on Friday. A police officer saw the 48-year-old trucker driving on a highway in southwestern Ontario with a cigarette in his mouth on Wednesday, and gave him a C$305 ($290) ticket. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act, adopted in 2006, prohibits smoking in an enclosed workplace or enclosed public area, and that extends to work vehicles, said Constable Shawna Coulter of the Ontario Provincial Police in Essex County. "We enforce the legislation and this truck driver was in violation of that," she said. Reuters

Is the CIA still hiding JFK assassination secrets?

Is the Central Intelligence Agency covering up some dark secret about the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Probably not. But you would not know it from the C.I.A.’s behavior. For six years, the agency has fought in federal court to keep secret hundreds of documents from 1963, when an anti-Castro Cuban group it paid clashed publicly with the soon-to-be assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The C.I.A. says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But because of the agency’s history of stonewalling assassination inquiries, even researchers with no use for conspiracy thinking question its stance. The files in question, some released under direction of the court and hundreds more that are still secret, involve the curious career of George E. Joannides, the case officer who oversaw the dissident Cubans in 1963. In 1978, the agency made Mr. Joannides the liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations — but never told the committee of his earlier role. That concealment has fueled suspicion that Mr. Joannides’s real assignment was to limit what the House committee could learn about C.I.A. activities...read more

Song Of The Day #158

Our Gospel tune this morning is One Of These Days by Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver.

It's available on their 14 track CD Help Is on the Way on the Horizon label.