USDA halts use of beetles against saltcedar in 13 states

Concern about an endangered bird has caused the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare a cease-fire in its biological war against saltcedar, an invasive tree that has taken over riparian areas across the West. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service last week formally ended its program of releasing saltcedar leaf beetles to eat saltcedar, also known as tamarisk, in 13 states: Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana, Washington and Wyoming. The reason for the program's demise is the southwestern willow flycatcher, an endangered species found in scattered pockets around the Southwest. The bird nests in saltcedar, as well as in native willows and cottonwoods. Concern that beetles could destroy much of the bird's nesting habitat was why the USDA excluded New Mexico, Arizona and California from the beetle-release program, which began in 2005. Now, scientists think the beetles are likely to spread from the states where they were introduced. They say it could be just a matter of time before the insects chew through saltcedar all the way down the Colorado River drainage in Arizona and eastern California...more

EPA orders Simplot Cattle to change watering practice

For at least the past five years the Simplot Cattle Feeding Company’s Grand View feedlot has been found by the Environmental Protection Agency to be discharging contaminated water into the Ted Trueblood Wildlife Refuge and Snake River. On June 11, the EPA announced in a press release it has issued a legal order to the company to immediately cease all discharge. The order stems from Simplot’s use of a constant flow stock watering system, that when not used for irrigation (usually from November to March), a portion of the water is diverted to pasture, irrigation ditches, or into the wildlife refuge, all of which ultimately flow into the Snake River. Simplot’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems (NPDES) permit is essentially a “no discharge” permit, Potakar said. If watering system flows do not leave the facility they are not considered discharge. At this time, EPA is handling the violation administratively, which carries potential $16,000 per day, per violation fines if Simplot doesn’t follow the order...more

Eastern Oregon Ranchers Accused Of Setting Fires

A pair of Harney County ranchers have been accused of setting fires that have caused damage to more than 45,000 acres of public rangeland since the 1980s. Federal prosecutors said Dwight Hammond Jr., 68, and his son Steven Hammond, 41, both of Diamond, were also indicted on charges of threatening to assault firefighters by setting fires near them. The federal grand jury indictment said the Hammonds have publicly complained the U.S. Bureau of Land Management "takes too long" to complete required environmental studies before doing controlled rangeland burning. The indictment alleges the two men also set off uncontrolled fires under cover of naturally occurring dry lightning storms in the Steens Mountain area...more

Ranchers and environmentalists go to bat for El Dorado grasslands

Ed Borba's hat, mustache, oversized belt buckle and boots suggest a rancher. The bumper sticker on his truck completes the picture. It reads, "Eat Beef: The West Wasn't Won on Salad." The cattleman's West, though, hasn't been won definitively. Borba and others in El Dorado County are fighting to preserve the ranching way of life and its contribution to the local economy. The struggle is against development pressures, and they've found allies among the environmentalists who have often been the enemies of ranchers. "Ed took a chance and picked up a phone and called me," said Jamie Beutler, chairwoman of the California Democratic Party's Rural Caucus and an environmental advocate. Republican rancher and Democratic environmentalist have come together this time to try to preserve grasslands – for grazing and for wildlife...more

Song Of The Day #342

George Morgan and his 1949 recording of Room Full Of Roses is featured today on Ranch Radio.

The tune was written by Tim Spencer, a member of the Sons Of The Pioneers (who's family homesteaded in NM). When Spencer passed away, the other Pioneers made sure the church was full of roses.

Drug cartels threaten U.S. City Police Deptartment

Violence along the U-S Mexico border has for the most part stayed on the Mexican side. But, a recent incident involving a Nogales police officer may have changed the tide. For the first time in the history of the Nogales Police Department, threats have been made against the entire police force. The Nogales Police Chief has put out an alert to law enforcement officers saying a Mexican drug cartel has threatened officers to stay away from conducting off-duty drug busts. If they don't, they'll be targeted by a sniper or by other means. It was two weeks ago when Officer Angulo, Officer Gaston Ortega, and a third officer responded to an off-duty officers request for assistance. The officer had come across drug smugglers who he says has more than 400 pounds of marijuana. Officer Gaston Ortega says, "When I talked to the officer more or less to get a location on him, he said the mules or the backpackers were surrounding him and he was by himself." The off-duty officer was with another person from the Bar K S Ranch. They were looking for cattle that had wandered off. Once the officers came to the aid of the off-duty officer and were able to secure the marijuana, the smugglers ran back towards the border. Border Patrol Agents apprehended three of them, but three more got away. The Nogales Police Chief says through informants, they received word from the drug cartels that, "their off-duty officers not in uniform are to ignore or look the other way when there are narcotics flowing across the border."...more

Gunmen fire on Mexican town hall near border; kill 3 police

Authorities in northern Mexico say assailants sprayed a town hall with gunfire, killing at least three police officers. The Nuevo Leon state attorney general's office says police found 200 shell casings from assault and semiautomatic rifles outside the Los Herreras municipal office, which also houses the town's police force. Such weapons are often used by drug cartel hitmen. Prosecutors said Tuesday a vehicle found at the scene had "Z-40" and "Z" painted on its windows — apparent references to the Zetas drug gang. Authorities blame fighting between the Gulf cartel and the Zetas for a recent surge in violence in Nuevo Leon, which is close to Mexico's border with Texas. The attack happned around midnight Monday. AP

Drug Cartel Activity Threatens Texas Water Supplies, Lawmaker Says

Drug cartel activity along the Mexican border presents serious security threats to the area's water supply system, particularly on federally-owned lands in southern Texas, a U.S. lawmaker says. Members of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power held a hearing Thursday on H.R. 4719, a bill that would create a Southwest Border Region Water Task Force to monitor and assess the water supply needs of the area. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., ranking member of the House subcommittee, told FoxNews.com that the situation needs immediate attention, particularly in light of reports that a Mexican drug cartel -- the Los Zetas -- unsuccessfully plotted to blow up the Falcon Dam along the Rio Grande last month. "If the plot against Falcon Dam had succeeded, it would have affected more than 4 million residential customers," McClintock said Monday. "We need to focus our attention on securing these border water systems from attack by Mexican drug cartels, but also their use as a conduit for the illegal importation of drugs and people." McClintock said escalating violence along the Mexican border is a result of restricted access by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents to federal lands due to environmental regulations enforced by the Department of Interior...more

Obama requests $600 million for border security

The Obama administration formally asked Congress on Tuesday for $600 million in emergency funds to hire another 1,000 Border Patrol agents, acquire two drones and enhance security along the Southwest border. The money would also pay for an additional 160 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and extra Border Patrol canine teams, according to a senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly...more

War over the border: White House says Kyl is lying about security; AZ senator stands his ground

A few days ago, Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl told a town meeting in North Phoenix that President Obama personally told him that the administration will not secure the U.S.-Mexico border because doing so would make it politically difficult to pass comprehensive immigration reform. “I met with the president in the Oval Office, just the two of us,” Kyl said. “Here’s what the president said. The problem is, he said, if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.” “In other words,” Kyl continued, “they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with comprehensive immigration reform.” This morning, a White House spokesman told ABC News that Kyl is lying. “The President didn’t say that and Senator Kyl knows it,” communications director Dan Pfeiffer told ABC. “There are more resources dedicated toward border security today than ever before, but, as the President has made clear, truly securing the border will require a comprehensive solution to our broken immigration system.” Now, in an interview with KVOI radio in Arizona, Kyl says his account of the Oval Office conversation is accurate. “What I said occurred did occur,” Kyl said...more

Judge blocks Gulf offshore drilling moratorium

A federal judge struck down the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, saying the government rashly concluded that because one rig failed, the others are in immediate danger, too. The White House promised an immediate appeal. The Interior Department had halted approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama believes that until investigations can determine why the spill happened, continued deepwater drilling could expose workers and the environment to "a danger that the president does not believe we can afford." Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore drilling rigs asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium. They argued it was arbitrarily imposed after the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and blew out the well 5,000 feet underwater. It has spewed anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. Feldman sided with the companies...more

Border Patrol Charged Millions for Habitat Damage, Republicans Say Enough 'Extortion'

Republican lawmakers are calling on the Interior Department to stop charging what they describe as "extortion" money from the Border Patrol -- millions of under-the-radar dollars meant to cover environmental damage stemming from their everyday duties along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Border Patrol, last year signed a deal with Interior -- the administrator of America's parklands -- to cough up $50 million for environmental "mitigation" needed in the wake of the construction of a border fence. That was after DHS had already spent or committed millions more for expected environmental damage caused by the Border Patrol over the years. Though both the departments of Homeland Security and Interior say the money goes toward preserving and restoring sensitive habitats, Republicans say the arrangement doesn't make sense. The Border Patrol needs that money to address the weighty task of securing the border, they say, arguing that agents are actually helping conserve the environment by keeping out smugglers and immigration violators who have no regard for America's natural resources...more

Oregon Supreme Court upholds ruling in favor of land-rights activist Dorothy English

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled in favor of the late property rights pioneer Dorothy English on Thursday, presumably closing the book on a divisive land-use case that changed state law and shook our sense of place. The court upheld an earlier decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals and ordered Multnomah County to pay English's estate $1.15 million. The Supreme Court ruled that English had obtained a valid final judgment in the case and that the Multnomah County Circuit judge who heard the original case should have issued a writ of mandamus ordering the county to pay. English's case has long been portrayed by property rights advocates as an example of heavy-handed government interference. And in English, a colorful, sharp-tongued widow, they found a willing and even sympathetic figure. English, who died in April 2008 at age 95, wanted to develop her 20 acres off Northwest Skyline Boulevard outside of Portland. She and her late husband bought the property in 1953, and she wanted to divide it into eight home sites for her extended family. But the county had changed the property's zoning in the intervening years and wouldn't grant English a development permit. Property rights lawyers intervened, and the outspoken English became the "poster girl" for 2004's Measure 37, which gave property owners the right to develop their land in the way permitted when they bought it. English filed the state's first Measure 37 claim, and was joined by 6,500 Oregonians who demanded either compensation for diminished property values or for the right to build, in many cases, extensive subdivisions. Local governments such as Multnomah County were given the choice of either paying or waiving development restrictions...more

Val Kilmer's New Mexico neighbors block actor's attempts to turn ranch into a hotel, demand apology

Val Kilmer is feeling the heat. The actor, who wants to turn his 6,000-acre New Mexico ranch into an upscale bed-and-breakfast, is under intense pressure this week from neighbors trying to block the project, the Wall Street Journal reported. Kilmer, 50, found himself in the danger zone with locals when he applied for permits for the venture, launching protests from fellow Santa Fe area residents still upset about comments he made in past magazine interviews. The actor was quoted in a 2003 interview with Rolling Stone as saying his neighborhood was "the homicide capital of the Southwest" and that "80 percent of the people in my county are drunk." At a hearing to discuss Kilmer's application for permits, The Journal reported, a group of area residents and veterans demanded an official apology from the actor before allowing him to host paying guests at his Pecos River Ranch. Jesus Lopez, the county attorney, agreed, told The Journal that Kilmer's quotes were "incendiary" and created a "clear and present danger threatening public safety."...more

Ninth Circuit upholds critical habitat analysis, both on meaning of "occupied" habitat and on economic baseline analysis

SUMMARY: Arizona Cattle Growers' Association (“Arizona Cattle”) appeals from the district court's grant of summary judgment rejecting its challenge to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's (“FWS”) designation of critical habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl. Arizona Cattle argues that the FWS unlawfully designated areas containing no owls as “occupied” habitat and that the FWS calculated the economic impacts of the designation by applying an impermissible “baseline” approach. We find no fault with the FWS's designation of habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl. The FWS did not impermissibly treat unoccupied areas as “occupied,” and we hold that it permissibly applied the baseline approach in analyzing the economic impact of the critical habitat designation...more

Brava, Sen. Murkowski

Last Thursday, by a vote of 53-47, the Senate rejected S.J.Res.26, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s resolution of disapproval to overturn EPA’s endangerment rule. Although Sen. Murkowski fell four votes short of achieving a legislative victory, she nonetheless won an important political victory. During the past four-plus months, despite vicious attacks by eco-pressure groups and preemptive cringing by the subsidy dependent auto industry, Sen. Murkowksi worked patiently, calmly, and indefatigably to clarify the real issues, which are: (1) “The sweeping powers being pursued by EPA are the worst possible option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions”; (2) “politically accountable members of the House and Senate, not unelected bureaucrats, must develop our nation’s energy and climate policies”; and (3) ”those policies must be able to pass on their own merits, instead of serving as a defense against ill-considered regulations.” All 41 Republican Senators and six Democrats voted to stop EPA from ‘enacting’ controversial global warming policies through the regulatory back door. This means Democratic leaders have become the Party of Endangerment — the party taking ownership of the regulatory consequences of EPA’s endangerment rule; hence the party taking responsibility for the economic fallout...more

The Senate's global-warming circus

The Senate undermined its constitutional role last week with a vote that allows the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The 53 senators favoring this huge delegation of authority to the executive branch disregarded the principle of separation of powers. The low quality of the debate that preceded the vote, as well as its result, should put an end to the Senate's reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body. The motion being debated and voted on was simple. It was to disapprove the ruling by the EPA, known as the endangerment finding, that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare. According to the terms of the Congressional Review Act, under which Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican, brought the motion, the resolution would have terminated the legal force and effect of the finding. It was most assuredly not a vote on the science upon which the EPA based its decision. Yet this was the prime argument used by the resolution's opponents. Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, for example, compared the motion to a vote to repeal the law of gravity. This was possibly the most embarrassing Senate argument since former Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska Republican, insisted that the Internet was "a series of tubes." It also set up a straw man. Nothing in the resolution sought to overturn one word of the scientific case for global warming - or even mentioned it. Another straw-man argument raised to help defeat the motion was that the resolution was a reward to BP and "Big Oil."...more

Pelosi: Climate Change Legislation is a 'Moral Issue'--'We Have a Moral Responsibility' to Preserve 'God's Beautiful Creation'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last week that passing energy and climate change legislation is a “moral issue”—although, at the same time, she indicated that she is “agnostic” about what means should be used in legislation to reduce dependence on foreign oil and consumption of fossil fuels. Pelosi also said the issue was about "God's beautiful creation" which we have a "moral responsibility" to preserve. Pelosi was responding to a reporter who asked if she was disappointed that President Barack Obama, in calling for a new U.S. energy policy in his speech last Tuesday from the Oval Office, did not specifically advocated legislation that would limit U.S. carbon emissions, or so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation...more

Up Sucker Creek in southwest Oregon, gold miners' rights collide with environmental realities

At 38 years old, clean shaven and well spoken, Clifford R. Tracy doesn't fit Hollywood's archetype of a wild-eyed and white-bearded gold miner. But Tracy is Oregon's top gold mining rogue to environmentalists -- and a champion for a contingent of gold miners who say regulators are trampling their long-held property rights. Last year, Tracy was convicted of illegal mining along Sucker Creek on U.S. Forest Service property in southwest Oregon, after he felled trees, dug mining pits and diverted a stream without permission. He spent 13 days in jail because he wouldn't agree to stop mining. In Jackson County jail he went on a hunger strike, the jail confirms, and says he lost 20 pounds." It wasn't that bad," Tracy says. "The food wasn't that great anyway." Now Tracy has applied to mine just downstream on Bureau of Land Management property next to the creek, which happens to be one of Oregon's top streams for wild coastal coho, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The showdown on Sucker Creek comes downs to a conflict between the General Mining Law of 1872, which helped settle the West by promising easy access to minerals, and modern environmental laws such as the Endangered Species Act, adopted 101 years later. It also spotlights the controversial roles of federal agencies that manage public lands...more

U.S. Supreme Court lifts ban on Monsanto's genetically engineered alfalfa seeds

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a nationwide ban on the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa seeds, despite claims they might harm the environment. In a 7-1 vote Monday, the court reversed a federal appeals court ruling that had prohibited Monsanto Co. from selling alfalfa seeds engineered to resist Monsanto's popular weed killer Roundup. The U.S. Agriculture Department must now decide whether to allow the genetically modified seeds to be planted. It had earlier approved the seeds, but courts in California and Oregon said the USDA did not look hard enough at whether the seeds would eventually share their genes with other crops. The case is between Monsanto and a Greenleaf, Idaho, company, Geertson Seed Farms, which was founded in Oregon and has grown, bagged and sold alfalfa seed since 1942. Growers who raise organic or even conventional crops worry about contamination from the genetically engineered crop. Critics also worry the crop could encourage greater use of Roundup, polluting ground water and leading to more resistant weeds. "This Supreme Court ruling is important for every American farmer, not just alfalfa growers," said David F. Snively, Monsanto's senior vice president and general counsel. "All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation."...more

Ending the ethanol experiment

Despite visits to both the Bush and Obama administrations, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's request to end the U.S. tariff on Brazilian ethanol has fallen on deaf ears. Mr. Lula might be in luck - the tariff is set to expire at the end of 2010, and current congressional gridlock could prevent its extension. Supporters of sensible U.S. trade policy can only hope that happens. Ethanol represents a small percentage of the total U.S. fuel supply. Because of federal mandates, most gasoline purchased today is actually a mixture of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol, E10. Ethanol has been unable to prove itself as an efficient form of renewable energy, though it may perhaps play an important role in our nation's future energy supply. Taxes on imported ethanol force consumers to rely on inefficient and expensive ethanol produced from corn in the United States. These tariffs, in effect, declare war on consumers, raising the price at the pump as well as the price of all goods and services that require transportation to their final point of sale. They also perpetuate our dependence on foreign oil by reducing investment in the global ethanol industry. If foreign ethanol is less profitable because the U.S. effectively shuts it out of our market, less money is poured into its development. The irony is delicious. While politicians pay lip service to diversifying our energy sources, trade policies such as import tariffs may have the opposite effect. Taxing foreign ethanol is bad, but subsidizing domestic production is as bad or worse. The current ethanol subsidy is a 45-cents-per-gallon federal tax credit, and payments since 2005 have exceeded $20 billion. This acts as a double benefit: Ethanol producers already are guaranteed income through legislation that requires gasoline to be blended with ethanol. These companies are provided guaranteed business and then a subsidy on top of it...more

Song Of The Day #341

Ranch Radio today is featuring Jim Reeves and his 1953 recording of Bimbo.

The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider. The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony. “Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous,” the paper states unambiguously, adding that they rendered “the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism.” Hulme, Professor of Climate Change in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia – the university of Climategate fame — is the founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and one of the UK’s most prominent climate scientists. Among his many roles in the climate change establishment, Hulme was the IPCC’s co-ordinating Lead Author for its chapter on ‘Climate scenario development’ for its Third Assessment Report and a contributing author of several other chapters...more

Cleanups of Spill and an Agency Test Salazar

When President Obama boasted in his televised address on Tuesday about his team of leaders fighting the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he spoke glowingly of his energy secretary, his Coast Guard commander, even his Navy secretary. Then he turned to Ken Salazar, his interior secretary. “When Ken Salazar became my secretary of the interior, one of his very first acts was to clean up the worst of the corruption at this agency,” Mr. Obama said, referring to Mr. Salazar’s oversight of the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling. “But it’s now clear that the problem there ran much deeper, and the pace of reform was just too slow.” Shortly before the speech, the White House announced that Mr. Salazar would be getting a powerful new deputy, Michael R. Bromwich, a veteran investigator and former prosecutor, to supervise the remaking of the minerals service. What was not mentioned was that Mr. Salazar had appointed two aides to do the same job just a month before, and that Mr. Bromwich’s new assignment essentially reversed not only that move but also perhaps Mr. Salazar’s entire overhaul plan for the minerals service. Mr. Salazar’s job is not in immediate jeopardy, and the president values the work he has done and will continue to do at the Interior Department, said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary. But a senior administration official, who spoke of a delicate personnel matter only on the condition of anonymity said, “The president and the White House are watching very, very closely the pace of reform at Interior to see that progress is being made that truly cleans it up.”...more

Obama's Gulf Spill Panel Short on Scientific Expertise, Long on Environmentalism

The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about "America's addiction to oil." One member has blogged about it regularly. Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard's engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background -- but it's in optics and physics. The White House said the commission will focus on the government's "too cozy" relationship with the oil industry. A presidential spokesman said panel members will "consult the best minds and subject matter experts" as they do their work. The commission has yet to meet, yet some panel members had made their views known Environmental activist Frances Beinecke on May 27 blogged: "We can blame BP for the disaster and we should. We can blame lack of adequate government oversight for the disaster and we should. But in the end, we also must place the blame where it originated: America's addiction to oil." And on June 3, May 27, May 22, May 18, May 4, she called for bans on drilling offshore and the Arctic. "Even as questions persist, there is one thing I know for certain: the Gulf oil spill isn't just an accident. It's the result of a failed energy policy," Beinecke wrote on May 20. Two other commissioners also have gone public to urge bans on drilling...more

Arizona officials cancel bridges for squirrels

Arizona Department of Transportation is cancelling plans to install 41 new bridges on Mt. Graham for squirrels. The nylon webbing bridges were for the endangered red squirrel. The goal was that the bridges would provide easier access to food. ADOT Director John Halikowski says, "ADOT will not spend funds simply because they are available."...more

My previous post on this was $1.25 Mil To Save Rodents In Crime-Infested Border State.

Grizzly kills man near Wyoming's Yellowstone park

A grizzly bear killed a Wyoming man outside Yellowstone National Park, apparently just hours after researchers trapped and tranquilized the animal. The attack happened Thursday in the same place where two researchers with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team had examined a large adult male grizzly earlier that day, Park County Sheriff Scott Steward said Friday. The suspect bear was wearing a radio collar. Authorities didn't intend to venture into the woods to chase the animal, however. They hoped to trap it — again — and do DNA testing to see if it was indeed responsible. "Certainly there is a good chance it was the bear they were working on," Steward said. "There's certainly the exception, where it's just another bear." Shoshone National Forest officials closed off the Kitty Creek area, about six miles outside the Yellowstone East Entrance, until further notice. The victim was Erwin Frank Evert, 70, who went hiking around 12:45 p.m. from his cabin in the Kitty Creek drainage. When Evert didn't return, his wife went looking for him and met one of the bear researchers. The researchers had been getting ready to leave the area but one of them returned to the place where they had found the bear in a previously set trap, then tranquilized the animal for study. The researcher found Evert's body where they had left the bear to wake up, about two miles from Evert's cabin...more

Grizzly shot from helicopter

Wildlife officials are notifying guest lodge owners near the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park that they have killed a grizzly bear that is believed to have fatally mauled a man Thursday afternoon. The adult male grizzly bear had been snared and tranquilized by federal researchers Thursday morning and fitted with a radio collar before being released. Wildlife officials used a helicopter to track and shoot the bear Saturday morning after making unsuccessful attempts Friday to catch it. Authorities are conducting blood and DNA tests in an attempt to confirm that the bear shot Saturday is the one that killed Evert. Initial tests results are expected sometime Saturday, while more definitive tests should be completed by Monday...more

DNA tests match dead bear to mauling

A lab analysis has confirmed that a bear shot dead early Saturday morning near the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park is the one that fatally mauled a man Thursday afternoon in the same area. Rapid DNA testing of genetic material from the bear that was left on the victim matched blood drawn from the bear when it was tranquilized Thursday, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Servheen said he decided late Friday to authorize killing the bear if it could not be captured, because experts could not definitively determine whether the animal’s actions were natural and defensive or aberrant and unusually aggressive...more

Fed land managers hold int'l conference on "ick factor"

Public-land managers worldwide increasingly seek "exit strategies" for dealing with human waste as more people venture into the wild. The managers will brainstorm at an international conference on the subject — held at the end of July in Golden by the American Alpine Club — with participants from a dozen countries, including Argentina, China, Kenya and New Zealand. "This is a growing concern," said Denali National Park ranger Roger Robinson, coordinator for the conference, who has introduced a packable "clean mountain can" and led high-altitude cleanups. "It all boils down to contamination of watersheds," he said. "When you have a lot of use, you just can't go under a rock anymore." Rocky Mountain National Park rangers issue about 2,000 sacks each year to hikers headed up Longs Peak and to rock climbers going to Lumpy Ridge, asking them to pack out their biological waste. It's not required but is recommended. But even the most conscientious campers can be grossed out by carrying a bag of their own waste. "There's still still the ick factor," said Brenda Land, a U.S. Forest Service expert on remote toilet systems...more

Well, this is a big problem that deserves a solution. So, I started to head over to the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium to consult with Gus and Woodrow...then I thought maybe not.

If I started explaining "exit strategies" and the "ick factor" and experts on "remote toilet systems", well I just might wind up in the outhouse myself.

Head first.

Tyson, Meat-Company Pricing Power Target of New Rules

Tyson Foods Inc., Smithfield Foods Inc. and other large meatpackers would be barred from buying animals from each other and limits would be set on their exclusive contracts with large livestock suppliers under a rule proposed by the government to address antitrust concerns. Industry consolidation and increasing packer ownership of livestock have lowered the prices smaller farmers receive for their cattle, hogs and poultry, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today. Exclusive contracts among larger producers and meatpackers keep small farmers in the dark about pricing, limiting their negotiating power, he said. Under the USDA proposal, meatpackers would be barred from signing higher-paying contracts with large producers than farmer groups that can provide the same quantity and quality of livestock, “without providing legitimate justification for the disparity,” according to an outline of the rule on the USDA’s website. Packers also would be prohibited from sharing prices with competitors and receiving livestock from each other. Sample contracts also would be made available on a USDA website, in a move to improve transparency, the department said...more

As demand grows for locally raised meat, farmers turn to mobile slaughterhouses

When Kathryn Thomas wanted to turn her sheep into lamb chops, the federal government required her to haul them across Puget Sound on a ferry and then drive three hours to reach a suitable slaughterhouse. Not anymore. These days, the slaughterhouse -- and the feds -- come to her. A 53-foot tractor-trailer rattles up to her farm on Lopez Island, the rear doors open and the sheep are led inside, where the butcher and federal meat inspector are waiting. When the job is done, the team heads out to the next farm. The slaughtermobile -- a stainless steel industrial facility on wheels -- is catching on across the country, filling a desperate need in a burgeoning movement to bring people closer to their food. It is also perhaps one of the most visible symbols of a subtle transformation at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, long criticized for promoting big agribusiness...more

Group Calls for Investigation of Brazilian Beef

Food & Water Watch, a Washington, DC-based consumer group, yesterday called on the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate imported beef products from Brazil that could be adulterated with residues of the veterinary drug Ivermectin. In a letter to the Inspector General, the group detailed the discovery of residue contamination problems in processed beef products from Brazil, problems which caused the USDA suspend processed beef imports from Brazil entirely. According to Food & Water Watch, the agency has failed to call for a recall of the products that entered the United States before the imports were halted. They believe the potentially contaminated meat made it into canned meat products, which are likely still on shelves. This specific case comes just months after an investigation by the agency's Inspector General revealed severe flaws in the agency's program in the federal food safety system meant to keep chemical or drug residues out of meat products...more

The five horses that changed history

Horses have shaped history long before the invention of writing or the wheel. A new museum exhibit looks at their place in society. J Edward "Ted" Chamberlin, a horse breeder and professor of comparative literature at the University of Toronto, has collected stories about horses for most of his life. Even so, the author of Horse: How the Horse Changed Civilizations was hard-pressed to narrow down the list of horses that changed history to just five. Horses have shaped history since long before the invention of writing or the wheel. For humans, horses have been food, transport, instrument, symbol and inspiration. Here are Chamberlin's choices of five horses that changed history: 1. Przewalski's horse The Asiatic wild horse, Przewalski's horse, which is called "takh" in Mongolia, is still the closest thing to the prehistoric horse that inspired Stone Age man to paint this image of power and freedom on the walls of a cave. The Przewalski's horse is the only surviving true wild horse. Others, such as the ponies of Sable Island or mustangs of the West, are actually feral horses. It has a slightly different genetic makeup from the modern riding horse, but is closely related to the horses ridden by the Mongol hordes that swept over Asia, conquering everything in their path. Przewalski's horses, once extinct in the wild, were collected in zoos and have been reintroduced in Mongolia, where they are a prized symbol of national identity...more

Pitkin County jailbreaks

It's hard to say exactly when these dashes from confinement actually began, as the Pitkin County Courthouse, jail included, was only completed as recently as 1891, but there is an 1881 account of an ugly act committed by a man named Harrington against another fellow, Jackson. Following an argument, Harrington fired two pistol shots at Jackson, merely whistling them through his hat, which was enough to charge Harrington with attempted murder. Poor marksmanship should have been the accusation. Harrington, being escorted to the Canon City jail (there wasn't one stout enough in Aspen) escaped near Buena Vista. The chagrined sheriff, embarrassed by his predicament, appointed a “dead-eyed” James Van Pelt as deputy with instructions to bring in Harrington, “dead or alive.” Riding the slower horse, Harrington turned and drew first on Van Pelt, but Van Pelt, clearly the better shot, deftly put two slugs into Harrington, saving further expense to Pitkin County. One of the most famous escape artists of all-time, a man who put “jail” and “break” into the same sentence more often than most killers, was a man named Harry Tracy. For a time he was part of Butch Cassidy's gang and hung out at Brown's Park in northwestern Colorado, a popular hideout...more

Song Of The Day #340

It's Swingin' Monday on Ranch Radio.

Rhonda Vincent normally sings and plays straight up Bluegrass, but on World's Greatest Biggest Fool her and her band performn a nice swing tune.

The tune is available on her 12 track CD Good Thing Going

Gee, isn't that album cover a little larger than usual?

Obama tells Kyl : I won’t secure border b/c Republicans will have no reason to support “comprehensive immigration reform"

On June 18, 2010, Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl told the audience at a North Tempe Tea Party town hall meeting that during a private, one-on-one meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office, the President told him, regarding securing the southern border with Mexico, “The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” [Audible gasps were heard throughout the audience.] Sen. Kyl continued, “In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”...more

Arizona's senators tour border, hold town hall

Problems with illegal immigration and border violence. It's life for people living along the Arizona/Mexico border. And they have plenty to say about it. KOLD News 13 went to the border town of Douglas Saturday, where Arizona's two U.S. senators took a tour, and held a town hall meeting. At the meeting Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl, both Republicans, got an earful from people who live in southeastern Arizona, along the border with Mexico. Many of them feel they are living in a war zone. Ed Ashurst said, "My home's been robbed. I had two vehicles stolen. I've had nine firearms stolen." Ashurst also lost his friend, fellow Douglas rancher Robert Krentz to murder along the border. The town hall brought out nearly 100 people who live in and around cities and towns along the Arizona/Mexico border. They had plenty to say to their senators. Joyce Bracht is from Hereford. "I can't ride my horses because it's too dangerous. That should be your number one responsibility to make us safe," she said. Huachuca City Mayor Byron Robertson told the lawmakers, "Last week when my police chief called me in and told me that an SUV-minivan had been stopped on I-10 with a 50-caliber machine gun mounted in the back and a rocket launcher." hough many in the audience liked what they were hearing from the senators, frustration was a recurrent theme. Carlos Valenzuela of Douglas expressed it this way: "We can hear something really great here, but then they can't seem to find the consensus in Washington." After the town hall, we went back to rancher Ed Ashurst to ask him what he thought had been accomplished. He said, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We need action. We don't need words. Everybody's aware of the problem. We need some solutions." Before the town hall, Senators McCain and Kyl had a closed door meeting with local ranchers. We're told the discussion was sometimes emotional and heated on the part of the ranchers...more at KOLD-TV

Here is a KVOA-TV news report:

Five Federal Lands in Arizona Have Travel Warnings in Place

Imagine the federal government closing a section of the Lincoln Memorial because it was under the control of Mexican drug lords and bands of illegal immigrants. That scenario is playing out as reality in southern Arizona, where parts of five federal lands -- including two designated national monuments -- continue to post travel warnings or be outright closed to Americans who own the land because of the dangers of "human and drug trafficking" along the Mexican border. "This is one of those things that the Department of Interior does not want to publicize," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, ranking Republican on the House Parks and Public Lands Subcommittee. "These bad actors are now being channeled into federal lands along the border because it's so easy to make that access. The situation is getting worse on federal lands and will only get worse until we make some proactive activity to change the status quo." "Frankly," Bishop continued, "the status quo is failing. We are failing to control our borders."...more

Violence prompts strong warning at Ariz. monument

An increase in smuggling violence at the Sonoran Desert National Monument about 80 miles south of Phoenix has prompted a stronger warning to visitors about drug and immigrant traffickers passing through the public lands, officials said Tuesday. The monument and three other federal lands in Arizona already have signs warning visitors that they may encounter smugglers. But 11 new signs have recently been erected and two more were planned at the Sonoran Desert National Monument. The new signs warn visitors about speeding smuggling vehicles and instruct them to walk away when seeing something suspicious and avoid abandoned vehicles and backpacks because they might contain drugs stashed there by smugglers. Tom Lister, the Bureau of Land Management's chief law enforcement ranger in Arizona, said authorities felt a stronger warning was needed because the area is near where a Pinal County deputy was shot in a confrontation with marijuana smugglers in April and where two men suspected of being involved in smuggling were fatally shot earlier this month. Signs warning visitors of smugglers have been put up in the past in southern Arizona at the Sonoran Desert National Monument, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Coronado National Forest. While the monument isn't located directly on the border, it's used as a pathway for traffickers headed to Phoenix, a busy hub for moving illegal immigrants and marijuana across the United States. Smuggling at the monument declined from 2005 through 2008 but is picking up again, Lister said...more

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Critter crawling time

by Julie Carter

It's the season. Reports of big snakes, miller moths and coyotes are filtering through the social networks, coffee shops, email lists and spit-and-whittle club members.

A recent headline on the Yahoo web page indicated that snake populations worldwide seem to be declining.

I personally view that as a cause for celebration; however, a British biologist is calling for a worldwide study to determine what is causing this and how to correct it.

I wonder if that Brit ever had to work in country where one eye was devoted to what you were doing and the other was on guard duty watching for a hostile snake.

I'm certain he never carried a gun so he could first shoot a snake before he could turn on the well water for the cattle.

The article seemed to have missed the numbers of snakes gone missing in Taiwan and China where they drink snake blood as an aphrodisiac.

Topping the recent snake stories locally was the 7-foot diamond back bagged on a ranch southeast of Corona, although the 5-footer taken by a little lady near the Capitan Mountains was no less of a threat, the snake or the lady.

Both rattlers were threatening the safety of pets, livestock and children.

Time to pay attention!

Multitasking shooter

I read in an old book about a pioneer woman stirring pancake batter, holding the baby and shooting Indians out the window.

Someone asked her about it, and her response was matter-of-fact.

"Everybody was hungry, the baby would cry if I put him down and the Indians needed shooting."

PawPaw's daycare

When old cowboys go to the house, so to speak, they sometimes take up caring for the grandbabies. In this particular case, the cowboy calls his part in this project PawPaw's Daycare.

All was well in the neighborhood until folks around there had their chickens disappearing in broad daylight.

A shout from Grandmaw was about to change that.

"Get your gun!" she yelled from the yard.

As PawPaw stepped out the door to see what the commotion was about, he saw a fat, well-fed coyote high tailing it across the pasture.

He raised the 30/30 and took aim, squeezed the trigger and missed, but shot close enough to spin the coyote's trajectory another direction.

He levered in another live one. The coyote came out of the sage, still running full tilt at 200 yards out and this time, ran right into a speeding bullet.

Admitting to the possibility of "luck" in the shot, the cowboy explained that the coyote was a Progressive, one who had been eating his chickens without working for them.

"The capitalist in me just couldn't stand it," he said with a grin.

The neighbors, mostly retirees, were impressed over the excitement in the 'hood' and from porches and rocking chairs everywhere you could hear conversations such as: "Bertie, you want to drive over to the Dusty Canyon outfit, hang around and watch that guy cap another chicken-stealin' coyote?"

Sometimes entertainment of any kind comes at a premium.

A documenting photograph showed PawPaw standing under his 10-gallon hat, baby girl in one arm, holding the bagged coyote by the his hind feet in the other. Baby girl might get a nice coyote cape, something Red Riding Hood-style.

"Once you make a nice shot, you just go home and live on the legend," he said. "All is safe again at PawPaw's Daycare."

Women are born with a multi-tasking gene not common to men. There was no pancake batter involved in PawPaw's process of carrying it out a needed shootin'.

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

Power Grabs and Pixie Dust - A Book Review

Power Grab by Christopher C. Horner, Regnery, 396 pgs.

This book is a 307 page horror story.

Let me explain.

Within its pages you will find scary chapter after scary chapter of what is being done to or with our natural resources by Obama and his “green” appointees.

You will also find the facts surrounding the “Power Grab” by the Executive at the expense of the Legislative and the progressive agenda behind the power shift.

Between the covers of this well-written and thoroughly documented book, you will discover:

° How and why Obama is appointing “Czars” to skirt the advise and consent provisions of the Constitution
° How Obama is using global warming as “Political Payola” and as a vehicle for “Taxing and Stealing Your Liberties”
°How green jobs programs “kill existing jobs to pay for the new, heavily subsidized and temporary” jobs.
°How the Blue-Green Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups, is using the environment “as a way to organize society and divvy the spoils”
°How organized labor is using “greenmail” – using environmental challenges to green utility projects – to force companies to go union

And that is just a small sample of the horror stories related in this interesting volume.

Possibly of most interest to readers of The Westerner is Chapter 6, Domestic Disturbance: Locking Up Our Resources and Shutting Down The Economy. Therein Mr. Horner describes how, using the “anti-growth, anti-energy radicals” now installed they seek to impose a policy of “energy poverty” on our country. Horner walks us through how Obama rushed to tie up the nation’s energy resources by moratoriums, postponements, shortening the duration of drilling leases and suspending governmental research and development.

Mr. Horner demonstrates throughout the book the endgame the greens seek to impose:

If the greens achieve their desired mandates, they will in effect finally codify lower levels of economic activity, individual wealth creation, and of course consumption.

Yes, a book of horror stories. But don’t let that scare you off. While this book is full of facts and has 77 pages of footnotes, it is well organized and Horner is a talented writer. He spices things up with such phrases and titles as “Renewable Fools” and “Fill ‘Er Up With Solar”; refers to Al Gore’s green enterprises as “pixie dust companies" and calls the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) the “Less Competition For Saudies measure.”

Finally, Horner ends on a positive note, calling us out to take action:

But these freedoms are not theirs to take from you. Fight back. And tell your kids and grandkids what you did in this war.

This book will make a great addition to your war arsenal.

I had previously posted a video of an interview of Mr. Horner which you can view here.

Song Of The Day #339

Ranch Radio's Gospel tune this Sunday morning is Father, Son and Holy Ghost by Ernie Thacker.

You'll find the tune on his 11 track CD Chill of Lonesome.

Mayor of Mexican border town assassinated

The mayor of a Mexican town near the U.S. border was assassinated on Saturday. Federal police confirm that Guadalupe Distrito Bravos Mayor Jesus Manuel Lara Rodriguez was gunned down in neighboring Ciudad Juarez as he arrived at his home and was preparing to open the garage, a government spokesman said. Lara had recently moved to Ciudad Juarez because of security concerns in his own town about 30 miles to the southeast. Juarez — across the border from El Paso — is one of the areas most affected by drug-related violence in Mexico. Officials said the motive for the fatal shooting was not known and the suspects remained at large...more

11 killed in shootout between Mexican soldiers and suspected drug traffickers

A SHOOTOUT between Mexican soldiers and suspected drug traffickers has left 11 people dead in Tamaulipas state near the U.S. border. Gunmen ambushed a military patrol in the town of Miguel Aleman in an exchange of fire that "killed three soldiers and eight assailants," the defence ministry said in a statement. Another shootout occurred in the nearby city of Reynosa, also bordering the United States, killing one of the attackers, the statement added...more

U.S.-Mexican border security continues to deteriorate, officials say

Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officials interviewed by The Washington Examiner say it is Mexico's bad policies that pose a security risk to law enforcement in the field. "Do you think U.S. Border Patrol agents would allow American teenagers to throw rocks at Mexican police or military from our side of the border into Mexico?" a Department of Homeland Security official said. "It would never happen. But daily, agents and officers are confronted by thugs while Mexican law enforcement rarely lifts a finger and many times are a part of the problem." Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officials pointed out Mexico's Grupo Beta, described by Mexican officials as a migrant welfare agency group, for criticism. The group assists 150 to 200 migrants a day who are seeking to enter the United States illegally with water, maps and other services. The Mexican government's foreign ministry in 2005 issued a 32-page comic book that is still circulating on illegal smuggling routes providing tips on how to enter the United States illegally. The persistent corruption among Mexican law enforcement agencies complicate the problem with violence on the border, American border agents say. Mexican police who are not corrupt are intimidated by powerful drug trafficking organizations, U.S. agents said. "It is a storm that's only going to get worse," said a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who has investigated Mexican drug cartels...more

Border Patrol Navigating Reams of Regulation to Secure Federal Land

Border Patrol agents must navigate a patchwork of environmental regulations dating back decades in order to police for drug cartels, smugglers and illegal immigrants -- often on foot-and-horseback in some of the most vulnerable areas of the southwest border. To unlock the legislative handcuffs, a group of House lawmakers are pushing a bill that would prohibit the Departments of Interior and Agriculture from taking any action that would "impede border security" on public lands. The restrictions on those lands cover numerous laws, rules and interagency agreements, which the Department of Homeland Security has warned are getting in the way of securing the border at a "critical" time. "It's insanity," said bill author Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. The basis for the restrictions dates back to the Wilderness Act of 1964 which established millions of acres of federal protected land and for the most part barred permanent roads and prohibited motor vehicles, motorboats, aircraft and any other "mechanical transport" from entering. For most casual hikers and backcountry campers, that's not a problem. But as the border has become more porous over the decades, lawmakers say Border Patrol guards have found themselves at a disadvantage as illegal immigrants use the protected lands as a corridor to enter the United States...more

Rep. Bishop speaks on border security concerns on federal lands

This video is 37 minutes long, but is a great summation of events and knowledge up to this point. Rep. Bishop does an excellent job in this floor speech. If you want to know how wilderness is affecting border security, he lays it all out in this video.

We may have just found our Secretary of Interior for the next republican administration.

Costly efforts to secure border not paying off

From the construction of the border fence to the deployment of unmanned aerial drones, federal initiatives have cost billions of dollars to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and have been mired in challenges and setbacks, public records show. Audits by U.S. Congress’ investigative arm, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), also reflect that numerous initiatives have been stymied and plagued by mismanagement, lack of coordination and no oversight. Meanwhile, the $1.6 billion virtual fence, initiated in 2006 and known as SBInet, covers 53 miles in the Yuma and Tucson sectors. But GAO reported that as of April, Border Patrol agents continued to rely on existing technology rather than SBInet. “According to my calculations, (the cost of the virtual fence) equals nearly $20 million per mile,” U. S. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Mississippi, chairman of the U. S. House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement issued June 17, when a hearing was held on the initiative in Washington, D.C. The plan was to have SBInet in place throughout the 1,989-mile U.S.-Mexico border by 2009. The virtual fence is composed of a network of sensors, cameras, towers and radars that are supposed to detect and track movement on the border, and transmit the data to video terminals at command centers and agents’ vehicles to assist in identifying illegal activity. GAO found that sensors can’t differentiate between vehicles, humans and animals — although the ability had been a requirement of the system. The radar also couldn’t differentiate between humans and vehicles. But those in charge of the project decided to waive these and other significant requirements. “The system is now only required to achieve a 49 percent probability of identifying items of interest that cross the border,” GAO found...more

$1.25 Mil To Save Rodents In Crime-Infested Border State

While the Obama Administration allows Mexican smuggling violence to shut down thousands of acres of public parklands in Arizona, it’s giving the state more than a million bucks to save an “endangered” rodent. This inconceivable example of government waste was exposed this week by a major news organization that reveals the feds have given Arizona $1.25 million to build bridges for endangered squirrels to cross over a mountain road. The new structures will keep the squirrels from becoming road kill and will therefore allow officials to monitor their health. The project is essential because the Mount Graham red squirrels are on the verge of extinction and cars kill approximately five a year near the mountainous area where around 250 of them live. The taxpayer dollars will be used to build rope bridges over the road that runs through the squirrels’ habitat. More than 40 canopy tunnel crossings will be erected at a cost of $400,000 each. Incredibly, the federal government refuses to allocate the resources necessary to battle the Mexican smuggling violence that has overrun the state. The problem is so severe that 3,500 acres of taxpayer-funded parklands in Arizona have been shut to U.S. citizens out of safety concerns created by Mexican drug and human smugglers. The section of land is part of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge and extends north from the international border for about three quarters of a mile...more

CNFR - 4 National Event Champions From New Mexico

Jordan Muncy-Taton---Breakaway---PANHDL

Sydni Blanchard---Barrels---MESACC

Chance Kiehne/Michael Trujillo...Team Roping...ENMU

Jordan Muncy-Taton---Women's All Around

CNFR Highlights - Video Report

CNFR - Championship Round

Calf Roping

Bo Simpson---NS
JoDan Mirabal---NS

Team Roping

Rodee Walraven/Johnny Salvo---6.3 (3rd in round)



Team Standing

Men's Team---6th in Nation
Women's Team---16th

°Staci Stanbrough was elected Student President of the NIRA

°Coach Jim Dewey Brown was elected once again to be the Rodeo Producer of the CNFR

How an Alabama fire chief risked jail to save town from Gulf oil spill

Yet if the Gulf oil spill arrives here this week as scientists have forecast, it will not find the town unprepared. A flotilla of nine spud barges – flanked by containment boom – will be waiting, ready to block the 530-foot-wide entrance to Weeks Bay. If all goes according to plan, these rusted steel behemoths will form an impenetrable barrier, defending the estuary’s 19 federally-protected species and the vital marshland which serves as a nursery for shrimp and other seafood so crucial to the Gulf Coast region. They will also preserve an unspoiled way of life. The blockade is being led by Jamie Hinton, the local volunteer fire chief who, at one point, was faced with the possibility of being jailed for violating the federal and state chain of command. His resourcefulness is a parable not only of how desperate Gulf Coast communities have become to save the shorelines on which their lives have taken root, but also of the confusion that can consume and undermine such a massive relief effort. In the end, Magnolia Springs did not need BP or Mr. Obama or the governor in Montgomery...more

I've posted before on how a rafting guide saved a 13 year old girl and was arrested. Now we have a volunteer fire chief threatened with jail for violating the "chain of command." All this demonstrates the incompetency of government and their willingness to threaten or throw people in jail who question their authority, public safety be damned.

The key to the whole story is the following:

Others told him the government would handle it. He scoffed. He remembered the Exxon Valdez, hurricane Katrina, hurricane Ivan. If anyone was going to save Magnolia Springs, it wouldn’t be the feds, BP, or environmental activists. It would be the thousand-odd people who live here. After all, the locals knew the water – knew every twist and turn of Magnolia River, Fish River, and Weeks Bay. They would handle things the way they always did – together.

Jamie Hilton is a hero and I pray his efforts are successful.

CNFR, Championship Round Qualifiers

Bo Simpson, 5th in calf roping
JoDan Mirabal, 11th in calf roping
Walraven/Salvo, 4th in team roping

Men's team is currently sitting in 9th place

No girls made it to Championship Round.

Good luck to the finalists!

New Mexico rodeo team heals, succeeds after losing teammate

A season that began with such promise ended before the first rodeo. Megan McCain, a fiercely competitive and loyal teammate on the Mesalands Community College rodeo team, was traveling with teammates Angela Stash, Daphne Wehrs and Amber Miller on Aug. 21, 2009, on Interstate 40 near Bushland, Texas. A promising year that would eventually lead to Casper was changed when their Dodge pickup was struck head-on by a vehicle traveling the wrong way on the Texas Panhandle freeway. Seat belts helped save the lives of Stash, Wehrs and Miller. It wasn't enough to save the 20-year-old McCain. In the aftermath, Mesalands landed a new identity. "It definitely brought the team together," Mesalands coach C.J. Aragon said. "It was almost like rodeo took a back seat to everything else in the fall, because the kids were just taking care of each other." Aragon has six athletes -- all healing and all improving -- here for the College National Finals Rodeo and a dedicated group of fans at home in the tiny community of Tucumcari, N.M...more

Group targets CNFR

An animal rights group posted a video on YouTube on Thursday showing three scenes of a man covertly shocking what appears to be two different horses to force them to buck during Thursday's performance of the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper. "They claim [horses] are born to buck," said Steve Hindi, president of Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK. "They are not," Hindi said. The video appears to show a young man wearing blue jeans, a long-sleeve tan shirt and black hat with his hands on the horses' necks and pulling them quickly away. In all scenes, he immediately tucks a device under his unbuttoned sleeve. CNFR spokeswoman Susan Kanode responded Friday with a press release stating: "Safety and the welfare of animal and human athletes is of the highest concern to the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association. "The use of prods is acceptable where the animal’s safety is a concern as in the case of a horse stalling in the bucking chute," Kanode said...more

Against Gov. Jindal's Wishes, Crude-Sucking Barges Stopped by Coast Guard

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has spent the past week and half fighting to get working barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. By Thursday morning, against the governor's wishes, those barges still were sitting idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore. "It's the most frustrating thing," the Republican governor told ABC News while visiting Buras, La. "Literally, [Wednesday] morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges." Sixteen barges sat stationary Thursday, although they had been sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk. So why stop now? "The Coast Guard came and shut them down," Jindal said. "You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, 'Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'" But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges...more

Security Worries Overshadow U.S.-Mexico Park Plan

After more than 70 years, a project to create an international peace park between Texas and Mexico is slowly moving forward. Last month, Presidents Obama and Calderon signed a joint statement pledging both countries' interest in protecting cross-border wild lands. But worries over border security overshadow the project. When Big Bend National Park was established in 1944 in far West Texas, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote to President Manuel Avila Camacho of Mexico, "I do not believe this undertaking in the Big Bend will be complete until the entire park area ... on both sides of the Rio Grande, forms one great international park." As of last year, Mexico had set aside 2.5 million acres of wild lands on its side of the Rio Grande. Together with Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park, this could become the greatest protected desert ecosystem on the continent. Brewster County Sheriff Ronnie Dodson, whose vast county — bigger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined — includes the Big Bend, says if there was a park in Mexico, he'd stay on his side of the river. "I definitely wouldn't go over there," he says. He's leery of Mexican drug traffickers. But international park supporters insist that the area is relatively safe. They point out that the Big Bend region has less illegal activity than many other areas along the 2,000-mile border. But Dodson disputes that idea. "Within a month, between us and Border Patrol, we've caught 6,000 pounds of marijuana coming out of there [and] numerous illegal aliens. The problem is when people say we're the least, it's because we're the biggest — and we miss a lot," he says. U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX), who represents the district that encompasses Big Bend, wrote the resolution to create an international park with Mexico. "This is a very difficult time to be doing this," he says, "but I want to stress that the more communication we have with Mexico the better we will be." There is not yet a detailed plan for a binational peace park. In fact, most lawmakers have not even heard of the idea. Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has, released a statement saying she would not support any such undertaking that could compromise border security. A National Park Service official in Washington, D.C., speaking on background, said senior levels of the Interior Department and Mexico's Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat have quietly begun discussions on what an international park would entail. He said the mood is more positive than it's been in years — perhaps because this is one of the few bright spots in otherwise tense border relations...more

Lawmaker Warns Parks Takeover by Mexican Cartels, Illegals 'Intensifying'

Federal environmental laws are handcuffing U.S. Border Patrol agents to a foot-and-horseback strategy as they try to battle Mexican drug cartels and illegal immigrants who are turning wide swaths of America's border with Mexico into a virtual no-man's land. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, ranking Republican on the House Parks and Public Lands Subcommittee, said the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona -- part of which was closed in 2006 because it was considered too dangerous for Americans to visit -- is just the tip of the iceberg. He said there's plenty of other parkland along the border that's either closed to the public or is considered too dangerous because of concern about drug gangs, human smugglers and illegal immigrants, and that the problem is getting worse. "You travel here in America at your own risk," Bishop told FoxNews.com. The reason the parkland along the border has become so hazardous, Bishop said, is because environmental regulations restrict Border Patrol from using vehicles to patrol in those areas -- except in special circumstances. In turn, he said, drug cartels are being funneled into those swaths as immigration agents get tougher patrolling private land. "It's intensifying," Bishop said. And he said the Obama administration's plan to send National Guard troops to the border will be inhibited by the restrictions on federal land. "I don't care how many troops you send down there -- until they have access to the land, it doesn't do any good," he said...more