We must howl to Congress to keep the green fire glowing Perched on a mountainside in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley with Park Ranger Rick McIntyre, we eyed the Crystal Creek wolf pack tracking an elk. It was 1995, and these were the first wolves to return to the national park in 60 years. As we watched the alpha male and female loping together across the green thaw of spring grasses, we could not know how these wolves would revitalize this ecosystem, dramatically increasing everything from insects to trees to songbird populations. And yet, with all of these environmental successes, the Bush administration has announced plans to end federal protection for wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. As soon as this month, federal wildlife managers will use our taxpayer dollars to trap, hunt and shoot wolves from airplanes, even kill wolf pups in their dens. This is a wildly unpopular extermination program driven by a small minority of ranchers and hunters who see the wild wolf only as a rival, when, in fact, wolves have much to teach us about ecosystem balance....
Army hints at seller for Pinon expansion Like a grass fire, word spread quickly this week that the Army claims to have a willing seller to provide as much as 100,000 acres for the expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. The only problem is that the largest landowner in the area, Craig Walker of Denver, repeated his refusal Wednesday to sell land to the Army and said he has never spoken to anyone from the Army about his two ranches in the area. "I want to stop this talk as quickly as possible," Walker, who owns approximately 100,000 acres in two different parcels, said. "I'm not interested in selling to the Army. I'm trying to put my land into conservation easements as quickly as possible. I am opposed to the expansion of Pinon Canyon." The discussion of a willing seller broke out Tuesday after Jim Montoya, Las Animas County commissioner, told area ranchers that the Army claims it has been approached by a willing seller who can offer as much as 100,000 acres for the planned expansion of Pinon Canyon. Montoya and the other county commissioners met with Army officials at the Pentagon last week as part of a trip to shore up congressional opposition to the proposed 414,000-acre expansion of the training area northeast of Trinidad....
The Accidental Green Developer Even as he proudly shows off the sustainable features of the Saddlehorn development, Doug Averill shies away from the terms “developer” and “green.” He didn’t intend to be either, he insists. What he and his partners planned just happened to fit the bill. Averill argues that Montanans have always been great environmentalists, acting as good stewards in order to preserve their way of life: “If we weren’t good land stewards, we’d be out of timber, overrun with weeds, with no wildlife or beauty left.” Saddlehorn wasn’t about being green, Averill says, it was about doing what made sense to him as a rancher and what fits with the community. Yet the hardest sell for Saddlehorn, and projects like it, may still be to other Montanans. The state historically hasn’t been warm to the idea of green building, or really any part of the environmental movement. In the Flathead, tensions between businesses and environmentalists are often heated, even drawing national attention when at their most contentious. “I think Montanans have always resented the idea of someone from the outside or an urban area telling us how to be green,” Averill said. “The result is that it’s been somewhat stiff-armed. There’s still this image of a gal sitting up in a tree with hairy legs telling us how to act.”....
EDITORIAL: 'Alarmist and extreme' Some left-wingers and greens don't like the state's new chief of Agriculture. Tony Lesperance, a rancher and former Elko County commissioner, took over the agency Monday at the request of Gov. Jim Gibbons. The 72-year-old Mr. Lesperance, who turned down an earlier offer for the post, said he'll be on the job for about 18 months to see the agency through the state's current budget crunch and the next legislative session. But Launce Rake, a spokesman for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, questioned the interim appointment, calling Mr. Lesperance's views "alarmist and extreme." What is it that has Mr. Rake and his "progressive" friends in such a lather? Mr. Lesperance has been a vocal critic of the federal government's land-use policies in Nevada, where it controls 90 percent of the real estate. He played a pivotal role in the controversy that erupted in the late 1990s after the Forest Service -- operating at the behest of hard-core environmental groups -- refused to allow Elko County to rebuild a washed out road near Jarbidge that had been used for decades to access campgrounds and a wilderness area. The standoff became heated and resentment toward heavy-handed federal regulation was palpable in many parts of rural Nevada. But Mr. Lesperance and the "Shovel Brigade" eventually prevailed; the road was repaired and reopened....
Forest Service ponders 'let-burn' policy The U.S. Forest Service is considering allowing some naturally caused wildfires to burn in remote areas of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. The goal is to improve forest health while reducing the potential for catastrophic fires in the long term, forest supervisor Scott Conroy said in a prepared statement. Experts say large fires in the West in recent summers are in part the result of forests overgrown from decades of fire suppression. The proposed change comes as the agency is updating forest management plans created in the 1990s. "Land managers throughout the West have learned over the last 40 years that there are ecological benefits of having fire on the landscape as it can provide for a renewal of the forest," Conroy said. "It is a natural cycle of life in a forest."....
Bill modifies boundaries between public, private land The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved a bill introduced by Sen. Larry Craig, titled the "Idaho Wilderness Boundary Modification Act" on Jan. 30. The bill is a compromise between private and public land officials to alter the boundaries of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area to allow for continued use of the land by the private domain Diamond D Ranch. There will be no net wilderness loss and the ranch will use land it has been using since before the area was protected as wilderness, without the restrictions of operating on wilderness land. The restrictions keep developers from impacting wilderness areas in any way. The boundaries are only being altered, so neither side is losing any land. "The act supports the use of water, roads and fences that pre-date the wilderness area," Will Hart, spokesman for Sen. Craig, said. "The Forest Service has worked with local and congressional delegations to mediate this effort, which is merely a use of development that was there before the wilderness was designated."....
Group acquires oil, gas leases Another company has transferred federal energy leases to a conservation group, further reducing the possibility of natural-gas development on public lands along Montana's wildlife-rich Rocky Mountain Front. Trout Unlimited said this week that it received leases the Kohlman Co. held for potential gas work on the Front, the rugged expanse where the mountains meet the plains for about 100 miles south of Glacier National Park. Trout Unlimited, which has joined other groups in declaring the Front too environmentally sensitive for oil or gas drilling, said it intends to return those leases to the federal government. "The public lands of the Front are some of the wildest country in the lower 48 states," Gene Sentz of the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front said Tuesday. "We've been working more than 30 years now to try to keep them undeveloped." The lease transfer is atop earlier deals that moved Front leases into the hands of conservationists, who then transferred them to the federal government. With the latest agreement, four companies have sold or donated leases on some 63,000 acres of the Front during the last two years. Conservationists would like an end to energy leases on about twice that much land, said the coalition's Chris Mehl....
Camera spots wolverine in Sierra Nevada A research project aimed at weasels has turned up a bigger prize: a picture of a wolverine, an elusive animal scientists feared may have been driven out of the Sierra Nevada long ago by human activity. The discovery could affect land-use decisions if the wolverine is declared an endangered species, a step the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering, although the animals typically live at high elevations where there is limited development. A graduate student at Oregon State University, Katie Moriarty, got a picture of a wolverine recently on a motion-and-heat-detecting digital camera set up between Truckee and Sierraville, in the northern part of the mountain range. News of the picture surprised scientists, who thought wolverines, if they still inhabited the Sierra, would be found only in the southern part of the range, not in the Lake Tahoe area. There had been sightings of wolverines by reputable people but no solid proof they were still in the Sierra, said Bill Zielinski, a research ecologist for the Forest Service who was working with Moriatry....
Mountain biking outreach efforts grow with popularity The rush of speeding down a rocky trail and the ultimate satisfaction of taking out a grueling climb, switchback after switchback, keep bikers riding the mountain trails around Fort Collins. For more and more local mountain bikers, the thrilling rides to be found all around Fort Collins have inspired them to give something back to the trails they love. They do it by donning the distinctive yellow jerseys of the Diamond Peaks Mountain Bike Patrol, an organization that has been educating mountain bikers on Front Range trails for 10 years. The growth and popularity of these patrols in recent years is hard to ignore. Diamond Peaks logged 521 patrols totaling 2,539 hours (106 full days) in 2007, double the patrols and triple the number of hours in the 2006 season....
Too little done to protect endangered species, lawsuit says Environmental groups on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against three federal agencies, alleging they have failed to protect dozens of endangered species that live in Southern California's four national forests from harmful impacts of off-roading, livestock grazing, roads and power lines. The legal action comes on the heels of a lawsuit California officials filed Feb. 28 against the U.S. Forest Service because the management plans for the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Angeles and Los Padres national forests permit road construction and oil drilling that have been long opposed by the state. The most recent lawsuit specifically targets so-called biological opinions issued in 2005 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service that assessed impacts on endangered species from those same forest management plans. The third target of Wednesday's lawsuit is the U.S. Forest Service. The environmental groups allege those opinions failed to consider ways to prevent harm to species by activities on forest lands, and failed to require any method for tracking how many plants and animals are killed because of those activities....
Off-road vehicle surge straining land agencies The Hayeses are part of a growing trend across the nation and Arizona. Off-road vehicle use has exploded in the past 10 years, straining land-management agencies and risking some of our most sensitive natural resources. State and federal officials are scrambling to deal with the roaring horde of ATV users. All national forests are assessing motorized use of trails, and a Glendale state representative has introduced a bill that would require ATV registration and a user fee to fund education and enforcement. His goal is to preserve access and the land. Rep. Jerry Weiers thinks his bill will pass this year. It passed in the House on Thursday and now goes to the Senate, where in 2007 it failed by one vote when several supporters were absent. Weiers' bill, which would take effect Jan. 1, is not aimed at restricting ATV users, said Jeff Gursh, an avid dirt biker who volunteers with the Arizona Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition. "All it does is give the land management agencies a tool for managing the land," he said. Weiers' bill would create an annual registration fee - estimated at $23 - for off-road vehicles and create a fund for ATV law enforcement, education and trail maintenance and construction. The registration fee would raise about $8 million per year, of which 70 percent would go to the new Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Fund and 30 percent to the existing Highway User Revenue Fund. Arizona State Parks would get 60 percent of the Recreation Fund, the state Game & Fish Department would get 35 percent and the State Land Department would get 5 percent....
Reserve-area residents fined for illegal outfitting, guiding A federal judge has fined three brothers—two outfitters and a guide—more than $7,000 after they were accused of violating regulations while outfitting or guiding hunters in the Gila National Forest. Michael DeLaO, Jamie DeLaO, and Carlos DeLaO, all from the Reserve area, were cited last year for not complying with federal and state special use permit requirements for commercial operations. U.S. Magistrate William P. Lynch recently sentenced the brothers on charges filed after an investigation by the state Department of Game and Fish and the Gila National Forest. Michael DeLaO, 29, pleaded guilty to noncompliance with U.S. Forest Service special use permits and use of an unauthorized guide and was fined $3,880. Jamie DeLaO, 34, pleaded guilty to the same charges and was fined $3,030. Carlos DeLaO, 36, pleaded guilty to operating a commercial business on Forest Service lands without a special use permit and unauthorized guiding on the forest, and was fined $325....
Mining proposal called wildlife threat Environmental groups have fired off a new round of court challenges to the proposed Rock Creek Mine, arguing that extracting silver and copper from beneath the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness Area would result in the deaths of protected grizzly bears and bull trout. The lawsuits accuse federal agencies of violating the Endangered Species Act by approving the mine. "Grizzly and bull-trout populations are suffering. It's going to be hard for them to survive the industrialization of their habitat," said Jim Costello, Montana field organizer for the Rock Creek Alliance. The alliance is one of 10 groups involved in two separate lawsuits against the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The paperwork was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Missoula. Fifteen or fewer grizzlies are still believed to roam the Cabinet Mountains, a rugged range on the Idaho-Montana border. How the mine would affect grizzly bears, threatened bull trout and water quality in the Clark Fork River has been the subject of numerous lawsuits since the mine was first proposed in the 1980s. The Clark Fork River flows into Idaho's Lake Pend Oreille shortly after crossing the state line....
Marbled murrelet will keep territory Federal wildlife officials have dropped controversial plans to sharply reduce the area of critical habitat reserved for the marbled murrelet, a seabird known for standing in the way of Northwest logging. The decision reverses earlier efforts, supported by the timber industry, to scale back protections for the bird, which is classified as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. It could also complicate a proposal by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to accelerate logging in Oregon's Coast Range. The agency wants to produce more timber revenue in financially strapped coastal counties. In 2006, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed canceling about 95 percent of the designated critical habitat for the marbled murrelet, saying the area was already protected. But environmental groups complained that the move would pave the way for more intensive logging. Critical habitat comes into play mainly on federal land. Public land agencies must consult with wildlife biologists before proposing timber sales and other projects in critical habitat. The Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday that it would be inappropriate to reduce the habitat for the bird while the BLM is considering changes in managing the coastal lands....
Thousands of acres near Gunnison Gorge off limits to humans Thousands of acres near the Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area will be off limits to humans to protect wildlife, including the threatened sage grouse, and prevent soil erosion. The 17,570 acres on parts of the Black Ridge and Fruitland mesas, west of the Gunnison Gorge Wilderness, will be closed to hiking, horseback, skiing, and motorized activity through April 30. Bureau of Land Management officials, who manage the land, fear snow and poor conditions on other nearby public lands could drive people to the area being closed....
Brazilian meat packers jump to top spot in U.S. A Brazilian firm is buying two of the top five beef processing companies in the United States, making it the nation's largest meat processor and drawing fire from a national cattle group over further concentration in the meatpacking industry. Smithfield Foods said Wednesday it is selling its beef operations for $565 million to Brazil's JBS SA, the second deal in two days for the Brazilian company. Smithfield Foods is the fifth-largest U.S. beef producer. On Tuesday, National Beef Packing Co., the nation's fourth-largest beef processor, said it is being acquired by JBS for cash and stock in a deal worth $560 million. The acquisitions will vault JBS past Cargill Meat Solutions for the top spot in U.S. meat processing companies. Randy Stevenson of Wheatland, Wyo., an official with R-CALF USA, said the moves, if approved by the U.S. Department of Justice, show the importance of getting competition reforms included in the new farm bill....
Festival celebrates Wallace Stegner's West Point Reyes Station, that oddly blended enclave of businesses, farms and artists in rural West Marin, is about to be invaded by hundreds of fans of the modern American West's foremost man of letters: Wallace Stegner. A three-day conference beginning Friday is being staged to salute both the never-ending battle to save Western wildlands and Stegner, who championed that cause up to the day he died in 1993 at age 84. It will be one of the greatest gatherings of Western literature writers willing to chew grass blades with anyone who cares to chat. For the uninitiated, "Western" writing has little to do these days with cowboy and Indian adventures. It instead means prose, poetry and research about the region from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast that has for more than a century defined the American essence of frontier mentality, individual ruggedness and wilderness. Authors such as John Steinbeck and Edward Abbey have earned renown here, but it's never been an easy publishing road. As Stegner himself discovered - even through penning the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Angle of Repose" and 27 other books - the West and its writers are often ignored by what many regard an Eastern-based literary snobbishness....

NOTE TO READERS

Got home late from a meeting of People For Preserving Our Western Heritage.

Will try to catch up on the rest of the news tomorrow.

Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982. Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism. “The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.” The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society. Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose. “[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”....
Dispatches from the International Conference on Climate Change Michaels then turned to various climate change puzzles. Is Antarctica melting, he asked? Exhibit A in the Antarctica warming story is the 2002 collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula. However, as Michaels showed, the peninsula is a very small area of the southern continent and most of Antarctica shows no warming trend. In fact, the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (4AR), released in 2007, found that "current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting." Michaels sardonically noted that former Vice President Al Gore did not say that sea level would rise by 20 feet in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth; he just showed animations of such a sea-level rise. What about Greenland? Michaels displayed temperature records showing that Greenland's temperatures had been higher in the earlier part of the 20th century. In particular he cited a 2006 study by Danish researchers who reported, "The warmest year in the extended Greenland temperature record is 1941, while the 1930s and 1940s are the warmest decades." Michaels suggested that Greenland was losing about 25 cubic miles of ice annually. He further noted that there are about 690,000 cubic miles of ice locked up in Greenland's ice cap. At that rate of melting, Greenland's ice cap would shrink by less than 0.4 percent over the next century. According to recent reports, Greenland's ice cap is now losing about 57 cubic miles of ice annually. If that rate were sustained over the next 100 years, a little over 0.8 percent of the ice cap would melt away into the oceans. Michaels also talked about the recent steep reduction in summer Arctic sea ice. However, he pointed to research by UCLA biological geographer Glen MacDonald and his colleagues who found that the Eurasian tree line reached as far as the shores of the Arctic Ocean 9,000 to 7,000 years ago. Why? Because "the mean July temperatures along the northern coastline of Russia may have been 2.5° to 7.0° celsius warmer than modern [ones]." This implies considerably reduced Arctic sea ice cover lasting for centuries in the past. Michaels noted in passing that polar bears survived that warmer period....
Should biotech piggy go to market? In January, when the FDA declared that cloned animals and their progeny are safe to eat, it opened the door to genetic engineering, a prospect that hasn't been widely reported, but one that has plenty of consumer advocates concerned. For livestock professionals like Kelley, the FDA's decision, and a meeting the U.S. Department of Agriculture held in late November to seek guidance on how to work with transgenic animals, signal that the U.S. is primed to consider the public's appetite for G.E. animals. They say it is a sign that the agency is beginning to take more seriously the job of creating regulations for G.E. animals. To clone an animal, a cell nucleus is taken from an "elite" animal, implanted into an egg whose nucleus has been removed, cultivated into an embryo in a lab, and then implanted in the womb of a surrogate "mother" of the same species. To genetically engineer an animal, scientists splice foreign genes, generally from some other type of animal, into a nucleus, and then implant the modified embryo into a host mother. Creating a transgenic animal is incredibly difficult and expensive, prone to mistakes that can cause the premature death of animals. "Genetic engineering doesn't work all that well," says Hanson. He points out that once genetic farmers produce the perfect animal through trial and error, they will save a tremendous amount of money by cloning its genotype -- which is why they welcome the FDA ruling. "When they find it works in an animal, they want to copy it with cloning," Hanson says. "Cloning is how you Xerox your success."....
California cows start passing gas to the grid Imagine a vat of liquid cow manure covering the area of five football fields and 33 feet deep. Meet California's most alternative new energy. On a dairy farm in the Golden State's agricultural heartland, utility PG&E Corp began on Tuesday producing natural gas derived from manure, in what it hopes will be a new way to power homes with renewable, if not entirely clean, energy. The Vintage Dairy Biogas Project, the brainchild of life- long dairyman David Albers, aims to provide the natural gas needed to power 1,200 homes a day, Albers said at the facility's inauguration ceremony. In addition to being a partner in the 5,000-head Vintage Dairy, Albers is also president of BioEnergy Solutions, the company that funded and built the facility which cost millions of dollars. PG&E is simply a customer and the companies declined to give details of project finances. As cow manure decomposes, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. As luck would have it, methane can be captured and treated to produce renewable gas, and California regulators have directed PG&E and other utilities to make renewable energy at least 20 percent of their electricity supplies by 2010....So, will we be cloning cows based on how much gas - they can pass - to the grid?....Will vegans refuse to use the gas?

FLE

Polls show Americans approve of... some stuff we just made up EVEN by the fast-and-loose standards of political rhetoric, the ongoing debate over reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—and the related bid to provide retroactive legal amnesty for telecoms that participated in warrantless wiretaps—is an astonishing farrago of misinformation. It is truly difficult to convey briefly, if you have not been following the issue closely, the stunning mendacity with which these twin goals—expanded warrantless wiretap authority and telecom immunity—have been pursued. Yet even by the standards of this incredibly dishonest debate, a new survey being touted by Newt Gingrich's American Solutions group is simply jaw-dropping. The survey purports to show that Americans overwhelmingly approve of both the surveillance powers and the grant of immunity sought by the president and his allies. Yet the two central questions posed to survey respondents were premised on clear falsehoods. It is almost impressive how many different lies and misrepresentations the survey takers managed to squeeze into each sentence. It is simply false that the Protect America Act permits acquisitions only of "calls and e-mails originating overseas". The "target" of the surveillance must be abroad, but the communication may originate in the United States. It is simply false that either the sender or the recipient of the communication must be "a person suspected of having links to terrorist organisations such as al-Qaeda". Surveillance may be conducted on any person abroad, provided that "a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information". That information need not have anything to do with terrorism, and even if the investigation is terror-related, the target need not be a suspected terrorist or supporter of terror. It is simply, emphatically false that "the government no longer has the ability to legally monitor the phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists overseas without a warrant". Indeed, it is false in several ways....
Smugglers hide in plain sight The dirt bikes and dune buggies swarm the sandy slopes by the thousands, turning these giant dunes at California's southeast border into anthills of frenetic activity. Smugglers in nearby Mexico can't resist trying to blend into the crowd. They shoot across the border in souped-up vehicles loaded with illegal immigrants and drugs and elude U.S. Border Patrol agents by playing the part of dune enthusiasts: wearing helmets and decorating their bikes and all-terrain vehicles with decals and flags. The cat-and-mouse game turned deadly recently when a suspected smuggler driving a Hummer ran over an agent and fled back across the border over the dunes. The agent's death focused attention on the federal government's enforcement strategy in this remote corner of the border. While the Department of Homeland Security expands fencing in other trouble spots on the Southwest frontier, officials say fortifying the border at the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area has been difficult because of shifting sands that render current barriers ineffective. By the end of the year, they say, they will have erected a new type of fortification that they hope will cut down on incursions....
Immigrants still broach U.S. border despite fences Daily, U.S. Border Patrol agents in this Arizona town faced groups of up to 200 illegal immigrants who would swarm across the border from Mexico, sprinting past the agents to a new life in the United States. That was until 18 months ago, when the single fence was bolstered by two taller, steel barriers, watched over by video cameras and lit by a blaze of stadium lighting. Now the incursions known by the agents as "Banzai Runs" have all but stopped. "It was overwhelming," said agent Andrew Patterson. "This used to be a huge trouble area, now we are almost down to zero." While they are controversial -- some border landowners resent what they see as unwelcome government intrusion and some conservationists argue it disrupts wildlife flows -- border police say this stretch of new fencing has been highly effective. "It has been a massive success. It has allowed our agents to gain control over the area and acted as a deterrent for people thinking of crossing," said Jeremy Schappell, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Yuma sector, which includes San Luis. A new single layer of steel mesh fence 10-13 feet (3-4 meters) tall stretches out across the rugged, high plains deserts and grasslands on either side of the small town of Naco, Arizona. The Border Patrol credits it with contributing to a fall in arrests, but some residents say it has done little to stop illegal immigrants. Local rancher John Ladd said some 300 to 400 illegal immigrants continue to clamber over the new steel barrier flanking the southern reach of his farm for some 10 miles (16 km) each day, as an effective combination of technologies and manpower remains elusive. "It's so easy to climb that I've seen two women that were pregnant, I've seen several women in their sixties and all kinds of kids between five and ten years old climb over it," Ladd said, as he leaned on a section of the steel mesh fence that stretches like a rusted veil westward toward the rugged Huachuca Mountains. "They're getting some help, but when you put it in perspective, its pretty amazing to have a nine-month pregnant woman climbing over that son of a gun, and thinking that this is going to be the answer to solve our immigration problem."....
Reality Sets In For The Virtual Fence The "virtual fence" that was supposed to help secure our borders will be delayed for years due to poor planning and technical difficulties. Unfortunately, terrorists and illegal aliens are quite real. Remember the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which required the construction of 700 miles of new border fence? It required a real fence modeled on the success of the barriers in the San Diego sector of the U.S. border. The operative word is "secure." The legislation specifically called for "two layers of reinforced fencing" and listed five specific sections of the border where it should be built. Last year's omnibus spending bill removed the requirement for two tiers and the specific list of locations. But according to an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson that was adopted: "Nothing in this paragraph shall require the secretary of homeland security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads lighting, cameras and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location." Hutchinson's office said the amendment merely gave DHS flexibility. What it provided was an excuse to do nothing and a license for open-border politicians to pressure DHS. DHS is on record as preferring in many instances "pedestrian fences" or "virtual fences," which are a look-but-can't-touch version of border security. Well, guess what? The highly touted virtual fence doesn't work, or at least nobody at DHS can prove it works. And it'll take at least three more years to make it work. That's lot of illegal border crossings before the Department of Motor Vehicles, er, Homeland Security gets its act together....
Agencies' merger spawns tension, arrests Bribery. Drug trafficking. Migrant smuggling. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is supposed to stop these types of crimes. But instead, so many of its officers have been charged with committing those crimes themselves that their boss in Washington recently issued an alert about the ''disturbing events'' and the ``increase in the number of employee arrests.'' Thomas S. Winkowski, assistant commissioner of field operations, wrote a memo to more than 20,000 officers nationwide noting that employees must behave professionally at all times -- even when they are not on the job. Winkowski's memo cites several employee arrests involving domestic violence, driving under the influence and drug possession. But court records show that CBP officers and other Department of Homeland Security employees from South Florida to the Mexican border states have been charged with dozens of far more serious offenses. Among them: A Customs and Border Protection officer at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport was charged in February with conspiring to assist a New York drug ring under investigation by tapping into sensitive federal databases. Other recent South Florida cases -- mirroring a pattern on the border states -- have involved officers and agents accepting illegal payoffs for migrant smuggling, drug trafficking, witness tampering, embezzlement and rape. CBP and ICE managers say these cases simply reflect individual criminal behavior, not the culture of the married agencies. But some longtime employees said administrative incidents, such as hostile confrontations or heavy drinking, may reflect the low morale and intense rivalries following the merger of federal agencies under Homeland Security....Bush caved and agreed to federalize airport screeners and create the TSA, then caved again to create the Dept. of Homeland Security.
Feds warn states of ID deadline, travel hassles Homeland Security officials are pushing recalcitrant states to adopt stricter driver's license standards to end a standoff that could disrupt domestic air travel. States have less than a month to send a letter to the Homeland Security Department seeking an extension to comply with the Real ID law passed following the 2001 terror attacks. Some states have resisted, saying it is costly, impractical and an invasion of privacy. Four states — Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina — have yet to seek an extension. To bring the states in line, Chertoff warned that any state that does not seek an extension by the end of March will find that, come May, their residents will not be able to use their licenses to board domestic flights. Chertoff's assistant secretary, Stewart Baker, sent letters to several governors Monday reminding them of the looming deadline, and urging the holdouts to seek an extension. In recent years, 17 states passed legislation or resolutions opposing Real ID, but now only a handful appear willing to challenge the government publicly. Officials in Maine and Montana insisted Monday they would not seek an extension. A spokesman for South Carolina's governor said he was still considering it. New Hampshire passed a law last year prohibiting the state from participating in the Real ID program, and Gov. John Lynch wrote Chertoff last week asking him not to impose the requirements on New Hampshire citizens....
Congress to Probe TSA, Flight Schools The failure of the federal government to follow new laws restricting access of non-U.S. citizens to flight schools is part of a "failure on every level" by the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, says Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. ABC News reported last week that thousands of non-U.S. citizens had attended flight schools and received FAA pilot licenses without going through new requirements specified in post-9/ll laws. Oberstar has set hearings for next week on "other significant lapses," featuring FAA whistle-blower Bill McNease, who appeared in the ABC News report. "We cannot let another 9/ll happen because we were lax in enforcing our own laws," Oberstar said. Oberstar said McNease and other witnesses "will provide evidence of numerous, serious failures in FAA's regulatory oversight."
Citizens’ group suggests investigation of ammunition coding campaign The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today is calling on lawmakers in the states of Washington, Arizona, New York, Illinois, Hawaii and several other states to scrutinize legislation that would require ammunition coding, because it mandates a soul source monopoly for a Seattle-based company that owns the technology. Based on a story in the new edition of Gun Week, and a look at virtually identical legislation that has been introduced in several states, CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said there are serious questions that need to be addressed about these measures, and the effort to pass them into law. “Sponsors of bills that would require coding of cartridge casings and bullets in their respective states have neglected to mention that there is only one company in the country with the technology, and that company has been working with a ‘hired-gun’ consulting firm that offers its help to lawmakers drafting the legislation,” Gottlieb said. “Essentially, you have state legislators working as promoters for a company called Ammunition Coding System, pushing measures in at least ten states that would mandate the use of this proprietary technology at the expense of gun owners. “Even if the technology were licensed to various ammunition manufacturers,” he continued, “it still puts one company in a monopoly position. On its own website, the company even acknowledges that legislation would be required to implement what many gun owners believe is a back-door gun registry, by forcing dealers to keep records on who purchases ammunition. “Creating a technology, and applying for a patent while hiring a consulting firm to push legislation that requires this technology is horribly self-serving,” Gottlieb added. “The fact that in every state these measures are being pushed, the sponsors are anti-gun lawmakers, simply adds to the suspicion....
Government records incorrectly kill off thousands For a dead woman, Laura Todd is awfully articulate. “I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to be dead when you’re not,” said Todd, who is very much alive and kicking in Nashville, Tenn., even though the federal government has said otherwise for many years. Todd’s struggle started eight years ago with a typo in government records. The government has reassured her numerous times that it has cleared up the confusion, but the problems keep coming. Most recently, the IRS — again — rejected her electronic tax return. “I will not be eligible for my refund. I’m not eligible for my rebate,” she said. “I mean, I can’t do anything with it.” Laura Todd is not alone. She is one of tens of thousands of living, breathing Americans whom the federal government has wrongly declared dead — by one measure, more than 35 a day....See folks, we really have no reason to be concerned about all these gov't databases. We can trust the competency of the civil servants and the integrity of our elected officials, can't we?

Cool And The Gang Knut the polar bear isn't so cute and cuddly anymore. He's grown up a tad and is now a killing machine capable of surviving in perhaps the Earth's most hostile environment — the Arctic. Nor is the poster animal for warming warnings that drive children to tears and his kind in danger of perishing anytime soon. Funny thing about ice: It melts in summer and thickens in winter. And according to Gilles Kangis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice service in Ottawa, this Arctic winter has been so severe that the continent's allegedly vanishing ice is 10 to 20 centimeters thicker than it was at this time a year ago. Recent satellite images, moreover, show the polar ice cap is at near-normal coverage levels, according to Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This is a consequence of what we recently commented on: The sun, the greatest influence on earth's climate, seems to be entering an unusually quiet cycle of limited sunspot activity. As Kenneth Tapping of Canada's National Research Council warns, we may be in for severely cold weather if sunspot activity doesn't pick up. Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a "stethoscope for the sun." The last time the sun was this quiet, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age, which lasted five centuries and ended in 1850. The winter at Valley Forge, a famous part of history, occurred during this period. It's a good time, therefore, for some of the best climate scientists in the world to be gathering in New York City — setting for the Al Gore-promoted doomsday flick "The Day After Tomorrow" — for the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change hosted by the Heartland Institute. More than 550 climate scientists, economists and public policy experts are at March 2-4 event, their very presence shattering Gore's myth of a warming "consensus" and a debate that is over. Yet because of the media's embrace of Gore's crusade, this may be one of the few places you read about the conference....
Luxury Homes Burn in Apparent Eco-Attack Three seven-figure dream homes went up in flames early Monday in a Seattle suburb, apparently set by eco-terrorists who left a sign mocking the builders' claims that the 4,000-plus-square-foot houses were environmentally friendly. The sign — a sheet marked with spray paint — bore the initials ELF, for Earth Liberation Front, a loose collection of radical environmentalists that has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks since the 1990s. The sheriff's office estimated that Monday's pre-dawn fires did $7 million in damage to the "Street of Dreams," a row of unoccupied, furnished luxury model homes where tens of thousands of visitors last summer eyed the latest in high-end housing, interior design and landscaping. Three homes were destroyed and two suffered smoke damage. The FBI was investigating the fires as a potential domestic terrorism act, said FBI spokesman Rich Kolko in Washington, D.C....
On the Earth Liberation Front Arson is a strange way to defend the Earth. The hardcore environmental activists behind the Earth Liberation Front disagree. According to the Associated Press, the group has previously taken credit (if it can be called that) for several arsons in the northwest of the United States. They've attacked U.S. Forest Service buildings and a Colorado ski resort, the latter assault doing US$12-million in damage. In one case, the ELF burned down a horticulture building at the University of Washington because they were angry that researchers therein were genetically engineering trees. Actually, researchers weren't doing anything of the sort in the building. They were too busy preserving endangered plants and restoring wetlands. But by the time someone told the ELF that, it had already done about US$7-million of damage. The genetically-engineered poplars that the ELF was so exercised about were actually housed in a separate building that was untouched by the attack. Now, separate fires in 4 luxury show homes in a Seattle suburb look like the ELF's latest handiwork. (A sign bearing the initials "ELF" and complaining "Built Green? Nope black!" was left on the scene.)....
New houses becoming popular targets The Earth Liberation Front has its roots in the militant opposition to logging of old-growth forests. Beginning in 1996, an underground group launched more than a dozen arsons against targets that included the U.S. Forest Service, timber companies, a horse slaughterhouse, a car dealership and a University of Washington researcher believed to be genetically engineering poplar trees. But in recent years, new housing developments popping up on the urban fringes have become the most high-profile targets claimed by the ELF. Those attacks include a 2002 arson that destroyed a San Diego apartment complex and caused $50 million in damage, and a 2000 torching of a luxury housing development in Mount Sinai, N.Y. "If you build it, we will burn it," was the graffiti left at the scene of the New York fire, according to The New York Times....
NYT Term for Eco-Terrorists: 'Anti-Sprawl Activists' Opening paragraph from the New York Times article on the eco-terrorists who burned three new homes north of Seattle today [emphasis added]: For people who are anti-sprawl activists — or have baser motives — a new-built house sitting empty in a previously rural area evidently makes a ripe target for an attack by fire. Consider also the article's headline "House Fires With a Message in the Northwest." Yes, think of it as a bonus. Not just a housefire . . . a housefire with a message!
Environmental activist pleads not guilty Three days after his extradition from Canada, environmental activist and ex-fugitive Tre Arrow pleaded not guilty to arson and conspiracy charges in federal court Monday and was ordered held as a flight risk and public danger pending trial. Arrow, 34, who has legally changed his name from Michael Scarpitti, is charged in a 14-count federal indictment with helping to destroy concrete-mixing trucks at Ross Island Sand and Gravel Company in Portland in April 2001 and of firebombing logging trucks at Schoppert Logging Co. in Eagle Creek near Mount Hood in June 2001. He was returned to Portland Friday after fighting extradition for four years from a prison in British Columbia. Before his arrest in Canada, he was a fugitive from the FBI for 19 months. Dressed in a blue prison uniform, Arrow clasped his hands together, smiled and bowed in the courtroom as he was led to the defense table. He did not speak during the brief arraignment. U.S. District Judge Paul Hubel ordered him held pending a possible detention hearing. Through his attorney Paul Loney, Arrow requested that he be given a raw vegan diet in accordance with his religious beliefs, and a court official said that probably could be accommodated. Hubel asked that it be done as quickly as possible....
Are Wolves The Pronghorn's Best Friend? As western states debate removing the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act, a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society cautions that doing so may result in an unintended decline in another species: the pronghorn, a uniquely North American animal that resembles an African antelope. The study, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Ecology, says that fewer wolves mean more coyotes, which can prey heavily on pronghorn fawns if the delicate balance between predators and their prey is altered. According to the study, healthy wolf packs keep coyote numbers in check, while rarely feeding on pronghorn fawns themselves. As a result, fawns have higher survival rates when wolves are present in an ecosystem. Over a three-year period, researchers radio-collared more than 100 fawns in wolf-free and wolf-abundant areas of Grand Teton National Park and monitored their survival throughout the summer. The results showed that only 10 percent of fawns survived in areas lacking wolves, but where coyote densities were higher. In areas where wolves were abundant, 34 percent of pronghorn fawns survived. Wolves reduce coyote numbers by killing them outright or by causing them to shift to safer areas of the Park not utilized by wolves....
Annual drilling restrictions take effect in Wyoming Annual restrictions that ban most energy-related activities within two miles of active sage grouse breeding areas on federal land are now in effect for the next three and a half months in Wyoming. Last Saturday marked the first day of the restrictions. The federal regulations hit Campbell County especially hard last year and are expected to have a significant impact this year. State and private lands where the regulations do not apply are increasingly drilled out, forcing coal-bed methane companies onto more federal land. In addition, last week, a federal judge decided to hold the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to a May 2009 deadline to decide whether to list the sage grouse as an endangered species, ignoring the service's request for an extension of the deadline. The decision will also require the service to do a new report on the bird, and give the public 60 days to comment on that report. The report is due in November....
BLM report says drilling would boost gas leakage A court challenge to increased coal-bed methane development on the Atlantic Rim has yielded a document that contradicts the Bureau of Land Management's public position on whether new drilling will cause more gas seepage from the ground. Erik Molvar, wildlife biologist with Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, said court records resulting from a lawsuit filed by his organization and four other groups contains a document from the BLM about how drilling has boosted the number of methane gas seeps on the Atlantic Rim. The lawsuit was filed after the BLM approved a 2,000-well project on Atlantic Rim, on the eastern edge of the Red Desert in southern Wyoming. The BLM document, prepared by a petroleum engineer, states that when BLM officials toured the area, they found the level of activity at known methane gas seep sites had "increased dramatically since the commencement of coal-bed methane" development "in the immediate vicinity." BLM officials and others who have looked at the methane seeps agree that some seeps have been in the area for years. Dispute centers on the recent increased activity witnessed at those seeps....
Conflict seen in smelt rules Water users who benefit most from tapping the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have been given an unprecedented role in drafting new rules to manage water diversions. Critics call it a "fox in the henhouse" situation that may further imperil the Delta, where experts believe water diversions have already contributed to a broad ecosystem collapse. The new draft rules, called a biological assessment, are being prepared in response to a court order last year. Federal Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno declared existing rules inadequate to protect the threatened Delta smelt. He set a Sept. 12 deadline to rewrite the rules. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates one of two Delta water systems, is a defendant in the case. The bureau allowed water contractors to help write new diversion rules. Wanger, in his ruling, didn't specify who should rewrite the rules. The decision also applies to its co-defendant, the state Department of Water Resources, which operates the other diversion system, and its contractors....
Eminent domain hovers over Monument woman's property For 30 years, Georgia Ward has lived on 40 picturesque acres south of town, the perfect place for horses to roam and graze and drink from Monument Creek. But a Monument road could one day run through Ward’s land, dividing it in two and leaving the eastern two-thirds of it cut off and useless, Ward said. “Who would ever want it then?” Ward said last week. The town wants to connect Mitchell Road, which dead-ends at the south end of town, to Forest Lakes Boulevard, which curves north from Baptist Road west of Interstate 25. To make way for the road, the town plans to use eminent domain to seize an 80-foot-wide strip of land crossing Ward’s property. Eminent domain is a touchy subject among northern El Paso County landowners after the Lewis-Palmer School District in 2006 raised the specter of condemnation to obtain land for a new high school. The school district backed down in the face of fierce protests that included a threatened recall when the descendants of the pioneer family who still lived on the Wissler Ranch went public that they were being pressured to sell....
No Global Warming Crisis To see if all this makes any sense there are really four questions that all have to be answered "yes." 1) Are global temperatures rising? Surely, they were rising from the late 1970s to 1998, but "there has been no net global warming since 1998." Indeed, the more recent numbers show that there is now evidence of significant cooling. 2) But supposing that the answer to the first question is "yes," is mankind responsible for a significant and noticeable portion of an increase in temperatures? Mankind is responsible for just a few percent of greenhouse gases, and greenhouse gases are not responsible for most of what causes warming (e.g., the Sun). Over 100 leading climate scientists from around the world signed a letter in December stating: "significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming." In December a list was also released of another 400 scientists who questioned the general notion of significant manmade global warming. 3) If the answer to both preceding questions is "yes," is an increase temperature changes "bad"? That answer is hardly obvious. Higher temperatures could increase ocean levels by between seven inches and two feet over the next 100 years. Although some blame global warming for seemingly everything, according to others higher temperatures will increase the amount of land that we can use to grow food, it will improve people's health, and increase biological diversity. Even the UN says that a mild increase in temperature would be good for many regions of the globe. 4) Finally, let's assume that the answer to all three previous questions is "yes." Does that mean we need more regulations and taxes? No, that is still not clear....
Judge denies government bid to back out of sage grouse agreement A federal judge is holding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to an agreement reached with environmentalists that sets a timeline for deciding whether to give the sage grouse special protection. The wildlife agency sought to back out of a stipulation that would have required it to determine by May 2009 whether to declare the species threatened or endangered. Government attorneys asked a federal judge in Boise to void the deal because it had not been approved by top agency officials. U.S. District Judge B. Linn Winmill denied the request yesterday, ruling the agreement is legally binding. A decision to grant Endangered Species Act protections to the sage grouse could affect energy development and urban growth across the West. Sage grouse habitat stretches across 11 Western states from California to North Dakota....
EPA approves Montana water standards The federal government has approved strict new water quality standards sought by Montana over fears that coal-bed methane drilling in neighboring Wyoming could pollute interstate rivers. Montana officials said Monday that the new rules would protect farmers from poor-quality water produced during exploration for coal-bed methane. Over the last decade, that industry has boomed just over the state line in Wyoming. "It's a good thing to protect the water for our state," Montana Department of Environmental Quality Director Richard Opper said of the new rules. They were approved by the Environmental Protection Agency in a letter dated Friday. But with a federal lawsuit over the issue still pending before District Judge Clarence Brimmer in Cheyenne, it was not immediately clear how far Montana could go in enforcing the standards. The energy industry and state of Wyoming joined forces to oppose the rules in court after they were adopted by Montana's Board of Environmental Quality in 2006. They argued Montana's actions threaten to dampen energy development in the Powder River Basin, which straddles the border of the two states....
Utah's national parks may soon allow firearms Visitors to Utah's national parks may soon be able to carry loaded firearms, despite the concerns of conservation groups that armed tourists could lead to more poaching. Under pressure from gun rights groups and about half of the U.S. Senate, the Interior Department has agreed to rewrite its regulations to comply with state laws. Utah, like much of the West, allows guns in state parks. So the change would make it legal for those traveling through Arches or Zions to take along a loaded gun. The current regulations require visitors to keep their guns unloaded and stowed. Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett joined 45 other colleagues, most of whom are Republicans, in asking Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to make the change. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service rules allow loaded guns, while the National Parks and U.S. Fish and Wildlife do not....
Don’t starve the Forest Service A whole lot of Rocky Mountain Westerners are concerned about President Bush’s recent proposal to cut the U.S. Forest Service budget. Out our way, the land is not an abstraction. The numbers in the Forest Service budget aren’t abstractions, either. They mean something real to our land and to our lives, and a cut of up to 2,700 people in an already beleaguered and understaffed agency is genuine cause for alarm. Now, the president’s proposed budget for 2009 asks this overworked agency to do even more with far less. It would allocate $4.1 billion to the agency -- $373 million less than this year’s budget and an 8 percent cut. This is senseless. Bush’s notion of slashing 17 percent from trail maintenance and $13 million from fuels reduction is both foolish and dangerous. By birthright, each of us has a stake in the Western lands, whether it’s 87 percent of Nevada or 28 percent of Montana. All told, an average of more than 50 percent of the land in these eight Western states is commonly owned, with Forest Service employees acting as our caretakers....
Charges filed in Quad accident The fact that no one was hurt in the accident is still on the minds of the locals. But some other issues are now being discovered. Craig Trinkle of the U.S. Forest Service is now being accused of driving under the influence when the accident occurred at the 25th running of the Mount Taylor Winter Quadrathlon. According to a criminal complaint filed in Cibola County Magistrate Court on Feb. 25, Trinkle is charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or drugs. Trinkle was found to have alcohol, marijuana and several prescribed medications in his system at the time of the accident, according to a report filed by the New Mexico State Police. “We will just have to wait and see how that all ends up in court,” said District Ranger Chuck Hagerdon of the USFS. He added that Trinkle remains on medical leave. Hagerdon added that his office would be conducting its own review of the incident. Twenty three bicycles owned by competitors at the annual event were damaged in the accident when the vehicle plowed into them. The chaos ended when a large tree stopped the green truck that narrowly missed volunteers and crashed through bleachers....
Western Watersheds sues BLM over grazing, fence building Hailey-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project has sued the Bureau of Land Management, alleging the agency violated a 2005 settlement by authorizing reconstruction on 500,000 acres of federal land burned in last year's Murphy Complex Fire. The group wants a judge to block the agency from building fences and allowing livestock to graze on the habitat of sage grouse and pygmy rabbit - species under consideration for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. District Court documents, filed Monday in Boise, ask a judge to halt fence construction in an area managed by the agency's Jarbidge Field Office near Three Creek. The group also wants the court to prohibit livestock grazing on 20 allotments covered in the 2005 court-stipulated settlement and to block grazing on an additional 36 allotments until the agency prepares an environmental impact statement. Since the July fire, which burned 650,000 acres and destroyed more than 70 prime sage grouse breeding grounds, the agency has worked to rebuild 99 miles of burned fence, remove 12 miles of hazardous trees and plant more than 1,600 shrubs at a cost of about $25 million. The agency has authorized additional grazing in unburned areas and an additional 400 miles of fence repair while ignoring impacts to wildlife, Western Watersheds alleges....
The 'Pig Czar' Maj. Bobby Toon is known as the Pig Czar at the huge army post on Georgia's western edge. He has been assigned to help rid Fort Benning of its unwanted guests: an estimated 6,000 feral pigs that roam the 184,000-acre installation. The animals, common throughout Georgia, are known for tearing up woodlands and farms. They are aggressive foragers, gobbling up native vegetation and endangered species. "These pigs feed and breed," Toon said. "That's all they care about. I've been here off and on for 17 years, and I can never remember a pig population as big as it is now." Since July, more than 900 pigs have been killed. "These animals can smell a turkey egg three miles away," Toon said. "They're also a danger to tortoises and woodpeckers." About 2,000 people who are authorized to hunt on the post have been encouraged to go after the feral pigs. They must be active-duty, retired military or civilian workers at Benning and must have a license from the base. The post is offering a $40 bounty for every pig tail that's brought in....

GOP Greens See Red Over Sierra Club 'Smearing' McCain A group of Republicans who promote stewardship of the environment turned up the heat on one of its allies in the climate change debate Thursday when it accused the Sierra Club of "stooping to a partisan smear campaign" against the "record and good name" of likely GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP), which describes itself as "a national grassroots conservation organization," accused the Sierra Club of deliberately using "misleading, over-the-top attacks" to distort the senator's record on the environment. "The Sierra Club appears to have let blind partisanship trump honest advocacy," he added. "I find it particularly telling that the Sierra Club's attacks started at the same time that Sen. McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination. Jenkins also checked the Sierra Club's press releases over the past year and found no similar attacks on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for sponsoring an industry-backed bill providing incentives for liquefied coal or his vote opposing independent screening of Army Corps of Engineers water projects....
Pols Drunk On Corn-Based Ethanol Have Left Millions With Hangover "There is a right way and a wrong way to produce (ethanol)," the New York Times editorialized on Feb. 24. "Done right, ethanol could help wean the country from its dependence on foreign oil while reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change. Done wrong, ethanol could wreak havoc on the environment while increasing greenhouse gases." There is not, in fact, a right way to produce ethanol. But several wrong ones — spawned by congressional and presidential edicts — are already wreaking havoc on food prices and the natural environment. What we need to do is free up the ingenuity of innovators to devise a variety of approaches to biofuel production, and then permit the marketplace to decide the winners and losers. The reality is that with current technology, almost all of this biofuel would have to come from corn because there is no other feasible, proven alternative. But because of the inefficiencies inherent in producing ethanol from corn and the relatively meager amount of energy yielded by burning ethanol, the demands on farmland would be staggering. An analysis by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggested that replacing even 10% of America's motor fuel with biofuels would require that about a third of all the nation's cropland be devoted to oilseeds, cereals and sugar crops. Achieving the 15% goal would require the entire current U.S. corn crop, which represents a whopping 40% of the world's corn supply....
U.S. appeals court rejects sonar waiver for Navy A federal appeals court has rejected White House efforts to exempt the U.S. Navy from laws intended to protect endangered whales and other marine mammals by curbing the use of sonar off the California coast. A three-judge panel late Friday upheld a lower court order requiring the Navy to take precautions during the sonar training to minimize harm to marine life. The Navy has 30 days to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, during which time it must comply with the bulk of the precautions. A U.S. District Court in January barred the Navy's use of powerful submarine-hunting mid-frequency active radar within 12 miles of the coast, protecting a strip of water that is habitat for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. But President Bush intervened, citing the national security necessity of Navy training off the California coast, and exempted the Navy from the environmental laws at the heart of the legal challenge. A federal judge rejected that argument on Feb. 4, and the panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling Friday....
Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel A scientist who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans said Thursday he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel. Geneticist Craig Venter disclosed his potentially world-changing "fourth-generation fuel" project at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California. "We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of energy," Venter told an audience that included global warming fighter Al Gore and Google co-founder Larry Page. "We think we will have fourth-generation fuels in about 18 months, with CO2 as the fuel stock." Biofuel alternatives to oil are third-generation. The next step is life forms that feed on CO2 and give off fuel such as methane gas as waste, according to Venter. "We have 20 million genes which I call the design components of the future," Venter said. "We are limited here only by our imagination."....
In Tennessee, 2 Endangered Groups Meet by Chance Two unexpected guests showed up over the winter at George West’s farm here, rare whooping cranes that landed in Mr. West’s rich, boggy turnip field five miles from Nashville and were spotted by local birders during the annual Audubon count. “They couldn’t believe their eyes,” said the president of the Tennessee Ornithological Society, Richard Connors. The cranes had been bred as part of an $11 million effort by an international partnership that includes the United States Geological Survey to re-establish a flock along the Eastern Flyway between Wisconsin and Central Florida. The birds’ touchdown in Middle Tennessee was all the more surprising because the area is the 11th fastest-growing region in the United States, according to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, with subdivisions sprouting like weeds in every direction. Much of the building has come at the expense of farmland. Today, Tennessee has 84,000 farms, down from 127,000 in 1970, according to the United States Department of Agriculture....
Unease over easements A loophole in state and county laws could make it tough for Division of Real Estate director Erin Toll to take action against people she has been investigating for alleged abuses to the state's conservation easement program. At issue is the number and size of parcels into which large ranches have been divided. The conservation-easement program allows landowners to get tax deductions and earn tax credits they can sell for cash in exchange for restricting development on their land. Abuse of the program can occur when landowners get excessively high appraisals for property they put in easements, allowing them to take higher tax deductions and obtain more tax credits than they otherwise would get. Among the red flags is when land is divided into multiple ownerships before it is put into conservation easements, allowing multiple parties to get the tax benefits. In one instance, a 640-acre ranch was on the market for $1.2 million. Using limited-liability companies, the ranch was transferred and subdivided into 16 40-acre parcels. Multiple owners of one of the limited-liability companies each purchased at least one 40-acre parcel through the company. A conservation easement was then placed on each 40-acre parcel. An appraiser valued each parcel at $650,000, a value that allows for the maximum state tax credit of $375,000. "At the end of the day, property that was on the market for $1.2 million all of a sudden had easements on it valued at $10.4 million for a total property value of around $15.4 million," Toll said....
More drilling, more rules In Silt, it was a seep from a gas well leaking benzene into a creek, and in Hobbs, N.M., it was a subdivision built on an old oil waste pit. In Gillette, Wyo., it was an oil-field high-voltage line buried just 6 inches underground, and in Miles City, Mont., it was the prospect of heavily salted well water coming down the Tongue River. Across the West, states are moving to add new regulations and laws as oil and gas drilling intensifies and potential problems — small and large — emerge. "Rule-making is going to go on for a while until there is a little more balance," said Joanna Prukop, head of the New Mexico Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources. Colorado has, at the legislature's direction, embarked on a broad rule-making scheme aimed at bringing wildlife and health department officials into the drilling-permit evaluation process. The rule-making is also trying to add regional planning for energy development. "Everyone is watching Colorado because Colorado is trying to take a comprehensive approach," said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center in Taos....
Judge angrily scolds court, and it responds It was unusual enough when a high-level federal judge -- who is the brother of Sen. Gordon Smith -- blasted his own court for decimating the Northwest logging industry with "blunderbuss" rulings that went way too far. But the extraordinary scolding by Milan D. Smith Jr. last year apparently got the attention of his fellow judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the top federal court in the West. They recently took the unusual step of voting to have a full panel of judges reconsider the case that set Smith off. That could rein in the federal courts that Smith -- along with timber industry leaders -- blame for needlessly idling sawmills while they meddle in logging decisions beyond their expertise. Just as the Supreme Court considers only a few important cases each year, the 9th Circuit -- the largest appeals court in the country -- picks only a handful for full reviews. So the decision to do so on an otherwise routine timber sale case suggests that Smith's wrath hit a nerve with his colleagues. "It's very rare and unusual," said Scott Horngren, a Portland attorney involved in the case. "It's basically unheard of that they take a timber sale case." It offers a rare glimpse at the inside politics of the court that has issued momentous decisions, involving protection of species from spotted owls and salmon, with cascading effects on the Northwest economy....
Firefighting air tankers vulnerable to accidents U.S. Forest Service air tankers used in California and other Western states are potentially vulnerable to accidents, investigators warn in a new report. Despite making strides to improve air safety, the Forest Service could still use more money, better long-range planning and stricter aircraft inspections, among other improvements, federal investigators said. "The Forest Service has suffered numerous, potentially preventable aviation accidents over the years, and continues to be at risk for more," the investigators with the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General noted this week. In June 2002, for instance, three crewmen died when their 45-year-old air tanker broke apart over the mountains north of Yosemite National Park. National Transportation Safety Board investigators subsequently cited "inadequate maintenance" that overlooked cracks in a wing of the Lockheed C-130. More recently, two Forest Service contractors died in August 2006 when their heavy-duty Sikorsky helicopter crashed into the Klamath River. Part of the 40-year-old helicopter's tail rotor fell off shortly before the crash, investigators found....
Cost of fighting fires eating away at Forest Service's budget Although the land is still blanketed in snow with temperatures below freezing, Westerners are conditioned to expect fire. And by July, their expectations will be met as forest fires roar through their states. Some hoped President Bush's new budget would provide answers to this growing problem, but as usual, little has changed for the Forest Service. Once again, the majority of the funding will go to wildland fire management and emergency fire suppression. Until budgets effectively address the causes of the fire problem - fuels accumulations and the ever-expanding wildland-urban interface - catastrophic wildfires will continue to ravage both forestlands and nearby communities. In recent years, the Forest Service's budget for wildland fire management has averaged $1.5 billion a year. But each year, the Forest Service spends all of that budgeted money and then borrows from other programs, like research and restoration, to cover additional firefighting expenses. After fire season, Congress relies on "emergency supplements" to reimburse the agency about $500 million annually. In effect, there is no budget for fire management; the more money the Forest Service spends, the larger the reimbursement....
Judge delays decision on jury visit to Thirtymile site A federal judge on Friday delayed deciding whether to let a jury in the trial of a Forest Service crew boss visit the site of the Thirtymile Fire where four firefighters died in 2001. The judge also pushed back the trial date of Ellreese Daniels from April 14 to May 5. Daniels is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter for failing to order his firefighters to a safe area as flames advanced toward him and his crew on July 10, 2001, north of Winthrop. He is also charged with seven counts of making false statements to investigators. Daniels' lawyer wants the jury to see the site because, they say, pictures and videos do not provide enough detail for the jury to judge if Daniels was negligent in not getting his crew to a safe spot. "To deny the jurors the ability to view the scene will significantly impair Mr. Daniels' right to present the defense of his case," Daniels' lawyer wrote in a recent motion....
Fugitive activist extradited to United States Fugitive environmental activist Tre Arrow is back in the United States to stand trial on conspiracy and arson charges after nearly four years in a Canadian prison. Arrow, 34, formerly Michael James Scarpitti, was indicted by a federal grand jury in April 2004 following his arrest in Victoria, B.C., on local charges of shoplifting, assault and obstructing a police officer after a security guard caught him trying to steal a pair of bolt cutters. Arrow pleaded guilty to the Canadian charges but fought extradition by seeking asylum, claiming he faced political persecution in the United States. The 14-count indictment charges Scarpitti with taking part in the destruction of several concrete-mixing trucks at Ross Island Sand and Gravel Co. in Portland in April 2001. He's also accused of destroying logging trucks at Schoppert Logging Co. in Eagle Creek near Mount Hood in June 2001. Arrow, who legally changed his name from Scarpitti, has said trees told him to make the change. He earned fame among activists when he scaled the offices of the U.S. Forest Service in Portland in the summer of 2000 to protest logging on Mount Hood, perching on a ledge for 11 days....
Climbing banned at Tahoe landmark The U.S. Forest Service has issued a final order banning rock climbing at Lake Tahoe's Cave Rock, ending more than a decade of legal battles. The action affecting the prominent rock formation on the lake's east shore ends a dispute between rock climbers and the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. The order, signed by Lake Tahoe Forest Supervisor Terri Marceron, follows an August decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a climbing ban ordered in 2003. The Washoe tribe praised the order. According to Washoe lore, Cave Rock was a sacred place where tribal elders communed with powerful spirits....
Drug sweep in Orofino area nets 10, more arrests expected Ten people were arrested Friday morning in Clearwater County on various drug charges. The Clearwater County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that they were assisted by several other agencies in serving seven search warrants in the Orofino area. The action was the culmination of a four-month investigation into the distribution of illegal drugs including methamphetamine and marijuana as well as prescription narcotics. Assisting agencies included the Orofino Police Department, the Lewis County Sheriff's Office, Idaho Fish and Game, Idaho Health and Welfare Child Protective Services and Fraud Investigation, Nez Perce Tribal Police and U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement....So, the Forest Service is involved in law enforcement efforts against meth labs on private property. Keep that in mind the next time the Forest Service LEOs are crying out for larger budgets to "protect our federal lands."
Groups, feds join to push law aimed at saving lands in West Elena Daley, an administrator with the federal Bureau of Land Management, climbs atop a volcanic formation in the hills of southern Arizona and studies ancient petroglyphs scratched into stone by Hohokams. There is a stick man, a pregnant sheep, a spiral. In the valley below, springtime in the Sonoran Desert has created a verdant carpet dappled with poppies and lupines. This place 30 miles from Tucson, with its dramatic vistas, archaeological heritage and unique ecology, is just one of more than 800 properties in the BLM's National Landscape Conservation System being touted for a new American preservation network. Daley, the conservation-system director, is here to join forces with environmental groups in support of a congressional act that would permanently designate 26 million acres of Western lands for conservation. "This is like being part of a birthing," she says. "I think we are all about to witness the next major conservation system in the United States."....There's nothing new here. The wilderness areas, wilderness study areas, national monuments and national conservation areas have existed for years. How can you "birth" something that already exists? The only thing being "birthed" here is the upgrading in BLM's eyes of their status as a land management agency and their ability to lobby for a larger budget. BLM's ego and your tax dollars is what this is about.
Oil exploration may shake up carrizo Just as managers of the Carrizo Plain National Monument in eastern San Luis Obispo County are moving toward agreement on the future of cattle grazing there, oil and gas exploration is emerging as a new battleground on the 250,000-acre grasslands preserve. Vintage Production, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, owns 30,000 acres of mineral rights in the heart of the monument’s valley floor and, with oil now topping $100 a barrel, it has notified the Bureau of Land Management that it wants to find out what’s there. John Dearing, a BLM spokesman, said the agency can do nothing to stop the testing because the mineral rights pre-exist the monument’s creation by President Bill Clinton as he left office in 2001....
Mustang makeovers Have you got what it takes to transform a wild horse into a well-trained equine partner? The Bureau of Land Management hopes to find 25 trainers willing to give it a go for $10,000 in prize money at the new Wyoming Mustang Challenge Aug. 15 at the Wyoming State Fair. The trainers will be selected from applications received by April 1. Each trainer will pick up a wild horse in May at the Mantle Ranch wild horse facility in Wheatland. They’ll have 100 days to work with the animals before vying for cash prizes in three categories -- conditioning, ground work and riding a course with a series of obstacles. Alan Shepherd, state leader for the BLM’s wild horse program, said he hopes trainers from all experience levels apply. “I would like to see the whole variety,” he said. “I’d like to see the guys that make this a profession, but I would also like that guy who is the weekend horse guy to step up.”....
Alternatives gain attention amid Chino abuse case Every Tuesday in the slaughterhouse at the center of the sprawling Prather Ranch in Northern California, butchers on the kill floor stand silent for a moment before making meat of two dozen steers that eventually will be served on dinner tables across the West. The inspiration for the quiet pause is a quotation from humane animal treatment expert Temple Grandin. It is framed and hanging on a wall of the "knock box," where cows are stunned before their throats are slit. Grandin's quote: "I believe that the place where an animal dies is a sacred one." Bringing ritual into slaughter plants might prevent people from becoming numb or callous. "The ritual could be something very simple, such as a moment of silence. ... No words. Just one pure moment of silence." The 15,000-acre ranch in the shadow of Mount Shasta is not only an organic operation, but is also one of a growing number of beef producers certified by Humane Farm Animal Care, which outlines conditions for the raising, processing and transportation of animals used for food. Inquiries from the public about Prather Ranch meat pick up after incidents like the recent record-setting beef recall out of Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., where undercover video revealed abuse of cattle with forklifts and electric prods, ranch owner Mary Rickert said.
Rural lawmen fight crime on the range Frank and Jesse James aren’t galloping over the Carrisa Plains as they did in days of yore. But their venal spiritual descendants still skulk around the county’s rural areas, and they’re still rustling. Now, though, the outlaws — while still pilfering cattle—are more interested in rustling agricultural products, farm equipment and construction materials. True, it’s not as glamorous as snatching steers. But it’s plenty lucrative. So are the methamphetamine labs that pop up like jimson weed in the county’s outlands, and there’s money to be had in another common county crime, cockfighting. With all this illegal activity out in the boondocks, the county needs some latter-day Wyatt Earps to mosey out and ferret out the bad guys. It has them, in the San Luis Obispo Rural Crime Task Force....
These boots are made for wearing It's just that Beck wants his boots to go to a good home, just like his dad Earl and twin brother Bearl did when they sold their first pair of boots to a Dalhart ranch hand back in 1916. They are intended to go to a proper home, a place not for show but for practical use. That was the way the Becks did things when they moved to Amarillo and opened the first store in 1921. A cowboy would come in, tell them what he wanted, and they'd craft some working boots to his specifications. Beck's Cowboy Boots, with 11 employees, makes 1,500 custom-ordered boots a year. It takes 15 working days to craft a boot from start to finish. Before they ever begin, each new customer is mailed a "fit kit." It includes pieces of special foam for feet impressions, instructions on how to measure the feet and calves, selection of heel height and shape, toe shape, types of foot leathers and top leathers, selection of colors and a questionnaire of how often and what way the customer wears a boot. Beck's Cowboy Boots has made 120 different sizes of boots. He said Tony Lama, for example, has 12 sizes....
Rim Country loses pioneer rancher, horseman E.C. Conway, 90, was practically born on a horse. He was born Nov. 1, 1917 in Globe to Ed and Jane Conway, and as a 10-day-old infant, traveled on horseback to the family's Greenback Valley Ranch. "I was born one day, and 10 days later I was a rancher," he liked to say. Edward Charles (E.C.) Conway died Feb. 25. E.C. was part of the Payson Rodeo since the early 1930s. He took part in about 20 of them, including the ones in which he boxed. Mr. Conway lived on and operated the Greenback Valley Ranch for his entire life. As a young, wiry cowboy from a pioneer ranching family, Conway made his mark in more than a few events at the Payson Rodeo during the 1930s and 1940s. He roped calves, team roped and even boxed and milked wild cows. His partner -- and sometimes competition -- in the contests was his brother, Clarence. Over the years, he had many team roping partners, in addition to his brother Clarence, some he still recalls are Buck Nichols, with whom he won the Payson Rodeo, Frank Cline and John Cline. "We just used ranch horses," he said of the mounts they rode in team roping. Modesty and an aging memory prevented Conway from saying how many contests he won over the years, except to say, "I won a few." Conway was among the rodeo contestants who also took part in the boxing that was introduced to the list of events in the 1930s. It was one of the things unique to Payson -- none of the other rodeos in which Conway participated had boxing....

Survey paints bleak picture of public trust in government Taxpayers overwhelmingly believe the federal government has failed to explain how it collects and spends money, creating a growing expectations gap that is eroding the public's trust in its leaders, according to a survey released Wednesday. The survey, Public Attitudes to Government Accountability and Transparency 2008, measured how 1,652 adults felt about federal, state and local governments' financial management and accountability to taxpayers. The results paint a grim picture of the public's unhappiness with both the availability of financial information and the way it is delivered to citizens, said Relmond Van Daniker, executive director of the Association of Government Accountants, which commissioned the study. The poll was conducted by Harris Interactive, a market research firm based in Rochester, N.Y. "The results of this poll are not surprising," Van Daniker said Wednesday at a Washington press conference. "They show a wide level of distrust and dissatisfaction across the board." Among the more significant findings: --While 72 percent of respondents believe it is extremely or very important to receive financial management information from the federal government, only 5 percent are equally satisfied with the information they receive. --Although 73 percent of those surveyed said it is extremely or very important for the government to be open and honest with its spending, just 5 percent said the government is meeting those expectations. --71 percent of respondents who receive financial management information from the government, or believe that it is important to receive such data, said this information would influence how they vote....

Sadie Hawkins cowboy-style
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

By Julie Carter

Bachelorhood among cowboys is a confirmed asset to this free-livin' species of man.

I know one who is sure he's going to be a bachelor for his allotted three score and ten years.

He says, "Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment, usually with bulls and women."

Not many things truly scare this cowboy. The cattle market strikes realistic caution and a genuine nervous moment comes with those dainty glasses on a stem - the kind that don't come with jelly in them originally.

A confirmed cowboy bachelor will avoid, at all costs, a woman with any kind of advantage. Those gals are bad enough straight up, but then someone declared a special day when they could legitimately propose marriage and, according the rules, the male has to oblige. Sadie Hawkins Day is here.

For review, Sadie Hawkins Day was a daylong event in Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner, named after Sadie Hawkins, "the homeliest gal in all them hills."

Each year on Sadie Hawkins Day, the unmarried women of Dogpatch pursued the single men.

If a woman caught a man and dragged him back to the starting line by sundown, he had to marry her.

Now it is celebrated only every four years on Feb. 29.

The closest to Sadie Hawkins Day the cowboy world has come is with the invention of line dancing. It gave even the "homeliest gals" a dancing partner.

Our cowboy and his steady gal had been rocking along for a couple years going to local ropings, barbecues and calf fries. Occasionally, they would go dancing and he would sometimes humor her along with a movie in town if she seemed a little antsy.

She was a good hand, knew cattle and good horses. He was quite happy with the current arrangement.

This cowboy had his life in order. The singlewide was paid for, there were roping horses in the pen, a friend he liked to rope with, a close Quik-Stop for menu selections and the girlfriend if he got lonesome or needed some errands run.

She, on the other hand, had another take on this deal.

Our cowgirl had been looking over the cowboy's life and could clearly see a few improvements that would help him out immeasurably.

He had been known to go for days eating only the gut-grenades available at the corner gas-and-go where you turn to go the roping arena.

He had told her these were not unlike gyp water - a feller could get used to them if he just had enough intestinal fortitude.

He discovered that if you washed everything together, eventually your entire wardrobe matched with a light blue-jean hue, which was his favorite color.

With Sadie Hawkins Day on approach, she thought out a plan of action.

Her plot included dinner in town, her treat, at that classy joint that charges too much. Maybe a little wine and some soft Willie Nelson to set the mood. She would then explain the Sadie Hawkins Day rules and, gently, ask him to marry her.

They had been good friends, worked together without any serious injury, laughed a lot and were comfortable. She would spring this surprise and have him caught!

Our cowboy was not quite as slow as one might think.

Advised of the Sadie Hawkins Day mandate, he had been thinking about the situation and decided he had two options.

He didn't want to leave the country. So, true to the nature of a cowboy, he stepped up and took charge of the situation.

When they got to the high-class joint, he ate the biggest steak on the menu and for dessert he asked his girl to marry him - eventually, sometime.

With Sadie Hawkins Day safely handled, he let her pay the tab.

Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com

FLE

Isn't Self-Defense Common Sense? Under the Second Amendment, Barack Obama says, "There is an individual right to bear arms, but it is subject to common-sense regulation, just like most of our rights are subject to common-sense regulation." The leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination thus seems to be on the same wavelength as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which in a decision last March said "the protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment." But there is a crucial difference between these superficially similar formulations: The appeals court meant what it said, and Obama doesn't. Although the Illinois senator has learned to pay lip service to the Second Amendment, the details of his past and present positions on gun control suggest he neither understands nor respects the right to keep and bear arms. Obama evidently considers that de facto prohibition a "common-sense regulation," since he recently cited Washington's law as an example of constitutionally permissible gun control. "The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gangbangers and random shootings on the street isn't borne out by our Constitution," he said. The D.C. gun law, passed in 1975, isn't really about gangbangers, which it has not exactly disarmed, or random shootings on the street, which it has not noticeably curbed. In effect if not intent, it is about disarming law-abiding residents who might want to protect themselves from gangbangers and other violent criminals....
New Ariz. Law Pressures Migrants to Move Parents are pulling students out of school. Construction workers are abandoning their jobs. Families are hastily moving out of apartments. Two months after Arizona enacted a law punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants, the law is already achieving one of its goals: Scores of immigrants are fleeing to other states or back to their Latin American homelands. Gaby Espinoza, who has been unemployed since November, is among those affected. She gave up looking for a job because of the law and may have to return to Mexico. Espinoza's husband works here legally, but the law means that employers must ask her for papers, and she faces the daily fear of being deported. The law suspends or revokes the business licenses of violators and was intended to reduce the economic incentive for immigrants to sneak across the border. Illegal immigrants account for an estimated one in 10 workers in Arizona, which is the nation's busiest gateway for illegal immigration. Business groups have challenged the law. While awaiting a ruling, prosecutors agreed to hold off bringing cases to court until at least March 1....
Fence to nowhere The sophisticated mix of radar, satellites, sensors and computers is supposed to help the U.S. Border Patrol nab illegal immigrants and smugglers. But it's way over budget, way behind schedule - and doesn't work. The first segment of the virtual fence was a 28-mile stretch along the Arizona-Mexico border near Sasabe. In tests last year, radar systems were triggered by rain, images were fuzzy and the software couldn't process the large amounts of sensor data. The $20 million project was such a shambles that the government gave Boeing another $65 million in December to fix the glitches. Throwing good money after bad is rarely a stumbling block in government contracting. Last week, Richard M. Stana of the U.S. Government Accountability Office told Congress that much of the equipment will have to be replaced at taxpayers' additional expense. The first phase of the virtual fence, a 100-mile section ending in El Paso, was supposed to be deployed at the end of 2008 but is now expected to take another three years. More than a year ago the GAO warned that the border-fence project was at high risk for trouble for a host of reasons, including fuzzy planning, questionable accountability and an extremely ambitious schedule that related projects occurring simultaneously. So is Boeing in the doghouse? Hardly. In January, the company was awarded $733 million to "execute tactical infrastructure projects" related to border security, according to the GAO....
Prosecution rests in trial of agent charged in migrant's death Prosecutors trying to prove that a U.S. Border Patrol agent wasn't justified when he fatally shot an illegal immigrant early last year have rested their case. Filling out the case Friday were two of Agent Nicholas Corbett's co-workers and the supervisor of the firearms training unit for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, who testified that it would be unreasonable and negligent for an officer to come up behind a suspect and shoot him while he was surrendering. That's the scenario outlined in earlier testimony by two brothers of the dead man, 22-year-old Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera, who were with him the day Corbett tried to detain them and the fatal shot was fired. Special prosecutor Grant Woods wants jurors hearing the charges against Corbett to convict him of either second-degree murder, negligent homicide or manslaughter for the shooting. Corbett's lawyers say he was acting in self-defense and that Dominguez was getting ready to hurl a rock at the agent's head when he fired. They'll begin calling witnesses to support their case Monday....
Life goes on in Palomas despite cartel violence Palomas has been the recent subject of unwanted attention due to increasingly brazen drug-related violence in the small town that borders the village of Columbus. In the latest incident Wednesday, two men were shot to death by masked men at a Palomas gas station, a few steps from the port of entry into the United States. It was at least the third straight week in which shootings have been reported in Palomas, possibly part of a turf war between rival drug gangs. The attacks have residents on both sides of the border questioning their safety and wondering if the violence will spill over into the United States, something that U.S. officials are moving to prevent. Wednesday's shooting — which could be heard by U.S. border officials at the port of entry — prompted Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos to close the road to the port of entry. The U.S. Border Patrol has responded by stepping up patrols along the border. "The arrogance that we're seeing in the cartels, the changing of the guard is what we're seeing in Palomas," said Chris Mangusing, special operation supervisor for the Deming area. "Yes, we've increased our presence around the (port of entry)."....
FBI joins investigation into attack on home of UC Santa Cruz researcher The FBI is investigating whether there is any connection between militant animal rights activists in Southern California and the weekend attack on the home of a University of California - Santa Cruz researcher, a spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday. "The reason we said we'd look into it is to see if there's a possible link to domestic terrorism," said Patti Hanson, an FBI public affairs specialist in San Francisco. A demonstration by six masked protesters in front of a UCSC scientist's Westside home Sunday afternoon turned violent when the group pounded on the door and were confronted by the researcher's husband, police reported. The incident bears a striking resemblance to recent attacks on University of California - Los Angeles researchers that were linked to three animal rights groups. Los Angeles County court documents filed last week state that 'masked persons ... trespass onto the property of an employee... They attempt to terrorize the employee and family members by banging on the front door and shouting threats and obscenities through bullhorns ..."....
Surveillance system raises privacy concerns The Homeland Security Department is testing technology that would allow its agents to use cellphones or e-mail devices to covertly share live video of possible terrorists over a law enforcement network. The idea is prompting concern from privacy advocates. Department officials call the security surveillance system RealEyes because it instantly broadcasts images to anyone connected to the system. It can stream the video across the country to computers and give the law enforcement agencies a front-row view of what's going on in real time. If it passes a privacy test, the technology could allow air marshals, border officers or Secret Service agents to videotape surreptitiously in airports, at border crossings and anywhere else where there's a possible threat. The technology is raising privacy worries. Melissa Ngo of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an electronic-privacy watchdog, says the department should proceed cautiously because the government has a post-9/11 record of "expansions into surveillance when there's no credible threat." Brian Geoghegan of Reality Mobile, which is developing the technology, says FBI agents tested the system at the Super Bowl in Detroit in 2006. Concerned that protesters might try to disrupt the event, agents filmed people in the lobby of a hotel where some of the football players were staying....
Bush Moves to Shield Telecommunications Firms President Bush said last week that telecommunications companies that helped government wiretapping efforts need protection from "class-action plaintiff attorneys" who see a "financial gravy train" ahead. Democrats and privacy groups responded by accusing the Bush administration of trying to shut down the lawsuits to hide evidence of illegal acts. But in the bitter Washington dispute over whether to give the companies legal immunity, there is one thing on which both sides agree: If the lawsuits go forward, sensitive details about the scope and methods of the Bush administration's surveillance efforts could be divulged for the first time. Nearly 40 lawsuits, consolidated into five groups, are pending before a San Francisco judge. The various plaintiffs, a mix of nonprofit civil liberties advocates and private attorneys, are seeking to prove that the Bush administration engaged in illegal massive surveillance of Americans' e-mails and phone calls after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and to show that major phone companies illegally aided the surveillance, including the disclosure of customers' call records....

Wheat Tops $12 a Bushel for First Time on Rising Food Demand Wheat climbed above $12 a bushel for the first time in Chicago, as investors poured money into agricultural commodities on signs that crop production isn't keeping pace with demand. Global wheat stockpiles probably will fall to a 30-year low this year, while corn inventories are headed for the lowest since 1984, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Feb. 8. Almost $1.5 billion flowed into farm commodities in the week to Feb. 19, investment bank UBS AG said yesterday. The UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index of 26 raw materials has jumped 15 percent this year. Wheat, soybeans, corn and palm oil are among commodities that have touched records this month, stoking prices of bread, noodles and crackers worldwide. The gains have driven up costs for food companies from Kellogg Co. to Premier Foods Plc and complicated efforts to curb prices in China, India and Malaysia....

Harkin: Meat safety requires ID program Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., says this month’s massive beef recall shows that it’s time to have a national animal identification system. Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said today that a lot of meat could have been saved if inspectors had been able to trace some suspect cows slaughtered by a California packing plant. Instead, the processor was forced to recall 143 million pounds of beef, a full two years’ worth of production. Harkin said his panel would pursue the ID issue once work on the farm bill is finished, but he stopped short of saying that Congress should make the program mandatory. Many cattle producers strongly oppose being required to participate in an ID system. “This is a matter of public safety, and we’ve got to get to it very soon,” Harkin said....

California sues U.S. Forest Service California sued the U.S. Forest Service on Thursday over plans that would open more than 500,000 acres to roads and oil drilling in the state's largest national forests. The four Southern California forests -- Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland -- comprise more than 3.5 million acres that stretch from Big Sur to the Mexican border. The suit alleges that the Forest Service violated the federal National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act by not informing the state of potential environmental impacts of its plan, and by not working with the state's laws and policies. Since 2006, California has had a moratorium on road construction in pristine areas of its national forests. State officials also took issue with the roughly 500,000 acres the Forest Service has set aside as wilderness land, an amount that environmentalists and scientists said is half of what would be necessary to protect habitat....

Canada Lynx May Win Back Critical Habitat Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released revised plans to establish critical habitat for Canada lynx in Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Washington and Wyoming. The new habitat protection plan is in response to an investigation that found that a Bush administration political appointees interfered with the scientific process in the original decision. "The possibility of stronger protection for the Canada lynx is welcome news," said Tara Thornton, Northeast representative for the Endangered Species Coalition, a national network of hundreds of conservation, scientific, religious, sporting, outdoor recreation, business and community organizations. Today’s proposal would add 40,913 square miles to the 1,841 square miles of critical habitat for the lynx proposed previously, bringing the total to 42,753 square miles. The new rule may have an impact on land use decisions and development in the affected states....
Canada lynx "critical habitat" leaves Colorado out of it again Colorado has again been left out of the "critical habitat" area for the Canada lynx, despite the state's effort to bring back the threatened species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday proposed an expanded territory for the reclusive cat across the northern Rockies. Colorado's reintroduced population of an estimated 125 lynx was not yet "biologically sustainable," the agency said. Conservationists said not having a critical habitat designation, which requires federal and private landowners to take into consideration the impact of land-use activities on species recovery, was a setback. "The whole point of critical habitat is recovery, and we're not going to recover the lynx if we don't have adequate protection," said Josh Pollock, conservation director for the Center for Native Ecosystems. The state Division of Wildlife said a critical habitat designation would have little effect on the reintroduction effort, which suffered a setback last spring when no new kittens were believed to have been born....