Officials join in initiative to preserve sage grouse Top officials from several state and federal agencies signed on to efforts Monday to preserve a sagebrush-loving bird that many believe is threatened in Colorado by the growing energy industry and other activities. The Colorado greater sage grouse conservation plan marks a major move to protect the bird so that it doesn't become listed as a federally protected endangered species. A grouse listing, some say, could keep the oil and gas industry away from important fossil fuel reserves and make it harder for ranchers to graze their animals. The plan, 21/2 years in the making, identifies steps that can be taken to preserve the birds' sagebrush habitat in hopes of preventing population declines that could trigger more stringent protections. Signing onto the plan: the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Colorado Division of Wildlife....
Land near Yellowstone safe from mining under deal A conservation group said Monday it has an agreement to protect nearly 1,500 acres of private mining claims northeast of Yellowstone National Park. The plan calls for the Trust for Public Land to use $8 million in federal money to buy the claims and convey them to the U.S. Forest Service, ending the fight over the proposed New World Mine near Cooke City. "We're hoping in the next several months . . . that we will be able to work with Congress and our partners, the Forest Service, to do everything that we can to make sure our funding request is made good on," said Alex Diekmann of the Trust for Public Land. In 1989, Crown Butte Mines, a subsidiary of Canadian mining company Noranda Inc., proposed a large gold mine near Yellowstone. Conservation groups warned it would harm the park's ecosystem, and lawsuits were threatened. In 1996, Crown Butte agreed to abandon its planned mine and create a fund to clean up past mining operations in exchange for $65 million in federal land and other assets. However, Margaret Reeb, who owned most of the claims Crown Butte planned to mine, wasn't part of the negotiations and did not want to sell, the Trust for Public Land said. She eventually agreed not to mine the land and owned it until her death in 2005. Mike and Randy Holland, her nephews, recently reached the agreement giving the Trust for Public Land the right to purchase the land and mining claims over a two-year period and to convey them to the United States for inclusion in the Gallatin and Custer national forests....
Number of bison killed sets record Roughly one out of four bison in Yellowstone National Park has been captured, sent to slaughter or otherwise killed this winter. The unofficial tally on Monday reached 1,098, topping a previous record of 1,084, set in the winter of 1996-97. The number could exceed 1,200 in the coming days. Park officials said there were an estimated 4,700 bison in Yellowstone before winter set in, the second-highest total ever recorded. But as temperatures turned cold, bison began having a harder time breaking through crusty snow to find the food below. As they have done for years, groups began to wander west and north toward lower elevations. State and federal management policies, though, are designed to keep bison from wandering too far, out of fear that they might transmit brucellosis to cattle in the area. So far this year, 822 bison captured along the north edge of Yellowstone have been shipped to slaughter, including 57 on Monday. Another 110 or so are expected to be shipped in the coming days, and scores more in the area may soon be captured. Three bison have been euthanized on the north side. Meanwhile, the Montana Department of Livestock has captured and sent to slaughter 107 bison near the western border. Hunters this year also killed 166 bison: 63 in a hunt sponsored by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and another 103 by tribal members....
Wolves kill calf in Boulder drainage Wolves killed a calf on private property along the East Fork of the Boulder River south of Big Timber on Saturday, according to a release from the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The pack returned Sunday and ran cattle through a fence. Officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services were authorized to remove two wolves from the pack. And the landowner was issued a shoot-on-sight permit for as many as two wolves. No wolves had been removed as of Monday afternoon, the release said. Calving operations are just getting started in the area. The pack is believed to have been involved formed in 2004 and included four wolves as of December 2007. A year ago, the pack killed one calf, and one wolf was removed.
Forest Service land eyed for housing In the quest to find more places for Eagle County workers to live, some Eagle County residents are turning their attention to the biggest landowner in their area: the U.S. Forest Service. About 84 percent of the county is owned by the federal government, and there are ways that local governments could acquire slivers of the land for housing — even if most of that land is either too remote, too steep or too sensitive for development. “I don’t know exactly where you’d do it, but they have a lot of land up and down the valley,” former Vail Mayor Rod Slifer said. One way to acquire Forest Service land is a swap in which the Forest Service would receive land that it considers valuable, such as wildlife habitat, said Eagle District Ranger Brian Lloyd. Otherwise, Congressional approval might be needed to approve a sale, Lloyd said. A third option is the “Townsite Act,” which can allow for Forest Service lands to be sold to towns if those lands serve a community need. That might include housing, Lloyd said....
Fair game for drillers Nature rewards hunters on horseback who hoof a few miles into the pine-covered hills of the Bosque del Oso State Wildlife Area. On display are red-tailed hawks riding the thermals, black bears, bobcats, regal bull elk crowned with forests of antlers and a slumber party of wild turkeys dozing in the roof of a cottonwood tree. But, as documented in recent Colorado Division of Wildlife surveys, local hunters also are running into the startling impacts of the coal-bed methane industry. Dirt clouds follow truck convoys carrying water, chemicals and equipment in and out of the Bosque. Haul roads make gravel ribbons through habitat - along ridges, through valleys and cut into hillsides. Drill pads are flat-topped interruptions to the rounded high country. The grind of diesel engines pierces the cool, silent air. Industry's mechanized omnipresence is an especially jarring sight considering that hunters enter the preserve only on foot or by horseback. Inside the 30,000-acre Bosque del Oso (Forest of the Bear) State Wildlife Area, 25 miles west of Trinidad, energy producers are drilling for methane deposits trapped in coal seams a thousand feet or more underground, seeking fuel to run power plants and heat the West's homes and businesses....
Congressman proposes bill to block mining on land near Grand Canyon More than 1 million acres of public lands near the Grand Canyon would be withdrawn from potential mineral exploration under a bill introduced Monday by U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. The Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2008 was referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources less than a week after the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations filed suit to block exploratory drilling near Grand Canyon National Park. Also last week, Gov. Janet Napolitano asked President Bush to issue an executive order blocking exploration in the area. Soaring uranium prices have prompted hundreds of new mine claims on Kaibab National Forest and Bureau of Land Management properties north and south of the Canyon. Grijalva said he moved to block mining efforts until environmental and health issues are resolved.
Environmentalists intend to sue over Fort Irwin's tortoise-relocation plan Environmental groups on Monday put three federal agencies on notice that they intend to sue over a plan to move nearly 800 desert tortoises from land where the Army is expanding its tank-training center near Barstow. The notice from the Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors comes just two weeks before the Army was planning to move the reptiles, which are threatened with extinction, from the southern expansion edge of the National Training Center at Fort Irwin and onto public lands closer to Interstate 15. It is the latest salvo in what became known as tanks vs. tortoise -- a more than 20-year effort by the military to expand the training center to accommodate faster-moving tanks. Troops come to Fort Irwin from across the country to train against a home team that acts as the enemy. Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the groups are not against the so-called tortoise translocation since Congress approved the center's expansion. But, she said, the new land is lower-quality habitat, and has pockets of diseased tortoises, mines, and illegal dumping and off-roading....
State to raise deer kill to reduce bovine TB The state's latest attempt to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis, a sickness that poses little threat to humans but has hit 11 herds in northern Minnesota -- and threatens more -- comes to northern Minnesota this week. Watch out, wild deer, blamed for spreading the disease. With the blessings of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who flew to the northwestern corner of the state on Monday to visit ranchers hurt by the disease, state officials plan to distribute expedited deer-hunting permits at a meeting in the northern town of Wannaska tonight. A proposed emergency rule, expected to take effect later this month, would allow any landowner in the area to shoot deer without a permit or license until May 15, provided the deer are turned in for TB testing. The new steps come on top of a crew of state and federal sharpshooters sent to Roseau and Beltrami counties last month to thin the deer herd....
Patch burning: A new concept in rangeland management A six-year research project is underway in Woodson County, Kansas where Kansas State University scientists are working to determine how viable patch-burn grazing is for raising livestock. Patch-burn grazing is a fairly new concept in rangeland management, but has been occurring naturally for hundreds of years, said Walt Fick, K-State Research and Extension range management specialist. Historically, Native Americans purposely started prairie fires, and lightning did the same thing naturally. Bison and other native herbivores were attracted to the new growth that comes up after the land burned; consequently, these animals moved from grazing area to grazing area -- searching out the most attractive areas of new growth, Fick said. Some ranchers are mimicking that grazing pattern by sectioning a large pasture into three or more burn areas. "Every year, one of those sections is prescribed burned, concentrating the grazing pressure in specific areas of the pasture," he said. "The cattle are free-roaming over the entire pasture, but tend to gravitate toward the one-third area of the pasture that has been burned, because that is where the most attractive new growth has occurred."....
Your Burger on Biotech If the biotech industry has its way, ordering a hamburger might soon sound something like this: “one charbroiled cloned-beef patty, with genetically modified cheese, lab-grown bacon and vitamin-C-fortified lettuce, on a protein-spiked bun.” The burger of the future is delicious, nutritious and contains more engineering than a stealth bomber. With the Food and Drug Administration ruling in January that meat and milk from cloned cows, pigs, goats and their offspring is safe to eat, the only thing keeping the superburger off your dinner plate is time. It will be a few years yet before cloned meat hits store shelves. Cloning the perfect (and tastiest) cow can cost upward of $15,000, which makes clones themselves too expensive to eat, so we’ll have to wait until they spawn enough offspring (the old-fashioned way) to feed the masses. Meanwhile, researchers are busy formulating all the fixings. Take a look at what science is doing for the burger, from bun to beef and everything in between....
Pheasant Ranch Nine years ago, with cattle prices down and farmers throughout the Klamath Basin struggling with low water supplies and increased hay costs, Burt Holzhauser pondered about the future of his ranch. A third-generation rancher in rural Siskiyou County, Holzhauser decided to sell his cattle and start a pheasant hunting club. Today, the Rising Sun Ranch Hunting Preserve is one of the more successful pheasant hunting destinations in the West. I was in the field plowing one day and it popped into my head,’ Holzhauser recalls. ’I thought about it for a while. There were no pheasants in this area at all. But I thought it would be a good thing to do.’ Holzhauser’s grandfather, Herman, homesteaded 1,080 acres 38 miles south of Klamath Falls in 1880. Growing up on the ranch, Holzhauser’s father and grandfather would take him bird hunting when they weren’t busy with the cows or growing grain or alfalfa....
Women fliers made aviation history in Idaho Alys McKey became the first woman to fly in Idaho on May 30, 1913, when she took off in a Curtiss biplane from the Boise fairgrounds, which then were at the corner of Fairview Avenue and Orchard Street. It might well have been her last flight but for a bumpy takeoff. In the press of the crowd that gathered around her frail plane, someone had leaned hard enough on a wing rod to crack it. It might never have been noticed had she not hit a rut in the field on her first attempted takeoff. "That jolt saved my life," she told a Statesman reporter. The jolt collapsed the top wing onto the one beneath. If she had started on the smooth race track in front of the grandstand, instead of on the grassy infield, the jolt would not have happened and she would have left the ground with the rod already splintered. "With that rod in that condition," she said, "the first time I attempted a turn in the air it would have snapped and that would have been the death of me." By the late 1930s, many Idaho women had learned to fly. Some were students in Idaho colleges through the Civilian Pilot Training Program, established in 1939 by the federal government. Its mission was to be "a safeguard against the vast aerial militarization now being pressed with fanatical zeal by foreign powers." Clearly, Germany and Japan were the unnamed foreign powers, and women trained as pilots in the program would serve in various flying capacities after Dec. 7, 1941....
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
FLE
U.S. boosts deportation of illegals The Department of Homeland Security, continuing to enforce what it calls a "strict policy of arresting, prosecuting and jailing" illegal immigrants, deported a record number of those caught on the nation's borders last year — more than 280,000 in fiscal year 2007 compared with 186,000 a year earlier. It was the largest number of illegals ever removed from the country in a single year. The increase is attributable to what veteran law-enforcement authorities said is a revised apprehension process, adding that the department no longer is targeting only criminal illegals for removal, but seeks eventually to apprehend, charge and deport all those who cross illegally into the United States. To that end, Homeland Security has initiated "Operation Streamline" along some sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border, which brings illegal immigrants into the U.S. criminal justice system, where they are prosecuted either for a misdemeanor on their first offense or a felony if they have been caught before. "Under this program, individuals who are caught at certain designated high-traffic, high-risk zones are prosecuted and, if convicted, are jailed," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at a recent press briefing. Mr. Chertoff noted that between October and December, the Justice Department prosecuted 1,200 cases under the new program and, as a consequence, apprehension rates dropped nearly 70 percent in those areas....
D.C.'s Gun Ban Gets Day in Court Despite mountains of scholarly research, enough books to fill a library shelf and decades of political battles about gun control, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity this week that is almost unique for a modern court when it examines whether the District's handgun ban violates the Second Amendment. The nine justices, none of whom has ever ruled directly on the amendment's meaning, will consider a part of the Bill of Rights that has existed without a definitive interpretation for more than 200 years. "This may be one of the only cases in our lifetime when the Supreme Court is going to be interpreting the meaning of an important provision of the Constitution unencumbered by precedent,'' said Randy E. Barnett, a constitutional scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center. "And that's why there's so much discussion on the original meaning of the Second Amendment.'' The outcome could roil the 2008 political campaigns, send a national message about what kinds of gun control are constitutional and finally settle the question of whether the 27-word amendment, with its odd structure and antiquated punctuation, provides an individual right to gun ownership or simply pertains to militia service. "The case has been structured so that they have to confront the threshold question," said Robert A. Levy, the wealthy libertarian lawyer who has spent five years and his own money to bring District of Columbia v. Heller to the Supreme Court. "I think they have to come to grips with that."....
Gun Case Causes Bush Administration Rift Suppose that after decades of silence on the subject, the Supreme Court was to decide that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to gun ownership, as opposed to a right tied to service in a militia. Such a ruling would be a cause for dancing in the streets by proponents of the individual-rights view — or so it might seem. After all, the great majority of federal courts have long refused to read the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right, and the Supreme Court itself has said nothing for nearly 70 years. But nothing is quite that straightforward when it comes to the case to be argued Tuesday on the constitutionality of the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control law. Judging by the sniping from within the Bush administration at its own solicitor general, Paul D. Clement, for a brief he filed in the case, a long-awaited declaration by the Supreme Court that the Second Amendment protects an individual right would not be nearly enough. Mr. Clement’s brief embraces the individual-rights position, which has been administration policy since 2001 when John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, first declared it in a public letter to the National Rifle Association. But the brief does not take the next step and ask the justices to declare, as the federal appeals court here did a year ago, that the District of Columbia law is unconstitutional. Not that the solicitor general’s brief finds the law to be constitutional, or even desirable. Far from it: the brief offers a road map for finding the law unconstitutional, but by a different route from the one the appeals court took. The distinction may seem almost picayune, but it is a measure of the passions engendered by anything to do with guns that Mr. Clement’s approach is evidently being seen in some administration circles as close to a betrayal. But Vice President Dick Cheney was nonetheless so provoked by Mr. Clement’s approach that last month he took the highly unusual step for a vice president of signing on to a brief filed by more than 300 members of Congress that asks the Supreme Court to declare the District of Columbia law “unconstitutional per se.” (Mr. Clement’s brief, by contrast, says that “a per se rule is clearly out of place in the Second Amendment context” because at the time the amendment itself coexisted with the “reasonable restrictions on firearms” that were in place at the time.) The Congressional brief, circulated by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, asserts that “no purpose would be served by remanding this case for further fact finding or other proceedings.” The case “involves nothing more than the right of law-abiding persons to keep common handguns and usable firearms for lawful self-defense in the home,” the brief says....
Audit: FBI watchlist data error-riddled The FBI gave outdated, incomplete and inaccurate information about terror suspects to be added to the government's watchlist for nearly three years despite steps taken to prevent errors, a Justice Department audit concludes. Responding, an FBI spokesman said gaps identified in the system should be fixed within six months. Overall, the audit released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine gave the FBI a mixed review for its process of submitting an estimated 8,000 names and other data to the terror watchlist that is compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies. It found that the FBI has proper training and other internal controls in place to help make sure names of suspected terrorists were accurately added to the list. However, Fine's report rapped the FBI for failing to consistently pass along newly discovered information about people on the watchlist, or to remove those who were no longer deemed a threat. "We found that the FBI was not always providing updated nominations when new information became known about a nominated individual," the audit concluded. "We also found that the FBI was not always removing records from the watchlist when it was appropriate to do so....
Bush defangs watchdog for spy agencies Almost 32 years to the day after President Gerald Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority. The White House did not say why it was necessary to change the rules governing the board when it issued Bush's order late last month. But critics say Bush's order is consistent with a pattern of steps by the administration that have systematically scaled back Watergate-era intelligence reforms. The board's investigations and reports have been mostly kept secret. But the Clinton administration provided a rare window into the panel's capabilities in 1996 by publishing a board report faulting the CIA for not adequately informing Congress about putting known torturers and killers in Guatemala on its payroll. But Bush downsized the board's mandate to be an aggressive watchdog against such problems in an executive order issued on Feb. 29, the eve of the anniversary of the day Ford's order took effect. The White House said the timing of the new order was "purely coincidental." Under the old rules, whenever the oversight board learned of intelligence activity it believed might be "unlawful or contrary to executive order," it had a duty to notify both the president and the attorney general. But Bush's order deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, and the new order said the board should notify the president only if other officials are not already "adequately" addressing the problem. Bush's order also terminated the board's authority to oversee each intelligence agency's general counsel and inspector general, and it erased a requirement that each inspector general file a report with the board every three months. Now only the agency directors will decide whether to report any potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they have no schedule for checking in....
'State secrets' privilege fuels surveillance bill battle House Democrats are hunkering down for a long siege with President Bush over his administration's terrorist surveillance program. Democrats are aiming to rein in the White House's power to wiretap without a warrant and assert "state secrecy" in key court battles. As Congress broke for a two-week recess last Friday, President Bush warned that the latest House version of the surveillance bill would "undermine America's security." At the heart of the dispute now is whether to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies now facing lawsuits over their cooperation in warrantless surveillance. The Bush administration argues that liability protection is crucial to national security. Facing multibillion-dollar class- action suits, telecommunications companies will be less willing to cooperate in antiterrorist surveillance, say top officials. The House bill proposes an alternative fix for telecom companies facing big lawsuits: to allow a judge to determine whether the executive branch's claim of the state secrets privilege is legitimate. It passed by a partisan vote of 213 to 197, with all Republicans and 12 Democrats voting in opposition. "The telecoms have always had total immunity, as long as they get a statement from the administration. What's at issue is the administration's use of the state secrecy doctrine to prohibit them from using that immunity in court," says Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D) of New York, who proposed this strategy to the House Democratic leadership....
Wiretapping's true danger As the battle over reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rages in Congress, civil libertarians warn that legislation sought by the White House could enable spying on "ordinary Americans." Others, like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), counter that only those with an "irrational fear of government" believe that "our country's intelligence analysts are more concerned with random innocent Americans than foreign terrorists overseas." But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps pose to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can -- and repeatedly have -- abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters. The original FISA law was passed in 1978 after a thorough congressional investigation headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) revealed that for decades, intelligence analysts -- and the presidents they served -- had spied on the letters and phone conversations of union chiefs, civil rights leaders, journalists, antiwar activists, lobbyists, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices -- even Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Church Committee reports painstakingly documented how the information obtained was often "collected and disseminated in order to serve the purely political interests of an intelligence agency or the administration, and to influence social policy and political action." Political abuse of electronic surveillance goes back at least as far as the Teapot Dome scandal that roiled the Warren G. Harding administration in the early 1920s. When Atty. Gen. Harry Daugherty stood accused of shielding corrupt Cabinet officials, his friend FBI Director William Burns went after Sen. Burton Wheeler, the fiery Montana progressive who helped spearhead the investigation of the scandal. FBI agents tapped Wheeler's phone, read his mail and broke into his office. Wheeler was indicted on trumped-up charges by a Montana grand jury, and though he was ultimately cleared, the FBI became more adept in later years at exploiting private information to blackmail or ruin troublesome public figures. In 1945, Harry Truman had the FBI wiretap Thomas Corcoran, a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "brain trust" whom Truman despised and whose influence he resented. Following the death of Chief Justice Harlan Stone the next year, the taps picked up Corcoran's conversations about succession with Justice William O. Douglas. Six weeks later, having reviewed the FBI's transcripts, Truman passed over Douglas and the other sitting justices to select Secretary of the Treasury (and poker buddy) Fred Vinson for the court's top spot....
Precious liberty In the current debate about the erosion of civil liberties, a stock claim aimed at dampening the ardour of their defenders is that "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear". The answer to this is - oh indeed? - nothing to fear from legislation that reduces civil liberties by extending the power of the state to detain, inspect, question, collect personal information, intercept communications, and deploy new and more instruments of surveillance and monitoring such as CCTV cameras and ID cards? The assumption behind the "if you have nothing to hide" claim is that the authorities will always be benign, will always reliably identify and interfere with genuinely bad people only, will never find themselves engaging in "mission creep" with more and more uses to put their new powers and capabilities to, will not redefine crimes, and even various behaviours or views now regarded as acceptable, to extend the range of things for which people can be placed under suspicion - and so considerably on. It is all or some of naive, lazy and irresponsible not to be maximally vigilant regarding civil liberties and human rights, because it is a datum that the liberties of individuals are inconvenient for all states and their security services, and in dispensations where there are few if any restraints (think the Soviet Union, or even today's Russia - and China) it is liberty which quickly and comprehensively suffers....
U.S. boosts deportation of illegals The Department of Homeland Security, continuing to enforce what it calls a "strict policy of arresting, prosecuting and jailing" illegal immigrants, deported a record number of those caught on the nation's borders last year — more than 280,000 in fiscal year 2007 compared with 186,000 a year earlier. It was the largest number of illegals ever removed from the country in a single year. The increase is attributable to what veteran law-enforcement authorities said is a revised apprehension process, adding that the department no longer is targeting only criminal illegals for removal, but seeks eventually to apprehend, charge and deport all those who cross illegally into the United States. To that end, Homeland Security has initiated "Operation Streamline" along some sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border, which brings illegal immigrants into the U.S. criminal justice system, where they are prosecuted either for a misdemeanor on their first offense or a felony if they have been caught before. "Under this program, individuals who are caught at certain designated high-traffic, high-risk zones are prosecuted and, if convicted, are jailed," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at a recent press briefing. Mr. Chertoff noted that between October and December, the Justice Department prosecuted 1,200 cases under the new program and, as a consequence, apprehension rates dropped nearly 70 percent in those areas....
D.C.'s Gun Ban Gets Day in Court Despite mountains of scholarly research, enough books to fill a library shelf and decades of political battles about gun control, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity this week that is almost unique for a modern court when it examines whether the District's handgun ban violates the Second Amendment. The nine justices, none of whom has ever ruled directly on the amendment's meaning, will consider a part of the Bill of Rights that has existed without a definitive interpretation for more than 200 years. "This may be one of the only cases in our lifetime when the Supreme Court is going to be interpreting the meaning of an important provision of the Constitution unencumbered by precedent,'' said Randy E. Barnett, a constitutional scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center. "And that's why there's so much discussion on the original meaning of the Second Amendment.'' The outcome could roil the 2008 political campaigns, send a national message about what kinds of gun control are constitutional and finally settle the question of whether the 27-word amendment, with its odd structure and antiquated punctuation, provides an individual right to gun ownership or simply pertains to militia service. "The case has been structured so that they have to confront the threshold question," said Robert A. Levy, the wealthy libertarian lawyer who has spent five years and his own money to bring District of Columbia v. Heller to the Supreme Court. "I think they have to come to grips with that."....
Gun Case Causes Bush Administration Rift Suppose that after decades of silence on the subject, the Supreme Court was to decide that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to gun ownership, as opposed to a right tied to service in a militia. Such a ruling would be a cause for dancing in the streets by proponents of the individual-rights view — or so it might seem. After all, the great majority of federal courts have long refused to read the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right, and the Supreme Court itself has said nothing for nearly 70 years. But nothing is quite that straightforward when it comes to the case to be argued Tuesday on the constitutionality of the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control law. Judging by the sniping from within the Bush administration at its own solicitor general, Paul D. Clement, for a brief he filed in the case, a long-awaited declaration by the Supreme Court that the Second Amendment protects an individual right would not be nearly enough. Mr. Clement’s brief embraces the individual-rights position, which has been administration policy since 2001 when John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, first declared it in a public letter to the National Rifle Association. But the brief does not take the next step and ask the justices to declare, as the federal appeals court here did a year ago, that the District of Columbia law is unconstitutional. Not that the solicitor general’s brief finds the law to be constitutional, or even desirable. Far from it: the brief offers a road map for finding the law unconstitutional, but by a different route from the one the appeals court took. The distinction may seem almost picayune, but it is a measure of the passions engendered by anything to do with guns that Mr. Clement’s approach is evidently being seen in some administration circles as close to a betrayal. But Vice President Dick Cheney was nonetheless so provoked by Mr. Clement’s approach that last month he took the highly unusual step for a vice president of signing on to a brief filed by more than 300 members of Congress that asks the Supreme Court to declare the District of Columbia law “unconstitutional per se.” (Mr. Clement’s brief, by contrast, says that “a per se rule is clearly out of place in the Second Amendment context” because at the time the amendment itself coexisted with the “reasonable restrictions on firearms” that were in place at the time.) The Congressional brief, circulated by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, asserts that “no purpose would be served by remanding this case for further fact finding or other proceedings.” The case “involves nothing more than the right of law-abiding persons to keep common handguns and usable firearms for lawful self-defense in the home,” the brief says....
Audit: FBI watchlist data error-riddled The FBI gave outdated, incomplete and inaccurate information about terror suspects to be added to the government's watchlist for nearly three years despite steps taken to prevent errors, a Justice Department audit concludes. Responding, an FBI spokesman said gaps identified in the system should be fixed within six months. Overall, the audit released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine gave the FBI a mixed review for its process of submitting an estimated 8,000 names and other data to the terror watchlist that is compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies. It found that the FBI has proper training and other internal controls in place to help make sure names of suspected terrorists were accurately added to the list. However, Fine's report rapped the FBI for failing to consistently pass along newly discovered information about people on the watchlist, or to remove those who were no longer deemed a threat. "We found that the FBI was not always providing updated nominations when new information became known about a nominated individual," the audit concluded. "We also found that the FBI was not always removing records from the watchlist when it was appropriate to do so....
Bush defangs watchdog for spy agencies Almost 32 years to the day after President Gerald Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority. The White House did not say why it was necessary to change the rules governing the board when it issued Bush's order late last month. But critics say Bush's order is consistent with a pattern of steps by the administration that have systematically scaled back Watergate-era intelligence reforms. The board's investigations and reports have been mostly kept secret. But the Clinton administration provided a rare window into the panel's capabilities in 1996 by publishing a board report faulting the CIA for not adequately informing Congress about putting known torturers and killers in Guatemala on its payroll. But Bush downsized the board's mandate to be an aggressive watchdog against such problems in an executive order issued on Feb. 29, the eve of the anniversary of the day Ford's order took effect. The White House said the timing of the new order was "purely coincidental." Under the old rules, whenever the oversight board learned of intelligence activity it believed might be "unlawful or contrary to executive order," it had a duty to notify both the president and the attorney general. But Bush's order deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, and the new order said the board should notify the president only if other officials are not already "adequately" addressing the problem. Bush's order also terminated the board's authority to oversee each intelligence agency's general counsel and inspector general, and it erased a requirement that each inspector general file a report with the board every three months. Now only the agency directors will decide whether to report any potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they have no schedule for checking in....
'State secrets' privilege fuels surveillance bill battle House Democrats are hunkering down for a long siege with President Bush over his administration's terrorist surveillance program. Democrats are aiming to rein in the White House's power to wiretap without a warrant and assert "state secrecy" in key court battles. As Congress broke for a two-week recess last Friday, President Bush warned that the latest House version of the surveillance bill would "undermine America's security." At the heart of the dispute now is whether to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies now facing lawsuits over their cooperation in warrantless surveillance. The Bush administration argues that liability protection is crucial to national security. Facing multibillion-dollar class- action suits, telecommunications companies will be less willing to cooperate in antiterrorist surveillance, say top officials. The House bill proposes an alternative fix for telecom companies facing big lawsuits: to allow a judge to determine whether the executive branch's claim of the state secrets privilege is legitimate. It passed by a partisan vote of 213 to 197, with all Republicans and 12 Democrats voting in opposition. "The telecoms have always had total immunity, as long as they get a statement from the administration. What's at issue is the administration's use of the state secrecy doctrine to prohibit them from using that immunity in court," says Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D) of New York, who proposed this strategy to the House Democratic leadership....
Wiretapping's true danger As the battle over reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rages in Congress, civil libertarians warn that legislation sought by the White House could enable spying on "ordinary Americans." Others, like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), counter that only those with an "irrational fear of government" believe that "our country's intelligence analysts are more concerned with random innocent Americans than foreign terrorists overseas." But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps pose to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can -- and repeatedly have -- abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters. The original FISA law was passed in 1978 after a thorough congressional investigation headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) revealed that for decades, intelligence analysts -- and the presidents they served -- had spied on the letters and phone conversations of union chiefs, civil rights leaders, journalists, antiwar activists, lobbyists, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices -- even Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Church Committee reports painstakingly documented how the information obtained was often "collected and disseminated in order to serve the purely political interests of an intelligence agency or the administration, and to influence social policy and political action." Political abuse of electronic surveillance goes back at least as far as the Teapot Dome scandal that roiled the Warren G. Harding administration in the early 1920s. When Atty. Gen. Harry Daugherty stood accused of shielding corrupt Cabinet officials, his friend FBI Director William Burns went after Sen. Burton Wheeler, the fiery Montana progressive who helped spearhead the investigation of the scandal. FBI agents tapped Wheeler's phone, read his mail and broke into his office. Wheeler was indicted on trumped-up charges by a Montana grand jury, and though he was ultimately cleared, the FBI became more adept in later years at exploiting private information to blackmail or ruin troublesome public figures. In 1945, Harry Truman had the FBI wiretap Thomas Corcoran, a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "brain trust" whom Truman despised and whose influence he resented. Following the death of Chief Justice Harlan Stone the next year, the taps picked up Corcoran's conversations about succession with Justice William O. Douglas. Six weeks later, having reviewed the FBI's transcripts, Truman passed over Douglas and the other sitting justices to select Secretary of the Treasury (and poker buddy) Fred Vinson for the court's top spot....
Precious liberty In the current debate about the erosion of civil liberties, a stock claim aimed at dampening the ardour of their defenders is that "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear". The answer to this is - oh indeed? - nothing to fear from legislation that reduces civil liberties by extending the power of the state to detain, inspect, question, collect personal information, intercept communications, and deploy new and more instruments of surveillance and monitoring such as CCTV cameras and ID cards? The assumption behind the "if you have nothing to hide" claim is that the authorities will always be benign, will always reliably identify and interfere with genuinely bad people only, will never find themselves engaging in "mission creep" with more and more uses to put their new powers and capabilities to, will not redefine crimes, and even various behaviours or views now regarded as acceptable, to extend the range of things for which people can be placed under suspicion - and so considerably on. It is all or some of naive, lazy and irresponsible not to be maximally vigilant regarding civil liberties and human rights, because it is a datum that the liberties of individuals are inconvenient for all states and their security services, and in dispensations where there are few if any restraints (think the Soviet Union, or even today's Russia - and China) it is liberty which quickly and comprehensively suffers....
Monday, March 17, 2008
Mexico submits offer on cattle trade Mexico has offered a new trade protocol to the U.S. Department of Agriculture concerning the import of U.S. cattle. The news comes after Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples announced during the first week of March specific Canadian cattle would not cross into Mexico through Texas export facilities due to unfair trade practices. "I have now learned that Mexico has submitted an offer to USDA as of March 6. Although details of this offer have not yet been shared, the fact an offer has been made is proof of progress," Commissioner Staples said. "I want to thank the many people who have stood with me in support of this action. I look forward to learning the details of this new Mexican offer and reviewing its consistency with international standards." On March 4, Commissioner Staples issued an order to stop specific Canadian cattle from passing through the state's export facilities into Mexico. Canada and Mexico have signed an agreement allowing the trade of certain dairy and beef cattle less than 30 months of age--including breeding stock. Currently, Mexico only allows the importation of U.S. dairy heifers under the age of 24 months, despite in-depth international negotiations to broaden this to breeding stock....
California joins Arizona, other states in international cattle trade dispute California is the latest of several border states to enter an international dispute surrounding cattle trade. State officials announced Friday afternoon that California would join Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in urging U.S. exporting facilities to turn away Mexico-bound Canadian cattle. California's decision follows an order issued March 4 by the Texas Department of Agriculture that would stop state-operated exporting facilities from allowing Canadian cattle to pass through to Mexico. A recent agreement between Canada and Mexico prompted the trade dispute, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said when he issued the order. Earlier this month, Canadian and Mexican officials signed an agreement that allows Canada to trade breeding cattle less than 30 months old. But Mexico prohibits imports of U.S. breeding cattle, with the exception of dairy heifers under the age of 24 months. Mexico enacted the embargo on U.S. cattle in 2003 after a single Canadian-born cow in Washington state was found to have mad cow disease. Unlike in Texas, where the state operates five livestock export facilities, such facilities in California, New Mexico and Arizona are privately owned and operated and do not fall under state jurisdiction. Nevertheless, the agriculture departments in those three states are urging private facilities to support Texas' decision....
Senate considers stricter slaughterhouse controls Acting in the wake of undercover video that showed “downer” cattle – those too sick to stand – being shoved to their slaughter in a Southern California packing plant, California’s two U.S. Senators are calling for tighter controls on packing plants. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is author of a bill that would shut down slaughter facilities that repeatedly process downed animals and offer stiff fines and temporary one-year shutdowns for first and second time violators. For first time offenders, the legislation would impose stiff fines and for second time offenders, it would effectively shut down operations for a year. Third time offenders would be shut down permanently. The bill, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska) and Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, will give the USDA additional authority to apply a tough penalty system on facilities that violate the law when it comes to handling nonambulatory animals, including stiff fines for first time offenders and temporary or permanent facility shutdowns for repeat violators. Nonambulatory is defined as those animals that cannot stand or walk without assistance....
Too little testing for mad cow, critics say After the country's first mad cow case was found in 2003, the federal government ramped up testing cattle for the fatal disease. But in 2006, officials scaled it back by 90 percent, citing the "extremely low" incidence of the disease in the United States. Today, about 40,000 -- or 0.1 percent -- of the 37 million cows slaughtered each year are tested, a number that consumer groups say is too low, especially when compared to testing programs in other countries. "Don't look, don't find" might be a more apt way of describing this country's testing program, said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union. But officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which oversees mad cow testing, say the fact that only two infected cows were found during the heightened testing -- which cost $158 million -- made it difficult to justify continued testing at those levels. No cases have been identified since then. "We're finding it at extremely low levels," said Karen Eggert, a spokeswoman for the inspection service....
Equine Herpesvirus-1: Mutant Strain an Emerging Problem Scientists from the Gluck Equine Research Center and the Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center at the University of Kentucky recently reported that a particular mutant form of equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) that causes myeloencephalopathy (a degenerative disease of the brain and spinal cord) in horses has the potential to pose serious health and economic threats to the North American horse industry. Like other herpes viruses, EHV-1, including the encephalopathy-causing mutant strain, can lay dormant in previously infected horses. "Latently infected horses are at risk for re-activation of the dormant mutant virus and can serve as a virus reservoir to potentially infect other horses," explained George Allen, PhD, a professor at the University of Kentucky and a co-author on the study. Since EHV-1 myeloencephalopathy is currently considered a potentially emerging disease, this study was designed to determine the prevalence of the mutant EHV-1 in the Thoroughbred broodmare population in central Kentucky. DNA was extracted from submandibular lymph nodes from 132 broodmares and was analyzed by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to determine if EHV-1 and/or mutant EHV-1 were present. "Over half of the horses examined were latently infected with EHV-1, and 18% of these horses harbored the mutant form of EHV-1 that causes myeloencephalopathy," said Allen....
California joins Arizona, other states in international cattle trade dispute California is the latest of several border states to enter an international dispute surrounding cattle trade. State officials announced Friday afternoon that California would join Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in urging U.S. exporting facilities to turn away Mexico-bound Canadian cattle. California's decision follows an order issued March 4 by the Texas Department of Agriculture that would stop state-operated exporting facilities from allowing Canadian cattle to pass through to Mexico. A recent agreement between Canada and Mexico prompted the trade dispute, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said when he issued the order. Earlier this month, Canadian and Mexican officials signed an agreement that allows Canada to trade breeding cattle less than 30 months old. But Mexico prohibits imports of U.S. breeding cattle, with the exception of dairy heifers under the age of 24 months. Mexico enacted the embargo on U.S. cattle in 2003 after a single Canadian-born cow in Washington state was found to have mad cow disease. Unlike in Texas, where the state operates five livestock export facilities, such facilities in California, New Mexico and Arizona are privately owned and operated and do not fall under state jurisdiction. Nevertheless, the agriculture departments in those three states are urging private facilities to support Texas' decision....
Senate considers stricter slaughterhouse controls Acting in the wake of undercover video that showed “downer” cattle – those too sick to stand – being shoved to their slaughter in a Southern California packing plant, California’s two U.S. Senators are calling for tighter controls on packing plants. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is author of a bill that would shut down slaughter facilities that repeatedly process downed animals and offer stiff fines and temporary one-year shutdowns for first and second time violators. For first time offenders, the legislation would impose stiff fines and for second time offenders, it would effectively shut down operations for a year. Third time offenders would be shut down permanently. The bill, which is co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska) and Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, will give the USDA additional authority to apply a tough penalty system on facilities that violate the law when it comes to handling nonambulatory animals, including stiff fines for first time offenders and temporary or permanent facility shutdowns for repeat violators. Nonambulatory is defined as those animals that cannot stand or walk without assistance....
Too little testing for mad cow, critics say After the country's first mad cow case was found in 2003, the federal government ramped up testing cattle for the fatal disease. But in 2006, officials scaled it back by 90 percent, citing the "extremely low" incidence of the disease in the United States. Today, about 40,000 -- or 0.1 percent -- of the 37 million cows slaughtered each year are tested, a number that consumer groups say is too low, especially when compared to testing programs in other countries. "Don't look, don't find" might be a more apt way of describing this country's testing program, said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union. But officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which oversees mad cow testing, say the fact that only two infected cows were found during the heightened testing -- which cost $158 million -- made it difficult to justify continued testing at those levels. No cases have been identified since then. "We're finding it at extremely low levels," said Karen Eggert, a spokeswoman for the inspection service....
Equine Herpesvirus-1: Mutant Strain an Emerging Problem Scientists from the Gluck Equine Research Center and the Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center at the University of Kentucky recently reported that a particular mutant form of equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) that causes myeloencephalopathy (a degenerative disease of the brain and spinal cord) in horses has the potential to pose serious health and economic threats to the North American horse industry. Like other herpes viruses, EHV-1, including the encephalopathy-causing mutant strain, can lay dormant in previously infected horses. "Latently infected horses are at risk for re-activation of the dormant mutant virus and can serve as a virus reservoir to potentially infect other horses," explained George Allen, PhD, a professor at the University of Kentucky and a co-author on the study. Since EHV-1 myeloencephalopathy is currently considered a potentially emerging disease, this study was designed to determine the prevalence of the mutant EHV-1 in the Thoroughbred broodmare population in central Kentucky. DNA was extracted from submandibular lymph nodes from 132 broodmares and was analyzed by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to determine if EHV-1 and/or mutant EHV-1 were present. "Over half of the horses examined were latently infected with EHV-1, and 18% of these horses harbored the mutant form of EHV-1 that causes myeloencephalopathy," said Allen....
Jaguar Conservation Team Update 3-11-08
March 17, 2008
Attached is a copy of the minutes Judy took at the Jaguar Conservation Team (JAGCT) meeting, March 13th. There are several items we think are note worthy. Some items are informational only, others we recommend action be taken.
1) Signatory Agencies: Two years ago we were able to get the Conservation Team Working Group (JAGWG) realigned so controversial issues can now be voted upon. Up until that time all decisions were made by consensus, usually Terry Johnson’s consensus. Since Terry limited NRCD participation to only two representatives from each of the two states, we would strongly encourage counties to request Signatory Status on the MOU and delegate a representative to attend the Jaguar Conservation Team meetings. These meetings take place 4 times a year.
If your county is not a signatory on the MOU, you believe it is important that sound science be used in jaguar conservation in the U.S., and you can make the time to attend the meetings, encourage your County Commissioners to sign on to the MOU and ask they appoint you as their representative.
Requests to become a signatory agency should be mailed to: Arizona Game and Fish Department; 5000 W Carefree Hwy; Phoenix, AZ 85086 – Attention Terry Johnson. Any questions can be directed to Terry Johnson, Arizona Game and Fish Dept. - TJohnson@azgfd.com
2) Emil McCain’s Report: Emil heads up the Jaguar Detection Project in Arizona. His report, published in the American Society of Mammalogy, is full of holes. It has been creatively written to strongly suggest many jaguars may be residing in the U.S. borderlands but have yet to be discovered. The best available science and historical sightings of jaguars in the U.S. has been tweaked to support this hypothesis. The report also claims there may be a breeding population residing here.
These claims are necessary to secure funding to continue his “research”. We would encourage everyone to request a copy of this article/report. You can send your request to: Emil at: emilmccain@gmail.com .
3) Recovery Plan: Tony Povolitis, Sierra Institute, had his students write a “research paper” entitled “Jaguar Habitat in Southern Arizona and New Mexico; A Report to the Habitat Committee of the Jaguar Conservation Team”, in June of 2000. The objective of this report was to recommend establishing an experimental release area so jaguars could be studied in the U.S. The report proposed the study area should be in the Central Arizona/New Mexico Mountains (also know as the Sky Islands).
The report also recommended jaguars should be obtained from a wild source, or raised in captivity, then released into the “study area”. The JAGCT accepted this report by consensus. The Scientific Advisory Group (JAGSAG) was not in favor of a captive breeding program and/or capturing jaguars from other areas for various reasons and so stated in their response to this report in October of 2000.
To our knowledge, no one, including the JAGSAG and the state game and fish departments, are in favor of a captive breeding/reintroduction/recovery plan. However, this does not stop the Center for Biological Diversity from suing in an effort to get such a recovery plan while trying to find a "friendly" federal judge to rule in their favor. The articles being published in the mainstream press certainly support this effort. It matters not that the science is being manipulated to support their concept of a recovery plan.
A recent news release from the Defender of Wildlife states they too have “filed a notice of intent to sue in Washington D.C. district court to compel the Bush administration to create a recovery plan for jaguars in the Southwest”. The push is certainly on to force U.S. Fish and Wildlife to develop a plan.
4) New Committees: Terry is “reconstituting” the committees. The new committees are: Depredation, Education, Habitat, Monitoring, Outreach and Research. If you have experience, training or an interest in any of these areas, please let Terry know which committee you can serve on, ASAP. TJohnson@azgfd.com We have only 30 days to get common sense, reasonable, intelligent individuals on some of these committees.
5) The Endangered Species Act/Wildlands Project: During the JAGCT meeting, Ron White, Sierra NRCD, asked by what authority the JAGCT continues to operate. In summary, Terry explained it was by virtue of the Endangered Species Act. No one needs to explain the ESA or the impact it is having on private landowners and small, rural counties. Neither do we have to explain how the “Wildlands Project: Plotting a North American Wilderness Recovery Strategy”, as published by the Cenozoic Society, 1992, has to do with this agenda.
It is worth noting, however, that Tony Povolitis had the maps for jaguar habitat in the U.S. already developed when the JAGCT first met in Douglas, Arizona in April of 1997. According to the Wildlands Project, page 31, Tony promoted the concept of using the U.N.’s Man and the Biosphere Program as a “potent means of protecting relatively intact bioregions”.
The narrator of this section -“Editor’s Introduction to the Wildlands Proposals” - John Davis, goes on to recommend “Wildland advocates need to work to gain on- the ground protection for on - paper Reserves”. Mr. Davis continues his commentary by stating: “Until people on this overdeveloped continent adopt ecologically benign ways, local control will often mean locally – sanctioned abuse of local resources…. International control and more private reserves under the control of NGOs such as the Nature Conservancy are other options to consider.”
Mr. Davis asks a very poignant question as he discusses the deliberate airing of controversial issues (in the media we presume) when he asks: “How radical – and biologically honest – dare we be, given that many people will choose their own economic well-being over the survival of a species? Should we favor ‘local control’ of resources, in the spirit of bioregionalism, or lean toward state or federal control, in the spirit of the Wilderness Act of 1964?” No where does he discuss the virtues of private property, or the right of U.S. citizens to retain these intrinsic American values.
Although Terry is frustrated with all the lawsuits that draw funding away from recovering the jaguar, he does not openly oppose the Wildlands Project, or its “science – conservation biology”. Regardless of which initiative prevails – a state led initiative or a federally led initiatives – the results may be the same if we are not vigilante to ensure sound science and common sense prevail.
We would like to thank everyone that attends the JAGCT meetings. We appreciate your time and hope you realize by helping us, you’re helping yourselves. If we don’t stay on top of this jaguar conservation effort it could turn into the same scenario we are witnessing with the Mexico Wolf “experimental population” reintroduction scheme. The jaguar is, after all, just another of the Wildland Project’s charismatic, umbrella species.
We still have a copy of the jaguar map Michael and his associates would like to see “repopulated” with jaguars. It is an extensive area and takes in several Arizona counties and many counties in New Mexico. If you’d like to review it, let us know.
People always want to know how long the JAGCT will continue to meet. We’ve already been meeting for 11 years. Many of the original ranchers and landowners have dropped out, but not our friends the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Institute, Defenders of Wildlife and Sky Island Alliance. They have a prize in mind, a jaguar preserve that includes parts of southern Arizona, lots of New Mexico and a big portion of northern Mexico. Are we going to be as single-minded and tenacious?
In conclusion, if we don’t hang together, we’ll all hang separately! We need your involvement!!
Respectfully,
Sue Krentz and Judy Keeler
March 17, 2008
Attached is a copy of the minutes Judy took at the Jaguar Conservation Team (JAGCT) meeting, March 13th. There are several items we think are note worthy. Some items are informational only, others we recommend action be taken.
1) Signatory Agencies: Two years ago we were able to get the Conservation Team Working Group (JAGWG) realigned so controversial issues can now be voted upon. Up until that time all decisions were made by consensus, usually Terry Johnson’s consensus. Since Terry limited NRCD participation to only two representatives from each of the two states, we would strongly encourage counties to request Signatory Status on the MOU and delegate a representative to attend the Jaguar Conservation Team meetings. These meetings take place 4 times a year.
If your county is not a signatory on the MOU, you believe it is important that sound science be used in jaguar conservation in the U.S., and you can make the time to attend the meetings, encourage your County Commissioners to sign on to the MOU and ask they appoint you as their representative.
Requests to become a signatory agency should be mailed to: Arizona Game and Fish Department; 5000 W Carefree Hwy; Phoenix, AZ 85086 – Attention Terry Johnson. Any questions can be directed to Terry Johnson, Arizona Game and Fish Dept. - TJohnson@azgfd.com
2) Emil McCain’s Report: Emil heads up the Jaguar Detection Project in Arizona. His report, published in the American Society of Mammalogy, is full of holes. It has been creatively written to strongly suggest many jaguars may be residing in the U.S. borderlands but have yet to be discovered. The best available science and historical sightings of jaguars in the U.S. has been tweaked to support this hypothesis. The report also claims there may be a breeding population residing here.
These claims are necessary to secure funding to continue his “research”. We would encourage everyone to request a copy of this article/report. You can send your request to: Emil at: emilmccain@gmail.com .
3) Recovery Plan: Tony Povolitis, Sierra Institute, had his students write a “research paper” entitled “Jaguar Habitat in Southern Arizona and New Mexico; A Report to the Habitat Committee of the Jaguar Conservation Team”, in June of 2000. The objective of this report was to recommend establishing an experimental release area so jaguars could be studied in the U.S. The report proposed the study area should be in the Central Arizona/New Mexico Mountains (also know as the Sky Islands).
The report also recommended jaguars should be obtained from a wild source, or raised in captivity, then released into the “study area”. The JAGCT accepted this report by consensus. The Scientific Advisory Group (JAGSAG) was not in favor of a captive breeding program and/or capturing jaguars from other areas for various reasons and so stated in their response to this report in October of 2000.
To our knowledge, no one, including the JAGSAG and the state game and fish departments, are in favor of a captive breeding/reintroduction/recovery plan. However, this does not stop the Center for Biological Diversity from suing in an effort to get such a recovery plan while trying to find a "friendly" federal judge to rule in their favor. The articles being published in the mainstream press certainly support this effort. It matters not that the science is being manipulated to support their concept of a recovery plan.
A recent news release from the Defender of Wildlife states they too have “filed a notice of intent to sue in Washington D.C. district court to compel the Bush administration to create a recovery plan for jaguars in the Southwest”. The push is certainly on to force U.S. Fish and Wildlife to develop a plan.
4) New Committees: Terry is “reconstituting” the committees. The new committees are: Depredation, Education, Habitat, Monitoring, Outreach and Research. If you have experience, training or an interest in any of these areas, please let Terry know which committee you can serve on, ASAP. TJohnson@azgfd.com We have only 30 days to get common sense, reasonable, intelligent individuals on some of these committees.
5) The Endangered Species Act/Wildlands Project: During the JAGCT meeting, Ron White, Sierra NRCD, asked by what authority the JAGCT continues to operate. In summary, Terry explained it was by virtue of the Endangered Species Act. No one needs to explain the ESA or the impact it is having on private landowners and small, rural counties. Neither do we have to explain how the “Wildlands Project: Plotting a North American Wilderness Recovery Strategy”, as published by the Cenozoic Society, 1992, has to do with this agenda.
It is worth noting, however, that Tony Povolitis had the maps for jaguar habitat in the U.S. already developed when the JAGCT first met in Douglas, Arizona in April of 1997. According to the Wildlands Project, page 31, Tony promoted the concept of using the U.N.’s Man and the Biosphere Program as a “potent means of protecting relatively intact bioregions”.
The narrator of this section -“Editor’s Introduction to the Wildlands Proposals” - John Davis, goes on to recommend “Wildland advocates need to work to gain on- the ground protection for on - paper Reserves”. Mr. Davis continues his commentary by stating: “Until people on this overdeveloped continent adopt ecologically benign ways, local control will often mean locally – sanctioned abuse of local resources…. International control and more private reserves under the control of NGOs such as the Nature Conservancy are other options to consider.”
Mr. Davis asks a very poignant question as he discusses the deliberate airing of controversial issues (in the media we presume) when he asks: “How radical – and biologically honest – dare we be, given that many people will choose their own economic well-being over the survival of a species? Should we favor ‘local control’ of resources, in the spirit of bioregionalism, or lean toward state or federal control, in the spirit of the Wilderness Act of 1964?” No where does he discuss the virtues of private property, or the right of U.S. citizens to retain these intrinsic American values.
Although Terry is frustrated with all the lawsuits that draw funding away from recovering the jaguar, he does not openly oppose the Wildlands Project, or its “science – conservation biology”. Regardless of which initiative prevails – a state led initiative or a federally led initiatives – the results may be the same if we are not vigilante to ensure sound science and common sense prevail.
We would like to thank everyone that attends the JAGCT meetings. We appreciate your time and hope you realize by helping us, you’re helping yourselves. If we don’t stay on top of this jaguar conservation effort it could turn into the same scenario we are witnessing with the Mexico Wolf “experimental population” reintroduction scheme. The jaguar is, after all, just another of the Wildland Project’s charismatic, umbrella species.
We still have a copy of the jaguar map Michael and his associates would like to see “repopulated” with jaguars. It is an extensive area and takes in several Arizona counties and many counties in New Mexico. If you’d like to review it, let us know.
People always want to know how long the JAGCT will continue to meet. We’ve already been meeting for 11 years. Many of the original ranchers and landowners have dropped out, but not our friends the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Institute, Defenders of Wildlife and Sky Island Alliance. They have a prize in mind, a jaguar preserve that includes parts of southern Arizona, lots of New Mexico and a big portion of northern Mexico. Are we going to be as single-minded and tenacious?
In conclusion, if we don’t hang together, we’ll all hang separately! We need your involvement!!
Respectfully,
Sue Krentz and Judy Keeler
Tougher Pollution Rules Issued for Ships, Locomotives Diesel-powered locomotives, ships, ferries and tugboats will have to eliminate 90 percent of the soot and 80 percent of the nitrogen oxides in their exhaust by 2030 under tougher air-pollution standards issued by the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday. "Today EPA is fitting another important piece into the clean diesel puzzle by cleaning emissions from our trains and boats," EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said, adding that the nation's "diesel rule has reached its final stop on its journey to deliver cleaner air to all Americans." Over the past decade, pollution from diesel-powered cars, SUVs, trucks and off-road vehicles has been cut by a series of rules that curb emissions of fine particles and smog-causing chemicals. Environmental groups, which had criticized the EPA this week for setting new limits on smog-causing ozone at a level higher than recommended by the agency's independent scientific advisers, applauded yesterday's action....
Future Cars May Save Gas But Waste Water Efforts to wean America's automobiles off gasoline are running into the law of unintended consequences. Methanol wears out engine components, and corn-based ethanol has squeezed corn supplies. Even bypassing liquid fuel altogether may be problematic: New research suggests that flooding the roads with plug-in vehicles could cause a significant, though potentially manageable, drain on regional water sources. Present-day hybrid vehicles employ a small electric motor--in addition to an internal-combustion engine--to improve fuel efficiency. Plug-ins represent the next step in green car evolution. Still in development, they will use advances in battery technology to allow car owners literally to plug into the electric power grid and recharge overnight. A hypothetical plug-in vehicle would require up to 30 kilowatt/hours of electricity to recharge for a typical day's driving. It may not sound like much, but multiplied by millions of plug-in cars on the road within the next decade, the drain on water resources would add up. That's because electricity comes from very large--steam--turbine generators and nuclear reactors, which must be cooled with water pumped in from streams and rivers....
Getting right with law, getting to work on air It turns out that it could have been worse, or might have been better, depending on one's point of view about the breathability of Hoosier air. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new ozone standards Wednesday, bumping the Indianapolis area and much of the rest of the state onto the dirty list at the stroke of a pen, Gov. Mitch Daniels cried foul. Several counties, including nine in Central Indiana, had reached compliance only last year after being in violation since 2004, he noted. Now, they were back to square one, or at least back a few squares, in their struggle to attract and expand business. A different reaction came from environmentalists and public health advocates, who said the new, tougher standards were most welcome from both a medical and an economic standpoint, and too bad they were not stricter yet. Well, it seems they might have been. Press reports soon after release of the regulations indicate that an 11th-hour intervention by President Bush resulted in a higher threshold for ozone than that which the EPA's experts -- who normally are deferred to in these decisions -- sought....
Grouse threatens West The most fearsome creature in the Rocky Mountain West these days isn't the grizzly bear, mountain lion or even the gray wolf. It's a plump, ground-dwelling bird with a homely name — sage grouse — that has the potential to bring the mineral and agriculture industries of the rural West to their knees. The Fish and Wildlife Service began on Feb. 26 a status review on whether to list the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The agency had little choice: In December, a federal judge in Idaho ordered the review after finding problems with a 2005 decision against listing the bird as endangered or threatened under the act. Now many Westerners are genuinely concerned that the sage grouse could bring down their economies as much as the listing of the Northern spotted owl crippled the Pacific Northwest timber industry in the early 1990s. How bad would it be? "To be short and sweet, it would be devastating," said Josh Tewalt, a sheep rancher who serves as executive vice president of the Idaho Cattleman's Association. A decision to list the bird as threatened or endangered would put restrictions, possibly severe ones, on human activities, potentially including oil and gas drilling, ranching and any other development that could disturb or fragment the bird's habitat. A decision on whether to list the bird is due no later than May 2009, but Western state officials don't plan on twiddling their thumbs until then. They're aggressively pursuing strategies to boost the sage grouse's numbers, a proactive approach that began years before the December court ruling. Rarely does a week go by without sage-grouse activity, and this one is no exception: In Wyoming, the state agriculture department convenes its two-day Sage Grouse Conference tomorrow. In Colorado, Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter is slated to sign today the state's Greater Sage Grouse Conservation Plan, a state and federal conservation partnership....
Not seen for century, wolf kills sheep Her voice tinged with emotion and the video camera jiggling in her shaking hand, Tonya Martin filmed and narrated the scene she found behind her ranch home March 5 - five sheep had been killed by a wolf and another five were wounded, three of them, as it turned out, fatally. "In the end, it's hard to watch what your animals go through," said Martin, 36, while showing the location of the slaughter on Thursday. "It makes me question what the future will be with them." Martin was driving a tractor out to feed her cow-calf pairs around 8:30 a.m. on March 5 when her mother-in-law, Katherine Martin, spotted the big black wolf. The wolf trotted out of the brush, crossed the county road, went under a barbed-wire fence and paused to look back. "We knew what it was right away," she said. "Our first instinct was to go after it." At the time, Martin didn't know the wolf had killed five of her sheep. Had she known, the .222 rifle that always rides in the tractor could have been used to legally kill the wolf. It wasn't until the Martins investigated that they found the sheep flighty and hiding in the barren cottonwood trees along Big Elk Creek. Scattered around the drainage were five dead sheep and five others that were injured. A veterinarian was called to patch up the five injured sheep, most of them with torn throats, but only two of those survived. "I've never seen anything like it," Martin said. "Some were hamstrung, their legs were broken and twisted. I'd never seen kills like it before. The sheep were scared to death." "It was a sad day, because I know he'll be back, and he'll be back with friends."....
Guarding Galisteo As oil and gas companies sink more drills into Western soil, landowners often find themselves at the mercy of corporations and industry-friendly federal law. Citizens of Santa Fe County, N.M., however, are pushing the limits of local control and demanding a seat at the table. In Galisteo Basin, south of tony Santa Fe, ranchers and blue-collar laborers share fences with second-home owners and transplanted professionals. But when it comes to energy development, these New West neighbors have found a common voice. To what local reports call “thunderous applause,” Santa Fe County commissioners enacted a one-year drilling moratorium in February. The ban will keep drills out of the basin while the county researches the impacts of energy extraction. The county lacks oil and gas policies, says county spokesman Stephen Ulibarri, so it will use this research to draft rules for environmental and archaeological protection. The basin, which is rich in the remains of the Tano Puebloan culture, is one of the largest archaeological sites in the American Southwest, according to local researcher James Snead. The moratorium raises the question: In a decades-old clash that has historically favored mineral owners over landowners, does Santa Fe County have any weight to throw around? “Companies need a permit from the county to make sure they comply with county land-use regulations,” says Gwen Lachelt, director of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project. “That way the county can say, ‘What’s your plan, Tecton, for protecting water resources?’ ” And if the county’s regulations — on air and water protection, for example — are more stringent than state and federal rules, industry would have to respect that, she says....
Judge say aerial wolf control invalid in several areas A judge today (Friday) invalidated the aerial killing of wolves in several small areas of Alaska while issuing a ruling upholding the state predator control program. Superior Court Judge William F. Morse issued a lengthy ruling that took a look at the state's wolf control program, now operating in five areas of Alaska. The program is being challenged by Friends of Animals, Defenders of Wildlife and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. The groups filed the lawsuit against the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Board of Game in 2006 in hopes of ending the aerial wolf control program. Alaska is divided up into 26 game management units. The lawsuit challenged the program in areas where it is authorized. Friends of Animals lawyer Michael Grisham says the judge found the program was valid in five areas, but failed to meet requirements in three others. Those areas are game units across Cook Inlet from Anchorage and two near Fairbanks. The areas where the judge found it wanting were where the game board decided to extend it last year. Grisham said the board lumped together several new areas for predator control without making any new findings on the wolves, caribou and bears in those areas. Board Game Chairman Cliff Judkins said the problems can be corrected through emergency regulation, something that will probably occur next week.
School aims to recruit sheep shearers During the winter months, Mike Schuldt is in such a high demand to shear sheep that he even spends his vacation harvesting wool. “With the lack of shearers out there, people are calling me,” said Schuldt, Blaine County’s agricultural extension agent. “I could shear full time.” Across Montana, 280,000 sheep need to be sheared between January and May. Desperate for people who know how to use the clippers, ranchers have hired traveling shearers from New Zealand and Australia to meet the demand, but they, too, have become scarce because of the weak American dollar. To combat the problem, Montana State University is hosting The Montana Wool Harvest and Sheep Shearing School through Thursday at its Red Bluff Research Ranch. The goal is to train and recruit people to shear sheep. At sheep-sheering school Friday, 15 students, and dozens of sheep, gathered in the green barn at MSU’s Research Ranch on state Highway 84....
Cattle business leader, 64, dies Paul Hitch, 64, and President and CEO of Hitch Enterprises and Hitch AgriBusiness, Inc., died Friday at Baptist St. Anthony Health System, after a yearlong battle with cancer. The Guymon, Okla., native was a fourth- generation Hitch, said Hitch Enterprises Executive Vice President Randy Hinds. "Paul was a strong family man, a Christian," Hinds said. "It's hard to say anything bad about Paul Hitch. He was a great community leader and great industry leader." His sons Jason and Chris will step up and take over the management of the company, Hinds said. Paul had been fighting cancer for a year....
Future Cars May Save Gas But Waste Water Efforts to wean America's automobiles off gasoline are running into the law of unintended consequences. Methanol wears out engine components, and corn-based ethanol has squeezed corn supplies. Even bypassing liquid fuel altogether may be problematic: New research suggests that flooding the roads with plug-in vehicles could cause a significant, though potentially manageable, drain on regional water sources. Present-day hybrid vehicles employ a small electric motor--in addition to an internal-combustion engine--to improve fuel efficiency. Plug-ins represent the next step in green car evolution. Still in development, they will use advances in battery technology to allow car owners literally to plug into the electric power grid and recharge overnight. A hypothetical plug-in vehicle would require up to 30 kilowatt/hours of electricity to recharge for a typical day's driving. It may not sound like much, but multiplied by millions of plug-in cars on the road within the next decade, the drain on water resources would add up. That's because electricity comes from very large--steam--turbine generators and nuclear reactors, which must be cooled with water pumped in from streams and rivers....
Getting right with law, getting to work on air It turns out that it could have been worse, or might have been better, depending on one's point of view about the breathability of Hoosier air. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new ozone standards Wednesday, bumping the Indianapolis area and much of the rest of the state onto the dirty list at the stroke of a pen, Gov. Mitch Daniels cried foul. Several counties, including nine in Central Indiana, had reached compliance only last year after being in violation since 2004, he noted. Now, they were back to square one, or at least back a few squares, in their struggle to attract and expand business. A different reaction came from environmentalists and public health advocates, who said the new, tougher standards were most welcome from both a medical and an economic standpoint, and too bad they were not stricter yet. Well, it seems they might have been. Press reports soon after release of the regulations indicate that an 11th-hour intervention by President Bush resulted in a higher threshold for ozone than that which the EPA's experts -- who normally are deferred to in these decisions -- sought....
Grouse threatens West The most fearsome creature in the Rocky Mountain West these days isn't the grizzly bear, mountain lion or even the gray wolf. It's a plump, ground-dwelling bird with a homely name — sage grouse — that has the potential to bring the mineral and agriculture industries of the rural West to their knees. The Fish and Wildlife Service began on Feb. 26 a status review on whether to list the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The agency had little choice: In December, a federal judge in Idaho ordered the review after finding problems with a 2005 decision against listing the bird as endangered or threatened under the act. Now many Westerners are genuinely concerned that the sage grouse could bring down their economies as much as the listing of the Northern spotted owl crippled the Pacific Northwest timber industry in the early 1990s. How bad would it be? "To be short and sweet, it would be devastating," said Josh Tewalt, a sheep rancher who serves as executive vice president of the Idaho Cattleman's Association. A decision to list the bird as threatened or endangered would put restrictions, possibly severe ones, on human activities, potentially including oil and gas drilling, ranching and any other development that could disturb or fragment the bird's habitat. A decision on whether to list the bird is due no later than May 2009, but Western state officials don't plan on twiddling their thumbs until then. They're aggressively pursuing strategies to boost the sage grouse's numbers, a proactive approach that began years before the December court ruling. Rarely does a week go by without sage-grouse activity, and this one is no exception: In Wyoming, the state agriculture department convenes its two-day Sage Grouse Conference tomorrow. In Colorado, Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter is slated to sign today the state's Greater Sage Grouse Conservation Plan, a state and federal conservation partnership....
Not seen for century, wolf kills sheep Her voice tinged with emotion and the video camera jiggling in her shaking hand, Tonya Martin filmed and narrated the scene she found behind her ranch home March 5 - five sheep had been killed by a wolf and another five were wounded, three of them, as it turned out, fatally. "In the end, it's hard to watch what your animals go through," said Martin, 36, while showing the location of the slaughter on Thursday. "It makes me question what the future will be with them." Martin was driving a tractor out to feed her cow-calf pairs around 8:30 a.m. on March 5 when her mother-in-law, Katherine Martin, spotted the big black wolf. The wolf trotted out of the brush, crossed the county road, went under a barbed-wire fence and paused to look back. "We knew what it was right away," she said. "Our first instinct was to go after it." At the time, Martin didn't know the wolf had killed five of her sheep. Had she known, the .222 rifle that always rides in the tractor could have been used to legally kill the wolf. It wasn't until the Martins investigated that they found the sheep flighty and hiding in the barren cottonwood trees along Big Elk Creek. Scattered around the drainage were five dead sheep and five others that were injured. A veterinarian was called to patch up the five injured sheep, most of them with torn throats, but only two of those survived. "I've never seen anything like it," Martin said. "Some were hamstrung, their legs were broken and twisted. I'd never seen kills like it before. The sheep were scared to death." "It was a sad day, because I know he'll be back, and he'll be back with friends."....
Guarding Galisteo As oil and gas companies sink more drills into Western soil, landowners often find themselves at the mercy of corporations and industry-friendly federal law. Citizens of Santa Fe County, N.M., however, are pushing the limits of local control and demanding a seat at the table. In Galisteo Basin, south of tony Santa Fe, ranchers and blue-collar laborers share fences with second-home owners and transplanted professionals. But when it comes to energy development, these New West neighbors have found a common voice. To what local reports call “thunderous applause,” Santa Fe County commissioners enacted a one-year drilling moratorium in February. The ban will keep drills out of the basin while the county researches the impacts of energy extraction. The county lacks oil and gas policies, says county spokesman Stephen Ulibarri, so it will use this research to draft rules for environmental and archaeological protection. The basin, which is rich in the remains of the Tano Puebloan culture, is one of the largest archaeological sites in the American Southwest, according to local researcher James Snead. The moratorium raises the question: In a decades-old clash that has historically favored mineral owners over landowners, does Santa Fe County have any weight to throw around? “Companies need a permit from the county to make sure they comply with county land-use regulations,” says Gwen Lachelt, director of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project. “That way the county can say, ‘What’s your plan, Tecton, for protecting water resources?’ ” And if the county’s regulations — on air and water protection, for example — are more stringent than state and federal rules, industry would have to respect that, she says....
Judge say aerial wolf control invalid in several areas A judge today (Friday) invalidated the aerial killing of wolves in several small areas of Alaska while issuing a ruling upholding the state predator control program. Superior Court Judge William F. Morse issued a lengthy ruling that took a look at the state's wolf control program, now operating in five areas of Alaska. The program is being challenged by Friends of Animals, Defenders of Wildlife and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance. The groups filed the lawsuit against the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Board of Game in 2006 in hopes of ending the aerial wolf control program. Alaska is divided up into 26 game management units. The lawsuit challenged the program in areas where it is authorized. Friends of Animals lawyer Michael Grisham says the judge found the program was valid in five areas, but failed to meet requirements in three others. Those areas are game units across Cook Inlet from Anchorage and two near Fairbanks. The areas where the judge found it wanting were where the game board decided to extend it last year. Grisham said the board lumped together several new areas for predator control without making any new findings on the wolves, caribou and bears in those areas. Board Game Chairman Cliff Judkins said the problems can be corrected through emergency regulation, something that will probably occur next week.
School aims to recruit sheep shearers During the winter months, Mike Schuldt is in such a high demand to shear sheep that he even spends his vacation harvesting wool. “With the lack of shearers out there, people are calling me,” said Schuldt, Blaine County’s agricultural extension agent. “I could shear full time.” Across Montana, 280,000 sheep need to be sheared between January and May. Desperate for people who know how to use the clippers, ranchers have hired traveling shearers from New Zealand and Australia to meet the demand, but they, too, have become scarce because of the weak American dollar. To combat the problem, Montana State University is hosting The Montana Wool Harvest and Sheep Shearing School through Thursday at its Red Bluff Research Ranch. The goal is to train and recruit people to shear sheep. At sheep-sheering school Friday, 15 students, and dozens of sheep, gathered in the green barn at MSU’s Research Ranch on state Highway 84....
Cattle business leader, 64, dies Paul Hitch, 64, and President and CEO of Hitch Enterprises and Hitch AgriBusiness, Inc., died Friday at Baptist St. Anthony Health System, after a yearlong battle with cancer. The Guymon, Okla., native was a fourth- generation Hitch, said Hitch Enterprises Executive Vice President Randy Hinds. "Paul was a strong family man, a Christian," Hinds said. "It's hard to say anything bad about Paul Hitch. He was a great community leader and great industry leader." His sons Jason and Chris will step up and take over the management of the company, Hinds said. Paul had been fighting cancer for a year....
Sunday, March 16, 2008
All it takes is a good ropin' rock
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy
By Julie Carter
Dan comes from a long line of rodeo ropers and he loves and trusts every one of them to tell him like it is.
Periodically, like every roper, he will get in a slump. The roping cattle take on a more relaxed appearance. They know they are in no danger.
When this happens, Dan heads to visit Uncle Tex for a quick fix to his problems.
Dan is on the close side of 40, and every time he talks to Tex, he wonders why exactly Tex didn't tell him this particular magic tidbit when he was just a button. It's like his lips were sewed shut and Dan has to pry it out of him.
This educational meeting was set to take place at the local greasy spoon for breakfast. Tex showed up, listened attentively to the problem, and said, "Hmmmmm." That was all Dan got.
After they ate and got as many refills on the coffee as the café allowed, they wandered next door to the local cowboy "toy" store. They were still visiting and inspecting all the newest inventions like the Heel-O-Matic, Robosteer, Hot Heels, all the brightly colored ropes, new bits, new saddles and other essentials for the modern, techno-smart roper.
Dan was drooling, trying to figure which gadget would cure his current problem. Tex, of the old school, just looked.
They went on out to the ranch, still visiting and just fooling around. Like all cowboys, if they don't already have a fork in their hand, they pick up ropes and start throwing a few practice loops.
Not having gotten the fix to his roping problem, Dan decided to try again.
"You know, Tex, I'm kind of looking for a new horse."
Tex: "How come? Can't the one you got get to the other end of the arena?"
Dan: "Yeah, but I'm not roping too good on him."
Tex: "You ain't ropin' too good right now and there ain't a horse in sight. What's he do?"
Dan: "Well, he pretty regular bucks with me while I'm trying to rope."
Tex: "So ride him."
Dan: 'He ain't terrible fast either."
Tex: "Lose your spurs, boy?"
Dan: "You think one of those new pink ropes would help?"
Here's where the well rope story came in. You all know that one where if you are any count as a roper you can rope with a well rope.
Dan was about to think Tex wouldn't be able to cure his current difficulty, when Tex unzipped his lip.
He set the low-tech sawhorse they were roping at an angle where there was only about an inch clearance to the ground. He put a rock just to the right of the heels and told Dan to get his elbow up, tip down, feel his rope with his little finger, knock the rock through and catch the heels.
Seemed simple enough. Dan has been home a week and hasn't missed a set of doubles yet.
Probably if old Walt would have had a real good rock like that, it wouldn't have taken him that extra year to win his eighth Heeling World Championship.
I'm headed out to find me a good roping rock.
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy
By Julie Carter
Dan comes from a long line of rodeo ropers and he loves and trusts every one of them to tell him like it is.
Periodically, like every roper, he will get in a slump. The roping cattle take on a more relaxed appearance. They know they are in no danger.
When this happens, Dan heads to visit Uncle Tex for a quick fix to his problems.
Dan is on the close side of 40, and every time he talks to Tex, he wonders why exactly Tex didn't tell him this particular magic tidbit when he was just a button. It's like his lips were sewed shut and Dan has to pry it out of him.
This educational meeting was set to take place at the local greasy spoon for breakfast. Tex showed up, listened attentively to the problem, and said, "Hmmmmm." That was all Dan got.
After they ate and got as many refills on the coffee as the café allowed, they wandered next door to the local cowboy "toy" store. They were still visiting and inspecting all the newest inventions like the Heel-O-Matic, Robosteer, Hot Heels, all the brightly colored ropes, new bits, new saddles and other essentials for the modern, techno-smart roper.
Dan was drooling, trying to figure which gadget would cure his current problem. Tex, of the old school, just looked.
They went on out to the ranch, still visiting and just fooling around. Like all cowboys, if they don't already have a fork in their hand, they pick up ropes and start throwing a few practice loops.
Not having gotten the fix to his roping problem, Dan decided to try again.
"You know, Tex, I'm kind of looking for a new horse."
Tex: "How come? Can't the one you got get to the other end of the arena?"
Dan: "Yeah, but I'm not roping too good on him."
Tex: "You ain't ropin' too good right now and there ain't a horse in sight. What's he do?"
Dan: "Well, he pretty regular bucks with me while I'm trying to rope."
Tex: "So ride him."
Dan: 'He ain't terrible fast either."
Tex: "Lose your spurs, boy?"
Dan: "You think one of those new pink ropes would help?"
Here's where the well rope story came in. You all know that one where if you are any count as a roper you can rope with a well rope.
Dan was about to think Tex wouldn't be able to cure his current difficulty, when Tex unzipped his lip.
He set the low-tech sawhorse they were roping at an angle where there was only about an inch clearance to the ground. He put a rock just to the right of the heels and told Dan to get his elbow up, tip down, feel his rope with his little finger, knock the rock through and catch the heels.
Seemed simple enough. Dan has been home a week and hasn't missed a set of doubles yet.
Probably if old Walt would have had a real good rock like that, it wouldn't have taken him that extra year to win his eighth Heeling World Championship.
I'm headed out to find me a good roping rock.
The Other Prostitution Scandal Politicians take people's money with a promise to fulfill desires that supposedly can't be attained any other way. Prostitutes do the same, though by reputation, they are more reliable in delivering. It's not surprising for people in the same line of work to gravitate toward one another, as Eliot Spitzer and a woman named Kristen reportedly did in a Washington hotel room....
Friday, March 14, 2008
Alaska's Real Bridge With oil now $111 a barrel, Alaska's senators are trying again to persuade Congress to let their state's massive untapped resources help bring prices down. How high do these prices have to go? It'll be a long, hot summer across America with pump prices expected to hit $4 a gallon. It's no longer doom talk; it's real. "Americans are getting fed up with astronomical oil prices being imposed by unstable foreign governments," said Sen. Ted Stevens, "and the problem is getting worse every day." He and fellow Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski are sponsoring a bill to drill for new oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Within just an 8% sliver of ANWR, some 10.4 billion barrels of oil may be recoverable, enough to beef up supply and cut prices. Stevens says he's been trying for 25 years to get such a bill passed, as 75% of Alaskans want. But he's always been thwarted by environmental lobbyists and errant fellow senators — including even John McCain — who busybody Alaskan affairs to everyone's detriment. This time Alaska's two senators are trying to sweeten the deal by setting the trigger point for ANWR drilling at $125 a barrel over five days and dedicating royalties to aid alternative energy. But the straightforward story right now is that our economy needs oil. Recession looms in part because businesses are being squeezed by high energy prices. Consumer spending is falling. OPEC isn't budging on production. And prices are going through the roof....
Our Thorny Oil Patch Valero will probably sell three of its 17 refineries this year and maybe two more later to focus on its core operations amid what CEO Bill Klesse acknowledged on Tuesday is a weak economy. But maybe that's because the environment for the energy business in the U.S. has turned downright hostile. Upstream, oil drilling is off-limits, crimping supply and driving prices ever higher. Downstream, refiners are hit by not only high energy prices, but also bureaucratic regulations, environmental lobbies and special interests that make moving to Asia, where economic growth is still valued, more attractive. The sorry fact that no new refinery has been built in America since 1983 has been cited so many times that we would have thought someone in Washington would have done something about it by now. But no — it just keeps getting worse. In 1982, the U.S. economy was served by 301 refineries. By 2007, the number had dwindled to 149. Productivity has kept output steady over the years at 17 million barrels a day. But the U.S. economy has grown by 125%....
Commission hears novel conservation idea Gallatin County Commissioners heard a presentation at their regular meeting Wednesday on how ranchers and farmers can create small homesteads incorporating conservation easements as a way of maximizing the value of their properties. Lane Coulston, owner of Missoula-based American Conservation Real Estate, told commissioners that ranchers with large parcels can use the homestead idea to plan for their futures while preserving their land and avoiding selling it to developers by following four simple steps, he said. First, a conservation easement is placed on the property, which limits development to one or more reserved parcels of land that can be used for secluded home sites, Coulston said. Then a buyer or buyers purchase the reserved home sites, along with a parcel of deeded land and recreation rights to the entire property, he said. The rancher retains the right to farm or ranch most of the buyer’s parcels, maintaining the land in agricultural use. Plus, the rancher can use the money earned from the transactions to plan for the future, pay bills or whatever else they wish, Coulston said. Coulston said the idea can help struggling ranchers make ends meet and help them get even more value out of their land, while preserving valuable agricultural land in perpetuity....
Wolf population grows by a third Montana’s wolf population increased 34 percent over the past year, to an estimated 422 wolves in 73 packs, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks reported Thursday. The wolves are nearly equally distributed between northern and southern Montana, according to the agency’s annual wolf report, although the bulk of the population growth was in northwestern and far western Montana, where it increased by about 92 wolves, to 213. In the Greater Yellowstone area, the population increased by 14 wolves, to 209. Some of the growth can be chalked up to the birth of at least 163 wolf pups last year, the FWP report noted. But there were other reasons, too. “Our monitoring is getting better and we have hunters, landowners and many others taking the time to tell us where and when they see wolves or wolf sign,” Carolyn Sime, the FWP’s wolf management coordinator in Helena, said in a written statement....
Mineral County residents reject wilderness, Commissioners adopt resolution saying so In a 2 ½-hour meeting similar to the one in Smith Valley last week, nearly 200 Mineral County residents told three representatives to Nevada's congressional delegation to "Leave us alone!" when it comes to any wilderness designations in a Lyon-Mineral Lands Bill. Many of those residents meeting in the convention center in Hawthorne also heard for the first time a resolution adopted the previous day unanimously by the Mineral County Commissioners rejecting wilderness; and an appeal from that same commission to have Lyon and Esmeralda counties join them in such action. In response to requests from representatives Matt Tuma of Senator Reid's office, Kevin Kirkeby from Senator Ensign's office and Verita Prothro from Congressman Heller's office for public input, MC commissioner and liason to the delegation Jerrie Tipton introduced and read the county's resolution which drew a round of applause from the audience. The general session was then opened to comments and questions with a lengthy list of Mineral County residents -- and six from Lyon County -- voicing concerns and opposition to the Nevada Wilderness Project's proposals....
Expanded wilderness proposal could be hurting local effort The expanded version by the Nevada Wilderness Project isn't necessarily supported by local wilderness proponents and may actually be hurting chances that the original Wovoka Wilderness proposal will ever come to be. Mason Valley residents Steve Pellegrini and Art Shipley previewed (written by others) the original and much smaller wilderness proposal seeking 87,240 acres in the Wovoka Wilderness and about 10,715 in East Sister. That proposal came before the Lyon County Commissioners in September, 2005, and was rejected on a 5-0 vote. Pellegrini said he learned of the latest, expanded wilderness proposal from a wilderness group several days before it came out. "After that original proposal was turned down by the commissioners, it didn't really die, at least in our minds," said Pellegrini Monday. "We always thought maybe we could come back and talk reason and see if we could get it." Since that time the Nevada Wilderness Project looked at other areas and examined them for their wilderness potential, creating the latest proposal. "Right now, the expanded version is hurting our effort....
Packed house unanimous in opposition to wilderness proposal But the source of the sizeable crowd gathered at the school that night was a planned presentation, held as part of the Smith Valley Advisory Council meeting, on the proposed wilderness area designation for southern Lyon County and parts of Mineral and Esmeralda counties. And the comments expressed during the more than two-hour session attended by an estimated 500 people, were unanimously opposed to that wilderness designation, including several elected officials who attended the meeting as well. The presentation was organized by the newly-formed 'Coalition for Public Access' and drew a packed house to the SVHS gym. And those attending were not limited to Smith Valley residents, as the crowd drew folks from Mason Valley, Mineral and Douglas Counties, and other areas and organizations beyond. Representatives of Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign were in attendance, as was another representing Congressman Dean Heller, and each said the wilderness designation was not proposed by the Congressmen, but by the wilderness groups advocating the inclusion of land in the Lyon County/Mineral County lands bill....
Federal panel told off-highway riders taxing BLM A four-fold increase in off-highway vehicle use in the past decade has stressed federal land-management agencies' ability to respond, a congressional committee was told Thursday. Explosive growth in the West and aggressive marketing of off-highway vehicles (OHVs) "have generated increased social conflicts and resource impacts on the public lands," said Henri Bisson, deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management, which manages 258 million acres of federal land nationwide. Bisson said that as the BLM weighs the appropriate use of public lands, it is taking a careful look at off-highway vehicle access. The issue has been of particular interest in Utah, where the booming popularity of the recreation vehicles has increased traffic and tension in scenic areas of the state. Bisson said travel restrictions the BLM imposed on Utah's Factory Butte were a step toward protecting resources. An agency order in September 2006 limited motorized travel to designated trails over about 142,000 acres in order to protect threatened and endangered species, he added. Those restrictions will be in effect until the broader management plan for the Richfield area is released later this year....
Experts: Off-road vehicles threat to public lands The conflict and landscape damage caused by skyrocketing off-road vehicle use in national forests and public lands in recent years require new regulations and increased federal law enforcement efforts, officials said Thursday. “Unmanaged use of off-road vehicles is a crisis that federal land management agencies are failing to address,” said Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., at a hearing of the House Natural Resources subcommittee on parks, forests and public lands. Riders who ride off trails damage cultural sites, create safety risks and disturb wildlife habitat, Grijalva said. A recent poll of federal land enforcement agents reveals they see off-road vehicles as one of the biggest threats facing public lands, he added. Henri Bisson, deputy director of the BLM, cited a conservative estimate by the Motorcycle Industry Council that there are four times more off-highway vehicles in the West now than a decade ago. Management of off-road vehicles and balancing all public uses is a growing challenge, Bisson said. “The combined effect of population increase in the West, unauthorized user-created roads, explosive growth in the use of OHVs, advances in motorized technology, and intense industry marketing have generated increased social conflicts and resource impacts on the public land,” he said....
Off-Highway Vehicle Exec Tells Congress Active Trail Management is Working The top executive at one of the nation's leading off-highway vehicle recreation organizations told a Congressional panel today that active management of OHV use on federal lands is working and that the closure of public lands to the millions of Americans who enjoy motorized recreation would be "a step backward." Russ Ehnes, Executive Director of the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council (NOHVCC), made his remarks during a hearing on the impact of off-road vehicles on federal lands. The hearing was called by the Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Ehnes cited numerous examples where OHV management has been successful, including the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System in West Virginia, the Paiute ATV Trail in Utah and the San Bernardino National Forest in California. "Simply stated, trail systems can be successful by applying education, engineering, enforcement and evaluation," Mr. Ehnes said. "The results are high quality, environmentally sustainable trail systems that meet the needs and desires of the public."....
New Report Details Rollbacks for Idaho Backcountry The Center for Biological Diversity, WildWest Institute and more than 50 other local and national conservation organizations released a report today detailing the Bush administration's plan to open the door to development in Idaho's roadless backcountry forests - wildlands currently protected under the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Idaho's 9.3 million acres of roadless backcountry make up the core of the last intact forest ecosystem in the lower 48 states - the last place where all of the native plants, fish and wildlife - from the smallest plant to the largest predator - can still be found. "Some of the largest and most spectacular roadless areas in Idaho are right over the border. Many western Montanans visit these spectacular areas to hike, camp, backpack, fish, hunt, ski and spend quality, quiet time with family and friends," explained Shannon Kindle with the WildWest Institute. "It's unfortunate that the Bush Administration, Forest Service and state of Idaho are considering significantly weakening protections for nearly 6 million acres of these backcountry, roadless forests." "We can either leave our last pristine forests as they are, or open the door to mining, logging and other corporate special interests," said Paul Spitler of the Center for Biological Diversity. "The Bush administration has chosen the latter." The report, titled "Wild At Heart: Saving the Last of America’s Roadless Backcountry," highlights key differences between the two plans: current management under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RACR), and the Bush administration's proposed Idaho rule-part of the administrations new plan to undo roadless area protections on a state-by-state basis....
Protection sought for snails, slugs in Northwest forests Conservation groups want the federal government to protect 32 species of snails and slugs under the Endangered Species Act. Tierra Curry, a biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, says that since the Bush administration took steps to allow more logging in old-growth Pacific Northwest forests, the snails and slugs are in danger of going extinct. The petition says they perform a critical role in the food web, consuming forest litter and in turn being eaten by wildlife. While all 32 species are rare, seven are known to inhabit only one or two locations, making them particularly susceptible to extinction.
State takes over wolf management in two weeks The state of Wyoming took another step Thursday in preparation for managing gray wolves, once their removal from federal endangered species protection goes into effect. Wolves will officially lose protection under the federal Endangered Species Act March 28, and Wyoming will take over management of the canine that day, barring a legal injunction against the decision. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission adopted the Game and Fish Department’s proposed wolf management regulations at a meeting here Thursday, with one minor alteration. The commission cleaned up language in the rule to make it explicit that people in the designated trophy game area can use lethal force to protect their pet dogs from wolves, in the same way they can protect livestock and other domesticated animals. In order to fulfill statutes established in House Bill 213, in the 2007 state legislative session, the rule designates gray wolves in the northwest part of the state as trophy game animals, where the department will use "aggressive" methods for managing the population. As of March 28, wolves living outside of the designated northwest region will be considered predators, and managed similarly to the way coyotes and mountain lions are. The new rules also establish a program for compensating landowners and livestock owners for damage caused by wolves, including predation....
Slowing with the flow He stops and studies the water level in his canal. It's rising but still below a stain on the canal's concrete wall, a measuring point that Romo trusts implicitly through experience. In a few minutes, the water reaches the stain, meaning there is sufficient pressure for Romo to crank a rusty metal jack that opens a wooden gate. "Can lose a finger if you're not careful," he said. With a loud swooosh, a wall of water moves down his canal. For the next several hours, Romo will repeat this ritual again and again, harnessing gravity to shepherd the day's water through his corner of the valley. Romo is a zanjero -- pronounced sahn-her-o -- Spanish for overseer of the mother ditch. His job is to deliver prescribed amounts of Colorado River water to farmers served by the Imperial Irrigation District in southeastern California. It's a job rich in tradition, one that mirrors the settlement of the West and its complicated relationship with water. The zanjero was once the most powerful man in any community, entrusted with overseeing its most valuable resource. In early Los Angeles, he was paid more than the mayor. Long before he engineered the city's future, William Mulholland learned the nuances of water working as a zanjero. "He is the yea and nay of the arid land, the arbiter of fate, the dispenser of good and evil, to be blessed by turns and cursed by turns, and to receive both with the utter unconcern of a small god," said the Century Magazine in New York, describing the job in 1902. Today, the zanjero is an endangered species, his craft too imprecise, his tools too crude to look after water in a region ravaged by drought....
US west coast braced for ban on salmon fishing as stocks collapse America's west coast looks set to lose almost all of its wild salmon harvest this year, depriving fish retailers and restaurants around the world of one of their key sources of high-quality fish, and raising troubling questions about the viability of commercial fishing in an age of climate change and increased competition over water use. United States government regulators have already closed down the early fishing season along swathes of the west coast and are expected to issue a season-long ban in California and Oregon, in response to an unprecedented collapse in the region's salmon population. The unexpected shutdown will have a devastating effect on the 1,000 or so commercial salmon fishermen who ply their trade between California's Central Coast and the Oregon-Washington state line. It will kill the recreational salmon fishing industry, which attracts millions of anglers each year and generates about $4bn (£2bn) in benefits to the coastal economy. And it will drastically change the menu at restaurants and private houses on the west coast and far beyond....
The Controversy Behind NAIS Our lack of trust is warranted based on the USDA’s current tactics. While describing NAIS as voluntary at the federal level, the USDA has shifted its efforts to promoting implementation at the state level. This allows the USDA to proclaim its innocence without altering its original intent of forcing everyone who owns even one livestock animal into NAIS. Let me describe what is happening: USDA is funding states that have implemented mandatory portions of NAIS, such as Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. USDA is also offering funding to other states provided they show progress in premises registration, which is the first prong of NAIS. The annual Cooperative Agreements between the states and the federal government define the number of farms that must be registered in the premises registration database by each state in order to receive the federal funding. In 2008, the USDA intensified their requirements and, for the first time, will require states to achieve mid-year performance targets to receive continued funding even for that year. Many states’ programs have budget constraints, so access to federal funding is important to them. What’s disturbing is how states are meeting these performance targets. A number of states involuntarily enrolled farmers who participate in other animal health programs, such as scrapie or Coggins testing, by taking the data they provided for the health program and placing it into the NAIS database without the farmers’ permission. These states then reported these “registrations” as “voluntary.” The USDA specifically stated that it would fund these kinds of data mined registrations. Other tactics have been directed at our children. Examples include offering to pay $10 to each 4-Her who gets his or her parents to register their farm, or making premises registration a requirement to participate in 4-H programs or in livestock shows at the County or State Fair. Some states have required registration for critical agricultural assistance. When hay became scarce during the recent severe drought in North Carolina, the state purchased and trucked in hay to be sold at cost to farmers. But to take advantage of this hay, farmers first had to register their farms in the NAIS database. Although described as “voluntary,” in truth these underhanded tactics coerce desperate people to go along with something in order to save their animals....
Super sheep outran police German police are trying to trace the owner of a sheep which outran police patrol cars and beat up a police dog. Police in the northern German village of Guester say the sheep ran through the streets of the town at more than 30mph. It reportedly leapt over the bonnets of police cars used as a road block to cut off its escape and even chased off pursuing police dogs with a few well aimed head butts. Officers eventually caught up with it after it jumped into a field and started tucking into the grass. A police spokesman said: "It was not an easy pursuit. The animal had quite a turn of speed on it. We have appealed for its owner to come forward."
Commission hears novel conservation idea Gallatin County Commissioners heard a presentation at their regular meeting Wednesday on how ranchers and farmers can create small homesteads incorporating conservation easements as a way of maximizing the value of their properties. Lane Coulston, owner of Missoula-based American Conservation Real Estate, told commissioners that ranchers with large parcels can use the homestead idea to plan for their futures while preserving their land and avoiding selling it to developers by following four simple steps, he said. First, a conservation easement is placed on the property, which limits development to one or more reserved parcels of land that can be used for secluded home sites, Coulston said. Then a buyer or buyers purchase the reserved home sites, along with a parcel of deeded land and recreation rights to the entire property, he said. The rancher retains the right to farm or ranch most of the buyer’s parcels, maintaining the land in agricultural use. Plus, the rancher can use the money earned from the transactions to plan for the future, pay bills or whatever else they wish, Coulston said. Coulston said the idea can help struggling ranchers make ends meet and help them get even more value out of their land, while preserving valuable agricultural land in perpetuity....
Wolf population grows by a third Montana’s wolf population increased 34 percent over the past year, to an estimated 422 wolves in 73 packs, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks reported Thursday. The wolves are nearly equally distributed between northern and southern Montana, according to the agency’s annual wolf report, although the bulk of the population growth was in northwestern and far western Montana, where it increased by about 92 wolves, to 213. In the Greater Yellowstone area, the population increased by 14 wolves, to 209. Some of the growth can be chalked up to the birth of at least 163 wolf pups last year, the FWP report noted. But there were other reasons, too. “Our monitoring is getting better and we have hunters, landowners and many others taking the time to tell us where and when they see wolves or wolf sign,” Carolyn Sime, the FWP’s wolf management coordinator in Helena, said in a written statement....
Mineral County residents reject wilderness, Commissioners adopt resolution saying so In a 2 ½-hour meeting similar to the one in Smith Valley last week, nearly 200 Mineral County residents told three representatives to Nevada's congressional delegation to "Leave us alone!" when it comes to any wilderness designations in a Lyon-Mineral Lands Bill. Many of those residents meeting in the convention center in Hawthorne also heard for the first time a resolution adopted the previous day unanimously by the Mineral County Commissioners rejecting wilderness; and an appeal from that same commission to have Lyon and Esmeralda counties join them in such action. In response to requests from representatives Matt Tuma of Senator Reid's office, Kevin Kirkeby from Senator Ensign's office and Verita Prothro from Congressman Heller's office for public input, MC commissioner and liason to the delegation Jerrie Tipton introduced and read the county's resolution which drew a round of applause from the audience. The general session was then opened to comments and questions with a lengthy list of Mineral County residents -- and six from Lyon County -- voicing concerns and opposition to the Nevada Wilderness Project's proposals....
Expanded wilderness proposal could be hurting local effort The expanded version by the Nevada Wilderness Project isn't necessarily supported by local wilderness proponents and may actually be hurting chances that the original Wovoka Wilderness proposal will ever come to be. Mason Valley residents Steve Pellegrini and Art Shipley previewed (written by others) the original and much smaller wilderness proposal seeking 87,240 acres in the Wovoka Wilderness and about 10,715 in East Sister. That proposal came before the Lyon County Commissioners in September, 2005, and was rejected on a 5-0 vote. Pellegrini said he learned of the latest, expanded wilderness proposal from a wilderness group several days before it came out. "After that original proposal was turned down by the commissioners, it didn't really die, at least in our minds," said Pellegrini Monday. "We always thought maybe we could come back and talk reason and see if we could get it." Since that time the Nevada Wilderness Project looked at other areas and examined them for their wilderness potential, creating the latest proposal. "Right now, the expanded version is hurting our effort....
Packed house unanimous in opposition to wilderness proposal But the source of the sizeable crowd gathered at the school that night was a planned presentation, held as part of the Smith Valley Advisory Council meeting, on the proposed wilderness area designation for southern Lyon County and parts of Mineral and Esmeralda counties. And the comments expressed during the more than two-hour session attended by an estimated 500 people, were unanimously opposed to that wilderness designation, including several elected officials who attended the meeting as well. The presentation was organized by the newly-formed 'Coalition for Public Access' and drew a packed house to the SVHS gym. And those attending were not limited to Smith Valley residents, as the crowd drew folks from Mason Valley, Mineral and Douglas Counties, and other areas and organizations beyond. Representatives of Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign were in attendance, as was another representing Congressman Dean Heller, and each said the wilderness designation was not proposed by the Congressmen, but by the wilderness groups advocating the inclusion of land in the Lyon County/Mineral County lands bill....
Federal panel told off-highway riders taxing BLM A four-fold increase in off-highway vehicle use in the past decade has stressed federal land-management agencies' ability to respond, a congressional committee was told Thursday. Explosive growth in the West and aggressive marketing of off-highway vehicles (OHVs) "have generated increased social conflicts and resource impacts on the public lands," said Henri Bisson, deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management, which manages 258 million acres of federal land nationwide. Bisson said that as the BLM weighs the appropriate use of public lands, it is taking a careful look at off-highway vehicle access. The issue has been of particular interest in Utah, where the booming popularity of the recreation vehicles has increased traffic and tension in scenic areas of the state. Bisson said travel restrictions the BLM imposed on Utah's Factory Butte were a step toward protecting resources. An agency order in September 2006 limited motorized travel to designated trails over about 142,000 acres in order to protect threatened and endangered species, he added. Those restrictions will be in effect until the broader management plan for the Richfield area is released later this year....
Experts: Off-road vehicles threat to public lands The conflict and landscape damage caused by skyrocketing off-road vehicle use in national forests and public lands in recent years require new regulations and increased federal law enforcement efforts, officials said Thursday. “Unmanaged use of off-road vehicles is a crisis that federal land management agencies are failing to address,” said Chairman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., at a hearing of the House Natural Resources subcommittee on parks, forests and public lands. Riders who ride off trails damage cultural sites, create safety risks and disturb wildlife habitat, Grijalva said. A recent poll of federal land enforcement agents reveals they see off-road vehicles as one of the biggest threats facing public lands, he added. Henri Bisson, deputy director of the BLM, cited a conservative estimate by the Motorcycle Industry Council that there are four times more off-highway vehicles in the West now than a decade ago. Management of off-road vehicles and balancing all public uses is a growing challenge, Bisson said. “The combined effect of population increase in the West, unauthorized user-created roads, explosive growth in the use of OHVs, advances in motorized technology, and intense industry marketing have generated increased social conflicts and resource impacts on the public land,” he said....
Off-Highway Vehicle Exec Tells Congress Active Trail Management is Working The top executive at one of the nation's leading off-highway vehicle recreation organizations told a Congressional panel today that active management of OHV use on federal lands is working and that the closure of public lands to the millions of Americans who enjoy motorized recreation would be "a step backward." Russ Ehnes, Executive Director of the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council (NOHVCC), made his remarks during a hearing on the impact of off-road vehicles on federal lands. The hearing was called by the Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Ehnes cited numerous examples where OHV management has been successful, including the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System in West Virginia, the Paiute ATV Trail in Utah and the San Bernardino National Forest in California. "Simply stated, trail systems can be successful by applying education, engineering, enforcement and evaluation," Mr. Ehnes said. "The results are high quality, environmentally sustainable trail systems that meet the needs and desires of the public."....
New Report Details Rollbacks for Idaho Backcountry The Center for Biological Diversity, WildWest Institute and more than 50 other local and national conservation organizations released a report today detailing the Bush administration's plan to open the door to development in Idaho's roadless backcountry forests - wildlands currently protected under the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Idaho's 9.3 million acres of roadless backcountry make up the core of the last intact forest ecosystem in the lower 48 states - the last place where all of the native plants, fish and wildlife - from the smallest plant to the largest predator - can still be found. "Some of the largest and most spectacular roadless areas in Idaho are right over the border. Many western Montanans visit these spectacular areas to hike, camp, backpack, fish, hunt, ski and spend quality, quiet time with family and friends," explained Shannon Kindle with the WildWest Institute. "It's unfortunate that the Bush Administration, Forest Service and state of Idaho are considering significantly weakening protections for nearly 6 million acres of these backcountry, roadless forests." "We can either leave our last pristine forests as they are, or open the door to mining, logging and other corporate special interests," said Paul Spitler of the Center for Biological Diversity. "The Bush administration has chosen the latter." The report, titled "Wild At Heart: Saving the Last of America’s Roadless Backcountry," highlights key differences between the two plans: current management under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule (RACR), and the Bush administration's proposed Idaho rule-part of the administrations new plan to undo roadless area protections on a state-by-state basis....
Protection sought for snails, slugs in Northwest forests Conservation groups want the federal government to protect 32 species of snails and slugs under the Endangered Species Act. Tierra Curry, a biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, says that since the Bush administration took steps to allow more logging in old-growth Pacific Northwest forests, the snails and slugs are in danger of going extinct. The petition says they perform a critical role in the food web, consuming forest litter and in turn being eaten by wildlife. While all 32 species are rare, seven are known to inhabit only one or two locations, making them particularly susceptible to extinction.
State takes over wolf management in two weeks The state of Wyoming took another step Thursday in preparation for managing gray wolves, once their removal from federal endangered species protection goes into effect. Wolves will officially lose protection under the federal Endangered Species Act March 28, and Wyoming will take over management of the canine that day, barring a legal injunction against the decision. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission adopted the Game and Fish Department’s proposed wolf management regulations at a meeting here Thursday, with one minor alteration. The commission cleaned up language in the rule to make it explicit that people in the designated trophy game area can use lethal force to protect their pet dogs from wolves, in the same way they can protect livestock and other domesticated animals. In order to fulfill statutes established in House Bill 213, in the 2007 state legislative session, the rule designates gray wolves in the northwest part of the state as trophy game animals, where the department will use "aggressive" methods for managing the population. As of March 28, wolves living outside of the designated northwest region will be considered predators, and managed similarly to the way coyotes and mountain lions are. The new rules also establish a program for compensating landowners and livestock owners for damage caused by wolves, including predation....
Slowing with the flow He stops and studies the water level in his canal. It's rising but still below a stain on the canal's concrete wall, a measuring point that Romo trusts implicitly through experience. In a few minutes, the water reaches the stain, meaning there is sufficient pressure for Romo to crank a rusty metal jack that opens a wooden gate. "Can lose a finger if you're not careful," he said. With a loud swooosh, a wall of water moves down his canal. For the next several hours, Romo will repeat this ritual again and again, harnessing gravity to shepherd the day's water through his corner of the valley. Romo is a zanjero -- pronounced sahn-her-o -- Spanish for overseer of the mother ditch. His job is to deliver prescribed amounts of Colorado River water to farmers served by the Imperial Irrigation District in southeastern California. It's a job rich in tradition, one that mirrors the settlement of the West and its complicated relationship with water. The zanjero was once the most powerful man in any community, entrusted with overseeing its most valuable resource. In early Los Angeles, he was paid more than the mayor. Long before he engineered the city's future, William Mulholland learned the nuances of water working as a zanjero. "He is the yea and nay of the arid land, the arbiter of fate, the dispenser of good and evil, to be blessed by turns and cursed by turns, and to receive both with the utter unconcern of a small god," said the Century Magazine in New York, describing the job in 1902. Today, the zanjero is an endangered species, his craft too imprecise, his tools too crude to look after water in a region ravaged by drought....
US west coast braced for ban on salmon fishing as stocks collapse America's west coast looks set to lose almost all of its wild salmon harvest this year, depriving fish retailers and restaurants around the world of one of their key sources of high-quality fish, and raising troubling questions about the viability of commercial fishing in an age of climate change and increased competition over water use. United States government regulators have already closed down the early fishing season along swathes of the west coast and are expected to issue a season-long ban in California and Oregon, in response to an unprecedented collapse in the region's salmon population. The unexpected shutdown will have a devastating effect on the 1,000 or so commercial salmon fishermen who ply their trade between California's Central Coast and the Oregon-Washington state line. It will kill the recreational salmon fishing industry, which attracts millions of anglers each year and generates about $4bn (£2bn) in benefits to the coastal economy. And it will drastically change the menu at restaurants and private houses on the west coast and far beyond....
The Controversy Behind NAIS Our lack of trust is warranted based on the USDA’s current tactics. While describing NAIS as voluntary at the federal level, the USDA has shifted its efforts to promoting implementation at the state level. This allows the USDA to proclaim its innocence without altering its original intent of forcing everyone who owns even one livestock animal into NAIS. Let me describe what is happening: USDA is funding states that have implemented mandatory portions of NAIS, such as Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. USDA is also offering funding to other states provided they show progress in premises registration, which is the first prong of NAIS. The annual Cooperative Agreements between the states and the federal government define the number of farms that must be registered in the premises registration database by each state in order to receive the federal funding. In 2008, the USDA intensified their requirements and, for the first time, will require states to achieve mid-year performance targets to receive continued funding even for that year. Many states’ programs have budget constraints, so access to federal funding is important to them. What’s disturbing is how states are meeting these performance targets. A number of states involuntarily enrolled farmers who participate in other animal health programs, such as scrapie or Coggins testing, by taking the data they provided for the health program and placing it into the NAIS database without the farmers’ permission. These states then reported these “registrations” as “voluntary.” The USDA specifically stated that it would fund these kinds of data mined registrations. Other tactics have been directed at our children. Examples include offering to pay $10 to each 4-Her who gets his or her parents to register their farm, or making premises registration a requirement to participate in 4-H programs or in livestock shows at the County or State Fair. Some states have required registration for critical agricultural assistance. When hay became scarce during the recent severe drought in North Carolina, the state purchased and trucked in hay to be sold at cost to farmers. But to take advantage of this hay, farmers first had to register their farms in the NAIS database. Although described as “voluntary,” in truth these underhanded tactics coerce desperate people to go along with something in order to save their animals....
Super sheep outran police German police are trying to trace the owner of a sheep which outran police patrol cars and beat up a police dog. Police in the northern German village of Guester say the sheep ran through the streets of the town at more than 30mph. It reportedly leapt over the bonnets of police cars used as a road block to cut off its escape and even chased off pursuing police dogs with a few well aimed head butts. Officers eventually caught up with it after it jumped into a field and started tucking into the grass. A police spokesman said: "It was not an easy pursuit. The animal had quite a turn of speed on it. We have appealed for its owner to come forward."
FLE
The People vs. Michael Chertoff The government defended the wall as a necessary bulwark against the twin threats of illegal immigration and terrorism, and Chertoff employed the Declaration of Taking Act, an unusual and expedited condemnation process that denies citizens access to a full trial. Compounded by intimidation tactics that include repeated visits by uniformed Border Patrol agents and US army personnel, landowners have found themselves, until now, relatively powerless. Although eminent domain grants the government wide latitude and is notoriously difficult to contest, Tamez and seven other Cameron County landowners charged Chertoff and DHS with misuse of power. Represented by Peter Schey of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, they argued that Chertoff had failed to follow requisite due process and violated federal law that prohibits the expedited condemnation process. "The law specifically provides that the secretary should explain to property owners what interest he seeks in their property and attempt to arrive at a 'fixed price' for that interest," explains Schey. "And then he may only proceed with normal condemnation proceedings in which a person is entitled to a full due-process trial." In a thirty-two-page ruling, federal judge Andrew Hanen agreed--partially. While affirming the right of landowners to negotiate over terms and compensation in land seizures, the court also ruled that DHS can move to condemn the land if the parties are unable to negotiate a fixed price....
Arizona city seeks moat to secure Mexico border Most plans to gain control of the porous U.S.-Mexico border focus on some combination of fence. But this city in far west Arizona is looking to build a moat. Faced with high-levels of crime and illegal immigration, authorities in Yuma are reaching back to a technique as old as a medieval castle to dig out a "security channel" on a crime-ridden stretch of the border and fill it with water. "The moats that I've seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that's kind of what we're looking at here," said Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden, who is backing the project. The proposal seeks to restore a stretch of the West's greatest waterway, the Colorado River, which has been largely sucked dry by demand from farms and sprawling subdivisions springing up across the parched southwest and in neighboring California. The plan to revive the river, which drains from the Rocky Mountains through the Grand Canyon and runs for 23 miles (37 kilometres) along the border near Yuma, seeks to create a broad water barrier while also restoring a fragile wetland environment that once thrived in the area....
Border Measures Pushing Migrants to Sea The migrants board rickety boats in the dark, taking orders from inexperienced seamen. From sandy Mexican shores popular with weekend tourists, they can see downtown San Diego's lights when the sky is clear. Smugglers who charge them about $4,000 each for the illegal crossing often use two boats with different crews for the short trip, forcing them to change at sea, authorities say. That way, the hired hands will have less to tell if they are captured. U.S. officials and academics suspect heightened enforcement on land is pushing migrants to gamble their lives on the kind of dangerous voyages — on flimsy watercraft and with little regard for winter — more commonly associated with Cubans and Haitians braving the Florida Straits. "Anytime you put pressure on a point along the border, the traffic moves somewhere else," said Juan Munoz Torres, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. "The only thing left is the ocean." A spate of recent captures and discoveries of abandoned boats off California's coast climaxed shortly after sunrise Wednesday with a dramatic example of the increased risks that migrants are taking....
Audit: FBI privacy abuses rose in 2006 Top-level FBI counterterrorism executives issued improper blanket demands in 2006 for records of 3,860 telephone lines to justify the fact that agents already had obtained the data using an illegal procedure that is now prohibited, the Justice Department inspector general reported Thursday. Glenn A. Fine also reported that in one case FBI anti-terrorism agents circumvented a federal court which twice had refused a warrant for personal records because the judges believed the agents were investigating conduct protected by the First Amendment. Fine said the agents got the records using national security letters, which do not require a judge's approval, without altering or re-examining the basis of their suspicions — the target's association with others under investigation. These findings were highlighted in Fine's second report in two years on how the FBI has used broad authority to gather personal information about Americans granted by the USA Patriot Act and other statutes since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Fine reported last year that from 2003 through 2005 FBI agents sent more than 700 of these exigent, or emergency, letters to telecommunication companies to obtain telephone records quickly. Fine said the letters violated requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Justice and FBI guidelines by falsely stating they were needed for specific national security investigations under grand jury investigation and that national security letters were being drafted to cover the requests. In fact, there were no specific grand jury investigations behind the requests and no NSLs were being prepared....
Right now, feds might be looking into your finances Each year, federal agents peek at the financial transactions of millions of Americans — without their knowledge. The same type of information that raised suspicions about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is reviewed every day by authorities to find traces of money laundering, check fraud, identity theft or any crime that may involve a financial institution. As concerns about fraud and terrorist financing grow, an increasing number of suspicious deposits, withdrawals and money transfers are being reported by banks and others to the federal government. Banks and credit unions as well as currency dealers and stores that cash checks reported a record 17.6 million transactions to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in 2006, according to a report from the network, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department. The Treasury Department's database now contains records of more than 100 million financial transactions going back to at least 1996, said network spokesman Steve Hudak. Teams of agents from the FBI, IRS, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies regularly review newly filed financial reports and launch investigations. Federal and local authorities search the database to find information about people that can help ongoing probes. Treasury Department analysts study the reports to detect trends in fraud and issue reports alerting financial institutions....
Happy Birthday, DHS! The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just turned five years old. It seems like it was born just yesterday. The department’s growing pains have made it a slow learner and a downright ugly child. Born in an atmosphere of tension and fear, and cobbled together from pieces of other government departments and agencies, the prospects for this Frankenstein offspring were always dim. Yet, as Congress frequently does in times of crisis, the legislative body, in the wake of 9/11, had to be seen as doing something—anything—to respond to the crisis, even if its actions were ineffective and even counterproductive. And predictably, the Department of Homeland Security has been a disaster. In the wake of the federal government’s failure to prevent or stop 9/11—when the principal problem was the failure of large, slothful security agencies to coordinate against a small, agile terrorist group—the last thing the country needed was another ponderous department. Yet Congress glued together 22 disparate agencies, superimposed another layer of bureaucracy on top of them to manage the new department, astronomically increased the department’s budget to $38 billion per year and its personnel from 170,000 to 208,000 employees, and oversaw the department’s activities with 86 congressional committees and subcommittees. In creating more bureaucracy to coordinate, Congress never told the American people exactly how security against nimble, non-bureaucratic terrorist groups would be enhanced. In fact, over its five years, the department has become the butt of jokes for its color-coded terror warning system, grossly incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, pork-barrel spending, intrusive and largely ineffectual airline security, and expensive security projects gone awry....
W.'s Gun Battle Preparing to hear oral arguments Tuesday on the extent of gun rights guaranteed by the Constitution's Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court has before it a brief signed by Vice President Cheney opposing the Bush administration's stance. Even more remarkably, Cheney is faithfully reflecting the views of President George W. Bush. The government position filed with the Supreme Court by U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement stunned gun advocates by opposing the breadth of an appellate court affirmation of individual ownership rights. The Justice Department, not the vice president, is out of order. But if Bush agrees with Cheney, why did the president not simply order Clement to revise his brief? The answers: disorganization and weakness in the eighth year of his presidency. Consequently, a Republican administration finds itself aligned against the most popular tenet of social conservatism: gun rights that enjoy much wider support than opposition to abortion or gay marriage. Promises in two presidential elections are abandoned, and Bush finds himself left of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama....
D.C. Seeks Consent To Search for Guns D.C. police are so eager to get guns out of the city that they're offering amnesty to people who allow officers to come into their homes and get the weapons. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced yesterday the Safe Homes Initiative, aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said. The program is scheduled to start March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. Officers will go door-to-door seeking permission to search homes for weapons. Police later plan to visit other areas, including sections of Columbia Heights in Northwest and Eckington in Northeast. Fenty (D) and Lanier announced the plan as part of a new strategy to deal with the prevalence of firearms in a city that has one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. Residents who agree to the searches will be asked to sign consent forms. If guns are found, they will be tested to determine whether they were used in crimes. If the results are positive, police will launch investigations, which could lead to charges. Boston police are embarking on a similar program this month....
D.C. Gun Ban Proponents Ignore the Facts Thus far the District of Columbia has spent a lot of time making a public policy case. Their argument in their brief to the court is pretty simple : "banning handguns saves lives." Yet, while it may seem obvious to many people that banning guns will save lives, that has not been D.C.'s experience. The ban went into effect in early 1977, but since it started there is only one year (1985) when D.C.'s murder rate fell below what it was in 1976. But the murder rate also rose dramatically relative to other cities. In the 29 years we have data after the ban, D.C.'s murder rate ranked first or second among the largest 50 cities for 15 years. In another four years, it ranked fourth. For Instance, D.C.'s murder rate fell from 3.5 to 3 times more than Maryland and Virginia's during the five years before the handgun ban went into effect in 1977, but rose to 3.8 times more in the five years after it. Was there something special about D.C. that kept the ban from working? Probably not, since bans have been causing crime to increase in other cities as well. D.C. cites the Chicago ban to support its own. Yet, before Chicago's ban in 1982, its murder rate, which was falling from 27 to 22 per 100,000 in the five years, suddenly stopped falling and rose slightly to 23 per 100,000 in the five years afterwards. Neither have bans worked in other countries. Gun crime in England and Wales increased 340 percent in the seven years since their 1998 ban. Ireland banned handguns and center fire rifles in 1972 and murder rates soared — the post-ban murder rate average has been 144 percent higher than pre-ban....
The People vs. Michael Chertoff The government defended the wall as a necessary bulwark against the twin threats of illegal immigration and terrorism, and Chertoff employed the Declaration of Taking Act, an unusual and expedited condemnation process that denies citizens access to a full trial. Compounded by intimidation tactics that include repeated visits by uniformed Border Patrol agents and US army personnel, landowners have found themselves, until now, relatively powerless. Although eminent domain grants the government wide latitude and is notoriously difficult to contest, Tamez and seven other Cameron County landowners charged Chertoff and DHS with misuse of power. Represented by Peter Schey of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, they argued that Chertoff had failed to follow requisite due process and violated federal law that prohibits the expedited condemnation process. "The law specifically provides that the secretary should explain to property owners what interest he seeks in their property and attempt to arrive at a 'fixed price' for that interest," explains Schey. "And then he may only proceed with normal condemnation proceedings in which a person is entitled to a full due-process trial." In a thirty-two-page ruling, federal judge Andrew Hanen agreed--partially. While affirming the right of landowners to negotiate over terms and compensation in land seizures, the court also ruled that DHS can move to condemn the land if the parties are unable to negotiate a fixed price....
Arizona city seeks moat to secure Mexico border Most plans to gain control of the porous U.S.-Mexico border focus on some combination of fence. But this city in far west Arizona is looking to build a moat. Faced with high-levels of crime and illegal immigration, authorities in Yuma are reaching back to a technique as old as a medieval castle to dig out a "security channel" on a crime-ridden stretch of the border and fill it with water. "The moats that I've seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that's kind of what we're looking at here," said Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden, who is backing the project. The proposal seeks to restore a stretch of the West's greatest waterway, the Colorado River, which has been largely sucked dry by demand from farms and sprawling subdivisions springing up across the parched southwest and in neighboring California. The plan to revive the river, which drains from the Rocky Mountains through the Grand Canyon and runs for 23 miles (37 kilometres) along the border near Yuma, seeks to create a broad water barrier while also restoring a fragile wetland environment that once thrived in the area....
Border Measures Pushing Migrants to Sea The migrants board rickety boats in the dark, taking orders from inexperienced seamen. From sandy Mexican shores popular with weekend tourists, they can see downtown San Diego's lights when the sky is clear. Smugglers who charge them about $4,000 each for the illegal crossing often use two boats with different crews for the short trip, forcing them to change at sea, authorities say. That way, the hired hands will have less to tell if they are captured. U.S. officials and academics suspect heightened enforcement on land is pushing migrants to gamble their lives on the kind of dangerous voyages — on flimsy watercraft and with little regard for winter — more commonly associated with Cubans and Haitians braving the Florida Straits. "Anytime you put pressure on a point along the border, the traffic moves somewhere else," said Juan Munoz Torres, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. "The only thing left is the ocean." A spate of recent captures and discoveries of abandoned boats off California's coast climaxed shortly after sunrise Wednesday with a dramatic example of the increased risks that migrants are taking....
Audit: FBI privacy abuses rose in 2006 Top-level FBI counterterrorism executives issued improper blanket demands in 2006 for records of 3,860 telephone lines to justify the fact that agents already had obtained the data using an illegal procedure that is now prohibited, the Justice Department inspector general reported Thursday. Glenn A. Fine also reported that in one case FBI anti-terrorism agents circumvented a federal court which twice had refused a warrant for personal records because the judges believed the agents were investigating conduct protected by the First Amendment. Fine said the agents got the records using national security letters, which do not require a judge's approval, without altering or re-examining the basis of their suspicions — the target's association with others under investigation. These findings were highlighted in Fine's second report in two years on how the FBI has used broad authority to gather personal information about Americans granted by the USA Patriot Act and other statutes since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Fine reported last year that from 2003 through 2005 FBI agents sent more than 700 of these exigent, or emergency, letters to telecommunication companies to obtain telephone records quickly. Fine said the letters violated requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Justice and FBI guidelines by falsely stating they were needed for specific national security investigations under grand jury investigation and that national security letters were being drafted to cover the requests. In fact, there were no specific grand jury investigations behind the requests and no NSLs were being prepared....
Right now, feds might be looking into your finances Each year, federal agents peek at the financial transactions of millions of Americans — without their knowledge. The same type of information that raised suspicions about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is reviewed every day by authorities to find traces of money laundering, check fraud, identity theft or any crime that may involve a financial institution. As concerns about fraud and terrorist financing grow, an increasing number of suspicious deposits, withdrawals and money transfers are being reported by banks and others to the federal government. Banks and credit unions as well as currency dealers and stores that cash checks reported a record 17.6 million transactions to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in 2006, according to a report from the network, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department. The Treasury Department's database now contains records of more than 100 million financial transactions going back to at least 1996, said network spokesman Steve Hudak. Teams of agents from the FBI, IRS, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies regularly review newly filed financial reports and launch investigations. Federal and local authorities search the database to find information about people that can help ongoing probes. Treasury Department analysts study the reports to detect trends in fraud and issue reports alerting financial institutions....
Happy Birthday, DHS! The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just turned five years old. It seems like it was born just yesterday. The department’s growing pains have made it a slow learner and a downright ugly child. Born in an atmosphere of tension and fear, and cobbled together from pieces of other government departments and agencies, the prospects for this Frankenstein offspring were always dim. Yet, as Congress frequently does in times of crisis, the legislative body, in the wake of 9/11, had to be seen as doing something—anything—to respond to the crisis, even if its actions were ineffective and even counterproductive. And predictably, the Department of Homeland Security has been a disaster. In the wake of the federal government’s failure to prevent or stop 9/11—when the principal problem was the failure of large, slothful security agencies to coordinate against a small, agile terrorist group—the last thing the country needed was another ponderous department. Yet Congress glued together 22 disparate agencies, superimposed another layer of bureaucracy on top of them to manage the new department, astronomically increased the department’s budget to $38 billion per year and its personnel from 170,000 to 208,000 employees, and oversaw the department’s activities with 86 congressional committees and subcommittees. In creating more bureaucracy to coordinate, Congress never told the American people exactly how security against nimble, non-bureaucratic terrorist groups would be enhanced. In fact, over its five years, the department has become the butt of jokes for its color-coded terror warning system, grossly incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, pork-barrel spending, intrusive and largely ineffectual airline security, and expensive security projects gone awry....
W.'s Gun Battle Preparing to hear oral arguments Tuesday on the extent of gun rights guaranteed by the Constitution's Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court has before it a brief signed by Vice President Cheney opposing the Bush administration's stance. Even more remarkably, Cheney is faithfully reflecting the views of President George W. Bush. The government position filed with the Supreme Court by U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement stunned gun advocates by opposing the breadth of an appellate court affirmation of individual ownership rights. The Justice Department, not the vice president, is out of order. But if Bush agrees with Cheney, why did the president not simply order Clement to revise his brief? The answers: disorganization and weakness in the eighth year of his presidency. Consequently, a Republican administration finds itself aligned against the most popular tenet of social conservatism: gun rights that enjoy much wider support than opposition to abortion or gay marriage. Promises in two presidential elections are abandoned, and Bush finds himself left of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama....
D.C. Seeks Consent To Search for Guns D.C. police are so eager to get guns out of the city that they're offering amnesty to people who allow officers to come into their homes and get the weapons. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced yesterday the Safe Homes Initiative, aimed at parents and guardians who know or suspect that their children or other relatives have guns. Under the deal, police target areas hit by violence and seek adults who let them search their homes for guns, with no risk of arrest. The offer also applies to drugs that turn up during the searches, police said. The program is scheduled to start March 24 in the Washington Highlands area of Southeast Washington. Officers will go door-to-door seeking permission to search homes for weapons. Police later plan to visit other areas, including sections of Columbia Heights in Northwest and Eckington in Northeast. Fenty (D) and Lanier announced the plan as part of a new strategy to deal with the prevalence of firearms in a city that has one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. Residents who agree to the searches will be asked to sign consent forms. If guns are found, they will be tested to determine whether they were used in crimes. If the results are positive, police will launch investigations, which could lead to charges. Boston police are embarking on a similar program this month....
D.C. Gun Ban Proponents Ignore the Facts Thus far the District of Columbia has spent a lot of time making a public policy case. Their argument in their brief to the court is pretty simple : "banning handguns saves lives." Yet, while it may seem obvious to many people that banning guns will save lives, that has not been D.C.'s experience. The ban went into effect in early 1977, but since it started there is only one year (1985) when D.C.'s murder rate fell below what it was in 1976. But the murder rate also rose dramatically relative to other cities. In the 29 years we have data after the ban, D.C.'s murder rate ranked first or second among the largest 50 cities for 15 years. In another four years, it ranked fourth. For Instance, D.C.'s murder rate fell from 3.5 to 3 times more than Maryland and Virginia's during the five years before the handgun ban went into effect in 1977, but rose to 3.8 times more in the five years after it. Was there something special about D.C. that kept the ban from working? Probably not, since bans have been causing crime to increase in other cities as well. D.C. cites the Chicago ban to support its own. Yet, before Chicago's ban in 1982, its murder rate, which was falling from 27 to 22 per 100,000 in the five years, suddenly stopped falling and rose slightly to 23 per 100,000 in the five years afterwards. Neither have bans worked in other countries. Gun crime in England and Wales increased 340 percent in the seven years since their 1998 ban. Ireland banned handguns and center fire rifles in 1972 and murder rates soared — the post-ban murder rate average has been 144 percent higher than pre-ban....
Thursday, March 13, 2008
New Ads Hit Gore's Energy 'Hypocrisy,' Critic Says A national advertising campaign contrasting Al Gore's "energy-consuming lifestyle" with the need for energy in developing countries was launched by a conservative think tank Tuesday despite charges from global warming activists that the new effort merely recycles old attacks on the former vice president. "Activists are always warning us about the alleged threats from global warming, but they are usually silent about the much more immediate dangers from global warming policies," Sam Kazman, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), said after the new ad was unveiled at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. "Restricting access to affordable energy is a sure recipe for increasing poverty, disease and human misery around the world," said Kazman, who helped create the 60-second spotto run over the next two weeks in markets across the country, including Boston, Phoenix, Orlando, Pittsburgh and the nation's capital. The advertisement begins with the sound of a chain being pulled and video of a light bulb coming on. "Here's the electricity we use at home," a male narrator says. The bulb then goes dark as four rows of five bulbs come on behind it. "Al Gore uses 20 times as much," the narrator continues, referring to a report released last year on the former vice president's Nashville mansion by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research....
Clothesline rule creates flap They say they only want to protect their "right to dry." And in three New England states, advocates for clotheslines - yes, clotheslines, strung across the yard, draped with socks and sheets - are pushing for new laws to liberate residents whose neighbors won't let them hang laundry outside. Homeowners' associations, which enforce bans on clotheslines at thousands of residential developments across the country, say the rules are needed to prevent flapping laundry from dragging down property values. But in an age of paper over plastic, as people try to take small steps to protect the environment, more residents are chafing at the restrictions. And some lawmakers in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut are taking it a step further, seeking legislation that would guarantee the freedom to let one's garments flutter in the breeze. "People think it's silly, but what's silly is to worry so much about having to look at your neighbors' undies that you would prevent them from conserving energy," said Vermont state Senator Dick McCormack, a sponsor of "right to dry" legislation. "We're not making a big deal over clotheslines; we're making a big deal over global warming." If successful, the measures in Vermont and Connecticut would be the first in New England, and among the first in the country, to protect the age-old custom of air-drying laundry....Finally, someone is defending property rights, even if they are calling it a "right to dry"! Are there any other property rights we could tie to global warming?
GAO
Natural Resource Management: Opportunities Exist to Enhance Federal Participation in Collaborative Efforts to Reduce Conflicts and Improve Natural Resource Conditions. GAO-08-262, February 12.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-262
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08262high.pdf
Natural Resource Management: Opportunities Exist to Enhance Federal Participation in Collaborative Efforts to Reduce Conflicts and Improve Natural Resource Conditions. GAO-08-262, February 12.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-262
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08262high.pdf
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