Democrats' hidden gas tax

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

Book is more than just pretty pictures

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

Cold War Remnant: Cancer for Baby Boomers

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

H1N1 flu strain found in Canadian turkey flock

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

Tick-Transmitted Horse Disease Detected on South Texas Ranch

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

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

One-Armed Bandit to perform at Bullfights

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

Indispensable tool of the trade

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

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

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

Song Of The Day #160

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

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

A shortened The Westerner

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

BLM won't fight grazing ban on Idaho allotment

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

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

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

BLM wild horse ranch plan draws fire

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

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

Did Utah blink in Snake Valley talks?

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

The great wolf debate comes to Yakima

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

Six buy Badlands dream property

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

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

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

CNBC, Reuters fall for climate hoax Video

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

Outside Agitator

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

USDA confirms H1N1 in Minnesota pigs

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

Food safety programs alter farming

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