In California, quest for cleaner power hits tortoise-sized speed bumps

On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions in the United States between wilderness conservation and the quest for cleaner power. Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun's energy. It could become the first project of its kind on US Bureau of Land Management property, leaving a footprint for others to follow on vast stretches of public land across the West. The construction would come with a cost: Government scientists have concluded that more than 6 square miles of habitat for the federally threatened desert tortoise would be permanently lost. The Sierra Club and other environmentalists want the complex relocated to preserve what they call a near-pristine home for rare plants and wildlife, including the protected tortoise, the Western burrowing owl, and bighorn sheep...read more

Environmental group challenges logging plans

An environmental watchdog group is suing in seven California counties in an attempt to block an alleged plan to clear-cut 5,000 acres of forest in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges. The Center for Biological Diversity accused the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection of illegally approving 15 timber harvest plans that improperly analyzed the effect of logging on the climate. The logging plans, all proposed by Sierra Pacific Industries, violated the California Environmental Quality Act and the Forest Practice Act by failing to take into account the large amounts of carbon dioxide that would be released into the atmosphere when the trees are cut, according to the lawsuits...read more

Tough choices follow in wake of invasive species

Which is worse? Closing two locks on a waterway that's used to ship millions of dollars' worth of goods from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi basin? Or allowing a voracious Asian carp to deplete the food supply of native fish sustaining a Midwestern fishing industry that nets $7 billion a year? And how do you put a price tag on the damage caused by the Burmese python and other constrictor snakes that are strangling the precious ecology of the Everglades? Invasive species, long the cause of environmental hand-wringing, have been raising more unwelcome questions recently, as the expense of eliminating them is weighed against the mounting liability of leaving them be. Those questions became more urgent Tuesday when a team of scientists led by the University of Notre Dame disclosed that silver carp dominating stretches of the Mississippi River and its tributaries had infiltrated Lake Michigan. The federal government had spent $22 million on electric barriers in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to keep carp out, but it clearly wasn't enough. An additional $33 million is going into the effort next year. A coalition of six Great Lakes states and the Canadian province of Ontario sought a preliminary injunction from the Supreme Court to shut down two major locks immediately on the grounds that an Asian carp invasion would cause "irreparable harm." The court declined to grant the injunction this month, but it will accept briefs next month on the broader question of whether to close them at all...read more

U.S. Government Plans to Reduce Its Energy Use

The federal government will take steps to cut its energy use and reduce its heat-trapping emissions by 28 percent by 2020, compared with 2008 levels, the White House announced on Friday. The government is the largest user of electricity and fuel in the country, accounting for roughly 1.5 percent of the nation’s annual energy consumption and emissions of the gases that contribute to global warming. The White House said the emissions reduction goal, if met, would save $8 billion to $11 billion in energy costs over the next decade. The actions would provide only a fraction of the emissions reductions that President Obama has pledged the United States will achieve across all sectors of the economy by 2020: 17 percent below 2005 levels. But he said the federal government must lead by example. “As the largest energy consumer in the United States, we have a responsibility to American citizens to reduce our energy use and become more efficient,” Mr. Obama said in a statement...read more

Disquiet on the Western Front: Showdown in the Malheur Marshes

Six hundred miles north of Tonopah, Nevada, in the high desert of central Oregon, lies Harney County, another site of intense confrontation between federal officials and the militant property rights movement. Here federal Fish and Wildlife Service agents sought to fence off a wetland that had been trampled by a rancher’s cows on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge about thirty miles south of the dust-caked town of Burns. In an affidavit, Earl M. Kisler, a Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement officer, said that rancher Dwight Hammond had repeatedly threatened refuge officials with violence over an eight year period. On one occasion Hammond told the manager of the federal refuge that “he was going to tear his head off and shit down his neck.” According to the affidavit, Hammond threated to kill refuge manager Forrest Cameron and assistant manager Dan Walsworth and claimed he was ready to die over a fence line that the refuge wanted to construct to keep his cows out of a marsh and wetland. The tensions between the Hammond family and the government started when the refuge, which was established as a haven for migrating birds, refused to renew a grazing permit for Hammond’s cattle operation. Then came the incident over the wetland, which Hammond had been using as a water hole for his cows...read more

New Mexico Bill First Step Toward Carbon Storage

Rancher Jack Chatfield sees untapped value in the spaces that lie beneath New Mexico's dusty landscape. But he said the state needs to first decide who owns them. Scientists are looking at underground fissures and caverns as places where carbon dioxide emissions captured from fossil fuel power plants can be stored. Carbon emissions are among the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. The underground space also could store compressed air as part of a process to generate clean electricity. "This is a huge issue for our society today. It's technology that is on the cutting edge and if New Mexico blinks, we'll be left in the dust. Let's don't do that. Let's be ready," said Chatfield, who is leading an effort to settle the ownership of the underground spaces in the New Mexico Legislature. The ownership of the spaces has become a hot topic across the West. Wyoming was the first state to tackle pore space ownership. Montana and North Dakota followed, and dozens of states — from Texas to Michigan — are considering legislation that would lay the groundwork for carbon capture and sequestration...read more

PETA Calls for Robotic 'Phil' at Groundhog Day Festival

An animal rights group wants organizers of Pennsylvania's Groundhog Day festival to replace Punxsutawney Phil with a robotic stand-in. According to the longtime tradition, if Phil the groundhog sees his shadow on the Feb. 2 unofficial holiday, then there will be six more weeks of winter. If he does not appear to see his shadow, there will be an early spring. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says it's unfair to keep the animal in captivity and subject him to the huge crowds and bright lights that accompany tens of thousands of revelers each year in Punxsutawney, a tiny borough about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. PETA is suggesting the use of an animatronic model...read more

Brand inspector Lynn Gibson works to solve Indian Valley rustling case

Where a city person sees a herd of generic cattle, Lynn Gibson sees breeds, brands, earmarks and tags identifying each cow and its owner. Ownership has become an issue in the 2,800 square miles he roams as an Idaho brand inspector. Cattle rustling, a crime usually associated with the Old West, is alive and well there. A mirror of hard times, rustling is thought to be responsible for the disappearance of more than 2,000 cows in Oregon, Nevada and Idaho since 2007. Other neighboring states have reported smaller losses. In Idaho, the hot spot is the Indian Valley area, part of Gibson's two-county territory. Rustlers are suspected of stealing more than 300 cows worth more than $250,000 there in two years...read more

It's All Trew: It was burdensome training the beasts

Here is an interesting thought. For every mule, horse, oxen, steer or jackass used as a work animal down through history - and there were probably millions - someone had to train or break the animal to work. Those animals raised on a farmstead were somewhat gentle, but those raised on the range or captured from the wild were more like wild animals. Few journals or historical interviews record this particular phase of the Old West. Here and there, tidbits explain how the beasts of burden were trained. The early Spanish trained rookie jackasses and mules by catching and installing heavy halters and lead ropes, then tying them to big logs. They could drag the logs, but not far. They quickly became used to being tied, and to humans bringing them hay, grain and water. A second process saw a personal rawhide pack saddle called an aparejo soaked, cut and fitted to the mule's size and back contours, then stuffed between the layers of leather with prairie grasses for padding. The mule wore the wet pack saddle until it dried, then he was loaded, placed between two mule veterans, his lead rope tied to the mule's tail in front with the following mule's lead rope tied to his tail...read more

Song Of The Day #230

We'll get your heart started this Monday morning with Bob Wills, Tommy Duncan and The Texas Playboys performing Ida Red.

This version is from there 3 CD Box Set Encore.

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Planking your entry fees

Julie Carter

Yesterday, Jess electronically transferred funds from a bank in Texas to a bank in New Mexico for a roping to be held in Oklahoma the end of May.

This was done via a cell phone and even though it is smaller than a deck of cards, in the cowboy world it's the smartest widget in the world. It bounced the message off a satellite somewhere close to Pluto.

Jess accomplished this miracle from his office desk with his feet propped on same.
Adding to the technology advancements of the sport, notification of this roping had been received from the producer over the Internet.

The event will be held in a covered, climate-controlled arena complete with a snack bar, real bar, lights, an adequate-sized pen to rope in, padded bleacher seats with good views for the ropers' wives, a gift shop with all sorts of desirable goodies (also for wives), a second arena and practice steers for those so inclined.

This arena will come with first class announcers and a good sound system, flag men who do not go to sleep, correct sized steers, a light bar barrier system and various other cushy amenities.

While warming up Flint to practice yesterday afternoon, Jess got to thinking about how far the system and sport has come. When he first started competing in college, he had to live with his heeler in order to keep track of him.

For this upcoming roping, he merely entered as a header and his heeler would be selected and announced later. While "good" heelers seem to be scarce, there are good ones around and for the most part, they can be trusted out of the header's sight.

Jess distinctly remembered that the communication for a roping back when was based on calling around to everybody you knew until somebody knew the where and when information.

There was no such thing as entering six months in advance. You entered when you got there because you always needed to allow time for flats, horses that could not be caught, girlfriends who were late, the possibility that you might have to study a little bit to get out of school and various other emergencies.

Entering when you got "there" usually involved some place in somebody's pasture that had been semi-cleared, a hog wire and cedar post pen built, steers of assorted sizes on both sides of ideal.

Most of these makeshift arenas had an announcer's box built up on poles with a set of steep steps for access. With no thought of a sound system, the announcer simply yelled for ropers to get in the roping box.

To enter, the ropers would troop up the stairs, standing one on every step with a line snaking around on the ground while they waited to pay their entry fees. This was accomplished by laying their entry fees down on the 1-inch x 12-inch board that served as a counter in front of the roping secretary. This process was known far and wide as "planking your E.F.s".

That was a phrase every roper understood and often during the week among the ropers could be heard, "You got you E.F.s saved up?" or "You ready to plank your E.F.s this Saturday?"

Ropers started saving up their E.F.s every Monday. The process hinged on whether the horse needed shoes, the truck broke down and how much anti-dehydration beverage was required during the week.

Sometimes Jess and his partner met these challenges and sometimes they simply planked a hot check, counting on winning enough to buy it back. That did not always happen.

The miracle in all this is not the evolution to today's electronic equipment, communications systems, classy arenas and the "big business" that the sport has become.

The miracle is that, having been a team roper all his life, Jess actually now has any E.F.s to plank.

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

Video: Obama's Jobs Success

The Forfeiture Racket

Over the past three decades, it has become routine in the United States for state, local, and federal governments to seize the property of people who were never even charged with, much less convicted of, a crime. Nearly every year, according to Justice Department statistics, the federal government sets new records for asset forfeiture. And under many state laws, the situation is even worse: State officials can seize property without a warrant and need only show “probable cause” that the booty was connected to a drug crime in order to keep it, as opposed to the criminal standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Instead of being innocent until proven guilty, owners of seized property all too often have a heavier burden of proof than the government officials who stole their stuff. Municipalities have come to rely on confiscated property for revenue. Police and prosecutors use forfeiture proceeds to fund not only general operations but junkets, parties, and swank office equipment. A cottage industry has sprung up to offer law enforcement agencies instruction on how to take and keep property more efficiently. And in Indiana, where Anthony Smelley is still fighting to get his money back, forfeiture proceeds are enriching attorneys who don’t even hold public office, a practice that violates the U.S. Constitution...read more

UN wants internet treaty; calls for ‘driver’s license’ for Web users

The world needs a treaty to prevent cyber attacks becoming an all-out war, the head of the main UN communications and technology agency warned Saturday. International Telcommunications Union secretary general Hamadoun Toure gave his warning at a World Economic Forum debate where experts said nations must now consider when a cyber attack becomes a declaration of war. He proposed an international accord, adding: "The framework would look like a peace treaty before a war." Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, said "there are at least 10 countries in the world whose internet capability is sophisticated enough to carry out cyber attacks ... and they can make it appear to come from anywhere." "We need a kind of World Health Organization for the Internet," he said. "When there is a pandemic, it organizes the quarantine of cases. We are not allowed to organize the systematic quarantine of machines that are compromised." He also called for a "driver's license" for internet users. "If you want to drive a car you have to have a license to say that you are capable of driving a car, the car has to pass a test to say it is fit to drive and you have to have insurance."...read more

TSA’s Airport Security Is Always a Step Behind

After a Nigerian terrorist tried to bomb a Christmas flight to Detroit in the last hour of the flight, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rushed in with ridiculous “solutions,” including banning any activity—such as reading a book or getting into one’s carry-on bag within an hour of landing. This security theater approach is tantamount to banning all flights on Christmas Day or to Detroit—totally immaterial and irrelevant. A terrorist can just as easily detonate an explosive device at the beginning of the flight, or in the middle. But TSA is not interested in common sense. Rather than preventing real terrorism, it retroactively reacts to each particular terrorist scenario as it comes along. With a different, more relevant, approach, TSA could actually be far more effective...read more

The Value of Government Surveillance of Citizens

It’s amusing to watch U.S. officials protest the Chinese government’s surveillance of its own citizens. After all, isn’t it the U.S. government that secretly and illegally conspired with private telecom companies to record telephone conversations of private American citizens? And isn’t it the U.S. government that secured both civil and criminal immunity for the telecoms’ decision to sell out the privacy of their customers to the feds? One of the aspects of the federal government’s telecom surveillance scheme that is rarely mentioned by the mainstream press goes to the heart of why government surveillance of its citizens is so valuable — to provide a means to keep the citizenry subdued and subservient through an subtle form of blackmail...read more

Incompetence, Power Struggles Hinder Govt From Preventing Terrorist Attacks in U.S.

Former senators Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and Jim Talent (R-Mo.) said at a news conference on Tuesday that the Obama administration is ill-prepared to protect the United States from a biological terrorist attack and that incompetence and the reluctance to share information and power led to the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack by an Al Qaeda operative on a Northwest airliner. The pair answered questions after presenting a report card on the government’s ability to prevent America’s enemies from acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The report card awarded the Obama administration and Congress three “Fs” -- failing grades for the inability to prevent and respond to a biological terror attack, lack of congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence, and no programs in place to train the next generation of national security experts...read more

The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved

The investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks ended as far as the public knew on July 29, 2008, with the death of Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Md. The cause of death was an overdose of the painkiller Tylenol. No autopsy was performed, and there was no suicide note. Less than a week after his apparent suicide, the FBI declared Ivins to have been the sole perpetrator of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, and the person who mailed deadly anthrax spores to NBC, the New York Post, and Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. These attacks killed five people, closed down a Senate office building, caused a national panic, and nearly paralyzed the postal system. The FBI's six-year investigation was the largest inquest in its history, involving 9,000 interviews, 6,000 subpoenas, and the examination of tens of thousands of photocopiers, typewriters, computers and mailboxes. Yet it failed to find a shred of evidence that identified the anthrax killer—or even a witness to the mailings...read more

Investigator in Calif. official’s slaying killed

The lead investigator in the slaying in Mexico of a Southern California school board member has been killed in an ambush, authorities said Saturday. Mexican officials wouldn't say whether investigator Manuel Acosta's killing was related to the killing of Agustin Roberto "Bobby" Salcedo last month. Acosta, 42, was ambushed near his office Jan. 15 by gunmen in a pickup truck. He was shot several times in the chest and torso, but survived in critical condition. He succumbed to his wounds Tuesday...read more

Pentagon Report Calls for Office of ‘Strategic Deception’

The Defense Department needs to get better at lying and fooling people about its intentions. That’s the conclusion from an influential Pentagon panel, the Defense Science Board (DSB), which recommends that the military and intelligence communities join in a new agency devoted to “strategic surprise/deception.” Tricking battlefield opponents has been a part of war since guys started beating each other with bones and sticks. But these days, such moves are harder to pull off, the DSB notes in a January report (.pdf) first unearthed by InsideDefense.com. The U.S. can’t wait until it’s at war with a particular country or group before engaging in this strategic trickery, however. “Deception cannot succeed in wartime without developing theory and doctrine in peacetime,” according to the DSB. “In order to mitigate or impart surprise, the United States should [begin] deception planning and action prior to the need for military operations.”...read more