Protecting wildlife will require collaboration, Western governors told

he challenge for state leaders, said Idaho wildlife professor Michael Scott, is to protect landscapes large enough to be ecologically significant while at the same time keeping those lands economically viable. The task will require transboundary partnerships, he said, because local solutions fail in a world of global problems. Within this century, he said, the country's population is expected to balloon to half a billion - and managing for wildlife will be a tremendous challenge in that world. Scott, who also is a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, recommends finding ways to generate public support for wild corridors. Large landowners will be necessary partners with government, he said, because "this is a changing landscape; it's moving from ‘wildlife friendly' to ‘wildlife challenged.' " Down in Colorado and New Mexico, the governors already have signed an agreement creating corridors for elk along their shared border. Canada and the Pacific states have joined in a collaborative effort to protect their shared ocean. Up in Montana and British Columbia, leaders have crafted plans to protect the transboundary wilds around Glacier and Waterton national parks. Future agreements must focus on the best habitat, Scott said, rather than on the high mountain scenery usually associated with protected places. "We have done a heck of a job protecting rocks and ice," Scott said, but in the process have left our parks isolated - too small and too fragmented to sustain natural systems...more

These articles should tell you who is calling the shots at the WGA. Unemployment is up, economy is down and state sovereignty is being trampled each day, and they are worrying about wildlife corridors.

Besides, what happens when one of those renewable energy pipelines needs to go through one of their wildlife corridors? Will they still be calling for environmental short cuts?

The Windsurfer's Windfall - Kerry Cashes In

Last year, in his ongoing struggle to remain relevant, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) took the legislative reins on the contentious issue of climate change. Now Kerry, against the backdrop of an oil-soaked Gulf, is hoping to ride the current crisis to push his American Power Act to the top of the Democrats' legislative agenda and propel himself back into the national spotlight. Kerry has campaigned unusually hard for the bill, berating Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle, often cornering and lecturing them on the imminent perils of climate change and the necessity of his bill...According to Senator Kerry's statements for the last fiscal year, as of December 31, 2009, he and his wife owned large stakes in numerous prominent energy companies, many of which are currently lobbying Congress for legislation aimed at energy reform and stand the most to gain from passage of the APA. Yeatman and Lott singled out GE, BP, ConocoPhillips, Dupont, and Exelon as among the big winners in the APA scheme. GE in particular has been a staunch advocate of the APA. Surprisingly, or not, Kerry holds about $20 million worth of investments in all of these companies, among a slew of other energy sector giants...From these investments Kerry accrued anywhere from $753,000 to roughly $5 million in unearned income from dividends and capital gains in the last year alone. In one instance, Senator Kerry sold his stake in Apache Corp. for a nifty dividend of up to $1 million...more

Settlement reached in large N.D. saltwater spill

A settlement has been reached in a federal lawsuit by two ranchers over damages from a million-gallon saltwater spill in what has been called the worst oil patch environmental accident in North Dakota history. Attorneys for both sides said Tuesday they finished details on the settlement and would file documents in federal court to have the case dismissed. Terms of the settlement are confidential, the attorneys said. The 2008 lawsuit against Zenergy stems from an early 2006 spill of nearly 1 million gallons of saltwater, a byproduct of drilling for oil, from a pipeline. While most of the saltwater was quickly captured, enough of it spilled into a stock pond, a beaver dam and Charbonneau Creek southwest of Williston, N.D., to kill fish and turtles for miles and make the fresh water unfit for cattle or people...more

Groups Speak Out on FDA’s Antibiotic Proposal

The Food and Drug Administration's proposal to limit antibiotic use in food-animal production is drawing more fire. The basic premise of the proposed guidelines is to limit the use of antibiotics deemed “medically important antibiotics for humans”. The reasoning, which is highly debated, relates to the prospect of trying to address antibiotic resistance. "Top scientists with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health recently told a U.S. House committee that there is no scientific study linking antibiotic use in food-animal production with antibiotic resistance," cites the National Pork Producers Council. Among the FDA provisions is a significant increase in prescriptions and veterinarian oversight or consultation required for antibiotic use on the farm. But there is serious concern as to whether there are even enough veterinarians available for such oversight, as the shortage of food-animal veterinarians is well known and growing. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association also defended current producer practices, noting the industry's Beef Quality Assurance program has been training cattle ranchers about the safe and appropriate use of antibiotics for more than two decades. The U.S. pork industry has a similar program called Pork Quality Assurance Plus, which the FDA has reviewed and approved. "Producers work with their veterinarians to develop animal health plans that include the judicious use of antibiotics," says NPPC President Sam Carney...more

Boxing: Rickard brought famous fight to Reno

Tex Rickard dreamt big and did big things. He chased gold in the Klondike and Nevada, sought diamonds in South Africa, built a cattle empire in South America and brought boxing out of the back alleys and smoky saloons and into the mainstream of American society. In his heyday, he promoted fights so big that even he remarked, "I ain't seen anything like it," when more than 100,000 people, including an estimated 2,000 millionaires, attended one of his fights. Most of all, the man who got his start in Nevada was a leader, the man who would step forward when others held back and be willing to let the chips fall as they may. Former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, a principal in Rickard's greatest successes, called him "the greatest fight promoter of all time" and "as great a man as I ever met." He was born George Lewis Rickard in 1871 to Bob and Lucretia Rickard in Clay County, Mo. His family's nearest neighbor was Mrs. Zerelda Samuels, whose sons were Jesse and Frank James, the notorious outlaws...more

Baxter Black - Food Deserts

Many of us in the food producing business are watching with a suspicious eye, Mrs. Obama’s pending federally funded efforts to combat obesity in children. Our skepticism is justified because every special interest group from global warming to UFO conspirators somehow wind up casting blame on modern agriculture. Nevertheless, obesity apparently is a serious problem and worthy of attention. Her “Let’s Move!” web page states that “6.5 million children (live) more than a mile away from a supermarket. These communities are now called “Food Deserts.” More than a mile! It is obvious that Mrs. Obama and I live in different realities. I would guess many who read this column live more than a mile from a supermarket. I can picture a rancher’s wife twenty miles north of Ekalaka, MT, a farmer’s wife in Oyen, Alberta who gets snowed in for 3 days, or a family riding out a hurricane, flood and 5-day power outage on the South Carolina coast. Food Desert? I guess what is most unsettling for me, is the helplessness Mrs. Obama ascribes to the urban parents of obese children. She assumes they are incapable of planning a trip to the store, teaching their children discipline, managing a budget and, God forbid, having to walk, drive or bus more than a mile of couple times a week to shop. Truthfully, no one expects them to grow a garden or can their own food. But I would bet that if these helpless parents had a grocery store right next door it still wouldn’t decrease children’s obesity...more

The real aridity is in the minds of these DC do gooders.

Song Of The Day #348

Staying out west this week Ranch Radio brings you Saddle Serenade by Johnny Bond & The Red River Valley Boys. I sure like the way they handle the yodel break.

You will find the tune on his 31 track CD Country & Western: Standard Trascriptions.

Gunfire from Mexico pelts El Paso City Hall, enters office

Several gunshots apparently fired from Juárez hit El Paso City Hall on Tuesday afternoon. No one was hurt, but nerves were rattled at City Hall in what is thought to be the first cross-border gunfire during a drug war that has engulfed Juárez since 2008. El Paso police spokesman Darrel Petry said investigators do not think City Hall was intentionally targeted but rather was struck by stray shots. "It does appear the rounds may have come from an incident in Juárez," Petry said. City Hall, whose east and west sides are covered by glass windows, sits on a hill about a half-mile north of the Rio Grande. About 4:50 p.m., city workers were going about a regular day when a bullet penetrated a ninth-floor west side window of the office of Assistant City Manager Pat Adauto. Police said the bullet flew through the window, then through an interior wall before hitting a picture frame and stopping. Petry said an inspection by police and city staff found that City Hall was hit by seven gunshots, which appeared to be losing velocity when they struck. Six of the rounds hit stucco walls on the north and south sides of the building. Two bullets were recovered -- the one that went through the window and one that bounced off an exterior wall. The size of the bullets was not disclosed...more

Mexico: Where Bullets Are Intimidating the Ballot

Last Friday, June 25, gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre raised both his arms to the sky in front of 15,000 cheering white-shirted supporters in a baseball stadium minutes from the Rio Grande. After he promised security in his violence-ridden border state of Tamaulipas, the crowd erupted to his campaign anthem, sung to the catchy tune of the smash hit "I Gotta Feeling" by U.S. pop band Black Eyed Peas. They had reason for celebration. Opinion polls all concurred that the mustachioed physician would win the July 4 election by a landslide of more than 30 points. But on Monday, as Torre left the state capital to conclude his campaign, assailants showered his convoy with gunfire from automatic rifles and heavy-caliber weapons, killing him instantly. Army commanders said the attack bore all the signs of the Zetas, a paramilitary drug gang that was born in the state. Mexico's highest-profile political assassination since the 1994 murder of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was a blow not only to Torre's supporters but to the nation's entire ailing democracy. A key problem is that many of the polls are in the states hardest hit by the relentless drug war, including Chihuahua, home to Ciudad Juárez, which has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and Sinaloa, the cradle of Mexican organized crime. Tamaulipas, a state that shares a border with Texas and has three of the busiest land cargo-crossing points into the U.S., has this year been engulfed by bloody battles between the Zetas and their old masters in the Gulf cartel...more

Fewer troops coming to NM border than in previous deployment

The increase in troops to protect New Mexico's border with Mexico will only be a fraction of what it was during Operation Jump Start. During the height of Operation Jump Start, which was conducted from June 2006 until August 2008, there were about 1,000 National Guard soldiers in New Mexico. They built bollards to try to deter illegal immigrants from coming into the U.S. from Mexico, they built portions of a border fence near Columbus, and they provided surveillance and patrol along the border. But this time, only 72 National Guard soldiers - all coming from the New Mexico National Guard - will be added at the border. Currently, there are as many as 100 state National Guard troops at the border on a daily basis. The soldiers to be assigned to the New Mexico border will account for only six percent of the 1,200 National Guard soldiers that President Obama has ordered to patrol the 1,954 miles of shared border the U.S. has with Mexico. But Bingaman said the additional troops, combined with added National Guard troops that Gov. Bill Richardson sent to the border in early April, could make New Mexico's border safer. "While we have made important strides in reducing the number of people illegally entering our country, we still have some more work to do when it comes to addressing drug-related criminal activity along the border," Bingaman said. "This increased National Guard presence will be helpful as we continue to find permanent solutions to securing our border communities." But Bingaman added he and other members of New Mexico's congressional delegation will be keeping close watch on the border to ensure that there is no increase in activity as a result of stepped-up enforcement in neighboring states. "We want to make sure there is no more shift of illegal activity," McCartin said...more

Let's see, Arizona gets 524 agents and NM get 72.

Bingaman wants to designate a quarter of a million acres near the border as wilderness where the Border Patrol can't use motorized vehicles.

Increased enforcement in Arizona, when combined with Bingaman's wilderness designations, will definitely lead to a "shift of illegal activity" and the Senator knows it.

I continue to hope he will drop the band-aide changes he's offered so far, and instead adopt the compromise proposed by the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce which has been endorsed by many important groups and entities.

Inside the tunnel: Boys used in drug-smuggling route

Mexican drug cartels used boys and small adults to dig a tunnel crawling the width of the Rio Grande. Through it, smugglers would bring contraband to the United States, officials said. Border Patrol agents thought the river would be an obstacle to building tunnels in El Paso and east of the city. They were wrong. Agents were surprised Friday to find a cross-border tunnel extending underneath the Rio Grande from the Mexican side to a maze of storm drains on the U.S. side. "El Paso sector hasn't seen anything like this before," said Joe Perez, a Border Patrol agent at the site. The El Paso sector covers all of New Mexico and West Texas. The Border Patrol has discovered more than 100 tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and California. The man-made tunnel is the first of its kind in the El Paso sector. Smugglers dug the tunnel two feet under the Rio Grande, Border Patrol agents said. Because the riverbed is covered in concrete, water did not enter the tunnel, which allowed smugglers to continue excavating dirt. Perez said the Border Patrol had not noticed the man-made tunnel before because smugglers would not come out of it near the border. Instead, they would navigate the arteries of the storm-drain system of El Paso. These spacious tunnels lead to places such as Paisano Drive and the University of Texas at El Paso. ..more

MONSANTO CO. v. GEERTSON SEED FARMS

MONSANTO CO. v. GEERTSON SEED FARMS ( No. 09-475 )
570 F. 3d 1130, reversed and remanded.

Syllabus

________________________________________
No. 09–475. Argued April 27, 2010—Decided June 21, 2010 _______________________________________

The Plant Protection Act (PPA) provides that the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture may issue regulations “to prevent the introduction of plant pests into the United States or the dissemination of plant pests within the United States.” 7 U. S. C. §7711(a). Pursuant to that grant of authority, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) promulgated regulations that presume genetically engineered plants to be “plant pests”—and thus “regulated articles” under the PPA—until APHIS determines otherwise. However, any person may petition APHIS for a determination that a regulated article does not present a plant pest risk and therefore should not be subject to the applicable regulations. APHIS may grant such a petition in whole or in part.
In determining whether to grant nonregulated status to a genetically engineered plant variety, APHIS must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), which requires federal agencies “to the fullest extent possible” to prepare a detailed environmental impact statement (EIS) for “every … major Federal actio[n] significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.” 42 U. S. C. §4332(2)(C). The agency need not complete an EIS if it finds, based on a shorter statement known as an environmental assessment (EA), that the proposed action will not have a significant environmental impact.
This case involves a challenge to APHIS’s decision to approve the unconditional deregulation of Roundup Ready Alfalfa (RRA), a variety of alfalfa that has been genetically engineered to tolerate the herbicide Roundup. Petitioners are the owner and the licensee of the intellectual property rights to RRA. In response to petitioners’ deregulation request, APHIS prepared a draft EA and solicited public comments on its proposed course of action. Based on its EA and the comments submitted, the agency determined that the introduction of RRA would not have any significant adverse impact on the environment. Accordingly, APHIS decided to deregulate RRA unconditionally and without preparing an EIS. Respondents, conventional alfalfa growers and environmental groups, filed this action challenging that decision on the ground that it violated NEPA and other federal laws. The District Court held, inter alia, that APHIS violated NEPA when it deregulated RRA without first completing a detailed EIS. To remedy that violation, the court vacated the agency’s decision completely deregulating RRA; enjoined APHIS from deregulating RRA, in whole or in part, pending completion of the EIS; and entered a nationwide permanent injunction prohibiting almost all future planting of RRA during the pendency of the EIS process. Petitioners and the Government appealed, challenging the scope of the relief granted but not disputing that APHIS’s deregulation decision violated NEPA. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, concluding, among other things, that the District Court had not abused its discretion in rejecting APHIS’s proposed mitigation measures in favor of a broader injunction.
Held:
1. Respondents have standing to seek injunctive relief, and petitioners have standing to seek this Court’s review of the Ninth Circuit’s judgment affirming the entry of such relief. Pp. 7–14.
(a) Petitioners have constitutional standing to seek review here. Article III standing requires an injury that is (i) concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent, (ii) fairly traceable to the challenged action, and (iii) redressable by a favorable ruling. See Horne v. Flores , 557 U. S. ___, ___. Petitioners satisfy all three criteria. Petitioners are injured by their inability to sell or license RRA to prospective customers until APHIS completes the EIS. Because that injury is caused by the very remedial order that petitioners challenge on appeal, it would be redressed by a favorable ruling from this Court. Respondents nevertheless contend that petitioners lack standing because their complained-of injury is independently caused by a part of the District Court’s order that petitioners failed to challenge, the vacatur of APHIS’s deregulation decision. That argument fails for two independent reasons. First, one of the main disputes between the parties throughout this litigation has been whether the District Court should have adopted APHIS’s proposed judgment, which would have replaced the vacated deregulation decision with an order expressly authorizing the continued sale and planting of RRA. Accordingly, if the District Court had adopted APHIS’s proposed judgment, there would still be authority for the continued sale of RRA notwithstanding the District Court’s vacatur, because there would, in effect, be a new deregulation decision. Second, petitioners in any case have standing to challenge the part of the District Court’s order enjoining a partial deregulation. Respondents focus their argument on the part of the judgment that enjoins planting, but the judgment also states that before granting the deregulation petition, even in part, the agency must prepare an EIS. That part of the judgment inflicts an injury not also caused by the vacatur. Pp. 7–11.
(b) Respondents have constitutional standing to seek injunctive relief from the complete deregulation order at issue here. The Court disagrees with petitioners’ argument that respondents have failed to show that any of them is likely to suffer a constitutionally cognizable injury absent injunctive relief. The District Court found that respondent farmers had established a reasonable probability that their conventional alfalfa crops would be infected with the engineered Roundup Ready gene if RRA were completely deregulated. A substantial risk of such gene flow injures respondents in several ways that are sufficiently concrete to satisfy the injury-in-fact prong of the constitutional standing analysis. Moreover, those harms are readily attributable to APHIS’s deregulation decision, which gives rise to a significant risk of gene flow to non-genetically-engineered alfalfa varieties. Finally, a judicial order prohibiting the planting or deregulation of all or some genetically engineered alfalfa would redress respondents’ injuries by eliminating or minimizing the risk of gene flow to their crops. Pp. 11–14.
2. The District Court abused its discretion in enjoining APHIS from effecting a partial deregulation and in prohibiting the planting of RRA pending the agency’s completion of its detailed environmental review. Pp. 14–22.
(a) Because petitioners and the Government do not argue otherwise, the Court assumes without deciding that the District Court acted lawfully in vacating the agency’s decision to completely deregulate RRA. The Court therefore addresses only the injunction prohibiting APHIS from deregulating RRA pending completion of the EIS, and the nationwide injunction prohibiting almost all RRA planting during the pendency of the EIS process. P. 14.
(b) Before a court may grant a permanent injunction, the plaintiff must satisfy a four-factor test, demonstrating: “(1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction.” eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L. L. C. , 547 U. S. 388 . This test fully applies in NEPA cases. See Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U. S. ___, ___. Thus, the existence of a NEPA violation does not create a presumption that injunctive relief is available and should be granted absent unusual circumstances. Pp. 15–16.
(c) None of the four factors supports the District Court’s order enjoining APHIS from partially deregulating RRA during the pendency of the EIS process. Most importantly, respondents cannot show that they will suffer irreparable injury if APHIS is allowed to proceed with any partial deregulation, for at least two reasons. First, if and when APHIS pursues a partial deregulation that arguably runs afoul of NEPA, respondents may file a new suit challenging such action and seeking appropriate preliminary relief. Accordingly, a permanent injunction is not now needed to guard against any present or imminent risk of likely irreparable harm. Second, a partial deregulation need not cause respondents any injury at all; if its scope is sufficiently limited, the risk of gene flow could be virtually nonexistent. Indeed, the broad injunction entered below essentially pre-empts the very procedure by which APHIS could determine, independently of the pending EIS process for assessing the effects of a complete deregulation, that a limited deregulation would not pose any appreciable risk of environmental harm. Pp. 16–23.
(d) The District Court also erred in entering the nationwide injunction against planting RRA, for two independent reasons. First, because it was inappropriate for the District Court to foreclose even the possibility of a partial and temporary deregulation, it follows that it was inappropriate to enjoin planting in accordance with such a deregulation decision. Second, an injunction is a drastic and extraordinary remedy, which should not be granted as a matter of course. See, e.g. , Weinberger v. Romero-Barcelo , 456 U. S. 305 . If, as respondents now concede, a less drastic remedy (such as partial or complete vacatur of APHIS’s deregulation decision) was sufficient to redress their injury, no recourse to the additional and extraordinary relief of an injunction was warranted. Pp. 23–24.
(e) Given the District Court’s errors, this Court need not address whether injunctive relief of some kind was available to respondents on the record below. Pp. 24–25.
570 F. 3d 1130, reversed and remanded.
ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, GINSBURG, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion. BREYER, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Harry Reid's high-stakes climate bill gamble

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning a high-risk, high-stakes strategy for bringing climate and energy legislation to the floor ahead of the August recess. The gamble: yoking a bipartisan, fast-track measure to overhaul offshore drilling rules with a broad, contentious bill capping greenhouse gas emissions that otherwise would have almost no chance of passage on its own. Reid’s own Democrats are mixed on the strategy for notching 60 votes. Some argue that public perception of fossil fuels in the wake of the BP oil spill will sway enough of the party’s swing votes and open Republicans to attack if they oppose the measure as their reelection campaigns head into the homestretch. Thus far, Reid can’t count on all Democrats coalescing around this approach. Several say they are fearful that hitching a popular oil reform bill to a big, unwieldy climate plan will just sink legislation that could otherwise serve as a quick, easy and politically popular win...more

Ban begins this week on sale of phosphate-laden dishwasher soap in Oregon, Washington

Oregon and Washington are banning the sale of phosphate-laden dishwasher detergent starting Thursday. Familiar brands are still available but they will have lower levels of phosphates. Experts say phosphates promote plant growth and may degrade water quality in lakes and streams. "It's more effective and less expensive to decrease what goes down the drain than it is to treat it at the plant. This way, we're all part of the solution," said Washington Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, to the the Kitsap Sun. Ormbsy sponsored the 2006 bill to limit phosphates in dishwasher detergents. The ban has already been in place in Spokane and Whatcom counties in Washington state since 2008. The Oregon Legislature passed a law in 2009 that lowered the phosphorous limit for automatic dishwasher detergents from 8.7 percent to 0.5 percent. Dennis Griesing, vice president of government affairs for the American Cleaning Institute, said low-phosphate formulas available in 2008 did not work as well in hard water, so some shoppers in Spokane had been crossing into Idaho to buy dishwasher soap with phosphates...more

...so some shoppers in Spokane had been crossing into Idaho to buy dishwasher soap with phosphates...

So you can cross state lines with phosphates but you can't cross state lines with raw milk.

You can use a phosphate detergent to wash your milk glass, but you can't put raw milk in your milk glass.

I'm sure this makes sense to government officials.

Here's what makes sense to me: This November, the strongest detergent available to man should be applied to these idiots.

Group seeks endangered listing for bumblebee from southern Oregon and northern California

The Society for Invertebrate Conservation and University of California at Davis entomologist Robbin Thorp formally petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the insect -- called a Franklin's bumblebee -- under the Endangered Species Act. Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the of the Xerces Society in Portland, said the petition is part of an effort to reverse the decline of bumblebees and other native bees around the world due to habitat loss, pesticides and diseases spilling out of commercial greenhouses. The group is preparing petitions to protect other bumblebee species as well. The Franklin's bee was chosen for this petition because documentation of its decline is more detailed than for other species...more

Justices Extend Gun Owner Rights Nationwide

The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution's Second Amendment restrains government's ability to significantly limit "the right to keep and bear arms," advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights. By a narrow, 5-4 vote, the justices also signaled, however, that some limitations on the right could survive legal challenges. Writing for the court in a case involving restrictive laws in Chicago and one of its suburbs, Justice Samuel Alito said that the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states." The court was split along familiar ideological lines, with five conservative-moderate justices in favor of gun rights and four liberals opposed. Chief Justice Roberts voted with the majority...more

So, you can take your gun across state lines, but you better leave that raw milk at home.

You can view the opinion here.

NM game officers kill bear after attack

A 250-pound black bear was captured and killed Monday after the animal ate a dog and dragged a camper from her tent in the middle of the night at a picnic area. The male bear believed to be about 5 years old was shot after it was caught in a trap that officers set at the picnic area in the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque. Officers said the 20-year-old woman was camping Sunday with two male companions when the bear pulled her from the tent to get to food stored inside. The woman told authorities the bear released her after she punched it in the nose. She and the two men then ran for their truck, climbed on the roof and called for help. The woman sustained minor injuries to her hip and calves and was treated at University of New Mexico Hospital, authorities said. She was expected to recover...more

An eco-friendly floor finish – from cows

Andrew Meyer believes that he's found a "whey" to help Vermont's dairy farms by turning a cheesemaking byproduct into an eco-friendly wood finish. Like other water-based substitutes for traditional (oil-based) polyurethane, Vermont Natural Coatings' (VNC) PolyWhey dries fast and emits no toxic fumes. It releases very low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), about one-quarter the amount released by some polyurethanes. Unlike other waterborne finishes, its hardness makes it a viable option for professional-grade work, experts say. Building Green, a private publisher that researches green building products and practices for contractors and policymakers, named PolyWhey one of its Top 10 products in 2008...more

FDA urging limited antibiotics in meat

The Food and Drug Administration is urging meat producers to limit the amount of antibiotics they give animals in response to public health concerns about the drugs. The FDA said the use of antibiotics in meat poses a "serious public health threat" because they create antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can infect humans who eat the meat. The agency is recommending that producers use the drugs judiciously, limiting their use unless they are medically necessary and only using them with the oversight of a veterinarian. "Developing strategies for reducing (antibiotic) resistance is critically important for protecting both public and animal health," the agency said in draft guidelines printed in the Federal Register on Monday. The agency said misuse and overuse of the drugs has led to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotics have been used in meat to kill pathogens for more than 50 years, and the FDA acknowledged that practice has had "tremendous benefits" to animal and human health. Of greater concern, the agency said, is when producers use antibiotics on healthy animals to speed growth and reduce feed costs. The agency is also concerned about antibiotics that are given continuously through feed or water to entire herds or flocks of animals. The agency said it is expecting to issue more specific guidelines in the near future. AP

Song Of The Day #347

Ranch Radio will head out west this week.

We'll begin with Gene Autry and his recording of Gallivantin' Galveston Gal.

This tune is from his 40 track, 2 CD collection The Essential Gene Autry.