Wolf proposal well-received State Rep. Keith Gingery said he was cautiously pleased with how legislators and the public responded to changes he has proposed to how wolves would be managed in Wyoming. Gingery (R-Jackson) in September unveiled significant changes to the state’s wolf plan, which he said he will propose during the next legislative session. He testified Friday in front of a meeting of the Legislature’s Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee in Riverton. “If I took anything away from the meeting, it was that there are just a lot of people who are tired of the issue and want it resolved once and for all,” he said. “If that is a true sentiment, then let’s stop fighting in court and find a solution similar to Montana and Idaho. I think most people are getting to recognize fighting in court doesn’t get you anywhere.” Gingery’s bill allows for all wolves to be classified as trophy game, meaning they could be shot only during regulated hunts, and it rewrites the state’s depredation control law to be similar to laws in Idaho and Montana. In Wyoming’s current plan, wolves are classified as trophy game in the northwest corner of the state. In the rest of the state, wolves can be killed at will by any means. Gingery said the changes address criticism leveled at Wyoming’s plan from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Montana....

Wolves issue comes full circle
On a mild fall day, with the Wind River Range glittering in sunlight to the southwest, more than a dozen state and local lawmakers and some 50 members of the public spent several hours inside a windowless conference room Friday talking about wolves. "We are right now, in effect, right where we were before that rule was published," Wyoming Attorney General Bruce Salzburg told the panel. "The plan going forward, as I understand it, is they will re-open the comment period for another 30 days, the Fish and Wildlife Service will look at those comments and publish a revised delisting rule." Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, urged lawmakers not to rush into anything until the legal issues shake out a bit more, and until they see what happens with wolves in Idaho and Montana. It's possible the animals could be delisted in those two states and remain endangered in Wyoming. "We'd like to put this to rest, but I don"t think we have a playing field where we can put this thing to rest today," Magagna told the panel. David Noble, a rancher, agreed with Magagna, and he urged legislators "not to waste any more energy trying to accommodate" the judge. The delisting process, Noble believes, is "set up to fail." Rancher Charles Price urged the panel to stick to its guns and sue the federal government to accept the Wyoming plan and make them "do as was promised."....Nice comments, but Wyoming is gonna cave. They're thinking about who Obama will appoint as head of the Fish & Wildlife Service.

The secret's out: Tons of water in Oregon's Cascades The most valuable resource in the national forests atop the Oregon Cascades may not be the timber and recreation spots they're known for, but something else that's largely invisible: water. Scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University have in recent years quietly realized that the high Cascades in Oregon and far Northern California contain an immense subterranean reservoir about as large as the biggest man-made reservoirs in the country. The secret stockpile stores close to seven years' worth of Oregon rain and snow and is likely to become increasingly precious, even priceless, as population and climate add pressure to water supplies. The reservoir hides within young volcanic rock -- less than 1 million years old -- in the highest reaches of the Cascades. The rock is so full of cracks and fissures it forms a kind of vast geological sponge. Heavy rain and snow falling on the rock percolate into the sponge, like a river filling a reservoir....

Tucson environmentalist wields political muscle in land exchange battle For three decades, Bill Roe has worked to protect some of southern Arizona's great places. Now the 66-year-old Tucson resident and former lawyer is waging the biggest battle of his environmentalist life: a confrontation over federal land-exchange legislation that would clear the way for a huge new copper mine near Superior, 60 miles east of Phoenix. At stake are the thousands of jobs and billions of dollars the mine would generate for decades, with an estimated economic and fiscal impact to the state of almost $800 million a year for more than 60 years. Along with some Indian tribes and other environmentalist groups, Roe opposes the legislation sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl and backed by the Resolution Copper Mining Co. Kyl proposes to swap 3,025 acres of Forest Service land to the company in return for private parcels around the state totaling 5,539 acres. At a Senate hearing in July, Kyl said the exchange would "preserve lands that advance the important public objectives of protecting wildlife habitat, cultural resources, the watershed and aesthetic values, while generating economic, recreation and employment opportunities for state and local residents." Roe said the deal isn't good enough....

Palin hometown a window into her environmentalism Long before John McCain made Gov. Sarah Palin his running mate and before her views on global warming became a campaign issue, Palin's environmental priorities were crystallized in a city where she was mayor and where development long has trumped conservation. Palin declared Wasilla "open for business," and business rushed in: Dozens of strip malls sprung up along the city's two glacial lakes. The costs of such fast — and sometimes haphazard — growth can be seen even from Palin's lakefront home. Once-pristine Lake Lucille is plagued by high levels of phosphorous, which chokes off oxygen from the salmon and trout. Scientists put the blame on nearby development. Palin refined her pro-business attitudes after becoming governor in 2006. Faced with choosing between development and the environment, she has sided more often than not with business interests. In a state where oil, gas, mining and fishing are among the biggest industries, her pro-business mind-set often puts her at odds with environmentalists. Yet when thinking green did not jeopardize jobs or growth, she has been a leader. She pushed for $250 million in renewable energy research and an additional $60 million in rebates for Alaskans to make their homes energy efficient. In Wasilla, being pro-business was necessary. When Palin took office as mayor in 1996, the region's 10.3 percent unemployment rate was one-third higher than the state's and twice that of Anchorage. Palin gave people what they wanted: jobs that did not require an hourlong commute to Anchorage, 44 miles to the south, or monthlong stints on the frigid North Slope oil fields....

Dorgan critical of Forest Service official's plan Senator Byron Dorgan says a Forest Service official appears to be violating an agreement on how a badlands ranch should be managed. Dorgan accuses Dakota Prairie Grasslands supervisor Dave Pieper of acting like a "one-man band," and he's asked Pieper's boss, Interior Undersecretary Mark Rey, to intervene. At issue is a proposed 22,000-acre grass bank on the former Eberts ranch near where Theodore Roosevelt once ran cattle. Pieper says the grass bank proposal would be a first for the state and would be open to members of the Medora Grazing Association. Dorgan says the agreement when the ranch was purchased was for the association to allocate leases as it has traditionally done. He says the grass bank would violate that agreement....Under a grass bank, the land would be held in reserve and only grazed when needed. Grazing permits would only be issued for a season at the sole discretion of the Forest Service. In a traditional grazing model, 10 year permits would be issued, range improvements could be constructed, etc. Now, if your goal was to eliminate grazing over time, which model would you pick?

New bison-management plan fails to impress The plan, which could be set up as early as this winter, would put down fencing in the Royal Teton Ranch, located directly north of the Park in Paradise Valley, allowing 25 Yellowstone National Park bison to head to grazing land within the Gallatin National Forest – after the bison tested negative for brucellosis. This seems like a drop in the bucket; after all, last winter National Park Service officials killed 1,600 bison who failed to recognize the arbitrary boundaries set by humans. So, if this plan had been in place last winter, only 1,575 bison would have been killed. The absurdity of the situation is magnified when you tally the costs of this project. Right now the minimum estimated cost of allowing this grazing for the next 30 years is more than $3.6 million: $1.87 million upfront to the owners of Royal Teton Ranch, $76,500 annually for the next 19 years, and $300,000 to build fencing to guide the bison on the straight and narrow to the holy Gallatin National Forest grazing land. Add in the cost of testing the bison for brucellosis before they’re allowed out of Yellowstone National Park, and you’ve got the makings of what some might call a boondoggle. That had better be some damn fine grazing land....

1919 farm crisis shows some bailouts hard to undo Asset prices plunge and a panic sweeps through international markets. The crisis threatens the livelihood and savings of millions of Americans. Congress enacts sweeping government intervention, putting aside faith in free markets to heal themselves. Sound familiar? So went the farm crisis of 1919. When the U.S. bailed out the agriculture sector in the early 1930s, it forever changed the business of farming. While today's banking industry interventions are different in many ways, economists say it is worth noting that "emergency" Depression-era measures meant to protect farming families from short-term market swings have become near-permanent support at taxpayer expense. "Probably no one at the time expected that almost 80 years later, very similar programs would still be on the books," said Scott Irwin, chair of agricultural marketing department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The interventions of the 1930s succeeded in their goal of smoothing out the farm sector's booms and busts, said Neil Harl, an agricultural economics professor at Iowa State University. But once government ensured stability, it wasn't easy to step back and let the market find equilibrium on its own, he said. Farm programs have such a strong political backing that last year's farm bill passed with veto-proof support and U.S. support for farm subsidies caused international trade talks to collapse this summer....I've been watching gov't, from within and from the outside, for 35 years and I've yet to see a significant program permanently halted. Once a group starts suckling at the gov't tit, no politician has the cojones to jerk it out of their mouths and tell them to get their own damn nourishment.

Horse Trafficking Bill Sidelined But Reveals Congressional Climate H.R. 6598, the bill that could turn ranchers, farmers and horse owners into felons for selling their horses to the wrong person, has been sidelined for now by a parliamentary maneuver. But a careful study of the comments from members during the Judiciary Committee session that approved the bill and sent it to the House floor is revealing and disturbing. The favorable vote split along party lines. With encouragement from apparently only one livestock group - NCBA -- House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson and Ranking Minority member Rep. Goodlatte and their staffs managed "sequential referral" of the bill to the House Agriculture Committee before going to the floor. That effectively puts the bill in limbo for now, since the Agriculture Committee has little interest in strenuously looking for ways to turn ranchers and horse owners into felons. But the bill is likely to reappear next year. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) gave an impassioned plea for the bill to open the hearing. Other members stressed their repugnance regarding horse slaughter, totally oblivious to the fact they were trying to affect business in someone else's country. The most disturbing realization in observing the behavior of the bill's committee proponents was that no reasonable, common sense argument fazed them. Even noting that the bill would force very inhumane conditions on thousands of horses that would be added to those already being abandoned fell on deaf ears....

Oprah focuses on California’s Proposition 2 Oprah Winfrey told her viewers this week what she thinks about they way we treat animals. The Oprah Winfrey Show on Tuesday shined a spotlight on Proposition 2, the California ballot initiative that will determine how animals are raised. "I believe how we treat the least of being among us determines our own humanity," Oprah said in opening remarks on the show. Reporter Lisa Ling visited both free-range farms and “factory” farms to show viewers the differences in how animals are raised. On the set of the program, Oprah stood next to replicas of cages and crates to show the size of some animals’ quarters in large-scale farm operations. Those who support California’s Proposition 2 say these animals have a right to more space during their lives. Opponents claim the new law would drive up costs, put farmers out of business and end the egg industry in California, and deny consumers the right to choose less-expensive food. Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, told Oprah’s audience that he supports Proposition 2. The show, however, was not one-sided. Opponents of Proposition 2 also had their say. Ryan Armstrong, a third-generation egg farmer from California, told the audience that if Proposition 2 passes, it will make eggs produced in California too expensive for most consumers, creating the possibility that eggs will be imported from places without these animal housing laws....

Austin exhibit shows how U.S. presidents have embraced cowboy aura The image of "man on a horse" has long carried with it the idea of courage, strength, honor and ability – all the traits a presidential candidate wants to convey to voters. Today, John McCain uses the label of "maverick" as his calling card. One of the more popular pictures of his opponent, Barack Obama, features him in a black Stetson in Austin. And just as the reputation and popularity of the presidency rises and falls through the years, so, too, does that of the cowboy, a lively cultural mix explored in an exhibit that opened Saturday at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. From campaign posters to personal mementos, it includes Benjamin Harrison's Longhorn chair; Calvin Coolidge's electric exercise horse; Franklin D. Roosevelt's spurs – a gift from Roy Rogers; Lyndon B. Johnson's branding iron; Ronald Reagan's cowboy boots decorated with a map of Texas; and the Saddle of Independence, given to George W. Bush in memory of the 9/11 attacks. Presidents often have embraced the aura of the Wild West to promote themselves and their policies. Still, it's a balancing act....

Presidio tour led to early map of Santa Fe Few New Mexicans today are familiar with the Marqués de Rubí. A member of the Spanish nobility, he carried royal orders in 1766 to conduct a major inspection of all 21 presidios guarding the frontier of northern New Spain (Mexico). Those presidios, or forts, had been intended to hold in check Indian raiders, especially Apaches who terrorized Spanish settlements from Texas to the Gulf of California. But they had been largely ineffective. Rubí's instructions required him to find out why and then to submit proposals for reforming the military system. His fact-finding tour ended up covering several thousand miles over a two-year period. A large cavalcade of assistants, servants and a soldier escort accompanying the marqués reached El Paso on July 19, 1766. Because a 50-man presidio was located there, he inspected the troops as well as the condition of the town. El Paso, with its satellite villages, was found to have population of over 5,000, the largest in New Mexico. From that point, Rubí followed the Camino Real into the upper province. He traveled in a posh carriage, while his soldiers rode horseback and an assortment of helpers such as blacksmiths, stock tenders, cooks and laundresses made their way on foot....

Legend of buffalo hunter Causey lives on No story of the High Plains would be complete without mentioning T.L. “George” Causey, for whom Causey, New Mexico was named. Causey was a rancher, freighter, and most famously, a buffalo hunter. It was his heavy wagons and ox teams hauling hides to market that made the Portales Road more easily followed by travelers on the Llano Estacado. In the 1860s, Causey hauled supplies to the army outposts in Kansas with a mule team. He soon formed a buffalo hunting outfit and began following the herds as they moved southward into Texas on their annual migration. In 1877, Causey bought the water rights at Yellow House near the present site of Littlefield, Texas, and established a permanent buffalo hunting camp there. “George Causey did most of the killing with a .45-90-caliber buffalo gun that was so heavy he had to use a rest stick to hold it up,” according the Causey’s nephew, V.H. Whitlock, He also quotes Causey’s partner, Jeff Jefferson, as saying, “Causey killed more buffaloes in one winter on the Yellow Houses than Buffalo Bill Cody killed in his entire lifetime. But Causey didn’t have Ned Buntline for a publicity agent.” Causey sold his rights at Yellow House to Jim Newman in 1882 and established a ranch at Ranger Lake, where he dug some of the first shallow wells on the High Plains. After selling this place, he moved on to a location between the present cities of Hobbs and Lovington, where he ran cattle under the JHB brand....

It's All Trew - Necktie: Torture device of men's fashion The necktie, one of the few men's fashions to survive 400 years of change, will be presented to 4.5 million dads on Father's Day each year. Since there were four kinds of ties used down through the ages, the words "neck," "waist," "head" and "knee" must be used in conjunction with the word "tie" in order to properly identify the object. Strangely, the industrial revolution, which brought the rural masses to work in the factories in the cities, contributed greatly to the use of neckties as factory overseers and company officers wore the item to emphasize their position and authority. This also began the establishment of "white-collar, and blue-collar" levels of employees. The modern look of the necktie was designed and patented in 1924 by Jesse Langsdorf. The unique design of bias-cut and three-piece construction allowed the invention to be patented....

Cowboy multitasking
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

Multitasking is a buzzword used to describe the art of doing several things simultaneously.

Cowboys are frequent multitaskers, especially when combining a little fun with their work.

Jess routinely worked at his brand of multitasking. This particular day, he was doctoring fresh yearlings and riding a green colt - always a recipe for a little excitement.

The big blue colt had kind eyes, a solid-built frame, long legs and a good heart. What he didn't have was any experience with cattle, a rope or a cowboy.

Jess was riding a brush pasture that bordered the Canadian River. The Panhandle has plenty of good grass under the mesquites and, in summer, the mesquite will yield a good crop of mesquite beans that pack the fat and sass on cattle and horses.

Once the yearlings were past the shipping fever stage, they'd be on the road to making a 300-pound gain. Money in the bank.

The colt, bought in early spring, would be a finished cow horse by first frost. That, too, would put a little more jingle in Jess' pockets. The plan was coming together.

Jess plow-reined the blue colt around mesquites and over downed cedars, teaching him how to place his feet. While the training was in progress, he watched for sick cattle lying out from the bunch.

The sick ones were roped easy and slow and then doctored. All the while, the colt was learning those skills under quiet hands. Jess got to feeling quite confident in his new horse about the same time he got tired of roping sick yearlings around the neck.

His thoughts wandered to the upcoming team roping in town and his need for practice roping horns.

Coincidentally, about that same time, a big, coming 3-year-old heifer showed up on his radar. She either had been missed on previous pasture gathers or had walked the river and taken up residence with the yearlings.

She had a nice spread of horns and would, to Jess' way of thinking, put the finishing touch on a good day for the colt.

Touching a spur to the colt, Jess built a loop, rode up on the heifer and roped her handily. He set the colt, stopped the heifer, dropped his rope down her right side, rode around her and let her front feet step over the loop and then pulled up the rope.

This was an easy way to put a half hitch on the back feet and lay her down. Jess rode the colt up to her, holding her back feet tight, reached down and took his rope off her horns. About that time, in rapid succession, the heifer came straight up, the colt went straight to the left, and Jess found himself standing on the ground with a heifer on the fight and a scared colt.

The heifer had never been roped and the colt had never seen a rope lying on the ground. The heifer's genetic make-up included plenty of old Mexican fighting-bull blood. She chased Jess around a mesquite while the colt eyed the rope like it was a monster. He didn't run, but he thought about it.

Eventually, the heifer got tired of the chase and walked off a little ways to catch her breath. Jess tried to ease up to the colt so as not to scare him into running. Headquarters was a long walk back.

About the time Jess got close to the colt, the heifer got a new spurt of mad and charged him around the mesquite a few more times. She repeated this for two hours. Finally, she walked off far enough for Jess to catch his colt, coil up the rope and get mounted.

Jess decided his next multitasking would include riding quietly back to headquarters and doing his roping practice in the arena.

It was obvious the lesson for the day was his.

Julie, an Olympic multitasker, can be reached for comment at www.julie-carter.com. New book on pre-sale now!.

TSA agent steals $200K worth of gear, resells it on eBay The TSA reached a mind-boggling new low in customer service this week when it was revealed that one agent had single-handedly absconded with over $200,000 worth of travelers' belongings, primarily cameras and laptops, and proceeded to unload his booty on eBay. His latest haul: A near-$50,000 camera that an HBO employee had been traveling with. The culprit is one Pythias Brown, a New Jersey resident who worked in the TSA department at Newark Liberty Airport. Finally busted, police discovered an inventory of 66 cameras, 31 laptops, assorted jewelry, and more when they searched his home. How'd he finally get caught? Brown snagged a camera belonging to CNN, and they found it for sale on eBay, where Brown had been converting the gear into cash. Brown's been doing a great job of it too, with a near-perfect feedback rating on eBay. Of note: Brown appears to have been taking items from checked luggage in the back rooms of the airport, not carry-ons. (One has to imagine you'd notice your $50,000 camera was missing after it came off the x-ray line.) But since consumers are no longer allowed to lock their luggage (or, at least, the TSA is allowed to break those locks as it sees fit), travelers have no real means of protection when it comes to guarding against inside job thievery like this....

Study: Airport screener badges need close tracking The government has not been able to keep track of all the airport security uniforms and badges it issues, which makes secure areas in airports vulnerable to terrorists posing as authorized officials, according to an internal review released Friday. The Homeland Security Department's inspector general looked at five airports across the country from October 2006 through June 2007. The IG found major deficiencies in the Transportation Security Administration's ability to keep track of uniforms, particularly after an employee leaves the job. Many details in the report were redacted for security reasons, such as which five airports the inspector general audited. The IG found there were four instances where TSA did not report to the badge office that a screener had been fired from the agency. These former screeners had active badges for up to 212 days until the inspector general notified officials about the problem. Five other screeners had active badges from 97 to 827 days after they no longer needed to access secure areas, the report found. In 63 other instances reviewed by the inspector general, TSA had not immediately told badge offices to deactivate the badges when the employees left the agency....

Telecom Spying Amnesty Unconstitutional, EFF Tells Court The government's attempt to give retroactive immunity to the companies that helped the Bush administration's warrantless spying program violates the Constitution by ripping from the courts the power to hear citizens' grievances against the government, a rights group told a federal court Thursday. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is also challenging the government's assertion to the court that the program wasn't a "dragnet" that pulled in the contents of millions of Americans, arguing that the government is playing word games. The filing late Thursday night comes three months after the Democratically-controlled Congress gave in to political pressure and gave the Attorney General the power to tell a court to dismiss lawsuits against the nation's phone and internet companies.,,,

Can Private Companies Helping the NSA Be Watchdogs, Too? Companies that secretly helped the government's secret anti-terrorism surveillance operations without requiring valid legal orders have found their reputations sullied, their billboards re-decorated and their lawyers busy fending off suits seeking billions in damages. Just ask AT&T. But given that the government's spooks will continue to rely on private companies -- especially telecoms -- to help with their secret intelligence efforts, could these companies actually serve as a watchdog protecting the country from intrusive, lawbreaking spying? Jon Michaels, an acting professor at UCLA Law School, thinks they could. The key, according to Michaels' article in the California Law Review, is making such companies tell the appropriate Congressional committees and inspectors general in regular reports when they transfer information about Americans to the government's spy agencies. Congress also much find a clear way to punish companies which cooperate informally and immunize those who follow legal orders. That should make telecoms resist the kind of handshake agreements like the ones that led the nation's largest telecoms to give the government billions of phone call records and to let the nation's spooks wiretap the internet inside the United States, Michaels argues....