It’s The Pitts: Color Blind

Lee Pitts

Old timers thought you could tell a lot about a horse just by what color it was. They believed white horses had constitutional weaknesses as a result of inbreeding, bay horses were the meanest and chestnuts were the most easily injured. I wouldn’t dare make such glittering generalities about horses... but I would about the people who ride them. You see, I have the uncanny ability to tell what people are like and to predict their future just by the color of the horse they ride. For example:

Brown: If you ride a brown horse you are the no-nonsense, quiet type whose capacity for hard work is amazing. You are also a tightwad and very boring. As a rule, never travel the rodeo circuit with a cowboy who rides a brown horse; he won’t pay his way and will practically bore you to death. By the time you get to Phoenix you’ll be so depressed you’ll have a death wish and enter the bull riding instead of the team roping.

White: I will try to be gentle with my analysis here because riders of white horses are emotionally vulnerable and have thin skin. You are a good listener and depress easily so you should avoid any long term commitment with anyone who rides a brown horse. Although you and your horse are good swimmers you provide an easy target and attract bad karma like a white horse attracts lightning.

Palomino: Riders of golden horses tend to be wealthy and are more apt to be a member of a Sheriff's posse and ride in parades. If you ride a palomino there’s a good chance you and your horse wouldn’t know a cow from a chicken pot pie and the only thing you or your horse are apt to catch is sleeping sickness. It is a little known fact that those people who ride palomino horses are more likely to show up on The World’s Biggest Loser. Do your horse a favor and enroll in a gym or fitness club today.

Bay: Bays are light red in color and red just happens to be the most frightening color of the spectrum. That ought to tell you something. You and your horse are cunning, alert, stable, and loyal, but can also be vicious. You are both sensitive around the head and ears. Just like your horse, you can be balky at times and like to kick up your heels on occasion. I foresee many solitary long walks in your future.

Gray: You are a slow, plodding unflashy person with a big collection of trophy saddles and buckles won at jackpot and USTRC ropings. You are an easy keeper, slow and steady, good with kids and as emotional as a refrigerator. Even though you often win the race, nobody bets on you because you have a poor marketing campaign. You excel as a spouse and a teacher, but the life of the party you are definitely NOT.

Roans: Strawberry roan riders are cowboy poets and blue roan riders are usually running for, or away, from something. When you buy your next horse beware of roans because they are like beautiful women: more trouble than they’re worth.

Paints and Pintos: You are a show off who likes to be the center of attention. You own the best horse trailer in the parking lot and the silver on your bit, bridle, saddle and spurs would melt down for more than your horse is worth. You are not good with money and don’t keep a tight rein on your spending. Divorce and bankruptcy run in your family. Riders of paints and pintos are either top hands or complete doofuses. I won’t say which one you are.

Black: You have boundless energy, an explosive temper and fall in love blindly. You make hasty decisions which you later feel remorseful about: such as buying a black horse to ride in Tucson in the middle of July. More so than any other rider, you are more likely to be kicked by your horse and spend time in the hospital as a result of being launched so high that birds built nests in your beard before you hit the ground.

Sorrel: People who ride sorrels are original, intelligent, ambitious and have few, if any, faults. They are also easily offended and angry readers should not write nasty letters to them just because they happen to ride a paint, pinto, palomino or roan.

Avian Flu Found In Canada

The Montreal Gazette reports:

Nearly 60,000 turkeys from a B.C. farm will be killed after Saturday's positive test result for avian flu. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed the presence of H5 avian flu virus after initial tests showed the turkeys from E&H Farms, in Abbotsford, B.C., were infected. Abbotsford is about 70 kilometres southeast of Vancouver, near the U.S. border. "All birds on the infected premises will be humanely euthanized and disposed of, in accordance with provincial environmental regulations and internationally accepted disease-control guidelines," said the CFIA news release. "Once all birds have been removed, the CFIA will oversee the cleaning and disinfection of the barns, vehicles, equipment and tools to eliminate any infectious material that may remain."

Forest Service Water Policy

The work of Gordon Grant, a USGS groundwater researcher is covered by High Country News. Here's an excerpt that mentions FS groundwater policy and how it will impact land use:

Within the Forest Service, which manages the land that supplies water to over 60 million Americans, very little research is directed toward understanding groundwater systems. Grant is doing the most cutting-edge work "by far," says Christopher Carlson, the agency's national groundwater program leader. But he may soon have company. Carlson is developing a national policy on groundwater management for the 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands. It assumes a connection between surface and groundwater resources, and emphasizes sustaining groundwater-dependent ecosystems, home to many threatened and endangered species. Before it was founded in 1905, the Forest Service was directed to secure "favorable conditions of water flows." Carlson's policy may be the first major implementation of that directive. "We're transforming 100 years of Forest Service practices," he says. Grant has already documented the amount of water stored underground in the High Cascades. He can even explain how it got there and why. "What I lose sleep over is what we ought to be doing about it," he says. "This is where water will be in the future."An optimist at heart, Grant is confident that widespread understanding of groundwater and its relationship to river systems will evolve. One day it will be as universally accepted as plate tectonics, he says. Then, he believes, land management will revolve around it: "Clean water will be the single most important commodity produced from national forest lands. It will totally eclipse timber."

West's trees dying faster as temperatures rise

The LA Times is reporting on a USGS study finding that more trees are dying in the west:

Death rates had doubled in British Columbia and the Pacific NW according to the study. California experienced the highest death rates, at 1.5 % per year.Scientists who examined decades of tree mortality data from research plots around the West found the death rate had risen as average temperatures in the region increased by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit. "Tree death rates have more than doubled over the last few decades in old-growth forests across the Western United States," said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Phillip van Mantgem, coauthor of a paper published in today's issue of the journal Science and released Thursday.

The study found the increasing death rates in a wide variety of forest types, elevations and tree sizes.

Trees Die While The Forest Service Is In Court

The Helena Independent-Record reports:

In a decision issued Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the Helena forest’s 2003 plan to undertake commercial thinning and other efforts to remove small trees and vegetation on about 1,500 acres. However, Helena District Ranger Duane Harp said the prescription is only good now for about 100 acres containing Douglas fir trees, since about 90 percent of the trees on the remaining 1,400 acres — mainly lodgepole pines — are now dead. “We are obviously extremely pleased that the Ninth Circuit has found in our favor. But it’s bittersweet news because with the current beetle epidemic, the vast majority of the project area, which was proposed for timber harvest, is now dead,” Harp said. “You can’t use the prescription for green trees on dead trees.

What a wonderful way to manage our forests.

Arsonist 's Trial Begins

According to the AP the trial has begun for Robert Lee Oyler, accused of ignitaing a wildfire that killed five U.S. Forest Service firefighters in 2006:

In opening statements for Raymond Lee Oyler's murder trial, Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin told jurors that Oyler was a serial arsonist who set 25 blazes, including the Esperanza fire, and sometimes as many as three a day during 2006. Hestrin said Oyler was "a man bent on destruction ... a man wanting to be so important, he unleashed disaster on five men." Oyler, 38, has pleaded not guilty to 45 counts including murder and arson. He claimed he had been watching his 7-month-old child at home and then went to a casino when the Esperanza fire began on Oct. 26, 2006, as fierce Santa Ana winds roared through Southern California. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Pinon Canyon residents deserve a full airing

The Denver Post editorializes:

Turns out it's not just the people of southeastern Colorado who think the Army needs to better explain why it needs to expand its Piñon Canyon training facility. An investigative arm of Congress has now called upon the Army to do just that. It's a welcome voice of reason in a debate that's been clouded by suspicion and an alarming paucity of information. Army leaders should heed the recommendations. At issue is the Army's fervent declaration that it needs to expand the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site. First, the plan was to acquire an additional 418,577 acres. After nearby landowners and members of Colorado's congressional delegation raised a stink, the Army announced it needed only 100,000 acres. But as the U.S. Government Accountability Office pointed out, the Army did not explain why it could do with less land or how much of the 100,000 acres would be used for actual training.

In the editorial, the Army claims it will have a 4.5 million acre land shortfall by 2013. What a laugh.

Anyway, it's nice to see the Denver Post take this position.

US lawmakers consider energy measures in stimulus

Reuters is reporting a house committe will approve $25 billion for energy projects as part of the $825 billion stimulus package (they now call it "economic recovery":

The package would also promote the development of so called smart power grid technology to support alternative energy use, plug-in hybrid vehicles and boost energy efficiency. Under the legislation, the government also would provide financial assistance of up to 50 percent of the costs for advanced grid technology necessary for certain electric utilities developing smart grid demonstration projects.

Joe Barton of Texas, ranking minority member criticized the proposal for short changing funding for carbon capture and storage capacity, clean coal development, and for ignoring nuclear energy.

This child thinks the whole thing is a waste. Congress will jump on any "emergency" to spend more money.

Split Estate Leases Hit Speedbump

The Farmington Times reports that while drilling rights were recently sold in San Juan County with little contention, 16,000 acres are being withheld from leasing in La Plata County Colorado:

Much of the property up for lease to developers is private land of which the federal government maintained below-surface mineral rights, known as a split estate, allowing the Bureau of Land Management to sell potential drilling sites to developers without regard to property lines. "Basically it was the fact that (residents) just said, No, we want to have some input in this process,'" said Matt Janowiak, assistant manager for physical resources with the San Juan Public Lands Center, which incorporates both the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service in Southwest Colorado. The BLM is looking to address both environmental concerns and property easement restrictions while seeking comment on the proposed leases. But the question is not if the land will be leased, it's when.

Several western states have enacted split estate legislation, leveling the playing fied between the surface owner and and the owner of the mineral estate. Similar legislation has been introduced in Colorado but hasn't become law. Governor Ritter needs to make this a priority.

A New Deal Gift That Keeps On Taking

The Wall Street Journal writes about Timberline Lodge, a famous New Deal WPA project:

Nestled beneath the peak of Mount Hood in the Cascade Mountain Range lies a bustling resort known as Timberline Lodge. It's part fortress (quarried from local rock), part manor house (complete with a great room) and part log cabin (some of the columns are whole trees). Think Johnny Appleseed meets Beowulf -- rustic, colossal, lots of fireplaces. But Johnny Appleseed didn't build it -- the federal government did. From the weather vane down to the stone foundations, Timberline Lodge is a product of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. President Roosevelt himself came to dedicate the lodge in 1937, "as a monument to the skill and faithful performance of workers on the rolls of the Works Progress Administration."

Roosevelt also said the project would "test the workability of recreational facilities installed by the government itself and operated under its complete control."

So how did this test workout? The Forest Service has had a private operator at the lodge who pays 4.5 % of earnings to the agency. Plus, the FS spends around $1.5 million a year on upkeep, Congress has added another $8 million in earmarks and private philanthropy had thrown in $4 million. The result? Not good. According to the story:

None of this is enough, though. Lodge spokesman Jon Tullis wrote in an email that Timberline hopes to identify some projects that are "deemed 'shovel ready' and worthy for consideration in Obama's stimulus plan."

So, an FDR stimulus project will need a bailout from the Obama stimulus package. Mr. Obama, meet Mr. Roosevelt.

No Avian Flu Found In NM

The avian flu is once again in the headlines. The death of a 19 year old woman in China is the first in that country since 2008, but the Chinese Health Ministry is forecasting an increase in the number of birds carrying the disease this year. Two more deaths in Indonesia (bringing their total to 115), and the recent finding that the flu is becoming more resistant to antiviral drugs is raising concerns among scientists.

However, there are some good news items. Worldwide deaths from the flu have decreased by 55% from 2007 to 2008, and here in New Mexico tests found no asian flu:

Tests at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge have turned up no sign of avian influenza. To date, the H5N1 virus has not been detected in the United States or anywhere in the western hemisphere. The state Department of Game and Fish, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies finished annual testing at the wildlife refuge near Socorro this week, using a rocket net to capture ducks. It's part of a national program to test for avian flu. Migratory waterfowl also were tested at the Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge, the Bernardo Wildlife Management Area and New Mexico Tech in Socorro. Officials checked 120 each of mallards, pintails, widgeons, green-winged teal and blue-winged teal.

COOL rule, many others, on hold awaiting review by Obama team

Feedstuffs reports COOL rule is among those delayed by Obama's decision to put a hold on all rules not finalzied (The COOL rule was published on Jan. 15). Feedstuffs also says:

Many other rules at USDA – including an APHIS proposed rule on the official numbering system for the National Animal Identification that was published on Jan. 13 and several rules implementing new provisions in the 2008 farm bill – will go into limbo as well, according to USDA spokesperson Jerry Redding. Additional rules at the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration are included under the White House instructions. But, it is unclear if an EPA rule that clarified when livestock operations were required to report air emissions is impacted by the White House memo. That rule, that includes provisions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) was published on Dec. 18 and was to go into effect on Jan. 20, the same day the memo was issued. Neither is it clear if the FDA's new guidance on genetically engineered animals will be affected.

No matter your position on these rules, it is another example of the incompetency of the Bush Administration. They knew the deadlines and couldn't meet them. What a sad commentary.

Norris to become Vilsack's chief of staff

The Des Moines Register reports:

John Norris, the chairman of the Iowa Utilities Board, is becoming Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s chief of staff. Norris’ wife, Jackie, was President Barack Obama’s Iowa campaign director and already had a job in Washington as chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama. Vilsack was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday and took the oath of office Wednesday afternoon and went to work at his new office at USDA, according to an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. The aide said David Lazarus, a former adviser to Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who led an outreach effort to farm organizations during the campaign, will become a special assistant to Vilsack. Vilsack’s deputy chief of staff will be Carole Jett, a longtime employee in USDA’s Natural Resources and Conservation Service who helped direct Obama’s transition work with the department.

NCBA Asks Congress to Oppose Dairy Buyout in Stimulus Package

The NCBA is opposing the dairy buyout in the stimulus package according to this story.

The NCBA says the proposal would use taxpayer dollars to raise dairy prices by buying older dairy cows from farmers, taking approximately 6.5 billion gallons of milk off the market. This would result in nearly 320,000 additional head of cattle entering the beef market, which could drastically reduce the price of beef cattle.

In a letter to the Senate NCBA says:

“The cattle industry is not subsidized by the government, nor do we wish to be,” said NCBA President and Arizona rancher Andy Groseta. “However, we are subject to the unintended consequences of policy directed towards other sectors of agriculture, such as the dairy industry. Flooding the market with beef and driving down the price for our products will be devastating for America’s cattle producers.”

Proponents of the buyout suggest, you guessed it, subsidies for the beef industry:

Proponents of the buyout suggest lessening the consequences for the cattle industry by using United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Section 32 funds to purchase ground beef.

The same bad idea was tried in 1986 and didn't work.

Horse disease in Wyo.

Local News 8 is reporting:

The Wyoming State Veterinarian is investigating a possible case of a highly contagious equine venereal disease in the state. Officials say a mare in Wyoming has been linked to a Wisconsin stallion that was infected with contagious equine metritis (muh-TRY'-tis). It would be Wyoming's first case of the disease, which can result in temporary infertility and cause mares to abort their young. It does not affect other animals or humans and is treatable. As of Jan. 15, a total of 9 infected stallions have been detected nationwide - four in Kentucky, three in Indiana, and one each in Texas and Wisconsin. Wyoming is among at least 40 states involved in testing of horses that may have been exposed to the disease through natural breeding or artificial insemination.

Don Benito Wilson: Mountain Man to Mayor

Pasadena Now has a short book review on the history of what sounds like an interesting man:

In Don Benito Wilson: Mountain Man to Mayor, author Nat Read tells the story of the West and Los Angeles through a single notable figure, Don Benito Wilson, who was born during the lifetimes of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and who died in a Los Angeles that present-day citizens would begin to recognize. Mr. Read reveals the amazing tale of the “pioneer, beaver trapper and trader, grizzly bear hunter, Indian fighter, justice of the peace, farmer, rancher, politician, horticulturist, vintner, real estate entrepreneur, and one of the great landholders in Southern California.” He faced near death experiences with Indians, grizzlies, and a firing squad. Mount Wilson was named after him...

White House suspends action on gray wolf delisting

The Obama Administration has frozen the Department of Interior effort to take gray wolves off the list of animals protected under the Endangered Species Act in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes regions. In a memorandum issued Tuesday to federal department heads, Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, wrote that no proposed or final regulations should be sent to the Federal Register for publication until they have been reviewed and approved by new agency heads appointed by the president. Emanuel added that all regulations sent to the Federal Register, but not yet published, also should be withdrawn for review and approval. Last week, the Department of Interior, which oversees endangered species, had said it expected to delist gray wolves after publishing a new rule in the Federal Register this week. That rule hadn’t been published as of Wednesday, which means it falls under Emanuel’s memo. Hugh Vickery, an Interior spokesman, said he wasn’t sure why the publication had been delayed, although he noted it often takes a few days for the paperwork to go through. Both Monday and Tuesday were federal holidays, which could have slowed the process. Vickery said that after the review, the proposal could go forward as proposed now; it could go forward with some modifications; or it might not go forward at all....

California expects fast Obama move on car pollution

California's top climate change official on Wednesday predicted President Barack Obama's administration would let the state impose its own tough limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars by May, in what would be a victory for environmentalists. If the EPA reverses the Bush administration ruling, more than 12 U.S. states could proceed with plans to impose stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars. California wants to reduce the emissions by 30 percent by 2016 -- the most ambitious federal or state effort to address global warming. Environmentalists have said granting California a waiver that allows it to set its own emissions regulations would signal Obama's commitment to tackling climate change. California wants to require carmakers to use paints that reflect more heat, tires that roll smoother and improved air conditioning to boost efficiency beyond the fuel mileage requirements already facing automakers....

Antarctica not immune to warming

The Earth's lone holdout to climate change, Antarctica, is actually warming, says a new study in today's edition of the journal Nature. Scientists had long thought that while some isolated parts of Antarctica had been warming, much of the continent had been cooling over the past 50 years. But the new analysis found that since 1957, when measured as a whole, the continent's temperature has risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit. Perhaps most troubling is that "a fairly large part of West Antarctica is warming more than we realized," says study co-author Michael Mann, a climatologist at Pennsylvania State University.Scientists say West Antarctica is the ice sheet most susceptible to a possible collapse in the future due to warming global temperatures. If the ice sheet collapsed, it would cause cataclysmic sea-level rise around the world....

Editorial - Saving the tortoise

Back in 1973, Congress enacted the Endangered Species Act. Fifteen years later, someone looked around and realized there was no way to do a cost-benefit analysis on how much was being spent to "protect" the proliferating list of weeds and bugs in question, so Congress in 1988 added a section to the ESA requiring an annual species-by-species expenditure report. And about eight years later, the appropriate federal agencies finally got around to issuing them. And which endangered species do you suppose these government agencies spend the most tax dollars "protecting"? The grizzly bear? The bald eagle? No. The 2006 report, the latest released by the Fish and Wildlife Service, estimates $884 million were directly spent "protecting" more than 1,100 species on the list. But there's a wide disparity in how money is doled out. The top recipients have been salmon in the Pacific Northwest and the Steller sea lion. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on those species since reporting began in 1996. Another critter ranking high on the list of money spent by state and federal agencies trying to keep it from extinction, according to an Associated Press analysis of the past 11 years of available data, is Southern Nevada's own desert tortoise. From 1996 to 2006, more than $93 million was spent on managing the long-lived reptile, The AP figures. That's more than was spent on the grizzly, the gray wolf or the bald eagle. There are some odd things about the case of the Mojave Desert tortoise, though. For one thing, its "critical habitat" stretches across 9,600 square miles. Jurisdictions include four states, seven military installations, four national parks and scores of federal, state and county agencies. For another, for a supposedly "threatened" species, there seem to be a whole lot of them out there. Roy Averill-Murray, desert tortoise recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Reno, estimates there are 111,000 to 187,000 adult desert tortoises in areas designated as critical habitat. Government agencies spent $10.5 million on the desert tortoise in 2006 and more than $11 million in 2007 -- on monitoring, fences to keep them from wandering onto highways, studies on a respiratory disease and stacks of long-range plans. Problem is, no one's sure if it's done more good than harm....