A win-win Idaho water deal

Idaho Power has agreed to let the state send Snake River water underground to recharge the aquifer that many Eastern Idaho irrigators rely on to sustain their crops. In exchange, the company could see increased and more stable flows of water through its power-generating dams - and a way to help resolve issues holding up the federal relicensing of its primary hydroelectric facility in Hells Canyon. For Treasure Valley residents and other power customers, the deal could slow the rise in electric power rates, since Idaho Power's cheapest generation comes from the Snake River dams. State and company officials announced Thursday that they had resolved the issues that had clouded their historic 1984 Swan Falls water agreement, which established minimum flows in the Snake River at the company's Swan Falls dam southwest of Boise. In addition to recharging the aquifer, the plan includes programs to reduce groundwater pumping and take other measures that could increase flows from the springs that feed the Snake River below the Milner Dam near Burley - when that happens, more stable and predictable flows could drive the turbines. Recharging the aquifer also can help Idaho Power's efforts to meet federal and state water temperature requirements below its Hells Canyon Dam. Endangered fall chinook salmon have historically spawned there, but now, the temperatures are too high early in the fall. The company plans to work with farmers, irrigation companies and others to find ways to cool the Snake River water that flows into Brownlee Reservoir...Idaho Statesman

A Tale of Two States: Texas vs. California

...You couldn't have two states moving in more opposite directions. One is unabashedly pro-growth and aggressive in courting industry, while the other seems content to spin an ever denser spider web of laws, regulations and red tape that is driving business out of the state. One state accounts for a whopping 70 percent of all jobs created in the United States last year, while the other seems bent on increasing taxes on business and individuals to pay for an unsustainable, out of control government that wants to be everything to everyone despite the fact that it simply cannot. This doesn't mean that Texas doesn't face very real problems in the current recession: they do, as Brendan Case at the Dallas Morning News blogs here. But even so, the silver lining for Texas is that the recession will nick the Lone Star State while it gouges the Golden State. California's addiction to funding ongoing programs through debt financing, its permanent structural deficits on the horizon, its fondness for taxation, and other governance weak suits will really hamper the economic recovery in the state, ensuring it will occur long after Texas is off to the races. Hence, it's good to see a direct Texas vs. California comparison drawn out in the American Legislative Exchange Council's updated Rich States, Poor States report. The full report is worth a read, but I found the comparative analysis of tax and regulatory climate between the two states to be particularly illuminating. Here's the takeaway: Matched up in a head-to-head competition, Texas’s economic environment beats California’s – in fact, it is a knockout. [...] California continues to increase regulations, raise taxes and spend profligately. These anti-growth policies will continue to sap the economic vitality of California. Texas, on the other hand, has a pro-growth economic environment with a competitive tax system, sound regulations and spending discipline that will help Texas maintain its superior economic performance well into the future....Reason Foundation

Shasta Land Trust adds 5,000-acre ranch to its conservation holdings

A wealth of animals, habitat and agriculture on a cattle ranch between Millville and Whitmore will remain protected under a deal struck by the Shasta Land Trust. "When you drive through that area, through the mountains, it's just nice to see the wildflowers, the wildlife," said Francis Duchi, chairman of the nonprofit group's board. "We're very appreciative." The recently completed conservation easement on the 5,000-acre Cow Creek Ranch is the latest for the group, which now has some 16,000 acres under similar agreements, said Executive Director Ben Miles. A conservation easement is a legal pact that permits certain uses of the land and prohibits others, while the property remains privately owned. The recently completed conservation easement on the 5,000-acre Cow Creek Ranch is the latest for the group, which now has some 16,000 acres under similar agreements, said Executive Director Ben Miles. A conservation easement is a legal pact that permits certain uses of the land and prohibits others, while the property remains privately owned...Record Searchlight

A Texas tale: Oil, business meet history and sabotage

No oilman expects to easily re-enter an abandoned well, but Glenn Lynch couldn't fathom why his drills had trouble piercing almost every old hole he tried to open in 1993. The unexpected snags, hidden thousands of feet below oil-rich Refugio County, more than doubled the drilling costs for some wells. Other holes proved impossible to reopen or, if completed, produced below expectations. At first, Lynch chalked it up to bad luck, a common oil field affliction. Six years later, however, a Refugio County jury fingered a far different culprit: Exxon Corp., then, as now, the nation's leading oil producer. Jurors found that Exxon, before abandoning the oil field in 1991, maliciously sabotaged the wells by cutting underground pipe, placing thick cement plugs at random depths and dropping metal junk down the holes - including one perforating gun still loaded with explosive charges. Exxon was ordered to pay $18.6 million, but the emphatic verdict was only the opening salvo in a legal war that continues today, pitting a historic Texas oil family and Lynch's small independent company against a multinational giant...Austin American-Statesman

Vilsack open to mandatory livestock traceback

The United States may need to consider mandatory farmer participation in a livestock traceback system, but insight must first be gathered from opponents of the idea, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Friday. "There is very serious dissatisfaction with the current system" among lawmakers who are convinced the voluntary process is not working as well as it should be, Vilsack said in an interview with Reuters. "What I'm hoping to do is get a system, whether it's voluntary or mandatory ... that works," he said. "It may very well be that you need a mandatory system, but in order for it to work you have to have people understand why you are doing it and understand that they have the opportunity to have their concerns voiced and listened to." Ultimately, he said whatever path livestock tracking takes, it must protect the country from market disruptions and homeland security threats. It also must be supported by a majority of the people who are willing to comply with the system rather than find a way around it...Reuters

It's one thing to "voice" your concerns and be "listened to", and quite another to actually have USDA act on those opinions.

Vilsack may bite his lower lip and tell you he feels your pain, but that won't cut it on this issue.

Notice they are now mentioning "homeland security" and "threats." The livestock producers are being set up - are you patriotic or not?

You better believe there is a mandatory program sitting on the shelf and the first "crisis" or "threat" that comes along will see it dusted off and implemented muy pronto.

Speaking of Homeland Security, thank you George Bush for bringing that concept to America and for supporting the creation of that godawful agency. Your legacy lives on.

A way of life slips out of range

The highway is jammed with people who wanted to live in the country inching their way toward jobs in the city. A few miles and a universe away, the last cowboy is making a living in what's left of that country. Steve Tellam is bent over in a foul patch of mud and cow dung stroking a calf and feeding it milk from a bottle. He is wearing a straw Bangora hat, checkered shirt, Wranglers and a belt buckle the size of a salad plate. His hands are misshapen by decades of labor, hard as ax handles and rough as an old baseball glove. Two bicyclists pedal past the corral in Day-Glo outfits and don't even glance at Tellam and the starving newborn. Tellam, 54, is a fourth-generation cowboy working in a region where being a cowboy no longer makes sense. A century ago, San Diego County was a cattleman's paradise -- endless open range, plentiful water, tall grass and convenient transport to slaughterhouses and growing cities. Tellam's great-grandfather, George Sawday, was Southern California's largest cattle baron. At a time when the Wright brothers were demonstrating that man could fly, Sawday ran vast herds on land stretching from the coast to the desert and from the Mexican border to Riverside. A semblance of the Old West survived in the folds of the backcountry around Ramona and Julian well into the 20th century. Today, the range has been subdivided and developed, the water sucked away by cities, the grass thinned by years of drought. With the beef industry consolidated far from Southern California, raising cattle in these mountains is as viable a business as selling surfboards in Nebraska. Tellam doesn't need a full hand to count the number of full-time cowboys in the area. "It's not going to survive into the next generation," he says...LA Times

Go to the LA Times link and watch the video.

The last 50 seconds tells it all.

Kentucky Derby Winner Alysheba Euthanized

Alysheba, a Kentucky Derby winner and Horse of the Year, was euthanized March 27 at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute near Lexington. The 25-year-old pensioned stallion, who resided at the Kentucky Horse Park, and was buried at the Park’s Hall of Champions across from the grave of the great John Henry. Alysheba fell in his stall and was not able to get up. Dr. Nathan Slovis was immediately called to the Horse Park, and an equine ambulance transported Alysheba to Hagyard Equine across the road from the Hores Park. Dr. Slovis and his team treated Alysheba and evaluated his condition. By evening, it was clear that he had sustained an insurmountable injury. Bred by Preston Madden at his Hamburg Place near Lexington, Alysheba (Alydar--Bel Sheba, by Lt. Stevens) was sold as a yearling to Dorothy and Pam Scharbauer for $500,000 at the 1985 Keeneland July yearling sale. As a 3-year-old in 1987, Alysheba not only won the Kentucky Derby but also the Preakness Stakes and the Super Derby. He was beaten a nose by subsequent Horse of the Year Ferdinand in the Breeders' Cup Classic. Alysheba was voted champion 3-year-old male. At 4, he was even better, winning six grade I stakes: the Breeders' Cup Classic, Santa Anita Handicap, Philip H. Iselin Handicap, Woodward Stakes, Meadowlands Cup Handicap, and the Charles H. Strub Stakes...The Horse

Kelly Leak wins $900K Sunland Derby

Kelly Leak used a strong kick down the stretch to win the $900,000 Sunland Park Derby by a length Sunday, proving he can win just about anywhere he goes. The 3-year-old son of Runaway Groom, the 2-1 favorite, covered 1 1/8 miles in 1:50.02 for his third career win with jockey Mike Smith aboard. The stirring run down the stretch came before 16,388 fans. Mythical Power, trained by Bob Baffert, finished second, and Scorewithcater was third. Kelly Leak, who has raced in California and Florida, has earned more than $620,000 and could be headed for the Lone Star Derby or the Peter Pan Stakes down the road. Kelly Leak was in seventh halfway through the race, then slowly moved up to fifth at the three-quarters pole, where he made his stirring move...AP

Song Of The Day #006

Here is Eddy Arnold's 1951 recording of There's Been A Change In Me. It's available on the 5 cd collection The Tennessee Plowboy & His Guitar .

Enjoy.

Email recipients go here to play the song.

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Strike up the fiddle, tune up the band

Julie Carter

This is a "do you remember" moment for those old enough to recall the days in rural America after World War II and young enough to remember what it was like for our parents.

Since the days of covered wagons and cattle drives, dancing in the country has been a social culture that brought levity to times of hard work and hard living.

History documents with a pen and photographs the moments of cowboy dancing around the campfire with the camp cookie still in his apron while a lively tune is belted out of a harmonica or strummed from a guitar.

After the war, when men from the country came home, changed by what they lived and what they had seen, and attempted to reconnect to the people and lives they had left behind, country dances made a way.

The cities moved into the bobby sox, loafer and jukebox era and was fueled by the music from Broadway musicals like Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun and South Pacific.

In the backwoods, hills and the plains of the West, the music culture was full of fiddle tunes that formed an important base for the contemporary versions of bluegrass, Western swing and country and Western.

I remember the community dances at the Grange Hall.

The neighbors would come, those that could play a musical instrument would and those that could sing, did.

Kids ran in and out the door while parents danced. Babies slept on pallets in the corner, or as my siblings and I did later in the night, bedded down in the back of a Studebaker station wagon.

There was a fiddle, a couple of guitars, piano, harmonica and occasionally an accordion to round out the music source.

My dad didn't always know the words to the songs, but he could yodel, so that was his contribution.

As the night wore on, and there was no closing time, the fun would kick up a notch as silly songs were created on the spot.

My parents courted going to country dances at a place that was no longer a town, but had a dancehall converted from an old one-room schoolhouse.

In later years, they rarely missed a dance that was held in the school gymnasium sponsored by the town firemen or the saddle club.

I grew up with the sounds of the Hanks (Snow, Locklin, Thompson and Williams) twanging in my head and feeding my love of the music. Jimmie Rodgers of "Honeycomb" and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" fame, Earnest Tubb, Farron Young, Marty Robbins, Jim Reeves, Ferlin Husky, Ray Price, Sonny James, Pasty Cline, Kitty Wells, Slim Whitman ... you get the idea.

The cowboys of that era tell about riding 10-12 miles to a dance, dancing all night, and riding back to the ranch to work. Some of them were the musical talent for the dance, some of them went to find the pretty girls, but they all went for the fun, the social and the levity their hard working lives needed.

When the trend moved the "party" to the honky tonks and bars, the dances held in halls, schools and barns dwindled and changed, except in the country where the families were held together by hard work, family values and simple lives.

I'm fortunate enough to still live in a place in the West where a country dance isn't all that foreign and yes, it is still a family affair.

If you need a refresher for your memories of those days, drop by Capitan, New Mexico on April 25. Head over to the fairgrounds and listen to the Joe Delk Band throw open the doors to those memories when life seemed just a little better.

The recipe for fun is still just as good today as it was then. Everything goes better with a country dance.

Julie, loves God, country and dancing, and can be reached at www.julie-carter.com

Rural Revolt

The Rural Revolt

By Jeff Warren

No one could write dialogue like Paddy Chayefsky. Who can forget Howard Beale (the Anchorman in “Network”) galvanizing a generation with, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”?

Who amongst us didn’t want to throw open our windows and shout that we weren’t going to put up with it anymore?

America is no stranger to rebellion. We were ripped from the womb of tyranny in 1773 by some angry folks who felt His Majesty’s tea was better suited for the bottom of Boston Harbor than the top of a certain East India Company’s sailing vessels.

Of course, it didn’t begin with those intrepid souls protesting a series of “intolerable acts” being levied against them from afar.

It began in 1215 when King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, which guaranteed “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseized ... or anyways destroyed … unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.”

We recognize this more readily in our Fifth Amendment, “no person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

John Locke articulated this in his Second Treatise on Government. Locke wrote that in a natural state all people, are born free and equal, and possess certain rights. He said that these “natural rights” were life, liberty, and property.

As a prelude to the Revolution, Thomas Paine (in “Common Sense”) expanded “property” to include the phrase “pursuit of Happiness,” which Thomas Jefferson ripped off and declared an unalienable right which he placed at the top of our Declaration of Independence.

“Property” has only recently become a dirty word. Until the ‘60s, “private property” was not considered obscene.

City folk tend to rent rather than own. Nothing wrong with that.

They tend to rely on government services or merchants, rather than being self-reliant. Among other things, government provides buses for transport, merchants provide food and clothing. Rural people often fend for themselves, raising their own food, repairing their own equipment, building their own infrastructures — wells, roads, fences, barns, etc.

It stands to reason that a man who adds a porch onto his house with his own hands is going to feel different about it than a man who rents a home with a veranda in the city.

A man who raises cattle, grapes or corn is going to feel different about their relationship to him and the land, than the man who only sees these commodities in Safeway.

A rancher might have to capture his own water. A city dweller turns on a tap and expects it.

A farmer might cut wood to heat his hearth. An urbanite turns up the thermostat.

A farmer worries that untimely rain might destroy his hay crop. A metro-sexual worries that untimely rain might cancel his tennis match.

Small towns tend to be surrounded by agriculture, so rural people have a natural affinity for farmers.

For some reason, like England abused the colonies, urbanites are now declaring war on small-town, rural life. Why is this? Why have our fellow Americans in the cities lost respect for the way small town people live?

Through government bureaucracies with odd acronyms like BAAQMD, they’re attempting to take land and infrastructure from country folk.

Statewide, water is being denied to farmers. In Napa County, alone, movements are underway to de-commission roads in the hills, tear down dams on private property, restrict plantings, limit cattle grazing, limit the number of livestock one may own, monitor private wells, prevent growing grapes in the hills, ban fireplaces — the list goes on.

The assault has been relentless. It’s usually based on scare tactics centered around health. Recently, 1,700 people turned out in Santa Rosa to protest an onerous septic system inspection and “tax.”

Besides mandatory $350 inspections, they wanted to require government-mandated upgrades costing up to $45,000 per system.

That upset a lot of folks. Something’s in the air, and it ain’t coming from septic tanks. It’s the stench from governmental abuse of power.

Google “Rebellions in the United States.” From Boston Harbor to the Whiskey Rebellion, to the Haymarket Riot, to the Civil Rights Movement, you will see a list of hundreds of uprisings. Americans will only be pushed so far. I’m not sure we want a bunch of country folk rising up and shouting, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!” But if it comes to that, count me in.

(Jeff Warren is a newcomer whose family didn’t arrive here until the ‘50s. He is a businessman, husband and father of three. His Web site is www.jeffwarren.com.)

St. Helena Star

Song Of The Day #005

Sundays will be old-time or traditional gospel.

Please enjoy Hank Snow's 1953 recording of The Gloryland March.

Email recipients go here to play the song.

Anchorage Daily News - Redoubt Volcano Photos

Go here for a neat set of photos of the Redoubt eruptions.

If you're drivin', you're being watched

The village of Schaumburg, Ill., installed a camera at Woodfield Mall last November to film cars that were running red lights, then used the footage to issue citations. Results were astonishing. The town issued $1 million in fines in just three months. But drivers caught by the unforgiving enforcement -- which mainly snared those who didn't come to a full stop before turning right on red -- exploded in anger. Many vowed to stop shopping at the mall unless the camera was turned off. The village stopped monitoring right turns at the intersection in January. Drivers -- many accusing law enforcement of using spy tactics to trap unsuspecting citizens -- are fighting back with everything from pick axes to camera-blocking Santa Clauses. They're moving beyond radar detectors and CB radios to wage their own tech war against detection, using sprays that promise to blur license numbers and Web sites that plot the cameras' locations and offer tips to beat them...WSJ

And you thought it was just red light cameras? Check this out from the same article:

Municipalities are establishing ever-more-clever snares. Last month, in a push to collect overdue taxes, the City Council in New Britain, Conn., approved the purchase of a $17,000 infrared-camera called "Plate Hunter." Mounted on a police car, the device automatically reads the license plates of every passing car and alerts the officer if the owner has failed to pay traffic tickets or is delinquent on car taxes. Police can then pull the cars over and impound them. New Britain was inspired by nearby New Haven, where four of the cameras brought in $2.8 million in just three months last year. New Haven has also put license-plate readers on tow trucks. They now roam the streets searching for cars owned by people who haven't paid their parking tickets or car-property taxes...

South Park on the Treasury Dept.

Like a chicken with it's head cut off.

Email recipients go here to play the video.

Obama's Deputy EPA chief nominee withdraws

Another Obama administration nominee withdrew his name Wednesday as questions emerged about a nonprofit group with which he had been affiliated. Jonathan Z. Cannon, nominated as deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency, cited questions about the now-defunct America's Clean Water Foundation, for which he had been a board member. He said he didn't want to be a distraction. In 2007, EPA auditors accused the foundation of mismanaging $25 million in taxpayer funds. The foundation had won that much in federal contracts to identify environmental risks at beef, poultry and pork plants, and to help states and Native American tribes comply with the Clean Water Act. EPA auditors questioned the foundation's accounting of almost all that money and alluded to allegations of embezzlement. The report did not mention Cannon, who is a professor of environmental law at the University of Virginia and the former top EPA lawyer...LA Times

Environmental policy a specialty of Obama's solicitor general

President Obama's newly confirmed solicitor, Elena Kagan, is receiving a warm welcome from environmental lawyers and scholars who are hailing the former Harvard Law School dean for her background in administrative law and for revitalizing the school's environmental law program. After the Senate confirmed her, 61-31, last week, Kagan became the 45th solicitor general -- and the first woman ever to hold the position. She will argue for the government in Supreme Court cases. "Dean Kagan has a lot of experience in administrative law, so she will be especially well-attuned to these regulatory issues that typically come before the high court in environmental cases," said John Nagle, an environmental law professor at the University of Notre Dame's law school. Kagan, 48, served in the Clinton administration from 1995 to 1999, first as associate counsel in the White House Counsel's Office and then as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law, she clerked for U.S. Appeals Court Judge Abner Mikva and later for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, himself a former solicitor general. She returned to Harvard Law as a visiting professor in 1999 and joined the school full-time in 2001. She has served as dean since 2003. "She left a nationally visible mark on environmental law at Harvard," said Jim Rossi, a visiting environmental law professor at Harvard on loan from Florida State University. "For many years, Harvard was not known for a primary expertise in the environmental jurisprudence, and that changed under Dean Kagan's watch." Nominated by Obama, her former colleague at the University of Chicago Law School, Kagan is widely regarded as a serious candidate for an opening on the Supreme Court...NY Times

Unlikely partners savor victory, but work's not done to protect Owyhee Canyonlands

Environmental groups and Owyhee County ranchers went from bitter enemies to friends and partners in their ambitious effort to preserve the awesome scenery of the Owyhee Canyonlands; miles of habitat for wild sheep, imperiled sage grouse and rare redband trout; and the cultural treasures of both cowboys and Indians. But they're also looking ahead to the work to complete a hard-fought compromise that was included as one small measure in a sweeping public lands bill sent to President Obama on Wednesday. The bill could become law as soon as Monday. The ranchers overcame their traditional opposition to wilderness and wild rivers restrictions to help conservative Republican Sen. Mike Crapo pass Idaho's first wilderness bill since 1980. Now the burden shifts to environmentalists, who have to follow through on promises to find the money needed to keep ranchers whole as the region transforms. They agreed to help raise at least $10 million in private money and convince a Democratic administration to back $15 million more in tax dollars to help pay for the land transfers, grazing buyouts and other accommodations for ranchers who now live and work in the area. About $8 million is authorized for buying private lands in and around wilderness areas. But the $10 million from private sources, including foundations, would buy easements and water rights and pay ranchers to retire grazing permits...Idaho Statesman

Government Should Compel Consumers to Use Alternative Energy, Congressman Says

Government policy should be crafted to raise the price of carbon-emitting energy sources so consumers are compelled to choose alternative energy, House Democratic Conference Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday. Larson agreed that such a policy would likely result in higher electricity prices for consumers but said this is needed to protect the environment from the possible “catastrophic results” of not implementing a pro-green energy policy. With cap and trade, the amount of carbon an energy company can emit is capped. If it exceeds that limit, the company can purchase credits (“trade”) that would go towards investment in green or alternative energy firms. “I think the government should serve as an impetus to do so, because as I said at the outset, not doing anything -- the catastrophic results that can come from that – are what drives this issue,” Larson told CNSNews.com when asked if boosting electricity prices through government policy to drive consumers to green energy was a good idea...CNS News

Property Rights: Do It for the World's Poor

One of the favorite mantras of the left is the need to protect people rather than property. But very often the best way to protect people is protect their property. Those with power and influence can steal what they want. Only when property rights are protected do average people have a shot at both liberty and prosperity. The question of property ownership goes far back into human history. Individual sovereignty over land was alien to hunter-gatherer societies, but they died out because they were "unsustainable," in current parlance. Larger populations required greater productivity, which required some form of property rights, even if by a tribe or some other group. The latter could sustain a certain level of life, but as peoples ancient through modern have discovered, collectivizing production inevitably limited available food and other goods. Rulers in a strong empire might succeed by plundering everyone else, but civilizations were unlikely to develop without a system of ownership which rewarded those who invested in developing and improving property. The right to private property evolved out of a basic moral notion. While one could argue endlessly about how to initially distribute unowned property -- Locke's picture of mixing one's labor with land was particularly influential in Britain and the American colonies -- land acquired through purchase and improved through work or expenditure embodied value based upon one's own efforts. Property owners also use knowledge, insight, and vision to enhance the worth of their assets. Although land and chattel long were the most important forms of property, today intellectual property has assumed much greater significance. The productive value of human creativity has expanded from hands to minds. The software programs on a computer, not the physical components of a computer, are that instrument's most productive property...American Spectator