Suspended UI prof repeats sheep claims in journal

A University of Idaho professor suspended from sheep research duties since June has repeated claims that wild bighorns don't catch fatal diseases from domestic sheep, despite pledging not to disseminate information on the issue until the school completes an inquiry into her work. An August interview with Marie Bulgin, head of the UI's Caine Veterinary Teaching and Research Center in Caldwell, appeared in October's edition of The Shepherd: A Guide for Sheep and Farm Life, an industry journal based in New Washington, Ohio. In the story, Bulgin insists there's no proof bighorns die after catching diseases from domestic sheep on the range. "It's the bighorns' own pathogens that are killing them - not something they are picking up from domestic sheep or goats," she is quoted as saying. Wildlife advocates said her comments are virtually identical to those that helped lead to the UI inquiry. It was launched five months ago after environmentalists produced documents showing her research center had gathered evidence that bighorns get deadly disease from domestic sheep on the range since 1994 - a period in which Bulgin had been testifying for the ranching industry in federal court and at the Idaho Legislature that no such documentation existed...read more

Prehistoric man, giant animal coexisted

The secret is out: Man and gomphotheres once coexisted in Sonora. Tools and spear tips found with fossil bones at a remote Sonoran site suggest that Clovis-era hunters butchered two juvenile specimens of the elephantlike megafauna about 13,000 years ago. It's the first discovery of such recent evidence of gomphotheres in North America, said Vance Holliday, a University of Arizona anthropologist. It's also the first time gomphothere fossils were found together with implements made by Clovis people, the oldest known inhabitants of North America, Holliday said. The discovery, on a remote ranch in the Rio Sonora watershed, was actually made in 2007 but was kept quiet to avoid alerting fossil hunters to it. Archaeologists from Mexico and the United States named the site "El Fin del Mundo," or "The End of the World." They continue to work the site in the Mexican state that borders Arizona but presented some preliminary findings last month at a Geological Society of America meeting in Portland, Ore. Holliday said Guadalupe Sanchez of Mexico's national institute of anthropology was originally taken to the site by a rancher who had discovered large bones in an arroyo. Holliday said he was unsure if Clovis people were hunting gomphotheres or scavenging them. In either case, Holliday said, "this would be the first documentation that there was some sort of human interaction with gomphotheres in North America."...read more

Pecos park renovates 200-year-old trading post

Historic preservation specialist Jeff Brown is hoping his work crews won't find the spot where legs and arms are buried at Pecos National Historical Park. The appendages would be those amputated from Civil War soldiers in 1862 at a makeshift hospital housed in Kozlowski's Trading Post east of Santa Fe. Finding the bony remains, while exciting, would slow down Brown's current project: a six-year renovation of the almost 2-century-old stage stop and tavern. The low-slung pink stucco building with faded turquoise trim along N.M. 63 was a popular stop on the Santa Fe Trail for decades. Brown and crew will restore the adobe-and-pine building to its look from the 1940s and '50s, when E.E. "Buddy" Fogelson and his actress wife, Greer Garson, used the trading post as headquarters for their Forked Lightning Ranch. The historic character of the building and any usable original materials will be preserved, but it will be upgraded to house administrative offices and a place to greet visitors. Along with restoring the old trading post, Pecos National Historical Park plans to open 3,000 acres east of the building along the Pecos River, long closed to the public except for special occasions. The Pecos National Historical Park protects the ruins of Pecos Pueblo, a historic Catholic church and the site of the Civil War battle of Glorieta Pass. The original room of the trading post dates to 1810, according to a plaque posted on the building by Daughters of the American Revolution. When Polish immigrant Martin Kozlowski left the Army after five years fighting Apaches, he moved into the old building near Pecos Pueblo in 1858. He needed some room for 10 children he and his wife would eventually raise there...read more

America from the slow lane: By wagon

Lee the Horse Logger likes to say that what we all need most is to slow down. What he did, though, was to get up and go. Have you heard of Lee? He's made national and even world news for inching across America at 3 miles an hour in a horse-drawn covered wagon. A doctorate-dropout-turned-rancher, Lee Crafton started his pioneer odyssey three years ago. The family ranch in Montana was sold out from under him, so he took $75 and a couple of log-pulling horses and set off to see America. He has rolled and bumped to the East Coast and back, plus down to the Southwest. This modern-day Thoreau plans to clip-clop into Seattle within a month. What folks like about him is his utter lack of agenda. "I'm not here to raise money or your consciousness. I'm not protesting or trying to convert you. I've got no message whatsoever," he said by phone recently from Mead, Wash. But what grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me was the part of his story that isn't an old-time curio. It's the reason he hit the road. He's got cancer. Rather, he had cancer. Lymphoma, with a growing tumor in his neck...read more

Old West shooting contests returns to city

Leather creaks as cowboys lean on fences, chat quietly, and lope their horses to warm them up. At the table, they slide blank rounds into the cylinders of their revolvers. Kathy Hollmann trots her horse around in circles at the end of the arena, then charges. Her horse kicks up dirt as she draws her first revolver. She fires, bursting three balloons mounted on poles. She yanks the reigns with her left hand. Her horse knocks over a target, as she fires right handed, popping two more balloons. The crowd falls silent. Undeterred, she draws her second revolver as her horse digs in, circles a barrel and charges once more. She plugs the fallen balloon and the remaining three targets in rapid succession as cheers overcome the echo of gunfire. At 16 years of age, Hollmann is a world champion mounted shooter. A mounted shooting competition is being held this weekend for the first time in Carlsbad at the Eddy County Sheriff's Posse Arena. The event is being hosted by the New Mexico Territory Cowboy Mounted Shooting association...read more

Traildust: Frenchman left mark with adventures in Southwest

Soon after the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, fur trappers from the East fanned out into New Mexico's northern mountains to catch beaver. Their rich harvest of pelts was shipped over the trail to St. Louis where it commanded a high price. Among the cavalcade of trappers were many of French Canadian origin. A number of them took up residence in New Mexico, married, and became citizens of the Republic of Mexico. Representative of this new element in New Mexican society was Antoine Robidoux, one of six brothers all involved in the fur trade. When Antoine first reached Santa Fe in 1823 at age 29, he scarcely looked the part of an outdoorsman. Tall, slender, with a sensitive face and a curling mass of black hair, he might have been mistaken for a French artist or composer of music. Yet, his career in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains and beyond was to be filled with excitement, danger and high adventure...read more

It's All Trew: With change came demise of tollgates

Most people familiar with area history know of Uncle Dick Wooten's tollgate leading over Raton Pass. The Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail passed from Bent's Fort to Trinidad, then south up Colorado canyons to the crest of Raton Pass, then down New Mexico canyons into Raton. The crafty old mountain man and trapper knew the terrain and took advantage of the narrow passage by erecting a tollgate. This moneymaker was successful until the railroad built through the pass utilizing a tunnel and bypassing the Wooten tollgate. Few are aware that approximately 40 to 50 miles to the east, at the east end of Johnson Mesa, another tollgate existed from 1873 to 1885. Also located on a natural passage from New Mexico to Colorado, Basil Bill Metcalf took advantage of a low-altitude passage, bought property and raised a log chain across a narrow rock canyon called Emory Gap. Like Uncle Dick Wooten, Basil Bill knew the terrain, and when the need arose for travelers to pass from the Mountain Branch to the Cimarron Cut Off, bypassing the Wooten route, he was ready to charge for passage. Operation of the Emory Gap tollgate was believed to have started in late 1873. As money became available, Bill went into the cattle business, built a home, a store and a saloon all at the site of the tollgate. A brother joined Bill in 1874, allowing Bill to branch out again with a freighting service to supply his store and surrounding ranchers. Records show the Emory Gate toll charges remained the same throughout the 12 years of operation. A fee of 75 cents was charged for a wagon and four-horse team. Buggies and hacks cost 35 cents and a wagon and two-horse team 40 cents. Individual horseback riders and cattle costs have not been kept. Annual receipts of the gate averaged from $3,000 to $4,000, a tidy sum at the time...read more

Song Of The Day #181

Ranch Radio will get your feet tappin' this Monday morning with the Buchanan Brothers'
1948 recording of Hootin-Nanny Papa.

My version is from their 18 track Bronco Buster CD Atomic Power.

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Cowboy shorts

Julie Carter

Now that I have your attention, this is not about underwear, mostly. In the day-to-day nonsense and banter that whips through the cowboy world, there are always a few short stories that offer up a chuckle but aren't a volume on their own.

These are a few of those "shorts."

First, I will report that the buxom Fastenal nuts and bolts salesgirl that had our man Dan the Team Roper, aka farm store purchasing agent, so interested in fasteners, has quit. She's been replaced by just a regular guy.

Dan is broken hearted, bought no more bolts but did admit to having a three-year supply already in stock.

There seems to be a pattern here that keeps him in a state of bachelorhood with his dog Mary Margaret and cat Gato for company.

The upside is that all is well since he acquired the new toaster oven. He finds solace in cooking.

While the nuts and bolts business has plummeted at the New Holland store, Dan is admiring his friend Rob's operating plan.

Rob says he has three gals on the line and one on his "to-do" list.

While he seems to have one romantic disaster after another, it hasn't occurred to him that it could be his technique.

He told the current gal he didn't have any more time to spend with her.

This was while telling another that he had out there on the horizon and at the phone call stage, that he was out of a girlfriend at present because he mostly kept one around for recreational purposes.

She did not relate to that well at all.

From romance to ropers

Lloyd and Russell are both ace-high, in-demand heelers and the two of them seem to trade out winning it all at every event where they both show up to rope.

Russell is looking for a new heel horse and when Lloyd got word, he just happened to have a whizbang great heel horse for sale.

He wants a mere $17,500 for him.

In only the length of time it took to rope another steer, down the arena and back to the roping boxes, Lloyd decided he didn't want Russell to have that horse.

"Russell would be too hard to beat if he had that horse," he commented. "I better keep him for myself."

Seems the price or the quality isn't always what dictates a sale in the horse trading business.

Sometimes you have to find every edge you can to stay on top, even not selling the horse that was for sale.

OK, here's the underwear story.

It was a big roping, and a pretty flashy gal-roper named Lisa had drawn a steer with a guy she knew, but didn't see often.

The catch-up visiting commenced. The team knew approximately when they'd have to rope in their rotation, but somehow managed to miss their call and their steer was turned out.

When they finally wandered up to the roping box end of the arena and realized they'd missed their run, the guy-end of this team when up to the announcer fully armed with a plausible reason.

In case you missed it, team ropers are notorious for their excuses.

He told the announcer that the reason they'd missed the call was because Lisa's bra strap had broken and he'd been tasked with the chore of fixing it.

A twinkle in his eye and a nod toward the well-endowed Lisa, cinched the deal.

Whether the announcer really bought the story or not is doubtful, but he rewarded the effort by giving them another steer.

Only a male roping with a female would come up with a story like that to make it her fault. He was hilariously proud of himself. She was not at all entertained.

If you have a smile, share it. If don't own one, find one. Life is much better if you laugh.

Transportation Security Administration changes procedure after Lambert incident

Transportation Security Administration screeners at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport probably wish that the fellow they chose to grill last March about a box of cash wasn't a Ron Paul devotee who runs a committee devoted to individual rights and constitutional government. But grill Steven Bierfeldt they did, and eight months later the incident has yielded revised rules requiring TSA agents to stick to matters related to flight security rather than policing airports for other crimes. Bierfeldt and the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented him in a lawsuit, announced in a news release this week that the TSA had changed its rules in response to the litigation. It's a huge victory for civil liberties that TSA agents no longer have free rein to conduct sweeping, baseless searches and detain passengers who don't pose a threat to flight safety," Bierfeldt said in a statement. Bierfeldt said he was ushered to a small room and questioned after passing a metal box containing $4,700 through a Lambert screening checkpoint. He said the cash related to his job as director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, a lobbying group that sprouted from the presidential campaign last year of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican from Texas. Bierfeldt said he was interrogated for a half-hour in an increasingly threatening manner and told he was being placed under arrest. He recorded audio of the episode on his iPhone. Before it was due to be heard in September, the ACLU said the TSA issued a policy directive stating that "screening may not be conducted to detect evidence of crimes unrelated to transportation security."...read more

Song Of The Day #180

Today's Gospel tune is Rhonda Vincent's recording of I Heard My Savior Calling Me.

It's available on her 12 track CD Destination Life.

Berlin Against Anti-Terror Bank Data Deal

The new German justice minister says Berlin is not comfortable with an EU measure that would grant US authorities access to European banking data. Now it seems likely that the Germans may scupper the deal, which is supposed to be pushed through at an EU meeting in Brussels at the end of November. The agreement was supposed to be laced up before others got involved in the tricky debate about data protection and individual rights. Now, though, it looks like European Union plans to push through an anti-terror agreement with Washington may not go ahead, thanks in part to the new German government. The Berlin coalition, which pairs Angela Merkel's conservatives with the Free Democrats (FDP), voted into power at the end of September, likely won't rubber stamp a proposal that would give the US wide ranging access to EU bank accounts in the course of terrorism investigations. The measure, proposed by Sweden as current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, was to have passed by Dec. 1. It foresaw allowing US investigators access to European bank accounts -- particularly international transactions -- as part of terror enquiries. Germany is not the only country to have doubts...read more

Public-private vendors demand national ID standards

Public-private partnerships are known for behavior we compare to vultures. Scavenging birds circling your tax payout to contract goods and services that may, or may not, directly benefit you. In the following example, the identity industry has the most to gain from mandating national identity standards to pursue life normally. Basic standards for a nationalized ID card are a far cry from what some of these corporations urge our government to endorse: massive database systems, biometric face prints, RFID, DNA laminates and now fingerprints in order to secure legal working status. Fingerprinting is one solution proposed to curb illegal immigration. There have been recent murmurs on Capitol Hill, that NY Senator Chuck Schumer has got a walking agenda for the biometrics industry based on immigration reform. He has plans to propel legislation requiring everyone to submit copies of their fingerprints in order to have the right to work in the United States...read more

Bush Feared Successor Might Revoke Telco Spy Immunity

The George W. Bush administration expressed concern future administrations might not use the legal amnesty it wanted to give the nation’s telecommunication companies that were being sued for assisting the president’s warrantless, electronic wiretapping program, according to internal documents released Thursday. The documents, unearthed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, also suggest the administration was wary it might first have to concede that the telcos were complicit in the alleged dragnet surveillance to garner congressional support for the amnesty bill. The legislation, passed in July 2008, killed the EFF’s federal civil rights lawsuit against the companies. Ultimately, Congress approved legislation granting immunity to the telcos without any admission of guilt — provided the attorney general requested the power on their behalf. In July 2008, President Bush signed the package, which was endorsed by then-Sen. Barack Obama...read more

House Judiciary Committee Approves Strong PATRIOT Act Reform

In a 16-10 party-line vote on Nov. 5, the House Committee on the Judiciary approved H.R. 3845, the USA PATRIOT Amendments Act of 2009. Among the most touted of the reforms provided by the bill, H.R. 3845 would permit the so-called “lone wolf” provision to sunset. This authority removed the requirement that an individual needed to be an agent of a foreign power to be placed under surveillance by intelligence officials and permitted surveillance of individuals with a much lower evidentiary threshold than allowed under criminal surveillance procedures. H.R. 3845 also restricts the use of national security letters. Under current law, intelligence agencies have few restrictions on the use of NSLs, and in numerous cases, they overuse the authority. An FBI inspector general report in 2007 “found that the FBI used NSLs in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines, and internal FBI policies.” The reform provisions seek to create greater judicial scrutiny of NSL use, as the relevant agency would need to demonstrate to a judge the connection to foreign actors, as well as the need for a gag order, prior to issuing the NSL. In other reform provisions, the legislation would require the government demonstrate to a judge that the target of a roving wiretap is a single person in order to obtain a warrant. An even stricter evidentiary standard is mandated to obtain library and bookstore records. The roving wiretap and records seizure authorities are set to expire at the end of 2013 rather than in 2009...read more

House Committee Marks Up State Secrets Bill

On Nov. 5, the House Judiciary Committee began markups on a bill that would codify standards for when and how the executive branch may apply the state secrets privilege in civil litigation. Although the Obama administration has promised certain limitations on its own use of the privilege, civil liberties and open government groups continue to call for legislation to address the privilege. Ultimately, the committee approved the bill on an 18-12 vote and referred the legislation to the full House. The state secrets privilege was created by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Reynolds (1953). Historically, the privilege has typically been invoked to withhold specific pieces of evidence from being reviewed by a judge for possible introduction at trial. Officials in the Bush administration interpreted the privilege more broadly and repeatedly used it to pressure courts to dismiss entire cases, arguing that any and all records related to the government's defense would be state secrets. Despite the privilege’s court origins, few judges have been willing to question or limit its use. Critics contend that the privilege has been misused to cover up violations of U.S. and international law, such as wiretapping programs, torture, and rendition. In addition, the public learned that the classified material in the original Reynolds case, once declassified in 2000, actually contained no secret information. The bill would prevent the outright dismissal of an entire lawsuit without an independent review of the evidence deemed privileged. The legislation would require the White House to submit the information it deems a state secret to a federal judge, who would conduct an independent review of the material. Further, if the court believes the executive branch claim is legitimate, then the court can require a non-privileged substitute of the evidence to be created, if possible. Refusal to submit evidence would result in a finding against the government...read more

Mexico Border City Groups Call for UN Peacekeepers

Business groups in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez said Wednesday they are calling for United Nations peacekeepers to quell the drug-related violence that has given their city one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Groups representing maquiladora assembly plants, retailers and other businesses said they will submit a request to the Mexican government and the Inter American Human Rights Commission to ask the U.N. to send help. "This is a proposal ... for international forces to come here to help out the domestic (security) forces," said Daniel Murguia, president of the Ciudad Juarez chapter of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism. "There is a lot of extortions and robberies of businesses. Many businesses are closing." The government has sent more than 5,000 soldiers to the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, but killings, extortions and kidnappings continue...read more

Time to Put An End to Army Bases as Gun-Free Zones

It is hard to believe that we don't trust soldiers with guns on an army base when we trust these very same men in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shouldn't an army base be the last place where a terrorist should be able to shoot at people uninterrupted for 10 minutes? After all, an army base is filled with soldiers who carry guns, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Beginning in March 1993, under the Clinton administration, the army forbids military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that "a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army] personnel [exist] in that region" before military personnel "may be authorized to carry firearms for personal protection." Indeed, most military bases have relatively few military police as they are in heavy demand to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. The unarmed soldiers could do little more than cower as Major Nidal Malik Hasan stood on a desk and shot down into the cubicles in which his victims were trapped...read more

U.S. reverses stance on treaty to regulate arms trade

The United States reversed policy on Wednesday and said it would back launching talks on a treaty to regulate arms sales as long as the talks operated by consensus, a stance critics said gave every nation a veto. The decision, announced in a statement released by the U.S. State Department, overturns the position of former President George W. Bush's administration, which had opposed such a treaty on the grounds that national controls were better. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would support the talks as long as the negotiating forum, the so-called Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, "operates under the rules of consensus decision-making." The proposed treaty is opposed by conservative U.S. think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, which said last month that it would not restrict the access of "dictators and terrorists" to arms but would be used to reduce the ability of democracies such as Israel to defend their people. The U.S. lobbying group the National Rifle Association has also opposed the treaty...read more

Federal judge orders college to allow "empty holster" protest

A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order Friday allowing two Tarrant County College students to stage their "empty holster" protest at the community college campuses. U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means said in his ruling that Clayton Smith and John Schwertz Jr., who attend TCC Northeast Campus in Hurst, can wear empty gun holsters and hand out fliers in "public-forum areas including, but not limited to, public streets, sidewalks, and common or park areas." TCC wanted to restrict the protest to a small designated area. But the students cannot wear their holsters in classrooms or hallways. They are protesting for the right of licensed gun owners to carry concealed handguns on college campuses...read more