Scientist's Firing After 36 Years Fuels 'PC' Debate at UCLA

A longtime professor at UCLA, told that he would not be rehired because his "research is not aligned with the academic mission" of his department, says he's being fired after 36 years at the prestigious school because his scientific beliefs are "politically incorrect." But UCLA says Dr. James Enstrom's politics have nothing to do with its decision. Enstrom, an epidemiologist at UCLA's School of Public Health, has a history of running against the grain. In 2003 he wrote a study, published in the British Medical Journal, in which he found no causal relationship between secondhand smoke and tobacco-related death – a conclusion that drew fire both because it was contrary to popular scientific belief and because it was funded by Philip Morris. Now Enstrom says his studies show no causal link between diesel soot and death in California – findings that once again set him far apart from the pack and put him in direct conflict with the California Air Resources Board, which says its new standards on diesel emissions will save 9,400 lives between 2011 and 2025 and will reduce health care costs by as much as $68 billion in the state. Enstrom questions the science behind the new emissions standards, and he has raised concerns about the two key reports on which they were based – exposing the author of one study as having faked his credentials and the panel that issued the other study as having violated its term limits...more

Song Of The Day #399

Ranch Radio forgot Swingin' Monday last week, and since many are here after a long weekend, we'll give you a Triple Whammy of up tempo tunes to get your week started.

Today we'll feature Kina Lankford and her 10 track CD Copenhagen Kisses.

Looking at the three songs, the first is something I've spent many hours trying to prevent, the second has happened many times and the third just swings.

The tunes are Peeling Labels, Copenhagen Kisses, and Songs About Saturday Night.

Cowgirl Sass and Savvy

Just about perfect

by Julie Carter

In my book, fall is about as perfect a season of the year as any of the four.

It is the time when all things that make cowboys, rednecks and assorted combinations thereof the very happiest.

At the ranch, it's payday time. Cattle buyers resurrect from out of nowhere and all eyes, ears and cell phones are on the markets.

Whether the crop is yearlings or fresh-weaned calves, every year is a new episode of "let's make a deal."

The blooms on everything green, nurtured by summer rains and sunshine, are at their peak of beauty.

Flowers abound both in the yards and thanks to the rains this year, also in the fields and on the hillsides.

While your cowboy might not be big on posies, I guarantee you he's happy with the tall grass and practically gleeful over the fat cattle lying in that grass, bellies full and hides licked slick.

The camouflage corps have their binoculars focused and their weapons of choice tuned while they dream dreams of the perfect hunting season(s).

Let a hint of crisp slip into the morning air and hunters everywhere trade in their hammocks and barbeque tools for game calls and camping gear.

Cattle trucks start rolling down the highways between the ranches and the wheat fields or feedlots.

Every small-town café has a parking lot periodically filled with flatbed pickups pulling stock trailers along with other pickups loaded with 4-wheelers, coolers and all the trappings of a Cabela's made-to-order hunting camp.

Here in the Southwest, throw in the smell of roasting green chiles to complete the fall ambiance and life is just about as perfect as you can get it.

If that isn't enough to paint a picture of the best of the year, add to the mix some pre-season football that seamlessly morphs into a regular season of high school, college and professional games.

Whether football is your "thing" or not, the onslaught of sports-mania permeates the air, unsurpassed by anything including politics.

Neighbors helping neighbors to get all the fall cattle work done is a jewel in the crown of ranching.

Calendars are full of marks on dates for the ranch up the road, the ranch down the road and another one an hour or so away.

Those days will be dedicated to the time-honored custom of "neighboring" -- where the work and the fun, and there is always some of that, is shared with folks that know you'll be there when they need an extra man, horse and help.

Now is the time for all good men ... and horses, dogs, kids and ranch wives ... to rise to the call of long hours, dusty corrals, sunrises that bless the "waiting on daylight" mornings, rattling trailers, ready ropes, the smell of sage and cedar, hot coffee poured from a campfire pot and the camaraderie of cowboys working a vocation they wouldn't trade for anything.

The life is not all that glamorous or romantic, but it does have an intangible something that anchors men's souls to the land.

Whether they own it or hire on to be part of it, it transforms an occupation into a belonging and an existence into a passion for living.

Julie, steeped in fall nostalgia, can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net

Wilderness’ Economic Revolution – Catron County

Editor's note: I was recently critical of the article Report: Wilderness areas good for economy. Now comes Mr. Wilmeth to tell us how Wilderness has affected Catron County.

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

In the summer of 1922, America’s famous conservationist, Aldo Leopold, was assigned duties on what had become the Gila National Forest. He fought fires there and he saw enough of the Gila River drainage and eastern Arizona’s Escondido Mountain area that his vision for wilderness was solidly formulated. In 1924, he coauthored an administrative plan and the Forest Service, without Congressional approval, engineered the first wilderness area in the United States. The Gila Wilderness was created.

In 1964, Congress finally enacted wilderness legislation. In that year, the Wilderness Act was passed and signed. The Gila Wilderness was officially designated, but the federal agency administration regarding wilderness management had been evolving and eliminating private rights endeavors for over 20 years.

The Gila Wilderness was true wilderness in every sense. It fit the vision of Leopold where stewardship of land was part of the underpinning of the concept. Mr. Leopold wrote extensively about a wilderness being the domain of the horseman, where all other means of entry had been halted by sheer physical barrier, and where a two week pack trip would never cross the same set of tracks. In the case of the Gila as in the Leopold writings, the presence of the stewards on horseback would become forever part of the lore of the wilderness when their references to places and or recollections of events would become permanent names of physical features.

The majority of that original wilderness designation occurred in Catron County. Catron County encompasses 6,928 square miles of land area in the southwestern quarter of the state. With a population of 3,443 in 2009, its population is less than one person per square mile. With all the recent discussion by Senators Bingaman and Udall and the various EarthFirst! influenced groups touting the economic benefits of additional wilderness designation in southern New Mexico, it is time to review how the Gila Wilderness, the so called “Yellowstone of the South”, has affected the economy of Catron County.

If wilderness designations positively affect local economies, Catron County should surely demonstrate such cause and affect results. The county, with its depleted historical industries of logging and ranching, depends heavily on the industrial and job growth of conditions directly affected by Forest Service and wilderness management relationships.

There are a number of places to start, but the one that meets the most obvious chronologically correct start is the population of Catron County. If wilderness promotes economic growth, Catron County should have experienced some growth increase from 1960 to 1970 since the Gila Wilderness was officially designated in 1964. Catron experienced a decrease of population of 21% in the decade of the ‘60s.

Fast forward to this decade and that trend is in play again. The population is down 3.6% from 2000. The most recent employment growth index, a real gauge of economic trend, is down 1.4%. For a matter of reference, the final quarter 2009 unemployment was 11.4%. Permanent jobs are not being created in Catron County and it can be argued that they have not been since wilderness was created.

Healthy economies normally attract young people and yet statistics indicate that the population of Catron County is much older than the general population of New Mexico. The Catron County dynamic for folks older than 65 is 189% of the New Mexico average comparison. Youth, calculated for ages under 18, are 63% of their New Mexico counterparts. Consider those statistics. Those results suggest that the folks of age are nearly double the state averages and the numbers of youth are about half the state average! The County is aging and youth must leave to find jobs, and they have for years.

If income is the measure of economic boost from the Gila Wilderness to the County, the statistic shows that Catron County median income is 67% of that of New Mexico’s which ranks only 81% of the national average.

How about retail sales? Catron County’s income generates retail sales of $1,304 per resident year versus the state number of $9,880 for all residents in New Mexico.

These statistics could continue, but the truth is Catron County is a poor, rural county that faces catastrophic financial difficulties. It has no real permanent wealth. It has been devastated by federal agency policies that have contributed directly to the collapse of its historical industries, and it is too poor to protect itself further from such ravages.

If there is a perfect model to forecast pure wilderness contributions to economic growth, it is Catron County. It is only there that the impact of wilderness and federal land agency management is manifested against a very limited private industry counterpart. It is also there that elected state and federal leadership, funded by environmental groups, have pressed forward with a comprehensive environmental agenda. The wolf reintroduction is only the most recent of a series of historical affronts to its citizenry.

Could it be that Catron County has been for years the new tribal reservation of our age? It is there that those from afar dictate what is best for its residents. It is there that organized management of the commons is all encompassing. It is there that the voices and deeds of its citizens are suppressed by state and federal leadership that seem to be in an ever tighter lock step with the absentee environmental movement.

There is, though, something in Catron County that some special leader must recognize. It is there that the model of modern wilderness must be reinvented . . . or the West is in a much bigger dilemma than can be imagined.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. He is an advocate of honest human character, limited government, and self reliance. He also believes that the real Gila story has yet to be told.

Song Of The Day #398

For our Gospel song this Sunday morning Ranch Radio will go back to 1935 and the Sons of the Pioneers recording of Oh There's Power (In The Blood).

Mexico: Soldiers kill 25 in gunbattle near border

A shootout between soldiers and suspected drug cartel members in northeastern Mexico left 25 purported gunmen dead Thursday, the military said. A reconnaissance flight over Ciudad Mier in Tamaulipas state spotted several gunmen in front of a property, according to a statement from Mexico's Defense Department. When troops on the ground moved in, gunmen opened fire, starting a gunbattle that killed 25 suspected cartel members, according to the military. The statement said two soldiers were injured but none were killed. Earlier, a military spokesman had said the shootout happened when troops on patrol in the town of General Trevino, in neighboring Nuevo Leon state, came under fire from a ranch allegedly controlled by the Zetas drug gang...more

Appeals court upholds block of BLM grazing rules

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management broke three laws in 2006 when trying to amend land-use regulations regarding grazing, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded Wednesday. The court upheld most of a federal district court’s ruling in its decision, which was enough to ensure that government oversight of grazing operations will not be reduced. The appeals court found that the BLM had violated two federal laws when it failed to consider the environmental effects of the regulation changes. Therefore, the decision states, the district judge was justified in blocking the changes from taking effect. For a third law — the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) — the appeals court sent the case back to the district court to reconsider, as the latter overlooked a precedent-setting case from 1984. But any final ruling on that part won’t have an effect on BLM regulations. “We figure the (FLPMA) claim will be dismissed at this point by the district court,” said Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds Project, a case plaintiff. “The case has been decided on other grounds.”...more

You can read the opinion here.

Group sues to protect lesser prairie chicken

A conservation group is suing to try to win federal protection for the lesser prairie chicken, a bird about the same size as domestic chicken found in parts of New Mexico — including Eddy County — and several other states. A lawsuit filed by WildEarth Guardians Wednesday in federal court in Denver is challenging the Interior Department's decision last year that the bird's listing on the endangered species list is warranted but is a lower priority than other species. The group says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office responsible for the region where the prairie chicken is found hasn't listed any species since 2005. Besides New Mexico, the birds are found in grasslands in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Biologists estimate there are about 40,000 breeding birds left. A BLM official at the state level said the BLM and the Fish and Wildlife Service continue working together enahnce and protect the bird and its habitat...more

Internal documents indicate BLM considered wild horse euthanasia program

News 4 has discovered internal Bureau of Land Management documents that show the government agency was considering euthanizing large numbers of wild horses as recently as last year. The documents include a number of pages detailing how a possible euthanization program could be implemented, even how the horses could be killed. When News 4 went to the BLM to get answers about these documents, we were told they are staff reports, drafted at the request of the previous administration, when funding for the Wild Horse and Burro program was tight and the agency wanted to explore possible cost saving options. BLM Deputy Division Chief for the Wild Horse and Burro program Dean Bostad says the current administration will not be implanting euthanization or sale without limitation. Sale without limitation would allow wild horses to be sold to anyone, including so-called "kill buyers" who resell the animals to slaughterhouses...more

Baucus presses for state control over wolves

Montana’s senior U.S. Senator Max Baucus yesterday called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move to allow all Montana ranchers to actively protect their livestock. Baucus pressed the Service to make the change now as he crafts legislation to put Montana wolves back under the state’s successful management plan. "This debate on wolves has gone on long enough. I'm working to craft a bill that will put wolves in our state back in our control once and for all, because nobody knows how to better manage wolves in Montana than Montanans,” Baucus said. “In the meantime, the Fish and Wildlife Service needs to do the right thing and allow all Montana ranchers protect their livestock regardless of arbitrary boundary lines.” Prior to a recent court ruling, wolves in Montana were removed from Endangered Species Act protections and managed by the state. Baucus has announced plans to introduce legislation to codify the Fish and Wildlife Service's previous rule that delisted wolves in states with federally-approved management plans, including Montana, and put wolf management back under Montana’s jurisdiction. In the meantime, as a result of the ruling wolves in Montana are now back under federal management, which classifies wolves in northern Montana as endangered, meaning they cannot be harmed by landowners unless a human life is in jeopardy. Wolf populations in the southern part of the state, however, are classified as experimental, allowing landowners the right to kill them to protect their livestock...more

Eco-author baffled by a violent fan

The "Ishmael" books are aimed at encouraging radical social change — but their author says hostage-taking is definitely not the change he had in mind. Daniel Quinn's story of Ishmael, a telepathic gorilla who tries to show humans where they're going wrong, has spawned a popular series of books, an eerie Hollywood movie and a movement that takes a critical look at our global industrial society. Unfortunately, it also spawned an escalating series of threats from James Lee, who resented the Discovery Channel so much that he took company employees hostage today. In the hours leading up to the crisis' bloody conclusion, Quinn reflected on the meaning of "My Ishmael," the book that Lee repeatedly cited as his inspiration. Quinn wondered how that meaning could have been misinterpreted so badly...more

Noted anti-global-warming scientist reverses course

With scientific data piling up showing that the world has reached its hottest-ever point in recorded history, global-warming skeptics are facing a high-profile defection from their ranks. Bjorn Lomborg, author of the influential tract "The Skeptical Environmentalist," has reversed course on the urgency of global warming, and is now calling for action on "a challenge humanity must confront." Lomborg, a Danish academic, had previously downplayed the risk of acute climate change. A former member of Greenpeace, he was a vocal critic of the Kyoto Protocol -- a global U.N. treaty to cut carbon emissions that the United States refused to ratify -- as well as numerous other environmental causes. In a book to be published this year, Lomborg calls global warming "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and calls for the world's governments to invest tens of billions of dollars annually to fight climate change. Lomborg's former foes in the environmental movement are so far unimpressed by news of his conversion...more

Judge rules Salazar exceeded authority in canceling Utah leases

US Interior Sec. Ken Salazar exceeded his authority when he order 77 federal oil and gas leases in Utah withdrawn in early 2009, a federal court judge ruled on Sept. 1 in Salt Lake City. But US District Judge Dee Benson also ruled that plaintiffs waited too long to challenge Salazar’s action. Commissioners from three eastern Utah counties and three area independent producers who brought the suit indicated that the judge’s decision keeps an unacceptable precedent from being established. Salazar ordered the leases canceled early in 2009, soon after he became Interior secretary, after the US District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order on Dec. 22, 2008, preventing the US Bureau of Land Management from issuing them. The tracts were among 116 parcels sold at a regularly scheduled lease sale on Dec. 19. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance had sued 2 days earlier to block their being offered. In his decision, Benson said the federal Mineral Leasing Act’s plain language mandates that the US Interior secretary accept bids and issue oil and gas leases as part of the competitive leasing process. The mandate limits discretion which the secretary generally possesses to determine whether to issue a lease, he said. “In this case, the secretary exceeded his statutory authority by withdrawing leases after determining which parcels were to be leased and after holding a competitive lease during which the BLM named the plaintiffs high responsible bidders,” said Benson. “Ultimately, though, the plaintiffs’ claims are time-barred,” he continued. “Faced with a strict statute of limitations, the plaintiffs failed to file their suit within 90 days of the secretary’s final decision.”...more

Investing in Wind Power Is Smart — But Not How We’re Doing It

You’re probably a fan of wind power. It provides a limitless supply of clean energy. The turbines are manufactured primarily in the rust belt, creating much-ballyhooed green jobs for unemployed factory workers. Wind farms generate profits for local utilities, alternative energy companies, farmers, and ranchers, not to mention manufacturers like General Electric. What’s not to like? Well, there’s this: The US is building generating capacity in places that don’t need the electricity. Most wind farms are located in rural areas, where there’s plenty of land and a pragmatic attitude that welcomes wind turbines as a new “cash crop.” Indeed, Texas and Iowa recently surpassed California as the top wind energy states. But the transmission infrastructure to carry that power to cities is missing. Wind farms rely on big tax breaks to be competitive, and right now that money is being wasted. When more people catch wind of that fact, this promising form of alt energy could be labeled a boondoggle for farm states, as corn ethanol has been. For evidence of how ass-backward things have become, consider the curious phenomenon of negative electricity prices. These are just what they sound like: Because of the peculiarities of the energy market, producers of electricity sometimes pay grid operators to take the power they make. In sparsely populated west Texas, where the wind business is booming, the wholesale price of electricity was negative for about 1,100 hours—more than a month—in 2008 and more than 700 hours in 2009. How could this happen?...more

Feds: Don't drink contaminated water in Wyo. town

People shouldn't drink water from 40 wells in and around this central Wyoming farming and ranching community, federal officials said Tuesday. The announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services coincided with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency releasing its latest findings from testing water wells in the Pavillion area. Meanwhile, Encana Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of Encana Corp., announced that it has volunteered to pay for those affected to get clean drinking water. EPA testing of 23 water wells in January found low levels of hydrocarbons in 17 residential water wells sampled. Samples from four stock and irrigation wells and two municipal wells did not show hydrocarbon contamination. The hydrocarbons may - or may not - be related to oil and gas drilling in the Pavillion area from the 1960s to the latest day. EPA officials expect more testing, including tests from two just-drilled monitoring wells, to answer that question sooner or later. Either way, it wasn't only hydrocarbons but high levels of sodium, sulfates and other inorganic compounds that prompted the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to urge people Tuesday to treat their well water or find some other source of drinking water...more

Reward in question for forest ranger in escapee's capture

The U.S. Forest Service is reviewing whether an eastern Arizona ranger whose tip led to the capture of two of the most wanted fugitives in America can receive $27,500 in reward money under the agency's ethics guidelines. Apache Sitgreaves National Forest spokeswoman Pam Baltimore said Wednesday local forest officials would like to see the ranger get the money. But she said tentative word from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, is that he cannot. She didn't know what the department's reasoning might be, but said ethics guidelines generally prevent forest employees from receiving gifts over $25. "If it's a negative response from them as far as federal policy dictates, there's nothing we can do," Baltimore said. She added the ranger wishes to remain anonymous. The U.S. Marshals Service and the operator of a privately run prison had offered a combined $40,000 for information leading to the arrest of three inmates who escaped from the state prison in Kingman on July 30...more

Wheels of the West to celebrate military history

When the Central Coast Woodworkers Association [CCWA] began working on Pioneer Day's newest wagon addition, no one could have guessed how important the wooden transport had been to America's military history. The wagon was donated to the Pioneer Day Committee by the Rambo Family, who categorized it as a "farm wagon" despite its immense, heavy-duty wheels and the forgotten military insignia carved into a side panel. It only took a little scratchin', scrapin' and sandin' so uncover the wagon's first intended use: To transport American troops. "We started to strip the paint off it and we saw the Army green," said Pioneer Day Executive Director Wade Taylor. "I started looking at the specifications and going on the Internet. Then we were messing around the other day, and we found 'US 8' stamped on it." The group soon discovered that the wagon, a peeling bright yellow and-blue structure that had once been used for farm work, could likely be an 1863 Army Escort Wagon, which were built until the 1900s. The model was designed to carry about 1800 pounds, about the same weight as the wagon itself, according to experts...more

Song Of The Day #397

Ranch Radio will close this week of country/bluegrass mix with Hawkshaw Hawkins and Reno & Smiley performing If It Ain't On The Menu, Barefoot Nellie, I Wanna Be Hugged To Death By You and Lonesome Wind Blues.

Border activist's littering conviction is overturned

A federal appeals court on Thursday overturned the littering conviction of an Arizona activist who left gallon-size bottles of water for illegal immigrants crossing into the United States through a desert wildlife preserve. Daniel Millis of NoMoreDeaths.org had been convicted of violating a statute prohibiting the dumping of garbage in an area designated as a refuge for endangered species. In a 2-1 ruling, judges of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said water didn't meet the definition of waste. They also took note of Millis' practice of removing empty water bottles he found while on his missions to avert dehydration deaths in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officers stopped Millis and three other activists Feb. 22, 2008. Officer Allen Kirkpatrick spotted the plastic water bottles in the back of Millis' SUV and, upon learning that the occupants had placed other bottles along the trails, cited him for "dumping of waste."...more

Gulf platform owner says no oil leaking from burning rig and no injuries have been reported

In a statement, officials with Mariner Energy of Houston said it observed no leaking oil from its burning production platform at Vermilion Block 380, about 100 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Mariner officials also said that none of the 13 workers on board the rig reported injuries, in spite of Coast Guard reports earlier stating that one of the 13 was injured and the other 12 were in anti-hypothermia suits. Vermilion 380 Platform A was in fact producing oil and gas at the time of the accident, again contrary to Coast Guard statements that it was not producing at the time, the statement said. Mariner officials said it produced an average of 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate a day during the last week of August...more