County Sues Farmer, Cites Too Many Crops

DeKalb County is suing a local farmer for growing too many vegetables, but he said he will fight the charges in the ongoing battle neighbors call “Cabbagegate.” Fig trees, broccoli and cabbages are among the many greens that line the soil on Steve Miller’s more than two acres in Clarkston, who said he has spent fifteen years growing crops to give away and sell at local farmers markets. “It's a way of life, like it's something in my blood,” said Miller. In January, Dekalb County code enforcement officers began ticketing him for growing too many crops for the zoning and having unpermitted employees on site. Miller stopped growing vegetables this summer and the charges were put on hold as he got the property rezoned. Two weeks after approval, however, his attorney said the county began prosecuting the old charges, saying he was technically in violation before the rezoning. Miller faces nearly $5,000 in fines, but he said he plans to fight those citations in recorders court later this month...more

Los Payasos - gov't at work.

Charlie Daniels, Unsung Singing Hero

It was some thirty years ago when I first caught a Charlie Daniels concert. He was the back-up to the Marshall Tucker Band at the old Capital Centre outside Washington D.C., and that night, he stole the show. When he finished his blazing set the audience erupted and brought him back for an encore. When the Marshall Tucker Band finished their rather good performance, it made no difference: the capacity crowd roared for yet another performance from Charlie Daniels. It’s a metaphor for his life. At a time when he should, deservedly be disappearing into the shadows, he’s back – with the crowd roaring once again. Despite recovering from a stroke and nearing his 74th birthday, Charlie still plays about 100 concerts a year, including Sean Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts” to benefit the children of our fallen and disabled U.S. soldiers through Ollie North’s Freedom Alliance. So much has Charlie become ingrained in the “Freedom Concerts” (he performed in all eight shows this year) and in the effort to support our military worldwide that he deserves his own tribute. He is America’s unsung singing hero...more

Song Of The Day #405

In honor of Charlie Daniels, the Unsung Singing Hero, Ranch Radio will continue Swingin' Monday right on into Tuesday, and bring you two Daniels tunes: The South's Gonna Do It Again and Wichita Jail.

Many enjoy reading Charlie's Soapbox Articles.

New Book and Related Campaign on CAFOs

NEWS ADVISORY

Date: September 13, 2010

From: Cyndie Sirekis, Director of News Services, AFBF

Topic: New Book and Related Campaign on CAFOs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A new 400-page hardcover photo/essay book, CAFO (Concentration Animal Feeding Operation): The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories, will be released on Oct. 1. In addition to 450 photos, the book includes essays by dozens of writer-activists including Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Tim Philpot, Anna Lappe and Wendell Berry. A collection of 30 essays from the hardcover book were published in July in a smaller, paperback version, The CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories. Both books were edited by Dan Imhoff (author of Food Fight, Farming with the Wild, Paper or Plastic, Building with Vision, and Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature) and may be ordered online from University of California Press and Amazon.com.

The books strive to expose “the horrors of industrial food production.” Referring to CAFOs, the publisher notes, “It is quite possible to banish these animal factories from the face of the Earth; it only takes the will and determination of citizen activists.”

According to promos for the books, “Industrial livestock production is now a leading source of climate-changing emissions, a source of both freshwater and ocean pollution, and a significant contributor to diet-related diseases such as obesity and the spread of foodborne illnesses. The intensive concentration of animals in such crammed and filthy conditions dependent on antibiotic medicines and steady streams of subsidized industrial feeds poses serious moral and ethical concerns for all of us.”

A section of essays in the books is the basis for a related educational campaign, “Putting the CAFO out to Pasture.” Through this effort, activists are calling for major reforms to modern production agriculture, including an end to CAFOs. Consumers are urged to make changes to their diets and support public policy that fosters pasture-based farming for livestock of all types. Additional information is available online at www.cafothebook.org.

The following messages should prove helpful in the event you receive media calls regarding the books and related campaign:

• The treatment, health and well-being of farm animals are of utmost importance to farmers and ranchers. Proper animal care leads to production of high-quality milk, meat and eggs.
• Farmers and ranchers are committed to providing high-quality, healthy food products such as milk, meat and eggs. They know that healthy animals result in healthy food for consumers and that starts with top-notch animal care.
• Nutritious diets, healthy living conditions and good medical care are among the many animal welfare practices routinely used by farmers and ranchers.

In addition, AFBF’s Conversations on Care website contains additional information about how the vast majority of farmers and ranchers care for their animals. That includes the following messages:

• Healthy animals mean healthy food for you and your family.
• For animals to produce meat, milk and eggs, America’s farmers and ranchers must take all possible steps to ensure that animals are well cared for seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.
• As farmers and ranchers, we recognize that superior animal welfare practices lead to the production of high-quality, safe and wholesome meat, milk and eggs, and we’re constantly seeking ways to improve the well-being and comfort of our animals.
• Simply put, without healthy and content animals, farmers and ranchers would not be in business.
• Farmers and ranchers care deeply about the health, well-being and safety of our animals, and we ensure our animals’ well-being through proper management and shelter.
• Farmers and ranchers provide adequate food, water and medical care to protect our
animals’ health.
• We also provide appropriate shelter to ensure livestock can exhibit normal behaviors at rest and remain protected from disease, competition, injury and predators.
• Quality Assurance programs at the national and state levels provide farmers and ranchers with guidelines for the production of safe, wholesome animals, including recommendations on necessary animal handling and facilities.
• Standards for animal care should be based on the expertise of veterinarians, farmers, ranchers and animal scientists -- the people who work with farm animals daily.
• American farmers and ranchers have been working with veterinarians, animal scientists, agricultural engineers and animal well-being experts to continually develop and support reasonable science-based guidelines and audits.
• As the people who work with livestock 24/7, farmers and ranchers, as well as veterinarians and animal care scientists, provide the voices of experience and reason in addressing animal welfare issues.
• Changes to animal well-being guidelines should be based on data, expert analysis and economic feasibility.
• Adding unnecessary costs to U.S. production will increase the amount of food imported from places that have an inferior record on food safety and animal well-being.
• Overzealous standards will increase the price of food, negatively affecting all families trying to make ends meet.
-30-

The Thrill of Victory... The Agony of Quash / ONRW Hearing to Go Forth

For years the NMCGA and others have fought a sweeping designation of Outstanding National Resource Waters (ONRW) on forest lands in New Mexico. Even the New Mexico Legislature joined in the war passing a memorial sponsored by Representative Debbie Rodella directing the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) to make ONRW designations on a stream by stream basis, as determined by science.

Driven by the WildEarth Guardians (formerly the Forest Guardians) and an Executive Order by Governor Bill Richardson on Earth Day 2008, the NMED has doggedly pushed forward a petition that defies logic. At every stage of the process the NMCGA has attempted to bring reason to the situation and to get the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) to follow its’ own rules in accepting petitions for hearing. One of the main necessities for an ONRW is baseline water quality data. The NMED has it on less than 25% of the waters it is nominating. Additionally the petition has changed since it was first accepted for hearing.

Late last Thursday a suit was filed in the Thirteenth Judicial District, Sandoval County, New Mexico, requesting a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt the hearing because of the flaws in the process. The TRO was granted on the spot. The final order did not become available until late Friday.

This morning the NMED filed a motion with the New Mexico State Supreme Court to quash the TRO. In an amazing feat of judicial process, they were able to get a telephonic hearing at 3p.m. TODAY. The NMCGA attorney was given less than 30 minutes notice for this hearing. It was really no surprise that the NMED got what it wanted.

The NMED followed exactly the same path in moving forward with greenhouse gas regulations this summer.

The ONRW hearing will commence tomorrow, September 14 and is scheduled to run through the rest of the week. If it is not completed, it will reconvene on October 12.

If you have ANY time this week, please sit in on the hearing in room 307 of the State Capitol. We need all the support we can get!

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that pretty well expresses my thoughts at this point … “I can see November from my house.”

Caren Cowan
Executive Director
New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association
POB 7517
Albuquerque NM 87194

'Part of having wolves is having to kill wolves'

The re-establishment of wolf populations in the Northern Rockies was a laudable wildlife goal, and programs to protect them as they came back were necessary. But notice our use of the past tense. Wolves are back, and now they need to be managed just like any other wild critter. Last we heard, at least 1,700 wolves roam the three-state ecosystem, roughly a third of them in Montana. That's a pretty healthy population, and it exceeds the targets of recovery plans. Among the tools wildlife officials have employed to manage them are hunting seasons and, in the case of livestock depredations, trapping and sometimes killing by the managers themselves. Unfortunately, one of those tools was removed by a federal judge who blocked the 2010 wolf season in Montana and Idaho. The officials now are looking at ways to put the hunts back in place. "You just have to accept that part of having wolves is having to kill wolves," said Mark Collinge, Idaho director of the federal Wildlife Service. "As the wolf populations increase, the depredations increase and the number of wolf removals will increase," he told a reporter recently. "It's very logical." The fact is, there's been plenty of wolf killing since the first 66 wolves were carted down to Yellowstone in the '90s. It's estimated that about 1,400 have been killed by wildlife agents and ranchers since the recovery effort began...more

Tribes, ranchers may suffer if Idaho holds to threat of wolf management

Idaho’s ranchers and the Nez Perce tribe may be left to their own devices if Idaho holds to its governor’s promise of pulling out of wolf management. After meeting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last week, Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter sent Salazar an ultimatum to vent his frustration with having to manage wolves under federal rules. He said Salazar should ignore a U.S. district court ruling putting wolves under federal protection and restore state management of wolves by Oct. 7. Otherwise, the state would refuse to fill the monitoring and investigation role it’s carried out since shortly after wolves were introduced. On Friday, Idaho congressmen Mike Simpson and Walt Minnick also sent a letter to Salazar, asking him to immediately address allowing the states to manage wolf populations. Montana and Idaho managed their wolf populations for a year before a district court judge Donald Molloy ruled that endangered species cannot be managed on a state-by-state basis. Because wolves in Wyoming remained on the endangered species list, the court relisted all wolves. Since setting the Oct. 7 date, the Otter camp has backpedaled. Otter’s chief counsel, David Hensley, told the Idaho Statesman that deadlines can be moved and it’s not really a line in the sand. But should Otter hold firm, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t yet know what would happen with wolf management, leading to some uncertainty for ranchers on who would investigate wolf kills or eliminate problem packs. David Potts of the USFWS Pacific region, which oversees Idaho, said the service would initially step in to manage the wolves and look into options of managing with other agencies or entities...more

Wolves in the Midwest vs. the West. What’s the Difference? Us.

While the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone in 1995 stirred up a regional, political firestorm that is hottest in the Cowboy State of Wyoming, the gradual comeback of Midwestern wolves happened with much less political heat or controversy. Why is that? Midwestern wolves are not any different--in behavior, appearance or genetics--from the Canadian wolves that were reintroduced into the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem more than a decade ago. “Wolves have been studied to death,” said Bangs. “We’ve got a ton of research about them from all over the world.” What’s unique about the Northern Range wolves is that scientists have a front-row seat on rapidly changing ecosystems, as plants and animals alike respond to the presence of a top predator, absent for many decades. How people feel about wolves generally depends on where people are from, agree Bangs and other researchers. Hunter-gatherers like Native Americans and Alaska trappers generally have a positive opinion about wolves, admiring their pack loyalties and cooperation, said Bangs. But they also harvest wolves for their pelts. “If livestock are economically important where you live, then predators are not well thought of,” said Bangs, explaining the hostility toward wolves among ranchers. Urban dwellers, particularly those with higher incomes and educations, are generally more supportive of wolf conservation. Adrian Treves and Lisa Naughton, researchers at the University of Wisconsin, have found that public attitudes break down in quarters – one quarter don’t care, one quarter are intensely opposed to wolves, one quarter intensely support wolves and one quarter are “swing voters,” just like in politics. Hunters have more complicated views of wolves, agree Bangs and Treves. “Hunters are willing to share (with wolves),” said Bangs, “but not everything.”...more

Deal made to help sage grouse in West

The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior are teaming up to help out the greater sage grouse. An agreement signed Tuesday by the two departments calls for the Agriculture Department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to work together with states and landowners to protect the chicken-size bird and its habitat. As an example, ranchers could keep cattle from grazing sage grouse areas during the bird’s breeding times. There will be monetary incentives to conserve the bird as well. About $16 million will be available this fiscal year that landowners could use to reduce threats to the birds, such as disease and invasive species, or to preserve habitat. Alan Clark, assistant director for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said Tuesday he hopes the federal government will work with land managers, states and private interests to better protect the birds. Clark said a key is to assure landowners that they will not be penalized or hurt if they take measures to protect sage grouse on their land...more

Alan Simpson, Social Security, and the Welfare Barons of the Livestock Industry

Alan Simpson, co-chair of President Obama's Deficit Commission, likens Social Security to "a milk cow with 310 million tits." But Simpson, a Wyoming rancher, is certainly familiar with a welfare "tit" that is a con game of continental magnitude maintained for "permittees," mostly ranchers like himself, who lease grazing allotments on America's public lands. This fleecing carried out on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land and national forests is immense in scope. BLM alone has 18,000 permits on 157 million acres -- an area equal in size to Montana and Wyoming combined. In addition, the Forest Service manages 93 million of its public forests for some 8,000 permits. Although this land belongs to all Americans in common, it's managed primarily for a minority of permittees producing just 3% of the nation's beef. Cowboy history notwithstanding, cattle are not suited for ecosystems of the West. As Donald Peters put it in 1990, "Trying to fit European cattle into arid North American ecosystems is like putting a size-12 foot into a size-8 shoe." Aside from the well-documented ecological damage wrought by domestic livestock, and their displacement of wild native animals, the financial setup alone should incense taxpayers. Here's the rub: Permittees pay a fraction of the market. The unit used for grazing livestock is an "Animal Unit per Month" (AUM), equal to a cow and her calf (or five sheep). To graze livestock on private land, the current market now runs about $20, but permittees pay $1.35, so $18.65 for each AUM that should go into the federal till is compensated for by U.S. taxpayers -- a sum running into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year. How ironic that many haters of "big guv'ment" are major-league welfare recipients...more

I'm pretty good at "reading between the lines", and I believe Bill Willers, a retired professor of biology, is really not a fan of livestock grazing in the West.

Farmers caught in fight over buffers

In 2002, a U.S. district court judge ruled a federal agency violated the Endangered Species Act in the way it registered pesticides. The ruling set in motion a dispute now entering its ninth year involving federal and state agencies, environmental organizations, pesticide makers and farm, ranch and forestry groups. In the case brought by the Washington Toxics Coalition and other environmental organizations, Judge John Coughenour ruled that before the Environmental Protection Agency cleared for use certain pesticides, it first should have consulted with federal fisheries managers on their effects on salmon. Given that Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies consult when their actions could affect a threatened or endangered species, the ruling wasn't surprising, said Heather Hansen, executive director of Washington Friends of Farms and Forests, which advocates for agricultural interests on pest management issues. "But there really is no simple way to (consult)," Hansen said. "Pesticides are used in agriculture, in homes, on flea collars. So how do you consult on that?" The original wording of the law didn't take complex scenarios into account, she said. "The ESA was written thinking in terms of: If you build a dam, it's in one spot at one time and you consult on that one action," Hansen said. "That is how the consultation process was envisioned: One action, one spot, one time." As the EPA prepares to restrict use of many common pesticides, farmers, ranchers and foresters appear to be the big losers. According to figures from NMFS, under currently proposed actions -- which involve no-spray buffers around streams, lakes and other water bodies -- pesticide use will be restricted on 61 percent of Washington state's total land area. Fifty-five percent of Oregon, 32 percent of California and 26 percent of Idaho would also be restricted...more

Lair of the Beasts: Chupacabras vs. Chupacabras

Over the course of the last year or so, I have found myself doing more and more radio, newspaper, magazine, and TV interviews on the phenomenon of the so-called “Texas Chupacabras” – those admittedly very strange-looking, hairless beasts that have predominantly been reported within woods and fields in and around the Austin and San Antonio areas, but that are now being seen with increasing frequency in the vicinity of the city of Dallas, very near to where my wife and I live. One of the questions that keep on surfacing during those same interviews is how, and under what particular circumstances, did these mysterious beasts manage to migrate from the island of Puerto Rico – where the Chupacabras reports began to surface in the mid-1990s – to the heart of the Lone Star State? Well, the answer to that question is very simple: they didn’t. I have been on a number of expeditions to Puerto Rico in search of the island’s blood-sucking beasts, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they exist. I have interviewed numerous ranchers, veterinarians, civil-defense employees, and members of the public who have either seen the creatures, or who have been witness to their blood-sucking activities. In most cases, the Chupacabras of Puerto Rico are described as bipedal creatures with large eyes, vicious claws and teeth, hairless monkey-like bodies, row of spikes running down the backs of their heads and necks - punk-rock Mohawk-style – and even, occasionally, sporting membranous bat-like wings. As for their mode of attack, most of the interviewees stated that the Chupacabras kill their prey by a bite to the neck and then proceeds to drink the blood...more

The Western Lit Blues

I don't like to gut fish. I grant you that a trout's fluorescent-colored guts are interesting to poke with a stick, but only for a short time, and only once in a great while. Mostly they are just slimy and smelly and get your hands all germy, which, if you are camping, say, in the Colorado mountains, is an annoying problem, because stomach ailments at 8,000 feet are never fun. There, I said it. I'll even repeat it: I do not like to gut fish. Usually I have better things to do. You may now dismiss me from the Cool Western Women's Club. I'm a writer who writes about the West and the people out here. You know, the tough outdoorsy folks who populate Western books. People who hunt, camp, ride horses, and love to gut fish. Men and women who live on ranches or fall in love with ranchers. Or the folks who have a kayak on their Subaru and suntan marks on their feet from Chaco sandals, and the people who fall in love with suntanned, Subaru-driving kayakers. I write about them because, in part, I'm that sort of person myself. I'm a ranch kid who now owns a Subaru and has crisscrossed suntan patterns on my feet all summer long. I write what I know and what I see. But I have to say: Even though I am similar to my fictional counterparts, I am also not them. There's more going on with life out here in the West than is often rendered in books. We Westerners are more complex and worldly and unique than what I sometimes find on the page, frankly. And as a writer, a reader, an observer, and a half-assed cultural critic, I'm starting to get a little worried...more

Raising sheep: a way of life

Five generations of John Noh's family have used the same Sawtooth National Forest land to graze their sheep. Some of the ancient grey wood of the corral, used year after year, is as old as the rancher's permit. The Nohs had already shipped some lambs raised in an area near Monument Peak the previous week. Now, on the morning of Aug. 30, they were across the valley bringing in sheep from Bear Hollow. Friends — many sheep ranchers themselves — showed up the night before to share food and gossip, and to help load the lambs in the morning. Starting in April, the band's 1,000 ewes were released onto public land so their lambs could grow and fatten in the high meadows. Noh employs three shepherds from South America who watched the sheep throughout summer. Now, Chilean Lorenzo Saldivia whacked his cane against the corral rails to keep the sheep moving through chutes leading into the first of two tractor-trailers, one driven by sheep rancher Mike Secrest. The Idaho sheep community is fairly small and getting smaller. Two or three ranchers recently found themselves in tough straits when the Long Butte Fire burned their winter grazing areas. Idaho has no commercial processing plants, and Noh fears the industry may lose more packers. So ranchers have assumed many roles to help each other out...more

Harris has second thoughts about cow ban

By the summer of 1887, editor Frank Harris of the Ocala Banner was beginning to feel the heated reaction to his determined campaign to get cows off the streets of Ocala, and the tone of his published comments began to shift somewhat under peer pressure. It was during his regime as mayor that the city council adopted an ordinance that would have banned cows from the streets during the day and night. These were mostly milk cows that furnished milk and butter for families and, as such, had staunch defenders to their right to wander where they pleased. Cows found on the streets were to be impounded by the town marshal, and once the ordinance was on the books, it appeared that virtually nobody wanted it. Or so it seems from published comments by Editor Harris, as he started edging backward. Confronted by an irate public, the city council backed down somewhat and amended the ordinance to ban cows only during the daylight hours. It was all right to turn them out at night, after they had been milked. After all, there was plenty of grass along the streets to feed them adequately. One of the greatest irritants, however, was the congregating of cows on the courthouse square in the center of town. Harris reserved his strongest language against that and, as a result, a fence was built around the square. Even the fence became contentious...more

Trew: Digging post holes by hand was hard work

Among the hundreds of jobs associated with farming and ranching, digging postholes by hand is by far my least favorite. Today, most postholes are dug by equipment powered by tractors, motors and hydraulics. Iron tee posts driven into the ground have pretty well replaced the need for digging post holes. But not so long ago all postholes were dug by hand with a pair of diggers. Of interest is the fact the Devil's Rope Museum in McLean has approximately 60 patented post hole diggers on display all showing different designs and mechanisms to make the job easier. I can guarantee a long hot day on a pair of diggers in hard dry ground will conjure up many ideas to make the dreaded job less work. Among the first post-hole-digger-haters were the old dyed-in-the-wool cowboys who believed any work not carried out on the back of a horse was a sin, an embarrassment and beneath their dignity. If the truth were known, the famous "Cowboy Strike" carried out at Old Tascosa was probably as much in protest of building barbed wire fences as demanding higher wages and better working conditions on the ranches. The new-fangled barbed wire fences of the Old West were a joke at first. When finally accepted as a legitimate ranch improvement it was no easy chore to construct. First, trying to establish the correct legal boundary before building was almost impossible due to the many incorrect early day surveying methods. Once surveyed and staked someone had to spend weeks with an axe and saw in a cedar canyon somewhere cutting fence posts and hauling them to the site...more

Song Of The Day #404

It's Swingin' Monday on Ranch Radio, where we bring up-tempo tunes to get your heart started for the week.

Today's selection is bluegrass fiddler Hunter Berry performing the swing number Kansas City Kitty.

The song is on his 12 track CD Wow Baby.

Storm

Helluva storm here tonight...power has gone out twice...may not be able to publish.

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Lonesome for the old days

by Julie Carter

In some phase of the moon, or maybe it's the calendar, there seems to be yearning among a number of my acquaintances to find a piece of their past and return to the "fun" that they remember it to be.

"I'm lonesome for the old days," are the words that resonate around any conversation about said "old days" and the memories of the good times.

Class reunions and family reunions are a given for collecting people that have a history with each other. They offer a one-shot period of time to catch up on one or many years and then everyone goes home and life resumes.

Then there are those times when a simple action by one person starts a movement that gathers momentum with each day as the people involved start opening their memories to those "good old days."

Clay Mac may not know it yet, but he has done such a thing simply by agreeing to play at a benefit dance in the Rio Grande Valley later this fall. A New Mexico band legend in the honky-tonk hall of fame, Clay isn't just awesome with his music, he has a good time doing it and his fun rolls right off the platform and into the crowd.

Not far from the upcoming designated dance hall is a locally historical honky tonk called the Red Carpet, or the "Red Rug" as it was fondly referred to in the height of its day. Now just an empty building with its own ghosts, just the mention of the name invokes memories of two-stepping, beer-drinking, pool-playing wild nights. It remains a monument to the good times of decades ago.

Such are the "fun" memories of one veteran of the "good old days" who said that sometimes he gets a six-pack and pulls in the parking lot of the Red Rug and just sits there and remembers while he sips.

Built around those good old days are friendships that endure far into the future. Sadly and all too often, they are kept dormant by life and distance and the recall is locked away in the cedar chests of their honky-tonk minds.

The key to that lock can be as simple as the sound of a fiddle bow pulled across the strings. That soulful sound explodes into a song that invokes whoops, hollers and the rush of boots and jeans to the dance floor.

The phone lines have been burning up for weeks in the process of making plans for a Red Rug Reunion at the fairgrounds dance barn and Clay Mac's guaranteed good-time music.

Only briefly does any of the Red Rug alumni lament the toll that 20 years has taken on waistlines and backsides, hair color or ability to hang past midnight.

Wiser planning brought by inevitable maturity involves nearby motel reservations, designated drivers and subtle warnings to spouses that they could possibly meet a new side of their life-partner, if only briefly.

Probability is high that the recall of the good old days will be enhanced by differing stories and confusing memories.

Already the arguments have begun involving statements like, "No, that wasn't me, that was Sheila and it was at Cowboys, not at the Red Rug. Get your memories right, keep your bars straight and don't confuse my stories."

Yeeeee haw ... here comes the Red Rug gang.

‘Clunkers,’ a classic government folly

IN THE market for a used car? Good luck finding a bargain: The price of “pre-owned’’ vehicles has climbed considerably over the past year. According to Edmunds.com, a website for car buyers, a three-year-old automobile today will set you back, on average, close to $20,000 — a spike of more than 10 percent since last summer. For some popular models, the increase has been much steeper. In July, a used Cadillac Escalade was going for around $35,000, or nearly 36 percent over last July’s price. But an even bigger part of the answer is that the supply of used cars is artificially low, because your Uncle Sam decided last year to destroy hundreds of thousands of perfectly good automobiles as part of its hare-brained Car Allowance Rebate System — or, as most of us called it, Cash for Clunkers. That was the program under which the government paid consumers up to $4,500 when they traded in an old car and bought a new one with better gas mileage. The traded-in cars — which had to be in drivable condition to qualify for the rebate — were then demolished: Dealers were required to chemically wreck each car’s engine, and send the car to be crushed or shredded. Even on environmental grounds, Cash for Clunkers was an exorbitant dud. Researchers at the University of California-Davis calculated that the reduction of carbon dioxide attributable to the program cost no less than $237 per ton. In contrast, carbon emissions credits cost about $20 per ton in international markets...more

Los Payasos.