Conservative Blogs

• The AP Fact Checks (and confirms) Jim Scarantino’s Phantom Stimulus Story

  —Errors of Enchantment

  The headline is pretty self-explanatory, so here is the article. If you have been living under a rock and don't know about Obama's phantom Congressional districts and our role in exposing them, check out the story here. If you want to support and continue these efforts, click here. ...' [...]
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  Fetched: November 20, 2009, 11:19am EST
  

• Denish Records: False Vouchers and Irregularities in Political Worker Payments

  —Errors of Enchantment

  Jim Scarantino's latest report on how Lt. Governor Diane Denish spent stimulus funds is now available at New Mexico Watchdog. [...]
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  Fetched: November 20, 2009, 11:19am EST
  

• Taxes Before Responsibility

  —Mario Burgos

  There's a war brewing for the 2010 Legislative Session. The battle lines have been drawn, and on one side are those that believe government excess should be pared down, and on the other side are those that want to see the tax and spend party to continue by raising even [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 8:48am EST
  

• The EPA's Paranoid Style

  —The Westerner

  Dr. Alan Carlin, a 37-year agency veteran, was muzzled earlier this spring. Dr. Carlin offered a report poking holes in the science underlying the theory of manmade global warming. His superior, Al McGartland, complained the paper did "not help the legal or policy case" for Team Obama's decision to regulate [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 7:05am EST
  

• EPA Workers Question Obama Gag Order - Video

  —The Westerner

  [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 7:04am EST
  

• Lawsuit Abuse Charge by Western Lawmakers Enrages Enviro Groups

  —The Westerner

  Poor government oversight has allowed advocacy groups to squander taxpayer money on frivolous lawsuits that drain the budgets of federal land management agencies without the knowledge of the public or Congress, a group of Western lawmakers told Attorney General Eric Holder in a letter released this week. Specifically, members of [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 7:01am EST
  

• Should private cattle graze on public lands?

  —The Westerner

  It's a battle that has ranchers pitted against environmentalists. An ongoing legal dispute over grazing practices in the Malheur National Forest has many Eastern Oregon ranchers worried about their livelihoods and the future of their ranches. Environmentalists are concerned grazing on certain parts of the public forest is degrading habitat [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:58am EST
  

• A Leviathan of Land

  —The Westerner

  ...With this reinvigorated discussion of how big is too big, it is worthwhile to remind Americans of just how massive the Federal government already was before our current woes began. There are few more striking measures of the government’s size than the land mass of the Federal estate. The vast [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:57am EST
  

• Pine Beetles Not a Good Reason for Climate Change Legislation

  —The Westerner

  Last week Senator Max Baucus joined several mainstream environmentalists in adding pine beetle outbreaks to a long list of things that can be blamed on climate change. Baucus is referring to the recent breakout of pine beetles in Montana. These insects bore their way into pine tress and lay their [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:54am EST
  

• Seas Grow Less Effective at Absorbing Emissions

  —The Westerner

  The Earth’s oceans, which have absorbed carbon dioxide from fuel emissions since the dawn of the industrial era, have recently grown less efficient at sopping it up, new research suggests. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels began soaring in the 1950s, and oceans largely kept up, scientists say. But [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:52am EST
  

• A climate threat, rising from the soil

  —The Westerner

  Across a patch of pineapples shrouded in smoke, Idris Hadrianyani battled a menace that has left his family sleepless and sick -- and has wrought as much damage on the planet as has exhaust from all the cars and trucks in the United States. Against the advancing flames, he waved [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:50am EST
  

• Fight Climate Change With Free Condoms, U.N. Population Fund Says

  —The Westerner

  The battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available, the U.N. Population Fund said Wednesday. The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: "Women with" [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:47am EST
  

• Corn-based ethanol producer says it will soon compete with gasoline

  —The Westerner

  The nation's largest producer of corn-based ethanol said it has slashed the cost of producing cellulosic ethanol from corn cobs and that it will be able to compete with gasoline in two years. POET, which currently produces 1.5 billion gallons a year of ethanol from corn, said its one-year old [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:45am EST
  

• Studying Fertilizers To Cut Greenhouse Gases

  —The Westerner

  gricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found that using alternative types of fertilizers can cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, at least in one part of the country. They are currently examining whether the alternatives offer similar benefits nationwide. Nitrogen fertilizers are often a necessity for ensuring sufficient crop yields, [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:43am EST
  

• Fed court upholds Maine's trapping regulations concerning Canada lynx species

  —The Westerner

  A federal court ruling on Tuesday upheld Maine's trapping regulations by denying a request from two animal welfare organizations for a permanent injunction because they failed to prove Canada lynx as a species is irreparably harmed under the regulations. The ruling from U.S. District Court Chief Judge John A. Woodcock [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:40am EST
  

• ‘The Light of Day’ Exposes the Green Movement’s Roots in Tyranny

  —The Westerner

  This book, by emerging author James Byrd, paints a telling portrait of the true agenda of the Green Movement. It successfully exposes the underlying agenda of collective power in the hands of the State; at the expense of the individual. Mr. Byrd creates a world of dynamic characters, their interrelations, [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:38am EST
  

• U.S. food safety likely to get overhaul in 2010

  —The Westerner

  A U.S. Senate committee voted unanimously on Wednesday to increase government oversight of food safety but the first significant overhaul in 50 years may not happen until 2010. Pressure to overhaul the food safety system has grown following several high-profile outbreaks involving lettuce, peppers, peanuts and spinach since 2006 that [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:37am EST
  

• Idaho Power's cloud seeding efforts keep water flowing over dams

  —The Westerner

  Cloud seeding once was seen similar to well divining, medicine shows and miracle healers. But today Idaho Power Co. is investing up to $1 million to seed the clouds above Idaho's mountains - in hopes of increasing the snowpack that holds the water that will drive the hydroelectric turbines to [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:33am EST
  

• Mad Science? Growing Meat Without Animals

  —The Westerner

  Winston Churchill once predicted that it would be possible to grow chicken breasts and wings more efficiently without having to keep an actual chicken. And in fact scientists have since figured out how to grow tiny nuggets of lab meat and say it will one day be possible to produce [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:30am EST
  

• Song Of The Day #185

  —The Westerner

  This morning on Ranch Radio is Ernest Tubb & Red Foley and their 1952 recording of Too Old To Cut The Mustard.
  
  It's available on the 4 disc box set Texas Troubadour (99 songs and a booklet for $25.98).
  
  
  
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:23am EST
  

• Mammograms and Government Health Care

  —Errors of Enchantment

  If you've been listening to the news recently, you probably heard of the controversy regarding the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force relating to mammograms. The gist of the recommendations was to state that women in their 40s no longer need to have annual mammograms. So far, so' [...]
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  Fetched: November 20, 2009, 10:16pm EST
  

• Albert Perez 1922-2009

  —The Westerner

  ALBUQUERQUE — And the Lord said, “Good job, my shepherd — now come on home.” Friday, Nov. 13, 2009.
  It is a sad day for the Albert Perez family — but what a great day in Heaven. There, it’s just breaking daylight. The sky is magenta, pickup engines are being [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 11:15am EST
  

• Feds buy green cars, auction rejects

  —The Westerner

  If you missed out on Washington's cash incentive program to trade in your old clunker, Uncle Sam still has a deal for you: The government will sell you rejects from its own fleet, even as it makes dealers scrap all those old cars that were collected from the public. The [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:12am EST
  

• EPA, BLM dispute slows progress on Superfund site

  —The Westerner

  Bureaucratic snags threaten to slow cleanup of the state's dirtiest abandoned mine, a Superfund site in southern Oregon that leaches 5 million gallons of fish-killing, acid rock drainage into nearby creeks each year. The Formosa mine, a source of copper and zinc until 1993, is on a mix of private [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:11am EST
  

• Forest Service should change firefighting policies, report says

  —The Westerner

  Sharply questioning the U.S. Forest Service's aggressiveness, the Los Angeles County Fire Department says in a report on the deadly Station fire that the federal agency should change its policies to allow night flying by water-dropping helicopters and make greater use of local reinforcements to attack any blaze in the [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:09am EST
  

• Area politicians support recommendations in county's Station Fire report

  —The Westerner

  The day after the county in a report on the Station Fire called for a "vastly different approach" in the way the U.S. Forest Service fights fires, the agency announced it will reconsider its policies. Area politicians supported taking legislative action to enact the recommendations. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, lauded [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:07am EST
  

• Idaho to pay $50K to settle grazing lease lawsuit

  —The Westerner

  Idaho agreed Tuesday to pay $50,000 and pledged to follow anti-discrimination rules to settle a federal lawsuit against state officials who awarded grazing leases to ranchers, not the environmentalist who had offered more money. The Idaho Board of Land has also committed to revising its rules to allow conservation groups [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:05am EST
  

• Dust Up About Dust

  —The Westerner

  A federal regulatory proposal, that is being “fast tracked” to adoption, poses a new threat to the survivability of businesses in Montana, most especially agriculture, according to the Western Business Roundtable (WBRT). The new regulations will reduce the allowable level of dust particles in the air to one-tenth current standards [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:03am EST
  

• Grizzly Bear Defenders Fight Logging Projects

  —The Westerner

  Environmentalists say the U.S. Forest Service is paving the way to grizzly bear deaths by opening one of America's five remaining grizzly bear habitats to road construction and logging. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies says the Forest Service's approval of three new projects will hurt the 45 grizzlies that [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:00am EST
  

• Forest Service says trees can slow climate change

  —The Westerner

  National forests can be used as a carbon "sink" with vast numbers of trees absorbing carbon dioxide to help slow global warming, the Forest Service chief said Wednesday, but that goal must be balanced. He's also concerned about the risk of catastrophic wildfires that produce massive amounts of carbon dioxide. [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 5:57am EST
  

• Researchers studying link between climate change and cattle nutritional stress

  —The Westerner

  The lab measured the amount of crude protein and digestible organic matter retained by cattle in the different regions. The pattern of forage quality observed across regions suggests that a warmer climate would limit protein availability to grazing animals, Craine said. "This study assumes nothing about patterns of future climate" [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 5:54am EST
  

• Smiths produce quality horses in Wyoming

  —The Westerner

  When a world champion bronc rider marries a collegiate national all-around cowgirl, it's pretty easy to assume that horses will remain a vital part of their lives. That's exactly what happened for Bill and Carole Smith. The former rodeo champions have turned their love of horses into a thriving business, [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 5:52am EST
  

• Song Of The Day #184

  —The Westerner

  Ranch Radio brings you Take An Old Cold Tater And Wait by Little Jimmy Dickens.
  
  
  The tune was recorded in 1949 and is available on his The Hits: 16 Biggest Hits and also on I'm Little, But I'm Loud: The Little Jimmy Dickens [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 5:47am EST
  

• Surprise, Surprise, Richardson Hooks Up Old Friends/Studio Beneficiaries

  —Errors of Enchantment

  I'm positively shocked that Governor Richardson has been a long time friend of the Hool brothers who are behind the Santa Fe Studios. The project, which I wrote about a few months ago, is being subsidized to the tune of $10 million by state taxpayers with taxpayers in Santa Fe' [...]
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  Fetched: November 18, 2009, 2:20pm EST
  

• Ghosts of Mayors Past

  —Eye On Albuquerque

  On election night we were thrilled when The Almighty Alcalde went down to defeat and the city chose a new mayor in R.J. Berry. We believed that the new administration would bring with it a whole new crop of leaders who would - that the very least - open up [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:02pm EST
  

• Chamber Advocates for Taxing Food

  —Mario Burgos

  This is one of those "Say What!" moments. I actually had to read it two or three times before I could believe what I was reading.
  
  Terri Cole, president and CEO of the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, told the committee that she'd spoken with food banks and others' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 7:14am EST
  

• Washington, D.C Leads The Nation...in STD's

  —The Westerner

  Washington, D.C., had the dubious distinction of beating all 50 states to post the highest rates in the nation for the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, according to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta...CNS
  
  That's what [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:17am EST
  

• DOJ supoenas news site's readers list and issues gag order

  —The Westerner

  In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day. The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:15am EST
  

• Mexico's gang wars spawn vigilante justice

  —The Westerner

  The bodies of four alleged gangsters, stuffed into a parked car near President Felipe Calderon's compound in this capital city, carried a message of divine retribution: “The wicked are denied their light, and the upraised arm is broken,” proclaimed the biblical passage, Job 38:15. Scrawled with a marker on the [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:14am EST
  

• Bush aide urges weapons ban to slow Mexican drug war

  —The Westerner

  The former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection called Monday for the U.S. to reinstitute the ban on assault weapons and take other measures to rein in the war between Mexico and its drug cartels, saying the violence has the potential to bring down legitimate rule in that country. [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:13am EST
  

• TSA bans snowglobes

  —The Westerner

  The TSA says you can't carry a snow-globe onto a plane, even if it fits in your freedom baggie, because they can't measure how much liquid it contains, and therefore it must contain more than three oz of potential explosive, um, water. "Snow globes are not permitted to be carried" [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:09am EST
  

• Army drops appeal of Pinon Canyon ruling

  —The Westerner

  The Army has dropped its appeal of a federal court ruling in September that rejected a 2007 environmental study intended to justify sending more troops, more often to train at the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site northeast of Trinidad. The motion to dismiss was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court. Justice [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:07am EST
  

• Bishop: Environmental rules impeding border security

  —The Westerner

  Rep. Rob Bishop charges that environmental laws are delaying the effort to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and hindering law enforcement officials from pursuing drug smugglers. The Utah Republican, the ranking GOP member on the House Natural Resources subcommittee over public lands, says that documents he obtained show Homeland Security officials [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:06am EST
  

• In Senate, coal fuels climate deals

  —The Westerner

  Forget the debate over green jobs, wind farms and solar power. In the Senate, all deals on climate change run through coal country. Black gold has maintained a tight hold over the climate bill — despite a damaging lobbying scandal this summer, growing public health concerns and a destructive toxic [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:04am EST
  

• 100 Things Blamed on Global Warming

  —The Westerner

  Late for a party? Miss a meeting? Forget to pay your rent? Blame climate change; everyone else is doing it. From an increase in severe acne to all societal collapses since the beginning of time, just about everything gone wrong in the world today can be attributed to climate change. [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:03am EST
  

• Forest Service Open to Allowing Mountain Bikes on Continental Divide Trail

  —The Westerner

  Along its 3,100 miles that wind from the Canadian border down to Mexico, the Continental Divide Trail is one of the most rugged, and in parts one of the most visually spectacular, hiking trails in the country. Now the U.S. Forest Service says the route could be opened in places [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 4:01am EST
  

• Idaho Gov. Otter objects to ESA listing

  —The Westerner

  Gov. Butch Otter said the federal government has let down the ranchers and others in Idaho who stepped forward to help a rare flowering bush that grows in the Foothills and in wet areas of Southwest Idaho's desert - even though it was not protected under the Endangered Species Act. [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 3:53am EST
  

• Wolverine settles in Colorado

  —The Westerner

  State wildlife biologists say they think M56, the solo male wolverine that migrated more than 500 miles to Colorado from Wyoming last spring, appears to have settled in at the snowy edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, raising hopes for the survival of the species and other threatened carnivores. Climate [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 3:51am EST
  

• Critics Say UN Food Summit Wasteful, Ineffective

  —The Westerner

  Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, blamed for plunging his people into starvation, used his platform as Tuesday's opening speaker at the U.N. anti-hunger summit to decry what he called his neocolonialist foes. Another longtime African strongman, Moammar Gadhafi, held another nightly soiree at a villa in the Italian capital in the [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 3:49am EST
  

• Fielder promotes new book “Ranches of Colorado”

  —The Westerner

  Tucked into every corner of the Colorado landscape are places where legends still live. The ranches of the West, and the ranchers who run them, embody what is true about America, and what Americans want to be true: self sufficiency, determination, independence, competence, fearlessness, and an abiding reverence for the [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 3:47am EST
  

• "The Weak Ones Turned Back, The Cowards Never Started: A Century of Ranching in Montana"

  —The Westerner

  A century ago, Montana was vast and untamed. Without irrigation, drought was devastating. Harsh winters killed entire cattle herds. Considering the conditions, the book title, "The Weak Ones Turned Back, The Cowards Never Started: A Century of Ranching in Montana," may be even a bit understated. The book compiles the [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 3:45am EST
  

• Seabiscuit and Woolf immortalized

  —The Westerner

  Cardston jockey George Woolf and Seabiscuit — the horse he rode to victory in 1938 — will soon be immortalized in bronze, more than likely on the grounds of the Remington Carriage Museum, in Woolf’s home town. The sculpture, commissioned by Cardston-area rancher Jack Lowe for $130,000, will be completed [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 3:44am EST
  

• Song Of The Day #183

  —The Westerner

  Ranch Radio presents Faron Young's 1955 recording of It's A Great Life (If You Don't Weaken).
  
  It's available on his The Complete Capitol Hits of Faron Young and several other of his collections.
  
  
  
  ' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 3:40am EST
  

• Binding climate treaty may slip far into 2010

  —The Westerner

  A binding international treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions will slip to mid-2010 or beyond and a summit in Copenhagen next month will fall short of its ambitions, the United Nations and Denmark said on Monday. The United Nations' top climate official said a treaty could be wrapped up at' [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:54pm EST
  

• Heard about Soros and his anti-free market think tank?

  —Errors of Enchantment

  Sometimes I am a bit jealous of liberals. The Rio Grande Foundation is one of the leanest and most effective organizations around. Just google our name and read through the reams of news articles and data and understand that our budget is sub-$500,000. Then there is left-wing billionaire George Soros [...]
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  Fetched: November 17, 2009, 3:22pm EST
  

• Environmental laws put gaps in Mexico border security

  —The Westerner

  In the battle on the U.S.-Mexico border, the fight against illegal immigration often loses out to environmental laws that have blocked construction of parts of the "virtual fence" and that threaten to create places where agents can't easily track illegal immigrants. Documents obtained by Rep. Rob Bishop and shared with' [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:55am EST
  

• Western Legacy Alliance Applauds Efforts of the Western Caucus to Bring Attention to EAJA Abuse

  —The Westerner

  In an open letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), dated November 2, 2009, members of the Congressional Western Caucus expressed great concern to Attorney General Holder regarding the ongoing and apparent abuse of the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) by certain organizations including environmental and special interest [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:36am EST
  

• Wolf hunt shut down in Montana after quota filled

  —The Westerner

  Montana is shutting down its first public hunt for gray wolves since their removal from the endangered species list after state officials said they expected to meet the season's quota of 75 by Monday evening. The quota was met two weeks before the season's scheduled close. The 75 killed equals [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:34am EST
  

• Australia exempts agriculture from cap & trade

  —The Westerner

  Australia's opposition expressed confidence on Tuesday that it would reach a deal with the government to pass laws for a domestic carbon trade scheme, with a final government offer on negotiations due next week. The opposition's climate change negotiator, Ian Macfarlane, told Australian media he was optimistic he would secure [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:32am EST
  

• Britain cuts down forests to keep ‘green’ power stations burning

  —The Westerner

  Britain is set to plunder the lungs of the world to feed its growing hunger for wood to burn in power stations. A series of biomass-fired plants are being built in the UK that will trigger a 150 per cent surge in timber imports from 20 million tonnes today to [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:30am EST
  

• Groups file suit to stop Grand Canyon uranium mine

  —The Westerner

  Environmental groups are suing the federal Bureau of Land Management over its decision to allow a uranium mine to reopen north of the Grand Canyon. Canadian mining firm Denison Mines Corp. received the final state permit needed to move forward on its Arizona 1 Mine in September. The BLM says [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:21am EST
  

• Feds to buy 5,000 acres for conservation

  —The Westerner

  Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Monday their agencies are buying seven parcels totaling 5,026 acres in Colorado, Montana and Nevada - including 4,573 in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument - as high-value conservation land. The acquisitions, private holdings surrounded by or adjacent [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:18am EST
  

• Mustang roundup moratorium rejected

  —The Westerner

  Wild horse advocates say they have no recourse but the courts after federal land managers rejected their request for an immediate moratorium on mustang roundups. The Bureau of Land Management plans to remove more than 30,000 horses from Western rangelands over the next three years to deal with soaring numbers [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:17am EST
  

• Food summit turns down UN funding appeal

  —The Westerner

  Pope Benedict XVI decried the steadily worsening tragedy of world hunger on Monday after a global summit rebuffed a U.N. call to commit billions of dollars a year for a new strategy to help poor countries feed themselves. The meeting at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization did unite nearly [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:15am EST
  

• Boy,11, shoots bear on family's porch

  —The Westerner

  An 11-year-old boy killed a bear at point-blank range last Wednesday night after it wouldn’t leave his family’s porch. The boy was at home with his younger sisters and after seeing the bear on the front porch and not being able to get it to leave, the boy retrieved a [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:13am EST
  

• Turkey on turnpike causes havoc

  —The Westerner

  Authorities have stopped trying to capture a wild turkey that calls Interchange 14B on the New Jersey Turnpike home. The bird has been causing havoc for toll collectors and motorists as it runs across toll booths, plays in traffic, and sits atop toll collectors' parked cars. Turnpike Authority spokesman Joe' [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:12am EST
  

• Building community in Two Dot

  —The Westerner

  After 82 years, residents of Two Dot still chuckle over the March 29, 1927, fire that destroyed the Congregational Church and parsonage. Not that it was particularly funny at the time. Loss of the church undoubtedly resonated as a tragedy in the little ranching town within viewing distance of the [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:09am EST
  

• Two Dot (population: 76) hangs on long after heyday

  —The Westerner

  Not much remains of Two Dot, one of the many Montana pioneering communities that thrived in the homestead years in the early 1900s and then faltered in the farm crisis of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s. The census in 2000 put the number of residents at 76, [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:07am EST
  

• Boot communication

  —The Westerner

  Hey, Answer Girl -- Why do some fence posts around Casper have old cowboy boots on them? -- Liz Much like with shoefiti (the art of throwing tied-together shoes over light poles), a few rumors exist as to why cowboys would put boots on their fence posts. 1. In the [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:06am EST
  

• On the edge of common sense: Using swine to eradicate waste is a 'no-brainer' idea

  —The Westerner

  I had deja vu when I saw a photo of goats walking through garbage on an Egyptian street. The headline read: "A Little Late, Egypt discovers the Flaw in Killing all its Pigs." Apparently, swine were a major factor in Egypt's garbage disposal industry. Goats were a poor substitute. The [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 4:03am EST
  

• Song Of The Day #182

  —The Westerner

  Ranch Radio brings you Eddy Arnold this morning, and his 1953 recording of The Missouri Waltz.
  
  It's available on his 5 disc box set The Tennessee Plowboy & His Guitar.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 3:51am EST
  

• New Mexico Experiences Exponential Growth

  —Mario Burgos

  Usually congressional districts are added to a state after a census. The next census is not until 2010; however, it seems that as a result of some explosive, yet undocumented growth, the number of congressional districts in New Mexico has grown from three to forty [hat tip: New Mexico [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 7:47pm EST
  

• Days of Diego

  —Eye On Albuquerque

  A little over a week ago, The Albuquerque Journal did a front page story on AFD union boss Diego Arencón (Subscription). According to the Journal, Arencón pulls down $81,000 a year as a Firefighter First Class.
  The increased salary was negotiated as part of union agreements adopted in 2008 [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 7:05pm EST
  

• Obama Administration Spends Millions in Nonexistent NM Congressional Districts

  —Errors of Enchantment

  I am not making this up. See my new report at New Mexico Watchdog. The Obama Administration is claiming to have created jobs and spent tens of millions of dollars in ten New Mexico Congressional districts that do not exist. I repeat: I am not making ... [...]
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  Fetched: November 16, 2009, 1:27pm EST
  

• RGF Releases New Mexico Tax Friendliness Report, Tax Calculator

  —Errors of Enchantment

  New Mexico’s free market think tank, the Rio Grande Foundation, has made public on its website a revised and updated tool for families to calculate their property and gross receipts tax burdens in New Mexico’s 10 largest cities. Using publicly-available property tax and gross receipts tax (GRT) data for each city [...]
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  Fetched: November 16, 2009, 1:27pm EST
  

• Is Monday the New Sunday?

  —Mario Burgos

  This is a decidedly unpolitical post, but a thought struck me over the weekend that I think is worth consideration. Maybe the attention given to Rupert Murdoch's recent decision is what caused the thought:
  
  Is Rupert Murdoch bluffing? Making a bold high-stakes gamble that will save the troubled [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 11:43am EST
  

• Deal on Mexican Gray Wolf

  —The Westerner

  The federal Fish and Wildlife Service and environmentalists reached an agreement Friday that scraps a rule the agency had used to kill or permanently remove any wolf that killed three head of livestock in a year. A spokesman for the agency, Tom Buckley, said the three-strikes rule would “no longer [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:32am EST
  

• Obama, world leaders back delay to final climate deal

  —The Westerner

  U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders on Sunday supported delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later, but European negotiators said the move did not imply weaker action. Some argued that legal technicalities might otherwise distract the talks in Copenhagen and it was better to [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:29am EST
  

• Netherlands to levy "green" road tax by the kilometer

  —The Westerner

  The Dutch government plans to bring the polluter-pays principle into the home garage. Rather than an annual road tax for their cars, drivers will soon pay a few cents for every kilometer (mile) on the road, in a plan aimed at breaking chronic traffic jams and cutting carbon emissions, the [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:27am EST
  

• Report: Terrain, brush to blame in huge wildfire

  —The Westerner

  The largest wildfire in Los Angeles County history raged out of control because it jumped into inaccessible terrain, not because the U.S. Forest Service scaled back firefighters and aircraft attacking the flames, a federal review found Friday. The U.S. Forest Service study of decision-making during the Station Fire's first three [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:24am EST
  

• Clean Water Act 'fix' has major ramifications for state

  —The Westerner

  Can Nevada water wars get any worse? Unfortunately, yes. We don't have endless streams, rivers and estuaries across the desert plain, so our water wars are legendary. At least, though, the fights are within our own borders given that Nevada is the sole authority over how our water is managed,' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:22am EST
  

• Surprise: biz group sues to Upgrade a species listing

  —The Westerner

  It’s not every day that a group run by former Bush Administration Interior Department honcho Craig Manson files suit to get the status of a threatened species upgraded to endangered. It’s also not every day that such a group piggybacks on an earlier petition filed by the Tucson-based Center for [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:21am EST
  

• New national park could save high plains in Kansas

  —The Westerner

  In 1987, two Rutgers’ University researchers ignited a prairie fire by suggesting much of the high plains, including a large swath of Kansas farmland, should be returned to its natural state — what they called a Buffalo Commons. The idea, which envisioned parts of 10 prairie states being transformed into [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:19am EST
  

• Adapting to Climate Change - A Short Course for Land Managers

  —The Westerner

  The U.S. Forest Service’s western research stations have released an interactive short course that presents current scientific knowledge on adapting to climate variability in wildland management. Titled “Adapting to Climate Change: A Short Course for Land Managers,” the course is available as a DVD or online at the Climate Change [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:17am EST
  

• Suspended UI prof repeats sheep claims in journal

  —The Westerner

  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' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:15am EST
  

• Prehistoric man, giant animal coexisted

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:13am EST
  

• Pecos park renovates 200-year-old trading post

  —The Westerner

  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.' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:11am EST
  

• America from the slow lane: By wagon

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:09am EST
  

• Old West shooting contests returns to city

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:06am EST
  

• Traildust: Frenchman left mark with adventures in Southwest

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:03am EST
  

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

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 5:02am EST
  

• Song Of The Day #181

  —The Westerner

  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.
  
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 4:55am EST
  

• Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

  —The Westerner

  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' [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:54am EST
  

• Transportation Security Administration changes procedure after Lambert incident

  —The Westerner

  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' [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:43am EST
  

• Song Of The Day #180

  —The Westerner

  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.
  
  
  ' [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:42am EST
  

• Berlin Against Anti-Terror Bank Data Deal

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:42am EST
  

• Public-private vendors demand national ID standards

  —The Westerner

  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. [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:39am EST
  

• Bush Feared Successor Might Revoke Telco Spy Immunity

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:38am EST
  

• House Judiciary Committee Approves Strong PATRIOT Act Reform

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:36am EST
  

• House Committee Marks Up State Secrets Bill

  —The Westerner

  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 [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:27am EST