'I always feel safe in El Paso:' Laura Bush spent summers in Canutillo

From the El Paso Times - by Zahira Torres - Former first lady Laura Bush never felt fear when she played outside of her grandparents' home in Canutillo. She was not afraid years ago when she hiked up Mount Cristo Rey to get a closer look at the limestone carving of Christ on the cross, which draws thousands of faithful in pilgrimage each year. And she will again feel at ease next week when she walks along the levee in El Paso's Upper Valley and enjoys the vistas of Juárez. "I feel safe because I've never ever not felt safe in El Paso and in the valley up there around Canutillo, which is where my grandparents lived and where I spent many of my summers," she said in a telephone interview with the El Paso Times. "It never even crossed my mind that I would not be safe in El Paso." Bush will be in El Paso on Friday to share childhood memories of visiting her grandparents in the city, of spending a summer taking classes at Texas Western College (now UTEP), and of building a friendship with famed artist Tom Lea, whose painting "Rio Grande" hung in the Oval Office during President George W. Bush's tenure. The speech titled "My El Paso" will be part of a monthlong celebration of Lea's work. Laura Bush said Lea's love for his hometown, El Paso, is evident not only in the big sky and mountains that he painted but also in his comments about living on the "sunrise side, not the sunset side" of the mountains. "That is something that is so appealing about Tom, how optimistic he was, and that is something also that somehow El Paso expresses," she said. Perhaps her biggest gift to El Paso is becoming the city's highest-profile ally in fighting misconceptions that it is not safe. "I know people are very worried about Juárez and I know there are people who have moved from Juárez across the border," she said, "but El Paso is really one of the safest cities in the United States." Read more
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Confrontation needed in Endangered Species Act process

From NM Politics.net - By , State Representative, District 57 - America’s citizens should be able to assume that Endangered Species Act (ESA) listings are based on “best science,” as determined by an altruistic scientist — an honest arbiter. Sadly, this ideal model isn’t how it works in real life. My background is engineering and law enforcement. When the proposed ESA listing of the Sand Dune Lizard threatened my community’s well being, I got involved. It was my first in-depth involvement with the ESA process. It was interesting and enlightening. More importantly, it was disturbing. Over the last several months I worked with a group of scientists to conduct a detailed review of the proposal to designate the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard as an “endangered species.” On Aug. 15 we presented a 20-page critique of this proposal to Congressman Pearce. The report can be found at the Artesia Chamber of Commerce website. In the criminal justice system science is critical. Because of its importance, it is getting increased scrutiny. Likewise, the concept of the “wise man” scientist decision-maker, isolated from politics or outside influences, has to be questioned. This is what we did with the proposed listing for the Sand Dune Lizard. Read more
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Goodwin: Aimless Obama walks alone

From the New York Post - by Michael Goodwin - The reports are not good, disturbing even. I have heard basically the same story four times in the last 10 days, and the people doing the talking are in New York and Washington and are spread across the political spectrum. The gist is this: President Obama has become a lone wolf, a stranger to his own government. He talks mostly, and sometimes only, to friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett and to David Axelrod, his political strategist. Everybody else, including members of his Cabinet, have little face time with him except for brief meetings that serve as photo ops. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner both have complained, according to people who have talked to them, that they are shut out of important decisions. The president’s workdays are said to end early, often at 4 p.m. He usually has dinner in the family residence with his wife and daughters, then retreats to a private office. One person said he takes a stack of briefing books. Others aren’t sure what he does. If the reports are accurate, and I believe they are, they paint a picture of an isolated man trapped in a collapsing presidency. While there is no indication Obama is walking the halls of the White House late at night, talking to the portraits of former presidents, as Richard Nixon did during Watergate, the reports help explain his odd public remarks. Read more
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As many as two hurricanes could strike the west coast of Mexico next week

From the Examiner - The 2011 Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season has heated up and confidence is growing on the potential of not one, but two hurricanes striking the west coast of Mexico by the middle of next week. This morning, Irwin became the 8th hurricane of the season in the central Pacific. Irwin is a Category 1 hurricane with max winds of 90 mph. Irwin is expected to turn eastward and intensify over the few days. Right behind Irwin is Tropical Storm Jova. Jova is expected to become a hurricane soon and like Irwin, is expected to rack eastward towards the west coast of Mexico. If current model projections verify, the west coast of Mexico could be set up with a one-two punch from Irwin and Jova next week. Jova may reach land first as it is closest to the Mexican coast. Tropical Storm Jova currently has winds of 80 mph and is expected to become a major hurricane by early next week. Interest along or travelling near the west coast of Mexico will need to pay close attention to this developing situation. Read more
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New Mexico Loses a Patriot

Ruth Ann Owens
NewsNM note - New Mexico lost a patriot late last week. Our chief contributor Rachel Pulaski, one of the very first members of the News New Mexico team, lost her mother Ruth Ann Owens to cancer on Friday October 7th. The Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft, one of the most widely followed bloggers in the nation, paid tribute to Ruth often known as "Lady Liberty" yesterday.
Gatewaypundit - After several years of blogging my friend Midwest Engineer told me in 2009 that a reader and commenter had volunteered to help out at Gateway Pundit. Her name was Ruth. She had written Midwest Engineer and they spoke several times. She wanted to help out. She liked what I was doing. That’s about all I knew at the time. Ruth was going to help manage comments and send tips. She was a good conservative woman. She loved her country. Read full tribute here: News New Mexico
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Red Hawk Golf Club Opens in Las Cruces

A drop dead gorgeous golf course that was developed several years ago north of U.S. Highway 70 and east of Interstate Highway 25 in Las Cruces finally opened last week. Construction of the course was initiated by land developer Philip Philoppou and was originally going to swapped, when completed, and become the new home of Las Cruces Country Club. Under severe financial pressures, Mr. Philoppou ceased his involvement in the project.
The new course, has been christened as, "Red Hawk Golf Club." The magnificent layout has been the talk of the golfing community all over the state for several years. Red Hawk was designed by legendary golf course architect Ken Dye. Dye has designed many well-known golf projects both nationally and internationally.
The course features five sets of tees, with yardages ranging from 5,502 to 7,523. There are numerous hazards include 5 lakes (with water coming into play on 8 holes) and 76 bunkers. The layout covers 200 acres including 100 acres of turf, 50 acres of planted native grasses, and 50 acres of natural desert. It is already a haven for wildlife in the surrounding area. Red Hawk is also noteworthy for its links-style features, including rolling hills, generous greens, and a challenging yet spacious design. 
The facility will have PGA Master Professional Bill Eschenbrenner serving as Golf Pro Emeritus. Eschenbrenner was named National PGA Golf Professional of the Year in 2005 and was inducted into the National PGA Hall of Fame in 2006.
Alan Salter, Certified Golf Course Superintendent and Red Hawk’s head superintendent, is a member of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and supervised the grow-in of the Red Hawk golf course from 2007 through 2011. Prior to moving to Las Cruces, Alan was the head superintendent for a decade at Pinon Hills Golf Course in Farmington, New Mexico which is one of the premier public golf courses in the entire nation.

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Three Stories by Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs
NewsNM note - Below is the text of a commencement address Steve Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. Read rest of the speech here: News New Mexico

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Resendiz Abandons Congressional Run

Martin Resendiz
KRQE - A New Mexico mayor who admitted he was drunk when he signed contracts committing his city to $1 million in work has abandoned his plan to run for Congress. The Albuquerque Journal reports Sunland Park Mayor Martin Resendiz made his decision in recent weeks based on recent bad publicity. Resendiz has been under fire for battling with fellow City Council members and admitting he was intoxicated when he signed nine city contracts. Read full story here: News New Mexico
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Job Creation Obeys Law of Supply and Demand

Jobs are governed by the same factors that drive all other transactions. Count all of the job openings and you have the aggregate demand for employees at current prices. Count all job seeking individuals and you have the aggregate supply of available employees at current prices. Any government that artificially manipulates the supply of employees, the demand for employees, or the pricing in job transactions...will fail. History is littered with examples. The latest example is Greece, where the government took it upon itself to dominate all factors affecting the aggregate supply, demand, and price of jobs.
Shortage and Surplus - Supply, Demand, and Price
Like it or not, the job creation market will take supply, demand, and price into account. If there is a shortage of a certain skill set, market forces will increase wage compensation until the supply of people with that particular skill set increases. If there is an over-abundance of supply of low skill employees in the U.S. (and around the world), wage compensation (price) will fall until the supply is absorbed. Anyone claiming to support the truth of science realizes the forces depicted on the graph above act like gravity. You can complain about gravity all you want, but you are not going to be able to use government effectively as a tool that can change the law of gravity or the law of supply and demand. Generally speaking, the value of low-skill labor will always be.......low. Merely "pretending" that low skill labor is worth more than the market is willing to pay for it is simply wishful thinking. Any individual who is dissatisfied with his or her relative level of compensation would be well advised to do what billions of individuals have done.....improve his or her skills.
From a practical standpoint, the current discussion of yet again extending unemployment benefits to people who have not worked for 99 weeks is absurd. While the policy argument for extension might appear on the surface to be “compassionate,” it actually poisons our entire system. Resources used to pay unemployment benefits do not materialize from thin air. They must be extracted from the entire system by adding costs that exacerbate the conditions.
The simple solution to the "jobs situation" is to accept a market-based pricing of jobs. At all levels, work skills that are allowed to be priced properly, will be utilized. And when labor is being “utilized” we call this process, “job creation.” Unemployment compensation is an unsustainable artificial incentive. It perversly bolsters the process of the system NOT utilizing potential employees to create value.
America has been deceived into thinking a market-based approach to both the available supply of jobs and available employees won’t work. We have been sold the bogus idea that artificial government manipulation of the supply-demand law is a better functioning alternative. We could write ten paragraphs on the ways our government has forced jobs to be mis-priced and therefore destroyed to illustrate the point. However, it is easier to simply point to the results as the proof. Potential employees are being dramatically under-utilized in America.
Unfortunately, one way or the other, as the nation of Greece is about to learn, eventually America will be forced to return to pricing jobs based on the actual market value of the output. In the interim, all artificial attempts to alter the realities of supply and demand for employees and jobs must be susidized by borrowing. Adding to the real costs of job creation based on some idealistically absurd notion of “social justice,” will continue to backfire and drive employment down. The sooner we admit the laws of supply and demand apply to job creation, the sooner the American dream will be restored.

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GOP Challenges State's Authority to Establish Certain Campaign Contribution Limits

NMPolitics - The Republican Party of New Mexico and others have filed a lawsuit challenging the state law that limits the size of campaign contributions. The lawsuit seeks to void the $5,000 limits placed on donations to political parties, from national parties to state parties, from state parties to county parties, from parties to candidates or candidates’ political action committees, and on contributions made for the purpose of forming independent expenditures. It doesn’t challenge limits on the size of donations individuals can make to candidates. “Today we filed a lawsuit to protect New Mexicans’ right to freedom of speech,” state GOP Executive Director Bryan Watkins said in a news release. “We are confident that we will be successful in this case, as cases from around the country have found in favor of protection of freedom of speech, including a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.” Read full story here: News New Mexico
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"Sad on Wall Street"


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