News New Mexico: 10/30/11

Gary Johnson almost misses filing for NH primary UPDATE: Johnson on video says “we screwed up”

From Capitol Report New Mexico.com - Gary Johnson’s bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has always been a longshot. But it almost became a “no shot at all” in New Hampshire when the candidate nearly missed filing for that state’s famous primary. From the Los Angeles Times Friday morning (Oct. 28): Friday is the final day of the two-week filing period for candidates to land on the New Hampshire primary ballot. The requirements are simple, and intentionally so: Just submit a one-page declaration of candidacy and the $1,000 filing fee. But as of Thursday evening, Johnson had not yet completed that task. State law says that the documents can be submitted by mail or by proxy. But if they are not received before the final day, the candidate must deliver them in person. Johnson was scheduled to start a three-day visit to Arizona beginning Thursday. But his campaign quickly changed plans when the embarrassing mixup was pointed out. “He’ll be filing in person,” Johnson’s New Hampshire coordinator, Brinck Slattery, said in an email. Read more

Texas Sues Obama Administration Over 'Unjustified' Deepwater Drilling Moratorium

From the Huffington Post - HOUSTON (Associated Press) — The Texas attorney general sued the Obama administration Wednesday over its new deep-water offshore drilling moratorium, claiming it is unjustified and federal officials did not contact the state before issuing the ban. Attorney General Greg Abbott filed the 18-page suit in federal court in Houston against Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The ban halted the approval of any new permits for deep-water projects and shut down drilling at 33 exploratory ocean wells in the wake of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In his lawsuit, Abbott called the ban "an unjustified, arbitrary and capricious policy that will inflict harm upon coastal communities." Also, the suit said, federal officials did not coordinate with the state or consider the economic impacts before issuing the moratorium. Texas is one of the nation's most active oil refinery states. State figures show there were 86,900 jobs in oil and natural gas extraction in April and an additional 107,800 in support industries. Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff defended the ban but declined to comment specifically on the Texas lawsuit. "The Deepwater Horizon/BP oil disaster has made it clear that we need better health, safety and environmental standards for drilling operations," Barkoff said in an e-mailed statement. "The temporary pause on deep-water drilling that Secretary Salazar has put in place is simply common sense, and we continue to stand behind it." The current moratorium replaced one that was blocked by the courts. The Interior Department says it's meant to give to give oil and gas companies time to implement adequate safety measures. The ban is in effect until Nov. 30, unless federal officials determine deep-water drilling operations have gotten safer. Read more

More State Fair Troubles

From kob.com -More gloomy numbers for the New Mexico State Fair - attendance was down this year, and now it looks like last year's numbers were inflated. This comes after last week's revelation that the State Fair is awash in red ink, with only 39 cents in assets for every $1 it owes. Fair managers report that 399,529 people attended this year's State Fair, down from 429,918 last year. But hold on - those 2010 numbers are down from the 500,000 and change originally reported last fall. More News New Mexico

Doh ! ! - Data Creates Another Climate Change Heretic

Judith Curry

Daily Mail - It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, "proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer." Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually. Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it. It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist and numerous media outlets in America. The Washington Post said the BEST study had "settled the climate change debate" and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a "cynical fraud."

But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped. Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a "huge mistake," with no scientific basis. Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.

Read full story here: News New Mexico

NM Launches Pedestrian Safety Campaign

From alamogordonews.com-New Mexico hopes to improve pedestrian safety by having police in several cities crack down on motorists who fail to yield to people in crosswalks. The law enforcement blitz is part of a federally funded safety and educational campaign—called "Look For Me"—that was announced Thursday by the state Department of Transportation. As part of the state campaign, police in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Farmington and Gallup are targeting dangerous intersections in their communities during the next few weeks. More News New Mexico

Religious Leaders See Immigration as "God's Call"

From boston.com -A Unitarian church in New Mexico sends supplies to the border for recent deportees. A coalition of church leaders gathers under a statue of colonial America religious figure Anne Hutchinson at the Massachusetts Statehouse to denounce immigration checks by police. A Methodist minister in Texas recites Isaiah 58:6, a passage about loosening the bonds of injustice, as she's thrown in jail after protesting alongside illegal immigrant students outside a U.S. senator's office. More News New Mexico

Climate Change Scientist to Face Federal Lie Detector Test Over Polar Bear Data

From dailymail.co.uk -A wildlife scientist, whose report on dead polar bears in Arctic waters became a rallying call for climate change campaigners, will face a lie detector test as part of an investigation by federal agents. Jeffrey Gleason, who co-wrote a 2006 report highlighting the danger posed to the animals by melting ice, will take a polygraph over alleged scientific misconduct connected to the study, the Independent reported. It is the latest twist to what some have dubbed 'Polarbeargate' in which Mr Gleason and his co-author Charles Monnett, whose research was cited by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth and made polar bears a symbol of global warming, have been repeatedly questioned by authorities. More News New Mexico

Wolves Raised Near NYC to be Released in NM

From ajc.com -The wolf center is a key component in the national effort to return endangered wolves to the wild. In partnership with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the 27-acre center is raising and breeding Mexican and red wolves in large enclosures, letting them eat roadkill and whatever they catch and limiting their contact with humans. The hope is that they or their progeny can one day be released into the wild in North Carolina or along the Arizona-New Mexico border and help save animals that were nearly wiped out by man through hunting, poisoning and loss of habitat. More News New Mexico

NM Stars Offer Terrell Owens a Contract

Terrell Owens

From krqe.com - The New Mexico Stars have offered NFL veteran receiver Terrell Owens a contract. The Stars emailed a contract to owens' agent Drew Rosenhaus. Rosenhaus has not responded to the offer made by the Stars. The New Mexico Stars are the newest expansion team in the Indoor Football League. The Stars will start their season February 26th at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho when the Colorado Ice comes to town.

Governor Increases Transparency

Susana Martinez

SANTA FE – Yesterday, in an address to the New Mexico Press Association, Governor Susana Martinez announced upcoming changes to the official transparency website for state government, the New Mexico Sunshine Portal. The portal will list additional information not previously found, including the names, titles and salary rate of all state employees regardless of their classification. Currently, the Sunshine Portal only lists the names, titles and salary rates of “exempt” employees – those who serve at the pleasure of the governor. The portal will now include this information for classified employees, who work under the rules of the state’s version of a civil service system. These changes are intended to increase transparency throughout state government, and to demonstrate to the public exactly where tax dollars are spent. “I have promised since day one that state government will be more transparent, more accessible, and more accountable to all New Mexicans,” said Governor Martinez. “The Sunshine Portal has been an important tool that promotes open and honest government. These changes will ensure that taxpayers have an even greater idea of how their money is being spent.”

New Mexico’s Sunshine Portal is a website that displays wide-ranging data for state agency budgets, expenditures, employees, revenue, and purchases, along with a number of informational reports including state investment reports and annual fiscal summaries. This summer, the official version of the Sunshine Portal was unveiled after a 6-month beta mode trial, to include additional functions as developed by constituent feedback.

The new changes are scheduled to take place in the coming weeks and will be fully displayed on the website by early December. Earlier this year, Governor Martinez partnered with the New Mexico Press Association to link electronically, via the Sunshine Portal and NewMexico.Gov, to all public notice postings that appear in newspapers throughout the state. NewMexico.Gov is the State's new online portal, which was re-designed and launched at the direction of Governor Martinez to improve access to information about state government. Also available on NewMexico.Gov, and on the Governor's website, are videos of legislative committee meetings and floor sessions, as well as meetings of boards and commissions such as the State Investment Council. Governor Martinez began the first-ever live webcasting and archiving of these meetings in order to better engage people throughout New Mexico in the process in Santa Fe.

Obama's Destructive Energy Policies

Townhall - by Austin Hill - Since the days of the Nixon presidency most Americans have recognized the many problems associated with being dependent on foreign oil suppliers. And it was nearly six years ago when George W. Bush became the first U.S. President to proclaim that “America is addicted to oil.” But now President Barack Obama seems to have determined that our problem isn’t so much “foreign oil,” but oil itself. His Administration has sought to force the nation away from consuming all types of oil – both foreign and domestic –and to move us in the direction of his environmentally preferred “green” energy sources.
Unfortunately, the President has approached energy policy just as he approaches most everything else – with the naïve assumption that as long as lots of government programs and mandates are established, the agenda will be accomplished and all will go well. Thus billions of our tax dollars have been handed-out in “loans” and “grants” to everything from solar panel manufacturers to electric car makers in Europe, while nearly all of the recipients have been “personal friends” of the President and people who are working for his re-election. Read full column here: News New Mexico

Bernalillo County Sued Over "Gender Discrimination"

KRQE - ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) — A lawsuit filed by seven women is seeking to represent hundreds more against Bernalillo County on claims county officials failed to stop gender discrimination. The group filed the civil lawsuit in September. That is a whole year after they initially filed a complaint. One county commissioner said now that it's gotten this far it will end up costing taxpayers one way or another. The suit claims at times women working for the county are getting paid less then men for the same work. It also states that the plaintiffs were at times forced to endure crude remarks for being female from two men also named in the suit. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Protestors Drive Off Business Customers

KOB TV - (Un)Occupy Albuquerque protesters are back at the University of New Mexico but just for a meeting. They're talking about the University’s eviction, but still haven't decided on a permanent home. There's word they may move to Robinson Park, downtown, on Central Avenue and 8th Street. The city said there's no permit needed and as long as they follow the rules, no one will be arrested. But, business owners near the park have concerns. Dawn Warnack owns a booth at Central Park Hair Studio, right across the street from Robinson Park. Robinson Park is already known as a homeless hangout. Warnacks's concerned the protest will attract even more homeless and detract from business. "I know some of mine; especially older clients; would say, 'you know, I just don't want to go down there. Let me know when it's over,'" said Warnack. She said she respects their right to demonstrate, but wants them to follow the rules. "If you want us to respect what you think you're standing for, then, follow the rules that the rest of us have to follow," said Warnack. Thia Smith owns Silver Springs Floral and Gifts right next door. She's worried the congestion could create traffic and parking problems. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Post Office Closings Hurt Rural America

Jay Miller

Inside the Capitol - SANTA FE – The U.S. Postal Service study on closing some 3700 post offices in the nation poses a real crisis for rural America. The problem is an $8 billion budget deficit. New Mexico has 54 of those target post offices. Hearings currently are being held to determine which offices should be cut. Rural post offices are more than just a place to pick up mail. They are locations to congregate and see your neighbors at the appointed time when the mail truck is scheduled to arrive. Driving to the nearest open post office can take hours and be impossible in the winter. The only thing worse is losing a school house. School closings began in New Mexico in the late 1940s. World War II changed much about our culture. Increased industrialization and a how-do-you-keep-'em-down-on-the-farm syndrome weakened small towns. New Mexico had over 600 school districts at the time. That was pared down to 90 districts over a decade. Since that time, many remaining districts have had to close rural schools. It hasn't been pretty. Read full column here: News New Mexico

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