Wherry Elem students dismissed due to power outage

NewsNM: Swickard - Wherry Elementary is my first public school almost 60 years ago. I smile as I go by it when I am in Albuquerque. 
From KOB-TV.com - By: Elizabeth Reed, KOB.com - Due to a power outage, Wherry Elementary School is releasing students in its K-5 summer school early on Monday.
     According to Albuquerque Public Schools spokesman John Miller, a transformer failed and now PNM crews are waiting on a part to fix it.
     Miller said parents are encouraged to pick their children up, but if they cannot, the school will hold them until their regular dismissal time of 3 p.m.
     No word yet on whether or not school will be in session on Tuesday. More

Wherry Elem students dismissed due to power outage

Silver Fire moves closer to full containment

From KOB-TV.com - By: Jeffery Gordon, KOB.com - The Silver Fire burning in the Gila Wilderness is closer to complete containment. Crews have improved the fire's containment to 80 percent. Crews are also focusing on the burn scar to reduce flooding and erosion from the recent rains. The Silver Fire has burned more than 138,000 acres near the town of Kingston.

Silver Fire moves closer to full containment

APD shooting: Life to death in 4 minutes

NewsNM: Swickard - perhaps we need Public Service Announcements to tell citizens that the police will shoot them dead if they do the wrong things. Both in Las Cruces and Albuquerque this last week the police were forced, yes, forced, to take a citizen's life because that citizen made bad choices. And in both cases mental illness may have played a part. While I have been critical of the police at times, they did exactly what must be done and I thank them for their service to our community.

From KRQE-TV.com - ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - A fatal drama played out quickly in northeast Albuquerque Friday night after police responded to a report of a man armed with butcher knives threatening two kids near a movie theater. Albuquerque police were dispatched to the restaurant and entertainment district on San Mateo Boulevard NE north of Montgomery after a security guard called 911 saying two teens were approached by an older black man armed with two 10-inch butcher knives.

     "As the call was being dispatched one of the officers, based on the description of the black male, thought she knew who he was and that he was a male she had dealt with prior who was suffering from mental health issues," APD Chief Ray Schultz said during an impromptu news conference outside the crime-scene tape late Friday night.
     The call came in at 7:39 p.m., and Schultz said shots were fired at 7:43 p.m. In those four minutes officers arrived at the north side of the mall at Montgomery and San Mateo boulevards, talked to the security guard and found out the suspect was gone.
     By then he'd moved north to the Circle K store on the northwest corner of San Mateo and McLeod Road. The first officer to arrive there met the suspect face-to-face. "We have witnesses who state that the male subject lunged at the officer, and the officer began to retreat from the man," Schultz said. "The man continued to advance to the officer, lunging at him with the knife.
     "When the second officer arrived on scene as the suspect continued to aggressively go to the officer, that second officer, a female officer, discharged her firearm multiple times."
     A third officer, part of the APD Crisis Intervention Team, arrived just as the shots were fired. The man was taken to UNM Hospital where he later died. At last report investigators were still trying to confirm his identity. Read more

APD shooting: Life to death in 4 minutes

Illegal firework hotline nets 750 calls, 8 citations

From KOB-TV.com - By: Elizabeth Reed, KOB.com - Bernalillo County fire officials said their illegal firework hotline was so busy, they couldn't keep up with the calls on the Fourth of July. The Albuquerque Fire Department handed out an estimated eight citations and fielded nearly 750 calls about illegal fireworks in the past two nights.
     According to preliminary numbers from AFD, fire marshal inspectors issued one illegal firework citation on July 3 and seven on July 4. The city's illegal firework hotline received 666 calls on the Fourth of July alone. The number of calls slightly surpassed last year's by 18.
     Bernalillo County fire spokesman Larry Gallegos said they sent extra patrols to the Bosque and the North Valley neighborhoods due to increased fire risk. "We are not only going in the bosque where we know it's dry, but in neighborhoods," he said. "We believe people really like to see the fire department out checking - checking for those illegal fireworks, but also for illegal burns."
     AFD reminds the public that despite the rain, wildfires and structure fires can still occur with the improper use of both legal and illegal fireworks. Read more

Illegal firework hotline nets 750 calls, 8 citations

Happy 4th of July

News New Mexico will be playing best of shows Thursday and Friday to allow our employees to be with their families.
May God Bess and Keep the United States of America

Happy 4th of July

Swickard: It pays to be the money broker

© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. What is most destructive to a nation of laws is ambiguity in said laws. Yet that is now the way to hold onto power in Washington D. C. The power is for those who make the laws ambiguous enough that fights can pit one moneyed group against the other with politicians in-between harvesting money from both sides.
     In years past most contributors would select one party or the other for the majority of their contributions. Now all but the most political give money somewhat equally to both parties to hedge their bets. By giving equally to both parties smart money says that some of the ambiguity of laws can be thwarted.
     Example: the Internal Revenue Service provides a means for money and power to the members of the Congressional Ways and Means committee. This is not in actual cash, but in the ability of make winners and losers with each decision. Each decision means mega bucks for one group and that group must pay the political price with money and power. In some ways the most powerful people in our nation’s capitol are in Congress rather than the White House.
     There are two reasons to think this: first, the President is term limited while members of Congress can serve right to the grave. Secondly, the power of the purse, the real power of the money is what makes all of the power in our nation’s capitol work. It is the political “Golden Rule.” He who has the gold makes the rules.
     The more you look at the way Congress is organized to provide its members with power and money, the less it looks like the first Congress in 1788. That was a Congress of citizens who served and the service took a toll on their lives and fortunes. Not so any more. Read full column

Swickard: It pays to be the money broker

Gov. orders flags half staff this week for AZ firefighters

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez has ordered flags flown at half-staff in honor of the 19 firefighters killed in Arizona. 

The governor issued an executive order for flags to be lowered from Tuesday through sunset on Friday. 

Martinez said Monday the firefighter deaths hit close to home for New Mexico. Just weeks ago, the Granite Mountain Hotshots from Prescott, Ariz., traveled to northern New Mexico to help battle a fast-moving fire that charred more than 37 square miles of the Valles Caldera National Preserve. 

On Sunday, the 19 firefighters — all members of the elite Hotshot crew — were killed when flames overcame them as they fought a wildfire near Yarnell, Ariz. 

Martinez is asking New Mexicans to keep the firefighters' families in their thoughts and prayers.

Gov. orders flags half staff this week for AZ firefighters

PNM expanding its wind and solar portfolio

New Mexico's largest electricity provider says it has a plan for adding more solar and wind power to its portfolio.

 Public Service Company of New Mexico unveiled its proposal Monday. It must be approved by state regulators. The plan calls for building three solar generating stations in the Albuquerque area and purchasing more electricity from a wind farm in Cibola County. 

PNM says its renewable energy resources will provide enough electricity to power about 132,000 homes by 2015. The utility also expects a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of about 915,000 metric tons. 

With the proposal, 83 cents would be added to the average residential monthly bill starting in 2014.

PNM expanding its wind and solar portfolio

Marita Noon: Obama’s Climate Action Plan: Emphasize What Won't Work; Penalize What Works

Commentary by Marita Noon - For months President Obama has been in the uncomfortable position of straddling a barbed-wire fence—does he appease his ardent environmental supporters or advocate for economic growth that will help all of America? In his speech outlining his Climate Action Plan, he made his choice clear. He’s abandoning what is best for America and has bowed to the political pressure from environmental lobbyists like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

     White House Climate Advisor, Daniel P. Schrag told the New York Times: “Everybody is waiting for action, the one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants. Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.” However, the American public is not clamoring for the closure of cost-effective coal-fueled power plants. What they want is cheap energy, but Obama is, as the Washington Post states: “a president bizarrely antagonistic toward domestic energy production and low energy prices.”

     In the Pew Research Center’s annual policy priorities survey, just 28% say dealing with global warming is a top priority for the president and Congress this year. In fact, the president’s own research shows that his favorability rating “plummeted” with focus groups when he vowed to attack climate change—yet, promising to use executive action, he’s pushed forward with plans he knows couldn't get through Congress. Read more

Marita Noon: Obama’s Climate Action Plan: Emphasize What Won't Work; Penalize What Works

Swickard: Deep despair for all the wrong reasons

© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. There is deep despair in New Mexico this week. The great state of Mississippi scored better than New Mexico in a contrived test of factors that may contribute to child success. New Mexico is last on a list called the 2012 Kids Count Data Book.
     Being dead last has some people twitterpated. If you listen closely you can hear people crying from Hobbs to Farmington and from Animas to Clayton, “Oh, how can we ever go on?”
     I am not one of the people concerned by the 2012 Kids Count Data Book. I looked at it closely and decided overall it is of dubious importance. There are things that New Mexico cannot change and there are things that are actually an attempt to change educational practice in New Mexico in ways that are harmful.
      Specifically: early childhood education, rather, early government-run childhood education is the new national craze to increase teacher employment. New Mexico, however, has not embraced this new fad to send babies to state run institutions, yet. Reportedly 62 percent of New Mexico children do not attend pre-school, which is one of the lowest rates in the nation. I am pleased by this and wish the other 38 percent would wise-up.
     The notion is that if parents send their 36 month old baby to a government run facility, it will increase the chance that the child will graduate from college. Everyone likes the sound of that but I request them to show me the study of this effect. Show me the data. There is not any data. It is a hoax.
     The world leaders in education do not institutionalize the education of their children until certain brain development stages are achieved. In Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, which lead the world in student achievement, their children start school at age seven. Read full column

Swickard: Deep despair for all the wrong reasons