Swickard: Burning up with road-rage

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. Road-rage has been all the rage to talk about these last few weeks. Someone did a survey of what causes road-rage. The top cause was people who drive too slowly. For cranky people susceptible to road-rage driving too slowly are all those people going slower than them.
     The best way to understand these cranky people is to see them change a light bulb. They hold the bulb steady and let the world revolve around them. 

      In the 1950s humorist Brother Dave Gardner told about a guy behind a truck he could not pass. There was a sign on the back of the truck: I may be slow but I am ahead of you. The guy flips out and wrecks. It is a funny story, to a point.

     Two hundred years ago humans could only go as fast as a horse could run. Those early 19th century humans could only go the speed of Romans two thousand years earlier. Perhaps there was road-rage then for slow horses. Then technology increased speed. We now can go hundreds of miles in a day in air-conditioned comfort listening to music coming from space.

     But some people act like being slowed for a few moments makes the whole journey like riding in a German cattle-car in the early 1940s. Impatient people feel everything on the road purposely tries to make them mad. Ultimately, they pay the price for their maladaptive coping mechanism, though innocent people also pay.

     Out in the country where I am from we generally smile and wave. We drive friendly even with strangers. There is a reason for our civility. In small towns everyone knows everyone else so bad behavior is remembered more than sin and is often punished by the offender being shunned by town folks.

      Contrast that with big cities where people are mostly anonymous. Many unnecessarily aggressive drivers count on being able to disappear into a cloud of strangers after their intentionally bad moments. But there is a change brought to us by technology: car video systems.Read full column

Swickard: Burning up with road-rage

Union Pacific unveils $400M Santa Teresa rail facility

From the El Paso Times - By Vic Kolenc  - New Mexico politicians showered Union Pacific officials with accolades Wednesday during the official christening of the railroad's new, $400 million, 2,200-acre rail facility in Santa Teresa, which officials expect to bolster economic development in this region for years to come.

     New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez even had the more than 700 people, who were assembled underneath a huge white tent on a hot, sunny morning at Union Pacific's new facility, give railroad officials a standing ovation.
     The facility includes one of Union Pacific's largest fueling facilities and the railroads's largest intermodal freight terminal along the U.S.-Mexico border. The 300-acre, high-tech intermodal terminal opened April 1 and is expected to process more than 170,000 freight containers this year, and many more in the future, from West Coast ship ports and inland terminals in Chicago and other metro areas.
     Union Pacific Chief Executive Officer Jack Koraleski said the new facility is making Santa Teresa "a strategic focal point for goods movement in the Southwest United States." The new intermodal facility will allow the railroad to grow its freight business in this region because its old El Paso facilities could not be expanded, Koraleski said.
      A steady stream of trucks haul the containers in and out of the facility via the new, six-mile state-built Strauss Road. The trucks can get through the mostly automated intermodal terminal in an average one to two minutes, he said. The national average for intermodal truck processing is five to six minutes, he said.
     The old El Paso intermodal facility in East Central El Paso and its Downtown El Paso freight yards are not going away as some people have thought, Koraleski said. The El Paso facilities will be used to expand Union Pacific's traditional box car freight business in this area, he said. More

Union Pacific unveils $400M Santa Teresa rail facility

Fire at southern NM biofuel facility contained

From KOAT-TV.com - By Devon Armijo - ANTHONY, N.M. —Emergency crews have contained a fire that sparked Tuesday morning at Rio Valley Biofuels near Anthony, N.M. The fire sparked around 9 a.m. Evacuations were ordered for about 1,200 people, but those evacuations have been lifted.
     Authorities said there were a series of small explosions at the facility. The cause of the fire is unknown. The facility has large quantities of methanol, glycerin and sodium methylate, as well as vegetable oil, hydrochloric acid and bio-diesel fuel.
     It is now a Hazmat situation, and crews are working to assess and contain the damage. More

Fire at southern NM biofuel facility contained

Marita Noon: Obama admin hides use of bad science

Commentary by Marita Noon - Six years later, we know that President Obama’s pledge to run the most transparent administration in history was merely acampaign promise, a White House talking point, and not a statement of management style. We’ve seen a series of highly publicscandals—Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS, NSA, and now, the VA—where Oversight Committees have fought to pry information out of the Obama White House only to receive stacks of redacted documents.
      Most recently, we’ve seen court-ordered information provided to nonprofit government watchdog groups in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that have made it very clear why the Administration wanted to keep specific contents hidden. Emails that revealed direct White House involvement in the Benghazi scandal are behind the creation of the new Select Committee. IRS documents show the Tea Party targeting wasn’t a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati, as the Obama administrationclaimed—instead, now we know it was orchestrated out of DC. Briefing materials point out that the Obama administration has known about problems with VA hospital wait times since 2009.
      FOIA requests must be the bane of the “most transparent administration in history.” Upon his signing of the FOIA legislation in 1966, former President Johnson stated: “This legislation springs from one of our most essential principles: A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the Nation permits. No one should be able to pull curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest.”
     As shameful as each of these scandals are, they directly impact only a comparative handful of people. We grieve the loss of life, but unless you are a family member or friend of the four brave men killed in Benghazi or of the dozens of veterans who risked their lives for our country only to die unnecessarily due to bad policy at the VA hospitals, your life goes on without consequence. Read full column

Marita Noon: Obama admin hides use of bad science

News New Mexico is live and in studio today with veterans

Flooding closes State park entrance

From KOB-TV.com - By: Mike Anderson, KOB Eyewitness News 4 - The main entrance to Bottomless Lakes State Park on Highway 409 is closed due to flooding, and will remain closed for the foreseeable future. Officials say the only way to enter the park is through Dexter, NM.
     “Although we are thankful for the rain, we regret this inconvenience,” said State Park Division Director Tommy Mutz.
Directions to get into the park from Roswell:
     Take Highway 285 south to Junction of State Road 2. Take State Road 2 to Dexter, and at the Allsups in Dexter turn left on Shawnee Road and follow it to where it ends at Wichita Rd. Turn left on Wichita Rd until it ends at Highway 409, which is the loop road around Bottomless Lakes State Park. Turn left to get to the Lea Lake Campground. The Visitors Center is 1.5 miles past Lea Lake.
Directions to get into the park from Artesia:
      Travel north and turn right on to State Rd 2 and follow until Dexter. In the center of Dexter turn Right on Shawnee Rd and follow to where it ends at Wichita Rd. Turn left on Wichita Rd and take until it ends at Highway 409, which is the loop road around Bottomless Lakes State Park. At Whichita Rd and Highway 409 turn left to get to the Lea Lake Campground and the Visitor Center is 1.5 miles past Lea Lake. More

Flooding closes State park entrance

Swickard: Accessing truth is the problem

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. The first victim of the Information Age is truth. Specifically, it is having access to the truth because there is so much false clutter that no one can be sure the media or Internet is really true.
     Often truth has been hijacked for political or anarchist reasons. There are hundreds of false reports each day that make it into the media. These false reports are either called out or assimilated into the culture of our society. Often they live as slogans, “Bush lied and people died.” Or, “America did not land on the Moon.”
     It is now possible to “prove” or “disprove” any fact or theory. There is probably a blog chronicling that Elvis is alive and playing golf with Michael Jackson who is also alive. If not, wait a minute, it will be up shortly.
     My first connection to a wider world was in 1988 when I was a tester for Prodigy while living in California. At first it was opinions and advisories and in the 1990s it changed to data repositories.
     In 1992 I was using email at NMSU such that I was on a project with a women in Jamaica and a man in New Zealand. We never met face to face but worked a year together. The data we sent back and forth stayed true on the worksheets and it was great.
     Certainly I was aware in 1998 of the Y2K scare which came from the Internet to the media and back. Now it seems mildly humorous that so many people believed that life on this planet was going to end due to a programming problem when the clock strikes the year 2000.
     Well, not everyone was freaked out and worried including myself, but the media played the concern to the hilt. People started stocking up on food, water and generators. However, I did not stock up or hoard above my normal two weeks or so of stuff.
      In 1999 I wrote a column asking: how were these hoarders going to deal with their neighbors when they have the only warm house in the neighborhood? It was going to get ugly, especially when the lights came back on. Neighbors will have long memories of you shoving a gun in the faces and telling them to scram. Read full column

Swickard: Accessing truth is the problem

Court rules Ortiz recall petition can continue

From KOB-TV.com - By: Elizabeth Reed, KOB.com The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously affirmed a lower court's decision in the recall effort of Bernalillo County Treasurer Manny Ortiz.
     The ruling allows the recall petition process to continue. If the petition gets 82,000 signatures, Ortiz will face a recall election.
     In January, local attorney James Dory went before a judge to ask permission to start a petition to recall Ortiz. The Bernalillo County commissioners have accused Ortiz of mishandling county finances, saying his investments may have cost county taxpayers around $23 million.
     Oritz has maintained his innocence. He previously said in court that he paid every bill that came into his office. More

Court rules Ortiz recall petition can continue

Sundowner Motel renovated as apartment units

From KOB-TV.com - A Route 66 landmark is reborn – with a new lease on life in Albuquerque. Not long ago the Sundowner Motel at San Pedro and Central was ripe for the wrecking ball – a motel that was swanky in the Sixties but slid into hard times in later decades. Now it’s back, in the form of 71 apartments for low income, middle income and disabled people. They seem to dig the restored Sixties style.
      Architect Garrett Smith designed the makeover – vintage Vegas. Smith also designed the rebuilding of the Luna Lodge a couple of miles east on Central Avenue. The developer of both projects is New Life Homes – a nonprofit with a mission to provide affordable housing for people with special needs. The price tag on the Sundowner project was $9.2 million, with state and local governments chipping in for the public/private partnership.
       Here’s one of the worst-kept secrets of the Sundowner: back in 1975 a couple of guys lived there for a brief time, writing computer programs and trying to start a company. One guy named Paul Allen. Another guy named Bill Gates. A little company named Microsoft. They couldn't acquire financing here and moved on to greener pastures. More

Sundowner Motel renovated as apartment units

Marita Noon: the liberty and energy connection

Commentary by Marita Noon - Following my appearance on the Daily Show, I’ve received emails and phone calls from people who don’t agree with my views about energy and the advantages America’s energy abundance provides—benefits that drive both progress and prosperity.
      I've spent the past couple of days at a conference on “Energy, Economics and Liberty.” There discussions took place on the energy debate, government’s role, market solutions, and the geo-politics of energy. About twenty men—all experts in various aspects of energy—attended. I wasn’t just the only female I was the only energy advocate. The topics brought Greg’s request to mind and the conversations helped form the answers.
     One of the participants, Jim Clarkson, wrote an article titled: “The Shale Gas Paradigm,” in which he states: “Increased access to energy is a key to economic progress in the undeveloped world.” Similarly, in my book, Energy Freedom, I quote Robert Bryce, author of Power Hungry, who says: “Electricity is the energy commodity that separates the developed countries from the rest. Countries that can provide cheap and reliable electric power to their citizens can grow their economies and create wealth. Those who can’t, can’t.”
     Senate Major Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) once said: “Oil and gas are making us sick.” But I contend that they—along with coal—are the very things keeping us well. In Energy Freedom’s introduction, I point out: “Energy saves lives. When fire strikes or hurricanes are bearing down upon a city, it is energy—in this case in the form of gasoline—that allows people to drive away and escape death. … When weather is extreme, it is energy—usually in the form of electricity (most frequently from coal or natural gas)—that keeps people alive. Air conditioning allows people to live in comfort in Arizona in the summer. Heating keeps people from freezing to death in Alaska in the winter. Energy keeps us well. Energy makes us comfortable.” Read full column

Marita Noon: the liberty and energy connection