Las Cruces surpasses 100,000 mark

According to statistics maintained by the City of Las Cruces, the city’s population surpassed the 100,000 mark as of April 1. 

The milestone was reached during the period between July 1, 2012 when the population estimate was 99,665 and April 1, when the population was estimated at 100,984. 

According to Tom Murphy, MPO Officer for the Metropolitan Planning Organization they estimate population by tracking building permits for housing units. Housing units are identified as single family, multi family, townhouses and triplexes. 

Las Cruces surpasses 100,000 mark

America’s forever unsuccessful war on drugs

© 2013 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “The only justification is always in terms of the existence of innocent victims. In the case of drugs, the major effect of drug prohibition is to multiply the number of innocent victims, not to reduce it.” Milton Friedman 1991
     The prohibition against alcohol took most of a hundred years to reach its final stage in the 1930s. Then the society gave up on prohibition and settled for alcohol regulation. A surprising thing happened when the same forces of the society who pushed alcohol prohibition applied the same prohibition logic to recreational drugs. Sadly they have gotten the same result from drug prohibition as they did from alcohol prohibition.
     Albert Einstein contended the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So how long do we intend to be insane?
     When I arrived at college in 1968 even my cow college had people doing illegal drugs. It was common knowledge that recreational drugs were readily available at “reasonable” prices. Today, at the same college, drugs are still readily available at “reasonable” prices after more than forty years of the War on Drugs.
Many people over the decades looked at the results and recognized the efforts were not effective and did more harm than good. Yet the efforts continue unabated. The sticking point is the principle that society should not allow people to hurt themselves. So we incarcerate millions of American citizens, “For their own good.”
     Like alcohol prohibition, the Drug War has had three results: first, crime organizations have grown large and influential. Secondly, police enforcement and incarceration has become an industry. Finally, more people take drugs than before. More people started drinking during prohibition than before. Prohibition made our nation a nation of drinkers. The Drug War seems to have increased the number of drug users.
     So why not stop the Drug War? Two reasons: first, no politician wants to face reelection accused of being soft on drugs. Secondly, the Drug Wars are an industry for our government.Read full column

America’s forever unsuccessful war on drugs

Monday Guest wrote Ranch Horses

Note - we will interview Steve Monday at 7 a.m.. 

From The Westerner - by Steve Wilmeth -

     Bailey nickered at me through the 4:30 dark silence. They had all come to me as I switched the lights on to start to feed. Three bays and a seal brown chestnut that live over the corral fence with us in Mesilla. I worked through the routine keeping them quiet and settled as they got their morning feed.
     I stood there and listened to them eat momentarily before I climbed through the fence and turned the lights off. I went to get ready before I saddled and loaded. We were going to gather.
First light
      Leonard had called to tell me he had nine riders that could start on Friday morning rather than Saturday. That would give us a head start and make Saturday, when the bigger crew would arrive, more efficient.
“Good deal … let’s do it.”
     When I came out onto the back porch at 5:30, no horses were seen. They were all standing in the far corner of the arena when I found them. They know what feeding at 4:30 brings.
     I decided to take Tom. Since we were only going to pen enough cattle for Leonard and me to start sorting early Saturday, we would be finished by midday. One horse would do.
     Tom’s a dark bay horse that weighs 1250 pounds. He’s tall at 16 hands and somehow that kind of horse has become taller for me. He is a big mover and can cover country. At times he can be timid, but he is very versatile. He watches a cow with instinct but he tends to work too fast if allowed. When he’s fresh he’ll get faster and faster.
     I now match saddles to our horses. Good horses, like pickups, are too expensive to hurt. Paying thousands of dollars for a horse with a one size fits all saddle is no longer preferable. Tom gets his own saddle and I will even swap that out to reposition pressure points if he works days in succession.
     He stood there as the gentleman he is as I saddled him. He only disagreed when I brushed his mane too hard. He lifted his head and backed his ears. I reminded him he was going to endure that bit of grooming. If the trailer gate is open I can throw the lead rope over his withers from 25 feet away and he’ll load himself. All our horses have pretty much come to that point. As ranch horses, they know the difference in a ride versus a long trot anywhere. They’ll ride.
     In the trailer, you can’t feel him. He’s quiet as a church mouse and will drop his head and doze as we drive to the ranch. As I unloaded him, he was interested briefly in one of the other horses that would start with cowboys from that point of the gather. He knows them but doesn’t spend much time with them other than during times of work.
      We scattered, set our spacing, and started our drive. Tom was relaxed. He worked as he always does in the open. Stay out of his mouth, get lighter and lighter with pressure, and move him laterally with your legs. He does the rest and he does it well.
     I let the rest of the world go away. The morning was a joy. Read full column

Monday Guest wrote Ranch Horses

Wolf attacks on humans in North America

From the Tucson Citizen.com - by Jonathan DuHamel - I have often heard the claim by environmentalists that there has never been a documented attack on humans by wolves in North America. That claim is untrue as I will demonstrate. Wolf attacks on humans are rare as are attacks by mountain lions and bears, but they do occur. Somewhat more common are apparent “stalkings” by wolves, especially of children in rural areas (see here and theCatron County Wolf Hotline for incidents involving the Mexican Gray Wolf in New Mexico).

A sampling of documented wolf attacks on humans:

• I begin with Alaska Department of Fish & Game Technical Bulletin 13 (2002) entitled “A Case History of Wolf-Human Encounters in Alaska and Canada.” That study was precipitated by a wolf attack on a 6-year-old boy near Icy Bay, Alaska, in April, 2000.
• PIERCE, Idaho – A North Idaho grandmother considers herself lucky to be alive after she was able to shoot and kill a wolf as it tried to attack her on a recent hunting trip.
• Daily News-Miner, Fairbanks, Alaska Dec 17, 2012: A wolf attacked a Tok trapper on his snowmachine last week about 30 miles off the Taylor Highway, biting through the man’s parka and three layers of clothing to put a 3-inch gash on his arm. Lance Grangaard, 30, said he was “putting along” on his Ski-Doo Tundra on Thursday afternoon, coming down a frozen creek, when he saw the wolf out of the corner of his eye.
• Wolf Crossing, Chignik Lake, Alaska, December 7, 2011: At least two wolves chased down and killed a teacher who was jogging on a road last year outside a rural Alaska village, according to a report released Tuesday by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The body of Candice Berner, 32, a special education teacher originally from Slippery Rock, Pa., was found March 8, 2010, two miles outside Chignik Lake. The village is 474 miles southwest of Anchorage, on the Alaska Peninsula. Biologists ruled out reasons for the attack other than aggression. Investigators found no evidence that the wolves had acted defensively or that Berner was carrying food. They found no kill site that wolves may have been defending, no indication that the wolves had become habituated to people, and no evidence of rabies. Read more

Wolf attacks on humans in North America

Bingaman appointed to Santa Fe Institute board

Jeff Bingaman

A prestigious nonprofit research and education center in Santa Fe has tapped former U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman to serve as its newest trustee. 

The Santa Fe Institute announced Wednesday that Bingaman has been elected to a three-year appointment on the Board of Trustees. The board has fiduciary responsibility for the institute and oversees its operation through biannual meetings and committees that offer advice and support to the institute's leadership.

 Bingaman's tenure in the Senate spanned three decades, making him one of New Mexico's longest serving senators. He announced in 2011 that he would not seek re-election. From 1979 to 1983, he was New Mexico's attorney general. 

Bingaman was also recently appointed as a fellow at the Stanford law school's Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance.

Bingaman appointed to Santa Fe Institute board

Senate Pres. Pro Tem Papen criticizes Gov. veto

Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen on Wednesday sharply criticized Gov. Susana Martinez for vetoing a bill aimed at providing outreach to the mentally ill and called an administration program that oversees behavioral health “ineffective and unproductive.”

 Papen also wrote that “as is too often the case, the governor has discounted the collective judgment of the Legislature in favor of her own” when she vetoed the bill that passed both houses with only one dissenting vote. 

Papen, who has a schizophrenic grandson, is a longtime advocate for the mentally ill. 

A spokesman for Martinez on Wednesday declined to respond to Papen, saying the governor’s comments were contained in last month’s veto message.

Senate Pres. Pro Tem Papen criticizes Gov. veto

Federal raid in Anthony

Federal officials say 22 people were arrested on drug trafficking and other charges during a Wednesday raid around the New Mexico border town of Anthony. 

Residents of the town, which straddles New Mexico and Texas just north of El Paso, woke to the sounds of helicopters, bangs and screaming as federal and local agents conducted an early morning sweep on homes. 

New Mexico U.S. Attorney Ken Gonzales says 22 people were arrested in New Mexico and Texas, with most of the arrests in Anthony. A total of 29 people are charged with distributing cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana in and around southern Dona Ana County. 

Federal raid in Anthony

Senate leader shuns Domenici over affair

From KRQE-TV.com - by reporter Kayla Ayres - ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Former New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici's extramarital affair decades ago is a national media story again. This time it's because one of his longtime colleagues, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., appears to have shunned Domenici. 

     Reid and Domenici, 81, were on opposite sides of the political aisle, but they were still friends. In fact, Reid had high marks for Domenici when Domenici announced his retirement in 2007. "I like him very much. I have great admiration for him," Reid told the press then.
     It's a different story now because of the affair Domenici acknowledged in February in which he fathered a child. Domenici's affair was with Michelle Laxalt, who's more than two decades his junior and the daughter of a former Nevada U.S. Sen. Paul Laxalt . Domenici had a reputation as a family man who had eight children with his wife, to whom he's been married for more than 50 years.
     Reid was elected to Laxalt's Senate seat in 1987 when Laxalt retired. Reid and Domenici then served together for 22 years before Domenici retired at the end of his sixth term in 2008.
     In an interview with Las Vegas Review Journal , Reid says he refused to meet with Domenici last week because of the affair. Reid's statement came about during an interview about mental health care, which is a passionate issue for Domenici. "I don't mention Domenici's name anymore because of what he did to Michelle Laxalt," Reid told the newspaper. "I wouldn't let him come and see me. But anyway, that's another story." Read more

Senate leader shuns Domenici over affair

Branco Cartoon

Branco Cartoon

Gila Regional Medical Center cuts employee hours

Gila Regional Medical Center has downgraded 70 full-time hospital employees to part-time status as part of new cost cutting measures. 

The Silver City Sun-News reports that the hospital says the measures were needed after it saw an increase in the numbers of uninsured and underinsured patients. The hospital also is facing a cash crunch because of the shift from inpatient care to outpatient care, and reduced reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid.

In addition to the employee changes, the hospital is halting plans for the nearly $40 million expansion project and postponing the conversion to a new health information software system. 

The employee status changes are expected to save the hospital around $3.1 million.

Gila Regional Medical Center cuts employee hours