NM VA waiting list has shortened significantly

From KOB-TV.com - By: Nikki Ibarra, KOB Eyewitness News 4 - The number of New Mexico veterans who are still waiting to get a doctor’s appointment has gone down dramatically. Last month an audit revealed more than 1,000 veterans in our state were on a waiting list. Now that number is 482.
      The Veteran's Affairs Department audit found more than 1,040 New Mexico veterans still waiting more than 90 days to get their very first appointment at the VA hospital in Albuquerque back in June. One month later, the latest audit shows that more than half of those patients have now gotten that appointment. 482 are still waiting.
      A spokesperson for the New Mexico VA health care system says that big drop is due to the new nationwide "accelerating care initiative".
     This all stems from an investigation that started in May that looked at VA hospitals, including the one here in Albuquerque. On claims the hospitals kept a secret waiting list and lied about wait times for veterans who need care.
     The initiative's goal, helping those on the wait list, making them appointments, and making sure it's done in a timely manner. While this may show progress for the VA, there are still veterans waiting for that first appointment. More

NM VA waiting list has shortened significantly

Marita Noon: More taxpayer dollars for green energy?

Commentary by Marita Noon - There is an intentional tension in Washington. Our founding fathers planned that opposing views would balance each other out—a push-pull takes place. Spend. Don’t spend.
      This tug-of-war is seen, perhaps most obviously, in the so-called renewable energy field. After Solyndra, and the more than fiftyother stimulus-funded green energy projects that have failed or are circling the drain, the public has grown weary, and wary, of any more spending on green energy. The money isn’t there to spend and the motive behind the 2009 rush to push billions of taxpayer dollars out through the Department of Energy has been tainted by corruption and illegal activity.
     
The green-energy emphasis was sold as a job creator for unemployed Americans, as a cure for global warming, and a way to slow a perceived energy shortage. It sounded so positive in the many speeches President Obama gave as a sales pitch to the American public.
      Today, Americans know better. They knew about Solyndra—which took millions and then folded. Thanks, in large part to myexposé, many now know about Abengoa and the Solana solar project—which took billions of tax-payer dollars and is now functioning and producing electricity but does so by breaking immigration and labor laws, giving foreigners hiring preference, and stiffing American suppliers.
      Watching multiple predictions fail and proponents get rich, Americans instinctively know that the whole global warming agenda doesn’t add up—as evidenced by this week’s International Conference on Climate Change where more than 600 “skeptics” from around the world gather to discuss real science and policy. Read full column

Marita Noon: More taxpayer dollars for green energy?

Lawsuits seek to stop work at mines in 3 states

From KRQE-TV.com - BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – Coal industry representatives say lawsuits against mines in three Western states could have consequences across the U.S. as environmentalists seek changes in how mining is approved on federally owned reserves.
     In civil cases unfolding in Colorado, New Mexico and Montana, the group WildEarth Guardians asserts coal companies benefited from lax oversight by federal regulators.
     The group says the U.S. Department of Interior approved mining plans without enough public involvement, and gave little heed to the pollution caused by digging, shipping and burning coal. The group asked the courts to stop mining until the plans are re-done.
      The cases involve the San Juan coal mine in New Mexico, the Colowyo and Trapper mines in Colorado, and the Spring Creek mine in Montana. Combined, they employed about 1,200 workers and produced 27 million tons of coal last year, according to federal records.
     Attorneys for the federal government denied the environmentalists’ claims and have asked the courts to dismiss the cases. New Mexico-based WildEarth Guardians has a lengthy record of litigation against the coal industry. Just in the past five years its attorneys have filed dozens of lawsuits and legal petitions against agencies that regulate mining on federal lands.
      “If WildEarth’s request for relief is granted … the result would be devastating economic harm to coal miners, operators and the entire industry that services coal production,” mining association attorney Stephen Bell wrote in a recent court brief. More

Lawsuits seek to stop work at mines in 3 states

Swickard: Once arrested never innocent in the media

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. Malcolm X

     Several times a week there is something in the media that makes me queasy. Someone will have been arrested so the media gives all the details of the crime in such a way that for most people there is no other conclusion than the person is guilty. Every detail is on the front page for all to see, even those details that the police plant in the press to move the case forward.
      The presumption of innocence is one of the founding principles of our country. But over the years citizens have lost that presumption. In the Old West often the low-down dirty varmint was hung and then given a trial. Example: at Boot Hill in Tombstone, Arizona is this marker: 

Here lies George Johnson hanged by mistake 1882
He was right, we was wrong,
But we strung him up, and now he's gone.
      Several times a month I protest the way the media frames the story such that guilt can be the only conclusion. I protest to the media that they only carried the prosecution’s message. They are usually huffy about any criticism since everyone knows that when someone is arrested they are guilty.
      They answer the defendant will get his or her day in court. But that is not the issue. The jury pool is contaminated by the media framing the story from the prosecution’s point of view. The media often is intimidated by the police and if they do not play ball, so to speak, they are frozen out of the information loop.
      Further, as some of us remember there have been several seemingly iron-clad cases against citizens that subsequently turned out to be incorrect. What is remembered is that the person was handcuffed and perp-walked into the jail on nighttime television. It is rarely remembered that the person was really innocent. Read full column

Swickard: Once arrested never innocent in the media

News New Mexico live Wednesday, Michael better

Thanks for all of the concerns and messages of support from my time Monday in the Emergency Room at Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces. They were great and got me going so I have made it back to a reasonable place and will be in the broadcast chair Wednesday with Bob Endlich co-host, Dr. Jim Murphy, New Mexico State University Department of Astronomy and Rob Nikolewski, New Mexico WatchDog.org.

News New Mexico live Wednesday, Michael better

Best of Show Tuesday - Michael under the weather

So sorry - News New Mexico Statewide host Michael Swickard became ill Monday afternoon but was not kept overnight at the hospital.
     He is home and says he will be in studio Wednesday, full of stories about going to the Emergency Room at Memorial Medical Center. He says they did very well, but there were quite a few stories to pick up. See you Wednesday.

Best of Show Tuesday - Michael under the weather

5.2 quake strikes New Mexico

No, this is Japan, New Mexico was fine

From KOAT-TV.com - A 5.2-magnitude earthquake rocked parts of New Mexico on Saturday night. Officials said the quake struck about 10:59 p.m. Saturday
     The KOAT-TV newsroom was flooded with phone calls from people who felt the earthquake.
     Residents in Silver City, Truth or Consequences, Tucson, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas, said they felt the tremor.
     The epicenter was located about 31 miles northwest of Lordsburg.
     Officials said there were no reports of injuries or serious damage.

5.2 quake strikes New Mexico

Swickard: Job is not a four letter word

© 2014 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. The most important job young people will ever get is their first job. It may not pay well; but it leads to their second job. They cannot have a second job without a first job. Without the all-important first job, many young people will flounder and never get into the job market therefore wind up living on the street.
     Our society has put up many barriers to young people working. So many young do not get a no-brainer job and learn to work. They must learn to work as the boss says and to not quit until they have another job lined up. There is nothing wrong with working and going to school to get that first job. The key to my success over forty years was to get that first job and learn from it so I could get the next job and so on. Today many young people are in their middle twenties and still have not had a first job. I say to them that job is not a four letter word.
     There are three reasons many young people have not had their first job: first, they have not valued the things to learn from a first job. Secondly, many are not being forced by the economics of their life to get a job as long as they do not mind going in debt with student loans. Finally, many young people have not gotten that first job because the job market has collapsed.
     Many jobs are not open to young people because these young people do not have any job skills so employers are reluctant to hire young people who must be paid the minimum wage while they cannot return that productivity for the employer.
     In this tough economy many employers are slimming down their workforces and paying more to productive members of their staff while not hiring young people. There is a national push to make this worse by raising the minimum wage further. No one is speaking out for these young unemployed.
     Know this: they cannot get a second job without getting their first job. Further, they cannot get productive skills if employers will not hire them because of the minimum wage.
     There should be a waiver that if someone has never had a job previously then they can make any deal with an employer for a first job. Suddenly, they would be attractive. Read full column

Swickard: Job is not a four letter word

Española councilor charged with pistol-whipping man, shooting at truck

Espanola City Councilor Eric Radosevich

From KOB-TV.com - By: Elizabeth Reed, KOB.com - The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office confirms an Española city councilor is behind bars on charges of aggravated battery and assault.
     Councilor Eric Radosevich, 43, is accused of pistol whipping a man and shooting at his vehicle two times.  On June 21, the victim told the sheriff's office he was at a gas station when an unknown male approached his pickup truck to speak to his wife.
     The man said he confronted the stranger and then got into an argument. While trying to leave the gas station, the victim said the man followed him in a white Chevy pickup with other men inside.
     When he drove to the Roadrunner Cafe in Pojoaque, the victim said the stranger came out of his truck and struck him several times with a black handgun. The stranger then allegedly fired two rounds toward the victim while driving away--striking the victim's truck.
     Through the investigation, the sheriff's office learned the white Chevy pickup belonged to Radosevich. He was arrested on Wednesday and remains in custody at the Santa Fe County Detention Facility. More

Española councilor charged with pistol-whipping man, shooting at truck

Lack of imagination: a fatal flaw

Commentary - © 2014 Pat Temple - A lack of imagination can make life worse than death, in ways. And, sadly, the way human beings are made, they simply can't think ahead when it comes to certain specific areas. They're pretty good at laying out fields and irrigation systems. 

      They can picture a pecan farm twenty years in the future, and the way the house might look, with rich hardwood floors, high ceilings, and hand-created tile counter tops, but they are nearly hopeless at combating "common folklore" such as "the hook doesn't hurt the fish," despite the fact that the fish appears to be trying desperately to get off it.
     H. L. Mencken wrote, about 100 years ago, that people hadn't bathed until the last 75 years. He did that deliberately to see how many people would believe it. My father said he was thinking about that statement (and believing it) standing in front of a Roman bathtub in the Pliny Gardens in Florence, Italy. 

      He said the dichotomy almost did not occur to him. He was standing directly in front of proof that people bathed 2,000 years ago while thinking "I believe that people did not bathe until 75 years ago … and yet, here I am, standing in front of a bathtub that was hand-carved out of marble 2,000 years ago."

     It must have helped us survive, somehow, to have this ability to believe a certain set of facts that aren't facts at all, but it might not be so good for us as individuals. I know that for years the school system has said that children have to go to public schools "because they have to learn to get along with these people; they will be with them when they grow up." 

      It's not true. Getting along is among the most natural of any human qualities. Any two people sitting next to each other on an airplane can adjust to each other's differences in minutes, and find grounds for a first-rate conversation. Read full column

Lack of imagination: a fatal flaw