Number 85 - To see a tree asmiling.

Good morning wildclickers and happy Dec, 1st. We had some rain last night, but no storms. Getting ready to do my multiple clicking. Where is everyone?

Danon, how is Patti?

December 1, 2010

Official Says U.S. Won’t End Drilling Ban in Eastern Gulf

By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is rescinding its decision to allow offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic Coast because of the BP oil spill, an administration official said Tuesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made, said that drilling would remain under a moratorium for those areas for at least the next five years, until stronger safety and environmental standards were in place.

Drilling will continue in the central and western Gulf of Mexico, although under a set of new safeguards that were put in place after the deadly BP explosion and oil spill in April.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the expansion of drilling in March, just weeks before the BP accident, as part of a political plan to encourage more domestic oil production in exchange for limits on carbon dioxide emissions. The eastern gulf and the Atlantic Seaboard had been off-limits to oil companies for years because of Congressional opposition.

But the Obama administration’s package fell apart as a result of the oil spill and the Senate’s refusal to take up comprehensive legislation on energy and climate change.

The administration imposed a moratorium in May on all deepwater offshore drilling while the new safety procedures were drawn up. Mr. Salazar lifted the ban in October, and oil companies have been seeking new permits to resume exploration in the gulf.

Mr. Salazar is scheduled to discuss the new policy in a news conference on Wednesday afternoon.

Patti isn't doing well - she is in the midst of yet another kidney infection. Today, a friend drove me to my Dr. where I had a colonoscopy. So...... today we could have done without - but we are still moving.

Sorry to hear that Patti has that infection, but you got your colonoscopy over with which is a good thing. I've done my multiple clicking and am on to my morning routine on the computer. Wish ehBeth and Stradee would come around more often.

Thanks, sumac........ Me also re Strad and ehB --- that's probably my fault because I'm not all that interesting and/or personable like those two.

Let's keep on saving another tree a day....... That's a good thing.

Sorry hearing Pattie's just not doing well. Very sad for you both.

Honey, not to worry about what you write, or say. The reason i haven't posted is because i don't receive a2k notices for the thread. Checking in though when i have the time...

Rain/snow and cold for the Sierra's...tomorrow should be a tad warmer...they say in the 50's...a heat wave!

Christmas decorating tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday...the season is here again...doesn't seem possible another year has passed.

Was a week for repairs and new stuff. Dryer decided to stop heating (great for winter and kittens who refuse using thier kitty pans.) Since Bootsie passed away, Mandy and Bella have reverted to what i'm not certain. Both began acting out over a month ago. Poor babies miss their mom and buddy.

Anyhooo, appliances are running well now, vacuum's kickin' it...and hopefully the babies will recover cause i'm getting so tired of plastic and towels all over the laundry room.

Kittens need more luv so i'm off the computer earlier today.

Glad to hear from you SAStradee, I did my multiple clicking and am off to read stuff.

Hi Stradee -- glad the house is getting all the nice TLC. Mine needs the same, but I guess I'm too lazy.

sumac, great going.

Off to do my clicking. We have a forecast for a mixture of rain then snow for tonight. If we get anything at all, it will just be a dusting. But the forecast is for cold overnight temps next week. I have had to run my heater on the porch the last couple of nights and foresee using it next week. That will increase my electric bill but should keep the plants happy.

Gettting started during the holidays can be tough, but hang in there Dan

sue, howdy girl, and waving to your happy porch plants

Have a small infrared heater sitting in the living room for three plants brought in from the cold. Works well, and i can expect more energy charges next month also. sigh

The forced air heating worked overtime for 7 days, but with the rain now, temps are higher than 28 degrees. High of 54 today!!!

Dan, hope the checkup at the docs was super positive! My best to Patty too.

Have a super day all ~

hahahah --- I've been fifteen years trying to get started.........hehe. Oh, well there's always next year. Thanks.

sue, great clicking -- and same to all Wildclickers.

Decorating and watching football...

Dang it's cold though! Dampness from all the rain sitting on the pines and saturating everything, including my house! Cranking up the heat...

Have a good Sunday all ~

Well we got that dusting of snow, amounting to about two inches. And boy, it sure looked pretty coming down. The temps this week are going to be cold, overnight temps in particular. One day won't even get out of the 30's. Heater on for the porch for most of the night but the sun heats it up nicely during the day.

Going to do my multiple clicking now. and then make a beef stew.

Nothing but freezing temps at night here. Comfy during days.

Good clicking all.

Rain stopped and gave way to nice temps till Wednesday when the next set of rain and snow hits the Sierras.

Winter is here...Fall somehow slipped away quietly and didn't say a word!!!

Sue, so glad hearing you're finally receiving water wheather in the form of rain or snow.

Amanda was just about ready to go outside when she got tangled with my feet and legs...me hitting the floor and feeling poor Mandy squish for a second...she's ok though...poor baby. I'm a tad sore and thought..."Shoot, if just a fall in the livingroom was painful, ski slopes are definitely out for the duration of my life"! Oh well, plenty of exercise happenin' with all the house/landscaping work. Anyhooo, once able to urge Amanda from her hiding place, checked her lil' self and she's no worse for wear. My God, it's been a trip the past few months with my babies!

Take care and stay warm y'll.

December 6, 2010

In the Wild, a Big Threat to Rangers: Humans

By KIRK JOHNSON
GOLDEN, Colo. — As a game warden for the state of Colorado, Todd Schmidt has a workplace that office drudges the world over might fantasize about: the staggering beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

But underneath his shirt, day in and day out, he also wears a reminder of the dangers: a bulletproof vest.

“Keeps you warm, too,” Mr. Schmidt said, patting his chest on a recent cold morning at Golden Gate Canyon State Park, about an hour west of Denver, as the snowcapped peaks of the Continental Divide shimmered in the distance.

Two recent shootings of wildlife officers — one killed in Pennsylvania while confronting an illegal hunter, the other seriously wounded after a traffic stop in southern Utah — have highlighted what rangers and wildlife managers say is an increasingly unavoidable fact. As more and more people live in proximity to forests, parks and other wild-land playgrounds, the human animal, not the wild variety, is the one to watch out for.

“We’re seeing a little bit more of the urban spill into the wild spaces — city violence in the country,” said John Evans, an assistant branch chief of law enforcement operations at the National Park Service.

At this time of year, when hikers give way to hunters, there is a corollary to Mr. Evans’s point that would make even the most hardened urban police officer blanch: weapons are everywhere in these woods.

“I know that everybody I confront has a gun,” said Mr. Schmidt, 36, who has five years on the job with the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

Guns also became legal in many National Parks this year under a law enacted by Congress in 2009. And many parks and recreation areas around the nation have also suffered staff cuts in recent years, reducing the presence of badge-wearing authority figures on patrol. But rangers and wildlife workers say the key variable defining the job has not changed: because of the vast distances to be covered, especially in the West, every ranger is a solo act.

In the lonely, beautiful places where they work, knowing when to walk away, or run, rangers say is Lesson 1. Fifteen wildlife or park employees have been killed on duty, most of them by gunshot, since 1980, according to the North American Wildlife Enforcement Officers Association.

“A huge portion of it is gut instinct,” said Jacob Dewhirst, 26, a state park ranger who works in western Colorado, where checks on hunters’ or fishermen’s licenses often take place in the lonely back country.

Many wildlife agencies have responded to the heightened dangers with new equipment and training. Since 2007, National Park rangers in many parks have been equipped with Tasers that can immobilize a would-be attacker.

Mr. Schmidt has an AR-15 semiautomatic assault-style rifle in his truck, and a computer on the dash that can — in ways old-time rangers never knew — check a vehicle license plate before a ranger’s first approach.

But rangers and wardens also inhabit a mixture of roles that they say can sometimes make them more vulnerable. They are ambassadors and stewards of a public resource, and most have backgrounds in some aspect of the natural sciences. But they also have full police authority, up to and including using lethal force if necessary.

Mr. Evans described it as a duality: “A nice guy, prepared for an idiot who is ready to do me harm.”

For Mr. Schmidt, who has a degree in wildlife biology, that balancing act — welcoming and wary — comes down to always having a clear line of retreat. Whenever he stops to check a vehicle or speak to a hunter, his truck door is always left open, the engine running.

What has made the recent shootings even more chilling to many rangers is that events unfolded from encounters of the sort officers do all the time. In the Utah case, the gunman, who has still not been caught, apparently opened fire when a Utah State Parks ranger, Brody Young, 34, approached after a traffic stop. In the Pennsylvania case, David Grove, 31, was killed after he confronted a man hunting illegally with a spotlight, which makes deer and other animals disoriented and easier to shoot.

“It’s very easy to comprehend exactly what David was dealing with at the time of the shooting,” said Richard A. Johnston, a regional law enforcement zone officer with the Fish and Wildlife Service, who traveled from his home in Kansas to attend Mr. Grove’s funeral.

For some officers, like Ty Petersburg, who manages a heavily used district west of Denver for the Division of Wildlife, the line between urban crime and wildlife crime gets blurred all the time.

A couple of years ago, Mr. Petersburg began following a suspicious-looking vehicle on Interstate 70 — a pursuit that led all the way into the suburbs of Denver, where the driver leaped from his car to attack. Minutes later, perhaps 30 local and county police officers arrived in a siren-screaming swirl of backup that Mr. Petersburg, 31, had summoned by radio. It was a familiar scene: the police helping out their own.

More often, he said, it is the opposite case, where help is willing in spirit, but impossible in practice. Earlier this fall, for example, Mr. Petersburg was in a mountain region in the middle of nowhere and came upon a vehicle driven by a man with outstanding arrest warrants on his name and lots of cocaine in his car. He again called for backup.

“ ‘We’d like to come help you,’ ” he quoted the nearest big urban county sheriff’s office as saying, “ ‘But we don’t have a clue where you’re at.’ ”

Getting ready for really cold temps tonight. Last night was bad enough at 19. Won't get out of the 30's today. Possibility of more snow this weekend. Can't wait for this Arctic air to retreat.

Stradee, you must be careful -- stats say that most people over 50 die as a result of falls in the home than anything else. Beeee Careful.

Yes, sumac -- I can't believe how humans are becoming so cruel these days. That's why I keep my Sweet and Sauer close by. Also have 357 Magnum and 30-30 with scope. The big stuff stops the car and the little .40 Sig give me 13 shots to glory in one clip. Extra clips handy......... ta da......

It's like I say when watching a movie where the hero grabs a pistol and runs after the bad guy --- don't forget the extra ammo. When the pistol is out of bullets it changes into a rock.

Rangers have their work cut out for them for certain.

Gunshots heard during the evening hours, and we know someones killing an animal for either 'sport' or selling black market animal parts

sickening
###

Dan, i'll probably get killed protecting an animal before i fall down and die in my house, but thanks for the advise.

Amanda is just fine and no worse for wear, thank God. She even began using her kitty litter pan again!!! I hope she can convince Bella to do the same, because God knows i've tried with no success.

Nynite