Free Republic

A Columbia High School biology teacher killed and slaughtered a rabbit in front of 16 sophomores to show them how livestock is processed into food, Allison Westfall, the Nampa School District spokeswoman, said Thursday. The matter has been turned over to the district’s human resources department, Westfall said. She would not speculate on what might happen to the teacher because it is a personnel matter. She said she didn’t have the name of the teacher. The teacher expressed remorse for his action in class on Monday, Westfall told the Idaho Statesman. “That is not part of the biology curriculum,” she...

And you’ll never guess why! Well, unless you guessed “global warming,” which is what you did the moment you saw Al Gore’s name. He cannot and will not shut up about it. And I, for one, don’t want him to.Here’s the President of the Environment: It’s time for a national policy on food. Brilliant essay in today’s Washington Post: http://t.co/bvGjpej5wN— Al Gore (@algore) November 9, 2014 If Al Gore thinks it’s brilliant, it must be hilarious. Let’s take a look!

".....As of publication time, Republican Johnny Tacherra is leading longtime Democratic lawmaker Jim Costa in the yet-to-be-decided race for the Golden State’s 16th congressional district. With provisional ballots still to be counted, and with a 700-plus-vote cushion, Tacherra is confident that he will survive. He and his wife are heading to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to take part in freshmen-member orientation on Capitol Hill....... ....The New York Times put the race on its “Democrats Are Expected to Win Easily” list, and the Cook Political Report labeled the seat as “Solid Democrat,” or uncompetitive. Republican national committees and organizations stayed out...

Joni Ernst, the Iowa state senator and Iraq War veteran, was standing in a barn in a purple flannel shirt and an unzipped vest. Beside her, various swine burrowed in the hog lot; two small pigs spooned; there was copious squealing. When Ernst, who grew up on a farm castrating hogs, opened her mouth to speak, she drew the inevitable connection between her upbringing and her current role as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. “When I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork,” Ernst said, smiling. Title cards reinforced her credentials. (“Joni Ernst: Mother. Soldier....

Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs just happens to be a fellow peace officer: Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge. Elected law enforcement officers from Nephi to Blanding call him an arrogant and dishonest bully who has little regard for local authority and dodges accountability, derailing a collaborative approach to police work on the state’s federal lands. Love reportedly just laughed when Garfield County Sheriff James "Danny" Perkins relayed ranchers’ complaints about federal officers removing plastic feed tubs from the range and threatening the ranchers with litter citations. He drew early controversy during...

A group of horseback riders drew stares, honks and a few handshakes and high-fives along Redwood Road Thursday, hooves clattering on pavement in a protest ride of federal land management policies. The Utah trek of the Grass March Cowboy Express hit Salt Lake City and continued east up Parleys Canyon, with Tooele County Commission Chairman Bruce Clegg and Utah Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, riding in tandem. With them they carried a mail pouch sporting a letter demanding the resignation of a BLM field office manager who ordered grazing reductions in Battle Mountain, Nevada, and petitions from rural Utah counties...

Two Utah congressmen say the public needs more time to weigh in on a "sweeping" proposal to designate more than a half-million acres as critical habitat for the Western yellow-billed cuckoo. Republican Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart are among 17 members of Congress who urged U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe to extend the comment period on the designation beyond Oct. 14. "While we oppose this listing proposal, we find it completely unacceptable that the (agency) has proposed only 60 days of public comment with no public hearings, effectively shutting out meaningful comment on a sweeping critical...

Most clear-thinking people can see by now that there isn't going to be a functioning global carbon emissions abatement scheme in the foreseeable future. Whether or not that's a good thing (and I think it is) is a separate question. Because regardless, we should look at the world as it is. Now of course, excessive carbon emissions into the atmosphere remain a serious concern and a real problem. So what can we do to solve it? First, let's look at the main sources of carbon emissions. The two big ones are energy production and agriculture, which is set to explode...

Reporter Nelufar Hedayat looks at the terrible conditions dogs are forced to live in just to keep the black market in dog meat supplied A shocking new TV documentary will reveal how hundreds pet dogs are being stolen every day in Vietnam for the lucrative dog meat trade. Unreported World shows disturbing evidence of how dogs are stolen, force-fed, kept in cramped cages and slaughtered for meals. Here, reporter Nelufar Hedayat exclusively reveals the horrors she witnessed. The smell of dog and filth permeated the whole room along with frantic, high-pitched barking from the hundreds of dogs crammed into the...

Fifty-eight years old. That was the average age of principal farm operators in the U.S. in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Census of Agriculture. Over the past 30 years, the average age of principal farm operators in the U.S. has increased as fewer young people have taken up farming. For many farmers' children, leaving home means leaving the business. Nikiko Masumoto grew up working the peach harvest every year on the Masumoto Family Farm in California. Though she was a fourth-generation farmer in the making, when she went to college, she thought she was leaving the farm...

The Endangered Species Act has wreaked havoc for decades on rural communities, but a newly filed lawsuit could force San Francisco urbanites like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to share their pain. A federal complaint filed this week contends that the Hetch Hetchy Project, which supplies water to San Francisco and the Bay Area, has unfairly enjoyed an exemption from the “severe cutbacks” required in rural California in order to save endangered fish species. Craig Manson, who heads the Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy and Reliability (CESAR) in Fresno, said the lawsuit is aimed at addressing the “double standard” that...

The average price for all types of ground beef per pound hit its all-time high -- $3.884 per pound -- in the United States in July, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That was up from $3.880 per pound in June. A year ago, in July 2013, the average price for a pound of ground beef was $3.459 per pound. Since then, the average price for a pound of ground beef has gone up 42.1 cents--or about 12 percent. Five years ago, in July 2009, the average price for a pound of ground beef...

More than a half-million acres of land across nine Western states is being proposed for designation as critical habitat for the yellow-billed cuckoo. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 546,335 acres of critical habitat is up for listing in 80 separate units in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The bird is a neotropical migrant that winters in South America and nests along rivers and streams in western North America. ... The Service is seeking information concerning the western yellow-billed cuckoo’s biology and habitat, threats to the species and current efforts to protect...

KINGDOM CITY, Mo. — Missourians already have the constitutional right to religion, speech and guns. On Tuesday, they could make a novel addition to the State Constitution: the right to farm. A proposal known as Amendment 1 will be taken up in a statewide vote on Tuesday, leaving Missouri poised to change its Constitution to guarantee the rights of its people to “engage in farming and ranching practices.” The right to farm hardly seems threatened in Missouri, one of the leading agricultural states, with nearly 100,000 farms producing crops including soybeans, corn and wheat. But a coalition of state farming...

Pete Saunders, The Corner Side YardJuly 27, 2014 drought monitor UNL Debates still persist about the impact of climate change, but from my perspective, the early results are in. We are now reaching the point where cities, metro areas and states will have to consider taking bold and assertive measures to even maintain their current quality of life levels. And we are also reaching the point at which alternate futures for our cities must be considered. That future could very well mean fewer people in the dry West and coastal areas of the East and South, and more people in...

BATTLE MOUNTAIN — Once again ranchers who run cattle on the Argenta Allotment in Lander County were told Wednesday that due to drought a number of areas would be closed to livestock. Pete and Lynn Tomera were told by the Bureau of Land Management they had a week to remove cattle from nine segments of the allotment ... We have 7 days to ride the entire mountain and have the cattle off. We are right in the middle of haying and are forced to drop everything and begin gathering cattle,” the Tomeras wrote. “We are forced to put the cattle...

The fate of a chicken-size bird carries huge economic and political stakes across the West. The sage grouse, long a threat to the thriving energy sector, is also a threat to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The ground-dwelling bird, which has habitat across Nevada and 10 other states, could be listed as a threatened or endangered species as soon as next year. Such a designation would place burdensome restrictions on the use of tens of millions of acres by ranchers, farmers, and oil and natural gas producers. Environmental organizations that want a halt to ranching and fossil fuel development are...

Sadly what did make front page news this week were the shocking words: “Don’t sup with whites: Mugabe.” Mr Mugabe said that people who had been given seized farms were leasing them out to white Zimbabweans and accused his own officials of being involved. “Some of my ministers are being mentioned here. They are refusing to remove white farmers from their constituencies… we are told that Chiefs are also involved in land deals,” Mr Mugabe said. “What annoys us... is where our own indigenous farmers sub-lease to the very same white farmers we took our heritage from yesterday,” he added....

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the meadow jumping mouse as an endangered species. Now, the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the Santa Fe National Forest, is considering erecting a series of 8-foot high fences to protect the mouse’s habitat. The Luceros, members of the San Diego Cattleman’s Association and holders of grazing permits with the federal government, say the fences will lock out their cattle — as well as those of other permit holders — from ever returning to the meadow where the livestock graze for 20 days in the spring and up to 40 days...

Wildlife advocates want a federal judge to order faster action on a recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx. ... Officials also say that lynx face a relatively low degree of threat compared to other protected species. The Fish and Wildlife Service was forced to come up with a timeline on the recovery document when Molloy last month expressed frustration with the government's progress. The judge said the "stutter-step" approach by federal officials necessitated court intervention. The lawsuit pending before Molloy was brought by Friends of the Wild Swan, Rocky Mountain Wild, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and the San Juan Citizens Alliance....