Free Republic

Enterprise, UT (Reuters) - A Utah county, angry over the destruction of federal rangeland that ranchers use to graze cattle, has started a bid to round up federally protected wild horses it blames for the problem in the latest dustup over land management in the U.S. :snip: Wild horse preservation groups say any attempt to remove the horses would be a federal crime. On Thursday county workers, accompanied by a Bureau of Land Management staffer, set up the first in a series of metal corrals designed to trap and hold the horses on private land abutting the federal range until...

As if we needed another reminder that the free market is no place for big government, along comes another government loan failure—Open Range. This Greenville, Colorado company received $267 million in federal loan guarantees from the Department of Agriculture in an effort to bring broadband service to unserved or underserved rural areas. Along the same vein as Solyndra, Open Range was purported to provide cutting-edge technology, but worked under an extremely questionable business model. In early October, Open Range declared bankruptcy, leaving taxpayers to foot a $74 million bill for unpaid loans. The government picking winners and losers in the...

Dear Friends - A good friend of mine is being trampled by a "good ol' boys network" in Arizona. Kent Knudson has done nothing but protect his property and his family, but he's facing felony charges for doing so. Please join me in getting the word out on this. This could have happened to any of us, and cattle owners in open-range states will never willingly stop their abuse of other people's property. The Wild West needs to join the 21st century.

LOGAN, Utah - A rancher who authorities allege habitually lets his cattle run loose was arrested for manslaughter after a woman was killed in an accident involving one of his steers, police said. An arrest warrant alleges that Darrell Kunzler, 69, has demonstrated a 30-year pattern of failing to properly contain his livestock, despite repeated requests by law enforcement. The warrant cites 31 police reports from the last four years regarding Kunzler's stray cattle, including five collisions involving cows that escaped from the field onto the highway. "It would have to be outrageous before we felt like it was appropriate...

Movies Worth Seeing If you haven't done so, "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" is well worth seeing, even on a DVD if you miss it in the theaters. J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy was voted in a huge survey as the greatest book of the 20th century, which naturally infuriated academic critics who seem to think that the great literature is the vomit of the authors' neuroses transferred to the printed page — the ickier, the greater. I've always believed there is one standard for any author — can he or she tell a good story? It was...

RIDING THE OPEN RANGE - The Western Hero Returns By Don Feder With guns blazing and horses kicking up dust, the Western hero has returned. “Open Range,” recently released on DVD and video, offers the best recent example of the Western hero, a man thought to be obsolete in an age of cynicism and despair – but now riding proudly into the sunrise. The quintessential Western hero is strong, soft-spoken, tough, courageous, honorable and self-effacing. He’s Gary Cooper heading for the showdown in “High Noon,” Gregory Peck telling his fiancé “I’m not responsible for what people think, only for what...

ENTERPRISE - Buffalo are again roaming the wilderness in Eastern Oregon. The shaggy beasts are indigenous to the state but are now classified as domestic livestock, not wildlife, under animal and health statutes that govern their importation into Oregon. But that hasn't kept them confined to fenced pastures. Ranchers are raising an estimated 2,000 of the naturally migratory animals, and several herds have escaped. Their presence is a headache for private landowners and public land managers - and a hairy surprise for some hikers - across Eastern Oregon. Yet some ranchers advocate setting more bison free as a natural solution...

Cow Shooting Sparks Debate Over Remnant of Old West: Open-Range LawsBy Angie Wagner Associated Press WriterPublished: Sep 13, 2003 SNOWFLAKE, Ariz. (AP) - Kent Knudson had been fed up with cows wandering onto his property for years. So when he came home one afternoon and found a herd in his back yard, he promptly got his .22-caliber rifle and fired. A red-and-white pregnant cow fell to the ground kicking, and died by Knudson's shed. Problem was, Knudson violated open-range law, a remnant of the Old West. And he learned the hard way that cows still rule the range: He was...

After the disasterous war sounds in "Pearl Harbor", (partly responsible for the flop of the film) someone at Touchstone must have actually gone out and fired a real gun.....If those scenes had been as loud as they really were, every little boy in America would hgave gone back and back.....maybe some of us big boys too.....(I expected to be blown out of the theater, instead you have 50 caliber machine guns that sound like they have silencers)The sounds in the gun fight is awesome and very welcome in this era of PC.....those double barrels can really talk...The film even has...

Good Things In August There are two good things to look forward to in the dog days of August. The Little League World Series will be running through Aug. 24, and a lot of it will be broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2. The other good thing is a Kevin Costner Western. I haven't seen the movie, "Open Range," yet, but I have faith in Costner. I have really liked all of the movies he's had control over — "Dances With Wolves," "Waterworld" and "The Postman." I especially liked "The Postman." And he's directing, as well as starring in, his new...

LinkFor any Western movie lovers out there a film called "Open Range" starring Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner opens today, see a preview here. Looks like it could be good.