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I'm afraid I have a bone to pick with Paragon, if they're the ones out of Alamogordo. They've bought into and sided with the radical environmentalists out at Otero Mesa to stop natural gas drilling in that area. Otero Mesa is essentially a desert area that supports very little in the way of vegetation for cattle grazing, but some of the ranchers there have signed on to the rape, pillage and plunder rhetoric of the radicals, led by Bill Richardson who is pushing very onerous rules for "protection" of the area. My most recent post, of many over the past month, can be found here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1093483/posts

I was with an Otero county rancher and former oilman up in Cloudcroft yesterday who told me that the ranchers down by Artesia usually look at the industry as a positive even though the ranchers don't have mineral rights. If the oil company landmen are smart (and the ranchers, too), the ranchers can get roads, fencing, water tanks and piping out of the deal in return for not fighting the companies, who under law can drill for minerals even though they don't own the surface rights. In the event an oil company trashes up the area, the ranchers still have recourse to the state regulatory agencies, the courts, or as a last resort (shudder) the ever-willing liberal, big-oil hating press.

Otero Mesa is essentially a desert area that supports very little in the way of vegetation for cattle grazing, but some of the ranchers there have signed on to the rape, pillage and plunder rhetoric of the radicals, led by Bill Richardson who is pushing very onerous rules for "protection" of the area.

If I read them correctly (and I have read some about this issue), in addition to the RICOnut environmentalists (usually in the pay of the energy company foundations), there are people who live on Otero Mesa don't want the drilling. Paragon may be helping them preserve what they see as a quality of life and property rights issue; i.e., those locals who subsist off ranching, hunting, and recreation incomes, don't give a damn about drilling, and fear the aftermath of the drilling operation as destructive to that source of livelihood. So it may be that Paragon is in this instance allied with environmentalists, but perhaps not for the reasons you might suppose.

Now, I have my doubts about Paragon too, especially the way they handled the Sawgrass Rebellion in Florida. I have disassoicated myself from them for other reasons. I'm pinging AAABest and TonyWojo because they can speak more directly to that unfortunate set of events.

Of Ronnie Merrit however, I have little doubt. The guy may be a tad credulous (I can be too, until I get burned), but from what I have known of Ronnie over the last five years or so, he has shown himself to be a patriot and an honest man. I hope this explains why I chose to make the urgency of this case a little more visible.