Archive for September, 2010

Interstate Stream Commission Issues Annual Report

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Cheri Lujan for forwarding us this ISC press release!)

The Office of the State Engineer/Interstate Stream Commission 2008-2009 Annual Report is now available at www.ose.state.nm.us under the “Publications,” “Annual Reports,” “2008-2009 Annual Report” or by clicking on this link: http://www.ose.state.nm.us/publications_annual_reports.html. Please forward to your local and statewide colleagues.

This document, produced as required by state statute (NMSA 1978, Section 72-2-5), is a review of key accomplishments and challenges faced by the agency during the fiscal year 2008-2009.
“In an effort to save on printing and mailing costs this year, we printed a small number of the annual reports,” said State Engineer John D’Antonio. “The report highlights the passage of key legislation, public outreach activities associated with updating the State Water Plan, the status of adjudications, and basin-specific activities that were important last year.”

If you have any questions, or contact information to update such as name, title, organization, address, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, please call me at (505) 383-4095 or reply to this e-mail.

Thank you,

Julie

Julie Maas
Public Relations Specialist
Office of the State Engineer/Interstate Stream Commission
Planning & Communications Division
5550 San Antonio Dr NE
Albuquerque NM 87109
(505) 383-4095 office
(505) 383-4096 fax
julie.maas@state.nm.us

Hunt For East Mountain Tea Party Spokesperson Continues

by John Weckerle

In recent weeks, we’ve taken issue (here and here) with the anonymity of an official spokesperson for the East Mountain Tea Party (EMTP) who posts articles on the EMTP site and has posted comments here, including some that we consider to be anti-Muslim and equating Islam with al Qaeda.  We initially almost-but-not-quite concluded that the person, who goes by the moniker “teapartynm” on the EMTP site and “East Mountain Tea Party” here, was one Emily Cooper.  However, Gadabout-blogalot.com editor and EMTP supporter Chuck Ring asserted that Ms. Cooper was not the domain contact any longer, and was in fact no longer participating in Tea Party activities.  Mr. Ring declined to clarify: “I don’t see that knowing the name will add anything to the issue at this juncture.”  We disagree; as we stated in the original article, we consider equating Islam with al Qaeda to be bigotry, and while we think that while outright, Terry Jones-style bigotry is ugly, we believe that anonymous bigotry is worse, if somewhat less effective.

Now, it is a rule that domain contact information must be kept current, and with that in mind, we filed a complaint with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).  This is the organization that administers domains at the highest level, and makes the rules for using them.  Registrars (for example, Network Solutions or GoDaddy) then process requests for domain names.  Now, the way this process works is that, upon reciept of the complaint, ICANN sends a request for validation or update to the  the registrar – in this case, GoDaddy – which then sends a notification to the administrative contact e-mail, and the recipient logs on and confirms the contact information. Yesterday, we got a response that told us:

»» Hunt For East Mountain Tea Party Spokesperson Continues

Public Service Announcement: Mountain Bike Ride and Clinic

by John Weckerle

The Town of Edgewood will be hosting a Mountain Bike Ride and Clinic for beginning and intermediate riders (ages 6 to 106) on Saturday, September 18 from 9:30 a.m. to noon at the Edgewood Open Space (Section 34) off Windmill Road, south of Edgewood.  Signs will be posted starting at Edgewood 7 and Windmill.  Please bring a mountain bike, a helmet, sunscreen, snacks, and plenty of water.  For more information, call 286-3914.

De Profundis To Play At Quarai This Sunday

by John Weckerle

Checking in on our friends at Mountainair Announcements, we find that this year’s annual concert at Quarai will feature De Profundis, a 14-man a capella ensemble from Albuquerque, performing medieval to contemporary music.  The event is scheduled for Sunday, September 19 at 3 p.m. The rain location is the Mountainair Elementary School gym.  Seating is not provided, so bring something to sit on.  For more information, see the Mountainair Announcements article.

Let’s Think About This Before Moving Forward…

by John Weckerle

In last week’s Mountain View Telegraph, a Guest View by Sandia Bearwatch member Dennis Hayes rebuts an August 25 Guest View by Tijeras resident Jeff Young, which takes issue with the reaction to New Mexico Department of Game and Fish plans to increase the number of bear hunting licenses in New Mexico in response to supposed bear population increases in New Mexico.

Mr. Hayes’s article provides some very interesting information on how bear populations are estimated.  Mr. Young provides some information as well.  There is one point, especially, on which Mr. Young appears to be incorrect, and that has to do with moose populations in the Yellowstone National Park area, and there are things to be said about Idaho elk populations, as well.

Mr. Young attributes decreases in moose populations in Yellowstone to wolf recovery efforts.  In fact, most sources we found attribute the decline to wildfires in 1988 that greatly reduced the moose habitat in Yellowstone.  Of particular interest is this summary, which discusses not only the factors leading to the moose’s decline in Yellowstone, but how it came to be there in the first place.  According to the paper: “Archeological evidence of moose has not been found in northwest Wyoming and south central Montana. Moose appear to have been scarce in Yellowstone until the latter half of the 19th century and in Jackson Hole until early in the 20th century. Forest fire suppression, restrictions on moose hunting, and moose transplantations contributed to their subsequent range expansion and population increase.”  In short, the higher populations seen in the past were essentially an aberration caused by human influences on the local ecosystem, and the subsequent decline was not primarily caused by wolf predation, but resulted mostly from a return to natural processes (fire, to be specific) that impacted the moose’s habitat.

»» Let’s Think About This Before Moving Forward…

New York – A View From The Top

by John Weckerle

Today, we give you two photographs taken from the top of the World Trade Center by your editor on a somewhat smoggy day in the early 1980s.

Grow Your Own: What On Earth…

NOTE!!!!: The “sorta-recipe” in this article relies on a frying pan with an oven-safe handle.  If you don’t have one, leave a comment and we’ll give you an entirely stove-top alternative.

by John Weckerle

…do we do with all this stuff?

Any of our readers who have had success in growing summer squash – including zucchini and the classic yellow squash – have probably found themselves with a superfluity, as it were, of would-be food.  We say “would-be” of course, because it’s not food until you cook it up and eat it, although we do admit that small specimens make a nice raw snack, either in salads or cut into strips with a little ranch dressing.  Or balsamic vinaigrette.  Or pretty much anything into which one likes to dip one’s vegetables.

Even so, gardeners do occasionally run into surpluses that surpass their capacity for dipping.  There is, of course, zucchini bread, and we can speak from experience on the subject of zucchini parmigiana.  Anybody who can make eggplant parmigiana can do it with zucchini.  We’ll cover that at another time, because if you’re a working person who needs something quick, parmigiana is probably not the thing – but if you want a recipe, let us know.  In the meantime, let’s talk frittata.

»» Grow Your Own: What On Earth…

“Credit” Where It Is Due?

by John Weckerle

Editor’s note/update: Gadabout-blogalot.com editor Chuck Ring has challenged us on our forensics in this article, stating that “you have used resources to mis-identify people who have nothing to do with the email address you are dogging.” We beg to differ, and offer the registration information as support:

East Mountain Tea Party Domain Registration Info

East Mountain Tea Party Domain Registration Info from GoDaddy whois; phone number redacted for privacy.

A few days ago, we published an article on the proposed Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan that was a response to an article on the East Mountain Tea Party web site, and had an exchange with someone calling themselves “East Mountain Tea Party.”  This person’s comment was also posted on the East Mountain Tea Party site under the name “teapartynm.”  We challenged the person to identify himself or herself, and thus far, there has been no such identification.  Neither is that person identified on the East Mountain Tea Party site; rather, the pseudonym “teapartynm” is used.

We fully support people’s right to state their opinions.  However, it’s important to realize that, while the Constitution may guarantee the right to do so, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee the right to do so anonymously, and given the rather controversial views expressed, we decided to do a little digging and see what we could find out.  Actually, we found out quite a bit, but we will for now stick to just trying to identify the person who posted the original article on the East Mountain Tea Party site and commented on ours.

»» “Credit” Where It Is Due?

White Wings Across America Event To Be Held On September 11 At Wildlife West

White Wings Across America Dove Release

Tom Smylie of The Peregrine Fund releases doves at last year's event.

Public service announcement from Wildlife West Nature Park:

The second annual White Wings across America event will be held at Wildlife West Nature Park on September 11, 2010 in honor and memory of the police and fire rescue personnel that sacrificed their lives and/or service to our nation in time of great disaster.  White doves will be released simultaneously all over America.  Please join us for this event.

Thanks,

Roger Alink
Founder and Executive Director

AGENDA-  Saturday September 11, 2010

  • 9-11 ceremony at Wildlife West Nature Park- Free admission all day
  • Ceremony at the Falcon Theater
  • 9AM to 9:50 AM -Patriotic Music and police and fire units set up at falcon field –
  • 10AM -Simultaneous Nationwide Dove release
  • 10:05 AM –Comments by Mark Chavez- Fireman on Site at 911 aftermath
  • 10:15 AM –Comments by Edgewood Police Chief James T. Daniels
  • 10:25 AM- Prayer by Police Chaplain
  • Snacks, social time and free park visitation all day

No Mosque At Ground Zero – For Starters, Because Nobody’s Proposing One

Update 1/4/11: Additional discussion of the potential basis for the East Mountain Tea Party’s apparent bias against Islam can be found in our article East Mountain Tea Party Officials and Islam.

by John Weckerle

We had initially thought not to address the construction of a Muslim community center in downtown Manhattan (the Park51 Project, or Cordova House, commonly but mistakenly called the “Ground Zero Mosque), but since the East Mountain Tea Party has apparently decided to make this an election issue, we’ve decided to add some thoughts to the debate.

We’d like to begin, though, with a caution regarding a particular set of practices of discussion that seem to have become popular in certain quarters.  The first is the device by which those who disagree with a particular position attempt to turn the argument back on the originator as some sort of personal critique.  In spoken conversation, we often refer to this as the “I know you are, but what am I?” method, and have little use for it.  The second is to just outright attack the person originating the position or those who agree with it in general.  We’re not big on that one, either.  We invite our readers to post whatever comments they like, but be aware that we will probably ignore these two literary devices where responding to comments is concerned.

We also have something to say to the nebulous “teapartynm” who posted the article: We don’t think you should have to put your money where your mouth is, but you should certainly put your name there if you truly believe in what you’re saying.  To twist a line from the movie “Beetlejuice:” “Never trust the unidentified.”

»» No Mosque At Ground Zero – For Starters, Because Nobody’s Proposing One

Mesalands Announces Graduates of Moriarty Pilot Project

Press release from Mesalands Community College: Mesalands Community College is pleased to announce that eight students from the Estancia Valley have recently completed a short course of customized training in wind energy technology. This pilot project was developed by Mesalands Community College, the Estancia Valley Economic Development Association, the New Mexico Workforce Connection of Central New Mexico, and the City of Moriarty, to provide qualified wind energy technicians for this growing industry.

“This was a fast pace and intense program!” John Hail, Jr., Director and Instructor of the Wind Energy Technology Program at Mesalands said. “I believe this course will open up many doors for these students that were unemployed and seeking employment opportunities in an exciting new field.”

The classes took place in Moriarty and in Tucumcari, NM. The last week of classes entailed training at the North American Wind Research and Training Center (NAWRTC), where students had the opportunity to climb the College’s 1.5 megawatt wind turbine located on campus.

Students involved in this short course learned the basics of electricity, mechanics, hydraulics, and turbine safety in addition to safety climbing and working on an industrial wind turbine. The classes were comprised of the first year’s technical courses and included two climbs of the wind turbine.

The graduates of this course: David “Brooks” Dempsey, Paul Garcia, Jacky Harris, Eric Padilla, Tom Padilla, Sheila Pettingill, Brian Phillips and Joe Torres, all obtained an Occupational Certificate in Basic Wind Energy Technology.

Additional information about Mesalands and NAWRTC can be obtained at 911 South Tenth Street in Tucumcari, or at (575) 461-4413, or on the Web at www.mesalands.edu/wind.