Miscellaneous

The New York Times is running some great pictures of New Yorkers lining up to get bags of ice because large parts of that city have been without electrical power for seven days. Its hot in New York City this summer, like every where else.

I got to thinking about New York's crumbling electrical grid and our current war of choice in Iraq. As war costs approach a half trillion dollars think how some of that money could have been used to repair America's infrastructure. War produces nothing but death and expensive explosions. This war has done nothing for building roads, schools, clean water supplies and energy efficiency. It has made some defense industry corporations bottom lines look good.

Moon Mountain Again

Incumbent Land Commissioner Pat Lyons told the people Friday night in Ruidoso he needed to sell Moon Mountain because he needed the money to help fund schools. Less than 24 hours later he told the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau members in Ruidoso that he would be reducing their grazing fees by 10% in October (just prior to election day) because oil and gas revenues were so high.

Also, we found out, as you can see from this picture, that the Land Office spent over half a million dollars for thinning of the forests on Moon Mountain. The money was mostly federal funds. What wasn't mentioned in a good Albuquerque Sunday Journal article was that the only land that was thinned to reduce fire danger was the land that could support development and was later put up for sale. That is expensive prep work done at taxpayer expense for Lyons' developer of choice.