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Veterans In Politics Talk Show Introduces Mike Wiley and David Rivers LIVE on www.AllTalkRadio.net Our Listeners for the month of August are 109,859 thousand: Thank You: September 26: Mike Wiley Republican Candidate for US Senate Representing Nevada: David Rivers former Judicial candidate for District Court Department 10 and Attorney: "Veterans In Politics" is a weekly radio show produced by the Veterans In Politics International and hosted by Steve Sanson and co-hosted by Ronda Baldwin Kennedy on www.alltalkradio.net. The "Veterans In Politics" show is live every Saturday 2:05 PM Pacific Time you can call in and speak to the guest or/and...

Democratic Rep. John Dingell has taken on heads of multibillion-dollar corporations, Cabinet secretaries and presidents during his 47 years as a congressman. But he has had few real political challenges like the one he is facing this summer. The most senior member of the House is looking at his toughest re-election bid in almost four decades, and the challenge is coming from a younger, more liberal congresswoman in his own party. Rep. Lynn Rivers got her political start in the mid-1980s when she was frustrated with her daughter's reading program and ran for the school board. Neither candidate wants to...

FARGO, N.D. – Weary residents of this sandbagged city came together in churches Sunday, counting their blessings that the Red River finally stopped rising and praying the levees would hold back its wrath. A brief levee break that swamped a school provided a warning of the kind of threat that still hangs over them in the days ahead. Church services that are a staple of life on Sunday mornings in Fargo took on greater significance as people gathered after a week of round-the clock sandbagging. They sang hymns and held hands, asking together for divine help in avoiding disaster. "At...

The U.S. Forest Service is moving ahead on a proposal to determine whether parts of the Colorado River and Deep Creek are suitable candidates for inclusion in the national Wild and Scenic River System. The Colorado River Water Conservation District, however, is looking at ways to fend off such a designation. “We’re working on coming up with something that protects the values that make them eligible for wild and scenic designation without imposition of all the federal controls,” said Chris Treese of the river district. The river district is hoping to preserve flexibility and greater local control on the management...

<p>Emergency personnel evacuated about 700 people from Ruidoso and Ruidoso Downs early Sunday as the rain-swollen Rio Ruidoso overwhelmed several bridges in town, coursed over roads, damaged homes and stranded dozens of campers in the area.</p>

Des Moines, IA (AHN) - The flooding of the Mississippi River has brought out to the open the fact that half of 31 levees between southern Iowa and St. Louis are dated and could no longer withstand the river's rampaging waters.According to the Army Corps of Engineers the majority of the levees were build three decades ago, while some were as old as 6 decades. With a National Weather Service forecast of more rains and higher waters on the river, the army engineers fear at least 18 of the levees would give way and this would result to worst flooding...

WASHINGTON, June 16, 2008 – More than 600 National Guard members in Illinois and Missouri are continuing sandbagging operations along the Mississippi River today in an effort to thwart the flood waters that are subsiding in Iowa. Soldiers from 1138th Transportation Company, based at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., fill sandbags June 15, 2008, in Clarksville, Mo., an area expected to get more flood water this week. Photo by Gary Stevens, Missouri National Guard  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Illinois and Missouri rivers flow into the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. Flooding on those rivers is not...

Cracks run on the top of a dam in Wenchuan, China's southwest Sichuan Province May 20, 2008. CHENGDU, China – Nearly 70 dams scarred by the force of China's most powerful earthquake in three decades were in danger of bursting, the government said Sunday, while looming rains added to worries about relief efforts for millions of homeless survivors. The confirmed death toll from the May 12 quake rose to 62,664, with another 23,775 people missing, Cabinet spokesman Guo Weimin said. Premier Wen Jiabao has said the number of dead could surpass 80,000. A magnitude 5.8 aftershock rattled the quake area...

I 'm with Joyce Kilmer -- "I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree." I'm even with city Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who recently waxed poetical before the Portland City Council on the "incredible" "show-stopping" trees growing in Portland. But before I could recall the last lines of Kilmer's poem -- "Poems are made by fools like me, / But only God can make a tree!" -- Saltzman went on to say something that's creepy and chilling: "It sometimes pains me to think that we have no ability to control their destiny -- that a private...

HORSETHIEF LAKE, Wash. -- Fidelia Andy was a 6-year-old happily running coffee to tribal fishermen at Celilo Falls when the federal government signed a deal with the tribes that flooded the falls and her family's home in the rising waters behind The Dalles Dam. On Friday, more than 50 years later, Andy and other leaders of four Northwest tribes finalized a new $900 million agreement with the federal government that they hope will begin to reverse the damage done by Columbia River system dams. "We Indians gave up so much in the past," Andy, a Yakama tribal leader and chairwoman...

The agreement announced Tuesday on the future of the Klamath River offers reason for cautious hope that the troubled waterway can recover from years of human intervention and abuse while meeting the conflicting needs of fish and farms. The agreement � forged by the farmers, fishermen, American Indians, government agencies and conservation groups whose views on the Klamath’s future long have clashed � achieves the seemingly impossible: a broadly supported plan to allocate the free-flowing waters of the river without dams. Therein lies the hope. And therein lies the caution. That these longtime adversaries, who for years battled over a...

Sceptics about the world's biggest hydroelectric dam are being vindicated (MIAOHE) -- Peasants in the village of Miaohe on the north bank of the Yangzi River say nothing like it had occurred in their lifetimes, nor those of their parents and grandparents. One afternoon in April, for a few grim seconds, the ground shook beneath them. The Wild Cat landslide, long at rest beneath the terraced maize fields, orange-tree groves and earth-brick houses perched on the steep slope, was stirring. Experts had long worried about the Wild Cat, 17km (10 miles) upstream from the Three Gorges dam in a narrow...

It was hailed as one of the engineering feats of the 20th century. Now the Three Gorges Dam across China’s mighty Yangtze River threatens to become an environmental catastrophe. In an unprecedented admission of blame, Communist Party officials gave a stark warning yesterday of impending disaster in the vast area around the dam if preventive measures are not urgently introduced. For more than a decade China has promoted the world’s biggest hydro-electric project as the best way to end centuries of floods along the basin of the Yangtze and to provide energy to fuel the country’s economic boom. The Government...

Second Thames flood barrier planned By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 1:42am BST 26/08/2007 A new £20 billion Thames barrier to save London from a potentially disastrous flooding threat is the centrepiece of a series of measures planned by the Government. The existing Thames barrier was completed in 1983 Phil Woolas, the minister for climate change, told The Sunday Telegraph that a feasibility study into a second Thames barrier, potentially required within 25 years, was due to report in a matter of weeks. In addition, new flood defences are being planned for all major police, fire...

24 June, Moscow. The day after the 2nd gay cruise in Moscow, nearly 200 members of Russian Orthodox-patriotic organizations went on a ceremonial motor ship trip along the Moscow River to "clean the river of filth" with a slogan “We are Russians – God with us. Read the FULL story: Orthodox patriots clean Moscow River after gay cruise

Source: World Wildlife Fund Date: March 21, 2007 Going Nowhere Fast: Top Rivers Face Mounting Threats Science Daily — Rivers on every continent are drying out, threatening severe water shortages, according to a new WWF report. Aerial view of the Mekong River, one of the ten rivers listed in the WWF report as being threatened by pollution and dams. (Credit: WWF-Canon / Elizabeth Kemf) The report, World's Top Rivers at Risk, released ahead of World Water Day (22 March), lists the top ten rivers that are fast dying as a result of climate change, pollution and dams. “All the rivers...

Jewish comedienne Joan Rivers has launched a scathing attack on Mel Gibson, insisting the actor should "die" for the anti-Semitic comments he made to police officers who arrested him for drink driving in July. The outspoken comic urges people to boycott Gibson's TV interviews with newswoman Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, because the exposure will only help to heal the actor/director's tarnished public image. She tells Celebrity Week: "He is an anti-Semitic son of a bitch. He should f**king die. "I think everyone should not watch the interview with Diane Sawyer. The hypocrisy is what I hate. You know...

Canyons, rivers and shifting sand - plus a multibillion-dollar price tag, more violence and less business - make sealing the border all but impossible It stretches between two seas and slithers across four states. It climbs mountains, traverses canyons and slices through cities. Most of it, including long stretches in Arizona, California and New Mexico, is vast and open, marked by wooden posts linked with sagging barbed wire, cement obelisks or nothing at all. In some cities, 10- to 15-foot-tall fences protect it. For 1,254 miles in Texas, it becomes a plodding, chocolate-colored river called the Rio Grande. The line...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A section of the obsolete Woodrow Wilson Bridge was brought down early Tuesday, the planned demolition set in motion by a longtime commuter who won a contest for the honor. A few minutes after midnight, Dan Ruefly pushed a ceremonial plunger to begin the countdown to destroy a half-mile section of the span that carries Interstate 95 traffic over the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia. Then, engineers set off the explosive charges that collapsed a half-mile section of steel girders on the Virginia side of the 45-year-old bridge. Hundreds of people submitted entries to the contest...

Biologists have discovered a species of shrimp in the Monongahela River for the first time, a discovery the scientists say is evidence that the river's water quality is improving. Known as glass or grass shrimp, the tiny, translucent creatures are native to the Mississippi River basin and prefer to live in river-bottom vegetation. But Palaemonetes kadiakensis, as they are referred to by scientists, has never been found in the Monongahela, said David Argent, a California University of Pennsylvania biologist. "This is probably the last thing we would ever had expected to find," Argent said. "They haven't been found this far...

Much of Colorado’s water leaves the state in its rivers. That can be explained by the state’s obligations under interstate and international compacts. Additionally, Colorado has not fully developed — put to use — all of its water. The amount of water yet to be stored in reservoirs for consumptive use is a matter of discussion. .. In an average year, about 16 million acre-feet flows through Colorado rivers... Under the Colorado River Compact of 1922, the upper basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming are obligated to allow 75 million acre-feet of water, spread over a span...

CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y., Aug. 14 — On a recent cloudless afternoon, Croton Point Park seemed to be a fishing paradise. The tide was low; the breeze was soft. Families picnicked and people stood along the shore with fishing rods, casting out into the Hudson in hopes of catching and carrying away one of the river’s coveted bluefish or striped bass. The only problem — though it was invisible — was in the fish themselves. “We’ve been coming here to get our fish for many years, and it’s been great,” said Miguel Tejada, holding a sleek fishing rod in his hands as...

At this time next year, about 200 sailors will fill up small boats, man .50-caliber machine guns and watch for trouble along the waterways of Baghdad. There’s a catch, though: At the moment, these sailors have no boats, no manuals and no past missions to call their own. Riverine Group 1 of the Navy’s new river combat force based at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base is starting from scratch. They still are recruiting men and writing a fresh chapter on how to prepare for river fighting. “We’ve got sailors lining up at the door,” Capt. Michael L. Jordan, commodore of...

Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have found evidence in eastern North America that the snow is melting and running off into rivers earlier than it did in the first half of the 20th century. According to a USGS study published in the most recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters, winter-spring flows in many rivers in the northern United States and Canada are occurring earlier by 5-10 days. "We studied rural, unregulated rivers with more than 50 years of USGS and Environment Canada river flow data," explained Glenn Hodgkins, lead author and hydrologist at the USGS Maine Water Science...

Tucked into the folds of the gigantic state infrastructure bond lawmakers were grappling with into the evening Monday is money aimed at buying and removing dams on the Klamath River. It is the first sign that money would be available from the state to grease the skids in negotiations between the dam owner and the fleet of sometimes conflicting parties that have a stake in using the river or restoring its debilitated fish runs. Tribes, environmental groups, fishermen, farmers and agencies have been meeting every two weeks to hash out a settlement that could involve decommissioning Pacificorp's dams and removing...

Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO The National Weather Service warned Sunday that a Northern California storm could cause flooding in portions of the Russian River and Napa River. The service issued flood warnings for the Napa River at St. Helena for late Sunday night or early Monday morning and for the Russian River at Healdsburg for Monday morning. The Napa River at St. Helena had risen to about 8 feet early Sunday afternoon, below the 19-foot flood level, said Jeff Kopps, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service in Monterey. The Russian River at Healdsburg had risen to about 3 feet,...

WASHINGTON — A broad question - whether a Maine agency has the authority to regulate the quality of water released from dams - was subjected to a series of narrow observations Tuesday by members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice David Souter asked, for example, whether moving a spoonful of water from one part of a river to another would constitute a discharge and trigger government regulations. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed that putting food through a processor changed it, perhaps like the turbines of a dam churning water. "What you get out is quite different from what you put...

Archaeology paper reports meaning of Indian river names ERNEST HERNDON Associated Press McCOMB, Miss. - The Chickasawhay, one of the finest rivers in the state, also has one of the prettiest-sounding names - Chick-a-sah-HAY. The Choctaw meaning: "Place Where Martins Dance." The name probably referred to a long bluff on the river known as King's Bluff where martins built nests in the bank. That tidbit is in a research paper by University of Southern Mississippi anthropology student Chris McPhail: "Mississippi Rivers: A Study of Choctaw Indian Place-Names of the Streams and Rivers of the State of Mississippi." McPhail pored over...

The Presumpscot River, one of Maine's first industrial waterways, will be at the center of high stakes U.S. Supreme Court arguments Tuesday that could alter the fate of dams and rivers nationwide. An attorney for S.D. Warren in Westbrook hopes to persuade the nation's highest court that Maine has no authority to impose environmental rules on five of its hydro dams along the Presumpscot. Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe will argue the other side: States have a clear right to protect their rivers. S.D. Warren's challenge taps into the national dilemma over dams, which offer renewable, domestically produced energy but...

ST. LOUIS — Intensified development in flood-prone parts of Missouri and California significantly raises the risk of New Orleans-style flooding in urban areas on the Mississippi and Sacramento rivers, researchers said Saturday. Around St. Louis, where the Mississippi River lapped at the steps of the Gateway Arch during the 1993 flood, more than 14,000 acres of flood plain have been developed since 1993. That has reduced the region's ability to store water during future floods, said Adolphus Busch IV, a scion of the Anheuser-Busch brewing family and chairman of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance. Efforts to protect St. Louis from...

Products based on NASA Earth observations and a new Internet-based decision tool are providing information to help land and water managers combat tamarisk (saltcedar), an invasive plant species damaging precious water supplies in the western United States. This decision tool, called the Invasive Species Forecasting System (ISFS), is being used at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Institute of Invasive Species Science in Fort Collins, Colo. It is the result of combining USGS science and NASA Earth observations, software engineering and high- performance computing expertise. "The ISFS combines NASA satellite data with tens of thousands of field sampling measurements, which...

MARITIME SECURITY FOR SUPER BOWL XL     Sector DetroitU.S. Coast Guard Press Release Date: January 25, 2006Contact: LT Catherine Mellette(313) 568-9615 MARITIME SECURITY FOR SUPER BOWL XLDETROIT -  The U.S. Coast Guard as the designated lead agency for maritime security during Super Bowl XL has established and will enforce a security zone 1mile by 300 yards along the waterfront from Joe Louis Arena to north of the Renaissance Center (see chart for more details).  Vessels are not allowed to enter the designated security zone.  The word Vessel includes every description of watercraft including; canoes, kayaks, personal watercraft, sailing, power, non-displacement...

Navy Riverines are in demand in Iraq to deny insurgents’ use of rivers as transport routes, avenues of escape The Navy Riverine units to be created this year will face a tough and dangerous task in Iraq, where insurgents increasingly rely on inland waterways to transport people and weapons. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which cut through the Iraqi heartland, also are vital avenues of escape for insurgents who strike in urban areas and slither away to avoid counterattacking American units. The only maritime capability now addressing the river-borne insurgents comprises little more than 100 Marine Corps reservists and fewer...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The first in what is expected to be a series of drenching winter storms has prompted flood warnings and swelled Northern California rivers to their highest levels in seven years. Warnings went into effect across the northern half of the state after the first storm swept through Tuesday and Wednesday. Steady downpours and rising rivers led to an evacuation, scattered power outages, and flooded roads and parks. Water district officials in Sacramento closed a flood gate on the American River as a precaution. "It's been several years since we've had this widespread of flooding, and we're not...

An official Chinese report confirms the Communist nation has managed to foul 70% of its waterways with its "work now-clean up later" policy ; and that this pollution endangers the national food supply. We in the West are inclined to shrug; but consider this: a well-armed,highly militaristic nation, that has been expanding its operations into OUR sphere of influence is potentially a danger to us. Factor in the possibility of large-scale famine in China, and potential danger escalates to a startling degree !

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Fish advocates see the plan to demolish Condit Dam on the White Salmon River as good news for salmon everywhere, but the state Ecology Department says the project could hurt fish downstream and might violate the federal Endangered Species Act. Demolition of the 125-foot-high hydroelectric dam, owned by Portland-based PacifiCorp, is proposed for October 2008. The project would open 33 miles of steelhead habitat and 14 miles of salmon habitat in the area of the river blocked by the dam since 1913. The river forms a portion of the boundary between Klickitat and Skamania counties along the...

Invisible RiversFresh water also flows to sea through the ground Sid Perkins About 2,000 years ago, the Roman geographer Strabo wrote about the residents of Latakia, Syria, who rowed their boats 4 kilometers out into the salty Mediterranean, dove a few meters to the ocean floor, and collected fresh drinking water in goatskin containers for their city. No miracle, this—marine boaters could do the same today at a spot about 10 km east of Jacksonville, Fla. In fact, similar freshwater springs erupt on the seafloor near many shores. These flows of water originate on land and end up in the...

Damage to Coastal Marshes May Mean Lasting Problems For Nation's Vital River. As state and federal officials grapple with massive human toll wrought by one of the most powerful hurricanes to ravage the US coastline, evidence mounted that the storm also damaged the critical Mississippi River shipping corridor south of New Orleans as weell as the remote towns and ecologically sensitive marches that surround it. Photographs and first-hand accounts from helicopter pilots, boat captains and engineers working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicate that the main channel of the river remains intact. But the surrounding nub of land...

Europe's weather crisis eased on Thursday as fires were put out in Portugal and flood waters receded in central Europe, but the death toll rose in Romania and Austria after heavy rains. Since June, the flooding in central and eastern Europe has caused 103 deaths, while fires in drought-stricken Portugal, Spain and France killed 37, according to figures compiled by news agency AFP. Portuguese firefighters said on Thursday they had brought under control all blazes that have ravaged the centre and north of the country over the past two weeks, thanks to the arrival of cooler weather. A villager...

WASHINGTON - The House voted Thursday to approve the nation's costliest waterway navigation project, a $3.6 billion undertaking to ease shipping on the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Environmental and taxpayer groups have opposed the project. Barge operators and farmers want to speed grain to Gulf of Mexico ports, and the Mississippi is the cheapest route for shipping to export markets commodities such as corn and soybeans, coal, chemicals and construction materials. Government scientists, however, had said that grain exports probably won't increase enough to economically justify the lock overhaul plan. House members overwhelmingly agreed to the plan anyway, as...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - A federal court ruling that rejects the Bush administration's latest effort to balance Columbia Basin salmon recovery against hydroelectric dams has fish conservationists pressing anew for breaching four dams on the lower Snake River. "What the law requires is an honest analysis of how we configure the hydro system so we can get salmon back in our rivers," said Jan Hasselman, attorney for the National Wildlife Federation. "What all the scientists tell us is such an honest analysis would call for breaching the lower four Snake River dams." But with President Bush and the Republican-led Congress...

Fraser River in jeopardy Group puts stream on endangered list, cites big diversions By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News April 13, 2005 Colorado's scenic Fraser River in Grand County has been listed as one of the country's 10 most endangered streams, largely because diversions to the Front Range are threatening its ability to

March 17, 2005Booby-Trapped Rivers Pose Additional Threat   VIDEO   By Grant McOmie  katu.com PORTLAND, Ore. - Fishing guide Phil Hawkins rows fishermen down the Sandy River for a chance to catch a steelhead. He says this winter the unusually low water has meant that he's kept a sharper eye on frothy rapids, exposed rocks and something new. "I have to worry about packing the right rods, the right flies, the right equipment and food - but never, ever would I dream that I'd have to worry about spikes or nails in the river that would tear my boat...

HAIA, Norway (March 1, 2005) -- The depth of the snow near the field training area during Exercise Battle Griffin stands nearly 2 meters. The temperature is a crisp, steady, 12 degrees Fahrenheit - brrrrr!Although the sun is lengthening its daily routine in and around central Norway, dangerous conditions are extreme. Teams have been out testing the snow and electronic transmitters have been issued to all land force participants in case of an avalanche.In these conditions, just getting to the training ranges is a success.The Marines of Marine Air Ground Task Force 25 assembled near the city of Trondheim in...

ust when things were looking up for Iraq's iconic marshlands, another threat has materialised. Iran has begun building a dyke that will threaten the water supply to the healthiest of the wetlands, the Al-Hawizeh marsh. "It will cut off a vast amount of water and remove some of the recovering marshes," says Curtis Richardson of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who is monitoring the recovery. Richardson told New Scientist that maintaining the Al-Hawizeh marsh, which straddles the border between Iran and Iraq, is crucial because it is a refuge for species that may recolonise other marshes. The wetlands, which...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Traffic resumed early Tuesday along a 42-mile stretch of the Ohio River that was closed for nearly two weeks while salvage crews removed three runaway barges that had twisted themselves around a dam. The 175-foot coal barges broke loose on Jan. 6 during flooding along the river and jammed the dam's gates, preventing them from closing. Because of the falling water levels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers halted river traffic through the Belleview lock on Jan. 19. The closing trapped 46 towboats and more than 550 barges. ``They are moving them pretty briskly right now,''...

PHILADELPHIA - A tanker spilled 30,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, creating a 20-mile-long slick that killed dozens of birds and threatened other wildlife, federal officials said Saturday. Private contractors were called in to skim oil from the surface of the water and place thousands of feet of boom to contain the floating slick. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said 50 birds were dead from the spill, 300 others were affected and fish also were threatened. A stretch of the busy river was closed to commercial and recreational traffic while...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - An oil tanker leaked about 30,000 gallons of crude into the Delaware River late on Friday, worrying local environmentalists and causing a section of river to be closed to commercial traffic, Coast Guard officials said on Saturday.

Liberals on Capitol Hill and in the media are screaming, "Where are the weapons?" Since the White House had argued that disarming Saddam was the main reason for going to war, not finding his forbidden weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) all lined up like prizes at a seaside shooting gallery has excited the president's political enemies to cry foul. Ewan Buchanan, spokesman for chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, assures Insight that "it's far too early to tell" whether forbidden weapons remain in Iraq or where they might be. "It doesn't surprise me that U.S. forces haven't found anything yet....

Link post: go to the thread below for images and discussion/commentary. The article link is to the Washington Post article about the now-official upgrade of Great Sand Dune National Monument to Great Sand Dunes National Park. Geology Picture of the Week, September 12-18, 2004: Great Sand Dunes National PARK