Saturday, January 4, 2025

The e-mailer was hotter than a $3 pistol. "What part of illegal don't you understand?" the opening salvo of the angry note asked after a column on immigration reform - and the lack thereof - a month ago.

While the nation's farmers leap into spring planting, this office is reluctantly digging through the winter drifts of stories gone undone.

During Australia's inquiry of the $215 million in kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime, documents have been made public that show American-based Australian diplomats working hand-in glove with U.

In his opening address to the 11th National Ethanol Conference Feb. 21, Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dinneen declared loudly and proudly that "ethanol has arrived.

When the USDA announced the discovery of the nation's first mad cow in late December 2003, consumers and ranchers were met by a government search-and-destroy blitz worthy of war.

Lawyers are fond of noting there are only three courtroom strategies to pursue in any legal case. First, if the facts favor your client, argue the facts.

Given the sad state of affairs in today's affairs of state - record federal budget deficits, record trade deficits, illegal domestic eavesdropping, the sale of key U.

When March arrives like a lamb, the old saying goes, it roars out like a lion. How then will the 2006 growing season finish if current numbers, courtesy of the USDA, show it hobbling out of the gate on weak knees and a bent back? Six months, of course, will tell the tale, but February USDA figures begin it with some opening lines that are grim - Brothers Grimm grim.

A month ago this space outlined the ongoing Australian probe of AWB Ltd., that nation's single-desk wheat exporter, and the nearly $215 million in kickbacks and bribes it paid to Iraqi officials to keep Aussie wheat flowing into Iraq between 1999 and the U.

On any other day, the Jan. 23 confirmation that another BSE-carrying cow had been discovered in Canada would have rocked that nation and its Canadian beef-importing neighbor to the south.