Loose Ends

The Texas Animal Health Commission reports that 197,864 cattle entered Texas from other states during April, while 119,036 cattle were exported to other states. Sheep entries totaled 2930 head and 2919 were exported.

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The Williamson County Forage Field Day is set for Thursday, May 27 at 6 p.m. The field day will be conducted at the Stiles Farm, located on Highway 79 east of Thrall.

Subjects to be discussed include: establishing and managing Tifton 85; grazing alfalfa; grazing clover; and 14 grass varieties.

Participants attending will qualify for two CEU credits.

More information is available from the Williamson County Extension office at (512) 930-4400.

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San Angelo-based Producers Marketing Cooperative Inc. has introduced combing into its wool marketing practices, reports the industry's Wool Fax Weekly out of Boston.

The publication says PCMI has converted approximately a million pounds of greese wool into top so far, and found actual fineness measurements considerably better than predicted.

PMCI executive director Ronald Pope is quoted as saying the results were "very positive, since we've been told that domestic wool always produces coarser top than what the raw wool tests."

In addition, colored fiber content was also much lower than anticipated, "equal to what a topmaker would expect from similar Australian wool," says Pope.

The PMCI results suggest either that producers are doing a better job of producing and preparing wool than they have in the past, or U.S. wool has been unfairly discounted for some time.

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A plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require Internet publishing of sensitive information about chemicals used by individual U.S. companies has run into opposition from the FBI and may be overhauled by Congress, says the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The scheme, contained in the most recent incarnation of the Clean Air Act, would require companies to list chemicals they use and publicly outline a "worst-case scenario" in the event of an accidental spill or release. It was touted as a way to give the public fair warning about potential risks from industries in their neighborhoods, but its major backers were environmental activist groups which readily boasted they would use the information to stir opposition to chemical users.

The FBI threw a wrench in the works, however, when it identified the scheme as a potential threat inasmuch as it would give terrorists ready access to information they could use to plot attacks. The "worst-case" calculations would even tell them how many people they could expect to kill and just what sort of attack it would take to do the damage.

CEI says the Senate Public Works Committee is considering changing the law to restrict the information — due by June 22 — but activist groups are already vowing to gain access through Freedom of Information Act requests and publish it on the Internet themselves. Some of these groups, it should be noted, are themselves linked to the very same terrorist activities which so concern the FBI.