Today's Opinions

In December, Keith Gardner, the governor’s chief of staff, told a legislative forum, “It’s important to put differences aside and collaborate.”
He went on to talk about how important it was to “compromise and work together” and to “come together and do what’s best for New Mexico.”
After Republicans bankrolled an election like a coyote hunt that failed to alter the political makeup of the Legislature, Gardner sounded like a cornered Tweety Bird saying, “Nice puddy tat.”
In January, the governor sprinkled her state of the state speech with “compromise” and “bipartisan” and extended her hand instead of her foot to Sylvester the Cat.
So for this and other reasons (the sequester kicked in as I was writing this), this has been a session of compromise.
More or less.
Right off the bat, the governor took a couple of major steps. First she committed to Medicaid expansion and decided against pushing right-to-work. That was a respectable olive branch.

While spring is a time to plant beautiful flowers in your yard, it also brings pesky insects out in numbers. Because of this, a potential hazard this time of year for pets is pesticides.
“Before choosing a pesticide read the label to ensure it is safe for your pet,” said Michael Golding, assistant professor at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.
“Avoid products with bone-meal as these can be tasty to your pet, and pesticides with organophosphates and carbamates as these can be extremely deadly.”
The most common ways pets come into contact with pesticides is licking the toxic substances from their feet or coat, or by directly consuming the product from a container that has been left out.
 If your pet begins showing symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, trouble walking, drooling, nausea, and/or tremors contact your veterinarian immediately as these are signs that your pet is suffering from pesticide related toxicity.
 “A common way pesticides cause problems in our pets is through organophosphates and carbamates,” Golding said. “They act as competitive inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase, a key component of the central nervous system that allows the brain to regulate the body.”

It is with sadness that I feel I must respond to Mr. Pawlick’s apology to all of the NRA members, gun owners and law abiding citizens of our United States. I really expected more from a man that is tasked with educating our children at the Los Alamos High School.
It would appear as though Mr. Paveluk’s knowledge of the NRA and what it stands for as well as what it has accomplished since November of 1871 is based on fiction.
He said that “the NRA knows more about education that the rest of us and it’s our patriotic duty to skip to the gun store and buy as many 50-round clips as we can carry.” First, there is no such thing as a “50-round clip.”
Second, and more importantly, I have to agree, based on his ramblings about nuclear weapons and military vehicles armed with machine guns, with his statement that the NRA knows more about education than he does.
When the United States Military has needed firearms training over the past century, they go to the NRA. When federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have a need for specialized training or additional firearms instructors, they go to the NRA for help.