Bat Boy Eats Writers—Where the heck are the wacko conspiracy theorists behind Trust No One News? The Rio Rancho tabloid-style monthly hasn't put out an issue since its third at the beginning of June as best I can tell. Given its content, I'm thinking alien abduction.

Is the plan to increase production of nuclear bomb materials at Los Alamos National Labs something to worry about or are some activists just being nuclear ninnies?

New Mexico nuclear watchdog groups are concerned that Los Alamos is moving one step further in becoming the nation’s permanent site for nuclear bomb pit production.

Bill to raise the nation's minimum wage passes in the House but dies in the Senate

A measure that would have propelled the federal minimum wage up to $7.25 an hour failed in the Senate on Thursday, Aug. 3, with New Mexico's senators split strangely on the issue. Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman voted against it, while Republican Sen. Pete Domenici voted in favor of it.

Letters

Dateline: India--If you’re Indian, you fight fire with fire and monkeys with monkeys. In an effort to keep marauding monkeys off the nation’s trains, India’s Delhi Metro has started up its own monkey squad. On June 9, a monkey boarded a subway at the underground Chawri Bazaar station and reportedly scared passengers by scowling at them for three stops. The monkey disembarked at Civil Lines station. In the wake of that most recent incident, officials at the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation have hired a langurwallah--a man who trains and controls langur monkeys--to patrol the train cars in an effort to scare off freeloading primates. “It started working about a month ago, and since then we’ve not had a single incident,” Metro spokesperson Anuj Dayal told the Hindustan Times. The langur handler is being paid a retainer of 6,900 rupees ($160) a month and “will be called whenever there is a monkey problem.” Langur monkeys are already employed around the grounds of parliament and some government buildings in New Delhi.

There's a tired old adage in American politics often attributed to former Democratic House Speaker Tip O Neil: “All politics are local.” It means that even for members of Congress engaged in making decisions about American foreign policy, what folks and donors at home think is often more important than what is in the national interest of America.

Wes Naman

Michelle Cheney on her son's return from autism

Michelle Cheney is a busy woman.

Trained 10 years ago as a massage therapist, Cheney was thrust into the position of researcher when her son Raja was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3. A seemingly normal child until about a year and a half into life, aside from inexplicably intense colic, Raja began to withdraw. He didn’t speak and was highly destructive.

Weighing the Quality of Life tax

To hear some voices on the subject, raising the county Gross Receipts Tax 3/16 of a cent for “quality of life” projects is the moral equivalent of invasion, treason or both.