Cows as a fire suppressant • Permanent vacation in Coeur d'Alene • Vandal wardrobe malfunction • Licking toads at Idaho State U. • What could have been: Carter-Church in '76 • Stamp of disapproval

Cows as a fire suppressant

Restrictions on cattle grazing didn't contribute to the 600,000-acre Murphy Complex Fire in 2007, but "targeted grazing" is a possibility for future fire management according to a new report compiled by a team from the Bureau of Land Management, University of Idaho and other state and federal researchers.

"They couldn't show that levels of grazing made any real difference in reducing the impacts of the Murphy Complex wildfire," said Katie Fite, Western Watershed Project's biodiversity director, "but it looks as if BLM and the public lands ranchers are still trying to promote increased grazing disturbance and turn our public lands into dust bowls."

Heather Feeney, state BLM spokeswoman, believes the opposite.

"I don't think there's anyone who would say that there's no need for having as many tools as possible for fuels management," she said.

The Times-News says BLM officials are eager to use the study as a starting point for more research.

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Permanent vacation in Coeur d'Alene

This week's "Life on Vacation" column in USA Today features Coeur d'Alene, saying "Winter is not a highlight, but the other three seasons are not only good, they're great."

The writer describes Lake Coeur d'Alene as "a small Lake Tahoe."

"A lot of second-home owners come for the three seasons, and winter someplace else," Sandi Bloem, mayor of Coeur d'Alene and owner of a downtown jewelry store, is quoted as saying.

"We have plenty of sun, but no extremes, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no bugs, but very clean air and very clean water."

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Vandal wardrobe malfunction

When the Idaho Vandals had their butts handed to them last Saturday, they apparently got a clear view of the "I" that equipment supplier Nike put on the backsides of their pants.

Embarrassed by the awkwardly placed letters, the University hastily got school equipment managers to remove the "I" from team uniforms.

"I was disappointed with the look and the appearance," Rob Spears, the school's athletic director, told the Statesman.

The Idaho State Bengals will have an unobstructed view of Vandal rear ends this weekend.

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Licking toads at Idaho State U.

The speed of an amphibian's tongue captured the imagination of Idaho State University biological sciences professor Curt Anderson, who has spent the last 10 years trying to figure out how a toad's tongue can be so fast and accurate.

"The action of a frog or toad's tongue is much more complicated than we thought," Anderson said. "I've been fascinated by how the brain coordinates movements in three dimensions, and this is not a trivial problem."

Anderson specializes in neuroanatomy, the science of localizing function in the brain. He is collaborating with a muscle physiologist and a behaviorist on his research.

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What could have been: Carter-Church in '76

A Wall Street Journal opinion piece written by a man who has participated in several selections of Democratic vice-presidential nominees discusses Idaho’s near miss at a vice presidential candidate in 1976.

"Mr. Carter appeared to be leaning toward Idaho Sen. Frank Church. I argued that Mr. Church's Protestant religiosity was too much like Mr. Carter's, and that his home state, Idaho, was not one Democrats would carry in any case. I suggested several Midwest and Northeast liberals who would bring political and ideological balance to Mr. Carter's ticket."

The gist of the article is that VP picks are political and that family issues don't really matter.

Carter ultimately selected Minnesota Sen. Walter Mondale and became the nation's 39th president.

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Stamp of disapproval

The recently released Idaho stamp is only available in a coil of 50 stamps that costs $21 and includes state stamps from Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas and the District of Columbia.

This may not grind Idaho philatelists' gears, but stamp collectors in Iowa are wishing the stamps were sold separately.

"It's going to take a lot of pressure by people to make it happen in the future," said Mike Pauly, a Winterset, Iowa, stamp collector who told the Des Moines Register he would like to see a coil of 100 Iowa flag stamps sold just in Iowa, and a coil of California flag stamps sold only in California and so on.

Such a distribution "would just be a logistical nightmare" because there are 37,000 post offices in the country, said a postal service spokesman. The postal service has never broken up a series to sell just one stamp in a set.

Iowa stamp collectors are a picky lot. Pauly complained about more than just the sale of sets.

"I kind of wish the designers would be less set in their ways and depict this state in some way other than cornfields and hogs and farm women in bonnets," he said of the Iowa stamp.