Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: Texas Still Has It's Rustlers, and Men in White Hats Chasing Them, at the NYT:

Still, you can trust your mother, but cut the cards. That is why the 15,000-member cattle raisers association, founded in 1877 by a band of rustler-weary ranchers, has 29 special rangers, including Mr. Dumas, all with the power of arrest, all wearing guns and white hats. Using sophisticated databases (including a file of more than 100,000 registered brands) and plain common sense (checking cow pies for tire tracks), these rangers investigate thefts of livestock and property and inspect millions of cattle a year.
The rangers have the respect of cattle rustlers; they know this because a rustler said so. A few years ago, they helped to pen Jerome Heath Novak, a clever, clean-cut cattle rustler from a proud ranching family in Brazoria County who was so audacious in his nighttime thefts that he even stole livestock from Nolan Ryan, the baseball legend and Texas icon. He was caught only after taking to auction a stolen calf with a distinctive barbed-wire scar, which someone noticed.
Before being sent to prison, a remorseful Mr. Novak, then 27, sat down with rangers to help them understand the mind of the cattle rustler. He confessed to not liking sale barns with motion lights or people living on site, and said he avoided ranches and sale barns that had the cattle raisers association’s blue membership sign on display.

Well, some things never change.  It was a little chilling back in 2008 when there were reports out of Kansas where people were going to grain bins and stealing semi loads of grain.  There are just some things I would expect not to get stolen, and grain from the bins was one of them.