From the monthly archives:

March 2010

March 30, 2010

Bill Ayers and Freedom of Speech

We are known as the Equality State.

Many years ago some law professors at the University of Wyoming were espousing reforms in environmental law which really irritated some folks in the energy industry. A good friend of mine advocated that they be muffled or sacked, and I wrote letters to the editor in favor of tolerance of a range of views in educational institutions.

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March 29, 2010

Sage Grouse’s Lament: A Song

(Sung to “I Am A Pilgrim”)
I am a sage-grouse
Lonely but determined
Traveling through
This perilous land
I want to nest in
A grassy valley, oh Lord
But I can’t  (doo doo doo doo)
Cuz the cows ate it all up
The cowboys blame it
All on the big oilmen
What I fear is
Those great big raptors
If I can’t hide from
Hawks, trucks and foxes, oh [...]

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March 24, 2010

Stock Market Likes Obamacare:

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March 24, 2010
Stock Market Likes Obamacare:

The Dow Jones average shot up 103 points the day President Obama used 22 ceremonial pens to sign the largest piece of social engineering legislation this country has ever seen.

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March 23, 2010

How to Enjoy Owning a Dog

Nobody loves their dogs more than I do.  I surprised our companions on our honeymoon camping trip when I mentioned firearms in an unpleasant manner to the owner of a large dog which was viciously attacking mine.  I don’t usually give in to temper like that, but I loved that dog as [...]

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March 22, 2010

Reader Poll: Gov Dave Opts Out. Should The Sage Grouse Run?

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Gov Dave opts for family life.
Meanwhile, on the GOP side there’s a farmer and a National Guard commander and a prosecutor and of course a Simpson (hey, there’s always a Simpson running for governor, right?) jockeying for position.
And, there is suddenly a huge vacuum on the Demo side.  Do you hear Ross Perot’s giant sucking [...]

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March 22, 2010

Caps & Coal The Wyoming-California Connection

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In the summer of 2008, Wyoming’s governor, Dave Freudenthal, went to California for meetings with state officials and utility executives. What he brought was, quite literally, a burning question.

California was in the throes of putting together the nation’s first…

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March 22, 2010

Subdividing the West: Wyoming at Planning Crossroads

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Property owners like the Banburys are at the center of an ongoing debate over land use and planning in Wyoming, a state protective of private property and the rights of owners to do what they want with their land. On the one hand, the Banburys have a clear vision of what is special about the state. On the other, their new house is in a ranchette subdivision, just the kind of development that some feel threatens the Wyoming dream.

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March 18, 2010

Modern Politics: The Pity Party

Why would anyone start a blog like that : “The Pity Party?”
I am certain that all of my Democratic Party friends think I fell off the edge into the right-wing abyss several years ago.
And most of my Republican Party friends are polite and sometimes supportive but they don’t invite me to their fund-raisers.
The [...]

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March 17, 2010

It’s Raining Cats and Dogs – One

Hot Button Alert: This is when we find out how many people are reading this column.
I love my dogs and they love me.  I have a friend whose standoffish cats actually like me.  I used to have a gerbil, but my beloved cat Pinkle Purr ate it.  Pets can be wonderful companions [...]

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March 16, 2010

How to run a ranch; Life’s important lessons

I was showing a rancher from Simms. Montana, around a ranch a partner and I owned for a few years, very nice fellow, likes to irrigate, fix fence and weld stuff because he enjoys the hands-on part of work.  He is educated with a dry wit and his wife is a charming school teacher.  We [...]

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March 16, 2010

Gov Dave’s Long Goodbye Poses Problems for Wyoming Democrats

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Laramie–The decision by Governor Dave Freudenthal not to seek a third term has dramatically changed the contest for the state’s chief executive.  The Cheyenne Tribune-Eagle reported the three announced Republican candidates saying “Freudenthal’s departure from the gubernatorial race does not affect their campaigns.”  Yet the governor was the 800-pound gorilla in the room.  His exit [...]

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March 16, 2010

In Conservative Idaho Democrat Allred A Surprise Candidate

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“A big surprise”: That was the Idaho Statesman’s headline last December, when Keith Allred announced his candidacy for Idaho governor –– running as a Democrat in one of the most solidly Republican states in the country. A decade ago, Allred, a fifth-generation Idahoan educated at Brown, Stanford and UCLA, was a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy [...]

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March 16, 2010

The Sage Grouse Reader Poll: Mini Nuke Plants for Wyoming?

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Why would we want to discuss nuclear power in this wind-swept, coal-laden, oil & gas-filled energy /hydrocarbon capital of the world?
Well, this is why: To understate the matter, lately I have observed a lot of criticism of wind towers, gas wells, and energy industry proposals.   Maybe we should discuss alternatives.
Nuclear-powered electrical generation does not [...]

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March 12, 2010

Bear Baiting is Not Sport

Hunting wary ducks, deer and pheasants requires stealth, skill and often a significant commitment of energy which requires physical conditioning.  The chance that many of the prey might get away, coupled with the foregoing, is what many hunters consider to define sportsmanship.  I have bagged many deer and a few antelope, [...]

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March 10, 2010

Dragonflies

You might see a dragonfly while you are mowing the lawn or fishing, and think for a moment that dragonflies are interesting to see, and maybe think that it’s good that they eat mosquitoes, then you go back to your work or play and forget them.
They deserve a little more attention, and [...]

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March 8, 2010

The Sage Grouse Reader Poll: Pronghorns

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We all know that pronghorns don’t much like to jump fences; often they will run along the highway right of way, not crossing the fence when they should, and sometimes this leads to pronghorn mortality.

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March 8, 2010

Excerpt from Nowhere To Run by CJ Box, G.P. Putnam’s Sons

(Available April 6, 2010)
WITH EVERY mile of his last patrol of the Sierra Madres of Southern Wyoming, Joe Pickett felt as if he were going back into time and to a place of immense and unnatural silence. With each muffled hoofbeat, the sense of foreboding got stronger until it enveloped him in a calm dark [...]

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March 8, 2010

Why Cody, Wyoming is the New Literary Capital of America

By Jenny Shank, NewWest.Net
Wyoming has the smallest population of any U.S. state, but it maintains a literary output that rivals most other places.  While it’s been a quiet year so far for writers in Colorado (population 4,939,456, according to 2008 Census Bureau projections), writers in Wyoming (population 532,668) have been publishing at a good clip [...]

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March 6, 2010

FRAC

After eight years in Buffalo and a couple of years in Idaho, my parents moved back to Wyoming at the end of 1970.  They lived in Big Piney, a tiny cowtown with a lot of oil field activity around.  There were some oil fields south by LaBarge which were more than a [...]

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March 6, 2010

Grouse Listing: ‘Waranted but Precluded’; BLM Promises ‘Closer Scrutiny’

Grouse Listing: ‘Waranted but Precluded’
BLM Promises ‘Closer Scrutiny’

By Allison Winter, E&E reporter
Reprinted with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net. 202/628-6500

The Bureau of Land Management will examine oil and gas drilling permits with “closer scrutiny” to determine if they might affect the imperiled greater sage grouse in light of the new protected status for the iconic Western bird, BLM Director Bob Abbey said today.

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March 3, 2010

D-Day For Sage Grouse Listing: Test of Wyoming Policy

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By Emilene Ostlind
LARAMIE – Wyoming’s greatly-used, little-appreciated sagebrush ecosystem and one of Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s most elaborate initiatives are rapidly approaching a critical milestone.
At the end of the week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to move towards listing the Greater Sage-grouse as an endangered species.
Wyoming’s minerals extraction and ranching industries [...]

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March 3, 2010

Breaking Sage-grouse News: Hunters Shoot Hens

The latest Auk (Journal of the American Ornithologists Union) arrived recently, Volume 127.  A monograph at 16-22 regards sex ratios of Greater Sage-grouse.
This is interesting:  hunter harvest data shows more females than males are shot by hunters.
The authors of the study report trapped and radio-collared hens and followed their nesting activities.  [...]

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March 2, 2010

Top Ten Reasons to Love Prairie Dogs

This is going to be a challenge.  I can only think of four reasons to love prairie dogs:

Black-footed ferrets like to eat them.
Hawks like to eat them.
They provide homes for Burrowing owls.
They create bare wastelands which provide preferred nesting habitat for Mountain plovers.

The rest of this commentary is going to be “politically incorrect.”
All [...]

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