Today’s LA Times tells the story of Clyde Friend, who has discovered a forest of petrified trees on his property in an undisclosed location near Yakima, Washington. The standing trees were apparently engulfed by a lava flow about 15 million years ago, and now are preserved in a basalt hill covering an area of about …
Author: Reid Farmer
Mammoth Figurine
Isn’t that just beautiful? It’s a 35,000 year-old figurine of a mammoth carved from mammoth ivory. Der Speigel reports that it was recovered from the site of Vogelherd Cave in southwestern Germany along with several other ivory carvings, including one of a lion. Click the link to see more pictures, including other views of this …
Looking for that Pot of Gold
A thunderstorm just before sunset Monday night gave us this big double rainbow as seen from our deck. It and the pyrotechnics of the storm provided dinnertime entertainment for us and Mr. & Mrs. Peculiar (Jackson and Nikki) who we were delighted to have as house guests. The sunset wasn’t too bad, either.
Frozen Dead Guy is a Hot Commodity
The Denver Post ran this oddball local story today. In the small town of Nederland in the mountains west of Boulder, Bredo Morstoel, who died in 1989, lies frozen in a metal coffin, awaiting the day when medical science has advanced enough to revive him and fix the heart ailment that killed him. Morstoel’s grandson …
Why We Blog II
Well, I guess it’s my turn. It may sound a little strange, but at least to some extent I blog because I was invited. Though I had read blogs and commented on them for ages, I really had no idea of doing it myself until Steve asked me to post here. Now it’s hard to …
St. Mary’s Glacier
On Father’s Day I was given the opportunity to pick what I wanted to do for the day, so I picked a hike in the mountains. We decided to go to St. Mary’s Glacier in Clear Creek County near the community of Alice. It’s not a tough trail, only 1-1/2 to 2 miles round trip. …
Absurdistan
Gloom and doom about the growth of nanny-state policies in Great Britain has been an ongoing theme here as regular readers know. Here is one more installment in our continuing series that comes from The Times. Gerard Baker uses the refusal of the British Advertising Standards Authority to allow some egg commercials to run on …
Not Buying It
Steve got worked up over this piece in yesterday’s NY Times on Freegans, a movement I had not heard of. As he is very busy, he asked one of us to take it on. From the article: “The site, which provides information and listings for the small but growing subculture of anticonsumerists who call themselves …
Earliest Gunshot Victim in the New World
The NY Times and LA Times both carried pieces on a gunshot wound found in an Incan burial near Lima, Peru that dates to the 1530s, the period of the Spanish conquest. According to them, it is the earliest documented gunshot wound found in the New World, likely administered by one of the conquistadores. These …
California Looms
The New West Net, an online news service dedicated to coverage of the Rocky Mountain states, recently had an opinion piece by Christian Probasco on the effect that nanny-state legislation in California may have on neighboring states in the West. What concerns the author is that California is a trendsetter. From the article: “California is …