I often say “Kazakhstan is a player”. More eveidence can be found here at the Moscow Times: “Kazakhs Put First Satellite In Space”– may be behind a firewall but it is an AP report and you might Google it. In case not, some snips: “Kazakhstan sent its first satellite into space Sunday in the country’s …
Condors and Lead
This NYT article tells of the (recurrent) problems with California condors acqiuring lead poisoning from carcasses. “Wildlife officials laid traps for California condors to test for lead poisoning after many were spotted feeding on squirrels that had been shot.” “Even microscopic lead traces from ammunition can paralyze digestive systems in the endangered species and cause …
Stolen Petroglyphs
USA Today brings us the sad news that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the convictions of a Reno man and a co-defendant who stole this beautiful petroglyph from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Government prosecutors proved that the men took the boulders containing the petroglyph from USFS land, but the 9th Circuit …
Kudos for Steve and the Q. Community
A nice note today from Patrick on his finding the Querencia blog. I think all of us can relate: “For the longest time I have felt a little like a polar bear at a road-side zoo — pretty sure there must be others like me, but without much evidence of that reality. Now I see …
More “Kids These Days”
A recent story from Yahoo news: Tech Creates Bubble for Kids The jist: To baby boomers and other adults of a certain age, young people may seem rude, disrespectful and generally clueless about established social mores. But to social scientists, the phenomenon is more complicated. Raised by parents who stressed individualism and informality, these young …
Whole Foods in Hot Water
It’s somewhat chic now to trash retail grocer Whole Foods. Whether it’s about price or pretension, almost everyone I know has a gripe. Michael Pollan shared his beef in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, prompting this response from company execs. I’ve got a bone to pick with them, too, having lost to their expansionism the last good …
Father’s Day with Guns and Puppies
“The kids”, Peculiar and Mrs. Peculiar, came down from Santa Fe for Father’s Day. They played with puppies. And shot targets, and played with more puppies. Nikki shot for the first time– a shotgun, a .22 rifle, and two decidedly non- wimpy handguns– a Smith Mountain gun in .44, a Kimber .45 auto on a …
More Terrierman
Patrick Burns, whose exceptional blog we noted earlier and added to the Q. ‘roll, has recently added us. We…are…pleased. Burns has been “playing in the gutter” (that’s old school lingo for updating his nav-bar), and his blog now offers a good post archive. I spent some time browsing this morning and see, to my amazement, …
Prairiemary, Blackfeet and Fossil Legends
Mary Scriver e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago, telling me of a large and powerful mythic creature from Blackfoot legend known as a “water bull.” Mary suggested that it might have its origins in tribal memories of mammoths from the Pleistocene and asked what I thought. I replied that was possible, but also to …
Coso Rock Art Blogging
As I posted on here and here, the prehistoric people at Coso, up in Inyo County, were obsessed with big-horn sheep. I like this image of sheep in the rain.