Coyote Crossing

Remembering September 11

From a conversation between US President Richard M. Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, September 16, 1973.

Nixon: Nothing new of any importance or is there?
Kissinger: Nothing of very great consequence. The Chilean thing is

Eight Upcoming Teabagger Campaigns

The Clean Water Act
On repeated occasions, the Obama administration has stated its support for the controversial and scientifically unproven theory that water flows downhill. Biased “hydraulic scientists” with their “studies” and their

Death Panels

I don’t really like using other people’s grief to make political points, so I’ve held off on this for some time. But I can’t hold it back. So I’ll mostly let the person involved do the telling here.

Many of the readers here know Ron, one of my

I give up. The birthers win.

I feel freer, having made this decision.

… (continues)

The Gettysburg Address, by Sarah Palin

Four score and seven, eight, years ago — it was some time ago, anyway, in the days of our forefathers. And the forefathers… they brought forth in this American country a new nation, America. America’s life began at the moment it was conceived in

Quietudinousness

I know I haven’t said much around here of late. This’ll be short too, but I wanted to shake the crickets and tumbleweeds out of the blog briefly and ask you all how you’re doing.

What’s been up:

- The Raven had a week of vacation, much of which

About love

I have often wondered whether this love for the landscape, this ardent longing I feel for dissolution into the wild is not a symptom of some ancient hurt, a way to salve wounds that should have healed long ago.

I speak of kinship, of the shared

Wilderness Bill 3 Votes Short: Call Now!

Cut-n-pasted from Larry Hogue’s post at DesertBlog:

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives missed the 2/3 majority needed to pass S. 22 by just 3 votes. This is the Omnibus Public Lands Bill that contains over 700,000 acres of new wilderness

Political blogging

Someone has been taking me to task in comments over not weighing in on the most recent blogspats, the three with which I’m most familiar having to do with race and blogging. One centered on feminist blogs, one in the LiveJournal fan community, and

Protect Gold Butte

Most of you have never heard of it, but northeast of Las Vegas, in one of the least-visited parts of the continental United States, a desert treasure in Nevada needs your support.

I visited Gold Butte for the first time in 1997. I was just

At Grand Canyon, water battle rages anew

Via Lee Allison, a relatively thorough story in the Arizona Republic about the Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, and science and the environment being disregarded for considerations of political and electrical power.

Nearly a year after the federal

Democrats and mice

GOP Talking Point: “The Stimulus Package includes ludicrous and wasteful porkbarrel spending such as 30 million dollars to help preserve the salt marsh harvest mouse in San Francisco Bay.”

Democratic Talking Point: “Actually, the stimulus package

Coyote-killing “tournament” in Idaho

From our friends at Project Coyote, this upsetting press release.

Wildlife advocates are condemning an upcoming coyote killing “tournament”, scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 21, and sponsored by the Bent Rod Outdoors, a Challis business.

“This event

There’s no such thing as desertification

If you want evidence to support my increasingly frequent contention that environmentalists as a whole really don’t care about arid environments, it’s instructive to look at a bit of jargon in use over the last few decades.

The jargon is used to

Ken Salazar gets off to a good start

From the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance:

More than 100,000 acres of Utah wilderness will be protected from oil and gas drilling after the Department of Interior announced today that it will cancel 77 leases issued under the Bush administration.

On Writing

Jeneane Sessum notes a trend:

The old OLD pay for writers when I started out 25 years ago was $1 a word. During the dot-com era I was averaging $3 a word. At other times, the average compensation has fallen in the middle. For web content, I’ve

Things Environmentalists Get Wrong

In the spirit of self-criticism, here’s a non-exhaustive list of things people on the green side of the fence say, with all good intent, that are demonstrably wrong.

“We can protect the environment without jeopardizing economic growth.”
“Never

Obama administration reprieves wolf protection

A bit of promising news from the Obama administration after its first full workday:

With a new administration in charge, federal regulators Wednesday promised a second look at a recent decision to drop gray wolves in the Great Lakes and Northern

About that sacred right to private property?

Gosh, the moonbat icon here, used with neither credit nor permission, looks awfully familiar.

Looks as though the linchpin of conservative thought, Private Property Rights, only applies to their own. Shocking.

[Updated] Well, I’ll give them this:

Empty chairs at the Inauguration

Today, amid the justifiable joy at the true milestone we mark, I want to spend a little time noting the absence in DC of people who were prevented from seeing this day. Each of them is owed a place on the dais.

A woefully incomplete list:

Louis