Old Indian word meaning too damn many stop signs.

"Of course, if they'd done this kind of thing a year ago, they might still be in the majority."

Harmony F-63 sn. 4931H1215 ca. 1950s all birch archtop with faux grain finish; needs set up, OSSC AS IS $95.00

“I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.”
-- Elvis Costello

Well, I write you this letter from my downtown apartment,
I pray you receive it before I am gone.
Says I'm going out west just as soon as I'm able,
and I's kinda hoping you might come along.

Well there's something that's calling me when I am sleeping
or locked in the bathroom at work getting stoned.
... as hard as I'm trying
this Emerald City don't feel like my home.

I dream of a trailer in Bosler, Wyoming,
with tires on the roof, dear, and you by my side.
We can have hot wings and bourbon for breakfast.
Yes, I dream of Bosler when I close my eyes

Well I picture you holding your Harlequin novel,
getting baked like a pot pie in the afternoon sun.
While I fix the fan belt that goes to the engine
of the '69 Pinto that don't never run.

And dirty-faced children come ten, twenty,
the fruit of our loins and the tubes we ain't tied.
They play in the street and they don't ask for money,
'cause in Bosler, Wyoming there ain't much to buy.

And I dream of a trailer in Bosler, Wyoming,
with tires on the roof, dear, and you by my side.
We can watch Flintstones and draw unemployment.
Yes, I dream of Bosler when I close my eyes

The wind may blow, the rain may pitch,
the TV may blare while the neighbors all bitch.
But we'll have it made in the shade
as we lay on the hide-away matress that lives in the couch.

And I dream of a trailer in Bosler, Wyoming,
with tires on the roof, dear, and you by my side.
We can pitch horseshoes at stray cats on Sunday.
Yeah, we can have hot wings and bourbon for breakfast.
We can watch Flintstones and draw unemployment.
Yes, I dream of Bosler when I close my eyes.

Well, I write you this letter from my downtown apartment,
I pray you receive it before I am gone.
Says I'm going out west just as soon as I'm able,
and I's kinda hoping you might come along.
-- Jalan Crossland

Lloyds TSB Group plc
25 Gresham Street
London EC2V 7HN
Attns

Briefly, I am Cynthia Wood a citizen of London and work as a group finance director in Lloyds Bank Tsb London.

I discovered a dormant account in my office, as Group finance director with Lloyds bank London . It will be in my interest to transfer this fund worth {£20,000,000,00} Twenty million GB Pounds Sterling in an account offshore. If you can be a collaborator to this please indicate interest immediately for us to proceed.

Remember this is absolutely confidential. My husband does not know about this. My family will be in shambles if it burst out and I will also be in trouble as well as lose my precious job. Your contact phone numbers and name will be necessary for this effect.

Regards and respect,

Cynthia Wood.

Group Finance Director
Lloyds Bank London.

Maybe just once, someone will call me 'Sir' without adding 'you're making a scene'.
-- Homer Simpson

Recently, a group of more than two dozen scientists offered a new explanation. They have found signs that a comet -- or multiple fragments of one -- exploded over Canada about 12,900 years ago with the force equivalent to millions of nuclear weapons. That unleashed, they said, a tremendous shock wave that destroyed much of what was in its path and ignited wildfires across North America.

Another group, with the help of DNA evidence extracted from mammoth bones, teeth and ivory, has for the first time identified two distinct genetic groups among mammoths. They found that one group had died out by 40,000 years ago for unknown reasons, leaving the second to continue until the species went extinct.

The comet blast and firestorm could have dealt that death blow to the mammoth and more than 15 other species of large mammals, or "mega fauna," including the mastodon, the saber-toothed cat, the American camel and the giant ground sloth, the other researchers said. They presented their findings last month at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Acapulco.

...

In more than 20 locations from Arizona to Canada and California to the Carolinas, the scientists found glass-like carbon, microscopic diamonds, enriched iridium and other materials that they say are indicative of an extraterrestrial impact lying in a sediment layer corresponding to the time period. Just above that layer they found charcoal soot, decayed plant life and other debris consistent with widespread burning.

Above that, the remarkable thing is what they did not find: further evidence of the mammoth and the other large animals.

"The mammoths come up to the line and not beyond it," said James Kennett, a marine geologist and professor emeritus at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "At some sites, the black layer with impact material shrouds the bones."

The explosion may also have spelled the end for the Clovis culture, the prehistoric North Americans who hunted with distinctive stone spearheads that have been found in the bones of the fossils of mammoths and other animals, researchers said. While humans as a species survived the cataclysm, the Clovis culture and its relatively advanced stone tools did not endure.

"At many Clovis sites, like in Arizona and New Mexico, you get the Clovis tools up to the impact layer, and then they never go beyond it," Kennett said.

The comet theory, while adding a new twist to the tale, is not wholly incompatible with earlier explanations for how the mammoth met its end. Researchers said it is possible that the Ice Age beasts, which stood about 9 feet tall and weighed three tons, struggled as the climate warmed, that increasingly skilled and numerous human hunters dramatically thinned their numbers, and that the exploding comet finished them off.

"Our theory is that if this event had not happened, that mammoths would still most likely -- not certainly, but most likely -- be wandering around North America now," said Allen West, a retired geophysicist who is a leader of the research team. "Almost certainly, humans hunting animals can have a major effect on populations. It seems like there was, in a sense, a perfect storm going on -- of overkill, the comet, climate change, possibly disease. I don't think this theory negates any of the other theories. It's just one more of a mix of things that were absolutely lethal to these animals."

Loveland - Those who have brushed up against 46-year-old Randall "Randy" Zandstra say he's got his charms.

The Newton, N.J., man is good with his hands, seems to have a way with women and knows his way around the poker table, winning $15,840 and placing ninth in a World Series of Poker event in 1996.

Those same people say if anyone deserves to be behind bars, it's Zandstra.

Before being nabbed after a dangerous high-speed chase in Greeley in April, he led a two-decade-long crime spree that spanned four states.

His convictions include attempted murder and mail fraud. Along the way, he was accused of being married to two women at the same time and stealing his Loveland wife's Salvador Dali prints.

He also has been banned from casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas for cheating, and authorities say he established small marijuana farms in Loveland and Greeley while using up to 16 aliases.

His most recent marijuana-growing operation yielded up to $500,000 worth of pot in a quiet, suburban Greeley neighborhood, said Lt. Steve Nelson of the Weld County Drug Task Force.

...

"He's got bad breath, he's ugly, and he smells, but for whatever reason, people are taken with him," Sanzone said.

Zandstra was convicted in Dallas County, Texas, in 1994 for a Valentine's Day 1988 aggravated assault and attempted murder, according to court records.

He served two years of a 12-year attempted-murder sentence when his conviction was tossed out because of a technicality, Walsh said. He disappeared before he could be retried and most likely fled to Mexico, she said.

He re-emerged in 1999 only to be convicted for federal mail fraud a year later. But he skipped out before sentencing.

While that trial was going on, Zandstra pocketed $16,500 that should have gone from a client to the New Jersey landscaping firm for which Zandstra was working.

...

In the meantime, his wife Lisa Spain of Loveland accused him in court papers of stealing seven Dali prints worth $20,000. She also said Zandstra had married a second woman under a false name.

It breaks my heart..
.. to see those stars,
smashing a perfectly good guitar
I don't know who they think they are,
smashing a perfectly good guitar ...

There oughta be a law with no bail,
Smash a guitar and you go to jail
With no chance of earning parole,
you don't get out until you get some soul
-- John Hiatt

State officials and energy experts recognize that Wyoming needs to do everything it can to stem the tide of global warming. The state's focus needs to be on developing and implementing technology and engineering to burn cleaner fuels; use other resources such as sun, wind and geothermal to generate energy; and use carbon capture and sequestration.

In the meantime, the things we're supposed to do to combat global warming - reduce emissions, use more renewable energy like wind and solar, improve efficiency, grow more food close to home, walk more and drive less - are all things that would make us a more prosperous, secure and healthy society.

In other words, they're things we should do anyway, whether global warming results from our emissions or variations in solar radiation. So why can't we just do them?

Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana is now saying coal should not expect a free ride. Tester said in a recent interview that any coal-to-liquids plant supported by federal dollars must include technology to capture and store carbon. The plants are projected to cost billions of dollars, making federal backing key to moving forward.

"They can do it with private backing if they want. But if they want public dollars, they have to do carbon capture and sequestration. That has to be part of the conversation," Tester said.

DOUGLAS -- The war on terror won't end for a long time, Vice President Dick Cheney told more than 100 students and staff of the American Legion's Wyoming Boys State on Sunday.

"The issues that are at stake here are enormous," Cheney said during a surprise visit to Boys State at the Wyoming State Fairgrounds.

"This is a struggle we're going to be involved in certainly as long as I'm alive and probably as long as you're alive, and we've got to get it right," he said.

...

"We've still got a long way to go, it's a very tough problem," he said. "I believe it's the right thing to do and I think it's very important that we not walk away from Iraq."

"The fact of the matter is Iraq is part of the global war on terror," Cheney said.

...

The U.S. can win, but it needs to stay in the fight, he said.

"And that means we stay in Iraq until we win, and victory there is getting it to the point where the Iraqis can take care of it themselves where their security forces can handle the security threat and they've got a government that's functioning and they're capable of handling their own affairs," he said.

An Ohio jury ruled against a prestigious Wyoming gun manufacturer this week and awarded damages to an Ohio man who lost his right leg in a firearm accident in Albany County four years ago.

Robert Taylor of Adamsville, Ohio, was awarded $600,000 in damages Thursday against Star Valley gun manufacturer Freedom Arms Inc. following a jury trial, said Taylor's lead counsel, Kent Spence of Jackson.

...

But Spence called on the company -- and several others producing revolvers with "the same defect" -- to recall and stop producing "these defective guns."

WASHINGTON -- America may spew more greenhouse gases than any other country, but some states are astonishingly more prolific polluters than others -- and it's not always the ones you might expect.

The Associated Press analyzed state-by-state emissions of carbon dioxide from 2003, the latest U.S. Energy Department numbers available. The review shows startling differences in states' contribution to climate change.

The biggest reason? The burning of high-carbon coal to produce cheap electricity.

...

* Texas, the leader in emitting this greenhouse gas, cranks out more than the next two biggest producers combined, California and Pennsylvania, which together have twice Texas' population.

...

On a per-person basis, Wyoming spews more carbon dioxide than any other state or any other country: 276,000 pounds of it per capita a year, thanks to burning coal, which provides nearly all of the state's electrical power.

"We're the largest net exporter of energy of any state in the country," Gov. Dave Freudenthal said. "That combined with the fact that we're the lowest population in the country creates an interesting circumstance."

Dr. Tracy Murphy, the state epidemiologist, said he doesn't know of any health problems in Wyoming related to CO2 emissions.

For people who want to reduce their household emissions, or their "carbon footprint," the state where they live really does matter.

After seeing Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," Gregg Cawley used one of the many calculators available online to determine his "carbon footprint." The University of Wyoming professor lives in a small one-bedroom apartment and drives a moderately efficient Subaru, so he figured he contributes less to global warming than the average American.

But the calculations showed otherwise. They suggested Cawley produces more carbon dioxide than most Americans. Even if he reduced his energy consumption, the numbers would hardly budge. "My God," he thought, "what do I have to do to my lifestyle to change this?"

Then he changed his home state in the equation. He took out Wyoming and plugged in Washington state.

"I came in way low. I said, 'That's the problem. I live in the wrong damn state."'

"As the number of reporters there dwindles further and further because of the difficult conditions we work under, the kind of work they are able to publish becomes very important," Mr. Glanz said. "This tiny remaining corps of reporters becomes a greater and greater problem for the military brass because we are the only people preventing them from telling the story the way they want it told." [emphasis from WSJ]