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The Old Coyote's alter ego is:

Anthony A. (Swen) Swenson

Mild-mannered archaeologist by day..


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A Coyote at the Dog Show



 
Sunday, August 31, 2008- - -  
The Democrat's dilemma
This rather offensive OpEd piece by Bob Ewegen at the Denver Post suggests that if we don't elect Teh Obamessiah it will be because we're all a bunch of filty racists. Problem is, by this identity calculus the Dems have already shown themselves to be sexists: They didn't nominate Hillary.

I pointed this out in the comments at the DP, along with several others who suggested that people might vote against The One because of his policies. Oddly enough, I notice this morning that the comments have disappeared like an air-brushed Stalinist group shot. I'm sure it's just a technical glitch..

...

Ah! If you click on the "Post a Comment" button it takes you to an off-line comment forum where the comments have been preserved. I like this one:
My GOD, Bob. You as much as called everyone who votes for McCain a Racist. So everyone that votes for Obama is a sexist now? Bob, I call you an old, beatu p, know nothing, extreme liberal HACK. Maybe you should just start taking your paycheck from the Obama campaign instead of the Denver Post. Oh....or are you already?
Yep, Ewegen took quite a beating, and well-deserved too. As I pointed out in a follow-up comment, the only way to win this game is not to play it.

@5:12 AM

Friday, August 29, 2008- - -  
A meltdown at MSNBC?
Via Drudge, comes news that things aren't all sweetness and light at MSNBC. Oddly enough, Keith Olbermann is involved. Seems he's a nasty little piece of work in person too.

I've always wondered what Walter Cronkite would have made of Olbermann.

@3:40 AM

Thursday, August 28, 2008- - -  
There'll be no Serenity..
Seems that Teh Obamessiah has sicced his brown shirts on Stanley Kurtz for his investigation into the relationship between Obama and William Ayers, former leader of the Weather Underground and unrepentant bomber of the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol.

My comment at Protein Wisdom:
Obviously, Obama and his brown shirts haven’t been paying attention to the new rules:
Rule #1 — You can’t stop the signal.

Rule #2 — Any attempt to stop the signal amplifies the signal.
Certainly Rule #2 is in play re Ayers.

BTW, you do know that Ayers is the token conservative in the UIC department of education?

@8:33 PM

Wednesday, August 27, 2008- - -  
So pick up your trash!!
An interesting poster I found at the Forest Service visitor's center on Grand Mesa, Colorado.

Of course, how long something lasts depends a good deal on the environment. Cow-sized bones will weather away to nothing in 20-25 years if exposed on the surface. However, if quickly buried they can last for thousands of years, or fossilize and be with us millions of years later.

We find pre-1900 tin cans lying out in the desert all the time and I wouldn't be surprised if they last at least 200 years out here. I suspect that an aluminum can would last even longer. On the other hand, glass bottles tend to get broken into smaller and smaller bits by trampling from humans, cattle, and wildlife, and I suspect they would be returned to sand in a million years.

Your wool sox? well, only you can say..

@7:35 AM

Tuesday, August 26, 2008- - -  
"... this behavior is un-American"
It is wrong, vile, and an assault on the most basic liberty that the Republic was founded to protect.
Via the InstaPundit comes one of the more important messages of this political season. Note that the miscreants are politicians across the spectrum, all of whom would love it you'd just STFU.

Do read it all.

@6:30 PM

Sunday, August 24, 2008- - -  
Things that make you say Harumph..
Quite a nice article on the venerable DC-3, but it fails to mention the rest of the story: That the DC-3's ability to use rough, short landing strips made it the legendary backbone of the underground air force in the 1960s and '70s.

[Sigh] And it also makes me feel very old. Googling "underground air force" returns all sorts of odd stuff, but doesn't mention that it was the common term for the guys flying pot out of Mexico back when. In that effort the DC-3 was without parallel. Being largely obsolete they were cheap, but parts were readily available and they were capable of hauling several tons at a whack.

@7:12 PM

 
"hollow chocolate bunnies"
Isn't that an apt metaphor for today's politics?

@1:25 PM

Saturday, August 23, 2008- - -  
How you can tell Peggy Noonan isn't an Aquarius..
Today we have:
Will Mr. Obama dig deep as to meaning? As to political predicates? During the primary campaigns Republicans were always saying, "This is what I'll do." Mr. Obama has a greater tendency to say, "This is how we'll feel." Republicans talk to their base with, "If we pass this bill, which the Democrats irresponsibly oppose, we'll solve this problem." Democrats are more inclined toward, "If we bring a new attitude of hopefulness and respect for the world, we'll make the seas higher and the fish more numerous." Will Mr. Obama be, in terms of programs and plans, specific? And will his specifics be grounded in something that appears to amount to a political philosophy?
Um, no Peggy, last I checked making the seas lower was pretty high on the Democrats' agenda; not that they could actually do it, mind you.

And then James Taranto quotes Ms. Peggy discussing Little Joe Biden:
As he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again . . . that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going. I love him. He's human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink.
Righto! We all know about garrulous uncles, but last I checked you go up a tributary. Stop paddling and the water will carry you back down to the main stream, doncha know?

And I'm not even an aquarius. Just a keen observer, I guess.

@6:37 PM

 
Muphry's Law strikes again!
No, I didn't misspell that. Muphry's Law is the "... adage that states that "if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written"." This one, posted at Hot Air, is a classic of the genre, with at least one grammatical error in every paragraph:
On a somewhat different note: Has anyone else noticed that many (if not all) Liberal/Progressive comment’s feature the worst possible grammar and spelling possible?

The persons whom post these comments are supposed to be the intelligent one’s , as far as they are concerned.

Yet whenever I go to a blog/site that features comment’s by both Conservatives and Liberals I can always tell what political persuasion the poster hails from simply by the spelling and grammar of said poster.

The heights of indignation and anger are usually equal to the language and spelling mistakes as well. Has anyone else noticed this?

Steven on August 23, 2008 at 3:40 PM
Steven, buddy, you must be the proverbial exception that proves the rule, huh? (I'd guess it was a put-on, but you do have to know grammar in order to misuse it artfully.)

HT: InstaPundit

@4:16 PM

 
The more things change..
Biden?
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

...

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

-- The Who
Lincoln was right: You can fool some of the people all of the time.

@6:39 AM

Wednesday, August 20, 2008- - -  
Everyone needs a good .22
Here's an interesting short article on the Marlin M39. I'm rather fond of mine.

@7:31 PM

Thursday, August 14, 2008- - -  
The view from the Devil's Kitchen
Yes, as a matter of fact it was hot. Pushing 100F when I snapped this photo a couple days ago in Colorado National Monument. Pretty darn scenic though.

@7:01 PM

 
Local color!
A yellow-headed collared lizard we came across while hiking No Thoroughfare Canyon in Colorado National Monument a couple of days ago. Cute little bugger and oddly colorful where most critters are drab for camouflage. Maybe they taste bad?

Oh, and have I mentioned lately that this Olympus E510 and 70-300mm lens kick butt? The 12x telephoto really brings things in close, but a monopod or tripod is absolutely essential to get good clear pix at that magnification. I used a monopod for this one.

@6:49 PM

 
Things that make you say Hmmmm...
Somehow, I find the DenverPost's Obamessiah photo really creepy. Because a) Someone maneuvered to take the photo; b) The DP has run it prominently more than once; and c) I can easily imagine them lighting little votive candles in front of it.

That ain't a political following, it's a cult.

@7:48 AM

 
Sweet!
Julia Childs was a spy working for the OSS?! How cool is that?

@7:43 AM

 
Holy cow!
DenverPost -- If Saleman Abdirahman Dirie intended to do harm with the sodium cyanide found in his Denver hotel room, he could have done a lot of it.

Firefighters said Wednesday that Dirie, whose body was found Monday, had a pound of the substance in Room 408 at the Burnsley All Suite Hotel in Capitol Hill, and an expert said that if it were mixed with acid, that would be plenty enough to function as a weapon.
The Denver police don't think it had anything to do with the upcoming democrat convention. I'm thinking they could be wrong. I'm also thinking there could be more than one of these yahoos and that Denver would be a good place to stay away from for the next few weeks.

An ominous update:
He was psychotic; he was on medication," said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center ...

"People who knew him are shocked," said Jamal, "He was unemployed; he had no money. Whoever gave him the money for that hotel may have also given him the cyanide.

"We need to find that person."
Ya think? This isn't the first time Islamists have used someone who's mentally retarded or disturbed to do their dirty work. I suppose it's possible this is a one-off, but if I were the Denver police I'd be a bit concerned that there might be a dozen more.

@7:07 AM

 
Some sad news..
I see in the DenverPost that Papa Jack Weil has died. He was 107! I'd just recently met the delightful old raconteur and hoped to visit with him many times again. He was right, I should have hurried back.

@6:32 AM

Sunday, August 10, 2008- - -  
"love lips"?!
I haven't seen any point in posting on John Edwards' latest, but I just can't let that pass.

HT: InstaPundit

@8:27 AM

Friday, August 08, 2008- - -  
Probably waiting for Fifi to come out and play..
Despite being hit with two tranquilizer darts, a mountain lion managed to elude capture after being found Tuesday evening under the deck of a Casper home.

The animal fled through a gap in a fence and leapt over several other fences before disappearing in an east-side neighborhood sometime about 9 p.m. A search by Wyoming Game and Fish and Casper police failed to find the lion that night.
It doesn't bother me that we seem to have lions in great abundance. It does bother me a bit that they seem not to have a fear of man.

@4:45 AM

Wednesday, August 06, 2008- - -  
Things that make you say Hmmm...
Soaring costs for fuel, grains and packaging, along with consumers pulling back their spending, pushed Molson Coors Brewing Co.'s profit down 56 percent in the second quarter, the company said Tuesday.

The drop also includes charges associated with combining the firm's U.S. arm with the maker of Miller beers — a deal that executives say will still save money in the long run.
So much for the theory that when times are bad people drink more. Or perhaps people are turning to something that, you know, tastes like beer.

@6:18 AM

Tuesday, August 05, 2008- - -  
Yikes!
A mountain lion slunk into the master bedroom of an Idledale home early Monday, snatched a yellow Labrador retriever and vanished.
A yellow lab? Must have been a very big, very hungry lion.

@6:14 AM

Sunday, August 03, 2008- - -  
Merlot in training!
On our rare days off we've been hitting the wineries of western Colorado. Yeah, riiight you say. And I would have agreed. We've visited a lot of would-be wineries outside of the traditional US wine-growing regions and most have been.. drinkable. Barely. But I'm very impressed with the products of the Palisade, CO, area. Most all the wines we've tried have been decent (okay, the fruit wines are way too sticky sweet for my taste), and I've had some of the nicest merlots I've had in a long while! Apparently, this climate and soil is very good for the merlot grape.

Oh, and they make some dandy ports from those merlot grapes too. I've been buying a few bottles of merlot and a bottle of port at most places we've visited.

@5:07 PM

 
Very nice!
I've blogged about Tim Kellogg and the saga of the broken bucking saddle that set him on the road to becoming the Meeteetse Chocolatier. Well, he's got a spiffy new web site! I assume that's the saddle he's holding in the last photo. He's also got a blog, which makes him about the third blogger in Wyoming, so far as I know (and not counting the pseudo-blogs at the Casper Star).

If you're ever in the Yellowstone area, be sure to stop through Meeteetse and try some of his chocolates. I dare you to have two..

@4:59 PM

 
Let them eat organic!
Defending the LA fast food ban. By this reasoning fast food outfits should be banned across the American heartland. We don't have organic markets or restaurants that offer fresh ingredients either.

@6:24 AM

 
"... just not different enough."
Having come to the conclusion that presidential politics this year is a choice between the same old and the same older, I haven't been paying much attention. I do find it amusing though that Obama's loudest critics are to the left of even his politics. Melinda Henneberger gets it, but still isn't happy:
Recent reports that Barack Obama is, in fact, a politician, and therefore fully capable of calculation, compromise and confessional performance art, neither alarmed nor crept up on me; throughout the primary season, every time I heard someone moan that that poor pie-in-the-sky Obambi was just too darn naïve to run with the big dogs, the extra set of eyeballs I keep on the inside of my head would twirl around in their sockets and I'd think, People, the man is from Chicago! Who is it again who's being naïve? Sorry, but to best Hillary Clinton while (mostly) making it look like you aren't resorting to politics as usual? Anyone who can do that has got some moves, that's all.
Yes, he's a politician, and politicians make promises they can't keep, like "I'll do something about the price of gas!" Some would be happier with "Two chickens and some pot!" but that ain't gonna happen either.

@6:03 AM

 
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