“Republican”: Another Word For Democrat
Thune "Willing To Give Democrats All The Things They Want" As Friday Shutdown Vote Looms
Why even bother with two parties?
%%^^&& all of those (*(&%^^&%^*.
Continue reading →Thune "Willing To Give Democrats All The Things They Want" As Friday Shutdown Vote Looms
Why even bother with two parties?
%%^^&& all of those (*(&%^^&%^*.
Continue reading →
Elk stand up to 5ft tall (at the shoulder) and can weigh over 1,000 lbs. A large deer may weigh 400 lbs and stand just over 3 ft tall. Elk can run up to 45mph in short bursts; mulies run at a similar speed. Whitetails can reach about 35mph. An elk can (and sometimes will) kill you.
Hunting elk for non-residents in Idaho costs something in the neighborhood of $1100: the license, the tag, other expenses. For residents, the cost is something around $100 not including transportation. Non-resident hunting fees cover ½ DNR's budget; almost $30M/yr. That's a lot of hunters coming from out of state.
Lots of people come here to hunt critters: bighorn sheep, moose, bear, pronghorn, lions, wolves, and of course elk (along with other smaller critters). It's not hard for a non-resident (or residents either for that matter) to spend $10k or more for guided hunts. Elk hunting is particularly popular; so popular, they hold a lottery for permits to hold the number of hunters down.
However, for some of us, the problem isn't hunting elk, it's chasing them out of the garden.
Some of y'all think deer* can cause damage to a garden ... elk can render a garden into non-existence.
This photo was taken in my (former) back yard.
*All elk are deer, deer are not always elk
Continue reading →A black bear sow and her three cubs were euthanized by Fish and Game officials in Teton County after becoming food-conditioned and habituated to human presence.
Despite efforts to manage the situation, the bears' behavior posed a significant public safety risk, leading to the decision to euthanize them.
Relocating bears that have become extremely habituated and food-conditioned is not viable, as research indicates they can quickly return.
Continue reading →"Schumer And Jeffries Demand Meeting With Trump To End Record Gov't Shutdown"
Just yesterday, that SOB voted to continue the shutdown.
Continue reading →
Launched in 1982, the USNS Zeus is the first and only cable-laying ship in the US Navy. Her primary mission is to support an underwater sound surveillance system along with various subsurface geophysical surveys in the Atlantic.
Although a military ship, she is unarmed, carries a mostly civilian crew, and has no home port. She's shown here on the York River near the confluence of King Creek (foreground) at the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station.
Continue reading →Dick Cheney Dead At Age 84.
Continue reading →A sample of some obscure - and maybe not obscure - tunes from my strange and off-the-wall collection.
Today's selection: James McMurtry "Vague Directions" - 1990
James McMurtry (1962 - ) is the son of the author of Lonesome Dove.
This place you say you're looking for
That's a place I used to know
Don't know the number of the road
But I can tell you how to go
Head on down 'till the pavement ends
Used to go back there now and then
I used to know it like the back of my hand
When I was just a boy
This place you say you're looking for
It's a good ways off the track
It'd take a quarter tank of Firechief
Just getting there and back
And of course there wasn't no pavement then
Once you got yourself around that bend
There wasn't nothing but the whistling wind
When I was just a boy
And the light shines long ago
On the cold December snow
And the river runs on through the (golden) past
I can see it in the bottom of the (whiskey) glass
Ain't seen you around here before
You kin to someone I know
What was your mama's name
Before she moved away
Did she tell you about that place up there
Did she show you how to curl that hair
A grown man would have never dared
When I was just a boy
This place you say you're looking for
Might have washed out with the rain
It might not be there anymore
It might not be the same
But if you find it won't you let me know
If I weren't so poorly I'd surely go
Don't you know I used to love it so
When I was just a boy
It's not a road anymore, just a path through the woods that have taken over.
The old bridge is washed out near where we used to park and ...
Even the abutments are gone.
For that matter, so's the bar with the whiskey glass.
And so is she ... and her name gone with her.
From when I was just a boy.
re: Yellowstone Fumarole - submitted by ghostsniper in Comments
Yellowstone Park sits directly over a hot spot. The volcano is quiet today, only the geysers and hot springs remind us that there is an enormous volcano under the beautiful scenery. Just 600,000 years ago a huge eruption filled the area with lava flows. After the enormous eruption there was a void under the top of the volcano. The weight of the volcano caused the top to come crashing down forming the large Caldera in the park. Since the hot spot remains active, another giant eruption will almost certainly occur. The question is, when?
A new cycle of volcanic activity has begun. The number and strength of earthquakes have increased; new hot springs have appeared and existing ones have grown. A large area to the northeast of Yellowstone Lake has uplifted. Will it erupt again? If so, when? How much damage will it cause?
Not until the thermal imaging units were installed in satellites in the nineties was the scientific community aware that calderas existed. They were simply too large to be seen with the naked eye or any known instruments before that time. It was then that the vast size of the Yellowstone caldera became apparent. On the order of 600 miles by 400 miles scientists were stunned to realize the magnitude of the forces it contained.
Imagine one of those Betty Crocker dinners. You pour a packet of vegetables into the Pyrex then you dump a can of gravy on it. Then you spoon dollops of gooey dough on top of that, then into the oven at three-fifty for an hour. When its done you have a crispy roof over a boiling vat of gruel. If you poke a hole through the roof the gruel will ooze up from below. This is a Caldera.
The earth is seven-tenths water so it is in keeping that most of the worlds Caldera’s are underwater. The largest known Caldera is located approximately four thousand miles west of California in the center of the Pacific ocean and it is called Panthea. Less than one hundred feet below the surface of the sea bottom the temperature of Panthea is estimated at over eight thousand degrees. Steam regularly is emitted from hundreds of surface orifices over Panthea and the surface is constantly moving.
Panthea is estimated to be over two hundred and fifty miles in depth and nine hundred miles in diameter, the largest of all Calderas. Tied to the San Andreas fault on the United States western seaboard Panthea is considered the origin for most of the seismic activity in this region as well as in Alaska and eastern Asia including Japan, China.
Recent readings of Panthea’s core temperatures indicate that changes are occurring as the surrounding waters escalate in temperature. Biologists are plotting computer models to try to determine what the ripple effect will be if the caldera roof would collapse due to liquification. The first sign would be Richter machines going off the scale, on the order of fifteen point oh. This alone would disturb the very mantle of the earth itself. Second, the collapse in volume of the earths surface, the ceiling of the caldera, would cause huge tension release within the oceans body. Think of a large plate of spaghetti with suddenly no plate. When the structure of the ocean floor itself is removed, it is not clear what exactly will happen in other parts of the world.
Suddenly the oceans water would sweep into the new void created by the caldera. This water must come from somewhere, it would come from everywhere simultaneously. Like pouring cold coffee down the kitchen sink. Gone. The level of the seas would drop six feet in a matter of minutes and coastlines would be scrubbed as massive volumes of seawater were pulled toward the void. Millions of people worldwide would be swept along with the rushing seas. Entire cities would vanish, coastlines too would no longer exist.
Panthea is roughly the size of the Gulf of Mexico, but two hundred and fifty miles deep. This space would consume large amounts of both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. In hours the level of the worlds oceans would drop more than 100 feet. Icebergs in the Arctic sea would topple as they touched the sea bed, the Mediterranean sea would be dry. Hydrostatic vacuum would cause all buildings on all coasts to collapse.
As trillions of gallons of seawater drain into the gaping boiling Panthea the water will be instantly heated to eight thousand degrees creating a gaseous explosive mixture of thousands of chemicals simultaneously. The blowback from this will shower the stratosphere worldwide.
Matt Rense is a thirty four year old construction superintendent who lives in the town of Crystal Bay outside Chesapeake, Virginia with his wife Sarah and their two kids Jarrod and Sensia, ages 10 and 8. Sarah is a teacher in a private school named Colloquial First where their kids attend. Matt has a past time as an Ultralight pilot and this may be the key to evacuating his family to safe ground further inland from the coast of their home as pandemonium reigns all around them.
Continue reading →(late - forgot to hit the "Schedule" button.

A release of hot volcanic gases including steam. Recharged from rainwater.
Noisy, dangerous, objects of curiosity. Sulfurous and acidic - very low pH (geysers tend to be high pH).
Soft, uncertain ground - good place to kill yourself; usually by accident.