Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Flower in the forest



One of the big surprises in hiking around Steamboat is the lushness of the forest floor. We found a micro climate with ferns and moss. The light was filtering through the trees when I shot this.

One of these opened here

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

A sign of the times



This was taken in North Central Colorado. Most of the ranchers have rigs on their property. It just happened to be flaming while we drove by. Later, it wasn't burning. Colorado has seen an explosion in oil and natural gas development over the last decade. We've got large fracking projects happening on the Western slope. It came as a rude shock to many ranchers to discover that they don't own the mineral right on their property. Despite the pretty ads on TV, fracking has been surrounded by controversy due to the claims of damaged ground water. This is my favorite. Who says water can burn!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Rabbit Ears Motel



Another shot from our August trip to Steamboat Springs. The motel is named after a local rock feature called Rabbit Ears Pass.

Dandelion



This is one of a number of photos shot while visiting Steamboat Springs just last month. This was taken along the bike path through town along the Yampa river. My earlier attempts to capture one of these this sumer just hasn't worked out. I suspect its partly due to the lighting. This one has great detail.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Why seasons change



I know this but I've never seen anything before that makes the concept so clear.

The two-party duopoly

Are the two parties really that different in how they behave. Here's a story by David Sirota of what's going on with politics here in Colorado.

  1. Republican secretary of state, Scott Gessler is refusing to enforce campaign finance rules against Republicans while enforcing the same rules against Democrats.
  2. Then we have Democrat Tom Strickland who's excelled at revolving-door corruption.
" ... different pathologies, but those pathologies both contribute to our political system's overarching dysfunction."

Friday, September 23, 2011

Why do Republican's hate our troops?



Booing a currently serving solder in Iraq, classy move on the part of the Republican audience.

Clearly homophobia trumps respect for all who serve.

Rick man on dog is such an asshat. Treating people the same as everyone else isn't special treatment.
If the issue is that you don't want to give any group special privileges, why isn't Rick calling for an end of women serving in the military?

And what is it about Rick Santorum and his preoccupation with other peoples sex lives.

Friday, September 09, 2011

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

The New Rules of Employment

  1. Don't Be Old 
  2. Don't Be Unemployed 
  3. Don't Pin Your Hopes On College 
  4. Don't Expect To Make More Money At Your Next Job

Read the full article at the Huffington Post.

Friday, September 02, 2011

Green Jobs



Bizarro

None of the above

Hope fades. It is hard to deny that the Kenyan Usurper Hawaiian Devil Baby BARACK OBAMA has been a great disappointment and he really doesn't deserve our support for reelection. The reasons are too numerous to go into here. Simply put, he's completely ineffective in his role.



Unfortunately, the alternatives are are worse than what we have now. People fail to see that the change for change's sake is rarely a good strategy. The republicans would certainly see Obama's 2008 election in this light. The current Republican slate is full of crazy people, opportunists, and corporate puppets. Much like the democratic slate in the last election.



Chances are pretty good that we're going to get four more years of hope we can't count on. And the best that we can count on from another Obama administration is that nothing will get worse.

So what does one do? When the eastern block countries became democracies, some of them allowed the option of voting for none of the above. While satisfying, this never worked. The real problem, as Douglas Adams put it, is that those who want to rule aren't the ones you want to be ruled by.

So again, what does one do? The last few years have shown that the small group on congress can bring things to a complete standstill. No one is really talking about it now, but keeping and gaining seats in congress is going to be far more important than who resides in the White House. I'm going to focus my efforts there.

Thursday, September 01, 2011