That Time Of The Year

It's that time of the year again. Fall is coming. The air will be a tad cooler and sharper in the mornings. Leaves will be turning color. With a little luck you may be up in the mountains, and off in the distance you may hear the beginnings of a high-pitched whistling sound. Soon this may turn into a full-throated bugle by a bull elk going into the rut, one of the most thrilling sounds in the wild. Good stuff. It's my favorite time of the year.

If I'm not mistaken, Montana's archery hunting season is upon us again too, so here's one for all you bowhunters out there. May that bull come your way and may your arrows fly straight and true.

Straight From The 'Drill Drill Drill' Handbook

You can say what you want about McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for his VP pick. You can analyze and debate the pros and cons, the stupidity or brilliance of the McCain campaign strategy right up until the election. But a person is what they is -- here's her position on environmental issues. It reads straight from the official handbook of the 'drill drill drill' crowd.

Yep, Sarah Palin is what she is. Looks like McCain picked himself a real winner here. She's little more than a walking talking ventriloquist's dummy for the Big Oil puppeteers. Jeezus...

On Blogs And Stuff

People do funny things. Like start these damn blogs for instance, and I'm probably the worst of the bunch for that. I was given my first computer about two years ago, and what was one of the first things I did? I started this site. I had no clue what I was doing, but I started it. And somehow it's still here. As if that wasn't bad enough I soon joined another one (Montana Netroots). And then started a photo blog. Apparently that wasn't enough self-punishment for me, because I started yet another one, the Evening Pest. Of course the inevitable happened, and I've found that I simply can't keep up with all of them.

So, as of tonight, I'm bagging the Pest. It'll never be what I envisioned, I don't have what it takes to make a go of it, and I'm tired of sweating blood trying to make something out of it. I'll cheerfully admit my failings and walk away and rejoice in my escape. I had thought to keep it going as a place to put my thoughts on the upcoming elections, but I've pretty much said all I care to about the elections so why bother? One quick tap of the delete key and it will vanish into nothingness where it belongs.

This blog will stay, though it's been largely inactive lately. There will be little about elections, but I will continue to watch this administration's attacks on the environment, and I will keep an eye on the next one too, whoever it turns out to be. There will occasionally be other things going on here too, like this post and thoughts on wilderness and the natural world we live in. There is still much to keep an eye on and much to fight to protect. But most of my energy will be going to my photography. That blog will likely be my home for awhile.

On a related note, I clicked on Colby Natale's Rebels Are We earlier today, and lo and behold I got a message saying that account has been suspended. Not being familiar with Wordpress terminology, I don't know if that means temporarily dormant or if it means deleted. I hope it's the former. Colby has been a strong voice here in the Montana 'sphere for longer than I've been around. He is an intelligent voice, and seems to be a thoroughly reasoned and reasonable man, something I'm not, and am confident that at this point in my life I never will be. He's done some fine stuff. So to end this ramble I'll just say this -- Colby, if you happen to read this, I hope we haven't heard the last from you, though if you feel that you've simply had enough I can certainly understand that. Most of all, thanks for what you've done and what you've brought to all of us.

Sneaky Bastards

The Fish and Wildlife Service announced BushCo's proposal to gut the Endangered Species Act today, which would effectively eliminate scientific review of proposed projects under the act and allow the agencies proposing a project to conduct their own reviews. Not only are they ramming it home fast, they are making public comment on the proposal very difficult by shortening the comment period and not accepting email comments.

There is something you can all do though, and you can do it right here. Environmental Action is gathering comments for 28 days from today, which will be around September 12. You can also click the links over on the side.

More information.

Update: A few days after this proposal was announced, a public comment period was opened for 30 days. It runs through September 15. You can add yours here.

@#*&%!

I had thought of doing a post about this, but decided what the hell -- it speaks for itself. Why bother? What could I possibly say? Nothing that would make a damn bit of difference. BushCo is ramming home their agenda and will continue to do so until they're gone. Think I'll just continue to try to ignore this shit for a while longer and stick with photography or something...

Breakthrough?

Scientists at MIT have developed a method to store solar energy during the daytime for use at night and/or low sunlight days by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen gases and then recombining them to generate electricity. Will this be a major breakthrough towards a clean energy future?