Utah’s U.S. senators say they want Congress to investigate the actions of federal agents who arrested two dozen people — four of them older than 70 — June 10 in an investigation of the “theft” of ancient artifacts in the Four Corners region. A day later, one of the men arrested, a prominent local doctor, [...]
The Interior Department is directing more than $300 million in federal “economic stimulus” money to the Bureau of Land Management to update its facilities, roads and trails and jump-start renewable energy projects across the country, said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, honking and clapping like a trained seal here on Saturday, May 2. Secretary Salazar said [...]
A new era is dawning, we’re assured. The dark clouds of industrial pollution (OK, carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless, and non-toxic, but let’s not get bogged down in details) are about to be banished, ushering in a glorious new day of hygienic energy cleanliness and perfectly balanced global neither-warming-nor-cooling. Not a single new nuclear or [...]
Once you’ve passed through the entrance gate to one of America’s magnificent national parks or monuments, what do you see? Nothin’. In most cases, mile upon mile of nothin’. The sweeping grandeur of the Grand Canyon is not visible from any common entrance point to the national park of that name. Expect to drive several [...]
If the job is spending money, who you gonna call? The federal government. In 2003, the Elko Daily Free Press reported Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Supervisor Bob Vaught — pressed by a local lawmaker and others protesting the Forest Service’s actions in closing off access to the public lands in Jarbidge Canyon — admitted spending $15,000 [...]
A May 14 editorial in the Review-Journal cited a portion of Vern Bostick’s study, “The Desert Tortoise in Relation to Cattle Grazing,” published in “Rangelands,” June, 1990. This brought a letter from a newly arrived “expert” on the extent to which desert tortoises are allergic to having large ungulate grazers sharing their range, arguing that [...]
Image by mandj98 via FlickrPrairie dogs are considered pests not just by farmers and ranchers — their burrowing can render vast acreages unsuitable for cattle grazing — but by golf course operators and even agencies of the federal government. (Threatened with fines of a $100,000 a day fine from the Federal Aviation Administration, the City [...]
Image via WikipediaThe government has some big advantages over mortal plaintiffs. For one thing, the government is, for all practical purposes, immortal. Back in the 1980s, it became an article of faith among well-meaning “environmentalists” without much practical knowledge of the West — and thus for the federal bureaucrats anxious to please that large if [...]
In one of his murder mysteries based around the book-scouting and used book trade (hang onto those true first editions of “Booked to Die,” friends — around $700 and I wish I had one), former Denver bookman John Dunning refers to Las Vegas as a “bad town for books.” True enough, few folks come here [...]
Native Las Vegan Harry Pappas was appointed to the Bureau of Land Management Citizen Advisory Council by then-Congresswoman Barbara Vucanovich. He later represented the State Rifle & Pistol Association on the Clark County Tortoise Advisory Council. “They said the (desert) tortoise was threatened, so they had to fence off these huge areas and shut out [...]
Vin’s Blog at the RJ
