What's The Deal With The Drones Over Colorado/Nebraska?

Mystery drones (but not this one) are flying over Nebraska and Colorado
and everybody wants to know why. Image via the New York Times.

There are  apparently swarms of drones in recent weeks flying in a grid pattern over eastern Colorado and western Nebraska, and everybody is wondering why.

Understandably, it's freaking people out.

As the New York Times explains:

"The drone sightings started in northeast Colorado around mid-December and have only grown more widespread since then. 

Almost all the sightings have occurred between sunset and about 10 p.m. though (Palisade, Nebraska resident Missy) Blackman said sheahd seen them out later one night in Nebraska and, for the first time on Wednesday, during daylight hours.

She said she looked at them through binoculars and did not see any markings, just plain silver and white coloring.

Across the state line in Colorado, Captain Yowell tried to photograph the drones on Tuesday night with the camera he uses to document crime scenes, but came away without a clear image. He estimated that up to 30 drones were flying each night, though not all in the same place."

The New York Times reports it could just be some mapping operation by the oil and gas industry, but why do it at night?

Understandably, this whole thing has gotten people pretty freaked out.

Sheriff Todd Combs told the New York Times, "There are many theories about what is going on, but at this point, that's all they are....I think we are all feeling a little bit vulnerable due to the intrusion of our privacy that we enjoy inourrural community, but I don't have a solution."

I  had pretty much decided the mystery drone nerds are prankters just out to freak out as many people as possible. But who knows?  The  FAA, FBI, and local and regional law enforcement said they don't know what's going on.

However, there is tantalizing evidence this week from the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Says the Gazette:

"Air Force Global Strike Command, which is based in Louisiana, has confirmed that it conducts counterdrone exercises out of F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, where it is based.

The command oversees underground Minuteman silos spread across northeastern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming and western Nebraska, the area where the drones have been spotted nightly the past two weeks.

The Air Force isn't claiming ownership of the drones, but neither is it denying it.

F.E. Warren didn't respond to an emailed question Friday on whether its counter drone effort has anything to do with the recent sightings."

The Gazette says that maps of the areas where the drones were spotted is pocked with dots where drones are forbidden, with the best guess being these are spots were the military does not want drones over missile silos.

All this could be a test of technology that detects and tracks civilian drones, says the Gazette.

If all this is true, then I'm glad the military is trying to protect missile silos from drone attacks. On the other hand, if this is true, I'm vaguely disappointed.

Like most people these days, I kind of prefer the outlandish conspiracy theories, even though the truth is almost always much more bland that the wild stories people make up.

Nine Year Old Activists Overturns Anti-Snowball Fight Ordinance

In front of a packed Severerance, Colorado Town Board meeting, Dane
Best, 9, lobbies comuunity leaders to overturn a ban on snowball
fights. Photo by Sara Knuth/Greely Tribune 

I love it when kids re-enact the plot in the fictional movie "Footloose," in which a teenager gets a town to overturn a ban on dancing.

The situation I'm about to describe isn't exactly dancing, but it's still nice to see somebody overturning a stupid local ordinance.

The town of Severance, Colorado has long banned snowball fights. C'mon! Colorado in the winter? You gotta have snowball fights!

Enter Severance resident Dane Best, 9, who decided he CAN fight City Hall. And, spoiler: He won.

According to the Greeley Colorado Tribune, Best gave this simple but perfect argument before the Severance Town Board:

"The children of Severance want the opportunity to have a snowball fight like the rest of the world....The law was created many years ago. Today's kids need a reason to play outside."

BOOM!

You can't get a more persuasive argument than that. Why not let the kids of Severance experience the joys of children everywhere. At least in places where it snows And in this age of kids staying inside playing video games to the detriment to their physical health, wouldn't you want children to go outside and be active?

The anti-snow ball ordinance was part of an otherwise perfectly reasonable law that banned throwing missiles or stones at people or property. It's still illegal in Severance to throw stones and missiles, as it is in most if not all of America. Best didn't want the town to overturn that part of the law, and he promised never to throw a snowball with a rock inside.

But the snowball piece of the Severance ordinance is now officially off the books. After the Town Board meeting, the Greeley Tribune said Best and his little brother Dax, 4, went outside into Severance's snowy streets and threw the first legal snow balls in the town's history.

Severance Mayor Don McLeod also got into the act and tossed a snow ball or two.

This whole thing leads to a larger lesson for Best and any kid out there. Yes, you can change an injustice, but only if you put some effort into it.

Bottom line: The kids are alright.

Cub Scout Booted For Asking Lawmaker Good Constituent Questions

If you wanted any more proof that many (conservative) adults don't want kids to learn anything and keep them stupid, we bring you a Cub Scout in Colorado.  

This young Cub Scout was kicked out of a Colorado den
for the crime of asking a politician about her views
on gun control.

Recently, a Cub Scout den in Broomfield, Colorado hosted a Republican state senator named Vicki Marble for a question and answer session.

The kids ask Marble about gun control, a proposed border wall with Mexico and some racially charged remarks she made in 2013, says 7News, the ABC affiliate in Denver. 

One of the Cub Scouts, Ames Mayfield, was particularly prying with his questions, questioning Marble about her infamous 2013 remarks about African Americans, fried chicken and poverty. (I won't get into those comments, but they were pretty bad.)

During the exchange, Ames had clearly done his homework and his facts were correct, but Marble's weren't. 

Ames then asked a fairly lengthy but good question about gun control.

"I was shocked that you co-sponsored a bill to allow domestic violence offenders to continue to own a gun..... Why on earth would you want someone who beats their wife to have access to a gun?

Decent question, but the Cub Scout den leader cut him off. No question guns, please! Second Amendment! Second Amendment.  And too bad we didn't get to hear Marble's response. Who knows? Maybe she had a good answer. 

Ames's question about gun control was apparently so offensive to the so called leader of this scout pack that he booted Ames from the pack, just days before he would have become a Boy Scout. 

7News said the Denver area council of the Boy Scouts said it's up to the local organizations to determine who can stay with the Scouts and how can't. The Council said they would look for another den for Ames to join and latest reports say they found one for Ames. 

But Ames is understandably devastated by his getting kicked out. He actually really liked his den leader before he booted Ames. The den leader is not talking to the press.

So, unfortunate life lesson learned: We should not question our elected politicians anymore. Just let them do what they want, and don't hold them to account.

Is this the way we really should be raising kids?

 

Nice Move! Letter Carrier Builds Handicap Ramp For Elderly Dog

Maddie Dimetrosky, 11, helps Tashi, 14 down the handicapped
ramp letter carrier Jeff Kramer built for Tashi so' they can
greet each other every day.
Photo by Jeremy Pappaso/Boulder Daily Camera.

I get so negative in this blog sometimes, and I will continue to do so, I'm afraid, but any bit of heartwarming or good news does the body and mind good, so I'll keep throwing those in, too.

Today's installment takes us to snowy Boulder, Colorado, where a letter carrier named Jeff Kramer always liked the greeting he got from a dog named Tashi at one particular house on his route.

According to the Boulder Daily Camera: 

"'He would just come by eery day and pet him,' said Tashi's owner Karen Dimetrosky. 'Tashi would hang out outside and would always get so excited when Jeff came. He would always try to pull me toward the mail truck.'"

Tashi is now 14 years old, elderly, and can't walk so well anymore. So Tashi's  human family started having to carry the dog up and down the front stairs to greet Kramer.

Kramer had recently lost an old dog, which had used a handicapped access ramp to get into his house.

So why not give Tashi the ramp?

At first, Kramer just dropped off the wood from the ramp and the Dimetroskys would use the wood to build a new ramp. But the family isn't particularly handy, or good at carpentry

So, Kramer came back and built the ramp himself. "I just noticed they needed it," Kramer explained.

"I can't image not having the ramp now. It's the only way he gets in and out," Dimetrosky told the Daily Camera. 

Now, no need to carry Tashi to greet Kramer. He just uses the ramp so Kramer and Tashi still get to have their daily happy moment.

The irony of being a letter carrier who did this is not lost on Kramer. "Yeah, a mailman who likes dogs. Go figure," Kramer said.

Yeah, I know the story about Tashi isn't a big important news flash, but ti's always great to see a small, pleasant moment in the middle of the world's chaos.

Here's the Boulder Daily Camera's YouTube story on Kramer and Tashi:

Colorado Struggles To Lift Crazy Ban On Rain Barrels

Trust me, rain barrels like this
one won't divert water from Colorado
farmers. Photo from Gardener's Supply.  

Rain barrels make TONS of sense for home gardeners.

Without them, water pours down onto your roof during storms, and gushes out of your drain pipes, and is wasted as it flows across your lawn, and maybe into the storm sewer or something.

Why not collect the rain in barrels, and use that water for your vegetables and flowers when the weather turns dry?  Lots of people do this.

But not in Colorado. Rain barrels are illegal. Lawmakers are trying to overturn the ban, but there's still, incredibly, opposition.

Some of this oppositon comes from Colorado State Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, who chairs the Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Commitee, according to the Durango Herald.

Sonnenberg worries rain barrels will disrupt the state's system whereby water rights are given to the first person to take water from an aquifer or river, whether or not they are close to that aquifer or river.

He figures that if homeowners collect water in rain barrels, the water won't end up in the aquifers for farmers to use.

Which is ridiculous. If a homeowner collects water in two rain barrels, they'll only get maybe 100 gallons of water. This is a tiny fraction of the amount of water that lands on roofs, driveways and such in a typical garden variety summer hunderstorm.

Even if everyone in a densely populated section of, say Denver or Boulder has a couple rain barrels, the amount of water being diverted from aquafers would pretty much be too small to measure.

A Colorado State University study said that in an average rainfall, about 8,000 gallons of water would fall on a lot with a home. Diverting 100 gallons of that is literally a drop in the bucket, especially if you consider how much water that same homeowner would waste by dragging out the hose or the sprinkler to wet down the perennials and the cucumber patch.

Still, Sonnenberg is paranoid about rain barrel owners stealing "his" rain or something

Support is building big time in the Colorado legislature to repeal the rain barrel ban, but Sonnenberg has some ideas to stymie things if the ban indeed goes away

The Durango Herald says Sonnenberg suggests requiring rain barrel users to register their barrels with the state and have local water providers replace water taken from rooftops.

In other words, open carry of guns might be OK, but openly using rain barrels is not. And imagine the nightmare of trying to figure out how much water each of thousands of rain barrel owners diverted to their flower pots and tomato plants.

Full disclosure: I work at a company called Gardener's Supply, which among a zillion other things, sells rain barrels. They are very popular with gardeners who want an eco-friendly way to keep their gardens green and beautiful and pretty.

Let's hope Colorado lawmakers overcome opposition like that coming from Sonneberg and get some rain barrels beneath rain gutters really soon.

Colorado gardens, and their tenders, will thank them.

Dear Morons: ISIS Bookstore In Denver Not Run By Terrorists

Note to morons: This is a peaceful New Age store
in Colorado, not a terrorist advetising tool.

Theres's a retail shop outside of Denver owned by a perfectly nice couple.

It's called Isis Books & Gifts and it sells books and gifts about religion, spirituality and healing. They have supplies for Tarot readers, the Wicca community, essential oils, that type of thing.

As most normal people would expect, Isis Books and Gifts, which has been there in Englewood, Colorado for something like two decades, is named after an Egyptian goddess of women and healing.

But morons and hysterics are around us, and these doofuses think since the place is named Isis, its a terrorist organization brazenly advertising itself right in suburban Denver.

So they keep vandalizing the place, according to the AP.

I guess part of the problem is the media, including me, keeps calling the horrible terrorist organization responsible for the Paris attacks and another zillion atrocities ISIS. The name sounds cool. A lot of people in government call the terrorists ISIL, and I should probably start doing the same

Still, people are stupid, and they see the word ISIS and start screaming "Terrorist!" And they keep vandalizing the little book store in Englewood, Colorado because they're too stupid to know any better.

On the bright side, the store's owners say the business at the store remains steady, even if they have to keep repairing signs and such after the stupid people come through.

They also have no plans to change the name of the store. After all, the Egyptian goddess the store is named after is a sign of peace.

And Lord knows we could use more peace. And fewer morons.

Lousy Guy Dumps 8,500 Tons Of Trash In National Forest

Some of the trash Benjamin Yoho dumped
in a Colorado National Forest.  

My least favorite person of the week award goes to Benjamin Yoho, 41, of Telluride, Colorado.

He dumped 8,500 pounds of trash into the Uncompahgre National Forest in Colorado.

For his efforts, he got six months in prison for the crime.

People do drop litter along hiking trails all the time, ignoring the rule that if you take it in, you take it out.

It's unclear why Yoho dumped all this trash in the forest. It took 48 volunteers to haul the trash out of the forest via helicopter last May.

Yes, I get it. Yoho didn't exactly commit the ultimate crime against humanity. There are plenty of people doing much worse things in the world today. Murder, war, corruption, theft, you name it.

But dumping this much trash in a pristine forest seems such an affront to me. There might have been a hoarding disorder going on with him. The judge ordered Yoho to undergo mental health counseling.

But still, they should have made Yoho clean up this mess all by himself. During a heat wave. Without water.

I hope he doesn't trash his jail cell. Loser.

Frozen Cows in HIgh Elevation Cabin: Dinner!

Here's a strange conundrum, at a place called (really!) Conundrum Hot Springs in Colorado.

It started when two Air Force Academy cadets snowshoed up to a cabin at an elevation of 11,200 feet one day in late March. The pair had planned to sleep in the cabin overnight.

Cows like these shouldn't cram themselves into
high elevation camps, just so you know

It didn't happen. That's because the cabin was stuffed with frozen cow carcasses, and the cows apparently really had some diarrhea before they died. Pretty gross.

According to Aspen Daily News reporter Carolyn Sackariason, the problem now is how to get rid of the frozen cows.

The National Forest Service says the cows have to go. They'll rot once the spring thaw really hits, and nobody wants them to contaminate the Conundrum Hot Springs. Because soaking in a contaminated Conundrum Hot Springs would really be a conundrum.

It's not a simple matter of just dragging the cows down the hill. It's an 8.5 mile trek. They're thinking of burning them, and the cabin, since the cabin was going to be torn down anyway. But there's a high risk of fire this spring in Colorado.

They might also just blow them up with explosives, but that fire danger is an issue again. And covering a high mountain top with itty bitty bits of dead cows and manure and cabin parts doesn't seem that appealing to me. But what do I know?

By the way, the cow got into the cabin because, the theory goes, they got caught in an early season cold snap and snowstorm, and sought shelter in the cabin. They jammed themselves in there, then couldnt get out, and died. They're still trying to track down the rancher who owns them.

Why not just carve 'em up for meat? They're still frozen, so it's all good right? Well maybe not, but who knows? I'm sure the quality wouldn't be as good as Omaha Steaks or something like that, but are there takers out there?