Politics

The scandal-plagued Interior Department has certainly provided plenty of material for journalists during the seven-plus years of the Bush administration. Unfortunately, the tabloid-style headlines have come at a price: the pervasive mismanagement of the nation’s natural resources, from endangered species and clean water to federally-owned oil and gas reserves. Are things likely to be any […]

The EPA’s “self-inflicted lobotomy” is about to be reversed — at least partially. More than a year ago, in response to Bush budget cuts, the agency began dismantling its network of 26 technical libraries, a crucial repository of scientific information for the agency’s own researchers and the public. It closed several regional libraries and moved […]

The September 15th edition’s Snapshot focused on the high cost of restoring the Going to the Sun road in Glacier National Park. The Snapshot reports restoration which is now underway will cost $240 million to complete. I found this price tag for “restoring” only one Glacier NP road curious. I live near Redwood National Park […]

The latest Colorado poll, conducted by Rasmmussen on September 28, has Obama up by one point. But is the race as close as it seems? Maybe not. There’s been some recent speculation, of course, that the the polls are skewing Republican because pollsters can’t get in contact with young voters who don’t have landlines. But […]

In an election year already filled with topsy-turvy events and serial comeuppance, the stock market yesterday lost an average of $3 million per minute and chickens came home to roost on their dwindling 401K nest eggs. The headlines were screaming: Massive credit contraction…worst drop in U.S. stock market since 911…strangled economy…serious recession looming. But despite […]

A recent piece by native rights attorneys Lloyd Miller and Heather Kendall-Miller — getting wide play in Native and alternative media —  indicts Sarah Palin on Native issues in her home state. Alaskan Native villages are spread across 375 million acres, many of them roadless. Subsistence foods — fish and game — still comprise 60 […]

NASA just gave the University of Colorado at Boulder its largest research contract ever – to lead the mission that will launch an orbiting probe to Mars in 2013. The benefits of the nearly half-billion-dollar project are many: Every dollar spent on space exploration has an eightfold economic benefit; studying other planets helps us better […]

Managing America’s national forests for commercial timber production involves a lot of hard, dirty work — clearing brush, thinning small trees, and replanting areas that have been harvested. It’s work that native-born Americans aren’t exactly lining up to do. And so the Forest Service, like so many other organizations, has found itself relying on immigrant […]

“The more voters learn about Sarah Palin…the less there is to like,” the female voice intones ominously in a new ad by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. The political message goes on to show graphic footage of wolves being gunned down from an airplane, and piles on more evidence of the Alaska governor’s aggressive […]

One needn’t go far to find mention of how the gun-slingin’, moose-eatin’ vice presidential pick of John McCain is going to snowmobile to victory this November on the backs of rural Western voters. Because she’s from the West (Alaska via Idaho), and because she’s been mayor of a small town (a suburb, actually), and because […]