The Roadless Rule was created in 2001 to identify and protect some of the wildest, least disturbed parts of the national forest system. These places are called Inventoried Roadless Areas – a formal designation the U.S. Forest Service uses for large tracts of land, usually 5,000 acres or more, that have no permanent roads and remain largely…
WC is a few days late getting the end of the month post up. It could be WC’s wretched time management skills, but instead we’ll blame the famously short month of February. After all, if February had a decent number of days – like January, for example – this post would be timely. But whatever…
WC has written about his adventures with varicella zoster virus (VZV) before. The short version is that because WC had chicken pox as a kid, he was at risk for shingles in his old age. And developed shingles in 2019 while on the wait list for the Shingrix™ vaccine. Ironically, when WC finally rose to…
Fascism: I sometimes fear… — Michael Rosen I sometimes fear that people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean…
Among African raptors, there is little consistency between common names and taxonomics. Sparrowhawks, for example, are actually falcons and not hawks, and goshawks are actually Accipiters, not Buteos, the traditional hawks. But for purposes of photos of African raptors, at least, WC will ignore taxonomics and make today’s post African birds that are called “hawks,”…
The White-eyed Parakeet is a medium-sized, reasonably conspicuous green parrot widespread in the lowlands of northern and central South America. It resembles the other twelve Psittacara parakeets in being largely green with a white orbital eye ring, red under the wrists and a variable amount of red on its head. In this species the red on the…
As legend has it, two high ministers in ancient China’s Tang Dynasty were strolling in the Imperial Gardens. One asked the other, “Would you betray the Emperor for ten million coin?” The other, younger minister paused and said, “Ten million coin is a lot of money. I would be sorely tempted, yes.” The first asked,…
As several readers have pointed out in emails and comments, it’s pretty hard to limit Dunleavy’s idiot actions to just five instances. Certainly WC could devote an entire blog to Big Mike’s Boners. That’s not going to happen. If you think WC has missed an egregious one, put it in a comment. This is the…
During the heighth of the COVID-19 pandemic, global emissions of nitrogen dioxide fell to near pre-industrial level. Nitorgen dixoide (NO2) is mostly a by-product of internal combusion engines. It’s familiar as the stuff that contributes to smog. Water and ultraviolet light breaks down atmorpheric NO2 creating, among other things, a powerful oxidizer, the hydroxyl radical…
In this chapter, we’ll show how to retain dictatorial power by eliminating those who might remove you, while preserving the appearance of democracy. . . . . . If the country you rule has a tradition of elections, it’s dangerous to simply end that tradition to retain your dictatorial power. It’s safer and simpler to…
Advice from an Estuary — Wendy Erd Look ordinaryDon’t ask for much.Travel to your edge, then go furtherEmpty out.Let the moon refill you.Embrace opposites easily.Host travelers without borders.Listen to the distance in their songs.Nurture the invisible, harbor their young.Digest insults. Reframe and cleanse them.Adopt silence while others speak all around you.Measure change calmly.Mirror the sky.At…
Once again, WC will show his age by whinging about the modern world, not just because it gets harder to keep up with change as you get older, but also at the incredible stupidity of some of those changes. Let’s talk first about Fisker. In May 2023, the California auto brand marketed its new electric…
The Monk Parakeet is the best studied and most widely distributed of the Psittacidae, the Parrot family. The primary reason for that is the pet trade: more than a million Monk Parrots have been trapped and shipped from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, the species’ native range. As a result, there are breeding populations off…
As several readers have pointed out in emails and comments, it’s pretty hard to limit Dunleavy’s idiot actions to just five instances. Certainly WC could devote an entire blog to Big Mike’s Boners. That’s not going to happen. If you think WC has missed an egregious one, put it in a comment. WC has already…
The open source software community is in a dither as software coding AI agents increase in sophisticaton, if not in quality coding. There’s a lot of recent virtual ink devoted to MJ Rathbun, which turns out not to be a natural person at all, but rather an AI bot created through a platform called OpenCLAW.…
There are two families of raptors: Accipitridae and Falcons. The separation into two families – more distantly related than you might have thought – is relatively recent. The Accipters are the Hawks, Eagles, Kites and Vultures. There are some 250 Accipitridae species in all, scattered across 74 (!) genera. WC will break the East African…
The Felon, in his presidential campaign and since, has promised there would be retribution against his enemies. To WC’s knowledge, in 250 years of American history, he was the first major presidential candidate and first person elected who campaigned on a promise of revenge. So how successful has he been in getting his sworn revenge?…
Emily Dickinson, poet and recluse, dutiful daughter and profilic correspondent. Only ten of her more than 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime, and a complete, un-bowdlerized edition of her poems and letters wasn’t published until 1955, some 70 years after her death. She was as enigmatic as any person in American literature. Here’s a…
This chunk of stupid involved inaction as well as action, but it’s still stupid. Anyone with the brains of a planarium has been able to see since at least the early 2000s that Alaska needed additional revenue, that revenues from oil were not going to recover, that the state could not budget cut itself to…
Yes, yet another parrot species – there are about 163 species, worldwide – this one found in central South America, mostly in Brazil and Argentina. It is very popular in the cage-bird trade, and as a consequence escaped birds are common in unexpected places, including Dade County, Florida, where these birds were photographed. Turquoise-fronted Amazon…
At the February 4, 2026 meeting of the Matanuska-Susitna School Board, Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani blasted the Galena City School District. Dr. Trani reported the tiny (population 456) city school district had just completed a $31 million new high school, which included a swimming pool, and would be hosting a national water polo tournament. Funding…
Of course WC admires LaMonte McLemore. In one single artist you can find a masterful singer, a gifted photogtrapher and a pretty decent baseball player. That’s three of WC’s personal interests squeezed into one individual. What’s not to admire? McLemore passed away on February 3, 2026. It helps that he was also funny, generous and…
Steven A. Feldman, was counsel for Affable Avenue LLC (“Affable”). He filed a brief in support of Affable’s motion to dismiss that was peppered with false citations. The trial court was concerned about both the origin of these fake cites and Feldman’s delay in correcting them. The Court issued anOrder to Show Cause why Feldman…
According to the Pulitzer Prize website, the Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary is given “Illustrated Reporting and Commentary” is given: For a distinguished portfolio of editorial cartoons or other illustrated work (still, animated, or both) characterized by political insight, editorial effectiveness, or public service value, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000). The Prize Committee, in…
Hornbills are similar in general appearance to New World Toucans, but they are only distantly related. It’s an interesting example of convergent evolution. Hornbills hornbills have diversified much more in the relative size and elaboration of the bill. There are at least 64 species of Hornbills spread across Africa, Asia and the Far East. East Africa…
Dear Judge DiBenedetto: The Anchorage Daily News reports that the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct has recommended you be publicly reprimanded for behavior including using offensive accents to impersonate people from other ethnic groups, and keeping a courtroom of attorneys waiting for an hour while you watched a sports game. You were appointed as the…
The handsome Rose-ringed Parakeet is native to sub-saharan Africa, Indi and Pakistan. But it has been introduced in any number of places, including the capitals of many European countries and Honolulu, Hawai’i. Color variation among the introduced populations is considerable; the native populations are yellow-greenish but selective breeding, small in-bred populations and possibly diet have…
As several readers have pointed out in emails and comments, it’s pretty hard to limit Dunleavy’s idiot actions to just five instances. Certainly WC could devote an entire blog to Big Mike’s Boners. That’s not going to happen. If you think WC has missed an egregious one, put it in a comment. Alaska Governor Mike…
Cook Inlet Energy, a relatively small player in Alaska’s North Slope crude oil production, was fined $313,616 for flaring – burning off – some 45 thousand cubic feet (MCF) of natural gas at its Badami crude oil production facility. That’s enough natural gas to heat 900 homes for a year. Alaska has a prohibition on…
WC returned from Southeast Arizona with a relatively modest 900 photos. You’ve seen a few of them, but because you can never have too many bird photos, here are just a few more from Paton Center, Madera Canyon and Saguaro National Park. Click on an image for a larger version. A few notes follow the…
Wickersham's Conscience 
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