Just a few thoughts that have passed through the vacuum of my mind…
Why does the investment firm Invesco (which briefly had its name on the side of the Denver football stadium) have a fund called “QQQ”? I see the commercials while watching sports, but I don’t know why the “Qanon” folks would care about sports or why anyone with actual business sense would want to follow the fantasy world of “Qanon”. I have been told by my investment advisor that it’s a profitable fund to be in so she has put some of my dwindling reserves into it. I hope she hasn’t fallen down the MAGA hole. She knows my views on politics and she let me invest in the belief there was not going to be the recession that all the “experts” not here at DailyKos were predicting.
We are experiencing snowing and blowing up here in the mountains outside of Estes Park. There are strongly blowing winds (my daily maximum gust per my weather station shows as just over 50 mph, so far). The snow is predicted to be 3-8 inches by the end of the storm this evening, but it has been melting as it hits the ground so I can’t measure the same things as what a weather professional would.
I’m watching now as a flock of at least eight bush tits are crowding my last suet cylinder of the season. They are soon replaced by red-breasted nuthatches, a white-breasted nuthatch, dark-eyed juncos, a female Hairy woodpecker a female something (goldfinch or house finch?), mountain chickadees, and a sad male Rosy finch (sad because he’s too large to fit between the wire mesh that is supposed to keep the squirrels out but it lets in our small Douglas tree squirrels and chipmunks). I hope it finds the regular bird feeder on the upper deck that still has lots of seeds (though it may be taken down when empty as it’s SUPPOSED to be Spring now). Hummingbirds are even up here so I put out my feeder. I think the upper part of the sugar-water reservoir froze last night. I have seen pictures from people of male turkeys strutting their stuff, looking for the ladies. Lots of deer and elk have returned to town, so we’re having traffic jams on top of the traffic jams from all the construction around town. We’re even having the tourists coming to town, though not yet in the numbers that will be arriving in three weeks. All manner of wildlife.
Well, here is what you’ve all been waiting for:
History of the World, Part I has been one of my favorite movies. I have not been able to watch the Part II series on Hulu, but I hope to someday be streaming so I can watch it somewhere, some place.
In Colorado Politics:
- Today, Governor Polis was able to announce that the legislature had successfully come up with a bill that will reduce (slightly) property taxes for commercial and residential owners. It was a bipartisan bill that at seems to have involved a lot of different stakeholders, who really dug in and made progress on the issue after voters rejected last November’s Democratic-only ballot proposal, HH. See also coloradosun.com/… and
- For an interesting interview with Colorado’s two US Senators, Bennett and Hickenlooper, on their impact on federal court judges, read this article in Colorado Politics.
"With respect to U.S. District Court positions," she (Dana Remus, White House counsel for Biden) wrote, "we are particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life."
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"I was very sympathetic to the memo in that I do think, historically, there has been a tendency to appoint lawyers that have served in large firms to federal judgeships," recalled Sen. Michael Bennet. "But it’s not the only experience that’s valuable. I think that the Remus memo and the Biden administration’s approach gave all of us the chance to reconsider the scope of what an applicant pool would look like."
The last three years have been transformative for Colorado's federal district court, with Biden appointing five members to the seven-judge bench. In line with the Remus letter, many of the appointees touted underrepresented backgrounds: a workers' rights attorney, a resident of the Western Slope and the first magistrate judge to be elevated to a district judgeship.
From the Colorado Sun, an update on legislation that would ban assault weapon sales and transferring of that ownership ownership which has just been pulled:
A Colorado bill that would have banned the purchase, sale and transfer of a broad swath of semiautomatic firearms, defined in the measure as assault weapons, will be shelved at the request of one of its main sponsors.
Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat and one of the lead sponsors of House Bill 1292, announced Monday that she would ask for the measure to be killed Tuesday in the Senate State, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.
“After thoughtful conversations with my Senate colleagues, I decided that more conversations need to take place outside of the pressure cooker of the Capitol during the last weeks of the legislative session,” Gonzales said in a written statement. “In that spirit, I look forward to renewing and continuing those discussions over the interim.”
- One other subject of intense lawmaker interest, AI generated some bills and testimony, trying to create some guardrails to protect consumers and some guidelines to help companies in Colorado trying to utilize this technology. I am extremely nervous about AI — I think it’s a demon instead of a genie in a box, and I believe it has far more potential for bad since I believe there are far more companies seeking to violate privacy and security than there are those seeking to have help writing benign papers and speeches. The demon is coming, though, and all we can do is seek to protect ourselves as much as possible.
- From the western slope, Grand Junction projects that the snowpack will produce an “average water year.” I know on the eastern slope, we had a rather dry year up until March (our usual snowiest month) and it has kept snowing, so we’re doing well.
- The Colorado Legislature has passed a bill (still waiting for a signature) that will prohibit trucks and large commercial vehicles from traveling in the left lane in places where there are extra chain laws in effect in a number of Colorado mountain roads. For a complete listing of where this will take place, check out www.gjsentinel.com/… This is a year-around restriction and it may be adjusted depending upon changes in the chain laws. The use of the chain law just helps determine where it’s less safe for the trucks to drive already, and this just insures they drive in the right lane at all times (and hopefully at slower speeds instead of powering around the family in the Winnebago struggling up to the Eisenhower tunnel).
- To end on a cute note, there has been a new mammal discovered in Colorado. OK, they’re not alive, and probably haven’t been for some 60 million years, but www.9news.com/… has pictures that are artists’ conceptions of what they may have looked like.
The researchers named the mammal Militocodon lydae in honor of two extraordinary contributors to the Corral Bluffs project.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science researchers announced the discovery of the 65-million-year-old mammal on Friday and said it was collected in the Corral Bluffs area on the edge of Colorado Springs.
And yes, they’re cute.
Well, that does it for this version of the Colorado State Open Thread. As always, we’ll be interested in what’s happening in your area of our beautiful (if wintry state). Please share your comments below. The floor is yours...