THE SHINBONE STAR

" Pickin' With Buddy " for Drew Pennington

2011-03-01T15:32:00.000-08:00

" Robert, Amarillo is the ass-hole of the earth, and Lubbock is 120 miles up it "

More Larry's Nodders - The Humming Bird

2010-10-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

This work is over 7 feet tall , and the whole piece rotates with the wind.

More Larry's Nodders

2010-08-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

The artist with his flower girl. Mary.

Emmett Was There First

2010-08-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

You guys missed it yesterday. Someone else owns that day , and he got there first .
Yesterday was Emmit Till's Day Too. And he was there first folks !
With a gin fan around his neck at Money Miss. . on the bank of the river.

The difference between Glenn Beck and Martin Luther King.
Dr. King new what had happened on the day folks. King picked that day for a reason . Glenn Beck claims to have not known the import of the day.

Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955)

Emmett's 55 anniv. folks

Someone needs to ask Mr. Beck his views on the Lynching of 14 year-old-boy from the South side Chicago , in Money Miss. on the sameday, since he's got the keys to the Civil Rights Vault . Is this that dark period he speaks of ?
Where does the Tea Party Stand on Gin Fan Justice ? Does any of that Honor Repair Job get to Emmett Till's love ones ?

Tornado Gallery's Third Ann.

2010-04-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

Poster art by Randy Fisher . Press run of 25 available at the Gallery for $10.00 ea.

Baking some bread tonight for the party tomorrow , Amish White . Yum

" Mark the Oak "

2010-03-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

From all his friends at Tornado Gallery
For Mark Ruzicka, we planted an oak for you.

Testing the Disk Cooker

2010-03-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

Made 2 loafs of Amish White Bread last night , made shrimp fried rice on Tony's plow disk cooker tonight. What a great way to cook. I love this thing .

The Whole Earth Access Company 71' Boulder, Colorado.

2010-03-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

At the counter, (from the right) Tom Larimer, Mick Rosen, and Randy Cone holding back the light pull.
Photo is reversed

The dome is the first geodesic dome I ever had a hand in building. Made from wooden plaster lath salvaged from the walls of the building

Tom Larimer in the door way at 940 Pearl Street ,Boulder.

Mick's girlfriend, who's name I have forgotten, I remember the rest of her though.

You can see the outline of our 10 foot tepee set up in the back. I slept in that tepee just outside the south entrance to Red Rocks , for 3 months once.

Tony's Plow Disc Cooker

2010-03-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

After the fire table ( see below ) Tony built a " Cowboy Wok ". Looking forward to trying this baby out. He was seasoning it Saturday night.

Awards, Boots, and Shoes

2010-02-23T15:48:00.000-08:00

Saturday Night in Lubbock

Tony's Fire Table

2010-02-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

Don't Make Me Come to Your House

2010-02-07T09:21:00.000-08:00

Help us fill box # 95

How a Bunch of Fish Heads Got Keith Olbermann & Don Imus to Shelter a Village in Haiti

2010-01-31T09:29:00.000-08:00

Craig's Little Campfire
When we all began to set-up our our own little campfires on the world wide campground. I stumbled on Craig Crawford's little blaze . It was an amazing little salon, with a marshmallow toasting on a coat hanger feel. Something about Young Crawford , he has a pretty interesting set of friends. It was a treat to visit the clearing and see what was cooking on the fire.

Some times the flames roared-up, and caught a sleeping bag or two on fire. But Craig , has managed over the years to control the flames, and not set the woods on fire. No mean feat when one considers that the campground he chose is in Washington D.C., home to a lot of dead wood.

Craig has talked about from time to time about moving the campground back home to Florida, and starting a fish camp. This was mostly when he was confronted by just how much dead wood there is in Washington. And I joked about what to do when fish heads were left everywhere, around the campfire, instead of empty bags of marshmallows & bent coat hangers.

The TM Fish Camp

Over the years, at our little fire, we watched the world, and informed each other about things of day , music, books, history, life/death, jokes, ( Lot's of jokes ), big events, and the small events as well. These discussions are real treat for me, and have been of great value to my life. When the Great Haiti Earth Quake struck. We were all discussing what we could do to help, and I began poking around looking for something that would let us all not feel so helpless in the face of such great tragedy. I came across ShelterBox, and because one of the things I learned at Craig's campfire was how to build campfires of on my own, I set - up The TM Fish Camp, as a place where we could band together to help the people of Haiti. At first, all we were hoping for was to chip - in , and buy a few of these ShelterBoxes. Our plan was to follow these messages of shelter to where they will end-up in Haiti. Little push pins on a map , and see if we could learn the stories behind where they landed.

But then , a funny thing happened , some of those interesting friend's of Craigs began to help us as well. It began as a shout-out from Keith Olbermann on Tuesday night last week. Then the next morning Craig appeared on Don Imus's show, and in the following days, we went from giving shelter to 30 people, ...... to giving shelter to 870 people. Our campground of just a few souls, exploded into a village of hundreds. Mixed in among all these gifts , are the contributions of Imus & Olbermann , one of the things we love at Crawford's campfire is irony.

As of this morning, the last day of January, we have raised nearly $70,000.00, and we are working on buying our 88th ShelterBox. That's over 870 people, and that's a village.

Join The TM Fish Camp here.
Colorado Bob

Tony's Lamps

2009-12-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

Tony Greer has figured out how to make oil lamps out of light bulbs, I know, it's really retro , but they are damn cool.

" Fat Elk Speaks "

2009-11-16T10:28:00.000-08:00

A while back, my friend in South Carolina, by the nom-de-plume of "Sturgeon ", asked if I had a leather vest left over from a past life. I regretted telling him it was all gone. Well I was wrong , I found one in a box, so Friday night I let him know I would pass it along . I made this one on Flint Ave. in Lubbock, in the early 90's. It's made from a very fat old elk hide. I just washed to get it ready to send to him.
Hot water and Ivory followed by lot's of pulling on it as it dries out. Then a heavy dose of Carnauba Cream to restore the waxes and oils .

Over the weekend, Sturgeon had the good fortune to rescue a Red Tail Hawk. Looks like that old fat elk is going to a good home in South Carolina.

Sturgeon's Blues Crab

My Oldest and Best Idea

2009-11-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

This is the last gas of an old man, please take it with salt.
I have carried this idea for nearly 40 years here it is all laid out. It is a system based on a 10 foot X 1 1/2 " piece of PVC plumbing. More to follow.

Chair Dolly

2009-10-21T14:35:00.000-07:00

We have a bunch of garden furniture we have to shuffle around from time to time.
So I got in the scrap pile, and made a Dolly to move this stuff faster, and with a lot less effort.

The New Texas Army of SeeSesshh

2009-09-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

The Lubbock Battery of The New Texas Army of SeeSesshh
" Back to the 19th Century !!! "

Reporting from the Lubbock Cemetery on Buddy Holly's 73rd Birthday

2009-09-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

BY Colorado Bob & Tornado Larry

My Friends Build an Art Truck

2009-04-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

My Friends Build an Art Truck I

My Friends Build an Art Truck II

My Friends Build an Art Truck III

My Friends Build an Art Truck IV

My Friends Build an Art Truck V

My Friends Build an Art Truck VI

My Friends Build an Art Truck VII

My Friends Build an Art Truck VIII

" Joe Don the Fig "

2009-03-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

For Joe Don Davidson
For every lick you ever hit, from the Hodges Community Center forward.

" Joe Don the Fig " is now playing extreme stage left in the garden at 1820 Buddy Holly Ave.

And one for the road -

Hello 2009 - We have seen this before

2009-02-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

Local CFA firefighter David Tree shares his water with an injured Australian Koala at Mirboo North after wildfires swept through the region on Monday, Feb. 9, 2009. Suspicions that the worst wildfires ever to strike Australia were deliberately set led police to declare crime scenes Monday in towns incinerated by blazes, while investigators moving into the charred landscape discovered more bodies. The death toll stood at 181.(AP Photo/Mark Pardew)
SYDNEY (AP) — It was a chance encounter in the charred landscape of Australia's deadly wildfires: A koala sips water from a bottle offered by a firefighter. David Tree

This evening as I write the body count has slowed down in Australia . Now standing at 181, but a report on Fox mentioned that as many as 80 are missing. The fires however are still burning. Last figures I saw were 2 days ago, and the area burnt was at 1,300 Square Miles. These fires were predicted now for 25 years, and we see them all over the world now :
Tundra fire on the North Slope of Alaska August 2007

NASA Image

Just in the last 3 years we have seen these Mega Fires sweep across hundreds of thousands of acres in just 24 hours all over the world. Conditions like in Australia last Saturday. The flames were 4 stories tall, and embers were landing 25 miles down wind from the fire front.

From California, to South Africa, from Texas to the Azores, from Utah to Greece. from Idaho to Italy, Spain, Oklahoma, ....... All of these places have burned their way into the record books. They all share common themes now, first the people on the ground no matter where they are all have a common quote :

We've never seen conditions like this before.

It was 117 in Melbourne last Saturday, when this storm blew-up. It had been 114 for several days before the storm really got going. When Utah burned 300,000 acres in 24 hours two summers ago, it's no accident that July 2007 was not only the hottest July on record, but the hottest month ever recorded in that state. It had been 114 in Athens, when the terrible fire storms swept Greece the next month in that year.
So the next time you hear someone say :

We've never seen conditions like this before.

Remember we have seen this before, these events were described , and even named over 2 decades ago. They're called Mega Fires, and they follow on the heels of relentless heat and strong, dry, gale force winds. It sucks the water out of every living thing. From there it's just a question of where ignition occurs.

ARSON is unlikely to be the cause of most of the bushfires that ravaged Victoria on Saturday, including the deadly Kinglake complex blaze, according to a special police taskforce. ............ which was announced yesterday to investigate the causes of the fires, had divided the bushfires into six regions, only one of which was now being treated as suspicious.

Arson unlikely in most of the fires, say police

Climate models based on figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict more frequent - and more extreme - fires for southern Australia over the next few decades. Yet the role of climate change in recent fires has been downplayed, suggests John Handmer of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre at RMIT University in Melbourne.

Climate models predicted Australian bushfires

February 11 -
There is one thing that we haven't seen before however, the image of David Tree and a Koala that Australia now knows as Sam.
If you wish to donate to the fire victims. Here's the Australian Red Cross site :

Victorian Bushfire Appeal 2009

Lou Dobbs Must Go

2008-12-31T18:23:00.000-08:00

A segment on the weather and climate change from the Lou Dobbs Show , December 18, 2008.

The week of December 18th was a news rich one for the climate story. The largest yearly gathering of earth scientists was taking place the entire week. It's also usually around the 17th of the month when NOAA releases it's monthly numbers for the preceding month. Let's see what did NOAA headline for November 2008 -

NOAA: Global Temperature for November Fourth Warmest on Record

December 16, 2008

The year 2008 is on track to be one of the 10 warmest years on record for the globe, based on the combined average of worldwide land and ocean surface temperatures, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. For November alone, the month is fourth warmest all-time globally, for the combined land and ocean surface temperature. The early assessment is based on records dating back to 1880.

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Also on that same day :

15,000 talks and poster presentations at this year's gathering at San Fransisco's Moscone Convention Center. The American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting in San Francisco, an annual gathering of around 17,000 scientists from around the globe.

So the pool of experts is really pretty good to interview that week , and the stories were plentiful, and needed to be reported. Why then did Lou Dobbs chose to book a convicted felon from a phony baloney think tank, that's in pay of the coal lobby ?
Don't trot out Jay Lehr - Convicted Felon / "Climate Expert", and have him claim it's the sun. The sun is not putting out more energy, and the earth is not cooling. If this is the case please present the peer reviewed studies, to support those two central claims of Mr. Lehr.

If the earth is cooling, how did we just melt 2 Trillion tons of ice in 5 years ? One cycle that clearly has an effect on the sun's out put is sun spots. The more spots, the more radiation from the sun.

Sept. 30, 2008: Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the "blankest year" of the Space Age.

Spotless Sun

The sun seems to be asleep, and we set a new temperature record here yesterday Mr. Dobbs. 80 degrees .

THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 77 SET IN 1951. THIS IS ALSO ONLY 3
DEGREES OFF THE ALL TIME DECEMBER RECORD HIGH OF 83 DEGREES THAT WAS
SET ON DECEMBER 6TH OF 1939.

So don't tell me the earth is cooling, because the models predicted events are happening and they are happening in a way I can see here at my location. We set the all time rain event record here just last September 11-12. And that's one thing Mr. Myers fails to grasp. Extreme weather events. 2008 will end up just behind the record year for tornadoes. Nearly 1,700 of them. To me that's a sign that the system is really energized. Since 2005 hurricanes have pretty well destroyed the entire Louisiana coastline. To me that's a sign that the system is really energized. The most powerful cyclone ever seen in the Southern Ocean happened the spring after Katrina, To me that's a sign that the system is really energized.
The meeting this month in San Francisco had another paper reported. One from a Russia. We hear so little from Russia. What we heard from this one, is also another sign the system is more energized.

The East Siberian Sea is bubbling with methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, being released from underwater reserves, according to a recent expedition.

Methane Bubbling Up From Undersea Permafrost
This is not the only bubbling methane report I can produce Mr. Dobbs. I can dig up the tundra on fire story from the hellish summer of 07'. To me that's a sign that the system is really energized.
But if the world is really cooling there's a great metaphor to see it by. Go look-up the records for when the oil and gas rigs can be dragged around the tundra, and report on when that season ran in 1969, and how long it is now 40 years later.

Lou Dobbs Gives Us All a Lump of Coal for Christmas

2008-12-23T19:44:00.000-08:00

You had a clear chance to cover the most important news last week. But you missed it. Once a year the people who are really studying the earth, and what we're doing to it, get together. This year they met in San Francisco, all last week. 15,000 papers and reports.
The American Geophysical Union: Meeting made this headline on the AP wire.

Over 2T tons of ice melted in arctic since '03

Dec 16, 2008 ----------------

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming.

No, you chose this guy :
Jay Lehr - Convicted Felon / "Climate Expert"

Message from Jay Lehr
To: All Ground Water Professionals
Everywhere
From: Jay H. Lehr, Ph.D.
Re: Summary of the activities that led to my imprisonment by the federal government and my firing
by the National Water Well Association.

In 1988, the U.S. EPA began an investigation of a $170,000 add-on contract to NWWA’s initial U.S. EPA
contract to develop the Drastic mapping system to delineate ground water vulnerability...

Here

So you went with a convicted felon from the Heartland Inst. the dumbest of the dummy think tanks. But perhaps the saddest moment was when Chat Meyers dropped this off the top of his head. :

“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”

Earth to Chad, ocean acidification is direct effect of CO2 build-up. As for fresh water, the glaciers that feed the great rivers of Asia are in rapid retreat .

Here's another report out of that meeting you failed to cover :

Computer models have long predicted that decreasing sea ice should amplify temperature changes in the northern polar region.

Julienne Stroeve, from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union that this process was under way.

Changes 'amplify Arctic warming'

As for that whole "The earth's so big, and we're so small !" routine, there will be 6.75 BILION of us on Januart 1st, 2009. Everyday we burn a coal train 35 miles long, just from the Powder River Basin alone. Please if you're gonna bring on paid schills, please don't use a convicted felon who screwed the government picking up a check from the Western Fuels Assco. at the Heartland Inst.

"The Heartland Inst., we're the people who think it's O.K. for your 14 year old son to dip Skol !"

It's clear what you've gotten us all this Chirstmas Uncle Lou. A lump of coal.
Note to the Reader :
Here's part of the whole point of the exercise , see now the denier's have a juicy sound bite of Chad : CNN Meteorologist: Manmade Global Warming Theory 'Arrogant' . For them this is "proof", not what the snow and ice guys said in San Francisco last week. The Heartland Inst. just made some very cheap media bullets.

Here's DarkSyde's take on Uncle Lou's Climate Debate

Sarah Palin…“knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.”

2008-09-13T07:56:00.001-07:00

Senator John McCain

The Chevron Genesis Oil Rig Platform in the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans, La., is seen through the window of the helicopter carrying Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Tuesday,... (Associated Press)

As the dogs of cable news chased their tail these last few weeks, there have been some interesting developments on the energy front.
We've learned that the first big oil deal out of Iraq since our invasion has been landed by ........ China.
We've learned that some of those "No Bid Contracts" for oil, that the Bush administration made standard U.S. policy have been canceled

We've learned that the good folks at the Interior Dept. have partying hardy with the the folks at, among others, Chevron Oil.

Interior's Devaney found that between 2002 and 2006, nearly a third of the 55-person MMS staff in Lakewood received gifts and gratuities from several energy companies, including Chevron Corp., Shell, Hess Corp. and Denver-based Gary-Williams Energy Corp.

- Rocky Mountain News

And just yesterday we learned that John Mc Cain's staff includes these two fellows :
Berman, who's McCain's national finance co-chair and one of the Arizona Senator's leading bundlers, is a lobbyist with Ogilvy Government Relations, which has been paid millions of dollars for lobbying by the Chevron and Hess corporations, according to disclosure forms. The second official, John Green, who is McCain's chief liaison to Congress, also was with Ogilvy and worked on those same contracts until joining the campaign. - Talking Points Memo

Since the good Senator's vice presidential pick is in his own words, is one of the top experts on energy in America. She needs to be asked about how she feels about a campaign running on a reform ticket, employs 2 lobbyists from the very companies that were such a corrupting influence on the people who managed the collection of America's oil royalties from these very same companies.
Maybe it's that he needs Chevron for more photo-ops on it's drilling rigs.

Sarah Palin isn't a pit bull with lipstick, she's George Bush with lipstick.

John McCain calls Sarah Palin America's top energy expert :

The Republicans Have A lot to Answer For

2008-06-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Carter put Solar Panels of the roof of the White House -

Ronald Reagan took them down.

That was 28 years ago. Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer, before he ever became president. His degree was paid for, by the "Tax Payers of the United States ". He got it from the Naval Academy. He was a nuclear sub boat commander. No president will ever understand energy , it's usage, or it's real cost ..... better than Jimmy Carter did 28 years ago when he ordered the installation of those solar panels on the roof of the White House.

His decision was over turned, by a man who was an actor. Since that time, we have had three decades of Republicans running " Against Hollywood". Every actor elected to the pay grade above dog catcher in this country, has been a Republican. The Republicans put " Gofer" from the Love Boat into the United States Congress ! They put Sonny Bono into the U.S. Congress ! Lord help us if "Cooter" from the "Dukes of Hazzard" makes a come back.

Now, those actors choices have come home to roost. In the current debate one may hear "The French" run their country from nuclear power, or that the people in Brazil run most of their cars from sugar cane. All true dear reader, but back when Ronald Reagan ordered the removal of those solar collectors from the White house roof ...... The French were two decades into a "Government Mandate" that France would be going nuclear. Nature put the coal under Germany, and the oil under the North Sea.
The Brazilians, at that same time, by a "Government Mandate", moved to the current fuels system based on sugar cane. And in 1979 , that was real hippy-dippy stuff.

That's why we all hated Jimmy Carter, he wanted to take away our punch bowl. The actor that replaced him, brought another fifth of Ever Clear, and told us the party could go on. Well, I don't know about you, but $4.75 diesel is one hell-of-a-handover.

The Star , hears those same voices today. We just need to get a bigger bottle of moonshine, and the party will go on. Maybe we should all follow Amy Winehouse to rehab, but first we have this mess to clean-up. The drill our way out of this mess, is now evolving into "mine our way out of this mess".

A few words on drilling. The lower 48 of the United States has had more holes drilled in it than the rest of the world combined, by a factor of two. Many will tell you that we aren't running out of oil. That there is "plenty" of oil. True, what we just ran out of was "easy oil".