Localities

Big local angle on the Mars avalanche pics. The Rocky:

The camera that took the amazing photos of avalanches on Mars was built in Boulder, and the orbiter on which the camera sits was built in Jefferson County.

Pics from Popular Mechanics.

Sometimes one needs a reminder that Boulder is not actually the People's Republic of Mordor.

Man wins "compulsory mediation" in gender discrimination complaint against the Rockies:

A Denver man waging legal war against Ladies Night promotions at bars and clubs in the metro area has scored a victory against the Colorado Rockies. . . .

The division [of nuisance complaints] ordered the two into "compulsory mediation," according to the letter Horner received Saturday. . . .

Horner has filed nearly 20 lawsuits in Denver and Aurora municipal courts over ladies night promotions.

He's become a "whipping boy," he said, because he's taking on favors for women, "the darlings of today's society."

They do think a lot of themselves, don't they?

"If it were turned around and the cast of characters was different and the Rockies were holding maybe a Gentile night, let's say, and the Jews had to pay," he said, " ... if I was in one of those categories, then I would have lawyers lined up around the block, chomping at the bit to represent me."

Homer Simpson voice: "'Gentile Night', eh?"

The story is almost incidental:

Police are asking for the public's help in finding the person or people who recently broke into the University of Colorado Book Store and took dozens of iPods, CU police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said.

Just want to note one of the (two) comments on it:

They all had Churchill's little Eichmens speech on them. Stolen by looser liberal faculty to protest Bruce Benson's appointment.

I didn't write it.

The Rocky begins a three-part series on the huge release of water from Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado in another effort to mimic flood conditions on the river:

The Colorado River will run wild Wednesday morning, flooding as it did years ago before Glen Canyon Dam was built and Lake Powell filled.

For 60 hours, starting slowly tonight and ramping up to full force Wednesday before winding down on Friday, federal water managers will release some 202,000 acre- feet of water to race down the river through the Grand Canyon.

That's as much water as metro Denver uses in a year.

The big rush will transform the river below the dam, creating massive waves that will redistribute sediment, shove tons of sand around and make this hotly contested stream a better breeding ground for a 3 million-year-old fish species known as the chub.

The fish is as homely as its name implies, scientists say, and so rare that environmentalists, scientists and water managers have spent decades and about $100 million trying to restore its habitat, according to Nikolai Lash, senior program manager for the Glen Canyon Trust.

What are they doing, giving each chub a little chub McMansion? Of course, there's the obligatory mention of Goebbels Worming:

Although still controversial, artificial floods and alternating stream flows are seen by environmentalists as two of the few tools left to protect rivers in an era when, because of drought and climate change, nature is delivering less water and when people and fish need more.

Goddamnit, we are not in a drought. You can look it up.

Remember the guy who killed a kitten he said was chewing through his wife's oxygen tube? He took a plea deal. The Post recaps the almost Appalachian drama:

Corwin told police he bashed the cat's skull repeatedly against a book case and threw it out the door of his trailer after finding the animal biting the oxygen tube on Dec. 11.

His son, Charles Corwin Jr., became angry after learning that Corwin had killed the cat and pulled a knife on his father, Corwin later told deputies.

Boulder County deputies came to the trailer and arrested Corwin Jr. on suspicion of threatening his father with a knife.

Corwin Jr. bonded out of jail.

Two days later, Corwin Jr. shot himself to death in the bathroom of the trailer.

Deputies questioned Corwin more closely about the cat's death and arrested him after his son's suicide.

Just another reason to be a dog person.

Update: Here's a raft going through "Big Drop 2" at high water in Cataract Canyon on the Colorado in 1997:

Glub to the max.

(h/t Citizen D)

Update II: In comments, Citizen D says he particularly recommends this video of C-Canyon raft-running. "More carnage," he enthuses:



Update III: It's a gusher at Grand Canyon.