ution, did you?
Some friends must have been having a day much like many of mine of late, when they wrote this into an official document:
A brief perusal of a number of recent contract reports has resulted in the compilation of a list of some commonly used archaeological terms. This list includes component, occupation. activity area, assemblage, episode, cultural strata, natural components, tradition, stage, phase, and horizon. In most cases, explicit and well conceived definitions of these critical terms were not included in the text. Apparently a misconception is that these terms are self-explanatory and convey only one distinct impression to the reader. In fact, this is not the case.
No it's not. But we don't usually say so quite so explicitly, as often as I'd have liked to.
Incidentally, the Concha y Toro Chilean Cabernet/Merlot is nice for a cheap swill. Peppery with some blackberry flavor and good body, but a little weak on the finish.
It seems we have a problem with prairie dogs in Worland. Along with all the other critters, they're probably under a lot of stress due to the drought and they're moving into town. This causes the neighbors to complain. They are rats and carry some lovely diseases, including plague. Then the exterminators come to really give them something to complain about. It seems their method of extermination is to flood the holes with propane gas, give it some time to reach the optimum fuel/air mix, and then drop in a match. I imagine if the explosion doesn't kill them it would burn all the oxygen from the air. The neighbors complain about the noise. And it makes me wonder if the folks clearing all those caves in Afghanistan know about this..
Via Bill Quick, an interesting piece in the NY Post on the end game in Afghanistan. As much as I'd like to agree and like to see the al Qaeda exterminated, there's a problem with this scenario.
John Ringo equates the al Qaeda with North Vietnamese troops, when it might be more apt to equate them with the Viet Cong. The al Qaeda aren't uniformed troops. They won't necessarily quit and go home when Mullah Whooziz says so. Just like the Viet Cong, it will be very hard to identify them unless they can be caught with weapons in hand, and it will be damn difficult to find every cache of weapons in those mountains. Our friends the Brits have had a similar experience with the IRA. A fresh batch of lunatics is apparently not difficult to find and you don't need a lot of suicide bombers to pose a problem. Nor will stopping one source of weapons stop guerrillas for long - gasoline and a match are weapons. We're a long way from declaring a quagmire, but Afghanistan could become one if we don't find a better exit strategy than "they're all dead, we can go." We could be a long time at that job.
Early morning is the best time to study turkey hunting lore. As one old guy said on a calling instruction tape, "Turkey hunting isn't a sport, it's not an addiction, it's a disease. It can't be cured. It can barely be controlled.
There is a lot of thought involved. First, where to go? I've got 1:100,000 scale maps showing the ownership of all of northeastern Wyoming. I'm eyeing an area of about 250 square miles of Forest Service and BLM land with various degrees of accessibility. One area has a paved road running though it. I think I can count on that area being pretty well hunted on the weekends because of its accessibility. Other areas are more difficult access and require greater navigation skill to find. If an area is well off the nearest road in terrain that's difficult to hunt, it's a good bet the turkeys will take refuge there if there's much hunting pressure. At least difficult terrain stops the folks who hunt from a quad-runner.
For the areas I select I'll also produce a set of 1:24,000 scale maps that show the topography clearly enough to navigate through the area and avoid trespassing or becoming lost. I suppose this would be a lot easier if I'd spring for a GPS receiver, but I've always wondered what happens when you rely on GPS to find your way home - and the batteries 