7-12-2006 • Daryl L. Hunters Last Column For Planet Jackson Hole • For the past six months Planet Jackson Hole has provided me the opportunity to point out many wrongs, as I perceive them in our dynamic and rapidly changing area...................I hope that I have opened a window so our many newcomers can look at some of the endangered, traditional professions with empathy instead of scorn.................The flood of us newbie’s who devour the cattle ranches and farms are the locusts of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

7-5-2006 • Column about media, freedom of speech and freedom of the press rejected by Planet Jackson Hole

6-28-2006 • Tort Reform • America’s medical industry is in a crisis due to frivolous lawsuits and outrageous judgments to victims. Tort reform is desperately needed...............Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, R-WY, on 6-22-2006 called for reforms that will deliver quick and fair compensation to injured patients, while providing consistent and reliable results so doctors can eliminate defensive medicine and learn from medical errors.............Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, that high premiums “are forcing physicians to give up performing certain high-risk procedures,

6-21-2006 • The Spotted Owl Canard and Environmentalists • A funny thing happened here in our Northwestern forest; a giant canard has been shot out of the sky. One of the most fought over endangered species in the history of the West, the Spotted Owl, contrary to popular belief appears to be the victim of an invasive species from the eastern forest; the culprit, the Barred Owl.

6-14-2006 • In Defense of Logging and Loggers • There have been few characters of American folklore with the stature of Paul Bunyon.......................It is refreshing to hear that this proud profession is still celebrated despite its vilification by America’s tree huggers who have turned a blind eye to their need for timber products.........................When we choose not to log our forests, by default we are choosing to look at burnt forests instead.

6-7-2006 • The Public Grazing Conundrum • The face of the west is changing, what was once a frontier populated with hard scrabble farmers, loggers, miners, cowboys and ranchers has been infiltrated and is getting gentrified by interlopers from the cities that have a new plan for their adopted home, part of this plan is to end the grazing of our public multipurpose lands.

5-31-2006 • About Memorial Day • Private First Class Jacob Allcott, 21 from Caldwell Idaho, was killed April 22 near Baghdad. On Friday May 5, I heard on the radio that the following day in order to honor Pfc. Allcott, that the people of Idaho Falls were going to line the funeral procession route to the Iona cemetery, I decided to go too pay my respects to our fallen soldier I did not know.

5-24-2006 • Conservatives are from Mars Liberals are from Venus • Several years ago observation provided an epiphany that testosterone may be a factor of political ideological persuasion; later Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger put forth his oversimplified hyperbolic “girly-men” comment about the California Legislature apparently coming to a similar hypothesis.

5-17-2006 • The Wyoming Range: a drilling dilemma • As an outspoken conservative multiple use advocate some will be surprised that I come down on the side of not drilling in the Wyoming Range, but it is not the first time;.......................Driving through the Hoback Valley I always marvel at the untouched beauty of its mountains and the timeless tranquility of its river bottom ranches, the Wyoming range to the west and the Gros Ventre Range to the east are breathtaking. Most any place else in the world this awe inspiring spot would be a tourist attraction but in Western Wyoming with its embarrassment of natural riches the Hoback Valley is just another pretty place.

5-10-2006 • Power of Place, or values? • The power of place, well we sure have that! The question is what are we going to do with it? We inarguably live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, our rivers, mountains, wilderness areas and our plethora of wildlife has presented many paradoxical, insoluble dilemmas....................

5-3-2006 • A teachable moment • A teachable moment can be characterized by a current event one experiences or observes that provides an anecdotal example that can be illustrative by opening a window upon the past,............In 1783 a planned military coup was defused only by the personal intervention of General George Washington, ............During the Vietnam war the media’s incessant brow beating verbally emasculated our leaders robbing them of the tools they needed for bold, decisive leadership to win the war, In Iraq..............

4-26-2006 • The Cowboy: an endangered species • The cowboy is one of America's most cherished and mythical figures. He symbolizes the mystique of the American west, a caricature of frontier courage, independence, and rugged masculinity. The iconical cowboy brings to mind, horses, cattle, the howl of a coyote, and wide-open spaces, the cowboy riding off into the sunset. In the west all these things are still alive and well but sadly the cowboy may be riding off into the sunset for good.

4-19-2006 • Illegal Aliens: Our legislators perplexing paradox • The illegal immigration debate has brought to the fore some interesting political dynamics that beg analysis. The imponderable elephant in the living room of this debate is the Hispanic voting block..........................Their convoluting of semantics is nothing but disingenuous subterfuge about their intent. For the sake of semantic clarity we can call it – lying! Their covert attempt to pass off a sow’s ear for a silk purse should not fly.

4-12-2006 • Family Values - a journey of discovery • Growing up a child of alcoholics in a single parent home with a mother who sang the praises of..................Other than that I was the typical 70’s something counter culture rebel. During the 70’s and 80’s I was libertarian in many ways..............my opinion of a “Family Values” platform was: how lame.............Then I became a father.

4-05-2006 • Taliban in Jackson Hole • After a commercial rafting trip one day, I asked this gal from Kansas how she liked her trip. She replied it was fun and it sure is pretty around here, but the mountains get in the way of the view..................“I felt I had looked into the face of evil,” Fund wrote after Rahmatullah defended the Taliban’s treatment of women and said he hadn’t seen any evidence that their “guest” Osama bin Laden was a terrorist.

3-29-2006 • Conservative Populism • - pop·u·lism - 1 - A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite.........- e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism - 1 - The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class. - b. - Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class. ................Liberals bandy about the word populism in a proprietary manner as if their social advocacy made them the de facto “peoples party”. I don’t think that they are correct.

3-22-2006 • The New Paganism • There is a new Paganism taking root around the world and it manifests itself as environmentalism or more explicitly, Pantheism, a doctrine identifying the Deity with the universe and its phenomena, Fundamentalist Environmentalism, if you will..........Making a reasoned argument to a Fundamentalist Environmentalist to harvest any of earth’s recourses is akin to asking a Christian to give up Jesus.

3-08-2006 • Xenophobic paranoia or teapot tempest • In the uneasy climate after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration’s hasty decision to allow Dubai Ports World to purchase of operations of six U.S. ports is incomprehensible to most Americans...........It is regrettable that the administration didn't factor perception by the American people into their analysis. ..........

3-01-2006 • Media should ignore ‘work product’ • Two bills being considered by the Wyoming Legislature that would prevent public access to government e-mail........What a nit picking world we have created where we feel the need to read the mail of others,.....

2-22-2006 • A Cellulosic Ethanol plant may be coming to Idaho Falls • According the the Ottawa Sun, Iogen an Ottawa biotech firm who specializes in Cellulosic Ethanol is hoping to build a $350-million factory in Canada or Idaho Falls,......Supporters of alternative energy sources say that thanks to biotech breakthroughs, we may soon be able to produce ethanol easily and inexpensively.....

2-15-2006 • Let Natives have a PC bison hunt • Montana, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's office is planning on changing how bison that wander out of Yellowstone are managed. In recent weeks........... Imagine, the Griswold’s family vacation to Yellowstone while watching for moose, elk, and grizzly bear they happen upon a real live native American bison hunt,

2-08-2006 • Freudenthal - Alito - Bush - in the news • Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s recent trip to Iraq included meetings with Wyoming troops, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. The following are some of the statements he made while there........Justice Alito has emerged unscathed at the end of the gauntlet hosted by the Senate Democrats much to the chagrin of America’s liberals ......President Bush in his state of the union speech said a couple of important things that need to be driven home: “I have authorized a terrorist ........

2-01-2006 • Greater Yellowstone; A Grizzly Home • About 10 years ago a grizzly sow and her three cubs were seen by Paul Bruin as he was fishing the Snake just above Deadman's Bar in Grand Teton National Park. The following day these bears were tranquilized on South Park Loop at the Bob Lucas’s Ranch. She either skirted Jackson or walked straight down the river through the property of many unsuspecting homeowner........

1-25-2006 • Ethanol - now is a good time • Ethanol is a commercially proven renewable bio-fuel which is used as an additive to gasoline, either as an oxygenate additive as mandated by federal or state "clean air" programs, or as an octane enhancer or gasoline substitute. It is refreshing to know that fuel choice is on the horizon and it is in our grasp to write an obituary for foreign oil.....

1-18-2006 • High Mountain Heli-skiing under attack again! • Jon Shick of High Mountain Heli-skiing, the 12 good paying jobs that he provides and the $870,000 that 1, 200 heli-skier days would bring into our community are under attack again.......Once again I would like to thank the environmentalist community for marginalizing themselves by putting forth another imbecile's argument to further their anti multiple use agenda on our forests. Their red hearing about heli-ski operators scarring and stressing the wildlife living in snow deep enough that powder hounds pay $725.00 a day to ski it is amusing.

1-11-2006 • The Elk Feed Ground Conundrum • Wyoming's elk feed grounds are coming under increasing scrutiny because the feed grounds crowd elk into unnaturally small areas which foster conditions that are conducive to the transmission of disease, this is why brucellosis is so common on feed grounds and game farms, and it is only a matter of time.........

1-04-2006 • Freudenthal Second Strike Legislation • Governor Freudenthal has proposed legislation that will require sex offenders who target children to get life in prison with no parole upon their second conviction. But predictably Casper criminal defense attorney Mike Krampner in defense of his customer base......

12-21-2005 • Christmas Present • Growing up as a child in America, as all children, I loved the Christmas season, the Christmas tree, lights, lawn decorations, candy, mistletoe, cookies, Santa Claus, elves, reindeer and most of all presents, it was a magical time of year. It sure was a surprise at age 12 when I found out that........