Colorado’s Republi … Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper was in Boulder a few days back speaking at the FrackingSENSE lecture series that the University of Colorado puts on. As is the norm for the governor these days, he spent a fair amount of time bemoaning his reputation as a puppet of the oil and gas industry.

Two pro-gun-rights billboards have recently gone up in Greeley and they’re causing quite a stir, as in you can read about them in The Washington Post kind of stir. But why have a couple of political signs sparked so much controversy and who is paying for them?

Parachute Creek is now officially contaminated with cancer-causing benzene and heaven knows what else.

As we recently reported, a last-minute rider was slipped into HR 933, the 240-page spending bill signed by President Barack Obama on March 26. The bill was designed as an emergency measure to prevent a government shutdown, but as it turned out, it also made a pretty good Trojan horse for the biotech industry.

There’s more than one way to lie. You can knowingly offer up false information as truth, or you can offer up little pieces of a story while leaving out other parts of the tale in order to convey a false impression without actually stating an inaccurate fact.

I believe there is a darker side to our current gun conversation. The elephant in the room is the impact that the gun control debate is having on the conspiracy-driven anti-government movement.

It’s hard for me to believe that Boulder Weekly has gone to press a thousand times. It’s also hard for me to believe that I was here for the very first issue nearly 20 years ago.

As you may recall, the last Boulder County commissioners meeting got a bit rowdy, as anti-fracking advocates disrupted the meeting with chants and heckling aimed at an Encana employee who came to present commissioners with the industry’s take on things.

This time around, Boulder County citizens can’t just choose to shop at the local organic clean air and water store and pay a little more to keep their families safe while they carry on the fight with their own county to get it to do what the vast majority of citizens want.

As Boulder County struggles to rewrite its current oil and gas regulations, the petroleum extraction industry has already begun its blitzkrieg of our lands.