Author: Vince Bzdek
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A new way of ranching supports both livestock and wildlife | Vince Bzdek
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Given the loud and angry fight over wolves in Colorado, it’s easy to assume that environmentalists and ranchers are sworn enemies in the state. On one side are the advocates for the animals and wild nature, on the other side the iconic cowboys and their cows defending a way of life that defines the very…
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Colorado newsrooms ‘are holding the line’ | Vince Bzdek
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By Vince Bzdek There’s a memorable scene in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” when peasants are loading bodies onto a cart after the plague has passed through town. Trouble is, one of the people a worker is trying to throw on the cart is not quite dead yet. “I’m not dead!” “I’m not dead!”…
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What courageous citizenship really looks like | Vince Bzdek
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By Vince Bzdek What exactly is courage? Ernest Hemingway famously called it grace under pressure. Mark Twain wrote that “courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.” C.S. Lewis refined that even more: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but acting despite it.” Is there a particular kind of…
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Let’s let the market help solve Colorado River woes | Vince Bzdek
Negotiators for the seven states along the Colorado River Basin have had two years to reach an agreement on how to manage the river, which is at dangerously low water levels. They came up with zilch. That left solving the crisis in the hands of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which has been without an…
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AI models are breaking out of their cages, committing cybercrimes | Vince Bzdek
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It’s the stuff of science fiction. The company OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, briefly lost control of a group of AI models that went rogue recently and started colluding with each other, eventually hacking into another AI firm. Instead of answering questions they were given to test their cybersecurity capabilities, the misbehaving models decided to cheat…
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Beatles vs. Stones: 60-year rivalry still going strong
A new music video shows the great rock ‘n’ roll band the Rolling Stones in their 20s/30s magically singing a brand new hit song, “In the Stars.” In reality, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are 82, and guitarist Ronnie Wood is 78. The video is a clever AI deepfake, created by a company called Deep…
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‘America the Beautiful’ at 14,000 feet | Vince Bzdek
By Vince Bzdek During this flag-waving double anniversary year, one thing that ties Colorado’s 150th birthday and America’s 250th together with big red, white and blue bunting is the song “America the Beautiful.” Most Coloradans worth their salt know that the country’s unofficial second anthem was written right here in Colorado Springs. A visiting professor…
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Where the blueness rested | Vince Bzdek
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One family’s journey through Colorado’s history. One hundred and fifty-four years ago, four years before a rectangle was drawn around the country’s highest cluster of mountains to create something called Colorado, a guy named Frank Miller descended on Black Hawk hoping to strike it rich. Originally from Denmark by way of Wisconsin, he was part…
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Is it time to up and out military’s ‘up-and-out’ system? | Vince Bzdek
There’s nothing more bracingly refreshing than a highly decorated retired admiral who isn’t afraid to speak his mind. That’s what Retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Bob Harward, former Navy SEAL and deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, did at a breakfast meeting during the Aspen Security Forum last week. Harward had this to say: “In…
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Half of Americans don’t know what the 250th anniversary celebrates | Vince Bzdek
Do you want the good news or the bad news, America? Let’s start with the bad: Nearly half of all Americans don’t know what America’s 250th anniversary commemorates (namely, the adoption of the Declaration of Independence), according to a new poll from the Cato institute. And here’s the good: A different national poll sponsored by…