This is truly a bizarre story. This bulldozer guy must have been a long lost member of the A-Team. My only comment is on the reporting.

An angry citizen with a grudge against City Hall and the local newspaper was found dead Saturday morning in his home-made armored tank after a destructive rampage that turned parts of downtown Granby into rubble heaps Friday -- but injured no one except the perpetrator. [...]

Police found two semiautomatic machine guns, a .223-caliber rifle and two handguns in the vehicle. All those weapons are legal in Colorado.

There is no such thing as a semiautomatic machine gun. It's more of a nitpick really, although this dictionary definition is apropos.

machine gun noun [C]
an automatic gun which can fire a lot of bullets one after the other very quickly:
Several journalists were caught in machine-gun fire.

I cannot help but smile at that. Throw some lawyers into the fray and you have the makings of a good story.

On a different note, for excellent analysis of this nutcase with a bulldozer, check out what Matthew has to offer.

This person was certainly angry and frustrated by his interactions with government. But he wasn't homicidal. He wasn't out to hurt anyone. He was just pissed off at his government.

Worse, he's not the only one to have this idea. Others have done similar things; in fact, it's happening more and more often. Why? What does it mean? Some would have you believe that these incidents are just common criminals, engaging in an orgy of destruction. And on one level, maybe that's true. But there's another level to consider.

Low-tech mining operations have long used birds -- traditionally, canaries -- as a means to detect problems in the mine that aren't readily visible. Because the birds are smaller and have a much more rapid metabolism than humans, problems with the air in the mine shaft -- such as lack of oxygen, or poison gas -- would affect the bird much faster than it would affect any of the humans. This would give the miners time to sound an alarm and get back to the surface before they, too, died. The death of the canary served as a warning to everyone else.

Each time we have an incident like this, I can't help but think of those canaries.

Even if the canaries are indeed dying, which way should we run? And to where?