Utah's favorite/most-loathed civil disobediant has pulled it off again. Tim DeChristopher says he has raised the $45,000 down payment on the $1.8 million in drilling parcels he won — with no intention of paying for — at a federal oil and gas lease sale last month.

The University of Utah student (go Utes!) bid on 22,000 acres of federal lease land near Canyonlands and Arches national parks to deny it to energy companies. The donations came in $10 or $20 checks from thousands of supporters, he says.

I deeply appreciate the generosity of all those who have contributed to our goal.

DeChristopher says it's enough to make a required payment to the BLM and block drilling on the land until President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

DeChristopher, who has been praised as a "latter-day monkey wrencher" and denounced as a "clown," accepts the possiblity that he may go to prison for his civil disobedience.