Is this Montana in the future?
If one is a teacher, a public nurse, or a state bureaucrat, and stays close to home, life is not too bad. Two tenured teachers at midlife can easily make together $160,000 with summers off - far more than the owner of a brake [...]
Mark Steyn does it like only he can. A sample:
I wrote a couple of weeks back about the corruption of “peer review” revealed by the CRU leaks. But, once it’s got the peer-reviewed label, it’s hard to dislodge. The famous hockey stick graph created by Dr. Michael Mann played [...]
Grand Forks Air Force Base got an early Christmas gift with an expanded UAV mission.
I don’t know if our Senators (and Congressman) knew anything about this or not. I know Senator Max Baucus had other things on his mind.
(Hat Tip: M.L.H.)
[...]Thanks to Rich Liebert, we can now review the SME IRS Form 990.
Our City and the Co-ops are paying Tim Gregori $164,525.00 per year for running the show (p. 7). SME lost $7,383,319.00 last year (p. 1).
SME paid its lawyers over $2,000,000.00, including almost $170,000.00 to Luxan & [...]
GO GRIZ!
[...]The American public’s support for the Democrats is falling off the edge of a table.
No wonder Speaker Pelosi is in “campaign mode,” trying to set the stage for the distribution of another $155 billion in goodies, no doubt just in time for the 2010 elections (as noted [...]
Since this was a subject of discussion a couple years ago, if anyone wants to read the Supreme Court opinion wherein the Great Falls Clinic (mostly) wins its suit against former partners, you can read it here.
[...]The Tribune has a piece this morning about the City Commission’s decision to reappoint two ECP Board members to new terms.
While I agree with Mayor Stebbins that the Commission still has a responsibility to perform its duties, these are controversial appointments that can wait a month with no [...]
I remember once long ago Wulfgar told me a good way to deal with obnoxious commenters is just to hijack their comments and type in whatever you want. I don’t know if it’s a good way, but it’s cathartic.
I generally enjoy arguing issues with y’all, even if I don’t get [...]
Missoulapolis blames “no one in particular” for the Smurfit-Stone Container linerboard plant closing. Maybe she should blame Senator Baucus?
Ten Miles to Nowhere makes a compelling case that Senator Baucus was on a crusade to eliminate a tax break that this plant relied on [...]
(Ed. Note: This is a piece of only very local interest. If you’re one of our statewide readers, you won’t hurt my feelings if you decide to skip this squabble and fly the coop!)
I wrote not long ago about a couple that is having trouble with the City [...]
If you sample 10,000 grains of sand on a beach, and 9,500 of them are quartz, do you conclude all of the sand on the entire beach is quartz?
(H/T: Big Swede)
We already know that the then-City Attorney, Dave Gliko, gave our City Manager the opinion that Electric City Power is being operated illegally. Now, the City’s accountants have this to say:
Section 5.30.070 of Ordinance 2925 states the rates and charges of ECP “shall be designed to enable [...]
This is an interesting insight on job and income growth in our country. Note, too, that it is not all the fault of the current administration:
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
Federal employees [...]
$60,000.00 for that? Seriously, the City of Great Falls was charged $60,000.00 for that report?
Considering it came in months late, one would have expected something more than what is, in essence, a warmed over recitation of old history layered on a very superficial analysis.
First, I discussed the larger [...]
These 500 families are apparently still waiting for the effects of the Green Revolution:
A Pittsburgh-based coal company, CONSOL Energy, will lay off nearly 500 of its West Virginia workers next year and its CEO blames environmentalists dead-set against mountaintop mining who have waged “nuisance” lawsuits for the job loss.
But [...]
From Google CEO, Eric Schmidt:
“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
I think that philosophy has been used to justify illegal searches and seizures, too.
[...]Here you can read the City documents relative to the write down of its investment in SME.
Of particular interest are these statements from the JCCS report:
There was a development agreement prepared in 2007 between the City of Great Falls, Electric City Power, Inc. and Southern Montana Electric Generation & [...]
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the Burns & McDonnell consulting report discussing the ongoing viability of the City’s electric utility venture, Electric City Power (ECP). I’ve been meaning ever since to write Part 2 of that post, and I guess this will have to pass [...]
Is this ethical? Will we read about it in the local papers?
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus’ office confirmed late Friday night that the Montana Democrat was carrying on an affair with his state office director, Melodee Hanes, when he nominated her to be U.S. attorney in [...]
Hard to argue with this:
Congressmen John Carter (R-TX) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) yesterday introduced the Geithner Penalty Waiver Act, requiring that the IRS assess the same penalty against U.S. taxpayers that came forward in the UBS tax fraud investigation as paid by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for failing to [...]
I was finally invited to participate in Google Wave. Are any of you on it? Anyone have any comments or tips?
[...]I put a post up last week about some issues occurring up at the Airport. I received an email from a supporter of the current Director.
Now, we already know that the Airport Director, Cynthia Schultz, has vehement supporters in this community, although her husband can certainly be forgiven [...]
I didn’t see the President’s speech:
Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America’s new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric — and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.
[Link Fixed]
[...]In response to the Tribune article about the PSC fine of $23,000.00, a certain “Change59405” posted this:
Makes me wonder where Mr. Kavulla and CCE were when Northwest Energy canceled their contract with the city. Oh I know where they were. They weren’t anywhere to be found. Much like their [...]
Missoulapolis has the story of another legislator hired to work at a government agency.
I don’t know if this happens more or less now than it used to happen, but it sure seems like it.
To me, though, the bigger question is whether the legislator, in this case Christine Kaufmann, [...]
Sheriff Castle stated at his open meeting that the legislature had determined that the Sheriff’s Office should be funded at 37% of the County’s budget. Several times during the meeting, audience members seized on this figure and complained that our Office is not funded to that level.
I asked Sheriff [...]
As I read and re-read the Burns & McDonnell Organizational and Financial Review of Electric City Power, I kept coming back to the fact that the City paid sixty grand for this report. I certainly understand the need for context, but did we really intend [...]
Ed Begley, Jr., says we shouldn’t listen to “weathermen,” but should focus on “peer reviewed” studies. Watch it here.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t one of the problems revealed by the climate emails an attempt to game the peer review process?
(H/T: Big Swede)
[...]I first thought Glenn Beck a poseur when I saw him on a talk show last spring predicting a Depression, then a revolution. While I think those are unlikely, but possible, alternatives for our near term future, Beck was laughing and giggling when he said it. That means either a) [...]
The Policy can be found here. Apropos to the current discussion:
5. If at any time it appears that a Board Member or Officer of GFIAA may have a possible conflict of interest in a matter being considered by the Board of GFIAA, the Board Member or Officer should bring [...]
In a nakedly transparent effort to save her $152,500.00 position as Director of the Great Falls International Airport, Cynthia Schultz elected to publicly accuse the Board of acting in a way that she terms “dysfunctional,” and ineffective. (Personally, I know that if I ever plan to fire an employee, [...]
The Tribune had a piece this weekend on a rift that is developing between various leaders of the medical marijuana movement.
Mike Smith, a ‘caregiver,’ commenting on the fact that the Tribune carried photos of two girls smoking a bowl in a park, and another fellow smoking a bowl on [...]
It is rumored on Drudge that Senate Majority Leader plans another Saturday night vote on the Senate’s version of the healthcare trainwreck.
I just imagine Congressman Rehberg in a dark office, glued to C-span, waiting for Senator Jon Tester to cast his vote, “Oh please…oh please…”
[...]I guess is where that whole ‘reap what you sow’ thing comes into play.
[...]The Tribune offers an apologia for Senator Max Baucus today telling us he “doesn’t deserve ratings plunge over health care.” Showing they are as tone deaf as recently defeated local politicians who blame the “national economy” for their defeat, the Trib’s editorial writers tell us that a) Senator Baucus’ [...]
Business Week has picked Great Falls, Montana, as the best Montana city in which to raise your kids.
I agree!
Although, in fairness to rest of my great state, I like the whole state. In fact, I got to travel to Butte yesterday, and the more time I spend in that [...]
Pat Buchanan makes a great point about what America’s U-turn on the treatment of terrorists really means. If we now assert that these inviduals are entitled to the right to a jury trial and other Constitutional protections, what does that say about what we have done until now? Further, if [...]
Wes Pruden on ‘the bow’:
Some of the president’s critics are giving him a hard time, and it’s true that this president seems never to have studied much American history. Not bowing to foreign potentates was what 1776 was all about. His predecessors learned with no difficulty that the essence [...]
Congressman Rehberg stayed strong in the latest MSU-B, Day One Poll, marking his second highest approval rating since taking office at 54%:
Approval
2001 Â Â Â Â Â Â 49.2
2003 Â Â Â Â Â Â 52.9
2005 Â Â Â Â Â Â 48.9
2007 Â Â Â Â Â Â 58.6
2009 Â Â Â Â Â Â 54
Senator Baucus, on the other hand, is having a little trouble with that health care [...]
This is an open thread designed to allow Craig Moore and Mark Tokarski to continue to debate the Iraq casualty numbers and the Lancet study.
[...]Contra: The Missoulian:
[...]Maybe we need to turn the whole environmental movement on its ear. James at Second Hand Bike Rack tipped me to these photos of pollution in China.
If we truly wish to protect the world’s environment, we should be inviting more construction here.
You tell me what is going to [...]
Travis posted a piece earlier this week about a pit bull that attacked a yorkshire terrier.
By pure happenstance, I ran into the owner of the yorkshire terrier. He asked me if I was the Gregg Smith from the Electric City Weblog and, when I said yes, he said he [...]
GO RUSTLERS!
