Then you really ought to read the Times Magazine’s profile of him.
Prof. George, of Princeton, is the most pre-eminent mind championing a “new natural law,” which has restated and redefined Catholic theology as a political movement, and managed to attract quite a few Protestants, especially evangelicals, along for the [...]
Today, the Tribune covered the Airport Authority’s meeting held yesterday. The Authority addressed a lingering issue: payment of attorney fees.
The Airport Authority decided to hire a local attorney, Jean Faure, to provide it some advice. Jean has apparently provided this advice to the satisfaction of a majority of the [...]
That headline is meant without any irony or sarcasm whatsoever. Truth is: I have a soft spot for Gail Collins. I don’t know how this came to pass. She’s liberal, snarky, and just kind of oozes a knowing pretentiousness which in others (say, Andrew Revkin) would just be maddening. Nonetheless, [...]
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 & [...]
Jodi Rave, formerly the Indian country reporter for the Missoulian who is now working on a book, dishes big-time on how the Baucus Affair story was managed when she first approached the Senator’s staff.
Hear her story on Voices of Montana.
Ms Rave notes that we live in “a small state [...]
I have C-Span playing in the background today and I’m listening to lefty Sherrod Brown (D - PA) tell anecdote after anecdote about people with lost health insurance and how the opposition is blocking reform. The sense of urgency is palpable - and fake.
The benefits of this bill won’t kick [...]
For those of you interested (and I’m rather sure not many of you are), PBS recently filmed a discussion between Keynes biographer Robert Skidelsky and GMU econ professor Russ Roberts (one of the best in the field IMO.)
The PBS link is here.
It’s both a good introduction to the [...]
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 [...]
Way back when I was “letting my freak flag fly” the regular reads included The Berkley Barb and The Village Voice. Out of all the writers from both publications the only one that I kept reading all along was Nat Hentoff of the Voice. For reasons that escape me, he [...]
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 [...]
The Weekly Standard is reporting this:
While the Democrats appease Senator Lieberman, they still have to worry about other recalcitrant Democrats including Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. Though Lieberman has been out front in the fight against the public option and the Medicare buy-in, Nelson was critical of both. Now that [...]
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 [...]
David Leonhardt, one of the economics reporters at the New York Times, informs us that, if health care reform is not passed, innovation will die in America:
In the cradle of American innovation, workers are making career choices based on co-payments, pre-existing conditions and other minutiae of health insurance. They [...]
Well, the voices of a dozen people (including mayor-elect Michael Winters and commissioner-elect Fred Burow and a few others who usually do not speak at commission meetings) were not enough to get the City Commission to table the 11th-hour reappointments to the ECP Board. Pretty amazing turnout for an [...]
(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 [...]
The outgoing city commission will be meeting for a final time tonight for a very busy meeting.
My hope is that amidst what is sure to be lots of talk about the 20-foot smoking ordinance, another, more scandalous item will not be overlooked: an effort to make 11th-hour reappointments [...]
Ross McKitrick (yes, that Ross McKitrick of McKitrick & McIntyre) has a split the baby approach to carbon taxes:
Imagine a planet in which global warming was averted without the periodic need for thousands of people to fly around the world [...]
Mr. Obama is starting to get nervous:
In a provocative argument designed to rescue his foundering health care plan, President Barack Obama will warn Senate Democrats in a White House meeting Tuesday that this is the “last chance” to pass comprehensive reform.
Obama will contend that if it fails now, no [...]
Economist Charles Rowley writes today about the prescience of Tocqueville. Tocqueville is always worth reading but I think Rowley displays his own prescience as to where American might be heading:
One of the inputs that the National Bureau uses to evaluate the location of the US economy in the business [...]
President Obama marched a litter of bankers out to the woodshed today and gave ‘em a beating. His reason was that, with beneficence of the American people bailing out the financial industry, bankers haven’t lived up to their end of the bargain but, rather, are being niggardly with all [...]
I’ve got a write-up on National Review Online today about L’affaire Baucus — I wrote it just so the latest from the Missoulian could be highlighted (how Team Baucus spun the local press like a top doesn’t appear to really have made it to the national political consciousness yet)…
From [...]
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)
Some time ago, I became aware of how some colleges and universities shamelessly re-write their history to make it more politically correct.
Dartmouth College is a case in point. Its website cites a snippet from its 1769 charter to the effect that the College was established “for the education and [...]
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 [...]
Happy Chanukah!
[...]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 [...]
I was listening to John McCain rail on about the $3.7 billion in pork in the new $1.1 Trillion omnibus spending bill. I have this to say about that: Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Although I agree with him that the pork represents a material failing in the attitudes of legislators [...]
(One of a series)
There have been some on-line discussions recently of whether a federal mandate that individuals obtain health insurance would violate the U.S. Constitution. This issue is distinct from the issue of whether other sorts of government health programs – such as single-payer – would be constitutional.
It is also distinct [...]
$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 [...]
President Obama’s speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize has been widely praised, and justly. Read it here:
Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:
I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that [...]
As Congress creates even more entitlements, yet another existing one heads towards insolvency: “Pell Grant program’s deficit is largest ever.”
Yesterday, President Obama proposed another $150 billion in federal “stimulus” spending.
Today’s question to commenters: How do you think it will it all end?
[...]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 [...]
The Obama Administration warns:
The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role over the process in a way that could hurt business.
Which reminds me of this:
But I think we should call [...]
The Tribune editorial board has remained silent on the matter, but the [...]
One of the parts of the New York Times I always read faithfully is the Religion Journal. And this past week, Eric Stern — Governor Schweitzer’s counselor — wrote the feature from Helena about an Israeli-trained bomb-sniffing dog Miky and his somewhat lost Highway Patrol handler who can’t get [...]
Some interesting editorial choices in today’s Missoulian. Top of the page, above the fold, is a report on University of Montana Professor Steve Running’s attack on state coal leasing because of alleged global warming. (As I write, it is nine degrees below zero outside.)
In the same story, reporter Mike Dennison [...]
Travis Kavulla, Gregg Smith, Dave Budge, Rob Natelson, Awe
