The Public Service Commission has voted to impose an administrative penalty on Electric City Power for failing to obey a state clean-energy law. I don’t have word yet on the dollar amount of the fine, but it was imposed by a unanimous vote (no small feat given the PSC itself [...]
During the height of my journey toward an understanding of spirituality I was informed by the Urantia Book that, of all races, native Americans are the most enlightened. Well, I have largely ignored the Urantia Book since then but I think they are on to something about enlightenment as [...]
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 [...]
…I’m glad I could share with all of you a partial digesting of the Burns & McDonnell report. Having skimmed it once, read it twice, and annotated the heck out of my desk copy, here are a couple of big disputes of analysis that come to the fore for me:
1) [...]
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 awoke from my tryptophan induced coma this evening to find this little ditty in the NYTs Economix blog:
A recent study by the researchers David Meltzer from the University of Chicago and Zhuo Chen from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now finds that low [...]
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 Burns & McDonnell report on Electric City Power, among other claims, asserts on page 19 (pdf) that NorthWestern’s energy rates between June 2008 and June 2009 have fluctuated between $70 and $80 per MWH.
I think this claim will come as some surprise to NorthWestern Energy itself, since we’ve [...]
Thanksgiving is a worthy holiday, but preparations can be stressful for all concerned. Fortunately, applicable federal law itemizes the jobs respectively owed by men and women on this sacred day, thereby making clear who’s responsible for doing what.
(NB: Being a man, and writing from memory, I may have inadvertently omitted [...]
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, [...]
Burns & McDonnell, the consulting firm the outgoing city commission paid ~$60,000 to tell them what they wanted to hear, have told them what they wanted to hear. (”This is the consultant’s metier,” remarks a consultant friend of mine, via G-chat.)
Over at H&R Matt Welch talks about that Census worker’s “murder” that Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and all the other “haters” from the Tea Party movement caused. He’s waiting for mea culpas:
According to local authorities as quoted by The Associated Press, it was a suicide. I eagerly [...]
When Bruce Bartlett, former Treasury Dept. economist under the Reagan administration, published his polemic Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy I applauded the fact that a credible member of the GOP establishment was calling out the Bush admin for its fiscal recklessness (although I [...]
This recipe requires a crock pot.Â
Ingredients:
Â
2 large and old Sage Grouse boned out and cut into bite size pieces
1 large can cream of celery soup
4 tbls. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbls. ground pasilla chile
1 tbls. honey
3 tbls. stoneground mustard
1 tbls. [...]
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 [...]
The health care bill that the Senate will soon bring to the floor has a really interesting - and dangerously deceitful - accounting trick in it that we all need to understand. Part of the proposal, if you haven’t heard, is to raise the portion of the payroll tax that [...]
I have made the claim for years that both Social Security and Medicare are unfair and counterproductive because they transfer money for the lesser wealthy cohort, the younger, to the more wealthy cohort, the older. The financial demographics are indisputable. Under the heading of “druthers” I would opt for both [...]
Surely by now you’ve heard the “pine beetles” meme, just in time for committees’ work on a climate-change bill — that the pine-beetle devastation of trees across Montana is the result of Global Warming. Same goes for hurricanes, drought in Africa, California fire season, heavy rains in the Ozarks, and [...]
The good news is that ObamaCare will reduce the amount of free-riding the rest of the world practices on the back of American funded medical innovation. The bad news is that ObamaCare supporters really doesn’t care about the future of innovation.
[...]Andrew Revkin, the guy on the climate beat at the NYT, says this about the hacked climate researcher’s emails:
The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.
I [...]
I think this means that we might finally be getting past the blame Bush for everything stage. Maybe not.
[...]Why do I watch the Sunday A.M. taking heads? It must have something to do with searching for exquisite pain.
I just heard Barbara Boxer say that we need to, right now, spend money on high-speed rail to get job growth. She’s sitting with Leiberman, Durbin and Hutchenson. The problem with [...]
James and Carol have been all over the climate change email hacking. Today, so is the WaPo.
My thought is that, if Penn State doesn’t punish Michael Mann in some way, the school’s science cred goes in the toilet. This is what happens when science looks more like [...]
$1,144,504 : that is the irrevocable price so far, with millions more still tied up, of the City’s involvement with Southern/SME.
According to a memo released Friday, $905,019 in principal + $239,485 in anticipated interest will be written off the city’s books, on the heels of an evaluation of independent auditors [...]
Charles Krauthammer asks “What’s the point?” regarding the KSM terror trail:
So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system, where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.
Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) “do not [...]
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’ [...]
The question lately has been which card in SME’s House of Cards will go first.
One rather good guess is the “spot-zoning” case which landed at the high court yesterday and which threatens to undo SME’s plans. If the Sup Ct “unzones” the project, it would give all involved in SME/Southern [...]
I have, for decades, said that the taxing corporations is the height of both foolishness and dishonesty. Foolish because something that only exists in the construct of the law is not a “person” and secondly, it is only “persons” who benefit from the earnings of businesses. To the extent that [...]
I’ve always loved Senate rules - especially the filibuster - because they are often the last line of defense between the people and the collective stupidity of Congress to inflict damage. But here’s a rule that I just learned about (and like equally as well.)
The Oklahoma Republican has threatened [...]
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 [...]
Keith Hennessey has an early analysis on the tax side of the Pinky Reid’s (D - Palookaville) behind closed doors health care train-wreck-in-the-making bill.
You can find it here and, as always, Hennessey should be taken seriously.
I think this point is especially pertinent:
Leader Reid’s bill would use new Medicare payroll [...]
It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights—the ‘right’ to education, the ‘right’ to health care, the ’right’ to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are rations of slavery—hay and a barn for human cattle.
— Alexis de Tocqueville P.J O’Rourke
H/T to Steve T for [...]
Since the stimulus bill did none of the things that J.M Keynes said it should do; timely, temporary, and of sufficient size (I suggest that the failure of the first two criteria nullify the last) the Dems are busy trying to replicate the mistake.
House Democrats are moving quickly to [...]
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 [...]
In Tim Geitner’s prepared speech before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today he said:
To establish a more global foundation for growth and avert future crises of this nature, we must rebalance global demand…
[...]
Emerging markets and economies with large and sustained surpluses will need to shift their growth towards domestic demand [...]
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 [...]
I first saw this on TV when the president and his entire friggin’ entourage were dressed up in these neo-commie outfits. I guess this is like the Chinese version of handing out white doctor’s coats.
For some unknown reason I find it rather creepy. But maybe it [...]
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.
[...]
Travis Kavulla, Gregg Smith, Dave Budge, Rob Natelson, Awe
GO RUSTLERS!
