A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
No, President Obama isn’t planning to confiscate our firearms. But he is planning to require checking the background of everyone attempting to purchase a firearm. Unless you’re a crook, a crazy, or a crackpot, this won’t affect you. I’d elaborate, but J.M. Brown’s post at The Western Word this morning makes that unnecessary.
Dan Wilson is taking another crack at being elected district judge. He filed a C-1 statement of candidacy with Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices on 3 January. He’s going after the vacancy created by Judge David Ortley’s retirement. In 2012, Wilson ran for the district court judgeship won by Robert Allison.
Wilson’s quest will be joined by others. All will promise justice so pure that by comparison newly fallen snow seems as dirty as coal dust mixed with ordure. Meanwhile, they’ll be grateful for campaign contributions from attorneys who may try cases before them.
East of Billings blog claims older Americans are climate ignoramuses. In an otherwise interesting post on Gov. Bullock’s new Interim Clean Power Plan Advisory Council, EOB blogger (and outstanding photographer) Alexis Bonogofsky cast aspersions on what I presume is her parents’ generation:
Let’s start with the age problem. Besides Diego Rivas, who is 34, as far as I can tell, almost all of the other appointees are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. To be completely blunt, this is a generation that will not be around to deal with many of the extreme impacts from climate change. I’m not even sure half them believe climate change is happening. How are they supposed to come up with a plan to address something they don’t think is real?
Age problem? Bill McKibben, 55, is too old to think climate change is real? Al Gore, 67, is too old to think climate change is real? Bernie Sanders, 74, is too old to think climate change is real? Gov. Jerry Brown, 77, is too old to think climate change is real? Retired University of Montana economics professor and State Senator Richard Barrett is too old to think climate change is real? Retired University of Montana economics professor, and outspoken critic of coal smoke, Tom Power is too old to think climate change is real?
If there’s an age problem, it’s that Bonogofsky is not old enough to know better than to write such nonesense.
She also isn’t old enough to know better than to write sexist nonesense:
As a woman and someone who knows many qualified and smart Montana women in the energy and climate change field it is shocking to see that we make up a meager 14% of the council with only two who live in Montana. Two of those women are lawyers from utilities in Washington and Oregon that are invested in Colstrip. One is an attorney in Bozeman who seems to have recently moved there. One woman, Kathy Hadley, is from Montana and has extensive experience and knowledge of Montana’s energy history and also a personal commitment to the state of Montana.
This from the first state to send a woman to Congress. It’s offensive.
This is pure Democratic Party gender identity politics and affirmative action quota ideology. Do I find it offensive? No. I find it mighty damned offensive. The male to female ratio of the council’s membership is irrelevant to its task.