Opinion

IN THE MAIL

Published on Wed, 10/14/2020 - 12:00am

Consider connecting with County Commission candidate Bill Berg

The racists at Princeton grovel

Published on Wed, 10/14/2020 - 12:00am

A news item that surfaces last month proves that what’s said in the confessional should remain a secret.

Virus plotline

Published on Tue, 10/13/2020 - 4:21pm
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IN THE MAIL

Published on Tue, 10/13/2020 - 4:17pm

Citizen input needed for state’s Climate Solutions Council

Editor:

Montana Governor Steve Bullock has created the Montana Climate Solutions Council to make recommendations for dealing with climate change in our state. It is a comprehensive document detailing the problems with humaninduced warming such as:

• The most recent decade was the nation’s warmest on record.

• The average annual temperature in our state has risen 2 to 3 degrees F since 1950.

The dark trade-offs of a fairy tale

Published on Tue, 10/13/2020 - 4:14pm

WASHINGTON — It is symbolic beyond the boundaries of normal political prose that the White House announcement event for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett should also have been (it appears) a super-spreader event for the novel coronavirus. Only a fairy tale would be capable of conveying so many layers of temptation and corruption.

Masked voters

Published on Mon, 10/12/2020 - 5:01pm
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IN THE MAIL

Published on Mon, 10/12/2020 - 4:56pm

Vote for your rights in this election

Editor:

Have you heard of a “Red Flag” law? Well, I hadn’t either, but it seems to have some importance in this year’s U.S. Senate race between incumbent Senator Steve Daines (R) and Governor Steve Bullock (D).

In our country, a “Red Flag” law permits police or family members to petition a state court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person who, in their opinion,  may present a danger to themselves or others.

The West’s population grows and churns

Published on Mon, 10/12/2020 - 4:54pm

Ever since 1790, when the U.S. Census started keeping track of such things, the migratory flow of non-Indigenous people within the United States has moved from East to West, into lands they erroneously saw as a blank slate, and not so erroneously as a land rife with natural resources to exploit. 

Americans are still mobile and still moving West, but over time, the trajectory of the human flow has shifted to something more complex, with shifting patterns that sometimes double back unexpectedly. 

Debate fly

Published on Fri, 10/09/2020 - 4:03pm
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Innovation’s secret sauce: freedom

Published on Fri, 10/09/2020 - 4:01pm

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny ...’”

— Isaac Asimov

 

WASHINGTON — Matt Ridley, the British writer, calls himself a “rational optimist,” which today probably strikes many people — their health and finances threatened, their equanimity destroyed by the horrors of close confinement with family members — as an irrational coupling of adjective and noun. Nowadays, cheerfulness can be irritating. Ridley, however, is right.