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March 1 Snowpack on Stahl
It’s the first of March – and Stahl Peak’s (Elevation 6030) Sno-Tel shows 28.7 inches of snow-water equivalent – now down to 107% of the long-term average. Grave Creek, at 4600 feet, is down to 6.3 inches and at 46% of average. Banfield Mountain (5600 feet) reads 11.4 inches and is at 80%. Over in the Yaak, Garver Creek (4250 feet elevation) reads 6.4 inches and 74% of average. Hawkins Lake (6450 feet) reads 20.4 inches and is at 99% of the long term average. Poorman Creek – in the Cabinets at 5100 feet – shows 16.5 inches, at 54%…
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Every so often, someone posts where students in differing majors scored on the ACT or SAT. This is what I spotted online about Graduate Record Exam scores. Somehow those folks in physics are always at the top. As you will note on the bottom of the chart, the scale is just higher and lower. I…
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As you look at the chart below, the message is obvious – the US Birth Rate continues to exceed the death rate. Sure, we have smaller families, and we’ve dropped below that 2.07 births per woman that maintains a population – but the projections of more deaths than births aren’t coming into effect for another…
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For too many veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs isn’t a protector of hard-earned benefits — it can feel like an opaque bureaucracy that tinkers with livelihoods behind closed doors. But the VA’s latest gambit was more than tone-deaf policy: it was a governmental overreach that attacked core promises to veterans, only to be slapped…
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The denarius was the coin of Rome 200 years before Christ. It was about the size of a nickel, and held about 4.5 grams of pure silver – just a little less than a pre-1965 quarter, and a match for two pre-1964 dimes. The problem was that Rome didn’t have a whole lot of silver…
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When I went to get some repair work done, the person I was consulting advised fixing the structural issues and then putting the same ancient dilapidated siding back on the building. The rational? Property taxes. Last summer, we joked about how much the nice flowers my mother had on their porch raised their taxes. They…
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I spent most of a year away from the school after I finished my term. I attended a couple of board meetings because I was asked – on one hand, there was, at the least, the appearance of an unlawful board meeting . . . unlawful because it appeared to violate Montana’s open meeting law.…
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Historically, independent voters, and voters for minor third parties, do not get a large percentage of votes. Often, they’re considered “spoiler” candidates, who lose the election for someone by dra4wing critical support away during a close race. Or their thought of as simply “protest candidates” with no chance of winning. In Montana, for the presidential…
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Not many years ago, if you were faced with a cluster of unacceptable clowns on your ballot, you could write a name in and cast a protest vote. Hell, I guess you still can – the thing is, your write-in protest vote won’t be counted or reported. With the elimination of subsection 7 last year,…
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I’m having trouble summarizing this one, not least because I lost my notes. In short: The meeting did discuss prayer, but did not discuss a four day week. About prayer: The discussion was specifically with regards to having prayer on the agenda as a part of each school board meeting. The result- no. Community presence…
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The proposed library district has me looking at taxation again. One of the great things about Lincoln County is that, with three high school districts, it’s easy to figure out which communities provide the funds that keep our county going. Market Value Taxable Value Percentage Libby $1,687,186,708 $21,911,499 36.42% Troy $831,354,553 $10,966,329 18.23% Eureka $1,974,407,031…
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Now it takes a single click to get the data. So what does it mean? I measured the record lows back in 1977 – this chart, from the Grave Creek site, shows how the critical snowfall that brings us up to normal or above occurs between the February measurements and April 1. I don’t know…
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The USDA has updated plant hardiness zones, and despite last winter’s impressive cold, we’ve jumped up a zone (to 5a from 4b in 2012; the average low went up by 6 degrees) Hardiness zones are a (partial) climate description that’s been in existence for a bit over a century, though the government didn’t get involved…