Latest
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Where The Wealth Is
An Internet search tells me that there are over 24 million millionaires in the United States. That’s almost nine percent of the population. Every eleventh person. 88 percent of millionaires are self-made – reading the report makes me believe that self-made actually translates to ‘did no inherit a million bucks.’ They very much tend to live below their means. 80 percent are first-generation millionaires. On the average, it took 28 years of working and investing to get to a million. To make it into the top 1 percent of the nation, you need to have at least 13.7 million in…
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I’ve spent most of my working career in jobs that aren’t highly needed. Everyone is familiar with demography, and recognizes that it’s great information to have – but there isn’t much use for a demographer in the private sector. There might be gig work available if the government paid demographers weren’t already there – I…
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After posting some of Oliver Cromwell’s thoughts, in the interest of fairness, here are some of the things King Charles said before being beheaded (obviously, he had no comments after being beheaded).
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We’ve been watching fawns – mostly on camera, because the grass is tall enough to keep them hidden. Yesterday evening was the first fawn leg. Coyotes. Fawns are cute – and they are easy prey. On one hand, I can look at the predator-prey cycle – a coyote sure as hell isn’t going to take…
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local
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We started the Mountain Ear (both times) because we wanted better coverage of local news. There are so many board meetings, and all of them are important. The Tobacco Valley News faces the same problem we do- not enough people and too many meetings, and their focus is on a larger area. So we started…
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An emergency meeting of the Trego school board was called again on May 4 at 4 PM to update the community on the methamphetamine contamination of the school grounds.. Although the meeting was poorly noticed, there were nearly 40 community members in attendance, these included parents, teachers, former students and teachers and interested community members.…
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Earlier this week, a meeting was held to formalize the existing long-term relationship between the TFS Community Hall and the TFS Fire Department. Tables were set to form a circle, and the meeting began with introductions. It was a joint meeting meant to prevent future problems, without any reason to expect them. The issue: an…
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An emergency school board meeting was held at the TFS Community Hall, Saturday at noon (which coincidentally is the time the Rendezvous Parade in Eureka began). The board acknowledged that they failed to provide adequate (48 hours notice) on the meeting, and cited the requisite MCA code allowing it in the event of an unforseen…
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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,…