on the legislature

It seems to me that the Republican legislators are bringing fiscal irresponsibility to new heights. They are refusing to fund key programs to help Montanans and listening to the idiot from the west end of the state, Jore, who has apparently not read either the state or federal constitutions and refuses to accept his responsibilities to Montanans, except for perhaps a few who thing this state is not responsible for the welfare of any of its citizens, wealthy or not. Anyone who wants to give small business a major break on the taxes they pay by earning income, when I have to pay taxes on property that earns me nothing, doesn't seem to me to have much of my happiness or health in mind. Small businesses do offer jobs, but they seem to hire more people than they can afford to pay a good wage. Restaurants, for instant, get all kinds of federal tax breaks and credits, want more, but don't want to pay the people they hire a living wage. Let's get responsible people in Helena; not people with no level of responsibility.

about an inconvenient truth

Caught all but the opening minutes of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth on television the other night. He was preaching to the choir. What I don't understand is why more people such as Gore and others trying to warn us about global warming don't talk about the history of the Middle East, northern Africa and Easter Island. All three of those areas were once very productive parts of the globe and had rather large populations of well-fed people. The Cedars of Lebanon mentioned in the Bible and in the Gilgamesh Epic were real, not just metaphors. Then they were cut down and the environment deteriorated. North Africa was once heavily forested, but when the trees were gone, the land turned for the worse. The people of Easter Island destroyed their trees and the economy and the population of the island went with their forests. We're doing the same thing on a worldwide scale. And our burgeoning population is not making things easier but putting pressure not only on the environment but on the sheer numbers of their neighbors. We're going crazy.