Montana activist cripples law enforcement, foils blogger

The suicide cells have awakened in Montana.

In a maneuver that embarrasses the most devious eco-saboteur, an Earth defender disabled equipment to take out the power in downtown Helena, the Lewis and Clark County Law Enforcement Center, and some rural subscribers to the Grid. The Helena Independent Record tells readers:

About 2,600 customers were out of power for about an hour Thursday morning after a squirrel caused an outage at a substation on the south side of town. Another 242 customers in Basin were without power for about 20 minutes, according to NorthWestern Energy spokeswoman Claudia Rapkoch.

At this hour the Basin area is seeing copious white shit falling from the sky. Here is the webcam on I-15 at Elk Park. Boulder Hill was closed earlier seeing a jack-knifed semi and snowplow in the ditch.

A tip from hipneck led ip to video of a recent fireball at SpaceWeather.com:

Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office reports: "On April 6th at 8:21:57 CDT, NASA all-sky meteor cameras detected a very bright fireball moving north across the state of Tennessee. The NASA Meteoroid Environment Office has reasonable confidence that some fraction of this meteor survived to the ground as one or more meteorites."

NOAA is just one more way that We the People fund planetary defense.







May goddess have mercy on us all.

Democrats=safe water, safe food, safe shelter, safe sex.

Republicans=cheap water, cheap food, cheap shelter, cheap sex.

Basin girl shoots Smithsonian photo of the day; religion nearly extinct

The Smithsonian's caption is not quite right: Butte and Havre are transposed.

The 8th annual Smithsonian Photo Contest closed Dec. 1, 2010. Editor's Picks will resume with new images on April 4, 2011 after the start of the 9th annual Smithsonian Photo Contest on March 1, 2011.

Ms. Eckman, a goddess in her own right, is the daughter of Basin's Odd Goddess.

At a recent meeting of the American Physical Society in Dallas, it was announced that nine countries acknowledge the pending death of religion. The article in appeared in BBC News:

The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. And in all the countries, the indications were that religion was headed toward extinction.

DUSEL immune to EMP weapons, solar flares

Dakota Midday is a great show, that and Statehouse are the last programs standing for ip at Bill Janklow's idea of public radio. Yesterday, Paul Guggenheimer hosted a segment when:

former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney talks about the documentary "Iranium." It is showing next Tuesday in Sioux Falls. Gaffney is also a part of the national security panel leading a discussion after the film.

The guy is an Islamophobe and a whackjob of the nth order, but I think he's got the weapon right:

Electromagnetic pulses (EMP) are oversized outbursts of atmospheric electricity. Whether powered by geomagnetic storms or by nuclear blasts, their resultant intense magnetic fields can induce ground currents strong enough to burn out power lines and electrical equipment across state lines. The threat has even become political fodder, drawing warnings from former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a likely presidential contender. "We are not today hardened against this," he told a Heritage Foundation audience last year. "It is an enormous catastrophic threat."

EMP weapons have been part of the US arsenal for decades and are likely being deployed in Libya right now. Knowledge of their operation has been coming home steadily in the minds of radicalized warriors where in a remote scenario they could be built in Ryder trucks to be randomly detonated near grid junctions. Solar events and asteroid strikes are more likely events.

Let's flash back to 2000 where the future looked like:

Dark Angel, an American biopunk/cyberpunk science fiction television program created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee. Dark Angel premiered in the United States and Canada on the Fox network on October 3, 2000, but was canceled after two seasons. The show chronicles the life of Max Guevara (X5-452), a genetically enhanced super-soldier, portrayed by Jessica Alba as an adult, and Geneva Locke as a child.

Then September 11 and the anthrax attacks happened. Bill Janklow went on his idea of public radio where he and a caller created DUSEL.

Here are the geothermal gradients (pdf) of the deepest rock in the former Homestake showing potential for the steam power necessary to generate lighting and life support for large numbers of people sustainably if the planet's surface became a hostile environment. Ceramics could support and insulate the miles of stopes in the old mine connecting a network of gardens, living and work spaces.

Episode one.




EcoRover brings some stunning pictures of the Big Hole.

Radiolab host Robert Krulwich on the 1967 death of a Russian cosmonaut for the forthcoming book, Starman:

The space vehicle is shoddily constructed, running dangerously low on fuel; its parachutes — though no one knows this — won't work and the cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, is about to, literally, crash full speed into Earth, his body turning molten on impact. As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, "cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship."

Volunteers needed for APEC Big Sky; Tony Dean still dead

Senator Max Baucus announced last September that Big Sky, Montana will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference May 6-23:

The meetings will bring cabinet-level representatives from 21 countries, along with hundreds of other officials, to Big Sky to discuss ways to deepen the trade and economic relationships of APEC's member countries.

Dr. Linda M. Young tells us in Big Sky Political Analysis, the blog of the Montana State University Political Science Department:

Members account for 41% of the world’s population, 54% of the world’s GDP and 44% of world trade. Sixty percent of US exports are destined for APEC members, which also account for 6 out of 10 of our top trading partners. US goods trade (both imports and exports) with APEC members was $1.6 trillion in 2009 and service trade was $303 billion in 2008.

From the Lone Peak Lookout:

To help ensure that the attendees are all well taken care of, the U.S. State Department is asking for Montana Host volunteers from Big Sky to help manage certain aspects of the APEC conference. Volunteers will act as meeting room attendants, check badges and credentials, give directions, work in the document center and at the information desk, assemble materials for attendees, help with special events and more. "The work is easy, fun, educational and essential for the success of this conference," said Cathy Gorman, Montana Host volunteer coordinator. "This is a great chance to serve our country and to get an inside look at our government at work." Due to security clearances, volunteers will be required to put in one week's worth of assistance, be it in a row or throughout the conference. Gorman plans to schedule volunteers whenever they are available to work. Volunteer training will be held on March 31 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Big Sky Resort's Dunraven Room. Prospective volunteers should confirm the dates that they wish to participate with Gorman by March 21.

Meanwhile, Kevin Woster reports on what ip already knew: Tony Dean is still dead as South Dakota slides deeper into red state failure. His list of opposers seems to suggest that there are twelve grazing permits that should be sought after and secured.

A representative from Senator Johnson's DC office returned my call a week ago and told me what she told KW. I neglected to inform readers; I'm a dullard and a dolt.

Kevin also brings yet another story of deceit and pending environmental disaster. Fracking to extract uranium is earth-shattering.

Crossed 20,000 hits today.

Montana's repeal of medical marijuana law could kill job growth

Montana's D. Gregory Smith is HIV positive.

His blog post this morning brings personal attention to bear on the anti-civil rights faction (read, Republicans) within the Montana Legislature in its crush to choke the state's voter-approved medical marijuana law.  To persons for whom treatment with Marinol suppositories is clearly unacceptable, cannabis in its natural form should and must be available to patients.

But, Mr. Smith's observations are not so much about his own dilemma; they are about the hothouses of budding industries flowering to palliate the losses of construction and building jobs leaving affected tax collections at the core of the argument.  He points to a New York Times article:

But in a huge, mostly rural state where a libertarian, keep-government-off-my-back spirit runs deep, the debate is also different in temper and geography than in other states. “We tried prohibition,” said Representative Diane Sands, a Democrat. “Marijuana has been in our community for years; it is not going away,” she added. “We have to deal with that fact.” “We had many years to regulate something that 62 percent of Montanans wanted, and we chose to do nothing,” said Representative Pat Noonan, a Democrat. “Don’t vote against the citizens.”

Cannabis is an effective therapy for the sufferers of myriad ailments. It's cultivation, distribution, and use are part of an historically lucrative underground economy that is only recently being tapped as a legitimate revenue source. 

Contact your legislators and urge them to defend patients' rights and to do the right thing by Montanans.

Rehberg Dennypistemologizes Senator Tester's chances for reelection.

Daylight Saving Time returns anew Monday, March 13.

Here's an educational psychology professor at Northwestern University with a new saw for human sexuality:

How the GOP sounds when talking about uranium and the environment

Googling for news of S.3310 - Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act of 2010 only to find interested party as the most recent source at OpenCongress, ip stumbled upon this fascinating little speech from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) at the Senate Committee of Energy and Natural Resources on which the sponsor of the bill, Senator Tim Johnson, sits. She sounds like she wants to do the right thing for Alaska's tribes by questioning increased funding for the protection of wild lands (is she hotter than Sarah Palin or is it just me?).

ip has a call into Sen. Johnson's office.

Heather Hanson brings this look at sustainable energy production on public land from the Range at High Country News:

A pro-active, collaborative approach in which the least hotly-contested sites are vetted for development, perhaps with the help of reputable groups like the Sierra Club and the National Congress of American Indians, might be worth a try. Just as we carefully consider uranium mining near the Grand Canyon and drilling in Bridger-Teton National Forest (two other issues now open for public comment), we need to look at renewable energy development on public lands as a possible threat to that environment, and continue to do careful environmental assessments, and to consider additional objections through a rigorous pubic comment period.

In South Dakota, another red state attempting to nullify federal health care law and where Republican legislator Don Kopp confuses federal scientists' findings on climate change with ass-trologic forces, the hubris in eliminating state-sponsored public comment on in situ uranium extraction while the GOP is actively smothering the EPA, is nothing short of stupefying. PowerTech has been suing state legislatures as a matter of course while flouting the reports of fracking disasters in the natural gas industry.

Looking for StrongHeart Warrior Society this came up:




David Folkenflik reports on the Republican effort to cut funding for public broadcasting in an interview with some fuckhead from Colorado.

Choteau reader not fooled by Rehberg Dennygma.

Who is John Taylor Gatto?

Rob Chaney of the Missoulian is following two huge stories that have to be related: the Smurfit-Stone sale replete with copious water rights to somebody calling themselves Ralston Investments in the wake of the news that the Carlyle Group will buy Missoula-based Mountain Water.  If this doesn't scare the shit out of you watch Blue Gold: World Water Wars.

MSU confers honorary doctorate upon South Dakotan

A Bozeman audience applauded uproariously as a Webster native and USD grad received honors from MSU president, Waded Cruzado.

From the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

At the end of a stirring speech about the challenges America has faced and the ways it has overcome them, journalist and author Tom Brokaw asked a sold-out audience of 1,400 at Montana State University to "take a pledge." He gave a timeline of 1968: the Vietnam War raged, Martin Luther King, then Robert Kennedy, were assassinated, a generation of young Americans rebelled against the conventions of mainstream America. Yet at Cape Canaveral, Fla., scientists and pilots were hard at work to send Americans to the Moon, and launched a preliminary mission that year that gave astronauts an outside look at Earth in all its beauty. "Education is the great coin, the currency of the challenges that are before us," he said. "We cannot go forth as a great nation if we are constantly involved in a series of accusations and food fights," he said. "We cannot get stalled by petty feuds. We need to look at the big picture. We are at a pivotal time in this nation."

No, we didn't go.

Bozeman has a rich history of journalism and love of Montana.  Chet Huntley, who was born in Cardwell and attended then-Montana State College, was building the resort at Big Sky even as ip, and Joani it turns out, were living in Bozeman in 1976.

In other Bozeman news, a bar owner, unhappy with now-tabled Senate Bill 202, reacted to the brewer of famed Bozone Amber with the removal of its microbrews from his taverns.

The Montana Standard reports that hope has risen for Butte's endangered Miners Union Bar in the form of preservation savior, Nick Kujawa.  Butte is enjoying an encouraging surge of investment in spectacular Uptown.  Montanans can start a look for earthquake insurance here.

Buffalo Post brings news of Tim Giago's retirement.

NPR's Goddess of SCOTUS reports on the Court's strong defense of hideous public political farce even if it's "repugnant."  If that body has a blog, does that make them Scroggers?  I crack myself up.

Dakota Territory celebrates 150 years of rape, death, racism, and dismemberment on Bill Janklow's idea of public radio.

KJZZ reports on the resurrection in the Arizona legislature of the State of Baja while Texas tells Spring Breakers to stay the hell out of Mexico.

The Arab League (yes, Iraq is a member) mulls joining the African Union in enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya.  My guess?  Jordan and a coalition of the willful stumbling over their dicks.

Rehberg Dennygrates Groundhog Day's Bill Murray while blowing smoke up Montana's assets. 

Skyscraper to be adapted

This may be the most beautiful building in Butte.  The Montana Standard reports:


Fresh off the renovation of the Sears Building, Nick Kujawa is tackling a taller, albeit much skinnier, project.  Kujawa purchased Hirbour Tower, located on the northeast corner of Broadway and Main, earlier this month with plans to turn it into seven upscale condominiums. The building, erected in 1901, is known as "Butte's first skyscraper" because of its internal construction of vertical steel girders. He had been talking with the Hirbour's previous owner, Jeff Francis, for more than three years about acquiring the 110-year-old building. Earlier this month they finally completed the transaction, and Kujawa said he hopes to get started with construction this summer and be finished by spring 2012. He said the cost of the renovation would be "in the millions." Plans call for one condominium on each floor of the building, approximately 1,500-square-feet with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Kujawa said prices will start "in the low 200s."

This news comes just as Butte becomes the home of the Montana Folk Festival after hosting the national event for the past three years.

It's about time.  I wept upon first seeing this building.

Two-below honey

Geothermal mining to be discussed at sustainability conference in Helena

Geothermal mining will be one topic discussed at a sustainability conference scheduled for 6:30PM Monday at Carroll College. 

From the Helena IR:

During the fall semester, a group of Cornell (NY) students were divided into teams that focused on eight components of a successful sustainable community — urban design, business and economic development, food production, green buildings, renewable energies, waste management, transportation, and water management, said Cornell Professor Norman Scott, one of three faculty members slated to come to town for the discussion. In addition to Scott, who has conducted extensive bioengineering and sustainable development research, Professors Jefferson Tester, an expert in geothermal energy and “green” chemical synthesis, and Kifle Gebremedhin, who has focused on agricultural and biological engineering, will be present for the discussion. It’s work that has a Helena connection. Richard Bowen, a Washington resident, has planned for a sustainable model at a 266-acre plot of land, referred to as Aspen Trails Ranch, off York Road.

See that red blob on the map under south central South Dakota? It represents enough energy to decertify all the dams on the Missouri River in that stupid state.

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UPDATE.  Video and podcast should be available soon.

Basinites gather to support artists

Thirty patrons gathered at Joani's for chili then went uptown Basin to the Hewitt Building (about half a city block away) where Burke Jam, played as Churchmouse, then 2/3 of AM String Band, Johanna Davis and Adam Nordell performed.  The three artists, former residents of the Montana Artists Refuge, played in the front downstairs studio while the wood stove crackled.

What a sweet, intimate treat!

Happy New Year, Pagans!

Uptown Comet, Montana

Montana lot for sale: manifesto not included

The real estate remnants of one domestic insurgent is on the market as the Billings Gazette reports:

A 1.4-acre parcel of land in western Montana that was once owned by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is on the market for $69,500.  The property is listed by John Pistelak Realty of Lincoln. The listing offers potential buyers a chance to own a piece of "infamous U.S. history" and says the forested land "is obviously very secluded."  The Lincoln-area property, which had been listed at $154,500, does not have electricity or running water. Kaczynski was critical of technology.  The property does not include Kaczynski's cabin. It is on display in the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
Kaczynski is serving a life sentence for a series of mail bombings over 17 years that killed three and injured 23.

Here is the link to Ted's essay later described as the Unabomber Manifesto.  It looks to me like an early forecast (and evidence) of the anthropogenic trophic cascade that's currently underway.

So, reading through Ted's psych eval revealed some similarities with ip's, whose parents and nuns conspired to void fifth grade:

As the result of testing conducted in the fifth grade, it was determined that he could skip the sixth grade and enroll with the seventh grade class.

ip knows what you people are thinking.

Check out this photo!

This photo appears in Wildfire Today. Courtesy National Geographic and Sean Heavey.

Grid-free Basin family attends permaculture conference

Dave and Susie live on Pole Mountain about a thousand feet in elevation above Basin.

The house they built themselves from mostly found and salvage materials is about 1500 square feet with views looking south across a mind-blowing part of the Boulder Batholith, The architectural design is functional, yet roomy. It is not huge, but, it is not humble, either.

Their Bosch refrigerator runs on propane, solar cells power a set of batteries that manage their electrical needs (including a welder), Leah and Micah's diapers were washed in rainwater collected in a cistern that also waters the garden. Goats supply milk and meat. The orchard provides fruit. They recently added a chest freezer.

They just spent half of October and half of November at a permaculture conference in California and insist that what they learned changed their lives.

ip posts this knowing that they read this blog. Sarina called it a propaganda site over Thanksgiving. I did not disagree.

With some luck, Dave and Susie will contribute more. Just click the comments button at the bottom of this post, guys.

This article on smart growth appears at the blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

US212 photos

Little broken house on the prairie

Election corner in Lame Deer

Papers cashing in on "budding" revenue source

From the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

Alternative weeklies are not the only publications raking in medical marijuana lucre. Dailies like The Denver Post and The Bozeman Daily Chronicle in Montana are taking advantage of the boom and making no apologies.

“My point of view is, for the moment at least, it’s legal,” said Stephanie Pressly, publisher of The Daily Chronicle, adding that the paper generates about $7,500 a month in advertising from medical marijuana businesses. “The joke around here is that it’s a budding business.”

At The Missoula Independent, where medical marijuana advertising now makes up about 10 percent of the paper’s revenue, there is concern that the spigot may soon tighten.

Matt Gibson, The Independent’s president, said marijuana businesses have helped carry the paper through a rough recession. “It’s been stressful for us for several years,” he said. “There’s no question that they’ve been good for our business. And we’re worried about 2011, if the state revises the statute, which it appears is all but certain.”

Montana woman wields zucchini against marauding bear

This is too funny not to post on a Friday. When this story aired on Yellowstone Public Radio this morning it made coffee come out my nose.

From the Missoulian:

"A woman in the Huson area warded off a charging black bear with a garden fresh zucchini early Thursday after the 200-pound bruin attacked her dog and swiped at the woman's leg.

The woman reported the bear had its head and one paw through the threshold of her back door when she threw the squash at it. She threw the vegetable at the bear's head and the animal retreated, running back up the the hill and into the darkness.

The bear had not been located as of Thursday afternoon, though wildlife officials were setting a trap in an attempt to catch the animal..."

A zucchini is, of course, not a vegetable at all, but a fruit.

Basin hosts Native artists

From the Missoula Independent:

Skylar Browning:

I had the privilege of spending last weekend in Basin, Mont., at the American Indian Artists Symposium, hosted by the Montana Artists Refuge. I wrote about the Montana Artists Refuge (MAR) for the Indy in 2007, and later served on the organization's board. I say that in the interest of full disclosure, but should add that I knew almost nothing about last weekend's event before I arrived for the opening reception. That's because it's organized by Native artists, for Native artists, to discuss the past, present and future of Native art.

The two-day event, which was entirely free (meals, too) and open to the public, included an A-list lineup of regional talent, including poet Vic Charlo, painter Jeneese Hilton, printmaker Corky Clairmont and multimedia performer Bently Spang, as well as prominent artists from Washington (Joe Feddersen), Colorado (C. Maxx Stevens), California (Emmanuel Catarino Montoya) and New York (Kaye WalkingStick). Discussions covered topics like, "Post-Indian: Is 'Identity Art' Over?" and "Reclaiming Identity and the Future of Native Art," and Saturday evening was filled with poetry reading and an open mic.

For those unfamiliar with the featured artists, their work appears in museums and galleries across the nation. Hilton has shown at the Missoula Art Museum, as has Spang and Feddersen. Spang made a splash with his interactive Techno Powwow, which he honed at an American Indian Artists Symposium years ago. WalkingStick is a professor emerita at Cornell University, and her work can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Big Apple, as well as in 35 other museums around the country. All of which is to say, it was an impressive collection of talent to be found in tiny Basin, a sleepy mining community nestled comfortably in the middle of nowhere.

It's also a nice preamble to the fact that a young artist managed to temporarily steal the spotlight from her more established peers. Ryan Elizabeth Feddersen, Joe's daughter, graduated from Cornish College last year and is quickly making a name for herself in the Pacific Northwest. During a short presentation Saturday night, Ryan showed examples of her recent installation projects, including the coolest coloring book you've ever seen.

In "A Little Color in the White House," Ryan basically recreated a White House dining room by wall-papering the 500-square-foot space on three sides with white paper. On the paper, she outlined in black Sharpie the fireplace, the molding, an Abe Lincoln portrait, etc.

Then, on a table in the middle of the room, Ryan outlined place settings. The food at the center of the table, however, offered the installation's only color: a big hunk of ham, a plate of oysters, some veggies, etc., all of which is three dimensional, as you see here:

And here's the catch: That food is actually crayons.

That means you're invited to pick up that hunk of ham and use it to color Abe's foot. Or grab a green bean and color the windowsill.

Ryan's exhibit was a hit, and she was later commissioned to create a similar installation for a benefit dinner for Seattle's Henry Art Gallery.

Even with the immense talent on hand in Basin, Ryan's work stood out. She's worth keeping an eye on as her career — and the future of American Indian art — continues to evolve.

We hosted C. Maxx Stevens from the University of Colorado and the goddesses from Lame Deer who fried all the 200 pieces of wojape (Wo zha pee) in Joani's kitchen.