Ever see the pilots in an airliner reading checklists or looking over what seems like mundane items? We expect two wings and the proper number of engines to be present. Pilots have a checklist. Despite having thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of hours of flying experience, pilots can’t afford to forget what might seem […]

Ever heard of black liquor? No, not Jaegermeister. Black liquor is a byproduct of the paper making process. In a nutshell, trees are made mostly of cellulose and lignin. To separate cellulose (for paper) from lignin, paper mills cook the wood in a caustic-soda potion. The liquid left over is called “black liquor.” Lignin, a […]

Local protests against reappraisals have grown louder in recent weeks, while the way in which the formula for deciding these disputed property taxes came to be is all but forgotten. Every six years, Montana’s citizen Legislature is charged with coming up with a plan that determines how much the state collects from its citizens owning […]

On Nov. 9, the Clean Energy Jobs American Power Act (S. 1733) passed through an important committee in the Senate – moving us closer to setting our country on a path to a cleaner energy future. This is the first substantial effort toward a new energy plan since Jimmy Carter urged the American public to […]

Recently I received an email from a friend that asked a simple question: “We’re looking for ways to get the word out nationally on (our stuff). When you Google (keywords that they think are important), nothing about (our stuff) comes up. Do you have some suggestions?” Sometimes a one sentence question with a two sentence […]

President Barack Obama’s staff may want to rethink focusing on Montana in 2012. The president’s national targeting director Ken Strasma told the blog fivethirtyeight.com in August that he viewed our state as the “no. 1 pick to flip” from red to blue in the next presidential election. But according to an MSU-Billings poll released last […]

While the U.S. Senate considers a “cap-and-trade” bill that includes creation of a new federal bureaucracy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Montana Petroleum Association (MPA) is becoming more concerned about the toll such a plan would take on our industry and on Montana consumers. The Senate bill, modeled after one that passed the U.S. […]

I don’t mean the Chinese New Year, the Jewish New Year or the new Federal fiscal year. I’m talking about the regular old New Year that happens on January first. Business-wise, are you ready for it? Or will you start getting ready for it on January second? If your business is struggling, I suggest you […]

Last summer, I met Montana Department of Natural Resources (DNRC) Kalispell Unit forester Brent Kallander at the Whitefish rifle range. He was inventorying the ground where the range is located, the Spencer block of state forest southwest of Whitefish. Job No. 1 for DNRC is managing state trust lands for long-term revenues to support education, […]

Montana’s tax collections are down. The Short-Term Investment Pool program is offering such weak returns that counties are pulling out their money. And the state’s pension system has lost nearly 21 percent of its value since last year and, at its current rate, will be more than $2 billion in the hole in 30 years. […]

Energy. It is the lifeblood of the American economy. For this reason, it is no surprise that energy policy discussions receive a great deal of attention. Done wrong, energy policy can significantly harm the economy. That is a real concern as the U.S. Congress and individual states debate legislation that aims to address climate change […]

Your SD5 education tax dollars were well spent last week. Remember the Beacon story that talked about Kalispell School District 5’s failed levy? Just in case you missed it, here’s the reason why your tax dollars were well invested: “Such a request had never failed before, so School District No. 5 didn’t spend any money […]

It was not surprising that Tammi Fisher won Kalispell’s mayoral race, but the margin with which she did it certainly was. She beat incumbent Mayor Pam Kennedy by more than 25 percentage points (63-37) in a defeat that cannot be blamed on low turnout in an off-election year. At 31 percent, it was actually quite […]

I recently attended a public showing of the film “Not Evil, Just Wrong” in Kalispell. Sponsored by the Northwest Montana Patriots, it was billed as a documentary exploring the economic impact of global warming “hysteria.” I hoped it would broaden my perspective on climate change issues, but the film was a disappointment. First, while I […]

Ever have one of those vendors that supplies something that is so amazing that you can’t cure yourself of them? I deal with one of those in the software side of my world. And of course, their customer service is nowhere near ideal. They rarely communicate with their clients. They do a few things that […]