Around Billings: Elegy For An Elm

A nice picture of the penultimate resting place of an elm on Spruce, above the fold of the Local & State section of this morning's Gazette, captures your attention immediately, especially with the headline—A 'priceless' tree—so that Ed Kemmick can exercise his rhetorical skills in celebrating the loss of one of those splendid trees in the 'tree streets.'

I drove around this pleasant part of town this morning and could barely tell where the tree had stood so tall for so many years. Somebody, presumably the city, had been busy cleaning up the scene, perhaps in order to discourage the gawkers who didn't live nearby. Like many people and most trees, if you mess with the city's sidewalks, you must pay the price.

Although the homeowner and the city are treated in a scrupulously neutral fashion, as Kemmick always does, it doesn't take the reader long to figure out the score. The tree doesn't really belong to the home-owner as the lot doesn't extend that far, no matter who planted it. For the sake of safety, the city builds a sidewalk, which in some places in our fair town, must be paid for by the homeowners on that street, but not apparently in the 'tree street' part of town.

So, for the loss of a single tree to shade your house and to visually delight us all, the city builds the homeowner a new sidewalk, beautifies his landscaping and repairs his irrigation system, and plants a new tree at some future time. And you get a nice obituary, free I expect, for the tree in the Gazette. That is a pretty good deal.

A Real Hockey Stick Graph

Three similar hockey sticks: could we call this a hat-trick? Check out the Wikipedia reference as it makes clear that sports other than hockey now use the term, usually having something to do with 3 occurrences of the same event, such as 3 hits in a row, or 3 strikeouts in a row. Apparently it was first used in the middle of the 19th century in cricket when a guy took 3 wickets with 3 balls. A collection was taken up to reward this guy. He bought a hat with the proceeds. I believe it, but I would still check with Christi the Wordsmith from Bozeman. I wonder why our President doesn't care?

[Now that I look at it again, it looks more like a broken hockey stick, patched up back in the early 2000s]

Development on Ramada Drive

This is the before picture, looking from our driveway up Ramada Drive. This is some weeks after the "canopy has been lifted."

Viola! There is Maggie the Dog, fortunately a female who does not feel the need to piss on something to express her feelings about it, and three new trees, two "Hot-wing" maples in front and a snow crab apple toward the back. The last is supposed to be rich in blossoms in the spring but poor in apples. We will see. By the way, the Amur maple in the backyard is supposed to be a recent offspring of these "Hot-wings." Watch this space.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

You know, of course, that this—the retreat of the snow and now its return—has nothing to do with climate change, don't you. From the excellent blogsite: Watts Up With That?

Quixotic Pedagogue Comments on 9/11 Picture

It looks like some pictures are worth more than a thousand words. Maybe that old aphorism is not really true, or maybe it is an average of, say a thousand pictures, some worth much more than a thousand and others approaching nothing in their worth. I know this latter notion sounds harsh to the ear of us up-to-date Americans taught to be non-judgmental but I'm guessing our tolerance quotient is high enough, especially for older folks, to let it pass. Whenever I mention my doubts about certain aphorisms I must always thank my wife for telling me about her doubts that "there are no two identical snowflakes."

I'm guessing our friendly English teacher from Helena, Mr Pogreba, was celebrating 9/11 in his own way. I envy those kids who have him as a teacher.

I wonder if our historical revisionist friends will make the same mistake they made at the Smithsonian exhibit on the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and make their assertions before all the witnesses are certainly dead.

Erections Have elections

Borrowed from somebody somewhere.

Do Not Forget:

Jo Nova has a useful website where she reminds us of Gore's Apocalypse Now tomorrow.

This should be interesting to see if they will concentrate on science or something else. Talking about 'science or something else' reminds me of the Republican presidential candidates' debate last night. You may remember the discussion between some of the participants on Texas's use of the HPV vaccine, I think it was Rep. Bachmann and Gov. Perry and maybe Sen Santorum. Others may have joined in but all I remember about the interchange was wondering why no one mentioned the 'moral hazard' of offering the vaccine to young people so that they might not contract a sexually transmitted disease which sometimes leads to dysplastic/neoplastic cervical disease, especially in those with early and frequent sexual contacts. Some of the participants were 'offended' at various assertions by their opponents. I am constantly offended every time I hear or see an ad for Gardasil for those who have the option of choice.

Another Attention-Getting Headline: Packing Heat

Try this one.

The Next Grand Minimum

I simply love to say "the next Grand Minimum." It has such an aristocratic feel on the tongue, especially when capitals are used. And your Leftist friends have no idea what you are talking about: is this a Dalton Minimum or a Maunder Minimum? It makes them uncomfortable. A recent post can be found here. Perhaps it is time to think about migration southward?

I Wonder if Obama has Heard of Laffer

This morning's Wall Street Journal is full of good stuff. The back page has a fairly short article by Arthur Laffer, apparently written to help the president with one of his main problems.

"Some people actually believe government can create jobs by taxing and borrowing from people with jobs and then giving that money to people without jobs. They call this demand stimulus. To make matters worse, other people think these demand-stimulus ideas warrant a serious response.

Government taxes cigarettes to stop people from smoking, not to get them to smoke. Government fines speeders so they won't speed, not to encourage them to drive faster. And yet contrary to common sense, it seems perfectly natural to some people that government would tax people who work or companies that are successful only to give ... "

But I wonder if the president ever sees or hears anything his handlers don't want him to see or hear. One would think that if everything else that has been tried has failed, one might give some thought to a totally different idea. If it didn't work he could blame it on Bush or the Republicans and if it did he could take credit for it. What's to lose?

There are some other good articles in the Monday morning edition of the WSJ.