A North Dakota original is no more. Green Glue of West Fargo, which made caulks for soundproofing installations, was sold to plastics giant Saint-Gobain in 2008 and now has been shuttered. The product will still be made — in New York state.
Goodbye, Green Glue
July 1st, 2009Pomeroy’s for pollution
June 25th, 2009Earl Pomeroy has come out against the cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide emissions, citing that North Dakota’s cooperatives burn coal for their power.
It’s plainly the wrong call to stand against key measures to reduce pollution. North Dakota’s Rural Electric Cooperatives, like everyone else, have to be responsible to the environment we all share. Given their close ties to our community, I think with prodding, they could appreciate that sentiment and accept the need for change. They need to start putting more money into wind power, before the foreign companies that have been moving in so far buy out all of our skies.
Let’s not forget that there are hundreds of corporate coal plants beyond the borders of our state that have demonstrated no ethics but those which the law requires of them. We need new rules.
Health care bill somewhere in the hallways
June 24th, 2009The Senate has been feverishly whittling parts of the proposed health plan away, although the exact details seem to be out of reach, as even getting hardish numbers on the amounts being slashed from the proposal requires anonymous leaks.
This is the most important legislation of the decade and I’ve yet to see a draft. I’ll just have to ask for a copy.
What the world needs now is rail, steel rails…
June 23rd, 2009The nationwide coverage of the DC Metro crash is problematic. Covering such a thing live on the major nightly newscasts only perpetuates the notion that something is of national significance simply because it happens in DC. It’s not.
Read the rest of this entry »
Dickinson trying to recycle again
June 22nd, 2009As Dickinson’s main recycling firm shuttered earlier this year, city officials are now trying to look into getting a new recycling program. That is, they’re going to ask local citizens what they want to pay, and see what happens after that.
I’m guessing that if the city even bothers to follow through, they will be paying more than if they had bothered to keep the original local recycler up and running.
Green for Iran
June 17th, 2009I don’t pretend to know Iranian politics inside and out, but anyone who was denied a vote, or didn’t get their vote counted correctly has a natural and moral right to protest.
It is silence that is the end of democracy, and the unrest in Tehran certainly has proven that it’s not as autocratic as the West had thought. I’ll tip my hat to any country that lets 15-year-olds vote — my own country denied me that right.
The opposition candidate Mousavi called for people to wear Green and Black; bloggers have followed suit. Green fits my website anyway. It’s the least I could do.
Goldmark preys on the disabled
June 17th, 2009One of North Dakota’s mega-rental firms has been caught scamming the disabled with illegal fees for companion animals. A Fair Housing of the Dakotas followed up on complaints and found Goldmark openly admitted to asking for a $235 up front and $20 a month.
That may not be unreasonable for your average pet owner, but it’s obscene to ask someone with a medical need for the animal to pony up. If Goldmark does anything but immediately correct the problem and return its ill-gotten gains, then it is not a company that deserves anyone’s money.
Co-op backlash and congressional opacity
June 16th, 2009It seems Kent’s plan isn’t making waves out there.
As a North Dakotan, I hear the word “cooperative” and get warm fuzzy feelings. But I also know that the most successful cooperatives are the biggest ones. So it is puzzling to me that this was not the goal of Senator Conrad’s proposal. The problem with Kent’s idea isn’t that it’s a cooperative. The problem is that it doesn’t even try to create the One Big Cooperative that would be needed to make an impact in the marketplace.
Instead, Conrad wanted to create the opportunity for people to create their own cooperatives. This is a solution that is piecemeal and onerous on individuals and small businesses, as they either have to make their own co-op, or sift among the proliferation of tiny ones that come about as a result of the present proposal. All of them will then be at the mercy of private capital firms, because each of these tiny cooperatives will need re-insurance against catastrophic claims larger than their customer base could otherwise pay for.
A key problem for me in judging the merits of this or any other legislative proposal which hasn’t actually hit the floor of Congress is that the text of these proposals aren’t readily and publicly available on THOMAS, the site that keeps track of officially filed bills and amendments, and amendments to the amendment, et cetera. If Conrad’s measure is there, it’s not apparent to some serious search attempts.
Having key proposals like this being traded around backrooms, between politicians and better-placed journalists, is no way to run a country.
Taking personal ownership of health reform
June 12th, 2009This week, President Obama called for a government-run nationwide health plan exemplifying the ideal of coverage for everyone, something that private insurers would have to compete with by offering better coverage or lower rates. Apopleptic conservatives immediately decried “Big Government” and reiterated their everlasting faith and fealty to the “free market”. Some cited an American Medical Association policy statement initially opposing a government plan, but the AMA’s views seem to be conflicted at best.
Though I do not share the fear of a direct government insurance plan, if it’s a political showstopper, then there needs to be a compromise that can still keep other insurance companies honest. Accordingly, Senator Conrad has proposed that the health plan be administered by a cooperative owned by policyholders. It’s a business model that other health insurers use, many of which behave exactly like their corporate brethren, skinflinting patients with the best of them. Some provide the savings to their members through rebates, and others simply pump up executive pay and fly themselves to tropical vacations.
Knowing this, it is obvious that cooperative ownership alone will be insufficient to maintain an honest insurance company, and in turn, set a proper example for others to compete against. It will require organized, vocal blocs of people dedicated to ensuring that the co-op keeps healthcare the top priority, and ensures administrative overhead is kept to a minimum.
Minot AFB expanding, for now
June 12th, 2009It was announced yesterday that Minot Air Force Base is getting a new addition: a small staff for a nuclear weapons maintenance and security headquarters — something that Minot of all places would need most, given its widely-publicized recent slip-ups.
In a longer view, with the fate of the base tied largely to the ageing B-52 fleet and the nuclear arsenal we should be dismantling, I wouldn’t count on it being a permanent fixture.