Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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America’s media is suffering from a truth deficit leaving many to wonder where to go for honest, reliable and accurate information. Unfortunately, it is not the mainstream or social media. Last month Forbes magazine found for the first time, fewer than half of all Americans acknowledge any kind of trust of major media. The information was captured in Edelman’s annual trust barometer. “Fifty-six percent of Americans, for example, said they agreed with the following state...
Now that vaccines are available, we hope our lives will return to the way they were before the coronavirus pandemic blanketed the globe. That is not likely to occur. Last March our booming economy was clobbered by COVID-19. A worldwide pandemic ensued. There was no vaccine to counter it and even though vaccines were developed at “warp speed” lots of things changed and have become imbedded in our daily lives. Futurist Bernard Marr, columnist in Forbes, believes employers qui...
While the coronavirus and its devastating effects on people and economies worldwide were unfortunately the top 2020 stories, the massive impact of western wildfires can’t be ignored. It was catastrophic. The National Interagency Fire Center’s western states tally shows a record 8.6 million acres were incinerated in 2020 compared with 4.6 million acres in 2019. In Washington just over 700,000 acres were burned; however, California and Oregon were not as fortunate. By com...
“One of the biggest challenges of the 21st Century is dealing with the progress of the 20th Century – especially old computers, monitors, cellular phones and televisions. These appliances depend on hazardous materials, such as mercury, to operate. After a five-to-eight year useful life, many are tossed into dumpsters and sent to landfills where those hazardous materials can leach into the soil, streams and groundwater.” That was the opening paragraph of a column I wrote 20 ye...
It’s no secret that airlines and airplane manufacturers have been clobbered by the coronavirus pandemic. Particularly hard hit are international flights traditionally flown by jumbo jets. Borders are closed and people aren’t flying. There is a small silver-lining. Just as restaurants started take-out service to survive, airlines are filling planes with freight. U.S. airlines are reeling from the pandemic and have lost more than $20 billion combined in the last two quarters. Ev...
Diversity in the ranks has been the lifeline of our all-volunteer military, but it wasn’t always that way. As we celebrate Veterans Day, we ought to be thankful for all of the men and women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds who put their lives in harm’s way to protect our freedoms and make safe our way of life. When my father was inducted into the U.S. Army during World War II, our military was segregated. That lasted until 1948 when President Harry Truman signed Executive...
To the average American, China’s control of the world production, processing technology and stockpile of critical metals is not their concern. However, to our military and high-tech leaders, it is a very big deal. Our government has a list consisting of 35 metals considered to be vital to our national economy and security. While 17 are classified as “rare earth” and are not commonly known, all are critical components of products such as smart phones, laptop computers, lithi...
To the average American, China’s control of the world production, processing technology and stockpile of critical metals is not their concern. However, to our military and high-tech leaders, it is a very big deal. Our government has a list consisting of 35 metals considered to be vital to our national economy and security. While 17 are classified as “rare earth” and are not commonly known, all are critical components of products such as smart phones, laptop computers, lithi...
What happens in China, doesn’t always stay in China. We learned that a couple of years ago when the Chinese stopped buying massive volumes of the world’s used paper, plastics and textiles; and, again last March when the coronavirus escaped Wuhan and spread across the planet. Like other nations, China is struggling with the deadly Covid-19 virus and suffocating under mountains of trash its residents generate each day. Wuhan hospitals generated six times as much medical was...
Not only is the world in the grasp of the COVID-19 pandemic, but America’s western wildlands are burning up as well. Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters California has a dual crises: the massive wildfire complexes and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “At this time last year, California had seen 4,292 fires that burned 56,000 acres. So far this year, we’ve had 7,002 fires that have burned a whopping 1.4 million acres.” California reports more than 660,000 coronavirus cases....
It is no secret that airlines were clobbered by the coronavirus pandemic. What started as a promising year quickly went south. The COVID-19 outbreak has all but shut down travel. Today, airlines operate at a fraction of capacity. The 3 million passengers carried by U.S. carriers in April 2020 was a 96 percent decline from April 2019, the Bureau of Transportatiaon Statistics reports. To absorb the sudden blow, airlines parked planes, drastically cutback schedules, furloughed wo...
Our environmental quality strategy must be encompassing and not just focus on climate change. Since Democrats announced their Green New Deal, the emphasis is reducing greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, which contribute to global warming. Their goal is to replace gasoline and diesel burning vehicles with those operated by batteries and to eliminate coal and natural gas burning power plants. It is understandable since the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human...
That actually happened in the course of the last month. The result would undoubtedly please the legendary U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) - the master problem solver. In March, President Trump signaled he supported legislation that would fund the backlog of National Parks and natural resources maintenance work. The money would come from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) which was established in 1964 when Jackson, a prominent Democrat, sponsored legislation...
On July 4, 1975, America proudly celebrated its Bicentennial as the world’s greatest nation while Poland was a suppressed Soviet satellite state. Poles had no right to free speech, were hungry and impoverished. If you wanted a job, you played ball with Communist Party bosses. If you disagreed with their ideology, you likely were imprisoned. Poland was a rather bleak land which had not recovered from the German Blitzkrieg in 1939. Meanwhile, in Washington, the Business Week p...
In early June, the financial website WalletHub released its rankings of “Best and Worse State Economies” and Washington led the field of 51 as best by a healthy margin. WalletHub economists viewed the states from three key dimensions—-economic activity, economic health and innovation potential. Then the analysts from Dartmouth and Carthage colleges and the University of Texas-Austin looked a 28 key indicators of economic performance and strength when comparing all 50 state...
While the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest are front page news, China’s unrelenting push to leap over our country in critical technology and hoarding of strategic metals should alarm us. Since the coronavirus pandemic broke out, there has been an unprecedented worldwide demand for personal protective equipment (PPE). Tensions between our countries fueled the widespread fear that Chinese imports would disappear. China provided 48 percent of our PPE imports in 2018, but C...
If you think the run on toilet paper is just an American thing, think again. On March 10, Business Insider reported: “The spread of the coronavirus has brought with it panic-buying of food and household essentials, despite the attempts of governments to discourage stockpiling. But no item has made more headlines than the humble toilet roll. “From buying enough toilet rolls to make a throne, to printing out blank newspaper pages to serve as extra toilet paper, people have had...
While wind farms generate “greenhouse gas free” electricity, there is increasing concern over the rapidly growing number of worn out blades ending up in landfills. Those blades, housed on giant towers reaching over 200-feet in the sky, are starting to reach the end of their useful life (15 to 20 years) and are being taken down, cut up and hauled to dumps in Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming. Adding to the spent blade disposal problem is utilities are retrofitting existing win...
Keeping hospitals and health workers healthy is key to fighting diseases. With new and more deadly viruses, the job is more challenging. Although the coronavirus has captured the world’s attention, it is important to note the Centers for Disease Control and Provention estimates 80,000 Americans died of flu and flu complications in the winter of 2017-2018 – the highest flu-related death toll in at least four decades. The coronavirus outbreak is very serious. According to the...
Government leaders, doctors, and medical researchers worldwide are working feverishly to stop the spread of the coronavirus and keep it from becoming a global pandemic. Wuhan, one of China’s major transportation hubs whose population approaches 11 million, is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak that is spreading like wildfire. Wuhan was put on lockdown. The fear is widespread prompting China’s government leaders to build a 1,000 bed hospital within a week. Professor Shen...
With the new decade comes an international air pollution regulation which hastens the switch from high sulfur fuel oil to either diesel or LNG in ocean-going ships. The mandate drops the sulfur content from 3.5 to .5%. While that number sounds trivial, it is applied to 62,000 vessels worldwide. Ship owners and environmental regulators battled over the sulfur limit for years; however, starting on January 1, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) implemented it as...
As we launch into 2020 and the ensuing decade, Boeing faces very strong head winds which are major concerns for those of us living in the Pacific Northwest. Things are vastly different now. In my first column of 2019, I wrote that Boeing was poised to have its best year ever. It had strong tail winds propelling it. It would build upon a very successful 2018. Its 737 Max was selling like hot cakes to hungry airlines and plans were in the works to expand production at the...
At Christmas, millions watch the 1946 movie classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” While it is labeled “fantasy drama”, the show gives us a glimpse of reality and reminds us of the importance of caring local business owners. The setting is mythical Bedford Falls, NY, on Christmas Eve. George Bailey, a family man with a wife and four children, was dogged by a greedy banker, Henry Potter, who wanted to shut Bailey Building and Loan Association down. (George inherited the strugglin...
Bridges shouldn’t have to sink to be replaced. However, at times that’s what it takes. Too often new projects succumb to years of fighting among interest groups and endless political bickering. In 2013, opposition killed Columbia Crossings project which was formed to construct a replacement I-5 bridge across the Columbia River connecting Vancouver and Portland. We all want more roads and bridges as long as they are in the other persons’ neighborhood and someone else pays....
In the coming decade, investors are betting that hydrogen will become a prominent fuel which can eliminate CO2 discharges from the vehicles it energizes. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) the transportation sector has dominated the growth in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions since 1990, accounting for 69 percent of the total increase. It is important that hydrogen technology advances rapidly because cars, trucks and buses are a growing contributor to gr...