Wednesday March 2, 2011

Opinion & Editorial

by Jeff Arcel, Windmaker Energy LLC, Whitefish; Chris Daum, Oasis Montana, Stevensville; Henry Dykema, Sundance Solar, Red Lodge; Van Jamison, Gaelectric, Helena; Dave Oien, Timeless Seeds, Conrad; Beth Linkenhoker, Sunelco, Victor

Clean, affordable, homespun energy means hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in rural communities and thousands of jobs for Montana. Unfortunately, Montana’s burgeoning clean energy economy is under attack in the State Legislature.

The clean energy sector represents one of the bright spots in our struggling state and national economy, growing through the global recession in the last several years. Today, 65 renewable energy and efficiency companies call Montana home. According to a 2010 report by Bozeman-based Headwaters Economics, the clean energy sector provides the single best opportunity for new, high paying jobs in Montana. From small, Main Street backyard wind turbine and rooftop solar panel installers to energy giants like General Electric Energy, the clean energy sector already employs 2,200 Montanans and is growing every day.  

How has this new industry pushed through the darkness of the recent recession?

Montana has attracted new clean energy entrepreneurs and jobs with great care, using state policy to drive investment in the blossoming industry. In 2005, with the leadership of Governor Schweitzer and then State Senator Jon Tester, Montana passed a renewable energy standard (RES). The RES was created to spur the development of new sources of renewable energy – and the jobs and economic development that go along with it – by requiring utilities to acquire 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Under the RES, renewables are defined as wind, solar, geothermal and small hydroelectric projects.  Montanans overwhelmingly support clean renewable energy; our RES ensures that our utilities use at least some of our energy dollars to deliver the goods.

Montana’s utilities are well on their way toward achieving that goal and the effort has resulted in more jobs, a boost to the state’s tax base, cleaner energy and the potential for far greater benefits over time.

But if the RES is dropped or weakened, renewable energy producers may view Montana as a bad climate for new investment.  

Montana is in the top five states in terms of wind energy potential. But producers need a strong, stable policy commitment in order to develop and bring jobs here.

History demonstrates that the RES has created jobs in the state and positioned Montana as a leader in clean energy. Ten years ago, Montana produced zero megawatts of wind energy. Today that figure is 400 megawatts. Unfortunately, members of the Montana State Legislature are busy crafting bills that say “closed for business” to the industry that promises to be the primary economic driver in the 21st century worldwide. For example, Representative Derek Skees’ (Whitefish) attempt to repeal the RES altogether (HB 244), would have undermined the stability of the industry, jeopardized good jobs, and limited the renewable energy options available to Montana consumers. We commend the committee for acting in a responsible and bipartisan way and voting against this bill – we urge legislators to halt further attempts to repeal or weaken Montana’s RES.

Other bills threaten small scale clean energy development in our state. State Senator Jason Priest‘s legislation (SB 226) directly attacks small, independent power producers and installers by requiring that net-metered customers pay an additional fee for supplying their excess energy back to the grid. Our net metering statute has allowed hundreds of utility customers to install roof-top solar panels and back yard wind turbines. By unfairly charging these customers new rates, this bill dismantles a system that has worked since 1999 to encourage investments in clean energy and Montana jobs. SB 226 destroys the economic viability of installing small, distributed power systems and may result in a rate hike of approximately 33% for a typical net metered customer. It limits the ability of Montanans to decide how they would like to produce, use, and consume their power, by making it more difficult to harness the clean energy available on their own property. And, it would unfairly charge people for making their personal investment in clean, renewable energy.

These attacks and others on our clean energy policies mean fewer jobs, less investment in rural communities and dependence on dangerous and volatile foreign sources of energy.

But with the right policies, every Montanan can benefit from the growing clean energy economy. In addition to their contributions to Montana’s job market and overall economy, wind and other renewable sources of energy promise energy independence and long-term price stability for consumers. So, rather than putting up policy roadblocks that scream, “closed for business,” we ask Helena and Washington to stand with independent-minded Montanans and invite the investments, jobs and energy independence that clean energy delivers.

Get out of our bedrooms and create some jobs!

Dear Editor,

It is disturbing to hear the Montana Legislators purpose to pass a law that excludes any human individual from the protection of basic Human Rights Laws. The next class of individuals could be handicapped persons, either physical or mental, or perhaps those who are not attractive enough to meet some unknown criteria. Heck, why don't we just eliminate everyone from the protection of Human Rights Laws?

Regardless of sexual orientation, each and every person in this country has the right to expect protection from discrimination, whether it refers to jobs, housing or walking down the street.

Our forefathers stated in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It clearly states all men (and women) are created equal. How any individual conducts his/her sexual life as a consenting adult is none of anyone's business and no one, especially the state legislators, has the right to infringe upon those rights.

By the way, I have always understood that the church and state are to be legally separate. So how does it work that comments from a person (Harris Himes) quoting the Bible are legally allowed?

There are many more critical issues the Montana legislators should be concerned about. How about job creation for the state’s citizens?

Sandy Russ
Stevensville

Psychological projection

Dear Editor,

Psychological projection is projecting what we know to be true of our own self outward upon the world outside. For instance, if I am cheating on my wife and later accuse my innocent wife of cheating, I am projecting outward upon her what I know to be true of myself, alone. The thinking is this: because I cheat, everyone else cheats; because I am honest, everyone else is honest; because I am a hostile hater, everyone else is a hostile hater; because I tell lies, everyone else is a liar; and so on ad infinitum.

That kind of thinking is common, and though there are some uniformities in our attitudes and conduct, yet we remain individual persons--hence, that kind of thinking can be fallacious and dangerous. For we sometimes extend our trust to the wrong people – that can be dangerous.

For us ordinary folks who have reconciled our personal desires with the demands of our culture, as a kind of guide through life, psychological projection is relatively harmless so long as we carefully sort things out. However, now living among us is a large number of sexually-maladjusted Americans and that is negatively impacting our culture. Hence, this letter discusses the virus that is paralyzing America.

If there weren't so many wealthy, well-educated Americans who are homosexuals; if there weren't so many gays now sitting at the top levels of our political, economic and educational systems; if there weren't so many gays in our national media; if there weren't so many homosexuals in city, county, state and federal government so that in some geographical areas gays are the face of government; if heterosexual Christians had not long ago demonstrated a tolerance of gay sexual practices--if all of those items were false, then I might be able to recognize some kind of deep, settled and abiding hostility, hatred and intolerance of homosexuals by heterosexual Christians. But I see no evidence of that, at all. What I do see is homosexuals projecting their own hostility, hatred and intolerance – what they know about themselves – outward upon the backs of innocent Christians. (Let us hope that gays never become the majority in America.)

Psychopaths and psychotics differ in this respect: unlike extreme psychotics who lose contact with reality, psychopaths are very much in contact with it, it's just that psychopaths reject reality! For instance, the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, is a sexually-maladjusted psychopath. Ted's peculiar way of rejecting reality is mailing bombs to people. Ted thought it proper to blow the hands and arms off people. What terrible truth about himself was he projecting outward upon others? Scary.

The emperor Nero donned a wedding-veil and married a freedman at one of his exciting parties. According to the historian, Tacitus, bride and groom consummated the marriage there before the guests. Nero was a sexually-maladjusted psychopath – destruction made flesh. What did Nero know about himself that motivated him to feed people, especially Christians, to hungry lions? From the standpoint of sheer number of destroyed lives, Adolf Hitler, another sexually-maladjusted psychopath – again, destruction made flesh – probably surpasses Nero.

Hitler's legal father and mother were uncle and niece to each other; Adolf was a product of incest. Shortly before becoming chancellor of Germany, Hitler, too, had an incestuous affair with his half-sister's daughter, one Geli Raubal, a very attractive young Austrian woman. Miss Raubal died in Hitler's Munich apartment complex from a bullet through the heart. (After the war, some of the surviving attendants of the

complex said they believed Miss Raubal was killed by Nazi insiders acting on Hitler's orders—Miss Raubal apparently wanted to return to Vienna and marry a Jewish boyfriend!) Clearly, there can be no more certain way to pollute the human gene pool than through the practice of incest.

Later, as Fuehrer (Leader) with complete control of the media, Hitler hammered the German people with: "Jews are polluting Aryan blood!" Everything that Adolf Hitler knew and hated within himself he projected outward upon Jews and then set about systematically exterminating them.

Some in America call themselves lesbian-feminists. The label is misleading, but the underlying reality isn't--they're sexually-maladjusted psychopaths. They don't fear Jews, they fear innocent babies. I say that because if you are a lesbian-feminist who fought for women's rights, who fought for taxpayer-funded abortion on-demand, who fought for Pro-Choice, and who fought for Planned Parenthood, then you are showing us a morbid, irrational fear and hatred of innocent, defenseless babies. Our media don't tell us how much life has already been destroyed in America's abortion clinics, but I think it not unfair to say that in sheer destruction of life they have already surpassed Hitler's gas chambers and crematoria.

Now, we must inquire as to what truth lesbian-feminists know about themselves. What is it that when projected outward upon life serves as rational justification (motivates them) to callously steal away a baby's life before it can open its eyes and see this world? What? I can only guess, but I will offer the following as an explanatory answer:

If air and water can be polluted (defiled, befouled) it seems reasonable that a human being too, can be polluted. Isn't that really what homosexuality is – the pollution of a normal healthy human being? If that's what lesbian-feminists know and understand about themselves and they project that outward upon life, it could come down as a death sentence upon the unborn. Hitler was protecting Aryan blood from pollution by Jews, lesbian-feminists are protecting Earth from pollution by human babies. That means, of course, that Planned Parenthood is all about pollution control.

There is no creature that begins life more helpless than a human baby. We heterosexual Americans used to root for the underdog. Has our society and culture become so polluted by homosexuality that we, too, are losing our reverence of life?

Leon Salois
Corvallis

Democrats don’t remember November’s rejection

Dear Editor,

Based upon all the political hyperbole, Democrats have already forgotten the November 2010 rejection of their spending us into prosperity! One wonders what it takes to keep their attention.

Conservatives in Congress have correctly read last election’s tea leaves and have vowed to correct our country’s extravagant spending habits. Democrats apparently disagree. Through Obama’s misguidance, Democrats aren’t willing to lead, hoping to gain political one-up-man-ship. Without doubt, such inaction and lack of leadership at a time of financial crisis is beyond fiscal irresponsibility! Apparently Democrats are hoping for a political mis-step by Conservatives that may cause government shutdown. Watch out, they may get what they wish for!

We can no longer afford: misguided leadership, irresponsible domestic spending, current entitlement programs, or Obamacare! Responsible Americans can’t wait for the 2012 elections to rid our country of damaging liberals in the White House and Senate!

Jerry Haslip
Victor

Praise for production

Dear Editor,

In spite of the snow Saturday night, my wife and I had the pleasure of attending the Stevensville Playhouse's "Barefoot in the Park." I still find it difficult to believe that we have such a fine theater, actors, directors, board of directors and sponsors so willing to give their time in support of the arts.

"Barefoot in the Park" is exceptionally well presented with fine direction and a wonderful set. The acting was superb and, despite a huge amount of dialog, not a line was missed and the parts were played with true feeling. It brought back memories of our first apartment.

If you don't already have tickets, make time to attend this wonderful presentation.

Mel Walters
Stevensville

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