If you go to the Williston Herald website and click on “News” today, here is a partial list of what you will find. Just another day in the oil patch. Uffda. Local News Trenton woman dies of carbon monoxide poisoning The name of a 49-year-old woman who died in Trenton Sunday has been released. Parshall … Continue reading Just Another Day In The Oil Patch

Have you ever noticed that people who don’t have much to say often talk about the weather? It’s like they just need to be saying something, but there’s not much going on upstairs, so, let’s talk about cold, or hot, or snow, or wind. One of the ways this manifests itself frequently, I’ve noticed, is … Continue reading Matters of Opinion?

The Legislature is coming to town Monday, ostensibly to draw new Legislative district lines, but more urgently to fix some of the state’s problems that cannot wait until the regular Legislative session in 2013. One of them is flood relief. Probably the most important one. For the record: I was not personally affected by the … Continue reading $10,000 – No Questions Asked

The purpose of this post is to remind you that this is the week during which you need to submit comments to the U.S. Forest Service on the issue of mining gravel at Theodore Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch site. Comments should be submitted to Ron Jablonski at the address below (I listed the wrong address and … Continue reading Don’t Mess With The IRS

SURPRISE! LOOKS LIKE KEVIN’S IN Kevin Cramer lives, eats, breathes and sleeps politics. So you just knew it had to happen. Kevin said in the paper today he might just run for Congress in 2012. All Kevin has ever wanted is to go to Washington, D.C. as a Senator or Congressman (I wrote about this … Continue reading Weekenders

Late Tuesday, the U.S. Forest Service posted the scoping documents for the “Elkhorn Gravel Pit” on its website.  The documents tell you what Roger Lothspeich, who owns half the surface minerals on the Elkhorn Ranchlands, plans to do to this historic site. As I’ve noted in the three previous blog posts on this issue, citizens … Continue reading Your Comments Welcome . . . And Necessary

Take a look at the list of names below. They are the members of the Advisory Council of the Friends of the Elkhorn Ranch, the organization formed in 2007 which helped gain public ownership of the former Eberts Ranch, now the Elkhorn Ranchlands, which is threatened by gravel mining by the surface mineral owners. Theodore … Continue reading Here’s A ‘Who’s Who’ List For You

Continuing with our discussion of the Seven Deadly Sins. Our revisionist group identified two more, pretty much unanimously, that should be submitted for ratification: Stupid, and Ugly. Stupid, not in the sense of being born with diminished intellectual capabilities, but doing or saying things that just don't make any sense to anyone, and should not … Continue reading Stupid and Ugly

During a recent campfire discussion among friends, we decided, only half jokingly, that it’s just possible the Seven Deadly Sins need an update. I mean, they date back to about the 6th Century, and the world has changed a bit since then. Don’t get me too wrong here—they’re still bad things, and should be avoided, … Continue reading A Deadly Sin

SENATOR BERG? MAYBE NOT As North Dakota Democrats scramble to find an opponent for Rick Berg, our state’s self-appointed next U.S. Senator, perennial candidate Duane Sand has stepped in to fill the breech until Democrats get their act together. In an announcement last week so underwhelming even I, one of the state’s most avid politics-watchers, … Continue reading On Politics