Last Best Blog

This is the weblog page of Last Best News. Here you will find some news, perhaps, but also lots of commentary, opinion and satire. Just so you know.

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A-B Wilderness film screens Thursday in Red Lodge

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A-B

A documentary film about how the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness was created will be screened at the Roman Theater in Red Lodge at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 31. The film, “Wild Resurrection: The Untold Story of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness,” was written, produced and directed by Kris Prinzing, director of MusEco Media and Education Project, a Billings nonprofit. The screening is also a celebration of the A-B Wilderness itself, which was created 40 years ago, when the act introduced by Montana Sen. Lee Metcalf was signed into law on March 27, 1978. Much of the film consists of interviews with some of the key people involved in the creation of the wilderness area, and some of those people will be on hand to answer questions at the screening in Red Lodge, as will filmmaker Prinzing. There will be a cash bar and a birthday cake, and attendees are encouraged to bring old photos or slides of the A-B Wilderness. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Kris Prinzing

Montana Climate Assessment presentation planned

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Cathy Whitlock

A presentation on the 2017 Montana Climate Assessment is scheduled for Thursday, May 24, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Royal Johnson Community Room of the Billings Public Library, 510 N. Broadway. The Billings Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, the Billings League of Women Voters and the Better Billings Sustainability Committee of the Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council are sponsoring the event. The Montana Climate Assessment, published last September, is a product of the Montana University System’s Montana Institute on Ecosystems. The presentation will be given by the lead author of the assessment, Cathy Whitlock. The assessment describes past and future climate trends that affect three sectors of the Montana economy: agriculture, water and forestry. “The central goal of this effort was to create a product that would be useful to Montanans in planning for and adapting to a changing climate,” Whitlock said.”The assessment’s findings foresee a hotter future for Montana, but it is the specific details about what this means that we hope citizens will find useful.” Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Billings Public Library, Cathy Whitlock, Montana Climate Assessment

Citizens detained for speaking Spanish

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The Washington Post has a story about how two Spanish-speaking American citizens were detained and questioned for 35 to 40 minutes in a convenience store parking lot in Havre because the agent overheard them speaking Spanish. One of the women filmed part of the encounter on her cell phone. When she asked the agent why he wanted to see their IDs, he answered: “Ma’am, the reason I asked you for your ID is because I came in here, and I saw that you guys are speaking Spanish, which is very unheard of up here.”

  Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, ICE

It’s official: This was the snowiest winter on record

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Lightning

Sure, it’s a miserable day in Billings, Montana. But there is one consolation: we have officially broken the record for snowfall in one winter. The National Weather Service office in Billings put out an alert at 10:18, saying: “Wild weather in Billings this morning. We had a clap of thunder as rain changed to snow around 9:16 AM MDT. You can see the single lightning strike on the map below. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, National Weather Service, Snow

Western Heritage Center kicks off new High Noon series

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Series

The Western Heritage Center will open its 2018 High Noon program series on Thursday, March 15, with a panel discussion commemorating the 60th anniversary of KULR8 TV. The free program will start at noon at the Western Heritage Center, 2822 Montana Ave. Starting as KGHL-TV in 1958, the station’s call letters switched to KULR-TV in 1963. KULR-8 joined KOOK-TV (now KTVQ) to offer a two-station market in Billings during the 1960s and 1970s. The presentation, hosted byLynne Turner-Fitzgerald, will explore the changing world of television from the perspective of those working at the station, with panelists Chris Byers, Becky Hiller, Greg LaMotte and Virginia Smith. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, High Noon series, KULR8, Western Heritage Center

National Review slams Clarke’s comments

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I’m not the only one who thinks former Sheriff David Clarke is a terrible representative of the conservative movement. I wrote a column suggesting that Yellowstone County Republicans had disgraced themselves by inviting Clarke to speak at their annual dinner, and then I wrote that Clarke proved his unworthiness with his comments on the school shooting in Florida. A writer for the National Review, which was the conscience of the Republican Party when the party still had a conscience, said much the same thing, but in even harsher terms:

“First it was the Holocaust, now Parkland — is there any act of depravity to which the less respectable right-wing media cannot imagine a connection for George Soros? “David Clarke, the sheriff of Fox News, insisted that the Florida students’ reaction to the shooting ‘has GEORGE SOROS’ FINGERPRINTS all over it,’ idiotic capitalization in the original and, one assumes, in his soul.” The writer, Kevin D. Williamson, correctly identifies the rot as starting at the head, in the form of President Trump, and he says, “When people get used to hearing prominent conservatives lying about their opponents, it makes it easier for honest and fair-minded people to dismiss conservative arguments and conservative claims out of hand.” Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, David Clarke, National Review

Ex-sheriff Clarke at it again

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Clarke

More evidence that Yellowstone County Republicans, by inviting former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke to speak at the Lincoln Reagan Day Dinner, made a choice that was wildly inappropriate, at best. The Hill is reporting that Clarke “insinuated Wednesday that student survivors of the Parkland, Fla., shooting were being manipulated by Democratic billionaire George Soros to organize for gun control.” But nowadays, the race to the bottom occurs at dizzying speeds. It turns out that Clarke’s comments weren’t the worst ones out there. The same story says various right-wing websites are claiming that Florida high school students who have appeared on CNN are actually “crisis actors” paid to “exploit the shootings for nefarious purposes.” Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, David Clarke, Florida school shooting, The Hill