Sequester Tightens, Uh, Real Estate Market in DC

Club Fed continues to spew riches. This comment on WAPO's blog says it so.

All that wealth and opulence – bought and paid for by the rest of the country, so our rulers can live in a style and fashion that the rest of us can only imagine. Is this a great country or what?

Sequester is a no-quester when it comes to housing and real estate in the federal government based economy in the Washington, DC area. Feds throughout continue to grow the financial divide with middle America as the real estate they occupy appreciates by leaps and bounds and federal largess makes housing affordable for contractors and employees.

Demand is soaring, but supply is not keeping up. The region’s supply of homes is the tightest it’s been since well before the financial crisis, according to recent data.
The result? It takes only nine days for most homes to be snapped up by hungry Washington home buyers. The region’s entire inventory of homes for sale could be consumed in as little as two months.

This tight inventory is pushing up home prices, setting up bidding wars and pricing new home buyers out of a market that is still enjoying historically low mortgage rates.
Homes in the $300,000 to $600,000 price range are selling the most quickly — usually in a week, according to June data — making the market particularly hard to navigate for first-time home buyers who want to live close to the District. Just a year ago, those homes sat around for at least three weeks.

Even homes at the higher end of the spectrum — from $600,000 to just shy of the $1 million mark — are on the market for eight days. On the other side of the scale, homes priced lower than $300,000 are available for just over two weeks.

Washington’s strong labor market and relative immunity from the housing crisis meant that demand never really dried up here, analysts say. But supply hasn’t kept pace.

Here are the numbers.  It pays to be in Club Fed.

For all home types in the Washington area:

MEDIAN SALE PRICE

In thousands

$400,000

$400

300

200

100

0

2012

2013

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

J

F

M

A

M

J

ACTIVE LISTINGS

In thousands

10,374

10

8

6

4

2

0

8,281

2012

2013

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

J

F

M

A

M

J

MEDIAN DAYS ON THE MARKET
For all home types

June 2013

June 2012

Washington metro area

9

19

Alexandria

12

22

Arlington County

7

13

Fairfax County

7

14

Loudoun County

9

22

Montgomery County

11

25

Prince George‘s County

17

37

Prince William County

12

20

Washington, D.C.

9

17

SOURCE: RealEstate Business Intelligence. GRAPHIC: By Tobey - The Washington Post. Published July 24, 2013.

Club Fed Balks at Obamacare

It's being implemented. We are learning what is in it now.  Federal employees see Obamacare coming their way. They are ducking and heading for the hills.

In the private sector, many workers are concerned about losing their employer-sponsored health insurance coverage, and being dumped into Obamacare’s subsidized insurance exchanges. Two weeks ago, representatives of three large labor unions fired off a harsh letter to Democratic leaders in Congress, complaining that Obamacare would “shatter…our hard-earned health benefits” and create “nightmare scenarios” for their members. Today, we learn that the National Treasury Employees Union—the union that includes employees of the Internal Revenue Service—is asking its members to write letters to their Congressmen, stating that they are “very concerned” about legislative efforts requiring IRS and Treasury employees to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges.

“I am a federal employee and one of your constituents,” the letter begins. “I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).”

Oh my! Oh no! Club Fed is saying not for us, Obamacare has got to go.

Meanwhile, in the buy 'em by the bag land you can buy one, two or three sack fulls. It makes no difference. Pushed by Obamacare's implementation White Castle -- in sharp contrast to its current employee mix -- is driving towards a part time benefit free workforce. Currently,

White Castle employs around 9,600 workers nationwide and about half work full-time. Roughly 80 percent of White Castle's full-time employees opt in to the company's current health care plan and the company spends four to five times more in health care than it makes in net income annually, Richardson said.

Obama is all for the middle class. If you don't believe it, ask him. Remember his motto. Forward! Move on!

Public Safety Message: Surviving Montana Rivers

Whether you are enjoying the view or the refreshing feel of a cool mountain stream, casting for trout, or boating, tubing or rafting, Montana rivers and creeks are an awesome natural resource. But locals and visitors alike best be wary, lest they veer down an embankment,  drive off the road, get pinned by or slip into the current, capsize or even unexpectedly encounter an otter. Drowning and hypothermia are ever present dangers.  Now we can add to the long list of hazards -- a suddenly falling humanoid. 

It happened earlier this week in Missoula, 

Clark Fork River Bridge, Missoula Montana

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A western Montana man floating on an inner tube suffered broken bones in his legs and torn ligaments in his knees when another man jumped from a bridge and landed in his lap.

Andy Hill of Missoula and his wife were floating under a bridge on the Clark Fork River near East Missoula Sunday when the man landed on him, KECI-TV reported.

"Suddenly I had intense pain and was under water," Hill said.

"There was a guy on my lap and he rolled off my lap and he just kept apologizing saying 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,'" Hill said.

The man swam Hill to shore, still on the inner tube, and the man's friend helped Hill as well.

Hill suffered broken bones in both lower legs and a cracked femur in his left leg and will likely spend the rest of the summer in a wheelchair or on crutches.

But he's been able to keep his sense of humor.

"Who does this happen to?" asked Hill, laughing. "I don't know of anybody this has ever happened to."

Be careful out there!

White Guy Shot Dead

The shooter carried his weapon from his vehicle into the altercation. The local sheriff says the shooter is "not at fault."

Evidence gathered by investigators of the fatal shooting of an apparent burglar by a Helena-area homeowner Wednesday so far matches the account given by the shooter, according to Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton.
Dutton confirmed that the shooter and homeowner is James Stiffler, 66. 

“Right now there’s nothing to indicate that the details provided by Mr. Stiffler are not accurate,” Dutton said Thursday afternoon, shortly after meeting with Stiffler.

Stiffler was defending himself and his property.  He tracked down the deceased and didn't call the police until after the miscreant was fatally wounded.

Dutton said Stiffler brought the weapon into the house from his car. 

He declined to indicate the type of firearm, number of shots fired or various other details about the encounter, but said he believed Stiffler was not at fault in the shooting. 

He said Stiffler has been extremely cooperative with investigators. 

“I’ve known him for quite some time and he’s an upstanding person,” Dutton said. “He’s not taking it lightly.”

Would somebody please tell our illustrious President that jumping on a person and beating on them, casing homes for burglary (Trayvon Martin had a burglary record that was buried from prosecution and public view by the juvenile justice system) and actual burglary are acts that expose the perpetrator to grievous harm, up to and including death.  It has nothing to do with race. 

Here's a hoody -- nearly everyone has one here.  It's not a black thing nor white.

Montana State Hoodie

Meanwhile in Detroit, the city Obama brags that he saved from bankruptcy, the need for self protection and self defense is going down like this.

Public services are near collapse because of repeated budget cuts. Crime has been at elevated levels for a prolonged period. Recent figures show that about 40 per cent of street lights do not work. Only a third of ambulances are in service because maintenance funds have been slashed.

“Nothing – nothing works in this city,” said Sheila Cockrel, who spent 16 years serving on Detroit City Council. Since stepping down in 2009, she has been teaching at Wayne State University. “It takes 58 minutes for a police car to come if they accept your call,” she added. “The only calls they accept are if there’s a gun and they believe you’re not lying when you say it. In my middle-income neighbourhood, we pay a private security service ... Once I was in my house at three o’clock in the afternoon and three young men tried to break in. The first call I made? Threat Management.”

Ms Cockrel is referring to Threat Management Centre, a private security company which operates from a black building near the Detroit River waterfront. It is among the many private firms that some residents have resorted to as the city struggles to provide adequate services. Founded in the mid-1990s by Dale Brown, known to his staff as “Commander Brown”, Threat Management’s client roster has 1,000 homes and 500 businesses.

Mr Brown’s men and women are kitted out in military-style trousers, black T-shirts, protective vests and badges. The “Commander”, who began by training locals to protect themselves before founding his company, drives around in a black Hummer 4x4. Threat Management Centre’s personnel are known as “Vipers”, an acronym, Mr Brown told The Independent, for “Violence Intervention Protective Emergency Response System”.

President Obama, we don't need and won't heed your advice, we abhor your leadership and we resent your dictates. You are a phony, a liar and lout. Cut out the crap and leave us alone.

I Agree With Elizabeth Warren

..... for perhaps the one and only time.  

Warren aims to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, repealed as a joint enterprise of former President Bill Clinton, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Clinton Treasury Secretary and Obama economic adviser Lawrence Summers and former Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas.  Chuck Shumer, a Senate Democrat from New York, was a huge repeal supporter. Bob Rubin, Clinton's former Treasury Secretary, represented the private sector. Timmy Geithner, Obama's former Treasury Secretary, was on the team.  The repeal effort was one of those collaborative enterprises that demonstrates why you are dumb to be a Republican and positively insane to be a Democrat.  You really don't want these hicks agreeing and compromising on anything important.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is gearing up for some "financial rabble-rousing," said Kevin Roose at New York. Last week, she introduced a bill that would force big banks to split apart their commercial and investment banking operations. Dubbed the "21st Century Glass-Steagall Act" because it reinstates key provisions of the repealed 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, the bill aims to "make the entire banking system safer and less crisis-prone" by shrinking big banks and making it harder for those with federally insured deposits to engage in "risky stuff."

Warren proposes structural regulation. Glass-Steagall is the type of regulation that actually works over the long haul, because unlike other types of regulation, it doesn't rely on clueless drone bureaucrats to be brave, smart and insightful and doesn't require groveling political appointees to be public spirited. Structurally, you can do x and not do y or you can do y and not do x. Make your choice and go to it. But banks could not be commercial banks and investment banks in one big ball of wax. Glass-Steagall worked for 65 years. It's no wonder.

When I heard that Glass Steagall was repealed I said "Oh my God, now Wall Street will become a gigantic conflict of interest." It will become all about financial gaming instead of operating a financial system that tracks and supports a real economy. Looking back we all know now what gaming took place, and how when those games collapsed in on themselves, they brought the financial sector to its knees, and the real economy along with it.

For economic and financial systems to work well, the dominant form of enterprise has to be informed arms length transactions among people and firms reconciling their various interests. That doesn't happen when the financial chain of events are linked together under a single roof. Our economy needs the Wild, Wild West of Investment Banking. It needs also the safety, security and predictability of plain vanilla Commercial Banking. But we are poorly served, in the extreme, when these functions all occur under one roof.

I agree with Elizabeth. Now I need to go wash my hands.

Middle Class -- Obama's Got Your Back

You have to hand it to Barack Obama. He is a guy always willing to speak up, stand up and grow the middle class.

President Obama believes this is a make or break moment for the middle class and those trying to reach it, and he has laid out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last - an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.

Reflecting Obama's policies and commitment to the middle class, just this year, the Obama economy has added one a quarter million new private sector jobs. The White House likes the trend. Earlier this month, Obama's Council of Economic Advisors bragged,

While more work remains to be done, today’s employment report provides further confirmation that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. It is critical that we remain focused on pursuing policies to speed job creation and expand the middle class, as we continue to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that began in December 2007.

Today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicates that private sector businesses added 202,000 jobs last month (see first chart below). Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 195,000 jobs in June. The economy has now added private sector jobs for 40 consecutive months, and a total of 7.2 million jobs has been added over that period. In spite of monthly volatility, over the past three years the pace of job growth has increased each year (see second chart below). So far this year, 1.23 million private sector jobs have been added.

How's Obama getting it done? Job splitting is a good term for it.

For the entire U.S. workforce, employers have added far more part-time employees in 2013—averaging 93,000 a month, seasonally adjusted—than full-time workers, which have averaged 22,000.

That's right, Obama is bolstering the middle class by adding about four part time jobs for every full time job, reminiscent of Obama's run in with Joe the Plumber and commitment to sharing the wealth.

The Washington Post has recognized the role Obamacare plays  in parsing jobs.

The health care law requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide affordable insurance coverage to workers. For part-time employees, who work fewer than 30 hours, the story is different: A company does not get penalized for not providing health insurance coverage.

The motivation to move even more workers into part-time positions is relatively straightforward. Employers can dodge the requirement to purchase health benefits and not pay a fine to the federal government. All of a sudden, they’re off the hook for an insurance policy that, on average, costs $9,562 to provide — and they don’t have to pay a fine.

One, two, three, let's all say it together now....

Saturday Pictures

Saturday Pictures

July 13, 2013

(click to enlarge)

Today, we offer a selection of Montana webcams.   Get lost in Montana -- the "last, best place."

Big Sky live mountain cam.

Bridger Canyon, Bozeman.

Cathedral Mountain Ranch, Nye.

Obama's Class

In Barack Obama's rhetoric the poor are poorly represented.  The middle gets mentioned.

Source:  http://nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2013/06/is-everyone-lining-up-to-challenge.html

Yet mid-wage jobs are declining.

And median incomes are falling.

The results are no good.  Think what might happen if he would just shut up.

Want to Know Anything About the Farm Bill?

Played golf today with a fellow who is an MSU Ag Econ professor, said he is a Democrat and a visiting scholar at AEI, an unusual combination to say the least. He confirmed that most Ag programs mostly subsidize people who are well off. At this point in his career he knows his subject matter inside and out. He joked that he wrote the book on crop insurance. Turns out he did. I said that's OK, so long as you didn't write the book on flood insurance. I may have spoken too soon. That was before I saw the title of his book.

Smarter Government = Feds Spying on Feds

We could make this up but we don't have to so we won't.

On a day that Barack Obama proselytized on the need for smarter, more innovative government we learn that the President is already right on top of it. Government wide he has launched a report on your co-worker tattletale program.

Security investigations can be launched when government employees showing “indicators of insider threat behavior” are reported by co-workers, according to previously undisclosed administration documents obtained by McClatchy. Investigations also can be triggered when “suspicious user behavior” is detected by computer network monitoring and reported to “insider threat personnel.”

Federal employees had better watch their p's and q's,

Federal employees and contractors are asked to pay particular attention to the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors – like financial troubles, odd working hours or unexplained travel – of co-workers as a way to predict whether they might do “harm to the United States.”

Discretion is not an option.

The techniques are a key pillar of the Insider Threat Program, an unprecedented government-wide crackdown under which millions of federal bureaucrats and contractors must watch out for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers. Those who fail to report them could face penalties, including criminal charges.

Go into debt to pay for your kid's education, work late or through the weekends, or try to sneak away for a vacation without letting the boss know the destination, you are obviously the next Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden. Barack Obama wants you targeted and investigated. That's smart, innovative government, particularly when you consider the the thousands of security personnel Obama will get to hire to investigate and track down all the leads on the next would-be espionage plot. Go to it brother Barack. 

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/09/196211/linchpin-for-obamas-plan-to-predict.html#.UdzOQvl18TZ#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/09/196211/linchpin-for-obamas-plan-to-predict.html#.UdzOQvl18TZ#storylink=cpy

Top June Posts

June was great.  We had a wonderful month page view wise (rankings below).  More than anything, it was a month for golf, both on the links and in the blog.  Thank you to all our readers!

1.)  The Golf Channel: Spouse's Guide To Sanity (Special Guest Post) - Our Father's Day post, courtesy of the mother of my children, offered golf widow insight and a Father's Day authorship respite for yours truly. She opined on Retief, Tom and Mike, harpooned the menagerie of Tiger, the Bear and the Shark, and simplified the rules to one. Not one to gloss over, she peered beneath surface, to the underwear of it all. Teresa's post not only led the month, it vaulted to number two on the all time list. First place beckons. Don't look over your shoulder Jon Tester, she is catching up. It is rumoured another guest post is on the way.

2.)  Sundays at the US Open: Memories and How to Watch a Golf Tournament - My musings and memories from Opens past at Congressional and Shinnecock, with a primer on how to track down a Tiger at a tournament.

3.)  To Sell a House - Google vs. Bing. Competition for the best search engine? No, the sources of before and after pictures on how to market a house in a hot market.

4.)  Happy First Day of Summer! - KISS.  A Yellowstone webcam. Snow fields lasted into early July, gone now.  But where have all the snowflakes gone?  They will return before Labor Day, claims of global warming notwithstanding.  There is no urban heat island in Yellowstone.

5.)  Club Fed Cashes In: Special Favors for Federal Employees - 
I said you the taxpayer might as well have written me a check for $35K. I've since looked at my account balances and bonds have continued to lose value. It's more like a $50K check you've written me.  I, along with millions of federal employees and fellow retirees, thank you for your generosity.  My children, who the cost of this is being passed on to, not so much.

6.)  Student Loan Accountability: Put College Skin into the Game -  Young, naive college students are becoming the subprime borrowers of the education market.  Let's stop the insanity and inject responsibility at all levels. 



http://gradyent.blogspot.com/2013/06/student-loan-accountability-put-college.html50

Not to Worry, Your Purveyor of Fraud Will Write You a Check

I remember when I put myself on the circulation list for the daily multi-volume set of the Federal Register. I would scan the publication to see what kind of mischief the agencies were up to and to prepare my employer to respond accordingly. It was dull and boring, but every once in while I would come up with a gem that made the effort worthwhile.  Thank God, some are still engaged in that enterprise.

A lot of people were wondering how Obama would continue to enforce the individual Obamacare mandate while dropping the employer mandate. Well, the fraudmeister in chief has spoken. The answer was snuck into the Federal Register last Friday afternoon, a classic holiday weekend sneak tactic (when we played that game the Wednesday before Thanksgiving or the Friday after were favored target dates).

If you thought the delay in the employer mandate was bad news for Obamacare, just wait. On Friday, Sarah Kliff and Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post discovered that the Obama administration had buried in the Federal Register the announcement that the government won’t be able to verify whether or not applicants for Obamacare’s insurance exchange subsidies are actually qualified for the aid, in the 16 states that are setting up their own exchanges. Instead, until at least 2015, these states will be able to “accept the applicant’s attestation [regarding eligibility] without further verification.”

If you’ve been following the latest news around Obamacare, you know that on Tuesday evening, just before the Independence Day holiday, the White House announced that it would be delaying the implementation of the health law’s employer mandate—requiring all firms with more than 50 employees to provide health coverage to their workers—until 2015.

I, and several others at the time, said “wait a minute.” According to the law, you aren’t eligible for Obamacare’s subsidies if your employer has offered you what the government considers “affordable” coverage. But if employers are no longer going to report whether or not they’ve offered “affordable” coverage, how can the government verify whether or not workers are eligible for subsidies?

Now we know the answer. The government is going with what Kliff and Somashekhar call “the honor system.” “We have concluded that the…proposed rule is not feasible for implementation for the first year of operations,” say the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “The exchange may accept the applicant’s attestation regarding enrollment in an eligible employer-sponsored plan…without further verification, instead of following the procedure in §155.320(d)(3)(iii).

And it’s not just there. The feds will also allow people to gain means-tested subsidized coverage on the exchanges without having to…test their means. “For income verification, for the first year of operations, we are providing Exchanges with temporarily expanded discretion to accept an attestation of projected annual household income without further verification.”

We have seen what happens when income checks are lax or non- existent with the Obama phones -- 40 percent unjustified or unverifiable. Much larger sums are at stake with Obamacare.  This is fraud, this is budget busting and deficit skyrocketing insanity.   I never thought I would live to see anything so outrageous.  

No Pipelines

Thanks to the enviro left's preferred transportation mode, Lac Megantic, Quebec is burning.

Pipelines are evil,

Horrible,

Destructive of the environment,

Unsafe for where you live.

If you don't believe me just ask Warren Buffett, Obama supporter and owner of BNSF, oil train shipper extraordinaire.  

“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said in an interview. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.”

According to Tony Hatch, an independent railroad analyst, rail cars are “a pretty hot commodity.”  Boy, I can second that 

Planes, Trains and Burgers

As the San Francisco plane crash investigation moves east to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) facilities, a television microwave tower forest will sprout in L'Enfant Plaza, Washington DC.  I snapped this photo a couple of years ago when the NTSB had a show hearing castigating the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority and its looney, loose liberal leadership for their lax oversight and horrendous safety performance.  This is a place you want to go if you are in DC touristing along the National Mall, not for microwave towers, but because L'Enfant has a great food court down in the Plaza. It beats the hot dog vendors. The food court is down the steps a block south of the Smithsonian Castle Building. If you stop there have a "5 Guys" burger on me with some of those scrumptious peanut oil french fries.

The Microwave Forest

Food Court

Government employees and contractor frequent the food court for lunch.

Morton Grove 4th of July Parade -- The Shriners Return

I grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois, which was the topic of one of my most popular posts (No. 3 all time). The Village of Morton Grove is a place that honors charity and community service and is a locale where traditions continue. This year, as usual, the Shriners were well represented in the lengthy 4th of July parade parade down Dempster. They are folks whose charity is second to none and they love their conveyances. Here are some photos, shared courtesy of the North Shore Voice.   

The Shriners love their camels.  They have noses.  Anyone got a tent?

Shriner and his plane.

Shriners on motorcycles.

Shriners in a fire engine.

Shriners on a bus.

Shriners on rolling carpets.

Shriners in a Prius.

And the parade ended with the obligatory street sweeper.

Barack Obama Stands With Defense Contractors

During my days in Washington, DC we called them the Beltway Bandits. Apparently that information hasn't filtered down to today's generation of political leaders, for they are a band of brothers with the defense industry. The common goal, led by none other than Barack Obama, is to reverse the effects of sequestration and rebuild annual deficits to a trillion dollars. The headline reads, "Defense Industry Hatches Plot to Kill the Sequester." The industry and the check writer in chief are pursuing common goals, sharing tactics and suffering similar fates.

In assessing the difficulty of reversing the sequestration cuts, defense analysts say that much of the industry’s trouble is self-inflicted — because the apocalyptic predictions their leaders made about the sequester have not come to pass.

You don't say.  We highlighted the charade as it was launched earlier this year, covering Obama's seminal rant and describing the tactics, best known as the Washington Monument game. As per normal, the military has its own terminology, they call it the "gold watch" gambit.

But perhaps the biggest example of the Washington Monument maneuver is coming from the Defense Department, where it goes by another name. Over many decades of defense budget battles, the Pentagon has often used a tactic known as a "gold watch." It means to answer a budget cut proposal by selecting for elimination a program so important and valued -- a gold watch -- that Pentagon chiefs know political leaders will restore funding rather than go through with the cut.

"Already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf," Obama said at a White House appearance on Tuesday, in case anyone missed the news.So now, with sequestration approaching, thePentagon has announced that the possibility of budget cuts has forced the Navy to delay deployment of the carrier USS Harry S. Truman to the Persian Gulf. With tensions with Iran as high as they've ever been, that would leave the U.S. with just one carrier, instead of the preferred two, in that deeply troubled region.

Some military analysts were immediately suspicious. "A total gold watch," said one retired general officer who asked not to be named. Military commentator and retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters called the Navy's move "ostentatious," comparing it to "Donald Trump claiming he can't afford a cab."

You have no credibility. Keep it up boys. You are all for one and one for all -- Obama calls it a community and the Beltway Bandits call it readiness. No matter which word is used it's about throwing money at politically favored groups, something our country and our children who are picking up the bills can ill afford.

Saturday Pictures

Saturday Pictures

July 6, 2013

(click to enlarge)

Railroad rank car, water tower and grain elevator, pictured from downtown Belgrade, Montana.

Silos and grain storage elevators, pictured from downtown Belgrade, Montana.

Big red barn and mini white barn, pictured from home, sweet home Bozeman, Montana.

Light bay horse, fence posts and stable pictured from Edilou, Montana.

Mule deer (it's in the ears) in grain field, pictured from Spring Hill, Montana.

Aging barn wood against the foot of the Bridger Range, pictured from Spring Hill, Montana.

Save the Chevys

Keeping these old originally equipped beauties on the road is one more reason to get ethanol out of gasoline.

Filling up 1956 Chevy at ethanol free fuel stop in Bozeman, Montana.

The Situation Room.

Rioting in the streets in Egypt and the Obama administration releases this.

President Barack Obama meets with members of his national security team to discuss the situation in Egypt, in the Situation Room of the White House, July 3, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) -- White House supplied caption to the "Photo of the Day."  

Rioting in the streets in Libya (no less than Susan, Hillary and Barack told us), a sovereign U.S. embassy outpost under lethal attack and the Obama administration releases this.

 Blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah.  Blah, blah, blah.  Blah, blah, blah.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day everyone!  I am hoping everyone is enjoying this celebration of our freedoms with friends and families.  And if you are working today, thank you for your service.

NPS webcam view up the National Mall.  As the day passes, watch the Potomac fill up with moored boats. By the time evening activities begin you can walk across.  Catch this around 9:15 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time and you will see the fireworks display exploding over the Washington Monument. If you can't see it in person, it's broadcast live and immediately replayed on PBS.  Enjoy!

Here's a screenshot from this angle courtesy of PBS.

No Flatlanders Here

President Barack Obama belittles and besmirches those those who actually support an all of the above energy policy, dismissing them as members of the "flat earth society." He is on a no coal kick.

COLSTRIP — After several years of taking a beating from the poor economy, new pollution rules and a flood of cheap natural gas, the coal industry was on the rebound this year as mining projects moved forward in the Western U.S. and demand for the fuel began to rise, especially in Asia.

But almost overnight, coal is back on the defensive, scrambling to stave off a dark future amid President Barack Obama's renewed push to rein in climate change.

The proposal, with its emphasis on cuts in carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants, would put facilities like the 2,100 megawatt Colstrip electricity plant in eastern Montana in regulators' cross hairs. That has profound spin-off implications for the massive strip mines that dot the surrounding arid landscape of the Powder River Basin and provide the bulk of the nation's coal.

Montana's sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives bluntly declared that the administration had decided to "pick winners and losers" in the energy sector with its plan.  "He wants to move toward shutting down the coal industry," Republican Rep. Steve Daines said of the president.

C'mon, flat earth in Montana? Where? The great empiricist apparently doesn't even bother to look out the window of his plane during the many presidential flyovers.

Air Force One Takeoff From Bozeman/Yellowstone Airport, See The Mountains Dude.

There is hardly a flat space to be found, not anywhere in the state. My God, the state is named after mountains.

The name Montana comes from the Spanish word Montaña, meaning "mountain", or more broadly, "mountainous country". Montaña del Norte was the name given by early Spanish explorers to the entire mountainous region of the west. The name Montana was added to a bill by the United States House Committee on Territories...

The Hill says Obama is mocking his critics.  They are too kind. It is about time this mocking bird doesn't fly.