What my front yard looked like after the big storm

I live approximately two miles NW of Kalispell. Although the east side of the valley was raked by high winds, my location wasn’t. There were a few rain showers. No snow. But there’s new snow on the Swan Range, 15 miles to the east. And the temperature is approximately 15 degrees below average for late September.

The barometric pressure, which I checked hourly, never fell more than a few hundredths inch of mercury. It’s now at 30.07 inHg sea level equivalent (the station pressure is 26.98 inHg). Given the NWS’s dire forecast, I expected the pressure would decrease significantly, but it didn’t. I know the source of my error: ignorance; I’m not a meteorologist.

The storm’s great irony, of course, is that it commenced on the last day of the week-long climate strike protesting global warming.

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Big storm’s a-comin’ — how low will your station pressure go?

The weatherman has bad news for our weekend:

Time to turn up the heat, pull on an extra sweater, and keep an eye on the barometer. Just how low will the pressure fall at the peak of the storm? I’ll be watching three barometers, two at my place northwest of Kalispell, and via the internet, the decoded METAR observations from the National Weather Service’s station at Kalispell Glacier International Airport (KGPI).

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Enrollment at the University of Montana declines — again

Enrollment at the University of Montana in Missoula, which declined by 33.5 percent from 2011 to 2018, is down approximately five percent from last year, according to the Missoulian. At Montana State University in Bozeman, enrollment remains at a near record high.

I’m increasingly of the opinion that UM’s decline and MSU’s rise are in large measure a function of the economic and population growth in the Gallatin, a technology oriented, economically upscale, area with scenery every bit as spectacular as Missoula’s, and a sunnier climate. It’s a nice place to live, and people are moving there faster than they’re moving to Missoula.

Chart 1 displays the population growth of Montana, Missoula, and the Gallatin, from 1970 to 2018 using U.S. Census Bureau data. Clearly, Missoula and the Gallatin are growing faster than Montana, and Gallatin County is growing faster than Missoula County.

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Flathead climate strikers rally daily at
Depot Park through 27 September.

At the rush hour on 20 September, approximately 135 Flathead residents conducted an anti-fracking, pro-snow, honk-n-wave at Kalispell’s Depot Park to warn of the adverse environmental consequences of global warming. It was one of thousands of rallies around the state, nation, and world, that together comprised the youth based Climate Strike that many associate with the 16-year-old Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg.

An objective that will be difficult to achieve. Market forces may retire the technique before legislation does.

The Kalispell action that began Friday concludes on 27 September. Everyone is welcome. The festivities commence at 1700.

Sponsoring the honk-n-waves are 350Glacier, the Climate Reality Project, the Flathead Democrats, and the Flathead County Democratic Women.

Below, a few more photographs from Saturday’s honk-n-wave.

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A glut of graphs

A majority of Montanans still approve of
President Trump’s handling of his job

Although President Trump’s job approval rating is underwater, and in the low 40-percents, nationally, it remains above water and above 50 percent in Montana. And in both cases, the month-to-month variation is low, indicating that his core constituency is not shrinking. Voters who chose him in 2016 still like him.

But more Montanans approve of Gov. Steve Bullock than of Donald Trump (graph).

Two polling firm, Civiqs and Morning Consult, track Trump’s approval among registered voters on a state-by-state basis, publishing the results online. FiveThirtyEight publishes a national average of tracking polls. These are my sources for the data displayed in the graphs below. Based on the pollsters’ documentation of their methodologies, I've assumed a sampling margin of error of three percent.

Civiqs and Morning Consult appear to have modified their polling methods in the fall of 2017. Note the crossover in the graph below. Since then, the difference between the polls has held fairly steady, with Civiqs reporting the higher approval numbers. Therefore, I’ve plotted an average of the monthly results. I suggest treating the pre-crossover results with caution, and resisting the temptation to perform a bookend-to-bookend comparison.

I’ve plotted both the approval ratings, and the net approval rating (approve minus disapprove), and in a number of different ways.

Following the graphs: analysis.

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How I’m deploying my free LED bulbs
from the Flathead Electric Cooperative

Last month, I received from FEC eight 9.5-watt, 800-lumen, Energy Star compliant LED light bulbs. After testing the bulbs, I noted that although the power factor might have been higher, they’re good bulbs. They’re still available, but the offer closes on 15 September.

Thus far, I’ve deployed five bulbs. Two replaced compact fluorescent bulbs. The other three replaced lower wattage LED bulbs. The net installed wattage decreased by approximately 30 percent.

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Democrats will not win votes with green sanctimony

Plastic straws are neither environmental abominations nor, on the basis of mass, a significant component of plastic litter. They are, however, colorful, frivolous in the eyes of some, and an easy target for crusaders who want to save the planet (and sometimes raise money) by eliminating what some call a “gateway plastic.” Hence, campaigns — often conducted with children out front — to ban plastic straws. One reached Montana’s legislature this year, where it died in the MT Senate’s Business, Economics, and Economic Affairs Committee.

Thus it was no surprise that earlier this week, notes David M. Perry, when CNN’s reporters, always seeking a sensational sound bite, provided Democratic candidates opportunities to make fools of themselves on the issue, some candidates obliged:

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Cascade County’s share of Montana’s population
has declined by one-third since 1970

And Silver Bow’s share has declined by almost one-half. Another Democratic stronghold, Deer Lodge county, not displayed on the plot below, declined from a share of 2.25 percent in 1970 to 0.86 percent in 2018. During the same period, Yellowstone, Lewis and Clark, Missoula, Ravalli, Flathead, and Gallatin Counties increased their share of Montana’s population (download Excel spreadsheet of all Montana counties).

In 1970, the nine counties plotted on the graph comprised 58 percent of Montana’s population. In 2018, their share had increased to 71 percent. Montana’s population is concentrating in its largest counties, and more generally in the state’s western counties.

     Double size      PDF for printing      Download data

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Starting September by stopping for a selfie

An hour before sundown, I stopped for a selfie halfway through my first multi-mile bicycle ride in two years. In the background, the bicycle path along the westside bypass northwest of Kalispell, and the hills of Lone Pine State Park.

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House District 3 likely to revert to red
without Democrat Zac Perry on the ballot

Updated. HD-3 (map) Rep. Zac Perry announced yesterday on Facebook that he’s resigning his legislative seat effective 1 September. He’s enrolled in an out-of-state graduate program to earn his master’s degree, after which he plans to return to Montana to teach history to high school students. He has a B.A. in political science from Notre Dame.

Beginning in 2010, Perry ran for HD-3 five times, losing his first two elections, and winning his last three. He finally defeated incumbent Republican Jerry O’Neil, a popular get nothing serious done grandstander, in 2014, a disastrous year for Democrats, after redistricting produced a district slightly friendlier to Democrats.

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In Cascade County, the population changes but doesn’t grow

Then Montana’s second largest county, Cascade County’s 1970 population was 81,802. Forty-eight years later, Cascade’s population was 81,643. During the same 48-year-period, Montana’s population grew from 694,409 to 1,062,305.

Cascade is stagnant, and now only Montana’s fifth largest county, but the rest of Montana’s six most populous counties are growing at a healthy clip.

     Double size      PDF for printing      Download data

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Flathead Electric’s free dimmable LED light bulbs

The Flathead Electric Coop is distributing free dimmable LED light bulbs to its members upon their request. The offer lasts through 15 September.

My package of eight arrived today. I tested one with my Kill-a-Watt meter (an essential instrument for energy conservation). I’d like to see a higher power factor, and so, I expect, would the engineers at FEC, but these bulbs are a good replacement for 60-watt equivalent compact fluorescent bulbs.

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Greenland & the Greenback Dollar — a hoot for Donny

The Kingston Trio made Hoyt Axton’s Greenback Dollar famous (so famous that apparently all performances by the Trio and Hoyt can be played only on YouTube). It’s a good choice for a musical comment on the man in the White House’s proposal to Denmark to exchange Greenland for greenbacks.

Greenland & the Greenback Dollar

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Red hot Cajun fiddle music for a gray Montana day

You can watch this with the sound off and still feel the energy and high spirits of these young musicians.

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A war on blackjackets forces Flathead Memo to stand down

Update 2, 13 August 2019. What I thought were paper wasps were bald-faced hornets, aka blackjackets, a member of the yellowjacket family that builds paper nests that are defended with considerable ferocity. This was a first for me. Paper wasps have been a constant problem, although they’re not that aggressive, and yellowjackets, which are aggressive, an occasional problem. But this was my first — and, I hope, last — encounter with blackjackets.

Update. Victory! After I clean up the battlefield, I’ll return to blogging.

Original. Yesterday, moving plastic lawn furniture away from my house so that I could knock down some tall grass, I found a huge paper wasp nest under a little table. I chemically destroyed the nest without incident — but when I returned to the tall grass to move a couple of chairs, I was swarmed by a horde of amazingly aggressive wasps. I retreated inside, but not before receiving three stings on my right forearm, which swelled and stiffened, and one on my left thigh, which felt as though I’d been poked with a red hot nail. Ice and lidocaine ointment cured the stings. Four hours later, the swelling and stiffness were gone. But the wasps that attacked me were still there.

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Rewritten 5 August, 0604 MDT

A bloody weekend in El Paso and Dayton

Patrick Crusius, 21, shot and killed 20 persons 22 (two more died today) a mall in El Paso, Texas, 90 minutes before noon Saturday. Approximately 15 hours later, 24-year-old Connor Betts, a man with a long history of disturbing behavior, shot and killed nine in Dayton, Ohio. In both incidents, dozens were wounded. Among Betts’ victims: his sister, Morgan.

Thus far, there’s no evidence the shootings were part of a conspiracy. Although there’s a faint possibility — unproven and perhaps unprovable — that the bloodshed in Texas triggered Betts’ rampage, at this point they appear to be events independent of each other.

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Follow-up, Washington Post pill database

Data for Montana. After posting my report on the Washington Post’s distribution of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ARCOS database, I learned that a subscription to the Post is required for access to the data. Because the data are in the public domain — we, the people, own the data — I’m making available a customized subset of the data for Montana. It’s an 8.4 megabyte zipped file.

I added four fields. I split the transaction date field into year, month, and day of the month, fields, and added a serial number field that can be used an a unique identifier.

Notched boxplots. Not all low cost applications can produce this chart. I constructed mine using Citron 2, a discontinued application for the Macintosh. Owners of Excel can buy add-ons to construct the plot. Those willing to put up with a steep learning curve can use R, an open-source environment for statistical computing and graphics (R website).

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Preliminary notes on the Washington Post’s
dump of DEA opioid data for Montana

Update, 25 July. The post below was generated by a project that got away from me. The post may be closer to a rough draft than a polished article, but it’s time to share what I have and get on with other things. I’ll return to the issue of opioids in the future. My thanks to people who know who they are for their input.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

24 July. Last week the Washington Post published a nationwide county-by-county breakdown of manufacturing and sales data, for two prescription opioids, for 2006–2012, that were obtained from the Drug Enforcement Agency, which tracks every transaction involving legal narcotics. The WP developed a metric — pills per person per year averaged over the seven-year recordd — that provides a rough, very rough, measure of where the distribution of the drugs was concentrated, and presented it graphically in an interactive national map, a tour de force of reporting.

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If Trump's net approval in Montana were underwater, Daines and Gianforte would be dumping cold water on his toxic Tweets

But Trump is still more popular than not in Montana — and so Daines and Gianforte, hoping to ride Trump’s coattails to victory in 2020, are maintaining a disgraceful silence about their President’s unhinged, bigoted, attacks on four Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Trump, knowing the United States is still a white majority nation, wants to make the 2020 election about the alleged “threats” to our way of life he claims are posed by the reverse racism that those who are not white practice.

Trump used language so ugly it might have embarrassed Pitchfork Ben Tillman, but apparently for Daines and Gianforte, and their equally brave fellow Republicans, their senses of decency numbed even to Biblical provocations, Trump’s malevolently mendacious Tweets are just his style, just his game, and unworthy of even a murmur of disapprobation.

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Trump’s net approval rating in Montana remains above water

Nationwide, as tracked by FiveThirtyEight, President Trump’s net approval rating is underwater — approximately ten points at present — as it has been for his entire presidency. That’s not surprising given he lost the popular vote by almost three million votes.

But in Montana, Trump remains more popular than not, although not as popular now as at the beginning of his presidency. Morning Consult’s latest tracking poll reports Trump’s net approval rating in Montana is plus seven. Here’s a graph of his net approval under the Big Sky and from sea to shining sea:

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Montana’s 2010–2020 population is
growing slightly faster than the nation’s

That’s why Montana could pick up a second seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Below, I’ve prepared two graphs displaying the rate of Montana’s population growth to that of the nation. The first graph displays population growth rates from 1910 to 2020. The second displays growth rates for 2010 to 2020.

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Updated, 2235 mdt

No citizenship Census question probably means
Montana less likely to get second U.S. House seat

Trump does 180°, causes chaos. Late this afternoon (while I was shopping for the holiday) President Trump tweeted his intention to find a way to include the citizenship question on the Census form, the Supreme Court’s decision notwithstanding. I’m disgusted and outraged, but not surprised. And it would not surprise me were he to order the forms printed with the citizenship question in defiance of the courts, which may not look kindly on his ever changing rationales for including the question. See Linda Greenhouse’s oped in today’s New York Times, and Rick Hasen’s at the Election Law Blog.

Original post. There will be no citizenship question on the 2020 Census form. That’s good for the nation, as fewer non-citizens will avoid replying to the form out of fear they could be deported or harassed legally. But counting everyone could reduce the probability that Montana will regain the second seat in the U.S. House of Representatives that it lost after the 1990 Census.

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Neighborhood logging brigade fells wind decapitated pine

I have good neighbors. They brought their chainsaws and families, and in three hours, spaced over two days, they felled the decapitated pine, bucked the logs into firewood, and cleaned up the tangle of branches. Below, Fred and Christopher, who had been tugging on a long branch while Russ notched the trunk and sawed the hinge, run like hell having steered the trunk to its reserved resting place. I kept two three-inch slabs from the stump to convert to end or coffee tables.