Federal term limits

We need term limits for our representatives in the U.S. Congress. The Montana Constitution actually provides for this in Section 8, Article IV, stating, “6 years in any 12-year period for United States Representative; and 12 years in any 24-year period for United States Senator,” but this was stricken down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Our own state legislators can override this by passing a Constitutional Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution states, “...on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof.” If Montana drafts and approves a Constitutional Amendment, they must send it to the other states to see if they will approve it as well.

If we want change, this is how we do it. Which Montana legislator will take this up?

— Mike Creeden,


Figures prove warming

In 1632, famous astronomer Galileo Galilei presented a “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” in which he defended the Copernican position of the solar system, which states the accepted science now, that the earth and other planets move around the sun. However, it took hundreds of years for the socio-political establishments of the world to accept the science. Remarkably, Galileo used the same methods of science in 1632 that climate scientists use today — mathematics and the explanation of natural events to efficient causes.

I was first introduced to the science of global warming in the 1960s, long before Al Gore wrote his book or it became major news. To my best knowledge, it’s being taught as valid science in every state-funded college and university in Montana and in the U.S., as well as throughout the world.

So why is there a debate? Why prioritize the coal-burning power plants that are the main contributors to carbon dioxide and to catastrophic climatic destabilization? The only people who are trying to debunk the science are Republicans like Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, chair of the House Science Committee. Are non-scientists who could not even pass an Earth Science 101 quiz the ones to be deciding the fate of our planet? This is Dark Age-thinking, as in Galileo’s time, when the flat-earth people lived in superstition and fear.

Skepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical when it opposes physically quantifiable and empirically-proven data, as opposed to metaphysical and incorporeal thinking.

— Steve Glunt,


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