PROACTIVE BETTER THAN REACTIVE

With just the thought of uranium drilling in your area (southeast Billings County and north central Slope County), I would encourage landowners, homeowners, businesses, everyone to start attaining information of what you're in for. Water. Water. Water. And the history of such endeavors in uranium should be all that is needed to get some interest and, of course, major concerns started. City officials, county officials and local government whose duty it is to protect the health, safety and welfare of their jurisdiction, aka, "protecting the commons" need to step up to the plate and get all the facts not just the ones that start with economic development.

FERTILIZER NOT NEEDED FOR HEALTHY SOIL

Farmers who might want to decrease their fertilizer usage but are skeptical had some of their questions answered Tuesday night in three fields south of Minot.

Jon Stika, a soil scientist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Dickinson, told a group of about 60 that fertilizer is a tool, not a necessity.

HUMMER, HOW WE NEED THEE

Here is where its symbolic fortitude is most threatened: For American life to work, the illusion of endless abundance must be maintained. Sure, we must adapt to a future of less-abundant natural resources. Our vehicles will need to become radically more efficient. But we require vestiges of the old dream to sustain our national optimism, which in turn nourishes our national character.

This is what GM owes us, and what the company owes itself — a ridiculous machine crammed with emotional content, the sort of contraption that Detroit has always done well but increasingly seems to have decided it is incapable of ever doing well again.

THE NEW REALITY IN IRAQ

It is time for Americans to recognize it's a whole new ballgame in Iraq. The civil war is over, American troops are not an "irritant" fueling the unrest, and far from becoming dependent upon us, the Iraqi government and the army show more determination every day to run their country and to protect it. But they continue to want and need our assistance.

While victory in war is never certain until the war is over, the odds are strongly with us for once – provided we do the right thing. That is to stand by our best ally in the war against al Qaeda, and the struggle to contain Iran.

THE PARTY OF DEFEAT

David Horowitz has written many books and articles that deal with the topic of American political warfare. Horowitz has often argued that the left is much more resolute, serious, and focused in its efforts, which has enabled it to win political victories over an often dispirited, and less focused conservative opposition. Horowitz's new book Party of Defeat, co-written with Front Page Magazine managing editor Ben Johnson, offers chapter and verse in how this fight between an aggressive anti-war left, and the Bush administration and its allies, played out over the Iraq war.

WINNING IN AFGHANISTAN

BARACK OBAMA IS STRIVING MIGHTILY to pass the commander-in-chief test by proposing that U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq, where we are on the verge of a decisive victory against al Qaeda and Iran's "special group" proxies, and reinforce the NATO mission in Afghanistan, where at best we're only holding our own. Setting aside the timeless military wisdom that great captains reinforce success, it's instructive to compare Obama's plan for Afghanistan with that of his rival, John McCain.

BUSH AND THE ‘PSYCHOLOGY’ OF THE OIL MARKET

Democratic leaders have been delaying action on offshore exploration and now they have an opportunity to show that they finally heard the frustrations of the American people. They should match the action I have taken, repeal the congressional ban and pass legislation to facilitate responsible offshore exploration.

MCCAIN WANTS TROOP SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN

Two days after a Taliban assault killed nine American troops in Afghanistan, John McCain is calling for a “surge” in U.S. combat troops in that nation.

“There will be a surge in Afghanistan. It will be moving combat troops in and applying the lessons from Iraq and the strategy that was successful in Iraq and taking that to Afghanistan,” a McCain campaign adviser told The New York Sun, saying McCain will call for the troop increase in a speech Tuesday in Albuquerque, N.M.

OBAMA AND ISLAMIC JIHAD

Wouldn’t it also be useful to understand that there is an expansionist and supremacist imperative shared by all orthodox sects and schools of Islam, and that some Muslims will most likely continue to act upon that imperative no matter how much we demonstrate our understanding of Islamic diversity?

Although he continues to campaign under a mantra of "change," so far Obama is offering more of the same in a field - that of our response to the global jihad - where genuine, informed and careful change is needed more than ever.

STABILIZING THE MIDDLE EAST -- THEN AND NOW

We who resist the creep of totalitarianism and bloodlust around the globe need to have hope. Lebanon was once a beacon of hope. Iraq may be that beacon tomorrow. Fifty years ago, Lebanon was saved and Iraq was lost. One by one, we must restore hope in freedom and in peace everywhere. Our world is filled with men who dream nightmares and men who dream hope. One dream will prevail. Which dream depends upon us, who can overwhelm evil, if we have the willpower. Fifty years ago, in Lebanon, we had that willpower. Today, in Iraq, we must have that willpower again.

PROGRESSIVE COVER PROGRESSIVE COVER PROGRESSIVE COVER

Were the Obama campaign more restrained, it would have ignored the cover. But his staffers couldn't help themselves; their quick and sensitive reaction reveals that they know Obama's most significant liability is that many Americans continue to see him as an unknown quantity with an outside-the-mainstream philosophy and past.

Just when Obama thought that he had put his problem with elitism behind him, it rears back in the form of bumbling supporters at the New Yorker who have provided common folk with an ill-advised satirical image that cements their "crazy ignorance."

'FREE OUR OIL' 'FREE OUR OIL'

That was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's catchphrase last week as she continued to grope for an energy policy. One of her ideas was to request "a small drawdown" in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, no irony intended. At least President Bush has finally called the Speaker's bluff by rescinding the 1990 executive ban on offshore energy exploration.

THOMAS SOWELL: ARE FACTS OBSOLETE? THOMAS SO

In an election campaign in which not only young liberals, but also some people who are neither young nor liberals, seem absolutely mesmerized by the skilled rhetoric of Barack Obama, facts have receded even further into the background than usual.

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

MAN OF CHARACTER

Former White House spokesman and longtime journalist Tony Snow died Saturday, taking with him a measure of decency that Washington and American politics in general could use more of.

CAUGHT BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD BASE CAUGHT BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD BASE CAUGHT

Throughout 2007 and into this year, the Democrats portrayed the surge as Bush's attempt to kick defeat down the road to his successor, but that line, too, has been overtaken by events. Vietnam was seen as lost when Lyndon Johnson handed it off in 1969 to Richard M. Nixon, and Nixon was not blamed for the failure. But Iraq now, by almost every metric, is on the way up. Bush's successor will have to work hard to lose it, and do so against the loud public protests of the troops who have done so much to win it. This is where Obama's prior pronouncements would lead him, and surely he knows it. His base may still want him to lose "Bush's War," but the rest of the country would never forgive him. Or it.

COLORADO TO HAVE PRO-LIFE BALLOT IN NOVEMBER

"Colorado has an opportunity to send a clear message that every human life has value. Passing this amendment will mean the people of Colorado will protect the sanctity of life from conception until natural death occurs."

GEERT WILDERS: PRISONER OF ISLAM

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands — Having run the polite-but-grim gauntlet of Dutch government security to gain access to Geert Wilders, I finally understood what the 24-hour security requirements of the man’s continued existence really mean: To make the survival of Western-style liberty in the Netherlands his political cause, this Dutch parliamentarian has to live under high-tech lock and key.

UND AVIATION PROFESSOR SURVIVES PLANE CRASH

A UND associate aviation professor and his brother suffered significant injuries after they survived the crash of a small plane Sunday afternoon in Carbon County, Utah, according to authorities.

LA RAZA FACTS: 15 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

Both Barack Obama and John McCain will speak this week in San Diego at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the Latino organization whose name is Spanish for, yes, “The Race.” Can you imagine Obama and McCain paying homage to a group of white people who called themselves that? No matter. The presidential candidates and the media have legitimized “The Race” as a mainstream ethnic lobbying group and marginalized its critics as intolerant bigots. The unvarnished truth is that the group is a radical ethnic nationalist outfit that abuses your tax dollars and milks PC politics to undermine our sovereignty.

AXELROD'S FALL REIFENSTAHL STRATEGY

This fall, watch for David Axelrod, Obama's campaign manager, to choreograph at least two post-convention mass events at least slightly reminiscent of the stagecraft of Leni Reifenstahl in 1934 Germany.