Stories from Saturday, April 12, 2008

The title of today's column is also the title of Al Gore's documentary about global warming that, in very large part, won him the Nobel Prize this past year. In today's political climate, most Democrats support the idea of global warming, most Republicans don't. Some aren't sure. I'm not sure either. And I don't think anyone should be sure enough to use the word "truth" in a title about the idea of global warming...

Nebraska students are above average -- but it's not something of which we should be proud. According to the 2005 Nebraska Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, approximately three of every 10 Nebraska students binge drink. In 2005, 29.8 percent or an estimated 30,000 students reported binge drinking, higher than the national average of 25.5 percent...

After a fortnight's absence I sat in on a McCook City Council meeting this week. I was just in time to watch us, we the people, buy the city block including the old West Ward School. The final negotiated price will be in the neighborhood of $75,000 and is probably a reasonable deal. It was a mite frustrating though knowing that the seller doubled his money after holding it for only about four years...

If you want to plant a tree in your front lawn, the city of McCook wants to help. The McCook tree rebate program is now up and running for the Spring season and is available until June 15. The rebate program will run again in the Fall from Sept. 1 - Nov. 30...

Marv Metzger of McCook leaves McCook National Bank Thursday morning with what could be his 62,501st bag of popcorn. Marv has volunteered to deliver fresh, salty, melt-in-your-mouth buttery hot popcorn every Thursday morning for the bank for the past 10 years, and the bank figures he has delivered about 62,500 bags in that time. ...