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Today when on the way to buy a $10 wrench set at Runnings on the west side of Winner (about a mile from the east side) I noticed something big and blue and on blocks. It was or still is a Trail King trailer of somekind. The tractor pulling it had a sign for a Texas pipeline company on the door. The image below is actually from two images patched together. It is a small version of the originals.
The combination of trailers is probably around 175 feet long or whatever 167 of my "3 foot" paces makes. I did not find anything that appeared to be like this at the Trail King of Mitchell, SD website, but that may because it was configured or set differently than here.
It appeared similar to some of the specialized trailers for moving wind power towers and generators, but not exactly..to me at least.
If you wish to see a large image of the trailer as it set in Winner today, download the file below. It is large, so you may have to click the image to view full size and download..It looks more like a bridge than a trailer.
That is the "excitement" for the day. It appeared the guys at WW Tires were tired of answering what kind of trailer it was and if they were replacing some of the hundred or so wheels or tires on the rig.
*** Stay tuned even if you aren't quite as easily amused as I am some days -- Doug Wiken
The other problem with this “reform” that Herseth-Sandlin is not mentioning is that it will be used as an excuse to not actually reform heathcare with a universal single payer system.
*** Stay tuned even if you are perfectly happy with sub-optimal politicians and policies --- Doug Wiken
On the SDPB Radio Midday Program today, Paul Guggenheim interviewed "Connie" of the Minnesota Highway Department on the rapid building of the replacement bridge in Minneapolis.
Well, that was what I thought until I started searching for somebody in the department with that name. I finally found the story from SDSU on the lecture to engineers there.
SDSU Announces Lecture with alumnus Khani Sahebjam
Every now and then, radio announcers may need to literally spell some names. TV shows can plaster names on the screen in text....anyway..... Interesting program.
Getting a major collapsed bridge rebuilt in about a year is a major accomplishment. The November-December issue of American Scientist has a good story on the engineering and procedures tied to bridge inspections, etc. written by Henry Petroski who regularly contributes articles related to engineering. The story is on pages 444-448 of the November-December 2009 issue. The author mentions the Minnesota Transportation Dept., but gives no credit to anybody there for providing information. If you are a member of the society or a subscriber to the magazine, you can read the story at the link. I have just been buying the magazine on the news stand so can't actually get the story at the site.
American Scientist (restricted link) Bridge Story
However you do read it, it is an interesting story and the photos are good. One fact that is interesting: "In the 40 years that the old bridge stood, well over a billion people may have crossed it" The bridge had carried 140,000 vehicles per day with perhaps 200,000 people per day.
Inspection of the wreckage suggested that some gusset plates failed probably because a contractor had tons of equipment and gravel on one end of the bridge and the asymmetrical loading was just too much overload coupled with the high volume of traffic. Even though the bridge had survived for 40 years, it was under designed.
The replacment bridge was made in sections and glued together with epoxy and held together with internal stretched cables. Some information is available here:
The photo above is from the Minnesota Dept of Transportation. Click on it for a larger version. A good black and white photo of a beautiful new bridge and associated sculptures are in the American Scientist story. Google searches for " St. Anthony Bridge I-35w" will turn up a lot more information
And as a kind of sidenote, the American Scientist story had a word I had never seen before. "Charrette" which in the story referred to a planning meeting in the Mn Dept of Trans. I guess the term was exactly appropriate if the definition below is correct.
"Charrette"definition
So, Silo Tech puts out product more important than football teams.
*** Stay tuned even if you can go anywhere from Dakota Today -- Doug Wiken .
OK, I confess. I view the damage highschool football does to knees, ankles, spleens, and brains outweighs any real or imagined benefits of such sports. And, the last time I even wrote a story covering a football game, it was more or less satire. It seems that back about 40 years ago, the powers that were at SDSM&T were not happy with stories we wrote about a losing football team in the campus newspaper The SDSM&T Tech. So, I dashed off one of those stories fair and balanced like Fox News that was so absurdly slanted in favor of our losing team that we never heard any more complaints. That bit of humor was picked up by several other college campus papers including Stanford's. Now, 40 years later, there really isn't even a campus newspaper or annual at SDSM&T and the administration wonders why there is no sense of community there even if interscholastic athletics still distorts campus life and jobs and burns up far too much of the fees paid by students.
But enough about my lack of qualifications for writing about sports, and onto the news about the Winner SD Warriors football team defeating Tri-Valley by a score of 12 to 6. Despite that score, the game was tied until the last 4 seconds of the game. This was a game with teams matched so well that it could have been almost as well decided with a coin flip before it ever started.
Neither team scored in the first half. Good defense and bits of luck for both teams. That half was one where even someone like myself could be sitting on the edge of a chair wondering what was coming next. High School teams with quarterbacks who can pass like Ted Wonnenberg and receivers like Eric Shueth who can really run make the game almost interesting ..at least compared to the old Winner game style of run up the middle, run up the middle, run up the middle..............
The second half had some scoring. Eric Shueth got out of the crowd and dashed 50 yards or so for a TD. Note, the photos following were captured mostly from the SDPB-TV show and aren't like those a good digital camera would get right in the dome.
Not too long after that, Tri-Valley scored. Neither team got an extra point.
From then on, it was nearly a standoff. Winner had the ball with a few minutes to go after Ted Wonnenberg intercepted a pass and got Winner into a better field position.
Winner failed to make much progress in the few remaining minutes against Tri-Valley and it looked like, according to SDPB announcers at least, that both teams would let the game go into overtime.
But, with about 4 seconds to go, Winner called a time out and Coach Dan Aaker gave them some strategy for the unusual situation. SDPB announcers wondered aloud about how many overtime games had been played in previous games and noted either before or after about the low odds of such last second plays ever working except in works of fiction.
Following the timeout came a quick "Hail Mary" pass by Wonnenberg aimed toward Zach Horstman near the endzone. Horstman and a TriValley player Jace Eckstaine tipped the ball and it bounced into the air long enough for Jayd Knodell to grab it and dance into the end zone to be quickly mobbed by most of the Winner team.
Tri-Valley was predicted to win and the KELO sports coverage last night almost made it seem as if the moon had dropped out of orbit because a West River team like Winner beat such a good team as the East River Tri-Valley team.
There were a number of awards presented. The Winner Warrior's coach holds the 11-B Football Championship Trophy. I missed part of the game, but I think Eric Shueth got an award and he was interviewed at the end of the game.
The Mitchell Daily Republic has much more detail in today's paper, so if you want the full report, that might be a place to start. Also, SDPB-TV probably has a streaming video of the game someplace on their "sparkling new" website.
SDPB-TV Sports PageDespite the low score, this game may be one of the few High School Championship games that was really good entertainment from start to finish. Of course, my wife and my view was a bit biased since a number of the players were children of my wife's coworkers, current or past at WRHC.
And just for the record, following is a photo of the final statistics for the game for those enamored with such data.
I am often amazed by the amount of information and numbers collected by sports reporters in the interests of filling dead air between plays.
And just to show that I probably won't be putting much more sports news into Dakota Today for awhile, a cute kid and pretty mama picture of the "We are Warriors" kind.
I hope everybody of every age had a good time at Vermillion, Sd in the USD Dome and made it back to Winner safe and sound last night or this morning..
And, in my more usual bah, humbug mode, despite this interesting game, my belief remains that Winner, SD school puts far too much emphasis and resources into athletics and more should be put into making mathematics, physics, chemistry, government course, and even life skills such as avoiding teenage pregnancy interesting and useful to students entering a tough economic world.
Stay tuned for something more like the Dakota Today usual --- Doug Wiken
Rep. Herseth-Sandlin again demonstrates that the primary work product of Blue Dog Democrats is blue dog shit.
Rep. Herseth-Sandlin talks like she represents people when she campaigns here in South Dakota, but when she gets to DC, she isn’t Democratic or Republican, she is 100% opportunist. She claims voting against the Health "Reform" Bill because of the budget impact, but did not consider that for the Iraq war and the other Bush loads of crap she supported. Her explanations for votes here in SD are convenient even if likely totally false responses suitable only for plausible denial
She forgets South Dakota real people in DC and remembers only corporations which dump money by the truckload into politics. In a way she is worse than a Republican since she portrays herself as something better. Her motormouth blithering blather is camouflage for a totally empty political perspective that is overwhelmed by reptilian brained political survival. Her voting and explanations are an insult to any thinking Democrat or Republican.
The real problem with "Democratic" political hacks like Herseth-Sandlin is that they add credibility to the regressives of the right wing in the GOP party and implicitly support the manure spreader load of policy myths that have never worked and will never work. By appealing to the lowest most ignorant wing of the GOP she makes the work of real Democrats in South Dakota even harder than it would be without her. She has had a great opportunity to help educate South Dakotans on the failure of GOP policies and the workability of liberal alternatives and failed completely.
I fully understand that politicians have to get elected to do anything, but when they do get elected and then act as if the only thing important is to get re-elected, they demonstrate only opportunistic cowardice. They fail to do a good part of the job that actual statesmen labor on educating and informing and they and she also make that honorable task even harder.
Obama has fallen victim to the idea that the current "middle" of the political spectrum in Washington actually stands for something besides the current muddle of a status quo that works like a fascist combination of government and corporations. The GOP now is skewed so far to the regressive backward right that they have made themselves as irrelevant as 17th century Tories in the US. The Blue Dog Democrats are about an inch to the left of that GOP regression now and then and should be made irrelevant by a hard-nosed Obama driving for something better than mere but expensive patches on the current muddle.
Obama wasn't elected to further change of the small kind that rattles around in your pocket with car keys. Washington is fundamentally screwed up and utterly corrupted by corporate money. Herseth-Sandlin is making herself part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
If she opposed the cobbled-together 1900-page health care bill because it is a fraud designed only to bankroll a legacy insurance industry no more viable than a buggy whip plant, she might make some sense. Supporting the McGovern "Make Medicare available to every citizen plan" would make her into another prairie statesman instead of just another teat on the boar pig gluttony represented by the congressional status quo.
*** Stay tuned for more on the crying need for political campaign financing --- Doug Wiken
Slow news day here for sure. Drizzle and chill, clouds and a few minutes of actual sunshine. Temperature now is around 45. Stopped at local Pamida discount store. Their pile of books is shrinking, but some just don't move. Newt Gingrich's "Winning the Future" hit $1.00 in the market economy today. Got the book and made sure to keep the price sticker for it too. So far the most interesting part is the photo of his most recent trophy wife Callista.
Far less serious is news from the refrigerator front..literally almost. I got some of those magnetic letters for kids and could not resist decorating. Wife has tolerated it for a few days, but suspect I am pushing my luck.
I looked a bit more carefully at the combines mentioned in a previous post. With little knowledge of North Dakota towns and geography, it appeared as if the custom combiner was from both Michigan and North Dakota. But, it appears that at some point somebody was terribly lonely for Michigan and decided to hang that name on a small town in North Dakota. It is about 400 miles NE of Winner, SD. Bob Anderson, the combiner, said it was terribly cold there last year. I guess those of us who gripe about weather in South Central SD are pansies compared to those from the frigid northlands of Dakota.
** Stay tuned even if you have a very low tolerance for trivia...or some of the less charitable might say, Stay tuned especially if you have a preference for the trivial drivel all the time-- Doug Wiken
South Dakota Public Broadcasting Radio has a "Midday" call in program on weekdays. Every second Friday, the "Computer Guys" do their best to spread knowledge about computers, software and other interesting technology. Today, like most techies recently, they were busy hyping Windows 7.
I e-mailed them and asked two questions:
From your perspectives, what advantages does Windows 7 have over WXP for someone doing basic text editing, reading email, and posting text on the web?
And a real puzzlement:
With only $100 to spare, which will do the most good, upgrading to W7 or contributing $100 to SDPB?
The first question was answered with mostly "NO". If you are not doing video editing or in dreadful need of a touch screen etc and are doing more or less mundane computer work editing text, reading e-mail, etc. you probably can get by with Windows XP until something like 2014 and still have Microsoft plugging security holes.
My second question, which I must admit was a bit tongue-in-cheek, was greeted with "That's just MEAN..really Mean-spirited" also delivered by them in a similar spirit. That was soon followed by 3 out of 4 of the experts deciding with no other motives than truth, justice and the American way that it would be better to contribute to SDPB than update computers and OS to Windows 7..
I found that logic just so persuasive that I broke down this evening and found SDPB on the Web and then hit their "Donate Button" on their remarkably drab "sparkling" website and agreed to be nice and contribute $100. Better them than Microsoft... assuming a false dichotomy provides logic for doing anything.
If you feel generous and recognize the contributions of public broadcasting to information and knowledge in SD, you can also make use of their secure site to make a contribution pledge.
Pledge Form at South Dakota Public Broadcasting Website
Recently, President Obama has noted the generally misleading nature of Fox "News" and that is generating controversy in some SD Blogs. Not many sane observers can honestly attack PBS or SDPB for being hopelessly slanted either to the left or to the right...sort of depends on the day and on whoever is pontificating.
** Stay tuned even if you can't find the "Donate Now" button for Dakota Today -- Doug Wiken
Farm combines have turned into huge high-horsepower machines with 36 foot wide grain headers. (The soybean headers on these machines are 30 feet wide.) They have also gotten tremendously expensive and may be several hundred thousand dollars per machine. Even so, Mother Nature can "sneeze" and cause them to stop munching across the prairie fields. These machines set for several days because of a multi-day fine mist and light rain with no direct sunshine for more than a few minutes for nearly two weeks.
Click on image for a slightly larger version.
There were a couple days of bright sunshine with temperatures up to 85 degrees only to be followed the next day with a 50 degree Fahrenheit high and soon the drizzle again. Pheasant hunters had a couple nice days to blast away at the wily Chinese Ringnecks.
Soon after I took the photo above (about 10AM Friday, October 23, 2009), the combine operators (Bob Anderson crew of North Dakota) were servicing the combines and the tractor. With a little weather luck, they can have a hundred or more acres harvested in a few hours if the grain elevators can find space and the full trucks aren't forced to sit parked in lines with other combiners who found exactly the same good minutes for combining. This is not the same agriculture world I grew up with. My father had an Allis Chalmers pull-type combine with a "huge" five-foot wide header and a 20 bushel grain tank. The machine was driven by a temperamental Wisconsin Air-cooled engine with a magneto and a hand crank for starting it.
Gray sunless days with continuous fine drizzle can get awfully depressing. My wife and I lived for a couple years in Rochester, NY. Weeks could go by there with water dripping off the roof nearly continuously. Health statisticians found that death rates in Rochester and Monroe County actually increased after a certain number of drab wet days.
[[[[ Note: October 24, 2009: I talked to the combiner this afternoon. The soybeans were still two percent too wet. He had been in Tripp County for two weeks and was only able to combine 400 acres. This is not a good situation for farmers or combiners.--- Doug Wiken ]]]]]
**Stay tuned, the sun will shine tomorrow, but don't bet your bottom dollar --- Doug Wiken
A site has found some of the salaries of the bigwigs in the health insurance industry. It appears these greedy SOBs are very good reasons for Single Payer insurance of the kind George McGovern supported: "Extend Medicare to every US Citizen."
Our Congress Critters have spent the summer putting together a 1000 or more pages of a bill that does nothing but patch the corrupt health insurance industry with bandages designed to camouflage their excess, obscene greed so that not quite so many egregious denials of coverage exist.
The logic of all these patches does not lead logically to "a public option" as a pitiful small part of another huge industry subsidy, but rather to a public option as the only option allowed. Insurance companies can suck money out of us by providing supplemental coverage similar to those for current medicare program for those of us "lucky" enough to be over 65. Again, Ask yourself:
** Stay tuned, and if you are bored, total up the salaries of the listed insurance company executives--- Doug Wiken
I may be paranoid, but I have stopped believing either Democrats or Republicans in Congress are actually one bit interested in real reform of health insurance and thus in directly in the long run also reform of the US Healthcare industry. The title of this post is from the site below.
Chris Floyd's Description of the "fighting" sides
Some health insurance industry group dumped a report into the media and Congress claiming there will be huge increases in health insurance premiums. Democrats in Congress pounced on that and claimed it was a good reason to support their "reform"
My paranoia suggests this is a ploy. The Democrats can play Br'er Rabbit pleading "Don't throw me into that Briar Patch". Democrats can play this game as they support anything but a single payer system which might actually reduce citizen's spending on healthcare even as it is extended to everybody ala Medicare which now works mostly only for those of us over 65.
CBS News has been taking surveys over a period of time on the "public option" (which I think should be the only option).
---------------------------------------
CBS News Poll. Oct. 5-8, 2009
"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan -- something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get -- that would compete with private health insurance plans?"
Date...........Favor Oppose Unsure
% % %
10/5-8/09 62 31 7
9/19-23/09 65 26 9
8/27-31/09 60 34 6
7/24-28/09 66 27 7
7/9-12/09 64 29 7
6/12-16/09 72 20 8
----------------------------------
Note that the support for the "public option" has decreased somewhat because of all the industry propaganda much of it also spewed by Max Baucus who claims to be reform as he produces a plan guaranteeing no real reform, but rather a 1000 page bill that is actually a huge bandage to cover up fraud and deceit and waste in the current system even as it maintains the virtual monopoly of corporate health insurance.. Despite that, support for a public option is still above 50%.
And, if you want another measure of the reason why we should accept nothing but the single-payer universal care approach in the one-line "McGovern Bill"..
"Extend Medicare to every US Citizen"
take a look at the link below which explains a bit about the health insurance system congress generously provides itself at the expense of us taxpayers.
CBS TV explains the Healthcare Plan Congress Gives Itself
And remember, When you hear that this reform involves six percent or more of the US economy, that refers to actual health care not the health insurance industry itself.
*** Stay tuned for more winter of discontent ---- Doug Wiken
If you are still curious about the changes involved in going from analog to digital TV and the effects those changes had on channel frequencies, signal strength, antenna information, splitter information, digital to analog, etc. etc. Check the link below:
SDPublic Broadcasting on Antennas, etc.
I don't think you will find any better information on antennas, cabling, splitters, amplifiers, etc. (especially for South Dakota) than above. It appears to have some information that has been put together with a little more experience answering real questions than initially was put out in glossy "Easy to Do" brochures, ads, websites, etc.
Now, the "but". SDPB-TV has recently been promoting the "sparkling" new website you saw if you looked at the link above. Your perspective may not be a bit like mine however. It does appear improved from the old tangled mess of a site, but it now looks a bit like a site for a mortuary that hides links behind barely readable icons of limp light blue on stale barely darker blue. At least for my old eyes, some more contrasty larger type on icons would be an improvement.
I have this prejudice against web designers, phone designers, radio designers, TV remote designers, cellphone designers etc that dislikes and fails to understand their tendency to use some color like light gray on drab gray with very small type or incomprehensible, ambiguous icons. There are some of us old geezers interested in technology and the internet who don't have perfect vision and 36-inch diagonal digital monitors situated in perfect non-glare lighting and in front of a $2000 special chair. And, now and then cellphones are needed in dimly lit or dark areas. Radios and TV controllers that require a flashlight to be seen and which place often used and dangerous to use keys next to each other. Enough already.... Well maybe not. Stuff so damn tiny that it can only be used by women or small girls with tiny fingers is also aggravating to those of use with a few stiff fingers that only fit the larger glove sizes.
** Stay tuned... and stay tuned to public TV and radio too...even if now and then aggravating, there is nothing better on commercial TV or radio--- Doug Wiken
* No, it is not music. It is the sound of a lot of health insurance industry money oiling the palms of those who pretend to represent those of us who are not rich.
Bill Moyers a night or two ago indicated that the health insurance industry has spent $350 Million on deceptive ads, lobbying, and political contributions since the idea of "health reform" gained currency (no pun intended).
* Max Hocus Baucus, Democrat of Montana has sucked several $million out of the health industry and apparently something in the neighborhood of a million in this last go round. He is in charge of making sure no public option or single payer system comes out of congress as he smiles and talks about reform.
* George McGovern in a talk in Winner, SD recently responded to a question of mine regarding the complexity of society and issues wondering how many congress critters were actually capable of comprehending what they claim to be doing. McGovern politely danced around that and implicitly indicating the problems in Congress were not mainly due to ignorance or mental deficiency, but rather to the nearly incomprehensible amounts of money flooding incumbents of Senate and US Congress. He expressed some sympathy for them suggesting that they were not now really free agents. I guess in terms more of us less politic might say, " Our congress critters have become political prostitutes. They are bought and paid for with multimillion campaign "contributions".
* We have recently had most of the South Dakota delegation Sen. Johnson, Sen Thune, and Representative Herseth-Sandlin back here in South Dakota pretending to really, really be interested in the concerns of people burned and bankrupted by health problems and problems with health insurance. Then they go back to Washington and build a 1000-page incomprehensible bill which is claimed to be reform, but is really a boondoggle stimulus package for the health insurance and health industry.
* Our representatives talk to us a bit like did George Carlin when he gave the sports scores," 10-7, 24- 8, 6 -1 and a partial score 14.
" Our representatives Democratic and Republican are feeding us partial scores that only include bits and pieces of what the health insurance industry wants us to hear. There are a few lonely voices, but they are few and far between. The Republicans who oppose health care reform are mostly not doing it because they want something better, but because the status quo, fouled up as it is, benefits their largest contributors.
*Democrats in Congress who fail to listen to George McGovern's prescription for a single line bill, "Extend Medicare to every Citizen" are failing to comprehend the benefits to the Democratic Party and the country of that best single payer option. If Obama and Democrats pass such a bill, the Republican Party will be a small voice crying in the wilderness for the next 40 years.
*The GOP has opposed nearly every program that benefited everyday people including most of us South Dakotans. Had Republicans won on the REA, The RTA, hydro power development, farm policy, Medicare and Medicaid, and social security, South Dakota would be dark every night at dusk with sick poverty stricken elderly huddling in the cold without washing machines, TV or radio. South Dakota would be even more like a third-world country than it is now.
*Add opposition to an efficient universal health insurance plan and the GOP will be not just an empty bag of tricks, but a vacuum-packed empty bag. The current steaming pile of amendments and patches for a defective system is worse than nothing. If the smoke and mirrors congress passes this "reform", we will be hearing for the next 20 years if we live that long that "We just reformed health insurance." even as the industry demonstrates that it is all just a new bit of sham legislation to raid the US Treasury and still leave millions uninsured.
* The putrid stench from Washington regarding health insurance "reform" is a powerful reason to ban all poitical contributions and have only publicly-fiananced campaigns. I don't think our political prostitutes should be allowed to accept so much as a free cup of coffee from constituents or lobbyists.
* Big money makes democracy irrelevant. Throw the Democratic and Republican bums out. Drag the money changers out of our political "temples". Much is yet to be done.
*** Stay tuned for the partial weather report --- Doug Wiken
Sometime after noon today, October 5, 2009, I was talking to a neighbor on the phone when the whole house literally shook. The floors vibrated, the walls vibrated, the windows rattled. About the worst noise I have ever heard. I looked out the window and my cows were running for shelter next to a building. Then I saw one helicopter a hundred feet or so off the ground. Hung up the phone and got closer to the window. Five black helicopters were landing at the Winner Regional Airport. It was a crappy wet morning with lousy flying weather and I guess that may be why they were so low over the house.
I drove up to the airport and got a few pictures.of the helicopters, but not of the men relieving themselves next to the airport building. They had been flying for a few hours. I talked to one of them. They were on the way through here and fueling up for a trip south before being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan... I guess. I wished them "Good Luck" and expressed hope that they weren't being wasted in a futile fight. They sort of looked at the ground. "At least" one of them said, "it might be warmer there".
The blotches on photo above are rain on the camera lens. I may stick another one of these into a gallery, but the next photo taken an hour or two later is just an indicator of how drizzly wet it was here today. Some drops on a small branch.
Click on image above for a larger version.
More to come tomorrow on health insurance issues and the McGovern-Abourezk meeting here in Winner Saturday evening.
[[[ Dakota Today Note added Tuesday Oct 6, 2009: This afternoon I heard a news report on SDPB radio which indicated these five helicopters carrying something like 45 men later had to land at Yankton, SD and stay overnight because of the inclement weather. I was told yesterday, but did not know if it was information the men wanted spread around, but the news today with a colonel's blessing apparently indicated the men were from North Dakota on their way to Ft. Sill in Oklahoma in preparation for deployment. That's the rest of the story more or less--- Doug Wiken ]]]]
*** Stay tuned even if "The big Noise from Winner" was never a good band or music to anybody's ears---- Doug Wiken
The political odd couple made it to Winner, SD and were lucky enough to get here for the first bit of sunshine and decent weather in several days. Abourezk, the former bartender, and McGovern, the son of a preacher man, are traveling around SD doing good things for the Heidepriem for Governor campaign. Abourezk noted that he did have to watch his language at bit. I think McGovern has become a little liberated from the bounds of usual bland political responses. I guess when you get to 87 and are still out trying to do some good in the US and World that you get a bit of a license to speak more freely. I won't repeat the better comments here, but they were refreshing to hear.
I got a few photos, but I really must get a better digital camera with a real optical telephoto lens. Below is George McGovern and local yellow dog Democrat Pete Duffy.
Got to give both these guys credit for getting out to a meeting like this. McGovern has been on a very long political trail mostly as a prairie statesman for around 50 years and Pete apparently had some serious recent surgery. Puts a couple of faces on the current medical coverage discussion.
The real point of the evening was to push the Scott Heidepiem for Governor of South Dakota, but like all Democratic meetings, there was a bit of rambling. Both Abourezk and McGovern hammered on the idea that near one-party control of State Government is not good for South Dakota. South Dakota's reputation for good government is disappearing as no bid contracts and tie ins between University Presidents and corporations with an agenda are excepted as nothing out of the ordinary by Republican leaders. They have become so accustomed to control that they seem oblivious to conflicts of interest.
McGovern noted that when he got started in SD politics around 1953, there were about 2 Democrats out of over a hundred legislators. It was a 2-party government situation, but not the right kind.
It is not that bad now, but not good enough to be good for either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.
Below is one of my fuzzier less than focused photos of Jim Abourezk and Marian Jorgensen.
Abourezk hit the no-bid contracts in South Dakota. Something like 1800 of them. Maybe that explains tax increases without evidence of increased good government or governance. He mentioned Lawrence and Schiller getting a $12,000,000 no bid contract. He tossed in some interesting ethics-related facts on Joel Dykstra and Pres. Chicoine of SUSD and his sweetheart connections with Monsanto.
Abourezk has been a lawyer for those opposing the Hyperion oil refinery and related some interesting facts related to that.
McGovern hopes people will again realize that the Democratic Party is the Party that is on the side of everyday people just as he realized it years ago even if his own parents never grew out of their Republicanism.
McGovern listed programs that Democrats have pushed and Republicans in Congress have opposed. Had Republicans gotten their way, there would be no rural electricity, no rural telephones, and no social security or medicare. South Dakota would be a literally dark, sick, poverty-stricken area even worse than it is now had not Democrats succeeded. I have to mention however that Abourezk still thinks the US Senate is a "chickenshit outfit" and is perhaps even worse now because so many Democrats seem to have lost courage and perspective and a willingness to educate voters as they hold their wet fingers to the political wind.
I asked McGovern a question in the general nature of, "With the incredible complexity of society and government, what percentage of current congress does he think are actually sharp enough to honestly grasp issues or do they mostly just parrot on the basis of ideology?
McGovern did not directly answer that, but his response was dead-on any way and interesting. McGovern noted that in his first campaign for Congress, he spent $12,000. Now campaigns burn up millions of dollars. Here in SD, Abourezk noted that Daschle-Thune both put in around $20 million. Thune won, Daschle lost.
The demands for campaign funds occupy significant time for current congress..perhaps 2 or more days out of each week reserved for fund raising. This greatly reduces time for study and work, but also in McGovern's perspective makes congressmen less than free agents. He didn't skip from "kept men" to political prostitutes, but from my perspective we are there already. The current situation of campaigns and money cries out for public funding of campaigns.
McGovern was also on the George and James excellent adventure to push his book on Abraham Lincoln. His royalties are going into a fund for study of alcohol and abuse...a project given his attention because of the tragic life and death of one of his daughters. I waited a bit too long in line to get the last autographed copy. McGovern signed a few dozen books.
McGovern gave a good short talk on Lincoln's accomplishments despite his own depression and the civil war. Guess we should get the book. Will have to follow up on that...perhaps if we get an interview with Senator McGovern for Dakota Today sometime in the near future. Abourezk got him to talk a bit about his WWII experience. I think I will discuss that in a post tomorrow.
It was a pretty good night for Democrats in Winner, SD October 3, 2009, ..well at least for some of us with too much gray hair. Abourezk teased one of his old Winner Republican friends with a telephone call saying there were about 150 of us, but it is a sad fact that the export of educated young people from South Dakota is having an impact on every kind of social and political organization in rural areas. The group was more like 40 than 150. Years ago, I noted that Janklow's policy could seem to be summed up in "Import garbage and export graduates." Unfortunately, that has not changed.
It really is time for a resurgence of Democrats in South Dakota. Maybe Jim Abourezk and George McGovern, old war horses that they are, can help get Scott Heidepreim into a position where South Dakota can move forward again for all of us instead of just the privileged and connected few.
*** Stay tuned for the old political ramblings and rumblings of someone who worked first on the McGovern campaign in Rapid City, SD in 1961 or 1962---- Doug Wiken
This should be an interesting meeting even if it is to hype the Scott Heidepriem
campaign for Governor of South Dakota. Kevin Woster wrote a column about the event for Heidepriem with McGovern and Abourezk at SDSM&T several days ago. I can't find a link for that. Guess I will have to dig the snail mail version out of the pile and see if I can find it. I hope we can ask the two Senators a few questions.
I wonder if Abourezk still views the US Senate as "a chickenshit outfit".
The Democratic performance in the House and Senate busily turning "reform" of health insurance into a bunch of bandaids and subsidies to protect the profits and jobs of executives in the health and health insurance industries strongly suggests that "chickenshit" outfit might still be a perfectly appropriate description.
** Stay tuned, but there is enough wind in South Dakota that you really don't need any of mine for a day or two--- Doug Wiken
My Voice: We're fat, angry and anxious Michael J. Myers • September 27, 2009
Medicine in the United States has become an epidemic. It is producing, as Ivan Illich predicted, a "weakened generation."
This year, we will give almost $2 trillion to the medical-industrial complex, its doctors, hospitals, drug companies, health insurers, medical device manufacturers, health plans, heart institutes, cancer centers and research plants - twice as much as any other industrialized nation. And yet, we don't look good.
Compare, for example, a crowd of U.S. health care reform protesters with a crowd of Netherlanders attending an Amsterdam concert. The U.S. bunch, having assembled via motor homes and Denalis, generally are fatter, angrier and more anxious than the Dutch, who assembled via bicycles and small cars. Why is that? Our health care system - the "best in the world" - should be able to produce a more fit, more attractive and happier population.
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Illich said it was because we are "unwilling to accept our reality," unwilling to believe that 70 percent of the stuff ordered by our physicians is "without verifiable effectiveness"; that 60 percent of coronary bypass procedures are medically unnecessary and inappropriate; that 75 percent of prostatectomies need not be performed; and that almost 90 percent of carpel tunnel surgeries are "quasi-shams."
Nevertheless, seniors by the tens of thousands line up each day, Medicare card in hand, to enter clinics and hospitals. They complain to a nurse earning $40,000 to $60,000 a year. They are assisted by an aide earning $21,000 a year. They are seen briefly by a physician, who, if a hospitalist or family practitioner, is paid between $200,000 and $350,000 annually.
They might encounter an orthopedic surgeon for the repair of a shoulder, hip or knee. Orthopedic surgeons report incomes in the $380,000-to-$610,000 range. They might be introduced to an interventional cardiologist earning $450,000 to $690,000 or to a cardiac surgeon who earned $1.2 million last year. Upon leaving the "nonprofit" hospital, they might pass by the chief financial officer's office. Health system CFOs generally are paid in the $220,000-to-$310,000 range. Nonprofit health system chief executive officers are paid $500,000 to $1.4 million depending upon size.
They are nice people. They love their children. They exercise. But today, they are worried - worried about Obama, worried about health care reform, worried about big government.
They shouldn't be.
Medicine is an epidemic in the United States.
Michael dot Myers at usd dot edu
My Voice: We're fat, angry and anxious | argusleader.com | Argus Leader (28 September 2009)
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20090927/VOICES05/909270327/-1/archive
Now, you might have an idea why there is money for all those misleading ads you see on TV and all those "irate" people marching on TV have those nice printed signs.
*** Stay tuned even if I don't have access to all the facts that Mike Myers can get his hands on and mind around---- Doug Wiken
Mysteriously, the security tapes have a gap prior to the explosion, but also mysteriously are on again at 9:02.
Read the story of the released tapes from Oklahoma here:
Don't miss the connection between the guy who finally got the tapes and his brother who was allegedly beaten to death by prison guards who mistakenly thought he had some connection to the bombing. That cost taxpayers another $Million or so.
If Rosemary Woods is a mystery to you, take a look at the Nixon Library info:
Nixon Library info on Rosemary Woods
I don't really know what to make of this conspiracy plot material. Some commenters at the story suggested it is part of the "mushroom treatment". If that term is a mystery to you, check:
An Optimist on "the mushroom treatment"
I remember the day primarily because our children were home from school that day because we had something between 20 and 40 inches of snow. At first I thought the TV was showing some movie footage as part of the detective show regularly broadcast then.
** Stay tuned for fresher conspiracy theory..or maybe not --- Doug Wiken
Former US Senator from South Dakota, George S. McGovern has written a good guest editorial column that has appeared in a number of places including the Mitchell Daily Republic. I have copied it as a continuation of this post. It is worth reading.
McGovern says the simplest most cost effective approach is to extend Medicare to everybody. He notes that the health insurance industry siphons out "$450 Billion" from the money paid for actual healthcare. That would be a significant saving even if it meant some insurance tycoons might need to find other employment.
***Stay tuned and read the McGovern Column in the continuation --- Doug Wiken
Continue reading "** George McGovern on Sensible Health Insurance Reform" »
Recent days have not been kind on the highways around here. A week or so ago, a young man, Josh Mayes, died after his car rolled south of Winner. He was apparently not wearing seatbelts. His grandfather said if nothing else came out of his death, maybe some more young people would now buckle their seatbelts. I hope that actually happens, but I would not hold my breath. South Dakota has been blessed with a bunch of boneheaded Republican legislators who opposed mandatory seat belt laws for so many years that some citizens thought they must actually have a good reason for it apparently. The residue of that bone-headed ignorance lingers on still killing drivers.
Just yesterday, we heard the sirens screaming in the afternoon even from three miles away. Apparently one of the Grossenburg ready mix concrete trucks rolled east of Winner and the driver Bob Brook was killed. A note on the funeral section of Winner Radio Station KWYR site has this:
Mason Funeral Home-- Bob Brook ObituaryBob Brook, Winner Funeral services for 58 year old Bob Brook of Winner will be held on Saturday, Sept 19 at 10:30 at the First Christian Church in Winner. Visitation will be Friday 4-8 at Mason Funeral Home.
On a much, much less serious note, the business news rumor mill has it that if WalMart really would be so silly as to put a store in this area that Winner's Main Street would be renamed -- becoming North Cemetery Road and South Cemetery Road.
**Stay tuned for both more and less serious news and views--- Doug Wiken
I saw most of the SD Focus show on SDPB-TV this evening (Sept 10, 2009). I got the impression that the panel was loaded with advocates for the current mess favored by the insurance companies and the most shortsighted elements of the medical professionals intent on maintaining the essential doctor-patient's billfold relationship. Perhaps I missed something.
The lone voice of reality seemed to come from a caller wondering aloud what was so terrible about Medicare, Veterans medical, and federal employee tri-care perhaps. That call produced a flood of the same unconvincing GOP and Blue Dog Democrat double talk we have already had dumped on us.
Single payer is the only system that makes any sense. All the patching, baling wire, and bandaids being discussed to fix the present system have created a huge proposed bill and inordinate complexity and needless expense and even greater executive windfall salaries will be the result. George McGovern has the solution in just a few words: "Extend Medicare and Medicaid to everybody." That won't take a 1000 page bill.
Get the private insurers out of the money pipeline and there will be an almost immediate savings of 30% or so on healthcare.
The only real solution is being talked around and we are getting the mushroom treatment from our Congress Critters because they get too damn much money from the insurance, banks, and health industries.
*** Stay tuned and stay healthy--- Doug Wiken
Not too many minutes ago, I drove past a local bank and the time was 9:09 and the temperature 71. Today, my wife's mother would have been 99 had she lived a couple more years. Wife visited her mother's grave today. The temperature was not 99 as it has been some years around around this date.
I watched and listened to Obama's speech on health care. It was better than I expected, but his expecting anything of consequence from the Republicans on this issue is wishful thinking on his part and he might as well go for single-payer. One statement by Obama was just plain irrelevant in the context.
Obama said something like, "Healthcare is 12% of our economy." That may be correct, but what he was talking about was not "healthcare", but "health insurance" and despite Obama's sop to the toadies of that industry, the health insurance industry provides no actually useful function. Medicare and medicaid demonstrate that. All the health insurance industry does is mete out healthcare standing between doctor and patient and in the process sucks out about 30% of the premiums paid for executive salaries and other overhead. Existence of these parasites in the healthcare income stream also cause lots of needless expense for doctors and hospitals that is avoided with single-payer systems.
Paying much attention to number coincidences like 9:09 on 09-09-09 is a kind of nonsense that is much too much like the nonsense generated to support the appendix of the healthcare industry, the giant health insurance parasite literally sucking life out of people and the economy.
There has been discussion of insurance pools, etc. designed in ways to reduce risk to insurers or in too many cases to eliminate risk of their paying anything out altogether. The only pool big enough to be efficient, is the pool of all US citizens distributed all over the US and not concentrated in one place made up of one age group or ethnic group or income group and that doesn't require health insurance executives.
** Stay tuned for better analysis tomorrow..probably by somebody else who won't even mention 9:09 on 09-09-09 ---- Doug Wiken
I guess there was a celebration including some politicians. I missed it. I also missed most of the other special events "celebrating" the 100th anniversary of Tripp County, SD with Winner, SD as county seat. We did hear some fireworks last night and actually saw a flash or two of those that went high enough.
Missed the annual Labor Day Parade too, but had to drive a couple extra miles to do that since it blocks the state highway for around an hour. I am not sure why the State of South Dakota allows that. So much for wet blanket coverage of the bank and implement dealers big celebration. Take a look at the photo below. A whole lot of names of veterans from Tripp County. I may count them when the crowds are gone.
Click on the image for a larger version. The carnival on Main Street folded up and the trucks and rides were rolling out of Winner around 1AM after the Monday celebration of Labor Day.
** Stay tuned even if you drive many miles to prove everybody loves a parade-- Doug Wiken
A Scientific American newsletter mentioned an apparently new or slightly different way to analyze speech and speeches. I am not sure that either of these tells us really very much, but there sure are a lot of words about words.
Wordwatchers Words about Words, etc.
And, speaking of words here at Dakota Today or at least page views of them by real people and search engines, the total pageviews of whatever kind just popped over 200,000 according to Typepad which hosts Dakota Today.
***Stay tuned even if the interpretation or "significance" of this is left up to you --- Doug Wiken
In the last few days, we here in South Dakota have been treated to a number of forums, interviews, etc. on SDPB radio and TV and in newspapers. I won't repeat any of that.
But, mostly when you put together all the blather we have gotten from Senators Thune and Johnson and US Rep Herseth-Sandlin, we get nonsense. All of them are fretting about hurrying too much, about social security and medicare collapsing, about rising medical charges, etc. etc. but all are worrying more about existing "stake holders" and those mostly being health insurance and health industry.
Putting all their crap and obfuscation of the huge insurance cost elephant in the equation, it is hard for me not to conclude that what they are not supporting is the only actual solution..that is single-payer primary health insurance. It is time to drive a stake through the pig iron cold hearts of the health insurance stake holders.
The health insurance industry serves no real purpose in any kind of universal health care insurance. It has the current primary function of diverting something like 30 percent of health insurance premiums into profits and huge salaries for executives who would be unnecessary in a fair deal single payer system.
Our Congress Critters are bending over backwards to protect their large health and health insurance contributors as they say to hell with the actual health of the nation.
Ironic that Sen. Johnson would probably not even be alive if he were covered only with the health insurance he would have had available as a private citizen lawyering in Vermillion, SD. or would be completely bankrupted by the costs even if he had insurance of some kind.
I don't wish anybody get afflicted with anything like the health problems that hit Senator Johnson, and I am happy he is at least partially recovered. But, it seems to me he should thus be a bit more interested in making the United States not 19th out of the 19 industrial nations in health care but something closer to the first in the list..something comparable to the care he got as a US Senator and in actually reducing total health care costs at the same time.
Our Congress critters are pandering to special interests as they talk all around the actual issues and the actual solutions.
*** Stay tuned, Stay Healthy and, "Do you love your families or do you love your health insurance? Take your pick."
We did a little fencing today. No, not with epees or sabers, but with pliers and wire and a fence stretcher. Anyway, while walking where a few hundred cows have walked for a hundred years or so, We found an old rusty tool. Click on photo below for an enlarged view:
It appears to be a combined pry bar and hammer. It also appears to have been made by a blacksmith or shop using processes similar to blacksmithing. There are two small holes toward end I am holding. I would guess there was a wood handle of some kind like a knife handle.
Anyway, we don't know how old this tool really is. It might be 40 years old, or it might be nearly 120 years old if it was used before somebody lost it on this farm. If you have any ideas let us know. It was not quite what I expected to find when I kicked it.
While speaking of old stuff, my wife and I have now spent 40 years married to each other. A local store clerk expressed her condolences for my wife, but she did it with an evil grin.
*** Stay tuned even if you are an old tool yourself--- Doug Wiken
President Obama has recognized the need to correct the growing problems with health care in the US. He has pleaded with Republicans, Democrats, Blue Dog Democrats, et al to put together a compromise of some kind. Obama put out a hand in compromise and got it slapped by a bunch of petty opportunists.
It is time for Obama to tell boneheaded blue dog Democrats, Liberal corporate lapdogs, corporate fascist conservative Republicans that it is time they decided all American people deserve a fair deal for medical care without regard to the greed heads on Wall Street and in the corporate over-reachers in health care insurance industry.
Obama must say to these bought-and-paid-for congress critters who have defended corporate greed in the hopes of getting contributions from the medical industry and huge insurance conglomerates that he tried for a compromise, but they have failed the real people of America and that now means the only option is the single-payer system. Time for their little games has run out.
Unless President Obama says enough of this same old GOP double-talk crap and blue dog dog shit is too much, he will have demonstrated to the worst political, partisan interests that he can be rolled. If he cares a whit about his real legacy, he can not let that happen. He cannot let the world see a pack of whining Blue Dog "Democrats" and some whacko wingnut hypocritical conservatives roll him or he will lose all credibility with average American citizens and with every tinpot dictator in the world.
Democrats who want a future life in politics must bite the bullet and leave the Republicans crying in the wilderness for the next 40 years. Give the real people of the US a fair deal on health care that works (they can do it) and Democrats won't need campaign funds to defeat the GOP stalking dogs of corporate fascism for years and elections to come
** Stay tuned for weather photos which are not even slightly controversial--- Doug Wiken
The CPU magazine by Sandhills Press for October 2009 has a number of programs mentioned as worth downloading. I thought the following might be useful. I have not tried any of them yet, so as they say, "Your mileage may vary". Plain text links for information on what is in the hot links. TypePad is not making better formatting than this easy tonight. [[ EDIT of August 19, 2009: A link to the "Appapalooza" story at CPU magazine: CPU Magazine "Appapalooza"
System Information for Windows by GTopala
GTopola's SIW (Systems Information for Windows)
http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html
Executor multi-purpose launcher and "Run" replacer
Executor Launcher "Run" Replacer
http://executor.dk/ Virtual Dub provides basic editing for video files
Virtual Dub for basic Video File editing, etc.
http://www.virtualdub.org/
Peazip compresses and extracts from zip, rar, etc. Maybe similar or better than Winzip, 7-Zip, etc
http://peazip.sourceforge.net/
Media Monkey
Media Monkey alternative to ITunes
http://www.mediamonkey.com/download/
DVD Flick is DVD Authoring Tool
http://www.dvdflick.net/
Download DVDFlick for converting Videos to TV viewable DVD
http://www.dvdflick.net/download.php
TeraCopy (copy lots of files fast) and MemoClip (multiple clipboard texts)
Code Sector has Terracopy and MemoClip
http://www.codesector.com/download.php
IMGBURN Lightning UK (note NOT imageburn.com)
Lightning ImgBurn Info on creating Audio video CDS, DVDS
http://www.imgburn.com/
http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download
PStart by Pegtop creates menu for executables on flash drives can also be used on hard drive as tray tool menu builder
http://www.pegtop.net/
http://www.pegtop.net/download.php?file=start
BatchRun by Outer Technologies. Wizards to create scripts to run executables and do other tasks ala old batch files.
http://www.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=index
http://batchrun.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=product&id=1
Batch Run Download (requires selecting options)
http://batchrun.outertech.com/index.php?_charisma_page=downloads
CloneZilla works like Norton Ghost, etc. "bare metal backup and recovery", Cloning Clonezilla is a partition or disk clone tool similar to Norton Ghost Does not appear to be a program for the timid or those refusing to read doc files
Clonezilla Org for disk partioning and cloning
http://clonezilla.org/
**Stay tuned even if you could care less about free software-- Doug Wiken SD State Senator Frank Kloucek requested the following letter be posted here. It indicates that Democrats are also concerned about the economy and business in South Dakota. I do hope Sen. Kloucek, Herseth, Sandlin, Sen. Tim Johnson, and Sen. John Thune will take a look at the "Clunkers for Clunkers" ideas posted here at Dakota Today previously; That idea helps remove the stigma of only helping the rich dealers and the persons wealthy enough to buy new vehicles that is attached to the current "Cash for Clunkers" program.
There are times in life to pause and say thank you for a job well done!
That time has occurred to say thanks to Stephanie Herseth Sandlin for her cosponsorship and support of HR 2743 Auto Dealer Economic Restoration Act. Two of her staff: Steven Dahlmeier Southeast Area Director and Laura McNaughton Scheduler were very helpful and went above and beyond in ensuring Congresswoman Herseth received the petitions and talking points on this important issue.
However there is much to be done. There is a need to email GMC President Fritz Henderson cac@chevrolet.com and let GMC know that forced closure of our dealerships will erode GM's customer base and hurt our local and national economy. We can write President of GMC
Mr. Fritz Henderson
PO Box 33170
Detroit Michigan 48232-5170
and tell him we need our auto dealerships reinstated. Contacting our Senators: Johnson @1-800-537-0025 and Thune @ 1-866-850-3855 to cosponsor S1304 Senate Auto Dealers Bill of Rights Legislation would be a great help. Also visiting with them while they are home during August will help drive the point home. Here are just a few of the talking points when you email call or write:
- a.. loss of local business hurts local state and national economy
- b.. loss of good jobs
- c.. loss of good community supporter
- d.. travel excessive miles for warranty service work
- e.. limits choices for consumer when shopping for vehicle
- f.. potential erosion of GM's customer base
- g.. time for expansion not downsizing the GM Dealer base
- h.. retail auto sales are an important economic engine for our economy
** Stay tuned, I might even have another idea of my own one of these days. Right now I am frustrated by the advertised "ease" of converting Vinyl LPs to mp3 files etc as contrasted with actual real world...more about that soon---- Doug Wiken
You won't find much better writing on any other blog and you won't find quite as many ideas expressed with similar vitality and creativity in terms of making the often less obvious plain as day. Check Northern Valley Beacon if you have been missing it lately.
The rabid right and the connections to the Bush-Cheney political disaster machine has skewed the political spectrum to the point that blogs like Northern Valley Beacon have become middle of the road. The right-wing has moved so far to the right in the last few years as the GOP has shed its more moderate members that the wingnuts of the right are barely clinging to the right end of the realistic US political spectrum.
**Stay tuned for the loud crash as the screamers of the right fall off into the abyss of dead political parties and perspectives and join the pool of the mentally ill-- Doug Wiken
In a previous post I mentioned the idea of a two-tier clunker program. A mechanic in Rapid City was appalled to see better vehicles getting better mileage than his own being put into the Clunker program for $4500 or whatever.
He has a better idea for a name for the two-tier program...Clunker for Clunkers.
My take on this is that when a clunker qualifying for the plus or minus $4500 clunker stimulus comes in to a dealer, they check the mileage rating, quality, apparent mechanical condition, etc. and if vehicle is relatively good, instead of immediately disabling the vehicle, it should be put up for exchange for other vehicles getting even worse mileage or in even worse condition for something like a $100 transfer fee.
This would make the program benefit not only those wealthy enough to buy a new vehicle, but also those needing a better vehicle, but being unable to afford a new vehicle even with a $4500 direct bonus. This would get more of the real problem and excess fuel consumption vehicles off the road and end some of the incredible waste of resources inherent in the current Cash for Clunkers program.
As this program continues, more and more of the population is going to get disgusted with a subsidy that benefits only those able to buy new vehicles while it also drives up the price of good used vehicles making it even harder for those on the bottom end of the economic scale to drive safe and more fuel efficient vehicles.
The current Clunker program is wasteful even if it benefits dealers and manufacturers who pedaled fuel guzzlers long after it was obvious that something better was required. When that selfish behavior shot themselves in the foot, they went whining to the government to save them from their own greed.
A clunker for clunker two-tier system would actually be social service instead of just another sop for the too-big to let fail. It would get much more bang for the buck. It would prevent waste of energy input required to build new vehicles and destroy old better vehicles.
*** Stay tuned even if you are in a land yacht cruising down the highway listening to Rush Limbaugh and storming about everything except the government road you are cruising on--- Doug Wiken
Less serious, but perhaps more interesting and fun to many readers may be the car video and associated car music from the 50's and 60's at link below. Flash required.
Link as text: http://oldfortyfives.com/CarsWeDrove.htm
Old Forty fives and cars of the timeThis does not seem to have been a typical weather year for Winner, SD and Tripp County. Last night after predictions of scattered light showers somewhere, we had about 1.82 inches of rain according to weather at Winner Regional Airport.
And now at noon, it appears as if we are going to get more rain. Lightening and it does not seem a whole lot brighter now than it was in the nearly full moon last night at midnight.
And while I posted the above, heavy and apparently steady rain started to fall again. So far right here right north of Winner, we have escaped dreadful hail storms. I saw a car from Gregory, SD this morning that had been pelted with hail there apparently a night or two ago. The hood looked like it had been beaten with a heavy ball peen hammer. Mother Nature can be very unkind to cars and home windows.
*** Stay tuned, the sun will shine tomorrow ...or maybe next week --- Doug Wiken
Recently, economist Robert Shiller was interviewed on the Charlie Rose show. It was an interesting hour based loosely on his new book "Animal Spirits" which is not quite what you might expect from the title.
Robert Shiller correctly predicted the economic meltdown. He is an astute observer and listening to him, I really could not say if he particularly liberal or conservative. He considers himself an "economic engineer" who is not interested in destroying capitalism nor in destroying government, but in making them work better and in protecting them from future catastrophe.
I ordered his book "Animal Spirits" and a couple others on the economy. Hopefully, they can be the basis of some somewhat more informed posts here and elsewhere.
Shiller views the current economic meltdown as serious, but views the increasing concentration of more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands as being even more serious in the long term. The inequality of wealth distribution has increased to historical highs. Shiller, I think, implies that such inequality and the government policies generating it breeds resentment and also a decline in effort on the part of those unable to accumulate wealth and finding that effort more and more difficult.. in short weakening of the "work ethic".
My question at this time for those conservatives and very rich and of politicians protecting the inequality of wealth and who often label any improvement proposals as "class warfare" or "economic war" follows.
At what point will conservatives be satisfied that the very rich have gotten control of enough of the wealth to satisfy them?
This Tax Policy group, probably at Brookings Institution indicates the top marginal tax rates by year from 1919 to 2009.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213
This link provides multiple forms of information on personal wealth. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/listdocs.cfm?topic2id=49
Wealth estimates from 2001 estate tax filings. May not relate directly to current situation. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=556&Topic2id=49
Download a complex pdf from the federal reserve. Charts and graphs with lots of data manipulation aimed at providing a better picture of true wealth. http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2006/200613/200613pap.pdf
Easier to understand compilation from the federal reserve info above http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/04/change_in_the_d.html
More analysis of some of the data contained in above with additional info and perspective. http://www.wealthandwant.com/
This is a perhaps shaky source, but suspect the income data on the "Fortunate 400" if not the interpretation is correct anyway.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/rich-m07.shtml
Some information on actual control of wealth: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
This from census data may be unbiased if you have time to download and dig through it
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/wealth/wealth.html
This may indicate the problems with large family size and wealth accumulation and may thus suggest that the mal-distribution of wealth is related to family..I read only the abstract.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/0004051.html
This might have the most interesting and useful information.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/4Inequality.htm
You may choose to be ignorant of income disparity if you wish, but the information is available and sticking your head in the conservative wingnut sand pile does not change anything for the better or even change the information. We may however disagree on the future impact of continued worsening of wealth disparity based on our ideology.
[[Note: Most of the above post was apparently viewed as too controversial to be posted at Mt. Blogmore for reasons I don't understand. ]]
**Stay tuned, paw through the data, and please report back with comments-- Doug Wiken
SD US Senator John Thune provided a few of the Republican talking points on health care. Thune's comments seem to mirror those of the Health Insurance industry and the propaganda groups they have set up to feed talking points to Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats. The text of his comments was posted at Mt. Blogmore Blog of the Rapid City Journal by Randy Rasmussen. RR's digging out transcripts of speeches and comments like this and posting them or links to them is a useful service. Those Thune remarks are in the post continuation.
Immediately below are the comments made at Mt. Blogmore by Wayne Gilbert. He did a good job of going through Thune's remarks paragraph by paragraph. I saw no reason for me to do something like it again here, so I requested permission from Wayne Gilbert to reprint his comments here.
If you go to Mt. Blogmore you will see an attack on this post by Stan Adelstein. You can also find a post by "Mary" with a link to a medical site which indicates 10 insurance executives got about $80 Million in salary and bonuses last year.
"Mary's" link to health exec. pay, etc. at Fierce Health Care
Wayne Gilbert Says at Mt. Blogmore: August 1st, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Thune Rhetoric: "We've put forth proposals that will cut costs and improve care. And we can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians."
My Response: What are these proposals that you have put forth? If they are those listed in this comment, they are bogus for the reasons that follow. As if patients and their doctors are in charge—ever try to get a treatment or a medication that your insurance company did not think was appropriate? Frankly, if push comes to shove, I'll take a bureaucrat over a claims adjuster in a cubicle.
Thune Proposal: "Real reform should allow small businesses to pool together to buy affordable health insurance for their employees."
My Response: Small businesses in South Dakota are in fact able to pool together in the Retailers Association—it hasn't helped. Insurance companies are raising their rates at 3-4 times the cost increases of virtually everything else, to say nothing of wages
Thune Proposal: "Real reform should protect doctors and hospitals from frivolous lawsuits, so they can stop practicing defensive medicine and instead focus on practicing patient-focused medicine."
My Response: This is a red herring in terms of health care and cost reform. Honestly, when was the last time somebody won a meritless lawsuit against a health care provider in South Dakota—I will venture to say that it just hasn't happened. People in other industries do get sued, and some of those suits don't have merit, but that hasn't caused them to spiral the costs of their goods and services out of control.
Thune Proposal: "Real reform should encourage wellness and prevention programs that have been proven to cut costs."My Response: Nice idea. Nice rhetoric. Just the opposite has happened in the free market. Health insurance fifteen years ago did encourage wellness and prevention programs. Now you get to pay three to four times the premium that such programs charged, but guess what? Your deductible has gone to $5,000.00. This trend in fact discourages wellness and prevention programs, except that my insurance company has hired people who call me at home in the evening from time to time to see if I am taking care of myself—honestly—it is a joke and a serious waste of my insurance company's money to pay people to engage in such nonsense while providing me with a $5,000.00 deductible.
Thune Proposal: "And real reform should give people who buy their own insurance the same tax breaks as those who get insurance through their employers."
My Response: Sounds good in principle. The tax break that a wage-earner gets is that the employer's payment of all or part of a health insurance premium is not income. This is not the same as, and not as beneficial as, a deduction for someone who itemizes, which is what Thune probably has in mind. I'm not sure how to give these two groups the "same tax breaks" but it sure seems to me that this is worth exploring.
Proposal: "These and other commonsense solutions would provide real reform for our health care system rather than the dangerous and costly experiment that Democrats are proposing."
My Response: This is b.s. rhetoric—nothing more.
Thune Proposal: "I hope that as we continue this important debate, we can put aside the politics of Washington and tackle health care reform in the bipartisan way that Americans deserve."
My Response: Good idea- so Republicans will stop with the "no" to everything and suggest meaningful additions to or deletions from a health care reform package?
Thune Proposal: "It's time for real reform that works, not the same old answers of more money and more government. Real health care reform should cost Americans less money, not more. It should provide better quality, not worse. And it should empower patients, not government bureaucrats. By working together, we can do just that."
My Response: B.S. rhetoric. An appropriate response is that the same old answers of unregulated market solutions to health care crises have not worked and in fact have cost Americans a lot more money, not less.
Attacking the health insurance industry is Speaker Nancy Pelosi's health care strategy, is it not? — R.R. (Randy Rasmussen repeating some more GOP talking points) Mount Blogmore: A Rapid City Journal politics blog » Blog Archive » GOP’s health care reform proposal (2 August 2009) http://blogs.rapidcityjournal.com/politicalblog/?p=3840#comments
Link to RCJournal Blog Comment
http://snipurl.com/okqgb
Mt. Blogmore can have some of the best posts and discussions of any blog or forum in the US and it can also have some of the worst with some of the most inane comments in the US. Whatever, it is worth looking at on a daily basis if you have the time and can tear your eyes away from Dakota Today.
** Stay tuned and check continuation for Thune's actual comments-- Doug Wiken
Continue reading "** Sen. Thune's GOP Talking Points on Health Insurance skewered at Mt. Blogmore" »
Some stuff mixed together. When I start to see chrome on chrome at the quick stops in Winner, SD, I know that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is coming on. Lots of chrome domes riding well-chromed Harley cycles and a few sun-bleached and burned blonds on the road to skin cancer.
In that transportation vein, saw a car ad a week or so ago. Don't remember the ad, but it had a very good slogan, "Audi, Truth in Engineering". At least it appealed to me. I can sort of remember when Chrysler took pride in engineering.
Moving along, this morning on CBS Morning Dreck, they started noting that there was economic and health news, but first the latest on doctors and Michael Jackson. That drivel went on for several minutes. Don't remember anything they said about economy or medical insurance issues.
CBS Early then moved right on to some of the most inane, insipid drivel I have ever heard even on that show. They spent several minutes interviewing a 10-year-old boy and and 85-year-old man about dating. They pumped both for embarrassment purposes and it mostly seemed the young boy was clueless and the old man had forgotten a lot. So much for my age prejudice.
Then CBS did sort of get to something serious for far too many people. Divorce and separation as viewed by the former wife of Joey Buttafucco. After being shot by a 17 year old who was infatuated with Joey, she stayed with him for something like 10 more years. After her son said he thought his father was a "sociopath", she finally got a divorce. She has a book she is promoting ..something like "Getting it through my Thick Skull" ..meaning she finally figured out her ex-husband was a smooth manipulator without remorse or conscience. Read more if you want to know about this on CBS
CBS Early Dreck with "My Thick Skull"
Or if you are putting up with a "sociopath", you might have trouble finding a good definition of that term, but perhaps "aggressive narcissism" might fit better.
Some comments and definitions of mental problems
Well, enough on that...but wait there is more. On SDPB radio "Noon Forum", the topic was minimum wage. Apparently Governor Rounds in a fit of worry decided that a couple of USD former and current perhaps Economics profs should study the possible impact of raising the minimum wage on South Dakota economy. A woman supporter of a national $10 per hour minimum wage provided some counterpoint to the professors of the dismal science. The ideological predilections of the profs came through loud and clear. The minimum wage had never done anything to help workers since it was 25 cents per hour when first instituted by Franklin Roosevelt administration.
Cory Heidelberger of Madville Times blog fame called in to ask what the profs thought about the moral implications of hiring somebody to work for a year at a wage an employer knew was not a living wage. Seems to me they sort of punted that one.
I was thinking that perhaps if Gov. Rounds worries about raising the minimum wage, he should also have them look at the highest wages and salaries and their implications for the economy. A quick rough calculation suggested that even raising the minimum from around $7 to $10 could be turned into something interesting.
Kelby K. of Sanford health pulls down something like $1,200,000 per year in salary and benefits. That single salary would pay the $6000 per year increase of about 200 workers. Or, if just considering the recent actual increase amount, would pay the 70 cent per hour increase for about 800 minimum wage workers.,obviously some rounding distortion there, but the point seems plain enough.
It is time government stopped fretting about the minimum wage and started considering what absurdly high wages and salaries at the upper end of the scale do to drive up consumer costs and hold down wages of the lowest paid workers in society and contributed to the current near financial crash. The greed and vanity generates a double whammy on the less than rich..by unnecessarily driving up costs and making the low minimum wage worth even less.
It might be interesting if Senators Johnson and Thune and Rep. Herseth-Sandlin provided us with the total amount of money paid to health insurance and hospital executives in a year and what percent part that relative handful of people suck out of actual health care.
I don't think we want to hold our breath waiting for that information from them since most of us don't contribute enough to political campaigns to get their serious attention on anything. Well, enough miscellany for the evening.
**Stay tuned for less chrome on chrome or blue on blue and heartaches--- Doug Wiken
Stranded Wind Site on South Dakota Wind Energy
Conventional "wisdom" gets hold of politicians, politics, and press in South Dakota and other often better ideas and methods never get any serious consideration.
South Dakota not only needs some thinking "outside the box", but also outside the economic graveyard.
*** Stay tuned for some middling miscellany (How's that for reducing expectations?) --- Doug Wiken
About a year ago, I posted a recipe and method for making juicy non-stringy and not tough dry hamburgers, but which were also fully cooked. The details are still in the original post which I just cleaned up a bit with better formatting and removal of a spelling error or two.
Anyway, since then a few friends and relatives have bravely rounded up the ingredients and dared to try the recipe and method. So far, no negative reports and mostly very positive reports. So, why not try it yourself.
Dakota Today Oct3, 2008 Juicy Burgers Recipe
** Stay tuned even if just for the golden oldies-- Doug Wiken
Not sure if the following is from a valid source, but suspect the info is in the neighborhood of correct.
Blue Dogs' Obedience These Blue Dogs are indeed obedient to their masters: the profitable health care providers and insurers, just not to their President, party, constituents, districts or states. They are pandering to their patrons and benefactors: Top recipients of contributions from insurers and health care industries are:
- Max Baucus $3,973,485
- Evan Bayh $1,565,088
- John McCain $7,677,742
- Kent Conrad $2,154,200
- Dianne Feinstein $1,749,887
- John Kerry $8,994,077
- Mary Landrieu $1,653,943
- Joe Lieberman $3,308,621
- Ben Nelson $2,214,715
They have millions of reasons to prevent our citizens and businesses from the benefits of a low cost, quality health care system.
Letters: The Blue Dogs flunk obedience school - Salon (22 July 2009) http://letters.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/22/healthcare/view/index4.html?show=all http://snipurl.com/nq3u4
That is about $35 Million total coming out of health insurance premiums and medicare payments to guarantee that the current grossly inefficient greed-driven system continues ...and continues to provide political contributions to continue ..............
Sanford and MeritCare are on the way to being "too big to let fail" when all the huge executive salaries crash the system they will be whining for more pay.
***Stay tuned and don't get sick--- Doug Wiken It is rare that Salon Premium stories mention South Dakota even in passing. That is sort of the case here, but the passing reference is to US Senator John Thune and his membership in a group that has helped cover up some of the transgressions of GOP hypocrites currently in the news for cheating on their wives or other assorted bits of hypocrisy.
Salon Online Magazine about C-Street House
Most likely if you are not a Salon Premium member, you will have to endure some ads in order to read the story. A letter following the story notes that at some time, Hillary Clinton was also a member of this group. Politics makes strange bedfellows in more ways than one.
**Stay tuned even if you think that money given to churches and religious groups should not end up providing places for GOP politicians to cover up their sexual trysts--- Doug Wiken
If you are still using good analog TV's or even not so good and were pulling signal off-air via antennas, or you are on cable and want to expand your choices without paying more, you may be interested in taking advantage of Uncle Sam. Some $40 coupons are still available and if you got coupons and they expired on a shelf or in your pocket, you have about 10 days to make your application or re-application.
We are using converters and our TV viewing options have effectively doubled as a result. Image quality is significantly improved...except when it disappears completely in rain or snow. Also, you may find you don't want to keep dumping money on cable or satellite TV if you happen to be in an area with several good TV broadcasters and haven't yet recovered from the Bush administration economic disaster.
Public Broadcasting in SD has three TV signals. The regular programming channel, A "World" channel, and a "Create" channel. KELO has their regular channel and "My TV" which is almost devoid of useful content. KSFY has only one channel out here.
Information below was copied from http://www.dtv2009.gov . You have about 10 days left until July 31, 2009 to take advantage of the government.Application Deadline. Eligible households may continue to apply for TV converter box coupons while supplies last, until July 31, 2009. Applications for coupons will continue to be accepted online, by phone, by mail and by fax until 12 midnight Eastern Time. IMPORTANT: Consumers who apply for coupons are approved on a first-come, first-served basis, while supplies last. If the Program experiences high demand, it may be necessary for the Coupon Program to place applicants on a waiting list. Should this happen, we may distribute coupons to over-the-air only households first to ensure that as many U.S. households as possible have at least one working television now that full power local TV stations have completed the transition to digital television broadcasting. Coupons will expire within 90 days of the date they are mailed.
The Coupon Program is accepting applications from consumers whose coupons expired without being redeemed. The Coupon Program limits each U.S. household to a total of two redeemed coupons. Therefore, if you have redeemed one coupon toward the purchase of a TV converter box and the other has expired, you may request and be approved for one replacement coupon; if you have redeemed two coupons you will not be approved for additional coupons. Replacement coupons will only be issued to eligible households upon request. Consumers who wish to apply for a replacement coupon can do so at www.DTV2009.gov/ApplyCoupon.aspx
, by calling 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009), mailing an application to P.O. Box 2000, Portland, OR 97208 or faxing it to 1-877-DTV-4ME2 (1-877-388-4632). Deaf or hard of hearing callers may use 1-877-530-2634 (TTY).
One last chance to make good use of your old analog TVs before the winter doldrums strike.
*** Stay tuned even if TV isn't your choice for background noise --- Doug Wiken
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