[Home] . [SD Weather] .[SD Blogs Today] . [ SD Blog List] . [SD News Today]
[SD Media Lists] . [SD Map] .[USA News Today] . [USA Media Lists]
[USA Blog Lists] . [Essays, Best Posts] . [Photographs]
[US Gov't Links] . [SD Gov't Links] . {SD Educ Links] . [Obituaries]
[SD Display Ads] . [SD Want Ads] . [Humor] . [FAQ] . [About DT] . [Dak Today NOTEBOOKS]
I just checked the Winner Regional Airport 3-day weather and that indicates we have gotten about 2.75 inches of rain in the past 3 days. That is about what I guessed by sticking a finger in a dogfood dish. Enough rain fast enough to bring the water level up in some near empty stock ponds. Unfortunately, we haven't seen water running like this for a couple of years. And unfortunately, it is too late to save a lot of cedar trees which have turned brown from the combination of an insect attack and drought. [[ Note of May 21, 2013: Another 0.12 inches today and more predicted for tonight. Not much sunshine and high temperature only about 50 degrees, so most of it is soaking in.
Mostly we get our weather from KELO-TV. Now and then their weather predictions and reports for this south-central part of South Dakota might be for another planet, but mostly they get it mostly right. KELO this evening broadcast their much hyped 60-year one hour summary of the past 60 years of KELO-TV in South Dakota. They hyped the weather coverage. They hyped the news coverage. They hyped their collection of historic TV video tape and digital conversions, etc. They told us how wonderfully prexcient Joe Floyd was in founding KELO.
What they did not mention was the fundraising Floyd did in Tripp County years ago to raise money to get a signal out to these boondocks. Apparently $25 per family. Most of the people who dumped money into KELO are now dead and most certainly did not end up owning shares in the profitable company.
While nit-picking, I thought it was a bit unseemly to put something like four commercials on every 5 minutes through the one-hour program. If they so respect news coverage and all the other good stuff they hyped, one might think they could have sung their own praises without filling the hour with distracting commercials. After all, 60 years of broadcasting is about 350,000 hours of broadcasting. 1 hour not loaded with ads is a rather insignificant part of the total time. Overall, I would guess there was less actual information time in the one-hour show than time spent hyping the program for the past few weeks. While being mildly interesting, the show was overall rather disappointing and shallow.
The rain is nice however even if the mud is a bit annoying.
One more obnoxious relatively new practice at KELO news is hyping a bit of news during the day as if it is important, but all that is is a teaser ad for the REALLY, REALLY BIG SHOW which will be on the 10 PM news or following it. This is the kind of crap that petty late-night TV ads do or was the running catch of old cliff-hanger serials. It is unbecoming for a serious news organization. It has the smell of desperation gimmicks to build audience for the nightly news.
*** Stay tuned..back to the Republican Retrograde Obstructionists soon--- Doug Wiken
Interesting that Republicans in Congress and mouthpieces of the very rich or very bigoted are yammering about the Libya ambassador murder and IRS scrutiny of tax-exempt organization applications amount to the equivalent of Watergate and are the stuff of impeachment. (Added link May 20, 2013: John Dean who knows about Watergate and the real stuff of impeachment disagrees with current herd of obstructionis GOP congress critters.) And a bit more about or from John Dean's perspective on GOP smoke and mirrors substance-free scandal mongering.
It is hard to look at this froth and foam from the GOP and not think that Obama's half-Black ancestory is the reason for their ire and retrograde obstructionism in Congress because most of the GOP yammer is fluff, foam, hypocrisy, and discredited or unprovable mythology or concerns many of the same things Republicans have known and ignored when it concerned their own white officials and politicians...
Bush1 or Reagan decided not to hire more IRS accountants to scrutinize corporation tax dodging and evasion. They decided to hire accountants to target (a misleading term) hair dressers, independent carpenters, independent mechanics, waitresses and waiters, farmers, and other self-employed, et al. The GOP feeling was that it was a lot easier to terrorize small people than corporations with dozens of attorneys.
Republicans in local and state governments regularly try to profile groups or ethnics for special law enforcement targetings and wonder why Hispanics should not be targeted for car license checks, etc. Like Willy Sutton "robbing banks because that is where the money is**", the GOP wants long-hairs, ethnics, and small people driving old cars to be targeted for enforcement. But, "profiling" political action groups funded by the likes of Koch Industries and brothers, is supposed to be an impeachable offense. (***Note: Snopes says that Willie Sutton never said that)
Republicans in the Carter years spent a lot of time attaching and demeaning President Carter for his micro-management. Now they are attacking Obama because he hasn't micro-managed a few hundred agencies and departments. Charles Krauthammer on Public TV "Inside Washington" just finished saying, "Obama is a bystander." Actually, the GOP obstructionists are trying to pretend that Obama is an obvious liar, and he just must have had his fingers in micro-managing the IRS scrutiny of Koch-organized "non-profit" political groups...after all, their Nixon sure did.
And then we get to Ben Ghazi and the murder of a US Ambassador and three aides. Hillary Clinton had it right when she chastized the retrograde Republicans by saying that it made no policy difference whether or not the ambassador was reported in early reports as being killed by demonstrators or terrorists. Sen. McCain has been on the attack ever since. McCain has made dozens of misleading or faulty reports on the Sabbath gasbag circuit , but he and most media have apparently forgot about all his misleading blather. Rachel Maddow put his multiple Sunday falsities up as video. McCain got his "Pinochios" awards. I linked to those in a previous Dakota Today post.
To make the current investigation even more telling on the GOP fraudulent investigation, they have been altering the e-mails released by the Obama administration. Churchill said, "History will be kind, because I intend to write it." CBS and Huffington have the details of the document modification. . The GOP has decided not just to write history, but to alter history by altering the facts. They have apparently figured out that not only can they have their own opinions, but they can also adjust the facts to fit their mythology. And a follow-up addition of May 20, 2013. Mother Jones of "It's Official" and Reid Blog has longer summary.
And then of course, when it comes to misleading statements, the GOP Congress Critters have apparently forgotten all about the investigation they never made when President Bush2 landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and boasted that "The war is a mission accomplished.". Where were the GOP congress critters calling for independent prosecutors, heads to roll and impeachment then?
Of course, Bush is not Black or even half-black. Bush is excused. Obama is not.
Now Republican Congress critters, are busy making fog by the ton. My guess now is that no legislation of any consequence which relates to the IRS or Ben Ghazi will result from these investigations. Republicans have gone from voting over 30 times to kill the Affordable Health Act, they are now generating hearings of non-issues or irrelevant events and even talk about non-issues or irrelevant events. The lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation tells GOP non-legislating is a strategy and scandalmania fits it well.
And as of May 18, 2013 another fine bit of GOP hypocrisy. Joe Scarborough now raving upset about scrutingy of TEA party non-tax pleading wanted to eliminate tax exemtion for the NAACP.
[[[ Added May 20, 2013]]] And on another "scandal front" which may be more serious--The AP phone records probe--The GOP exhibits a really fine case of hypocritical expressions of caring about such intrusions into press freedom..
Another addition of May 20, George Will when blathering about the "scandal" of scrutinizing TEA party and IRS quoted the "The power to tax is the power to destroy". What Will neglected mentioning however was that this was all about the power to un-tax.
Citizens of the US should start their own investigation of how GOP retrograde Congress Critters are failing to be true to their own oaths of office and for pledging fealty to right-wing kooks and Kochs.
*** Stay tuned, the GOP will make more fog and spew more mythology, books will be written--- Doug Wiken
Just when I thought we were going to see a spring without significant moisture, be get a half inch of rain that came down for awhile like Mother Nature really meant more than another farmer fooler mist. Of course some people had already watered lawns. That is almost as good and indicator as Pamida or now Shopko bringing in garden plantings just before a snowstorm or blizzard. South Dakota of all Places.
And HOLY COW, CBS has Sherlock Holmes engaging with Moriarity or a woman, Irene Adler? claiming to be Moriarity. More twists and turns.than a slimy eel chasing a red herring on ice. It has twists and turns, but doesn't seem to have the humor of the current British TV version on PBS a few months ago. Anyway, there are more important issues being generated by the GOP congress critters. On second thought the GOP retrograde obstuctionists are generating mostly fog . More on that "weather" in a coming post.
*** Stay tuned even if you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to see through the GOP---Doug Wiken
Drat, I missed it, but John Thune was honored last night on David Letterman Show. He was named stooge of the night. Finally his work is recognized. One of my friends called and asked if I had seen it. Guess I must have flipped over to the Charlie Rose Show.
Time now for “Stooge of the Night!”
Tonight’s Stooge: Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota.
DAVE: “South Dakota Senator John Thune voted ‘NO’ on gun reform legislation despite the fact that 79% of voters in his state are in favor of background checks for gun buyers. Senator Thune has an A-plus rating from the NRA, which is awarded to those who are regularly seen wearing a coonskin cap.
John Thune . . . . he’s our ‘Stooge of the Night.’”
Source of above: Letterman's "Lateshow Wahoo Gazette".
A couple of other bloggers must have been up late with Letterman last night.
Prairie Perspective on Thune is Stooge David Montgomery at Political Smokeout
Almost warms the cockles of the heart to see Thune get such an award.
*** Stay tuned, but not sure I will watch Letterman unless he learns about Kristi Noem. She provides enough material to be Stooge of the Night every night for a month--- Doug Wiken
Cat photos are notorious on the internet. I have a terrible time photographing cats. They either take off or move up to paw or lick a camera. My daughter and SIL have a cat named Polly. After about 3 days, Polly decided we were not intent on immediately killing her and sat still for the photo below.
Click on image for a larger version.
Polly is "Polly" because she is a polydactyl cat which means she has extra toes compared to the usual SD barn cat.
Below is a Kat of a whole different nature. I fell asleep with the TV on and didn't wake up until about 2:15 AM. A late, late broadcast of Austin City limits was on. The "Jazz amd cross" singer had a voice like an impish angel...understandable too which is nice with my old ears. Image is photo of TV screen.
Uncle Jimmo on SDPB-Radio might want to look for one of her albums. She apparently writes some or all of the songs she sings. More information on the ACL performance which also included Norah Jones can be found at Austin City Limits..Norah Jones and Kat Edmunson.
Enough of cats and Kat for the night.
*** Stay tuned even if Dakota Today will never be mistaken for the voice of an impish angel.-- Doug Wiken
In the mixed bag of news today from GWTC or Golden West Technologies, we get news of a coming phone rate increase they claim is mandated by the FCC, but they will be letting West River customers call free to other West River customers and East River customers will be able to call other East River Customers. This seems like a totally irrelevant separation. For that "benefit" to mean anything to us, we would need to be able to also call eastern SD free. This half-step is not quite enough to persuade many people to forget about cell phones and stop disconnecting land lines.
Below is image with text from GWTC. On second and third reading, I am not sure if this means that GWTC rates were too high and adding on enhanced long-distance was a way to maintain the high rates, or for some reason, rates were too low and had to be raised and adding enhanced long-distance makes that increase more palatable.
Below is image with SD map showing GWTC exchanges.
This big hunk of steel is apparently owned by NexLevel,LLC of Maple River, MN which company is laying the fiber-optic cable for rural Tripp County. This should make internet service a bit faster here.
Guys working for GWTC said the actual cable placing will start sometime after May 23, 2013 which will give me some time to move junk around to make way for the machinery and cable. They said project was expected to be finished by September 30, 2013. There will be no service on the old copper coaxial line as the fiber-optic system is phased in.
*** Stay tuned for more on electrons converted to light and light to electrons. Gee whiz.--- Doug Wiken
You may have noticed my bold type near the top of the page regarding a foolish journalistic propensity. There may be a better way to express that. A SD graduate student is surveying SD Blogs for a master's thesis. I actually spent some time answering the questions. Well, I was really tired of what I had been doing and it was a good excuse to do something else, but anyway, I did think a bit more about "balanced journalism" Also, a Bill Moyers and Company show kind of filled in some blanks.
Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann are reporters/commentators who strive to be bi-partisan in their reporting. Even so, they have found the idea of balancing actually unbalanced factors in the name of "balance journalism" is part of our current problems. Reporters, newspapers, and TV news that attempts to balance what the GOP has been doing to thwart Obama and what Democrats and Obama are doing is a fools errand.
You can find their comments on the foolish balance and the case they make can be found at Moyers, Norman Orenstein, and Thomas Mann..The failure of Congress.
I hope you find that interesting. Meanwhile back here, I think perhaps a better definition of balanced journalism is not that there must be some kind of equality presented between unequals, but that journalists (as should scientists) should give alternate positions or sides balanced scrutiny and analysis. The same kind of hard-nosed evaluation of Side A should be given to Side B or to Perspective A and Perspective B, and then let the chips fall where they may.
Journalists should not accept GOP mythology on economics as reality. Give it the same kind of tough analysis and don't let circular arguments and fallacious history go unchallenged. Do the same kind of tough analysis on the Democratic arguments and relate both to reality on the ground, or in the economy, or in relation to accurate historical accounts.
I hope this doesn't all just sound like Sunday school preaching, but a foolish Press balance means between unequals or an inappropriate meaning for balanced journalism really endangers our Democracy and it helps maintain GOP retrograde obstruction as somehow equal to really trying to solve our social and economic problems.
*** Stay tuned, for more unbalanced "journalism". We try harder to maintain inequality between unequals--- Doug Wiken.
Getting a Driver's License in SD is a royal pain in the rear. I have had SD learners and drivers permits or drivers licenses since 1957. Might it be reasonable to expect the state to have records of that and not demand an original birth certificate (Costs $20 and ironically, a Drivers License is required for ID to get one)? Two Utility bills with home address, a social security card or valid passport.. We had to provide the same damn information the last time we got a Driver's License. Might it be reasonable to expect that such a drivers's license already with all documention is sufficient proof to get another one?
The Department of Public Safety officials here were personable and efficient. But, I do wonder how they can keep working such an idiotic system. It is hard not to got through this pain in the rear without thinking that the real function is to make it hard for poor people and minorities such as Native Americans to get a Driver's license and thus be able to vote.
Has anyone yet discovered any evidence that there has been any significant attempt to get drivers licenses fraudulently in South Dakota? My guess is that 80% or so of applicants have had SD Drivers Licenses for years and probably have lived in the same place for 30 or more years.
Another question for SD Legislators and officials. Why do we need such a ponderous identification when states like Arizona loaded with illegal aliens requires barely any identification?
The system makes it even harder for women to get a license. It is discriminatory in that regard. They need marriage licenses as well as all the other crap....and just like Birth Certificates, they need ...you guessed it...a drivers license to get a copy.
Did any thoughtful SD legislator of official bother to ask himself if this mess made sense?
*** Stay tuned, but watch out for old geezers with new Driver's Licenses--- Doug Wiken
South Dakota newspapers have been making a mediocre case for an internet sales tax apparently as a way of pandering to their advertisers as they poke a stick in their reader's eyes. A tax increase is a tax increase just as a skunk by another names stinks the same.
My argument against the endrun around the US Constitution commerce clause is that it is a huge intrusion into privacy with all kinds of data bases being required to make the baling wire mess work. If it passes be prepared to pay taxes you don't owe and let every state in the country know what you buy.
Newspapers whine that the poor brick and mortar stores are disadvantaged by having to collect sales taxes from their customers while distant catalog or internet sales don't require such collection. Judges twist their corrupt minds into knots by justifiying a "use" tax which only applies to purchases from an out-of-state seller.
Justification for distant transaction taxes by states and local governments is a perversion of good sense, good taxaction, and an insult to the US Constitution the wingnut right regularly claim to worship as if it it the 10 commandments on the lips of God...well at least as far as it concerns guns and ammunition.
I don't care if I have to pay taxes on internet purchases or distant transactions because the few percent taxes is not why I or anybody else buys from a distant seller. We buy because the product is not available locally or even in state. We buy because local or instate marketers rip us off with prices two or three times the national price. A sales tax is not the reason for not buying from your friendly local smiling ripoff artist.
Very frankly, the arguments for further extension of state and local sales taxes to internet or other distant taxes are pure, unadulterated, stagnant bullshit.
If there is to be a tax on distant transactions, it should apply to all such trnasactions and it should be a federal tax 90% refunded to states on the basis of population rather than sales. It should apply to stocks and bonds as well as chastity belts, Viagra, tampons, or whatever else the states are eager to get into a data base relating you to sales.
A Forbes writer has a kind of weak-knee criticism of the internet tax: Forbes: The Internet Sales Tax reveals its Foolish head Again.
A federal tax will not require data be kept on sellers location, buyers location, or even what is purchased. If this is to be a national tax, it should be administered by the federal government which can just add a line to the 1040.
There is no need for tremendous growth of state Revenue department staffs or databases and so-called "tax fairness" is a smokescreen for simple tax increase.
Let your legislators know you are not impressed with the state's incredibly stupid, privacy intruding sales tax consortia mechanisms too similar to Rube Goldberg contraptions.. and let your newspapers and Governor Daugaard know you are not impressed with their BS.
*** Stay tuned. You will not be taxed for reading this YET, but give the bastards some time and they might find taxable value in the information here.--- Doug Wiken
The same Republicans in Congress who have driven the US and US economy into a ditch by refusing to do anything whatsoever which might hint that Obama was not just dirt in the gears. They demanded budget cuts and refused to tax the greed heads who milk our systems and fail to pay significant taxes.
Consequently, parks are being closed and Air Traffic Controllers are being put on leave. And, wonder of wonders that slows down air travel and aggravates air travelers or airport sitters and waiters. Jumping right on this are the same Republicans who made this mess suddenly discovering the woes of travelers and starting congressional inquiries. I guess they can't remember what they did a few months and years ago.
But, the ultimate GOP hypocrisy is attacking Obama and his administration for long waits and even possible cancellations in the wake of a wave of furloughs hitting air traffic controllers. I guess these GOP hypocrites have forgotten that Ronald Reagan, patron saint of GOP economic mythology, fired all the air traffic controllers when he was President.
GOP conservatives only want to remember part of the story. They forget the glorious failures consequent to their glorious imposition of their economic and anti-labor mythology.
*** Stay tuned ..you might as well, flying anywhere is a pain--- Doug Wiken.
.
Most of us in rural Tripp County are tied to Golden West Technology for wired phones and internet service. They charge too much, but they are what is available and phone and internet service from them have both been levels of magnitude better than when US West had a monopoly.
Earlier this spring GWTC had engineering contractors out getting easements for the new fiber-optic lines. GWTC wants to get as much of it as possible off highway right-of-ways.
Anyway, a few days ago I got a call from GWTC. They are starting to install the routers and powers supplies that will be used when the fiber optic line is installed later this year. I assume the power is to run the modem and the interface between fiber and wire and the analog phones since no power will be conducted with the fiber-optic line.
Below is a photo of the inside part of the system. Another box outside for the interface with the buried fiber optic line..
Click on image for slightly larger version. Actual device total size about 10" wide by about 15 inches top to bottom.
It was installed level and plumb, but my cellphone was obviously not level and plumb.
That's the news from Lake Waytoolate.
Years ago when GWTC put in line to replace the very troublesome system US West had, I asked a rep from GWTC why they weren't installing fiber optic in same trench since it might only ad 5 cents per foot. Even if it was dark fiber for a few years it would have made sense, His response, "What would farmers ever need that kind of bandwideth for?"
So, now that we have that bandwidth, I wonder if GWTC will allow us to stream video or audio. There old contracts banned that.
*** Stay tuned for more on this in the coming months--- Doug Wiken
Microsoft keeps making software more complicated with ever-changing commands and a learning curve tortured by obtuse twists and turns. Windows explorer is OK for a lot of people, but a few "double directory" programs can make moving files and storing to flash drives, etc much, much easier and also more intuitive...at least from my perspective.
If the above makes sense to you, take a look at Briggs File Maven..demo available, but not freeware and System Commander from Marek Jasinski.
Briggs Softworks for File Maven and several other software products.
Free Commander by Marek Jasinski..Freeware: Regular Windows, U3. and Portable versions
I make no guarantees on these programs, but I think most of you can find good uses for the software above and prices are reasonable.
And if you have a digital camera, and you need a free program to view or do primitive editing on, bulk resizing or renaming, etc. The freeware Irfanview program is a favorite of many thousands of users. Not a dual-drive file manager, but two instances of the program can be loaded which makes some editing easier. Download Irfan Skiljan's Irfanview and add-ons.
These are not in the PC World 101 list of sites. More on that in a week or so.
*** Stay tuned even if the rain is not removing the snow where you reside--- Doug Wiken
I noticed a post by Woster at the RC Journal's Mt. Blogmore. With the Journal charging to post more than once or twice a month at Mt. Blogmore, it has become a bit like an abandoned car on the information highway. Woster's post indicated Mt. Blogmore was not your father's Blogmobile and that including any links in comments would mean they would be deleted. I tried to post the comment below:
No links? That seems kind of silly and vain in the vanity direction as well as in further diminishing Blogmore.. If 12 people are working on this blog, it sure isn't obvious.
TypePad just found a few links to the RC Journal weather reports which I tacked on to my nonsense at Dakota Today. Weather has sure messed up the US mail. I am still missing a few of the RC Journals but three Daily Republic papers showed up today.
I can however understand why you might resist allowing any political porn like ALEC, the RNC, Conservative "think" tanks, etc. They are kind of stomach-churning.
More seriously, I will dig back a few hundred e-mails and see if I can find the discount price for your online digital content and then I can regularly NOT submit links to good sites like Dakota Today, Madville Times, SD War College, David Montgomery, Bob Mercer, news at other papers, news and opinion at NPR and PBS, KELO and KOTA TV, local weather, etc. I won't even suggest that you should get the EARL cowboy cartoons into the the Journal.
I was a bit surprised when the fine Blogmore filter rejected the above comment because "It contains profanity". So, you are reading it here. Let me know if you can find the profanity in the comment. :You will notice I did not include a link to Blogmore or the Journal here. Sauce for the goose and gander I guess.
.The weather has warmed up and much of the slush and ice has gone from highways around here. Winner city streets are even getting better. God is doing his or her job by allowing a warm sun to pop out. Of course, that same God might be responsible for the weather mess too. You could see what you can find about all this at the God Checker Site recently recommended by PC World as one of the 101 sites they found. I will next have a post with a few of those 101 that seemed as if they might also interest me and possibly the dozen readers of Dakota Today.
*** Stay tuned for links you will never see at Mt. Blogmore--- Doug Wiken
Watching snow fall around here and shoveling and then shoveling again and again gave me the impression we must have had a foot or so, and today KELO weather indicated Winner had a foot of snow. It was wet snow too. Shoveling it was literally a pain in the back.
But, Rapid City had nearly two feet of snow or perhaps more dumped on it. Below is a photo via cellphone showing a pile of snow. We probably had about half that much on everything. Wind was pretty vicious however, so hard to tell. Power was off in Winner when a blast of wind and snow blew through just before midnight two days ago. I don't know if that noisy blast of wind right before power went out was caught by data recorders. The National Weather 3-day report shows a lot of wind at a number of times in the past few days..
This afternoon, we finally got some sunshine and a respite from the wind...and some more snow that was closer to rain because of the temperature.
Anyway, take a look at the photo below. It gives an idea of the snow that piled into Rapid City. Some city streets in Rapid still are single lane right down the center where a snow plow made one pass.
Snow is on the trunk of a 30 year old Mercedes diesel car.
Well, that is enough on the weather. Whenever we get a bunch of snow like this I am reminded of two things. The year the Oklahoma Federal Building was bombed, our two children where home from school because we had something between 20 and 40 inches of snow with Winner, SD right in the middle of a snow oval about 50 miles long and 20 miles wide. Wet and ground was wet. Pretty well wiped out pheasants around here for a few years. So, The Oklahoma bombing is something I remember, and I also remember that Winner City has never really figured out how to handle more than a few inches of snow.
A city streets supervisor here 20 or 30 years told my mother-in-law when she griped about the icy streets, that "God would take care of the ice." Sometimes they got by with that, but one year, my MIL took off to Phoenix to visit her daughter there and was gone for about 30 days. The ice on the streets when she left was still there when she got back from sunny Arizona. The last few winters have not been quite that vicious.
And Pavlov got dogs to drool by ringing a bell. Power outages and snow are like a bell ringing to remind me of the days when all roads went uphill and snow drifts were way, way over our heads. Today, almost everybody may be griping about the shoveling, but also nearly everybody is happy to see some snow with significant moisture in it and enough of it still on fields to do some good in helping with dry soil conditions here..
*** Stay tuned and I hope your local street department can handle snow removal without the assistance of God.--- Doug Wiken
.
If an oil pipeline ruptures and nobody can see it, does the event actually exist?
Don't fly your plane over the black smudge on Arkansas.
I'm sure it is just a safety measure so that nobody parachutes in to rob the homes abandoned because of the crude oil spill.
South Dakota legislature needs to hold a special session so they can quickly write legislation preventing anybody from looking at a pipeline oil leak...never mind the beautiful nude sunbathing with the Capitol geese.
Just kidding about the Capitol geese, I think we can still take pictures of them as long as their isn't a pipeline leak in the Capitol Goose Crap Seep System.
*** Stay tuned, but does a blog post exist if you don't read it?
Bob Mercer has the wingnut circle at Pat Power's DWC all stirred up. Mercer apparently proposed that Hillary Clinton should move to South Dakota to run for the seat currently held by Tim Johnson.
I'd like to see Nancy Pelosi do it, but I am a few days late for the April 1 hijinks.
Grass is getting green around here, but it is barely enough for even sick cats to nibble on. South Dakota needs rain more then we need Hillary or Nancy...unfortunately. Maybe Daugaard could pray for rain in public. Might do as much as good as a Catholic governor doint it or some redneck Southern Babtist baying at the moon.
*** Stay tuned, summer is yet young and April showers have not yet begun---Doug Wiken
Sports addiction may be some kind of something close to mental illness like having an unnatural attraction to a concrete block. Maybe somebody at the Smithsonian has found the reason for this ailment which troubles thousand of TV broadcasters and viewers.
The Smithsonian is even getting in on the action. Eric Simons, author of the book, "The Secret Lives of Sports Fans," tells writer Megan Gambino:
"In the case of sports, there is compelling evidence that this is basically a real relationship in your brain. In a very real sense, the sports team becomes a part of you. You just feel like whatever success it achieves is a personal success, and whatever failure it has is a personal failure. You can’t cut the team off without cutting off a part of yourself. Even if the team is losing, you have so much of yourself wrapped up in it that you can’t just walk away. To do so is to give up on a part of yourself."
If, like me, you recognize just a little bit of yourself in Simons' comments above, don't you feel just a little sadder about your life? Find more at IT-Sports Addiction.
Nope. And I don't spend any time cheering for General Motors, or Chrysler, or Ford or even for the star executives who pay themselves $millions per year. I am also not a fan of big pharma even if their executives get $20 million or more per year.
Sports lunacy is destroying education in South Dakota and warping education priorities. It is time for legislation that prevents SD State Universities from mandating that students must pay athletic fees. My guess is that the Universities and the Regents would soon learn that about 75% of the students could not care less if the jocks and their coaches disappeared from the campus if they could shave their college costs by several thousand dollars.
Time for one more initiated law.
*** Stay tuned even if slam-dunk posts are rare birds here--- Doug Wiken
I suspect some of this kind of post is found very boring for some people. My wife finds it amusing that "nerds" can get so interested in this kind of stuff. Anyway... below is an image of a heater warning label I have not seen here in South Dakota on electric heaters. It is from my friend John in California and for all I know may be a sensible California requirement. Click on the image for a larger version.
Above is actually info from front and back of warning tag. Click on image for a more readable size.
John included more information which one might expect from an electrical engineer. I will put that information into SD Science Junction. It is the kind of information that conveys a message of the actual importance of science and engineering knowledge in general daily life..or possibly death if knowledge is absent or unavailable.
I also received more information from the SD Fire Marshall's office which parallels the above warning, but is not quite so easy to insert here. You can download the PDF below.
Download Safe_use_of_power_strips-1
Thanks to Doug Hinkle of the SD Office and thanks to John for the information of his own experience with overheated connectors and his analysis of it.
I have looked at all stores selling cords and heaters here in Winner, SD again last week and checked my own connectors and cords and have found a huge gap between the data in the marketplace and the info from fire authorities. More caution than suggested by product labeling here in South Dakota is warranted by experience here and elsewhere.
*** Stay tuned and be careful both out there and in there--- Doug Wiken
The annual Winner Farm and Home show is on today and for a few more hours tomorrow on Saturday. Take a look at the WOW..or Window on Winner link in menu above for more information.
And, take a look at Daily Koz who has noticed that Trans Canada on behalf of the XL Pipeline has influenced a number of legislatures to pass pro-XL resolutions. You really didn't think the boneheads in the SD legislature came up with a resolution for XL on their own did you.
Daily KOZ..ALEC Sponsores Keystone XL Pipeline Protests.
Guess the SD legislators don't care if the primary intent of the XL: pipeline is to increase gasoline and diesel prices in the midwest and suck tar sand and Bakken crude out of here for export to China and elsewhere. Guess they also don't care very much about water resources and water purity here either. Guess they really mostly don't represent us, but care a lot about a foreign corporation and ALEC.
Anyway, most of the usual snow for opening of Farm and Home show and the Shopko garden tent has already melted from the streets, but maybe more tonight if weather in Rapid City is any indicator;
*** Stay tuned for more weather and other follies-- Doug Wiken
We have used those handy six-outlet extensions for years. Some with surge arresstors for computers and TVs, and some with just an overload switch.
I will soon get photos in here, but what happened is still a bit of a mystery. I noticed one light was not working. Started checking and found no power there. Checked entrance box and a 25 amp breaker had tripped. It would not reset. Tracked the circuit and found that a heavy-duty extension cord plugged into the six-outlet extension showed melted plastic on each end. The end at the outlet was white plastic charred black.
Click on image for larger version
The heater plugged in worked in another outlet as it should. Other loads were negligible. The cord plugged into the six-outlet strip had a male terminal literally welded to the brasss connector in the extension strip. We were very lucky to not have had a fire.
I don't know anything for sure, but I suspect it might make sense to pull plugs out of any extension cord or strip now and then and replug them to possibly break up oxidation or corrosion. So far my best guess is that such a bad connection started arcing which produced the heat without using enough current to trip the breaker on the extension strip. Then the hot side contracted the ground or the other side of the connector and finally tripped the 25 amp circuit breaker at the entrance box.
Anybody with other ideas or similar experience, let me know. I suspect many of these things are on carpets and behind sofas and other furniture where any kind of arcing or over-heating could start a serious fire. Mine was up on a wall with no carpet in the area.
Did a Google search. Found a similar situation Danger, Fire Ahead.
And pretty colors may hide electric fire danger too And some useful info (and hype) on Power Strips and fire danger. And from Emory University-- Toolbox Safety . About 50 questions and answers on surge protectors here-- Surge and Strip FAQs. And scroll down and down at a North Caroline Law Firm Warning of Fire Danger (and law suit potential?). And from "Consumer Affairs" (not to be confused with Office Affairs) you can find 27 complaints from people with all kinds of electrical problems.
That is enough of that. On Monday, I will contact the South Dakota Fire Marshall office and see if they have found examples of power strip failure producing fire. Many colleges and universities have info on use and abuse of these strips.
[[[ Note: I did get in touch with SD Fire Marshall Office and they called back after looking at image here. Found out it is a bad idea to plug extension cords into them. I still don't get the physics of that problem however. Also that one of the things they inspect for in SD Schools is the use and abuse of those power strips. I may get more info from the SD Fire Marshall and if I do, will post it here or provide a link to the information.. I did look at the packaging for a number of multiple outlets. Most have no reference to dangers of extension cords. Others give conflictiing information in the fine print that says in one sentence "Don't use two-wire extension cords or adapters". Then a few lines later indicates no kind of extension cords should be used. Other have no warnings of any kind. After talking to the fire marshall office, I think is is wise not to plug any single appliance into those strips which by itelf uses power close to the maximum rating.. I still don't know for sure what happened to this one, but my limited experience suggests these things deserve a bit more attention despite the package big print which usuially indicates the breaker in them makes them safe to use. More to come on this I am sure.--- Doug Wiken ]]]
This morning (March 19, 2013, I got more information from Doug Hinkle at the SD Fire Marshall Office. It is posted on one of my Notebook Pages--- Fire Code Info. Check it for more information. This may all be much ado about not much, but the charred and melted plastic and the "welded" connectors certainly caught my attention.
*** Stay tuned even if all your connections are political-- Doug Wiken
It took a few days, but I did get a couple snow images into the post I initially made a few days ago. Take a look. Click on them for slightly larger versions. The warm weather yesterday and today has made most of the snow disappear. With the cracks in the gumbo, the melt is mostly going into the ground.
Sounds like a day or two more of good weather before possibly more rain and snow which we still need for sure..
[[[ Note of March 16, 2013-- I parked the 4x4 and started driving the 2-wheel drive pickup that gets double or triple the mileage of the 4x4....for about 1 day. A couple hours ago, the snow started again. About an inch or two already and visibility is probably only about 1000 feet.-- Doug Wiken]]]
*** Stay tuned even if you are swinging in a tropical hammock--- Doug Wiken
Dana Milbank and Kathleen Parker columns were in Mitchell Daily Republic. Thomas Sowell had a column in yesterday's Rapid City Journal. Some links which may provide source material.
1.Dana Milbank..Paul Ryan's Magical Budget
2 Kathleen Parker.. Media Myopia in Rome..Misreading the Church
3.Thomas Sowell..Multiculturalims paints us into a blind corner
Milbank first. He indicates that Paul Ryan's House "Budget" is a fraud. Says Ryan is literally "shooting blanks" because all the key components of an actual budget are missing. Also Lyin' Ryan neglects mentioning that some of his budget cuts are actually already made by Obama, etc. etc. Read the column and save it because it is a classic indicator of the classic Republican strategy.
Republicans attack Democrats for not having plans. When Democrats produce an actual plan, they nitpick it to death or immediately pronounce it dead on arrival. They figured this out when McGovern actually produced a sensible "negative tax" proposal. It was attacked in a hundred unfair irrelevant ways. Thus was born a standard GOP attack mode. Republicans then produce as Ryan has done, some vacuous empty crapola that is so meaningless pointing out the nonsense if is a Sysyphian task since no matter how badly their mythology and discredited economic theory is shredded, they keep coming back with it. It is always more lipstick on a sow's ear.
Ryan is a master of bald-faced flimflammery. He almost never directly answers any questions from legitimate press because to do so demonstrates his shallow emptiness.
And then onto something entirely different. Kathleen Parker with the somewhat misleading title "Myopia in Rome" in the MDR.. One might think it was timid criticism of the Holy Roman Circus, but no. It is an attack on the press in Rome.
In a previous post, I noted that there was 3 minutes of actual news and a week or more of press and media time-filling nonsense. Parker sort of agrees, but not. She glowingly presents the ideas that the Roman Church is not actually anti-woman because of their glorification of Mary, Mother of Jesus. It was hard for me watching all the males in funny hats and gowns or dresses with not a woman in sight or on site. With their heads wrapped, it seemed they had too much in common with Islamicist Mullahs who also walk around in dresses with funny headgear and demand that women cover up and cower. Anyway, Parkers reference to Mary is irrelevant in the context of press coverage distortion.
She then goes into all the good thing the church and believers do. And, there really is much good done by the Roman Church and believers, but to a large extent, the poor who are always with us are a consequence of the church opposition to birth control, condom distribution, and abortions. Also, the AIDs/HIV empidemic or plague is at least partially the consequence of church promotion of ignorance of sexual nature and birth control, etc. To that extent, much of the Catholic good works are actually a cure of the disease the Church dogma and teaching cause. It is a beautiful circle of irrelevant argument.
And, now onto Thomas Sowell. Sowell is usually so far out on the right wing fringes of ideological and economic nonsense as to be nearly laughable except he is often taken seriously when he should be ignored and ignored when he should be taken seriously. His column on Multiculturalism promoting Polarization is one which should be taken seriously-- especially in this week when all the world is hearing about the millions of Catholics in South America and Mexico.
Multiculturalism and diversity hype are mostly nonsense. They are promoted by Democrats looking for cheap votes and Republicans looking for cheap labor. They are quick irrelevant excuses for groups in lagging cultures to blame others for their problems. Liberals repeat this cant crap almost daily. As Sowell indicates, it is amazing that otherwise intelligent people tie their brains in knots trying to somehow twist backward cultures into something else and attack those with any sense of realism as "blaming the victims". Then they play the "bigot card".
As Sowell concludes, " The biggest losers in all this are those members of racial [ and cultural] minorities who allow themselves to be led into the blind alley of resentment and rage, even when there are broad avenues of opportunity available. And we all lose when society is polarized."
Sowell never even gets to the "Tower of Babel" argument on the nonsense of language diversity.
Well, that is enough of the snailmail opinions for the day.
*** Stay tuned while the weather is beautiful here--- Doug Wiken
Thank heavens or whatever, Pope Bogus the 266th Irrelevancy has been selected by the men in red dresses. Perhaps now CBS "news" can get away from discussing dirty rotten politics in red dresses and back to dirty rotten politics in blue suits. CBS has managed to turn about 3 minutes of actual news into a week of irrelevant drivel on a par with horserace political reporting. Makes a person wonder if The Vatican holds stocks in CBS or a company controlling CBS.
After the cardinals burned a dried up dead cat to get some white smoke, or perhaps an hour and 30 minutes later, a South American Italian Cardinal became Pope Francis I.
Sister Mary Margaret of the Nuns of Bad Habits order was uncharacteristically quiet. She said, "I don't know what to think about this.". Well not really, but a reporter from Argentina noted on NPR that the Italian cardinal from Buenos Aires had been a vocal supporter of the miltary regime that murdered hundreds or thousands in Argentina and that the Catholic Church there was alleged to have been involved perhaps in arranging some of the murders or tortures with the Argentinian equivalent of Italian fascists...
Anyway, a billion superstitious and deluded people can now rest easier. The magnificent, elegant halls of smoke and mirrors have given them a new Italian Pope born in the New World and educated in the Old World. Allen Pizzi of CBS noted in nearly hushed tones that going from Cardinal to Pope converts a man into a new man of new identity. Perhaps the new person will be better. I do wonder if a Jesuit, known as the Pope's lawyers, will be very flexible in adapting Catholic dogma into a better fit with modern world reality.
Oh, and don't forget all the irrelevant interesting facts that CBS has dumped out in the last week. A fine tidbit today was that the ringing bell accompaning the white smoke weighed 7 tons and was made in 1760. And, it has been something like 200 years since a Pope, like Bennedict XVI, had resigned.
*** Stay tuned...back tomorrow with more dirty rotten blue suit politics-- Doug Wiken
.
Good heavens, KELO forecast finally got to the right one after their snow prediction danced back and forth across South Dakota, and we got the rain and the snow actually predicted for south central South Dakota This stuff is heavy shoveling. Got to thank a neighbor for running his snowblower through the pile the city and another neighbor's snow that was into our driveway. I cleaned off cars and house front step about 3 times and it seemed like there was about 3 inches every time. Rain or melted snow on the bottom made mucky slush that froze rock hard this morning. By this afternoon, sunshine was loosening the ice. Some streets and highways are bare, others are still good tests for 4x4 vehicles.
I will stuff in a few photos with this soon. (Consider this as a benign placeholder that compares to SD Republican legislative abuse of hoghouse and Omnibus bill deception). Bright white with bright sun makes for interesting scenes. Looks really clean compared to watching folly and fumbling in the SD legislature. We are still in serious need of moisture here however. Below are a couple of snow photos ..finally...ironically most of the snow in these photos pretty much disappeared with 60 and 70 degree Fahrenheit weather yesterday and today (March 14, 2013).
Terrible times for news. CBS news seems to think that everybody is enthralled with the Catholic Pope selection process and the latest sports celebrity. SDPB is busy with fundraising "specials" and girls high school basketball thus blotting out most of their news and opinion shows. I guess the news hiatus left time for shoveling snow. How fortuitous.
*** Stay tuned, the weather will change, but will always be interesting (to some, perhaps) -- Doug Wiken.
I have a Wells Fargo account which I don't use much, but today I got my monthly bank statement and noticed some fine print attached. It seems a bit strange to me, but perhaps some of you might wonder why a bank wants to charge for somebody putting money into their bank. Below is my typing of their fine print:
We want to let you know of important upcoming changes to your Wells Fargo business checking account. These changes will be effective starting March 2, 2013. [ Note, this notice was received March 7, 2013]
Your account includes, at no charge, up to 140 transactions per month. The fee for transactions over 150 per month will change to $0.50 each. The definition of "transaction" will change to include each deposit transaction in addition to any combination of paid items and deposited items, including paper and electronic. "Transactions" do not include purchases and payments made using a Wells Fargo Business Debit Card or Wells Fargo ATM Card.
Your account also includes, at no charge, up to $5,000 of cash deposited per month. "Cash deposited" will change to include cash deposits made in ATMs and branch locations. The fee for cash deposited over $5,000 per month will change to $0.30 per $100 deposited. [note: I bolded this. It was not bolded on statement].
Now, I know it is a pain in the rear to count every dollar bill and every nickel and dime, but I also doubt Wells Fargo counts anything by hand these days. It seems more than passing strange that a bank wants to charge for depositing money that it can lend out and charge interest on.
I imagine that one of these days, there will be a small charge for a teller smiling at us or saying "hello" instead of something like, "Would you like to sign up for a Wells-Fargo Debit Card today."
*** Stay tuned but don't listen for the sound of nickles and dimes bouncing out of a collection plate here... wonder if banks consider churches "business"?-- Doug Wiken
Today Bob Mercer apparently suggested that any kind of crony capitalism bribery system for big business projects warranted some sunshine. Of course, crony capitalists like working under the covers and under the cover of darkness and the SD Republicans are wedded to covering up their work just like a cat.
[[ Please note, I messed up the references here. The amendment was apparently actually presented by Republican Stacy Nelson, but reported by Mercer and supported by the text following the amendment by Mercer rather than by Frank Kloucek. Sorry if this led to confusion on the part of any readers.-- Doug Wiken, March 9, 2013]]
Here is apparently what Mercer Stacy Nelson suggested as amendment to SB235.
The Board of Economic Development may not take action to award any loan, grant, or other form of financial assistance that involves public funds unless the action is taken at an official meeting for which notice has been posted in accordance with the provisions of § 1-25-1.1 and notice has been published in at least three newspapers of general circulation in different parts of the state. The notice shall be published at least two weeks before the meeting, shall contain a narrative description of the proposed actions, and shall also state where and when the hearing will be held.".
Frank Kloucek Bob Mercer has written:,
If the Legislature and the governor are serious about giving this immense discretionary power to the Board of Economic Development, the process requires the highest possible degree of openness. Voters rejected a similar type of mechanism in November. It would be an insult to try the same thing again, wrapped inside a different envelope. If a state board is going to be given the power to give away millions of dollars annually at its own discretion, in a program that favors a very small group of taxpayers above all others, the public has a right to know what is being attempted and should have the right to express its opinions to that board about each and every proposal. The state Board of Water and Natural Resources has functioned for many years under the very type of open system for its grants and loans.
We don't need crony capitalism in Washington, DC and we don't need it in South Dakota. Despite the old analogy relating making legislating and sausage making, we all lose if we aren't allowed to know everything about both. Food poisoning is not good, and legislative and executive unseemly secret dealings with corporate interests are not healthy for a modern society.
*** Stay tuned and plan on a lot of initiative and referendum business coming to a state very near you--- Doug Wiken
TIME magazine keeps getting thinner, but at least it has not been reduced yet to fleeting pixels like Newsweek. If you subscribe, be sure to read the Steve Bill article BITTER PILL pages 16 to 55-- a healthy dose of outrage...Why Medical Bills are Killing Us. If you don't subscribe buy it off the newstand.
There is enough fodder in this magazine for 4 years of Congressinal hearings. This should also be inspiration for South Dakota mainstream media to start doing some serious digging into ripoffs and obscene pricing by health care systems and insurance. South Dakota lagislators should be furiously digging into this if they want to control medicare costs in better ways than denying coverage to tens of thousands of South Dakotans.
I will have more on this soon. In the meantime, a link to TIME Bitter Pill.
*** Stay tuned for more outrage-- Doug Wiken
CBS on Evening News in continuing fascination with celebrity tonight noted that the USPO is suing Lance Armstrong for something like $100,000,000.
Sitting out here on the barren, snow-covered plains, it seems to me that suing Armstrong is more smoke and mirrors from bureaucrats who don't seem to be able to organize a parade. This seems to be a depressing misture of bureaucratic arrogance and hypocrisy in the face of their own idotic stupidity.
They pissed away over $30,000,000 on Lance Armstrong. The combination of glorification and exploitation of athletic irrelevancy is nonsense. How many jocks highly publicised turn out to be complete jerks? Why do we or any bureaucrats glorify this excess of irrelevancy?
It may be the US Post Office "deserves" getting back their money dumped into Armstrong's lap, but before that goes anywhere, a bunch of US Post Office executives should be canned. What kind of idiots think that a person riding a bicycle in France can cause anybody in the US to buy more stamps or send more paper mail?
Mostly I sit and shake my head when I see so-called mainstream media seem to overlook the grossly obvious dinosaur hiding in the story...or too often the tale they are telling.
Glorification of athletes and athletics is a dead end for the US. The USPO bumbling idiocy makes that manifestly obvious.
Conservatives of course choose to attack the people who actually carry the mail. A few examples below that actually also carry along a few facts.
Our local Post Office people are mostly personable and helpful. Mostly rain, snow, etc don't slow their deliveries. But now and then what happens with mail before it gets here or after it leaves here causes me to wonder even if 45 cents really isn't a lot to haul anything several hundred miles. A letter I mailed Tuesday Morning at Winner, SD Post Office made way to eastern Iowa this morning on the back of a fast turtle that averaged something between 40 and 75 miles per day... good for a turtle, but not so good for a delivery system.
*** Stay tuned and send some snail mail to your congress critters avoiding needs of our country in pursuit of their own partisan and corporate goals--- Doug Wiken
Roughcut is a public broadcasting wood working show. The host is fascinated by matching wood grain in cabinetry and other patterns in wood. Last one of these I watched Macdonald was trying to get a spiral grain pattern in a bowl he was turning out of 1/2 inch thick circles glued together. He pointed his finger to the pattern and said it was know as:
Chatoyancy can also be used to refer to a similar effect in woodworking, where certain finishes will cause the wood grain to achieve a striking three-dimensional appearance; this can also be called pop-the-grain, wood iridescence, moire, vibrancy, shimmer or glow.[4] This effect is often highly sought after, and is sometimes referred to as "wet look", since wetting wood with water often displays the chatoyancy, albeit only until the wood dries. Oil finishes and shellac can bring out the effect strongly.. More at Source Wikipedia.
I kind of doubt that word will turn up very soon in crossword puzzles. I probably won't even use it here to describe the brains of South Dakota Republican legislators or even cat's eyes for that matter.. The word did not show up in an old thick dictionary we had either, but I may have spelled it wrong. Google knows how dumb we can be..
I suppose a link to the TV show would be appropriate: Tommy McDonald Roughcut
Also, I should get a few more links like that into my public broadcasting page.
*** Stay tuned, even at my age, you never know when I might learn something else we will never need to know--- Doug Wiken
The information below was written by Chuck Noble. Noble is from Tripp County and has experience with technology. He spent time researching the facts here. My source is the Mitchell Daily Republic with the consent of Chuck Noble. Any errors in the text below are a result of OCR scanning errors and my failure to catch all of them. I don't agree with everything below or disagree with everything. It is a reasoned perspective with more reasons for not supporting the XL Pipeline. US Senator John Thune is ignoring reality in his desire to sucker punch Obama even if at our expense. Bloomberg News got information from Trans Canada indicating the purpose of the XL Pipeline is actually to increase gas prices 10 to 20 cents per gallon in the midwest by moving crude oil out of the region.
The RC Journal recently included a Thune collection of unsupportable generalizations, myth and irrelevancy on the XL pipeline. Let me know what you think of the guest post below on the XL Pipeline.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE DAILY REPUBLIC THURSDAY FEBRUARY 7,2013 page5A IN OTHER WORDS By CHUCK NOBLE
XL Pipeline is a bad idea (Resources better spent on developing Bakken oil)
The Keystone XL 1,700-mile pipeline originating in the northern Alberta Tar Sands and extending to Port Arthur, Texas, is a bad idea:
1. Tar Sands oil-has high costs for extraction ($100-$130 per barrel), transport and refining if used in the U.S. domestic market. There is no national economic interest in using this high-priced oil.
2. Pumping oil 1,700 miles would double the current electrical utility rates to 20 cents per kilowatt hour - a wasteful energy cost for thousands of South Dakotans.
3. The Keystone XL Pipeline corridor is a ruse to transport Bakken crude oil to southern U.S. refineries. Note: The Keystone Pipeline corridor passes within 60 miles of the Bakken Oil Field. In addition, the Baken Oil Field is becoming the second largest source of oil the United States.
The ruse was substantiated in a January 2011 press briefing, when Nancy Pelosi said, "It is well known that Keystone XL is a conduit for export out of the Gulf."
China has more than $10 billion invested in the Tar Sands oil project and plans to use this corridor to export Tar Sand oil.
In addition, this corridor could be used for transporting electricity and water south which would not be in the economic interest-of the upper Midwest.
4. There is no purpose in shipping more oil south when west Texas is awash in recently available crude oil. Further, this would lead to more monopoly control of the oil sources.
Developing the Bakken Oil Field resources is a good idea:
1. Refining oil in the northern region will provide lower fuel prices ($2-$4 per gallon). The effect of U.S. and worldwide exports ($4-$8 per gallon) would impact us less due to abundant local supplies.
2. There are more than 20 refineries in the upper Midwest that would benefit from lower-cost Bakken crude Oil.
3. Well-paying jobs will be provided in the refining and transportation segments of the economy.
4. Education and training jobs will be necessary as well.
5. It would be much wiser to develop an oil distribution system east and west in the northern half of the U.S. rather than shipping this oil to the Texas Gulf via the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. The U.S. is already expanding oil distribution east and west using oil tanker trains until economic pipeline systems are available. East, Midwest and Northwest refineries are currently purchasing Bakken Oil.
6. The U.S.A. can be a good neighbor by - providing excess supplies of refined oil products to eastern Canada, a short distance from the Bakken field.
7. There already exists a pipeline right of way from Edmonton, Alberta, to Vancouver, British Columbia. A second pipeline is planned.
If the American people realize the Keystone XL project is being used to ship Tar Sands oil to China, they will be outraged.
The wasted electrical energy used to pump crude oil long distances south, the proven unsafe records of pipeline oil leaks and related dangers to water resource, and the exporting of U.S. domestic oil for big oil company big profits are other realistic reasons for this outrage. Author Chuck Noble is a farmer with a background in systems engineering. He lives in Winner and Bellevue.Wash.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Other Words features opinions from local and other contributors who have areas of special interest or expertise. Material shouldn't exceed 600 words and can be sent, along with a photo, to:
Editor, The Daily Republic, 120 S. Lawler, Mitchell, S.D., 57301, or e-mailed to letters@mitchellrepUblic.com. The Daily Republic cannot guarantee all submitted material will be used.
** Stay tuned and seriously consider informing Secretary Kerry and your Senators and Congresmen of the outrageous consequences of the XL Pipeline-- Doug Wiken
[57Find:Unv,His,Sci.ZipSD.]SD wags often say something like, "If you don't like the weather now, wait an hour or day." Of course, the other side of that is "If you like the weather now, be prepared for misery in a day or an hour."
Yesterday was beautiful here for this time of year. Today not so much. No 50 degree light breezes wisping around on a gorgeous sunny day. Nope. Nasty cold north wind and temperature now about 29. Chill factor feels like something near absolute zero.
We benefit greatly from our weather technology. We often know pretty much what to expect for the next day and often for the next week even if forecasters misplace our local weather forecast and substitute something that works better for frigid Canada or some warm valley a few hundred miles south or east. Weather shifts like that from last evening to this morning could lead to tragedy were we ignorant of the potential.
Classic example was the "Children's Blizzard of 1888". Still remembered after 125 years.
Undue reliance of modern information and failure to use or to misuse protection can still lead to tragedy on the plains. I see and hear of people setting out across the plains in warmed cars with summer clothes, no emergency supplies, and often very little reason for making such dangerous dashes in the face of weather furor. What might have happened a 125 years ago because of weather ignorance, can now happen with plain stupidity or drunkeness, or gross over estimation of ability and under estimation of odds of disaster.
*** Stay tuned even if all your driving is done with a TV Remote from a recliner---Doug Wiken
57Find:Pol,Med,Sci,Gov,Med. Late night comedians and morning news showing late night comedian bits have been having fun with the GOP responder to President Obama's State of the Union Speech leaning off camera to grab a drink of water. Paul Ryan went on a bit on CBS Morning explaining how his mouth got dry when speaking and defending Rubio..
No surprise to me that these guys mouths get dry. They are usually lying through their teeth. Dry mouth is a sign of lying.
How to Read Body Language to tell if someone is lying
On that page we find this:
Republican spokesman would not need to be sipping water if they just stopped lying about what and why they are pushing policies for the very rich or converting Obama's speech into a crowd of strawmen.
*** Stay tuned even if you are drooling like Pavlov's dog hearing the dinner bell--- Doug Wiken
Why do Hispanics demand Hispanic studies when we have integrated millions of other races and cultures without pandering to their version of culture and history?
I have listened to Hispanics here in South Dakota blowing the horn for having total immersion in Spanish courses for English-speaking students and how wonderful that works.. On the other hand, seems that they are automatically getting a total immersion in English language and culture, but that apparently causes them to drop out of school.
The federal government failure to prevent an invasion of illegal aliens dumps a huge unfunded mandate on schools, hospitals, and the state and county social welfare systems. We don't need immigration reform, we need deportation reform.
What is the special problem with Hispanic culture that PBS seems to think they need to spend an inordinate amount of time and broadcasting promoting mindless diversity? The US has run as well as it has because of a nearly uniform English language as a standard whether family origin is German, Swedish, Chinese, Norwegian, Irish, Italian, whatever.
We are already seeing product packaging made almost illegible because of including Spanish language labeling and instructions. Whatever piddling benefits of diversity into failed archaic cultures we get, they will be wiped out with senseless diversity and pandering to a new illegal voting bloc and source of cheap menial labor.
We are getting a dose of nonsense diversity crap designed to make us ignore the invasion of illegal aliens. The US has spent $Trillions to keep the Russians and Chinese from invading, but we let 11 or 12 million Mexicans invade. The sudden pandering to this population of scofflaws with arrogant contempt for the existing culture here is disgusting and counter-productive.
*** Stay tuned even if you just love the diversity of sugar on your fried eggs and hydrocarbons in your drinking water-- Doug Wiken
57Find:Int,Pol,Gov. Legislator and mogul of Rapid City, Stan Adelstein, has set up a blog which is interesting since it provides some insight direct from the guts of the SD legislature. Western South Dakota can use another blog which doesn't charge for the right to provide the blog with free content. I am still aggravated that the RC Journal thinks we should pay $9.95 per month for a digital version of the snail mail paper we subscribe to. Lately with the weather and soon with the new postal changes, mail subscribers may get papers nearly a week late. The digital version should be free at least to subscribers out in the boondocks of South Dakota.
Well, enough of that, check out A Way to Go by Stan Adelstein and John Tsitrian
I have also added a link to the blog in the left side column.
Getting approved to add comments if you are not a Facebook or Twitter user may be a bit of a pain, but your email address and a Wordpress registration will work. If you have problems, contact the blog and Katherine LeClair will likely help you muddle through. I had a few problems, but the primary problems may have been with my Firefox script-stopping addon or the delay with Wordpress intefacing with the A Way to Go blog. I don't know. Strange things happen in the world of flying pixels.
Anyway, a new blog to demonstrate your profound wisdom or acute lack thereof.
*** Stay tuned ..better than being out in the freezing wind--- Doug Wiken
57Find:Int,YSDDakotaToday
I am back to trying to consistently use a post category tag system I started about three years ago and more or less forgot.
LINK TO DAKOTA TODAY NOTEBOOK PAGE--- "57FIND" Blog and Post Tags
There will be a page with the full system and info. South Dakota bloggers might consider using the system. I will see if it actually makes it easier to find posts on my blog first however.
*** Stay tuned even if now and then there are "construction" delays--- Doug Wiken
Check my Raucus Caucus blog for the text of President Obama's State of the Union Speech made this evening February 12, 2013. I may put in some comments here tommorow.
Raucus Caucus President Obama State of the Union 2013 Speech Text
A few bits of good news and some plain old political pandering, but mostly sensible. Republican response seemed to be mostly same old same old irrelevant failed partisan mythology.
*** Stay tuned for more tomorrow...Good night for now--- Doug Wiken
About an hour ago, I watched SD House vote in favor of a resolution of support for the XL Pipeline. I assume the resolutions are worth a bit less than a pitcher of warm spit in DC, but why would any SD legislator support a pipeline by a foreign company expressly designed to move crude oil out of the midwest and drive up the price of gasoline and diesel fuel here?
Trans-Canada told Bloomberg business news that the primary benefit of the XL pipeline would be to get crude oil out of the midwest where there is a glut of oil which is depressing gasoline and diesel prices. Trans-Canada expressed the goal was to raise gasoline and diesel fuel prices by 10 to 20 cents per gallon.
The pipeline also crosses a number of waterways in SD which feed into the Missouri River. It also runs dangerously close to the acquifers supplying Tripp and surrounding counties and also Winner and Colome and possibly Gregory. The pipeline spokespeople here in Winner with their SDPUC dog and pony show claimed that the heavy tar sands crude would not spread from a pipeline leak. What they failed to mention were the solvents and petroleum products needed to make the oil flow in the pipeline. Who knows what chemicals they will use, but I would like to hear an unbiased chemist or petroleum engineer who environmental scientist discuss the chemicals and their dispersion in underground and surface water in the event of pipeline leaks.
I hope the press with investigative resources will carefully check all SD legislator's contributions from the fossil fuels industry, petroleum companies, lobbying groups fronting for the oil industry, and the refining companies hoping to increase prices.
This resolution stinks and the legislators who support this are not reprsenting the people of South Dakota who drink water or buy gasoline or diesel fuel. They are doing more for the Chinese and the Canadians than for South Dakotans, or Montanans, or North Dakotans, or Nebraskans.
*** Stay tuned, but seriously consider electric vehicles or very, very fuel efficient other vehicles-- Doug Wiken
Stanley Whiting was a lawyer practicing law in Winner, SD. He died recently. Born in 1943 and died 1913. I did not have a lot of business with Stan. He argued one case for us and unlike a number of Winner lawyers was a Democrat.
But, one interesting story anyway. A dozen years or so ago, I heard a strange buzzing sound out here at our farm. It was a small ultralite plane. One of those you could nearly see through and might remind one of sewing machine motor running. The buzzing sputtered, started sputtered and then silence. I stepped out on our porch and looked at the pasture between our house and the Winner Airport.
The Ultralight was sitting about 300 feet south east. A guy was standing along side of it holding one foot. I got into the pickup and drove to the plane. The guy turned out to be Stan Whiting and he was barefooted in a small patch of cactus. Stan explained he had a fuel problem with the plane and had done a "ground loop" when it hit the grass. He hobbled into the pickup and we got back to the airport to find his boots standing next to a runway. Stan got his boots on. And headed back to Winner. That day or the next, I helped him load it up and opened the barbed wire fence between airport and pasture and the plane was "home" again. Stanley Whiting had been a US Marine pilot in Vietnam flying many missions and earning medals. He loved flying, but when he tried to get a private pilot's license, it was denied because of his heart condition. That always seemd like very sad irony to me.
Not many days after, Stan figured out what had gone wrong and for weeks after, I would hear the buzzing and see what looked too much like a dragon fly's wings flitting around.
Recently, I heard that Stan had had an evening meal with his wife at a local restaurant and then went back to work at his office waiting for a client. The client found Stan on the floor next to his office chair. I assume he died with his boots on even if he once flew without them.
You can find a much better commentary on Stan Whiting's life as a lawyer at John Simpson's Blog Dakota Yesterdays-- A life Remembered.
At the end of that post is a link to Stan Whiting's Memorial at Mason Funeral Home.
*** Stay tuned ...maybe I will find something a bit cheerier to write about--- Doug Wiken
The terrible weather on the east coast was described as huge prior to the snowfall. Well they have gotten a lot of snow, but the area was probably about 150 miles from SW to NE. Meanwhile out here on the plains, the New York, DC and California -centric reporters haven't much noticed the storm that is expected to dump 3 to 12 inches over NB, SD, and ND..a 400 mile long stretch and be accompainied with 40mph wind..
Of course in terms of people impacted, the eastern coast is huge and we are tiny. Oh, well.
So far mostl;y fog, drizzle and something like popcorn sleet here. Depressing gray weather..
TV coverage of east coast people trying to drive 2-wheel drive cars in 2 feet deep snow suggsts that the area may not be a fountain of universal wisdom
And if you are thinking about driving, check the SD Road Reports and highway cameras.
Safe Travel US for South Dakota Highway Condition Map
South Dakota Highway Road Cameras...None for Pierre or Winner, but Witten?
Note: Clicking on road segments on map above opens an information panel on current road conditions and weather forecasts, etc.
[[[ Note on Sunday Feb10, 2013: Well, the snow did come and the wind. No snow here at farm, but I drove 2 miles to town and streets were white. I haven't seen the latest forecasts, but looked like this might continue over night and perhaps longer. Wetter snow than previous. Harder and heavier to shovel. Also slipprier. Be careful out there.--- Doug Wiken, And a note from Feb13. Winner Advocate yesterday noted that we had 6.5 inches of snow here with about 0.85 inches rain equivalent. Doug Wiken]]]]]]
*** Stay tuned..weather or whether not--- Doug Wiken
t seems to me a few days ago the weather predictions for today here were a lot like sunny and 50F degrees. But, fog was thick enough this morning that anything more than 300 to 500 feet away nearly disappeared. Temperature was below freezing. Anyway, the rime frost all over was here and there interesting. The neighbor's mailbox this morning looked like a Norwegian rosemaler had been busy with a narrow white paint brush.
By this afternoon most of the frost around had disappeared. Delivery truck drivers bring goods to Winner early this morning said driving was terrible.
I wish that the South Dakota Highway Department, KELO-TV, Golden West, and the Lil' Fellow convenience store would get together and put road cameras on the Lil Fellow flagpole which mostly now never has a flag on it. That point with cameras to the North, east, and west would let people know what the actual weather and road conditions are here before they drive into a local mess or for that matter see how much better the weather usually is here compared to South Dakota north or east of here.
*** Stay tuned even if actual weather is almost always a surprise compared to forecasts where you live too--- Doug Wiken
 |
| Subscribe to Dakota Today Readers |
| Visit this group |
Who links to me?
Recent Comments