Dakota Today

**"Toxify" corporate and special interest contributions so Congress represents real people

One idea that is sprouting wings is that we all need to rise up and “toxify” money dumped into Congress by corporations involved in banking, insurance, health industry, military products, etc. The money they are getting from the very rich is destroying democracy by making it meaningless.

Our congress critters come out here pretending to be listening to us and then go back to Washington and vote for the big insurance companies, the big banks, and whatever special interest can buy their actual attention. They then dump some generality press release out giving a convoluted irrelevant reason for their votes that is supposed to fool us dumb folk.

It may not be possible for the State of South Dakota to ban all such contributions to federal candidates and incumbents, but the South Dakota Democratic and Republican Parties could refuse to allow any candidate to run under their party banners if they take money from special corporate interests.

Check the continuation for more on the "toxify" contributions idea as presented on Bill Moyers program by George Goehl.  I found this at Democratic Underground after I posted the information preceding.

*** Stay tuned for more on the money "toxification" movement --- Doug Wiken

** GOP Elves at work on a new "Guantanamo Willy Horton" in Illinois TV ad

John Thune is fretting and stewing that some prisoners in Guantanamo might end up in an Illinois prison "only about 450 miles east of Sioux Falls". Thune should have a flashing light with his own talking points terror ball colors.

"Moving dangerous terrorists from a secure location in Cuba into the heartland of the United States is an irresponsible move that could endanger American lives," Thune said in a statement. "Instead of holding the terrorists outside the United States, President Obama has decided to move the Guantanamo detainees to a location only 450 miles from Sioux Falls, South Dakota."
Terror suspects' new home: Illinois | argusleader.com | Argus Leader (17 December 2009)
 http://www.argusleader.com/article/20091216/NEWS/912160337/1001/news
 http://snipurl.com/tqk6q

Of course, Thune has also said that the Democratic Health plan won't help anybody for at least 1800 days from date of passage.

Robbinsdale Radical has an embedded video of US Senator from Minnesota Al Franken suggesting that Thune is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts.  Have a look at Thune getting skewered.

Embedded Video at Robbinsdale Radical

After hearing Thune fretting, I saw the handwriting on the wall, some GOP elves, operatives, co-conspirators, and trolls are in a basement room filled with bags of cash twisting their brains into a knot trying to figure out a way to get people convinced that Willy Horton was in Guantanamo and will be soon escaping from the Illinois prison to get into a new revolving door commercial.

The Revolving door Video (requires Java, Flash)

Will there be parole and weekend passes for Guantanamo inmates once they get moved to Illinois?  Can Guantanamo prisoners be persuaded to walk around in a circle? Do any of them have faces more fear inducing than that of Black William Horton?  What are the inmates family values?  Will the question of why Will Horton was moved from a Maryland prison to Guantanamo ever be asked or answered by anybody besides Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck?  The work of GOP operatives is tough, but somebody has the big money to pay for it.it.  They will have to resurrect Talon News.

** Stay tuned for news that isn't..at least not yet ---- Doug Wiken

 

** Rapid City has more than Deer chewing on Lawns... Photo

My son is in Rapid City.  A few hours ago, he sent me a photo taken with his cellphone of Bighorn or Mountain Sheep ... I guess.  A semi-truck driving by let loose with a loud blast of the horn and the Sheep turned their heads for a second and got back to pawing snow and eating grass.

And yes, Virginia, It is cold in South Dakota.  Click on image for a slightly larger version.

** Stay tuned even if there won't be any fish stories--- Doug Wiken

**Orchid and frost on the window..photo for a cold day

Yesterday December 12, 2009 was a pretty nice winter day for this area.  Actually not a bad day to be oooght and aboot as some of the Canadian students at the U of R used to say.  Today however is not nearly so nice.  We have some of the Canadian's and Eskimo's air occupying our space today.   High temperature today seems to be about 1/10th of what it was yesterday.  Anyway, below is a photo of one of my wife's orchids and the frost on the window.

Yesterday was also a nice night for the Winner Regional Hospital annual Christmas Party.  Food was pretty good too.  My wife when she isn't watering her plants works there.  In fact, she got a 25 year pin and a certificate last night.  It even spelled her name correctly even if the envelope it came in had "Wanda Wilken" on it.   Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

** Stay tuned, there may be warmer weather coming --- Doug Wiken

**Sibby and Republicans in South Dakota back supporting rapist rights again.

In case you might wonder why South Dakota often seems closer to the dark ages than some other areas of the country, you won't find anything reassuring about the post in Steve Sibson's blog and the comments he found from Republican legislators Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown  and Sen. Tom Hansen, R-Huron.

Read Steve's post here

Sibson Online attacks Adelstein and defends Rapist Rights

[[ Note:  I found the link above when Dakota Today got a hit from Sibson's Blog.  The date of a post on his blog is in faint blue type, and I did not notice it was from 2006, so it is really old news.  Steve is complaining that he is not for rapist rights, but implicit in every kind of anti-abortion, anti- information,  anti-women's rights attack is support for rapist rights.  Steve and others in that camp elevate a few parasitic cells above the rights of the raped woman and elevate the rapist's rights to use a woman's body as a tool to maintain the rapist's gene in the gene pool.  They chose to use terms like "Pro-Life"  and "unborn child" and have attacked those who support pro-choice groups as "butchers" which I find inflamatory, dishonest  or misleading and I choose to label their dark ages humbug as a form of "Rapist Rights".  Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I do apologize if any readers were mislead by my failure to see the date of his original post ---- Doug Wiken ]]]

Just what the world needs more of--: women forced to bear and raise the child of a rapist. I don't know why for sure, but there seems to be something in common with these Republicans perspective and that of the Islamicists who insist that women should be stoned for adultery or mutilated or murdered in the name of "honor" if they refuse to marry in an arranged marriage.

Here is a link to a discussion by girls and women who have been raped only to find out that the rapist has parental rights and the anguish that causes them. Rogue Pundit

And, I do wonder what these South Dakota Republicans convinced they are on God's side think about the GOP national organization having insurance for its employees that pays for abortions.

It is too cold too and I just found out locally that 10 gallons of kerosene for a space heater cost me $84.

*** Stay tuned for less serious information from Ole and Lena to follow --- Doug Wiken

** Big and broken down in Winner, SD

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 - 200 feet long or whatever 67 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.

Trail King Trailers

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.

. View this photo

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

*** Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin "Stands Tall for South Dakotans"

Whether or not about 600,000 South Dakotans actually think Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin actually represents them or some group of rich and influential “stake holders” in the Health Insurance industry seems to be an open question.  Whatever we do think, some lobbyist group is loading SD TV with ads claiming SHS is “Standing Tall for South Dakotans”.

My perspective on her standing tall has little to do with left or right, liberal or conservative or even up or down, but with her rank opportunism.



I did not hear the same radio broadcasts that Todd Epp heard and commented on his blog  at KELOLAND Issues Blogs  because both SDPB radio and TV have been off the air in the daytime out here in the boondocks.   I did read the column Herseth-Sandlin got into the Mitchell Daily Republic and did not find it persuasive or even setting a plausible reason for opposing the plans to change health insurance.

There is one good reason to oppose it and that is not Herseth-Sandlin’s reason, but is that the current proposals are a hodge-podge of bandages on a wasteful system that sucks out something like $395 billion in insurance profits and overhead from actual health care.   George McGovern has presented the only real reform of health insurance that makes any sense.

That is "Extend Medicare to every US Citizen”.  That is not nearly 2,000 pages of ways to allow private insurers to ration health care with no regard for patients or their doctors, but with full regard for their own profits and incredible executive salaries.

"Medicare for all citizens" is the only idea that makes sense if one ignores the totally deceptive TV ads fussing about government control of health. This is not government control of health nor is it corporate control of health. It is health insurance for all something the US has needed for over 50 years. Herseth and Blue Dog Democrats of Blue Dog crap fame have not presented a real health reform package any better than the secret GOP plan (remember Nixon's secret plan to end the Vietnam War?).

Those wanting to get the government off their health-care backs are inviting continued economic gang rape by corporations.  Thomas Friedman suggests that the lack of universal health care is the result of cowardice on the part of legislators in the face of corporate contributions or well-funded attack ads.  They are not pushing for optimal government policy instead weakly push for suboptimal policies.  They make little attempt to educate and inform on the real potential of policies and instead say upfront without discussion that such options are "off the table". The lack of universal health insurance separated from employment is also killing start up of innovative small business.  He concluded today on Charlie Rose with something like, "A great nation producing sub-optimal policies will soon cease to be a great nation."

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

** Some names on the radio need to be spelled out...Bridge Collapse Lecture at SDSU

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:

Concrete Products Awards

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 .

**Winner wins by a lucky bounce..Winner 12: Tri-Valley 6.

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 Page

Despite 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

**Herseth-Sandlin and Blue Dogs make Blug Dog Crap

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