Dakota Today

**Step one of any plan to get out of Iraq

Probably most of us have heard candidates running for president talking about step one of their plan for the country being getting the US out of Iraq.  That is unfortunately upside down prioritization no matter how important it really is to get out of Iraq.

The first step Obama should make in his plan to get out of Iraq should be to commit the USA to an energy conversion program to stop fossil fuel consumption similar in scope and dedication to the moon shot.

Solar and wind can produce hydrogen which can be combined with carbon dioxide to make methanol which can be converted into all kinds of chemicals and fuels. 

There is no credibility in a plan to get out of Iraq so long as there is no credible plan to get away from dependence on fossil fuels of all kinds.  Building more oil lines and more refineries destroys any credibility for plans aimed at getting out of Iraq or for preventing global catastrophe.

A previous post of mine here on the subject of wind energy for hydrogen and then to methanol as projected by Dr. George Olah led to a search of blogs for that topic.  There are some very serious blogs out there suggesting much the same for similar reasons, but also for many others more directly related to science.

I hope to get those links into another post.

***Stay tuned even if your plan for solving the energy crisis is buying a cheap SUV and using the savings to buy more gasoline--- Doug Wiken

*** Wired Magazine discovers the Obama Brain Trust, or You can go anywhere from here

Probably not too much is surprising in this story to semi-aware South Dakotans paying any attention to the Democratic primary in South Dakota and nationally.
 Wired Magazine on Obama Brain Trust

[Followup edit based on Al Tabor comment.  The story is not at Wired site, but at the Rolling Stone site.  Sorry about that screwup and thanks to AT for the correction]

 The Daschle "machine" is embedded in the Obama brain trust. I suppose Rove, et al will start attacking Sen. Obama because he doesn't have South Dakota values...whatever they are. Thune apparently thinks his family values are superior to those of all Democrats in South Dakota. Wonder how McCain and company will be able to spin family values this election.

The Daschle "machine" might have a better plan for that now than they did when Daschle lost in South Dakota.

 

**Stay tuned, there will be a South Dakota influence in the White House..and hint: It won't be John Thune--- Doug Wiken

** The Power of Prepositions

A couple of phrases or sentences indicating the power of prepositions..among other things.

We have all heard "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Another that a few politicians should also remember might be:

"Freedom of religion requires both freedom for religion and freedom from religion."

And, a few posts ago, I reported on the death of a high school teacher of mine.  Today, I heard
of the death of another high school friend and classmate:  Patrick W. Collins whose obituary in the Yankton, SD P&D is under the name  "Pat Collins".  He will be buried  at 3:00 p.m. MDT, Wednesday, July 2, at Black Hills National Cemetery in Sturgis, SD.  Pat put in many years serving us in the US Military.

It was a small high school class at Wakonda, SD.  A death in the class means about a 4% drop in the original graduated population.

**Stay tuned and hang in there-- Doug Wiken

**Get the "Methanol Economy" to Sen. Obama Please

Obama and country need to do more talking about the "Methanol Economy" idea. A google search for "methanol economy" will turn up links for the book by Dr. George Olah and commentary on his idea. Methanol unlike Hydrogen is a good "portable" fuel. Hydrogen might work for huge stationary engines however. Below is a link which appears to have a good general and balanced perspective on this.

Chemical and Engineering News on the "Methanol Economy"                          

Wind energy is not a stable source of energy, but if combined with hydrogen and methanol production it can be transformed into a stable uniform level of power which even with energy losses would make for better or more usable energy.

High efficiency wind generators alone would be wonderful if the wind blew all day all night every day at the same speed. It doesn't, so conversion to stable, portable  fuel is required for stable energy production without consumption of fossil fuels..

If you have Obama connections, try to see if this kind of information can be fed into their system if it makes sense to you too.  We don't need another term of Bush petroleum wars via a McCain administration, but Obama needs to get serious on something like a moon project for a better and ecologically benign fuel or energy system.   Methanol may be a way to do it.  It is a way which deserves serious consideration and possibly serious funding.

**Stay tuned even if you are currently working on converting mosquito wing buzzing into energy-- Doug Wiken

**So venture over to Cranium Creek and laugh or groan

Cranium Creek descends deep into the caverns of puns.  Laugh or groan, it is your choice:

Cranium Creek Blog and "Punilingus"

 Not much new in the way of news around here, but about 4pm this afternoon, I was driving the 1/4 mile from our farmhouse to the county highway when I heard a thump and a dark thing with 4 legs hanging down over the windshield for an instant. The old Mitsubishi Eclipse is relatively low and apparently a deer had jumped nearly cleanly right over the top of the car. No window or windshield breaks, dents, or scratches that I could find. Also no broken deer parts littering the gravel. Brome grass has grown up nearly as high as the car. Guess tomorrow will be a good day to try to mow along the road so a deer in the ditch might be seen and perhaps a deer might even see a car coming.
In the spirit of punilingus and Martha Stewart, "Near and deer" is not a very good thing

. ***Stay tuned even if your groan response to puns is far too close to a gag reflex-- Doug Wiken

**Architecture-- University Grotesque HodgePodge Style and Graffiti

First the graffiti.  I rant and rave about vandalism, but this bit of graffiti is just plain clever and
funny.  Not  sure of the source.  It was emailed to me with no references.

And, graffiti of an architectural kind on the University of South Dakota campus at Vermillion. The appearance may be an artifact of the alumni publication or the computer generated image. Whatever..the new student center looks like a dog's vomited breakfast.
Click on image for a larger view. Source the recent USD Alumni News. This looks like something from Grotesque HodgePodge School of Architecture... Toss together the plans for a confinement hoghouse add on a nursing home design, toss in an exposed stairway and something from the plans of a highschool gymnasium and hot lunch food service....mix in a large nonsense block of decorative brick and WOW!! Your perspective might be better and/or much different than mine, but sticking this building on the same campus with Old Main seems like architectural graffiti or vandalism

. **Stay tuned even if a blog is just a house of pixels blowing in the wind--- Doug Wiken

**Nova runs the Mega Volcano show again

Sure seemed like I had seen some of the NOVA program broadcast tonight before.  I started to see hits on Dakota Today from Google searches for "Lake Toba".

Anyway, tonight I saw the whole NOVA program, but if you want to see the Dakota Today post made
months ago, check

Dakota Today on NOVA's MegaVolcano Show Sept 26, 2006

Breathing sulphuric acid and volcanic ash glass particles is not good for your health. Hope we have no immediate surprise Mega Volcano in the neighborhood such as Yellowstone.

Anyway.. interesting show, but now and then Public Broadcasting "detective-type" shows scientific, historical, whatever take an inordinate amount of time to get to the point. "Building suspense in Science Reporting" is kind of an oxymoronic phrase.
**Stay tuned as we build suspense in the wait for real SD news such as SD Democratic women whining about Tom Daschle endorsing Sen. Obama who will not be the next woman president-- Doug Wiken

**Juvenile diabetes..Hughes Medical, Harvard, and Sanford Health

During last week, Sanford  Health announced it will be seeking a cure for type 1 diabetes as part of a $400 million donation from T. Denny Sanford.

Sanford health seeks cure for type 1 diabetes
Sanford project to focus on beta cell regeneration

Sanford Health leaders announced today the focus of the Sanford Project is curing type 1 diabetes via the body's natural ability to regenerate beta cells. Identified as the attack on one of the greatest health concerns of our time, Sanford Health is dedicating health research resources to cure type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes.

"The concept for the Sanford Project is to focus on a single, pressing healthcare issue and establish a world-class research team to achieve significant progress within a reasonable time period," said Sanford Health Executive Vice President Dave Link. "Through an extensive selection process which outlined specific candidate criteria, Sanford Health has chosen to attack type 1 diabetes by focusing on beta cell regeneration."

Type 1 diabetes currently affects nearly 3 million people in the United States. It is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. It often strikes during childhood, makes patients dependent on insulin for life and carries the constant threat of devastating complications. Regeneration research focuses on triggering the body to re-grow the insulin-producing beta cells that have been killed by the autoimmune response and to prevent destruction of the newly regenerated cells by the same autoimmune reaction.

"Beta cell regeneration is one of the fastest-growing and most intriguing areas of type 1 diabetes research," stated Ben Perryman, PhD, Sanford Health Vice President of Research. "Through the Sanford Project, our research team will hope to either spur the body to copy existing functioning beta cells or to coax the pancreas to create new ones. When people with the disease have regenerated beta cells, they can begin making their own insulin again. The intent of the Sanford Project will be to focus on bench-side research and closely integrating translational research opportunities with clinical treatment."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/jdrf-shs060608.php
http://snipurl.com/2em5m

Tonight on CBS 60 Minutes, there was a story on Hughes Foundation with $11 Billion in assets has put money into a Harvard researcher also working on juvenile diabetes.

Hughes investigator Doug Melton, at Harvard, is thinking about a cure for juvenile diabetes. He's working with stem cells from human embryos.

"And I can think, as I do, most every waking moment of the day, 'How am I gonna get those cells to become insulin-producing cells?' And the Hughes makes that possible," says Melton, who wouldn't have gotten a federal grant at all for his research.

In 2001, President Bush imposed his stem cell ban, in which he tried to balance the objections of opponents of abortion against the wishes of scientists to work with collections of stem cells,

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/13/60minutes/main629388_page3.shtml
http://snipurl.com/2em4x

There is more information at each story link above for both stories.  The race may be interesting.

*** Stay tuned even if you don't have and never want to have a credit card and have never even heard of Howard Hughes or confuse that with "Howard Huge"-- Doug Wiken

**South Dakota primary election fallout

I don't know if there were any really big election surprises in South Dakota last night.  A few interesting bits of fallout show up today.  First perhaps is Sen. Tim Johnson saying he will support Sen. Clinton at the convention.  That must be one of the best political waffling jobs this year.  First suggesting he would support the choice of voters and then supporting the South Dakota barely winner but convention loser Sen. Clinton.  So much for the value of endorsements and and pallid futile gestures..

Over at Madville Times blog, a good map of SD election results showing apparently that all the Clinton time on SD reservations was not particularly rewarding.  Cory H. has some speculation on why.  Just as good or better than any of my speculation might be, so read his:

No Clinton Magic on the Rez
And in the world of blogging and SD primaries, Pat Powers went down in Brookings County Republican primary for state representative. He will however, get to go to the GOP convention to cast a vote for the Republican Presidential candidate most likely to be voted the best symbol for the death warmed over party

 

Pat Powers at SD War College
I suspect we will have to set up the SD Independent Blogger Party for any of us blatant enough to express opinions over our own real names in South Dakota to ever get any nominations of consequence.

And on the national front... I hope Obama will give John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and Hillary Clinton an opportunity to speak for at least 5 minutes at the Democratic National Convention.

 I kind of guess too that the value of endorsements is greatly over-estimated. Daschle, et al supporting Obama may have helped in SD, but it did not turn the Obama campaign into a barn-burner winner here either. By the same token, I believe concession speeches are greatly overestimated in their value, so let Hillary stomp barefoot in her sour grapes and give her time to make a fine whine.

 ** Stay tuned between now and November--- Doug Wiken

**Did Hillary win or lose?

Had I seen any of Hillary Clinton's graceless exit tonight before I had seen parts of the the speech by Sen. Obama, I would have guessed that Hillary had the nomination sewed up and we should head for her WEB site and give her ideas for her presidency.

Sen. Clinton will now have all the time in the world to do all the things she said she wanted to do, but as the senator from New York state.  I do sort of wonder why she never thought much about doing many of them before she ran for president however.

Generous of her to say she wants to end the Iraq war she helped start.  Lawyers are often accused of curing the disease they cause, and Hillary Clinton seems to have carried that to an extreme.

Hillary put up a tough fight, but she was wrong on the war in Iraq, and she is still wrong on the war in Iraq.  She is also wrong in her inflated estimate of the leadership abilities of John McCain, but that is a whole 'nother can of worms.

Congratulations to Sen., Obama for apparently winning the Democratic nomination, and congratulations to Hillary Clinton for carrying her fight to the complete end of the primaries in South Dakota and Montana.

Now, it will be up to Sen. Obama and his supporters to find a VP who won't stick a knife in his back ala Joe Lieberman.

*** Stay tuned.  The world will look better tomorrow-- Doug Wiken