Dakota Today

**All those credentials and he learned nothing

A South Dakota legislator writes a letter to the editor that makes you wonder if a whole lot of proudly presented credentials fail to add any credibility whatsoever. What is wrong with the water in this guy's legislative district?

From the Argus Leader online after I followed a link at PP's SD War College. LINK-- Argus Leader Letter to Editor--Herseth Emboldens Enemy"

As a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Army, a lifetime member of the MOAA, VFW, American Legion and DAV, a graduate of the Armed Forces Staff College, Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, Air War College, and the Army War College and a Vietnam veteran,

Gee Whiz. One might expect some common sense from this guy. But no. We get from him the same kind of right-wing rah-rah crap that helped send him to Vietnam for that misbegotten miserable failure of 2 Republican administrations and 2 Democratic administrations. Oh when will they ever learn? .....Nixon had a secret plan to end the war too. Ah, the memories..kids being shot at Kent State. enough to still gladden the hearts of wingnut loons..but back to wingnut "reality" here.

Orville B. Schmidt, State Senator and retired US Army Colonel, spews all the right-wing loon cant and boilerplate that still echoes around empty heads like a marble in a milk bucket. A few choice sentences
below.

I ask you to consider how Herseth has gotten to be such an expert that she can deny the commander-in-chief, the Defense Department, the Secretary of State and our brave soldiers the resources they need to fight and win in Iraq? Why it is OK to embolden our enemy by publishing a timetable for withdrawal?

Where have we heard that line of crap before? Let's see the term "embolden our enemy" probably comes straight from the smirking mouth of the Error in chief or one of his pandering flunkies.

So amazing that this action of Congress (which Schmidt mischaracterizes) is so carefully understood by the enemy and so totally misunderstood or misused by the former Colonel and the White House pResident.

And then the expert on all failed wars writes this:

I was once a soldier in Vietnam. The actions by our political leaders of the time told me that my service to our country was not appreciated. I was told, "You poor boy. You shouldn't be there."

First, I doubt anybody actually said anything quite like that to him unless it was an aged aunt of his, but if somebody actually did say something like that, he failed to understand that it was probably coming from actual conern and awareness that his life and others might be wasted in that idiotic war. Schmidt never did apparently figure out what one USD ROTC prof figured out as soon as he got back to the US and out of the military propaganda mill...and that was that the war was doomed to failure from day one of the US involvement in the Eisenhower administration and following the years of failed wars by the French. And, he dreaded being returned to Vietnam after his wounds were partially healed.

And here we have more self-serving bullshit than I have seen packed into one paragraph in years:

Our country is at war. Please listen to the advice of our military leaders who have studied diligently at our war colleges, who have the expertise, who have served admirably in peace and war and who are protecting this country from enemies foreign and domestic.

Please support our troops in Iraq. Give them the political support they need to win and don't embolden our enemy. Please protect this country from the terrorists who hate us.

How many stupid logical errors and rhetorical tricks can you spot in that tripe? Notice that he self-proclaimed his credentials as being relevant and then shoots them out in a closing paragraph again. This is the sound of a man patting himself on the back followed by non sequiturs errors. It is an appeal to "authority" that is the author himself.

The soldiers in Iraq are not protecting this country from terrorists no matter how many times George Bush makes that claim and Schmidt regurgitates it. Bush conflated 9-11 and Iraq into a war with a collection of carefully crafted misleading statements supported by carefully selected fraudulent information. Iraq had little to do with world terrorism and probably nothing to do with terrorism in the US until George Bush made an enemy of a country to which his own Rumsfeld had previously supplied weapons.

There is nothing any soldier in Iraq is doing now that will ever protect the US from "the terrorists that hate us".

I think Herseth, Daschle, and Johnson made terrible errors in supporting Bush war powers. Readers here know that. We can't totally know their motivations. If we are generous, we may think it was a selfless decision made in the interests of the country. I think that is however naive. My guess is they thought the war would be over soon and that Bush would not engage in "nation building" as part of an oil theft operation and that supporting that war gave them a "get re-elected free" card that would be nearly cost-free to the US.

Well, whichever... it was a collection of serious miscalculations with disastrous consequences for the United States and with the waste of over 3,000 US lives in Iraq already essentially doubling the "victims" of the 9-11 terrorism.

Despite that, the Schmidt attack on Herseth is just plain despicable. He may be incapable of learning anything from past mistakes and that may explain his WWI or WWII attitudes.

Herseth is helping send a message to the imbecile in the White House. The support of that liar by people like Schmidt (and Rounds) shows there is no limit to exploiting the last refuge of scoundrels. Maybe Herseth has a conscience. Maybe she has a wet finger in the wind. Perhaps both, but whatever she has finally made a bold step not in the direction of emboldening the enemy by in sending a wakeup call to Bush,Inc.

If Herseth, Johnson and Daschle ever thought that going easy on Bush would keep him from attacking them, they should all by now know that no good deed goes unpunished by weasel Bush. Bush,Inc. has apparently put Herseth on the "Top 20 Hit List". He has already campaigned against Daschle and Johnson. Thankless uber-partisan SOB that Bush is has already been demonstrated multiple times.

I probably would not react to such a letter of complete fraud and idiocy if I did not remember newspapers filled with the same kind of crap in the days of Vietnam. They were also filled with photos of WWII and Korean veterans marching in parades waving flags and cops attacking and gassing hippies and peace demonstrators.

Schmidt is engaging in the same kind of bloody shirt waving that in the case of Vietnam meant 50,000 lives would be wasted. Apparently 3,000 wasted on a fool's errand of building democracy in Iraq is not enough. How many will have to die there before guys like Schmidt get smart? How many more brains will have to be permently rattled? And will Henry Kissinger live long enough to apply his principles of diplomacy to Bush?

And we wonder how the SD legislature can spend so much time and money and really accomplish so little.

***Stay tuned for further tales of the amazing shrinking Bush--Doug Wiken

**Let's go for a ride following the hearse

This all seems to me to be just plain strange or weird. It is one thing to have SD flags at half mast for a day. It is another to have a memorial ceremony of some kind at Dakota Day, but having a Farber Farewell "TOUR" borders on the morbid or some other noun or adjective I am not yet familiar with.

W. O. “Doc” Farber’s Farewell Tour Sunday, April 1, 2007 8:00 a.m. DakotaDome parking lot DakotaDome parking lot north to Highway 50 West on Highway 50 to Highway 19 North on Highway 19 to Spirit Mound Continue north on 19 past Spirit Mound, take 1st left and travel around Spirit Mound on section roads returning to Highway 19 South on Highway 19 to Highway 50 West on Highway 50 to Timber Road West on Timber Road to Clay County Park Road South to Clay County Park, drive around parking lot and return to Timber Road East on Timber Road to Highway 50 and return to town via Cherry Street South on Stanford (Pump ‘N Pak) to Main Street East on Main Street thru downtown to Pine Street North on Pine Street to Clark Street West on Clark Street past Farber Home to Dakota Street North on Dakota Street to DakotaDome

I thought it might be an online joke, but here is the link:

LINK--Farber Tour..details in a PDF file at USD

I guess the "tour" will be following the dead "Doc" riding in a casket in a hearse. Not a bad tour route, I grew up in that area and Spirit Mound probably looks a lot better now than it did when it had a feedlot on the side of it, and the Timber Road to the Missouri River might be beautiful this time of year. Pasque flowers might even be growing along the bluff road and the native grass reserve....but anyway.

I hope the sun shines on Sunday. The wind is calm, and the road is smooth. BUT, I do think this is milking the Farber celebrity and memory just a tad bit too much. I guess Farber is being buried in Geneseo, Illinois, but if USD Foundation and Farber Center want to do this bang-up whiz-bang right, they should rocket Farber's ashes into space and spread them all over the US. Or maybe more practical would be to get a BI bomber to fly low using Farber ash as radar chaff and limit this to SD. There must be some kind of a lottery system they could tie into that as well. Perhaps balloons filled with purchased numbers and floated off Spirit Mound and the retrieved by some kid selected at random from the USD Strollers Club The winner would not be required to sing or dance howeve even if memorial fireworks are shot off. That would be a bit more spectacular than packing the ashes into shotgun shells and spreading them over a field with pheasants in it.

Then get the whole tour, lottery, and Stroller dancing group on YouTube with the USD web addresses plastered all over the video.

**Stay tuned for more re-cycling news even if the Farber posts are getting more and more like what you might see on Entertainment Tonight about Anna Nicole Smith-- Doug Wiken

**Message to Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Reid

At last, the US Congress has again limped and hobbled and finally stumbled unto back legs and reared up and let George Bush know that it is an independent co-equal branch of the US federal government. They are passing or have passed a bill which funds troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also includes a timeline and a lot of pork appropriations.

Well, Hello...that's the way legislation gets through Congress. It is not right but thats the way it works.

Now, Bush says he will veto such an appropriation. The Unitary President with imperial delusions is having a fit.

Well, Congress still hasn't gotten his full attention. If Bush vetoes this appropriation, It is not time for congress critters to crawl on their knees to the White House and beg for a compromise. Nope.

Within hours of a Bush veto, have a new appropriation bill that slashes funds by $1 billion and shortens the time period by one month and tacks on a $ Billion appropriation for rapid conversion of US away from dependency on foreign fossil fuels via windpower and conversion to a methanol and/or hydrogen economy.

Let Bush consider his new options and his new smaller world. This is the only way Congress will send the message the US people want sent to the Imperial Unitary President Dolt in Chief.

It is time for the Congress to Say, "Give em Hell." Bush unchained is a burning fuse disaster.

This is not the time for cowards in congress. It is finally time for more than 22 senators to demonstrate courage. Even if this is not a Mt. Rushmore size profile in courage action, it is more than a mole hill.

***Stay Tuned. These are interesting times ----Doug Wiken

**The cock that crowed, dog that didn't bark, Governor who didn't publically pray

We had rain and wind lastnight. Weather radio had tornado warnings for our area of south central South Dakota from around 9PM until 4:30 AM. No tornado, but an inch of rain. One of the few good rains we have had in the last year and a half.

But, I don't remember Governor Rounds having any Sunday prayer for rain following governor's proclamations. A year or two ago, we were treated to everything but an Indian rain dance from the governor. Priests and preachers in a state of rapture over rain here and there following the Governor searching for rain via public prayers.

Apparently somebody forgot to look at the weather forecasts this time.

Or perhaps even Rounds has heard the story of the rooster who crowed every morning thinking that his crowing caused the sun to rise. Of course, if the rooster crowed three times and a tornado ripped out of the sky and sucked away his tail feathers and shredded his comb, he would be thinking the devil did that.

A strange fact about Rooster combs LINK-- Rooster combs and chemicals..A wonder why they did this?

**Stay tuned even if you wonder if turkeys are dumb enough to drown in a rain storm by inhaling it--Doug Wiken

**Vista--No Zoom in PC Sales

According to an article in online PC magazine, Computer manufacturers are not seeing the anticipated jump in sales expected with the release of MS Vista operating system. Nor are memory manufacturers seeing increase demand.

LINK-- Vista not generating anticipated PC Sales

Well, big surprise. I still have not read anything that indicates VISTA can do anything I want done with a computer any better than WXP and for that matter not even better than W98SE. These operating sytems have so many software programs written for them that the much vaunted features in XP seem to be available free from freeware or inexpensively from shareware software sources. And, they are mostly available for systems that don't have bank busting memory and video hardware.

VISTA still looks to me like an expensive resource hog that to run right pushes the price of PCs beyond what current users want to pay..especially if the "added' features seem irrelevant to buyers.

**Stay tuned..coming soon..something..but not sure what right now---Doug Wiken

**A bit more on "Doc" Farber

It appears that the mills of the gods grind slowly but finely at USD. They have gotten some links to information on "Doc" Farber at the Farber Center site. Check the right column at Farber Center Site for the added "About Doc Farber" menu option. Link is in a previous post. USD publicity also has a photo of Farber posted for use by publications. Not sure this blog is the kind of "publication" they had in mind, but click on the thumbnail image for a larger version. I have used Irfanview to lighten it, sharpen it, increase 'gamma" and contrast and enlarge it however. Looks like Typepad stretched it sideways however

Now, if I were putting a caption on that photo, it would be "I just farted, but everybody here thinks that woman over there did it." I think there is a tendency to sanctify and "santize" lives in obituaries. Maybe my perception of him was wrong, but it always seemed to me there was more than a little scamp, rogue, and imp in Farber mixed with his poltical idealism or idealistic realism.

He did enjoy political gossip and he did enjoy stimulating discussion..perhaps in the less polite form "enjoyed stirring shit". I hope you can see the merry twinkle in Farber's eyes in that photo. In the midst of all the deserved laudatory information about him, it might also be worth remembering the sheer joy Farber got out of poltics and the games he and other political people played and still play. He enjoyed the political circus parade as it passed or as he marched in the parade.

To be truthful, after 30 years or so, much of what I knew about Farber or from him has been forgotten. I do remember one story however that I would guess made him feel really good at the time. Farber worked to get good students of his into good schools. This worked both to his advantage and to the advantage of the students and over time generated a really good academic old boys network. A friend of mine at USD was interested in attending Harvard. Doc Farber remembered there was a connection between South Dakota and the Dean of the Harvard Law School or the Kennedy School there. I don't remember the name or the actual department for sure however. The Harvard prof's father or grandfather had been part of the South Dakota constituting Convention. Part of the Harvard application was apparently submitting an original paper. Farber had my friend submit a paper on the SD Constituting Convention and the contribution of the prof's father or some such. He was admitted to Harvard and made good use of the opportunity. While I don't know for sure, I would guess that bit of finesse made it possible for later Farber students to get into Harvard without writing such a paper.

Check my previous posts for more links and comment on Farber. He was a character and there may not be too many more quite like him in South Dakota now that he is gone.

The original link for the photo is LINK -- USD Public Information Photo of Farber And that link was found at LINK--University Relations-- News of Farber death

Well, guess it is time to get in more news on the "Quick" and less on the "Dead". Which reminds me of a tombstone in the Gayville, SD cemetery with large letters of the family name on a large tombstone. Family name was "Quick". Sometime, I must get back there and get a photo of that if they haven't moved the highway and the graves.

More seriously and perhaps more significant is "The Farber Testament" which I found at the Farber Center Site. I have copied the text into the continuation but the link to a formated PDF that prints to 1 page can be
found at "The Farber Testament" 1 page printable PDF formated for framing

***Stay tuned for more information on Bushy political critters who should be buried in asbestos suits---Doug Wiken

**Hello, I'm Big Brother and I'm listening in to Help you.

We received an interesting letter from our ISP Golden West Telecommunications today It informs us they will be shipping a new modem and that it must be installed before April 20, 2007. A partial quote below:

...replace your existing modem with a unit equipped with Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) capabiliities.

...and is our way of bringing your service into compliance with Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). This federal law requires telephone companies and Internet service providers to give law enforcement agencies the ability to identify the source of all digital communications.

Well now. Isn't that special. I have the feeling that with recent disclosure of the FBI warrantless fishing trips into millions of phone records that this wonderful system will have more to do with tracking Whistleblowers than terrorists or criminals. I think we have more than a little reason to be very suspicious of the current administration in Washington.

Now, I really don't give a damn if the collection of assholes in the Bush administration know or don't know that I despise their lies and distortions and suspect that if there really were any justice in the world for the powerful and despicable that they would be hanging by their toes in a public square someplace reserved for US fascists who routinely trash the constitution to retain power and profits for corporations. And I don't post anonymously unless there is no other way to post and mostly I never do that.

But, I don't have any confidence that this is not a system that can't be exploited by real terrorists and criminals and corrupt law enforcement for that matter to use this identification to provide "ironclad" evidence that your or my computer has been used to transmit criminal or terroristic digital information whether or not you or I have the slightest intention of any terrorist or criminal activity. And, I wonder how much this technology costs us in monthy fees that would otherwise be unnecessary or generate unrecoverable costs for ISPs without egregious rates.

Below are a few links regarding this issue.

LINK-- CALEA ONLINE certification, etc. (Is it private or public?)

LINK-- FCC Info on CALEA

LINK--Solaris Device to invisibly collect packet information for Law Enforcement

LINK--Wiki site on CALEA...Usual Disclaimers should apply

The Wiki site has a bunch more links and some general information. WIKI sites should be read with the realization that they may be no more reliable a source for information than is this or any other blog..especially if they are regularly amended by those with a self-interest motivation.

When anonymity is outlawed, only outlaws with special technical resources will have rights.

**Stay tuned, and if you are a potential whistleblower on an egregious administration or bureacracy..local, state or federal, your days of being even possibly slightly anonymous on the internet are probably rapidly expiring.---Doug Wiken

**All, er almost, the news that fits the headline... somewhere

Now and then the gaps between the headline and the story make me think that perhaps Steve Sibson sneaked into the editing room with the lantern he uses as he searches for his Version 2.379 of the truth and set fire to the actual news.

Today the Mitchell Daily Republic has this headline on page 16 (Monday Mar 26, 2007) "3 Key GOP senators question credibility in firings of U.S. prosecutors". But, the story following that headline notes some of the basic information. Does not mention any of the critical GOP senators but does mention Orrin Lee Hatch, the Utah-crazy-GOP-is-always-right -Senator as saying, "He has always been straight forward and honest with me."

Now, if you read the Rapid City Journal or the Argus Leader, you find the story of slipping GOP support for Gonzales that mentions names of GOP US senators Specter,PA, Lindsey Graham,S.C. and Hagel, Neb as finding Gonzales less than truthful or candid and noting those are reasons for getting rid of Gonzales.

Now perhaps the differences in these stories and headlines results from the time of publishing the papers, etc. But it does seem that a somewhat balanced story might have mentioned the positions of all four GOP senators.

Well, this all sort of pales in comparison with CBS overpaid star-anchor-face Katie Couric and her interview with John and Elizabeth Edwards on 60 Minutes last Sunday. A blogger has taken the time to go through the interview more or less line-by-line with a few snarky comments included. No sense me doing it again here.
Take a look for just one more reason to make you wonder why Katie Couric ever gets paid anymore than the minimum wage. Another blogger wonders why the talking face attacks the Edwards when she herself did not quit her job to take care of her husband when he died of cancer.

LINK--Too Much Bluesky on Bad Interviewing 101..Katie Couric Must Go

Well, that is more than my usual exploitation of pixels for commenting on media. I think it is rather unseemly that media personalities and wingnut loons feel they have an obligation to meddle in personal lives of the Edwards as they face a tough family situation.

**Stay tuned..or better yet come back later tonight when the weather is not quite so beautiful---Doug Wiken

**Rapist Rights and the Rounds-Huckabee Connection

News bouncing around South Dakota in papers and on TV indicates that SD Governor Mike Rounds is jumping on the Huckabee for President bandwagon. And apparently not just jumping on, but helping run it.

This has puzzled me a bit, but now things are fitting together. Mike Rounds has supported rapist rights in SD at the expense of women's rights and privacy. Well, Governor Huckabee and supporters helped get a rapist out of jail after he had been convicted of raping a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. Always good press if a Republican can somehow link "rape" and "Clinton" together. It has been nearly an Arkansas business enterprise.

Well, here is another story that ties all of this together...well at least if you don't care if all the knots involved in the tie up are slip knots.

LINK--Mercury Rising on Freed Rapist Murders..Unfortuante consequences of political games

This is a link to the old version of Mercury Rising. Guess I will just add the link so we have an old and a new "mercury rising link" in side column to left.

***Stay tuned. Weather is breaking warm temperature records today apparently--- Doug Wiken

**Finally, an explanation for the Rudy Giuliani attraction to GOP

I just haven't been getting the "enthusiasm" for Rudy Giuliani as a GOP presidential candidate. His "family values" are interesting at best. Having a wife and kids alienated from him by having also a live in mistress did not seem to mesh well with Thune's professed "family values".

But, now I think I have it figured out. The fuss for Giuliani is a new GOP "southern strategy". Yup, but this one has nothing to do with Nixon's racially based southern strategy. This one involves Giuiliani's first wife.

Yup, it is the great appeal to southerners of "married cousins"...or at least the master GOP strategists assumption of that appeal.

Of couse Guiliani divorced that one, but nevermind. You heard it here first. The great new "southern strategy" based on marrying your cousin or cousins. Where is background music by Jerry Lee Lewis when a politician really needs it?

***Stay tuned for something more serious...perhaps one of these days-- Doug Wiken