Dakota Today

*** Social issues are actually anti-social

With the Republican Primary candidates pandering to every fringe group or sect that happens to be in the state they are currently campaigning, so-called "social issues" are back in the news unfortunately for our country.

These "social issues" should be called "theocratic issues".  There is nothing social about them. They are partisan anti-social trojan horses designed to separate, alienate, and divide society and warp the electoral process by digging a big hole in our system.  These theocratic issues should be irrelevant in partisan political processes, but they have been exploited and for some naive voters become "single issue" dividers.

So, don't dignify the GOP divide, splinter, alienate, separate partisan self-serving machinations with a term like "social issues".  You do our country and our politics nothing good by providing a polite misnomer for these partsian trash tactics.

And remember to turn your clocks to the new daylight savings time tonight or you will be late for work, chruch, or your local political meeting.

*** Stay Tuned even if you don't realize that separation of church and state works both ways and benefits both church and state--- Doug Wiken

*** Get "Etsy" about South Dakota

In a recent Rapid City Journal was a story about local craft people using Etsy.com to efficiently market their products without requiring the crafts people to do a lot of the business details.  The link below is Etsy for South Dakota.  You might find something interesting there or a way to market your own products.  Apparently charge for sales is something like 3.5% of the selling price.

ETSY for South Dakota...Over 600 products

Please note that not all items listed in an Etsy search for South Dakota are actually products made or sold by resident South Dakotans even if the items may have some link to South Dakota such as being a photo taken in South Dakota.

The February 5, 2012 RC Journal story mentioned two "Shops" with South Dakota roots. One was "Oh Geez!" Design   where Becky Tomac sells original greeting cards.  Using Google, I finally found the other "store" which the Journal called "The Flea's Knees"  where Destri Fagerland  sells her original jewelry. She also instructs jewelry making there.

*** Stay tuned even if you need nothing new or old to add clutter to your life--- Doug Wiken

*** Take a look at North Decoder

Our neighbor blog to the north, nearly a namesake of Electric Company's Fargo North, Decoder, hit the Limbaugh brickbrain squarely with a nasty fact sledgehammer. The blog also carefully diagrams the GOP problem with pawing into the female anatomy in the interest of social "issues".

North Decoder Blog

And just in case you don't know the ratio of Limbaugh apologies to his personal attacks, take a look at  Media Matters--- 47 personal attacks two apologies?

** Stay tuned even if you worry about how dangerous North Dakota must be with half as many people in prison as does South Dakota---- Doug Wiken

 

*** Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart dead

Andrew Brietbart wrote stuff like this:

Breitbart seldom showed restraint in his vitriol to his critics and seemed to relish in the negative attention his antics earned him.

After Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts died in 2009, Breitbart tweeted, "Rest in Chappaquiddick" and called him "a special pile of human excrement." When critics questioned his tone, he tweeted they "missed my best ones!"

Unlike that, some liberals are being relatively kind in their comments regarding the death of Breitbart at age 41.. Huffington Post on Andrew Breitbart Death

Others are less kind.     May he rot in Peace.

*** Stay tuned even if celebrity news is not your interest---- Doug Wiken

 

*** The frightening perils of leaving TV on late at night

Now and then Public TV acts as a digital soporific.  Then I wake up a few hours later with TV on shows I have never seen before.

Last night that turned out to be BBC news story on Johnson and Johnson metal to metal hip joint replacements that are failing at a relatively high rate.   Hip joint surgery is very serious and in Britain many patients after having gone through the initial pain and surgery aftermath are having to go through it again because of toxic or dangerous metal filings ending up in their bodies.  A link to a news story related to this is below.

Johnson and Johnson British Failure rate for metal to metal hip joints

BBC Medical News Metal Hip Implant failure

On last night's show, the primary point related to this accumulated misery was that the US fails to adequately regulate medical devices.  Unlike drugs which may take years for approval, medical device approval may take only days.  Also the testing can be farmed out to companies with less than perfect testing and reporting.

The seriousness of this does seem to suggest that our legislators might be more interested in the the medical problems of their constituents and less interested in the balance sheets of large corporations, banksters, brokerage firms, and huge too-big-to-let-fail insurance companies.

The mythology of Republicans and Libertarians regarding government regulation and the dangers of it, is shown to be irrelevant nonsense when weak US regulation and testing is shown to produce $Billions of damages, and needless pain, and misery.

Unfortunately, huge corporations require huge government resources to regulate them.  That is the reality unclouded by nonsense potical, economic, and taxation partisan mythology and nonsense. Non-Profit Consumer Agency on Regulation

Incidentally, a few weeks ago, I woke up "watching"  "Da Vinci Inquest" produced in Canada and on KELO Saturday nights after "Numbers".  It is a quirky, interesting show with the kind of characters and character development that never get into US TV crime shows.

** Stay tuned and stay healthy------- Doug Wiken