Dakota Today

**Serious and not so serious humor

Now and then I get a joke in e-mail that is both funny and makes a point or two..perhaps like a stick in the eye however. First the joke which reminds me of a forum poster who used as a tagline, "Don't tell me you are a Christian, Show Me."

A man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in
frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection,
dropping her cell phone and makeup.

As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up
into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to
exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she
was searched, finger printed, photographed, and placed in a holding cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the
door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer
was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your
car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you,
and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do'
bumper sticker, the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'Follow Me to
Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem
on the trunk. Naturally.....I assumed you had stolen the car."

Unfortunately I have no clue about the original source of the above or the actual
motive if any of the author. Below is a link to a cartoon that is both on target and very funny.
New Window LINK to a Glen McCoy Cartoon

Make sure you copy it, print it, and send a copy to Sen. Johnson, Rep. Herseth-Sandlin, and let Thune
know about it but it also could be drawn in multiple ways with an elephant or a headless cockroach...more on headless cockroaches in another post.

***Stay tuned for some deadly turgid serious prose....or maybe not-- Doug Wiken

**Serious news in an unserious format

"Blind Orange Julius" often posted at Mt. Blogmore before he moved out of the great state of SD to Wyoming or Colorado...he's out there somewhere. He uses his graphics talents for truly evil purposes. He points out foibles. And there just isn't any more evil thing to do by yourself.

Enough needless hyperbole. Check the site for a little topical humor graphically displayed.
LINK--BOJ NEWS SERVICE..More real than Talon News

And that dear friends may be about as close as I get to wasting pixels on Paris Hilton.

**Stay tuned even if Paris Hilton lights your fire...or stokes your ashes--- Doug Wiken

**News From Great Britain-- SDak Ad Agency Hired by Iran

Odd news from odd places rolls in now and then. Sometimes just somebody hawking a nearly unfunny overly long YouTube bit of humbug and sometimes weird business news. Finding out a South Dakota company was doing public relations was a big surprise.

Straight from the Mideast Martyrs Quick Business News comes the image below. It was sent to every mailing address in Britain on expensive folded glossy heavy weight paper. Who'd a thunk it.

I found it a bit strange that Iran was giving away "Easter" presents. I was not alone in that however.
"Blind Orange Julius" has a very funny easter bunny photoon at this blog.

LINK -- BOJ Photoon at Flckr

You can see all the current funny stuff at BOJ News Service to:

LINK BOJ NEWS SERVICE

Meanwhile in the real world, the temperature yo-yo shows colder than normal now. A week or so ago, it was comfortable much warmer than usual. Nasty wind to go with it too.

**Stay tuned and Happy Easter to all.."infidels" or not--- Doug Wiken

**The Terrorball color in Boston is Cartoon White..Keystone Kops live again

The Boston police must have come along with the fraud on the big ditch or whatever their tunnel ripoff was called. They crawled out and spotted what they decided were terrorist devices. Blow up those suckers. Shut down traffic on highways, interstates, and even boat traffic on the Charles River.

Classic screw up. Now they say these are just cartoon characters part of some guerrilla marketing strategy.
That is just a cover story.

These devices are actually route markers for coyote routes for illegal aliens. The "cartoon" explanation is just to make everybody forget a few million people have sneaked across our borders illegally. And, our government talks a lot about homeland security, but a porous border is the biggest threat and it is hiding under a huge elephant tied to union breaking and cheap labor for corporations.

Now, for a list of things the Boston police department needs to blow up whenever they see these actual terrorist tools. There are thousands of these things...none of which have cartoon figures on them..although a few of them exist too.

This device contains all kinds of electric circuits. Some have timers in them. There is often room for about 10 pounds of plastic explosive according to the US Army Terror and Torture Guide from the Bush School of Deceit. But, this is not all. Some of these TV sets can display propaganda from the Mideast. The Boston Kops better wipe out every one of these things...especially if they are remotely close to one to these things.

Blinking cell phones. Gotta blow them to smithereens on first sight. Call 911 immediately. And cleverly camouflaged as a plain old clock is an alarm clock that vibrates enough to set off a bomb trigger device according to the Bush Center for Deceit in Upper Longhorn, Tx. The information is duplicated in a cave in Lockjaw, Utah under the watchful eyes of several cousins of Orin Lee Hatch. Clocks are terrorist devices even if they don't have Mickey Mouse or Garfield on them, but those are particularly dangerous since they may attract children pretending to be Keystone Kops.

Real terrorists must be laughing their asses off at the Boston Kops. Now all they gotta do is camouflage their devices with flashing cartoon faces. You heard it hear first. Sharif el Terrazo AKA as Jose Jose has already sent the message all over the terroist network sometimes known as Faux News. but those on the inside know the truth about this...don't listen to the words..watch the images.

More seriously, I heard a discussion on NPR today on this and they were bending over backward to defend the Kops..those brave people working their fat butts off to save the country from another 9-11.
Which you may remember killed about 3000 working people. Never mind that drunken drivers, the terrorists of the highways, have killed tens of thousands of innocent drivers and passengers and done millions of dollars of damage to vehicles and real property.

Of course, NPR would not mention porous borders because that just ain't politically correct..especially if they just get done spending an hour or two discussing forbidden words that start with N, C, F, and other terroristically dangerous letters of the alphabet.

**Stay tuned, but be forewarned..look out for TV sets, Alarm clocks, Cellphones, and explosive cream substitutes (sorry no photo available). Now you know. Sleep with one eye open and be ready to call Wily Coyote at ACME company for assistance---Doug Wiken

**Something for the Democrats to work on-- Impeach AG Al Gonzales

In the early search for Democratic projects that fit with the new majorities in Congress, one of the really big mistakes can be partially undone by impeaching Al Gonzales..or at least making his life on the hill something like being waterboarded. McCamy Taylor who often posts at Salon Table Talk has a few good points at Democratic Underground:
LINK--Impeach Al G at DU by McCamy Taylor "Al G" fits pretty well..not quite as low as whale dung, but right in there with pond scum.

All sorts of Democrats are coming out of the woodwork doing their best to be the father of the Democratic "victory". In the mood of "Victory has a thousand fathers..defeat is an orphan", guess who would have been blamed if the 50 state strategy had failed. Yup, the guy who has been right all along about the war, about Bush, and about going to every state...Dr. Howard Dean...a good guy who got the shaft by the foot in mouth disease supporters of Sen John Kerry and the DLC corporate Democrat types. I like the cartoon below enough I am going to stick it in here and hope I get to leave it here. If I can't, here is a link:

LINK-- Old Slogan Recycling..Cartoon It is from the New Orleans Times Picayune.

Howard still has a lot of work to do. It would be nice if more Democrats would admit how right he was on so many things and fully recognize how he got screwed for doing what was right.

***Stay tuned..much is yet to be done---Doug Wiken

**Pre and Post Election Slogans as Bush Implodes

I guess you will just have to imagine the look on the face of the Texas Twit:

Based on Bush's slobbering blather today, I doubt they will let him get even close to a pretzel.

***Stay tuned even if I could not draw a good Bush face even if it was for a crime scene report---Doug Wiken

**From "Stay the Course" to "We bought the farm"..more Bush Smoke and Mirrors

Wasn't it just so, so very special. Bush, the juvenile, cum war president, anti-terrorism crusader, Bible-beating evangilist decides to send "stay the course" to the junkyard of failed smoke and mirrors.

Bush and his administration are sometimes so very inane and silly that they are truly frightening. The inanity of Bush is so far out, it is best expressed by cartoons. Take a look at them and the sources of the phrases.

LINK-- Phrase "Bought the farm"
LINK--Google search for phrase "stay the course"
LINK--Cartoon by Keefe Stay the Course
LINK--Cartoon..The White House Basement
LINK-- Cartoon James Baker Knows the Way
LINK-- Ben Sargeant Cartoon
LINK--Danziger Cartoon at "The Veteran"

LINK--Daryl Cagle Cartoon "Onward to Victory"
LINK--Cartoon and Commentary blog by "Tifanny Taylor"

Bush, Rove, Cheney, Tony Snow, Rumsfeld, Condoleeza...they have their important daily meeting on "What color smoke and mirrors today". Gotta keep the election priorities straight. Then Bush can campaign..he says he likes that kind of "hard work".

Children, can you all say "Failed Policies"?
Children, can you all say "Failed President"?
Children, can you all say "Failed GOP Congress"?

I knew you could. Take the rest of the day off. Run through the streets yelling, "Failed policy, failed Presidency, Failed Congress". It beats twiddling your thumbs in paralyzed frustration.

And, it is about the least we can do to try to prevent more lives being wasted in Iraq. Bush wants to pile more wasted lives atop lives already wasted so those wasted won't die in vain. This seems to be a circling disease.

**Stay tuned even if that doesn't mean "stay the course"---Doug Wiken

**SD Voters Cleaning Up Behind the SD GOP Gov and Legislature

There is an old joke about the guy cleaning up behind elephants in a parade...something like he might not be able to control when or where, but he sure could control their feed. I have no idea what TIME was up to with the rest of this image. A friend mailed me a copy. The image does seem to be nearly ideally suited for comments on the SD Initiated and Referred measures this year.

In our local paper, two full pages of relatively small text were required to provide the attorney general explanations and text of the measures. I have the brazen audacity to do something like the SD newspapers do and that is to suggest a cheat sheet for voting. I guess if you want a really quick thought-free version, just vote "no" on everything --somewhat in the mood of "do no harm", but if you like a bit more finesse in your voting, take a look at the "uncleanup" and "cleanup" cheat sheets below.

First, SD Governor Rounds "uncleanup" ideas found via SD Moderate Blog..

Governor Mike Rounds has posted his positions on the various ballot initiatives on his campaign site---.LINK-- Rounds Campaign Site..The Uncleanup List

* Amendment C (Marriage Amendment) - Yes
* Amendment D (Property Assessment) - No
* Amendment E (Judicial Accountability) - No
* Amendment F (State Legislature) - Yes
* Initiated Measure 2 (Cigarette Tax) - Yes
* Initiated Measure 3 (School Start Date) - Undecided
* Initiated Measure 4 (Medical Marijuana) - No
* Initiated Measure 5 (State Aircraft) - No
* Initiated Measure 7 (Video Lottery) - No
* Initiated Measure 8 (Cell Phone Tax) - No
* Referred Law 6 (Abortion Ban) - Yes

http://www.sdmoderate.com/

And now, the much better Dakota Today "cleanup" suggestions. Use at your own risk. Don't allow children
to play with this in the kitchen or run with scissors.

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* Amendment C (Marriage Amendment) - NO This is theocracy in drag. What threat the wingnut loons see in homosexual unions to conventional heterosexual marriages is beyond me. It appears only to be a discriminatory way to score political points with religiously-impaired small minds.
* Amendment D (Property Assessment) - YES Something needs to be done. Not sure this is it, but Republican legislatures have had literally dozens of years to find better ways to fund public education. This may give a measure of the frustration with paying and paying property taxes that increase every year without regard to income or public need.
* Amendment E (Judicial Accountability) - YES However, it is a mediocre amendment but one hell of a message to the arrogance of judges and prosecutors..of course, they might not get it anyway since they are in a black-robed cloud of privilege.
* Amendment F (State Legislature) - NO, as the RC Journal indicates it makes more sessions closed. It also appears to make private measures possible. It is also just tinkering at the edges of real reform of the legislature. Perhaps we must initiate a SD Unicameral. Something good did come out of Nebraska even if South Dakotans have been mostly studiously blind.
* Initiated Measure 2 (Cigarette Tax) - Yes, gotta agree with the Gov. on this one
* Initiated Measure 3 (School Start Date) - Undecided. I am also undecided but leaning to "YES"
* Initiated Measure 4 (Medical Marijuana) -YES. Any government that allows tobacco and alcohol to be sold should never stand in the way of a mostly benign way to treat pain. Maybe legislators and the governor should be tortured and waterboarded for some attitude re-adjustment.
* Initiated Measure 5 (State Aircraft) - YES. The Governor can stay in his McCastle and work more and jaunt less at our expense. In any case, any governor with the brains of a small rock should be able to find an official function just about anyplace he has any real business traveling to and from in a SD State Plane.
* Initiated Measure 7 (Video Lottery) - YES. I don't like paying taxes, but I like the idea of South Dakotra aiding and abetting gambling addiction and related social problems even less. Making any kind of gambling off limits to cash or checks and only available via a debit card from county treasures might be an alternative to outright repeal however.
* Initiated Measure 8 (Cell Phone Tax reduction) -YES. Why does South Dakota legislature always look for a way to penalize new and better ideas. Next the SD Revenue idiots will be thinking about an internet tax...oh wait, they are already pushing that peculiarly dumb idea with all its complexity and privacy invasion. Cellphones are a real safety feature in the boondocks. We don't need some of the highest taxes in the country on a near essential for safe travel and rural living.
* Referred Law 6 (Abortion Ban) - NO. HB 1215 was truly bad legislation Six Sucks. Kill it dead. Vote no. SD has no business enhancing rapist rights at the expense of every female's right to privacy and control over her own body.
This is a theocratic construction over-riding science, scientific language, and common sense. It is probably also blatantly unconstitutional and the SD legislature had no good reason to dump this load of elephant dung on the election doorsteps. Poorly conceived legislation like this is a threat both to religion and state with the indiscriminant mixing of religious myth and scientific and social fact. This legislation is a recipe for social injustice writ large. It will move from safe legal and relatively rare abortions to illegal and rarely safe abortions. It will not stop SD abortions. This legislation serves no useful purpose. Give it a big hearty NO.

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Well, there you have it. Mostly just don't vote like our governor intends to vote.. hope that simplifies everything well enough.

Now, don't forget to vote Nov 7. Get rid of the elephant and we won't have to clean up behind the beast.

**Stay tuned even if the circus band left town last summer..maybe just teach high school bands to play "Happy Days are Here Again"---Doug Wiken

**Cartoon-- Had Enough? or US GOPicide.

A cartoon for your use..as in "Steal this Cartoon". After accusing Democrats of being something akin to traitors, more than a few US Republican candidates are "Cutting and Running" from George Bush and his disastrous policies as if he is a house on fire collapsing around them.

Click on image for a slightly larger version.

Running a campaign against a Republican apologist for Bush? Give em hell...or tell the truth about Bush and make them think you are giving them hell. Think, "What would Harry Truman want you to do?"

**Stay tuned and wear bright clothes..Pheasant hunting is starting..just don't pick cock pheasant colors--Doug Wiken

**Bush whines and demands Calvin Ball rules for CIA

Bush selling "Calvin Ball" rules for CIA interrogations to Congress and the combining it with "It's My Ball." Bush in a press conference sounded like a whining little spoiled brat. If you don't remember the original "Calvin Ball", take a look at "Official" Calvin Ball Rules

Bush got all riled up in his little spoiled son of the rich and influential way or like the poorly-reared screaming brat in the toy department mode of pouting and ranting way when in a press conference he was mildly questioned about another of his administrations idiotic policies. Bush stormed that if congress didn't approve his torture tactics and procedures that the nasty Supreme Court slapped his knuckles for, he would just tell the CIA to stop doing any interrogations at all.

When asked about former Sec of State Colin Powell's letter regarding Bush's violations of Geneva accords, US law, etc. etc. etc. and the consequences for US Soldiers if the US used torture, Bush refused to comment or answer the question.

Of course, as news reports have indicated, the spoiled brat from Texas born with the silver foot in his mouth (May Ann Richard's Rest in Peace), is really pissed at the three Republicans in the Senate with an ounce of sense who are opposing his slam-dunk attack campaign to paint all Democrats as soft on terrorism and appeasers.

The United States will have the reputation of a drunken rattlesnke in the rest of the world if the US Congress does not get enough Democrats and responsible Republicans to put a stop to Bush lunacy.

How long until a majority has had enough of Republican fundamentalist theocratic Government playing Calvin Ball with our lives, our fortune, and sacred honor?

**Stay tuned even if you have never seen a photo of Barbara cuddling her spoiled rotten kid who liked to blow of frogs with firecrackers--Doug Wiken