Dakota Today

*** 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

**SDPB puts together good info on TV reception....but.....

If you are still curious about the changes involved in going from analog to digital TV and the effects those changes had on channel frequencies, signal strength, antenna information, splitter information, digital to analog, etc. etc.  Check the link below:

SDPublic Broadcasting on Antennas, etc.

I don't think you will find any better information on antennas, cabling, splitters, amplifiers, etc. (especially for South Dakota) than above. It appears to have some information that has been put together with a little more experience answering real questions than initially was put out in glossy "Easy to Do" brochures, ads, websites, etc.

Now, the "but". SDPB-TV has recently been promoting the "sparkling" new website you saw if you looked at the link above. Your perspective may not be a bit like mine however. It does appear improved from the old tangled mess of a site, but it now looks a bit like a site for a mortuary that hides links behind barely readable icons of limp light blue on stale barely darker blue. At least for my old eyes, some more contrasty larger type on icons would be an improvement.

I have this prejudice against web designers, phone designers, radio designers, TV remote designers, cellphone designers etc that dislikes and fails to understand their tendency to use some color like light gray on drab gray with very small type or incomprehensible, ambiguous icons. There are some of us old geezers interested in technology and the internet who don't have perfect vision and 36-inch diagonal digital monitors situated in perfect non-glare lighting and in front of a $2000 special chair.  And, now and then cellphones are needed in dimly lit or dark areas.  Radios and TV controllers that require a flashlight to be seen and which place often used and dangerous to use keys next to each other.  Enough already....  Well maybe not.  Stuff so damn tiny that it can only be used by women or small girls with tiny fingers is also aggravating to those of use with a few stiff fingers that only fit the larger glove sizes.

** Stay tuned... and stay tuned to public TV and radio too...even if now and then aggravating, there is nothing better on commercial TV or radio--- Doug Wiken

** Take Seriously that voice crying in the Northern Political Wilderness

You won't find much better writing on any other blog and you won't find quite as many ideas expressed with similar vitality and creativity in terms of making the often less obvious plain as day.  Check Northern Valley Beacon if you have been missing it lately.

Northern Valley Beacon

The rabid right and the connections to the Bush-Cheney political disaster machine has skewed the political spectrum to the point that blogs like Northern Valley Beacon have become middle of the road. The right-wing has moved so far to the right in the last few years as the GOP has shed its more moderate members that the wingnuts of the right are barely clinging to the right end of the realistic US political spectrum.

**Stay tuned for the loud crash as the screamers of the right fall off into the abyss of dead political parties and perspectives and join the pool of the mentally ill-- Doug Wiken

*** Clunkers of Today and Hot Rods of Yesterday

On public radio, I heard one of the Billions talking about the cars they sold as a consequence of the clunker stimulus. Probably their best sales days ever. Billion may also have told the truth about clunker problem cars traded in, but in some areas and at other dealers, better cars are being dumped into the clunker program than many of us drive and many of them get better mileage than other cars on the road. Destroying the better "clunkers" seems like a terrible waste of affordable transportation and energy used to shred and resmelt, etc.

I suggest a two-tier system where the better "clunkers" turned in can be repaired and sold by government (or agent/dealers of the Gov't) to people with vehicles that are even worse in order to get the really clunker cars off the road. The worst cars are most likely being driven by people who cannot afford the new vehicles of today even with a $4500 gift to the big auto manufacturers as down payment. Trading the better "clunkers" traded in for even worse cars in Such a two-tier system would get the very worst vehicles off the road.

Also, it seems that some minimal repayment of the clunker credits should be made. Perhaps $25 per month for up to 10 years with no interest or no continued payments if vehicle is wrecked, etc. If such an additional $25 per month payment will kill a deal on a new car, it is a deal which should not be made to begin with no matter how much it benefits dealers or the environment. In short, a lot more bang for the buck.

Less serious, but perhaps more interesting and fun to many readers may be the car video and associated car music from the 50's and 60's at link below. Flash required.

Link as text: http://oldfortyfives.com/CarsWeDrove.htm

Old Forty fives and cars of the time

*** Stay tuned. Hope that gives you something to both think about and enjoy-- Doug Wiken

**Economist "Engineer" Robert Shiller finds danger in growing US wealth inequality

Recently, economist Robert Shiller was interviewed on the Charlie Rose show. It was an interesting hour based loosely on his new book "Animal Spirits" which is not quite what you might expect from the title. Robert Shiller correctly predicted the economic meltdown. He is an astute observer and listening to him, I really could not say if he particularly liberal or conservative. He considers himself an "economic engineer" who is not interested in destroying capitalism nor in destroying government, but in making them work better and in protecting them from future catastrophe.

I ordered his book "Animal Spirits" and a couple others on the economy. Hopefully, they can be the basis of some somewhat more informed posts here and elsewhere.

Shiller views the current economic meltdown as serious, but views the increasing concentration of more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands as being even more serious in the long term. The inequality of wealth distribution has increased to historical highs. Shiller, I think, implies that such inequality and the government policies generating it breeds resentment and also a decline in effort on the part of those unable to accumulate wealth and finding that effort more and more difficult.. in short weakening of the "work ethic".

My question at this time for those conservatives and very rich and of politicians protecting the inequality of wealth and who often label any improvement proposals as "class warfare" or "economic war" follows.

At what point will conservatives be satisfied that the very rich have gotten control of enough of the wealth to satisfy them? 

This Tax Policy group, probably at Brookings Institution indicates the top marginal tax rates by year from 1919 to 2009.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

This link provides multiple forms of information on personal wealth. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/listdocs.cfm?topic2id=49

Wealth estimates from 2001 estate tax filings. May not relate directly to current situation. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=556&Topic2id=49

Download a complex pdf from the federal reserve. Charts and graphs with lots of data manipulation aimed at providing a better picture of true wealth. http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2006/200613/200613pap.pdf

Easier to understand compilation from the federal reserve info above http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/04/change_in_the_d.html

More analysis of some of the data contained in above with additional info and perspective. http://www.wealthandwant.com/

This is a perhaps shaky source, but suspect the income data on the "Fortunate 400" if not the interpretation is correct anyway.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/rich-m07.shtml

Some information on actual control of wealth: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

This from census data may be unbiased if you have time to download and dig through it

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/wealth/wealth.html

This may indicate the problems with large family size and wealth accumulation and may thus suggest that the mal-distribution of wealth is related to family..I read only the abstract.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/0004051.html

This might have the most interesting and useful information.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/4Inequality.htm

You may choose to be ignorant of income disparity if you wish, but the information is available and sticking your head in the conservative wingnut sand pile does not change anything for the better or even change the information. We may however disagree on the future impact of continued worsening of wealth disparity based on our ideology. 

[[Note: Most of the above post was apparently viewed as too controversial to be posted at Mt. Blogmore for reasons I don't understand. ]]

**Stay tuned, paw through the data, and please report back with comments-- Doug Wiken

** Sen. Thune's GOP Talking Points on Health Insurance skewered at Mt. Blogmore

SD US Senator John Thune provided a few of the Republican talking points on health care. Thune's comments seem to mirror those of the Health Insurance industry and the propaganda groups they have set up to feed talking points to Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats. The text of his comments was posted at Mt. Blogmore Blog of the Rapid City Journal by Randy Rasmussen. RR's digging out transcripts of speeches and comments like this and posting them or links to them is a useful service. Those Thune remarks are in the post continuation.

Immediately below are the comments made at Mt. Blogmore by Wayne Gilbert. He did a good job of going through Thune's remarks paragraph by paragraph. I saw no reason for me to do something like it again here, so I requested permission from Wayne Gilbert to reprint his comments here.

If you go to Mt. Blogmore you will see an attack on this post by Stan Adelstein. You can also find a post by "Mary" with a link to a medical site which indicates 10 insurance executives got about $80 Million in salary and bonuses last year.

"Mary's" link to health exec. pay, etc. at Fierce Health Care

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Wayne Gilbert Says at Mt. Blogmore: August 1st, 2009 at 3:52 pm

Thune Rhetoric: "We've put forth proposals that will cut costs and improve care. And we can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians."

My Response: What are these proposals that you have put forth? If they are those listed in this comment, they are bogus for the reasons that follow. As if patients and their doctors are in charge—ever try to get a treatment or a medication that your insurance company did not think was appropriate? Frankly, if push comes to shove, I'll take a bureaucrat over a claims adjuster in a cubicle.

Thune Proposal: "Real reform should allow small businesses to pool together to buy affordable health insurance for their employees."

My Response: Small businesses in South Dakota are in fact able to pool together in the Retailers Association—it hasn't helped. Insurance companies are raising their rates at 3-4 times the cost increases of virtually everything else, to say nothing of wages

Thune Proposal: "Real reform should protect doctors and hospitals from frivolous lawsuits, so they can stop practicing defensive medicine and instead focus on practicing patient-focused medicine."

My Response: This is a red herring in terms of health care and cost reform. Honestly, when was the last time somebody won a meritless lawsuit against a health care provider in South Dakota—I will venture to say that it just hasn't happened. People in other industries do get sued, and some of those suits don't have merit, but that hasn't caused them to spiral the costs of their goods and services out of control.

Thune Proposal: "Real reform should encourage wellness and prevention programs that have been proven to cut costs."

My Response: Nice idea. Nice rhetoric. Just the opposite has happened in the free market. Health insurance fifteen years ago did encourage wellness and prevention programs. Now you get to pay three to four times the premium that such programs charged, but guess what? Your deductible has gone to $5,000.00. This trend in fact discourages wellness and prevention programs, except that my insurance company has hired people who call me at home in the evening from time to time to see if I am taking care of myself—honestly—it is a joke and a serious waste of my insurance company's money to pay people to engage in such nonsense while providing me with a $5,000.00 deductible.

Thune Proposal: "And real reform should give people who buy their own insurance the same tax breaks as those who get insurance through their employers."

My Response: Sounds good in principle. The tax break that a wage-earner gets is that the employer's payment of all or part of a health insurance premium is not income. This is not the same as, and not as beneficial as, a deduction for someone who itemizes, which is what Thune probably has in mind. I'm not sure how to give these two groups the "same tax breaks" but it sure seems to me that this is worth exploring.

Proposal: "These and other commonsense solutions would provide real reform for our health care system rather than the dangerous and costly experiment that Democrats are proposing."

My Response: This is b.s. rhetoric—nothing more.

Thune Proposal: "I hope that as we continue this important debate, we can put aside the politics of Washington and tackle health care reform in the bipartisan way that Americans deserve."

My Response: Good idea- so Republicans will stop with the "no" to everything and suggest meaningful additions to or deletions from a health care reform package?

Thune Proposal: "It's time for real reform that works, not the same old answers of more money and more government. Real health care reform should cost Americans less money, not more. It should provide better quality, not worse. And it should empower patients, not government bureaucrats. By working together, we can do just that."

My Response: B.S. rhetoric. An appropriate response is that the same old answers of unregulated market solutions to health care crises have not worked and in fact have cost Americans a lot more money, not less.

Attacking the health insurance industry is Speaker Nancy Pelosi's health care strategy, is it not? — R.R. (Randy Rasmussen repeating some more GOP talking points) Mount Blogmore: A Rapid City Journal politics blog » Blog Archive » GOP’s health care reform proposal (2 August 2009) http://blogs.rapidcityjournal.com/politicalblog/?p=3840#comments

Link to RCJournal Blog Comment

http://snipurl.com/okqgb

Mt. Blogmore can have some of the best posts and discussions of any blog or forum in the US and it can also have some of the worst with some of the most inane comments in the US.  Whatever, it is worth looking at on a daily basis if you have the time and can tear your eyes away from Dakota Today.

** Stay tuned and check continuation for Thune's actual comments-- Doug Wiken

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**About that C Street "Churchish" Group that has John Thune as a member

It is rare that Salon Premium stories mention South Dakota even in passing. That is sort of the case here, but the passing reference is to US Senator John Thune and his membership in a group that has helped cover up some of the transgressions of GOP hypocrites currently in the news for cheating on their wives or other assorted bits of hypocrisy.

Salon Online Magazine about C-Street House

Most likely if you are not a Salon Premium member, you will have to endure some ads in order to read the story. A letter following the story notes that at some time, Hillary Clinton was also a member of this group. Politics makes strange bedfellows in more ways than one.

**Stay tuned even if you think that money given to churches and religious groups should not end up providing places for GOP politicians to cover up their sexual trysts--- Doug Wiken

**Some additions to the Dakota Today Blog Chain

If you check the horizontal menu just under the masthead, you will see some links to the Parts is Parts blog and a subsidiary blog to Parts is Parts with Repair Log Pages by vehicle.  So far just one vehicle in the list, but we have more junk to fix and there are a few mechanics pro and amateur we hope to entice into scribbling a bit for us.

Maybe with a few good hints and aids in those vehicle related blogs and some businesses might even find it useful to appear on one of our ad pages.  More to come, but setting up a new blog is a bit of a pain and then getting links around the chain of blogs correct can easily be fouled up.

*** Stay tuned even if you never have to suffer the joy of driving and repairing clunkers --- Doug Wiken

Keystone pipeline pipe from India pumping stations from Germany

Just a single link here.  Keystone oil pipeline is promoted as a huge economic benefit for US and Canada, but a good bit of the materials involved such as steel pipe come from India and now a bit of news indicating those pumping stations in the Dakotas and other central states will come from Germany.

Reuters: Siemens wins Keystone XL pump, electrical contract

** Stay tuned even if the hum of pumps and motors sounding like "Let the Oil Rivers Run Free" is not really music to your ears--- Doug Wiken

**Interesting stuff

Got a link from my brother this morning that might be interesting or amusing to those at least modestly interested in moving stuff...like heavy rocks, blocks, buildings, etc without benefit of modern machinery or a small army of workers..maybe.
J-Walk Blog embedded video of moving heavy stuff

I don't imagine this video explains everything or shows everything, but spinning stuff around and moving it on small rocks works if everything is already on a nice flat concrete slab. Not sure how he does it across a rolling pasture however. Interesting anyway and as he claims, may even explain how Stonehenge was put together without backhoes, cranes, and bulldozers.

 The J-walk blog has other interesting stuff too.
 Cut across the internet highway to J-Walk Blog

Still working on the great compilation of about 6 years of Dakota Today posts in e-book form. It is basically all there, but needs a lot of housecleaning removing blank lines and inserting at least some of the photos and images which never made it when TypePad exported the blog to a text file.
**Stay tuned for more "stuff"--- Doug Wiken