Dakota Today

*** 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

**Some links..Non-profit Journalism and some references combined

As newspapers decline in readers and they also reduce funding for independent news gathering and something like that also hits the electronic media because it is cheaper to put on a gasbag talking head, some groups are financing non-profit news gathering...at least that is what I heard tonight on PBS News Hour.  A couple links from that program below:

Pro Publica--Journalism in the Public Interest

Center for Public Integrity-- Investigative Journalism In the Public Interest/

Pulitzer Center-- Crisis Information

Those could keep a person busy for more than a few hours and should germinate an idea or two. If you are scratching for information, you might (according to CPU Magazine) find the link below useful.
 Ref Desk ..Fact checker for the Internet

**Stay tuned even if you are turning pages in a new pixel way--- Doug Wiken

**This and that..AP and Bloggers, Sen. Obama and good rumors

Well, it appears that AP is again on the warpath attacking bloggers who have the audacity to quote their stories and give links back to the source.  A site named Drudge RETORT (not Drudge REPORT) has gotten notice from AP in what appears to be another opening salvo.  I know some SD bloggers have also been hassled by AP in the past.  Some bloggers think all bloggers should give AP the obscurity they seem to want.

More on the story here at the Carpetbagger's blog:

Carpetbagger Blog on AP and Drudge RETORT copyright issues That is one issue. Here is another that makes a point in a rather humorous way: SLATE story on Rumors Obama should not correct And, an interesting comment found at Salon Table Talk in the White House Folder concerning the "inexperience" of Sen Obama:

Verbal Remedy - 08:40 am Pacific Time - Jun 19, 2008 - #3134 of 3149 I've just got to say this: Obama had no previous experience running for national office. He had no previous experience in widespread netroots fundraising and organizing. He had absolutely no experience running against the presumptive "inevitable" nominee with 100% national name recognition. No experience whatsoever in assembling a national security advisory board. Not one lick of experience putting together a rapid response team to fight smears. No experience addressing issues of race to a national audience, under fire from the MSM. You know what? All things considered, when you look at how all those things turned out, his lack of experience is working out a hell of a lot better than his inter- and intra-party rivals' combined hundred or so years in Washington, DC. http://tabletalk.salon.com/webx?14@@.773d380a/3130

**Stay tuned even if the weather is strange and TV network "news" becomes more and more trash and hype--- 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

**Newt Gingrich..still crazy after all these years..and wives

I did not catch all of Newt Gingrich going ballistic this morning on ABC or CBS morning blather, but below from the Huffington Post is what I mostly heard, but with a few of the HP poster's comments included.

Reacting to the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America - who recently affirmed, by 5-4 decision, our Constitutional rights of due process of law, accorded by the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America - former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich came visibly unglued, and called the decision the worst since Dred Scott.
 GINGRICH: I will say, I think the recent Supreme Court decision to turn over to a local district judge decisions of national security and life and death that should be made by the president and the congress is the most extraordinarily arrogant and destructive decision the Supreme Court has made in it's history.
REID: In it's history?
GINGRICH: In it's history. Worse than Dred Scott, for the following reason: The court has now knowingly stepped in, this morning's newspaper say, smugglers had actually gotten the design of a nuclear weapon, that we now have the evidence that people out there had a nuclear weapon design. And this court is saying that any random district judge, based on whatever their personal caprice is, whatever their personal ideological bias, can intervene with a terrorist in such a way. Gingrich went on to slam Obama for supporting the decision. "The problem with Obama is that he's wrong...He applauded this court decision. This court decision is a disaster and it could cost us a city." Then Gingrich referred to district judges - all of them! - as "nutcake."

Naturally, it's Gingrich, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who are nutcake, and I wonder if I can sum up why that is any better then the headline of a recent post on Jezebel: "According to Scalia, People Only Get Rights When There's Nothing At Stake." Nope! Turns out I could not have possibly said it better! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/15/gingrich-rails-at-supreme_n_107214.html http://snipurl.com/2iz4c

Are we going to have months of the same old same old crap from the Republican noise machine? After years of Gingrich in Congress and Shrub in the White House as a consequence of the gullible believing these raving loons, one might expect this kind of inflated rhetoric would not go unchallenged by press and people who are normal.
***Stay tuned even if it might not rain tomorrow and Newt's sky might not fall as the result of a court decision suggesting the constitution means something despite Bush smoke and mirrors about a unitary presidency immune to logic, facts, history, congress, and courts-- Doug Wiken

**More about Tim Russert than we ever wanted to know

We have no NBC affiliated TV station in the area, so any thing about Tim Russert is usually from a secondary source if I see it.  I probably saw more of Lawrence Spivak than Tim Russert.  Since Russert died, CBS and ABC "news divisions" have had a lot of coverage of Russert which seemed a bit hypocritical since he was their competitor in some ways.  Interesting however in the spill out of the news is the incestuous nature of Washington, DC and NY TV media.  Husbands and wives, sons and daughters all with different last names, but all related even if in different networks and organizations.

I didn't see enough of Russert to have many positive or negative feelings about him.  But, hearing that somebody younger than yourself croaks while working catches my attention at least   Anyway, a blogger indicates a little bit of tiredness of All Russert all The Time.

 

Accidental Blogger on All Russert All the Time

The Accidental Blogger site looks interesting even if some news media types might describe the above linked comment there a bit on the "cranky" side.

Celebrity news and celebrity newscasters and their incestuous relationships with other parts of the corporate media and government certainly distort and avert attention from real news.

*** Stay tuned even if you prefer the old media to the this new media---- Doug Wiken

**Online anonymity prosecutable? Nails from China? An et cetera post

A recent prosecution of a woman who posed as a young male on a website and then allegedly got a young girl to commit suicide is being prosecuted in an apparently novel manner. The following is from a story in the Sunday Rapid City Journal May 18, 2008.

Beware: Anonymity may not protect you online Think twice beroe you sign up for an online service using a fake name or [fake] e-mail address. You could be committing a federal crime.

Federal prosecuters turned to novel interpretation of computer hacking law to indict a Missouri mother on charges connected to the suicide of a 13-year old MySpace user.

There is more in the paper story, but the case is raising questions since it gives a business contract the force of a law thus violations of a web site's user agreement could now lead to criminal sanctions.

In short, those anonymous posters who use that anonymity as a shield for their own outrageous, misleading, and insulting posts that most would not ever post under their own names with a real address may not feel quite so cocky if this prosecution leads to conviction and is not overturned as some kind of prosecutorial excess.

In a whole 'nother bag...how can China make common nails cheaper than US companies a few miles away from the actual steel sources? I can't believe there is even a dime's worth of human labor in a ton of nails. In the same vein, how can china plates be made cheaper there. They appear to be made by machine with I assume nearly zero human labor.

What has gone wrong? Why are our local stores importing so much stuff from China when the shipping would seem to eat up any labor costs compared to US made products?

I don't really know, but this all seems totally wrong unless it is entirely related to obscene executive salaries and unrealistic profit expectations of Wall Street and stockholders. Anybody out there actually know?

And, just to fill out this mixture of stuff, check the SD Magazine and see if you can identify the mystery photo apparently taken around 1914 by F. W. Byerly. Has google or anybody else put together building recognition software that can compare thousands of images for similarity?

SD Mag identify the "Mystery Building"

Maybe it is something for the "History Detectives" on Public TV.

**Stay tuned even if you just hate your vegetables and meats mixed together in a casserole which converts perfectly good food into an inedible meeting dish edible only with help of Pepto Bismol---Doug Wiken

** I didn't know that..surprising Mother's Day fact from SD Magazine

SD Magazine sends out an e-mail newsletter now and then. The text below was in the May version. Interesting if you happen to have a mother and live or lived in South Dakota.

Mother's Day Originated in South Dakota

Although Mother's Day has origins that date back to the Greek sages, South Dakota actually played a significant role in its development in America. Anna Jarvis of Wessington Springs came up with the concept in 1905 and began an official campaign to kick it off. Unfortunately, some history books credit West Virginia as being the first state to make it official in 1910. South Dakota beat the Virginians by a full year. Governor Robert Vessey proclaimed the nation's first Mother's Day observance on April 9, 1909.

Motherhood is truly the world's highest calling. What compares to the sacrifices made by a good mother, many of which the child never perceives? Not even service in the military, or the ministry or medicine. What else requires a lifetime committment? What else is undertaken with a surety of at least a degree of frustration, failure, financial hardship and heartbreak? But what else gives mankind a hopeful future?

Happy Mother's Day to all in South Dakota and beyond our borders, the mothers and the mothered.
— Bernie Hunhoff

**Stay tuned even if you always buy your mother or wife candy on Mother's Day and then eat all of it yourself..well actually that's what happens on Father's Day, but that is a ways off---- Doug Wiken

**This and that..

Saw the first dandilions I have seen blooming this year. Must be a near certain indication that spring is here. Also, the end of April is rapidly approaching and that means property taxes are due in South Dakota. Damn, are they ever a reminder of how upside down the SD tax system really is. When RE taxes start pushing $20 per acre, it is time some of the people living in towns and cities and making good money as some of them fill the schools with kids need to be picking up their fair share of the taxes. Perhaps a few of the corporations doing business in SD could kick a few bucks into an education fund too. I don't notice the chain marketers charge less here because they don't have to pay a state corporate income tax as they do in other states.

The schools consolidate and should get more efficient and teach better and cost less. It looks to me that all that actually happens is that administrator salaries go ever higher and the school years get shorter. And, oh yeah, the real estate taxes keep going up even if special assessment op outs are required.

And, unless my eyes are also playing tricks on me, it appears the Rapid City Journal dead tree version has a new format. I don't particularly care for it. Maybe some of the artsy types can explain why a paper that looks like propaganda from a farm credit publication is a better typeface, etc. etc. than some good old newspaperery looking text. The fine fonts must save some of that ink the papers buy by the barrel.

And then there is George Bush. I watched the weasel trying to blame his economic, political, and diplomatic foul ups on congress this morning. And on the war, Bush doesn't just move the goal posts, he makes them dance.
What a bunch of spineless wimps there are in the White House Press Corps. They might as well be the Whitehouse Press Corpse.

Where is the "Mr. President, you are questioning my motives. I am searching for truth here. If that motive is at cross purposes with yours, just what are your motives, sir?" Gutless damn wimps. Speaking truth to the Texas Twit in power is absolutely the last thing on their tiny minds.

Bush goes on and on about the never-ending fight against terror and how we are making progress against it in Iraq and Afghanistan. I must have been dreaming, but I would swear I remember the smirking weasel in a flight suit on an aircraft carrier with a big "Mission Accomplished" sign behind him.

Bob Schieffer of CBS correctly summarized the Bush speech as a political gasp of somekind..an attempt to shift blame. Then Schieffer went on to say that it really was true however that Congress did not have an energy policy.

Hmmm. How the hell are we supposed to know what kind of an energy policy the US has? Cheney held secret meetings on energy policy and so far it seems to me that nobody including Bob Schieffer and the rest of us outside of the collection of aiders and abettors in the White House know what that policy is. It seems without knowing of course to just be to drive the price of fuel so high that agriculture and travel grind to a screeching halt.

Bush is just too, too cute by half at least. He reminds me of all the smart ass arrogant prick frat rats I ran into on college campuses and the worst of them pale in comparison to the Texas Twit.

What we need in the White House of course is a dry drunk that all the barflies would just love to sit with and toss back a few. Oh wait, I must be dreaming again.

***Stay tuned, keep your eyes open even when you think you are dreaming--- Doug Wiken

**What about Janklow and the ARGUS this time?

The Sunday ARGUS and that of today (April 28, 2008) has articles on the "Janklow 36". It is a follow up on some prisoners dumped out of the SD State Prison because of crowding and told to get out of South Dakota and not return some 30 years or so ago.

The ARGUS has followed up on the lives of some of these people. And, to probably nobody's astonishment have found that too many of them ended up following their criminal instincts and getting re-arrested and imprisoned again, etc. etc. Some blessed their lucky Janklow stars and took advantage of the unexpected freedom and made good of the rest of their lives.

I am certainly no apologist for Bill Janklow. But, it must be said about this that he put himself in a position where he could be blamed for his opinion and actions or credited and he may not have had to do that.

But, the more important point that the ARGUS is omitting or fails to recognize is that for their report to have any validity, the life of these "lucky" prisoners must be compared with similar lives of those released after they had served their full sentences back in those days.

My guess is they would have found a very similar recidivism rate and also a similar success rate if they compared this group of "Janklow 36" and and a "Random 36" from those days. The ARGUS is "Willy Horton-ing" Bill Janklow. I hope he now as a little sympathy for Gov. Dukakis and a bit of disdain for the shrill GOP rightwing attack ads like the "Swiftboaters", etc.

And, if I got something wrong in this post let me know. I am writing it without benefit of having the paper in front of me and Janklow is unlikely to be providing me with any inside information.

I have found many things to criticize Bill Janklow for, but I don't think his early release of these few prisoners is something that should be hung around his neck like a permanently rotting albatross.

***Stay tuned...maybe I will come to my partisan senses again--- Doug Wiken