Dakota Today

**Sibby and Republicans in South Dakota back supporting rapist rights again.

In case you might wonder why South Dakota often seems closer to the dark ages than some other areas of the country, you won't find anything reassuring about the post in Steve Sibson's blog and the comments he found from Republican legislators Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, R-Watertown  and Sen. Tom Hansen, R-Huron.

Read Steve's post here

Sibson Online attacks Adelstein and defends Rapist Rights

[[ Note:  I found the link above when Dakota Today got a hit from Sibson's Blog.  The date of a post on his blog is in faint blue type, and I did not notice it was from 2006, so it is really old news.  Steve is complaining that he is not for rapist rights, but implicit in every kind of anti-abortion, anti- information,  anti-women's rights attack is support for rapist rights.  Steve and others in that camp elevate a few parasitic cells above the rights of the raped woman and elevate the rapist's rights to use a woman's body as a tool to maintain the rapist's gene in the gene pool.  They chose to use terms like "Pro-Life"  and "unborn child" and have attacked those who support pro-choice groups as "butchers" which I find inflamatory, dishonest  or misleading and I choose to label their dark ages humbug as a form of "Rapist Rights".  Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I do apologize if any readers were mislead by my failure to see the date of his original post ---- Doug Wiken ]]]

Just what the world needs more of--: women forced to bear and raise the child of a rapist. I don't know why for sure, but there seems to be something in common with these Republicans perspective and that of the Islamicists who insist that women should be stoned for adultery or mutilated or murdered in the name of "honor" if they refuse to marry in an arranged marriage.

Here is a link to a discussion by girls and women who have been raped only to find out that the rapist has parental rights and the anguish that causes them. Rogue Pundit

And, I do wonder what these South Dakota Republicans convinced they are on God's side think about the GOP national organization having insurance for its employees that pays for abortions.

It is too cold too and I just found out locally that 10 gallons of kerosene for a space heater cost me $84.

*** Stay tuned for less serious information from Ole and Lena to follow --- Doug Wiken

*** Words and politicians, words and blog posts

A Scientific American newsletter mentioned an apparently new or slightly different way to analyze speech and speeches.  I am not sure that either of these tells us really very much, but there sure are a lot of words about words.

Scientific American on what your words say about you

Wordwatchers Words about Words, etc.

And, speaking of words here at Dakota Today or at least page views of them by real people and search engines, the total pageviews of whatever kind just popped over 200,000 according to Typepad which hosts Dakota Today.

***Stay tuned even if the interpretation or "significance" of this is left up to you --- 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

** Research on GM Crops stifled according to Sci American

The recent news that the President of South Dakota State University is also on the payroll of Monsanto has generated some interesting questions and comments along with requests from legislators for more information.

Somewhat related to the broad issue were comments related to plant variety protection by Cory H. at Madville Times blog:

SDSU Foundation and Plant Variety Protection Issues

It is not really too often that Scientific American touches on science or issues related to agriculture, but a recent issue hits a very relevant issue concerning the relation between genetically-modified crop seeds "owned" by the big ag seed companies and their very restrictive purchase agreements versus independent research. Now, there is not access to current edition at Sci Am website. Perhaps in a month something of the "A seedy Practice" opinion page 28 of the August 2009 will show up here Scientific American Magazine

The gist of the story as it relates to independent research free of corporate strings, blinders, and gags is in the following:

"..But agritech companies such as Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta go further [than software licenses]. For a decade their user agreements have explicitly forbidden the use of the seeds for any independent research. Under the threats of litigation, scientists cannot test a seed to explore the different conditions under which it strives or fails. They cannot compare seeds from one company against those of another company. And perhaps most important, they cannot examine whether the genetically-modified crops lead to unintended environmental side effects. Research on genetically modified seeds is still published, of course. But only studies that the seed companies have approved ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal......"

That seems chilling enough, but the article goes on to say that 24 crop scientists have filed anonymous protests to the EPA because they fear retaliation from the seed companies.

This would seem to be another issue legislators and regents and those interested in preserving the integrity of scientific research at South Dakota institutions should be investigating.

** Stay tuned even if all your corn is higher than an elephant's eye--- 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

** Paid Blogging to be monitored by FTC

The Mitchell Daily Republic today June 22, 2009 carried an AP story they titled "FTC to monitor blogs for claims, payments".  Sounds OK to me since I have never received a dime for posting information in Dakota Today and if I did endorse any product or candidate, I have tried to provide relevant information regarding reasons, etc.

Anyway, the article sort of notes in passing that blogging has risen in importance and sophistication and is somewhat like traditional community journalism but without any real consensus of ethical practices.

If somebody pays a blogger $YYY for posting a glowing review of product X, it seems appropriate that payment information should be provided as part of the review.  FTC regulation of that would seem just as appropriate as regulation of a glowing product label that is patently false or only partially or irrelevantly true.

The problem does come in regarding endorsements of political candidates. Newspapers in nearly every election endorse candidates or legislation even though they accept advertising from such political or partisan political candidates or organizations.  It may have happened, but I don't remember any established paper or any other business media noting, "Candidate Smith Jones bought $10,000 in ads in our paper before we would give him any publicity let alone an endorsement."

Such disclosure might be good for bloggers, newspapers, TV, Radio, etc.  Candidates are more and more marketed as products as if they were rose-scented laundry detergent.  BUT, would that violate freedom of press, etc.

Some SD bloggers were busy endorsing John Thune in a previous election even as they were essentially on Thune's payroll but giving the impression they were independent.  For all I know that may also have been the situation with BAD LANDS BLUE blog supporting Democratic candidates and Party in the most recent election, but I really don't know.

But, whatever ox is gored by such legislation or regulation, I am in favor of it. If Truth in Lending is a good idea (and it is), Truth in Publishing  or Truth in Blogging by whatever means is probably also appropriate.

If some of us bloggers want now and then to be taken seriously, we better adhere to some reasonable standard of truth and also disclose factors which might influence us and content that readers really should be provided... even if the FTC never gets around to doing it or is as woefully lackadaisical in enforcement even if no blog is going to get too big to let fail like banks and insurance companies that have pretty much successfully fought regulation and truly informational disclosure useful to customers or potential customers, etc

[[ NOTE:  Prairie Progressive Blog has a post which handles the freedom of speech issues better than I did here: Prairie Progressive on FTC Regulation of Blogs --Added June 27, 2009]]

*** Stay tuned even if Dakota Today doesn't have an official Regulated by FTC Seal of Approval---- 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

**Saving the past kills the present.. well sort of

Dakota Today has been short of posts in the last week or so.  I have been occupied learning to use a newer version of a program TomeRaider which I found years ago when I thought that would be a good name for something and found out somebody else thought that ...a couple years earlier.

Anyway, TomeRaider makes it relatively easy to make e-books that are well indexed and with a search engine that is fast.  The main problem with it is that readers of any book you or I make also has to have the program to read the e-book.  The good part however is that the current version is only around $20 US for the PC version.  There is cross-compatibility with a bunch of portable e-book devices however...but probably not a Kindle or Kindle DX.

To finally get to something of a point, I used TypePad's export option and have that text file in first stages of working in TomeRaider.  I have not gotten all the blank lines out of the 1700 posts made in about 5 years nor have I gotten the photos inserted yet and I have a couple of other problems that aren't that serious.  That means I haven't been posting a lot here which is kind of the irony indicated in the title.  The exported file of Dakota Today for five years had about 800,000 "words" in it, but many are not actual text I wrote...lot of "stuff" anyway.

If you can export your blog, and can use a text processor to insert a " <new> " at the beginning of every title of a post, you can then compile, and compress the file and have an e-book with a fast table of contents and and also a fast search possiblity...which can be even faster and more versatile if I can figure out a bit more of the category definition system.  The progam works, but the documentation really, really sucks.

Well, that may be more than you wanted to know, but if this interests you, let me know.

***Stay tuned for something about something...maybe photos of new kittens...ah, isn't that just so sweet..and Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers out there--- Doug Wiken

**Volante story on USD firings at Vermillion, SD

SD budget cuts and GOP mismanagement hit the academic institutions. Student workers on campus at USD in Vermillion have lost jobs. Also faculty and staff have been canned. From the Volante article linked below, perhaps 20 some people lost jobs of one kind or another. No indication that Jim Abbott's salary is being cut however.
 USD's Volante on firings or layoffs on Campus
 Some interesting comments there. Looks like a few people have their priorities aligned in regard to athletics and redundant new campuses.
**Stay tuned for more groves of academe timbers to fall..perhaps silently with no one hearing. Call up your philosophy prof if that idea interests you and he or she hasn't been canned-- Doug Wiken

Confused space alien lands in northern South Dakota

Zooming above SD highways in an unidentified flying object kind of alien craft, a space alien got lost over northern South Dakota. If also seems that English was not his native language..big surprise.. anyway, when the ALF kind of guy from Uranus saw the Athol, SD sign, he thought he was home again.

As you may have guessed, the valuable information came from the Ole and Lena Digital Photo Company-- Division of Sophomoric Humor. They got UFO mixed up with Uffda.

 If you want serious stuff today, you better check some of the other SD Blogs. Todd Epp has some interesting info on the Hyperion project in Union County, and Cory H. of the Madville Times gets serious about  "nookie". The Northern Valley Beacon has several posts worth reading and thinking about. PP at SD War College is as usual rolling out the Grand Old Party propaganda of the day. Worth reading anyway to see that train of thought rolling off the rails.

**Stay tuned even if you never got sore shoveling snow-- Doug Wiken