Dakota Today

**So venture over to Cranium Creek and laugh or groan

Cranium Creek descends deep into the caverns of puns.  Laugh or groan, it is your choice:

Cranium Creek Blog and "Punilingus"

 Not much new in the way of news around here, but about 4pm this afternoon, I was driving the 1/4 mile from our farmhouse to the county highway when I heard a thump and a dark thing with 4 legs hanging down over the windshield for an instant. The old Mitsubishi Eclipse is relatively low and apparently a deer had jumped nearly cleanly right over the top of the car. No window or windshield breaks, dents, or scratches that I could find. Also no broken deer parts littering the gravel. Brome grass has grown up nearly as high as the car. Guess tomorrow will be a good day to try to mow along the road so a deer in the ditch might be seen and perhaps a deer might even see a car coming.
In the spirit of punilingus and Martha Stewart, "Near and deer" is not a very good thing

. ***Stay tuned even if your groan response to puns is far too close to a gag reflex-- 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

**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

**Gore Vidal on Articles of Impeachment..more on lies about lying

Below is a link to Truthdig with a comment by Gore Vidal on the Articles of Impeachment introduced by Dennis Kucinich. I wonder if the impeachment efforts would be languishing in Congress if Kucinich looked like Paul Newman did 20 years or so ago.
 Gore Vidal on Impeachment at TruthDig

**Stay tuned even if Gore Vidal can write a hell of lot better than I can-- Doug Wiken

**South Dakota primary election fallout

I don't know if there were any really big election surprises in South Dakota last night.  A few interesting bits of fallout show up today.  First perhaps is Sen. Tim Johnson saying he will support Sen. Clinton at the convention.  That must be one of the best political waffling jobs this year.  First suggesting he would support the choice of voters and then supporting the South Dakota barely winner but convention loser Sen. Clinton.  So much for the value of endorsements and and pallid futile gestures..

Over at Madville Times blog, a good map of SD election results showing apparently that all the Clinton time on SD reservations was not particularly rewarding.  Cory H. has some speculation on why.  Just as good or better than any of my speculation might be, so read his:

No Clinton Magic on the Rez
And in the world of blogging and SD primaries, Pat Powers went down in Brookings County Republican primary for state representative. He will however, get to go to the GOP convention to cast a vote for the Republican Presidential candidate most likely to be voted the best symbol for the death warmed over party

 

Pat Powers at SD War College
I suspect we will have to set up the SD Independent Blogger Party for any of us blatant enough to express opinions over our own real names in South Dakota to ever get any nominations of consequence.

And on the national front... I hope Obama will give John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and Hillary Clinton an opportunity to speak for at least 5 minutes at the Democratic National Convention.

 I kind of guess too that the value of endorsements is greatly over-estimated. Daschle, et al supporting Obama may have helped in SD, but it did not turn the Obama campaign into a barn-burner winner here either. By the same token, I believe concession speeches are greatly overestimated in their value, so let Hillary stomp barefoot in her sour grapes and give her time to make a fine whine.

 ** Stay tuned between now and November--- Doug Wiken

** Itty bitty gas guzzlers

The title "itty-bitty gas guzzlers is a bit misleading, but is how I feel right now anyway.  Most of the time, I drive a Mitsubishi Eclipse with a 1.8 L engine and a 5-speed manual transmission.  It gets pretty good gas mileage, and has a relatively small gasoline tank.  Despite this, I put a nickel less than $50.00 of gasoline in it this evening.  As usual I bitched at the counter.  The gal behind the counter said, "Well, at least it didn't cost $50 to fill a lawnmower."  Apparently somebody had put $20 of gas in a lawnmower today.  That'll teach 'em to fertilize.

One of my previous posts here has generated some comment in the SD BlogLand. The post is on running reasonably fuel efficient "junkers" instead of buying a new Prius or similar car.  I don't usually get traffic from SD Politics Blog which is almost always on the dreadful darkside of politics, but anyway, here is a link to their take on the issue.
NWLINK to SD Politics on Fuel efficiency, etc

And, to balance out the political perspective a bit, Cory H. at Madville Blog linked to that post and that generated a few interesting comments.
NWLINK to Madville Times on Gas and Jalopies

Cory Heidelberger made a most interesting point in a comment on his own post when he wrote that I had missed the obvious best option;ie, "Buying a used Prius". Anyway, that is probably enough of the circuitous web links to my own posts. I sure don't want to generate any comments in the vein of "Oh, what a tangled web we weave."

***Stay tuned for a post on something besides another post here--- Doug Wiken

**Jumping off the Microsoft Vista Sinking Ship ..floating off on a MAC

The South Dakota Moderate blogger has had enought of Mr. Gates Microsoft Vista operating system.
SD Moderate gives up on MS Vista

He gave up and bought an Apple Mac.

I have yet to read one good comment of consequence about MS Windows Vista operating system.
It sounds as if it is a system bloated with options nobody needs and that the OS demands system resources beyond the performance of the OS.

I think most of us want a system that can be installed and then keeps running and that allows all e-mail and web browsers to run without problems and can run programs like Irfanview, Quickbooks, text editors, etc. Nothing exotic. Regular OS updates that require powerful new computers or expensive upgrades to function worse than old OS versions are simply revenue generators that show contempt for computer users.

It is time for massive shifts by governments to LINUX and Opensource Office etc. The demands that college students and state employees use Microsoft products add a tremendous amount of expense for students, parents, and taxpayers.

Software developers can do us all a favor by refusing to produce products that require MS Vista. Microsoft also needs to be far less greedy on pricing its office software. Years ago, a functioning up-to-date computer cost 10 times as much as the MS software. Now, the software may cost twice as much as the computer.

**Stay tuned even if you are reading a blog that is edited with a $25 used school surplus computer with Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird-- Doug Wiken

**Is there an echo someplace?

I just decided I am awfully damn easy to flatter. Bernie Hunhoff drops a nice note into his Editor's Notebook about two blogs here in Tripp County and one of them happens to be mine and the other belongs to Lowdon Heller. At least, take a look at what Bernie wrote about Ideal News and Views...you already probably know more about Dakota Today than you need to know.
SD Magazine Editor's Notes on Ideal News and Views

Round and Round she goes. Where it stops nobody knows. Echo, echo , echo.........

But what the heck, I feel pretty good today about making a simple set of shelves for canned goods. Maybe I'll get around to putting some photos in here when I finish sanding and varnishing the plain old two by four studs I used to make it. Just the right depth for most canned goods. There they are in all their labeled glory so we don't have to wonder if we really should eat something that has something like "best when purchased by xxxxxxxx" where "xxxxxxx" is a date that was passed an embarrassingly long time ago.

And, the snow in yesterday's photo is just about all gone already here; but, it sounds like eastern South Dakota got a nasty late blast of 14 inches or so of snow. Good thing it wasn't also 20 degrees below zero.

***Stay tuned..and subscribe to South Dakota Magazine...help keep some 5 gallon buckets full of money here in South Dakota--Doug Wiken.

**New faces at Mt. Blandmore

The Rapid City Journal has Mt. Blogmore. Recently it won prizes. Recently also, it lost Bill Harlan who headed off to a public information and education job for the new research labs, etc. at Homestake and Sanford Research.

Just in the last day or so, the maverick look of Mt. Blogmore has been converted to the rather bland corporate standard homogenized look. It is so homogenized all the cream and flavor disappeared. Notice the boring similarity in the images below.

And you get the message, but there is one more out of the list of RCJ Blogs.

And in other changes, apparently instead of the semi-balanced basic posts used to stimulate discussion at Mt. Blogmore, we will get some posts more like something Bile O'Lielly or Calvinist Thomas might write on a particularly slanted day.

I suspect Mt. Blogmore may remain one of the best blogs in the country (it was honored as such recently), but I won't be holding my breath. One change is better however. Posts you or I might make are now shown as "pending" which is perhaps better than clicking save or post and then having the pixels disappear without so much as an error message. If Mt. Blandmore..er blogmore is still in a stage of flux, the HTML mavens at the RCJ might want to look for some slightly less bland WordPress themes. There have to be some better ones around somewhere.

Of course, people living in a glass blogs, shouldn't be throwing stones...I guess...maybe..ah what the hell.

**Stay tuned even if corporate bland is your favorite non-colorful--- Doug Wiken

**Denise Ross, Blogger is a noted Fellow

Some news from South Dakota Blogland. First, in the "Come Blow Your Own Horn" category, Denise Ross links to this:
NWL Argus says Denise Ross a Lusk Fellow

She tells all at her blog:
NWL to Hoghouse Blog "Fellow" Story

So, another congratulations to Denise Ross. Apparently she is telling students at SDSU about new kinds of journalism or journalism trends. I might guess she may even mention blogs in South Dakota as sort of a followup to her column in the Mitchell Daily Republic. Not sure if she mentions the relative transient nature of the various forms of media. Plain old dead tree media can be around for decades. Broadcast TV is instantaneously here and gone..even if it can be copied to tape or DVD, etc. Newspaper web sites are mostly somewhere between in that they can have news there for a few hours or for years even if not accessible to all readers, etc. So, existing media can move from transient to less transient or more transient. Not sure if that is at all significant or even trend worthy, but seems moderately interesting to me.

I also wonder if younger readers such as college students think about this as they use FaceBook, blogs, etc themselves.

And, one of my old jokes made for a cartoon: Two American Indians in the bad old days are on a hilltop looking down on a settler's cabin. Smoke is rising up in puffs from burning newspapers. One of them sees the puffs of smoke and says, "Nothing new there. It's yesterday's news."

Other news in SD Blogland is not surprisingly, another blog. Don't know if it is good, bad or whatever, but may have some interesting perspectives:
New Window Link (NWL) to "Cranium Creek Blog by Mike"

**Stay tuned even if a real spring without many cold days and snow might be on the horizon and we could all find something to do outside-- Doug Wiken