Dakota Today

*** What would Republicans be saying if..........?

I have thought a bit about what South Dakota Republican hacks and apologists would be saying if their party's Washington GOP leadership had control of the US Senate and Obama treated them as they have treated him.  The parallel function used in the same way would mean Obama would veto every piece of legislation they passed.  This would require them to come up with the extraordinary majority just as the GOP leadership filibuster threat now requires the Democratic-controlled US Senate to do.

Legislation vetoed requires a 2/3 vote to override a veto.

We would be hearing literal screams of "Obstructionism", "irresponsible behavior", etc.,... ad nauseam.... to the point of screaming for constitutional amendments restricting presidential power.  We would not only be hearing it from our own South Dakota GOP hacks, but the multitude of GOP bloggers continuously sobbing and wringing their hands about the evil liberal media would be having near fits of outrage, the beautifully- named foundations and "think tanks" funded by the likes of Koch Industries and Richard Mellon Scaife would be turning out pseudo-scholarship with froth on every page.

So, the next time you hear an apologist for the Washington GOP leadership claiming that Obama and the Democratic Congress have done too much or too little (they like to have their cake and eat it too), ask them how well a GOP-controlled Congress would be viewed if everything they tried to get done was vetoed by a Democratic President and required a 2/3 vote and if they think that would be fair, responsible, or just partisan game playing..

A bit of the same sauce for goose and gander.

*** Stay tuned even if you think the TEA "Party" is a spontaneous ground roots explosion of political concern --- Doug Wiken

List of Latin phrases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Link: List of Latin phrases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

his page lists direct English translations of common Latin phrases, such as veni vidi vici and et cetera. Some of the phrases are themselves translations of Greek phrases, as Greek rhetoric and literature reached its peak centuries before that of Ancient Rome.

Be aware that the Latin letter I can be used as either a vowel or a consonant. When used as a consonant, it is often replaced by the letter J by Medieval convention—hence phrases like de iure are often spelled de jure. For ease of reference, all Latin words that sometimes use J will be rendered with I on this list, as both spellings are often common, making finding phrases that could use either spelling difficult.

Might even be able to find "non seequater" spelled correctly. " Non Sequitur". Whatever, probably a good place to find out how everything old is new again...or something like that.

***Stay tuned but carpe diem too---Doug Wiken

**Turkey not too swift

A few days ago my wife saw a couple turkeys walking across the road early in the morning. I saw one a day or so ago, but did not have a camera. Today I didn't have a camera, but saw the turkey and decided to return home for the camera.

When I got back, It was just getting across the road as it was moving from one field to another. It did not seem particularly afraid of my pickup truck.

It did get a bit worried about that time and sneaked through the grass under the fence and into some trees. By the time I got the pickup turned a bit and another window rolled down and camera aimed and focused again, the turkey was about 80 feet away.

Clicking on either image will enlarge it. I guess I hope there is a pair of them that survive the current hunting season . I would guess they and pheasants can survive in the same general area, but I really don't know. That is the first turkey I have seen in this part of the county. Most of the hunting is done in the south end of the county which has more sand, flowing water and trees.

**Stay tuned even if these are non-political turkeys--- Doug Wiken

Yahoo! News - Senate May Ban Releases That Imitate News

Link: Yahoo! News - Senate May Ban Releases That Imitate News.

enate May Ban Releases That Imitate News

Thu Apr 14, 6:56 PM ET

Add to My Yahoo! Politics - U. S. Congress

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Senate passed a measure Thursday that would stop government agencies from using taxpayer funds to disguise video press releases as real news, putting the brakes on a product Democrats call propaganda.

President Bush cautioned that some responsibility for full disclosure rests with news outlets.

"It's deceptive to the American people if it's not disclosed," Bush told the American Society of Newspaper Editors on Thursday. "But it's incumbent upon people who use them to say, 'This news clip was produced by the federal government.'"

Senators voted 98-0 to attach the measure, sponsored by Sen. Robert Byrd (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., to the $80.6 billion emergency spending bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under it, taxpayer funds would be prohibited from being used for prepackaged news stories unless those stories contain "clear notification within the text or audio of the prepackaged news" that discloses it was prepared or funded by a federal agency.

That way, said Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the authors of the packages cannot be held liable for news outlets that do not disclose the funding source on their own.

The amendment writes into law a Government Accountability Office opinion that said the Bush administration has violated rules against "publicity and propaganda" with releases from several agencies.

More at link above detailing a few of the things the Bush adminstration did to make propaganda appear to be "news".

**Stay tuned...even if the only disclaimer here might be "Republicans specialize in toxic solutions to non-existent problems"...--Doug Wiken

Broadcasters Must Reveal Video Clips' Sources, FCC Says (washingtonpost.com)

Link: Broadcasters Must Reveal Video Clips' Sources, FCC Says (washingtonpost.com).

Broadcasters Must Reveal Video Clips' Sources, FCC Says

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 14, 2005; Page A02

Television broadcasters must disclose to viewers the origin of video news releases produced by the government or corporations when the material runs on the public airwaves, the Federal Communications Commission said yesterday.

The FCC's ruling comes as video news releases produced by the Bush administration and aired as part of local television news reports have come under attack from critics who call them unlabeled Republican propaganda.

More information at link above. I think a bill as also passed by large margins today in the Senate. I will try to find more information on that.

This is a small step in the direction of truth in journalism. I have written government press releases and then seen them turned into AP stories and which ended up in papers looking like research done by some hardworking journalist. Hell of a deal for our agency at the time, but it made me think that every news story in newsapers remotely related to politics or government should come with footnotes indicating if it was from an agency or corporate news release, etc. etc.

**Stay tuned. Maybe we will learn that Sen. Byrd did us another big favor--Doug Wiken

**Alternate View of Public Broadcasting

Link: Alternate View of Public Broadcasting

Take a look at this site if the future of public broadcasting in the US interests you. There is a brief history and a suggestion for endowment funding of public broadcasting. There is also mention of authorization of public broadcasting to sell off bandwidth that becomes available because of digital broadcasting.

Pick up your phone and call anybody in the public broadcasting system you can talk to and ask what is going on with public broadcasting ownership in South Dakota.

**Stay tuned. More to come--- Doug Wiken

**Underground physics: Searching for neutrinos in deep places (But not in SD)

Link: Underground physics: Searching for neutrinos in deep places.

Underground physics: Searching for neutrinos in deep places

Posted on: Sunday April 10, 2005.

HUGE NEUTRINO DETECTOR – Billions of NuMi-made neutrinos pass through the MINOS Far Detector each day, but only about 10 strike an atomic nucleus inside and are detected. Image courtesy: Argonne National Laboratory.

A new physics experiment combines thousands of tons of steel plates, a powerful particle accelerator and 450 miles of solid rock to reveal the secrets of a particle that sometimes seems to barely exist.

Researchers in Argonne's High Energy Physics Division were instrumental in getting the experiment, called the Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS), launched in the late 1980s, and later designed and built many of the detector components. By providing the first precise measurements of some of the most fundamental properties of neutrinos, MINOS physicists expect to shed new light on the role these particles played in shaping the universe.

MINOS was built by a collaboration of more than 30 national laboratories, universities and scientific institutions from six nations. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) has the lead role. Construction was completed in early 2005, and the experiment is now beginning its initial five-year run.

Read the rest of the storyat the site. Sounds a lot like the research projected to occur in Homestake if converted to a lab.

Barrick Mining family friend Bush got elected and Daschle was defeated. Barrick and South Dakota Republicans don't need to play any more games. They have gotten what they wanted in politcs. Now, where's the beef?

**Stay tuned even if you dare only sneak deep underground looks at sites that aren't Republican froth...I won't tell anybody--- Doug Wiken

**SD Pub Radio Sports Minds

Golly Gee Whiz. South Dakota Public Radio is devoting a noon forum to jocks. And probably to nobody's amazement after listening to a few months of noon forum these days, the primary host Gary Ellenbolt has a background in sports broadcasting. Who'd a thunk it?

Rah, Rah....SDSU sports...Rah, Rah, rah rah. Ellenbolt can't get out of the rah, rah mode. Just what we need is another medium in South Dakota ready to rah, rah the GOP boondoggles and whatever else needs rah, rah reporting..

More seriously, Why is South Dakota Public broadcasting transferring ownership of license from one board to another? I talked to a former member of their board who guesses (but doesn't know) that this is a way to make it possible for the state to sell off public broadcasting broadcast rights which will be effectively expanded by digital broadcasting.

I sure don't know. SD Public Radio will not respond to my letters, or e-mail or allow me to call into their newly ditzy noon radio forums, so somebody with access to the holy high priests of SD radio and TV might do some checking.

SD public broadcasting facilities and system are kind of a public trust or asset something like Mt. Rushmore. I realize that the Mt. Rushmore parking lot and concessions have been farmed out to corporations. I don't think we want to see the broadcasting assets of SD Public Broadcasting to be auctioned off to the most egregious corporate propaganda media.

The expansion of broadcasting opportunity should be used to provide more high quality broadcasting not a new way to propaganize the whole state with commercial pap.

Comments welcome.

**Snow Surprise

I would almost swear yesterday's weather forecasts indicated sunshine and 50 to 60 degree temperatures here today, but that sure wasn't what we had for weather. There was rain this morning and temperature was around 40. As I plinked away on the computer or yacked on the phone, I was watching the outdoor temperature drop. In an hour or so, it dropped into the area of 32 to 34 degrees. I could not longer here
the dripping rain. Turned around to see white.
Click to see larger version.

Big soppy wet flakes splattered on sidewalk leaving an inch wide splat until snow started to pile up to about a couple inches deep.
Wind started blowing from west. Snowed and blew hard for some minutes. Cars were covered.

Then it stopped and now a few hours later, the sun is shining and almost all that snow is gone. A few puddles and only a few small patches of white still in shaded areas. Meadowlarks are singing again.

South Dakota weather sure enough provides variety even if there isn't much else to spice up life around here. No wonder we talk about the weather....and already also the mosquitos. A little sunshine makes the world look brighter and compliments of daylight savings time, we will have another hour of the sunshine..well sort of.

**Stay tuned even if there isn't much politics in the pure white driven snow..or much pure as the driven snow in politics---Doug Wiken

**Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth..well ears maybe

In the area of best-laid plans going awry, my dear wife wanted to get the one night a year she gets away from work and taking care of her invalid mother and go to a concert that drifted into the boondocks. She bought the tickets..probably cheap at $15 each.. and also for a good cause...buying new lifeline units for the local hospital and the at-home and at-risk..of the " help, I've fallen and can't reach my lawyer"kind.
My Wife works at the hospital, so this was a good way to sort of combine business and pleaure.

Anyway....Because of some fluke of accidents, surgery, etc. the local home health nurses were unable to come when called at Noon and then were unable to assist my wife until about 8:30 in the evening. This as it turned out was about 3/4 of the way through the program, so her $15 ticket still is on the table. I went...as the family emissary..

The group Was the South Dakota Acoustical Group ... a very talented bunch. But the concert was in the high school/national Guard Auditorium/armory. This may be a good place to play basketball, but it is a downright crappy place for music of anykind. And sitting on wood bleachers takes most of the joy out of watching anything there.

And then to turn it into something close to real torture, they were blasting their acoustic instruments through speakers with volume somewhere near that of a major jet taking off. I could only stand to listen to them or hear the distinct instuments and voices if I firmly planted a finger in each ear. The soundman running their board must be deaf as a knotted post. If this had been in a bar, you could have sat in your car in a parking lot with the windows rolled up and heard everything.

I am no music critic, so you can take the rest of this with a huge grain of salt if you know better. They played a real mixture of stuff...gospels, rock and roll, old big band vocals, etc. With 10 of them there and guest piano player Jeremy Hegg (doubling on trumpet) , and most of the rest also being able to play multiple instruments, a few of their arrangements would have made Spike Jones proud. That is actually a compliment in this situation. These are good and versatile musicians.

After they got through with their eclectic mixture (somewhat ranging from "Ave Maria" to "The Dummy Song"), I decided to get one of their CDs for my wife since she had missed the program. We have
played "I Still Feel the Same" album several times. It is a lot easier to listen to and much more enjoyable when the volume is turned down to a tolerable level. As I said, I am not a music critic, but all their arrangements seem just a bit "fast" to me. Some music isn't made for racing through and they seem to have their music accelerator pedal on the floor nearly all the time. "Frenetic' might be an appropriate adjective. Of course others may call that "lively and energetic". YMMV of course.

Anyway, click on their site and see if you can buy a CD or two. While you are at it hit their "contact" option and suggest they update their site. You would be helping keep some culture here in the boondocks, and you might enjoy their music. They have a variety of CD's available since they have been at this for a decade or so. Hegg apparently has his own group called "SpoonCat". Buying a CD also helps a good group doing the packaging and distribution apparently. Kill several "birds" with one well-placed credit card charge.

I am sure that if this burg actually had a place with good acoustic for good music, all the school music programs and anything like this concert would have been and be much more enjoyable for both listeners and performers.
There is talk of an "events" center for Winner, SD, but knowing how this place works the events they probably have in mind are bigger wrestling tournaments or billiards tournaments and conditions for good music is somewhere beneath the 50th point on their excuses for dumping some more tax money to duplicate some existing screwup or make another mess of a project while they pat themselves on the back for several years...as local powers sell a little more concrete too..just to make the circle jerk complete.

**Stay tuned even if singing in the rain is not your idea of a good evening---Doug Wiken