Dakota Today

**OLD YEAR GONE. NEW YEAR...WELL...

Happy New Year to all (or both) of you who read this blog.

In about four days, I have to decide if I want to keep this going or move to something like Salon's Radio Logs again, or try to catchup with new options at Blogger and Blogspot.

There are features I like here. Decisions, Decisions. Money, Money and the shortage thereof.

Anyway... Here is a suggestion for a new year's resolution; Get on the Express Train to the White House with Dr. Howard Dean. The Dean campaign is different. It is not relying on personal fortune or huge contributions from a few special interest industry groups or the highest income citizens. Nope, The Dean campaign has just broken some more contribution records and it was not contributions from 10 or a thousand of the very rich. Nope something over 100,000 people contributed.

The Howard Dean campaign scares the crap out of the Washington insiders and the Sunday morning gasbags. They just don't get it; but they do understand that they are not a part of it. The high priced consultants, the any results for a dollar pollsters, etc. won't be siphoning millions from the Dean campaign. It is diverse and dispersed. Thousands of people ready to knock on doors, compose and mail hand-written notes, hold house parties to raise a few hundred dollars, etc. This is a huge team ready to push and pull to end the Neo-Neanderthal's domination of the corridors of power in Washington, DC.

Make the resolution and get going. You really do have the power.

Oh, and if enough of us do it, We really will have some more HAPPPY NEW YEARS

))) Doug Wiken, just one more guy ringing out the old and ringing in the new...tinkle, tinkle.

**Howard Dean On New Track to White House

News By Andrew Gumbel
Howard Dean has mobilised the apathetic, the disaffected and the downright angry to forge a grassroots coalition that has the Bush administration worried - and in the process, he's torn up the rule book of modern political campaigning. Andrew Gumbel reports

In some respects, the Dean campaign is catching on to something the Republicans have already understood: that to win national elections, it is a mistake to focus your energies on courting the swing voters in the middle, who don't pay much attention and can't be trusted to base their ultimate decision on anything more substantial than a candidate's smile or haircut. Rather, the important thing is to energise your base, give them something to be passionate about and get them to go out and mobilise the undecideds. The 2000 Bush campaign achieved this through churches and other community groups; Dean's church is the internet. He has even borrowed some of the language of the right. His slogan "Take Back America" is exactly the rallying cry used by the Republicans when they dramatically retook control of the House of Representatives in 1994.

In other respects, though, what Dean is doing is an entirely new departure because of his relinquishing of central control. The candidate's actual policy platform is fixed, but everything else is essentially up for grabs, as Mike Meurer observes: "Other campaigns are fanatical about controlling the messenger and the message. They want a command and control structure in dealing with the volunteers."

More at the link. Interesting observations which may help explain why Howard Dean support in the polls keep increasing and those of Sen. Kerry and Lieberman steadily decline. The current rather strident and deceptive attacks on Howard Dean seem to be a good measure of the lack of foresight and ever increasing desperation and despair of his primary opponents whose Bush-Lite campaigns are as inspiring and motivating as moldy rags.

Howard Dean is on another track that runs directly to the White House. ))))))) Doug Wiken

**MAD COW DISEASE

The discovery that meat from a downed cow in the NE of the US has gotten into the food distribution channels is bad news for consumers and for those of us who raise cattle. I hope to put together some good links on this subject. This post is limited to a comparison of this to another recent catastrophic event.

In the last few days, we have had Ag Secretary Venneman telling us they are doing as much as possible and essentially that this could not have been forseen, etc sounds nearly as hollow as Condosleeza Rice claiming that on one in the Bush administration could have forseen terrorists using an airplane as a weapon.

I have read that the Bush Thug administration cut something like $80 Million from meat inspection budget. This seems to also parallel Bush making big headlines and holding press conferences on saving our forests by clearing trash brush, etc. I just read that officials in the Black Hills of SD claim they will receive less than half of the funding they need for such work in the Bush budget.

Starting to see a couple of patterns? There is a huge gap between what the Bush Thug administration says and what it does or fails to do. One should probably not be surprised by that. Every major GOP program of recent years has started with a lie...they aren't even honest when they title a program.

Stay tuned..it now appears the Bush Thug administration is stonewalling reporters on the BSE downer cattle mess. This is the worst possible way to restore confidence in the US meat industry. I fear we can expect that the Bush Thugs care less about consumers and meat producers if their interests conflict with the Bush Thugs covering their asses with paper or secrecy to avoid blame for their failures.

))))))) Doug Wiken

** MERRY CHRISTMAS

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

Another year nearly gone. Pretty nice weather for this time of year on the plains of South Dakota. Still above freezing as the sun is setting and was over 45 degrees F. today. It was officially Christmas, but I guess we will be celebrating it a day or two later since family travel and in-law celebrations would conflict. No problem, because this is much simpler for all of us. I hope weather is good for the kids traveling to and from college.
In the midwest the holidays seem to come at some of the worst times for long-distance travel; but this year is probably better than most.

I was sent a link to a University site with kind of an interesting and nice "Merry Christmas" virtual card with some nice music too. It takes awhile to load, but be patient. Sort of fun. Somebody put some work into the card. Hope you enjoy it.

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University Chapel Greetings

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**Mozilla - Home of the mozilla, firebird, and camino web browsers

mozilla - home of the mozilla, firebird, and camino web browsers

I was using Opera 7 without problems with TypePad; but after a week or so use of Opera, I started getting "Network Error" message. No other useful information in the message box.. I deleted Opera and reinstalled, but could not get it working. I had a CD from January 2004 MAXIMUMPC magazine with a copy of Mozzilla Firebird on it. Got it semi-installed and am now testing TypePad Quick post with it.. It works. I could not get that to work with Opera.

In any case, I thought it would be appropriate to test TypePad's quick post on the Mozilla page. So, if you are looking for an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firebird may be a useful option.
))))))) Doug Wiken

**Scirus - A Science-specific Search Engine

Scirus - Search
This site was noted in a Lockergnome newsletter. If it actually filters out all the sports and movie star trash, it will be useful. Below is text copied from the "about page". Try this and see how it compares with Google. Below is a search for information on "Homestake Mine Neutrino Research". Which relates to a very significant South Dakota science and development issue that is probably being screwed up by politics of Bush family and their connections to Barrick Mining and attempts to denigrate the work already done by Democratic Senators Daschle and Johnson.

Scirus Search --Homestake Neutrino, etc.

))))))))) Doug Wiken

Scirus is the most comprehensive science-specific search engine on the Internet. Driven by the latest search engine technology, Scirus searches over 150 million science-specific Web pages, enabling you to quickly:

• Pinpoint Scientific, Technical and Medical data on the Web.
• Find the latest reports, peer-reviewed articles and journals.
• Locate university sites and scientists' home pages that other search engines miss.

Scirus has proved so successful at locating science-specific results on the Web that the Search Engine Watch Awards

**White House Covers Tracks by Removing Information

Misleader.org: Daily Mislead

In a high-tech cover-up, the Washington Post this morning reports the White House is actively scrubbing government websites clean of any of its own previous statements that have now proven to be untrue.1 Specifically, on April 23, 2003, the president sent his top international aid official on national television to reassure the public that the cost of war and reconstruction in Iraq would be modest. USAID Director Andrew Natsios, echoing other Administration officials, told Nightline that, "In terms of the American taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the US. The American part of this will be $1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."

The president has requested more than $166 billion in funding for the war and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

[[[[[ More at the site. Good link to check now and then. It is a project of Moveon.org. ]]]]]]

**Give Janklow a New Trial-- For First Degree Manslaughter

Well, after having his lawyer express some degree of satisfaction that a
jury of his peers had done him justice, Bill Janklow is now indicating he
wants to appeal his conviction on Second Degree Manslaughter and get a new
trial.

Those of us not lawyers can offer all kinds of ideas. It appears to me that
Janklow's attempt to use his problem with drugs for diabettes and not
following sensible eating behavior as a defense for 2nd Degree manslaughter
has in fact opened him up for being charged with First Degree Manslaughter.

If destroying one's perception and sense with alcohol automatically converts
crash consequences into first degree manslaughter, doing it by ignoring
doctors and dieticians instructions for an illness should seem to indicate
even more arrogant carelessness and negligence than that produced by alcohol
abuse.

Janklow supporters have claimed for years how incredibly intelligent Janklow
is. They have touted his incredible memory.

Anybody who has driven as much as Janklow apparently has and also ran as
many stop signs and done as much speeding as he claims he has, has also had
the experience of having a vehicle seem to suddenly appear nearly
immediately in front of you at an interesection.

This occurs because of a combination of geometry and speed and is the reason
a dead stop at a stop sign should be always obeyed. With the right
combinations of speed and distance, a vehicle approaching at a right angle
can be completely hidden behind a vehicle windowshield frame or door frame.
Only a dead stop will break up this geometry.

Somebody with Janklow's driving history and much blathered intelligence
knows this from experience..probably dozens of times.

One might assume a teenager driving for the first few months will be unaware
of this geometry and the "sudden" appearance of a previously unseen vehicle
possibility. Anybody who has driven for years can not claim such ignorance
as an excuse for contributing to a crash fatality.

Compound that with a willing refusal to follow instructions probably every
diabetic is familiar with and it seems to me there is a case of willful,
arrogant, reckless disregard for the rights and safety of other drivers
implicit in going through a stop sign at a speed the same or exceeding the
speed for open highways.

So, give Janklow his new trial and use the evidence already presented in his
first trial as the basis for prosecuting him for both first and second
degree manslaughter and let him find out what juries think about his
arrrogant, reckless disregard for the rights and safety of Randy Scott and/or
anybody else on the same highways as Janklow.

Time to get him off the roads forever and out of our politics too. He has polluted
and distorted SD politics for too many years. Years will be required to get a proper
balance restored between legislature and executive. Again, the real shame is that
an innocent from Minnesota had to die to get Janklow properly vanquished and already
Janklow is trying to dig himself out of his political grave.

**Republican House Censorship Bill

Here is the American Association of University Professors' take on the censorship bill:

AAUP ORG
Follow their links for further info. A sample:

"Committee A deplores the efforts of supporters of the Academic Bill of Rights, who are engaged in a duplicitous game: to undermine the very foundations of academic freedom (which rests on the autonomy and self-governance of faculties) in the name of protecting it," says Joan Wallach Scott, professor of history at the Institute for Advanced Study and the chair of the committee.

More

The above comments from the AAUP concern an attempt by the Republicans in the US House to censor professors who do not follow the administration line on foreign policy with regard to specific countries. This really is egregious. Current thinking seems to be that the US Senate is not so braindead as to allow crap legislation like this to become law. The magnetic fields of the earth might be flopping around right now if Our Founding Fathers could actually spin in their graves at news like this. )))) Doug Wiken

**Linux 2.6 Unleashed

Linux 2.6 Unleashed

December 18, 2003

Linux 2.6 Unleashed

By Jim Wagner

The keepers of the Linux kernel, Open Source Development Labs' (OSDL) Andrew Morton and Linus Torvalds, have released Linux 2.6.0, the first update to the popular kernel (define) in nearly three years.
According to the discussion lists they maintain, Morton, the 2.6 kernel maintainer, and Torvalds, the Linux kernel creator, have spent the past several weeks tweaking the latest beta version of the kernel, test9. In this release, they are touting huge gains for companies that use the Linux operating system to run their servers.
"With the new kernel, I think we're getting closer to Linux for everyone," Torvalds said Thursday. "I think this is the best yet and I had a lot of fun working on it," he said in a statement.

Notable to the new kernel is support for 64-bit computing, hyperthreading and improvements in dual- and multi-processor network setups, with scalability up to 16 processors. This is a vast improvement over the 2.4 kernel, which was primarily developed and tested in a single-processor environment.

Microsoft is not the only game in town. Gotta keep up with Linux too...where to find the time? And of course, where to find the money.