Dakota Today

*** Income per square foot...farm, city.. and real estate taxes

OPINION: Sounds like our wonderful legislators are trying to find new ways to screw farmers and ranchers.  Most of us in rural areas are paying an awful lot of agricultural taxes and getting next to nothing in the way of direct services.  I understand we all benefit from better education of everybody and some of those educated people might even venture back to the boondocks and be of service to the rest of us.  However, in the Winner, SD school district, something like 20% of students come from rural areas, but 80% of the school taxes come from rural land.  That suggests to me that perhaps something other than agricultural farm and ranch land should be the target for mulcting more taxes.

If legislators think it is fair to charge more tax per acre (43,560 sq.ft) based on income land produces, perhaps they should be applying income production as a factor in taxing lawyers and doctors and insurance,  accountants,  barbers, repair shops, et al on a per sq. ft. basis.  A parsimonious lawyer working in a 10x10 office with 100 sq ft. may be making a few hundred thousand per year.  That kind of space husbandry means that space is worth a lot per square foot if sauce for the agriculturist is the same as sauce for the lawyer.  And, farmers and ranchers may also be paying most of the cost of legal libraries and courtroom space.

Too often what comes out of Pierre and the legislature is  a palliative rather than a cure or an actual solution.  Good heavens, if they actually pushed policies to actually solve problems, what would they pretend to do in the next session?

*** Stay tuned even if a blog can be written in 20 sq ft and return nothing in income---Doug Wiken

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*** Bloggers and others have first amendment press rights

NEWS: The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that bloggers and others have rights similar to those of the more conventional press.

Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press said the ruling affirms what many have long argued: Standards set by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., apply to everyone, not just journalists.

"It's not a special right to the news media," he said. "So it's a good thing for bloggers and citizen journalists and others."

Get the whole story here at Fox News (believe it or not).

OPINION: The ruling makes plain  that liability for a defamatory blog post which involves a matter of "public concern" cannot be imposed without proof of fault and actual damages.  It seems to this blogger that should have been obvious without a court ruling.  Giving corporations and businesses with deep pockets and a pool of lawyers the ability to crush somebody without such resources that finds fault with corporate and business greed or milking of government, etc. etc. destroys meaningful discussions of issues where government and public interests clash with corporate and business activities.

Apparently this is an extension of First Amendment protections that apply when a person is a public figure now also apply to public issues even if those involved are themselves not necessarily public figures.

Another link to another source of the same AP Story  in case Fox link disappears.

This puts a bit of a hole in the armor of those sanctimonious members of the established and profitable conventional press routinely suggesting that bloggers and non-press people with the audacity to scrible in the public domain are some kind of unworthy subspecies.

And here is a link to the Volokh Conspiracy written by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh who respresented Crystal L. Cox who blogs in Eureka, Montana.  Comments here are especially interesting and informative.

*** Stay tuned even if you have a stable full of over-paid legal beagles-- Doug Wiken

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*** Gov Christie and the ghost of Bill Janklow

Opinion: New Jersey governor Chris Christie seemed too much to me like Bill Janklow on  his most obnoxious days.  I have written and said before that when Bill Janklow took off on public radio with a long-winded burst of static about his service in the US Marines and how it changed him, it seemed to me he went in as a thug, bully, know-it-all, etc and came out a thug, bully, know-it-all, etc who could spit shine shoes.

Governor Chris Christie seems too much like a fatter-fakier smile version of Bill Janklow.  Read the article below and see if you recognize any similarities.

Truth Dig Chris Hedges  on What's Wrong with Chris Christie

South Dakota has been there before; but Janklow just shut down facilities that followed his orders and children died.

And another link on Christie and Public TV.  I guess SDPB people might know how Janklow manipulated public broadcasting in SD.

*** Stay tuned even if the wind and cold is coming our way again or already parked at our doorstep--- Doug Wiken

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*** Weather seesaw and merry-go-round in the Arctic

Weather: Temperatures go from very warm to very cold, precipitation from deluge to drought, gale winds to dead calm, etc.  These kinds of relatively rapid changes in local daily weather may be a symptom of long-term global climate change.  Today in Winner, SD we started the morning with frost on car windshields, then the sun was bright for a few hours.  Ice and snow melting, water in road ditches and creeks.  Earlier this evening it drizzled. Right now the wind is blowing 20mph and temperature is 44F. Dew point is 35F.

The link below may be helpful.  A neighbor found it while searching for weather information.  A little bit of real serendipity for once. It has more information than I have been able to digest yet however.

Weather Channel-- Stu Ostro's Meterology

Some of the retrograde anti-science South Dakota Republican legislators and editorial page editors won't find this while they search for weather on astrology sites.

*** Stay tuned even if our local weather is confounding us --- Doug Wiken

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***Ideefixe, anemoscope, duvet, etc...X-world words

OPINION:  I waste time working crossword puzzles.  Some are very easy, others offer such misleading "clues" or require odd historical or celebrity names not findable without computer access.  Recent crosswords had the words in the title..except "duvet" was in a comic strip.  Last year was the 100th anniversary of the invention of word cross er cross-word er crossword..puzzles.  Arthur Wynne invented them in December of 1913.  His daughter in a recent Public Radio interview said he was told his idea wasn't worth patenting or copywriting and he never received any reward beyond his existing job.

At one time, working crosswords was said to afford some protection against brain deterioration, I think that idea was recently buried.  I keep hoping anyway and my wife still seems to accept crosswords as a nearly legitimate waste of time.

Computers and electronic dictionaries can be a kind of cheat for some kinds of puzzles.  Word scrambles plugged into the word-generator game of an electronic dictionary are almost instantly solved.  Some sites specialize in recent crossword clues and answers.  Now and then I will be so irked by crappy clues that I check one.  Old books with crossword answers become less useful every year.  Word trends change.  Of course crossword writers like to play little games like using "Area" as a four-letter word for place or so on, and then after weeks of that, the same clue requires "zone" for an answer.  Some answers are so place-centric and inside New York or Los Angeles that only a local is likely to have a clue from the clue.

During an after-Christmas sale, I bought a calendar with daily puzzles.  Mensa says they are 10-minute puzzles.  I don't think I could write in the answers in that amount of time even if looking at the answer...or at least that is my current alibi for often taking more like 15 or 20 minutes to solve one.

Here are some related links which might help you with acute crossword frustration:

Crossword Heaven  Crossword Tracker  Electronic Crossword Solvers (ad)    Lots of Links(About.com)

If you want to frustrate somebody:  Crossword Maker (Educ)  

A week or so ago, Garrison Keillor read a poem about Crosswords.   I guessed that would be easy to find.  So far not, but I did find another Crossword Puzzles by Judith Chandler.  And, by using Google instead Of another search engine, I found what I had heard.  The part that I found interesting was her saying she would put a crossword down and come back to something that seemed insolvable but now was easy to solve.  Doesn't happen enough for me, but it does happen.  Crossword a poem by Sally Bliumis-Dunn   
And, when I have time maybe I will also get around to making one of those nearly impossible "Ken-Sense" quizes. 

WEATHER  Predictions are for better to come.  Today even current 23F is better and 8mph wind is also better.  Chill factor is 14F according to weather gizmo.  I may even get a more serious post in here if weather gets warmer.  Consider that a promise or a threat depending on your political perspective or mythology.

** Stay tuned even if this endnote is clueless-- Doug Wiken

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He's a Quarterback and He's OK...why the football leagues worry

In the not-news celebrity trash morning blather, is a report on the pro football player canned he claims because he supports gay marriage.  Oh well, others claim he isn't the greatest of all great football players.  Who cares?

Well, the League will care if Monty Python team gets on football like this:

ARTIST: Monty Python
TITLE: I'm a Lumberjack Quarterback
Lyrics and Chords


I'm a Quarterback and I'm okay
I play all night and I work all day
     He's a quarterback and he's okay
     He plays all night and he works all day

/ G - CE7 Am7 / D D7 GC G / :

I run down field, I earn my lunch
I go to the lavat'ry
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea
     He runs down field...
     He's a Quarterback...

/ G - C Am7 / D D7 G -  / G - C A7 / D7 - GC G / 

I run down field, I skip and jump
I like to press wild flow'rs
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars
     He runs down field...
     He's a quarterback...

I run down field, I wear high heels
Suspendies and a bra
I wish I'd been a girlie
Just like my dear papa
     He runs downfield...
     He's a fullback...WAHH! And I thought you were so RUGGED!

Source of the unedited version 

Ok, I just don't think  the hundred or more people working on CBS Morning blather with Charlie Rose as garnish for the celebrity trash presented as news really have enough to do if all they can find is crap about a football player and breathless twits standing in the cold so they can tell us they are freezing their asses off.

Hope you at least enjoy the old Monty Python group. They are a reminder of what TV really could do if marketing plastic junk, booze, and irrelevant fiction books weren't the primary drivers of commercial TV.

** Stay tuned and check into the brain damage to football players--- Doug Wiken

*** Too damn cold

Weather: Ghastly here now.  Wind 19mph, actual temp -7 and wind chill -30. Got cats and dogs fed and watered.  Weather gizmo shows also that peak wind was 28mph.

I realize current conditions are not an indicator of overall global warming, but right now it is hard to disagree with painted slogan on cardboard over a pickup radiator grill " GLOBAL WARMING-- BULL".

Perhaps these relatively rapid ups and downs in wind and temperature are actually just another indicator of the high variability in current weather possible with general global warming.

*** Stay tuned, but stay in if possible so you can read Dakota Today again-- Doug Wiken

 

 

 

 

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*** The New Year tiptoed in on catpaws in the snow

In the News: ABC on Sunday morning was shuffling through the past years big news stories.  One they mentioned was the bravery of Malala Yousafzai.  She is the Pakastani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban.  With a combination of powerful western medicine of the kind the Taliban views as a form of sin, and a powerful will to live and recover, Malala has become, according to ABC, a powerful spokesperson and founder of an organization pushing education for girls and women around the world.  She has turned bitter lemons into sweet lemonade and deserves applause and appreciation.

Opinion: The old men and the rabid young  jihadists pawing through ancient documents to interpret them as justifying killing and maiming innocents and "others" should instead be looking to Malala Yousafzai for guidance.  Malala should be considered a prophet.  She has the potential to return the Islamic world to the modern reality and rational relevance. Islamic scholars of a thousand or so years ago were on the forefront of investigative thinking and theorizing.  A program run on SDPB-TV was titled something like "One God..Three Religions--Jewish, Christian, and Islamic.  A scholar of the Koran says that the Taliban and others are a radical fringe of the religion and are distorting the religion for political purposes and profit to themselves.  A British theologian noted that ALL religions should come with the same kind of warnings on tobacco.  Religions can be hazardous to your mental health and physical well being or existence.  Those who claim to wear a god on their sleeves and use that to justify political policies are trying to present themselves as unerrant messengers of their god or gods and since religions demand unthinking faith feality separated from reality, the combination is very dangerous.

Local Weather: The new year weather seems a bit like "new boss same as the old boss".  The "trace" of predicted snow for this area turned into a few inches.  Fluffy and "dry" so a broom will clean 3 inches of it without much effort.  Weather gadget shows currrent Winner, SD temperature is 7F degrees.  Wind is 1mph and apparently chill factor is same as actual. Relative Humidity around 76%.

** Stay tuned even if comparing your own weather with our local weather  is producing intense schadenfreude -- Doug Wiken

 

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** Happy New Year ALL

First a local weather report for the evening here in Tripp County South Dakota.  About two hours to go until the new year.  Temperature is about 8F degrees with 89% humidity and light snow.  About a half to 3/4 inches of the white stuff so far.  Wind is 4mph and chill factor is 0F degrees.  Enough on the weather.

Some year ends we just hit the sack at about he usual time and sleep right through the magic hour.  I have drunk enough coffee to be wide awake to say goodbye to the old year and hello to the new and watch balls drop, etc.  A sort of funny cartoon today.  New Years Baby was late because he was being delivered by UPS.

I think I will watch the PBS waltzes from Austria tonight.  Earlier this evening I thought I was dreaming when I saw SDPB-TV with the NY Philharmonic with YoYo Ma playing next to an accordianist.  First time I have seen a squeeze box in that situation.  Lawrence Welk and Myron Floren probably chuckled if there is a heaven or hell.

May we all have happy, peaceful, healthy and prosperous new year.  Good Luck too.

And remember, GOOD NEIGHBORS DRIVE SOBER.

*** Stay tuned even if you won't hear Auld Lang Syne here--- Doug Wiken

 

*** Keloland reports Stanford Adelstein resigning from SD Senate

KELO is reporting that Stanford Adelstein is resigning from the SD Senate because of complications of hip surgery. 

The Resignation Story at KELOLAND

I am sorry to hear of his problems.  My wife had hip replacement surgery and so far that has helped her a lot.  But, one room away from her's at Sanford in Sioux Falls was a daughter of a Winner acquaintence.  We were both a bit surprised to meet in the hallway.  His daughter had a number of previous attempts at hip surgery and several had failed.  These had been done apparently in Texas and Arkansas.  Sanford determined these previous hip replacements failed because of staph infections.  I have not heard how she came out after her surgery at Sanford.  She was looking at having intravenous antibiotic injections for something like 60 days before Sanford would replace her failed joint or joints.  I hope she came out all right, but I don't know.

I did not agree with all of Adelstein's opinions and positions, but at least he was able to think for himself.  I wish him well.  Maybe he will have more time to raise hell at his blog...A Ways to Go.

I just noticed that Cory Heidelberger has More on Adelstein than does KELO.

And Stan has a Thanksgiving story about his MRSA infection and his hip replacements at the link to his blog above.

Almost all hospitals in the US need to adapt protocols that work to reduce MRSA infections and other hospital problems that kill thousands of people every year.  And maybe doctors and hog and cattle feeders will all think more about indiscriminant use of antibiotics.

*** Stay tuned but keep walking--- Doug Wiken

 

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