Weather is rotten, but so far not nearly as rotten here as elsewhere in SD. We were awakened about 4 AM last night when it sounded like house was being blasted with heavy pouring rain. But when I looked out, we were getting sleet and that was a lot like getting pelted with small marbles. Maybe an inch of that accumulated and then a few hours of something approaching clearing. Not too long ago, snow started falling in a 20mph wind. Temperature still around 34F, but chill factor more like 20F. So far roads are warm enough that snow and sleet has melted off.
On a totally different tack, I put a Patsy Cline CD into the car player. Unlike the slurred, mumbling that seems a current fashion every word of her mostly sad songs is easily understood. Classics like "Crazy", "San Antonio Rose", "Back in Babies Arms Again" and a few I have never heard before all remind me of what a loss that plane crash that killed her and others really was.
Hope the weather is better for you that that here, and I hope we all get back to something a bit warmer and drier. And I hope TV weather forecasters get over their apparent glee about relating blizzard forecasts and weather compared to one more gray drizzly day with moderate wind and temperature.
***Stay tuned for more of fhis less than profound Information---- Doug Wiken
The Rapid City Journal and other papers are carrying stories about police in SD hauling people they believe have ingested something that apparently only shows up in urine in hospitals or clinics and forcing them to have catheters stuck up their penis. This seems to be an indication of very impatient police who can't wait until somebody must urinate.
It also seems that if they must rely on this practice to get evidence, they did not have sufficient evidence to make an arrest to begin with. Reading this makes it sound as if we have police behaving as interrogation torture specialists in the Soviet Gulag.
And then there are the cops in New Orleans and Minneapolis acting like Nazi death squads putting six bullets into the back and chest of a guy pinned to the ground in New Orleans and in a car in Minneapolis when the cop ordered him to produce a license and then shot and killed him when he reached for it. The cop had stopped him for a broken taillight. I worked enough with law enforcement to know this is a probable cause for stopping a vehicle to determine if the driver is drunk. Apparently this guy was not drunk and had his kid and girlfriend in the vehicle. That cop should have given him a warning ticket giving him X days to fix the light and walked back to this patrol car to search for an actual problem.
Nearly every week we get news which suggests that law enforcement should not be allowed to carry guns. Police are behaving like Nazi death squads.
Time for legislators to wake up and get full and complete control of death-dealing law enforcement and full investigations of such behavior.
*** Stay tuned even if you are so naive you don't believe cops can misbehave--- Doug Wiken
Sometime ago, I posted an obituary for a son of George McGovern. In the last few days, that is getting a lot of hits. I assume people are searching this because of recent "news" stories about alleged Senator McGovern's youthful indiscretions.
Interesting that the hint of scandal generates hits even when the post is completely unrelated.
There is real news in South Dakota, but some of it is not being seen because Trans Canada is blasting media with large ads. The ads I have seen are filled with assertions that are either irrelevant or do not relate well to know facts about pipeline dangers to water supplies of all kinds.
***Stay tuned and hope you never have to relay on bottled water shipped in because of a pipeline break dumping toxic solvents into South Dakota rivers, reservoirs, or aquifers.--- Doug Wiken
Not too often that SD gets mentioned in Atlantic Monthly of all places. Now and then an author from SD gets mentioned. The recent reference to South Dakota was less than flattering however.
In a story on botched executions, South Dakota is mentioned...not for botched executions, but for the prison buying murderous drugs perhaps illegally. When drug companies stopped selling drugs made for one purpose, but used by states to make state-sponsored murder and revenge possible, the states started looking for drugs in odd places.
So they looked even further afield. In late 2010, a company in Mumbai, Kayem Pharmaceuticals, received an email from the Nebraska Department of Correctional services. Officials there wanted an anesthetic that Kayem made mostly clients in Angola: Sodium Thiopental. Kayem sold Nebraska 500 vials, enough for more than 80 executions. Soon after, Fox's boss wrote to Kayem to explain how Nebraska planned to use their product. When South Dakota officials tried to place an order, Kayem jacked up the price to $20 per vial, hoping the cost would dissuade them. It didn't. South Dakota bought 500 vials. Kayem stopped selling the drug to the use immediately after that.
(The above was found on page 73 of the June 2015 ATLANTIC MONTHLY)
It appears that the US DEA seized several states collection of prison execution drugs purchased imported illegally since a company Hospira was the only pharmaceutical company allowed to sell it in the US and they refused to sell it to prisons for executions, South Dakota is not listed as one of the states where drugs were seized however.
I find it ironic that those we trust to enforce laws honestly are willing to purchase drugs illegally or with deception to facilitate "painless" executions. I find many murders terrible, egregious, vicious, primitive, etc. I can understand why some people (especially relatives of those savagely murdered) think these thugs ought to be executed. These particularly terrible cases make it seem executions should be practiced. But, it is said that tough cases make bad law.
The problem however is that our government systems are not perfect or often even honest, or even really scientifically correct or knowledgeable in collecting evidence or applying it. The FBI was recently determined to have used a very flawed hair identification system that put apparently several hundred people in prisons, many who were later shown to be innocent by better data and perhaps nine completely innocent executed as well. Couple these flawed systems with incompetent police investigations and prosecutors and judges altogether too willing to exploit murder cases for political gain and we have systems that become murder machines in the name of all of us.
Life sentences should be preferable to irreversible state-sanctioned murder when the systems are all possibly flawed so that innocent people can be executed in primitive revenge systems. We are all dirtied by the death penalty. It is also very unlikely that it actually deters crimes.
It is interesting that our neighbor red state, Nebraska, is now seriously considering ending the death penalty there.
And our SD US Senator John Thune is shilling for the big money ISPs who don't want FCC regulation. You may wonder how after seeing what AT&T is doing why anybody in their right mind would not want more regulation of the internet and ISPs as public utilities. Thune has demonstrated he cares more for a Canadian pipeline company and for AT&T and other ISPs already making billions than he cares for the voters of South Dakota. He is a shill for whatever industry dumps money into his campaign funds. Logic and even ideology have little to do with his issue positions.
And, meanwhile, back in the department of blue and black or brown or white and black dresses, I suspect differences between us may have something to do with our relative sensitivity of the rods and cones in our eyes. With particular images and particular color and light levels, a slight shift in relative sensitivity of rods and cones might shift light colors to plain white light, etc. But, I sure don't know, but suspect a simple explanation like this might reduce a lot of humbug arguments. I was away from the internet for a few days and was wondering what all the fascination for that striped dress was about...cartoons, Facebook, etc.
I guess we all need to be glad our eyes put a little color into our lives even if some of us may have more or less color sensitivity than others have. Whatever..........
Well, it really is no country for anybody driving here today. Snowing heavily, not just a trace as predicted. Temperature dropped rapidly earlier this morning from about 31F to 15F and wind with snow started. Visibility is limited.
Right now my weather gizmo shows winds between 15 and 20mph with actual temp 12F and chill factor about minus 13F. Not nice at all. My wife looked out the window at the blizzard near Winner and said something like, "Only about 90 days until Spring."
I do wish near weekend and actual weekend forecasts for this area were just a bit more precise. I was under the impression that morning would be OK around 30. That did not last past about 9AM when wind switched to north and snow started. It has been snowing now for about nine hours.
*** Stay tuned and hope it doesn't stay like this for 45 days--- Doug Wiken
Residents of South Dakota. Check your broadband speed with the SD Speedtest. Your test will both let you know how speedy is your ISP and also help get us better service in South Dakota.
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