The Associated Press is a Liar

Powerline has been hot on this story.  AP reported March 1st that Bush was warned about levee breaches in New Orleans as Katrina approached. 

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned

President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.  . . .

Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility — and Bush was worried too.

Thus Bush was caught in another lie.  He said that no one anticipated a breach of the levees, when clearly they had.  The only problem with this report was that it was false.  What Bush was warned about was the possibility that a storm surge would rise over the levees.  That would have been a very different kettle of fish.  Bush didn't lie.  The AP did. 

There Is A God

Here is a story near and dear to the hearts of those of us flying in the next 24 hours. 

Jim Jordan

As the Boston Globe reported this week, Tom Daschle is funding a "permanent campaign" against GOP Senators.  The guy who is leading the effort, Jim Jordan, was part of a crazy campaign in South Dakota in 1996, as this article from my hometown paper explains (also note the discussion of current Sioux Falls mayor candidate Vernon Brown):

Pressler Accuses Johnson of Conspiring

By Noel Hamiel and Kim Dohrer

Mitchell Daily Republic (9/28/96)

Sen. Larry Pressler Friday accused Rep. Tim Johnson’s campaign of orchestrating the gay issue to damage Pressler’s re-election bid and said Johnson’s press secretary had boasted about that strategy weeks ago.

During a conference call Thursday morning, Pressler told reporters that Johnson’s press secretary, Jim Jordan, had bragged that the Johnson forces “were going to cut my liver out with this smear.”

When contacted about the charge immediately after the conference call, Jordan declined to comment, saying he would release a prepared statement.

He later faxed a denial of Pressler’s charge, calling the allegations “silly.”

Jordan said “no such conversation ever took place.  Congressman Johnson has condemned this attack on Senator Pressler and said those responsible should apologize.”

Johnson said Friday afternoon that he supports his press secretary and dismissed Pressler’s charges as a desperate act.

However, Pressler said KELO-TV reporter Vernon Brown had heard Jordan’s remarks, as did one of Pressler’s aides.  Pressler also cited a letter to him from a Rapid City woman, Jane Rogers, that said she was told months ago by a member of Johnson’s staff that “some bad stuff was going to come out about you later in the campaign.”

The letter continued: “Johnson’s staff member went on to say that a book had been written which accused you of being gay.”

Johnson on Friday denied his staff had put any information out relating to “Washington Babylon,” the book by Alexander Cockburn that said Pressler married in 1981 “amid speculation that he was gay.”

“Jim (Jordan) denies any such conversation ever took place and interestingly, Vernon Brown has not confirmed any such conversation took place, so what you have is a desperate political stunt on the part of Pressler’s staff, trying to fabricate conversations that never occurred.

“I think it’s sad and I think it’s pathetic,” Johnson said.

Earlier this week, Johnson said he didn’t believe the allegations about Pressler made by Cockburn.  And, he criticized former Sen. Jim Abourezk for promoting Cockburn and his book as doing a disservice to voters.  Johnson said he deplored and was “genuinely saddened by Jim Abourezk’s personal attack upon Larry Pressler.”

But Pressler said Jordan’s comments and the letter from Rogers show Johnson knew of the gay issue in advance and its use against Pressler.

He said he was considering legal action against Johnson.

The question reporters should ask Johnson, Pressler said, was “what did Johnson know and when did he know it?”

KELO’s Brown, when contacted by The Daily Republic Friday, would neither confirm nor deny that Jordan made the comments.  But he acknowledged that he was at a Sioux Falls bar with Jordan and Lisa Lutterman, a field representative for Pressler.

“We were at the Brew Pub and Lisa Lutterman, who works for the Pressler office was also there, and I invited her to join us at the table and all of us had conversation—a very social conversation—about the campaign and how it was going.  Lisa repeatedly asked me to promise I would not tell her supervisors that she had talked to us, so my understanding was that it was an off the record conversation.

“I don’t feel like as a reporter, I can’t go on the record about what was happening there when I agreed to go off the record,” Brown said.

When asked if the there was a discussion of the gay issue, Brown would not comment.

Lutterman said Friday she was with friends at the Brew Pub on Aug. 15 when Brown motioned her over to the table where he and Jordan were sitting.

“Jim Jordan was just ugly, mean spirited and boasting he would help destroy Larry Pressler, and the last thing the man said to me—a direct quote—was he was going to take Larry Pressler’s liver and rip it out.”

When told that Brown would not confirm or deny her comments, Lutterman said, “All I can tell you is it happened.  I’m assuming he (Brown) is keeping it off the record to protect Jim Jordan.  They are friends.”

Pressler said Johnson could have acted earlier, but his failure to do so until after the public outrage must be taken as an attempt to destroy his political career.

“So this was an attempt to destroy me, my career and also destroy South Dakota by allowing this venom.”

“I am charging that Tim Johnson knew,” Pressler said.

Asked if it was possible that Johnson did not know what his press secretary allegedly said, Pressler said that would be unlikely.

“But even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he could have disassociated himself from this.”

Meanwhile, South Dakota Attorney General Mark Barnett, a Republican, issued a letter to the state’s daily newspapers Friday afternoon.

“Many people will agree that Jim Abourezk has launched a sleazy and unfounded attack on Sen. Pressler.  Tim Johnson says that he thought it was “deplorable” and is distancing himself from the attack.  I have some questions for Congressman Johnson:

“Did you read the press accounts that indicated this attack was coming?  Did you or any of your staff discuss it ahead of time?  With Abourezk?  Did you make any effort to stop it?”

Barnett said he generally does not get involved in other candidate’s campaigns, but in this case he felt obligated to raise some questions that had not bee sufficiently answered.

On Leave

Some Friday morning posts below.  Just to inform the readers out there, I will be leaving for a camping trip in Texas late this morning so all blogging from me will cease until I return on Sunday, March 12. 

NYT

New York Times:  Clinton Challenger Pulled from Reagan-Era Hat

Daschle

Human Events Online:

Daschle's Revenge? Another Liberal Advocacy Group

Perhaps still smarting from being ousted from Congress former Majority Leader Tom Daschle has created yet another liberal advocacy group, this one's  mission to launch a "permanant campaign" against Republican senators.

Daschle is hoping to raise $2 million to create the Senate Majority Project, to act as an opposition reseach clearinghouse based on the "GOP's vast opposition-research campaigns run at the national and state level, which dig up Democrats' votes and position on controversial issues."

The site right now is formatted in a blog style, but the Boston Globe article that announced the group said SenateMajority.com will soon be issuing reports targeting certain senators.

A posting critical of Majority Leader Bill Frist is currently featured.

At the time, there does not appear to be an email alert system interested parties can sign up.

RCJ

The Rapid City Journal editorial board applauds Senator Thune for standing up for South Dakota after Senator Dayton's insult:

Bravo to Sen. John Thune for rallying to defend his home state after his Democratic colleague, Sen. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, told Fortune magazine, "The Mayo Clinic is worth a hell of a lot more than the whole state of South Dakota."

Dayton was referring to the planned expansion of Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, which runs through Rochester, Minn., and near the famed Mayo Clinic. Rochester opposes the railroad's expansion to Wyoming's coal fields because it could bring as many as 34 trains a day through the town.

Sen. Thune is trying to help DM&E obtain a $2.5 billion federal loan to build a rail line to Wyoming's Powder River Basin, and Dayton called Thune's maneuver to secure the loan "the most despicable special-interest deal I've ever seen in all my 30 years in government."

We expect our congressional leaders to work in the interests of South Dakota and defend our state when prominent people try to put us down.

Thune stepped up and called his colleague's comments "unconscionable, offensive and unbecoming of a United States senator."

"Our neighboring senator needs to do a reality check," Thune said in a news release. "Unlike Sen. Dayton, we may not all be millionaires in South Dakota, but we understand the value of hard work and appreciate real-world experience."

Dayton - who is the great-grandson of the founder of Target Corp. - issued an apology soon after Thune released his statement, calling his own remark's about South Dakota "inappropriate."

This isn't the first time Dayton has expressed a low opinion of South Dakota. Following Sen. Thune's defeat of Tom Daschle in November 2004, Dayton said on the Senate floor that South Dakota voters were "wrong" to elect Thune.  [Edit: See here]

South Dakotans elect people like John Thune to serve in Washington and defend our small state from the bullying tactics of larger states. Thanks, Sen. Thune, for defending South Dakota.

The Menace from the East and North

Intrepid reader Jeff Meyer sends us this note on the more sinister aspects of the Dayton gaff.

Ken:  Having lived near MN and ND all my life, I have learned that the people of these states cannot be trusted.  Senator Dayton's recent remarks that the Mayo Clinic is worth more than the entire state of South Dakota is just a smokescreen.  The people of Minnesota want to forcibly take over our state.  Their invasion plans have been in the works for decades. 

 

Some people wonder why they would want to invade South Dakota, but I know the reason:  They want to take over our casinos in order to lower their taxes.  Yes, by plundering the profits of our casinos, these nefarious Minnesotans would be able to lower their opressive tax rates on staple goods, like lutefisk, fishing lures, and mosquito repellent.

 

Those of us who live up here in the northeast corner of SD have gone so far as to organize the Big Stone/Traverse Lake Naval reserve.  We are a group of heavily armed citizens who routinely dress up like walleye fishermen, and patrol these border lakes.  To the naked eye, those little buildings out on the lakes at this time of year might appear to be ice fishing shacks.  They are really heavily fortified machine gun nests.  We had to go with having these structures above the ice, since our "in the ice" foxhole plan didn't work out very well. 

 

As to the North Dakotans--- well, they are a lot like hemorrhoids.  They really aren't so bad as long as they stay up there where they belong. 

 

I've gotta leave you now.  I need to go out on Lake Traverse and help keep our borders safe........!  Oh--I need to stop and get some bait and beer too.

I haven't had any unpleasant experiences with North Dakotans, though anyone living in contact with Canada must be subject to strange rays.  As for Minnesota, I have to be careful as my daughter now lives in the Twin Cities and writes as an intern for the Star Tribune.  But if we and the land of a thousand lakes are really at war, well, they did produce Walter Mondale.  How much of a threat can they be?

The Schaff Effect

Professor Schaff jokes below that my lectures put students to sleep just as the Texas redistricting case put Ruth Bader Ginsburg to sleep.  I reply that this is true only when I lecture on Texas redistricting cases.  I would note, however, that if you laid end to end all the students who have gone to sleep in Professor Schaff's classes, you would make a very great number of people a lot more comfortable.

The Argus Monopoly

Sibby is noting a KSFY story exposing the Argus Leader's attempt to undermine competitive publications:

The Argus Leader newspaper says it's good business for everyone in print, but some independent publications think they're getting squeezed out. A division of the Argus Leader says they have contracts for distributing free magazines in those racks you've probably seen around town. But the independents say they'll have to pay to use those racks at certain businesses, and they say that's not fair. Under a number of recent agreements there would be only one rack at several stores with the Argus Leader basically acting as a landlord by collecting fees.

The magazines are all over town, and they're free. Publications like Prime, Renter's Guide, the Shopping News and others. 16 independent publications in all are displayed at different businesses. But some say what the Argus Leader is trying to do to these smaller publishers could have huge consequences.

"It may literally bankrupt some publications. Some may survive, but it's doubtful," says Dan Siefken. He runs Vortex Publishing which prints the Renter's Guide, a small free publication. Siefken is part of a group of 14 publishers who've banded together and some are considering a lawsuit because Siefken says if the Argus Leader had its way, he and others would be out of business.

This, from a newspaper constantly preaching about "openness," "accountability," and the "public's need to know."

Poll Results

Here are the very interesting results from the controversial Zogby poll of American servicemen in Iraq.  I would describe it as mostly positive results for those who support the mission in Iraq, with some caveats.  I do find it interesting that the troops are mixed in their opinion as to whether Iraqi infrastructure has improved over the last year, but most of them have been there less than a year.  I wonder in particular what those who are in their second and third tour think. 

It's Just Like A Blanchard Class

Ruth Bader Ginsburg goes to lullaby land while the Supreme Court is in session. 

MSM

Gateway Pundit:  "Three leading stories yesturday.  Three bogus stories yesturday." 

Try A Little Tenderness

This post on abortion made me think of a particular line from Flannery O'Connor that serves as the theme of Walker Percy's last novel, The Thanatos Syndrome. I found it summed up online in this Claremont Institute article:

[O'Connor] was also pleased that Kirk was about to launch a conservative journal (Modern Age), and she favorably reviewed his Conservative Mind. In her copy she marked the words, "Abstract sentimentality ends in real brutality." She may have had that passage in mind when she wrote in her finest essay,

If other ages felt less they saw more, even though they saw with the blind, prophetical, unsentimental eye of acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness.... [But when] tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and the fumes of the gas chamber.

Her friend and fellow Southern Catholic novelist Walker Percy made "tenderness leads to the gas chamber" the leitmotif of his last novel, The Thanatos Syndrome.

Update: Evidently the literary references were too obscure for lawyer Epp and too infuriating for Prof. Newquist, who apparently thinks that interpreting literature is a technical feat that should be left only to the English professors.  Apparently he is unaware of the history of political philosophy in which commentary on the poets (what today we would call literature) is well founded (two examples: Plato and Rousseau).  At least Todd has a sense of humor about it.  I particularly like "The Fallopian Tubes of Wrath."  It sounds like one of those monster movies Prof. Blanchard loves so well.  A couple points. I didn't bring up the South Dakota abortion bill.  I didn't refer to it, didn't mean to refer to it, never talked about it.  If people apply what I wrote to a piece of legislation, that's their own reading, not mine.  Thus, I did not claim to conscript Flannery O'Connor or Walker Percy to the support of this bill.  You see, I didn't mention the bill.  It can be said that both O'Connor and Percy were devout Catholics very disturbed about cruelty of the modern secular world.  I suspect O'Connor would have been deeply troubled by the abortion culture, but since she died in 1964, I guess we'll never know.  Percy was pro-life, as can be seen in this column from 1981.  Does that mean he would support this particular bill?  I don't know and didn't claim to know.  Heck, I don't know if I support the bill. 

So what is the post about?  What I take O'Connor and Percy to be saying is that tenderness in and of itself, detached from God, can lead to unspeakable evil.  There is no end to the horrors that can be justified in the name of doing good.  Think of the millions killed by Chairman Mao in the name of building a better China.  If one reads the blog I linked to, the writer comments about how people are perfectly sanguine about killing unborn children because, after all, it's all for the better.  What made me think of the O'Connor/Percy quote was this line from Richard John Neuhaus, ""There is a greater tolerance for evil if it is perpetrated with a long face, furrowed brow, and the requisite wringing of hands."  I take that to mean that we can justify almost anything in the name of solemn doing of good.  Do not weep for the dead unborn, after all, they're better off dead, and we are better off with them dead.  So we convince ourselves that killing is actually a good thing.  Does that make America the same as Mao's China?.  I don't think so, but I still think we should be ashamed at how at ease we are with the taking of unborn life.                                                                              

By the way Todd, Walker Percy won the National Book Award in 1962 for his first novel, The Moviegoer, and you can read his Wikipedia entry here.  To assuage Prof. Newquist, who is under the impression that blog entries are held to the same academic standards as journal articles, the O'Connor quote is from the introduction to Memoir of Mary Ann.  I don't have a copy of the book handy, so I can't give you a page number.  The Percy quote is on page 361 of the Picador edition of Thanatos Syndrome and reads thusly (the character Fr. Smith is speaking):

"My brothers, let me tell you where tenderness leads."
A longer pause.
"To the gas chambers.  On with the jets." 

Does this mean I can keep my job? 

Daschle Orchestrates Permanent Campaign

The Boston Globe revealed today that Tom Daschle is architect of the "permanent campaign" (the words of the Boston Globe) against Senate Republicans.  The Globe says Daschle's new effort is "being considered a new benchmark in the trend toward 'permanent campaigns,' which specialists said is transforming the political culture."  SDP has been reporting for more than a year on Daschle staffers' permanent campaign against Senator Thune and it's now very clear that it comes right from the top:

Democratic group targets Senate GOP

Daschle aiding project to gather, spread criticism

By Rick Klein, Boston Globe Staff  |  March 2, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Hoping to strike back at Republicans who mounted a yearslong effort to oust him from office, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is helping raise millions of dollars to form a new political advocacy group aimed at creating a clearinghouse of opposition-research information against all Senate Republicans.

Senate Majority Project is to formally launch today, with Daschle and other Democrats looking to bring in more than $2 million to collect and disseminate political information critical of all GOP senators, not just the handful of vulnerable incumbents whom Democrats have targeted this year. The project is the first concerted attempt by Democrats to create a permanent opposition-research arm focusing on all Republicans.

''It [is] time to stop playing defense all the time and start holding every Republican accountable for what they do in Washington," Daschle wrote in a fund-raising letter to prospective donors last month.

The Democrats' project is being considered a new benchmark in the trend toward ''permanent campaigns," which specialists said is transforming the political culture. Pressuring senators as many as five years before they're up for reelection increases the need for money to fight back; that requires big campaign donors and constant fund-raising even as Congress wrestles with ways to reduce the influence of money in politics, said Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston University.

''The campaign is extending endlessly," Zelizer said. ''If you're going to really conduct a serious campaigns for the Senate in offyears, it's going to increase the importance of raising money, and it's going to cost even more to run campaigns."

Soviets Tried to Kill the Pope

From Reuters:

ROME (Reuters) - Leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, an Italian parliamentary investigative commission said in a report.

A final draft of the report, which is due to be presented to parliament later this month, was made available to Reuters on Thursday by the commission president, Senator Paolo Guzzanti.

"This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul," the report said.

"They relayed this decision to the military secret services for them to take on all necessary operations to commit a crime of unique gravity, without parallel in modern times," it said.

I don't know which is the bigger story, that Moscow was in fact behind the attempted assassination of the Pope, or that they couldn't pull it off.  Little did we know how ineffective the KGB was at that time.

Amazing Recovery Alert!

From the New York Times, February 23rd:

More Clashes Shake Iraq; Political Talks Are in Ruins.

In ruins.  You'd think that meant that all was lost.  Now for today's NYT:

Iraqi Parties Want Jaafari Out of Prime Minister Race

Oh, you mean those political talks.  Well, they're doing just fine, thank you. 

I got this tip from Kausfiles.  Kaus adds:

I'm not saying Bill Keller's** headline and lede writers were amping up the Iraq hysteria in order to manufacture another Tet. Maybe they just have no judgment or perspective. It's bleeding obvious that when a Sunni delegation announces it is "suspending talks" in reaction to some awful sectarian attacks, that doesn't mean talks won't be un-suspended after a decent interval. ...

Which means of course that Kaus is saying exactly that.  The NYTs wants Iraq to collapse and America to retreat.  That's not too heavy a price to pay for George W. Bush's humiliation.  Or at least I think that's what Kaus thinks.  At any rate, the first headline was certainly jaundiced. 

Anti-Kelo Land-South Dakota

Kelo v. City of New London, that is.  The following appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday (28 February 2006), but I couldn't get Factiva to work from home.  I post the whole entry below, as it is another instance where the state legislature made national news.

Believe it or not, the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London may yet unite red and blue America in at least one common cause. The 5-4 ruling, handed down last June, gives government more or less unlimited power to seize private property.

The latest blowback comes from South Dakota, whose Governor this month signed a law prohibiting the state from using its power of "eminent domain" to take private property for private economic development. No exceptions. No loopholes. The bill passed by unanimous vote in the state senate and 67-1 in the house.

Two-thirds of Americans own their own homes, which is perhaps one reason few seem to share the view of the five Justices who ruled that New London, Connecticut, was justified in evicting homeowners so that private developers could put up a hotel and condominiums that would bring in more tax revenue. Some elites on the political left endorsed the ruling. But the overwhelming, immediate reaction on both the grassroots left and right was: How do I keep the government's hands off my house?

It didn't take long for the political response to get rolling. The sponsors of the South Dakota law said they started work the next day. At the time of the Kelo ruling at least nine states already had outlawed the use of eminent domain to evict homeowners for private development. Nearly every other state has since come up with some sort of anti-Kelo effort via legislation, a constitutional amendment or citizen initiative.

In Michigan, the legislature decided not to leave so important an issue to the vagaries of future legislatures and approved an amendment to the state constitution outlawing the taking of private property for private use. The vote was 106-0 in the house and 31-6 in the senate; it goes to the voters in November. Constitutional amendments are also moving forward in Georgia, New Hampshire, Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Alabama.

Initiatives are under way in Colorado, Missouri, California, Arizona, Nevada and Montana. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in November that would withhold economic development aid for two years from state or local governments that use private economic development as a rationale for eminent domain. The Senate will soon take up somewhat less sweeping legislation.

In his majority opinion in Kelo, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "Nothing in our opinion precludes any State from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power." It's good to see voters taking the Justice at his word and throwing the Supreme Court a brushback pitch.

Dayton's Jab at South Dakota

The Star Tribune reports on Senator Dayton's insult to the Rushmore State, and gets in a quote from yours truly.  Rob Hotakainen and Aaron Blake have this:

No one seemed to know for sure on Wednesday as South Dakotans reacted with varying degrees of offense and humor after Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., told a magazine reporter that the Mayo Clinic "is worth a hell of a lot more than the whole state of South Dakota."  . . .

Republican Sen. John Thune, who demanded and received an apology from Dayton, accused Dayton of making "destructive attacks" against his state. Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate majority leader from South Dakota who joined the Mayo board of trustees last month, told a South Dakota newspaper that he disagreed with Dayton's "remarkable assertion." And Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson said the Senate needs "less political bombast."

But apart from the political ineptitude shown by Dayton, was he right?  Well, no. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, South Dakota had a gross state product of $29 billion in 2004. That prompted Mount Blogmore, a Rapid City Journal politics blog, to suggest that South Dakota was worth at least five times as much as the Mayo Clinic, which had $5.4 billion in total revenues. On the other hand, the Mayo Clinic has six buildings taller than the tallest building in South Dakota, the 195-foot-tall Qwest Tower, according to Emporis, which compiles building-related information from around the world.

So apparently, we're richer but theirs are longer.  I got the closing quote, and scored a mention for South Dakota Politics:

Ken Blanchard, a political science professor at Northern State University in Aberdeen and a contributor to South Dakota Politics, predicted that most Dakotans won't be overly sensitive about dismissive comments from their neighbors. And he said that no boycotts of Target stores are likely.

"I'm guessing, since Sen. Dayton's already apologized for the comment, that that's probably going to be the end of the story here."

So from SDP, thanks Senator Dayton!

 

Must Read Blog

I wish I were as courageous as this guy. 

Dayton

This isn't Senator Mark Dayton's first time to insult South Dakota.  In addition to saying that the Mayo Clinic "is worth a hell of a lot more than the entire state of South Dakota," Senator Dayton said, after Daschle's defeat, that the people of South Dakota were "wrong" to vote against Daschle:

Congressional Record

Senate - November 19, 2004

Mr. DAYTON.

I also want to join my colleagues in expressing my highest personal regard for Senator Daschle. It is, like others, a hard time for me. It was very hard in the next day after the election to hear the results in South Dakota. I have always had and will continue to have the greatest respect for the democratic process in this country. It is the ultimate and appropriate judgment of the people. I felt that way even when I disagreed with the verdicts they rendered.

I must say to the very slightest of majority, the voters of my neighboring State in South Dakota, with all due respect to them and their rightful judgment, that in my humble opinion you were wrong.

See our previous reports on Dayton here, here, and here.

Hold the Mayo

I was briefly interviewed by Aaron Blake at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Its about Senator Dayton insulting South Dakota.  Professor Schaff has blogged on this below.  The Aberdeen American News reports today on the fact that Tom Daschle is now on the Mayo Clinic board, though it seems to be the Rapid City Journal piece, carried by AP.  Jason notes that story below, with some other interesting links. 

Prehistoric Blonds

No, its not a blond joke.  A new study argues that blond hair and blue eyes evolved among women at the end of the last ice age.  From the London Times:

The study argues that blond hair originated in the region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago. Until then, humans had the dark brown hair and dark eyes that still dominate in the rest of the world. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses. Finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men.

Lighter hair colours, which started as rare mutations, became popular for breeding and numbers increased dramatically, according to the research, published under the aegis of the University of St Andrews.

Actually, my male line just waited for the taller guys to kill each other off in fights over the blonds.  As far as I can tell, this study is based on two solid pieces of evidence.  One:

“Human hair and eye colour are unusually diverse in northern and eastern Europe (and their) origin over a short span of evolutionary time indicates some kind of selection,” says the study by Peter Frost, a Canadian anthropologist.  Frost adds that the high death rate among male hunters “increased the pressures of sexual selection on early European women, one possible outcome being an unusual complex of colour traits.”

And two:

Frost’s theory is also backed up by a separate scientific analysis of north European genes carried out at three Japanese universities, which has isolated the date of the genetic mutation that resulted in blond hair to about 11,000 years ago.

The hair colour gene MC1R has at least seven variants in Europe and the continent has an unusually wide range of hair and eye shades. In the rest of the world, dark hair and eyes are overwhelmingly dominant.

The bit about male death rates looks like speculation, however reasonable.  The study is coming out in Evolution and Human Behavior.   Perhaps the most shocking finding is that blonds are about to become a lot more scarce than they are now. 

A study by the World Health Organisation found that natural blonds are likely to be extinct within 200 years because there are too few people carrying the blond gene. According to the WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202.

The last blond.  Sounds like a movie for one of Jon Schaff's descendants to review. 

Daschle and Mayo Clinic

The Rapid City Journal reports this morning that new Mayo Clinic board member Tom Daschle says he's not opposed to the DM&E railroad expansion:

Tom Daschle downplays his role at Mayo Clinic

Former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle said Tuesday that his recent appointment to the board of directors of the Mayo Clinic would not put him at odds with a Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad project opposed by the clinic.

“I was just elected to the Mayo board about a week ago. I have never discussed this issue with the people of the Mayo Clinic,” Daschle said of the railroad’s proposed $2.5 billion project. “I am not working against it and have nothing to do with the DM&E project now.”

Mayo Clinic opposes the DM&E project linking coal fields in eastern Wyoming with Midwestern power plants. Mayo officials argue that the dramatic increase in train traffic on the rail line that runs past the clinic would be harmful to the well-known medical facility.

U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton supports the clinic and opposes the DM&E expansion. Dayton caused a political firestorm this week when he was quoted in an online story for Fortune Magazine as saying that the Mayo Clinic was “worth a hell of a lot more than the entire state of South Dakota.”

Asked to respond to that comment, Daschle, a former Democratic colleague of Dayton’s in the Senate, said: “Of course, I don’t agree with Sen. Dayton’s remarkable assertion.”

Daschle didn’t attend the meeting at which he was elected to the board. He will attend his first Mayo board meeting in May.

SDWC has posted a copy of the state GOP's challenge to Daschle about his new involvement with the Mayo Clinic, which opposes the new South Dakota railroad line, and the commentary is intense.

Natural Rights and Iraq

My teacher, Harry Jaffa, has a piece in today's OpinionJournal (Wall Street Journal Online).  Jaffa is a tireless advocate of the idea of natural rights.  He believes, rightly, that such rights are the only secure and reasonable foundation for self-government. Here is his sharp and clear expression of this teaching:

According to Abraham Lincoln, public opinion always has a central idea from which all its minor thoughts radiate. The central idea of the American Founding--and indeed of constitutional government and the rule of law--was the equality of mankind. This thought is central to all of Lincoln's speeches and writings, from 1854 until his election as president in 1860. It is immortalized in the Gettysburg Address.

The equality of mankind is best understood in light of a two-fold inequality. The first is the inequality of mankind and of the other, nonhuman, classes of living beings that comprise the order of nature. Dogs and horses, for example, are naturally subservient to man. But no human being is naturally subservient to another human being. The second is the inequality of man and God. As God's creatures, we owe unconditional obedience to His will. By that very fact however we do not owe such obedience to anyone else.

The power of this account is that it presents a committment to individual rights as the flip-side of piety.  To rule others without their consent is tantamount to claiming the authority of God, which ought to horrify one to the degree that he or she takes God seriously.  How does this help us in Iraq? 

The great difficulty in forming legitimate governments is in persuading those forming the governments that those who are to be their fellow citizens are equal to them in the rights, which their common government is to protect. Catholics and Protestants in 16th-century Europe looked upon each other as less than human, and slaughtered each other without pity and without compunction. It was impossible for there to be a common citizenship of those who did not look upon each other as possessing the same right of conscience. How one ought to worship God cannot be settled by majority rule. A majority of one faith cannot ask a minority of another faith to submit their differences to a vote.  . . .

The United States is engaged today in a great mission to spread democracy to the Middle East, beginning with Afghanistan, and continuing with Iraq. The inhabitants of Iraq are divided into many groups and factions that hate and distrust each other. The attitude of Sunni and Shia Muslims toward each other resembles that of Catholic and Protestant Christians in the 16th century (which persist today in northern Ireland), each regarding the other as heretics. Under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, the minority of Sunnis persecuted the majority Shias. It is understandable that the minority Sunnis are today resisting majority rule, while the majority Shia favor it. The Sunnis clearly believe that majority rule by Shia will be used as a means of retribution and revenge. The Sunnis look upon majority rule by the Shia the way the South looked upon the election of Lincoln in 1860. It is inconceivable to the Sunnis that the rule of the Shia majority will be anything other than tyranny.

It is unclear whether natural rights can take root in Islamic soil, but it surely necessary that we believe in them if there is any hope for that. 

Our difficulty in pursuing a rational foreign policy in the Middle East--or anywhere else--is compounded by the fact that we ourselves, as a nation, seem to be as confused as the Iraqis concerning the possibility of non-tyrannical majority rule. We continue to enjoy the practical benefits of political institutions founded upon the convictions of our Founding Fathers and Lincoln, but there is little belief in God-given natural rights, which are antecedent to government, and which define and limit the purpose of government. Virtually no one prominent today, in the academy, in law, or in government, subscribes to such beliefs. Indeed, the climate of opinion of our intellectual elites is one of violent hostility to any notion of a rational foundation for political morality. We, in short, engaged in telling others to accept the forms of our own political institutions, without reference to the principles or convictions that give rise to those institutions.

As always, Jaffa is right.

That's One Sorry Senator You've Got There

Minnesota's Democratic Senator Mark Dayton has apologized for saying "[t]he Mayo Clinic is worth a hell of a lot more than the whole state of South Dakota."  Now dollar-wise he might be on to something, but disparaging an entire state is not exactly the gentlemanly thing to do.  Senator Thune responds:

February 28th, 2006 - Washington, DC - Senator John Thune made the following comments today after Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN) issued Thune an apology for his disparaging remarks about South Dakota:

"For months now, Senator Dayton has been attacking me personally. Just this morning in one of our nation's largest newspapers, Senator Dayton went so far as to characterize my efforts to create jobs in South Dakota and improve our economy as unethical. I let these attacks go because of their absurd nature. However, I felt it appropriate to demand an apology from Senator Dayton when he directly criticized the state of South Dakota.

"Senator Dayton has since issued an apology for his inappropriate remark about South Dakota. I accept Senator Dayton's apology and hope that he will now join me, and the rest of the South Dakota and Minnesota delegations, as we work to improve our region's economy. There is widespread support for the DM&E rail project in both South Dakota and Minnesota because it will create thousands of jobs."

Please find a PDF copy of Senator Dayton's letter of apology.

Mayo is located in my hometown of Rochester.  As a medical facility I have the utmost respect for them.  Rochester is the best place in the world to get sick.  Mayo's beef with DM&E is that they don't want more trains running through downtown Rochester causing a traffic problem for the clinic's patients and employees.  There was some talk a while back of making a bypass around town, but I think that got defeated.  Anyone have any information on that?  Anyhow, that's Mayo's position and they are entitled to it.  South Dakota is also entitled to defend its own interests.  And Senator Dayton proves once again why it's a good thing he's quitting the US Senate after one term.

Update: I stand corrected.  South Dakota is worth five Mayo Clinics.
 

Derbyshire on I.D.

John Derbyshire comments on South Dakota's intellectual diversity bill in National Review Online: 

South Dakota.

The South Dakota legislature has passed a law banning most abortions. This has got my Right-to-Life colleagues very excited, and no doubt will generate a lot of heat and fuss in the months to come. Those are news items I'll be skipping, since I couldn't care less about RtL issues, as my RUDY-ARNOLD '08 bumper sticker illustrates. (Yes, yes, I know Ahnuld will need a constitutional amendment — we'll get one from somewhere.) Every man to his own enthusiasms.

Here's one of mine: The liberating of our universities from the iron grip of totalitarian leftism. In this, too, South Dakota is at the forefront. A bill has passed the lower house of that state's legislature, requiring the six universities which receive state funding to annually report what steps are being taken to insure "intellectual diversity." Paul Weyrich waxes eloquent on the issue here.

People who aren't connected with college campuses don't realize how far things have gone. I have another math book coming out soon, and my publisher wants me to go off on a promotional tour around campuses. I am bracing myself to do so, in the expectation of getting yelled at as a fascist hyena, getting pies thrown at me, and so on. I shall bear it all manfully, in the interest of, well, making a bit of money, but it's awful that things have gone this far. Good luck to South Dakota state congressperson Phyllis Heineman (R., Sioux Falls) and her bill. Add her to your list of Women Who Make a Difference.

Where Does Daschle Stand?

Regarding Senator Dayton's recent comments on DM&E, the South Dakota GOP wants to know "Where does Tom Daschle stand?"

Where does Tom Daschle stand?

PIERRE – As South Dakota comes under attack from an out-of-state politician aiming to derail a project that could generate a massive economic boom in the region and create thousands of jobs, Tom Daschle finds himself caught at the crossing.

Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota has attacked a railroad expansion project benefiting South Dakota , the biggest building project in South Dakota history, on behalf of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester , Minnesota .  Not only is Dayton standing in the way of a project that could have a massive economic impact in the region and create thousands of jobs, Dayton also insulted the people, heritage and pride of the entire state of South Dakota.  Dayton told Fortune magazine that "The railroad will enter Rochester over my dead body" and that "The Mayo Clinic is worth a hell of a lot more than the whole state of South Dakota ."

This begs the question: Where does Dayton ’s close friend and recently-appointed Mayo Clinic Board Member Tom Daschle stand?  The recent silence from Daschle’s office has been deafening.

“Daschle should tell his friend Mark Dayton to put a sock in it,” said Randy Frederick , Chairman of the South Dakota GOP.  “Daschle should stand up for his state and condemn Dayton ’s insulting remarks,” he added.

In addition to being friends with Mark Dayton, Daschle has also joined the board of the Mayo Clinic, the most powerful opponent to the railroad expansion.  “It would be nice if Tom Daschle would stand up for his state instead of his buddies at the Mayo Clinic,” Frederick said.  “I’d like to know if Daschle thinks the Mayo Clinic is ‘worth a hell of a lot more’ than his home state of South Dakota like Senator Dayton has said,” Frederick questioned.

“Daschle’s chief political consultant also pays bloggers who constantly attack the railroad expansion project and Daschle should tell them to start helping South Dakota by supporting the biggest project in South Dakota history.  Why Daschle stands silent while his close friends, business associates, and consultants constantly attack a project that is critical to the economic health of South Dakota I can’t understand,” said Frederick.

Dubai and Boeing

From the New Republic:

One obvious reason for Bush's intransigence is that Dubai has been an important ally in the troubled Middle East. But there's another possibility: Rescinding the deal could offend a country that has been a very important customer for American exports.

In November, Dubai's government airline, Emirates, agreed to purchase 42 Boeing 777s for $9.7 billion, with an option for 20 more planes. That is one of the largest purchases of commercial aircraft ever, and it may have been the most important foreign sale made by an American company last year.

Aircraft and aircraft parts are one of America's largest exports. Last year they accounted for $66 billion in exports. By contrast, telecommunications exports totaled $25 billion, pharmaceuticals $25 billion, computers and computer accessories $43 billion. The largest single component of aircraft exports was civilian aircraft, which totaled $23 billion. Boeing, which absorbed aircraft manufacturer McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, and which has over 150,000 employees, is the American aircraft industry. If Boeing is in trouble, the American aircraft industry--and by extension American manufacturing--is in trouble. And until very recently, it has been in trouble.

In selling civilian aircraft, Boeing has had only one competitor: Europe's government-subsidized consortium, Airbus. In the mid-1990s, Boeing was outselling Airbus by two-to-one; but since 2003, Airbus has sold and produced more planes, while Boeing has suffered from scandal

Meathead Strikes Again

A couple days ago Prof. Blanchard noted the use and abuse of public money by Rob Reiner.  Now the Wall Street Journal is on the story.  I fail to see why anyone in his right mind would live in California.  Oh, the weather.  Yeah.  Still, California is quickly becoming the America's Western Europe: large welfare state, high taxes, declining native population, dependent on foreign workers.

The latest Census Bureau data indicate that, in 2005, 239,416 more native-born Americans left the state than moved in. California is also on pace to lose domestic population (not counting immigrants) this year. The outmigration is such that the cost to rent a U-Haul trailer to move from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, is $2,090--or some eight times more than the cost of moving in the opposite direction.

What's gone wrong? A big part of the story is a tax and regulatory culture that treats the most productive businesses and workers as if they were ATMs. The cost to businesses of complying with California's rules, regulations and paperwork is more than twice as high as in other Western states.

But the worst growth killer may well be California's tax system. The business tax rate of 8.8% is the highest in the West, and its steeply "progressive" personal income tax has an effective top marginal rate of 10.3%, or second highest in the nation. CalTax, the state's taxpayer advocacy group, reports that the richest 10% of earners pay almost 75% of the entire income-tax revenue in the state, and most of these are small0business owners, i.e., the people who create jobs.

And things may soon get worse, thanks to Rob Reiner, who played the liberal "Meathead" on the "All in the Family" sitcom in the 1970s and now plays the same part in real life. He and his rich Hollywood friends have put an initiative on the state's June ballot that would add a 1.7-percentage-point income-tax surcharge on "millionaires" with income over $400,000, with the proceeds earmarked for universal pre-school.

Senator Dayton

Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Tom Daschle's close friend in the Senate, is now attacking the DME railroad project on behalf of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and insulting South Dakota.  He says in Fortune that "The railroad will enter Rochester over my dead body" and that "The Mayo Clinic is worth a hell of a lot more than the whole state of South Dakota."

Will the Mayo Clinic's new board member, Tom Daschle, speak out against Dayton's attack on South Dakota, the largest project in South Dakota's history, or side with his new friends at the Mayo Clinic?  Does Daschle think Mayo is "worth a hell of a lot more" than his state of South Dakota like Senator Dayton does?

UPDATE:  Powerline doesn't think much of Senator Dayton:

Over those five years, Dayton used his Christmas cards to discuss the dissolution of his two marriages, his entry into rehabilitation for alcoholism, and related therapy issues. He does not appear to be a fellow who is dealing from a full deck.

He himself has never worked in the private sector and has spent most of his adult life in politics. As a subject, Dayton is Minnesota's contribution to the psychiatric profession.

On Wednesday Dayton held a telephone press conference to announce that he would boycot Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi's speech to Congress yesterday: "Dayton will boycott Iraqi premier's speech."

Also, the Washington Post discusses Dayton in this article entitled "The Rev. Moon Honored at Hill Reception": 

More than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception this year honoring the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in which Moon declared himself the Messiah and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be "reborn as new persons."

Among the more than 300 people who attended all or part of the March ceremony was Sen. Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), who now says he simply was honoring a constituent receiving a peace award and did not know Moon would be there. "We fell victim to it; we were duped," Dayton spokeswoman Chris Lisi said yesterday.

But a key organizer -- Archbishop George A. Stallings Jr., pastor of the Imani Temple, an independent African American Catholic congregation in Northeast Washington -- said Moon's prominent role should have surprised no one.

Abortion Vote

According to today's Roll Call, nobody is "angrier" about the SD abortion vote than Steve Hildebrand:

ROLL CALL 2/27/06

Speaking of Which ... Of all the (largely predictable) reactions in the political community to last week’s vote by the South Dakota Legislature to ban abortion in the state, none was swifter or angrier than that of Hildebrand.

The South Dakota-based consultant who is associated with several national Democratic candidates and causes set up a political action committee called Common Sense South Dakota designed to defeat the state lawmakers responsible for the legislation. The PAC’s first order of business: put up billboards throughout the district of the abortion ban’s lead sponsor, Republican Roger Hunt, blasting the legislation.

“I can’t sit by and watch these bad actors anymore,” Hildebrand wrote in a fundraising appeal to friends. “They are out-of-step with mainstream South Dakotans. And their legislation will cost South Dakota taxpayers millions in legal fees as they defend this through the courts.”

Hildebrand noted that PACs can spend unlimited amounts of money on legislative campaigns. “You can count on me using this money judiciously — targeting the right races — spending it wisely,” he assured potential donors.

RC: President Daschle?

Great scoop from this morning's Roll Call.  Daschle apparently wants to run for President:

Daschle, Looking at ’08. An antsy former-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) is said to be seriously mulling a 2008 White House bid, though his powerhouse lobbyist wife, Linda Daschle, isn’t at all keen on the idea, sources say.

One personal friend of the Daschles told HOH that the Senator is “flattered” that several of his supporters have encouraged him to run and is “thinking about it.” The wife, however, is “not particularly happy about it.”

Another longtime Daschle friend went further to say that Mrs. Daschle is “steadfastly opposed” to her husband running for president, although “lots of people want him to do this.” The friend said he thought it would be “a huge mistake” for Daschle to run but said he believes the former Senate Minority and Majority Leader will do it anyway.

“Hillary will run the table,” the source said, pointing out the millions upon millions of dollars that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has in her 2006 Senate campaign coffers, a ready war chest for ’08, which Daschle, who was toppled in 2004, simply doesn’t — and won’t — have.

Both Daschle loyalists said they doubted Linda would be eager to kick her successful lobbying gig to the curb to slog through an uphill battle of a presidential primary with her husband. Family is another reason. The Daschles’ fourth grandchild, Truman Daschle, was born on Friday.

Steve Hildebrand, a longtime political advisor to Mr. Daschle, told HOH Mrs. Daschle is supportive of whatever her husband wants to do. “The family has said, ‘We’ll support you in any decision,’” he said, adding, “The chance of him running isn’t even great, so I don’t know why this is much of a topic.”

SD Constitution

The commission which is recommending changes in the South Dakota constitution is promising to promote some controversial ideas:

Among topics the commission plans to tackle this summer are legislators' conflicts of interest, the legislative oath and impeachment procedures, legislative redistricting, term limits, pay for lawmakers and requirements for citizen initiatives and referendums.

Those topics, commission member Gene Lebrun of Rapid City said, "are going to very contentious and very difficult to deal with."

The Murder of Ilan Halimi

I am a big fan of horror movies, and have been since I was about six years old.  But the most frightening movie I ever saw had nary a werewolf, or vampire, or ghost hovering about.  It was Naming the Names, in which a young women involved in the Irish Republican Army lures her lover, the son of an English judge, to his death.  This vision of fanaticism, bordering on, if not over the line of, psychosis, was so chilling it raises the hair on the back of my neck just to think about it. 

I thought about it again when I noticed the story of Ilan Halimi, whose death is all over the blogosphere, but has been on the back burner of the world press.  Halimi, a French Jew, who sold mobil phones from a shop in Northeast Paris, was lured from his shop on January 21st by an attractive women.  He was kidnapped, tortured for three weeks, and then murdered.  Think about what you were doing for those three weeks, while Ilan suffered.  From the Washington Post:

One day last month, a young woman entered the Paris mobile phone shop where Ilan Halimi worked. She had no interest in a new phone, according to Paris police. She wanted to flirt with the 23-year-old salesman. She left the shop with Halimi's cell phone number, and soon after, the two arranged a date.

Last week, French police found Halimi -- the son of Jewish Moroccan immigrants -- near a railroad track in a southern Parisian suburb. His naked body was covered with cigarette burns and he was handcuffed. He died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

The WaPo article is entitled "French Suspect Anti-Semitism."  No!  Ya think?  Halimi was murdered by a group calling themselves "the gang of barbarians."  Well, I suppose you have to mark that down as a bit of honesty.  But its clear that barbarians in this case were motivated by Muslim ideology.  Again from the WaPo:

French police initially described the brutal kidnapping and killing as a crime-for-cash perpetrated by a gang calling itself "The Barbarians." It routinely used young women to lure unsuspecting victims.

But in ensuing days, family members, Jewish organizations and a French magistrate labeled the killing a hate crime, directed against Halimi because of his religion. Many have cited the torture and reports that the gang's suspected leader was later arrested in a Muslim neighborhood in Ivory Coast, in West Africa.

It wasn't the first such crime, though it has taken the French police some time to face the facts.  Mark Steyn reports:

In five years' time, how many Jews will be living in France? Two years ago, a 23-year-old Paris disc jockey called Sebastien Selam was heading off to work from his parents' apartment when he was jumped in the parking garage by his Muslim neighbor Adel. Selam's throat was slit twice, to the point of near-decapitation; his face was ripped off with a fork; and his eyes were gouged out. Adel climbed the stairs of the apartment house dripping blood and yelling, "I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven."

Is that an gripping story? You'd think so. Particularly when, in the same city, on the same night, a Jewish woman was brutally murdered in the presence of her daughter by another Muslim. You've got the making of a mini-trend there, and the media love trends.

Yet no major French newspaper carried the story.

Houston, we have a problem.  A considerable minority of Muslim immigrants in Western nations are prone to actions that would have made Hitler smile.  I don't know quite what to do about this.  But surely the first step is to recognize what is happening.  Apparently France is waking up.  Belatedly.  33,000 Parisans came into the streets today to demonstrate against anti-Semitism.  Powerline has the story:

Its one thing when Danish cartoonists have to hide.  Its another when merely being a Jew is a death sentence. 

Novak, Thune, and Dubai

If Tom Daschle were alive (as a living Senator in office, that is), his opinion on the Dubai port control issue would certainly be newsworthy.  It is curious that John Thune's opinion is in fact in the news.  Bob Novak writes a column the politics of the port issue, and notes Thune's discomfort.

It is not merely New Yorkers King and Fossella and other lawmakers with ports in their districts who have spoken out. In South Dakota, far from saltwater, freshman Sen. John Thune said Arab management of the ports gave him "heartburn." With Congress in recess, Thune typified lawmakers encountering massive public resistance back home. That mood was generated by the feeding frenzy on cable television and the Internet that, in turn, was triggered by bipartisan Congressional attacks.

Thune is, of course, doing his job, which is to represent the people of South Dakota.  But another part of his job as Senator is to advise and consent (or not) to the President's foreign policy.  A coherent policy on this matter must take into account the fact that the UAE has been one of the most reliably allies in our Mideast foreign policy.  It looks like we will get full Senate hearings on the Dubai question.  One can only hope that the loyalty of our allies is taken seriously in that process.

Arkansas Supports South Dakota on Abortion Ban

The governor of my native state, Arkansas, comes out in support of my now home state South Dakota's sweeping ban on abortions.   From the Arkansas Democrat:

Mike Huckabee said Friday evening that he supports the kind of sweeping anti-abortion bill that South Dakota legislators approved this week.  . . .  “I’ve always felt Roe v. Wade was illegitimate,” Huckabee said.

Huckabee, speaking at a dinner with representatives of national and regional news media, said it would be inconsistent with his history of opposing unrestricted abortion to not support laws like the South Dakota statute.  The proposed South Dakota law matches a provision of the Arkansas Constitution that isn’t enforced because of Roe v. Wade, Huckabee said.

At the same time, Huckabee, a Republican like Rounds, said he recognizes that some states might want additional exceptions for cases of rape and incest.  When asked if he supported those, he said, “Accept is a better word than support.”  Only about 1 percent of abortions involve such extreme circumstances, he said.

Huckabee attracts more attention than is normal for an Arkansas governor, for the same reason that the last important Arkansan did.

Huckabee, considered a possible 2008 presidential candidate, hosted the dinner at The Caucus Room, a downtown Washington restaurant.

In the image above, it surely looks like he's getting ready to run.  Notice his security detail. The dog's right front paw is fitting with a com device, in case back up is necessary. 

"You used up all the glue on purpose!"

Darrin McGavin has died. 

Intellectual Diversity

This Bozeman, Montana newspaper discusses SD's intellectual diversity bill and an upcoming conference on academic freedom at Montana State University:

Are universities too liberal? Do professors scorn conservative ideas, hire only those who share their left-leaning views and try to indoctrinate students?

Or have conservative politicians launched an assault on academic freedom that's the most serious since the McCarthy era?

Montana State University will join that national debate next month by holding a conference called, "Without Interference -- Academic Freedom in the 21st Century."

NYT

New York Times: "Sizing Up the Opposing Armies in the Coming Abortion Battle." 

Religious Geography of South Dakota

Here's a fascinating story in the Rapid City Journal:

Sense of community, relevance fuels growth of evangelical churches

By Mary Garrigan, Journal Staff Writer

When the Rev. Jim Olson first studied the religious geography of South Dakota almost 20 years ago, evangelical Protestants were still such a small part of the picture that they hardly registered on his statewide denominational map.

“Evangelical Christianity was a tiny percentage in South Dakota, so small I basically ignored it,” recalled Olson, a Lutheran minister who wrote “The Religious Geography of South Dakota” as part of his graduate studies in theology at the University of Chicago in the late 1980s.

Fast forward to 2006, and it would be hard for Olson or anyone else to ignore the hundreds of enthusiastic Christians at Countryside Community Church who gathered for worship on a recent Sunday at the athletic center at Black Hills State University — the only facility in Spearfish large enough to hold this growing evangelical church.

The majority of South Dakotans still call themselves mainline Protestants or Roman Catholics, according to the American Religion Data Archive. More than 50 percent of the state’s population describe themselves as affiliated with those two religious groups.

But in a state long dominated by mainline Protestant denominations — Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational — the fastest-growing segments of the religious marketplace are evangelical and nondenominational Christian churches, according to self-reported statistics from the 2000 Religious Congregations and Membership Study done by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies and collected by ARDA.

Rounds

The Argus Leader analyzes Governor Rounds' difficulty with some issues during this year's legislative session in Pierre.  The Argus seems to miss the Janklow Era, when legislators were more docile:

Rounds also stepped into the governor's office at a time when legislators are intent on establishing themselves as a separate and equal branch of government. Asked if part of the tension involves legislative attempts to move out of the shadow of the governor's office, Schoenbeck replied, "Oh, unquestionably.''

Former Gov. Bill Janklow was "aggressive and able to use all the tools at his disposal'' in his dealings with legislators, Schoenbeck said, adding that Rounds has been less aggressive in inter-branch dealings.

"Governors don't necessarily like that equal relationship (with legislators)," Schoenbeck said. "The challenge for Gov. Rounds in the next four years may be to become more accepting of the Legislature's role in the process."

Rep. Pat Haley, D-Huron, served when Janklow was in office. Haley worked closely with the Republican governor on a number of issues but the two men split over juvenile corrections and had some bitter clashes. Haley agrees Rounds hasn't been as direct and aggressive as his predecessor.

Is Tom Daschle Against the DM&E Project?

The Daschle-paid Hildebrand bloggers are always bashing  the project, so it's a fair question.  Daschle's long-time booster Dave Kranz discusses in today's Argus Leader:

The appointment of former Sen. Tom Daschle to the Mayo Clinic Board of Trustees raised some eyebrows in South Dakota, with the first thought that it would mean a renewal of a Daschle vs. Thune battle.

The reason: Mayo Clinic has been one of the most vocal opponents of the DM&E railroad expansion, and having Daschle on the board could be seen as a move to attract an influential former senator to offer it assistance in that cause.

DM&E counts Sen. John Thune as its strongest political supporter. He led the effort in the Senate resulting in changes to the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Program in the 2005 transportation bill that enables the DM&E to qualify for a low-interest loan to fund the Powder River basin expansion.

See my previous post on the topic here.

 

Governor

Earlier this week, Argus Leader political reporter David Kranz reported that South Dakota Democrats needed Ron Volesky to "ruffle Rounds a bit."   Now they've changed their minds.  Today Kranz reports the SD Democrats are saying it will hurt Rounds not to have an opponent this year:

Post-Volesky strategy

It didn’t take some Democrats in the state Capitol long to come up with a strategy for their party after Ron Volesky withdrew from the governor’s race.

Even though it is virtually unprecedented to leave a candidate uncontested, they say it would be Rounds’ worst nightmare to have no one run against him. They offer that he would not be able to get people to contribute to his war chest. He would not be able to point to another huge victory as evidence of his popularity. There would be no victory speeches. The governor simply would declare victory early and go back to governing for another four years.

UPDATE:  A comment at SD War College indicates that some Democrats, despite what Kranz reported, are still considering running against Rounds for Governor:

I haven’t heard this rumor or anything like it. Since Ron dropped out I have been contacted by two different potential candidates who were considering the race. Either would be great. This will be a contested race and I believe it will be closer then the Congressional contest.

RCJ

Here is today's editorial in the Rapid City Journal:

Journal editorial, 2-26: Second mission for Ellsworth

By The Journal Editorial Board

Last week, Sen. Thune outlined another proposal to enhance Ellsworth's military value by expanding the nearby Powder River training area and making the air base a vital training center on a par with Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base. Thune said he has met with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley to discuss his proposal.

Thune's initiative would:

-- Increase the size of the dedicated airspace for the Powder River Military Operating Area in Eastern Wyoming from 1 million acres to 4.5 million acres.

-- Establish a portion of the expanded Powder River MOA for testing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

-- Upgrade the MOA with more advanced electronic equipment to evaluate and test aircrews.

-- Establish a fixed-site target area and mobile targets to provide more realistic training.

-- Upgrade communications links with the training areas near Nellis and in Utah to allow integrated training exercises.

-- Locate a suitable bombing range closer to Ellsworth for use of live ordnance.

Thune said training areas at Nellis and elsewhere are heavily used and overcrowded. Expanding the Powder River MOA and enhancing Ellsworth's operational capability will help the Air Force to train all types of aircraft, save millions of dollars in training costs and make Ellsworth one of the elite air bases in the country. "Ultimately, the goal of this initiative is to transform Ellsworth into a world class training base, not only for B-1s, but air squadrons of all types, from bases all over the country, and even allied countries," he said.

Thune said his initiative, if adopted, would take many years to complete and would be in competition with other Air Force plans.

Sen. Johnson said he supported Thune's initiative and was prepared to use his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to help secure funding. It's good to see this level of cooperation from all the members of our congressional delegation.

Thune's initiative is an idea that's well worth pursuing. Getting the Air Force financial services center located at Ellsworth also would be a big deal.

If Ellsworth is to survive future base-closure rounds, it needs to have additional missions. Thune's proposal could position the air base to become one of the Air Force's indispensable bases that the Pentagon would never consider closing.

The Boycott of South Dakota

Mount Blogmore:

By Bill Harlan

The Daily Kos, maybe the flagship liberal blog, has this headline: “ACTION ALERT: South Dakota Boycott is working!” The boycott is over South Dakota’s impending ban an almost all abortions. The source for the headline RCJ reporter Dan Daly’s story in today’s paper. The Kos even reprints the entire store. One glitch: Dan’s story does NOT report the boycott is “working.” Ah well.

Does any Blogmorite on any side of this issue think a boycott of South Dakota would have any affect whatsoever on the South Dakota Legislature?

Dress For Success

A writer for the Aberdeen American News hits a homerun today.  Elaine Babcock writes that the world would be much better if people showed more respect for each other.  By respect she means watching your language and dressing appropriately. 

A few years ago I took some college classes in Spearfish. I had expected some changes in education since I got my degree years ago, but I was surprised at the changes I saw.

The biggest changes were in respect, dress and language. In college FTA (First Time Around) students dressed up, not down. Students used polite, proper language. STA (Second Time Around) the attire was not just casual, it was sloppy, and in my opinion, inappropriate in the academic world.

But she doesn't just have it in for students:

Somehow it seems that respect began to erode when school and office dress codes were abolished in the name of freedom and personal rights. At one time, teachers were required to dress up every day. They looked different from their students. Then as styles changed women were allowed to wear pantsuits. Pants were a good idea, especially on recess duty on cold days. But soon the dress code deteriorated so that many faculty members, male and female, were wearing bedraggled blue jeans, T-shirts and jogging shoes, which, by the way may cost more than dress clothes.

In offices, casual Friday attire became everyday attire and casual Friday became slob Friday.

As for the freedom to choose, no one is taking away anyone's freedoms by requiring professional dress in public workplaces. We can wear whatever we choose on our own time.

My students tire of my ragging on their style of dress (invariably t-shirt or sweatshirt and jeans or sweatpants).  I remind them of this excellent documentary I saw once about Jewish intellectuals at CCNY in the 1930s and how the young men of that time wore a jacket and tie to class (by the way, those of you for whom "neo-conservative" simply means a conservative you don't like really need to see this film).  Or I point them towards this Joseph Epstein piece on perpetual adolescence that begins thusly:

WHENEVER ANYONE under the age of 50 sees old newsreel film of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak of 1941, he is almost certain to be brought up by the fact that nearly everyone in the male-dominated crowds--in New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland--seems to be wearing a suit and a fedora or other serious adult hat. The people in those earlier baseball crowds, though watching a boyish game, nonetheless had a radically different conception of themselves than most Americans do now. A major depression was ending, a world war was on. Even though they were watching an entertainment that took most of them back to their boyhoods, they thought of themselves as adults, no longer kids, but grown-ups, adults, men.

How different from today, when a good part of the crowd at any ballgame, no matter what the age, is wearing jeans and team caps and T-shirts; and let us not neglect those (one hopes) benign maniacs who paint their faces in home-team colors or spell out, on their bare chests, the letters of the names of star players: S-O-S-A.

I like to point out that Joe DiMaggio never went out in public without a jacket and tie.  Joltin' Joe may have been extreme, but so are we in the other direction.  How we dress says something about how seriously we take what we are doing.  So what does it say when we go to school or church dressed in much the same way we do when we mow our lawn?  One of my favorite episodes of Curb Your Enthusiam has an older man (played by Ed Asner) who goes to a lawyer to get his will re-written.  It happens to be "casual Friday" at the law office. The older man gets angry that the lawyer that is going to help decide the fate of his estate is dressed so casually.  To him it's a sign of a, well, casual attitude.  The lawyer tries to explain. "No, it's just today.  It's casual Friday."  The older man screams, "Are you going to be that casual about my estate!"  and storms out of the office.  If only that kind of thing happened in real life.  In years past as a student I dressed like a slob, too.  Eventually when I got to grad school I finally met some people who cared enough to say, "You really need to start dressing better."  I wish someone would have told me to straighten myself up a lot earlier.