South Dakota Politics

CPAC Day 3

Sadly, today was the last day of CPAC.  The day started off with RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman addressing the conservative crowd:

 

Later that morning, I had the opportunity to hear Fmr. Speaker Newt Gingrich address CPAC.  He mostly related the speech to his book, Winning the Future.  Immediately afterwards, I was able to meet Mr. Gingrich during the book signing:

 

I spent most of the afternoon in the Blogger's Corner. Here, Kevin McCullough works on a post:

John Fund, contributor to the Wall Street Journal and editor of the Opinion Journal....

...stopped by Blogger's Corner: NOT to meet the bloggers, but to "borrow" a computer to check his email/work.  Kevin McCullough was all over this, starting a blog storm that afternoon.  Fund later CAME BACK and borrowed another computer for his personal use.  Read both posts above by Mr. McCullough...they are pretty funny, surprising (guess what Mr. Fund forgot to do when he was done "borrowing" the computers) and he credits me for the picture/sluthing.

Throughout the conference I got to hang out and get to know the CPAC bloggers.  Here is Matt Margolis of Blogs for Bush/GOP Bloggers:

Kevin McCullough and Robert Cox of The National Debate:

La Shawn Barber (one of my new friends!)

And Ian Schwartz of the Political Teen stopped by during the day:

Later in the day, Matt Margolis scored an interview with author Richard Miniter:

One last view of Blogger's Corner late in the afternoon:

That night, most of the SD delegation went out on the town for dinner at a Italian eatery.  Was a great way to wrap up the weekend!

I'll be leaving late Sunday afternoon to head back to South Dakota.  Overall, the CPAC conference was AWESOME (did I mention it rocked my world?).  I'm excited where the Republican Party is heading and look forward to the next four years with President Bush as Commander-in-Chief!

Blogs

National Journal:

The most recent casualty was CNN's top news executive, Eason Jordan, who resigned after he made a strange statement in Davos, Switzerland, suggesting that journalists in Iraq have been targeted by the U.S. military. It was bloggers who broke the story and effectively drove Jordan from his job.

"Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters," The New York Times headlined on February 14, in a story that was picked up across the country. "Some in the traditional media are growing alarmed," the story said, "as they watch careers being destroyed by what they see as the growing power of rampant, unedited dialogue."

Rampant, unedited dialogue! Mercy me, what is democracy coming to?

And why are we having all this intra-media warfare, anyway? Because we can, and because it's good for us. Anyone who isn't exhilarated by the bloggers and the havoc they're wreaking has lost touch with what American journalism at its best has always been about: making trouble to get at the truth.

Turning the heat up on powerful people, questioning their work, and undermining their authority is the media's job. Of course, nobody ever expected we'd do it to our own powerful selves, that blogger spies would infiltrate the grand councils of Davos and rat out a media muck-a-muck. How wicked of them.

Daschle's Former Campaign Manager in the News

From yesterday's Roll Call:

Seeking to counter an all-out campaign by the White House in support of its proposed overhaul of Social Security, a number of high-powered, predominantly liberal interest groups have banded together to fund a national grass-roots counter-effort run by several former Senate operatives.

Americans United to Protect Social Security, as the group will be known, is being spearheaded by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the AFL-CIO, and two liberal advocacy groups, the Campaign for America’s Future and USAction. Another 200-odd interest groups are also supporting the effort.

The fundraising goal for the campaign is upwards of $40 million. AFSCME has already committed $1 million.

Longtime Democratic campaign operative Steve Hildebrand — who along with fellow operative Paul Tewes will lead the campaign’s strategic planning effort — said the new group is united by a concern that “seniors in this country and future retirees under the Bush plan would incur serious benefit cuts.”

The formation of the new coalition — and the decision to hand its reins to Hildebrand and Tewes — is the latest sign that the fight over Social Security will resemble a big-money, high-profile political campaign along the lines of the 2004 presidential election.

Chuck Loveless, director of legislation at AFSCME, said that “for us to be competitive it is important for us to have a large umbrella coalition. We also are going to run a campaign.”

One senior Senate Democratic aide echoed that sentiment.

“Democrats need a consistent, solid and coordinated operation opposing the president’s plan and the presidential-style campaign he is using to advance it,” the aide said. “To the extent this organization brings that type of focus and energy, it is a very good thing.”

Hildebrand was even more blunt. Republicans, he said, “are already spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we are going to beat them.”

Hildebrand and Tewes, both of whom specialize in field work, recently formed a new political consulting firm that will serve as the nerve center of Americans United to Protect Social Security. The firm will be known as Hildebrand Tewes.

In the 2004 cycle, Hildebrand managed the unsuccessful re-election campaign of South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle (D); Tewes served as the political director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Hildebrand will be based out of Sioux Falls, S.D., while Tewes will set up shop in Washington, D.C.

Churchill

Instapundit has lots of stuff on the ongoing Ward Churchill story.  His post notes that Churchill supposedly wrote a good deal about the American Indian Movement-FBI standoff on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in the 1970s.  Roger Kimball also has an article in The New Criterion entitled "Ward Churchill: Six Degrees of Separation." 

You know you live in a farm state when...

Argus Leader:

Senate votes to end livestock semen tax

South Dakota may be the only place in the nation that taxes livestock semen, but possibly not for much longer.

Despite pleas that eliminating the tax could harm a program that provides property-tax relief, the state Senate passed a bill 20-13 to end the tax.

HB1100 now goes to the governor.

The Northern Valley Beacon orders a little cheese with its whine

This blog has recently drawn attention to a few phrases posted at our sister institution, the Northern Valley Beacon.  The key phrases were these:

The Republicans need a fuehrer to lead their party. They like to be led into wars of atrocity based upon false pretenses. They like to be given easy-to-remember cant to dully repeat in the face of facts.

I posted a series of questions to the NVB, of which two were the subjects of a recent reply.  The material in italics are comments by the NVB.

• "Is it malicious to object to being called a Nazi for voting differently from the" anonymous contributors to the Northern Valley Beacon? (Just where did this happen, oh sensitive soul?)
• "Do you really believe that we are Nazis" for voting Republican "or is it rather that everyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi?" (Huh?)

The NVB accuses me of a Orwellesque distortion of language for assuming that "the Republicans need a fuhrer" means "the Republicans are, in effect, Nazis."  Now, I concede that the word fuehrer does not in every case apply specifically to Hitler, just as the word red does not always mean communist.  But if I were to say that the folk at the NVB are "reds in their hearts," they would quite reasonably assume that I was calling them communists.  Not believing the latter, I would not say the former.  When George Bush called Michael Dukakis "a card carrying member of the ACLU," liberals all over the country cried murder. For it was assumed, due to the historical connotations of "card carrying"  that Bush was in effect calling Dukakis a communist. 

But consider, in addition to the infamous fuehrer quote, what is included in the recent reply. 

The campaign tactics [of Republicans] do, indeed, resonate of Germany of the 1930s. Liberals are vilified as the source of all the evils and ills that were charged to the Jews and other non-Aryans during the formation of the Third Reich.

Have liberals really been accused of wanting to interbreed with conservatives?  Never mind.  Then there's this:

If people emulate the tactics of regimes that presided over the degenerate episodes in human history, they are likely to be identified with such regimes.

Now I'm confused.  Is the NVB identifying the Republicans with the Nazi, Stalinist, and Maoist regimes, or not?  We need a fuehrer, if not a Fuehrer; our tactics "resonate" with those of the Nazis; we are warned we will be identified with the Nazis.  If the NVB doesn't think they are in effect calling us Nazis, they don't know what they themselves are saying or thinking.

If a Republican called the current Democratic party (in South Dakota or out of it) communists, the Republican would be nuts.  I have plenty of gripes with the way Democrats run their campaigns, and they have reasonable gripes with my party on the same score.  But they aren't traitors or commies, nor, for the most part, are they extremists. 

When the NVB likens the current situation in America to that in Weimar Germany, or late Czarist Russia, its contributors are manifestly off their rockers.  Real totalitarians do not attack their opponents with negative campaign adds.  They attack them with bayonets, starvation, and gas chambers.  Have any members of the South Dakota Democratic party been arrested?  Tortured?  If not, its obviously adolescent to talk of dictators and totalitarians.

The NVB is in fact a long whine.  Mommy!  They ran an "unscrupulous, malevolent, and depraved" campaign against us!  "The corporate dictatorships are exporting our manufacturing and creative jobs and are establishing a serfdom in America."  Mommy! Mommy!

The whine is a bit past its prime.  But the cheese makes up for it. 

Gay Rights Forum

I attended the gay rights forum last night here at USD.  The forum was well attended and the crowd was pretty civil considering the topic at hand is a very emotionally charged one.  The guests included lawyer and former legislator Matt McCaulley, Robert Regier, director of the Family Policy Council, Jennifer Ring, executive director of the ACLU of the Dakotas, and Barbara Himmel Roberts former legislative candidate and member of the ACLU of the Dakotas. 

First question:
Should there be limits on government efforts to legislate gay rights and who should define morality? 

Barb stated and stated that government should only legislate to protect the vulnerable and that only our creator should judge others.  She stated that minorities through time have always been addressed as a moral dilemma to others and not viewed as a person. 

Jennifer said there are limits on Congresses ability to legislate on gay rights issues namely the Bill of Rights.  Congress should be using their power to give equal protection to gays rather than to discriminate against them. 

Rob answered by saying there are limits on what Congress can do.  Nothing they do can violate the constitution but we can differ with what the constitution says though.    Liberty doesn't mean we can do whatever we want there are limits. 

Matt said that states should be allowed to make their own determination when it comes to marriage.  The federal government should not be all powerful.  Today we have more legislation from the bench than we have had in the past.  It is better to leave these decisions to those who are politically accountable rather than those who aren't.

Question two:
Should states recognize gay marriage and is the Federal Marriage Amendment the appropriate way to address this issue?

Jennifer:  States should recognize gay marriages.  The federal marriage amendment is not appropriate.  The constitution has never been amended to take rights away from people.  (she forgot prohibition)  All persons have inherent rights and it is good that we have courts to recognize these rights.  The court helps to interpret the constitution in light of 200 years of changes in human understanding.  This is better than letting Congress dictate what they want as law. 

Rob:  The constitution is not the best way to deal with gay marriage.  In this situation though judges have forced us to the point where an amendment is necessary.  If we don't courts will continue to legislate from the bench.  Nobody talks about whether courts make the wrong decision.  They have in the past and it is very difficult to get bad decisions overturned.  An amendment which must be adopted by the states is the will of the people and is more powerful than a judicial opinion. 

Matt:  This is a states rights issue.  South Dakota should pass this law if it is the will of the people. The family is the building block for states and states have an interest in protecting the family relationship to make sure children are in a family environment with one male and one female. 

Barb:  Constitutional amendments should be rare.  The struggle for equality in terms of gay rights is no different than the struggles of African Americans or Indians in the past.  Everybody has rights. 

Question three:
Should gays in South Dakota be allowed to adopt children? 

Rob:  Studies have shown that kids do best in two parent homes with both male and female role models.  Children need the influences of both males and females.  By denying them to children we are putting them at a greater risk of social problems.  This in turn harms society as a whole. 

Matt:  There is no constitutional right to adoption.  Therefore adoption is something that states should be allowed to govern.  States should be allowed to determine what is in the best interests of children.  Having both male and female parents allows children to learn from both points of view.  Just because a person is gay doesn't mean they are bad parents but kids deserve the chance to have both male and female parents to learn from.  The burden of proof is on the party who advocates change.  Right now there is not enough evidence to prove allowing adoption by gay parents is in the best interest of children. 

Barb:  Family Physicians, the National Association of Childworkers, the American Bar Association, and the American Psychological Association all support adoption by gay parents.  This is pre-judgment via ones moral beliefs.  Is it more important that each child grows up in a loving and nurturing environment or that we make a moral judgment and forbid gay adoption. 

Jennifer:  If marriage is a states right to govern states can forbid marriage between two persons with genetic defects or forbid criminals from marrying.  This is dangerous.  Adoption should be governed by the best interests of the child involved.  In most situations where an adoption by a gay couple is sought the child involved is a child of one of the partners.  It is not in the best interest of the child to forbid adoption in this situation. 

Question four:
What rights should homosexuals have in medical insurance and in making medical decisions? 

Matt:  South Dakota has lost many insurance companies in recent years.  It is important that South Dakota do what they can to keep providers here.  The issue of medical decisions can be taken care of in South Dakota under existing law. 

Barb:  Documents can be drawn up but often the government tries to take these documents away. 

Jennifer:  South Dakota's constitutional amendment proposal is bad.  It is now legal for Dr.'s to question the nature of a persons relationship.  They would have to ask whether the persons involved are in a quasi marital relationship.  This would even affect elderly persons who live together. 

Rob:  The amendment wont affect existing power of attorney laws.  The language is in the amendment because many states use different language such as civil unions.  The language in the amendment is necessary to protect the definition of marriage in South Dakota. 

Question five:
Should there be hate crimes laws to protect homosexuals? 

Barb:  Yes, hate crimes have always been around.  Most hate crimes are committed by otherwise lawful citizens.

Jennifer:  No, there shouldn't be a separate category for hate crimes.  A crime is a crime.  You shouldn't categorize one crime as being worse than another. 

Rob:  Crime in and of itself is hateful.  Governments only have authority to punish actions not emotions and thoughts.  We already punish hate by making intent part of the crime itself.  There is also a problem with defining what hate is.  A recent rally in Pennsylvania led to Christians protesting a gay rights rally to be charged with a hate crime.

Matt:  (Quote of the event:  "Time stood still because I agree with the ACLU wholeheartedly")  Hate crimes legislation creates an intellectual culdasac where we end up talking in circles about what a hate crime is.  This weeks TIME magazine says "What teachers hate about parents."  Does this qualify as "hate" for the purpose of hate crimes laws?  We should not criminalize thinking. 

Question six: 
What direction should South Dakota go with Gay Rights? 

Rob:  Homosexuality is not and should not be considered a civil right.  The courts have mentioned political powerlessness, economic deprivation, and immutability as characteristics which help define what a protected class is for equal protection purposes.  None of these categories applies to homosexuals.  This is not analogous to the struggles involved with other minority groups.  Homosexuals have a right to vote, aren't forced to sit at the back of buses, and are free to marry members of the opposite sex. 

Matt:  Dialog is important and we must continue to have dialog.  It is important to decide who should be making decisions though.  Constitutional amendments allow people to make their own judgments.  Moral decisions should be made by those who are politically accountable.  We should be encouraging legislation rather than litigation in regards to moral issues. 

Barb:  Every person has rights.  It is wrong to think that the majority should tell you what is right and what is wrong.  We need to educate one another and accept gay rights. 

Jennifer:  Dr.'s today say homosexuality is an immutable characteristic.  It is as immutable as eye color or height.  The only reason why homosexuals aren't discriminated against to the same extent as other minorities in the past is that homosexuality is not readily apparent.  Gay people should have the same rights as all other persons equal protection under the law no more no less. 

There was a question and answer period after wards which was very heated.  In particular there was a question about how marriage should be defined and where you draw the line.  Reference was made to polygamy laws in the United States and that if we redefine our definitions of marriage these laws may be affected as well.  One panelist said marriage is a state of mind, it is what makes your heart go pitter pat.  Another panelist stated that by defining marriage this way you create serious problems.  What makes a persons heart go pitter pat is not necessarily something that we as a society should recognize. 

There was also a heated exchange regarding legislation of morality.  The point was brought up repeatedly that conservatives want to impose their beliefs on others.  Rob pointed out that those pushing the legalization of gay marriage are pushing their moral beliefs as well.  I was hoping somebody would bring this up throughout the night.  Like any moral issue, both sides are pushing their beliefs in an attempt to get society to recognize and accept them.  Both sides have a moral belief on this issue and both sides want their belief to the be accepted by society. 

CPAC Day 2

Wow...what a day!  The second day of CPAC was really busy, with a couple of surprises thrown in.  First, Pat Buchanan addressed the conference and discussed the "hits and misses" of the Republican party:

   

There were various book signings during the day...here was Jerome Corsi of Unfit for Command fame:

 

David Horowitz, author of Unholy Alliance:

Craig Shirley, author of Reagan's Revolution : The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All:

One of my favorite personalities is Michael Medved.  I got to meet him and talk with him for a few moments.  I thanked him for giving me something to listen to in the afternoons, especially during the campaign:

While waiting in line with Matt Margolis (of Blogs for Bush fame), Patrick Ruffini stopped by to talk to us:

After about a 45 minute wait, Matt and I and some of the SD delegation got to meet both Zell Miller and Oliver North.  Here is me with Zell:

A shot of Zell and Olie:

One of the big-name speakers was Ann Coulter.  The room was PACKED.  This was about as close as I got.  The BIG surprise is that her special guest was no other than Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report!  They both held a short Q&A session discussing conservative issues.  Matt brought up the "Geffen" scoop on his site concerning Hillary.  Other CPAC bloggers have pics too: check out Miscellaneous Objections and The National Debate (for backstage pics). Erick also live-blogged her/their appearance.

"Radio Row was indeed busy.  Shmuley Botech was animated as always:

Kevin McCullough is seen here with Erick-Woods Erickson (of Confessions of a Political Junkie fame).  He later interviewed both Erick and Chris Nolan:

The "shocker" was when Michael Medved got Al Franken and John O'Neill together.  For some reason, Franken got angry and was going to storm off the Medved's set.  Outside the Belway and The American Mind have more on the outburst. I got video of it, but am looking for a host.  Eventually Medved got the two together for his radio show:

Probably the highlight of my day was finally getting to meet and talk to Michelle Malkin!!  Bless her heart, as she noted she was not feeling well at all, but made it up to CPAC.  She told me to keep up the great work blogging and to keep sending her links.  Matt Margolis and Lashawn Barber also have first-hand accounts of our Michelle Malkin experiences (and Matt has a better picture of Michelle and I...will post when he emails it).

So bascially, today ROCKED MY WORLD.  Possibly more to post tonight....for now, enjoy the pictures!

Sioux City v. Sioux Falls

When talking to people from around the country, one of the common mistakes they make is confusing Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Sioux City, Iowa.  It's a big mistake, as the cities are very different. From a new academic paper by economics professor Ralph Brown of the University of South Dakota Business School entitled "A Tale of Two Cities: Sioux Falls and Sioux City," South Dakota Business Review (December 2004): 

The economic performance of the two cities has been very different.  Over the 1969-2002 time period, Sioux Falls' population grew by 58 percent compared to 7 percent for Sioux City.  Total employment grew 148 percent in Sioux Falls while Sioux City employment grew 46 percent.  Real per capita income grew 50 percent faster in Sioux Falls than Sioux City.  Today, per capita income is 18 percent higher in Sioux Falls.

You can read the full article by clicking on the following PDF document.  You should.  It's very interesting and should be discussed.  Download sfscpdf.pdf  Thanks to professor Brown for sending it in.

Iraq

From New York magazine:

After the blizzard and before the fashion shows, you may have heard, the elections in Iraq went off extremely well. Remember? Or, like most New Yorkers, perhaps you let that fact slide from your consciousness as quickly as possible . . . Hey, speaking of Fashion Week, what is it with this renaissance in corseting?

Seriously: The success of the elections poses a major intellectual-moral-political problem for people in this city. The cognitive dissonance is palpable.

New Yorkers think we are smarter than other Americans, that the richness and difficulty of life here give our intelligence a kind of hard-won depth and nuance and sensitivity to contradictions and ambiguity. We feel we are practically French. Most New Yorkers are also liberals. And most liberals, wherever they live, believe that they are smarter than most conservatives (particularly George W. Bush).

And finally, most liberals and New Yorkers suspect that we may be too smart for our own good. It is a form of self-flattery as self-criticism. During these past few years, I have heard it said again and again that liberals’ ineffectiveness derives from their inability to see the world in the simple blacks and whites of the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Bushes. (Why else, the argument goes, did John Kerry lose?)

Talon

Some readers have asked about the controversy over Talon News and Jeff Gannon.  For a review of various aspects of this deal, go see the roundup by Whizbang. (via LGF)  Also see W.T. Quick: "It was never much to begin with, merely a bagatelle to salve the hurt feelings of lefty blogs who have seen the right blogosphere take down their icons, but now it appears to be dead, dead, dead. Read the whole thing."  Some of the South Dakota bloggers on the left keep raising questions about this fellow's personal life (it's "startling meanness" I tell you!), but they don't seem to be saying what he published was factually incorrect, which would seem to be more important than his personal life.  Powerline doesn't think much of this whole deal either.

UPDATE:  Ryne:

Let's face it, the Democrats are pissed that we brought down their Senate leader with the truth. We took a stand against his obfuscation and his obstruction, and we sent him packing. Daschle's homestead exemption? It was true. Linda Daschle's lobbying for fat cats? It was true. Daschle's blocking of every single one of George Bush's admin maneuvers? True, true and true. South Dakota had enough of Tom Daschle, and they voted him out. Political bloggers did what they do during a race, they blogged it. End of story.

So until one of these left-wing cabana boys can step up with real, honest proof about anything whatsoever, and stop dealing with this "What's the connection?" nonsense, I'm going to continue to point out these ridiculous lies.

Blogs

The battle between a Tulsa blogger and the Tulsa World continues.  He is being helped by an attorney and the Media Bloggers Association.

Thune Popular In Senate

One of the constantly repeated arguments against dumping Daschle was that South Dakota would loose influence in the Senate.  Maybe so, but consider this from the Aberdeen American News. 

John Thune is to the Grand Old Party what Tom Daschle was to the Democrats.
Thune, a freshman senator and former congressman, defeated Daschle in November and has since received 700-plus appearance invitations from GOP groups around the country, according to his office.

''John Thune is a star'' who ''oozes charisma,'' said Stuart Rothenberg, a national political analyst. ''When I went around the country giving speeches last fall, people were most interested in the South Dakota Senate race.''

By virtue of beating Daschle, Thune aquired an equivalent fame.  Everybody knows who he is.  How many folks outside of South Dakota would recognize Tim Johnson? 

Black Hills

Rapid City Journal:

"My ancestors told me they were sacred, and that's good enough for me," [Mario] Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez was among the 100 people from the U.S. Forest Service and tribes from seven states who participated in the conclusion of the two-day Great Plains Tribal Leaders Consultation and Listening Session on Thursday at Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer.

Susan Johnson, a team leader from the Forest Service, asked tribal leaders and members to talk about ways the Forest Service could better manage lands and resources sacred to American Indians.

Of the 7.3 million acres comprising the Black Hills, 1.2 million are managed by the Forest Service.

The New Senate

After the defeat of Senator Daschle last fall, some bills are actually passing the Senate, including tort reform, which Senator Tim Johnson changed his mind on and voted for (no reporter, apparently, thought to ask him why he suddenly changed his position).  A tort reform bill is now headed to the President's desk. 

"Et Tu, Kent?"

Liberal blogger Joshua Micah Marshall seems to be worrying about North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad being part of a compromise plan on Social Security. 

Ward Churchill

Lots more on Ward Churchill topic here.

New Look

Well, we've been trying to spiffy things up a bit.  What do you think?  Comments welcome.

Vermillion v. Castro

The Villiage Voice is, I confess, not where I go for comfort.  But this is a story of home grown Dakota independence.  See "A Library defies Castro and the American Library Association."

CPAC Day 1

Well, it has been a long first day, starting with my flight out of Rapid at 6:15.  I arrived in DC around 2 pm, and the conference around 4 pm.  I missed Karl Rove's speech, but I did make it in time for Paul Gourley's announcement that he is running for National Chairman of the College Republican National Committee (currently enrolled at U of South Dakota):

Who endorsed Mr. Gourley?  Why, Senator John Thune, who made an appearance and backed Gourley's candidacy:

I finally met Matt Margolis, LaShawn Barber and Kevin McCullough!  I plan to talk to them and the rest of the CPAC bloggers tomorrow (and have some pictures).  Tomorrow should be another action-packed day! More pictures...I promise!  Check out CPACBloggers.com, who are blogging up a storm on the 1st day of action (including the Vice President Cheney dinner tonight).

Why Greenpeace Doesn't Field a Rugby Team

If you thoroughly enjoyed the opening scenes of Armageddon, when Bruce Willis is driving golf balls at a Greenpeace boat floating just off his oil rig, causing the leaf huggers to scatter, you'll like this story from the London Times..  Tip to Polipundit.

WHEN 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail.

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

“We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs,” one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. “I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.”

Another said: “I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot.” Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: “Sod off, Swampy.”

Wild Horses

There is a Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, but it seems to be some sort of private outfit.  We'll have to look into that.  Anyway, this person is worried about the federal government's wild horse policy.  Excerpt:

In 1971, when the act was passed and signed by Richard Nixon, perhaps 50,000 horses remained, according to the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Interior agency in charge of them. It's hard to count horses, but today, according to the BLM, there are 36,000 on public lands. Wild horse advocates dispute that number and say there are no more than 20,000 still roaming the range. Everyone agrees that the numbers are dwindling and most of the horses are in Nevada, which is where the wild mustang is making its last stand. (The state gives the mustang props everywhere—brothels name themselves after it, downtown Vegas features wild horse statues, its picture hangs in every dive bar in the desert—but in real life, it gets no respect.)

I don't know anything about this, but I'm sure some readers do.

The Next AIDS Crisis

Several years ago, during a lecture on AIDS, I described what was then the very good news about the disease: that a cocktail of several anti-HIV drugs seemed to be successful in flushing the virus out of the blood stream, and might allow infected persons to live with the virus for many years.  But I also predicted that this stage of the epidemic wouldn't last.  Sooner or later a mutant form of the virus would probably emerge.  This seems especially likely since the behaviors that prepared the way for the original epidemic hadn't really changed. 

Now this from the New York Times:

City health officials announced on Friday that they had detected the rare strain of H.I.V. in one man whose case they described as particularly worrisome because it merged two unusual features: resistance to nearly all anti-retroviral drugs used to treat the infection, and stunningly swift progression from infection to full-fledged AIDS. . . .

That combination drug resistance and rapid AIDS onset, the officials said, could signal a new, more menacing kind of infection, and its discovery set in motion an anxious search by city workers to find the man's sexual partners and have them tested.

The infected man, gay and in his 40's, tested negative for H.I.V. in May 2003, then tested positive last December, health officials said. Investigators believe he may have contracted the virus in October when he engaged in unprotected anal sex with multiple partners while using crystal methamphetamine.

A network of sexual partners engaging in unprotected anal sex provides a perfect incubator for new forms of the disease.  So what's the solution?  Again from the NYT, this piece by Andrew Jacobs::

As news of a potentially virulent strain of H.I.V. settles in, gay activists and AIDS prevention workers say they are dismayed and angry that the 25-year-old battle against the disease might have to begin all over again.

While many are calling for a renewed commitment to prevention efforts and free condoms, some veterans of the war on AIDS are advocating an entirely new approach to the spread of unsafe sex, much of which is fueled by a surge in methamphetamine abuse. They want to track down those who knowingly engage in risky behavior and try to stop them before they can infect others.

This is to say that, 25 years after the epidemic began, some AIDS activist want to begin treating it like any other disease.  Good idea. 

Stompin' Mad!

Alanis Morissette is becoming a US citizen.  Stompin' Tom must be spittin' mad!  "If you don't believe your country should come before yourself, you can better serve your country by living somewhere else."   

Herseth

Apparently South Dakota Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth has voted against tort reform in the House.

Black Hills

There's a long story in the Rapid City Journal today about the status of the Black Hills.

Gay Rights Forum Tonight

As Professor Lauck mentioned there is a forum on gay rights tonight at Farber Hall here at USD.  I'm going to go and post on it tomorrow.  If you're in the Vermillion area I encourage you to attend though.

FYI

The site could be under construction today.  You can still read posts, but the setting might not be as pretty at times.

Blogs

On the Southern end of the plains, it appears that the Tulsa World, which dominates the news in a one-newspaper town, has launched an assault on local bloggers. 

Defending Big Drug Companies

Finally someone is saying what I have been saying for some time: we should thank our lucky stars for "greedy" pharmaceutical companies.  And would you believe it comes rom CBS News?  We cannot expect to demonize and punish these companies and expect to get the life enhancing and life saving drugs.  The move to control drug prices or, what is tantamount to the same thing, allowing in drugs from Canada will help our pocket books and hurt our health. 

Day Care Regulation

Apparently, some legislators want more regulation of day care.  At present, if you care for 12 or fewer kids a day care is not "regulated."  From this morning's Argus Leader:

South Dakota has the highest percentage of young children in day care in the nation.

That's quite interesting.  Here are some more numbers:

A University of South Dakota study funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation concluded that 73 percent of South Dakota's children ages 6 and younger spent weekdays at a sitter. The study said child care is a $124.5 million industry in South Dakota, and some involved in the study said the estimate is probably conservative.

The high percentage of children in child care is one natural consequence of the fact that South Dakota has one of the highest rates of two-income families in the nation, and 77.5 percent of working women in the state have a child younger than 6. The national average is 63.5 percent, according to data compiled by South Dakota Kids Count and the University of South Dakota.

So should there be more regulation?  I have no idea.  I remember me and bunch of other Madison kids would be babysat by the wife of a local feed/seed salesman.  Big yard, they had horses, and lots of 'spaghettios' were served.  I imagine if she had to mess around with "regulations" she wouldn't have done it.  That's one possible consequence--regulations can shrink supply of an economic good if sunk costs grow. 

Speaking of regulation, the Argus Leader is opining this morning about the wisdom of the Sioux Falls city council mandating that new homes have sump pump systems.  Is this necessary?  I have no idea.  But it does seem that the first institutional response is to regulate.  I wish a big commission could be organized to study the state- and city-based regulatory environment in South Dakota.  In the early 1970s, there was a big effort to consolidate a whole bunch of different regulatory agencies in Pierre.  I'm not sure it did much good, but perhaps another look-see would be wise.

Forum

There will be a forum tonight at the University of South Dakota.  Perhaps our Vermillion correspondent will cover it:

VERMILLION, S.D. -- The University of South Dakota Political Science League will hold a forum on the topic of Gay Rights on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005, at 7 p.m. in Old Main’s Farber Hall. The event is entitled “Gay Rights: Both Sides Speak” and will feature panelists on both sides of this controversial issue in contemporary American politics.

Panelists include:  Barbara Himmel-Roberts, former president of the Sioux Empire Gay and Lesbian Coalition; Jennifer Ring, executive director of the ACLU of the Dakotas; Robert Regier, executive director of the South Dakota Family Policy Council; and Matt McCaulley, an attorney and former South Dakota State legislator. The event will be moderated by Mark Cullen, executive director of the Vermillion Conflict Resolution Center based at the Farber Center.

More Atrocities

Here's a picture from another one of the nation's "wars of atrocity" (according to some people).  This Minnesota major was delivering school supplies in Afghanistan.  Via Powerline.

Federal Judges

Associated Press: Senator Tim Johnson thinks it's ok to filibuster judges.  Remember that the Daschle Senate blocked 10 federal appeals court judges in the last Congress (note, we're not talking about run-of-the mill federal district court trial judges here).  These appeals court judges are important.  A reader notes:

Very interesting.  And as to the comment about federal appellate courts not being such a natural stepping stone to the U.S. Supreme Court, I would note the following:

Out of the 9 current Supreme Court justices, 7 previously served as federal appellate court judges.  The only exceptions are Rehnquist (joined the Supreme Court in 1972) and O'Connor (joined in 1981).  Therefore, over the past 24 years, all of the Supreme Court nominees (Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsberg, Breyer) first served as federal appellate court judges.  The other justice (Stevens) also first served as an appellate court judge before joining the Supreme Court in 1975 (between the Rehnquist and O'Connor appointments).

Well, Senator Johnson says he'll help filibuster judges who "are out of the mainstream," according to the AP.  This really tells his constituents nothing.  What does that phrase mean?  SDP readers who are also constituents should inquire with Senator Johnson.  There will be some ferocious battles this year on judges, so we need to figure out where Johnson stands and what Orwellian phrases like "out of the mainstream" actually mean.

More on Blogs

Peggy Noonan in today's Wall Street Journal:

"Salivating morons." "Scalp hunters." "Moon howlers." "Trophy hunters." "Sons of Sen. McCarthy." "Rabid." "Blogswarm." "These pseudo-journalist lynch mob people."

This is excellent invective. It must come from bloggers. But wait, it was the mainstream media and their maidservants in the elite journalism reviews, and they were talking about bloggers!

Those MSMers have gone wild, I tell you! The tendentious language, the low insults. It's the Wild Wild West out there. We may have to consider legislation.

We've heard all this before at the Dakota Alliance.  Remember those local denunciations of blog criticism as "crap" driven by a "violent" internet "cabal" of "yahoos" and "jokers" who are full of "hatred" and "vitriol" and lacked "guts" because they hid "behind their computer screens" and wouldn't face newspaper editors "man to man."

Blogs

From US News:

Capital blogs

Convinced that Internet weblogs, or blogs, helped defeat Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and out Dan Rather's bad reporting on President Bush's National Guard duty, House and Senate Republicans are scrambling to put them on their government Web pages. "Senators want them even though they don't know what they are," says a strategist helping several GOP senators develop the chat and news pages.

Also, word has it that Senator Harry Reid has hired a blogger!

Department of Education Names Indian Education Coordinator

Keith Moore has been named the the state Indian education coordinator for the Department of Education.  Some of his goals include improving the attendance, graduation rates and test scores at the states predominantly Native American Schools. 

In particular I like Moore's suggestion that schools should "integrate more American Indian history and culture into the school curriculum" in an effort to keep Native American Students interested in school.  I would take this an extra step though.  I wish all schools would do a better job of educating students in South Dakota about Native American history and culture.  When I was in high school my history teacher taught us about Native American history as a part of the South Dakota history requirement, which must be met according to state law.  I think if more schools made the effort that my teacher did to make sure we learned about all of South Dakota's history including Native American history everyone would benefit. 

CBS

Remember how CBS fired several producers for using forged documents to undermine the President?  Well, they won't leave...

More Politics of Sparsity

From the Grand Forks Herald:

BISMARCK, N.D. - Despite fervent opposition from a handful of tiny rural schools, the North Dakota Senate has approved legislation to require elementary schools with fewer than 100 students to affiliate with a high school.

The bill, which is frequently introduced in the Legislature and defeated just as often, has been one of the 2005 session's top e-mail generators. Senators have been swamped with messages from school parents and their children, asking that the measure be defeated.

Attending CPAC

Well, I'll be flying out at 6:15 (!) tomorrow morning  to attend the 2005 CPAC Conference.  I'll be attending with a moderate-sized group of College Republicans from around the state.  I'm really looking forward to it!  I won't be an official CPAC Blogger, but will hopefully post some pictures and news from the conference when I have computer access.   Like Drudge would say, "Developing"....

The Politics of Sparsity

The Argus Leader carries a story this morning about an attempt by the legislature to find additional funding for some of the struggling schools in some of the most remote and sparsely-populated areas of the High Plains of South Dakota.  Excerpt:

The bill, sponsored for the second straight session by Republican Senate leader Eric Bogue of Faith, proposes to spend $2.6 million in targeted state aid for perhaps 16 schools that have low student numbers, large land areas and virtually no opportunities to consolidate with other schools.

"We're recognizing they're small, they're remote, they're sparse, and they're doing as much as they can," Bogue said.

He said his bill mirrors the final version of a much-debated but unsuccessful sparsity bill in the 2004 Legislature.

Robin Jones, a member of the Faith School Board, urged lawmakers to pass the bill. Under the current form of the measure, Faith would receive about $946,000 in state aid, about $120,000 more than the current formula would provide.

Faith has tried to manage its financial issues, Jones said. Since 2001, the district has eliminated industrial arts, family and consumer science, a certified librarian and a certified guidance counselor, she said. It has reduced its lunch program and janitorial staff, and the chief executive officer also is the high school and elementary principal, she said.

"Some of our students travel 40 to 50 miles, one way, to school," Jones said. "Many travel at least 25 miles."

Miss Rodeo South Dakota

The Bell Fourche Post & Bee has a story about Miss Rodeo South Dakota, Marie Schaller from Wessington Springs.  Excerpt (I especially like her comment at the end):

Her coronation at the Mitchell Corn Palace brought out 400 people. Proceeds go to help her in her travels and with wardrobe.

Having to raise your own funds and hitting the road behind the wheel of a big pickup and trailer rig sounds like a rough year, but Schaller said, "It's not hard because I love it so much."

She smiled: "It's rodeo and the people involved in rodeo. The western way of life, sealing a deal with a handshake and the pleasures of walking through a freshly-cut alfalfa field, chores in the fresh air, driving at night and not seeing a single yard light."

What has been achieved in Iraq so Far

As our returning troops readjust to a mostly gentle February climate here in South Dakota, it is worth taking a moment to consider what they have helped to achieve.  Consider this from the Washington Post on the outcome of the Iraqi elections.

THE 8.5 MILLION Iraqis who turned out to vote two weeks ago have elected a national assembly more suited for the task of nation-building than many would have expected. An alliance backed by the Shiite clergy won a plurality of the vote, and it may command a bare majority in the 275-seat body. But fears that Iraq's new government will be monopolized by pro-Iranian factions bent on religious rule seem unfounded. The Shiite block will be balanced by an almost equal number of secular legislators, and its leaders acknowledge the need to compromise with Kurds, Sunnis and other groups. It is likely that the new prime minister will be secular and Western-educated, and his cabinet may contain some of the same politicians handpicked by the United States for Iraq's first postwar government.  [My emphasis].

Or consider this, from the London Times:

Some despotic Arab regimes, already shaking with fear that democracy in Iraq may spread to their neck of the wood, have lost no time in saying this.  Al-Ahram, the daily newspaper of the Egyptian Government, greeted the election results as the signal for civil war, claiming that holding elections is the principal cause of the current violence in Iraq. The Saudi media has brought back the Shia bogeyman as an argument against the holding of genuine elections in the region.

The overwhelming majority of Iraqis, however, see the Khomeinist regime in Tehran not as a model but as a warning. The Iraqi electorate has rejected not only Khomeinism but all other brands of extremism: the combined share of the votes for the most radical groups was puny. The party of Muqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand anti-American Shia cleric who was supposed to represent the angry Arab street, won just two seats.  One thing is sure: Iraq has been set on the road to democracy.

For all the daunting obstacles that yet lay in the path between this newly elected government and a republic, this is the most hopeful situation the Arab world has ever seen.  Whatever you think about the American invasion of 2003, our troops deserve to know that they may have changed the course of history in a very favorable way. 

Fmr. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staffer in trouble

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) - A former staffer for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee admitted Tuesday to stealing about $360,000 in donor checks while he was employed there.

Roger Chiang pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of mail fraud. Sentencing is scheduled for June.

Chiang, a staffer in charge of ethnic outreach and fund raising, was fired from the DSCC after about $360,000 in missing committee donor checks were traced to a bank account he had opened. The DSCC is the main fund-raising arm for Senate Democrats.

USS Jimmy Carter

The Navy will commission a new attack submarine, the Jimmy Carter, tip to Drudge and The Navy Newsstand.  Boy!  That name will strike fear in the hearts of, well I don't know, maybe the Phillipine Navy. 

Carter is the only U.S. President to have qualified for submarine duty, so I guess this is appropriate.  Frankly I'd rather serve on the USS Howard Stern. 

I notice that the submarine will be launched at Groton Connecticut.  Maybe we can get them to launch from Groton South Dakota instead, assuming we can get the problem of no ocean figured out.  Were about as far from the beach as its possible to get. 

Maybe the Carter will have a long life and lots of happy hunting.  But I predict that after its decommission it will still cruise around getting involved in affairs it doesn't understand and showing a marked fondness for the worst sorts of bad guys.

The Press

It's not really political and I'm not sure how far beyond Sioux Falls this story has traveled, but in Sioux Falls the Argus Leader and the local news stations have been obsessed with the story of Patrick Deuel, a man from Valentine, Nebraska who weighed 1,100 pounds when he arrived at a Sioux Falls hospital.  After he was released after losing 460 or so pounds, the Argus did a rather brutal follow-up piece on him saying he had reverted to his old bad habits.  The Argus even editorialized (!) about his alleged reversion.  Now the local news station KELO-Land has done a story in which he rebuts the Argus story.  To me, this whole episode is a bizarre combination of media obsession, voyeurism, and sensationalism.  I guess it may serve some purpose by highlighting the social scourge of obesity, but I'm inclined to conclude the press should leave this poor man alone.  He has enough problems without having to fend off media sneering.

Open Fields

Another bill abolishing the "Open Fields Doctrine" has died in committee.

Hewitt, Instapundit, Hinderaker on CNBC

In case you missed it yesterday, all three were on CNBC's Kudlow & Company discussing Eason Jordan: Glenn Reynolds has the video.

Afghanistan update

More historic news:

KABUL, Afghanistan --President Hamid Karzai is preparing to appoint Afghanistan's first female provincial governor, his spokesman said Tuesday, in another step toward reviving women's rights trampled by the former hardline Taliban government.

An all-female shortlist including former Women's Minister Habiba Sarobi has been drawn up for the governorship of central Bamiyan province, presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said, though no decision has been taken.

Will you see it covered by MSM? Probably not.

Syria gets hot

The US has pulled its ambassador to Syria due to possible Syrian complicity in the murder of the Lebanese Prime Minister.