South Dakota
updated
7:21 p.m.
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Bob Ellis tags his blog with the line " Exposing the Pernicious Lie ." I think he's referring to his own content. South Dakota's nuttiest wing proves its penchant for believing what it wants and ignoring what is . Bob Ellis gloats and chortles over a lefty poll that he says says America is less respected globally . Ellis, of course, blames America's diminished standing on President Obama'...
Madville Times - 5:24 p.m.
Seth Tupper reminds me that South Dakota's unemployment numbers for January are out today. The news isn't good for Lake County. After a couple months of decline, we started 2010 with an increase in unemployment, from 5.5% to 6.0%. That's still better than 7 out of 12 months last year. But consider this shocking number: in January, there were 6050 jobs in Lake County. According to Department o...
Madville Times - 1:06 p.m. - 3 clicks 
South Dakota expat Donald Carr works for the Environmental Working Group in D.C., but he's still rooting for his home crowd. He writes in yesterday's edition of that Sioux Falls paper to criticize the South Dakota Legislature's ridiculous strichism on climate change . He reminds us that SDSU research shows we're losing wetlands as a result of climate change. Carr also reminds us that the main...
Madville Times - 9:44 a.m. - 3 clicks
Right now, if they're paying attention, thousands of Huffington Post readers are clicking the living crap out of the big Gordon Howie button that pops up, just for catharsis: Gordon Howie ad on Huffington Post, 2010.03.09 (click to embiggen... if you dare!) Curious, Gordie : how many South Dakota "Tea Party Republicans" do you expect to reach on the Huffington Post ? The ad takes...
Madville Times - 6:02 a.m. - 3 clicks
Contrary to the opinion of our South Dakota House Republicans and some crotchety conservatives in D.C. , the stimulus act really is " important, useful, and beneficial " for our fair state and the whole country. Jim Bunning be darned, extending unemployment benefits really is a good idea: Almost every economist agrees that these benefits do, indeed, stimulate the economy by putting money int...
Madville Times - 4:45 a.m. - 3 clicks
It's official: domestic abuse is no longer a pre-existing condition in South Dakota. Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1189 into law on Monday, March 8... which also happened to be International Women's Day . Nice timing, Gov! ...
Madville Times - Tue 8:41 p.m. - 4 clicks
Two interesting actions on education by the South Dakota Legislature: Some serious hoghousage: House Appropriations grabbed from the table SB 22 , which originally called for establishing a private fund to keep Birth to 3 Connections afloat. The committee deleted all text and substituted their own version of HB 1050, which would zero the increase in the per student allocation in the state schoo...
Madville Times - Tue 11:08 a.m. - 6 clicks
The South Dakota Legislature just passed a plan to adjust the school funding formula to use more current enrollment data. That's a good thing for growing districts, who won't have to wait a year to get the funds they need to cover the cost of educating all those new kids. But given the state's persistent view of students as an expense rather than an investment , it's surprising our legislators...
Madville Times - Tue 7:21 a.m. - 6 clicks
Working up my post on the supposed monetary value of students brought me to the Census Bureau's page on public school finance data . Yum, numbers! Some statistics I find interesting (all from AY 2006–2007): 50th : South Dakota's rank in state revenue spent per student on K-12 education. 56% : ratio of South Dakota's state per student spending to national average. -1.07 : z-score o...
Madville Times - Mon 3:07 p.m. - 4 clicks
The whole middle school concept is predicated around the idea of building kids' self-esteem. But when the kids act like animals, they deserve a good chewing out. Fortunately for the students and parents at Dakota Middle School in Rapid City, principal Brad Tucker appears to get that : Five students were injured by thrown plates and one required medical attention in a student-organized food figh...
Madville Times - Mon 3:07 p.m. - 5 clicks
Patricia Stricherz is saying she's running again for one of the District 8 seats in the South Dakota House of Representatives. Unfortunately, she's touting her candidacy on the local Glenn Beck club website. Stricherz joined the 9-12 Project last month. If Stricherz's campaign will be based on the idea that " Glenn Beck rocks! " then we're all in for a rough ride. I thought conservatives had is...
Madville Times - Mon 3:07 p.m. - 5 clicks
Sure signs of spring....those vee-shaped wedges of geese flying north, the robins in the cedar trees, the blue jays squaking, small calves dancing in the mud, and of course, South Dakota Public Broadcasting is again requesting contributions. Yup, Daniel O'Donnell is singing again..or at least half the time..between overly-long appeals, and Chet Atkins is plinking again even though dead as......
Dakota Today - Sun 1:03 p.m. - 5 clicks
One other thing on which I'll agree with the Governor : counting some hoped-for private donors as part of your budget cuts is wimpy Santa-Claus thinking. The Republicans in Pierre who crafted the budget plan finally floated yesterday include $2 million dollars in savings from " Potential other funding sources for South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship." Come on, folks: if the Opportunity Scholars...
Madville Times - Fri 2:04 p.m. - 5 clicks
I have the honor of judging the South Dakota State Debate Tournament at Watertown High School this weekend. I will get to see some of the smartest students in the state debating the workability of expanded social services, the morality of economic sanctions, and the pros and cons of organized lobbying. I'll also hear some great extemporaneous and oratorical speaking. These intrepid high school stu...
Madville Times - Fri 7:48 a.m. - 6 clicks
Well, at least we won't be arguing over cutting public radio (or will we?).... Our men in Pierre, David Montgomery and Bob Mercer , provide excellent coverage of the Republican plan to balance the state budget. Montgomery is also fast on the draw covering the bad blood bubbling openly between Governor Rounds and his fellow Republicans in the Legislature. Meanwhile, Democrats are hangin...
Madville Times - Fri 6:43 a.m. - 7 clicks
I learn from Mr. Woodring that South Dakota's lone Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin says she pretty much won't vote for any health care legislation that has a chance of coming to a vote this month. Rather than issue another call for a primary challenger to SHS (though in our first open primary, it would be nice to have some choices to attract our Independent friends to the show i...
Madville Times - Fri 4:20 a.m. - 9 clicks
Some bills headed for the Governor's desk: Senate Bill 24 isn't a diktat to include Radioactive Chief in climate science curriculum, but it still smells of Pierre encroaching on local control in education. The Legislature is directing the Department of Education to establish statewide teacher evaluation standards. Now I kow he who has the gold makes the rules... but if Pierre is going to m...
Madville Times - Fri 3:28 a.m. - 8 clicks
Straight from campaign HQ: Scott Heidepriem is officially on the ballot! The Office of the South Dakota Secretary of State has certified that Scott Heidepriem’s campaign is the first gubernatorial campaign in the state that has already turned in enough petition signatures to qualify as a candidate for Governor this fall. “I have filed the petitions and Senator Heidepriem is now showing up as ...
Madville Times - Thu 1:45 p.m. - 10 clicks
Looking around the SD Blogosphere today and it appears that while searching for something even dumber to do than the usual mind-numbing lunacy, the SD legislature may be considering slashing funding for South Dakota Public Broadcasting. I really don't know if I can do more for public broadcasting by supporting the cuts or opposing them. The SD legislature has been......
Dakota Today - Mar 2 - 8 clicks
This is one of those catchall posts. Tomorrow happens to be the 90th Anniversary of Eddie Bauer and his down-filled jackets, etc. Our son works part-time at the Rapid City store and noted they were expecting crowds tomorrow because of the store-wide 30% discounts. Eddie Bauer stuff is a bit rich for me unless it is on sale. And it......
Dakota Today - Feb 26 - 8 clicks
Some of you may have checked the new blog I set up aimed at making science more accessible to more South Dakotans titled "SD Science Cafe and All-Night Coffee Shop". I kind of liked that name, but found out after setting it up that SDPB and perhaps other public broadcasting stations had "Science Cafes" set up as a regular feature.......
Dakota Today - Feb 26 - 10 clicks
I do not know if the proposed amendments and additions to South Dakota's defamation laws are good legislation or not, at this point. ( HB 1277 and HB 1278 .) The bills have just been introduced with a first reading in the state legislature and have not gone through the committee hearings and any of the legislative process (sausage-making, if you can stand to read that cliche one mo...
Northern Valley Beacon - Feb 7
Some members of the South Dakota legislature have introduced legislation which is aimed at catching anonymous blog and forum posters who defame from behind cover of their aliases or pseudonyms. The US FBI and other police agencies are pushing for bigger, faster, better, and more intrusive data fishing rights. I don't know if much would be lost if the "wild......
Dakota Today - Feb 6 - 4 clicks
Some blogs have gone into a state of hyper-hysteria because a bill has been introduced into the South Dakota legislature whic h would provide that the names of people who post or comment on blogs can be revealed by court order if their statements are involved in a defamation lawsuit. Like Chicken Little squawking that the sky is falling, they are screaming that the First Amendment as ...
Northern Valley Beacon - Feb 5 - 3 clicks
One of the legends of South Dakota television has passed away. Veteran broadcaster Dave Deadrick died Friday, January 22nd in Sioux Falls. While we had met Dave in the 1980s when he was still going strong at KELO-TV, we didn’t know him well. But his visage was well known for decades throughout east river – and later west river, when KELO expanded its television operation to Rapid City. A...
Black Hills Monitor - Feb 4
The South Dakota revenue department apparently has somebody hired to work on the idea of getting federal approval to allow a sales tax consortium to collect state and city sales taxes on distant transactions such as buying something on E-Bay or perhaps Amazon, etc. In short, not brick and mortar business setting on the main streets of South Dakota. This......
Dakota Today - Jan 29 - 6 clicks
If you are knowledgeable or interested in science and technology, you may want to read, post, or comment at a new blog I have set up. It was an idea of a poster at Mt. Blogmore who suggested that SD needed a science blog. My start at that may not be the best way to do that, but I hope......
Dakota Today - Jan 27 - 5 clicks
We have (or had) three primary channels to watch CBS, ABC, and PBS. SDPB-TV actually has three channels, ABC is only one, and KELO CBS/MyTV is off the air here. Was ready to watch weather forecast and the digital converter gave the "NO SIGNAL" error message for KPLO. Buried at the Keloland site is the information below. The story there......
Dakota Today - Jan 22 - 2 clicks
It looks like liberals, conservatives and so-called middle of the roaders are finding what they want to see in the left-over tea leaves and coffee grounds of the Massachusetts election. Political operatives seem to think Coakley ran a mediocre campaign failing to even get out and shake hands and assumed her election would be a cakewalk. Scott Brown got a......
Dakota Today - Jan 21 - 4 clicks
This has been an interesting week. The Denver Post’s parent company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The New York Times is positioned to start charging for its on-line content. And the Rapid City Journal’s owner – Lee Enterprises – reports revenues for 2009 dropped by 18.2 percent. In fact, Lee indicated that its yearend report was actually encouraging news. Fourth Quarter revenu...
Black Hills Monitor - Jan 21 - 4 clicks
The South Dakota legislative session is open again. As a sign in the office of Dick Kneip or Ted Muenster said years ago, "No man's life or property is safe while the legislature is in Session."..or something much like that. I don't think the situation is quite that dreadful, but after listening to legislators and Governor for the last week......
Dakota Today - Jan 17 - 8 clicks
