South Dakota
updated
11:45 a.m.
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I was done with Palin for the day, really... but Steve wasn't.... Hey, for all of you grumbling about David Letterman's inappropriate jokes about Sarah Palin and her family, fire up your comment flamethrowers and visit Steve Hemmingsen's latest post on the soon-to-be-ex-governor of Alaska. KELO's commentator emeritus quite aptly notes that quitting isn't usually a hallmark of political succes...
Madville Times - 11:44 a.m.
Sioux Falls is looking at the possibility of extending its wonderful bike trail to connect with Tea, Harrisburg, and Brandon . Splendid! Give bicyclists more safe and practical places to ride, and you'll see more people become bicyclists. You'll also see more bike business and tourism. Sioux Falls's intercity bike intentions hearken to my own proposal for a Lower Big Sioux Watershed Trail conn...
Madville Times - 7:04 a.m.
Cross-posted at KELOLand.com ! There are numerous reasons Sarah Palin could be quitting her job. Maybe she just doesn't want to be governor any more. That's fine. If you don't feel you're cut out for a job, or if you're not enjoying it well enough to do the job right, it makes perfect sense to step aside and let someone else more qualified and motivated take over. Maybe she's got a better gi...
Madville Times - Sun 11:46 a.m. - 5 clicks 
I've been meaning to give props to Charlie's Pizza House in Yankton for some time. Located at the intersection of Highway 52 and Summit St. on the west side of Yankton, Charlie's had caught my attention several times, as it sits just up the street from the Star-Lite Inn, where I almost always stay when I'm in Yankton for speech tournaments. Alas, debate and interp schedules usually have me hu...
Madville Times - Sun 9:29 a.m. - 8 clicks
Brookings County may have just hit on the best economic stimulus idea ever: give people money to shoot varmints! Beset with gophers digging up all of the good green earth, the Brookings County Commission has doubled the bounty it offers for gophers from $1 to $2. I can hear the gunfire now. For $2 a head (or tail, or whatever's left after you pop the little critter with your .22), I'd happily j...
Madville Times - Fri 8:08 a.m. - 7 clicks
Tea Party organizers said they expected almost 10,000 people at their rally against health care reform yesterday. Crowd estimates: KELO: " more than 1,000 " that Sioux Falls paper: "... 325 people in the grandstand for the midafternoon speeches, though organizer Dr. Allen Unruh later estimated 500 to 700 people attended at least some of the four-hour rally. Either way, the turnout was a frac...
Madville Times - Fri 7:44 a.m. - 6 clicks
Gannett Company is reportedly poised to cut more than 1,000 jobs (7/1/09) as it tries to overcome the financial woes of the current recession. It’s not yet known how these massive cuts will impact the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader , the only Gannett newspaper in South Dakota. A decade ago, Gannett – the largest newspaper company in the United States – employed some 41,000 workers. Including the i...
Black Hills Monitor - Thu 11:28 a.m. - 13 clicks
Unlike Pat Powers , I don't use "nanny state" as a simplistic label to oppose any and all government action. Sometimes government action to protect citizens is perfectly appropriate. Sometimes government action does more harm than good. Principle is all well and good, but you have to look at the outcomes. But given Dakota War College's frequently expressed loathing for the "nanny state ," I fin...
Madville Times - Thu 10:39 a.m.
PP notes that Tea Party organizers expect 10,000 people to join them in Sioux Falls to protest the " socialized Obama administration ." (Maybe some of those doom criers would like to donate money to support the Karl Mundt Debate Tournament: Senator Mundt was big on the Red Scare , too.) As we wait to hear an independent Tea Party headcount at the end of the day (maybe KSFY will send an intern ...
Madville Times - Thu 8:06 a.m. - 10 clicks
We still haven't seen the job losses that Governor Rounds insisted would happen if Congress passed the new credit card rules . (Ah, just wait: the law is still young.) But we do see credit card companies jacking up their rates before the new law clamps down on their usurial powers. The biggest goguer, Citigroup, just raised rates on 15 million cardholders . Their rationale: We have adjuste...
Madville Times - Thu 6:03 a.m. - 2 clicks
...I'm not sure one town can contain this much excitement! I get back from camping and find the Madison Chamber of Commerce trying to piggyback on my community boosterism: they're giving away a big Madison vacation getaway July 24–26, the same weekend as the South Dakota Blogosphere Open House ! Instead of the Americinn, the Chamber picked the Madison Super 8 for the prize lodging... and t...
Madville Times - Wed 9:46 p.m. - 9 clicks
Dr. Newquist sees growing discontent and resentment directed toward one of the biggest ongoing bailout recipients in the country: agriculture. He notes that the ag lobby's resistance to the climate-change bill (exemplified by Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's no vote last week ). With Senator Thune pushing a bill to get the federal government out of corporate America, Newquist wonders how long Bi...
Madville Times - Tue 6:42 a.m. - 2 clicks
My friend Jackie reminds me that Senator Johnson is spending the Congressional holiday recess touring the state to talk health care. She lists three events where we can tell the Senator what we want in person: Sioux Falls, Tuesday, June 30 – Ramkota, Roosevelt Room, 3200 West Maple Street, Panel Presentation from 2-3:30pm . Yankton, Wednesday, July 1 - Best Western Kelly Inn,1607 East Hwy 50...
Madville Times - Jun 29 - 2 clicks
Last winter, when State Representative Mark Kirkeby (R–35/Rapid City) proposed requiring the Board of Regents to study closing one of its six university campuses , folks in the Regental system offered quiet assurances that campus consolidation was a non-starter. Just to make sure it stays a non-starter, the Regents did their own study of enrollment patterns to provide an economic argument for k...
Madville Times - Jun 29 - 3 clicks
Storm clouds on the horizon If you read past the main stream media's search for conflicts and scandals in the deaths of celebrities, you get past the sound and fury of the surly village churls, there are some serious political undercurrents swirling in America. One is the apprehension of Obama supporters that he has gone back on the promises that they elected him to carry out. Another is ...
Northern Valley Beacon - Jun 29 - 7 clicks
South Dakota's lone voice in the House of Representatives, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, joined 168 Republicans and 44 fellow Dems Friday night to vote against HR 2454, The American Clean Energy and Security Act. (The bill still passed, 219-212.) In a relative rarity, SHS found herself voting alongside my favorite Democrat's Democrat, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich. My man Dennis's reasoning is ...
Madville Times - Jun 29 - 7 clicks
Amid the idiotic partisan cacophony of a desperate GOP trying to make up faults by Obama and then castigating him for things he did not do or say, and the junior senator of South Dakota and his would-be propagandists doing the same thing, it is a relief to reflect on a man who just tried to do his job well. The death of Ed McMahon may mark the passing of a type of personality that seems in dange...
Northern Valley Beacon - Jun 24 - 4 clicks
South Dakota War College has recently demonstrated and formally announced that its author, the aptly designated PP, wants to replace Jon Lauck, now a Thune staff member, as the state's major character assassin in the blogopotty. The piddling duel has become the S. D. Republicans' strategy of choice and the verbal squirt gun is their weapon. While Sibby quotes the mindless malice of Rush Limba...
Northern Valley Beacon - Jun 16 - 2 clicks
See Shepard Smith on the kind of e-mail and postings you find on the South Dakota blogosphere in a most casual survey of it. ...
Northern Valley Beacon - Jun 10 - 3 clicks
No state is more anti-labor than South Dakota. When workers in the state walk through the doors of their places of employment each day, they step back into the Middle Ages and assume the status of serfs. In the work place, they have no rights. South Dakota is an "at will" state, which means that employers can fire employees at whim and without reason. The only modifying influence on that power...
Northern Valley Beacon - Jun 8 - 2 clicks
The Washington Post states that Aberdeen was the place where retired State Department official Kendall Myers became associated with his wife Gwendolyn who have been charged with spying for Cuba. The following year [1979], Myers moved to South Dakota, apparently to teach, friends said. He lived with a woman who would soon become his second wife, Gwendolyn Trebilcock, a legislative aide for ...
Northern Valley Beacon - Jun 8
Realizing that President Obama is joining other world leaders to observe the 65th anniversary of the landing of Allied forces in France on D Day on June 6th, I remembered that I had written something about that historic event 15 years ago. That was on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of D Day when I was a commentator for South Dakota Public Radio. Although a decade and a half has passed si...
Black Hills Monitor - Jun 5 - 3 clicks
I am combining all of my blogs—about Kansas, South Dakota, Buddhism, and the law—into one blog-the Middle Border Sun, formerly South Dakota Watch. I am tagging the headlines so you can quickly scan if you are interested in the topic. The MBS also utilizes a unique, “boxy” look that aggregates many postings on diverse topics in a small amount of space. Please change you...
SD Watch - Jun 2
I am combining all of my blogs—about Kansas, South Dakota, Buddhism, and the law—into one blog-the Middle Border Sun, formerly South Dakota Watch. I am tagging the headlines so you can quickly scan if you are interested in the topic. The MBS also utilizes a unique, “boxy” look that aggregates many postings on diverse topics in a small amount of space. Please change you...
SD Watch - Jun 2 - 2 clicks
While attending the 2009 South Dakota State Historical Society History Conference in Pierre last month, I noticed a young man videotaping the various speakers and struck up a conversation with him. Patrick Callahan is a “one-man show” for Oahe TV , operated by the City of Pierre. It was a serendipitous meeting, since just the evening before – while sequestered in a room at the Kings Inn –...
Black Hills Monitor - Jun 2 - 2 clicks
Lorraine Collins is a writer from Spearfish and has allowed us to share her thoughts about newspapers and history. ~ A 100-year-old news item in the Pioneer caught my eye the other day and made me laugh. The story from 1909 in “a Peek at the Past” said that “Emil Johnson of Welcome returned a few days ago from a visit at his old home in Kansas and much to the surprise ...
Black Hills Monitor - May 14
