2/28/11

How We the People screwed the Indians

Indianz.com brings this from Brian Hicks' revelatory Smithsonian article on the early evolution of reservation law:

John Ross made an unlikely looking Cherokee chief. Born in 1790 to a Scottish trader and a woman of Indian and European heritage, he was only one-eighth Cherokee by blood. To a degree unique among the five major tribes in the South, the Cherokees used diplomacy and legal argument to protect their interests. With the help of a forward-looking warrior named Major Ridge, Ross became the tribe’s primary negotiator with officials in Washington, D.C., adept at citing both federal law and details from a dozen treaties the Cherokees signed with the federal government between 1785 and 1819. Even as his health failed, Ross would not quit. In 1866, he was in Washington to sign yet another treaty—one that would extend Cherokee citizenship to freed Cherokee slaves—when he died on August 1, two months shy of his 76th birthday. More than three decades later, the federal government appropriated Indian property in the West and forced the tribes to accept land reservations.
As if ip wasn't pissed off enough already.

So, opium use is as historic in Deadwood as gambling.  The Gulch makes the logical location for a cannabis-friendly zone.  Who's with me?

2011 Planetary Defense Conference announced.

Inside Job on Here and Now.

For hipneck, Newland, and DDC.

2/26/11

Black Hills: rare earth?

Hummingbirdminds is a rare bird, indeed. A Liberal in Wyoming, Michael Shay turns ip onto this terrifying bit of news from Daily Kos:
These are 15 elements known as lanthanoids in the periodic table, plus scandium and yttrium; uses include wind turbines and hybrid car batteries. Despite the name, they’re not truly rare. And should a potential shortage justify toxic strip mining in the Black Hills National Forest? Now, a Canadian company, Rare Elements Resources, wants to open a strip mine within the Black Hills National Forest, in northeastern Wyoming and about 15 miles from Devils Tower National Monument. The Bear Lodge Mountains are said to be one of North America's best verified source of rare earths.
Scared yet? The Rapid City Journal article didn't have any reader comments so here is the Billings Gazette:
Talk about rare earths mining has drawn little attention in Wyoming. But environmentalist Nancy Hilding, president of the Prairie Hills Audubon Society of western South Dakota, said mining companies often fail to protect groundwater as promised.
No shit.

Acid mine drainage can kill or cause birth defects in the birds and mammals that happen into contaminated standing water on these sites.  Senator John Barrasso and the other Earth raping Republicans are working overtime to defund environmental protection, especially on public lands.

The US is beginning to get religion on existing rare earth stocks; we have more buried in landfills than all other developed countries combined.  Japan recovers most of her needs from waste streams:

Recent problems with Chinese supplies of rare earths have sent Japanese traders and companies in search of alternative sources, creating opportunities for Kosaka. This town’s hopes for a mining comeback lie not underground, but in what Japan refers to as urban mining — recycling the valuable metals and minerals from the country’s huge stockpiles of used electronics like cellphones and computers.
Montana's Lemhi Pass area in the Bitterroot Mountains is also being surveyed for rare earth deposits.

National Weather Service, USGS at risk to GOP 2011 government shutdown

From MPR's god (blod?) of weather:

There is big talk in Washington these days about proposed budget cuts for NOAA and the National Weather Service. Some proposals cut the NWS budget by about 30%. Suggested impacts of such cuts could include closing NWS offices reducing maintenance on the doppler radar and NOAA weather radio networks and even reducing the number of upper air soundings from every 12 hours to once daily or even once every two days. If we had to wait even longer to sample storms coming off the Pacific it could be a disaster on model accuracy with winter storms. Forecasting winter storms is already one of the most difficult forecasts a meteorologist in Minnesota has to make.
The USGS could lose $94M to the Earth-hating Koch fiends now stealing the tools the People need to protect families and expose the ecocide.

Contact Koch 'hoes don Juan Thune, Dennybriated Rehberg, and Krusti Noem and give them a piece of my mind.

You might be a TEAbagger if:

2/24/11

After Shuttle Discovery: 2011 Space Elevator Conference scheduled

2011 Space Elevator Conference
August 12-14 | Microsoft Conference Center | Redmond, Washington, USA


Friday, August 12 through Sunday, August 14, 2011


The Space Elevator is a radical new way to access space less expensively than possible with chemical rocket technology. The technology offers solutions to many of the problems facing communities today, including but not limited to the need for clean, renewable energy. The Space Elevator uses a carbon nanotube ribbon that stretches from the surface of the earth to a counterweight in space. Climbers ascend the ribbon lifting cargo and passengers to earth orbits and launching spacecraft to distant planets.


The conference, focusing on all aspects of Space Elevator development, will engage an international audience of scientists, engineers, educators, managers, entrepreneurs, enthusiasts, and students. The theme of this year's conference is Developing Stronger, Lighter Tethers - "30 MYuri or Bust", and will also feature topical discussions in all of the Four Pillars of Space Elevator Development: Science/Technical, Political/Social, Legal and Economic. In addition, we anticipate technical and speculative presentations on the topics mentioned below. We invite you to present a paper on a topic of your interest.


Conference tentative program:


Public Presentations (details subject to change)


A Public Space Elevator Presentation - 7pm-8pm August 11, 2011 at the Microsoft Conference Center
Space Elevator 101 Sessions - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - attend one of two sessions (morning or afternoon, separate from the three-day technical program) where you can learn more about the space elevator


3-Day Technical Program (details subject to change)


Space Elevator Overview Presentation - the popular conceptual design
Presentation of the Artsutanov and Pearson prizes to acknowledge and reward innovative thinking related to the space elevator
The NASA Centennial Challenges Strong Tether Competition - A NASA challenge in materials engineering in which the tether provided by each team is subjected to a pull test to win a $2 million prize
Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Research – latest progress in high strength CNT research
SE Impact on the Future - transformations enabled by the SE, including exploration, using space resources to solve problems here on Earth, solar power platforms, extra-terran bases, and colonization
Roadmap Workshop - focusing on the four pillars of development, get engaged!
Shotgun Science Session - science ideas not ready for prime time: rapid sequence, 5 min

It seems to ip that an Astral Trade Center constructed on the property once occupied by a center of world trade might have made a fitting memorial.

Thank a Democrat today

Or, a woman, for that matter...

It's like pulling teeth.

Kayla Gahagan announces that Lakota language instruction is coming to Rapid City Central High School after a hundred years of toothache:
Board member Suzan Nolan said the Lakota language is an essential part of helping keep Native students in school. “One of the things people say is that they are losing their culture and their language, and if we want to be sensitive to keeping kids in school, if we say we offer Lakota, we need to offer a certified instructor,” she said. Nolan recently attended a Native American education conference and said she met several teachers who would be willing to teach Lakota.

No shit, Rapid City.

2/22/11

ip manifesto updated

The reading of the Declaration of Independence by members of the reporting staff at NPR on the 4th of July gets me every time. Past on-air personalities, some now correspondents at the pearly gates, also read for this decades-old feature. The tears stream down my face right up to the line that begins:
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare…
That’s when it hits me right between the eyes.

When those words were being written, thousands of cultures inhabited a continent that seemed to keep growing huge ripe plums just waiting for Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton and the rest to pick and pick and pick and pick. Already, the Chesapeake Bay estuary had been mostly denuded of native vegetation, not to mention of its former human inhabitants.

Slaves tilled the fields and built the infrastructure, the ancestors of the Lakota and other Siouan groups that had been forced westward out of North Carolina generations earlier, traded with the Spanish and French while forging their own alliances (and marriages) with other indigenous peoples.

So, we’ve come a long way, init?

The United States Constitution is the finest instrument ever created by the human hand. The Preamble is the body, the Bill of Rights is the neck, the Amendments are the strings. It is a fluid universal execution of human and civil rights.

While the Palestinian homeland looks like holes in the slice of Swiss cheese analogous to the illegal Israeli state, progress toward resolutions of Native trust disputes would have far more political traction after tribes secede from the States in which they reside and then be ratified to form one State, the 51st, sans contiguous borders with two Senators and two House members as there are an estimated 2.5 million indigenous.

It’s time for all Americans to enjoy the protection of law by being part of one nation: erase the artificial borders and grant Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness to all the people of North AmericaMexico, Central America, Canada, even the Caribbean if they’ll have us.

ip is not a New World Order guy, does not support the North American Union (god bless you. please, mr. roddenberry) and believes that the US Constitution is a big enough canvas in order to paint a more perfect masterpiece, a big enough score for all to sing. No violence. No more drug wars.

Read Alaska’s constitution some time. The last states ratified are the most egalitarian. Let’s debate it and draft a dream referendum to be delivered by and for the people of Mexico to dissolve their constitution and petition for Statehood as our 52nd State. Quebec could be the 53rd and Cuba, the 54th.

Let's do it.

Here's a little road music

If you're itchin' to flee just get in the car and go...



2/21/11

Dead baby dolphins washing onto Gulf beaches

Update, March 2.

Switchboard, the blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council alerted ip to this Mississippi Sun-Herald story:


The Institute of Marine Mammal Studies performed necropsies, animal autopsies, on two of the babies. Moby Solangi, director of the institute, called the high number of deaths an anomaly and told the Sun Herald that it is significant, especially in light of the BP oil spill throughout the spring and summer last year when millions of barrels of crude oil containing toxins and carcinogens spewed into the Gulf of Mexico. Oil worked its way into the Mississippi and Chandeleur sounds and other bays and shallow waters where dolphins breed and give birth.

At least 600 attend Statehouse rally



Stephanie Davis fresh from A Prairie Home Companion


Part of the Basin contingent




From the Helena Independent Record:

An estimated 600 people from throughout Montana rallied at the state Capitol at noon Monday to show their anger with legislative proposals that they believe would harm the environment.

Denise Juneau, superintendent of public instruction, fired up the crowd when she motioned to the statehouse and said that legislators inside were "introducing unconstitutional laws that make the state I love the laughing stock of the country. They're making public employees punching bags. They're inside, slashing and burning MEPA (the Montana Environmental Policy Act). They're saying climate change is a good thing. They're gutting the Endangered Species Act. They're attempting to change the constitutional mandate for a clean and healthful environment," Juneau said.

The rally was brought together from a wide range of environmental and wildlife organizations, according to Ed Gulick with the Northern Plains Resource Council. The impetus for the gathering came from the feeling that the fundamental beliefs many Montanans hold dear are being trampled during this session, and they want the legislators to know people are upset. After the rally they filled the Senate gallery in a show of support for environmental protections.
It was a fun day.  From the floor during this President's Day event, a legislator noted that the gallery was filled every day in a bygone era and that only the radicalism of this session brought voters to their own Capitol this year.

2/20/11

Helena bracing for massive demonstration

Left in the West puts it all in one place.  The weather could be a factor.

Reposted from 4&20 Blackbirds:

Come stand in solidarity against the right-wing onslaught around the country against environmental, labor and human rights!


Bus schedules and car pooling info from around the state to Helena after the jump.


Bus Schedule
You must RSVP for a seat on the bus.


Billings: $20.00 (round trip-includes lunch)
Depart 6:30 a.m.
Board the bus for return at 2:00 p.m.
Estimated time of return to Billings: 6:30 p.m.


Call 406-248-1154 to reserve your seat


Bozeman: This bus is full — we are coordinating car pools from Bozeman.
Depart 8:30 a.m.
Board the bus for return at 2:00 p.m.
Estimated time of return to Bozeman: 4:30 p.m.


Call 406-248-1154 to reserve your seat


Missoula: $14.00 (round trip-lunch not included)
Depart 9 a.m.
Board the bus for return at 2:00 p.m.
Estimated time of return to Missoula: 4:00 p.m.


Call 406-248-1154 to reserve your seat


Flathead Area: $10.00 (round trip-lunch not included)
Depart Whitefish 6:00 a.m.
Depart Kalispell 6:20 a.m.
Depart Bigfork 6:40 a.m.
Depart Helena 1:30 pm


Call 406-314-3583 or email michelletafoya@mhrn.org


Endorsed by:
Northern Plains Resource Council
Montana Environmental Information Center
Montana Conservation Voters
Alternative Energy Resources Organization
Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project
Montana Wilderness Association
Montana Wildlife Federation
National Wildlife Federation
Montana Audubon
Sierra Club
Clark Fork Coalition
Helena Hunters and Anglers
Environment Montana
MontPIRG
University of Montana Climate Action Now
Park County Environmental Council
Greater Yellowstone Coalition
The Wilderness Society
Wildlands CPR
University of Montana Environmental Law Group

T-Shirt: Revised Sermon on the Mount

The revised Christo-Fascist Sermon On The Mount. And Jesus said: "Your poverty disgusts me. Get a job, you losers."

Color: blue on sand




This one made me laugh like hell:

2/19/11

For whom is Secretary Gates working?

OK, this is downright weird.

It would seem that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates (a graymailing holdout from the Bush regime with ties to Xe) knew Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, was ready to twist off. 

The FBI and the Pentagon are responsible for a "string of failures" in the way they attempted to track a disgruntled Army major in the years before he allegedly opened fire at a crowded Ft. Hood, Texas, deployment center in the worst domestic terror ambush since the attacks of September 2001, two key Senate leaders concluded Thursday. An FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force learned of his radicalization and passed it on to another FBI task force. "However, the ensuing inquiry failed to identify the totality of Hasan's communications and to inform Hasan's military chain of command and Army security officials of the fact that he was communicating with a suspected violent Islamist extremist."
Recall the case of James Wheeler, the defense analyst whose body was found in a landfill:

Wheeler, who his close friends knew as Jack, reportedly had earned TS/SCI (Top Secret / Special Compartmentalized Information) clearance during his most recent government job, special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force during the administration of George W. Bush.
Wheeler was known as a straight arrow with a proclivity for whistle-blowing, an intimate knowledge of defense contracts and the revolving door.

Be sure to read through the comments in this from the European Union Times:

To the direct reason for Wheeler’s murder, this report says, was this past week’s transport of Iraqi Phosgene poisonous gas aboard a US Air Force KC-767 tanker aircraft from Little Rock Air Force Base enroute to Afghanistan that shortly after takeoff had a ‘critical malfunction’ of its aerial spraying computer directed command and control system over central Arkansas causing the deaths of thousands of red-wing blackbirds.
Coincidence or duplicity? Is Gates a Cheney plant?

Montanans to demonstrate disapproval with legislature

From my inbox:

Monday, February 21st Citizen’s Day at the Capitol
JOIN US ON PRESIDENT'S DAY


Montana Organizing Project is hosting a Citizen’s Day at the capitol so the voices of Montana citizens can be heard directly by state decision makers during this crucial time for the state budget decisions and health care reform.


The stories and voices of people of faith, labor and Montana’s families and communities will be captured and published. We will also help you set up meetings with your individual legislators, train you on how best to handle those meetings and provide support to you during the day. The purpose of Citizen’s Day is to make sure the people making budget and health care decisions can hear directly from you.


If you have a concern about any aspect of the state budget that might be at risk this year when the state is considering hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts - from education to health care to roads – Add your voice to the diverse voices of the Montana Organizing Project —
the stories and voices of people of faith, labor and Native American families and communities — as we join with other Montana organizations to lobby, rally and speak up for Montana Values.


Rally for Public Services and Education at 2 pm with MEA-MFT and allies- On the Northside of the Capitol Lawn.


AGENDA
8:30 AM: Orientation and Welcome at Covenant United Methodist Church in Helena- 2330 E. Broadway


8:45 AM: Training Session
- How the legislature works
- How to talk with your legislator


- Briefing:
1. The State of the State Budget – Tara Veazey – Director of Montana Budget and Policy Center
2. Protecting Montana’s Future – the story book MOP put together
3. Form Lobby Teams on Montana State Budget Issues


10:00 AM: Choose Your Own Adventure (various locations in Capitol)
- Hearings
- Small groups meet with legislators


12:00 PM: Luncheon & Conversations: Capitol Room 303- Old Supreme Court
Chambers (Key legislators invited – Governor Schweitzer invited)


1:00 PM: Choose Your Own Adventure (various locations in Capitol)
- Senate and House Convene on the Floor
- Small groups meet with legislators
1:30 PM: Sign Making on the lawn of MEA-MFT Office across from the Capitol


2:00 PM: RALLY with MEA-MFT: Rally for Public Services and Public Education (Northside of the Capitol Lawn)


2:30 PM: Reflection and Wrap-up: Capitol Rotunda


3:00 PM: Hearings (for those who can stay on in Helena)


Buses are leaving from the Adams Center on UM Campus in Missoula at 8 am on Monday for folks coming from Missoula-- sponored by the University Faculty Union (UFA) and MEA-MFT.


February 20th Dinner and Overnight in Butte (optional)
1:00 pm- 6:30 pm Check in at War Bonnet Hotel (rooms available starting at 1:00 pm)
6-30 pm – 8:30 pm Dinner & Preview of “Citizen’s Day” at Mountain View United Methodist
Church


TRAVEL INFORMATION:
Butte:
For those of you staying with us Sunday night in Butte, rooms are booked at the War Bonnet Hotel 2100
Cornell Avenue. Their telephone number is (406) 494-7800
Directions: Driving EAST to Butte on I-90, take exit 127 for Harrison Ave. Turn right at Harrison Ave. Take
the first right onto Cornell Ave.


A Dinner for MOP Leaders will be at 6:30 pm. We will be meeting for dinner at Mountain View United
Methodist Church (up on the Hill corner of Montana and Quartz) 301 N Montana St. Their telephone
number is (406) 723-7966.
Directions (from War Bonnet): Turn left at Cornell Ave. Turn right at Harrison Ave. Continue heading
north on Harrison Ave. keeping left at the fork. Continue on East Front St. Turn right at South Arizona St.
Turn left at East Granite St. Turn right at North Montana St. Church is located on the corner of Montana
and Quartz. Park on the street.


Helena:
Welcome and Legislative Training (8:30-10:00 am) will be held at Covenant United Methodist Church
located at 2330 E. Broadway (across from St. Peter's Hospital ER entrance). The phone number is 442-
6501.


Directions from Butte (I-15 North): Take exit 190 toward S. Helena. Exit 190 turns left and becomes
Saddle Dr. At the traffic circle, take the 1st exit onto Colonial Drive. Turn left at Broadway St.
Directions from Bozeman (US 287): Continue onto Prospect Ave. Turn left at N. Fee St. Continue onto
11th Ave. Turn right at N. California St. Turn left at Broadway St.
Directions from Missoula (US 12): Turn left at I-15 BUS S/US-12 E/11th Ave. Turn right at 11th Ave. Turn
right at N. California St. Turn left at Broadway St.


Other Information:
Food:
Dinner on the 20th and Lunch on the 21st will be provided. Also, coffee and pastries will be provided at
the morning training at Covenant Church.
Transportation and Parking:
We will shuttle people to the Capitol on Monday the 21st from Covenant Church. If you need to leave the
Capitol before 3:00 pm that day it would be advised to arrange your own travel from the church to the
Capitol. There is a parking lot at the church, parking at the Capitol is much trickier and you will need to
look for street parking.


Dress:
MOP staff recommends that you wear business casual clothes while at the Capitol. It is not necessary to
wear a suit. Important thing is to be comfortable, and to wear shoes that you can walk and stand in.
Questions: If you have any questions please call Sheena Rice at 406-490-9777


Northwest Federation of Community Organization
208 East Main Street
Missoula , Montana 59802

2/18/11

Hypocritheocrisy exposed

The Zionist Right is a den of pornographers and masturbators flinging jiz at those that enjoy cannabis.

Pornography is the elephant in the pews, says Craig Gross [It's gross, all right]. "The statistics say that 48 percent of Christian families are dealing with the issue of pornography in their home," Gross says. "I would say the other 52 percent are just unaware of it being an issue in their house." Even some Orthodox Jews now struggle with porn. The most traditional used to shun the Internet, says Yaakov Gold [C'mon, Jack-off Gold?], who runs a website for Jews struggling with pornography. But now 80 percent have Internet access, he says, and that has opened up whole new opportunities. "Never in history have we had such a situation where everyone basically has a whorehouse in their home, in the privacy of their office when no one's around," Gold says.

2/16/11

South Dakota ahead in Nutwatch race

Confirmed by a recent ip poll, it’s always fun and games until someone gets an eye poked out.

Montana Cowgirl started the competition; but, with the Montana Senate voting to repeal capital punishment, South Dakota has stormed to the front in the race for Stupidest Red State Legislature by introducing a bill in an attempt to codify the targeting of abortion providers for termination.

For states with supposed budget crises, interdiction, enforcement, litigation, and “corrections” seem limitless. Red states have gone to extremes to de-legalize the de-born by de-thinking sex-ed and de-sinning Condoms for Christ but insist that afterwards; please, die quickly so we don’t have to spend money to educate you because you’re going to flee the state anyway.

Moon over White Rock Canyon






The walk into the Colorado River in Lake Mead Recreation Area to Arizona Hot Springs is other-worldly.  One can almost feel the eyes of the wildlife looking down at you while you hike.  Most annoying, however, was the steady stream of airliners on approach to Las Vegas just thirty miles away as the vulture flies.

2/12/11

Salaam aleikum

Hello.

On a gorgeous Arizona day, our most excellent South Sudanese housekeepers (one putting sons through university, one a husband) were nearly giddy over the possibility of democracy coming to Egypt as they giggled then patiently taught a few words of Egyptian to a scruffy gringo hunched over a computer flabbergasted as the War Toilet turds turn on one of their own as he decries the use of the xenophobicism, "anchor babies."

Nedah


Nurlyv

2/11/11

Arizona tribe flexing sovereignty muscle

Looks like some lawyers have learned to speak O'odham. This is hard stuff to get my head around: Tribal sovereignty binds the hands of states competing for the resources that red states want to end.

From the Phoenix Business Journal via Indianz.com:


The Tohono O’odham Nation is suing the state of Arizona in federal court challenging a state law recently passed that aims to restrict a casino the tribe wants to build near Jobing.com Arena and University of Phoenix Stadium. The state law gives the city of Glendale leverage to try to block the O’odham casino at 95th and Northern avenues. The tribe contends a 1986 federal law gives it the right to acquire lands to made part of its reservation. The suit is the latest salvo in the legal tussle between the tribe and Glendale, which opposes the casino. Glendale has sued the Obama administration over the U.S. Interior Department’s initial approval of the tribe’s request to make the land part of its reservation.
The city of Glendale contends that nefarious proceeds will be laundered through casinos on which tribes rely to bring their people out of poverty. 

The Arizona Republic explains:

Luis Plascencia, an assistant professor at Arizona State University, questioned the states-rights argument. "When states joined the union, they agreed to be a state, political entities authorized by the federal government," Plascencia said. "States are given power but it doesn't make them independent of the United States of America the same way cities are not independent.
Montana and South Dakota are facing this same conundrum.  Do enough lawyers speak Lakota, Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and Blackfeet?  When law enforcement becomes involved, it's probably too late. 

United Urban Warrior Society to protest Oz

James Swan is a personal hero. He and ip have stood toe-to-toe on the pages of the online Rapid City Journal for six years. A vet who shares eats with homeless comrades, he is tireless as he wages the ground war against entrenched racism in Vapid Fucking City.

The Native Sun News via Indianz.com tells us:
United Urban Warrior Society will conduct a peaceful protest this week at the Civic Center’s presentation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The author of the book, L. Frank Baum is still widely known for the Oz books he wrote in the early 1900s. Little known are the editorials he published in Aberdeen Saturday Review which L. Frank Baum called for the extermination of the Lakota people six days after the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.
Hoka hey!

2/9/11

Coup of South Dakota judiciary underway

South Dakota's 7th Judicial Circuit has been attacked and may have fallen.  The Anwar al Awlaki of Racial Profiling, Pennington County States Attorney Glenn Brenner, and operatives of the Republican Party have virtually tortured and may have assassinated Judge A.P. (Pete) Fuller.

From the Rapid City Journal:

Pennington County State’s Attorney Glenn Brenner, Rapid City Police Chief Steve Allender and then Pennington County Sheriff Don Holloway made the formal complaint in May that led to Fuller’s suspension and subsequent investigation by the Judicial Qualifications Commission, a seven-member body that includes 7th Circuit Court Judge Jeff Davis of Rapid City. The frustration in the State’s Attorney’s Office reached the boiling point when Judge Fuller called Rapid City police officers a “bunch of racists” while listening to an officer explain in a juvenile court hearing why he stopped a car driven by a Native American who was on probation.
The end is near for democracy and justice for indigenous South Dakotans in the state where the Shrine of Hypocrisy was carved by a Ku Klux Klan member standing on the bones of those massacred at Wounded Knee. 


Jerklaw was a member of Congress when he committed manslaughter; but, the point is well-stated.

Who's next?

Hohokam petroglyphs




Etched into the rhyolite on Signal Hill in Saguaro National Park about 800 years ago, likely by ancestors of the modern-day Tohono O'odham, this rock art may be directions to water sources and hunting.

Rock stacking

never tell a man he has a little stack

2/7/11

Yeah, THAT Safeway

We had been planning this for months.  The goddess has a public health conference in Scottsdale on Thursday.

Bizbee's human, Kim, convinced us to stay at Catalina State Park for at least one night (we spent two) where hiking trails at the foot of the mountains just north of Tucson would give us ample opportunity to explore before tackling traffic trying to find Joani's niece's condo on the other side of town.  The Mapquest directions took us off I-10 onto Ina Road at about 7:30PM and after a bite to eat at a Subway (because there was a line out the door of a Mexican Restaurant, our first choice) we headed east.

After misreading the Mapquest directions we crossed Oracle Road where a Safeway entrance looked eerily familiar in the dark.  It struck us as just an odd coincidence before it hit us two days later.


ip photo

Desert respite

 Our most excellent guide and the hu man with whom he lives
Bizbee, the guide; Kim, the hu man


a goddess, her starship, and the hu man with whom she travels



This desert sentinel might be 300 years old

2/6/11

W cancels Switzerland trip under arrest fear

Bush43 has cancelled a scheduled trip to Switzerland as the Center for Constitutional Rights and other human rights groups prepared to submit a 2500-page indictment of the former President of US.  A publicist for the former Dick-puppet cited concern that the visit might trigger violent protests. 

Yeah, right.  Wave bye-bye, W.

ip photo; Day 3.

2/2/11

ip polls suggest red states are armed camps

One hundred percent of respondents in the latest ip polls say South Dakota and Wyoming exhibit overwhelming volatility.  On the eve of the GOP presidential primary season it looks like Mormmings and christians will shoot it out ensuring that freedom from calm will be crammed down our collective throats. 

Visits to interested party have zoomed to over 3200 per month bringing average daily hit counts to something approaching respectability.  It's great that good taste doesn't get in the way of all-out shit-slinging.

The JeffCo Dems remind us to go to this poll and vote.




And so forth....

I had to laugh like hell during Peter Overby's report on the alphabet sludge being scooped to run the GOP presidential primary.  The incredulity and disgust was clearly evident in his voice as he announced the bundlers, the fondlers, and the Earth rapers:



How about the Capitalist Childrens Fund or Americans for Gluttonous Rights or Mormons for a Whiter America?

Your choice?

2/1/11

Thune, Barrasso lob anti-Earth grenade

The EPA is coming under fire from Koch West.

In an effort to distract voters from mercury, lead, and asbestos fallout from coal-fired power plants, refineries, and mines South Dakota junior senator and presidential dopeful, John Thune, has teamed up with fellow Earth-haters to restrict EPA powers as it polices serial offenders under the Clean Act Act.

David Doniger calls it "Mural Dyslexia:"

All these bills are based on a pair of big lies. The first is that EPA is engaged in an “unconstitutional power grab” trying “to regulate that which it has been unable to legislate.” No, EPA is doing its job under the Clean Air Act, a law enacted by Congress, which (as the Supreme Court has found) directs EPA to act when science demonstrates that pollutants endanger our health and welfare. The second big lie is that EPA’s modest plan for curbing dangerous carbon pollution “will kill millions of jobs” and “poses a significant threat to job creation and economic recovery.” But EPA is not allowed to make businesses take steps that are too costly or that would hurt the economy – Clean Air Act safeguards have to be both achievable and affordable. The bill’s only exception is an empty one – it would allow action only to protect against imminent and substantial harm from direct human exposure – and then only from pollution levels higher than any projected to occur in the future.
If this obvious plumage display makes it to the President's desk, I'll eat this keyboard.  David Montgomery at Mount Blogmore must have heard ip the other day.  The TEA wing of the US House is coming from another direction as the REINS Act, intended to bind the hands of the executive in favor of industry, reaches the floor for debate.

The straight dope


The straight dope.

Severe clear here.  The icicles are dripping onto the tulip bed as the flag at the fire station bows to the sun.