Wind Cave: green oasis in failed red state

Dropping into the Cheyenne River then winding up the Cascade north of Ardmore was a verdant deliverance from the brown, drought-claimed 700 miles of desolation south of it: no wonder there were wars fought over the Black Hills. Hot Springs looks great, too.

The rig left SD71, took US385 to just north of town where county gravel leaves her and heads east toward Buffalo Gap. After going through Gobbler Canyon, the Red Valley Road spun me north for a view of Negro Wool Ridge to the west (fifth photo) then into Wind Cave National Park.

Several bowls led me over a tiny cattle guard separating genetically pure bison on federal ground from the mongrels living along the intersecting Mal-named State Park Wildlife Loop. Thankfully, interested party soon escaped into Lame Johnny Creek, then plunged into the real-world traffic of north SD79:

Evolution of a blue state: International Folk Art Market, Jemez Caldera

ALEC exposed explains Dan Lederman

The Rushmore PAC blog is an earth hater's wet dream.

One of its authors is a Zionist state senator known for his close association with South Dakota's Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers. Dan Lederman panders to his white readers recently assailing President Obama by quoting Robert L. Bradley, Jr., a shill for Koch Industries. The earth haters believe that drilling willy-nilly is the answer to high fuel costs.

interested party just paid $2.99 for gas at the Santo Domingo Pueblo.

Recall Lederman's role in the Missouri River flooding of the swamp at Dakota Dunes where he built his home.

He was on Bill Janklow's idea of public radio in Spring, 2011 defending his decision to build in a floodway. Lederman was recently fingered for bringing anti-government speakers to his infamous red state.

The President has signed the state's declaration:

W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Mark A. Neveau as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area. FEMA said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the State and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.

Lederman is a player in South Dakota's prison/industrial complex siphoning his living from the shadowy world of the selective enforcement ensured by the chemical toilet's Governors Club.

What a bunch of fucking hypocrites Republicans are!

Romney reviled by Natives, organic farmers, women; Noem facial reconstruction photos released

White, wimpy, wildly wealthy, weird Willard Romney is in the weeds among registered voters.

President Obama leads in every sector of the electorate except among white men with little or no post-secondary education:

PPP's newest Presidential polls in Michigan and Pennsylvania find Barack Obama with healthy leads in both states. He's up by 14 points, 53-39, in Michigan and by 6 points, 49-43, in Pennsylvania.

Photos of South Dakota US House Representative Kristi Noem's recent reconstructive surgeries have been released:

Before

After

Noem seeks to lose Bimbo image

A medical professional viewed a multitude of videos with interested party. The following is paraphrased from her assessment of South Dakota Representative Kristi Noem (smart-ass comments are mine):

There is evidence of collagen injections, botox, and JUVÉDERM® (at an approximate cost to taxpayers in the five figures).

Absences in committee meetings might be evidence of some surgery: her hairline has been lowered possibly to mask scarring. There is evidence cryosurgery especially around her lips; and, her gums and teeth show some signs of reconstruction.

She presents with symptoms of Histrionic Personality Disorder (now likely treated at taxpayer expense). Lately, her speech is laconic, measured: as if being she is being treated with psychotropics. She is far less confident in her abilities than she was ( likely the outcome of meeting people towering above her intellectual limitations) At times, it seems as if she is going to crack from the stress.

Her sometimes uncorrected shrillness reveals palling insecurities; but, she can quickly rein in her emotions (again likely from the benefit of extensive coaching and/or therapy at taxpayer expense).

Her handlers are asking Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. to resign: maybe it’s time for Rep. Noem consider stepping away, too.

Matt Varilek would do well to start talking amendments to ObamaCare: From Talking Points Memo:

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the Supreme Court’s health care reform decision will leave 3 million people who would have otherwise been covered under the Affordable Care Act without insurance, but will reduce the 10-year price tag of the law by $84 billion. The new projections suggest that the GOP’s recently renewed effort to repeal the entire law would increase 10-year budget deficits by over $100 billion.

Mr. Varilek has yet to win the endorsement of interested party.

Who is second from the right in this photo posted at Mount Blogmore?

Tribes could build mobile women's clinics

An appeals court comprised of judges from mostly red states has upheld another chilling effect on the rights of women in South Dakota.

Numerous American Indian tribes without reservations in the state, many of whom are sensitive to the reproductive rights of women, own land in South Dakota. Indian Country Today posted a June story of a Lakota woman fighting for full access to health care without the strictures of an oppressive legislature.

Here's a snip from Eisa Ulen's piece:

Just months after the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center (NAWHERC) published a startling February 2012 report, “Indigenous Women’s Dialogue: Roundtable Report on the Accessibility of Plan B as an Over the Counter (OTC) Within Indian Health Service,” Clifford’s petition is over 100,000 signatures strong and well on its way to meeting its goal of 150,000 signatures. “There is a chance I could face backlash,” [Sunny Clifford] continues, “it could be violent. But it doesn’t scare me as much as thinking about a woman who has been raped and can’t get healthcare. I’m much, much more scared about that. Which is more important?”

Federal law permits tribes owning off-reservation property to adopt economic development strategies on any land that they own: that includes the sovereignty of mobile clinics.

South Dakota women: stand for your rights and push this opportunity!

USDA caving to invasive livestock

After creating global warming, cattle producers are using enhanced terrorism techniques to force public land stewards to allow invasive species onto sensitive publicly-subsidized ground usually suitable for organic farming:

Organic farming is expanding in the U.S. at a rate of approximately 20% per year. Farmers are interested in organic production because certified organic crops can provide up to a 300% economic premium over conventionally raised crops. However, in order to obtain organic certification, producers must refrain from using synthetic fertilizers and herbicides for at least 3 years. Land that has been in long-term pasture or enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is often suitable for immediate conversion to organic production because chemicals have not been applied for many years.

Livestock treated with antibiotics and hormones leave manure laced with earth killing agents and force disqualification.

Tom Lutey broke the news to readers of the Billings Gazette:

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the USDA would soften the rules nationwide for haying and grazing lands enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program. For erosion or wildlife purposes, those lands are usually off-limits to livestock. On 10-year contracts, landowners are paid to leave those acres alone.

Domestic livestock have destroyed private ground in the West: now they come for lands longing for the protection of the public trust.

These animals are not critical to the survival of humanity: just to the survival of the producers of pink slime. Stop the domestic terrorism now!

Aurora: Jacob's Ladder 2012

Martial law is rumored for Colorado.

There are fifteen known TEA/sovereign citizen cells operating in Colorado.

Having said that, the Aurora event has unrequited love written all over it. Doug Barr writing in Jezebel:

[A] Colorado woman named "Diana" says that on Friday afternoon, Match.com paired her with James Holmes, the man accused of killing 12 people at the Friday midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises.

The AP is reporting that:

Investigators found a Batman mask inside Holmes' apartment after they finished clearing the home, a law enforcement official close to the investigation said Sunday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

All of Colorado is under a fire weather watch and the eastern part of the state is under a red flag warning.

If Governor John Hickenlooper was not a Democrat, this interested party would press President Obama to declare martial law there.

Proposed Soylent Corporation FEMA zones.

Sibson: apply 2nd Amendment to Planned Parenthood.

Live from Madville Times:

Steve Sibson2012.07.23 AT 14:00“If we have to carry guns to be safe, we have failed to build a civilized society.”

That is right Cory. We have gone down hill, not progressed. This is why we need the Second Amendment more than ever.

Cory, how long does it take Planned Parenthood to kill 12 humans?

Sibson's over the line:

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act makes it illegal to intentionally use force, the threat of force, or physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, interfere with, or attempt to injure, intimidate or interfere with individuals obtaining or providing reproductive health care services. FACE also punishes anyone who intentionally damages or destroys a facility that provides reproductive health services.

Patriots to picket Aurora memorials

Keystone's Art Oakes and Rapid City's Bob Ellis are expected to travel to Colorado to march with Phred Phelps and his Tea Party patriots, the Westboro Baptist Church, after its congregation announced plans to protest memorials for God's victims in Aurora.

It was only a matter of time until almost anti-everything group threw their hat into the melee that was the Aurora, Colorado massacre which took place at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" on Friday, July 20, 2012. Things are not going to be pretty in Colorado over the course of the next few days as Westboro Baptist arrives, a memorial service for the victims happens on Monday, and then James Holmes heads to court on Monday.--Danny Cox, Examiner.com

The movie sucks, IMHO.

It's Santorum

Update, 23 July, 13:17 MDT: PPP posts 2016 Iowa dream team results. Santorum on top, Romney not on the list.

Bet me.

This whole thing was concocted and engineered by the RNC where primary voters and caucus-goers were led down a primrose path then treated to cookies. Santorum is vetted, well rested, and has been studying at the Rove school of shit-slinging.

John Thune is a wimp, Portman too connected to war criminals, and Willard needs a wounded rabid catholic blowhard like Santorum (not to mention his delegates) and will put him on the trail to assail the President without thought.

Pennsylvania is under the microscope in the wake of their pedophile epidemic providing the perfect backdrop for the GOP's assault on Democrats.

The earth haters have chucked the West in their Veep strategy and will let the chips fall where they may. They have loads of money and will saturate commercial broadcasting with tripe.

The last time two governors appeared on the same ticket was in 1948.

Limbaugh panned Batman movie

The bad guy’s name: Bane. Which is audibly the same as Bain, the investment firm that Romney once headed and the company that President Obama’s campaign keeps characterizing as a jobs-destroying, “vampire” outfit. Sure enough, Limbaugh raised an eyebrow about the timing of the movie and the name of its villain on his radio program on Tuesday. He added, “This movie, the audience is going to be huge, lot of people are going to see the movie. And it’s a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop-culture crowd. --Paul Farhi, 17 July, Washington Post

Open Secrets: Thune is poor Senator

Not only that, he's a shitty campaigner:




Pink slime not only defines the Thune experience, the Senator is virtually greased by the manufactured meat product.

The Center for Responsive Politics hosts Open Secrets, THE source for money in campaigns. Her blog featured candidates not necessarily considered the most likely winners of the Romney Veepstakes. Author Adam Wollner describes South Dakota's junior senator as the earth hater party's "dark horse" choice for Veep and as one of the Senate's poorest members.

Here's the Thune portion of Wollner's piece:

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) may hail from one of the least populated states in the union, but that hasn't prevented him from rising up the ranks of the inside-the-Beltway elite.

Thune arrived in Washington in 1997 as South Dakota's lone House lawmaker. He mounted a successful bid for U.S. Senate in 2004. Facing no Democratic opposition in 2010, he was easily re-elected.

Over the course of his five congressional campaigns, Thune raised a total of $38.8 million, according to Center for Responsive Politics data. Top donors include the Club for Growth, Wells Fargo and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Thune was also able to rake in nearly $3 million from retirees throughout his career and over $1 million from the securities and investment and real estate industries.

After just two years in the Senate, Thune started his own leadership PAC for the 2006 election cycle called the Heartland Values PAC, which raised $1.6 million in its debut year. So far, his PAC has raised over $885,000 for 2012, contributing to 20 GOP congressional candidates and Romney's presidential campaign.

Additionally, Thune is likely one of the few candidates on Romney's supposed shortlist to have gone through the revolving door. In between his stints in the House and Senate, Thune founded his own Sioux Falls-based lobbying firm, Thune Group, whose clients included DM&E Railroad and BPI Technology. He also briefly lobbied for the Washington firm Arent Fox LLC in 2003.

Thune's average net worth of $423,000 places him among the poorest members of the Senate. According to his 2010 personal finance disclosure report, most of his investments are in several different mutual funds.

Just as Bush43 didn't select Dick Cheney to win Wyoming, adding a fundamentalist Protestant certainly builds credible earth hater voter depth to a Mormon-led ticket.

If Gov. Gary Johnson can gather enough uncommitted and disaffected Ron Paul supporters in South Dakota, having John Thune on the losing ticket in his own state would be the coldest of dishes.

The Mitchell Republic's Tom Lawrence speculated in the paper's blog, Republic Insider on Thune's chances, too. Since South Dakota's current governor is feuding with his predecessor, a leading contender to finish a Senate vacancy left by (Allah forbid) a Romney/Thune win, who would Guv Doogargh appoint?

What a long, strange trip it's been

Happy Birthday: Harriet Nelson, Nelson Mandela, John Glenn, Hunter S. Thompson, Richard Branson, Ricky Skaggs, Vin Diesel, and this interested party.

Gary Johnson added NM jobs, Willard freaking

Update, 12:54 MDT: Gary Johnson's numbers in New Mexico waning; but, so is Obama's lead, sez Public Policy Polling.






A Michigan Republican Secretary of State is a defendant in a suit brought by former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. The Miami Herald filled in a little background telling readers that the drain-circling Romney campaign is scared spitless of the Libertarian.

Lifted from Glenn Garvin RT @GovGaryJohnson:

Romney’s political cronies in Michigan have gotten Johnson kicked off the November ballot there because he was three minutes late in filing some paperwork. With polls indicating the race for Michigan’s 16 votes is a dead heat, Romney’s camp doesn’t want to take any chances that Johnson, a former Republican who served two terms as governor of New Mexico, will siphon off any of his votes. But Johnson is actually much closer to the mainstream of American voters than he is to the fringes. Poll after poll show growing numbers of Americans are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. “I don’t think either major party embraces those values,” says Johnson. “I’m running in the same political category as most people in this country.” Jobs in New Mexico grew at a faster clip under Johnson than under any other former governor who ran for president this year — five times faster than they did in Massachusetts when Romney was governor.

Learn more about Gary Johnson here.

Iconic indigenous Black Hills site on block

Today's intersection: sacred land and US Dollars.

On August 25, nearly 2000 acres of land formerly reserved for prayer and now sharing a border with the Black Hills National Forest will be sold to the highest bidder.

Missoula's Buffalo Post, a blog hosted by Lee Newspapers of Montana, reposted a moving piece from Native Sun News' Jesse Abernathy:

Translated to English, “Pe Sla” means “Old Baldy,” a reference to the sprawling prairie’s sudden but natural juxtaposition against the heavy forest cover of Paha Sapa. For centuries before European invasion, the Lakota held their Wiping of the Tears ceremony undisturbed at Pe Sla. The sacred ceremony was performed every spring and helped the Oyate as well as the land, or Maka Ina (earth), cleanse and rejuvenate.

Archaeologists and historians tell us that the Lakota didn't occupy the Hills until 1750 or so: about a century and a half before the Custer expedition.

Seems like the perfect place to begin building a national monument where tribes and the Park Service work together.

War criminal stumping for earth haters, Romney

Update, 17:52 MDT, Condi trending at #RomneysurpriseVPguesses

h/t LK:




--------------------

Wyoming earth haters are raising money with both fists:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is using his popularity with Republican conservatives to give a boost to Mitt Romney, hosting a fundraiser for the party's likely nominee at a mountain valley resort as well as a private dinner at his Wyoming home. Romney has avoided appearing in public with Cheney or with former President George W. Bush — both are seen as divisive figures by many of the swing voters he needs to win over if he's going to defeat President Barack Obama. --AP, via Billings Gazette

From Wyofile:

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso has a $2.5 million campaign fund that no other Wyoming politician is expected to match in time for the Nov. 6 general election, much less the August 21 primary.

Wyoming kills more workers than nearly every other state and screams very loudly when the feds threaten to withhold pork barrel bucks.

How conservative.

In case you missed this forum piece in the Rapid City Journal: it should scare the shit out of you.

Did South Dakota's Governor's Club collude with Gant and Powers?

South DaCola is keeping the heat under Sen. Stan Adelstein's call for an investigation of Jason Gant and the Secretary of State's alleged collusion with former employee, Pat Powers to engineer an ALEC-inspired red map strategy.

Ryan Lengerich of the Rapid City Journal brought readers up to speed this morning:

If Gant decides not to resign, Adelstein said he will ask colleagues in the House of Representatives to call for an impeachment at next year's legislative session. Doing so would cause a distraction Adelstein said he would rather avoid by having Gant resign. “We have more problems in South Dakota than incompetence and a possibly dishonest Secretary of State," Adelstein said. “I don’t want these matters shoved aside for something like an impeachment.”

The Rapid City Journal believes an investigation should be conducted and now the Watertown Public Opinion thinks so, too.

We all know this thing goes so much deeper. How much deeper?

Update, 14:45 MDT. Sen. Adelstein commented at South DaCola reassuring us that the Division of Criminal Investigation interviewed him in earnest.

This post is getting a load of traffic. C'mon: don't be afraid to call me crazy. Wild speculation is encouraged.

Rapid's racism rampant

American Indians living in Rapid City should arm themselves against KKK, christian identity and gun supporters like Ed Randazzo. Patti Jo King of Indian Country Media Today Network tells readers:

After having heart surgery at Rapid City Regional Hospital (RCRH) in Rapid City, South Dakota, [Vernon] Traversie had scars on his abdomen described by several eyewitnesses as “carvings” or “brandings” of the letters KKK.

As temperatures rise in Pennington County expect accompanying violence.

Ten percent of American Indians have been victims of violence. That rate is much higher in South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. The election of a radical white christian as mayor of Rapid City could make life for Native Americans even more difficult there. From Indian Country Today:

During his six-year term on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Chairman Arlan Melendez of the Reno Sparks Indian Colony saw more than his share of racism, discrimination and hate crimes against Native Americans. “We know from hearings in Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota that hate crimes are continuing to happen against Native Americans, mostly in border towns near our reservations,” he said, citing a soon-to-be released report developed by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that compiled testimony in 2009 about hate crimes from hundreds of Americans Indians. In her 2007 book “Anti-Indianism in Modern America,” Native American Studies professor Elizabeth Cook-Lynn said, “There has been little attempt by legal authorities or anyone else to understand the phenomenon of racially motivated violence in these communities."

Here's part of how she describes the state of race politics to readers of the Rapid City Journal:

Sadly, the tea party gives us the narrative of the offspring of the early immigrants who are coming to the sad conclusion that they can no longer "take" the land and the resources as their forebears did. But their belief that they are entitled to do so is a strong belief in the idea that any worthwhile history in this country is their history. Make no mistake, this cry of "take our country back" by the tea partiers is about race, skin color and discrimination. This never works on the long term in a country, nor did it work in Nazi Germany decades ago. It didn't even work when Red Cloud signed a treaty in 1868 at Fort Laramie that said white men had to show their "papers" to get permission to enter the Great Sioux Lands of the West. Apparently, Custer has won the war in the minds of American settlers everywhere, thus, "taking" America and "taking back" America are synonymous historically.

In Washington state:

Students in Richland school classes won’t read an award-winning book by a Northwest author in the foreseeable future. The Richland School Board voted 3-2 this week to prohibit use of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie in classrooms of any grade level.

But you can bring your phone into middle school and play video games that simulate the decapitation of a person of color.

rocket launchers: good or bad?

one person's weapon of bass destruction is another's way of fishing...innit? all's fair in love and fishing?

Montgomery: Noem's MILFness her only asset?

David Montgomery deleted all the responses to the post at his blog, Political Smokeout, about South Dakota's ape-like legislator, Troglodyte earth hater Stace Nelson. Apparently, respondents have few nice things to say about Rep. Nelson, although one rooter's comments reappeared.

After wading through the obituaries in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, a reader noticed that in this morning's story on that state's US House race, Montgomery appears to rue the absence of substance surrounding SD's At-large Representative Krusti Noem as he asks: Who's running for House anyway?

For the record: Democrat Matt Varilek has yet to win the endorsement of interested party. His denial of marriage equality is wrong and he has not stated his position on the legalization of cannabis for adult enjoyment.

Prof. Jon Schaff, interviewed as a politics expert in DM's piece (fucked if i know why other than Blanchard's out of town), has bravely taken on some blogging at GOP-owned South Dakota Politics amidst withering fire from Democrats fired up by the meltdown of the state's earth hater party: he kindly mentions this regular commenter over there.

Thune/Hollenbeck propaganda comes to the RCJ

Mark Hollenbeck of Fall River County is an earth hater: he is a tool for uranium mining interests, his ranch consists of stolen treaty ground, and he uses cattle to destroy some of the most culturally sensitive land in the Black Hills (his father, Bud, is the world's worst poker player: I have taken thousands from him). He blames the Forest Service for protecting ancient pictographs; and, as the FS is under the management of Democrats, he flails his arms as if he is a victim of the White Draw Fire.

Hollenbeck's theatrics performed on his own mortgaged-up-to-his-areolae front deck for campaigning politician, Sen. John Thune (earth hater-SD) are laughable.

Andrea Cook participates in the illusion with her story in the Rapid City Journal. This sentence is pure bullshit:

The fire consumed federal and private land, destroying pastures used for summer grazing.

This fire consumed plants not land, it destroyed no pastures, only some dead grass, a few fence posts, some junipers, some ponderosa pine and sagebrush.

The Forest Service may be broken; but, it is bound by policy and protocol, not to some ranting, raving murder of Fall River County crows with its beady little eyes on big, fat relief checks.

From A New Century of Forest Planning:

Translated: Another airtanker crashed killing four crewmen while dropping retardant on a fire in ponderosa pine forest and grass openings that threatens no homes or communities.

NRDC petition: livestock antibiotics creating superbugs, altering watersheds

One hundred percent of respondents in a recent interested party poll believe that livestock producers suspected of polluting watersheds should be surveilled by federal aircraft.

It's long past time for the Food and Drug Administration to work in concert with the Environmental Protection Agency to end the environmental degradation caused by the capitalistic exploitation of pharmaceuticals according to the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Eighty percent of all antibiotics sold in the United States are for use in livestock -- the vast majority for use in animals that do not have bacterial infections -- to promote faster weight gain and to compensate for crowded and unsanitary conditions. It's like taking antibiotics to avoid getting sick instead of washing your hands. It's up to the Food and Drug Administration to protect the public's health from the dangerous, widespread misuse of antibiotics in livestock. But so far, the agency has done little beyond releasing voluntary guidelines -- mere suggestions that pharmaceutical companies and food producers can choose to follow or ignore entirely. We need to collect public comments by July 10th, so there's no time to lose.

Sign petition to Dr. William T. Flynn, Deputy Director for Science Policy, Food and Drug Administration here.

Montana wildfire cross-pollination underway

Monsoonal moisture is setting up over the southern Rocky Mountains bringing downpours and cooler temperatures; the rain barrels are full after nearly an inch at the foot of the Ortiz Mountains. It's sticky again this morning.

Locations in Colorado seeing wildfire activity also received precipitation while parts of the eastern prairie in that state are under a red flag warning.

Wyoming has not been as fortunate, though the Casper Star-Tribune shows showers in their forecast near the Squirrel Fire. The Oil Creek Fire north of Newcastle is still working though she's expecting containment soon.

The Black Hills are inadvertently stimulating job growth among humans out doing structure protection from clearing fires, too, even having killed a few of us, leaving families grieving over a fire started by an RV owner.

Montana's Ash Creek Fire is working hard as she erases a tiny portion of a century of livestock infestation and fire suppression: reports say nearing 300,000 acres. Unfortunately, families on the Northern Cheyenne have lost homes baiting a sector showing the highest levels of job growth: elastomeric stucco and rain catchment.

Matthew Koehler is a radical conservationist; but he doesn't like Democrats very much after having crossed Pulaskis with Montana Senator Jon Tester over the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. Hence, he and this interested party are often politically sideways in the Montana blogosphere.

However, we get terrifyingly close to agreement recently with a post he writes in A New Century of Forest Planning as responsibility for mega-fires catches up with the news. He even invited me to participate.

President Obama: vivisect the Forest Service soon.

Rewild the West.

NPR is reporting at 10:04 MDT that Syria is using weaponized wildfire on their border with Turkey.

Inciweb: The Ash Creek Fire has now become Southeastern Montana Complex overcoming the 300,000 acre threshold.

Basin family featured at the Helena Vigilante.

Species seeks independence, discovers new particle, unifies...maybe

We hold these truths to be self-evident: so are they?

The South Dakota Board on Geographic Names is asking the public for input to come up with a new [name] for Negro Creek near Howes in Meade County. The name is considered offensive, and guidelines established by the U.S. Board of Geographic Names require that a new name be solicited. Name suggestions may be descriptions of topography, local history or associated with natural life. A name can't duplicate another name in the state or a name nearby in an adjoining state. People have until Aug. 15 to submit suggestions. Name suggestions can be sent to the South Dakota Board of Geographic Names; Department of Tribal Relations; 711 Wells Ave.; Pierre, S.D. 57501. They also can be emailed to carol.postulka@state.sd.us. --Aberdeen (SD) News

Oscar Micheaux Creek already exists.

How about Wakpala Unpan Glešká? Spotted Elk Creek.

Gov't study: DEA cannabis policy "not tenable"

Surprise: a study funded in part by the federal government has concluded that cannabis is a safe alternative to Big Pharma!

Stephen C. Webster of Raw Story brings news that the Feds are learning that cannabis is safely indicated for the relief of pain and anxiety. Webster writes:

“The classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug as well as the continuing controversy as to whether or not cannabis is of medical value are obstacles to medical progress in this area,” they wrote. “Based on evidence currently available the Schedule I classification is not tenable; it is not accurate that cannabis has no medical value, or that information on safety is lacking."

From the US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health and The Open Neurology Journal:

Recent advances in understanding of the mode of action of tetrahydrocannabinol and related cannabinoid in-gredients of marijuana, plus the accumulating anecdotal reports on potential medical benefits have spurred increasing re-search into possible medicinal uses of cannabis. Recent clinical trials with smoked and vaporized marijuana, as well as other botanical extracts indicate the likelihood that the cannabinoids can be useful in the management of neuropathic pain, spasticity due to multiple sclerosis, and possibly other indications. As with all medications, benefits and risks need to be weighed in recommending cannabis to patients.

No shit.

Let's assume that after President Obama is elected to his second term Health and Humans Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius announces soon afterwards that cannabis has been removed from Schedule 1:

The HHS Secretary can even unilaterally legalize cannabis: "[I]f the Secretary recommends that a drug or other substance not be controlled, the Attorney General shall not control the drug or other substance."

a federal tax rate is adopted; and, she proposes that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives become the lead agency in enforcement provided that states can craft law to cultivate and distribute.

Montana has already trained a generation of growers. The state enjoys numerous brewery pubs and wine tasting venues for local product.

I've proposed that Deadwood get out ahead and draft legislation to make it a cannabis friendly zone in its quest to become an adult destination.

Assuming that home growing law looks like home brewing and wine making, what would state law need to include about liability insurance requirements for commercial resale and how would law enforcement be guided by probable cause?

Airships will revolutionize logging

The Ash Creek Fire in Montana has cleared at least 200,000 acres: much of the blaze's intensity is due to dense Ponderosa pine stands. Environmental groups sued to stop logging on much of the mal-named Custer National Forest after the Forest Service sought to take too many old-growth trees that are critical habitat for raptors and key to forest sustainability.

Only a few thousand acres were scheduled for the reduction of ladder fuels which would have had little impact in controlling the wildfire in that part of Montana.

Conservationists have long argued that roads built into forest lands disrupt wildlife migration patterns and often cause frivolous wheeled human incursions onto ground recovering from mechanical log harvests.

In 2008, the Boeing Company, in cooperation with SkyHook International, teamed to build the JHL-40:

The neutrally buoyant feature allows SkyHook to safely carry payloads unmatched by any rotorcraft in existence today. The JHL-40 is environmentally acceptable because it mitigates the impact of building new roadways in remote areas, and Skyhook is expected to reduce the carbon footprint of the industrial projects it supports.

Now, Popular Science tells readers:

"Some kids wanted to be firefighters,” Igor Pasternak says. “I always thought about blimps.” Pasternak is wearing a T-shirt that says Ballast Control Matters, which pretty much sums up that problem. But if the Aeroscraft prototype works and Pasternak completes plans to build an 800-foot model, he will advance the capacity of airborne transportation to 500 tons, delivered anywhere.

Ponderosa pine clearly provides a rich source of fuel: preserve old growth, kill the youngest pine, and convert it to fuel to power airships.

Kemmick: earth haters hate Obama, too

Ed Kemmick might be Montana's Kevin Woster: Lee newspaper guys, lovers of life, and blogs in the paper. Ed's blog City Lights appears in the Billings Gazette. Woster has two in the Rapid City Journal where this interested party tries to keep up with both very different sets of commenters.

Ed sets his sights on the Montana GOP: the gun shop, bait shop, barber shop, SSS, alas, white, male people who would likely be more at home in Woster's Take It Outside. A horde of its members recently held an exhibition of race hatred at their state convention in Missoula where Newt Gingrich was the keynote speaker.

photo credit: Perry Backus, Ravalli Republic (bizarro world in its own right)

Here's a snip from Kemmick's piece:

The outhouse was labeled “Obama Presidential Library” and was riddled not only with bullets, but with juvenile graffiti of a type that would embarrass most juveniles. Some of the humor was just dumb and crude — “For a good time call 800-” followed by the names Michelle, Hillary and Pelosi — some of it all too common — the “birther” barbs aimed at the president — and some of it was just political, though uniformly crude and witless.

And:

This is all too reminiscent of the “funny” email forwarded by U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull. That email was also described by Cebull’s defenders as simple humor with no racist overtones. But as with the outhouse, the email hinged on the race of Obama’s father, and it threw the slut slur at Obama’s mother, just as the outhouse did at his wife.

Nadene: one of Ed's nemeses is Kevin Nelson, an Elkton boy and fellow St. Mary's alum. Kevin haunts the Billings city meetings where he often rails against Agenda 21 and rants about other anti-gubmint stuff analogous to our own Steve Sibson perhaps.

Winning the word war is essential for our side to keep the White House and the Senate and to retake the House. Montana will lose the election if earth haters win in that state.

Unless we Dems can mount an adequate defense against the Dark Arts we're fucked.