Guess i'll set a course and go

Silver people on the shoreline, let us be.

Rethinking Malthus: human macroecology and the Anthropocene

Read why chemical companies are backing the 'Chemical Safety Improvement Act' at the Environmental Working Group's Enviroblog.

Recall the 2005 secret Cheney energy task force. Koch Industries had millions of tons of waste chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene that the Environmental Protection Agency was pressuring them to destroy. A plan was hatched by Bush Interior Secretary Gale Norton to skirt regulation and force the EPA administrator to allow the pumping of these volatile chemicals into oil shale.

From an EPA press release, 05/29/2013, contact Molly Hooven:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today proposed two rules to help protect Americans from exposure to the harmful chemical formaldehyde, consistent with a Federal law unanimously passed by Congress in 2010. EPA's first proposal limits how much formaldehyde may be emitted from hardwood plywood, medium-density fiberboard, particleboard and finished goods, that are sold, supplied, offered for sale, manufactured, or imported in the United States. The second proposal establishes a third-party certification framework designed to ensure that manufacturers of composite wood products meet the TSCA formaldehyde emission standards by having their composite wood products certified though an accredited third-party certifier.

There is no time limit Bob Perciasepe can serve as the agency’s acting administrator which means he can stay on as long as Gina McCarthy's nomination is held up by the earth hater party.



Wetlands are being destroyed for cropland, livestock demands on water supplies dwarf the needs of cities, global biodiversity is threatened, Arctic ice packs are disappearing, humans are breeding less nutritious food and pesticides are killing native pollinators.

According to Joseph Burger—University of New Mexico PhD student and key player in the development of human macroecology studies—at its core, human macroecology is “the statistical study of exchanges of energy, materials and information between humans and the environment across spatial scales, from local to global and temporal scales, from years to millennia”. Macroecology considers the human species as functioning within the constraints of the natural world, rather than being uniquely divorced from natural resource limitations. The trends that this research continually unveils—massive overexploitation of resources at an unsustainable rate—are very serious. [The Emerging Field of Human Macroecology, Anne-Marie Hodge, Scientific American, May 28, 2013]

Rewild the West.

Traffic circle proposed for Rapid City intersection, updated

Rapid City is clearly struggling as it deals with some growing pains: a smoldering fire at the landfill is just one example.

Robbinsdale is a post-war development built over a former dump on the banks of one tributary still trickling into Rapid Creek in the southeast part of town. Hundreds of modest, cookie-cutter houses that mostly support the medical industry have helped to bolster a strong real estate market despite an otherwise dismal attitude.

Four stop signs have governed traffic flow at the intersection of E St. Pat and Elm for decades.

It's usually ordered and cordial; but, in the era of heightened tensions being generated by that town's despair it's only a matter of time before firearms are drawn then people die in hails of gunfire after someone breaches some unwritten, finger-wave, right of way protocol.

Signals for the location have been proposed and rejected so it behooves this former resident to offer a thought experiment: how does funneling the flow into a traffic circle work for you guys?

Blogger chases storm with Big Boys

This interested party is finishing blogging a two-day loop starting from Rapid City up Vanocker Canyon at Sturgis among electric green aspen to the Nemo Road, where the clone was just budding, to a traverse of the Brownsville cutoff intersecting the Rochford Road displaying many acres of ponderosa pine being thinned by the bug and where massive die offs are underway.

The rig turned south at Black Fox then dropped over the divide between Rapid Creek and into Beaver Creek, Wyoming and saw three elk. Verdant conditions grace Four Corners and Sundance.

Herb's ranch is bright green: the aspen is nearly fully leafed out as it restores the rimrock above the Belle Fourche River after the 2005 burn. The Moon lit the way in last night and kept watch over the haze rising this morning from the evaporation off the damp sage steppe.

After coffee the cumulus had already begun queuing up over the Bear Lodge Mountains and my clothes starting sticking. Since far too many people were on Sand Creek south of Beulah, the rig found its way to Cox's Lake just into South Dakota off I-90. A thunderstorm cell formed right over my head and in less than a half hour one of the chasers tweeted a photo from what looks to be US85 near Buffalo:





This is what it looked like from my vantage point:

Here is a shot from the updraft side of the cell as it engulfs Bear Butte about twenty five miles east of where it formed:

Numerous storm chasers and meteorologists (no, not just boys) were tracking this system: it stalled several times and when it moved it was very slow. Saw rigs from North Carolina and Texas: many were doctoral candidates. Tennis ball sized hail was reported at Vale and hook echoes appeared on radar.

One fat loud white asshole rancher from Meade County stopped at the intersection of Tilford Road and Elk Vale Road to harangue chasers from Nebraska about some shit: maybe equipment set up too close to his invasive cattle species shitting in the creek. Hope he got hailed out, has no insurance and has to declare bankruptcy. South Dakota Republicans: what stupid fuckers.

I saw rotation often but gave up on it just north of Rapid City on Elk Vale Road and will upload video when I figure out how. It should be noted that storms like these are frequent visitors to this part of South Dakota: transpiration from pine overpopulation just another feature of local weather patterns. Check the hazy conditions in the Beaver Creek photo above.

Bridgedeckophobia revisited

Where to start?

In South Dakota 20.6% of bridges are considered structurally deficient. US infrastructure got a D+ #ASCEReportCard.

Over the Missouri: US14 between Ft. Pierre and the town to the east, I-90 at Chamberlain. I-90 over the Yellowstone at Billings and Livingston have been my biggest freaks.

We stupid fuckers.

Water deficits to force human migrations

From Michael Campana at his blog, WaterWired

Two risk metrics were developed to capture the influence of within year dry periods (Normalized Deficit Index – NDI) and of drought across years (Normalized Deficit Cumulated – NDC). The NDI is computed as one number for each year using historical daily rainfall data for the area and current daily water needs. It measures the maximum cumulated water shortage each year during the dry period that needs to be provided for from ground water or from surface water storage or transfers from other areas.

Today is International Day for Biological Diversity.




Marci Krivonen spoke with Dr. Tom Painter on Aspen Public Radio:

A group of scientists are flying over mountains in California and Colorado this spring, measuring snowpack with high-tech gadgets. NASA’s Airborne Snow Observatory mission started last month over the Sierra Nevadas and Southwestern Colorado’s Uncompahgre River Basin. The idea is to measure the snow in a way that’s never been done before, to get an idea of how much water is stored there. Snowpack accounts for 75 % of the Western United States’ freshwater supply. And, as demands for water grow, scientists are working on solutions.

From a piece posted at LiveScience:

Today, our Western forests — from the Rockies to the mountains of the Sierra Nevada — are loaded with several billion excess trees. This is the unintended consequence of a longstanding federal policy, symbolized by Smokey Bear, to stamp out forest fires. It's that kind of thinking that now threatens to strangle the very forests and streams environmentalism seeks to protect. It's time to move on.

The Congressional Budget Office examines the effects of a carbon tax.

Rewild the West: connect the American Prairie Reserve with the Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge.

Rob Chaney writes in The Missoulian:

The Water Resources Development Act includes a $30 million provision to benefit the headwaters of the Missouri, Yellowstone and Columbia river systems. The Senate passed the $12 billion measure 83-14 last week.

Whirlwind Woman: Native American tornado mythology and global parallels by Pybus, Nani Suzette, Ph.D., Oklahoma State University.

From Pew Environment:

Each year, livestock operations in the United States generate up to a billion tons of manure, much of it from concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. Whether waste comes directly from manure storage at an animal production facility or from a nearby field fertilized with manure, it can degrade water, leading to oxygen-depleted “dead zones” that kill fish, contaminate drinking water, and hurt communities.

Boycott South Dakota

The Democratic Party in South Dakota is dead: this self-financed blog will no longer waste the time and resources in a losing game. A for-profit forum, Madville Times, has realized the money is in fighting the battle rather than winning it, has jettisoned interested party from its sidebar and has a Zionist earth hater South Dakota legislator at the top of its page.

My congratulations go out to the Republican Party of South Dakota for financing the Dakota War College which has continually led the way for its candidates. interested party will focus on states where Democrats have chances to win elections. All traces that this was once based in South Dakota will exist only in the archives.

Fuck you people.

Looks like David Newquist agrees.

Oil patch, ag killing workers, fueling water wars

The Minnesota House has passed unionization for child care and personal care assistants 68-66.

North Dakota wants to kill your son, father or brother for profit.

Half of North Dakota's worker fatalities since 2010 have been in oil and gas occupations, according to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A combination of a need for workers and a drove of inexperienced workers from around the country is part of the reason fatalities have gone up in recent years, said Bill Wuolu, training director for the nonprofit North Dakota Safety Council. [Associated Press, Bismarck Tribune]

A UW history professor told listeners of Wyoming Public Radio that billionaire greed is killing his state's workers in part by marginalizing Democrats. In Montana, a GOP PAC illegally used a union letterhead to assail pro-worker candidates.

The globally-averaged temperature across the world's land and ocean surfaces was 0.52°C (0.94°F) above the 20th century average, marking the 13th warmest April on record and coolest April since 2008. The average global land temperature was the 17th warmest for April, at 0.71°C (1.28°F) above average. The Northern Hemisphere land was 20th warmest for April, while the Southern Hemisphere land was 12th warmest. [Global Analysis - April 2013, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)]

Water required just for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in North Dakota is more than 2 million gallons of water per well, equal to baths for some 40,000 people.

In Watford City, a dust-caked community of 2,000 dotted with oil-workers' run-down RVs, the sodium level of the drinking water had been 18 times higher than the level recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Energy companies get most of their water in the state by trucking it from depots to oil and natural gas wells. Some wells require more than 650 truckloads to frack. [Ernest Scheyder, Reuters]

President Obama: rewild the West.

How many of your Congressional delegation are earth haters?

Jennifer Ludden talks to writer Josh Eidelson about what he calls 'alt-labor' on Talk of the Nation.

Republican governors falling down on climate change, human rights

As the risible right rants, Big Government Governor Dennis Daugaard shoves South Dakota down its slide into the depths of police state fascism.

Candidate Dennis Daugaard drew gasps from a State Fair audience in 2010 when he said: “I am skeptical about the science that suggests global warming is man-caused or can be corrected by man-made efforts."

A team of scientists at the USA National Phenology Network, which is sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey, have published a study which shows that 2012 was the earliest spring over the 48 U.S. states since 1900 when systematic weather data began to be available for the entire area. The historical trend of spring indices suggests that the 2012 growing season advanced as much as 20-30 days in the East and Midwest from the 1900-2012 long-term mean. The beneficial effects of spring's quick start in 2012 were subsequently offset by a late spring frost and summer drought. In fact, the unusually early spring combined with late frosts in April to produce a so-called "false spring" that damaged fruit trees across the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions. [news release, US Geological Survey]

As political considerations trump the needs of their populations, governors in red states continue to lead voters over the climate cliff and to deny affordable access to medical care.

Years ago, Dr. Pamela Wible decided she was through with factory medicine and asked her community what they wanted from her as their family physician. She implemented their suggestions in her Eugene, Oregon, clinic and advocates for other clinicians who want to invite their communities to help design their practices. [The People's Pharmacy, WUNC.]

Republicans are cutting education while mass incarceration rates soar and prisons profit at historic levels. Snipped from a piece by JL Thomas posted at truthout:

Market-oriented education reform continues to produce evidence that it fails against its own goals and standards. But more disturbing is that current education reform also shares with the war on drugs evidence that the United States is committed to the New Jim Crow, to which Alexander quotes Martin Luther King Jr.: "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." (p. 203)

Looney Thunes and Hypokristi: red state collapse on parade

Bob Inglis is a conservative Republican former US House member who once doubted the Anthropocene. After he looked at the research he changed his mind and decided to speak out, he was mocked by people in his own party then trounced in 2010 by a Tea Party-backed candidate.

"I think we overreached in '98 — how's that for a quote you can use?" former Speaker Newt Gingrich told NPR's Mara Liasson. He urged his earth hater party to proceed with caution. "They need to be calm and factual," he said.

Sen. don Juan Thune (earth hater-SD) is a stooge, but David Letterman is hardly the first to call him that.

Rep. Kristi Noem (earth hater-SD) having pocketed subsidies is now cutting aid to the poorest, so it should come as no surprise that she's not the only hypocrite in her party.

Ryan Grim writes at HuffPost:

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is planning to push an amendment to the upcoming farm bill that would repeal the secret provision known as the Monsanto Protection Act, a rider attached anonymously to a spending bill that sailed through Congress in March. The provision allows Monsanto and other companies to continue selling genetically engineered seeds, even if a court has blocked them from doing so.

A second Supreme Court Justice has expressed regrets in the ruling that put a war criminal in the White House:

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Thursday night that he’s come to the realization that the rationale behind the court’s Bush v. Gore decision that effectively decided the 2000 presidential election “was really quite unacceptable” because it differentiated between so-called “hanging chads” and “dimpled chads.” That distinction, he told a gala event for the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen in Washington, “violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.” All votes should have been considered the same way, he explained. Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently expressed regret that the court had taken up the case at all, and Stevens said he was “pleased to hear” about O’Connor’s shift. [Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon]

Here's a woman with big balls:

A 38-year-old litigation assistant in the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office grew more than 100 marijuana plants in her Air Park home for more than three years, according to the Nebraska State Patrol. Kimberly Meidell, who worked in the AG’s office for nine years, was arrested about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, along with her 38-year-old boyfriend, Eric Trost. [Jonathan Edwards, Lincoln Journal-Star.]

Wyoming's red moocher state status is displayed in graphic detail at the Gillette News Record.

South Dakota governors likely violated families' civil rights

As GOP leaders warn of overreach in party scandal-baiting, heart-wrenching testimony continues in South Dakota's violations of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in Rapid City. Live-stream proceedings here.

Pennington County's behavior has been called shocking. With state officials sitting in the audience and not on the dais, former US Senator James Abourezk urged the federal government to sue the State of South Dakota.

Daniel Simmons-Ritchie writes in the Rapid City Journal, itself a focus of racial controversy:

Between choked sobs and streaming tears, more than a dozen Native American families delivered testimony Wednesday in Rapid City about how their children were taken from them by South Dakota social workers.

Christina Rose, Native Sun News Associate Editor told readers at indianz:

According to Stephen Pevar, attorney for the ACLU, “What happened in the Pennington County Courts is something you would expect in a Third World Country.” Pevar has been an ACLU attorney for 36 years and said he has never seen such blatant violations in his career.

This interested party has direct knowledge of abuses visited upon families by employees of the state from 1994 to 2000 and is all too close to this story.

Kevin Washburn of Indian Affairs, within the US Department of the Interior, has announced that the agency is seeking a new director of the Bureau of Indian Education.

As part of the Obama Administration’s all-of-the-above strategy to support safe and responsible domestic energy production, the Department of the Interior today announced the release of an updated draft proposal that would establish commonsense safety standards for hydraulic fracturing on public and Indian lands. The supplemental proposal being released today revises the array of tools operators may use to show that water is being protected, and provides more guidance on trade secret disclosure, while providing additional flexibility for meeting these objectives. [press release, Department of Interior]

The ill-fated Keystone XL pipeline would cross the Cheyenne River just upstream of the already pollution-threatened Tituwan Lakota Oyate Wacipi.

“You’re not welcome here… We’ve said no from day one.” And with these firm words the TransCanada representatives were kicked out of Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation last week. [Tar Sands Blockade.]

A candidate for the Montana judiciary was targeted by mailers distributed by dark money registered under Section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code.

Conservative nonprofits that received tax-exempt status since the beginning of 2010 and also filed election spending reports with the Federal Election Commission overwhelmed liberal groups in terms of money spent on politics, an analysis of Internal Revenue Service and FEC records shows. [Robert Maguire, Open Secrets.]

Janklow, Rounds, Daugaard: guilty!

Bill Janklow routinely eavesdropped on his political opponents electronically: protege Marty Jackley continues the practice today.

Freddie is a DREAMer: no man in America works harder than he does. The hearing to determine his citizenship status has been postponed until SCOTUS rules or until Lady Liberty pulls her torch out of her ass.

Alaskans among first in US to suffer climate disruptions

Howie and Powers keep trolling for dollars. Those two are peas in a pod: Gordo has bags under his eyes and Pat has bags under his bags.

In 2007, as seasonal ice cover had fallen to its lowest extent since satellite records began in 1979, a rising star of Alaskan politics brought a critical issue to her constituents:

"Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is also a social, cultural, and economic issue important to all Alaskans. As a result of this warming, coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, retreating sea ice, record forest fires, and other changes are affecting, and will continue to affect, the lifestyles and livelihoods of Alaskans."

And now?

Palin, who was known for her "Drill, baby, drill" catchphrase in support of more domestic oil-drilling during the 2008 presidential campaign, said she bet on Frac Daddy.

The US Department of Agriculture has recognized State Director Elsie Meeks and GROW South Dakota for its 18 year partnership in community lending.

In Rapid City today, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn stated on livestream that the governor's office and South Dakota Dept. of Social Services were invited to the summit hearing testimony on the Indian Child Welfare Act. Representatives from those offices reportedly chose not attend today's session.

Rep. Kristi Noem (earth hater-SD) having pocketed subsidies is now cutting aid to the poorest, so it should come as no surprise that she's not the only hypocrite in her party.

Sen. don Juan Thune (earth hater-SD) is a stooge, but David Letterman is hardly the first to call him that. As a lawyer Thune should know that federal law restricts presidential meddling in the Internal Revenue Service:

For what it’s worth, the last confirmed commissioner of the I.R.S. was Douglas H. Shulman. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and served a full term from 2008 through 2012, including the period when I.R.S. employees are said to have put added demands on conservative groups applying for tax exempt status. [Teresa Tritch, New York Times (blog)]

"Survives Latest Environmental Challenge:" what a bullshit headline from the GOP-owned Rapid City Journal!

The pine collapse now occurring on the Black Hills hydrologic region was forecast in 2002: now, thanks to Marty Jacklow and his earth hater donors, it's sealed in law.

The Black Hills National Forest covers 8125 sq. mi. Israel occupies some 8522.

Stupid fuckers.

If the military really wanted to curb sexual violence it would train Lesbian warriors to teach the realities of sexual harassment to men and allow gay Marines to describe it to women.

Bees are fighting and dying in a war of resistance against the perpetrators of the Anthropocene.

East River, proposed wildlife refuge ripe for treatment

We hate it because it strips conservation requirements; Heritage hates it because of the subsidies:

Mark up week for the $1 trillion food stamp and farm bill has finally arrived and with it the ominous prospect of self-styled conservatives and Republicans rubberstamping President Obama’s big-government agenda. Both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees released the draft text of their respective bills last week and the contempt for the American taxpayer could not be more evident. [Drew White, Heritage]

So, America: howz that reckless right wing obstructionism, Citizens United, 'Patriot' Act and FISA workin' out for ya? In case you've forgotten, here at 20 almost forgotten Bush scandals.

A loop out to near the confluence of the Belle Fourche and Cheyenne Rivers displayed greening prairie and gusty winds.

Much of the proposed Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge face a perfect storm for fuel treatments today.

THANKS TO SIGNIFICANT SUBSIDENCE AND SOME COLD AIR ADVECTION FROM THE NORTHWEST...VERY STRONG WINDS WILL SETTLE IN BEHIND A COLD FRONT TODAY ACROSS NORTHEAST MONTANA.

Gaia: be merciful.

How much prairie should be protected for its wilderness characteristics? How much land should be open for oil and natural gas development? How much sage grouse habitat should be set aside? These questions are being debated as the U.S. Bureau of Land Management considers a new management plan for 2.4 million acres of public land along Montana’s Hi-Line. [Karl Puckett, Great Falls Tribune]

Pat Powers can't even see his own johnson without a mirror.

Rewild the West.

Rounds, Daugaard administrations under federal microscope at summit

Where have Marty Jackley and Jim Seward been while their boss flouts federal law? Did Larry Long orchestrate a cover up?

The Lakota People’s Law Project estimates there are around 740 Lakota children taken into foster care by a state violating the Indian Child Welfare Act each year and 90 percent are placed in non-Native homes and institutions.

The Indian Child Welfare Act summit will be held May 15-17 in Rapid City. US Attorney for South Dakota, Brendan Johnson is widely expected to attend although it has yet to be announced.

Among those attending the Summit will be Honorable Judge B.J. Jones of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribal Court; Honorable Judge William A. Thorne of the Utah Court of Appeals; United States Attorney for the District of North Dakota, Timothy Q. Purdon; and senior leadership from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of the Solicitor. Participants will also represent U.S. Department of the Interior and Department of Justice, the Casey Family Programs, Washington State Office of Indian Policy, National Child Welfare Resource Center for Tribes’ and Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families. [ICTM staff, Indian Country Today Media]

Hey, Senator Rubio: there is no Internal Revenue Service Commissioner!

Carr: crop insurance rife with fraud, updated

The reckless right does nothing but attack.

Kristi Noem is an insurance peddler: so is her fellow earth hater, former governor Mike Rounds. Noem has had a long-time intimate relationship with a principal in the federal agency managing crop insurance.

Agribusiness spent $137 million last year muscling Congress to do its bidding and another $46.6 million on federal candidates (about 60 percent Republican) in 2010. This phalanx of power includes commodity producer groups like the American Corn Growers Association; corporate food processors and purveyors such as Kraft and Dean Foods; the Farm Bureau; dairy and meat industry giants; and seed and petrochemical corporations like Monsanto. [Christopher D. Cook, May 13, 2013, The Progressive.]

Noem has moved to the center making the seat she holds more vulnerable at least until someone from the T-zone drives her back to the reactionary right from whence she came. Expect her to face a knockdown, drag out in a primary.

Same with earth hater Governor Denny Daugaard: if an indictment for his cover up of crimes doesn't sink him, his worst nightmare will come from some yacho like Bill Napoli.

As for us: anybody in a suit can beat a flawed candidate like Rounds, Rick Weiland is a formidable horse. Campaign announcements for statewide races are forthcoming.

Noem's colleague, Rep. Colin Peterson (D-MN), has said that there is five times as much fraud in federal crop insurance inside the US Department of Agriculture as there is in the program that manages food stamps.

With no limits on subsidies and little review of claims, it should be no surprise that crop insurance fraud is common. Under current law, some policyholders receive more than $1 million each in premium support annually, and more than 10,000 receive more than $100,000 each. But in contrast to the Congressional obsession with possible fraud in the food stamp program, only one legislator has begun to raise concerns about abuses in the crop insurance program – Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). She has been drawing attention to a recent report by USDA’s Inspector General that found that USDA was selling questionable policies. [Don Carr, Senior Communications and Policy Advisor; Agriculture and Natural Resources at the Environmental Working Group]

USDA recently ruled that it will conduct two separate environmental impact statements "to better inform decision-making" of engineered crops sought by ecoterrorists Dow and Monsanto.

Hat tip: Mike Jopek.

Minnesota embracing marriage equality

The Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers is apoplectic over marriage equality and confused over Santa Muerte.

Couples who've been together for years will soon have the option of getting married if the Minnesota Senate, as expected, passes legislation today that would recognize out-of-state marriages, too.

The bill has passed in the Minnesota House 75-59 and Governor Mark Dayton has said he will sign the statute when it reaches his desk.

Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist has evolved.

Some in Minnesota are trolling for earth hater support with an amendment to dilute the bill with 'civil union' language.

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) has come out in favor of marriage equality.

Delaware's governor is expected to sign that state's blessing. Favorite son, Vice President Joe Biden, former Delaware Senator, after signalling his support for his state's efforts, is now telegraphing his distrust of the Keystone XL pipeline.

W'all be drugged: even Brookings County looks like it's evolving.

So, from someone who believes that Facebook is malware, this map offers some hope:

Over the last week, many Facebook users have shown support for marriage equality as two high-profile cases get underway at the US Supreme Court. They've done so in a simple yet instantly noticeable way; by substituting their usual profile photo for a pink-on-red equal sign designed by the Human Rights Campaign.

Looks like Facebook people in Missoula County, Montana and Santa Fe County, New Mexico support marriage equality, too.

Surprise! South Dakota kills more workers per 100,000 than states with strong unions.

Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn will be in Rapid City for the summit on the Indian Child Welfare Act. He is scheduled to participate in a roundtable discussion with tribal, state and other federal government representatives.

Neither John Thune nor Pat Powers can get it up without help from Big Pharma.

400 ppm threshold for divestment of fossil fuels

Tom Lawrence has joined Pat Powers in Loserville: Democrats are stalwart while the SDGOP self-destructs.

As voters await word that Rep. Kristi Noem is getting into the earth hater Senate primary in the chemical toilet, some of her comrades on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are stonewalling President Obama's pick of Lisa Jackson for director of The People's Environmental Protection Agency.

Jackson has reportedly endorsed divestment of fossil fuels at a commencement speech today at American University as the news of an instrument near the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii has recorded that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million (ppm) in probably more than 3 million years of Earth history.

Naomi Klein tells readers which NGOs are acting green to make green and which ones are in it to save the planet. It might be important to note that making deals with the devil is not a new phenomenon.

Current water demands are unsustainable.

Facebook is malware.

Nuclear war would solve Israel problem

It's no secret that this interested party would like to see Israel rolled back to 1947 1917 borders then moved to Utah.

Theoretician Stephen Hawking, in a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, said he has decided to boycott a conference hosted by Israeli war criminals.

In April the Teachers' Union of Ireland became the first lecturers' association in Europe to call for an academic boycott of Israel, and in the United States members of the Association for Asian American Studies voted to support a boycott, the first national academic group to do so. [Harriet Sherwood and Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem, The Guardian, Tuesday 7 May 2013]

From Geoffrey Cowley writing at MSNBC:

Experts estimate that Israel now has 60 to 80 nuclear bombs, ranging from 20 kilotons to one megaton (1,000 kilotons) in destructive power. By the end of this decade, Israel could have 200 nukes in its arsenal, and Iran could have 20 smaller devices. Suppose, as the authors do, that Iran could hit three Israeli cities with 15-kiloton bombs—one reaching Haifa, one reaching Beer Sheva and two reaching Tel Aviv. Roughly 400,000 people would die in the initial blasts, the simulations show, and 230,000 would survive with burns and traumatic injuries. Tel Aviv alone would lose a quarter-million people (about 17% of its population), and 147,000 of its survivors would desperately need medical care.

Zionists, terrorists, war criminals: just a few truths being spoken to power. Last year, after Israel executed another round of extirpation attempts in Palestine, an outspoken world leader lashed out:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Israel's actions cannot be described as self-defense against Hamas rocket attacks, as the U.S. and other Israeli allies have done. He calls the offensive "terrorism."--AP at HuffPost.

Now, Turkey's Prime Minister reiterates his charges that Zionism is a crime against humanity:

Erdogan, whose ruling party has roots in Turkey's Islamic movement, frequently criticizes Israeli actions against Palestinians but rarely speaks out against Zionism. In November, he accused Israel of state terrorism and of an "attempt at ethnic cleansing," a euphemism that describes using violence to force a population to flee an area.--Suzan Frasier and Matthew Lee in HuffPost.

Couldn't have said better myself.

Let's just say that Mike Rounds needs Big Pharma for even little dates.

Rep. Kristi Noem and her earth hater buddies are kidding, right?

Here’s the bottom line: Both farm bills proposed this week (May 13) by the House and Senate Agriculture committees would cut funding for the hungry and the environment to help boost subsidies for the largest and most successful farm businesses. [Environmental Working Group.]

Read this Coral Davenport piece: The Coming GOP Civil War Over Climate Change.

Today's intersection: BRAC and Air Force scandal

Poor damned slug. Right, Pat: like we're going to telegraph yer stupid ass? Someone check Pat's blood pressure: he's terminal.

As I said: anybody in a suit can beat Mike Rounds.

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) has been at the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearings on a budget for the US Air Force.

Few lawmakers want to lose the jobs associated with their bases during a fragile economic recovery or invest in environmental cleanup at those bases at a time when the military is slashing training and other operations and likely furloughing civilians as a result of congressionally mandated across-the-board cuts. [Frank Oliveri, Roll Call.]

Over the weekend, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, the officer in charge of the sexual assault prevention and response branch for the Air Force, was arrested and charged with sexual battery after he allegedly drunkenly "approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks."

Minnesota's House is expected to bring marriage equality one step closer to their state tomorrow. Delaware's governor is expected to sign that state's blessing. Favorite son, Vice President Joe Biden, former Delaware Senator, after signalling his support for his state's efforts, is now telegraphing his distrust of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Reported sexual assaults in the military have increased 30% in the last years and it is suspected that 90% of all attacks go undisclosed.

Recall President Thomas Jefferson's warning: a standing army without a foreign war to fight will turn on its own.

South Dakota ethically bankrupt; Colorado cannabis repeal fails

Two words of advice for Mark Sanford: Bill Janklow.

Brian Rounds is the son of former earth hater Gov. Mike Rounds.

The junior Rounds' plan accepted by the South Dakota's Public Utilities Commission, where he is an analyst, forcing NorthWestern Energy to buy power from a local wind farm, where the elder Rounds sits on the board, did not immediately feel like a conflict of interest to Argus Leader reporter, David Montgomery in response to a question submitted at today's 100 Eyes webcast.

From a piece by Joshua Zumbrun and Craig Torres posted at Bloomberg:

A group of bankers that advises the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors has warned that farmland prices are inflating “a bubble” and growth in student-loan debt has “parallels to the housing crisis.” “Agricultural land prices are veering further from what makes sense,” according to minutes of the council’s Feb. 8 gathering. “Members believe the run-up in agriculture land prices is a bubble resulting from persistently low interest rates.”

Former Chiefs of the Soil Conservation Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service have submitted a recommendation to Congress urging conservation compliance as a requirement for crop insurance as part of any food/farm legislation.

Policing for Profit finds South Dakota's law enforcement industry still profiling persons of color. After being stopped for speeding by a white state employee Tam Hoang Nguyen submitted to a search that led to his detainment.

Kristen Wyatt has been covering the Colorado legislature as it hammers revenue from the state's voters' overwhelming support for legal cannabis. She tells readers of the Coloradoan that an eleventh-hour maneuver to reject the will of the people has been thwarted:

The repeal effort had enough Senate co-sponsors to suggest it would meet the two-thirds threshold needed to clear the Senate. Its prospects were murkier in the House. Another marijuana regulation bill that passed the House on Monday sets an open-container equivalent for marijuana and requires marijuana to face the same indoor air quality restrictions as tobacco. The House gave the bill final approval 62-3. Senators were mulling a pot tax rate greater than 25 percent, a 15 percent excise tax for school construction and a special 10 percent cannabis sales tax. Those would be in addition to local and statewide sales taxes. The 25 percent tax rate has already cleared the House and was headed to the Senate floor Monday.[Wyatt, AP]

Denver's Westword has in depth analysis. HuffPost Denver here.

From Wikipedia:

The regulation of prostitution in the United States is not among the enumerated powers of the federal government. Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is therefore exclusively the domain of the states to permit, prohibit, or otherwise regulate commercial sex, except insofar as Congress may regulate it as part of interstate commerce with laws like the Mann Act.

But not cannabis?

This is the 1000th post at interested party.

War College employee found with child porn

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled on 120 counts of possession after some 10,000 images of children were found on the computer of a War College employee. The lawyer for the accused says his client is a victim of identity theft. Read the story here.

Introduced grass species creeping onto public lands are reducing diversity in the Prairie Pothole Region and threatening duck habitat:

North America’s grassland biome, exemplified mainly by the vast Great Plains, is arguably the continent’s most endangered major ecosystem, with widespread grassland declines attributed mainly to conversion agriculture.--US Fish and Wildlife Service.

As fire restrictions are posted on the Black Hills National Forest Doxy Denny Daugaard delivered disaster demands, delayed debate declaration.

Yesterday's drive by the Roubaix Cemetery in Lawrence County revealed that it's surrounded by increasingly drying second-growth pine. The Forest Service wants local governments to give back subsidies mostly because the FS is getting stiffed for costs associated with fighting fires on property other than those they manage.

Comes this from the Casper Star:

At issue are so-called county payments, a revenue sharing plan that’s existed since President Teddy Roosevelt created the national forests to protect timber reserves from the cut-and-run logging of the time. For nearly a century, hundreds of counties received a quarter of the revenue from the timber sold on federal land. In recent years, the law has acted as a subsidy for states and counties hard hit by logging declines triggered by measures to protect threatened species. The money is being used for roads, schools and emergency services and is a welcome addition to cash-strapped county coffers, especially in the Northwest.

RT @SDemergencyMgmt:

Gov. Daugaard has requested a Presidential Disaster Declaration to help #SouthDakota recover from an April 8-10, 2013, ice and snow storm.

We can expect that South Dakota's earth hater junior Senator will vote against Gina McCarthy, President Obama's pick for administrator of the The People's Environmental Protection Agency. The Hill reports that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will vote Thursday. McCarthy currently runs the Office of Air and Radiation and Sen. don Juan Thune has been bought off by Powertech Uranium, hoping to mine in the failed red state; its stock is nearly worthless.

The Once and Future Iliad:




Speaking of erectile dysfunction, the website of the National Republican Congressional Committee has been one big Viagra commercial. Some say it was hacked but we all know they're Geriatric Old Pricks anyway.

interested party by the numbers: pageviews by month

Is Lee Schoenbeck really this stupid?

Scott Munsterman: even his name suggests zombie.

Lee Schoenbeck • 2 days ago −there are some aborations [sic] in those results, and a couple really stick out. Frank Denholm, retired sheriff and FBI agent is quite a bit more conservative than that would indicate. Relativw [sic] to the field, Jim Abdnor and Karl Mundt belong farther to the right. The way votes are scored an [sic] weighted affect any of thee [sic] systems. there [sic] is no such thing as a biasless [sic] way to make subjective decisions about the political philosohy [sic] that drives a vote.--comment, The politics of SD’s representatives in Congress since 1971, Political Smokeout.

This guy purports to be a lawyer. More on his links to the Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers and the National Rifle Association here.

Jeff Darcy

Kent State Spring revisited

Dick Kneip was an Elkton boy, too: he would have turned 80 this year. In 1970 he was in the legislature considering a run to be the state's first catholic governor.

To a fifteen going on sixteen year-old man-child struggling to understand America's incursion into SE Asia at the expenses of those lives just slightly more lived than his own, the Kent State Massacre was an outrageous act of martial law gone apocalyptic.

The anniversary of this national shame gives baby boomers pause to ponder the decision forty three years ago of an Ohio National Guard unit to turn and fire scores of .30 caliber rifle rounds into a loosely assembled group of Kent State University students armed with rocks.

This single event branded Richard Nixon and his operatives criminals and galvanized many millions against whatever was to come from Washington DC henceforth; yet, a majority of voters was convinced by CREEP that Senator McGovern's first 1972 running mate was mentally ill.

At least 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians were killed, mostly in American air raids. South Vietnamese civilian deaths might have reached two million, wounded civilians five million; the country’s population had been 19 million. About a third of the wounded were women. A quarter were children under 13. Between 30-60,000 South Vietnamese were left blind, up to 150,000 more were amputees.--Gerald Caplan, The Globe and Mail.

How did the Kent State Massacre change your image of America?

Want another example of our 1960s revolutionary cold war? Get in your car and hit the button for your AM radio. Yes, you'll hear Rush Limbaugh, but you'll also hear something else: A conscious, reactionary movement that was created in response to the 1960s. It started in 1971 with something called the Powell Memorandum, drafted by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell when he was a corporate lawyer giving advice to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He proposed what essentially was an infrastructure for reaction -- conservative think tanks that would try to create an intellectual halo around policies to dismantle the safety net, trade unionism and other policies that had created middle class prosperity, as well as a new conservative media.--Will Bunch, Daily Kos.

There's no dark side of the moon really. As a matter of fact: it's all dark.

Endangered species in USFWS news

Region 2, the southwest division of the US Fish and Wildlife Service has reopened comment on the proposed listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species.

In Region 6, the Service is also seeking public input for grizzly bear conservation efforts according to the Great Falls Tribune:

Biologists are seeking public review and input on the draft strategy, which describes the regulatory framework for management and monitoring of the NCDE grizzly bear population and its habitat upon delisting, or removal of Endangered Species Act protections.

Hat tips to the Center for Biological Diversity and to Martin Kidston, Lee Newspapers of Montana.

Rep. Krusti Noem, Sen. don Juan Thune, and their fellow earth haters in Congress have stalled many of President Obama's choices for the judiciary and to lead key posts: his pick of Lisa Jackson as administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is just one example.

Acting EPA director Bob Perciasepe announced that former Boulder mayor and solar expert, Shaun McGrath will become regional administrator for its Region 8 office in Denver:

EPA Region 8 includes Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and 27 Tribal Nations. He spent more than a decade working with the Western Governors’ Association, serving as a program director on a number of environmental issues including climate adaptation, water and drought. Shaun has also worked on the federal level as deputy director of White House intergovernmental affairs, where he was the principal liaison and point of contact in the White House for the nation’s governors.--Release Date: 04/30/2013, Richard Mylott

From a release published at Business Wire:

EPA has approved the South Dakota Regional Haze Program, which requires the Big Stone Station to install and operate a best-available retrofit technology air-quality control system to reduce emissions of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The company's share of the cost for the installation is estimated at $100 million and is expected to be complete in 2015.

Rapid City paper given deadline

Stock in Powertech Uranium continues to slide.

As her party crashes around her, Rep. Krusti Noem (earth hater-SD) is struggling to remain relevant and two washed-up former governors are ganging up to thwart her Senate aspirations.

The speaker list at the National Rifle Association convention reads like the defendant roster at a war crimes tribunal: Ollie North, Ted Nugent...who's missing: The Dick, Cheney?

Recent polls have revealed that a failed vote to curb gun violence has boosted Democrats in red states.

Democratic former Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has an 'A' rating from the National Rifle Association. If she gets into a Senate race will she take their money?

Attendees of Spring band and orchestra concerts have been witnessing that there are many young American Indians in Rapid City schools who love playing, not just music, but jazz, too.

But all is not peace and understanding in the community writes Brandon Ecoffey, Native Sun News' managing editor:

The Rapid City Journal has until July 20, 2013, to clean up its act or the United Urban Warrior Society will begin to picket outside of the RCJ’s office. In the past certain readers have used the comment section to promote racial bigotry and stereotypes. Often the comments were allowed to stay up on the site for days, despite claims from the RCJ that they strictly moderate the forum. The RCJ routinely runs images of Native people in jumpsuits and has recently taken petty crimes and sensationalized them as front page news.--All content © Native Sun News, posted at Indianz

With very few exceptions, the online issue of the paper is a waste of electrons and my perusal of reader comments ceased years ago. It has long been the view of this interested party that Editor Randy Rasmussen should be reassigned: preferably to some Oklahoma rag.

While the US assesses the futility of the Iraq War and the appalling legacy of the Bush years, obituaries have been interesting diversions lately in South Dakota: the Land of Infinite Hypocrisy.