This is the rest of the previous post and mostly the current end of posts in this vein.  Politics complete with art and artifice to come soon.

Oh, and we upgraded our cellphones and cellphone plan when the cellphone my son was using croaked. It appears the new plan will allow actually sending images from the phones to make some use of them and resolution is relativesly high. A new toy which might even mean more photos at Dakota Today

And, a computer-related "toy" of sorts. We bought a turntable which allows conversion of old Vinyl record albums to mp3 files which can be copied to a CD. Takes some time, but it does work I noticed in the Mitchell paper today that the Mitchell library is "disposing" of a lot of vinyl albums "for as little as 25 cents each".

I got another toy which so far has not worked. Possibly because of my obsolete computers or for some other as of yet undetermined reason. It is a USB2 HDTV tuner which should allow me to view TV off the air  such as KELO on a computer. I can't get it to find KELO channels, but it did find the 3 SDPB channels. But, the most it will run for is about 3 seconds and then locks up.

Now you know partly what has burned up too much time. Did not even mention the tale of two tractor starters and the remarkable price differences for replacement. At least playing with computer toys doesn't usually result in skinned knuckles even if it provides a reasonable excuse for not posting here every day..

** Stay tuned and check Dakota Today itself for photos and comments.

Well, I got the same or a similar e-mail from J. Andrews that Todd Epp mentioned in a recent post of his which is much more creative than what you will read here.  Anyway, as you can tell from date of last post here, I have not posted as much as a I should or even as I intended.  So here is kind of a catchall post with a promise of more to come.

Sometime during the month of August, wife and I realized we had been married 40 years. Our children showed up and we ate a good meal.  Tripp County about the same time celebrated being Tripp County, SD  for about 100 years.  My wife's family has been around here since about 1915.  City of Winner had a carnival and a new memorial was dedicated to those who served in the US military from Tripp County.  There is a photo of the memorial at Dakota Today.  I still haven't figured out how to get an image into these posts here at KELOLAND.

Despite this not having a lot of political content, I have been very disgusted by our South Dakota delegation and in their statements regarding healthcare and health insurance.  I hope to get something more substantial than that put together soon.

Another little sign of the times is the disappearance of some printed magazines.  Earlier this year PC Magazine ceased publication as a dead tree version and became only a digital shadow of itself.  It is still readable as a Zinio file, but sure nothing like the old magazine that had pages which could be folded and scribbled on.

Earlier this year, my wife subscribed to a magazine she had seen and liked.  She got two months worth of issues and was informed the publication was ending and FAMILY CIRCLE would be substituted for remaining issues.  Family Circle is not one of her favorite magazines..never has been, never will be.

And just this month, a magazine I had not subscribed to, INC, showed up with a notice stuck to the cover that it replaced COMPUTER SHOPPER which was discontinued as a printed magazine.  There is a website and an e-mail newsletter that are the remains of the Computer Shopper magazine.  In the developing days of the PC computer, there were issues as large and as thick as theas the "big catalogs" of Sears, Montgomery Wards of years gone by and even now of the size of the Spring and Fall JC Penny catalogs. Times change and the media change as well. I hope that we will soon be able to get digital readers such as the Kindle and the Sony and Fox-it electronic "books" that are larger and less expensive. I would think some kind of a publishers cooperative would find such a venture possible without each having to have their own proprietary tool and format and thus make a product all of us could afford and still afford to subscribe to the magazines in their electronic forms. ** Stay tuned, More in this vein in the next post. Check Dakota Today for comments and to view images-- Doug Wiken

On public radio, I heard one of the Billions talking about the cars they sold as a consequence of the clunker stimulus. Probably their best sales days ever. Billion may also have told the truth about clunker problem cars traded in, but in some areas and at other dealers, better cars are being dumped into the clunker program than many of us drive and many of them get better mileage than other cars on the road. Destroying the better "clunkers" seems like a terrible waste of affordable transportation and energy used to shred and resmelt, etc.

I suggest a two-tier system where the better "clunkers" turned in can be repaired and sold by government (or agent/dealers of the Gov't) to people with vehicles that are even worse in order to get the really clunker cars off the road. The worst cars are most likely being driven by people who cannot afford the new vehicles of today even with a $4500 gift to the big auto manufacturers as down payment. Such a two-tier system would get the very worst vehicles off the road.

Also, it seems that some minimal repayment of the clunker credits should be made. Perhaps $25 per month for up to 10 years with no interest or no continued payments if vehicle is wrecked, etc. If an additional $25 per month payment will kill a deal on a new car, it is a deal which should not be made to begin with.

Less serious, but perhaps more interesting and fun to many readers are the car video and associated car music from the 50's and 60's at link below. Flash required.
Link as text: http://oldfortyfives.com/CarsWeDrove.htm
Old Forty fives and cars of the time

*** Stay tuned. Hope that gives you something to both think about and enjoy-- Doug Wiken

Note: When I posted this at Dakota Today, 10 days remained.  Now as of July 27, 2009, about 4 days.

If you are still using good analog TV's or even not so good and were pulling signal off-air via antennas, or you are on cable and want to expand your choices without paying more, you may be interested in taking advantage of Uncle Sam.  Some $40 coupons are still available and if you got coupons and they expired on a shelf or in your pocket, you have about 4 days to make your application or re-application.

 

We are using converters and our TV viewing options have effectively doubled as a result.  Image quality is significantly improved...except when it disappears completely in rain or snow.  Also, you may find you don't want to keep dumping money on cable or satellite TV if you happen to be in an area with several good TV broadcasters and haven't yet recovered from the Bush administration economic disaster or you have analog tape of DVD recorders.

  Public Broadcasting in SD has three TV signals.  The regular programming channel, A "World" channel, and a "Create" channel. KELO has their regular channel and "My TV" which is almost devoid of useful content.  KSFY has only one channel out here.

 

Information below was copied from http://www.dtv2009.gov . You have about 4 days left until July 31, 2009  to take advantage of the governmen coupon largesse.

Application Deadline. Eligible households may continue to apply for TV converter box coupons while supplies last, until July 31, 2009. Applications for coupons will continue to be accepted online, by phone, by mail and by fax until 12 midnight Eastern Time. IMPORTANT: Consumers who apply for coupons are approved on a first-come, first-served basis, while supplies last. If the Program experiences high demand, it may be necessary for the Coupon Program to place applicants on a waiting list. Should this happen, we may distribute coupons to over-the-air only households first to ensure that as many U.S. households as possible have at least one working television now that full power local TV stations have completed the transition to digital television broadcasting. Coupons will expire within 90 days of the date they are mailed.

The Coupon Program is accepting applications from consumers whose coupons expired without being redeemed. The Coupon Program limits each U.S. household to a total of two redeemed coupons. Therefore, if you have redeemed one coupon toward the purchase of a TV converter box and the other has expired, you may request and be approved for one replacement coupon; if you have redeemed two coupons you will not be approved for additional coupons. Replacement coupons will only be issued to eligible households upon request. Consumers who wish to apply for a replacement coupon can do so at www.DTV2009.gov/ApplyCoupon.aspx

, by calling 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009), mailing an application to P.O. Box 2000, Portland, OR 97208 or faxing it to 1-877-DTV-4ME2 (1-877-388-4632). Deaf or hard of hearing callers may use 1-877-530-2634 (TTY).

One last chance to make good use of your old analog TVs before the winter doldrums strike.

*** Stay tuned even if TV isn't your choice for background noise --- Doug Wiken

Not sure if the following is from a valid source, but suspect the info is in the neighborhood of correct.

 

 

Blue Dogs' Obedience These Blue Dogs are indeed obedient to their masters: the profitable health care providers and insurers, just not to their President, party, constituents, districts or states. They are pandering to their patrons and benefactors: Top recipients of contributions from insurers and health care industries are:

• Max Baucus $3,973,485
• Evan Bayh $1,565,088
• John McCain $7,677,742
• Kent Conrad $2,154,200
• Dianne Feinstein $1,749,887
• John Kerry $8,994,077
• Mary Landrieu $1,653,943
• Joe Lieberman $3,308,621
• Ben Nelson $2,214,715

They have millions of reasons to prevent our citizens and businesses from the benefits of a low cost, quality health care system.

Letters: The Blue Dogs flunk obedience school - Salon (22 July 2009) http://letters.salon.com/news/feature/2009/07/22/healthcare/view/index4.html?show=all http://snipurl.com/nq3u4

That is about $35 Million total coming out of health insurance premiums and medicare payments to guarantee that the current grossly inefficient greed-driven system continues ...and continues to provide political contributions to continue ..............

Sanford and MeritCare are on the way to being "too big to let fail" when all the huge executive salaries crash the system they will be whining for more pay.

***Stay tuned and don't get sick--- Doug Wiken

The GOP senators at the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor as a nominee to the US Supreme Court have been trying to make hay with Sotomayor's "I hope an Hispanic woman....." comment in a speech or speeches.  They have been beating on one or two dead elephants ever since the second GOP senator had his face on TV.

 

While she hasn’t stated it in the hearings, her statement was prefaced with “I hope….” No matter what the GOP politicians say, they could get away with a statement of the kind, “I hope my experience as a White male ….etc….”

I am not at all impressed with identity politics and certainly Obama nominating an Hispanic women kills two birds with one stone in the identity politics area. That said, it seems more obvious to me every day that this woman is VERY, VERY intelligent, informed, thoughtful, hardworking, and prepared…. and she has remarkable tolerance for fools.

Her statement was unfortunate in that it could be so easily pulled out of context and made to appear as if it is the basis of a monstrous issue by political hacks more interested in scoring points with the NRA and the anti-abortion dark ages groups than in actually learning anything relevant to the approval process.

That the GOP is using something pulled from a speech and not from something like 3,000 judicial decisions is an indication of the poverty of their unified talking points. Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal on PBS noted something to the effect that “Sonia Sotomayor has made clear the distinction between diversity factors in understanding versus in interpreting or applying the law.” [NOT an exact quote.]

That pretty well explains why the GOP attacks have been irrelevant from day 1.

The GOP has also been trying to make hay with one of Obama’s obvious political puffery points regarding the nomination. They know better than to pretend this is an actual issue relevant to the nominating process they are engaged in.

Democrat Senators have fawned a bit too much, but they have also asked some interesting questions. Republican Senators have all asked essentially the same questions over and over again apparently all expecting to get a different result or answer. That kind of behavior has been labeled as a kind of insanity.

The GOP Senator’s problem with the confirmation hearings is not so much an actual perception Sotomayor has, as it is with their intentional or ignorant misconception or illegitimate presentation of Sotomayor's perspectives and/or the context of her remarks.

They have been left exposed as attempting to build mountains out of molehill pseudo-issues and creating strawman arguments.

When they start resorting to attacks in the form implying she is some kind of a pointy-headed intellectual lawyer markedly different than the general public when they start saying stuff like, “Fine legal minds might accept that, but the American People (as if these clowns represent all the American people) want this explained in terms they can understand”, you have another measure of their desperation and the poverty of their arguments.

While the GOP Senators have been mostly hammering on Sotomayor's expressed preferences as if she has let them influence her judicial decisions despite no evidence for that, their own positions appear as if they could all be predicted by the contribution reports of their major special interest supporters and business interests.

**Stay tuned for the soon to appear "full-court" press coverage--- Doug Wiken

 

I was a bit late getting to the meeting.  The weather outside the school meeting place was interesting with clouds moving in three directions with a nearly clear hole in the middle right above. It did get my attention for a few minutes.  Tornado warnings and ledge clouds tend to cause me to watch the sky.  But, went into the meeting anyway.

 

The news appears to be that there will be no immediate attempt at another opt-out.  Apparently some funds were found or could be shifted to current emergency.  Not sure, but apparently with several new board members, it seems unlikely that another attempt will be made within the next 6 months.

Getting that locked down in concrete by any board members or administrators was not possible for me tonight however.

The other bit of news is that KELO-TV apparently presented general information as something that appeared to be a quote from Doug Long, board member, but which several who heard his actual remarks say he never said.   What appeared to be a direct quote as I listened at 5PM was something like, "The ranchers of Tripp County were responsible for the defeat of the previous opt outs". 

It may well be that is at least part of the situation, but was probably not something that came directly out of Doug Long's mouth.

The tax situation in Tripp County in the Winner School District is something to the effect of 60 or 80 percent of the school property tax revenue coming from Ag land with only about 20 percent of the students coming from the rural areas paying the tax.  It makes it a lot easier for the influentials in Winner City itself to wax nearly poetic "in support of the children".  It makes most of us in the rural area want some more careful analysis of school expenses even if we don't know what can or should be cut or even if anything can be cut.

The other bit of near gossip coming out of the meeting was the tabling of a motion to hire Jensen and Massa as the school attorneys.  One audience member said that Paul Jensen had failed to vote in the opt out elections and she was not happy about that.

I guess my concern about such contracts has more to do with those involving out of town attorneys and computer network consultants.  Those contracts appear to warrant some very severe scrutiny by unbiased evaluators and there is a lot more money in those.

I thought I had a photo of the new school board members, but it was so fuzzy that I could not use it here even if my wife could recognize everybody in the photo.

That is enough about that tonight. The local Wednesday newspaper will have more details and I expect, the names of all the board members..new and old.

***Stay tuned even if there is some fog in the news --- Doug Wiken