Madville Times

• Health Care: Small Business Sees Need for Uncle Sam Insurance

  Number of comments: 1
  The Chamber of Commerce and Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin obviously aren't speaking for small business. The Main Street Alliance recognizes that health insurance reform is good for business, not to mention our fellow Americans:
  
  Rick Poore spent $61,000 in health insurance premiums last year for the employees' [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 9:43am EST
  by caheidelberger

• My New Holiday Hat?

  Number of comments: 0
  Quick holiday photo puzzle—what is that on my head?
  
  
  

  
  
  New Russian hat?
  
  Head-mounted battering ram for plowing through Black Frdiay shopping crowds?
  
  Franken Mobiel Satellite Uplink 2.0?
  
  Nope. Something even more valuable:
  
  
  
  [...]

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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 9:28am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Friday Fun Foto: So Simple, So Elegant...

  Number of comments: 0
  The holidays bring out my sense of irony.
  
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 9:08am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Brighten Black Friday: Buy Less, Give More!

  Number of comments: 2
  Mr. Gebhart picks up the theme of fighting Black Friday with some great suggestions for local giving. Instead of contributing to the bottom line at the Empire Mall, that Progressive on the Prairie plans to celebrate Reverend Billy's Buy Nothing Day by opening his wallet to the [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 9:25am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Cause for Thanks: Spock Replaces Riley in White House

  Number of comments: 6
  Dithering? No, John, that's called thinking.
  
  Dr. Newquist hit a similar theme at the beginning of the month. Now Ned Hodgman reads Joel Achenbach's Washington Post assessment of President Barack Obama's Spock-like decision-making and leadership and offers this Thanksgiving thought:
  
  The world is too complicated [...]
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  Posted: November 26, 2009, 6:15am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Smart Grid Saves You Money with Transparent, Timely Energy Pricing

  Number of comments: 7
  Those darn greenies and their good ideas, saving us money....
  
  I was just reading my Sioux Valley Energy newsletter when I came upon another really good explanation (available here in PDF) of how the smart grid will save you and me money.
  
  Sioux Valley Energy is [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 9:29am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Thank Family Farmers Michelle and Barack for Vegetarian State Dinner

  Number of comments: 4
  As the Thank a Farmer® marketing campaign gets play on the usual industrial ag propaganda sites, I notice no grateful mention of the efforts of new urban farmers Michelle [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 8:51am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Brighten Black Friday: Buy Less, Give More!

  Number of comments: 0
  Mr. Gebhart picks up the theme of fighting Black Friday with some great suggestions for local giving. Instead of contributing to the bottom line at the Empire Mall, that Progressive on the Prairie plans to celebrate Reverend Billy's Buy Nothing Day by opening his wallet to the [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2009, 5:00am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Save Money, Save Lives: Skip Black Friday for Advent Conspiracy

  Number of comments: 2
  What would Jesus do on Black Friday? I doubt he'd be clipping coupons.
  
  
  
  It's consumer frenzy time again. Gorge yourself at the table Thursday, gorge your shopping cart at the mall Friday. I feel ill already.
  
  KELO runs the usual "buy buy buy!" propaganda under' [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 10:40am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Strong State Policies Mean Support Renewable Energy: Pass Those PUC Rules!

  Number of comments: 0
  The PUC may have just gotten a some slam-dunk help from the feds to promote its Small Renewable Energy Initiative. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory just issuedits 2009 State of the States report. Among the key findings: states that have passed renewable energy portfolio [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 10:35am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Sioux Falls Reinvents Education Wheel: What's Not "Real World" about My Classroom?

  Number of comments: 7
  The Sioux Falls School District touts a new high school that KELO's Ben Dunsmoor says will focus on "real world skills." Perhaps this new school can teach Ben Dunsmoor the real-world skill of writing in complete sentences. A skill all professional journalists should have. (That's an example of the [...]
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  Posted: November 24, 2009, 8:22am EST
  by caheidelberger

• 3 Independent Analyses Agree: Stimulus Working

  Number of comments: 8
  Conservatives like Sibby take predictable pleasure in citing increased unemployment as evidence that the stimulus package has failed. They further their schadenfreude by pointing out actual unemployment numbers have exceeded the overly optimistic predictions of job recovery cited by the Obama Administration at the beginning of 2009:
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 4:32pm EST
  by caheidelberger

• Madison City Web: 1830 Visits (Visitors?) in July

  Number of comments: 5
  In other interesting news from tonight's city commission agenda packet, the City of Madison website continues to get some visibility. Page 32 of the packet offers what appears to be a list of web traffic by page for the city website in July 2009. The table [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 10:15am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Madison to Discuss Wind Turbine Rules, Including Decommissioning Requirements

  Number of comments: 0
  ...decommissioning requirements: do we have that for pipelines?
  
  The Madison City Commission has wind energy regulations on tonight's agenda. Evidently our city has yet to adopt any clear rules on wind turbines in city limits, and government naturally abhors a vacuum.
  
  Actually, some clear rules [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 9:46am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Liberal Stimulus Working; More to Come

  Number of comments: 10
  The New York Times reports on the consensus among economists that the stimulus passed last February is working.
  
  What's that I hear? Liberal spin from that elitist New York paper? Actually, reporters Jackie Calmes and Michael Cooper give White House a hard time for using overly optimistic economic [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 8:46am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Twitter Ads: Why I'll Never Get Rich Blogging

  Number of comments: 1
  The New York Times reports on the continued depressing infiltration of every interesting nook of the Internet by advertising. Vancouver blogger John Chow got $200 for allowing online advertiser Ad.ly posting this one Tweet flogging customized M&Ms. Such simple ads in October earned him $3000.
  
  I'll admit,' [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 7:37am EST
  by caheidelberger

• DENR Cites Manure Violations at Millner Veblen Dairies

  Number of comments: 3
  Factory feedlot owner Rick Millner continues to break the rules, threaten the environment, and blame everyone but himself. After flagrant and repeated environmental violations at his CAFOs in Minnesota, Millner's two cattle concentration camps in the Big Stone Lake watershed around Veblen are finally drawing attention from South Dakota's environmental [...]
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  Posted: November 22, 2009, 8:10am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Humane Society Just Can't Win with "Advocates" for "Agriculture"

  Number of comments: 0
  Troy Hadrick demonstrates the impossibility of rational discourse with Farm Bureau propagandists. In a Tuesday, Nov. 17 post on his Advocates for (Big Corporate Masquerading as Family Farm) Agriculture, Hadrick reasonably decries an act of CAFO vandalism in northwest Iowa that led to the death of 3800 [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 7:25am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Why I Love Interp: Students Ask for Encores

  Number of comments: 1
  As I'm judging the big George McGovern Invitational Forensics Tournament (follow on Twitter! #mcgovdb8!) in Mitchell this weekend, I recall with pleasure a scene from a Region interp contest in Harrisburg Tuesday that reaffirms my love of high school speech activities.
  
  Region Interp contests can get pretty' [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 6:30am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Poet Cuts Cellulosic Ethanol Production Costs 43%

  Number of comments: 4
  Expect CE commercial competitiveness by 2011, says CEO Broin.
  
  April was right: Jeff Broin's Poet Ethanol has achieved a cost breakthrough on cellulosic ethanol
  
  POET announced today that cost reductions achieved over the past year of operating their cellulosic ethanol pilot plant have exceeded expectations in [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 3:35pm EST
  by caheidelberger

• Recession Thanksgiving: Upsides of the Downturn

  Number of comments: 3
  You know me, always looking for the silver lining!
  
  As Thanksgiving approaches, here are some more reasons that the recession may actually be doing some good for the country:
  
  AAA says South Dakotans will travel 2.6% less this year for Turkey Day. That's less fuel burned [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 9:21am EST
  by caheidelberger

• South Dakota Wants de Facto Raw Milk Ban

  Number of comments: 2
  Anti-Nanny-State Free-Market Advocates Silent
  on South Dakota's Continued War on Small Family Farms
  Friends in the dairy industry let me know about a South Dakota Department of Agriculture proposal to effectively ban raw milk sales. Small dairy operators could still get permits to sell their product directly' [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 8:05am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Wasson Proposes Trade with North Korea, Cut DoD by Half

  Number of comments: 0
  GOP U.S. House candidate Thad Wasson keeps the ideas coming: He extends his proposal for bear-hug diplomacy with Iran to include agricultural trade with North Korea. He also proposes the most serious federal deficit-cutting plan I've heard from anyone this year: withdraw from Kosovo, Italy, Japan, and Korea' [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 7:26am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Governor Rounds on Big Stone II and Transmission for Wind: What, No Sales Pitch?

  Number of comments: 1
  I sometimes criticize local and state politicians for putting a happy face on setbacks or ignoring real problems. Of course, mayors and governors have their agendae, their own need to keep the positive spin coming, to put the best face forward to keep investors interested and promote economic development.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 5:25pm EST
  by caheidelberger

• Madison Swine Flu Clinic Gives 775 Shots

  Number of comments: 2
  I went to the Lake County H1N1/sine flu free vaccine clinic yesterday—not to get a shot (I'm not in Tier 1), but to enter data. That meant I got to be one of the first people to see the shot totals for the day.
  
  Our vaccine clinic gave' [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 9:10am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Lake County Water Data Shows Need for Environmental Action

  Number of comments: 0
  Dakota Water Watch has issued a report on this year's water monitoring projects around eastern South Dakota. For Lake County lakes, the news mixed:
  Lakes Madison and Brant showed higher than average water clarity, as measured by Secchi disk readings. Lake Herman was a little murkier [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 9:01am EST
  by caheidelberger

• New Study: World Does Health Care Better Than U.S.

  Number of comments: 0
  As the Senate gets ready to debate health insurance reform, lets take a look at some of the latest data on the status quo that the GOP (and the Blue Dogs) will try to defend. A new study just published this month in Health Affairs finds the following shortcomings [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 8:02am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Flush High Water Bills with Greywater!

  Number of comments: 8
  Noting a recent surge in wastewater-related posts, an eager reader mentions greywater for conservation. He notes that long-time Madison resident and inventor Paul Redfield plumbed in a system that piped his laundry and shower water into his toilet tanks. I've heard others mention how silly it is' [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 8:26am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Madville Times Readers Want Primary Challenge to Herseth Sandlin

  Number of comments: 3
  The most recent Madville Times asked you, dear readers, "Would you like to see a Democrat challenge Herseth in the primary?" 108 of you took time to tell us all what you think (thank you!). The results: we want a rumble!
  
  Yes: Replace SHS with a real Dem! 42 [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 7:08am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Repower SD in Madison Today: Put Your Energy Security Shout-Out on the Wall!

  Number of comments: 0
  Repower America is coming to Madison today! Susan and Elana from the Repower South Dakota office in Sioux Falls will be at the Trojan Center on the Dakota State University campus from noon to 4 [...]
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  Posted: November 18, 2009, 6:15am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Farmers Union Holds Climate Change Forum in Brookings Wednesday

  Number of comments: 4
  While the Farm Bureau gets a little free press for its pro-Big-Ag, anti-Michael-Pollan propaganda, the Farmers Union provides a forum Wednesday for all sides to discuss climate change legislation. Tomorrow night, Wednesday, November 18, 7 p.m., speakers and interested citizens will gather on the SDSU [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 8:45am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Nelson Protecting Electoral Process, Not Playing Politics

  Number of comments: 0
  Secretary of State Chris Nelson evidently has more than half a brain. Instead of listening to the mewling of the anti-nanny-staters, Sec. Nelson tells KELO he's concerned that allowing the smoking ban vote to go forward may weaken the integrity of the elctoral process:
  
  "The court found" [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 7:00am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Health Insurance Surprise: Republicans Pay for Abortions

  Number of comments: 2
  Did you know the Republican National Committee offered its employees health insurance that covered abortions? Neither did the Republican National Committee. Their health policy had covered abortions since 1991... until last Friday, when Chairman Michael Steele realized the GOP needed a Stupak Amendment of its own. The RNC [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 5:45am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Primary Challenge for SHS? Vote Now in Madville Times Poll!

  Number of comments: 0
  Hey, it's the last day to vote in the Madville Times poll on Stephanie Herseth Sandlin! Would you like to see a Democrat challenge our incumbent Congresswoman in the 2010 primary? Whether you're an SHS fan, a GOP saboteur, or just an independent looking for a reason to vote in' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 12:55pm EST
  by caheidelberger

• Now That's Green Thinking: Treat Wastewater with Algae

  Number of comments: 2
  An eager reader informs me that her click on one of the Google ads here led her to something interesting: Algaewheel, and Indianapolis company that has developed technology to treat wastewater with algae. They've licensed the technology to another Indiana company, Oldcastle Precast, which has successfully installed' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:40am EST
  by caheidelberger

• South Dakota Dairy Historical Trend: Get Big, or Get Out

  Number of comments: 4
  Earl Butz lives, family farms die...
  
  While reading up on cow poop over breakfast (and how's your morning so far?), I learned that South Dakota was first in the nation during Q3 2009 in percentage increase in number of cows and milk production. Last quarter we had [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 8:43am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Lemons to Lemonade, Poop to Power: Dairy Waste Makes Electricity

  Number of comments: 3
  Stan gets me thinking a little more about bovine emissions. Senator Thune and the Farm Bureau have made a big issue out of pre-empting any regulation of livestock flatulence. So if we can't tax cattle waste, how about we plug it into the grid?
  
  According to' [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 7:42am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Daugaard in Madison Monday 6 p.m. at Nicky's

  Number of comments: 0
  South Dakota Lieutenant Governor Dennis Daugaard will make his case for promotion here in Madison Monday (that's tomorrow!). He's coming to the windowless cavern that is Nicky's to shake hands and field questions from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. An insider says there may' [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 11:34am EST
  by caheidelberger

• South Dakota Not to Blame for Greenhouse Emissions?

  Number of comments: 4
  If the planet does get warmer, seas rise, civilizations fall, etc., take heart, fellow South Dakotans: they can't blame us! Well, not much. A new report from Environment America finds that South Dakota generated less fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions in 2007 than all but two states (Rhode Island' [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 8:26am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Leslee Unruh Lie Update: Sure Sounds Like She Likes Federal Money

  Number of comments: 0
  Last spring, Leslee Unruh lied to our faces in that Sioux Falls paper, telling us, "I've never liked federal money."
  
  Unruh hums a different tune in a recent Newsweek article on the Obama Administration's plan to save a couple hundred million a year by cutting funding for [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 5:45am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Herseth Sandlin Apologist Hides Behind Elitism

  Number of comments: 8
  Sam Hurst is not the typical blogospheric barroom brawler. His thoughtful prose generally floats above the combative, poke-in-the-eye polemics that Sibby and I goof around with. I thus hesitate to use words like hammers, skewers, or other such violent metaphors to describe his writing.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 8:27am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Death of a Pickup Truck: Wasson Shows Sensitive (and Sudsy?) Side

  Number of comments: 2
  Pickup truck owners, a moment of silence, please, in sympathy and solidarity with GOP U.S. House candidate Thad Wasson, who makes public on his campaign blog his grief at the untimely passing of his 1982 Chevy pickup. Wasson heart-wrenchingly likens the death of his truck to losing the family [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 7:35am EST
  by caheidelberger

• No Coal, No Oil by 2030? No Problem! Use Earth, Wind, and Fire

  Number of comments: 10
  ...and tides!
  
  Think big: Ned Hodgman at Understanding Government points us toward a Nov. 2009 Scientific American article that lays out a plan to power the planet entirely with renewable energy and eliminate fossil fuels by 2030.
  
  Authors Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 9:05am EST
  by caheidelberger

• MDL Advertises Smart Cars in Bloomington! Let's Go!

  Number of comments: 2
  I wonder if ads like this in the Madison Daily Leader spoil Pat Prostrollo's breakfast:
  
  Smart cars in Bloomington! Base price $12,000... not much more than I paid Cars for Les for my Jeep ten years ago. Might be easier to buy' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:11am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Big Houses, Big Green Problem

  Number of comments: 3
  Home construction pumps a lot of money into the economy. But do we want to return to economic growth based on the conspicuous consumption of big houses? Episcogranny goes on a holiday home tour and finds one monster house troubling:
  
  Today, though, there was one home that almost [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 7:53am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Keystone XL Avoids Indian Territory

  Number of comments: 2
  Nick Nemec notices something interesting about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline route: TransCanada's next big pipeline quite neatly threads the needle and avoid crossing a single Indian reservation anywhere across the Great Plains. The pipeline just barely misses three reservations—Fort Peck in Montana, Cheyenne River here in South Dakota, and' [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 8:15am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Top Ten Reasons MDL Editorial Is Bunk

  Number of comments: 15
  Jon Hunter gets back to form printing Madison's Republican "glory and praise pamphlet" with a little anti-government rant on Monday's editorial page. His outburst wins quotation from Dakota War College (easily ten-tupling MDL's web traffic) and mild approval from the DWC peanut gallery.
  
  Hunter's squawking also [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 7:30am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Madison Leaders Confused on Keystone Pipeline

  Number of comments: 1
  Evidently Madison hasn't noticed any boost in business from the Keystone pipeline.
  
  An eager reader points out an odd line in an MDL story about the city's otherwise reasonable discussion about designating Madison's Highway 34 bypass as an actual bypass:
  
  Commissioner Nick Abraham and Mayor' [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 6:05am EST
  by caheidelberger

• Merry Christmas (Shopping)? South Dakota Recovering from Recession

  Number of comments: 0
  This should raise our happiness score: South Dakota's in recovery! From the recession, that is. E-Gov Monitor points me toward Moody's Economy.com, which says South Dakota is one of eleven states (plus D.C.) in recovery from the economic collapse. The other lucky states: Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 4:54pm EST
  by caheidelberger

• Honor Your Vets, Save the Planet, Pass ACESA

  Number of comments: 6
  Don't think Veterans Day should be political? Ask a soldier who risked her life in Iraq due to our political choices. LeighAnn Dunn, USD grad student and South Dakota National Guard member, applies the Bush "first-strike" doctrine as justification for passing climate change legislation:
  
  This “first strike”' [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 3:48pm EST
  by caheidelberger