A little birdie told me today that it isn’t entirely clear where the impetus for theSouth DakotaPublic Broadcasting cuts is coming from.
My source said that it is likely a House member but not necessarily someone on the Appropriations Committee who is asking for the cuts. And the list itself is all over the map, with it being real, virtual, or even non-existent.
SDPB apparently was asked, as were a number of other state agencies, to put together a “doomsday” scenario based on certain levels of cuts. SDPB complied, giving the Rounds Administration and Legislators the information.
My birdie also said they did not think the cuts were politically motivated but motivated because of the current state funding situation.
I hope that is so. But from my time in Pierre and as a former SDPBer, that has seldom been the situation in my experience. Usually, cuts or even the elimination of funding, have come about because someone didn’t like SDPB for any number of real or perceived wrongs or “agendas.”
I think this was Day 31 (of 40) for the gaggle under the dome, so still lots of time for lots of things–or absolutely nothing–to happen.
Stay tuned. Meanwhile, maybe a rerun of the Lawrence Welk Show will soothe you while you wait.
I’m a person of many interests. And yes, I’ve had many blogs. Some, like this, I’ve sustained in one form or another for years. Others seem to run their course or I get bored.
Hey, you’re getting all this for free, so don’t complain.
Anyway, I’ve started three new specialized blogs that you might enjoy. They are:
This Big Day In South Dakota History: This was a semi-regular feature over on my legacy South Dakota Watch site but I am bringing it back at its own site. Again, I welcome your tidbits (with exact dates) about South Dakota history. For example, on February 13, 1985, the South Dakota Legislature decided to go to Washington–all 105 members–to plead for help for the state’s farmers.
This Day In Civil Air Patrol History: The Civil Air Patrol, of which I am a member, has had a colorful history, starting just days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. For example, on February 13, 1923, Gen. Chuck Yeager, made famous in the move The Right Stuff and the first person to break the sound barrier, was born. The CAP named its Aerospace Achievement Ribbon after Gen. Yeager in honor his contributions to aviation. And of course I’m looking for any leads you have on this topic as well.
All three of these new blogs are featured in the side columns of this blog. I’ll continue to comment on South Dakota, Midwestern, and national politics here, as well as Buddhism and all the other things I’ve generally written about in the past.
Thanks for your continued readership and responsible commenting.
(FNN)*–NEW ORLEANS–Just hours after the New OrleansSaints‘ unprecedented Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts, the Crescent City’s levee system miraculously rose five feet.
“I went out on our daily levee check about 11 p.m. Sunday, and Lord in heaven, all the levees surrounding and within the City of New Orleans had increased five feet in height!” exclaimed Jimbo LaFontaine, shift supervisor the for the New Orleans Department of Public Works. “I knew Drew Brees could do great things, but wow, making the levees better? Who Dat? The Saints really did bring good things to this community.”
Sports media hype before and during the most recent Super Bowl suggested that New Orleans “deserved” a Super Bowl victory because of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath and because of the Saints’ losing tradition.
In a statement released from the White House, PresidentBarack Obama said both the Saints’ victory and the subsequent miraculous increase in the city’s levees were part of the change he promised in the 2008 campaign.
“It’s an outrage to think that such hope is not possible,” President Obama said. “After a year of spinning my wheels on health care and Guantanamo, this is the sort of positive change you can expect in 2010 from my administration.”
Meanwhile, in Indianapolis, at about the same time, the dome over the Lucas Oil Field, the home of the Colts, was found to have a number of cracks.
I’ve already spent way more time on HB 1277 than I ever wanted. Again, until Rep. Noel Hamiel asked me to give him my thoughts on how to get anonymous online defamers into the courthouse, I hadn’t really given it much thought.
The bill is other people’s passion, not mine. But I understand why there is a need to help Plaintiffs find the Defendants who may have defamed them online anonymously. And as I’ve said about a million times now, defamation is NOT protected speech.
And I certainly didn’t want to stifle anyone’s free expression as defined by statute, the Bill of Rights, and the courts. Hell, I am a blogger too.
My young Republican friend Pat Powers, i.e., PP, of South Daktoa War College asked me some good questions on Friday in one of my posts and I said I would answer them. I apologize for the delay but a day of rest on Saturday and the Super Bowl today called.
Below are Pat’s questions and my answers. Pat has strenuously opposed both “my” bill and HB 1178 (which I also oppose), but unlike one particular blogger who shall remain linkless, he has not devolved into personal attack or casts suspicions on my motives. Pat and I disagree on a number of issues but we are also good friends and enjoy the exchange of ideas.
Pat’s questions are followed by my answers in italics.
Todd -
Q. What happens if someone leaves a disparaging comment about a South Dakotan on Daily KOS or USA Today and they don’t want to respond?
A. I believe you would have to look at South Dakota’s tort and or “long arm” jurisdictional statutes that gives jurisdiction if the the damage took place in South Dakota or there are minimal contacts with the state that do not offend constitutional standards that are well established. “My” bill doesn’t change that approach. You have to find a way to get jurisdiction over the party.
I would argue, however, under “my” bill that since no liability attaches to the content provider like Daily Kos or USA Today, the courts MIGHT be more willing to grant jurisdiction in this limited situation. To be clearer, I could see something in the civil procedure code that would be in companion to “my” bill. From a practical point of view, as a lawyer, if there is diversity of citizenship, which you won’t know until you find out who the anonymous defamer is, I bring suit in federal court where service of subpoenas is easier than in state court.
Q. Can the South Dakota measure apply to a blog which is ultimately hosted in California? Or Sweden?
Q. Would nationally hosted webhosts exclude South Dakota IP addresses because they don’t care to be subjected to the law?
A. I don’t know the answer to that. I would assume no, they would not, because of the filtering that would need to be done. I think what you are making is a Commerce Clause argument that “my” bill would place an undue burden on interstate commerce. Since the speech rights of the ISP is not impacted, I don’t from a practical point of view see that as a problem, but I’m open to how it could.
Q. What about the use of anonymizer software which renders it nearly impossible to find the identity?
A. I can tell you first hand that the law is always years if not decades behind the technology. If the content provider keeps such metrics, and they can only provide a bogus address or IP address that was used on their site, then they have complied with “my” bill. I can also tell you first hand that not every wrong has a remedy. At this point, I’m guessing the typical defamation litigant will throw in the digital towel because they have hit a deadend. One other point I’ll make is the argument that since politicians introduced this measure, they obviously want to stifle people who disagree with them. If you have any familiarity at all with defamation law, it is damn near impossible for a public figure or public official to prevail in a defamation suit because of the “knew or should have known/actual malice” standard. It is damn hard for celebrities and politicians to prevail in defamation suits. “My” law doesn’t change that standard in the lease. And it is a standard I completely agree with.
Not that anything I say or write is going to change anyone’s mind. The ACLU put out their release without even asking me how I thought it would work. But that’s politics. Shoot first, ask questions later.
Again, I really have no dog in this fight. I think there should be some way to get at anonymous defamatory commenters on the internet when they have caused damage to a person’s reputation. Again, if you have a better way, suggest it. So far, no one has stepped forward with any ideas other than to scream “Free Speech” over and over again.
That might work on legislators but it doesn’t work in court.
Tomorrow’s the big game. A trillion words have already been written and spoken about the Super Bowl. Tomorrow on CBS, the game’s broadcaster, another billion or so will be spoken in the pre-game. The Saints and Colts actually playing will be anti-climatic.
So, I’m going to add a few hundred more words about the game. And some seriousness and some silliness. Here are my propositions, as this is also one of the most heavily bet days in America:
Image by RMTip21 via Flickr
Over/under on mentions of Brett Favre and retirement prior to game: 19.5
Over/under of mentions of Brett Favre and retirement during the game: 2.5
Over/under of shots of Colts QB Peyton Manning scowling while wearing a baseball has on the sidelines during the game when the Saints have the ball: 5.5
Over/under of commercials run during the day featuring Peyton Manning: 34.5
Over/under that the CBS announcers will say this is the greatest Super Bowl in history: 21.5
Image via Wikipedia
Over /under on amount of guacamole dip that Americans will consume during the game: 500.5 tons
Over/under on number of cutaways of Saints RB Reggie Bush girlfriend Kim Kardashian during the game: 4.5
Over/under of cutaways of members of the Manning family during the Super Bowl: 3.5
Over/under of mentions by CBS during the pregame and game that New Orleans is a city that has suffered because of Katrina and bad Saints teams in the past: 99.5
And on a serious note, my prediction for the winner?
Saints win 20 to 17 in OT in a relatively low scoring game dominated by defense and turnovers.
They have been displaced from their homes by a natural disaster. Many are living in crowded, temporary facilities. They are without reliable electricity and running water.
Yet, the world has not responded. No airlifts. No Anderson Cooper 24/7. No worldwide telethons to raise funds.
Were you thinking Haiti after the January 12, 2010 earthquake? You would be wrong. It is the aftermath of the winter ice, snow, and wind storm that hit central and northwest South Dakota that started January 22, 2010.
Where’s Anderson Cooper in this stylish black t-shirts begging for the US to help Isabel or La Plant or Eagle Butte so they have power and water? Is it too cold in South Dakota, Anderson, to show off your buff pecs to an international audience?
No Doctors Without Borders. No Yele Haiti. No European Union troops or bureaucrats. No Haitians.
Hell, our own government run by my Man Crush, Pres. Barack Obama, doesn’t seem to care. Obama won’t let Haiti down. But what about South Dakotans, particularly Native Americans, who have been crapped on by their government for a couple of centuries? What, no sense of obligation Barack?
A KELOLAND-TV report said that one rural electric coop alone had 10,000 downed power poles. It will take over a year to get things back to normal electricity-wise. (While all of the USA’s mainstream media have ignored the story as has most of the state’s media, KELOLAND has done a terrific job covering this story and keeping it before the public.)
The rural electric cooperatives and their employees are absolute heroes in this disaster. They are working ’round the clock to restore power. They aren’t big or rich organizations to begin with that try to provide power to a few users over vast reaches of country. Not far behind are the water district folks struggling to provide water. And the tribal governments, which aren’t exactly sitting in fat city, are doing all they can.
Families have been crammed in shelters for weeks waiting to return home to houses with lights and water. Their lives have been disrupted beyond what most of us can imagine.
Yet the world doesn’t care. The federal government doesn’t care.
And there’s a lot of winter left. Winter in South Dakota ain’t no picnic.
It’s a good thing South Dakota’s cowboys and Indians can take care of themselves. If they waited around like the apparently hapless Haitians and their utterly incompetent government for someone else to bail them out, they’d be sitting in the dark well into 2012.
But hey, Barack and the rest of the world, a little help here in SoDak would be nice–if you think you could think about something other than Haiti for just a moment.
Galahad had his Grail. Ahab had his whale. Willard had his Kurtz. And I have my lard.
Not just any lard. A fifty pound cube of John Morrell Snow Cap Lard. And I want to toss it off a six story tower ala David Letterman in his prime and then watch the whole mess go SPLAT!
I find it strangely comforting that there is such a thing as a 50 pound cube of lard. And even more comforting and exceedingly cool if I could watch it explode in slow motion when it hits the ground.
I am seriously planning to make this work. I have John Morrell employees, a scientist, a radio broadcaster, a former journalist, a fire fighter, a fund raising consultant, a makeup artist and several others who are joining me in my quest for splatter.
Or rather, OUR quest for splatter.
When I told my wife I had a new obsession, she didn’t guess it was this. But she did add that I should turn it into a fundraiser so some good comes from so much silliness and stupidity. Kind of like the non-falling of the Zip Feed Tower in Sioux Falls a few years ago.
We can sell chances to drop massive cubes of lard, t-shirts, buttons, and all sort of junk then donate the proceeds to worthy community groups.
This HAS to be done. Will you join me? I’ve included my artist’s concept of what the event will look like.
Well, we now have the Mother of All Mothers Suing Sons lawsuits and it involves, perhaps not surprisingly, one Albert Huddleston and his brother Warren. The lawsuits were filed in December 2009. A little birdie told me about them and sent me copies of the complaints.
Albert Huddleston, through his company, Hyperion, is the driving force in trying to place an oil refinery in the middle of Union County cornfields where as of yet no oil flows.
The Hyperion or “Gorilla Project” has been in the news steadily for the past couple of years as Union Countyites have battled each other, the state government, and the Huddlestons over an oil refinery that may or may not have access to tar sands oil from the TransCanada Pipeline that will be built near, but not at, the proposed site of the proposed “green” refinery.
Never mind that Hyperion has never built or run a refinery. Never mind the oil isn’t flowing. Never mind that credit has dried up. Never mind if Hyperion can actually get some of that sulfuric tar sands oil. Never mind that the major oil refiners in this country are shuttering refineries. Never mind that major players like Valero are investing in biofuels production.Image by Chuckumentary via Flickr
And never mind that the Huddleston boys seem to get into some very interesting intra-family litigation.
My old blog, South Dakota Watch, told you first about a lawsuit filed by the Hunt family in Texas over where the money was going from a trust. Click here and here for the stories.
Now, the lawsuits get closer to home. Albert Huddleston’s mom, Erika, is suing Albert over the administration of her husband’s (and Albert’s father’s trust, the Gordon T. Huddleston Trust in Dallas County, Texas District Court. In another lawsuit, Erika is also suing her other son, Warren (Albert’s brother) for, among other things, stealing her silver tea set from her room at assisted living.
First, an excerpt from the Momma Huddleston v. Albert lawsuit:
And, an excerpt from the even more bizare Momma v. Warren lawsuit:
Now, a caveat. You can’t and shouldn’t believe everything you read in a complaint. It is just one side of the story. There’s always another side to the story, in my experience as an attorney. These are allegations. They aren’t proven.
But one has to wonder. Why is South Dakota pinning its hopes on a man who runs a company who gets sued by his family on a regular basis? And believe me, I know first hand as a lawyer that not all families get along. And at some level, most families are dysfunctional. But wow, these sorts of accusations are beyond the usual family tiff.
Anyway, as Cousin Eddie so aptly remarked in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation when Clark W. Griswold received a certificate for the Jelly of the Month Club instead of a holiday bonus, “Clark, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
Just like the Huddlestons are the gift that keeps on giving to opponents of Hyperion. Only we may not even get a jar of jelly out of the deal when it is all said and done.
I love KSFY-TV’s ongoing trainwreck of a segment, “Wheel of Justice,” aka “Wheel of Felons.”
The threshold to be “put on the wheel” is pretty low. Don’t pay your child support. Skip a court appearance. Be a garden variety dirtbag. But alert reader Jim tipped me off to perhaps “The Wheel’s” greatest scofflaw–Arturo “Mini Me” Garza, who weighs in at a whopping 17 pounds.
TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT THIS MAN! Or at least don’t step on him and squash him like a large June bug.
Thank you, KSFY, for alerting us to such horrific criminality that comes in a deceptively small package!
But that doesn’t mean he’s not just a ViQueen but a drama queen as well, with his “will he or won’t he” act about playing. And it doesn’t help that referees and announcers treat him like Jesus H. Christ incarnate in a football uniform.
The Vikings were only one Brett Favre away from the Super Bowl, if you believed all the preseason Vikings hype. Now, like you and me, they are watching the big game from the comfort of their own homes.
So, tell me. What is QB Brett Favre? God? Goat? Goatboy? Other? Take a poll.
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