Badlands Blue - Recent Comments

And then there's THIS classic! :)

Lowell — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:48:17 GMT

Fair weather patriot

Jake — Fri, 16 May 2008 02:18:50 GMT

Our governor, like too many of his constitents, acts like a fair-weather, yellow-ribbon, chickenhawk nationalist - not a patriot. This military retiree is not impressed by Rounds's public displays of affection unbacked by substance.

Bigstone 2

Dman — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:04:19 GMT

This is an amazing story. Otter Tail and Montana Dakota want to build lines from BigStone City to Minneapolis because they can sell the "excess" power to wisconsin and Illinois, at spot prices. The lines would not serve any of their areas, but they want the rate payers of Montana, the Dakotas and a bit of Northern Minnesota to pay for these power lines, through electricity rate reimbursement. The rate payers would NOT participate in the profits of the sale of the 500 MG NONE of these states need.

The plant would produce more emmissions than all the cars and trucks in South Dakota, and use 20% of the water in the hughe Bigstone Lake, on the Minnesota/South Dakota border.

Hillary living in the past

hammer — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:51:41 GMT

Nothing could more exemplify the status of Hilary's campaign. Underline the word past.

It Won't Be Close....

jesseclarke — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:17:32 GMT

When the primary season is over, the contrast between Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain will be very clear. Even with all of the pundits commenting on white/black, education, class, etc., when it comes down to it, Obama will win in a landslide. What has been lost in the last two months of non-issue campaigning and commentary is how Obama and (to a lesser extent) Clinton have energized the country. People are following politics for this first time. The same old politics are not going to work. I am not the least bit surprised by the LA Times poll. I even think Obama's lead will grow in the coming months.

As to the cost...

Lowell — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:36:30 GMT

...see here for more:

The cost of onshore wind power has decreased by more than 80 percent since the early 1980s to roughly 7¢ per kilowatt-hour at favorable wind sites. In some markets, wind is now competitive with conventional power generation. In most markets, however, due to subsidies for conventional energy sources, the growth of wind power still depends on economic incentives. For example, the dearth of wind power installations in the United States in 2002 and 2004, when the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind was allowed to lapse, underscores the importance of extending the PTC for wind that is set to expire at the end of 2008. (See data.) If the full cost of carbon emissions were incorporated into the price of natural gas and coal, onshore wind would become the cheapest electricity source.

Wind power could supply all the world's energy

Lowell — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:34:34 GMT

needs. Check this out:

...Globally, ~13% of all reporting stations experience annual mean wind speeds ? 6.9 m/s at 80 m (i.e., wind power class 3 or greater) and can therefore be considered suitable for low-cost wind power generation. This estimate is believed to be conservative...Assuming that statistics generated from all stations analyzed here are representative of the global distribution of winds, global wind power generated at locations with mean annual wind speeds ? 6.9 m/s at 80 m is found to be ~72 TW (~54,000 Mtoe) for the year 2000. Even if only ~20% of this power could be captured, it could satisfy 100% of the world's energy demand for all purposes (6995-10177 Mtoe) and over seven times the world's electricity needs (1.6-1.8 TW).

About Time

joeboo22 — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:14:42 GMT

I went and listened to Thune last year and he was like what does it take to make wind energy profitable and I was like tighten the emissions on coal and nat-gas.... of course he didn't care but when it comes to emission control wind and solar are by far cheaper and over a 10 year period it is very feasible of course mr. thune never understood that.....

Excellent point!

Lowell — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:26:51 GMT

"It's an issue only because they refuse to even address it, much less solve it."

Couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks.

Going, going, . . . .

Jake — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:01:12 GMT

Maybe this is what will take for the governor, legislature and PUC to find the moral courage to "solve" the nearly non-existent issue of wind power transmission. It's an issue only because they refuse to even address it, much less solve it.

Reply

EmmettR — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:09:25 GMT

My bad, I should have done a better job explaining.

Rapid City Council President Malcom Chapman introduced Hillary.

Who's the black guy?

Matt — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:53:41 GMT

Who is the black guy?

Also, this is interesting

Lowell — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:33:10 GMT

From Rasmussen Reports:

... while Senator Clinton has remained close and competitive in every meaningful measure, she is a close second and the race is over. It has become clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee.
At the moment, Senator Clinton's team is busily trying to convince Superdelegates and pundits that she is more electable than Barack Obama. For reasons discussed in a separate article, it doesn't matter. Even if every single Superdelegate was convinced that the former First Lady is somewhat more electable than Obama, that is not enough of a reason to deny him the nomination.
With this in mind, Rasmussen Reports will soon end our daily tracking of the Democratic race and focus exclusively on the general election competition between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. Barring something totally unforeseen, that is the choice American voters will have before them in November. While we have not firmly decided upon a final day for tracking the Democratic race, it is coming soon.

West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oregon are also at risk.

ncvoter — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:50:09 GMT

"Women's Voices, Women Vote" (WVWV) has made millions of robo calls

According to Alex Koppelman at Salon, 182,236 illegal robo calls were made to voters in North Carolina on April 24 & 25, during the middle of NC's early voting period. At least some of the voters were registered, many were African American.
http://www.salon.com/politics/...

The North Carolina NC NAACP filed a formal complaint

Other states with upcoming primaries, Kentucky, West Virginia and Oregon also are at risk according to the complaint filed by the NC NAACP on May 3rd.. Millions of calls were made.
http://southernstudies.org/fac...

WVWV was warned by Virginia police in early February and said they would correct their "mistakes" back then, but this is what WVWV's Page Gardner is saying now:

The group's president Page Gardner, said that to clear up any further confusion, the group "went to Herculean efforts" to stop the mailings in states that still have upcoming primaries.
The states are:
Kentucky - Primary Day: May 20, 2008.
Montana - Republican Presidential Preference Caucus: February 5, Democratic Primary: June 3, 2008
North Carolina-Primary Day: May 5, 2008
Oregon - Primary Day: May 20, 2008
South Dakota - Primary Day: June 3, 2008
West Virginia - Republican Caucus: February 5, 2008, Democratic Primary: May 13, 2008.
"When the issue arose in North Carolina, we worked with the folks in that state, and we were able to pull the majority of our mail pieces," Gardner said in an interview. "We stopped the majority of the mail, and in the other states we asked our mail vendor to do the same."
Asked why the phone calls didn't include an identifying organization behind the calls, Gardner says: " Our transparency came through our piece in the mail."
-snip
http://www.wvwv.org/2008/5/6/w...

Robo calls and mailings in Kentucky:

"Grayson Issues Warning About Voter Registration" 5/06 3:10 pm
Web produced by: Jessica Noll
Secretary of State Trey Grayson issued a warning to Kentucky citizens that his office has learned that a voting group has sent thousands of potentially confusing mailings to women across Kentucky asking them to register to vote.
These mailings could cause confusion for Kentuckians because the deadline to register to vote in the upcoming May primary has already passed.
...At the time, Grayson stated that WVWV had been sending voter registration cards and letters to citizens stating that they are not registered to vote, when in fact, many of those citizens are registered. To reduce confusion, voters can take the time to check their voter registration at the Voter Information Center.
... The State Board of Elections has also heard from voters and from county clerks that WVWV have been sending automated calls encouraging people to register to vote which does not explicitly state that the voter registration deadline has passed for the May primary election.
http://www.kypost.com/content/...

Here is a summary of the investigation being done by The Institute of Southern Studies:

Monday, May 05, 2008
Our voting rights investigation: Where does it stand?
It has been six days since Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies published our first investigation into the mysterious "Lamont Williams" robo-calls (listen to the audio file here) that blanketed North Carolina on the eve of the state's critical primary elections.
...please go to this link for the full report
http://southernstudies.org/fac...

This is what I found

Tyler — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:56:38 GMT

This group has gained some notoriety for it's tactics, most recently in North Carolina. Where a "robo-call" went out to 3 million people telling them they had to re-register to vote. Which is along the same lines as the mailings occurring here in South Dakota. From Facing South:

Who's behind the mysterious "robo-calls" that have spread misleading voter information and sown confusion and frustration among North Carolina residents over the last week?
Facing South has confirmed the source of the calls, and the mastermind is Women's Voices Women Vote, a D.C.-based nonprofit which aims to boost voting among "unmarried women voters."
What's more, Facing South has learned that the firestorm Women's Voices has ignited in North Carolina isn't the group's first brush with controversy. Women's Voices' questionable tactics have spawned thousands of voter complaints in at least 11 states and brought harsh condemnation from some election officials for their secrecy, misleading nature and likely violations of election law.

This group has had many questionable tactics. Is it a case of misunderstanding local election laws? According to Secretary of State Chris Nelson, no:

I have had a long conversation with the groups legal council and the head of the organization explaining South Dakota election law. I'm not sure yet if a criminal statue has been violated but the mailing does contain blatantly false information.

SOS Nelson had this advice for people who receive the mailing:

First, If a person gets the mailing and wants to use it to register, that's fine. We encourage people to register using the cards provided. Just know that they are not compeled to do so.
Second, part of the letter asks for the persons email address. I would encourage people not to do that. Their email address will end up on some list.
Third, if a voter has any questions about their registration then can go to the Voter Information Portal and see where and if they are registered.