South Dakota War College

Came across this in the October 7-14 Lakota Journal (click to enlarge) – Just a couple of quick excerpts: To: Rebecca Rederth Villada AKA Rebecca Red Earth AKA Maka Duta You are granted a hearing before the Executive Committee of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe. If you fail to attend you will miss your opportunity to be heard. The hearing will be held in the court room at the Tribal Court Building. The hearing shall commence at 9:00 AM on October 7, 2005. And… You are granted one hour to provide information relevant to your banishment to the hearing body. You may provide information in writing and/or by way of oral presentation. It goes on at length, but basically it looks like a lot of alleged disorderly conduct type stuff got Maka Duta in dutch with the Flandreau Sioux Tribe. Basically, they’re pretty mad at her, since I don’t recall I’ve ever heard much about banishments in South Dakota, period. Why does that name ring a bell, you might ask? Well, a couple of years ago, she was p...

In an e-mail from State Senator Bill Napoli regarding the S.T.O.P. group tonight, I noted that he announced with glee: Our signature count is currently standing at 34,496 and these are the petitions that have been sent in, and are in our possession. So please keep getting signatures, we are on the down hill run. When Dave Phelps and Bob Grimm get back from Sioux Falls this weekend, we are hoping for some good numbers. Janette McIntyre is going to work the tennis tournament in Sioux Falls this weekend. Sylvia Conrad has reported she has 1,000 signatures and will be turning them in on Monday. So keep up the good work, we are working on our cushion. Peggy is going to Pierre on Friday October 14th to check some signatures, especially those 14 cities that we can not use a PO Box for the address. If everyone gets their petitions in, I think it is safe to assume that we can consider this measure on the ballot. That makes 2, if you count the Constitutional Amendm...

The Anti-MAINstream Moderate Republican T-Shirt: I'm kind-of-sort-of in the t-shirt business. (and Yes, BK, I know I need to get you a war college shirt) E-mail me if you want one of these for $10. And, okay, so it's a little bit of a poke. But what do you expect? If you need a small run custom job, that's my specialty. Just drop me a note, and I can inexpensively handle your "official blog" shirt. Perfect for the family.

Thirty Years ago today, State Senator and Right to Life Executive Director Brock Greenfield was born. Feel free to drop him an e-mail and console him on the loss of his youth.

Electoral news courtesy of Roger Kasa at the Huron Daily Plainsman today. Ron Volesky announced he’s going to make his formal entrance into the Gubernatorial race on November 4th at the Oakes Hotel in Sioux Falls. (This news is more like a party popper than a bomb.) And then, during the State Fair Commission meeting in Huron on Tuesday (also from Roger Kasa): With those two resignations (Cindy Frederick and Jeff Smith) approved, commission chairman Lance Carson of Mitchell dropped another bomb on the group. He told the commission that he was planning to run for the state House of Representatives on the Republican Ticket from District 20. He didn’t think he could serve on the commission and run for the state Legislature at the same time. On that basis, he told the other commissioners he had mailed a letter to Rounds, Gabriel and Hayward before leaving Mitchell on Tuesday stating his desire to resign. (technically, I think he could stay until he took office, but why quibble with s...

I didn't realize that Anne Lewis of Watershed: the Blog fame was a fellow Pierre resident for some reason. I need to get out of my cave and away from the world's messiest desk more. It's probably not going to get much play after a while, but I'll add her other blog Pierre Governor Football to the blogfeeds just for fun. Ever since I went to High School in Pierre 20+ years ago, I've wondered about this. Why would you nickname your team "the Governors?" It kind of kills the mascot ideas. What? Is the mascot a guy in a suit and power tie? What did the Washington Senators use as a mascot? It would be about the same, wouldn't it? Any Pierre readers care to enlighten me as to the origin of the name? I also notice that Brock over at Right-to-life has been pretty prolific with his blogging efforts since he got started a couple weeks back. Abortion is usually too hot of a topic for many of us to touch on more than occasionally, and the pro-life/pro-choice d...

I had a nice note from Senator Gant the other day. Once again, I'm humbled and flattered that one of our elected officials is a reader. If you haven't noticed, I've been pretty light on posting and will continue to be for a bit. Too much going on - I'm trying to get things ready for an auction sale on the homefront, etc. and so on. I might take the day off (or at least go over on my lunch hour) to the special session next week and do some blogging on that. Mainly, I've been tweaking my big web project for work which has consumed much of my work and free time. Teaching myself how to do a javascript menu when I'd never done one before has sucked. But I got it figured out. I'm still working out the bugs and kinks, but it's fired up and running. Other than that, I've been a pretty boring guy. On a fun project note, I've come up with a t-shirt taking a lighhearted poke at the MAINstream Moderates for some of my conservative friends. I'm going t...

Here's an interesting chain of comments that has arisen after my response on NVC . David Newquist had noted his concern on whether or not NSU was becoming too Republican: During the NSU homecoming this weekend, astute alumni kept asking if the Republican Party is exercising a proprietorship over the univeristy. The occasion this time is that the NSU Gypsy Days were listed on the South Dakota Republican Party website's calendar of events--as if Gypsy Days is a party function. Read the whole thing here . To which I replied in defense of the SDGOP, that it was only listed for interested parties to show up and be politicians. Yes, I do defend the SDGOP when I'm not giving them hell over bad ideas. (And that battle isn't over yet.) Anyway, following my defense of the SDGOP, David replied: I don't think "sinister" is the word my comments suggest. And I certainly would not discourage political candidates and officers from coming to homecomings as a place to me...

SD War College responds to NVC's recent post on NSU being a Party School. I had to rebut David Newquist's assertion about there being something sinister to the GOP listing Gypsy days on their website. Aside from the fact Hobo days, courtesy of the State's on'y D1 school, is way cooler. Read it here.