Hot on the bootheels of bemoaning all the "unneeded, duplicative, and wasteful" Washington spending that has arisen since 1910, Intern Kristi Noem comes out in favor of more Washington spending for her thirsty South Dakota constituents. The Congresswoman tells KJAM…
Posts published in April 2011
The two prisoners who killed South Dakota penitentiary guard Ron Johnson stretch my opposition to the death penalty to the breaking point. (I won't do them the legal courtesy of declaring their crime "alleged.") They are dangerous and seemingly incorrigible.…
Intern Kristi Noem says tax day is nothing to celebrate. Funny: people tell me taxes are a patriotic duty. Anyway, in her tax day tear sheet, Intern Noem demonstrates her grasp of taxes, history, and selective statistics: The non-partisan Tax…
Some semi-random numbers from around South Dakota: 21: active eminent domain lawsuits by TransCanada against South Dakota landowners with the stubborn notion that they have a say over who uses their land. (Newspeak bonus: a Big Oil spokesman says these…
Neighbor and frequent commenter Eve Fisher is duly torqued: she and her fellow Madison residents are paying higher rates for sub-par water: City officials were recently notified that the average level of trihalomethanes in the city water was calculated at…
I've run for the local school board more than once. I've lost more than once. And I've been told more than once by more than one person that I should run for a different office, like county commission. I'm not…
There are 1123 people in Madison who are not in Madison. Roll with me on this local illusion. During last week's school board election, I noticed an odd bump in the voter registration numbers: Ward 1, northeast Madison: 3211 registered…
I have studied and written about participatory budgeting, a process that involves citizens in making decisions about how their local government spends their tax dollars. Now the Harvard Political Review finds an experiment in participatory budgeting in Chicago is working:…