Dakota Beacon

Five teachers confronted by the above chart of teacher pay commented “There can’t be any teachers earning over one hundred thousand dollars in compensation per year…this chart must include administrators.”

Those five disbelieving teachers struck a chord concerning the irony of 10.3% of teachers being paid so poorly by the same system in which 7.6% are richly rewarded with annualized compensation over $100,000.

Amending the Constitution requires prodigious effort. That is why it has been done fewer than 20 times since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Rather than knock ourselves out trying to amend the Constitution, let’s strive to restore a correct understanding of the Constitution. We don’t need to amend the Constitution as much as we need to read it, understand it, and abide by it.

The founders have given us the only tool we need to put an end to deficit spending. Let’s begin using it.

George Washington's choice of words is significant; he had little formal education and was not an original or even especially trenchant thinker. His language merely reflects the consensus of America's revolutionary generation, and for that reason is a reliable guide to a misunderstood period in American history. It also shows how completely out of touch Abraham Lincoln was with "the fathers" he claimed to speak for.

Having read AARP ads promoting the Obama Heath Bill, and the “form” letters thanking Rep. Earl Pomeroy for his support of that bill, I feel moved to respond.  First, I ask my former students in Mandan High School, Regent High School, Goodrich High School, and elsewhere, to remember “critical thinking,” which has, as its only goal, truth.  Those students who learned the “truth” of “share the wealth” which George Orwell demonstrated in Animal Farm when I “equalized their grades” will remember that no passing student ever voted for the system, and no failing student ever voted against it.  The honor students could not get the administration to fire me, BECAUSE I was the only teacher in the entire system with NO FAILING students!  You ex-students out there, don’t forget how you felt when I took your hard-earned grades, and shared them with someone “more needy,” in MY judgement, but in yours, who had earned failure!. 

Well, the Board of Higher Education decided to get rid of the UND Sioux logo (odd how they had a meeting the day after the State Supreme Court ruled that they could, almost like it was planned). This is the wrong thing to do for so many reasons, I will name only a couple. First, a large majority of the Sioux Tribal members approve of the name, and yet a majority of the Board of Higher Education doesn’t recognize this. Second.....

The seen versus the unseen--. This is the essence of the sleight-of-hand game played by politicians and policy makers with constituents at all levels of government. That’s what TARP, the “stimulus,” the bailouts and the handouts are all about.

The “Broken Window Fallacy” illustrates the error of government economic planning. Politicians and bureaucrats capitalize on this fallacy -- as well as public economic illiteracy -- every day to their own advantage.

In the end, America is left to extend and pretend. With a National Debt of $12.4 trillion and $4.4 billion of debt being added to that number every day, no amount of obfuscation by the Federal Reserve, elite bankers and corrupt politicians will successfully camouflage the road to ruin we are on. Is it too late to turn back? Until Americans experience another dose of horrific pain inflicted upon them by the ruling elite, they will not learn the simple lesson:

“You can’t always get what you want,

but you get what you need.”

Being self-centered leads inevitably to hating others who are obstacles to selfish desires. What is "natural" in fallen human nature easily descends to the diabolical. And our modern, post-Christian, liberal culture treats the self-centered life as normal, rejecting abortion laws as tyrannical impositions on what has been called "the imperial self." Most of those who favor legal abortion now support even "partial-birth" abortion.

To paraphrase Our Lord, greater hatred hath no parent than to kill the child. No false compassion should be allowed to create illusions about this terrifying fact of human nature.

Working on a lignite coal mine for fifteen years caused me to become extremely proud of the environmentally responsible way in which North Dakotans efficiently mine coal while reclaiming the land to a condition better than that which existed prior to mining. All North Dakotans should be equally proud of efforts, over the last three decades, of North Dakota’s coal-fired power plants to reduce pollutants through the implementation of a quite regular series of newly discovered and extremely expensive pollutant reduction technologies.

From this personal background of knowledge and experience was borne a healthy skepticism regarding any “politician” claiming responsibility for “creating” a vibrant North Dakota economy. We all understand that the Real American Heroes are those that perform the work and exhibit the courage required to actually produce a needed product or a valued service while respecting our natural environment.

Helen Thomas’s recent comments—on Israel—again thrilled the enemy. In calling for Jews to leave Israel, Thomas (no exaggeration) toed the party line of Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, of Osama Bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

That’s a dubious achievement for the dean of White House correspondents. I’m impressed that her liberal colleagues are finally offended.

A speech by Link in 1973, the current energy boom, “Nope. That’s what cardboard boxes are for.”, actress Angie Dickinson, Red River Basin Commission’s decision, rain this year is six inches ahead of normal, ND is the only state without a graduated driver’s license program, says the 1918 epidemic in ND kicked off in New Rockford, “a busy anthill”, the Indian view of killing an animal for food, Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, 100 percent smoke-free

In recent months, a lot of Americans have said to me that they had no idea the new president would feel so “weird”. But, in fact, he’s not weird. True, he’s not, even in Democrat terms, a political figure – as, say, Clinton or Biden are. Instead, he’s the product of the broader culture: There are millions of people like Barack Obama, the eternal students of a vast lethargic transnational campus for whom global compassion and the multicultural pose are merely the modish gloss on a cult of radical grandiose narcissism. As someone once said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”  When you’ve spent that long waiting in line for yourself, it’s bound to be a disappointment.

Today, out-going Senator Byron Dorgan and Senator Kent Conrad  both voted against the Murkowski Amendment, which would have stopped the EPA and the Obama Administration from unilaterally imposing many of the provisions found in the left-wing Cap & Trade ("Cap & Tax") Global Warming Agenda. 

Her new book is a thoughtful examination of the past three decades of educational reform, Ravitch offers a breath of fresh air in today’s typical political wrangling that too often devolves into mere attempts to ‘win’ rather than seeking truth. Ravitch’s political connections run deep, but she is an accomplished historian and in The Death and Life, her historical instincts serve her well.

It is in Ravitch’s salient critique of the education market that, consciously or not, she reflects a traditional conservatism frequently forgotten in today’s extreme individualism and cult of efficiency political milieu.” Through “allusions to the loss of both religion and traditional values,” Dr. Edwards keenly observes, Ravitch ultimately defines “the largely unstated message of the book: schools decline when society declines.

Our forefathers did not give us the Second Amendment so that we could go deer and duck hunting, but rather, so that we could protect ourselves against tyranny in government! We the people, must never, never, NEVER, allow our government to take  that right, that power, that precious safeguard of liberty, away from us.

Judges are elected by the public.  It is a travesty that so many of them run unopposed.  Child custody cases are not public record but there would be nothing wrong with making statistics available showing the ratio of mother/father custody rulings or shared custody rulings.  Judges are not Gods sitting on the bench.  They are simply humans charged with making conscious decisions in the best interest of all involved.  If a parent is unfit, so be it.  Deny him custody.  If the parent is fit to parent give him access to his child/children.  Judges cannot, must not, continue to rule in favor of a parent because of that parent's sex.

Sharia law in Islamist thought is a full service legal code that governs all personal, social and political matters. For this reason, jihad, or struggle, seeks to instill Sharia throughout every society. Sharia is believed to be a necessary component for converting a society to Islam. It “opens the eyes.”

The government is well on the way toward criminalizing Christian speech and practice: to wit the war on Christmas, prayer in schools and other public places, the eradication of Christian symbols in the public square and forcing private organizations such as the Boy Scouts to accept stipulations transgressing Scouting principles.

Meanwhile, women may wear jibabs, hijabs, niqabs and other religious garb but the display of crosses on walls, bibles on desks or the Ten Commandments in the public square is verboten. It’s surprising how many Christians today placidly accept this trend.

Rather than acknowledging reality and tracing root causes of high minority crime--like family disintegration, drugs, and gang involvement exacerbated by shiftlessness-enabling government handouts--and then using real data to solve real problems, the writer does what liberals reflexively do: misplace blame and enable more problems.

The time has come for one last push to contact Senators Conrad and Dorgan to make it clear to them that a vote against the Murkowski Amendment is a vote against North Dakota's economy.

The disapproval resolution needs a total of 51 votes to pass the Senate. So call your local Senators today, and tell them to do what's right for America - and to support its passage.

North Dakota native Bob Engstrom explains how the IRS uses Political Correctness as the measure to take away freedome of speech from churches and to punish those churches!

"In a game of law and punishment where the rules are unclear, First Amendment protected speech from the pulpit of a church clashes against the risk of financial punishment. The Internal Revenue Service can revoke a church’s tax-exempt status for crossing an undefined line into politics."

Thomas Jefferson explicitly approved the right of secession on several occasions. It was he, after all, who wrote the most famous secessionist document in history: the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming not one but 13 "Free and Independent States." (His grandson George Wythe Randolph would later serve as a Confederate general and secretary of war!).

It turns out that in the case of Judge candidate Feland, the number of signs is inversely proportional to esteem of lawyer peers. State Bar poll rates Burleigh County Assistant State’s Attorney Cynthia Feland either dead last or tied for lowest rated of the 10 candidates in ALL categories! TIED FOR LAST IN PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE! TIED FOR LAST IN LEGAL EXPERIENCE! WAY LAST IN JUDICIAL TEMPERAMENT! WAY LAST INTEGRITY! WAY LAST OVERALL! Somehow the state print publication of record misses it! Bismarck Tribune - Watch Dog? Lap Dog?

Red River Basin Commission,  Minnewaukan, Former ND Gov. Art Link, cap and trade carbon legislation, The Germans from Russia Heritage Society, Rugby is the center of North America, right., Main Street of ND goes to gravel, the sentence was the most unfair he had seen, The case could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the basic tarantula defense, Dakota Prairie Organic Flour

I’m sure this act of aggression is not unique in the annals of aviary-dom. But for this North Dakota backyard bird watcher, it was a first.

Maybe Darth Vader has justified his room and board.

It is only a symbol; our flag, the stars and stripes, Old Glory; the red, white and blue; But it is our symbol. A symbol that thousands of brave men and women have fought and died for, proudly; and we, we, can do no less, than to respect and honor it, in their memory; as One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

“The post-American world”? Well, look at it as if you’re sitting in the presidential palace of some or other Third World basket-case. Iran is going nuclear in full view of the world, and with huge implications for everything, not least the price of oil. Meanwhile, Nato’s only Muslim member has decided it would rather be friends with Iran, Sudan and Syria. And all this in the first decade of the 21^st century. So much for stability.

A picture explains it all. Note the amount of Gulf (i.e. U.S.) offshore oil production now coming from Deepwater and Ultra

Deepwater production. The trend clearly shows a decline in Shallow water production (not allowed to drill near shore) and

an uptrend in Deep/Ultra-Deep production. Take away new Deepwater exploration/production, and….yikes!