Dakota Beacon

What better way to conclude a summer reading program than browsing through the poems of James Whitcomb Riley. Seldom has a writer captured the sense of nature and changing seasons more plainly than one of America’s most popular poets. Riley’s sentimental style and countrified dialect recall a simpler bygone era.

Born in Greenfield, Indiana, on October 7, 1849, James learned at an early age his dislike of school discipline. Yet, he loved books, music and poetry.

An Indiana Hoosier at heart, James had an unquenchable sense of humor.

Apparently, Senator Conrad has not liked the credit we've given him on his quote a few weeks ago.  Considering the Bismarck Tribune was also giving him credit, he must not have liked that attention either.

“It is difficult to overstate the importance of this book…. If you only understand global warming in bits and pieces, this is the book that puts it all together for you in the proper perspective and context”, faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College—Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson—reviews this “big-picture treatment of the science, politics, economics, ideological underpinnings, and personal agendas behind the global warming issue.” “Climategate is thorough, knowledgeable, timely, and very well written,” he explains. “I have been reading about global warming for 20 years, yet this book included important information and details that were new to me.” “For most of his book, Sussman writes in a breezy, folksy, upbeat style that makes learning important information enjoyable.” However, his “tone shifts to earnest eloquence toward the end,” Dr. Hendrickson observes, “when he warns us about the great dangers to liberty and prosperity posed by the ruthlessly ambitious elitists.”

Busy, self-reliant Americans must no longer ignore government. Only permanent involvement will prevent gutless elephants and arrogant donkeys from getting away with telling the people to go to hell. The people must stay engaged with the facts and with one another. Government on autopilot must never again be allowed to stand.

“the most comprehensive survey ever taken of infrastructure needs and social impact from oil development", how to help workers who do not have the high wages of oil field workers, Clay Jenkinson shares his travel experiences, Nodaks are far and away the No. 1 online shoppers in the nation, Bunny Byington is not remorseful, Why does an otherwise solid newspaper have such overheated editorials?, Editorial Page Editor Jack Zaleski, The Forum ran out of prairie roses, 16 taxpayer supported colleges in ND, Sitting Bull College at Ft. Yates, a lightning strike deployed the air bags in her car, Mandan’s Leadership, Pride and Image Committee, Try this rat snake on for size!, they panicked and are turtling . . ., becoming a barista at Red River Coffee, The day before her 93rd birthday

Recent poll data from Gallup reveal a stronger than expected prognosis for North Dakota candidates that convince voters that they are “Conservative Republicans”. On the flip side, those candidates that voters conclude are “Liberal Republicans” may well be at risk.

I would much rather call an honestly liberal Democrat “friend” than a dishonest liberal calling himself or herself a Republican… “Honesty” is much more important to me than political philosophy!

Educators, unions, and education industry parasites are going to go right on pushing the more-funding-better-performance myth. It's the taxpayers' job to stop the freight train by holding schools accountable for cutting spending just as taxpayers must cut back when there's no money left to spend. Quite a foreign concept in today's American education establishment and throughout government in general.

If that is true, then although we seem to be in the middle of hot battle, we are really near the ridge of great victory.  The left in America, like the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, seemed immortal.  Then it was all blown away, with collapsing before little more than a soft autumn wind.  Gallup, no haven for conservatives, tells us that conservatives outnumber liberals in every state but Rhode Island.  Battleground, whose polling is conducted by a Republican and a Democrat organization, tells us that sixty percent of Americans, year in and year out, call ourselves “conservative.”  Smile:  we are winning.

Thanks to an article on the Internet, I think that I have finally figured out why liberals have such a chip on their shoulder; why they prefer to shout conservatives down or play the non-existent race card, rather then engage in a serious debate of the facts.

Civil authorities serve God, and Christians can obey the law and be good citizens by simply keeping the Commandments. Were these words meant to ward off suspicions that Christians were subversive and to encourage them to respect human law, at least insofar as it conformed to God's law?

Paul's words may carry an ironic meaning that would escape the Roman authorities. By positing a just government -- very unlike the rule of Nero -- he may have been subtly implying that Christians are "not" morally bound to cooperate with tyranny.

Review history. Socialism begins with leaders who convince people that they are victims of economic freedom and therefore entitled. They seduce the masses with promises like “a chicken in every pot.” Socialism ends with broken promises and the brutal reality of a body in every mass grave.
 
The ruling class won’t miss a meal, but good luck getting your free chicken from the government once everyone needs one. You will not be permitted to get one anywhere else.

Let us also not forget that work is beneficial only if actually productive, that is, only if it is useful in making something people actually want. If people do a job that is only possible because the state took the money from someone else, this is not productive. This is merely wealth redistribution. … Very few people were idle, after all, in the Soviet Union. There was a lot of activity. Not all of it was productive, however.

Not surprisingly, the Presidents’ Council of Economic Advisors praises this monumental Keynesian scheme…. At best, such Keynesian spending policies merely rob Peter to pay Paul. In fact, due to the stimulus plan, scarce economic goods are being bid away from their most productive uses, so the effect of such government spending is even worse than unhelpful; it is destructive.

We recently explained how Sen. Kent Conrad has decided that repealing the Bush tax cuts now would not be a good idea.  We've also shown how Sen. Byron Dorgan is singing chorus to the class-warfare "Tax cuts for the rich"... blah, blah, blah.

It will never happen to me. But it did. Identity theft is real, ongoing and knows no bounds.

A thief, or thieves, stole my name, social security number and birth date.

If you think this just happens to the poor suckers you hear about on the news.....THINK AGAIN!

The redistributionist left has perverted and appropriated respectable language. And, thanks to concealed intentions—this has been happening for 100 years now—we must be extra vigilant each time we hear words like ‘social justice.’ We need to probe deeper: What do you really mean by ‘social justice?’ How would that translate into policy? What kind of government control and taxation do you have in mind? Do you really mean ‘economic justice?’

Rehabilitation” idealists ignore the utter lack of reliable evidence for successful criminal rehabilitation using touchy-feely, psychobabble-backed, government-sponsored methods. Findings generally trend like those of a study in which juvenile offenders who received “rehabilitation” relapsed at the same rate as those who didn’t. Arrests and criminal activities were not statistically different between the enhanced treatment groups and the control.

Some folks did not differentiate between me and the carnival hucksters on the midway outside, pretending that I did not exist. Others refused to take my printed material, but subsequently expected me to fully hear them out as they spouted liberal talking points like the “three-legged stool”. I explained that, since they refused to read my printed words, I did not feel obligated to listen to their diatribe. The photo and commentary on the following page are a direct result of my boredom with the three-legged stool metaphor.

Conservatism is a Phoenix.  Grounded foremost in liberty, it never dies.  Sometimes the means of its resurrection springs from places which seem unexpected, but in fact it should not surprise us in the least:  all mankind drinks from this same well.     

A Conservative, in a wheelchair, entered a restaurant one afternoon and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. 

The Conservative looked across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus sitting over there?"

If you EVER GET A CHANCE to see One Republic at a live performance…drive the 500 miles or whatever it takes. Bounce a check…rob a bank…for cryin’out loud even hitchhike if you have to…just get there!

Jane was silent for a moment. Then she turned to her husband and said quietly, “Is that all it costs to start a University? Why don’t we just start our own?” Her husband nodded. The president’s face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. And Jane and Leland Stanford got up and walked away, home to Palo Alto, California, where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

Platforms have become tired compromises on endless subjects.  No one reads or cares about platforms anymore.  It need not be so.  Republicans should use the vehicle of a platform at a convention with conservatives and RINOs to create a real plan for peaceful, revolutionary change – a binding contract promising definite things.   Those who use few words mean the words they use.  Brevity forces attention on the actual words used.  Such a revolutionary platform would recapture our nation and give it a new birth of freedom.

Some months ago a friend of mine proposed the notion that Obama was possessed of some physical and psychological quirks that might indicate the presence of Asperger’s Syndrome (high-functioning autism).

Before going on to discuss this possibility, strong caveats are due: (1)  I am not a mental health professional of any kind; (2) Even for a professional, “diagnosis-at-a-distance” is usually a bad practice, and (3) it appears from what little I’ve read that Asperger’s is a difficult diagnosis to make.

Out of state donors think the Senate race is already settled, Pomeroy is one of 40 congress members selected for special help, the city of the gods, The case illustrates the near futility of death sentences, Quotes from Notable North Dakotans, Are Minot police too nonchalant?, “When life hands you lemons”, western ND newspapers are hiring, The report concludes efforts to reduce GHG “must be global”, Oliver County (coal) is Number 1 with a $60,000 average annual wage, How did the center get there?, World’s Largest Buffalo, Twins Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux, Tex Hall ran the tribes into a financial hole, DAKTOIDS

If Scottish plans for conversion of the power grid to wind energy were to proceed unaltered, and the winds continue to behave as winds behave--blowing sometimes and not blowing at other times--then according to the researcher that performed the wind farm analysis, "with very high demand and very low output—the only thing is to turn customers off."

A million words would not be as effective as a single tee shirt on a single guy at an airport. This is a MUST SEE.

As the Tea Party movement in America becomes more and more important, those who don’t understand it or are afraid of its growing strength, ie..liberal politicians and the liberal media, are telling more and more lies about the group. My question, a rhetorical one, is “do you think they lie about other things too?”

Night settles on the charade of media neutrality and objectivity. News coverage has been anything but neutral. Today the bias is more blatant than ever. So, here is the question. Is the decline of the mainstream media a sign of 24/7 cable news coverage and the internet? Or, is the decline a sign of an increasingly leftward tilt driving readers and viewers to an alternative media?

It is another stunning “Twilight Zone moment; another ignominious contribution to the ‘you-can’t-make-this-up’ category”—the erection of a Joseph Stalin statue at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. “Predictably,” Dr. Paul Kengor bemoans, “the mainstream press is not talking about this. … [T]hey are largely uninterested in the horrors of communism.”

So free yourself.  Laugh at the “racism” shtick.  Make it a badge of honor.  Call leftists what they are: cowards, bigots, liars, demagogues, and, worst of all by far, enemies of Truth.  Fight fire with fire.  Remember, millions of good Americans are sick and tired of political correctness and will stand with you.  So just say to our leftist legal aliens: If you like name-calling and you want to fight, OK.  I’m a racist, sexist homophobe, and I’m in your face.  What’s it to ya’?