Dakota Beacon

Health considerations typically gain attention. Everyone is aware that excess weight increases the risk of serious health problems including diabetes, high blood pressure, various forms of cancer, heart disease, stroke, sleep apnea and arthritis to name a few. Excess weight doesn’t guarantee these problems, of course. Other elements such as lack of physical activity and family history also contribute to the health risk calculus. Still, at the end of the day, how much excess body fat is carried will greatly influence physical health and mental well-being.

The waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is one of the best ways to establish a personal healthy weight. Calculate your WHR as follows. Measure your waist by wrapping a tape around your bare abdomen about an inch below the lowest rib. Don’t suck in your gut, but do exhale before measuring. Men have cause for concern when the waist is greater than 40 inches. For women the upper limit is 35 inches.

Findings from both studies confirmed that folks with a larger waist were much more likely to die prematurely than folks with a more slender waist regardless of BMI. As might be expected, a solid correlation also exists between a large WHR and premature death. In either case, exceeding the benchmarks of BMI or WHR should be cause for a review of diet and exercise habits.

This summer, after a flight of nine years, the New Horizons spacecraft traveled past Pluto to take photographs and collect data. Recently, some of the images have been released. In this interesting article, Dr. Glenn Marsch discusses the fascinating photos and the mysteries they reveal. 

WHAT A DEAL!; A BUSY HEIDI; BLOOD AND OIL; UNEMPLOYMENT; NUVERRA; LEADERSHIP VACUUM; IS DICKINSON NEXT?; DEEPENING POVERTY; THE CAUSES; THE CONGRESSIONAL HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE; THINGS HAPPEN!; SHOULDN’T BE HARD TO FIND; A HUGE MESS, BUT NO MONEY; DAKTOIDS

Bernie Sanders continues to gain popularity and climb higher in the national polls. Each week he seems to gain more ground on the Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. What is behind his campaign success and what is he actually proposing? In this must-read article, Dr. Marvin Folkertsma examines Sanders’ political platform and the “Bernie Sanders phenomenon.”  

According to reports, there are almost 60 million people who have been displaced from their homes, with particular problems in Syria, the Ukraine, Iraq, and across Africa. The Syrian crisis has received international attention. But why has the American response thus far been so underwhelming? In this must-read article, Dr. Gary Welton examines the situation at home and abroad and points out that we may have “compromised our own ability to help.” 

Identify the famous jazz artist kidnapped at gun point and forced to play music at Al Capone’s birthday party.

Name the composer who wrote a new piece of music each year for his dog’s birthday.

Which music critic incurred the threat of physical violence from a US President?

Each of these little known but interesting anecdotes, and more, comprise a remarkably unique devotional book compiled by Dr. Patrick and Barbara Kavanaugh titled appropriately “Devotions from the World of Music” (Cook, 2000).

But we must stay focused on this.  Some are ready to take on Mitch McConnell next and clean up the Senate.  We need to finish this task first.  Let’s not divide our attention.  Our nation has been brought down by the kind of leadership we’ve seen in Boehner.  The last thing we should tolerate is to see another like him rise to the Speakership and take us back to Square One.  De we want to see more funding for Planned Parenthood?  Capitulation to Obamacare?  Negligence of the crisis on our border?  Unsustainable immigration from the Middle East and Asia?  Another economic disaster?

THIS IS A REAL WAKE-UP CALL; RED RIVER VALLEY UNIVERSITIES; THE AEROSPACE SCHOOL; ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT; PROVOST THOMAS DILORENZO; IT’S RIGGED; POLLS; OVERMATCH; ON PINS AND NEEDLES; NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED; IS A COMMISSION NEEDED?; MINNESOTA; UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES; DAKTOIDS

As Pope Francis visits the United States—and prepares for the major international Catholic Church synod on family and marriage—some have used his visit to push political-ideological agendas. In this must-read article that first appeared at TheHill.com, Dr. Paul Kengor illustrates how dangerous it is to attempt to draw political battle lines around the pope. 

While bishops assail critics of unlimited illegal immigration as xenophobes, bigots, and nativists, they will do nothing to stop the work of their largest worldwide partner, the eugenicist, pro-abortion U.S. Government monolith called the Agency for International Development, known as A.I.D.


Many bishops have called on Congress to stop funding Planned Parenthood with taxpayer funding. Why can't the bishops call on Congress to defund A.I.D., a rich, defiant, and brazen ally of Planned Parenthood?


The answer is simple. The bishops receive no funding from Planned Parenthood, but they receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars a year from A.I.D. for their "charitable work."


The elitists at A.I.D. are the cultural heirs of Margaret Sanger and Alice DuPont Mills. Our bishops need to direct their stinging rebukes at those enemies of the unborn, not at the faithful who love life, their Church, and their country.

Think back in time. Remember when Vice President Dan Quayle committed a faux pas and misspelled “potato” using an “e”?

Then there was “Dubya.” George W. Bush was constantly portrayed by the media-generated narrative as really stupid. That he graduated from Yale (BA) and Harvard (MBA) didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that his analytical speed was lightning fast or that he enjoyed a superb memory.

With campaign season upon us it is time to spread the wealth around so to speak.

Yogi Berra—baseball legend, WW II veteran, and American icon—passed away on Tuesday at the age of 90. In this tribute, Dr. Mark Hendrickson recalls watching Berra play, recounts his numerous accomplishments, and applies many of Yogi’s famous sayings to economics. 

The crisis in world markets seems related not only to a sinking Chinese economy, but also to what Beijing is saying to the world; i.e., China will save herself first even if it means throwing others out of the life boat.

To Trump, the world is not Davos; it is the NFL. He is appalled at those mammoth container ships in West Coast ports bringing in Hondas and Toyotas. Those ships should be carrying American cars to Asia.

Whatever becomes of Trump the candidate, Trumpism, i.e., economic and foreign policy nationalism, appears ascendant.

DOWNTOWN FARGO; KLEINSASSER; THE SKEPTICS WERE RIGHT; WEAK LOONIE; IT’S EITHER BLACK OR WHITE; BREAK-EVEN OIL PRODUCTION COSTS; NOT PROMISING; BIG IRON; CORRECTIONS; WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?; DIVERSIFY THE DIVERSITY COMMISSION; BACKLASH; TAKE THAT; DAKTOIDS

Last month, Margaret Sanger—the founder of Planned Parenthood—made headlines because a group of concerned pastors were attempting to have her bust at the Smithsonian removed. At the time, Dr. Paul Kengor wrote an article supporting the pastors’ efforts. In this must-read follow-up article, Kengor—using Sanger’s own words—further examines her 1926 speech to the women’s chapter of the KKK in Silverlake, New Jersey. 

In late December 406 AD hundreds of thousands of starving men, women and children gathered on the east bank of the Rhine River in what is now Germany. This was the moment they had waited for. The Rhine had frozen solid providing a natural bridge into the Roman-held lands and the promise of food and a better life. Then the Vandals, as they were known, flooded accross the river.

For the United States, no immigration laws are being enforced. There is no protocol. Invaders flow into the United States through very porous borders. This is now our standing policy. The Obama Doctrine has been to suspend immigration law and enforcement of the immigration process. This is his legacy.

 We do not face an immigration crisis. Like the old Roman Empire, we face an invasion.

All eyes in the financial markets are focused on the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting on September 16 and 17. Will the Federal Reserve Bank, after five years, begin the process of raising interest rates and/or signal a timetable for allowing its holdings of debt securities to mature without reinvesting the proceeds? In this fascinating article, investor Fred Kingery examines the current market and warns of a possible future “financial crisis that will dwarf the last one.” 

NOVEL, EVEN BRILLIANT!; ROLE REVERSAL; BAD INVESTMENT; NEW AMERICANS; FARGO IMMIGRANTS; CAN’T CHOOSE; GLUM FARMERS; BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE; MENARD’S; THE U.S. NEWS ANNUAL RANKING; MINNESOTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS; MINNESOTA JIHAD; IS THIS A WINNING MOVE?

NOVEL, EVEN BRILLIANT!; ROLE REVERSAL; BAD INVESTMENT; NEW AMERICANS; FARGO IMMIGRANTS; CAN’T CHOOSE; GLUM FARMERS; BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE; MENARD’S; THE U.S. NEWS ANNUAL RANKING; MINNESOTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS; MINNESOTA JIHAD; IS THIS A WINNING MOVE?

The big news out of San Francisco last week was that it would register another first: a city elementary school is going to switch to all “gender-neutral” bathrooms. The idea is, as the Daily Mail put it, to “accommodate young students who don’t fit into gender norms.” Of course, this apparently means that normal students who might like those supposedly antiquated single-sex bathrooms can just go to Hell (I mean, the Hell that isn’t San Francisco). 

I note that only one side is demanding that everyone else shut up.  In our culture, in our land, it is customary and expected to debate and discuss issues.  It is how we inform ourselves about each others’ views.  We discuss everything from umpires’ calls, to movies, to under-inflated footballs, to Planned Parenthood, to immigration, to the national debt, to the Iran nuclear deal.  We discuss here.  Those who cannot abide this are  only showing us that they are not ready to participate in American life.

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” – Barack Obama, Election Eve, October 30, 2008.

Manmade climate change holds less and less credibility. The use of manmade climate change to shape public policy has become scandalous. The collaborative snow job by global warming champions has been successfully challenged time and again over the past few years.

The next UN Climate Change Conference will be held December 2015 in Paris. The purpose is to achieve a legally binding universal agreement on climate from all the nations of the world. At that time President Obama will pledge $3 billion to the UN Green Climate Fund adding to our $18 trillion debt.

We still have fifteen months of the Obama regime left for him to follow through on his pledge to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

“WELL DONE, MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT”; THUS SENATOR HEITKAMP HAS DEFINED HERSELF;  LOST PRESIDENCY; FOX GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE ; ARROGANCE?; IN MY JUDGMENT; IS THIS A PRELUDE?; THE 2015 ACT SCORES; THERE’S A CATCH; HOW NOT TO MAKE FRIENDS; A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN; SHARING FARM EQUIPMENT; FEAST OR FAMINE; THE DICKINSON STATE FOUNDATION; FEMINIST FACULTY AT NDSU; A SALARY BY ANY OTHER NAME; ONE THING ABOUT THIS LOSS; DAKTOIDS

Robert Conquest, a historian whose landmark studies of the Stalinist purges and the Ukraine famine of the 1930s documented the horrors perpetrated by the Soviet regime against its own citizens, has died at 98, having outlived the Soviet Union -- which came into being in the year of his birth, 1917 -- and which he helped to bring down with information.

It is hard for many today to believe, but there was a time when intellectuals in the West were enthralled with Communism and viewed Lenin and Stalin in heroic terms. 

Robert Conquest, born in England, graduated from Oxford and in his youth joined the Communist Party. During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer in Bulgaria, and later remained as the press officer at the British Embassy in Sofia. Observing the reality of Communism, he emerged as a forceful and effective opponent. In 1977, he became a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. 

Barack Obama won’t be saying, “If I had a psycho son, he’d look like Vester Lee.” But he might as well. Because Vester Lee Flanagan II, the bigoted maniac who murdered the WDBJ reporter and cameraman Wednesday on live TV, was a philosophical offspring of the Left.

It all reminds me of the Satan character’s line in the film The Devil’s Advocate: “Vanity is my favorite sin.” “Pride” is probably even more accurate. But it all gets at the matter’s heart. We don’t need some hard and fast psychological diagnosis here. Whether Flanagan was most correctly characterized as a “narcissist” or just a self-centered, entitled jerk, the bottom line is that his state was attributable to a philosophical disease, a disordered way of thinking that masquerades under an ideological banner:

Liberalism. 

Opposition to bullying is the trendy “in” thing today. School systems treat it with the same seriousness as algebra and biology to convince students not to bully. Good luck with that in the real world. Bullying, in some quarters at least, is the accepted norm.

Countless numbers of Americans are afraid to voice their opinions publicly about the direction in which our country is headed for fear of retaliation. Too often the silent majority is intimidated by bullies. This is the reality. Amazingly, this form of bullying is seldom addressed even though public and private unions, race activists and leftist organizations practice bullying routinely.

You can never assuage the bullying left. They can never be appeased. These people of the marginal left do not want to engage in discussion. They want to clear the field of all opposition and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.

 Bottom line: Bullies are a reality we must learn to deal with.

Barring the unexpected, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 9, 2015, will become the longest reigning British monarch, overtaking Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901. In this interesting tribute article, Dr. Gary Welton examines the reigns of Elizabeth and Victoria and offers insight into a reality that we all share. 

GOV. JACK DALRYMPLE; SORRY ABOUT THAT; BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF . . . ; “THE WATERMELON KING” ; CAN YOU TOP THIS?; STATE OF EMERGENCY; LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES; AN OPPOSING ARGUMENT; DID HE OVERLOOK ANYTHING?; MORE FIGHTING SIOUX; BEARS VS. BISON; “WELCOME TO LEITH"; DAKTOIDS