Dakota Beacon

Customers that transfer money to Somalia, al-Shabab fundraising in Minnesota, a proposal to scrap the teacher skills test in Minnesota, public misconception that convenience store holdups happen weekly, upcoming TV series built around the 1996 film “Fargo", Do Nodaks gloat too much?, a N.D. shortage of health care workers, Williston School District has 128 homeless students, Not bad for a Hamlet boy, DAKTOIDS

“Tocqueville said it in 1835, and it’s as true today as it was then: ‘Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is more needed in democratic societies than in any other.’”

". . . A lot of news articles are putting my quote in of me saying he would put Jews in Ghettos as the reason he went off. He actually went off well before that. I literally asked him if a law was passed to put Jews in the Ghettos, would you? He literally said, "Now you are being silly...but if it’s the law, I enforce it; I don't make them."

Finally, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action maintains that Proposal 2 is a type of racial classification and therefore cannot stand. Quite the contrary, Attorney General Schuette maintains that Proposal 2, as passed by the citizens of Michigan, is racially neutral.

Obama’s faith has been very controversial and misunderstood.

Where does the time go? I note the fine print on March 9. Daylight saving time! Holy cow! Some genius with too much time on his hands figured we might "save energy" by starting daylight saving time earlier than ever.

Now, if only some genius would devise a way to run oil well pumps using wind energy we'd have it made. Theoretically it's possible.

We all support clean air and water but that is not what this is about.

I respectfully disagree with the criticisms being launched at the proposed cuts to the DoD budget. Cutting troops and antiquated weapons systems does not represent a threat to the United States on two grounds: fiscal responsibility and grand strategy.

This administration’s desire to make it easier for people not to work and to live at taxpayer expense makes no economic sense. It reduces the amount of wealth produced and keeps people from ascending the ladder of individual economic progress. Politically, though, it makes a lot of sense to Obama and his progressive allies.

. . . The sun will shine brightest on North Dakota; it will soon have a population of 60,000;  Dazzle in Grand Forks? cautions about the future of the ND oil industry; sky-high rents in Williston; the housing situation in western North Dakota; hence oil trains blow up; Bakken shale wells deplete rapidly; ND will host $1 billion of road construction; TAT’s oil revenues have become so large; everything they want with no questions asked; ND leads the nation in well-being; Father of the “World’s Largest Buffalo” died; dumped 45,000 pounds of cheese; Philippine health professionals in ND; DAKTOIDS . . . .

They somehow think that supporting the granting of just some groups “protected status” — and thus leaving other groups, apparently, “unprotected” — gives them moral high ground in trying to discriminate against yet other groups by forcing them, but not others (e.g., those opposing and denying service to traditionalist legislators), to violate their deeply held convictions. Only a twisted mind could consider this justice.

Paul Williams was introduced, along with his talented longtime accompanist, Chris Caswell. He began the evening with the salutation “My name is Paul and I am an alcoholic.” (Mr. Williams has been sober for the last 23 of his 73 years). “I write love songs that are basically codependent anthems.”

In this first of a four-part series on upcoming Supreme Court rulings, Dr. John Sparks examines an important freedom of speech case. Sparks, a constitutional law professor at Grove City College, begins his series with a look at a persistent grandmother who has dedicated herself to trying to convince women entering abortion clinics to consider other alternatives. But, does a Massachusetts law violate grandma’s free speech?

Beneath the cultural decline lies a more serious malady. We have arrived at the trivialization of American public discourse.

. . . The siblings were separately adopted as infants; the 50-year-old adoptions are unexplained; new favorite hockey player; You’re the worst Norwegian; Heidi Heitkamp is attracted to cameras and microphones; Jenkinson proposed no solutions; the eight Bakken counties should secede; Oil companies in ND use multi-well drilling pads; ND counties gained almost 5,000 residents; No more “Stop-n-Go”; Bernie Huss (88) tried everything; But Harold was a striver; the Minot Daily News sneered; The ND prison population is increasing; DAKTOIDS . . . . 

Little good comes from ambiguous laws that will continually be interpreted and reinterpreted by an ever shape-shifting judiciary. And these laws almost always benefit the left.

If our elected officials would in humility stop trying to engineer fairness, step back and let Americans create wealth, the middle class could thrive again.

In a world short on spiritual and intellectual order, everything becomes believable. Too many people are willing to believe anything offered because there is no basis to question, no basis to doubt. There is lacking an integrated conception of the world.

Happy Presidents Day! As we celebrate today, there are many lessons to be learned from our past leaders. In his article that first appeared at American Spectator, Dr. Paul Kengor looks at a relatively unknown speech by President Ronald Reagan which offers deep insight and an important message on religious tolerance.

 . . . say what you will about the Indians, they fought the good fight. They didn’t invite millions of unassimilable foreigners into their lands, give them special privileges, and then justify it all by saying that they were just here to do jobs Indians wouldn’t do (like colonize Indians).

. . . The Grand Forks Lamoureux twins; Lamoureuxs lead rout of Swiss; Snuff out the birthday candles; ND’s U.S. senators have different styles; The AFB is still “big dog”; Minot was always a railroad town; man camps; out-of-state drivers in traffic accidents; Jack Zalecki’s lexicon of insults; The Greatest Generation; a time of large families and little schooling; Polaris, Arctic Cat, Ski-Doo and Yamaha; DAKTOIDS. . . .

Sanford Health has become the abortion enabler of North Dakota. This raises interesting ethical questions for North Dakota's population.....if you are providing any money for any reason to Sanford Health are you a party to killing unborn children?

Senators John Hoeven and Heidi Heitkamp and Congressman Kevin Cramer all proclaimed victory after voting for the $1 TRILLION piece of legislation. Of course, this is money we don't have. It means more expenses for taxpayers and higher costs for consumers.

. . . ND became a state in February 1889; Essential Air Service will pay about $10,000 a day; no more merrymaking on the Perch Express; UND’s Energy and Environmental Research Center; Stern was a community and business leader; In 1999, Bobby Vee received the Rough Rider Award; the high price of propane; Dean Michele Reid walked away with $300,000; Dean Michele Reid walked away with $300,000; from Minneapolis to Mogadishu; structural racism and white privilege; rubber track systems which convert pickups into snowmobiles; The Diedes died; DAKTOIDS . . . .

We need sort of an Amish jihad, a deep love of the good and hatred of the evil that translates into action. But there is a prerequisite for this, and it brings us to something both the Amish and Muslim jihadists have in common.

They believe in Truth.

Truth be told, Obama's Affordable Care Act, euphemism that it is, was never intended to "fix" America's health care system. The thirty-or-so million people without health care became the distraction for the real intent.

Self education will also be key to reversing the trend within our own country from protectionism to socialism so as to prevent the subsequent natural progression to communism and fascism, as predicted by Freiderick Bastiat in his 1850 classic “The Law” (three stages of “legal plunder”, protectionism, socialism, and communism) and by Frederich A. von Hayek in his 1944 classic “The Road to Serfdom” (fascism, the exaltation of nation and race through dictatorial suppression of opposition, is the fourth stage reached after communism has proved an illusion).

ND has a unique culture of human kindness; Almost all of ND’s interstate highways closed; Westbound passengers will take buses; “Millionaire” is defined at least two ways in ND; North Dakota cropland values; wealth and jobs to North Dakota; wealth and jobs to North Dakota; Red River Water Supply Project; Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund; What’s the fastest growing state in the country? some are trying to escape criminal pasts; Operation Pipe Cleaner snared 22 people; Call it heavy-duty shoplifting; over 100 employees in blue shirts chanted “Sell, sell, sell!” a lifetime interest and prowess in athletics; “It will rot your brain.” she was arrested for being drunk and disorderly; Want a lawn bag looking like a NFL helmet?

In the CNN story, a major public university is evaluating the reading skills of its college athletes using a test (WRAT) that is considered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to be insufficiently diagnostic in assessing the reading skills of third, fifth, and eighth grade homeschooling students.