Kristi Noem – Politics Plus

Open Thread April 2 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:04 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 022026

Yesterday, SCROTUS took oral arguments on a Birthright Citizenship case. Adam Klasfeld was there, and spoke afterwards with Jen Rubin for The Contrarian, and the head of LULAC was also there. Then Klasfeld spoke with Andrea Flores, who works with immigration issues usually not involving Latinx, but often involving TPS. The Supreme Misleader was present in court (the first time in history a sitting US President has been present at SCROTUS during oral arguments), apparently just to intimidate by his presence. It doesn’t appear to have worked, although we won’t know for certain until the opinions come down. (Incidentally, I am not the only person who has noticed that Neil Gorsuch has a soft spot for Indigenous Americans. (Klasfeld phrased it differently, though – he says Gorsuch is “all about Native Americans.”) Thomas surprised by making the point that it is important that the 14th Amendment addresses citizenship in the States as well as in the nation (we may want to amend the Amendment to specify territories as well.)

Archived from Forbes, shared with me by Carrie B. I figure if we want to humiliate him by pointing and laughing (which seems to be about the only thing those of us not in public office can do to really get under his skin), we need things to point and laugh at – and this one looks to me like a doozy. (I am not old enough to actually remember seeing a Duesenberg, but I have it on pretty good authority that that is what the word derives from.)

I see this from The Independent as another example of Kristi Noem’s taste in men – which is, to say the least – unusual.

Whether or not this from Talking Feds deserves a short take as opposed to just a mention, it’s getting a short take. If you can think of an emotion, other than anger, that can lead to change in one’s life or in the world, I’d be interested to hear it. (And yes, I realize it doesn’t always work alone.)

Cat

Friday Fun: Fireworks Alternatives?

Posted by SoINeedAName at 8:45 am Politics

Jul 092021

It all began when Gov. Kristi Gnome (R-SD) posted a pouting 4^th of July Tweet whining that “Sparklers Suck” because fireworks were not allowed at Mount Rushmore this year because of the high risk of wildfires from the drought

(OK – I’ll note that she seems to prefer spelling her surname N-o-e-m.)

If you scroll through the wonderful Comments responding to her whiny Tweet, she was deservedly and repeatedly torn a new one! In fact, on Daily Kos where I learned about her bitchy Tweet, I, too, responded:

Hey, Kristi —

You know what really sucks? Forest fires really suck!

These are all photos from fires — Black Hills, Custer, Hill City, Mount Rushmore, Schroeder, Storm Hill, Vineyard, Wanblee and White Draw — in YOUR state!

Then I got to thinking, I bet there are some pretty cool alternatives to fireworks. So I started looking, and found a few examples of drones being used for light shows.

I’ll start with the best one I found from the USA: It was created by Intel, so it has a little commercial flavor to it.

(If you want to decrease the viewing time and really not lose much effect, on YouTube, click the cogwheel down at the lower right – and then select “Playback Speed” to select different options if you want it faster or slower. I tried all the videos at double speed, and I don’t think it lost a thing.)

Greenpeace created a well-done display with a message for world leaders when they arrived in Cornwall, UK on June 11, 2021:

The world’s record for the longest drone light show tells the story of Vincent Van Gogh’s life, and lasted for 26 minutes. (And yes, they included a little bit about cutting his ear off.)

BUT the YouTube presentation was sped up to almost 4 times normal speed – and I increased the playback speed on YouTube to twice that. And it did not suffer one bit.

There was a clever drone light show introduction of an online game that ended with the drones forming a scannable QR code enabling folks to download the game.

But for a true “WOW!” factor, it seems China is the hands-down winner:

This year there were a number of cities that opted for a drone light show instead of fireworks – including Cincinnati, Rochester NY, Richland Hills area in Texas, Tusayan AZ, Texas A&M University, and even Macy’s included a drone light show as part of its NYC spectacular display. (St. Petersburg FL was going to, but hurricane Elsa forced a cancellation.)

But unfortunately, drone light shows are NOT cheap. And it requires 2-3 months lead time to create and will last about 5 to 10 minutes. Here’s the pricing guidelines for an Intel produced show:

For reference, a small-town 4^th of July fireworks display will run $2k to $7k just for the fireworks (not counting setup, fencing, insurance, etc.). Disneyworld’s nightly firework display runs $33k.

Still, they offer a safe program with lots more options than a fireworks display.

PHP is a programming language used to build websites. We have it at all through our hosting partner, BlueHost. In order to update it, we have to go through Bluehost. During his life, TomCat was the only one who had access to our account there. I (JD) am now the only one. I have been to BlueHost and investigated updating our PHP to 8.3 or even to 8.1. I found instructions to do so - in fact, I found two conflicting sets of instructions. I went through one set of the steps and got the message that Our site could not handle 8.3, but that it had successfully updated to 8.1. I then went back here to see what it looked like. But I couldn't get in - either as an administrator or as a reader. It was just gone. I had to reach BlueHost by phone. It was determined that Politics Plus is in fact not compatible with any version of PHP newer than the one we have. BlueHost therefore uninstalled it for me, and the site came back to normal. Of course, like everyone else, I care about security. But I also am aware that TomCat elected to use different providers for several of the services that BlueHost provides, for instance backups. We are backed up daily - but not by BlueHost. However, out PHP is through Bluehost. I feel that if they are not worried about the older version, I am not going to worry about it. I believe that our security here is all or mostly through WordFence, whom I trust.