113 Comments

When pigs fly.

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Pfft... Teahadists know that ground can't be sacred. Only stuff like THIS can be sacred...http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E...

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Heh, yeah, I've got a number of friends personally involved in the situation now.

The initial route for the pipeline went too close to the city of Bismarck's municipal water intake, so it was shifted south and rerouted to be also too close to the water intake for the city of Cannon Ball (and the rest of the Standing Rock reservation).

Funny how no one saw a problem with that, isn't it.

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I guess I have too much faith in the tech of our day. I'd seen something being offered to the people of Flint where they remove the old pipes while simultaneously replacing them with new ones, basically by shoving a special device through. No need to dig trenches everywhere. And I figured an oil leak sucks no matter whether they're above or below ground.

Then again, I'm not an engineer. I just play one in Team Fortress 2.

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Of course, they also want to route the pipeline UNDER the Missouri River. No problem there.

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the oil will be piped under the Missouri River, above the Standing Rock's water supply. Now, remember the Missouri River is a major tributary of the Mississippi. The Mighty Mo is the longest river in North America. Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. An oil leak into the river would be catastrophic.

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"Not even Sarah is dumb enough to--"*click*"Oh, FFS."Edit: There are too many news parody sites to keep track of, and Sarah Palin is Poe's Law crazy. I am only slightly ashamed.

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Parody site, people.

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Help gun down the Indians?

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or Cowboys Stadium?

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how about a confederate cemetery? they're all over the place in the south

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This judge is exactly what is wrong with our country...He has allowed a "hate Crime" against Native Americans as well as VIOLATIONS of treaties agreed to by our past "founding fathers".....obviously he is a corporate SHILL who has no respect for Civil Rights and or Indigenous people's rights.....In my area of the country a dog that bites a human is euthanized and its owner/ owners are punished....The lack of respect for tribal artifacts and sacred land is ALSO A violation of morality....IMPEACH THIS JUDGE NOW!

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The South IS a Confederate cemetery, and thank God for that.

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I don't think it's wandering at all. My point is that your yard is only your yard as long as your use doesn't conflict with the public good. One good example is the designation of historic places or neighborhoods. Yes, you own it but your use or alteration may be severely restricted and it's perfectly legal. I think the US is the only place that has this "you can't tell me what I can do with my land" attitude and it's really not true, the rest of us do have a say in what you do with your land. If the tribe, for example, gets that land designated as historically or culturally significant then the owner can't just do whatever he wants if it affects that significance. I won't be surprised at all if the court rules in their favor eventually if they can, in fact, prove the significance of the site.

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The sites form a good short term excuse to get the project stopped while trying to fight it on a larger scope. The big concern is where it crosses the river, which is just upstream from the reservation's main water intake point. One spill (someday, because it always happens someday) and their water source is unusable. The distance between the crossing and the intake isn't even large enough to depend on some amount of dissipation to drop the contamination levels low enough that they could deal with it through water treatment.

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Sacred ground, shmacred ground. But the Confederate flag and statues on the other hand...

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