By Denise Ross

Marc Tobias, longtime close friend and adviser to former Gov. and US Rep. Bill Janklow, showed up on a TODAY Show segment today, talking about how most of our house locks are not really locks. (The car that Janklow was driving when he had his career-ending traffic crash in 2003 was registered to Tobias.)

But there’s more. First, here’s the TODAY Show video:

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Meanwhile, when I did a Google search to make sure I remembered how to spell his name (I did), I came across a slew of online items about Tobias, including his own official site. (The official site doesn’t say, but last I knew Tobias operated out of Sioux Falls.) Then there’s something titled “The Marc Tobias Effect,” as his work exposing security weaknesses is at the center of a controversy in the lock world.

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By Denise Ross

US Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-SD, and former Gov. and US Rep. Bill Janklow, R-SD, have endorsed or will endorse Brendan Johnson’s bid to become South Dakota’s next US Attorney.

They are perhaps the most high profile of a long list of endorsers that the younger Johnson (son of Sen. Tim Johnson) has in his quiver as he embarks on his quest to get Prez-elect Barack Obama’s appointment to the job.

Since Sen. Johnson wishes to not recommend a nominee - given the conflict of interest here - the exact process for choosing South Dakota’s next federal prosecutor hasn’t been revealed.

Stay tuned for more soon on this front.

UPDATE: 3:15 pm Hoghouse (Mountain) Time

Here are additional endorsements for Master Johnson’s US Attorney application:

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By Denise Ross

If you don’t have to reread this a few times, your ability to grasp the world on the other side of the looking glass is more agile than my own.

This from the London Times’ literary supplement:

In (the book’s) foreground – and here the wary reader starts doing some research to see how dodgy these particular pieces of non-fiction are – are the cases of Bill Janklow, the former Governor of South Dakota who was convicted of manslaughter, Jacinta Eagle Deer, allegedly raped, possibly murdered, and Leonard Peltier of AIM (the American Indian Movement) who was jailed for shooting two FBI agents. Custer gets re-enacted but not Wounded Knee, though that lives on in Kevin Costner, while AIM confronts the still-extant BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs), of unsavoury reputation.

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