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The Gadflyer

Political Aims by Amy Elizabeth Sullivan: "Last night I hung out with some former Daschle office friends who are heading up the office of newly elected Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth and -- knowing of my interest in all things related to religion and politics -- they told me about their new governor's strategy for dealing with the drought that plagued South Dakota this past spring. Republican Governor Mike Rounds put together a task force to deal with drought-related problems, tasked state agencies to develop solutions, and proclaimed a state-wide day of prayer for rain.

Yep, you read that correctly. As a solution to ending the drought, the governor asked everyone in the state to pray for rain.

And apparently they were just a little too good at it. It did in fact start raining on May 23, the day of prayer. And it didn't stop for fourteen days. The ground was so parched that it couldn't handle all of the water, many areas in the state flooded, and they had to call in FEMA, whose officials are currently assessing damage and deciding whether to declare parts of the state a disaster.

The lesson clearly is that if you're going to deal with a problem by having your citizens pray about it, you might want to break them up into prayer groups, designating certain counties for Monday, others for Tuesday, and so on. The entire state petitioning for rain at one time was apparently too much for God, who said, 'Alright already!' and sent them a flood."

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