The flood of waters continues, but as usual during a natural disaster, the flood of rumors is rolling right along with it. Mythical levee breaches compete with imaginary government policy decisions, all of which combine to try to drive those who are dealing with the actual flooding bonkers.

And don’t even get me started about a Fukushima-style disaster in Nebraska . . . Get a link, people — and it ought to be from someone closer to Nebraska than Hawaii.

Rumors flow faster than the water during a disaster like this. The folks who are working on protecting homes, businesses, and communities have enough to do without having to beat back rumors — but this, too, is part of dealing with a disaster.

In 1804 and 1805, Lewis and Clark made history with their trip up the Missouri River, but it’s the waters coming down the Missouri that will make history in 2011. People along the Missouri are thinking less of Lewis and Clark and more about Noah these days. Water levels in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota are already at record levels, and all that water is pouring downriver. Dams can’t take any more water, and so the flow will only increase for cities and towns downstream.

It’s going to be a long, wet summer along the banks of the Missouri.

John Thune (R-SD) has been rather publicly examining a potential 2012 presidential run for a while, but today, the Republican Senator announced he will not seek the nomination. Thune was viewed as the preferred choice among several party insiders and therefore a “legitimate candidate,” despite the fact that early polling had him trailing most other nominees.

God bless you, Alice B. Toklas.

It certainly looks like the South Dakota Highway Patrol is interfering with the state’s medical marijuana ballot initiative, which is in a tight race ahead of November 2.

The campaign for Measure 13, South Dakota’s medical marijuana initiative, called out the state Highway Patrol for a big media push last week around two separate marijuana busts from August that the Patrol tied to out-of-state medical marijuana patients.

Arizona, Oregon and South Dakota have medical marijuana measures on the ballot thath have received little attention. These initiatives are being run by people who are really committed state grassroots activists, but they are seriously understaffed and under resourced. So Just Say Now volunteered to help all of them — as well as the Prop 19 campaign — with our phone banking, event, fundraising and email tools.

So if you’ve bought a T-shirt from the Just Say Now store, or you’ve given a donation to the Just Say Now campaign, take a spin at the new South Dakota Measure 13 and Oregon Measure 74 websites and have a look at your handiwork. Because your support made it possible.

This morning, Just Say Now is proud to announce a new tool to put marijuana reform directly in the hands of activists: online phone banking to identify supporters of marijuana reform before November’s election.

There are thousands of voters in Arizona, California, Oregon, and South Dakota who we need to vote for marijuana reforms. We’re targeting calls to young voters and “surge voters” – people who turned out in 2008 but who are not yet likely to vote in the midterm elections.

Technically, today is sort of election day in Ohio, Vermont, Georgia, South Dakota, and Iowa, given that voters can start voting in person for the midterm elections.

SD Coalition for Compassion and SDSU SSDP Joined forces to raise awareness in Brookings, South Dakota.

Earlier today, the Washington, DC City Council voted unanimously in favor of medical marijuana. The bill will now go to Mayor Adrian Fenty’s desk, where he is expect to sign it. This will add DC to the long list of states that have already approved the use of cannabis for medical purposes.