Shot In The Dark

Tuesday - Posting will be

Tuesday - Posting will be light until evening. I have the biggest job interview of my life Tuesday afternoon, and all the errands that lead up to it in the morning.

Prayers, wishes, karmic effusions and any other sort of well-wish are eagerly solicited!

RIP Hepburn - Katherine Hepburn,

RIP Hepburn - Katherine Hepburn, you've no doubt heard, is dead at 96, after years of failing health.

Her memory is being heaped with accolades today, and justly so; but one is conspicuous in its absence: Hepburn one of Ronald Reagan's key allies in the fight against Stalinist infiltration of Hollywood after World War II. Don't expect to hear much about that.

My personal favorite was her Oscar-winning turn in A Lion In Winter, which I saw immediately after playing Henry II in a stage version. It was a dazzling role, and she was wonderful in it.

Hatch, American Bankers and the

Hatch, American Bankers and the Twin Cities Media - Part 4 - Today, Part 4 covers the audits and followup to the Pioneer Press story that broke this scandal.

We examine the Legislative Auditor's Report, and much more.

Look here for the story index, introduction, and parts1, 2 and 3.

The series will conclude on Wednesday.

Whew - At least Lileks

Whew - At least Lileks is back. Things seem to be working out.

And if you're one of those who tried to give money to donate to James on his Amazon link but got locked out, and you still want to support a struggling blogger, feel free to hit my Amazon link! It'll help out as I slog toward my six-month un/underemployment anniversary...

Although hopefully we'll start fixing that tomorrow. More later. I'm getting back to work on the story.

Grrrrr - My computer seems

Grrrrr - My computer seems to have lost its mouse driver - it went and did some kind of hardware discovery process yesterday when I booted. I'm re-discovering a lot of the keyboard shortcuts I used to know when I had a laptop for which I could never find mouse drivers, way back when.

Part 4 of the American Bankers story will be coming out shortly. It's hard to do without a mouse... :-(

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Media - Part 4

Part 4: "Confusing, deceptive, inappropriate, inconsiderate"

Once you get past the January 6 meeting, things get confusing.

In February, Patrick Nelson (Deputy Commerce Commissioner) finally negotiated a settlement with American Bankers. There would be a $200,000 fine, and a $1.8 million reimbursement for investigative expenses.

According to the Attorney General's office, the machinery set in motion by American Bankers' donation to the Republicans (but, apparently, not the one made to the Democrats) led to a huge reduction of the settlement - from the $3.5 million agreed to in the summer of 2002.

But according to sources at the Commerce Department that are familiar with the inner workings of this story, Commissioner Wilson felt that, since American Bankers had backed out of the original settlement on August 7, the next stop would be trial. The source says that, rather than waste Commerce Department resources on a trial, the Department would be better off settling for a lower amount, while still exacting a fine, as opposed to a gift to charity (which would not be listed as a fine).

The Media Chimes In

At some point after the settlement was finally reached - in late February or early March of 2003 - Ron Eibensteiner got a call from "a reporter". He wouldn't say which one.

"He asked me if I'd gotten a check from American Bankers", says Eibensteiner, who say he denied getting the check. "The reporter told me he had a copy of the thank you letter for the check", says Eibensteiner. "I asked him to fax me a copy - he wouldn't do it".

Eibensteiner continued "the reporter asked me if I knew Ron Jerich. I said no".

According to Eibensteiner, he then had a staffer find a copy of the letter in the outgoing correspondence file. "I called the reporter, and clarified our process" - the process by which checks are sent to the RNSEC office, and generate an automatic form letter to the donor.

On March 5, 2003, the Pioneer Press ran the first story on the subject. The article relied heavily on statements by Jim Bernstein, the former Commerce commissioner.

After the story ran, Eibensteiner says, he got a call from another reporter. "He was howling with laughter", says Eibensteiner. "He had a copy of the letter. He asked me, do you know who this [Ron Jerich] is? Ron Jerich is a friend of Mike Hatch!".

"It was a clear setup from the start", Eibensteiner says. "Hatch tried to blackmail [Glenn Wilson] with my letter. The whole thing was contrived between Hatch and Jerich, to play in case Tim Pawlenty won the election".

As this is written, nobody involved with the Pioneer Press story has responded to my request for comment.

The Audit
On March 10 and 12, the Senate Commerce and Utilities Committee held hearings on the brouhaha, hearing testimony from Bernstein, Hatch and Wilson. They referred the matter to the Legislative Auditor.

On March 14, Governor Pawlenty and the legislative leadership (Republican House speaker Steve Sviggum and Senate Minority leader Dick Day, and DFL House Minority leader Matt Entenza and Senate majority leader John Hottinger) also sent a letter to Jim Nobles at the Legislative Auditors Office, requesting an audit of the settlement.

The Audit Report was released on May 21, 2003. It's 33 pages (plus about fifty pages of appendices) that reads like...well, an audit report. But it reached some interesting conclusions. It agrees with Hatch's assertions that American Bankers had reached an agreement "in principle" with Bernstein, and that the company opted for a political approach. It found no evidence that the Department of Commerce had had contact with Ron Jerich after January 8 that might have influenced the settlement. It also was bothered by the lack of publicity for the settlement until after the story broke in the media.

The report also concludes that Hatch's actions in this case were not illegal, but were troubling nonetheless.

The report was concerned that the Attorney General apparently presented an illegal settlement to Wilson.

"Attorney General Hatch told us that on January 8, 2003, he was he was fully aware that it was not legally possible for American Bankers to make a contribution to to a charity as part of a settlement, but he did not disclose that fact to those attending the January 8, meeting. According to Attorney General Hatch's testimony to us, he did not make more of the he legal problem associated with a charitable contribution from American Bankers Insurance because he wanted to get the proposal "on the table" . And he said he invited Mr. Neimeic (sic) and Ms. Brainerd to the meeting with Commissioner Wilson and Mr. Jerich so there would be "witnesses" that an offer had been made.

The Audit Report also noted the impropriety of inviting Commissioner Wilson to the January 8, alone and unprepared for anything but a "meet and greet", for such a complex matter.

Finally, the report noted with little comment the Attorney General's claim to have taken the letter from Ron Jerich during the October 5th lit drop, except that the evidence tended to support Ron Eibensteiner's statements, that the check was sent to the RNSEC (as per Minnesota law) and that the letter was an automatic form letter. Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles noted in a phone interview that the letter was quite obviously a form letter. "Form letters have a certain generality, with details interspersed", said Nobles. "In the report, we characterized the letter as a form letter, and I concur with that. The letter had no specificity."

Questions

Mike Hatch says that he invited Dick Niemiec and Mary Brainerd - representing Blue Cross and HealthPartners, both major players in mental health care in Minnesota - to the January 8 meeting to serve as witnesses to the deal. So if what was going to be presented required "witnesses", why did the Attorney General call the meeting a "meet and greet" to Commissioner Wilson? Why did he not tell Wilson that "witnesses" were going to be necessary?

And indeed, wouldn't a "witness" from either the Attorney General's Office or the Department of Commerce - or both - have been more appropriate than bringing in people who happened to be from two organizations that would benefit from the proposed illegal settlement?

Coda

Ron Eibensteiner met Attorney General Hatch at former Senator Bob Lessard's annual fish fry - a bit of a Minnesota government institution, by most accounts. The fish fry happened sometime after the story broke in the media.

According to Eibensteiner, he approached Hatch about the brouhaha - especially the form letter. Eibensteiner says Hatch smiled and answered:

"Welcome to Politics in Minnesota, Ron."

American Bankers and the Twin

American Bankers and the Twin Cities Media - and the Weekend - Monday - the fallout from the American Bankers investigation. Read the index, introduction, or Parts 1, 2 or 3 here.

Probably done posting for the weekend - tons of yard work to do, plus I have to start prepping for this big interview.

Oh, yeah - and finish writing Part 4...

Sabine Herold - The toast of the blogosphere lately is Sabine Herold, the 21 year old French college student who quotes Hayek, reveres Margaret Thatcher - and is leading the first mass movement in memory against the excessive power of French trade unions.

Her organization has a website - mostly in French, natch, but with at least one interesting piece in English.

Here's the part that concerns me about Herold; like Pim Fortuyn, she is a member of a class that the left considers their own. Their backlash will be that reserved for any apostate by the true believers. And yet, according to one article, Herold travels with two fellow students as bodyguards. This will be interesting to watch.

Following nascent conservative movements is, of course, a top priority of mine.

(Via Chicago Boyz)

R.I.P. Brunching Shuttlecocks - The

R.I.P. Brunching Shuttlecocks - The Brunching Shuttlecocks - long one of the best humor sites on the net - has apparently quit publishing new material.

Not like you couldn't see it coming - all the signs of comedy burnout were there for at least the past year. There'd be long gaps between regular features, more repeats, fewer of the more ambitious bits that used to make them famous. It was probably time.

But it's sad to see one of the most consistenltly funny sites on the web call it quits.

Ice Age - I minored in German in college. As such one of the little perks of membership was that I got to sneer at all the pansy Yanks who whined and caterwauled about "warm beer" in Germany ("But it's not warm, it's just slightly chilled!"), or having to ask for water, almost never iced, before a meal (Germans 20 years ago were said to assume that water with meals was for taking medication - a hush-hush personal matter).

But one person's pride is another person's business opportunity - a former American soldier is introducing the Germans to...ice. In a bag.

Matthew Meredith certainly isn't the first foreigner in Germany to wonder why his beer was served luke-warm or why his ice-water was missing one of its namesake ingredients. But whereas most visitors simply grin and bear what is admittedly little more than a cultural nuisance, Meredith and his German partner decided to do something to satisfy the needs of cold-beverage lovers.
At a time when small businesses have been closing in droves as Germany suffers through its worst economic decline in its postwar history, the two entrepreneurs founded Ice Age Ice, a packaged ice company that has taken the risk of finding out if nascent demand for ice in Germany can be nurtured into a full-fledged market.

Maybe as a status thing...

Press Bias - The Strib

Press Bias - The Strib yesterday carried a story about the U of M trying to declare itself above the law - at least as regards legally-permitted concealed handguns.

The story has the same paranoid, ignorant, alarm-baiting bleatings from the U administration:

"Our university community has always assumed that handguns and other weapons had no place in our classes, libraries, labs, student unions and at other sponsored activities," Bruininks said. "Given these considerations, we felt that a policy addressing the possession of weapons on campus is the best course of action for the University of Minnesota."

Shootings occur every year at American colleges. Last year at least five incidents resulted in fatalities. At the University of Arizona, a failing student shot and killed three professors and then turned the gun on himself.

Just like the U wants to be!

At the University of Cincinnati, a student shot two other students and then killed himself.

This next one is the best...

a student suspended from a Virginia law school shot and killed the dean, a faculty member and a student and wounded three others.

Thomas Vs. MoDo- Eugene Volokh,

Thomas Vs. MoDo- Eugene Volokh, pinch-blogging for Glenn Reynolds, has a fascinating article about the criticisms Clarence Thomas is getting over his affirmative action opinions last week.

Lots of people have criticized Justice Clarence Thomas’ anti-race-preferences opinion (from Monday’s Grutter v. Bollinger decision concerning the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions policy), on the grounds that there’s reason to think that he has benefited from some such preferences. Maureen Dowd in The New York Times has a particularly intemperate expression of this view: “It’s impossible not to be disgusted at someone who could benefit so much from affirmative action and then pull up the ladder after himself. So maybe he is disgusted with his own great historic ingratitude.”

The most basic objection to this view, I think, is that if a judge thinks that a policy is unconstitutional, he has an obligation to so vote, whatever his personal history might be. “Gratitude” isn’t a proper basis for constitutional decisionmaking.

But beyond this, I wonder how far these critics would take their criticism. In the 1970s, the Supreme Court held that sex discrimination was unconstitutional. The justices who voted for this position had spent their lives in a nation in which women were largely excluded from the legal profession. Those men may well have benefited from this exclusion — when half the population is out of the competition, the competition is easier. Maybe if men hadn’t gotten preferences, some of those justices wouldn’t have made it onto the high court.

Should Justices Brennan, Marshall, and the others have said “Oh, we benefited from sex discrimination, so it would be ungrateful for us to now hold that sex discrimination is unconstitutional”? Or should they have resigned en masse, in shame at having gotten this benefit that they realized was improper? Should people have berated them for having gotten the advantage of preferences for males, and then denying future generations of men the same advantage (“pull[ing] up the ladder after [themselves]”)?

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Local Media - Part 3 - In today's installment, we go over the meeting last January 8, between Mike Hatch, Commerce commissioner Glenn Wilson, lobbyist Ron Jerich, and representatives of two non-profit HMOs with whom the Attorney General had (by some accounts) discussed a diversion of settlement money to a mental health trust.

Confused yet?

Monday, we'll try to tie up some of the loose ends of this story. Next Wednesday, we'll talk about the media's role.

Read the Intro, Part 1 and Part 2.

Dayton, Theologian of the Apocalypse?

Dayton, Theologian of the Apocalypse? - Hindrocket from Powerline takes the blowtorch to Mark Dayton's homily at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church last Sunday. (Trunk provides the full text of the homily, as well as the requisity pithy-yet-perfect zinger).

This is amazing:

Minnesota's Mark Dayton may be the least distinguished member of the U.S. Senate. His abilities are modest at best, and his history of psychological problems is well documented--by himself. He is qualified for public office only by his immense inheritance.

Dayton recently gave a "homily" at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis. Here are some excerpts:

"Our country has moved decidedly to the right. Our citizens, many are less involved. Our social system is less compassionate, government is less effective and liberalism is more distrusted....Where is God in the midst of all this injustice? I don't have a clue. I don't know if He, or She, or Whatever doesn't exist, died, is incompetent, doesn't care, is laissez faire, or has a master plan I don't understand."

Yeah, that's the problem with God. She's too incompetent to smite Republicans the way she ought to. In normal times, this would be considered extraordinarily pathetic. These days, it's pretty typical Democratic hysteria. But Dayton has all the earmarks of a one-termer.

Here's a question; noting Minnesota's (apparently divinely-sanctioned, if Dayton is to be believed) drift to the right and Dayton's weakness (I almost said "vapid vacuity", but I'm glad I didn't) as a Senator and candidate, who should the GOP run against him in '06?

Yes, of course - we have to deal with '04 first. But - knowing what we know now, who do you think would be the person to tackle Dayton?

I'd like to print some responses. Email or comment.

My Archives - Blogger did

My Archives - Blogger did a real number on my archives over the last month or so. One of you noted that my archives from May 8 until sometime in June are still hosed up. I'm working on it, but I have a bad feeling about this...

Stiff Upper Lip - 67

Stiff Upper Lip - 67 British citizens died in the World Trade Center.

As we close in on July 4, Bill McGurn writes about a British family whose father died in the attack, and their British perspective on America and its Americans.

There are many great quotes - the whole thing is short and worth a read - but I liked this part:

Not that her English sensitivities have entirely adjusted to an American exuberance that inclines less to a stiff upper lip than to the full-throated versions of Lee Greenwood's "proud to be an American" belted out at the school's recent spring concert. Yet maybe, Mrs. Napier allows, there is something to be said for expressing one's feelings.

Alex certainly thought so: Though he was determined that he and his family would return to England one day to raise their children, a major reason that Alex extended their stay here was so that their children might imbibe something of the spirit and optimism he so associated with America.

I'm much happier with the America my kids are inheriting than with the one I had at their age.

Status - It's been one of those weeks that's been frenetically busy...doing nothing much in particular.

My daughter, whom I used to have to drag to bagpipe practice with much wailing and moaning on evenings when her mother couldn't watch her, fell in love with highland Tenor Drums. If you've ever watched a bagpipe band, the tenors are the drummers that twirl the fuzzy-headed sticks as they march. I think it sort of satisfies her female inner urge to be a baton-twirler, but without having to wear the baton-twirler outfits. I haven't told her about kilts yet.

I hate this part of the job hunt. I'm currently:

• Waiting to hear if I got a second interview with the company with which I had such a great first interview on Tuesday. I hate waiting.
• Waiting, still, to hear back from the company with whom I'm in the "final three".
• Waiting to hear from two companies with contracting jobs that'd make the here and now a whole lot more endurable.

Maybe even simultaneously.

On top of that - it's 10AM, and still no Bleat!. Say it ain't so, James!

UPDATE: Second Interview! Woo Hoo! Tuesday!

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and The Media - Part III

Part 3: The Meeting

After a tumultuous campaign season, Tim Pawlenty was elected governor of Minnesota in November of 2002. He appointed Glenn Wilson to the post of Commerce Commissioner. Wilson's main experience was in the mortgage industry - Ronald Reagan had appointed him president of the Government National Mortgage Association ("Ginny Mae") in 1985.

On January 6, Tim Pawlenty was inaugurated, and his cabinet (including Wilson) were sworn in.

The January 6 Meeting

After the inauguration, according to the transcript of Attorney General Hatch's deposition to the Legislative Auditor as well as the auditor's report [warning - big PDF file], he had dinner at the Oceanaire (a restaurant in the Minneapolis Hyatt).

Hatch described the meeting in his testimony to the auditor:

So we met at the Oceanaire. It's Jerich, some guy named Harry at American Bankers [Harry Bassett, Senior Vice President of Government Relations for American Bankers] and myself. He makes the offer exactly like the August 7th settlement, except they said the three and a half goes to chairty. I said fine, I want this presented to the Commissioner immediately. Because I wanted to get it on the table. I wanted to get the bar set. I met on January 8, I believe it was the 8th, it was on a Wednesday. I told them, I wanted either Jerich or Thornton in my office at 11:00 on January 8th, whatever the Wednesday is, to make that offer. I wanted the offer on the table...

Such settlement are, of course, illegal under state law. The legislative auditor noted this in their report:

We were asked to examine the Attorney General’s actions because state law prohibits a diversion of settlement money to a charity (Appendix M). Moreover, Minn. Stat. §16A.151, Subd. 1(b) makes it illegal for state officials—including the attorney general—to even "pursue" such a diversion. The key provision of law says:

(b) A state official [defined to include the attorney general] may not commence, pursue, or settle litigation, or settle a matter that could have resulted in litigation, in a manner that would result in money being distributed to a person or entity other than the state.

Attorney General Hatch reportedly told people attending a task force on mental health access that he might have a donor for the Community Behavioral Health Trust Fund. The Attorney General asked Dick Niemiec, a senior vice president at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, and Mary Brainerd, Chief Executive Officer of HealthPartners to come back to his office to discuss the possible donation to the trust fund with the new commissioner of Commerce.

The January 8 Meeting - Wilson meets Hatch

On January 8, Glenn Wilson had been in office for two days. According to a source familiar with the issue, Wilson had gotten a call on January 7 from Hatch, calling a meeting for the eighth. The meeting was supposed to be "primarily a meet and greet", according to the source, as well as a letter from Ken Wolf (Commerce Department Reliability Administrator) to Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles, dated June 18, 2003 - "On January 7, 2003, the day before the January 8, 2003 meeting between Commissioner Wilson and Attorney General Hatch, Commissioner Wilson told me that he was going to meet with Mr. Hatch. I asked the nature of the meeting and he said he was invited over for a courtesy visit to meet Mr. Hatch".

But according to the source, there were some indications that Wilson had no idea this meeting was to be anything but a "meet and greet" between two men that hadn't worked together before; Wilson, who reads with glasses, left his reading glasses at his office. And when officials go to meetings with substantive issues on the table, they very often take associates, or at least notebooks. Wilson took neither, according to my source. He went alone.

According to the source, "It was a setup".

Hatch presented to Wilson the proposal - the $3.5 million dollar settlement would go to a charity for the mentally ill (the "Community Mental Health Trust") According to the source, Wilson asked if it was a "done deal", and Hatch replied that it was one of the options on the table.

At that point, says my source, Dick Niemiec (an official from Blue Cross) and Mary Brainerd (from HealthPartners) were brought into the meeting. Wilson, says the source, thought they'd been brought in to endorse the contribution. Ron Jerich also entered the meeting - it was the first time Jerich and Wilson had met, according to my source.

According to my source, the entire meeting took about twenty minutes. Wilson went back to his office, and told members of his senior staff "I can't believe this." My source tells me that Wilson felt befuddled by the situation - he had no familiarity with American Bankers Insurance, or the issues involved, and he wondered "why should I be able to choose where the money [from the settlement] goes?" The deal was presented to Wilson, says my source, as "Zero to the taxpayer, $3.5 million to a charitable entity that Hatch was arguably the inventor of," alluding to the Attorney General's propensity for installing his own people on the boards of non-profits with which his office becomes involved (which we'll discuss in next Wednesday's installment).

Although my source spoke on background, the details of his account are corroborated by the letter from Ken Wolf.

Mr. Wilson frowned and said, "I was set up." I asked what he meant by that. He repeated his previous comment to me that it was just supposed to be a courtesy visit. However, he told me Mr. Hatch called other people into his office to present an offer of a settlement of $3.5 million to go to some charity to settle some case that the Department had outstanding against some insurance company.

Commissioner Wilson was taken by surprise by the issue and returned to his office to investigate the situation. He told me he didn't yet know his lines of authority. However, he clearly stated that he felt it was inappropriate for the Attorney General, the Commissioner, or any other individual to decide what charity should be the recipient of settlement money. He felt any fines or penalties should go to the general fund.

The Meeting - according to Hatch

Hatch described the meeting in his deposition to the Legislative Auditor's office:

I invite Dick Niemiec of Blue Cross, and Mary Brainerd of HealthPartners. I tell everybody, you know what? This company is about to make a three and a half million dollar offer. They want to give it to a charity. Maybe they can give it to this group [the mental health charity]. What a fine thing. I tell these two, come along to the meeting. I'll introduce you to the new commissioner, who is their regulator. And so they come to the meeting. I make them wait in the lobby. By that time Jerich is there, pursuant to our discussion, and so he's there. Those two are there. They are in in the lobby. I go into the meeting with Wilson and Chief Deputy Eiden [Kris Eiden, deputy Attorney General and a former law partner of Hatch's]. She gets the letter. She kept the letter. Gives him a copy of the letter. He's reading the letter. I go over the mischief. I go over the whole nine yards what I've explained to you. This thing is bad. They tried to influence the [pauses] this proceeding by contributing to both the Democrats and Republican Candidates. You are going to get hit by political people on this thing. You make damn well and sure you don't cave in to it. This is extraordinarily unusual. This is not a good company. It's disreputable. You don't want to start off with this kind of a case.

We received conflicting and irreconcilable testimony on whether Attorney General Hatch told Commissioner Wilson on January 8, 2003, about the campaign contribution American Bankers Insurance made to the Republican Party.

Asked whether Attorney General Hatch discussed a campaign contribution from American Bankers to the Republican Party or showed him a letter from Mr. Eibensteiner to Mr. Jerich, Commissioner Wilson said: "I don’t believe that happened." Asked whether he was sure it did not happen, he said: "It didn’t happen." Asked whether it was possible that the conversation occurred as Attorney General Hatch described it, but that it did not register on him, Commissioner Wilson said: "I don’t believe so." Asked if he could reconcile his recollection and testimony about the meeting with that of Attorney General Hatch, Commissioner Wilson said: "No, sir.".

Questions

So what did Wilson know, and when did he know it?
• Did Hatch show Wilson the form letter from Eibensteiner at the January 8 meeting, or not?
• Was it an Ambush?
• Did Hatch call Niemiec and Brainerd to the meeting because, as he said, he wanted them to meet the man responsible for regulating them - as he confronted the same man with the letter from Eibensteiner? Or was it to nail down the specifics of the contribution to the Community Mental Health Trust?
• And did the Commerce Department actually give American Bankers a better deal based on their contribution to the national party?
• Why is Attorney General Mike Hatch bringing his client, Commerce Commissioner Glenn Wilson, into a meeting with a representative of his client's adversary (Jerich, representing American Bankers) and presenting allegedly incriminating evidence about the Client (Wilson) without (Wilson says) informing the Client about it first?

We'll talk about all of this in Monday's installment.

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It Just Occurred To Me...

It Just Occurred To Me... - ...that I am the only member of the Northern Alliance of Blogs that has not been on the Hugh Hewitt show.

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Local Media - I'm on schedule to finish Part Three tomorrow - detailing the meeting between Attorney General Mike Hatch, Commerce commissioner Glenn Wilson, and some other players in this controversy.

You can read Part One and Part Two, or the Story Index, right here.

Parts Four (the investigation) and Five (the media's side of this) will follow on Monday and Wednesday.

It's been an interesting experience. How interesting? I'll blog about that after I'm done with it.

Cops In Minneapolis - This

Cops In Minneapolis - This story from the Strib highlights an issue that came up last week, in the story about the drunk Minneapolis cop that allegedly beat up the motorist. A group of community activists assailed Minneapolis Police chief Robert Olson during his mid-year performance review.

inneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson wasn't surprised that the use of force and officer accountability would come up during his midyear job review Wednesday morning with Mayor R.T. Rybak and other top city officials.

But an unexpected visit by a group of community activists and the 14-year-old boy whose mother filed a brutality lawsuit this week turned a generally mundane administrative process into a discussion on how Olson will improve community relations.

Spike Moss, who did most of the speaking for the group, rejected the mayor's request that they set up another time to talk about the case of Damani Bediako, who allegedly was beaten by an officer last month.

"We don't want to wait," Moss said. "We don't want this put on the back burner. We're on the front burner today."

Minneapolis' police department seemed, in the mid-eighties, to take after Los Angeles. Darrell Gates' philosophy was always to have a relatively small force with a very strong "us against them" ethic. The stress of the overwork mixed with the attitude, the theory goes, to create a police department that was prone to excessive violence.

Minneapolis' police department has, in my memory, always had a similar reputation. And while I know most Minneapolis cops are as good as any, I also know that they've had some strange hiring practices; when I was working as a nightclub DJ, I can't tell you how many thumper bouncers I met who were waiting to get into Minnapolis' police training program. It always seemed strange to me that Minneapolis' police department seemed to have so many more problems than St. Paul's.

More on this as time permits.

Gloom of Impending Doom...Averted! -

Gloom of Impending Doom...Averted! - Lileks finally told us what the problem was.

I mean in no way to make light of his situation - it's scary. But speaking as a guy who's been out of work too many times to care to count (13 years in radio will do that), my unsolicited advice - buck up, camper. The world won't end - especially since your wife is a lawyer. The market for lawyers isn't all that bad right now.

Speaking of job hunting - I had a great first interview Tuesday. Hoping for a second next week. The job? Almost heart-breakingly perfect for my current aspirations.

Anyone pull some strings for me?

Testing 1...2...3...is this thing on?

Testing 1...2...3...is this thing on? - Blogger.com "upgraded" their service last night.

We'll see if this works.

UPDATE: It seems to. I was nervous - Sullivan was yakking about having trouble with it yesterday.

WHOAH! All the features now work on Mozilla! Life is good!

DOUBLE WHOAH! Archives and permalinks work again!

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Twin Cities Media, Part 2 - The second part of a five-part series.

Nobody argues that during last fall's election cycle, American Bankers tried to rent some influence with a potential, incoming Commerce Commissioner.

The big question is, why were the payments made the way they were? And how did Mike Hatch get that letter from Ron Eibensteiner?

Part Two today, Part Three on Friday.

Affirmative Action - Powerline was

Affirmative Action - Powerline was on fire yesterday, talking about the SCOTUS affirmative action decision.

The link is to the latest of several articles. Many are quite long - but all worth a read.

Reasons I Love Baseball, Part

Reasons I Love Baseball, Part XXVI - Once they hang up their cleats, football players seem to tend to go on to sell cars. Basketball players either get high-school coaching jobs or fall into bad habits. Hockey players and boxers sit and nod their heads at imaginary voices...

...but baseball players? They have it made.

It's a Legal Matter -

It's a Legal Matter - Doesn't hardly matter what I write about - abortion, guns, Mike Hatch, Music - but the thing that always gets me the most email is Gay Marriage.

I posted about this last week (I'd check, but my permalinks and archives are all hosed). I got quite a bit of response.

One letter came from regular reader EB, who wrote:

You miss the point entirely. Check your premises.

Contrary to popular opinion, the gay community is not just some benign collection of misarranged sexual preferences. For the most part, it consists of physically, sexually, and psychologically abused children who have found sanctuary with each other as adults in their shared sexual behaviors, which, in most cases, merely represent the repetition and compounding of earlier traumatizations in childhood.

This explains why there exists an unusual degree of anonymous sex in public places, an extraordinary high rate of sexually-transmitted diseases, high-risk sexual practices, rampant substance abuse, promiscuity, and gay violence. Genuine homosexuals do not behave in this manner, but most of the "gay community" does.

Gay "marriage" offers no solution to these problems whatsoever, but instead compounds the issue by demanding that a universally accepted institution be distorted by aberrant sexual behavior in defiance of both public health standards and simple common sense. Even the Romans recognized homosexual behavior as a threat to public health and injurious to its governing institutions.

I'm serious about that, actually. While I do believe gays should have access to contractrual civil unions, and that churches may decide for theological reasons to offer the sacrament of marriage to gays, I doubt I'd personally seek marriage in a church that recognized gay marriage as theologically sound. I doubt I'd even continue to worship there. That's not about bigotry, that's about faith, and having some basic standards. It may be the issue that finally runs me out of the Presbyterian Church, which, groaningly liberal as it is, is still (IMO) generally the most theologically sound denomination.

It is a completely misguided assumption that gay "marriage" has anything at all to do with the notion of spiritual union, religious or otherwise. It's about access to health care at a time when the gay community is being devastated by STDs and the AIDS epidemic, which is itself the product of gay political activism reaching all the way to the Pentagon.

Marriage - or whatever you call the union - is about whatever the two people involved make it, consciously nor not (and as a divorced guy, I'm here to testify - the unconscious or denied part is just as much a factor as the part you really think about).

As to the business aspects - the health care coverage for high-risk behavior - that is nothing the market can't handle.

Assuming, of course, we let the market handle it. That is both a different topic and a crucial one. Let's tackle that one later, shall we?

The whole point of the "don't ask, don't tell" challenge to military policy was deliberately mischaracterized as the "right to serve." In fact, the military is replete with homosexuals and always has been. Who do you think started the USO?

If the issue were really about homosexual "unions," the gay community would find any contractual validation it seeks in common law. But that is not their intent. What they want is to use "marriage" as a gateway to the State and corporate health benefits of their employed sexual partners, which most could not otherwise obtain, and which they want the rest of us to pay for. If you think your health insurance premiums are high now, what do you think they will be by the time you're paying for 4 million dying AIDS patients every year, a plethora of epidemic diseases from Hepatitis C to syphilis, and endless trips to psychotherapy and emergency room facilities --all because a tiny vocal minority insists someone sticking an arm up someone else's anus or pulling a train all night with unprotected multiple partners and a headful of amyl nitrate is perfectly "normal behavior?"

I'd suspect that insurance companies, if allowed to operate under sound actuarial practice, would price insurance to gay couples commensurate with risk, which would enforce saner behavior.

And for those gays for whom "union" is, for whatever reason they believe, a genuine personal or even religious observance (and there are a few - I know a handful), I'd suspect society (given a healthy, unimpeded market) would be little worse off for allowing them to legally marry.

The suggestion that gay "marriage" would do anything to remedy the public health problem is laughable. To the contrary, aside from again mischaracterizing the issue, it would unfairly penalize and invalidate those in the majority of society who do not engage in repetitive, dangerous, promiscuous sexual behavior unequivocally associated with the spread of insidious disease and the solicitation of minors. What Sullivan refers to as "civil equality" is just lipstick on a pig.

To tell you the truth, my whole outlook on this issue is informed by the following:

• I'm straight, and have no personal interest in the issue.
• I have many gay friends who do, and I have a hard time seeing gays as a huge threat to society.
• I am a Christian, so I have a set view of what "marriage" is. Two people, two genders, family. I believe this is the majority view in this country.
• I'm a libertarian who believes that our government is as much set up to protect people from the majority view as to perpetuate it.
• That opposition to gay marriage is built on a number of logical inconsistencies which have little to do with religious faith.

Many simply do not acknowledge a need to make anything but religious arguments on this matter - or any other. They pick pieces of the Bible with which they agree (you won't find many members of the religious right decrying usury or personal wealth) and then insist that they be reflected in the civil law. They see zero distinction between religion and politics. Zero. Can you imagine Jonah quoting a fundamentalist Muslim who simply asserted that "many social conservatives in America believe there is one God who is Allah and a Koran that says that women have no right to vote."

What do you think?

Reader Mail - Regular reader

Reader Mail - Regular reader and frequent writer PH writes about the rather long schedule for putting out my story about the American Bankers brouhaha:

Every Other Day? Mitch! Why the dawdling? Just put the story out!

Part 2 will be out tomorrow, of course. Even if I have to tranquilize the kids...

Smart Distraction

The Strib discusses Mike Hatch's allegations about budget cuts and sexual predators and his claims that Pawlenty's "no tax" pledge is behind the cuts to the State Gang Strike Force.

Here's the money quote:

Hatch on Monday defended his actions, describing as a "smart distraction" suggestions that political ambitions were motivating him.

"The issue is not whether sexual predators should be put in halfway houses as part of their treatment plan because of budgetary costs. No, the issue is that the attorney general is political," Hatch said sarcastically. "The issue is not politics, the issue is not the governor's race. I'm not running for governor; I'm being attorney general."

Let's see: The Attorney General is:

• Playing the "Sexual Predator" story for all it's worth; the Strib article is good enough to note "At a news conference Monday, Pawlenty asked why Hatch, the state's highest-ranking DFLer and, officially, the governor's lawyer, didn't walk across the hall at the Capitol to ask about the implications of the story."
• Accusing the governor of being soft on crime because of the funding cuts to the Gang Strike Force, which was allegedly a DFL action in the first place (more on this later)
• Allegedly used the American Bankers Insurance story for political leverage (see the first part of a five part series on this story).

More on the Gang Strike Force and ABI stories in this space later this week.

Above the Law - Six

Above the Law - Six of the Nine Dwarves have commented on the Supreme Court decision on Affirmative Action.

Gephardt says:

"When I'm president, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day," Gephardt said.

So President Gephardt would bypass the legislative and judicial branches to create law?

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich also made a pledge to put affirmative action into federal law as president.

"If this president doesn't want to let us be one nation, then it's time to elect a president who will let us be one nation," Kucinich said.

But I think most Americans are sharper than that.

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Media: Part I

If a Settlement Falls In The Forest, and Nobody Hears It...

A source close to the story says "Make no mistake, American Bankers was a bad player. Everyone acknowledges that." 

In early August of 2002, American Bankers Insurance
retained Ron Jerich, an Eagan-based lobbyist.  

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Twin Cities Media - Today, I kick off a five-part series on the American Bankers Insurance story.

You may remember the story; last March, the local media carried the story that new Commerce commissioner Glen Wilson had reduced the amount charged American Bankers Insurance compared with the fine the previous Commissioner, Jim Bernstein, had negotiated - after details of a $10,000 check from American Bankers to the Republican Party "surfaced". Some took this as evidence of a quid pro quo.

But the story's not that simple.

The story will run in five parts between now and Wednesday, July 2.

Today - the introduction and background to the story.

Mistaken Identity - Punk rock

Mistaken Identity - Punk rock fans of a certain age who are also news junkies have to listen carefully these days.

That's something I found out yesterday, listening to news coverage of the Arizona wildfires. They had a quote from the governor of Arizona - and when they read the name, I thought "Whaaaaa?"

So, for my future reference as well as yours:

• This is Arizona governor Janet Napolitano.
• This is Concrete Blonde bassist Johnette Napolitano.

The Other Goldberg - I

The Other Goldberg - I always loved reading old Saturday Evening Posts when I was a kid - if nothing else, for the Rube Goldberg cartoons. These cartoons, with Goldberg's fanciful inventions, were a fun chuckle.

But for others, they were an inspiration, as we see in this new Honda ad. [Flash 6 required, although there's a Quicktime link on the page].

(Also via Andrew Sullivan)

Fact-Checking 101 - The NYTimes,

Fact-Checking 101 - The NYTimes, as Sullivan noted, uncorked a doozy, making the casual press observer wonder if their fact-checking department perhaps took an overly hard hit in the recent layoffs:

But it was the pope's presence here that spoke volumes. His arrival comes as the broken pieces of the Baltic states are desperately trying to prove that they have made progress toward unity and deserve a first step toward admission into the European Union.

Neocon Human Rights Priorities -

Neocon Human Rights Priorities - Minnesota Blogger "Dennis", who runs the Moderate Republican blog, asks a question you hear from an awful lot on the left:

while the neocons can pat themselves on the back for dispatching such a brutal regime as was Saddam's you have to wonder how important human rights really are for neocons. They claim the human rights are important and scorn those who want to take a more cautious approach. Then why have they been so silent on the killing taking place in the Congo? It has been estimated that maybe 3 million have died in the fighting that has taken place. Why are they not shaking their fists about this?

Had Congolese been at the sticks on any of the 9/11 planes, or if the Zairian prime minister been developing poison gas with which to conquer Botswana when he was ready, it might be a very different situation.

Don't get me wrong; I wish we could do something about the Congo. Much of the fighting is taking place in the Ituri forest, a place that I've read about since I was in elementary school. It's a place written elequently about by Jean-Pierre Hallet, a man who's spent the last fifty years working with and publicizing the everlasting plight of the Pygmies. Beyond the Congo, I wish we could save the victims of every contest between thugs, ideologues and tyrants.

So how many American lives is that worth to you?

Nose Art, 2001 - As

Nose Art, 2001 - As a military history buff and an aviation afficionado, aircraft nose art has always been a fascination. The paintings on B-17s and B-24s during the Second World War summed up the popular art of its time better than Warhol's did the sixties, I think. Fascinating stuff, the subject of nearly as many books as there were aircraft, it seems.

The last forty years have been hell on nose art, though. The need for camouflage and low-contrast paint jobs have made nose art a generally subtle thing (although the A-10 Warthog can occasionally be seen sporting full-color Flying Tiger sharks' teeth, I'm told.

Powerline has the goods on the most evocative piece of nose art to come from the war on terrorism:

The story is fascinating. And I've seen it reproduced - as I recall, on an F-18 flying off one of our big carriers during the Afghan war.

I'm just glad I have a copy now!

Did He Jump, or Was

Did He Jump, or Was He Pushed - For all of the talk about the potential recall of Gray Davis, it could all be derailed by a simple act; Davis' resignation:

Oakland Mayor (and former California governor) Jerry Brown, in Washington this past week, speculated that Davis could instantly destroy the recall movement by resigning. That would elevate Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante to the governorship. Sen. Barbara Boxer has sketched the same scenario in private conversations with fellow Democrats.

War Story - Tommy Franks

War Story - Tommy Franks tells his story. It's an interesting read, and will have to do until the real history comes out...

Shhhhh - Don't tell my

Shhhhh - Don't tell my kids it's here. I don't want to buy the book quite yet.

Boyz of Summer - SCSU

Boyz of Summer - SCSU Scholars go on at wondrous length (by Blog standards) about the poetry that is baseball.

Speaking of which - if you're looking for a great summer diamond-related read, check out my Dad's book from about five years ago, "Common Ground",which is a tour through North Dakota amateur and minor-league ball going back to the turn of the century. Well worth a read.

Who cares about North Dakota minor-league ball in the 20th century? Hollywood, that's who. Well, maybe. "Pitch Black" may, like any Hollywood project about a non-blow-em-up subject, become a movie about the golden age of Negro League ball, much of which played out in the small-town ballparks of North Dakota in the thirties, when Satchel Paige pitched for Bismark and Josh Gibson played for Jamestown. The movie's been underway for years, and who knows if it'll ever be produced, but the website for the project alone is worth a visit. The story, on the page or the silver screen, is a fascinating one, if you're into baseball played the old-fashioned way.

Paging Morgan Grams - Presidential

Paging Morgan Grams - Presidential Candidate Howard Dean's son has allegedly been caught burgling a country club for liquor.

Wonder if the media will pounce on this the way they did President Bush's 20-year-gone drug use, or, locally, Morgan Grams' problems?

Shocked. Shocked, I Tell You

First, I'm glad I live in Saint Paul. There seem to be far fewer of this type of incident here than in Minneapolis (although I admit I've never really kept detailed count).

In fact, while I know lots of excellent cops in Minneapolis from my brief stint as a freelance cop-beat reporter, it always seemed that the MPD was prone to, er, issues.

[Former MPD officer Michael] Olson is charged with second-degree felony assault with a firearm, misconduct by a public officer, reckless use of a dangerous weapon and two counts of driving while intoxicated...

The fight occurred in the early hours of Dec. 11 after Olson left a Christmas party at a downtown bar that was put on by members of the police department's 5th Precinct. During his testimony, Olson said he drank four mixed drinks, at least three beers, and two "shots" during the party, but still felt at the time that he could drive safely. But when asked by prosecutor Al Harris if he now realizes he was impaired by alcohol, Olson replied, "In hindsight, probably."

The incident starts:

Olson acknowledged that he drove the wrong way on Fifth Street between Hennepin and Nicollet avenues and that he turned around after another car driven by 27-year-old Willie Lee Cash squeezed by him going in the opposite direction. Olson turned into an alley and backed out on Fifth Street going the right direction, but found himself blocked behind Cash's car, which had stopped in the street.

At that point, Olson said he saw "a tough black male exit his vehicle."

"He was pretty mad … coming toward my car," said Olson, a slightly built Asian officer who said he weighs about 160 pounds.

Olson, who was not wearing a uniform, said he shut off the engine of his car, unlocked his glove box and retrieved a pistol, putting it in his pocket. Olson said he then got out of his car and began arguing with Cash, telling him that he was a police officer and showing his badge.

Olson said he drew his gun after Cash assaulted him and that he was in "police mode" when that happened.

"I knew this was a situation where it was not going to look good either way," Olson said. "But it didn't matter. He (Cash) was going to jail."

No, this post is not about the relative merits of Olson or Cash's positions, or about the lawsuit against the MPD. This is about how some local anti-gun activists are spinning the story.

You see - this story is an indictment of the Minnesota Personal Protection Act!

In the ensuing struggle, Olson lost his pistol, which was picked up by a passerby and has never been recovered...Olson was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where his blood alcohol level was measured at .24 percent, or nearly 2½ times the legal limit to drive. He initially claimed that he couldn't remember anything about the fight, but said Thursday that detailed memories of it came back over several months.

...and, according to some on the local left, it's an indictment of the law-abiding concealed carry permit holder?

Does anyone want to place a bet on the legal proceedings the Minneapolis Police Department would take against a carry permit holder who got into a fight while blowing a .24 Blood Alcohol Level?

This story shows two things:

1. Humans make mistakes, sometimes groaningly-serious ones that can kill innocent people, and
2. the local left will stop at nothing to try to find something to use to impugn the MPPA and its constituents.
   Posted by Mitch at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)

American Bankers and the

American Bankers and the Local Media - As I said earlier this week, my story on the American Bankers brouhaha will probably kick off Monday, in five parts, more or less daily (one or two parts could get delayed). Things keep popping up here...

Legislative Auditor James Nobles has a guest editorial in the PiPress today which spells out his office's position rather more concisely than his office's report on the subject (warning - Huge PDF file). Money quote:

If you do not know — or accept — that the Attorney General Hatch was being deceptive on Jan. 8, you can reasonably conclude he broke the law. But if you accept — as I do — that he was being deceptive, you would conclude as I did that the attorney general's actions were disturbing, but not illegal.

The real story here is in the coverage.

And we'll be talking about that starting Monday.

Gang Strike Force

The local left is making much of Mike Hatch's op-ed in yesterday's Strib, trying to pin cuts in the Gang Strike Force on Governor Pawlenty.

As I'm discovering, you always need to check behind the scenes.

A source at the Capitol notes that during the negotiations for the Omnibus Judiciary Bill, Senator Jane Ranum (DFL - Minneapolis) insisted that any available money be allocated to battered women's shelters and Civil Legal Aid in preference to the Gang Strike Force.

The Strike Force, by the way, isn't a dead issue; cities can pony up part of the tab, in a deal that (according to sources) works like this:

• Cities will have to pay the salaries of the officers involved.
• The state will pay for overtime and vehicles.

Hatch's op-ed closed with the following admonishment:

The very core of government is its responsibility to protect its citizens. There is no question that taxes must be kept in line, but when government leaders convert a "No new tax" pledge into an unyielding policy without regard to the consequences for the citizens they were elected to serve, their actions become irresponsible.

And the other unyielding policy - Mike Hatch is spinning.

Da Nort Is Red -

Da Nort Is Red - Powerline covers President Bush's visit to Fridley today. Money comment - one which echoes something I've been harping on for a while:

Pawlenty said that he asked President Bush why he comes to Minnesota so often, and Bush replied that it was his love of Spam that brings him back. In reality, of course, Bush knows that Minnesota is rapidly moving out of the Democratic column. He expects to carry Minnesota in 2004, along with a number of other traditionally Democratic states.

The big question - what will it take to have a conservative win in the inner city?

Oh, don't laugh. If Brett Schundler could win the Jersey City mayorship - and Joisey City is at least as myopically Democrat as St. Paul, if not as Berkeleyistic as Minneapolis - then why couldn't a conservative come up with a message that'd sell in the inner city? Leave Norm Coleman aside (and after all, he won both of his mayoral elections as a DFLer) - I think it's possible.

It's going to be a serious topic on this list in future weeks. Have an opinion? Write me. This should be good.

Feeling All DeLorean - Y'know,

Feeling All DeLorean - Y'know, I don't mind getting hype like I'm getting from the Fraters today. Except now I have to make sure this article is a barn-burner, which means burning lots of midnight oil making sure things are as good as they can be - something I rarely do during normal blogging.

Speaking of the Fraters - they've urged us all go to over to the Move On website and register to vote in their straw poll. The poll will be held June 24, among (apparently) those who are registered. The Fraters suggest voting for Howie Dean, and I second the motion (but only because Ed McGaa isn't a contender).

Curse You, Squawkbox - Squawkbox,

Curse You, Squawkbox - Squawkbox, my comment server, seems to be both slowing the loading of my site, and occasionally eating comments. On the other hand, it's free.

Oh, I so wanna get Moveable Type going...

Developments - Busy job-hunting this

Developments - Busy job-hunting this morning, and taking the kids swimming this afternoon. Will post more tonight.

Here's an update: my series on Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Minneapolis Star/Tribune will start on Monday.

36 - Ohio will probably

36 - Ohio will probably follow Minnesota in enacting a shall-issue law.

When (not if) it passes, it'll be 36 states with shall-issue laws, including several (Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Ohio) with some of our biggest cities.

Does any of the palaver sound familiar?

The issue has crossed party lines and has instead divided lawmakers along urban and suburban-rural lines.

The measure is supported by the Buckeye State Sheriffs Association, whose members would process permit applications. The highway patrol and Fraternal Order of Police have adopted positions of neutrality. The Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police remains opposed.

Your "Books" Confuse and Frighten

Your "Books" Confuse and Frighten Me - Elder, over at Fraters, catches the Strib's latest cheapshots in the culture wars.

The Grind Grinds On -

The Grind Grinds On - Another job interview today. Nothing special -just another recruiter. I had a slew of interviews with this type last winter, when I was first on the beach; recruiters and "staffers" were collecting resumes, getting ready for the pickup in hiring...

...that they're still waiting for.

But I'm going, because it keeps my interviewing chops in shape (practice makes perfect), and because you never know which recruiter or headhunter or guy sitting next to you at Khan's for that matter is going to be the one with the job that finally ends the drought. My first-ever good job in software design came from a recruiter that had no idea what a software designer was when we met at a job fair - we barely spoke. But six months later, she had a one-off request for a GUI designer from a client that had been buying nothing but Java geeks and electrical engineers, and she spent a frantic few moments digging for my business card. A month later, and I was off to the races.

I only say that by way of hoping that I get some of that karma going pretty soon here. I've been through most of the stages of unemployment;

1. anger,
2. financial panic,
3. coping,
4. existential panic,
5. existential coping,
6. anger at the gabbling cretins that make so many decisions that affect your life, like the passive-aggressive little twerp at A_____ _______ that showed up an hour late for my interview and then proceeded to spend most of our talk staring at his cell phone, and who will get his spine cut with a bolt cutter if he ever comes into my offic...
7. calming down
8. coping, yet a-farging-gain, and, right now,
9. mild depression.

Anyway - back with more later!

Gay Marriage - Canada has

Gay Marriage - Canada has become the first country in North America to legalize gay marriage.

It's no surprise that it's Andrew Sullivan's topic du jour.

This is one of those issues, like the death penalty and commuter rail, where I break with some of my fellow conservatives. I think that we need to:

1. separate the religious and legal aspects of marriage,
2. allow gays to enter into the same sort of contractual obligations that straight couples assume when they get married
3. let churches and other religious groups decide what "marriage" is in their respective faiths, separate from the legal issues, and
4. leave people alone.

Reinforce Conceal - I'm a

Reinforce Conceal - I'm a former McGovern liberal. I used to favor (pro forma) a sweeping civilian gun ban. That was, obviously, a long time ago. But I can sympathize with some of the concerns of some of those who are active against the Minnesota Personal Protection Act.

To a point.

Repeal Conceal is the site that's distributing the "Repeal Conceal Carry" bumper stickers that are popping up on Volvos all over Mac-Groveland and Highland Park. The site is run by Christopher Farley (although WHOIS isn't officially listing the site's owners or anything beyond the fact that local provider Visi.com hosts it), a Grand Avenue businessman whose store I've patronized before, and most likely will again.

The site reads like this:

Almost immediately after its passage in the Minnesota Senate, Governor Tim Pawlenty inked his name on the Concealed Carry bill.

This law permits almost anyone, including non-Minnesotans, to carry a concealed loaded handgun almost anywhere in the state.

Concealed-carry laws have been passed in 34 other states, but Minnesota's flavor of concealed-carry is particularly extreme. Here are some provisions:

We've all heard the objections on the part of some business owners and churches to the signs that must be posted to warn gun owners that the premises are off-limits. Farley notes that in many other "shall-issue" states, the signage requirements are a lot less onerous; Farley noted Minnesota's font, size and wording requirements, as well as the requirement that each sign include the business name, calling it an imposition on property rights.

And he probably has a point. Now comes the chicken-vs.-egg question: had the Metro DFLers that opposed the bill (in minority for the last three sessions) done the honest thing, and admitted the votes were there to pass the bill into law absent their backroom machinations, and had they worked to bring their constituents concerns to the process rather than scaremongering and trying to terrorize the state into opposing the bill (with a notable lack of success, as it turns out), would things have turned out different? Remember - one of the biggest impetuses to passing the bill, immediately and as it was at the end of April, was the sure knowledge that had the Metro DFLers in the Senate managed to get the bill into conference committee one more time, it would have killed the bill for the whole session, even though the votes were there to pass the MPPA on a floor vote from day one!. By choosing the "Death or Glory" approach, the Metro DFL got "death" (by their alarmist standards, anyway), and we got a law that, strong as it is, could have been better.

So - are the signage restrictions onerous? Perhaps, albeit less so than many other burdens businesses are required to carry (ADA jumps to mind). The metro opposition has itself partially to blame for this.

Although it's good to see the Metro DFL finally developing an interest in property rights!

Onward through the website:

* Guns are allowed in parks.
* Guns are allowed in city hall meetings.
* Non residents can carry concealed guns.

* Sheriffs may not deny an permit to somebody who has been acquitted of a crime. (This and the above provision mean that someone like O.J. Simpson could come to Minnesota and carry a concealed gun.)

Second: It's irrelevant in the real world; anyone, convicted of a crime or not, who is likely to be a problem in the first place is probably carrying a gun anyway, without the nicety of a permit.

* Guns are allowed at the State Fairgrounds.

Farley makes a point I've heard many, many others make; that he can't imagine why a responsible gun owner would carry at the fairgrounds. He has a point; shooting in self-defense at a crowded place like the Fair would be a very dicey proposition, legally and technically. And it makes perfect sense...

...if you assume the goal of the MPPA is to kill criminals. But it's not. It's to deter crime. So while I doubt that I'd even carry a pistol at the fairgrounds or in any other large crowd (I doubt I'd be able to use it effectively and safely), I don't necessarily want our city's gang-bangers and thugs to know that I can't. You know the ones that I'm talking about - the ones that have been shooting each other at the Mall of America, despite the fact that the Mall has forbade guns on premises since the day its doors opened.

I'd like to give them the burden of the uncertainty, even if I'm nowhere near my pistol.

* Businesses can not prohibit guns on their private property unless they post signs at each entranceway and verbally notify each customer.

Don't get me wrong - I was into property rights before it was all the rage (just like I was a libertarian before John Ashcroft); if someone can suggest a way to protect property rights that doesn't make permit-holders into unwitting criminals, I'm all for it.

Suggestions, please!

An official legislative estimate states that this law will increase the number of people licensed to pack heat on Minnesota streets by 750%, from 12,000 now to 90,000. Needless to say, gun sales are going to go through the roof. Some portion of those guns will be stolen, and get into the hands of criminals.

Which dodges the point; if you gave EVERY Minnesotan with a clean criminal record and no chemical or psychological impairment a permit to carry, crime would at worst stay the same. That's not hyperbolic; that's the system they have in Vermont, and which Minnesota had until 1974.

Here's the most important part of this equation: Most Minnesotans feel that this law will make Minnesota a more dangerous place!

This law needs to be repealed, and it can be repealed!

This law circumvented most normal procedures in the legislature. It was tacked on to an unrelated bill. It didn't go through the normal committee process.

It didn't have very much public debate.

And if you read the story, you see compromise. Lots of compromises, from the beginning of the process up to nearly the day the law was passed. Compromise, that is, on the side of the bill's proponents. The opponents - Wes Skoglund, Matt Entenza, Ellen Anderson, the Strib Editorial Board - bent not a whit, keeping up their campaign of slander and vituperation even past the bitter end.

And the kicker is, I don't honestly think that the majority of Minnesotans, even opponents (for whatever reason) of the MPPA either buy into the infantile scare-mongering or the lying and exaggeration that's passing for so much of the discourse from the left on this issue. As I see it, the bulk of it comes down to a couple of simple issues (the signs being a big one) and a little bit of time for most Minnesotans to see that their law-abiding neighbors aren't the boogiemen that Ellen Anderson seems to think they are.

There are an awful lot of facts to digest when it comes to this issue. Unfortunately, if your sources are the Violence Policy Center, the Brady Campaign or Citizens for a Safer Minnesota, you won't be getting many of them.

Upcoming - Still working on

Upcoming - Still working on "Hatch And the Strib". Getting a few last interviews in, while I'm not job-hunting.

We're also going to address the "Repeal Conceal" website. I've put in a request for a response to a number of inconsistencies on their website. Still no comment.

More later.

Sexy Class' Looks Pave Way

Laura Billings, Pioneer Press Staff Columnist

Minnesota singles who have longed to date lingerie models will no longer be required to do anything inconvenient — like actually attract the objects of their desires.

After Monday's public round-table to discuss the recently green-lighted plan to socialize dating in the Twin Cities, we're speeding closer to the day when homely 40-something guys can demand evenings on the town with those poor undewear models, who spend hours every day keeping themselves in line with the current cultural concept of "beauty".

Now, there are naysayers who claim this sort of law sets up a two-tiered society, where enough persistence allows a schlemiel to cruise past all the quotidian nuisances that come from having to actually appeal, romantically, to the lingerie models. And yet, why should someone who has worked hard for his sore knees, worry lines, mortgage, and kids be forced to date similar women, while two 20-something hipsters cruise by on the way to an evening at Chino and Quest?? It just doesn't seem fair.

A lot of Minnesotans seem to agree. The measure enjoyed bipartisan support in the Legislature this spring. And according to a Minnesota Department of Dating survey of 400 metro residents last winter, 40 percent were in favor of requiring lingerie models to date guys once reserved for women their own age.

If this idea is so popular with people, it makes you wonder why we're not adopting a similar convenience law for all the other annoyances of modern life that force us to deal with reality?

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not really Laura Billings. This is actually Mitch. But it was fun taking a little walk through the psyche of a class-warrior like that.

For example, let's look at her next notion:

Say you're at the grocery store after 5 p.m., and every checkout lane is backed up to the bread section, all except for the "10 items or fewer" express lane. For a reasonable premium, you ought to be able to haul your 116-item cart up to that register and speed right through. The folks who actually followed the rules and chose fewer than 10 items will still get to use the express lane — it will just move a little slower now that you're in it. That seems fair.

Or how about this:

Or how about when you get to the movies right during the trailers only to find out that the theater is practically full and that there's someone — probably some sad sack who didn't have anything better to do than to get to the movies on time — sitting in your favorite center aisle seat. Well, for a convenience surcharge on top of the regular price, you should be able to bypass the ticket line, have the kids at the concession stand hand you your pre-ordered popcorn and Jujubes, while the ushers move the guy who got there before you over to another seat, right against the wall. If you paid a little more for the privilege, that's fair, right?

Billings continues:

Just imagine how wonderful our lives would be if we could store up all of this privilege on a little electronic convenience card.

You could swipe it and bypass the hour-long line for the ladies' room at Dixie Chicks and Norah Jones concerts. You could flash it and move your kids to the head of the waiting lists of the selective colleges they didn't quite make it into.

And if you ever needed a kidney transplant, you could run that thing through the scanner and cut a few years off your wait time. Ah, what a beautiful user-fee world it could be, if we would just give our legislators the chance.

After all, if you can afford to pay, shouldn't you be the first to play?

At the polls? In court? With the police? Before the eyes of G-d? Absolutely not.

But since the subject is an underutilized lane, built at excruciating cost to the taxpayers 15 years ago and which draws only the faintest film of carpoolers (because people just don't work like that these days!), why not make the state a few bucks?

And if you're so concerned, Ms. Billings, by all means feel free to chip in a few quarters so the underprivileged can drive and park easier.

Oh, wait - that'd make it personal, wouldn't it?

Murderers Welcome - The Minnesota

Murderers Welcome - The Minnesota Personal Protection Act allows private businesses to exclude legally-permitted people from bringing their firearms onto the premises. The catch - they have to post a sign at their entrance. For all the caterwauling of the anti-gun left, there's a purpose to this stipulation, and it's not just to make people caterwaul; it's to prevent "oopses", places where the law-abiding citizen can be breaking the law and not even know it.

That bothers some of the left, who'd like the law to be a byzantine maze of nuance filled with dark alleys of uncertainty, as long as it exists at all.

The PiPress covers the conflict over the signs in this article today.

Unscientific observations around the metro area suggest that most companies aren't posting signs. A Minnesota Chamber of Commerce survey also indicates that's the case. In early June the chamber informally surveyed its members. Nearly 70 percent of the 250 or so companies that responded already ban, or planned to ban, their employees from carrying guns at work. But only about a third said they planned to post a "no guns" sign and inform customers of the ban, said Tom Hesse, chamber director of labor management policy.

It's a fairly simple legal and marketing decision for most companies:

Some companies have decided. Minneapolis-based Target issued a statement saying it's a nationwide retailer that has to comply with a variety of laws across the country, and that its policy is to not post signs regarding guns in any state with conceal-and-carry laws.

Citizens for a Supine Safer Minnesota leader Rebecca Thoman says:

"It's necessary for them to be able to prohibit or ban weapons from their stores,'' Thoman said. "Legally, the assumption now is that if there's no sign posted, that guns are welcome."

Guns.

Like they have minds of their own.

Ms. Thoman; guns are already in every single one of the shops and establishments, whether posted or not. It's just that they're carried by untrained, usually criminal people.

That you and your organization put so much trust in them, while heaping your opprobium on the law-abiding, trained, documentably safe permit-holder worries and bothers me a lot more than any sign on any myopically-PC store.

By the way - feel free to vote in the PiPress' poll. Of course I'm a "yes".

Amblog Alert - I'm declaring

Amblog Alert - I'm declaring an amber blog alert for Jeff Fecke, blogger of the moderate left. (Although being as moderate as he is, maybe he just decided he'd better not actually write about anything...)

Oh, well - at least Layne is back, although don't talk about food around her just yet.

School Daze - Jay Benanav

School Daze - Jay Benanav "represents" me in the Saint Paul City Council, in the same way that Ellen Anderson and Alice Hausman and Betty McCollum and Mark Dayton "represent" me in St. Paul or Washington or Roswell as the case may be; my neighbors elected him. Don't blame me.

He ran for mayor in 2001, on a platform of (if memory serves) creating an ordinance against unhappiness and putting a surcharge on people who pay taxes and obey laws.

He's back in action now, with a proposed ordinance that unwittingly highlights the myopia of much DFL policy; limiting the number of houses per block that may rent to college students.

The hearings on Friday are reported in this morning's Strib:

The ordinance, proposed by City Council Member Jay Benanav, would apply to one-and two-family houses, not apartment buildings, college-owned housing or fraternities and sororities.

Bill Cullen, a member of the St. Paul Association of Responsible Landlords, said the ordinance would not solve the problems that concern most residents, such as rundown rental properties, noisy late-night parties and parking congestion.

This is classic DFL policy: react to the crimes of a few with a broad-brush approach that inconveniences and harms the many, without actually dealing the the problem of all those pukin', moonin', defecatin' college punks.

The ordinance will do nothing to deal with this problem at all; college parties aren't a matter of density, they're a matter of houses full of arrested adolescents and "girls gone wild", away from home and bored and with too much money on their hands. Limiting the number of college rentals per block won't keep bored college kids from screwing up.

But it will make college housing more expensive, less convenient and harder to find for everyone, troublemaker or not; when government artificially changes the supply of a thing, it inevitably changes the price.

Targeting troublemaker students would make much more sense - but that would put responsibility on the back of the colleges and universities in question. And avoiding responsibility is what they're best at:

Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations at the University of St. Thomas, said the university supports the ordinance because it's the university's responsibility to take care of landlord-student issues. "We work with landlords to create expectations to be respectful [to neighbors]," he said.

This is a stupid idea that punishes the law-abiding and does nothing to address the real problem; disinterested landlords, bored, irresponsible college kids, and the colleges that want to collect their tuition checks.

Calling All Loyal Democrats! -

Calling All Loyal Democrats! - Please, please please please, following the example of your friends in Wisconsin in endorsing Howard Dean:

Howard Dean was victorious in a straw poll of Democratic activists at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention.

Dean beat eight competing Democrats in both categories -- delegates and alternates, and official guests.

John Kerry was second to Dean in the delegate count (126 to 33). Kerry also was second to Dean in the guest count (77 to 17).

Dean's combined total of 203 topped Kerry's combined total of 50.

Either will make George McGovern's 1972 performance look good in comparison.

Kids in Iran - Bit

Kids in Iran - Bit by bit, it seems the regime in Teheran might be unravelling. The reports, despite the aggressive disinterest of the major media, seem to indicate that the mullahs are engaging in tactical retreats in the face of continued unrest - something that authoritarian regimes generally cannot do without grave risk to themselves.

Sullivan talks about the case for optimism albeit not glee in the Middle East, where for the first time a major Arab government is leaning on the Palestinians and Hamas.

In the meantime, in Iran, this seems to be looking less and less like the type of demonstrations du jour that occur throughout the Moslem world:

"It's scary talking to these people [the protesters]," says a seasoned political analyst reached by phone in Tehran, who asked not to be named. "There is such a determination in their eyes and their behavior. They are fearless; they are ready for combat. It's like [urban] warfare."

"They say: 'This is just the beginning, we have started it, and we are going all the way to the end,' " the analyst says. "But if you carry on the conversation, they have no idea about what the end should look like.... It is very dangerous."

In recent days, amid the din of supportive honking horns, some protesters have been matching violence meted out by vigilantes loyal to the regime with violence.

The clerical leadership blames the US - seen officially as the chief foreign meddler since the 1979 Islamic Revolution - for fomenting disorder. Iran's Foreign Ministry accused the US of exaggerating the scope of the protests by calling "a few individuals the voice of the people."

The US comments seem to be uniting hard-liners and reformists. Mehdi Karrubi, speaker of the reformist parliament, said that differences "among the children of the revolution are differences of taste but they are all united against the enemy...."

The US has made no secret of its desire for a new government in Iran. It accuses Iran of backing terrorism, pursuing nuclear weapons, harboring Al Qaeda, and encouraging anti-US forces in Iraq.

But polls have shown that some 90 percent of Iranians themselves want change, and that 70 percent want dramatic change - results that hard-line ideologues say are wildly inaccurate.

Ronald Reagan first began facing down the Soviets in 1983. His first truly substantive act was Grenada - yet another military action whose point and impact the left completely missed, an act of anti-communist resolve that did more than anything to induce at least cosmetic moderation in the Politburo (in the form of Gorbachev). The major turning point (we see in hindsight) came when Reagan faced Gorbachev down at Rejkjavik in 1986. And from then, it took five more years for the Berlin Wall to fall.

Eight years. But in that time, the world turned upside down.

In the past 20 months, the world has not turned upside down. But if you'd have said on September 10, 2001 that the Taliban would have been routed in 30 days by 100 US Special Forces, and that Hussein would be deposed and the threat of his WMDs erased forever by whatever means, and the Iranian Mullahs would be looking over their shoulders, and that Arab nations would be investing any political capital in trying to moderate PLO/Hamas, they'd have called you crazy.

The next 18 months will no doubt be fascinating.

The Untouchables

Ever since the budget cuts started a few months ago, one of the most irritating refrains of the local left - especially that part that works for state government - is that the "budget cuts attack everything that's good about Minnesota", or "cut at the heart of what makes this a liveable state". It's a cynical line of spin, of course; as if state workers and their working conditions and employment security, in and of themselves, are what made Minnesota great.

As the fellow pictured on the front page article on the subject in today's Pioneer Press (who is apparently being laid off by the Minnesota Historical society) put it:

“A lot of us working for the state felt blindsided. ... I always thought Minnesota was progressive, but now we’re in a bottom-line mode, and it’s harsh. It’s a step backwards, and I fundamentally don’t get it.”

But then you read further into the story; many state workers facing layoffs are...not facing layoffs:

Many senior employees are exercising their "bumping" rights to displace more junior workers in their agencies. Others are claiming vacant jobs in state agencies.

Of the first 300 AFSCME members who got layoff notices, about 100 "hit the streets," [AFSCME Council 6 executive director Peter] Benner said.

Of the 28 workers [State Employee Relations Commissioner Cal] Ludeman had to lay off after his agency's budget was cut by 15 percent, two-thirds found new jobs before they left the department, he said.

[Deputy Employee Relations Commish Ann] Schluter said the agency is making extra efforts to ensure that employees who may be laid off are informed about state benefits and services.

Those benefits include six months of state-paid health insurance, severance pay, unemployment insurance payments and, for some employees, early retirement options and deferred compensation. Employees facing layoffs also get directed to other jobs in state government, help in searching for private-sector jobs from the Minnesota WorkForce Centers and personal counseling from the state Employee Assistance Program.

A first-class university that gave business the talent it needed? Sure.

University employees that have cradle-to-grave job security and the lowest health insurance copays around? Not so much.

Good schools? Sure.

A teachers union that ensures that teacher salaries rise,across the board without regard to merit, faster than inflation? Nuh-uh.

A social safety net that keeps the unfortunate from starving? Yep.

A social safety net that subsidizes poverty indefinitely, with no accountability? No way.

Minnesotans? Yeah!

Minnesota's public employees' unions' view of public employment as sinecure? Wrong.

In March of '02, I was one of the first three whacked from a failing dotcom that is currently in the final stages of its death spiral. I was lucky enough to find a lousy job through a fleabag contracting agency, for a job that was eliminated in January after nine months, and have been scrambling to find small contract jobs while searching incessantly for permanent work, or even long-term contract jobs. Does that mean Minnesota's not a great place? In and of itself, no, although it may be a symptom of economic rot in the regional high-tech sector, a rot to which our overweening bureaucracy may have contributed - but no, I'd be a fool to assign my current troubles to some apocalyptic decaying of social morality.

And so would all you AFSCME people who, for the first time in many of your working lives, are having to learn how to search for jobs.

Bon voyage.

Wonks Arise! - Minnesota Politics

Wonks Arise! - Minnesota Politics is a for-profit website run by a few of Minnesota's top-rail wonks.

They apparently rolled out version 2 of their website last week. It's apparently new and improved.

Look for a fisking of their current freebie story shortly.

Leave aside the notion of paying a minimum of $50 a year to read what they write - I've read a fair amount of their material; it needs work (Mr. Erickson - before you opine on the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, it'd help to get a few of the facts straight). On the other hand, their April Fool's edition is occasionally brilliant.

But before one actually reads anything, one must contend with their website. Oh, sweet deities of information design; plain arial type on a canary-yellow background, with RSM news feeds in various shades of ultra-low contrast pale blue. I get a headache just typing those words.

And the site itself is a graphic hash; the layout looks like it was done with a potato gun at 200 yards.

Still, if they can make money at this, it's a good omen for all of us.

Sleeping History - Like a

Sleeping History - Like a lot of conservative bloggers, I'm holding off comment on Hillary! Clinton's new book. Unfortunately, I'd rather sit through a Green Party precinct caucus than actually read it.

And reading Mark Steyn's review of the book doesnt' make it sound one bit more promising:

Hillary's fans will buy the book, open Chapter One, and read, ''I wasn't born a first lady or a senator. I wasn't born a Democrat. I wasn't born a lawyer or an advocate for women's rights and human rights. I wasn't born a wife or mother . . . '' and think, well, that's just like the early bits of the Old Testament, all the begetting, or in this case all the things she wasn't begot as, so I'll just skip ahead to Chapter Two, and I'll bet it's really crackling along by now.

And Chapter Two begins: ''What you don't learn from your mother, you learn from the world' is a saying I once heard from the Masai tribe in Kenya.''

And you think, well, isn't that just wonderfully diverse, and she heard it from an actual tribe in Kenya! Any tribesman in particular? Or did they all yell it out in unison as her motorcade passed by? Either way, it's the sort of soothing multicultural sentiment that separates an enlightened progressive from rabid knuckle-dragging redneck Clinton-haters, and that's all you need to know. So you put the book up on the shelf and never open it ever again.

(Via Powerline)

Boomeritis - I need to

Boomeritis - I need to find a copy of Boomeritis by Ken Wilber; it's the main motivation behind this afternoon's library trip (that, and finding someplace with air conditioning. Just like when I was a kid).

But until then, Elizabeth DeBold's review in What Is Enlightenment? is not only good, but nearly as long as a book:

I am a boomer. Blooming right in the middle of the boomer eraborn in 1955and still booming strong. I have been part of one paradigm-busting, revolutionary movement after another since I came of age in the early seventies.(I even coauthored a book called Mother Daughter Revolution, about how mothers can change the future by changing the way they raise girls.) I know that whatever I'm involved in has the potential to entirely transform the world as we know it, to free us from the untold horrors of, well, you name itpatriarchy, racism, class oppression. Why? Because I'm a boomer, and boomers are going to change the world. And isn't it just perfect boomer style that I've also found a spiritual path that is evolutionary, revolutionary, and designed to change the world? Of course, I never really thought of myself as a boomer until I read Ken Wilber's Boomeritis (Shambhala Publications, 2002), his scathing and often hilarious indictment of boomer hubris.

However, there's one really obvious error:

So, what is boomeritis? First of all, it isn't just something for those of us born during the boomer years, 1946-1964.

So, nobody better be calling me a Baby Boomer. Got that?

The International Community - Here's

The International Community - Here's how the Europeans handle international crises.

Here's the money graf:

What the Congolese people need is to see an end to the killing and to reclaim their towns from machete- and Kalashnikov-wielding militias. But the Guardian reported that based on a French military briefing paper it obtained, the new force "will have a negligible impact on tribal conflict." According to the document, "France has no specific interest in the area except solidarity with the international community." (When talk of a European force for DR-Congo arose, some observers said French-British cooperation on the effort could help patch up rifts over the Iraq war.)

The military briefing paper notes that the force's exit is "firmly established" at Sept. 1, 2003. The Guardian quoted a European military source who has seen the document observing: "This is the most cynical military briefing I've read in my entire life. Everybody is just laughing at it." According to the Guardian, a forthcoming report by the International Crisis Group says, "This intervention, on the face of it, is totally insufficient to meet the needs of Ituri's pacification." (Le Monde reported that the United Nations and the European Union are meeting this week with Congolese President Joseph Kabila and faction leaders to help bring an end to hostilities and attempt to form a transitional government.)

L'Eveil of DR-Congo gave a more bleak assessment of the U.N. intervention in the country. After the international force's three months is up, the paper said, militias will resume their killing rampages. "To intervene in Bunia for three months, without disarming the Hema and Lendu militias, is a useless effort that will lead to no result." The paper said the United Nations—rather than send a supplementary force—should have equipped and authorized the existing U.N. force for decisive action on the ground. Referring to the U.N. peacekeeping force long stationed in Congo, the paper said the impression thus far is that foreign troops have come for tourism—"to loot the country's resources, to dance and drink champagne, to sleep with our daughters" then to leave when their time is up. "The Congolese people don't need that."

UPDATE: See if you can find any mention of these problems in this boilerplate Guardian piece.

Father's Day - Fathers Day

Father's Day - Fathers Day used to sort of bother me.

Part of it is the excessive Hallmarkization of the day; the whole thing is an excuse to sell cards.

A larger part of it is - or was - that for much of this country, it's hypocritical. This nation does not honor fathers. Fathers are routinely considered worth not much more than paychecks after divorce. "Fathers are a biological necessity, but a social accident" wrote Margaret Meade in 1956. Our society's social engineers treated this as gospel for four decades; today, the sons and daughters of those same thinkers wonder why we have a generation of young men who will father children but won't raise them; we have social programs and law enforcement initiatives to shame, cajole and force young men into raising - or at least paying for - their accidental offspring. Fatherhood is a big stick used to deter irresponsible sex.

But even in regular families, our culture trivializes fathers and fatherhood. Look at sitcoms; in TV families from Jackie Gleason and Fred Flintstone through the present day, the mother is the font of all wisdom; the father is buffonish comic relief. Look - and I mean, look honestly - at how fathers are portrayed in commercials, movies, art, music. Absence, ridiculousness, triviality rule the portrayals coming from our popular culture (sure, there are exceptions; for every John Walton or John Ingalls, there's a George Jetson).

Neil Tift wrote this, in an article from nine years ago that's not much removed from life today:

For hundreds of generations, child rearing has been the shared responsibility of both of the biological parents of their children. While the dichotomization of gender roles may have existed in many cultures, that has not generally excluded fathers from parenting roles and responsibilities, which might be defined as teaching, nurturing, supporting, communicating, disciplining and caring for their offspring.

Only in recent history, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the western world, have we seen a major emphasis in the separation of the male from the home. Prior to this, cottage industries prevailed for hundreds of years. This concept permitted mothers and fathers to live, work, and raise their children together within the home. If someone needed bread, they went to the home of the baker, who made and sold or bartered the bread from their cottage. Parents taught their children their trade, or sent them to the home of the harrier, or tailor, or candlemaker to learn a different trade. But, again, child rearing was a shared responsibility of both of the parents. As one conference participant noted, with the removal of the father from the village, the commitment toward fatherhood goes down. Then, men's investment in their village tends to decrease, resulting in a downward spiral.

But when I step out of rant mode, I realize I shouldn't complain. I was raised by a great father, one that taught me a lot about perseverance and critical thinking and love of learning - and about all the things I didn't want to do with my life. I hope my own kids do as well. Thanks, Dad.

So today, I'm thankful for what I have - and concerned for where we as a society all fall short.

The Inmates are Running The

The Inmates are Running The County - Doug Grow writes a paeon to criminals.

Hennepin County (which is where Minneapolis is) plans to defy the terms of the new concealed-carry law. This is, of course, against the law. It's also a lousy lesson for "the children".

The law's supporters make their usual case:

"We all have to abide by the laws that are set," Boudreau said. "You can't set new law just because you want to."

Joe Olson, a Hamline University law professor who did much of the actual writing of the conceal-and-carry law, also said there are no clauses allowing counties to follow only those portions they like.

"If you or I did what they're doing, we'd go to jail," he said. "There was a lawyer at the [commissioners'] meeting. He pointed out they were intentionally violating the law. They are setting themselves up to be sued."

Olson said strategy sessions already are being held regarding ways to counter rebel governments in the state.

"The test case will be carefully planned, I assure you," he said. "Right now, our tactic is to wait and see if they're really going to try to enforce their ban. They know it's illegal. They may be doing this just to make themselves feel good. Obviously, if they try to enforce, there will be a suit."

Meantime, he said, "think of the message [that the Hennepin County commissioners] are sending to our youth: 'If you're big, the law doesn't apply to you."

Dorfman obviously detests the new law. She said her decision to look for ways to adjust it came after a phone call from a constituent.

"This woman called and said, 'I'm taking my kids to the library. Are there going to be people with guns there?'

"I had this vision that you can't even take your children to the youth reading session at the library without thinking about guns. There's something wrong with that."

What's worse is that the likes of Doug Grow can lionize this sort of thing - inflammatory paranoia, and shifting of blame for society's problems to the law-abiding citizen. Worse still, Grow compares this sort of thing - "government civil disobedience", Grow calls it, oblivious to the oxymoron he's just coined - with the Boston Tea Party.

Sorry, Doug Grow. You have it backwards. The Boston Tea Party was thrown by a bunch of grassroots patriots who fought for the rights of the law-abiding individual against overbearing, overweening government.

The Hennepin County Commission is the redcoats, in this case.

As always, I welcome the opportunity to debate Mr. Grow on this subject. Have his people call my people.

Baghdad Mike - In his

Baghdad Mike - In his book Baa Baa Black Sheep, Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington relates a story from his air battles over the Solomon Islands in 1943. He was jumped by a group of Japanese aircraft. He radioed his second-in-command, Captain George Ashmun.

"Come on help me out here", he said, "I've got five of 'em surrounded".

"Where are they?" Ashmun asked.

"Outside this cloud I'm in", Boyington responded.

That's what leapt to mind when I heard Minnesota DFL State Chair Mike Erlandson, commenting about President Bush's visit to Minneapolis next week - which will fall the day before the meeting of the Democrat National Committee and the gathering of the Nine Dwarves.

I just heard Erlandson on the radio, commenting about the timing of Bush's trip, and its suggestion - that Minnesota is in play, and could actually vote Republican in '04.

"I knew we had 'em on the run, but..."

I missed the rest. I was laughing too hard. It was a performance worthy of Baghdad Bob.

Yes, Mike. We're on the run. We got the governor, the "Wellstone Seat", another US House seat, the State House, and we're within a few votes of taking the Senate. We held the line on taxes, beat you squarely on concealed carry, and may very well put our electoral votes in the Red column next year. Five will get you ten one of us will be taking Mark Dayton's job in '06.

If we were any more on the run, we'd own Wisconsin, too.

I realize Erlandson has to keep his troops' morale up. But henceforth in this column, Erlandson shall be known as "Baghdad Mike", in honor of his ability to squeeze fictional victory from the jaws of real defeat.

Baghdad Mike.

Have a great weekend.

Status Plus Shameless Plug -

Status Plus Shameless Plug - Here we go:

Good News: I'm in the final three for a job I'd really like to land.
Bad News: Again.

Good News: Another company seems to be interested in having me do a bunch of little odd-lot contract jobs.
Bad News: Maybe. Soon.

Need a software designer/usability guy/Biz Analyst? Just asking.

Good News: Contributions keep coming in, which keeps "Shot In The Dark" self-supporting. Thanks!
Bad News: Nothing bad about that.

Good News: Kids are home from school, giving us all sorts of quality time.
Bad News: Kids are home from school, giving us all sorts of fights and screaming.

Good News: I keep getting great information for my article.
Bad News: This is going to be a bear to write.

Good News: Started second trimester of bagpipes on Tuesday.
Bad News: Four months closer to having to shell out for a set of pipes. I need that job!

More as we go along here.

Where's WMD? - Don Lambro

Where's WMD? - Don Lambro in the Washington TImes discusses the most important point about the WMD chase; to most Americans, it's irrelevant:

I think we will find further evidence of weapons buried in the sands of Iraq. But the news media's obsession with such weapons overlooks one important and overriding reality: Most Americans think the quest for illegal weapons at this juncture is irrelevant.
Last month a national Gallup poll for CNN and USA Today found that 79 percent of Americans said the U.S. was fully justified in toppling the Iraqi regime without any evidence of such weapons.
An April poll by The Washington Post showed that 72 percent supported the war's objectives, even if no chemical or biological weapons were found. The Post quoted Pew Research Center pollster Andrew Kohut saying, "If I were a Democratic candidate, I don't think I would be pushing this issue." Mr. Kohut noted that at the start of the war, nearly 40 percent said that even if weapons of mass destruction were not found, the war was still the right thing to do. That number leaped to nearly 60 percent by the war's end.
"Inasmuch as we've already done the deed, the need for that as a rationale is less," Mr. Kohut said.

Oddly this kind of calculus seems lost on supposedly sophisticated liberals, especially those in the media. Ever since the Vietnamese War, liberals have demanded that the government present a simple, single rationale for military action. Whenever multiple reasons are presented, they accuse the government of equivocating. Fortunately, the public understands that decisions over war and peace are more complicated than this, and they are capable of performing a cost-benefit analysis involving multiple considerations.

But first, expect a media blitz about the missing WMDs and angry Shi'ites - and a drought of stories about mass graves and Iraqis growing into democracy.

Those Days - This is

Those Days - This is one of those weeks I wish this was a group blog, like some of my favorite local blogs (Fraters Libertas, Powerline and SCSU Scholars, for example). Each of them is at least three guys - so if one of them has an off week, the others are still writing away.

Of course, many of my other favorite blogs - Sullivan, Lileks and Instapundit - are still solo acts. But Sullivan gets $100K or more per year in contributions, Lileks writes fulltime, and Glenn Reynolds is obviously really four or five people.

Sigh

So I'll beg your indulgence for my off-ish week here, and assure you better days are in store.

Very soon.

Hagiographic Elementary - The Saint

Hagiographic Elementary - The Saint Paul Public Schools re-name one of their schools after Paul and Sheila Wellstone.

They take their hagiography seriously here in Saint Paul:

The decision concludes a rigorous selection process that began several months ago. After reviewing lengthy applications and conducting school visits of the three finalists, a selection committee decided that Saturn/River Front’s school climate and culture best matched the passion and perserverance that played out in the lives of both Paul and Sheila Wellstone. The selection committee included the Wellstones’ son Mark, a teacher at Humboldt Senior High School in Saint Paul; Minnesota Sen. Mee Moua; and Shawn Huckleby, a Saint Paul parent who is active in the school district.

“Paul and Sheila Wellstone were both known as people with strong values, high energy and a commitment to social justice,” said Saint Paul Board of Education Chair Al Oertwig. “These are energies and values I hope all of our students will consider as they prepare for adult life.”

The newly named Wellstone Elementary School currently enrolls about 500 students. About 85 percent of the students are students of color, half are English language learners and nearly 90 percent receive federally funded free or reduced-price lunch.

From Whole Cloth - You've

From Whole Cloth - You've seen the stories; the looting, or the "Saving Private Lynch" pieces where reporters repeat, ingenuously, stories that, even to the casual observer at home, have vast gaping holes.

You wait a day, maybe less. Then a blogger - the info-age equivalent of an inventor tinkering in a basement shop - who happens to have some knowledge of the area, or an off-the-wall contact, writes a piece correcting the major-media story. People read the blog, and more people add more details to the debunquement, which soon starts to snowball into an unstoppable juggernaut of accuracy, which is distilled three weeks later into a two-line correction on page B-17 of the Times.

Roger Kimball in the Journal, with an excellent article about the press' susceptibility to anti-American fantasies:

In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd skirled about coalition forces "guarding the Iraqi Oil Ministry building while hundreds of Iraqis ransacked and ran off with precious heirlooms and artifacts from a 7,000-year-old civilization." Oh dear. Everywhere one turned, the major media had the same story: Thousands upon thousands of rare, priceless, irreplaceable artifacts had been "taken or destroyed by looters." One hundred thousand objects, according to some reports; 270,000, according to one story in the London Observer.

The Iraqis were looting themselves, but responsibility for the outrage was placed squarely at the feet of the Americans. On April 13, the Washington Post grimly informed readers that "it has become increasingly clear that the looting that was sparked by the fall of Saddam Hussein's government--largely unchecked by U.S. forces--has wreaked more damage on Iraq's civilian infrastructure and economy than three weeks of U.S. bombing." The Post went on to quote an Iraqi museum official who keened: "Our heritage is finished. Why did they do this? Why? Why?"

Kimball continues:

That story plays brilliantly but, as the London Guardian reported June 10, "it's nonsense. It isn't true. It's made up. It's bollocks." It wasn't the crazed Iraqi populace that denuded the museums but careful Iraqi curators, who spirited the swag away into vaults and secret storerooms before the war even began. Yes, there have been a few important losses. But there weren't 270,000 items missing, or (the most frequently reported number) 170,000. One museum official put the number at 47 items, but that was later revised down to 33. Meanwhile, the museum that was supposed to have been destroyed is scheduled to reopen next week. Stay tuned for further reductions.

And print it out to give to your DFLer cube-neighbor who was kvetching last month about the "Fact" that US troops were securely garding the Iraqi Oil Ministry as looters paraded hauled off swag like the Museum was throwing the ultimate blue-light special.

Then, ask them; how much longer do you think the "The Administration Lied About WMDs!" story is going to last?

BlaaargSorry about yesterday. Things started

BlaaargSorry about yesterday. Things started rough, and just got worse. I ended up with a raging headache and no time for blogging.

No job offers, either.

But today is another day, hopefully one that'll include some posts I've been working on for a while.

Hatch and American Bankers -

Hatch and American Bankers - The legislature held hearings on the American Bankers settlement yesterday.

We've been talking about this story on this blog for the past week or so. I promised an article on the subject, and I'm going to deliver one; but it's complicated (and would be, even if I were a full-time reporter - which I'm not!).

I've been reading the Legislative Auditor's report, as well as depositions Mike Hatch made to the Legislative Auditors Office - and it begs all sorts of questions. And I'm trying to get quite a number of people to comment on their sides of this story.

Which I'm working on today...

Revenge of the Nekulturny -

Revenge of the Nekulturny - You know who you are.

You're the "HR" person who suffered through the cha-cha years of the late nineties, unneeded and unappreciated.

You were un-needed because all the technical managers in your company realized you were clueless about technical staffing, and went around you to find scarce talent, using you only to fill out paperwork and send the (rare) rejection letter. You were justifiably reviled as someone who'd have been a bean-counter if you'd only passed bookkeeping class.

Or you are the hiring manager at a little consulting shop or company that's managed to hold on because of the marketing wisdom or sales skills of those just up the food chain from you, who've been carrying you for these last few years. The cha-cha boom years allowed you to get into a position of relative security.

And now that times are tough, you're having the time of your passive-aggressive little lives. You see the resumes pouring in, and your phone rings off the hook, and you roll your eyes and take your sweet time. You reject resumes that are on the wrong paper, or whose font irritates you, or that remain unread come lunchtime. You never return phone calls, even from those who interviewed with your company a month or two or three ago, wondering what the HELL happened with the position that your company was so hot to fill back when there was still snow on the ground.

You're enjoying this. All the programmers, analysts, technicians and other folks who were in their heyday three or four years ago - earning big money, getting the respect that you felt so rightfully belonged to the HR department (the REAL key to your company's future, dammit) or to ineffective middle-managers who are fast running out of laurels to rest on - well, who's laughing now, right?

Enjoy it while you can. Because in a year or two, when the economy is back in some kind of shape, there are a lot of very pissed people out here. And one of these days, when the number of resumes per opening drops back into single digits, and you look out your door and see a crowd of people, they won't be there to ask you VERY politely if it's a good time for you to discuss 401Ks. Nooooo, nosireebob, it won't. It'll be to give you the first swirlie you've had since the many you no doubt got in junior high.

Oh, mark my words. The day will come. And I'll be there, arms wrapped around your hog-tied, upside-down legs, foot on the "flush" lever, at the head of the gleeful mob.

Mark my words, I tell you.

Real posts coming soon.

Crazy Day - I'm getting

Crazy Day - I'm getting to the point where I should just write that every morning before I brew the coffee.

Some housework and shopping to do before I do any blogging, but oy, vey, will there be blogging. Got a couple of things to talk about today.

When I have time...

To kill time, check out Lileks' Bleat today.

All I can add is; "Chino Latino. I loved it the first time I saw it. When it was called the Loring Cafe".

Attitude-wise, anyway.

See you all in a bit.

Another Big Day - Last

Another Big Day - Last day of school - plus a job interview this morning. Then, some crucial and long-deferred lawn work.

More posting later today.

"You Never Had Privacy, Winston..."

"You Never Had Privacy, Winston..." - Surveillance cameras are coming to downtown Minneapolis:

There already are hundreds of surveillance cameras downtown -- in parking ramps, in stores and on the streets. Many are private; a few are public but focus on traffic congestion.

But a gift by Target Corp. that was accepted Friday by the City Council would allow the installation of cameras focused on street activity and would tie them into a network at the downtown police precinct.

Police argue that it will make for a safer downtown. A video-watching cop can cover the same territory in three minutes that it might take a street cop more than half an hour to cover, Inspector Rob Allen said. Moreover, the cop watching on video can gain vital information to gauge how many units are needed to deal with an incident. And the video evidence can be saved for trial.

"What's the difference between being watched by a cop on the street and being watched by a cop on closed-circuit TV?"

Cameras (and the face-recognition software that people like the Minneapolis City Council will soon start rationalizing) don't make arrests, chase perps or scare the soft-core criminal into maybe waiting for another day to carry out their first mugging. All they're good for is watching people, with all the abuses that inevitably follow.

Minnesota Carry Permittee Shoots Cop!

Minnesota Carry Permittee Shoots Cop! - Unfortunately, it was another cop.

Named as defendants are Charles Storlie, the officer who shot Duy Ngo; the unidentified supervisors, and the city. In court documents, Ngo blames Storlie for violating his civil rights by using improper deadly force and acting maliciously or with reckless disregard for his rights.

Ngo is on paid leave and undergoing up to 30 hours of physical and occupational rehabilitation a week, his attorney said. He walks with a limp and has not regained use of his left hand. Police have said that Storlie shot Ngo once in the torso, once in an arm and once in each leg.
Duy Ngo

The suit accuses supervisors of issuing Storlie the submachine gun, "knowing his record for use and misuse of force, including deadly force on others." The suit said it is believed that the supervisors "knew of Storlie's propensity to dramatize, imagine, and thereby mentally incorporate personal danger into calls where such a danger may not be present in reality."

Ngo, who had recently been assigned to work with the Minnesota Gang Strike Force, was doing surveillance Feb. 25. He had been called to report for duty with the Army Reserves and was trying to gather more intelligence on a "high narcotics address" that he could pass on to his colleagues, he has said.

About 2:30 a.m., a suspect fired at him while he was in the car, but Ngo's bullet-resistant vest stopped the slug. Ngo got out of the car and chased the suspect, but collapsed and radioed for help.

Believing Ngo was the suspect, Storlie shot him four times with a submachine gun, according to police accounts, although Ngo's attorney said that he was shot at least seven times.

And when was the last time a civilian shot a perp like this?:

Police have said that Storlie shot Ngo once in the torso, once in an arm and once in each leg.

Saving Beeb's Privates - The

Saving Beeb's Privates - The WashTimes piles another rock on the BBC's claims that the Lynch Raid was a fabrication.

Special Operations and defense officials discussed the mission in interviews this week to rebut what they consider an inaccurate report by the British Broadcasting Corp.
The state-supported network, whose coverage was generally critical of the war in Iraq, charged that the U.S. Central Command staged the mission as a public relations stunt. It also said the commandos fired blanks inside Pfc. Lynch's hospital prison for cinematic effect.
U.S. officials have adamantly denied the charge. They say no shots — blanks or otherwise — were fired by the Navy SEAL-led team inside Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah, south of Baghdad.

After Baghdad fell April 9, the same specially trained SEAL unit went on to capture the majority of wanted senior Iraqi leaders on Central Command's "deck of cards." In Afghanistan, some of the SEALs had comprised Task Force 11, a secret unit dedicated to catching senior al Qaeda terrorists.
"These are not the type of guys who carry blanks," an official said.

Which, of course, doesn't include Dennis Kucinich.

Sleeper Bomb - Where are

Sleeper Bomb - Where are the WMDs?

They're there. In spirit.

No, I'm serious, and it makes perfect sense.

There are two great stories today - from Stanley Kurtz and the LATimes Bob Drogin - claiming that Iraq's WMD program essentially went dormant while the heat was on:

Saddam Hussein's intelligence services set up a network of clandestine cells and small laboratories after 1996 with the goal of someday rebuilding illicit chemical and biological weapons, according to a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer.

The officer, who held the rank of brigadier general, said each closely guarded weapons team had three or four scientists and other experts who were unknown to U.N. inspectors. He said they worked on computers and conducted crude experiments in bunkers and back rooms in safe houses around Baghdad.

He insisted they did not produce any illegal arms and that none now exist in Iraq. But he said the teams met regularly and put plans on paper to quickly develop weapons of mass destruction if U.N. sanctions against Iraq were lifted.

• The hardest part about building WMDs isn't the actual, technical work on the hardware; it's knowing how to do the job. According to both stories, the Iraqis knew the how, and had the material stockpiled to build what they needed the moment the sanctions and inspections were lifted.
• The Iraqis were taught the art of strategic deception by the Soviets, who were the masters of the art. And the easiest way to hide something is if it can't be seen at all - if it's all just information on computers and relatively innocent raw materials.

Because of this, I think you can watch for the biggest accusations of all, coming soon to a major media outlet near you.

Forced Attitude - When I

Forced Attitude - When I moved to the Twin Cities, it was partly to find a job that didn't involve teaching small-town high school English or working at 500-watt Country/Western stations.

But my unstated, ulterior motive; get into the Minneapolis Music scene.

The visions danced in my head as I went to sleep before my big move: the Replacements. Hüsker Dü. The 'Burbs. The other North Dakota guys who'd gone there before me and found (at the time) success, the Metros and the Phones (formerly The Newz) and a few others.

And those dreams all took place in a place I'd only seen in the movies - or to be accurate, Purple Rain, largely set at the First Avenue and Seventh Street Entry bar.

Of course, when I moved here and finally went to the First Avenue and wandered around the club's smoky periphery, it was a little nonplussing to notice...it's just a bar, not much different than any other.

But of course it was different; I saw the Replacements and the Clams (and Karen Kusak broke my heart...) and the Hüskers and the Butthole Surfers and Los Lobos and Richard Thompson (three times). I saw the lead singer of the F****ng S**t Biscuits rolling on a floor covered with broken glass. I saw people stabbed, people puking up their skulls, people boinking in the dressing rooms...

...and best of all, I saw the audience from the front. My various bands played the Entry several times, and the mainroom once. The best gig of all? Certainly - Saint Patrick's Day, 1987. My band, "Tenant's Union", played the Entry and caught the slopover from the traditional, ultra- packed Boiled In Lead gig in the mainroom. They were some of the best times of my life.

Peter Scholtes says the bar may be on its last legs.

Not sure how to react to this. On the one hand, times do change, and clubs will come and go. The notion that a bar that was a cradle for the local punk boom could become an institution is itself comical.

On the other hand, the club that'd replace the old Forced Attitude would likely mean nothing to me. Quest means nothing to me - and believe me, I've tried. Oh, they can book good bands, but it's just not the same.

So I may have to check the place out a few more times.

(Via Fraters Libertas - who just got on Instapundit's blogroll! Congrats, guys! You may now come into the secret Instaroll washroom, and dine at the Reynolds Club with the rest of us!)

Turnbuckled

Jesse Ventura wrote an op-ed in yesterday's Strib.

It's perhaps redundant to call anything Jesse Ventura does "self-serving" - the man practically defines the term.

But this article is amazing:

Last year the state had a deficit of about $2.3 billion. In an attempt to correct the deficit I made some very difficult decisions. Basically I proposed to cut government spending substantially and raise and reform taxes in an effort to mitigate the effect of future recessions on the flow of revenue.

It was a proposal that Democrats could have and should have supported. But not Moe. When Roger had the chance to show strong leadership and do the right thing (avoiding Draconian cuts to social services and other programs), he sold out the party for his own selfish gain. Roger and his followers got into bed with those civilized Republicans, called my proposal "Jesse taxes" and agreed to ignore the problem for another year, when we all knew it would double in severity.

Why did Roger do such a thing? Why would the Democrats marry their political adversaries? Did they not know that Republicans don't approve of divorce, and that if in the end they did agree to one the Democrats would pay dearly?

Of course they knew. But there were bigger fish to fry. We all know that power and politics are more important than good public policy, and as the leader of the Democrats Roger Moe had a score to settle. Roger and his followers could not stand that an Independent had become governor of Minnesota, and this was his way to set up a race that would defeat Jesse Ventura and restore "order and civility" to politics in Minnesota.

(Incidentally, did I miss all the stories about how the Republicans and Democrats were so successful in restoring "civility and respect" to the legislative process now that the third-party Independent governor is gone? Oh, and then there was the gridlock that was going to end.)

Ventura's stupidest proposal of all was his mania for unicameral government - a one-house legislature. I always wondered where that came from; Ventura's one-track mind, or the relentless, "Good Government" wonkery of Dean Barkley and Tim Penny, who were the men behind the curtain of the Ventura administration.

The rest is history. Jesse didnt run. Roger lost the election and with it every bit of leverage the Democrats had against the Republican majority.

The Republicans reign and John Hottinger is left to wallow in lost battles over important DFL social issues like a 24 hour waiting period for an abortion, a mandatory pledge of allegiance and a more liberal conceal and carry law.

Just a question, here, formergovernor; how does Jesse Ventura's absence from the scene lead to John Hottinger's problems?

And for a guy who ran as a putative libertarian, you act as if shall-issue is a bad thing...

Seems to me that you have to give credit where credit is due: To Gov. Pawlenty and House Speaker Steve Sviggum for suckering the Democrats into a trap, and to Roger Moe for falling head first into it.

Trap?

Perhaps it's early. Perhaps I need coffee before I try to tackle Jesse Ventura's reasoning; maybe Ventura is really making a point of yeshiva-like complexity that merely has gone past me.

I'll go make a pot, and read this again.

I'm back. The coffee was good, but it's not helping.

Formergovernor Ventura; the only "trap" Tim Pawlenty set for Roger Moe (and Tim Penny) was the same one Ronald Reagan set for Jimmy Carter - or for that matter, that one Jesse Ventura set for Norm Coleman and Skip Humphrey. He articulated a vision. He portrayed that vision relentlessly on the campaign trail. And when the electorate responded to that vision, he pushed it through the legislature with single-minded tenacity.

Except when you were governor, Jesse, the last sentence would have been "...he dumped the vision from the campaign trail and ran to the left".

In fact, the only "trap" that the state as a whole - Moe, Pawlenty, Hottinger, Sviggum and the whole lot of them - are currently in is the eight billion dollar trap that formergoverner Ventura left them in; the incredible increases in spending that the DFL forced through against a weak governor who was being led around by the nose by Tim Penny and Dean Barkley.

And finally, please spare us the comparison of Roger Moe to Vince Lombardi. Coach Lombardi would never have purposely lost the final game of the season on the chance it would improve his chance of success in the following season.

So there's the comparison you wanted, Governor:

• Roger Moe: No Vision
• Tim Penny: Wonky vision
• Jesse Ventura: Vision abandoned.
• Tim Pawlenty: Vision fought for with relentless perseverence.

I always said that in politics the best road is the right road -- even if it takes a little longer.

My Own Private D-Day -

My Own Private D-Day - Today I'm going to tackle my daughter's principal over this little matter of the Code Pink literature being distributed in school, armed with the text from a couple of court decisions (thanks to a couple of you readers!).

And fix the dishwasher...

I'll report on the school bit, anyway.

%^#$$@# Blogger - I have no idea what happened in the post below. Sometimes I'll enter some of the HTML code wrong, and there's no way to edit it.

I had been trying to say that the world's only readable diaryblog, (check code veeeeery carefully) "Plain Layne" seems to have disappeared, leaving us with a cryptic admonition..

So I'm off to scour the web for more stuff that doesn't stink.

Wave of Nostalgia - Once

Wave of Nostalgia - Once in a blue moon, I like to go through this blog's archives (the ones that work, anyway).

It's amazing how much stuff I wrote that I can't remember at all.

Like this piece from last July, with my big prediction for the November elections.

I guessed all the numbers wrong, of course - neither Tim Penny nor Ken Pentel polled as well as the surveys were showing in July (when some polls showed Penny leading the pack!).

Turn, Turn, Turn - Blogs are such a fickle thing.

Fatherhood seems to be cutting into Jeff Fecke's blogging time, which is a drag, because his "Blog Of The Moderate Left" is a good one (for a moderate Democrat).

And it's a complete buzzkill that the world's only readable diaryblog, Posted by Mitch at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)