Patterico, to Sullivan:

You shrieking, hysterical moron.

Read the whole thing and witness the ongoing disintegration of the guy I’m ever-more ashamed to call my blogfather.

Gary Gross’ “Let Freedom Ring” blog – which has become an essential read for Sixth District politics and Minnesota GOP inside baseball – turns four today.

And Gary’s still on a mission:

Tony Snow asked some former CNN executive what he thought about these bloggers scooping the MSM. Out of that came the infamous line that bloggers were just a bunch of jammie-wearing “people hacking away at their keyboards.” Typical of the Sneering Media, this executive couldn’t get even the basic facts right.

Four years later, the Sneering Media still isn’t getting the basic facts right. In fact, I attended more voter forums than the St. Cloud Times did. Even when they were there for the forums, they omitted key bits of information.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve done more reporting this year, actually breaking stories. Expect that to increase as 2009 unfolds. Just like with politics, now isn’t the time to spend alot of time looking back. Now’s the time to look forward. Now’s the time when bloggers peered into the future of the blogosphere. It’s time we mixed in as much reporting as pontificating.

Look for LFR be in the thick of things on this front.

Happy anniversary, Gary.  And keep giving ’em hell.

…for “Post Title of the Month”…

…is right here.

The first post this blog did that generated any attention – and by that, I mean maybe 50-60 hits, in those days before this blog had any kind of regional following at all, back in the summer of 2002 or so – was the “DFL Dictionary”.  The post – which is, unfortunately, lost to history (for now) listed a series of common words that the DFL had re-defined for their purposes.  For example:

“Bipartisanship (noun): to belong to a non-DFL party, but to espouse and support DFL policies without any serious question”.

That kind of thing.

And it’s become almost a cliche among leftybloggers in recent months lately as long as I’ve been reading them;  a sort of inexorable “inflation” in pejoratives.  Conservatives never take umbrage, they “whine”; we don’t argue, we “melt down. 

Now, I’m a pretty lucky guy.  Generally pretty happy with life.  I have two great kids, a job I love, a couple of hobbies I love even more, great family, great friends – really, just about a guy could want out of life.  I’m in the best shape I’ve been in in decades, I’m feeling generally good about life, I’ve dispensed with a lot of real and metaphorical baggage in the past year or so, and while life has all sorts of inevitable twists and turns, things are generally going pretty dang well right now.  One of my hobbies – debating politics with strangers in writing and on the radio – has turned into a fun sideline; in this, I’ve been able to find some semblance of fulfillment, as well as some future possibilities, while honoring my sense of integrity.  In other words, I’m getting little bits and piece of happiness, and all in all it’s a pretty good stretch for me, knock wood.

Which, if you’re a gutless anonymous leftyblogger, means “angry”, “hateful”, bla bla bla.

No, really.  “Stove” from Cocky Slob just can’t get enough of trying to jam people into his own bigoted little template:

It came to Spot today, unbidden. In over three years of reading blogs and writing this one, Spot has been unable to find the word that summed up the festering Bund of the right wing blogosphere. But he’s got it now: bullies.

Ooh.  Another neo-Nazi reference. 

He must be writing about something serious.

What, after all, is a bully? It’s someone who is cruel and overbearing, a thug. Someone who picks on somebody else, preferably smaller and weaker, maybe to make himself feel like a big cheese, or even just appear to be one to the drooling sycophants he wants to impress. The words of the bully almost always have a tinge of intimidation in them, or sometimes more than just a tinge.

Or sometimes much, much less than a “tinge”. 

Indeed, in some cases it’s more of a “little corner of actual meaning that you’ve carefully sanded to fit your own  myopic, bigoted, deranged template through which you force all of your own perceptions”. 

As in “you read “apples”, and see “axles””.

There they sit on the bar stool of grudge and resentment, taking big swigs from their tankards of bile, belting out tuneless refrains of impotent rage. Then, tottering home in crazed and bilious humors, they sit down and write stuff like this.

He links to the piece I wrote Tuesday about former Minnesoros “Independent” writer Molly Priesmeyer and City Pages doddering troll Emily Kaiser. 

Rage?  Bile?  Crazed? 

It is no especial mystery why all the paranoid, poisoned, gun-toting crazies are all on one side.

(Although why some people need to vilify, defame and demonize those who disagree with them is an “especial” puzzler to those of us with fuller, richer lives) 

 The pathology is unremarkable. But its consequences over the last twenty five years or so have been catastrophic.

If only because they – “consequences” like people speaking freely and still disagreeing with “Spot”, gutless anonyme – seem to have driven their author around the bend into complete derangement.

Intimidation?  I wished Molly Priesmeyer good luck in her job searc, having been in her shoes all too many times (sometimes with kids to feed, to boot).  I’d like to be so “intimidated” by my nemeses.

Bullying?   I’m the underdog, you half-trained trick chimp.  I’m a little solo blogger from Saint Paul.  Emily Kaiser writes for a multi-million dollar corporation; Molly Priesmeyer wrote for a Soros front, and not being an untalented writer will no doubt get picked up by another sooner than later.

It is a period from which the barest signs of emerging have now just appeared. But the bud is nascent and the bullies will try to kill it.

Catch that?  It’s not just responding – “participating in life”.  It’s “bullying” and “crushing your hopes”. 

For some of us, the notion of “disagreement” and “dissent” isn’t a threat. For the others, there are anonymously-posted pictures of the Nuremberg Rallies.

Courage my friends.

“Courage”.  Heh.

This from a guy who blogs anonymously – who quite visibly panics, indeed, at the notion of being “outed”, when he’s not taking his defamatory, cowardly little shots at his betters.

The word we’re looking for is “deranged”.  

Look that one up on “Answers.com”. 

Courage, little doggie.  Now, run and play.  You are boring and predictable.

(Via Fut)

With the news that Molly “Is It White In Here” Priesmeyer has become a victim of budget cuts at the Minnesoros “Independent”, it’s time to step back for a moment for a brief perspective check.

Did she use obnoxious Gen-X colloquiety to mask wafer-thin understanding of complex issues and history?  Sure. 

But even on her worst day, she was better than the person who seems to have replaced her on the facile stereotype beat at her alma mater, the City Pages, one Emily Kaiser, whose combination of gutlessness and middle-school-level writing chops (as in this recent hatchet job on Michele Bachmann) actually…

…I can’t believe I’m saying this…

…make me miss Molly.

Come back, Molly.  All is forgiven Hope you land a gig soon, Ms. Priesmeyer.  A rising tide lifts all boats; likewise, three inches of brackish runoff covers the algae-sodden mud.

Now that the Minnesoros “Independent” has accomplished its mission of serving as a local-regional propaganda outlet for the mid-to-far left – a sort of local analogue to “Media Matters” and “MoveOn”, even as far as sharing some of the same funding sources – and the election is over…

…the reason for having the “Independent” has apparently passed.  The Center for “Independent” Media has yanked the budget leash on its’ “independent” vassals affiliates.

The first sign?  The “Independent” has started whacking its staff:

A couple more names are victims of budget-cutting at Minnesota Independent: full-timer Andy Birkey and politics freelancer Britt Robson.

Birkey had covered LGBT issues for the site since its August 2006 inception; he was one of two staffers axed, along with reporter Molly Priesmeyer.

The last time I knew anything of the “Independent”‘s financials, the “writers” got a stipend for working part-time for the glorified blog.  I’d suspect – and will try to dig up info – that when they brought on former journalist and ex-City Pages editor Steve Perry, it came along with a big, and currently unnecessary, jump in funding.

But I’ve come to look forward to staff departures at the “Independent”, because it seems that’s when the actual truth comes out.  When Eric Black left, he let slip the Mindy’s Soros connection (the worst-kept secret in the Twin Cities alt-media). 

And now, Britt Robson – one of the Mindy’s few capable better writers, unencumbered by having to carry the water for his overlords in DC, lets fly (emphasis added):

Robson became a casualty when MnIndy’s parent, the D.C.-based Center for Independent Media (CIM), eliminated the freelance budget entirely…However, Robson — who writes about arts for MinnPost and sports for The Rake — was caustic in his view [of] MnIndy’s Capitol overlords. He says CIM’s national staff was less interested in the organization’s professed mission — “a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that operates an independent online news network in the public interest” — than boosting the party of Barack Obama.

“I was working with them fairly closely during the Republican convention and privy to interoffice emails,” Robson explains. “The type of things non-local editors were into were very party-race stories, particularly stories that embarrassed Republicans and promoted Democrats.”

Wow.

Kinda exactly like the Mindy’s critics have been saying all along, you mean?

Robson believes the local staff chafed at this purposefulness; they consider themselves progressives, not DFL party hacks. He points to Perry’s tenure as City Pages editor, when staffers went after Republicans hard but regularly gnawed the legs off local Democrats such as R.T. Rybak.

A reflexively pro-Dem agenda “is a bias that’s reflected more in the national echelons,” Robson says. “We both know Steve Perry; he probably has as little use for Democrats as Republicans, that’s his reputation.”

That was Perry’s reputation.

My opinion:  when the Mindy got started in 2006 under original “editor” Robin Marty, it was amateurish but earnest.  It had journalistic ambitions, of sorts. 

When Perry took over, whether in spite of his presence or because of it, the paper’s tone became more shrill, more propagandistic; it read less like an earnest college newspaper staffed by newbies, and more like a dumb, trite, phoned-in, ill-informed, propagandistic leftyblog.

David Brauer covers the utterly unsurprising “story” at the slightly-less-overtly-bought-off MNPost; let’s see if my comment ever gets out of moderation.

When I say “righties, please keep this in perspective”, this is what I”m talking about – Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci at KAR writes:

For those leftybloggers out there trolling for a little schadenfreude, that’s all I got. Sorry. He is my president. He was elected, not selected. Somewhere in south Chicago there isn’t a village missing an idiot. My happiness is not dictated by who’s in office. I’m still an adult, and you’re still a spittle-chucking rage-addicted child. What Nihilist said.

And what did Nihilist say?

Now we conservatives are free to adapt the tactics of the left, to abandon reason and make inflammatory proclamations with regard to our new chief executive.

I want to be first. I want to say something so antithetical to the beliefs of the MoveOn, Kos, Olberman nuts that it will give them a taste of what they put us through for eight years. Here goes.

Tonight I say a PRAYER for our new President-elect, Barak Obama. I hope GOD will guide his decisions and give him the strength and wisdom to lead America forward. I also PRAY for our leaders in Congress, that GOD may watch over them too. I realize that this may be too much for the nuts to bear, but tonight I PRAY for them too. To paraphrase Jeramiah Wright (sort of):

GOD bless America? Yeah, what the heck! GOD bless America!

What they said.

Aaron Landry – who is Al Franken’s pet blogger at MNPublius, tweets:

Just posted my 250th post…I hate Norm Coleman just a little bit more each time.

Didn’t James Madison say the same exact thing about John Quincy Adams?  Yeah, I’m proud to be an American. 

(Closed Circuit to Zack, Matt and the other MNPublius founder:  Do you guys have any idea how including Aaron Landry on your blog has cheapened your brand?  I have to wonder – did someone from the Franken campaign videotape the three of you picking a Mobster’s wife’s purse or something?  I can’t figure out any other rationale for this particular personnel move.  Just curious). 

(Via the other MB)

“Spot” and “Mr. Spooge” from Cucky Spoon have, alone among Twin Cities’ leftybloggers, come up with an original idea!

In this post, (I’ll put the link there out of general principle – but don’t go there; it doesn”t deserve any traffic from anyone not addled by lead poisoning) “they” write about the Talk The Vote rally the other night…

…and insert a pic of the Nazis’ Nuremberg Rally!

Never seen that one before!

At any rate, I’ve had enough of gutless anonymous bloggers.  Below the fold, I shall reveal Mr. Spooge and his dogs’ identities:

(more…)

Last weekend, JRoosh greeted the news of the NTSB’s draft report on the 35W Bridge collapse appropriately, noting that – at least in the context of the chorus of recrimination that the likes of E-Tink and Alice “The Phantom” Hausman and Margaret Kelliher and Nick Coleman dumped on him – the Governor was exonerated.

When Jeff Rosenberg at The Daily Liberal noted that Sporty the Dog from Clicking Stool had “taken Roosh to task” over his piece, naturally, I had to check it out.

As with most leftybloggers attempts to discuss history, engineering and other more-or-less empirical subjects, it was a big mistake.

Leftybloggers, like the political and media leaders whose shrieking points so many of them so unthinkingly ape, aren’t big on getting context right.  Sporty tries to frame the issue in the form of a doctor’s visit, and concludes:

The article in the Strib that J refers to is in the paper today. The headline? I-35W bridge was doomed from the start. It was a design defect!

We are, of course, all doomed from the start. But that doesn’t means we don’t get physicals, submit to humiliating examinations, and pay the medical profession to try to keep us healthy.

In the case of the bridge, the Pawlenty administration also fingered the whopper, got the test results, and opted for the cosmetic solution.

Except that there was no “doctor’s visit” saying that the bridge, as in Sporty’s example, was terminally ill.  To run with the (bad, misplaced) metaphor, there were merely checkups, telling the bridge, like a lot of 40-year-olds, that it was crumbling around the edges a bit; that the wear and tear of daily stress was taking its toll.  The bridge at 40 was doing better than some other bridges – MNDoT rated the Cayuga and Lafayette bridges, among others in the metro, much worse as of July 31, 2007, much more likely to die younger than the 35W bridge.  Not that it was especially more terminally ill than any other bridge of its age. 

The fact is, nobody knew 40 years ago – or two years ago, for that matter – that the bridge was suffering from anything much worse than…being a 40 year old bridge.  Yes, there were concerns – rusty gussets, suspect piers, etc.  But the thing that killed it – mistakes in engineering calculations?  That was a bolt from the blue – an undetected aneurism or clot or stroke that could have been found, maybe, given one of two things:

• A degree of dedication to checking and re-checking design assumptions, calculations and material specs from every potentially suspect bridge in the state (read:  every bridge in the state), aggressively trying to predict the unpredictable.
• Clairvoyance.

Going back and checking over all of those designs, all of their engineering and data – especially those made in the era before all of these things were done electronically – would be analogous to spending every morning for months at a time at the doctor’s office, getting prodded and poked and having latex-clad fingers shoved hither and yon by a staff of doctors dedicated to eradicating every possible “what if” in your physiology – and it’d be about as proportionally expensive.

As far as clairvoyance goes – if government could manage that, would our mortgage system be in the mess it’s in today?

To have done something about the 35W bridge’s problems, there would have had to have been a huge effort to go back and re-examine the design of every element of the construction of these bridges; the calculations behind the design of each structural member (hundreds or thousands for each structure), their material specs and various rates of deterioration – all of which, by the way, requires a LOT of reconstructive research, since the original calculations and material specs may or may not be available.  It’d be the equivalent of having a squad of doctors trying to rule out every possible malady you could have.

Think your HMO would cover that?

This hideously expensive process, by the way, would take a LOT of money away from every political body’s main goal in transportation spending; building monuments to the perspicacity of the politicans authorizing the spending. Building trains sends tingles up DFLers legs; lane miles do the same for Republicans. Watching hordes of engineers poring over moldy blueprints and Material Data sheets is no monument to anyone.  It’s just maintenance.

The conclusion?  Well, other than “never pay attention to leftybloggers when they try to talk history, science, engineering, or…well, really, anything”, I guess it’s this…

…well, no.  That kinda covered it.

I’m shocked and saddened to see Dean Barnett has passed away, apparently due to complications from Cystic Fibrosis.  He was only 41.

A few years back, he wrote one of the better essays on Cystic Fibrosis – and his battle with the disease – that I’ve ever seen.  At the time, he’d just participated in a promising treatment:

But regardless, this treatment has given me time – time to spend with my wife and family and friends. Time to hit golf balls (usually sideways, but even that’s alright). Time to chase my dogs around the house. Time that frankly I didn’t expect to have. There could be no greater gift, and it’s a miracle in so many ways.

The miracle has its roots in my persistent father who got Joe O’Donnell involved in the fight against CF. It continues through the incredible courage shown by Joey O’Donnell, who fought CF with such bravery that he inspired his family to fight the disease long after Joey succumbed. And it finishes with Joe O’Donnell and the rest of the amazing O’Donnell family who have given so much of themselves in so many ways and to such great effect.

There are indeed heroes out there. And miracles, too.

His many friends and admirers are a living memorial, of course – one of the greatest legacies someone can leave. 

Words fail, other than to say Dean’s wit, courage and grace were inspirations.  Please pray for the Barnett family. 

A few weeks ago, Tracy Eberly wrote – with characteristic political incorrectness – a piece that capped off with the line “If you are biking to save the environment, keep it up and the law of averages says we’ll have a few less Obama voters in November.” 

Now, as usual on subjects where Tracy and I disagree, I’m right and Tracy’s wrong.  Not necessarily about most bikers supporting Obama – most of the lycra-and-Bianchi crowd does.  Oh, things like this…:

If you bike for your health, you’d better have a large life insurance policy as you’re risking your life.

…are worth a whack; waking up in the morning and doing anything but lying in bed involves “risking your life”.

But even though Tracy’s wrong, he’s still one of the good guys – and one of the fundamental tenets of being a good conservative is “argue amongst yourselves until your jaws fall off – but if the orcs intrude, close ranks“. 

Emily Kaiser at the City Pages – which seems to be on its way toward becoming an even less-credible operation than the Minnesoros “Independent” these days – took time off from her gruelling schedule of ignoring the thud-witted cloddish selective insensitivity of Twin Cities leftyblogs to huff and puff and write a piece in which she expressed the vapours over Eberly’s un-PC-itude.

And the usual lefty trolls came out in the comment section – most notably “Scottsdale Woman“, a risible “feminist” “blog” “writer” who threatened to sic both law-enforcement and hordes of angry bikers with both left-wing sympathies and handguns on drivers who vex bikers – simultaneously violating Minnesota self-defense law and confirming Wes Skoglund’s fears about armed citizens, albeit not the ones I’d suspect provoked his years-long fit of dissociation.  “She” also left a comment about Tracy’s place of employment – which, given the number of class acts among leftybloggers in this city, is tantamount to taping a “Stalk Me!” sign on his back.

A couple of us responded, to Kaiser and Scottsdale woman, in the comment section.

And while Scottsdale Woman and all of her wacko defamation remains, pristine and undisturbed, it’d seem that the City Pages’ moderators have chosen to remove all comments critical of Ms. Kaiser, her reporting, and of the depravity (and factual dim-bulbitude) of some of the commenters. 

Which is their right; it’s private property.

It’s also singularly gutless.

Which is kind of sad; City Pages used to put some courage behind their adenoidal shrieking.

I’d just like to take a moment to send my best wishes to Pianomomsicle and Pianohusbandsicle on the arrival of Cadence Rae:

 She is 8 lbs and 5 oz; 20 inches long; and 14.25 inches around the head!  Mom, Baby, Dad, and big brother are all well!  However, I am sure once Cadence learns to crawl, big brother will be less well.

I’m a couple days late on this, but I’m way behind in my blog reading.

Welcome, Cadence!

To:  Dennis Lien, St. Paul Pioneer Press

From:  Mitch Berg

Re:  Fact Checking in your 10/9 piece

Mr. Lien,

Mitch Berg here.  Not sure if you’re new in the market because, like an awful lot of people to the right of Amy Klobuchar, I don’t actually read the daily newspapers in this town.  I know I’ve seen your name in the paper, but I don’t recall if you’re an old PiPress hand or not.

I’d like to hope so, since your piece on Thursday incorporated a lot of rookie, or rookie-esque, flubs. 

Your piece covers the “Dump Bachmann” blog, run by Eva Young.  The reason I wonder if you’re a newbie is, of course, “The Dump” got near-saturation coverage before the 2006 election, back when lots of reporters – whether well-meaning or gullible – treated “The Dump” as a legitimate news source. 

It’d seem you and the PiPress have fallen into the same trap – whether through wishful thinking or merely digging for anything to throw at the conservative rep and lightning rod in the Sixth. 

The reasons matter not – the same First Amendment that applies to me (until the Obamessiah repeals it) covers you. 

But there’s some fact-checking to be done, here:

There’s a lengthy discourse on whether Bachmann will attend a debate. 

“Discourse” requires two sides, Mr. Lien.  The word you’re looking for is “echo chamber”.   

 From its debut in 2004, the site, dumpbachmann.blogspot.com, has been home to a hyperactive collection of people who find Bachmann oddly compelling.

Whatever your piece’s other faults, Mr. Lien, I’ll give you style points; “hyperactive collection of people who find somone oddly compelling” is the most artful way to describe “bunch of obsessed stalkers” I’ve ever read.  Kudos!

But please see to this bit here…:

 Young said she spends an hour or two every evening updating the blog. Minneapolis cartoonist Ken Avidor handles the video items.

Let’s cut the crap, Mr. Lien.  It’s Ken Weiner.  “Avidor” is a pseudonym he adopts to try to dignify his dork-fingered oeuvre.  But don’t worry about names, since whenever he wants a different identity, he just takes one.  Without bothering to tell anyone.  You can call him Avidor, you can call him Weiner, you can call him Al Goldstein’s kicktoy, you can call him the only “cartoonist” in the Twin Cities less accomplished than Swiftee…

…but those of us who know him best just call him “the Lord of the Sock Puppets”. 

“What I bring to the blog is not only documentation and video, but a little bit of humor,” Avidor said.

Yep!  Funny stuff, like the picture of Michele Bachmann in a Nazi outfit!

(Although to be fair, perhaps that was what you were referring to when you wrote about The Dump’s “provocative, in-your-face bits of rhetoric”

And quoting Karl Bremer – a man whom Yellow Hacks have disowned for giving them a bad name – is kinda a self-limiting move, Dennis.

At any rate, please see to this, OK?

That is all.

(PS to Eva:  “Acknowleding and responding” to something is not the same as “having a cow”.  Or to put it another way; I’m laughing at you).

(And, of course, Lien).

Truth Vs. The Machine is four years old today, and still one of the best political/society/life blogs anywhere in the business.

Stop by and and wish ’em happy birthday!

…I’m going to count up all the blogs that’ve started as vendettas against or responses to the various NARN and MOB members…

…that’ve quietly fizzled as the “writers'” energy and stockpile of “ideas” pooped out.

I have no idea at the moment what the number is, but it’s gonna be big.

First Brett Favre, returns to the NFL via the Jets after being snubbed by the Pack.

The Results: Mixed

Then Lance Armstrong, returns to cycling after three years’ hiatus and a marriage to Sheryl Crow.

The Results: TBD (although he saved on TP)

And let’s not forget, JRoosh returned to blogging after a twenty four hour hiatus after being invited by Mitch Berg to join SITD.

The Results: You tell me

Seriously, I thought the above would make a good excuse to publicly thank Mitch Berg for the opportunity to be a part of a very important blog, one in an impressive array of MOB/True North/NARN Blogs, during a very important time in America.

I appreciate the feedback and commentary from each and every visitor, even if we vehemently disagree.

The next 50 or so days are going to be riveting.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Kevin and I had no idea which way the crowd was going to turn; all I knew was I didn’t want to get cut off from the Excel and have to dash halfway around the metro to get on the air at 8PM.

The crowd turned right onto the frontage road, as Kevin and I raced up to John Ireland Boulevard.  We moved across the bridge as the protest turned left, led by a group of about 20 bike cops and a dozen or so mounted officers.

They strolled out onto the bridge…

…and then things changed.  The bike and horse cops formed a line.  A squad of motorcycle cops raced down from the Cathedral to join them.  They pulled out their Hats ‘n Bats and stopped the march in the middle of the bridge over I94.

Kevin and I stayed as close to the action as we could – but after a few minutes, a couple of Bureau of Criminal Apprehension cops in military battledress pointed us back to the north approach.   We grabbed some space on the fence overlooking the bridge, and waited.

A few moments later, I heard a footsteps.  I turned – and saw over 100 cops in riot gear moving down from the History Center, donning gas masks and moving to the front rank.  It almost looked like a medieval battlefield shaping up; several ranks of infantry with sticks and armor, backed up by the cavalry…

…with artillery – half a dozen cops with 37mm tear gas grenade launchers moved up behind the whole lot.

And we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And wondered where they were going.

Until I saw more riot cops at the north end of the bridge. They had the entire march bottled up on the John Ireland bridge; no  way to go to the east or west (they were 20 feet above the freeway), or forward or back.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Someone quipped “I think they’re trying to bore them to death”.  The cop I was talking with didn’t disagree.

Eventually, after over an hour of standing around on the bridge, it appeared they were starting to disperse to the north.

Nothing happened, but it was fascinating to watch it happen.

I hiked down Kellogg to the Xcel, walking through a checkpoint and past a long row of National Guard to get to Five Corners and the X.

It was a year ago today that True North launched.

The original idea came from Derek “Chief” Brigham, Andy “Teh Mayer” Applikowski, Lassie,  Doctor Jonz, Kevin Ecker and a small group of other center-right regional bloggers; provide a clearinghouse for not only the best center-right alt-media in the region, but a place to coordinate activism.

It’s a big job, and – unlike most of the big institutional leftyblogs like the Minnesoros “Independent” , the MNPost and the late, unlamented Daily Mold, it’s a labor of love; there’s no money going in or coming out.

But we were, as Elwood Blues memorably put it, “on a mission from God”.  And we still are; one of our big original reasons to exist was to provide alt-media coverage not only of the convention, but of the convention’s protesters.  Oh, yeah – and the election, too.

The first year’s been a great run!  Congrats, all!

…to Col. Repya:

Our 14 year old Labrador Retriever “Bear” lost his battle with cancer and died. He was an excellent hunting dog but more importantly, he was a loyal and dear friend. For those of you who have lost a family pet you know the sadness we feel today.

Joe talked often about Bear; how he watched over Mrs. Col. Repya when Joe was in Iraq a few years back, what a great dog he was, the whole nine yards.

All the best, Joe.

The convention is almost here.

For four days, this is where most of this nation’s news is going to be.

And if you read this blog, you know that the mainstream media isn’t going to be covering the real news. They’ll be in the XCel center, or hitting the odd reception, or trotting around to where one protest group or another has told them to be in their press releases, filming pretty much what they’re expected to film.

We don’t expect them to film the real news; everything from “fops blocking freeway ramps” to “Code Pinkos leaving lousy tips”.

Some of us are working to fix all that.

One of True North‘s stated missions, when it started almost a year ago, was to provide real coverage of what happens at and around the convention.

True North is going to be soliciting your input during the convention. If you’re going about your business – not just at the convention, but anywhere around the metro – and see something – we’ll be setting up a “Tipline” for stories, pictures and video.

So if you see…:

• “Street theater” breaking out
• “Code Pink” wackjobs screaming their heads off at recalcitrant waiters…
• “Demonstrators” shrieking their nonsense
• People blocking freeway ramps
• …and, especially, anything illegal, stupid, or (let’s face it) embarassing…

…or pretty much anything else – take a picture. Shoot some cell phone video. And then contact us. We’d love to post what you have (with credit, if you want it).
And if you’re a convention volunteer – well, we’ll be asking you more of the same!

More details in the coming week.

Stay tuned.

 One of the things I’m most looking forward to at the convention is going to be mocking the living bejeebers out of “True Blue Minnesota”‘s “huge” jumbotron, “overlooking” downtown Saint Paul.

Tom Swift writing at True North  engages “True Blue Minnesota”:

Taking a cue from the cautionary work of George Orwell, Hine and Ballou have succeeded in assembling an authentic representation of a key piece of Orwell’s magnum opus; 1984….no, they are not providing Victory Gin.

Through a front group known as “TrueBlueMinnesota” Hine and Ballou, with help from Ministry of Love perennial favorite Dave Thune, will be whipping up leftist fervor with everyone’s favorite brainwashing technique, yes….”The two minutes hate” is in da house, and in your synapse.

Technology has progressed since 1984.

Today’s leftist pinheads no longer have to endure tedious eye strain while intently peering into a fuzzy image of Goldstein…no indeed. Today’s moonbat demands the finest high quality digital images of the objects of their hatred, flashed before them at the recommended 50 images a second, mind you…and with True Blue’s Jumbotrons, they’ll get what they came for.

Preview of “True Blue’s” activity starts at :25 seconds into this bit here.

I’ve talked with people who’ve seen some of the videos they plan to show.  Lame, amateurish, so bad it’s good – all terms I’ve heard so far.  We’ll add  more at the convention, I’m sure.

I’m so looking forward to going all MST3K on them.

Next to Michael Brodkorb, no center-right pundit in the Twin Cities generates more deranged irrationality than the Strib’s Katherine Kersten.

Lambert writes about one of her recent columns (doesn’t matter which; they all react the same no matter what she writes):

As we know, Ms. Kersten writes . . . in public . . . because Star Tribune management felt it was overdue for someone to counterbalance the pro-gladiatorial, pro-crotch shot, and pro-animal-like moan worldview of brutish males such as Doug Grow and Nick Coleman. But countering those two violence-drenched pornographers is a big, tough job. Do you have any idea how many Minnesotans are obsessed with gladiatorial stripper-pole moaning? A lot.

So I got to thinking: The Strib needs help. [Heh – Ed.] This is too much for one person. Which is where you come in. With the assistance of MSP Publishing’s marketing department—and this is real—we are offering a swank dinner for two—a $100 gift certificate to r. Norman’s—to whoever out there produces the best 500-word column that “Out Kerstens Kersten”. (E-mail your submission to blambert@mspmag.com).

Of course, Lamborghini (as G. Charles used to call him) is pilfing my material; it was in 2006-2007 that this blog started the “Columnist Parody” tradition in the local media with dare I say a brilliant assault on the oeuvre of Susan Lenfestey (poll and entries).

So in the interest of protecting my copyright, and because the Twin Cities’ pundosphere is such a rich vein of “talent”, it’s time to do another “Parody In The Dark” contest, where you, gentle reader, get to show the world the kind of “satire” Al Franken can’t even pull off.
The only real problem: picking who to parody.  The environment is, indeed, that target-rich.
So here’s what we’ll do:

1. Starting today, through Friday night, I’ll take nominations.
2. I’ll run a poll early next week to pick our victim
3. Once the subject is chosen, I’ll start the contest, probably next Tuesday; the objective will be to find the best parody of the selected writer.

The winner will receive some kind of reward. What, I don’t know; rest assured, it’ll pale compared to the pleasure you’ll bring millions.

As Charlie Quimby says:

Imitating clumsy writing is like purposely singing off-key. A professional will never be as convincing as the earnest and tone deaf amateur.

Amen, brother.

Bring on the tone-deafness!

(NOTE: Susan Lenfestey can not be nominated for this competition; she’s already “won” one).

Think about it. 

You have twelve hours.

In recent months, I’ve complimented the work of Zack and Sean from MNPublius. Sure they’re a couple of breathless DFL fanboys, but they keep their perspective about things, they usually have their facts straight (by DFL standards), and they are generally more into news than mindless snark – which alone puts them in the top 1% of leftyblogs. That is both a compliment and damnation by faint praise.

But there’s a big asterisk on their record; Aaron Landry.

Landry is, by all accounts, Al Franken’s full-time flak on the MNPublius staff. That’s fine – MNPublius can use its precious credibilty any ol’ way it wants to. But Landry combines a writing style reminiscent of a fourteen year old girl reviewing an Orlando Bloom movie with the reportorial chops of Grace Kelly.

For example, in this piece, about the Mark Olson flap:

The seemingly coordinated campaign by Republican operative Michael Brodkorb, Norm Coleman, the Senate Republican Caucus and others to fight against endorsed wife beater Mark Olson apparently didn’t include the people actually involved with the “grassroots” endorsement, the people in the Senate District 16 GOP and the leadership in the CD6 GOP.

So we have three statements, each of which requires a leap of logic:

First: “Seemingly coordinated?” Really, Aaron? Do tell. Do you know something we don’t? You have emails? Photos of people meeting at Keegans? Anything at all? Correlation does not equal causation. You either show the coordination – or at least why it should “seem” coordinated to us – or rewrite accordingly.

Second: “endorsed wife beater?” Olson was convicted of a misdemeanor charge, ““domestic assault by intending to cause bodily harm or death”. In other words, he made a nasty threat, and got busted. He’s never been convicted beating anyone. Did he do something very, very wrong? Yes. Did he “beat” anyone? Nope.

This is the kind of sloppy reporting that’ll get the “d” word – “defamation” – thrown around, sooner or later.

Third: About Brodkorb – what did Lewis say?

Ken [Weiner] recorded audio of Jason Lewis on KTLK talking with Chris and the MN CD6 GOP Chair Mark Swanson who are quite displeased with the “clear campaign to expel” Olson.

So listen and tell me – where does anyone mention Brodkorb?

I have no real opinion about Mark Olson; I haven’t followed his case or his story. I don’t live in his district; I have enough things to work on in my own city.

But could we at least get our actual facts straight?

MNPublius: How long will you keep squandering your hard-earned credibility on this breathless fanboy?

UPDATE:  Jeff Rosenberg brings less fanboy – but I had to react to this:

In polling news, Mark Olson is currently leading Alison Krueger 55% to 45% on the primary election question. Olson supporters appear to be coming out in droves to support the man and his actions.

Supporting his actions?

So if someone is accused of something (and/or convicted of something less serious), then supporting a guy’s politics is the same as supporting his actions?

Is that the story all you pro-perjury Clintonites, dubious-ethics-prone Hatch voters, pr0n-mongering Frankophiles and hostage-tolerant Carter schlubs want to stick with?