I’ve gotten involved in a new project.  It’s an incredibly exciting experiment.

And it launches on Saturday!

What on earth am I talking about?

Tune in at 2:30 on Saturday on the NARN broadcast.   

More tomorrow

I’m out at the fairgrounds.  Ed and I are going to be doing afternoon drive today, filling in for Hugh Hewitt today and tomorrow.

Tune in, stop out – or both!

Afternoon drive at the fair – I used to dream about doing this kind of thing.

My NARN colleague and co-founder Chad the Elder has long found the State Fair’s “Seed Art” display to be a bottomless fount of material.

This year, far from being an exception, is the mack daddy of ’em all:

Every year there is at least one entry that illustrates the seed and glue community’s seething hatred of the evil and oppressive right, and this year is no exception:

I especially love the twisted little scowl that crop artist Teresa Anderson has applied to Dick’s menacing visage.

One can only imagine the thoughts that must have run through Teresa’s fragile little mind while she created this masterpiece, though I’m quite certain that the notion of hypocrisy didn’t pop up even once during the time it took her to glue down all of the tiny little seeds making up the word “divisiveness”.

My favorite, of course, is the perennial (ha ha, I slay me) albeit very strange seed art picture of sportscaster Marv Albert testing a new set of dentures (inscrutably captioned “Senator Wellstone”) which has been a long-time fixture in the “Seed Art” display:

CORRECTION:  I’m informed that the seed “art” picture is intended to be of the late Senator Wellstone.  Not Marv Albert.

Today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network:

• Volume I The Opening Act The First Team – John, Brian and Chad – will shoo the Stroms from the studio and kick things off from 11-1. 
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I’ll will be in next, from 1-3. 
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will talk Minnesota trash after that until 5PM.

So join us on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, 11AM-5PM Central on AM1280 The Patriot, and at Townhall.com!

This next week and a half is going to be just fair-tacular. 

I’ll be broadcasting from the fair tomorrow from 1-3 with Ed.  Join us over on Judson, between the motorcycle booth and the international bazaar.

Then – and this is gonna be fun – Monday and Tuesday Ed and I will take over afternoon drive, from 5-8!  We’ll be a two-guy Barnett-free zone!  Guests, news, and mixing it up with the audience; it’s gonna be great.  (Ed and Colonel Joe Repya will be on Wednesday, while King and Michael will take over Thursday and Friday). 

Then, another day the following Saturday, which promises to be a blast. 

No Sunday broadcasts this year, which breaks my heart nary in the least.

So – stop on out!  We’d love to see you!

It was a huge weekend for my NARN friends and colleagues.

The Brodkorbs welcomed twin daughters Abigail and Elizabeth on Saturday…

…on the same day that Brian and Rachel at long last tied the knot!

Congrats to all.  It was a great weekend.

A special editon today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network:

• Volume I  – John and Chad, clad in tuxes, will do their show, and then race for Brian’s wedding.  Catch it from 11-1. 
• Volume II – Brian and his fiance have a future as program directors; they obviously scheduled their wedding to knock Ed and I off the air.  We’ll be at the wedding, at an undisclosed location, possibly a flower-strewn field on the banks of the Mississippi, followed by the reception at the Midway Applebees (Nihilist in Golf Pants was in charge).  But King and a galaxy of guest stars will cover for us next, from 1-3. 
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King stays on the air with yet more guest stars, as Michael will be out on, er, family business.  Catch the Minnesota beeyotch-slappin’ fun, 3-5PM.

So join us on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, 11AM-5PM Central on AM1280 The Patriot, and at Townhall.com!

And don’t forget – we’re a week away from the NARN’s State Fair Gala!

Today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network:

• Volume I The Opening Act The First Team – John, Brian and Chad – will  kick things off from 11-1.  They’ll talk, among much else, with JunkScience.com founder and publisher, Steven Milloy.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I’ll will be in next, from 1-3.  We’ll be talking with Tammy Nerby, a comedian doing a benefit for Soldiers’ Angels that we’d like you to know about. 
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will talk Minnesota trash after that until 5PM.  I’m guessing the backlash against the DFL’s ghoulish push to hold a special session devoted to exacting yet more tax revenue in the name of the still-unsolved bridge collapse will top their agenda.

So join us on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, 11AM-5PM Central on AM1280 The Patriot, and at Townhall.com!

Today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network:

• Volume I The Opening Act The First Team – John, Brian and Chad – will do the voodoo they do, presumably with Loons and all. 
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I’ll be talking with Stephen Hayes about his new book, Cheney, picking up where the Volume I guys left off last week. 
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will presumably hammer on the Dems’ politicization of the 35W River Bridge tragedy.

All that, plus ambiguously-oriented Russian pop bumper music (never mind, I see Matt’s on the board rather than Irina tomorrow) on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, 11AM-5PM Central on AM1280 The Patriot, and at Townhall.com!

A few years ago, quite a number of talk radio programming execs – including those at both of the Twin Cities’ big talk stations, Hubbard’s KSTP-AM and (later, in 2006) Clear Channel’s KTLK-FM – greeted the latest news from “the consultants”.  Although “The Consultants” have gotten nearly every trend in talk radio throughout the medium’s history utterly wrong, this time the prediction – that conservative political talk radio was dead – was going to be right. 

Of course, it was right after the ’04 elections, when talk ratings had noplace to go but down; exactly as they had after every election cycle since conservative talk had risen to dominate the format.

This past winter, after the ’06 elections, talk in general – and conservative talk in particular – took another hit in the ratings.  And the consultants – many of whom date back to the business’ pre-Limbaugh days, many of whom really really don’t like conservative talk, to say nothing of conservatism itself – cried “the witch is dead” yet again.

And, yet again, it seems they celebrated too soon. 

Where it really counts, Limbaugh / Hannity affiliate WABC scored big gains, moving from a 3.5 overall share of the audience to 3.9. That was good for fifth place among listeners 12 and older, higher than we’ve recently seen for the format in the Big Apple.

Though ratings are tracked monthly, the four quarterly “books” are what actually count. From those, the spring and fall surveys are most critical for setting future advertising rates, as well as sheer bragging rights.

No word on the NARN’s numbers, yet.  But  you can bet we’re kicking whatever hamster KTLK is putting up against us in the utterly make-or-break Saturday Afternoon time slot – and that Air America Minnesota might as well broadcast static for all the good tackling us will do ’em.

Today on the NARN:

• NARN I is on the air now, with John, Brian and Chad.  Well, at least two of the three.  I haven’t been downstairs yet.
• Ed and I with Volume II after that.  We’ll be talking with NZ Bear about the relaunched Victory Caucus page.  It’s gonna be fun.
• Voluime III, “The Final Word”, with Michael and King, wraps it up at 3PM.

Join us! 

I made it to the MOB party last night – fashionably late, for a change!

These things are always a dizzying melange.  I always meet scads of interesting people.  Where to start? 

• Met JRoosh from Roosh Five, one of my favorite newer MOB blogs, who had his own account of the evening.
• Most of the TvM crew was there – Gary, the Ringer (fully recovered from his car accident, or so it seemed), and of course Jeff Kouba, whom I believe I met for the first time. 
• The Lady Logician and the Logical Husband. 
• Neal (Neil?) Krasnoff from Loyal Opposition.
• Ben from Hammerschwing, who, I learned, is in seminary.
• John from Policy Guy, who, last I saw, was hanging out with Erik “the Transit Geek” Hare. 
• Wog from Wog’s Blog, who’s counting down toward a liver transplant one of these days.
• Lileks and the Giant Swede.
• The whole crew from Freedom Dogs – Derek, Lassie, Guy, Jonez and Pinkmon Diamond Dog
• Brad Carlson and his wife Jennifer, who took plenty o’pictures
• An ailing but ebullient Joe Tucci
• Night Writer – really the First Familiy of Minnesota blogging, with Mall Diva, Tiger Lilly, and their small crowd of devotees.  The Writer had an account of the evening, by the way, including a photo of me, captioned: “The Reverend Mother spent part of the evening eavesdropping on Mitch Berg. “He’s really interesting,” she said. “Is there anything he doesn’t have an opinion on?” [Hm – come to think if it, probably not…] If so, we haven’t found it. I do know he likes Springsteen [ well, yeah] and, along with Strommie, the Mall Diva [Oh, Writer – I’m so not like Strom…].
• Anti-Strib Tracy and his vastly better half.
• Much less of Speed Gibson than I remember – congrats!
• My neighbor John, from Crazy But Able (whom I’d nearly run down on my bike on Friday while he was walking with his wife and baby around Como) who captured the event with a lot of photos – which are, amazingly, very good. 
• My other neighbor, Flash, from Centrisity
• Dan, the Northern Alliance Wannabe
• King
• Michael
• Bob Davis and Sarah Janecek over at the radio table.
• AAA and…Carrie?  Keri?  Caray?  Anyway, Andy bought me a drink, so there’ll be nothing but favorable reviews of his presence.  Andy reviewed the event, throwing down on the mostly-absent Fraters…
• …who did, in fact, send Atomizer and the Atomizerette to represent.
• Eva Young, who does a lot less name-calling in person than on her blogs.
• Joel and Mrs. Rossennbeerrgg Rosenberg.
• Doug was there, too…

I know I’m missing some.  Cue me in!

And I can hardly wait for the next one!

UPDATE:  Gotcha, Joel.  Got Doug Bass, too.

Of course, I need to shout out to the ones everyone missed; Katie from Yucky Salad, Cathy from the Wright, Jordan and Mark, the Fraters, the Powerguys, Swiftee, Yossarian, Doug Williams, Steve Gigl, Jay Reding…

But it’s summer.  We’re happy anyone at all takes such a gorgeous evening and comes out.

Hour two, talking transit with Erik Hare. 

Let me repeat:  talking about mass transit.  On a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  Expecting to be, along with producer Matt Reynolds and the Volume III guys in the next room, to the the only people listening.

Full banks of callers. 

I like it.  But it confuses me. 

I need a drink…HEY!  It’s almost time for the MOB party!

Huge day in the world of the Northern Alliance and the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers today.

 I’ll be talking with Joel Rosenberg and Andrew Rothman about the latest on last month’s shooting in Coon Rapids last month.  Is it an official coverup?  It’s looking interesting.

 I’ll also be talking with The Transit Geek, Erik Hare, about the Met Council’s plot to tear the guts out of Saint Paul,

Don’t forget the Volume I guys, John, Brian and Chad from 11-1, and Volume III, King and Michael, from 3-5!

And then tonight, the highlight of the social season, the THIRD ANNUAL MOB SUMMER BASH at Keegans, Saturday night! The Minnesota Organization of Bloggers is a non-partisan group of bloggers who exist, mainly, to further blogging in Minnesota. As such, we invite all bloggers, and for that matter all non-bloggers, to come on down!

Just a note – everyone who’s anyone is coming to the..

 THIRD ANNUAL MOB SUMMER BASH

at Keegans, tomorrow night!

Boilerplate:  The Minnesota Organization of Bloggers is a non-partisan group of bloggers who exist, mainly, to further blogging in Minnesota.  As such, we invite all bloggers, and for that matter all non-bloggers, to come on down!

Now, yesterday Jeff Kouba from TvM wrote in my comment section:

It being the MOB at all, there should be a rule that we can only play “Don’t Stop Believin’” on the jukebox…

Of course, Journey’s 1981 classic – which had a couple of years’ association with the TV show Scrubs – will now forever more be linked to The Sopranos, because of its prominence in the final epi.  So naturally, a good MOB party should play it prominently.

But there are other good Mob – if not MOB – related songs to choose from:

1. The Night Chicago Died, Paper Lace (naturally, the referenced “East Side of Chicago” exists on the same plane as, well, the Jukebox at Keegans). 
2. Meeting Across The River, Springsteen – maybe the best song ever about small-time hoods.
3. Dance With Me, the Iron City Houserockers – great song about a small-time hood and his girl out for a night on the town.
4. Princess of Little Italy, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul – and I’d suggest it even if “Little Steven” Van Zandt didn’t also wind up playing Silvio Dante for the show’s whole run…
5. Big Man In Town, the Four Seasons – it just sounds right.

OK, what the heck, your turn…

Ed’s out of town, so NARN II is going to be a “solo” show this weekend. 

And when I say “solo”, I mean “me, plus a few really great guests”. 

I’ll be talking with Joel Rosenberg and Andrew Rothman about the latest on the shooting in Coon Rapids last month, which I’ve covered in some depth but which keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, and now looks to be verging, to some observers, on an official coverup.

I’ll also be talking with The Transit Geek, Erik Hare, about the Met Council’s plot to gut Saint Paul, although he may have a different term for it. 

Plus the Volume I guys, John, Brian and Chad from 11-1, and Volume III, King and Michael, from 3-5!

And then, the highlight of the social season, the

THIRD ANNUAL MOB SUMMER BASH

at Keegans, Saturday night!

The Minnesota Organization of Bloggers is a non-partisan group of bloggers who exist, mainly, to further blogging in Minnesota.  As such, we invite all bloggers, and for that matter all non-bloggers, to come on down!

UPDATE:  Rosenberg.  Joel Rosenberg.  There is not Rossenberg slated to appear.  Oops.

Mixing iced tea and “work”:

And for the record, they had the best tasting iced tea I have ever had, and not just because it hit 100 here in DC today.

Beyond that?  No similarity.  He’s actually doing something useful – in this case, Sunday’s interview with Said Jawad, Ambassador from Afghanistan:

In one sense, it breaks new ground because the Ambassador rarely gets an opportunity to speak in depth about the status of Afghanistan. Normally, all he gets are quick sound bites taken out of context, or a five-minute segment on a talking-head show in which he never gets the opportunity to speak about his country’s experience in any depth at all. In this format, we can allow Ambassador Jawad to speak at length — and if you listen to the show, you can see that the Ambassador has quite a story to tell.

The most groundbreaking aspect of the interview, I believe, is how the questions came to the Ambassador in the first place. Readers of this blog asked the questions in the comments section, and I selected the most germane and posed them to the Ambassador. His staff reviewed that thread and spoke about how impressed they were with the variety and depth of the questions. Afterwards, Ambassador Jawad said the one question I failed to ask that he wanted to answer was one about dirt-biking in Afghanistan’s mountains, which he thought would be a marvelous idea, so I know they paid close attention to your input.

You oughtta listen to his rather remarkable interview with the Ambassador. 

Caught in passing on the site “Hillbilly White Trash“:

Tonight we present An@l Blast a violent death metal band from right here in the USA. Minneapolis, Minnesota to be exact.

I wonder if they have ever been interviewed on Northern Alliance Radio?

An@l Blast is celebrating the debut of their long awaited new CD: Battered Bleeding Bitch…If all their work measures up to this standard I’m sure that they will be around titillating teenage losers with severe personality disorders for weeks to come.

As I speak, NARN Volume I are starting their final hour, and it’s been a doozy.  Podcast on Monday.

Ed and I go on the air in about 40 minutes.  What’ll we talk about?  Anyone’s guess!

After that, Michael and King do the voodoo (economics) they do.

Tune in or log on!

As I write this, Chad, Brian and John are assailing the Gay Pride parade, among other topics, on NARN Volume I. 

Ed and I will be on the air with Volume II at 1PM, assuming Ed shows up.  Otherwise, it’ll be just me.  Either way, I’m cool with it, since with the Dems running a full court press for the return of the “Fairness Doctrine”, we need to enjoy all the time on the air we can.

Then, King and Michael will be on the air after 3 with “The Final Word”.

Keep your radio with you!

Another yuuuuuuge day on the NARN today.

From 11 to 1, John, Chad and Brian, AKA “Volume I”, AAKA “The Opening Act”, hold forth.  Not sure what the topic is going to be, but it’ll be good stuff.  Tune in.

Then Ed and I will be talking with Eric Black of the Strib Minnesota Monitor about journalism today, and the MinnMon tomorrow. James Lileks should also be making an appearance.

Finally, Volume III “The Final Word” with King and Michael kicks off at 3, and if I were a betting man, I’d go all in on “they’ll have some Minnesota politics insiders on the show”, although I’ve been wrong before.  (UPDATE:  Doy.  Like, Governor Pawlenty).

We’re still scheduled to have Eric Black – soon-to-be-former Strib reporter, who’s going to the Minnesota Monitor – on the show tomorrow.

It’s going to be an interesting show.  Make sure you tune in.

I’ve just confirmed it – Eric Black, soon-to-be-former Star/Tribune reporter and blogger, and soon to be reporter for the overtly-partisan, deep-pocketed-lefty-funded groupblog Minnesota Monitor, will be a guest on the Northern Alliance, Volume II, this coming Saturday.

Ed and I will be talking with him about the state of the Strib, his move, and – the part I’m most interested in – how “traditional” American journalism (which really isn’t all that traditional, and in fact is less than a hundred years old) is changing. 

This should be a great hour of radio.  Make sure you tune in.

Today on the NARN and elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Mitch:

• Yard work!
• A big tripleheader NARN show at the dedication of the State WWII Memorial, with  NARN Volume I (“The Opening Act”) and Brian, John and Chad,m  Ed, King and Michael and I talking about the memorial, interviewing guests, and talking with people who’ve come to view the memorial and the event. 
• Then, more yard work!

Tune in on AM1280, either on the air or via the web. 

Since we’re spending Saturday commemorating Minnesotans who served in World War II, I’d be remiss as an American of Norwegian descent not mention one unit with a strong regional connection.

Early in the war, when Washington and London were casting about for ways to regain a foothold in Europe, occupied Norway was considered an option.

And one of the things the Army decided it needed was units of men who looked and spoke Norwegian, to go into Norway to mobilize guerillas to prepare the way for an invasion force. 

Which led to the formation of the 99th Infantry Battalion (Separate) – a unit of Norwegian-speaking ski troops formed in Minnesota from first-and-second-generation Norwegians from Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan:

[…On] 10 July 1942, the 99th Infantry Battalion (Separate) was ordered formed by H.Q. Army Ground Forces. The men needed to be able to blend perfectly into the local Norwegian countryside, so requests for Norwegian speaking volunteers were sent throughout the army.  Native speakers were preferred but Americans of Norwegian descent who were fluent in the language were also accepted. Efforts were made to recruit Norwegians stranded in America by the war, and it was hoped that many tough Norwegian merchant seamen would enlist. All volunteers had to be citizens of the United States or must have applied for citizenship. 
As might be expected, many of the men who volunteered came from Minnesota and the Dakotas.  Those accepted were ordered to report to Camp Ripley, where the Battalion’s first morning reports were filed on 15 August 1942. The unit’s first commander was Captain Harold D. Hanson, and it had an authorized strength of 884. Officers were to be Norwegian-Americans until native Norwegian officers could be graduated from officer candidate schools. 

Training in Northern Minnesota, naturally, was interesting:

At Camp Ripley the unit engaged in enhanced soldier skill training and physical conditioning.  
Training went well until all the units tents were collapsed under an unseasonal mid-September snowfall that was very wet, heavy, and deep.  Realizing that the training would be hampered at Camp Ripley, Captain Hanson moved his unit to Ft. Snelling. The battalion’s motor officer, Lt. Lester Carlson from southern Minnesota, had contacts with the State Highway Patrol and was able to make special convoy arrangements for a non-stop motor march to Ft. Snelling.  At Ft. Snelling the battalion continued the training started at Camp Ripley–physical conditioning, long road marches, enhanced soldier skills, and Norwegian language classes. The Twin Cities’ large Scandinavian population made sure that the men were well cared for, and many social events were organized to entertain the men when off duty. 

 Although they were an infantry unit, their mission was not unlike that of the US Special Forces, formed ten years later; infiltrate the target country, using guile and cultural and language skills, and serve as a trained nucleus around which guerrilla groups could form, to prepare the way for a possible Allied invasion. 

On 17 December the battalion was transferred to Camp Hale, Colorado. Getting off the train and realizing that the snow was 6 feet deep, many soldiers wondered what they had really gotten themselves into. They soon found out. Carrying equipment weighing up to 90 pounds, the unit spent much of the winter training in the mountains on skies and snowshoes, and developing winter survival skills. In the spring when the snow melted the men received extensive rock climbing training.

But war’s exigencies being what they were, the 99th was reassigned as a regular line infantry battalion when the powers that be pointed the invasion at Normandy rather than Norway.  The 99th went on to fight in Normandy, and then participated in one of the key actions in the brutal Ardennes campaign, fighting against the best the Nazis had:

 The battalion saw its heaviest combat in the Battle of the Bulge, when it was reinforced with tank destroyers and armored infantry and sent to hold Malmedy against [Nazi commando leader Otto] Skorzeny’s 150th Panzer Brigade. “They were good,” Private Howard R. Bergen recalled later, “but not good enough.”

The Norwegians smashed the SS attack, and held the crossroads for most of January before being sent back to France for re-training as part of the 474th Infantry Regiment, a unit made up of the 1st Special Service Force (the so-called Devil’s Brigade) [from which the US Army Special Forces – the  “Green Berets” – are indirectly descended].

After the end of the war, they finally served in Norway, helping move demobilized German troops back across the Baltic to Germany and serving as King Haakon’s guard until a Norwegian native guard force could be formed. 

The unit, 880-odd men strong as it shipped out, suffered 300 dead and seriously wounded during the war.

I hope some of them show up on Saturday.