Barack Obama meets with George Soros
, hoping to tap into some of the magic the government-toppling currency speculator has brought tot he world of leftyblogs:

Senator Barack Obama treaded onto Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s home turf last night to meet with prominent Democratic donors and feel out those who might prefer the sound of President Obama to President Clinton (as in Hillary, not Bill).

Amid intensifying presidential musings by Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama met with George Soros, the liberal billionaire philanthropist, and then some other donors last night at Mr. Soros’s offices…Mr. Soros, an early supporter, was the host of a fund-raiser during Mr. Obama’s campaign for the Senate in 2004, but he has not publicly committed to any candidate for the 2008 race, said Michael Vachon, an aide to Mr. Soros.

Maybe Soros will undercut the dollar in ’08 to get a Democrat into office.

Another of Red’s memes. This one is word association. Some answers need vaguely more than one word:

1. Yourself: Frazzled
2. Your spouse: Ex
3. Your hair: Ex
4. Your mother: Eccentric
5. Your father: Centric
6. Your favorite item: Guitar
7. Your dream last night: Can’t.
8. Your favorite drink: Lemon Drop
9. Your dream car: CJ7
10. The room you are in: Family room
11. Your ex: Which?
12. Your fear: being alone when i’m old
13. What you want to be in 10 years: Nationwide
14. Who you hung out with last night: Kids
15. What you’re not: Patient
16. Muffins: Savory
17: One of your wish list items: iPod
18: Time: scarce
19. The last thing you did: Made some french bread ‘za for dinner.
20. What you are wearing: Blue dress shirt, khaki pants.
21. Your favorite weather: Overcast, cool, drizzly.
22. Your favorite book: Crime and Punishment
23. The last thing you ate: See #19 above
24. Your life: Not so bad.
25. Your mood: tired
26. Your best friend: Several
27. What you’re thinking about right now: kids’ school
28. Your car: blah
29. What you are doing at the moment: listening to daughter
30. Your summer: Medora
31. Your relationship status: Why bother?
32. What is on your TV: Scrubs
33. What is the weather like: Cold
34. When was the last time you laughed: About two minutes ago, watching Scrubs.

On reading David Drucker’s op-ed in the Strib (via the LATimes), it’s tempting to simply mutter “good riddance” as Drucker – whose column is so sodden with lefty caricature that it reads like parody – and his wife decide to move to Canada:

I’m sure a lot of other dyed-in-the-organic-wool liberals muttered something similar that dark morning in 2004, but unlike most of them, we meant it. Plan A: John Kerry wins, we build that dream ski house in Vermont. Plan B: Move to Vancouver.

So, Plan B it was. We’d had enough of Bush, the direction the United States was going, and this was the last straw. Never mind that we lived in Cambridge, Mass., arguably the most liberal city in the bluest of the blue states. We were packing our bulk granola into our diesel Beetle and heading out.

But then, after reading the cloyingly vacuous Drucker’s analysis of Canadian and US politics, you reconsider…

…and mutter “good riddance, yuppie a****le”.  I don’t care what your politics are – but we’re a better country to be at least be rid of one pair of worthless quitters.

Most of the family lost in Oregon nine days ago have been found, alive:

authorities report that Kati Kim and daughters Penelope and Sabine have been found alive and well after been stranded nine days in the wilderness in southwest Oregon. CNET editor James Kim is still missing, but searchers are keeping up their air and ground efforts.

Kati Kim and daughter Penelope, 4 years, and Sabine, 7 months, were in remarkably good condition, surviving on what authorities describe as “minor provisions” in their car for nine days. The family used the car’s heater to stay warm, and began burning tires when the car ran out of gas.

The news isn’t all good…: 

James Kim set off on his own for help two days ago; rescuers are following his still-visible trail.

Prayers, wishes or whatever other karmic invocations you prefer are probably in order. 

Yet again – as with the aftermath of every earthquake – never believe “the authorities” when they say they’ve given up hope. 

Saturday: Michael Brodkorb of MDE appears on NARN3 with King and the guys from Anti-Strib to shred Minneapolis School Board member Chris Stewart (AKA Rahelio Soleil), who would seem to be not only a racist, but a particularly dumb one whom even Democrats are having trouble supporting.

Sunday: Michael Brodkorb’s house is egged.

And while the mere act of egging doesn’t pin blame on the soon-to-be-disgraced school board member and his supporters, we’re waiting for investigators to tell us if the egg was free-range.

It would be circumstantial, but still dispositive.

That church bells disturb the daytime slumber of another somnolent suburb…:

Fairfax County officials have issued a ringing non-endorsement of the bells at St. John Neumann’s in Reston, ruling that they must toll within the limits of the county’s noise ordinance or not at all.

The Board of Supervisors asked the zoning staff this year to see whether the law could be amended to accommodate the church, whose bells ring at a volume slightly higher than the 55-decibel maximum permitted in residential areas… at an average of 75 decibels (roughly equivalent to a vacuum cleaner at close range), which is considerably above the 55-decibel limit in residential areas.

…that the ‘burb’s government is backing and filling to justify it…:

James P. Zook, director of Fairfax’s Department of Planning and Zoning, recently told the board in a memo that…”Localities cannot enact different standards for noise emanating from a place of worship,” Zook said. If Fairfax did that, he said, the new rules would have to apply to “all other types of bells, chimes or carillons.” Zook noted, however, that at least two other cities, Morgantown, W.Va., and Seattle, did make exceptions for church bells.

…or…:

St. John’s, a Catholic church in south Reston, installed a $50,000 electronic bell system in 2004 as part of a major expansion.

…that the scourge of electronic “bells” continues unabated?

I don’t write much about the difference between Islam and Christianity (or Islam and the West, for that matter); other people do it better.

But when I have, I’ve gotten the occasional comment claiming that, at least as far as this country is concerned, fundamentalist Christianity remains a bigger threat than fundie Islam.

The commenters (I’m not going to look them up now – they’re on the old site) never cite any concrete reasons, of course. And I wish they would.

Because I’m trying to find an example of any group of Christians doing something like this any time since the Middle Ages:

The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.

The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely. But his life was over, he was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes, the remains put on display as a warning to others against defying Taliban orders to stop educating girls.

Anyone?

For the whole 21 years I’ve been living in the Twin Cities, I’ve been wanting a job downtown.  I love the hustle and bustle of downtown life – and the costs of commuting from Saint Paul to the southwest, west and northwest burbs every day were a galling taunt.

Oh, I’ve had bits and pieces.  I had a couple of really crappy temp jobs, a few very short-term gigs, and one eight-month contract gig. 

Today, I start another.  And hopefully this one will be for the long haul.

Katherine Kersten spits on the grave of the “Growth for Justice” gang’s logical and ethical case.

 You remember “Growth For Justice” – the group of 200 Minnesota millionaires who called for sweeping tax increases, that the gaping insatiable maw of government never go unfilled.  They portrayed themselves as a “non-partisan” group (a conceit that area bloggers crushed), and claimed that state government needed two billion more dollars to “invest” in the state’s future. 

Even after the budget forecast grew rosier, however, calls for higher taxes continued. In June 2006, one high-profile group, dubbed the “Gang of 200,” announced a plan to raise $2 billion for the state treasury by boosting income tax rates.

These zillionaires, including the likes of Jim Pohlad and Bruce Dayton, touted their “Real Prosperity” strategy in a full-page newspaper ad. “We can afford to pay higher taxes,” they proclaimed, “and we can’t afford not to.”

But the well-heeled members of the Gang of 200 weren’t content to write big checks themselves. They wanted to hit up most Minnesotans — down to some families making only $45,000 a year.

Once again, Pawlenty didn’t blink.

But six months later, Pohlad and Co. got their wish. The $2 billion that they saw as necessary for “real prosperity” appeared. Last week, Pawlenty announced a state budget surplus of $2.17 billion.

And not one Minnesotan had to pay higher income tax rates.

The governor’s implementing of the “No New Taxes” pledge – the single event that most exercised this state’s piddlers on merit, limo liberals and entitlement pimps – has been a demonstrable success. 

It remains to be seen if the chastened, “kinder and gentler” GOP in the legislature, as well as the Governor, know it.

Kate Parry, the Strib’s institutional self-justification specialist “Reader’s Representative”, writes about the Strib plagiarism scandal.  Sort of:

The review, which began Thursday, is being conducted by a team working with Sandy Date, director of news research, and Rob Daves, director of strategic research.

Rob Daves?  The majordomo of the Minnesota Poll, either the most inaccurate poll in the world or the most finely-tuned partisan tool in the media?  Some investigation that’ll be.  “Steve Berg founded New Yorker”. 

Their charge is to examine the body of Berg’s work since January 2006 and determine if there are further similarities with other writers’ work. “We’ve been asked to move very quickly, but we’ve also been told the quality and accuracy of our work is paramount,” Daves said.

The jokes write themselves, sometimes.

During the two years I’ve been in this job, several times readers have pointed out what appears to them to be plagiarism by reporters and metro columnists. Sometimes, but not always, the allegations come from those who disagree with a columnist’s political views and know a plagiarism charge that sticks can severely damage a career.

Kate Parry – don’t you rely on that “our critics are partisans” schtick a bit much? 

The stakes have never been higher for newspapers’ credibility. Some talk radio and blog commentators eager to win over newspaper readers and the advertising dollars that follow them delight in exploiting accusations of unethical behavior by journalists.

But others raise legitimate issues.

Actually, we bloggers and talk hosts raise legitimate issues – and as convenient as it may be to Parry to chalk the issues up to partisan sniping or moneygrubbing, the fact is that without us to call the public’s attention to the Strib’s many problems, Kate Parry certainly never would.   

 It’s important for newspapers to resist becoming so jaded about the partisan edges of so much media criticism that they fail to act on serious questions about ethics.

When Kate Parry ascribes nearly all criticism to partisan edges, what does “cynicism” mean anymore?

Then factor in the ease the Internet has brought to making publications worldwide available at the click of a mouse, exploding the amount of information at our fingertips and also making it easier than ever to sniff out plagiarism.

In that atmosphere, the last thing this newspaper should do is hand eager critics more ammo to keep firing away at problems resulting from sloppy research and writing.

If all of that still isn’t enough to make every writer in the building appropriately obsessive and even a bit paranoid about annotating notes and meticulously attributing words that didn’t originate in their brains, it should be.

And, um, it has been for about ten years. 

Here’s a quick preview of a core lesson from that upcoming seminar: Plagiarism embarrasses the whole journalistic community and can derail promising careers.

But before you get to that ugly extreme, Kate Parry will be there to turn white into black in your defense.

Don’t forget, this holiday season, to make a little time for  the planning party for all us Second Amendment types down at Stub and Herb’s on December 16 at 6PM.

Pro-gun activists from all across the state will be meeting and sharing food, fun, and maybe a little bit of beer to talk how to move the ball forward over the next few years.

Just a friendly reminder.  I hope to see you there.

…this news would have kept me jazzed for a whole week.

Devin Hester ran into the record book again. Ricky Manning Jr. returned an interception for a touchdown, and the Bears claimed their second straight NFC North title with a 23-13 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on a frigid Sunday afternoon.

And by golly, it still does!

Now that they’ve clinched their second straight division title, the Chicago Bears can focus on bigger goals: a No. 1 seed and, maybe, the conference championship.

And then a Super Bowl.  Don’t forget the Super Bowl.

Via Stainless Steel Droppings

1.How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?

I was four or five, I think.  Not sure who taught me, but I distinctly remember the  first word I ever read; my dad was in grad school in Fargo, and my mom, her parents and I were driving there to see him.  I remember looking at a road sign and sounding out “F…AR…Go!   FARGO!”.  They  were pretty excited.

2.Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library?

“My” first book was a little pocket book of World War II airplanes that had been my dad’s when he was a kid.  I read it constantly for years.  My first library book was actually the American Heritage history of the Civil War when I was in first grade.  It was a little over my reading level – I remember proudly reading about the “UNN-yun” and “con-FEED-rate” armies – but the pictures of uniforms were soooo cool…

3.What’s the first book that you bought with your own money?

A book of Civil War stories.

4.Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often?

There were books I read many times.  I probably re-read “The Wooden Horse” at least a dozen times.

5.What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it?

That’s a tough one.  I hardly ever read “kids'” books.  I was pretty much checking all my books out of the adult section by third grade. 

6.Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones?

Winnie the Pooh, and the whole Madeleine series.

Bonus Question: Are there books you remember reading as a child that you either can’t find now or can’t remember the title?

Nope!

I’m not one of those people who gets all depressed and weird about Christmas.  In fact, I make a pretty, um, religious point of keeping me and the kids focused on what the season is about; its religious roots, the fun of being together with one’s family, just plain being happy.  With kudos to Dennis Prager, it’s actually something I got from an old Hungarian saying – “the best way to become wealthy is to appear that you already are” – probably a decade or two before I ever heard Dennis Prager.

In all, Christmas is close to the perfect season.  I love it.

But…

…there are a few Chrsitmas songs that simplly have to go.

Don’t get me wrong; I can’t think of a single traditional Christmas song that I don’t like.  No, it’s the pop-oriented Christmas songs of the last fifty years that truly sap that holiday cheer from my soul.

The worst offenders:

• Jingle Bell Rock: Every version.  But especially Wayne Newton.
• Sleigh Ride, by some schlock lounge singer of the fifties and sixties.  Not sure which one – it’s the one where the singer sings “…our freinds are calling YEEEEE-HOOO!”.  That’s a spirit killer right there.

More as I remember them – not that I’ll be trying that hard.

…this is the kind of lawsuit I love to hate: a California woman sues over food ingredients.

Not faulty ones.  Not unlabelled or unadvertised ones.  Not dangerous ones (shut up, Center for Science in the Public Interest).  No.  Just the wrong ones:

[Kraft guacamole] just didn’t taste avocadoey,” said Brenda Lifsey, who used Kraft Dips Guacamole in a three-layer dip last year. “I looked at the ingredients and found there was almost no avocado in it.”

She is seeking unspecified damages and a Superior Court order barring Kraft from calling its dip guacamole. Her suit seeks class-action status.

Brenda; then buy a different brand?  Make your own?  Substitute old mayonnaise?

On the other hand – watch this one carefully, American Beer Industry.