Driving while intoxicated is a dumb idea.  Don’t do it.

OK.  With that out of the way…

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has become one of the third rails of national politics; like Patty Wetterling, they are deemed above criticism because of the loss (a few of) their founders suffered.

And yet MADD has favored, and continues to favor, quite a few measures that are completely noxious, on their way to a policy of national prohibition.  Lowering the legal driving Blood Alcohol Content to .08% is one such  measure; while any alcohol will indeed affect one’s driving, and different drivers react differently, the vast majority  of DUI arrests involve much higher BAC levels, and the majority of problems – accidents, etc – are caused by people who are blasted out of their minds.

MADD seems to be think no punishment is too severe for drunk drivers.

So one State Senator is really going against the grain with his proposals  to treat drunk drivers less onerously than the UN treats Serb war criminals:

Leading the charge in this unlikely battle is state Sen. Ron Latz DFL-St. Louis Park. As a criminal defense attorney and former assistant attorney general, Latz has worked on both sides of the DWI issue over the years.”I want to tinker with the system to make sure it works more fairly for everyone involved and improves public safety,” he explains. “And I think that will happen if both my bills get passed.”

Although all the details havent been ironed out, Latz plans to introduce a bill that will grant judges the authority to expand the use of [ignition-interlock breathlyzers] for repeat drunk drivers. Its a matter of common sense and “enlightened self-interest,” Latz says, pointing to the fact that a second DWI offense typically costs drivers their license for six months, making it harder for them to continue working or attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. “With those additional stresses, its even harder for them to become sober,” says Latz.

Observers like Steve Simon think ignition interlock, which is now commonly used in other states, is unlikely to have much opposition in Minnesota. Indeed, Mothers Against Drunk Driving launched a campaign last year touting the benefits of the devices for first-time drunk drivers.

So far so good.

But Latzs other measure, a bill to allow convicted drunk drivers to pay their $690 license reinstatement fee in installments, faces considerably more controversy. Both the DWI Task Force and the Department of Public Safety have declared their opposition to it.

But Latz says hes not trying to make it easier for drunk drivers. Instead, he says it will make the roads safer for the rest of us. He argues that many offenders, unable to muster the necessary cash, simply opt to drive without a valid license—or insurance. Statistics bear out the claim. Last year, there were a record 41,000 DWI arrests in Minnesota, yet only 29,000 people shelled out reinstatement fees.

Pragmatism?  Common sense?

MADD is going to hate it.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I oppose the death penalty for one reason, and one reason only; the likelihood of executing the innocent. 

And of course, when people are executed for crimes of which there’d seem to be very little doubt – Saddam Hussein, for example – I’ve solemnly intoned that I find no joy in the execution of the sentence.

That is true.

But I’ll make an exception for this piece of filth:

Jurors deliberated about four hours before returning the verdict against John Evander Couey in the slaying of Jessica Lunsford, who was snatched from her bedroom in 2005 about 150 yards from the trailer where Couey had been living.

Her body was found in a shallow hole, encased in two black plastic trash bags. She had suffocated, and was found clutching a purple stuffed dolphin.

As the father of a two kids who watched the whole horrible, miserable spectacle of the kidnapping, the investigation and the arrest of this piece of animated rot, I will celebrate, boisterously, when Couey is finally excised from this earth.  If the needle goes in wrong and he endures one of those long, painful executions that the media occasionally barbers and phumphers about, I’ll buy a round for whatever table I’m sitting at.  If somehow Jeb Bush offers me the chance to dispatch him myself with a blunt knitting needle to the abdomen – so as to make Jack Bauer look like Mike Brady – I’ll take the challenge on with a smile, and pay my own airfare.

I will rejoice when Couey is executed, and possibly throw a party at the Berg house, and I won’t apologize to anyone about it. 

This, of course, is why we have an Eighth Amendment.  More’s the pity, in this instance.

That is all.

Representative Kline,

While I’m not a constituent of yours, Learned Foot is.  And I gotta go along with the Foot on this one.  He’s talking about the gabbling cretins that are continually occupying your office, demanding “dialog”, soaking up your staff’s time and polite ministrations, streetwalking in front of a carful of partisan-media johns.

I say – give ’em what they want.  Or as Foot says:

 I say do it. Hold that town hall meeting they keep demanding. Get these freaks to talk – on tape (and it wouldn’t be hard since they do tend to love the sound of their own voices). Just let them yammer on and on. And then, make sure everyone gets a chance to see them for the vacant narcissistic eliminationists they are.

Lest anyone think that Rep. Kline is dealing with rational people here, Foot excerpts a clip:

 “If Iran would drop a nuclear bomb on Israel, I would ask myself if Israel had it coming, and I would say they did.”

Represenative Kline, here’s what you should do:  have the forum.  And make sure you invite every conservative blogger you can find, especially those with video cameras.   Have a staffer bring a wireless router in from home.  Let us videotape the proceedings, and liveblog ’em, and make sure the exact nature of the creeping cretinism you and your staff face is on full display (as opposed to the gauzy, earnest soft-focus that the Strib presents them in). 

Shine the light on the cockroaches, Representative Kline.  Hell, for that opportunity, I’d take the day off from work.

Have your people call my people.

Algore getting beaten up – from the left?

PETA slags Algore’s “Meat Addiction“, via Drudge:

Norfolk, Va. — This morning, PETA sent a letter to former vice president Al Gore explaining to him that the best way to fight global warming is to go vegetarian and offering to cook him faux “fried chicken” as an introduction to meat-free meals. In its letter, PETA points out that Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth—which starkly outlines the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming and just won the Academy Award for “Best Documentary”—has failed to address the fact that the meat industry is the largest contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions.

“No, we’re the People’s Front of Judea…”

Twin Cities broadcast legend John Hines is moving to KTLK:

John Hines, for the past 16 years a morning mainstay at country music station KEEY (FM 102.1) is moving down the dial to conservative talker KTLK (100.3 FM) where he will fill the 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. morning slot recently vacated by Andrew Colton.

On the one hand, good riddance to the arid, dull Colton. 

But Caulfield-Rybak is playing to hype, calling KTLK a “Conservative” station.  

Oh, it’s moved to the right since it’s original incarnation, which was spawned during the big craze two years ago that claimed conservative talk was dead; the station’s original lineup included only Limbaugh as a genuine conservative show, and was larded with the somnolent Colton and Guest, the mismatched Pat Kessler, the misconceived Janecek and Lambert, and the capable but not-really-aligned Dan Conry.  As the original lineup melted down (only the Limbaugh time slot beat AM1280 the Patriot, a station with 1/20 KTLK’s power), they added more, proven, conservative hosts (Sean Hannity, Jason Lewis), but have studiously avoided (in my opinion) being identified as “conservative”.

Why?  My guess – to try to validate some very expensive consultants’ highly-paid opinions.

Because Hines is certainly a high-profile attempt to salvage the “conservative talk is dead” strategy:

Anselmo acknowledged that Hines [like his predecessor Colton] would be a distinctly apolitical voice on a station populated by conservative hosts. “What he’ll bring is great morning radio, with personality, entertainment and local focus.”

Hines is one of the best in town.  But can he save a concept – “conservative talk radio is dead!” – that the market nationwide shows is a dud?

I give him a year.

Join Chad in ponying up to help the Misericordia Orphanage in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Saint Paul will be getting the 2008 GOP National Convention.

The good news:  They have selected a planner:

A federal Transportation Department official and former Republican Party operative will decide where delegates sit, how to keep the media happy and what events to stage at the 2008 Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities.

Maria Cino, who was named deputy secretary of transportation two years ago by President Bush and was his national political director in 2000, will be the Republican National Committee’s lead planner for the convention, committee spokesperson Chris Taylor said Monday.

Cino will work with the local host committee and city officials to coordinate an event that’s expected to draw more than 45,000 people — including delegates, media and visitors — to the Twin Cities…Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn, said Cino was the perfect choice to bring people together in planning the convention.

“Throughout her exemplary career, Maria Cino has been known for her ability to roll up her sleeves and get things done,” he said.

So far so good.

Of course, for the 75-odd-percent of my adopted hometown that votes DFL – and for the 5-20% of that number who could fairly be called the “lunatic fringe” – it’s all about them:

  At the first of three St. Paul forums on the convention Monday morning, officials heard concerns about limited access to downtown, protesters and taxpayer liabilities…Some, like West Side resident Gerry Berquist, said they want officials to ensure that protesters are treated fairly and that downtown business won’t be adversely affected.

“There needs to be a huge community gathering so that these questions can be asked,” he said.

Bergquist’s remarks are the tip of the iceberg.  The local left – expressing their wishes on a number of local email discussion forums and blogs – want unprecedented access to the XCel Energy Center during the convention.  Some of them want absolutely untrammelled access to not only the facility, and to the President himself, but even to the conventiongoers as they go about their daily business.  Some want to “debate” convention delegates on the street – “debates” that sound in most cases more like harassment – in order to perhaps “educate” them.  When questioned, they seem to studiously avoid references to their more deranged cohorts, as if they’re just no way an anti-Republican demonstrator will cause problems.

I have a couple of ideas in response:

• Democrats – let’s meet out on the street for a real debate.  Send your people up against the legion of right-leaning bloggers that’ll be descending on the event.  See who “educates” whom.
• While we’re so concerned about free speech (and I am in fact a bigger proponent of genuine free speech than any “liberal” I know), how about we think globally before acting locally.  Start by lifting the free speech restrictions at the St. Paul Planned Parenthood clinic.  What?  You say you can’t, because a deranged person might commit violence against some innocent customer?  Hm.  Are we seeing the disconnect yet?

Counting the hours until 9/08.

JB Doubtless, by way of commenting about those shock-jock morons whose dimbulb stunt killed a woman, notes:

The NARN boys have been known to do some pretty damn stupid things–that time they had Mitch read the Eagan phone book to kill an hour comes to mind–but this contest was one for the ages.

Indeed, while nobody has died as a result of NARN activities, there’ve been some doozies anyway. The bottom 12 moments in the history of the Northern Alliance Radio Network:

12. King, Michael and Eva Young’s group hug.

11. Hinderaker challenging the Marines to a pull-up contest – against Ed.
10. Brian “Ozzy” Ward biting the head off a moonbat.

9. JB Doubtless licking a Vox Day action figure

8. Scott Johnson pimp-slapping short-lived lefty counterpoint host Greta Grimes-Dypczynski.

7. Me, having an argument with myself – and losing.

6. Brian Ward setting the Wellstone school directory to music.
5. Chad the Elder trading nail-care tips with Michele Bachmann.

4. Me, reading the Eagan phone book. For an hour.
3. Brodkorb to Michelle Malkin: “Boxers or briefs?”
2. Getting bleeped as Hinderaker yells “we don’t need no M______g snakes on no m_____g talk show!”
1. JB and Captain Ed’s soulful duet version of “Afternoon Delight”.

Anyway, today is the third anniversary of the first NARN broadcast.

And miscues aside, I’d like to thank the audience – and, let me hasten to add, Chad, Brian, King, Ed, John, Michael, Scott, JB, and even Atomizer – for three very fun years.

Backstory: In 21 years of living in the Twin Cities, I’ve met quite a number of fellow expat North Dakotans. Whereever they’re from, no matter what the age difference, it matters not – rarely can we talk for more than a minute without coming up with at least one common acquaintance or friend.
So I was on a date the other night. In and among the other conversation, my date mentioned “my sister’s husband is from North Dakota”.

ME: “Really? Where?”

SHE: “I don’t know. But his last name is [very common name in ND]

ME: “Really? What’s his first name?” [I ask, remembering that I knew a Todd [very common name in ND]]

SHE: “James”

ME: “Ah, Well, it could be…”

SHE: “But everyone calls him Todd”

I made her call her sister on the cell phone. Sure enough, it was the very same Todd [very common name in ND] that I used to walk to school with, thirty years ago. He lives in the Metro, runs a business, is apparently quite a guy.

It’s hard to explain to other people, sometimes…

Previously On 24: I’m guessing that Logan’s newly-revealed Christianity will turn out to be a sick joke of some sort or another.

04: Son commandeers computer to do some homework.

Some things Bruce says better than I do.

Lil’ Ollie Willis, who wouldn’t know a deep, unreported truth if it came to the surface and announced itself directly to his face, thinks he’s clairvoyant:

The big, deep unreported truth about Ann Coulters comments at CPAC is this: conservatives agree with her. They do believe that “faggot” is an acceptable term, both for gays and political opponents.

Hm. Do we?

[John McCain] denounced her remarks on Saturday morning. “The comments were wildly inappropriate,” said his spokesman, Brian Jones.

Mr. Giuliani said, “The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate.”

Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Romney, said: “It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect.”

What, you mean conservative bloggers?

Like this one?

[McCain]can point to the Coulter remark as an excuse for bypassing CPAC by calling it an extremist venue that he was correct to avoid. It’s not true — most of the CPAC attendees abhorred Coulter’s remark when informed of it

Or here?

Question #2, if too obscure, is “Don’t you think Ann Coulter is typical of all conservatives?” Since every single conservative blogger I have seen this morning has roundly condemned her as well as most going so far as to believe she should never be invited to a respectable political gathering again, any broad brush painting done by liberals can easily be dismissed for what it is; rank stupidity.

Or her?

With a single word, Coulter sullied the hard work of hundreds of CPAC participants and exhibitors and tarred the collective reputation of thousands of CPAC attendees. At a reception for college students held by the Young America’s Foundation, I lambasted the substitution of stupid slurs for persuasion– be it “faggot” from a conservative or “gook” from a liberal–and urged the young people there to conduct themselves at all times with dignity in their ideological battles on and off campus.

Don’t see much approval there.

Where is the approval, Ollie? I know – you’re used to writing to the left-wing fever swamp, where all you need is to declare something for it to be so.

So where were you, Ollie, on Amanda Marcotte’s corrosive, anti-Christian bigotry?

Oh, yeah – you didn’t give a jiggly giggle about it.

Working for George Soros means never having to think real hard.

The Silkypony campaign is mortally insulted by Ann Coulter:

Can you help us raise $100,000 in “Coulter Cash” this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry?

Bigotry? Why, what would the Silkypony campaign know about bigotry? (via RWV)

Closed-Circuit to Ann Coulter:  Keep your foot out of your mouth.  Calling people “faggot” is bad form, and gives the bad guys cheap points; it’s like losing at touchdown because of a holding call.

Which is especially imporant, since when you don’t have all of your friends backing away for you because of dumb misbegotten “jokes” like calling Silkypony a “faggot” (and getting excoriated by the same people who insist John Kerry’s “be dumb and go to Iraq” jape was a “joke”, ironically enough),  you really do hit the nail on the head.

Like with your latest Wpiece on Algore and Leo D, on your website:

[The global warming scolds] think they can live in a world of only Malibu and East Hampton — with no Trentons or Detroits. It does not occur to them that someone has to manufacture the tiles and steel and glass and solar panels that go into those “eco-friendly” mansions, and someone has to truck it all to their beachfront properties, and someone else has to transport all the workers there to build it. And then someone has to drive the fleets of trucks delivering the pachysandra and bottled water every day.

Liberals are already comfortably ensconced in their beachfront estates, which they expect to be unaffected by their negative growth prescriptions for the rest of us.

Arguing with a liberal about the environment:

CONSERVATIVE: Um, the Kyoto accords would spark a worldwide depression.
LIBERAL:  Bush scuttled the Kyoto accords!  Halliburton!  Halliburton!

CONSERVATIVE:  Er, actually Clinton – with Gore as his veep – kinda did that.
LIBERAL: Bush scuttled the Kyoto accords!  Halliburton!  Halliburton!

CONSERVATIVE:  A global depression could starve tens of millions of people.
LIBERAL: Bush scuttled the Kyoto accords!  Halliburton!  Halliburton!

CONSERVATIVE:  Um – hey, pitchers and catchers reported for spring training!
LIBERAL: Bush scuttled the Kyoto accords!  Halliburton!  Halliburton!

Coulter:

“Global warming” is the lefts pagan rage against mankind. If we cant produce industrial waste, then we cant produce. Some of us — not the ones with mansions in Malibu and Nashville is my guess — are going to have to die. To say we need to reduce our energy consumption is like saying we need to reduce our oxygen consumption.Liberals have always had a thing about eliminating humans. Stalin wanted to eliminate the kulaks and Ukranians, vegetarian atheist Adolf Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jews, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate poor blacks, DDT opponent Rachel Carson wanted to eliminate Africans introduction to her book “Silent Spring” written by … Al Gore, and population-control guru Paul Ehrlich wants to eliminate all humans.

That, and/or create policies to make mass human death pretty much inevitable.

If western agriculture becomes hobbled by massive, Kyoto-induced cutbacks in fossil fuel use for agriculture (not to mention the manufacture of things like tractors, fertilizer, pesticides and so on) ,who will feed all those people in Congo, Darfur, Somalia…

It’s just supposed to happen, right, Algore, Leo and Missy?

It was Wednesday, March 4, 1987. I was driving to work at KSTP. I stopped at a store to pick up a few things, and picked up a City Pages on may way back to the jeep.

Backstory: A few weeks earlier, a writer for the CP had come out to the station to interview, mainly, Geoff Charles – most of us called him “Chaz” – the booming-voiced, leather-skinned, comically-narcissistic former mid-morning host who’d fleeted up to afternoon drive with Don Vogel’s departure in January. Geoff was an interesting guy – claimed to be a former state swimming champion, a former Marine who taught SEALS to swim, and a former, successfully recovering heroin addict. Many of our longtime callers reveled in trying to disprove any or all of those claims; one, “Steve from Roseville”, constantly demanded that Chaz produce a copy of his “DD214” discharge papers to prove he’d been a Marine at all.

Chaz got an endless laugh out of that.

I do know Chaz was a bodybuilder, a guy who effected a boundlessly self-adoring, arrogant-with-tongue-firmly-in-cheek on-air personality that irritated people so badly they tuned in in droves – including me. He was also, once you got to know him, a warm, personable guy who stopped by Lunds to pick up a baked chicken and veggies to share with Dave and I, his grossly underpaid producers, nearly every day. He was a change in pace from working with the zany Vogel, but it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot about talk radio from Geoff; perception, in radio, is reality; relentless earnestness is boring; above all, have a lot of fun with it.

Anyway.

The reporter had hung around the station for the better part of a day. He talked with just about everyone in the place – myself, the lowliest peon of the bunch, included – but spent a lot of time, including an on-air interview (if memory serves, and it very well may not) with Chaz.

Skip ahead a few weeks.

I walked out of the store, leaned up against the grill of the jeep, and started reading.

I flipped back a few pages, and found the article – complete with interior shot of the old KSTP talk studio. And I read the article.

Skimmed, really. It focused heavily on Charles, who was indeed the station’s most interesting host.

Skim ahead.

It touched briefly on the morning show, with the interminable Mike Edwards and his newly-acquired co-host Lee Valsvik, in her first full-time radio gig.

Didn’t care. Skim ahead.

He ripped, hard, on the station’s array of tedious network hosts – Michael Jackson, Owen Span, Bruce Williams, Harvey Ruben, Sally Jesse Raphael…

Zzzzzz. Skim ahead…

Paydirt!

He wrote; “Mitch Berg, a painfully polite man and unreconstructed rock and roller who thinks anyone to the left of Genghis Khan is a Trotskyite, does a conservative show from 2 to 4 Monday mornings…”

Booyah! My first press coverage!

I pasted the clip to the wall of my “office” – my coffee-table-book-sized surface jammed against a stack of satellite demodulators – as soon as I got to work.

Next stop, the big time!

—————-

The writer, of course, was James Lileks. It was his first encounter, if I recall correctly, with Chaz – which led to a series of regular guest shots (including one that will be subject for a future installment of this series), which led to a series of substitute hosting gigs, which led to a full-time show, which led back to “The Diner” in its various incarnations, which led to his weekly appearances on the Hugh Hewitt show.

And a bunch of writing, too.

I think I still have that copy of the March 4, 1987 City Pages stashed away.

Somewhere. I’m sure I do.

(more…)

Earlier, I pounded on Nick Coleman for repeating the talking-point trope about Algore’s store-bought “carbon-neutrality”. 

Via Jay Reding, we see the Economist does, too.

This is, of course, ridiculous.  When you donate money to build a new windfarm, you don’t take any of the old, polluting power offline; you increase the supply of power, reducing the price until others are encouraged to buy more carbon-emitting power.  On the margin, it may make some difference, since demand for electricity is not perfectly elastic, but nowhere near the one-for-one equivalence that carbon offsets would seem to suggest.  Especially since the worst offenders, big coal-fired plants, are not the ones that renewables will substitute for; solar and wind power are not good replacements for baseload power.  Instead, renewables are likely to take relatively clean (and expensive) natural gas plants offline, since those are the ones that provide “extra” power to the system. Similarly, by giving villagers in Goa energy-saving CFL bulbs, you do not lessen the amount of electricity consumed; rather, you make it possible for other people to purchase the extra energy freed up by more efficient lightbulbs.  This may be excellent poverty policy, but it does not lessen the carbon footprint of your international flight.

 Reding (emphasis mine):

Gore’s not even close to “carbon-neutral.” It’s not physically possible to consume as much as he does and plant enough trees to make a difference. It’s all a way of deflecting the very well warranted charges of hypocrisy being leveled against him.

It’s worse than that, of course; the Economist piece notes that Algore’s immense power usage is after the amount saved by the “greeniness” of the Gore mansion, the solar panels, etc, etc. 

Read the whole thing.  Keep it handy the next time someone tries to use “carbon-neutrality” as a sop for Algore’s extravagance.

Jeff Kouba on the Spartanburg, SC Republican straw poll – which Rudy Giuliani won, with 158 votes.  Duncan Hunter was in second with 152, McCain came in third at 116 votes, with Brownback, Romney and Huckabee trailing by more distant margins.

Kouba:

Skipping the usual blandishments about how little these polls count, straw polls normally reward on-the-spot organization and ideological fidelity more than electability, experience, or money – witness in Minnesota two examples, Gary Bauer’s 1999 victory and Newt Gingrich’s 2006 win.

The catch? 

But the campaign organizations in South Carolina claiming victory were, well, Spartan.

As The Hotline’s excellent primer for the straw poll revealed, Giuliani’s organization consisted of 2 paid staff and were already talking down expectations before the vote. Hunter had no paid staff – none – and claimed only 25 to 30 volunteers. In contrast, McCain had “the most advanced field team in the state” and 11 paid SC staff members to come in third. Romney had 10 on the payroll, headlined a major dinner recently and has been airing TV ads, which bought him 3 votes more than soon-to-be conservative also ran Sam Brownback.

In other words, Giuliani’s straw poll win – insert eternal “16 months ’til the convention” blurb here – was against type for these kinds of straw polls.

The result also hints at the true depths of the current popularity of Giuliani when Hizzoner wins a straw poll in one of the more conservative counties in South Carolina with next to no campaign structure.

The left – including some of them who frequent this blog – continue to insist that the conservative base will eventually shun Rudy.  And yet Rudy keeps on winning conservative straw polls, and handily, including this latest one – deep in the fanny pack on the back of the Bible Belt. 

The kind of place that’s supposed to eat smartass New Yorkers alive…

Whenever a smug, sanctimonious, unctuous liberal demigogue anywhere is under attack, you can count on someone in the Strib front office to stand up and be counted.

And with Algore’s hypocritical, power-guzzling ways (and, moreover, his lame “carbon-credit” defense) being heckled off the stage of public opinion, it makes sense that that someone is Nick Coleman.  A fellow child of political power, a fellow patrician grown accustomed to lecturing the hopeless hoi-polloi, both with hours of, um, fascinating stories to relate the sixties to today, Coleman is the Algore’s perfect defender.

It’s all so – unfair, says Coleman:

After his film about global warming won an Oscar on Sunday, Al Gore basked in the adulation of Hollywood.

You knew he’d get paid back.

No, Nick.  We knew he’d give us plenty of material. You do understand the difference, right?

The right-wing wood-chippers have been chewing Gore into little pieces ever since.

COLEMAN BS ALERT:  Actually, the story came out in The Chattanoogan – not exactly part of the Right Wing Noise Machine. 

They didn’t enjoy the joke when Gore reached into his tux and pulled out a phony presidential campaign announcement before the Oscar orchestra drummed him off stage.

Truth be told, I actually did get a laugh out of that.  Whatever his faults, Algore – like the President, actually – can occasionally poke fun at himself.  I’ll give him that much.

Strike two, Nick. 

The very sight of Gore offends people who think the Supreme Court ruled he should never again be seen in public. Those folks can’t forgive Gore for continuing to draw breath.

(Closed circuit to Nick Coleman’s nonexistent editor:  Isn’t that not only a little hyperbolic, but kind of clubfisted and inarticulate?  And, by the way, as we saw with Vice President Cheney’s brush with the Taliban this past week, it’s not the right that goes about wishing death on people…)

But what really got the phlegm flying on talk radio was the “gotcha” from a conservative group that outed the former vice president as a Limousine Electricity user. Zap.

Last year, Gore’s mansion used almost 20 times as much electricity as the average American home. Take that, you Hollywood types.

Everyone loves a juicy bit of hypocrisy, and I am prepared to believe a politician might say one thing in public and act another way in private. But the Gore electricity kerfuffle offers an opportunity for Americans to point a finger.

At ourselves.

Before Nick begins the real purpose of this column – a rote transcription of talking points – let’s set a few things straight.

I’m far from above conserving.  Of course, in my case it’s not a matter of buying into a fabian socialist scare story; it’s because I’m half Norwegian, and I like to squeeze twelve cents out of a dime, and I’m all for sending less of my take-home pay to Excel Energy.  Or to the House of Saud, for that matter.  It’s a market prerogative, and I’m doing my best to vote with my feet and my wallet.

I mentioned “fabian socialist talking points”:

The science on global warming is convincing [Hah!], and so is the need to throttle back on our polluting energy ways.

“The best response to Al Gore’s energy usage is for us to think about our own,” says Michael Noble, executive director of Fresh Energy, a St. Paul-based nonprofit group.

The group is working to develop a “clean, efficient and fair” energy system (www.fresh-energy.org). “We all ought to be looking at the automobile we drive, how we heat our house, whether it’s insulated, whether we have efficient appliances, and how to reduce our fossil fuel use.”

When non-profits start talking about making things “fair”, it’s time to keep one hand on your wallet and the other on your Constitution.

No, we don’t have to live in cold, dark caves, Noble says. The issue is about taking responsibility for our energy use, while supporting efforts to “change the entire energy system, top to bottom, to substitute energy-efficient and carbon-free energy for fossil fuels which lead to warming.”

Of course, the market will do that, on its own.  It got a major boost this past two years, as gas prices jumped over $3 a gallon; SUV sales plummeted, people took a serious look at hybrids (and found them largely wanting), alternative energy started to show at least fringe-y signs of being viable someday, and even environmentalists started reconsidering their generation-old hysteria against nuclear power.

Gore, by the way, offsets his fossil-fuel use by paying extra for renewable energy credits.

This was ignored by the talk-radio goobers, but the idea is simple: For a small extra charge, pennies per kilowatt hour, you can “buy” renewable energy credits from your energy company, which uses the money (it is carefully audited) to buy that amount of nonpolluting power (such as wind energy) for its system rather than building more power plants.

Oh, it hasn’t been “ignored” at all.  We’ll be talking about the “Carbon-neutral” flimflam this weekend on the NARN, most likely.

“The scientific evidence is rock-solid,” says Noble. “The only solution to global warming is to reduce our total carbon emissions by 80 percent. Al Gore has helped get that message across.”

Even if Tipper leaves the laundry room lights on.

The evidence is far from “rock-solid”, and Coleman’s attempt at spin control ignores the real point:  Algore, the carbon scold, is an energy-guzzling hypocrite; this past week, his motto – “conservation for me, but not for thee”, became clear.

And we’re making sure the world knows it.

Learned Foot throws down on Rocketman.

(more…)

Steve Gigl on Korn’s “unplugged” appearance:

So let’s get this straight: appearing on South Park like the guest stars in a bad Scooby Doo (but I repeat myself) episode? Good career move. Showing off your lead singer’s inability to actually sing, particularly in contrast with Amy Lee? Maybe not so much.

In my list of “dreams I’d love to some come true”, the one about “Watching Korn being chased from the stage by truncheon-wielding former fans” is right behind “be the human cheese in a Rachel Weisz/Marisa Tomei sandwich”.

Just saying.

Where were we? 

Oh, yeah.  I hate Korn.

Stuff I’ve found pertaining to today’s snowstorm:

• Roads are closing all over the state of Minnesota.
• Schools, businesses, and state offices are shutting down faster than Hardees restaurants.
• The roads are jammed with people leaving work early because of the “weather”.
• I’ll be joining a group of fellow North Dakota expats to play some sand volleyball at Thomas Beach, on the south end of Lake Calhoun, after work.  I’m bringing the beer!

That is all.

…who listened to Melissa Etheridge’s dreary, tedious “best song”-winning tune (and preachy, sanctimonious acceptance) at the Oscars on Sunday…

…and found himself fondly, wistfully remembering the Three Six Mafia?

 The latest lunacy to seize Minneapolis – a city that seizes lunacy like Lindsay Lohan seizes appletinis – is “Instant Runoff Voting”.  An idea husbanded by the Green Party, it basically brings to elections the sober reflection of the Lotto with the insight of a high school popularity contest.

Here’s how IRV works (and I’ll note in advance that my disdain for the idea will make this description seem about as dismissive as I intend it to):

1. For each race, the voter fills in their their choices for candidates, in descending order.  For example, in my most recent Mayoral race, I’d have put a “1” by Randy Kelly, a “2” by the written-in name of my dog, a “3” by Mary Jane Reagan (if she were running – and she’s always running for something), a “4” by the written-in name of “Idi Amin”, a “5” next to DFL-endorsed Chris Coleman, and a “6” next to the endorsed Green candidate (whose name I’m fuzzy on – I think it was Moonbeam Birkenstock, but don’t quote me on that). 
2. The computers would count everyone’s first choices. 
3. If nobody gets a majority, then the computer takes the second choices.
4. And so on.
5. And so forth.
6. And I’m actually very fuzzy on how it works at this point.
7. It’s confusing.  Really.
8. And we come out with a winner.

What I think is most interesting, by the way, is that the same people who kvetch and barber about electronic balloting and how Diebold is run by Republicans are the same people, in many cases, who want to turn our democracy (whatever that means in Minneapolis) over, entirely, to a ranked sorting algorithm.

Seem…opaque to you?

We have a rare moment of bipartisan consensus.  On a St. Paul politics discussion board, a commenter with long-standing ties to the DFL writes:

…remember who is most empowered by the IRV system,  it is those voters who chose candidates who get dropped from the ballot  first.  So, if you would agree that in most municipal elections the  candidates who finish last are not some brilliant issue oriented candidate who  just didn’t have the resources to be heard, but rather a candidate with lots and  lots of tin foil on their head.  And, remember those voters who voted for  that candidate then get their second choice.  You really start to see how  the IRV system is
just about as far away from Jefferson’s goal of having an  educated and informed electorate as possible. 

In fact as someone who has been running campaigns for over thirty years in  Saint Paul, it doesn’t take a lot to figure out the purpose of the IRV system,  it is to achieve by random chance and confusion what one can’t do in an open an  informed election — elect Minor Party candidates.

While I agree with the writer about as often as I french-kiss Marisa Tomei, I think that’s a great point; IRV makes the fringe, nutcase bloc inordinately powerful.  Combine that with a slick, coordinated message that “democracy is broken” and a faith-based plea to make trite protest-voting a way of life, and you will have…

…a city even more strangled by fringe politics than Minneapolis already is. 

  The essence of the new campaigns once IRV happens is vote Green, it doesn’t matter.  Don’t  worry, our candidate won’t get elected, your second choice will win, so it  doesn’t matter that you voted for us first.  Send a protest vote!  So,  if you can be convinced that it really doesn’t matter who you vote for and it  won’t hurt you to throw away a vote, and if they can get enough people  comfortable with that, then they get to win a few seats. 

Democracy and governance is no longer of some value, its just a parlor  game. 

 They want to bring the system to Saint Paul, by the way – and the proposal is getting some traction in high places.  

  [IRV proponents] want to tell you that it will be cheaper to not hold  primaries.  What they don’t mention is that we will need all new computers  for every polling place to read IRV ballots and they don’t mention that the  school board won’t be on an IRV ballot so, you might need two separate ballots  and machines, or at least you will have one contest where you IRV and one where  you don’t
IRV, that will make the average voter happy…

 Another thing about IRV; I measure Usability for a living; it involves answerign the questions “Who is using a product (software, hardware, toy, shopping process, whatever), “What are they trying to accomplish, how important is it to them” and so on.  I (and a class I was teaching at the time) did a usability evaluation on the infamous Butterfly Ballot, for example – and founds scads of things that could make it incrementally more difficult to use more correctly.  Fact is, when things are designed by people whose first interest (or competence) is not designing things to be usable by people whose primary goal in life isn’t using that thing, you’re going to have problems.

And if American election authorities can’t design a punch card ballot – a book with a pinhole – to be clear and usable, what makes anyone think that they can design a rank-based ballot that will be any clearer?  And before you answer that question, remember – there a small but solid number of people out there who earn a very living wage, myself included, precisely because industry realizes exactly how dismally bad most people are at making things usable.

 And, having done campaigns, if you ask voters why they don’t vote in  primaries, the normal answer is because they don’t know who all of the  candidates are and that they don’t pay attention to the election until the field  is narrowed, and of course that will never happen in IRV.  So, you are as  likely to turn off voters as stimulate them. 

But, remember it isn’t the general public that we are concerned about, or  what the average voter will be most comfortable with, the real issue is How In  the Heck Can We Come Up With a Scheme To Elect A Green Candidate????

Exactly.  If you can’t win ’em over with your platform and candidates, baffle ’em.

My NARN colleagues Michael Brodkorb and King Banaian are on the mother of all rolls, lately – skewering the DFL-controlled legislature’s latest round of priorities.

The latest?  The Right to Poop Law.

The PiPress  addresses the “issue”

To help [intestinal disorder sufferers] and about 35,000 Minnesotans with serious medical conditions that reduce their control over their bowels, the Senate commerce committee on Tuesday passed the Restroom Access Act.The measure would require retail stores to let medically needy people use their restrooms, even if the restrooms arent intended for the public. It would waive civil liability for the stores, and employees who refuse to let such folks use their facilities could be charged with petty misdemeanors and up to a $100 fine.

I’m wondering if there’ll be an astroturf group of sympathy pimps, like the “Second Hand Smoke” advocates?

And what’ll their TV commercials look like?

The PiPress then quotes my NARN colleague Michael Brodkorb:

Michael Brodkorb, a self-described Republican blogger, took his objection to the bill even further — he renamed it the Freedom to Poop Act.In my heart of hearts, I just dont believe that we need legislation that dictates that level of involvement in businesses, he said. Simple human decency, he believes, would require that businesses make their restrooms available to those in need.”

Right.  But the DFL believes, institutionally, that human decency can only happen with government coercion.