Monthly Archives: September 2007

You’ll Have To Believe Me On This One

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Last week, when Jim Ramstad announced his retirement, I predicted that Lori Sturdevant would call for the Third District GOP to, basically, get another Ramstad – and in almost exactly the same words she used to end Sunday’s column:

 My advice, to both parties: Find another Ramstad.

The irony of that statement, of course, a year after the DFL endorsed Wendy Wilde to run against Ramstad on the far far far left, is pungent. 

No moreso than Sturdevant’s usual fare, however.  If Sturdevant isn’t collecting a check from the DFL for her reliable (if hamfisted) PR flakkery, the DFL can consider it a bargain (although only barely). 

It’s been 18 years since Minnesota’s pols and pol-reporters took a good hard look at Minnesota’s Third Congressional District.

Actually, “moderate Republicans” have represented the district since 1961. 

When they started looking closely again last Monday — the day that Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad bowled ’em over with a retirement announcement — there were more surprises in store.

For starters, take a look at which political party Third Districters told pollster Bill Morris that they like best last month (see graphic, right) […which doesn’t appear, as this is written, in the Strib online article – Ed.]. They’re just about evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

Would the late Bob and Mary Forsythe, Edina’s Republican power couple of the ’60s and ’70s, believe that? (Wish I could ask them. Both of them left us this year, Bob in June, Mary just this month.)

And, Lori, it’d be pretty irrelevant, since if memory serves the party “left” the Forsythes, God rest their souls, when it stopped acting like DFLers with better suits, driving the Forsythes (one suspects) into the ranks of “bitter IR holdouts who are both Sturdevant’s only sources and only perspective on the GOP”.

Morris, the former Republican state chairman who heads the polling firm Decision Resources Ltd.,

Ibid. 

 …had a load of other betcha-didn’t-know stuff about today’s western suburbs. He was in the field Aug. 15-18, interviewing 600 people, which produces results with a sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percent. Here are some nuggets:

• “No new taxes” has fallen out of favor in the Third in the past five years. In 2002, 61 percent of Thirders said they “favor the approach of balancing budgets without raising taxes.” In the new poll, that share is down to 37 percent.

Which is hardly, as they say, chopped liver.  The shelf life of the “no new taxes” slogan may have passed, but the ideal of having government live with in its’ means has not (although the likes of Sturdevant keep trying to ignore it).

It appears that many of them haven’t liked what they’ve seen of that governing approach. That may explain why DFLers have picked up eight legislative seats in the Third since 2004.

Which is equally likely to be explained by many of those seats having belonged to GOPers who bailed from “No New Taxes” early (they represented most of the GOP’s losses in ’04) and, let’s not forget, a terrible year in ’06 across the country. 

Sturdevant should stick with blaming David Strom for the bridge collapse.

• But these folks consider property taxes a drag. Three out of four say their community’s most important need is lower property taxes, Morris said.

That may have something to do with this fact: Parts of the Third District are graying faster than the rest of the state. Edina is believed to have the largest share of past-age-65 seniors of any metro municipality. Minnetonka isn’t too far behind. Seniors on fixed or slow-growing incomes are notoriously property-tax averse.

I wonder – do real people (as opposed to policy wonks) really distinguish between “taxes” and “property taxes?”  Indeed, do they care what the mechanism is, or what level of government or budget niche the various taxes serve?

Or is one hole in the wallet pretty much the same as every other hole in the wallet on the Minnesota Street?

That is a serious question.

• Morris couldn’t confirm the Third’s reputation as the working-mother leader of Minnesota. But he could report that one out of three working wives have either professional or technical jobs. That’s more than in any other Minnesota district.

Knowing that explains a lot — like, the Third District’s high percentage of college grads (52 percent, compared with 30 percent statewide). And its high average income — $62,400 per household, a good $10,000 more than the statewide average. And the consistently high proportion of those polled who say adequate K-12 funding is the most important issue facing the state. In the latest poll, education is beat out by rising health-care costs and — just barely — by the need to improve transportation.

And on two out of three, any Republican candidate that can register an EKG reading should beat the stuffing out of any mainstream (to say nothing of Wilde-like radical) DFLer.  The DFL has presided over the erosion of Minnesota education (indeed, the schools in the suburban Third are crowded with refugees from the Minneapolis schools – many of whom in North Edina have brought their noxious DFL politics with them.  And the DFL’s take on transportation is – no other word really fits – frivolous.

The GOP does need a coherent response to the healthcare question that actually resonates with real people.  Unfortunately, getting beyond the superficial palliative of “single payer care” is a very, very wonky exercise that glazes most peoples’ eyes over.

• Social issues are likely to give the Third District Republican candidate a headache…Three out of five Third District poll respondents called themselves “prochoice.” A slightly larger share oppose the “Bachmann amendment” that would ban both marriage and civil unions for same-sex couples. Fewer than one in five approve of the state’s 2004 law allowing the concealed carrying of handguns, Morris found.

Then I have to question Morris’ methodology, since a huge part of the metro base for the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, if memory serves, came from what is now the Third District.

A candidate who agrees with the district’s majority on those issues is not likely to win the endorsement of any Republican convention I can imagine assembling in 2008.

In a year when conservatives are embracing Rudy Giuliani, that’s not quite a safe a prediction as it might have been, say, ten years ago.  Don’t get me wrong; a GOP candidate will have to craft a fairly sophisticated message to grab the center in the Third; a Reagan-like approach to social issues (read the talking points and then put them on the back burner) might well be the best approach.  

But a GOP candidate who champions the party platform on those matters will be laying himself or herself open to a primary challenge and/or a general-election defeat.

We shall see, won’t we?

A big, national show at the Xcel Energy Center, right before the state’s primary election, that makes Republicans synonymous with government bars on abortion, stem-cell research and gay unions would be a nightmare for the Third’s GOP candidate.

Alternate perspective:  it might require a Republican candidate to stand for, and eloquently defend, actual principals – something that’s been done only in the breach since 1961 in the district.

Knowing how quickly the old Republican-red Third has been turning purple and even blue adds luster to Jim Ramstad’s star. He consistently commanded a solid two-thirds, and often more, of the district’s vote from 1990 until 2006. His blend of fiscal conservatism, social-issue moderation and nice-guy approachability obviously fit not only the Third District of old, but of today.

Alternate perspective:  Ramstad was an incumbent that straddled both eras in the Minnesota GOP and Minnesota politics in general – the era before Alan Quist, when Minnesota hadn’t yet caught up with the post-1980 national GOP, and the one after Brian Sullivan, when the last trickle-down of the Reagan Revoluion finally insinuated itself into Minnesota Republican politics.  As an incumbent, he was bulletproof even though the world changed around his feet. 

Who will suit it tomorrow? My advice, to both parties: Find another Ramstad.

Any Republican who takes “advice” from Lori Sturdevant should drop his brain off at Goodwill.  He doesn’t need it anymore.

Blows Against The Empire

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I ran into Katie Kieffer at the Laura Ingraham event.  She had some great news; the Saint Thomas Standard – the conservative tabloid that has caused Saint Thomas’ president, Fr. Dennis “Havana Denny” Dease such a headache – is now available online.  And with the school year underway, we can no doubt expect another issue shortly!

And then we can spend another year of watching the official phumphering and unofficial derangement you get when conservatives dare to speak up on campus.

Get the Word From Aiden Day

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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 is off on assignment, and I’ll will be out at White Bear Lake Superstore, 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!

Victim Number 35

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Minneapolis’ 35th murder victim of this year so far was a guy not a lot different than me.  40something, kids, worked in the software racket, liked biking.  Mark Loesch even lived in my old neighborhood, just a few blocks from where I lived way back when. 

He was apparently beaten to death while out on a bike ride late last Friday night.

A local blogger and friend of Loesch’s remembers the victim:

I met him 12 years ago at an insurance company; I was a contractor, he was an employee. A manager casually mentioned to me that “this guy Mark really likes music, like you. You should go say hi”. So I dropped by, and we hit it off immediately: the awesome production skills of Trevor Horn was our first conversation.

We were work pals for a while, but worked on very different projects, and then he went off to something new. A few months later, he called me up with a fascinating new opportunity: He was part of a team moving a Prescription Benefits company from Detroit to the Twin Cities, and they needed to build a team FAST: Did I want to help?

So I joined him, and we worked very closely, at which point he invited me over for a party… so Pamela and I showed up. One week early! But he invited us in, and we had a great time for hours… maybe more fun than the “real party”… at least I remember our pre-party more. We carpooled for a year, and grew very close. He notoriously mixed me the “killer” eighth martini at my 30th birthday bash. I of course blamed it on him making it with Gin… not the obvious issue of it being the EIGHTH.

With all the carnage in Minneapolis, it’s important to remember that there’s a story behind every death.  Not all of them are as sympathic, on the surface, as Mr. Loesch’s, but behind even the most hardened banger or the most far-gone junkie there’s a father, a little sister or someone who loses a huge chunk of themselves.

I Know What I Did Last Night

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So I went to the Laura Ingraham event last night, at the O’Shaughnessy Auditorium at the College of St. Catherine, down in Highland Park.

I guess I was a bit remiss in my blogging before last night – I was actually the Master of Ceremonies.  Which meant I had to dig my suit out of mothballs. 

The Good News:  It was a great time.  Laura was doing her book tour for her new book, “Power To The People”; we had a really great turnout, weather or no.  She’s an excellent, passionate speaker with a raft of great stories to tell, and a mission to tell ’em.  And I had a great time MC-ing things; I got to welcome the crowd, introduce Laura, and then – the fun part – moderate a Q and A session afterward.  I had a blast.

The Great News:  I had no idea this was going to happen, but the event will apparently be my national TV debut.  A local stringer for C-SPAN was there, covering the event.  I’m sure it’ll be on at 4AM some Sunday morning, between the GAO report on office supply waste and the scores for the Justice Department softball league, but hey, national TV is national TV.  My parents will be so proud.

The Not-So-Great News:  When I parked my car to get to O’Shaughnessey, the storm was at its peak, and I was already late, and no, I didn’t have an umbrella; I was already late for my call, so I had to get moving.  I arrived soaking wet, and I only dried off so much before I had to go onstage, where at least the blazing stage lighting evaporated some of the surface accumulations (very likely in a cloud of steam visible from the audience).  So I’ll make my national TV debut looking like a half-drowned rat who got to spend two minutes under a heat lamp.

However – all in all, it was a great time!

As It Is Written, So Shall It Be

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Top Chef is falling right into place with my predictions: the supernaturally-arrogant (and, given his arrogance, the appropriately-named) Hung, the improbably cute Casey, the chick-eye-candy (I presume) Brian, and the wild card, the lovable, talented, gay Dale.  Remember; my formula calls for three finalists; an arrogant but blazingly talented jagoff, a cute and talented woman, and a personable, talented, and often gay guy.  Bingo – in advancing Brian and Dale, we got both.  Bases covered. The formula is upheld. On to the finals! 

As to predicting the winner – I’ll rely entirely on clues (inadvertent or otherwise) supplied by the producers earlier in the run. 

Coming next week.

(And, for the record, Howie’s mushroom risotto recipe rocks my world, and I’m trying the unjustly-maligned asparagus and prosciutto phyllo cigars this weekend…)

Probably.

(Foot, by the way, gets the gestalt of the show pretty dead-on)

Sky Is Falling? Wear A Hockey Helmet!

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Saint Paul’s budget is collapsing!  We need to raise taxes because Aid to Local Government has been gutted – gutted, I tell you!  Why, even learned wonks say so!

So it’s good to know that Saint Paul’s government has its’ priorities straight; they’re going to spend over a million dollars building three new outdoor ice rinks.

At least there was an argument:

[Councilwoman Kathy] Lantry said the money should go toward keeping recreation centers open over the next year. The mayor’s budget proposal calls for eliminating 10 centers. In 2008, the city will also eliminate nine outdoor ice rinks.

The ice rinks were a part of the overall requests for the special half-cent sales tax dollars known as STAR funds.

“We are closing 10 rec centers,” she said. “You take this money and open every one of them back up.”

Or cut the property tax hike?  Or meet in the middle?

Saint Paul is hemorraging financially – the result of the state opting to subsidize less DFL spending-mania at the expense of the parts of the state that are succeeding – and still spending money on hockey? 

Why could that be?

[Mayoral aide Bob] Hume said the refrigerated ice rinks are a priority for the mayor, who skated on St. Paul rinks as a kid.

So the city is closing ten of the rec centers that (arguably) help keep inner city kids out of trouble, but opening three rinks to teach white middle class kids with highly-driven parents how to beat each others’ heads in?

Well played, Mayor Coleman.

Comparing Apples And Clutches

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Question:  If a leftyblogger says a unicorn is standing next to you, and then declares himself “reality-based”, should you saddle up for a magical ride through the starry skies?

Mark Gisleson continues to try to turn my comments about conservatives and demonstrations into something they’re not. 

Too much stuff to fisk (now), but this bit in particular was interesting:

Mitch says there won’t be much in the way of counterprotesters at the RNC next year because “conservatives” just aren’t into groups. Funny, they sure used to turn out in record numbers for George Bush, but then “conservatives” love to be lied to. Over and over again.

Now, do we really think Mark Gisleson can’t tell the difference between going to a campaign rally – an energizing gathering of people whose company one generally enjoys, toward a mutual end (no matter what your party or who your candidate) – and standing on a sidewalk waving a hand-made sign as an endless procession of not-too-literate droogs slouches past chanting gibberish and oozing self-righteousness? 

No, I know it’s possible.  I’m just asking.

Down Time

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The municipal wi-fi fad seems to be suffering network difficulties:

“Wi-Fi woes everywhere you turn,” says Russell Hancock of Silicon Valley Network, a troubled Wi-Fi project for 40 towns in California’s high-tech corridor.

Wi-Fi allows laptop users to work anywhere, making some jobs portable. It also is essential to mobile devices, including iPhones, enabling such emerging technology to perform complex online tasks fast.

Chicago couldn’t reach agreement with service providers after offering free use of street lamps for radio transmitters in exchange for a network built, owned and operated by providers at no cost to the city.

Minneapolis’ net got a lot of good publicity after the 35W bridge collapse – but has had other problems.  Saint Paul has been noodling with the idea for years, and is no closer to a solution than ever.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

Unintended Consequences Predicted While You Wait

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Roosh body-slams A-Klo’s latest misguided attempt at populism – a bill that would regulate cell contract termination fees and otherwise punish cell carriers for providing an inexpensive solution:

Why are there termination fees? Because if you haven’t noticed, Amy, a cellular phone, even a very basic one, has an acquisition cost of a couple hundred dollars to the carrier. There is no free lunch and there is no “free” phone.

The carriers subsidize the handset in exchange for a one or two-year contract. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure everybody knows this.

That is how carriers have made it possible for virtually everyone that wants one to have one nowadays. 
On the one hand, it’s hard to blame Klobuchar; growing up in a media family, spending virtually her entire adult life in government or pseudo-governmental employ, she probably has not the faintest clue how private-sector companies work. 
Which isn’t much of an excuse:
So, Amy, what will be the result of your ill-advised and asinine proposal (assuming it has a chance)?

Termination fees will be traded for higher activation fees and monthly access fees and equipment costs. Much higher equipment costs.

The Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act? Even the title sounds asinine.

Being a DFLer means never having to pass a cringe-check.

The Results Are In…

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…and in a very close-fought race, we have a near-upset in the running for the Twin Cities Unintentionally Funniest Leftyblog!

As of tally time, the results were:

  1. Minnesota Monitor (25 votes)
  2. Impeccable Liberal Credentials (23 votes)
  3. Susan Lenfestey’s “Clothesline” Blog (19 votes)
  4. Dump Bachmann (15 votes)
  5. MNBlue (8 votes)
  6. Norwegianity (7 votes)
  7. Cucking Stool (1 vote, apprently from a remorseful City Pages staffer on a vendetta)
  8. MNPact and Across the Great Divide (tie, 0 votes)

It was an exciting dash to the finish, but apparently “pretentious propagandablog funded by liberals with deep pockets that uses their “ethics statement” for toilet paper” trumps “deep political thoughts of left-leaning pr0n stars” by just a tetch.

Congrats to the winners!  And to everyone else – hang in there.  Next year is just 51 weeks away!

Huge Scoop!!!!!!!!

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Among the Twin Cities’ long list of weekly boutique freebie ‘zines, past and long past and present, like the Twin Cities Reader, Vita.mn, , Vake.mn, Nightbeat, Cake, Rake, Flake, Hake, Pulse, Fulse and many, many more, the City Pages has always been the outlet that impressed the most with its commitment to digging for the story beneath the sound bite. 

And this piece – by Matt Snyders and Rhena Tantisunthorn – continues that glorious tradition.  Snyders and Tantisunthorn tackle Katherine Kersten – the Twin Cities’ only conservative general columnist:

If we learned nothing else last week, we at least discovered that Katherine Kersten is most definitely not a closeted lesbian.

It is, indeed, good to get the basic facts straight.

In her latest mind-bending screed to appear in the Strib (“As Iowa Shows, a Marriage Law Isn’t Enough”), conservative apologist Kersten warned readers that Minnesota might need to pass an amendment banning gay marriage, lest we wind up like our cornpone, corn-holing neighbors to the south.

The ghost of Edward R. Murrow just got a shiver up his spine. 

And what was “mind-bending” about Kersten – who, have I mentioned, is the only conservative columnist actually employed by a Twin Cities newspaper?

“Many folks in our state believe that heterosexual marriage is a bedrock social institution,” writes the man-loving, obviously straight Kersten. “It connects fathers and mothers to their children and provides an essential framework for reconciling men’s and women’s sometimes different but complementary needs.”

The nerve of that woman!  Having an opinion!

Doesn’t Katherine Kersten know she’s a woman! She’s supposed to shut up and parrot the opinions handed to her by the DFL!

But no matter.  Snynder and Tantisunthorn are on fa-yah! They’re going to round the home stretch and go for the big finish! 

Y’know – the part where they make the big stick!  Where the story draws blood!

Strap in!  Here we go!

But while Kersten was distracted by the full-frontal gay attack on heterosexual marriage, she missed the bigger threat from the rear. Among the states she applauds for defending marriage in their constitutions are Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas—three states whose divorce rates are also among the highest.

Booyah!  There we…go…

…er…

Huh?

Um…

OK.

For starters – what’s with the weasel words?  “Among?”  Well, who else is “Among” the leaders and trailers in divorce?   Nevada leads the nation!  But Nevada also leads the nation in marriages!  That’s because people go to Nevada to get married and divorced, frequently by Elvis Presley or Little Richard.

But that has nothing to do with Snyders and Tantisunthorn’s thesis does it?

Of course it does.  The “Bible Belt” leads the nation in divorces, while the Northeast has the lowest divorce rates.

Do you suppose, perhaps, that there might be a correlating difference in the marriage rates in the two regions?

Well, Snynders and Tantisunthorn sure won’t tell you. 

But I will (or read the report in PDF format).  There’s a correlation between marriage rates and divorce rates.

It should go without saying that they don’t bother explaining what the negative correlation between gay marriage and divorce might be.  Because there is no direct (or inverse) correlation.  It’s a strawman; its appearance in the occasionally-excellent City Pages is just a further sign of the Stewart-ization of the left’s alt-media.

The City Pages; still giving you the convenient half of the story after all these years.

Big Huge Scoop!!!!!!

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Among the Twin Cities’ long list of weekly boutique freebie ‘zines, past and long past and present, like the Twin Cities Reader, Vita.mn, , Vake.mn, Nightbeat, Cake, Rake, Flake, Hake, Pulse, Fulse and many, many more, the City Pages has always been the outlet that impressed the most with its commitment to digging for the story beneath the sound bite. 

And this piece – by Matt Snyders and Rhena Tantisunthorn – continues that glorious tradition.  Snyders and Tantisunthorn tackle Katherine Kersten – the Twin Cities’ only conservative general columnist:

If we learned nothing else last week, we at least discovered that Katherine Kersten is most definitely not a closeted lesbian.

It is, indeed, good to get the basic facts straight.

In her latest mind-bending screed to appear in the Strib (“As Iowa Shows, a Marriage Law Isn’t Enough”), conservative apologist Kersten warned readers that Minnesota might need to pass an amendment banning gay marriage, lest we wind up like our cornpone, corn-holing neighbors to the south.

The ghost of Edward R. Murrow just got a shiver up his spine. 

And what was “mind-bending” about Kersten – who, have I mentioned, is the only conservative columnist actually employed by a Twin Cities newspaper?

“Many folks in our state believe that heterosexual marriage is a bedrock social institution,” writes the man-loving, obviously straight Kersten. “It connects fathers and mothers to their children and provides an essential framework for reconciling men’s and women’s sometimes different but complementary needs.”

The nerve of that woman!  Having an opinion!

Doesn’t Katherine Kersten know she’s a woman! She’s supposed to shut up and parrot the opinions handed to her by the DFL!

But no matter.  Snynder and Tantisunthorn are on fa-yah! They’re going to round the home stretch and go for the big finish! 

Y’know – the part where they make the big stick!  Where the story draws blood!

Strap in!  Here we go!

But while Kersten was distracted by the full-frontal gay attack on heterosexual marriage, she missed the bigger threat from the rear. Among the states she applauds for defending marriage in their constitutions are Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas—three states whose divorce rates are also among the highest.

Booyah!  There we…go…

…er…

Huh?

Um…

OK.

For starters – what’s with the weasel words?  “Among?”  Well, who else is “Among” the leaders and trailers in divorce?   Nevada leads the nation!  But Nevada also leads the nation in marriages!  That’s because people go to Nevada to get married and divorced, frequently by Elvis Presley or Little Richard.

But that has nothing to do with Snyders and Tantisunthorn’s thesis does it?

Of course it does.  The “Bible Belt” leads the nation in divorces, while the Northeast has the lowest divorce rates.

Do you suppose, perhaps, that there might be a correlating difference in the marriage rates in the two regions?

Well, Snynder and Tantisunthorn sure won’t tell you. 

But I will (or read the report in PDF format).

It should go without saying that they don’t bother explaining what the negative correlation between gay marriage and divorce might be.  Because there is no direct correlation.

The City Pages; still giving you the convenient half of the story after all these years.

He Who Controls The Goalposts

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Mark Gisleson of Norwegianity, apparently bummed about finishing way out of the big money in the Unintentionally Funny Leftyblog contest (despite years of dedicated striving from colleague MNob, would would definitely be a contender in the Individual category, if I had the bandwidth to present such a contest) apparently didn’t like this line, from a post last week about conservatives and protesting…:

 Conservatives are like sharks; any one of us is a match for dozens of liberals, and our very presence at marches or school board meetings or community council elections provokes unreasoning fear, panic, irrationality and an “end justifies the means” mentality.

He responded:

The first graf is the award-winner [for some hypothetical “unintentionally funny conservative blogger” contest – of which more below], the latter is the clip and save for next year to see if he’s still using this excuse for the pitiful wingnut counterprotester presence at the RNC.

He was talking about this quote from me:

 So I have neither the illusion of nor the desire to try to get thousands of conservatives out into the street next year for the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. But I do want to get dozens out on the street, and spotted around the city’s various choke points, with cameras and video and laptops and wireless cards, to make sure that the “demonstrators” are held accountable to the world for the actions of their, er, less-restrained fellows.

 Of course, Gisleson misses the point; if he could see the point, he’d be a conservative.

Nobody – least of all me – is under any impression that conservatives will ever clog the streets of Saint Paul, waving signs and carring papier-mache puppets and chanting like a bunch of lobotomized droogs.  That’s the left’s monopoly, and y’all are welcome to it.  We cannot “fail” to spark a mass movement “in the street” at the convention, because there is not the faintest intention to try to create one.

Never has been!

Never will be!

The real intentions?  They’re hidden (apparently) in plain sight, in one post or another here and on True North, for whatever it may be worth to you.

So read again.  And focus.  Belay your dreams of bobbing down Kellogg Boulevard inside a giant Cheney head puppet for a few moments. 

Leave the goalposts alone.

 

 

And Michelle Dessler Steps From The Shower

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24 will apparently be shot in an exotic location next season; Washington DC.

And spoilers?

Bauer’s day gets off to a shocking start when former colleague Tony Almeida (played by Carlos Bernard), last seen in Day 5, returns after being left for dead by a terrorist conspirator in CTU’s infirmary.”

Say wha?! “Tony’s uncertain fate… left the door open for his return,” explains exec producer Howard Gordon. “And since there was no silent clock at the conclusion of his last appearance — the 24 tribute to a major character’s demise — we always kept this as a possibility.” Indeed, it was widely rumored (and, I believe, perhaps even filmed) that Tony was to resurface in the final seconds of last season.

Carlos Bernard should thank his agent they didn’t waste Almeida’s return on Day Six. 

Wait until you-know-who finds out that wife Michelle herself is alive, and working as a chaplain at ER‘s County General!

I think we’ll find out that Audrey was really catatonic during Days 2-5, too…

(Via Flash)

One Shopping Day

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Today’s the last day of voting in the “Unintentionally Funniest Leftyblog Contest“.  Get your votes in today for the final tally tomorrow. 

And maybe the contest to date shows that I’m getting all my bad predictions out of my system before the election.  The blogs I thought would be the front-runners – Norwegianity, MNBlue and Cucking Tool – are coming up nerf.

In the meantime, Minnesota Monitor has held their early lead over expected frontrunner, Susan Lenfestey’s “Clothesline” – but “Impeccable Liberal Credentials”, a real dark horse, has come from nowhere to race into second place.

Get your votes in.  The fate of the world is riding on them.

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, Part LV

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It was Saturday, September 19, 1987.  It was time to get sitting.

Tickets to see U2 at the old Saint Paul Civic Center, for the Joshua Tree tour, were going on sale at 9AM. 

And I was going to be there, come hell or high water.

In those days before Ticketbastard Ticketmaster choked the life out of the concert business, you actually had to be at the box offices to get the tickets.  U2’s fans, of course, were dedicated – almost like Springsteen fans, even in the Twin Cities.   I’d actually seen people camping out on Wednesday afternoon on the old plaza on Kellogg Boulevard. 

I couldn’t do that – I had work to do.

But Saturday?  That was me time. 

I woke up at 1:30 in the morning, and jumped in the car.  I parked in front of the James J. Hill mansion (to this day, my favorite free parking in town), and walked past Triangle Park down Kellogg to the Civic.  I made it there just after 2AM.

I was probably number 1,000 in line.  And it was cooold.

And so we waited. 

And waited.

 

 

 

 

And waited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And waited.

Of course, I didn’t have all that much going on in my life at the time, so spending seven hours waiting in line for tickets for the line to start moving wasn’t a real hit on my lifestyle.  My little tech writing contract had ended; leaving me not especially interested in doing more of it.  Voice-over work and freelance print reporting was going well; I’d landed a bunch of jobs in the previous month (hence, I could afford to go to a concert). 

So I stood in line.  And waited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And waited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And waited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, after seven hours, at 9AM sharp, the doors opened, and the line started to crawl ever so slowly forward.  Word came back; they were letting people into the box office in groups of 20 or so. 

So we waited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And waited.

 

 

 

 

And periodically stepped forward in increments of ten or fifteen feet or so, every couple of minutes.

The chill of the day baked away by about 10AM.  I started wishing for water.  Or a bathroom.  Or both.  But no, I was going to stay in line.

So I waited.

 

 

 

And shuffled.

 

 

And waited some more.

 

 

And shuffled some more.

 

 

And so on.

 

 

And so forth.

 

 

Finally – at close to 1PM, I made it to the big wooden sawhorse barricade that served as the “ropeline” for the queue.  A big, jovial-looking Saint Paul cop was minding it, counting people off in groups of twenty.  After 11 hours in line, I was standing with my hands on the barricade, when the cop came out of the door.  There were probably a solid 1,000 people in line behind me, still. 

“Folks”, he announced loudly, “the show has sold out”.

I stood, jaw sagging slowly from the weight of my teeth.  My dry, dry teeth.

I think I swayed a bit, out of pure discouragement.

“So…” the cop continued, “I’m happy to announce a second show!”

And I was the third person into the box office to get the tickets. 

Stage left, first row of bleacher seats.  Under Adam Clayton’s elbow.

I staggered up the hill, with stiff legs and stiffer fingers from clutching the pair of tickets.

Now, the hard part; finding a date to take.

Ethics For Ye, But Not For We

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Al Franken bashes tobacco companies from the stump, among other places.

Indeed, check out this entry from his “campaign blog“:

Al Franken, who hopes to challenge Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., next year, says he delivered a stern message to friend Tom Hanks at a fundraiser in Los Angeles last month.

“At one point I talked about the contrast between me and Norm, which was that he takes money from Big PhRMA and Big Insurance and Big Oil and Big Tobacco, and I’m taking money from Big Comedy,” Franken recalled in an interview Wednesday. “And I said, for example, I don’t think I’ll be writing any earmark in for Tom Hanks.”

According to Franken, Hanks stormed out of the room, bringing the house down. Then the actor returned to applause, pointed to Franken, and the two said in unison, “Big Comedy.”

It is to chuckle.

But as it happens, he’s not above dipping his fingers into Big Tobacco’s deep pockets.

Local lefties are un-thrilled at the news.

Buck Up

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Gary Miller at TvM is a little down in the dumps over the Ramstad retirement:

Jim Ramstad is the embodiment of everything I loathe about RINOs.  He is an SOB but he’s OUR SOB and losing Ramstad would almost certainly mean losing this “first ring” seat. 

I’m not quite as down on Ramstad as Gary; day in and day out, he did usually vote with the good guys; the American Conservative Union rated him a feeble but not-catastrophic 68% (equal to Norm Coleman, better than John McCain), while at least one lefty source isn’t exactly scattering palm fronds in his path.  Of course, he screwed the conservative pooch on many vital issues; he first earned my ire by voting for Clinton’s 1994 “Crime Bill”, a greater impingement on civil liberty than anything the Bush Adminstration has even suggested in the left’s most paranoid delusions.  In balance, he’s generally on the right side (compared to Minnesota’s DFLers), but frustratingly unreliable.

Of course, we’d like to shoot for better than “sucks less”:

Congressional majorities are comprised of true believers and heretics.  Congressman Ramstad is a card-carrying member of the latter but his departure would make it that much more difficult to regain the Speaker’s gavel in the next few election cycles. 

The obvious answer, of course, is to win the Third District for a conservative.

Gary’s stablemate First Ringer is on the case with the best wrapup of potential candidates I’ve seen yet.

Look for more – much more – on TrueNorth, where this race is going to be one of the big priorities for the next year.

And someone tell Gary to cheer up.  This is an opportunity.

Par: For The Course

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Par Ridder gets his comeuppance:

Judge David C. Higgs, in a ruling marked by pointed criticisms of Ridder’s behavior, said Ridder violated the state’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act, and his “common law duty of confidentiality.”

“Given Ridder’s past conduct and his cavalier attitude toward his use and disclosure of confidential Pioneer Press information, it seems to the court that his past actual misappropriation is a good indicator of possible future misappropriation or use of confidential Pioneer Press information,” Higgs ruled.

It just goes to show you; no matter how gratingly smug an establishment media liberal you are, if you commit a grievous enough breach of conduct, a Minnesota judge might eventually hand you a nearly-meaningless consequence:

The ruling bars Ridder from his office for one year starting today, a move that lawyers for the Pioneer Press had argued was necessary to prevent further damage to their business. Ridder left the Star Tribune at 8:40 a.m., according to Star Tribune spokesman Ben Taylor.

I guess he’ll have to double-dog promise not to work from home.

Getting sent home; I bet Ridder hasn’t heard that one since fourth grade.