Sheila gets nominated for the coolest awards.

So go and vote for her, already.

FADE FROM BLACK TO PICTURE OF DIGITAL CLOCK SET TO “10:00“.

CUT TO INTERIOR SHOT OF CTU LOS ANGELES.  

DIRECTOR BUCHANAN walks into command post.  CHLOE, MORRIS, and AL-FAWAZ sit at computer consoles.

BUCHANAN:  OK, everyone.  Status Report.

CHLOE:  I still can’t find Jack.

BUCHANAN:  You need to find him.

CHLOE (Fuming and scowling, with cute flip of hair):  It’s not that easy!

BUCHANAN:  You need to find him now.

CHLOE:  (Rolls eyes) Well, since you put it that way…

AL-FAWAZ:  Director Buchanan, I have a hit on Bauer.  He’s coming in the front door with two unidentified gunmen!

BUCHANAN:  Set up a perimeter!

MORRIS (Sotto voce): Like that ever bloody works…

(DOOR OPENS:  BAUER, IN HANDCUFFS, IS ESCORTED IN BY TWO UNIFORMED CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROLMEN.  HE IS WEARING RUMPLED CLOTHES, IS UNSHAVEN, AND WALKS UNSTEADILY)

CHiP #1:  I’m looking for a Bill Buchanan?

BUCHANAN: I am Bill Buchanan.

CHiP #1:  Hi, I’m officer Poncharelli, and I’ve been instructed to bring your Mr. Bauer here.  He was arrested for DUI about twelve hours ago, and a Mister Trump just posted his bail. 

BUCHANAN:  Take him back to medical!

(TWO REDSHIRTS UNIFORMED CTU SECURITY OFFICERS STEP TOWARD BAUER, THEN FALL OVER DEAD)

BUCHANAN:  Er…what happened to them?

CHLOE: Budget cuts due to the writers’ strike.  They were gonna kack anyway…

BAUER:  Listen.  We don’t have time.

MORRIS (sotto voce to CHLOE):  We never bloody have time!

CHLOE (sotto voce to MORRIS): Shut up!

BUCHANAN:  What do you mean, Jack?

BAUER:  Dammit!  There’s a terrorist plot aimed at Los Angeles, and…

BUCHANAN:  Right.  Our usual premise.

BAUER: Listen to me!  We only have ten hours to solve it this time!

(AL-FAWAZ surreptitiously takes out cell phone, makes call).

BUCHANAN:  That’s madness!  Division told us…

BAUER: Forget what division told you! We have to get going, and we have to do it now!

CHLOE:  Mr. Buchanan, I just cross-referenced the writers’ guild demands with satellite scheduling uploads from Fox! Jack is right!

MORRIS:  Jack? Mr. Buchanan?  Terrorist websites all over the Middle East just posted reports that CTU only has ten hours to solve the next attack!

BAUER:  Dammit! 

CHLOE:  Jack, there’s gotta be a mole in CTU.

BUCHANAN:  We need to find the mole.

CHLOE: I’m on it.

BUCHANAN:  We need to find the mole now!

(AL-FAWAZ surreptitiously slips cell phone into BAUER’s pocket)

CHLOE (rolling eyes):  Yes, Bill.  (Types furiously).  I’ll reset the vectors of the GIS satellites in triplicate to sync with the frumious bandersnatch…

BAUER:  Bill, this is serious.  The terrorists have gained control of the TV schedule!   They can control the timing of our investigation!  We have to get back in control!

CHLOE (with an air of foreboding):  Jack? 

BAUER:  What?

CHLOE:  The satellite traces the leak to…you!

BAUER:  That’s impossible!

(AL-FAWAZ tiptoes to door of CTU as BAUER frantically searches pockets, finds cell phone)

BAUER:  Dammit!

BUCHANAN:  I’m going to have to notify Division, Jack.

BAUER:  Bill! Listen!

BUCHANAN:  Stand down, Jack.

(TONY ALMEIDA walks into shot from right, wearing swim trunks and a “Cabo Wabo” T-shirt, carrying a Big Gulp from 7/11).

ALMEIDA:  Hi, guys.

(ALL STOP).

BAUER:  Tony?

ALMEIDA (slurps the drink):  Hey, Jack.

BAUER:  But you died on Day Five.

ALMEIDA:  Whatever.

(AL-FAWAZ opens door)

BUCHANAN:  OK.  Jack, Tony, Chloe – you need to drop everything and work on finding those extra ten hours…

BAUER:  Dammit, Bill, there’s no time!

(TEN OR FIFTEEN TURBANNED MEN WEARING OBVIOUS SUICIDE VESTS TIPTOE PAST IN THE BACKGROUND)

CHLOE:  Duh, that’s the problem.

(MARCHING BAND WALKS IN DOOR THAT AL-FAWAZ HAS OPENED, PLAYING ARABIC-SOUNDING MUSIC.  AL-QUAEDA BANNERS WAVE, CHEERLEADERS IN BURQUAS SKIP DEMURELY AROUND A FLOAT DECORATED TO LOOK LIKE A SUICIDE VEST)

BAUER:  We have to find the mole!

(LARGE TANK FESTOONED WITH ARABIC BANNERS DRIVES IN BACKGROUND BEHIND BAUER, ALMEIDA, BUCHANAN, MORRIS AND CHLOE, COVERED IN TURBANNED MEN FIRING AK47s INTO THE AIR)

BUCHANAN:  Oh, and Jack?  We need to send you to Washington.  Right now.

BAUER:  Dammit.

(STING:  CLOCK READS “9:47” OVER OUTRO THEME)

Realists on the right realize that, for the conservative movement, someone like a Ronald Reagan comes along maybe once in a lifetime.  We won’t likely see another.

Of course, most lefties don’t know this.

Well…one of them seems to (video).

I’m not sure if that’s merely an astute observation, or some wicked triangulation.
(From Peter in New York)

For almost forty long years, the Ameircan Civil Liberties Union has been AWOL on one of the most divisive civil liberties issues of our era – unreasonable government control and banning of firearms in the hands of the law-abiding.

They also sat out the debate on McCain-Feingold, whose main effect was to ration conservative grassroots speech.  As to the rights of the unborn to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – well, that just gives ’em a headache.

Indeed, whenever civil liberties that might be labelled “conservative” are on the block, the ACLU makes like Brave Sir Robin, and bravely turns its tail and flees.

But let a “conservative” get caught in a farcical episode in an airport restroom, and the right to drop trou and get the freak on is essential stuff, dagnabbit

In an effort to help Sen. Larry Craig, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that people who have sex in public bathrooms have an expectation of privacy

I’m always puzzled when American news outlets report this kind of story with a straight face:

Fidel Castro said Wednesday he is not yet healthy enough to speak to Cuba‘s masses in person and can’t campaign for Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

“I am not physically able to speak directly to the citizens of the municipality where I was nominated for our elections next Sunday,” the ailing 81-year-old wrote in an essay published Wednesday by state news media.

In other news

• Kim Jong Il was criticized for missing his precinct caucus meeting.  “This is where the People’s Democracy in North Korea starts”, said Noh Chuk Tae, spokesperson for the Ward 2, Precinct 45 Central Committee of the North Korean Communist Worker’s Party.
• Robert Mugabe reportedly failed to register to vote in his district’s upcoming elections.  “In our one-man, one-vote system”, said Lester Mkangangwe, precinct election judge, “the one man that votes had better register, for the good of democracy in Zimbabwe”.
• Thousands of HAMAS gunmen put down their AK47s and picked up stacks of campaign literature in the Gaza Strip today.  “We’d hate to lose the election”, said one masked gunman. 

That is all.

It was Saturday, January 16, 1988.  A bitterly cold night.

And I was on my way to Fridley.

Well, I was on my way to try to find Fridley.

I’d gotten a call from Scott at the DJ service; they had a different bar for me to try, and they figured I’d be perfect for it.  The bar was “George Is In Fridley”, usually pronounced “George’s In Fridley”. 

“The place is kinda funky”, Scott said.  “Weird crowd – kinda half brothers, half northeast-side rednecks.  It’s also kinda a weird situation; the dance floor is also restaurant space; your first two hours will be playing dinner music.  Then they clear it off, and it’s dance time!”

“And the owners…”  he said, describing the family that ran the place. 

We’ll get back to that.

It was Saturday.  And in two and a half years in the Twin Cities, I’d never once driven to Northeast Minneapolis, other than whizzing through on 35W.  Not knowing the freeway connections at all, I drove down University for miles and miles, eventually hanging a left and going over to Marshall which, just at the Fridley/Minneapolis border, turned into River Road.

And was where the bar stood, inches north of the inter-city border.  Across River Road stood the huge FMC plant; you could see brand-new naval gun turrets, bound for the Navy’s latest class of destroyers, sitting on rail cars, the haze gray paint job standing out under the yard lights against the dismal industrial background.  George’s looked like a big pole barn, with a gravel parking lot and shabby doors covered with beer ads.

I walked inside, and found “Tony”, the boss.  He was a padded, businesslike-looking Greek man.  “You are Mitch”, he said, sizing me up.  “Mitch Berg”, I answered, shaking his hand.

We walked through the bar into the main room; it looked like it’d been a ballroom in the forties, with a slick wooden dance floor surrounded by raised restaurant seating on three sides (and covered with tables about 2/3 full of diners), and, at the far end, a DJ booth towering high above a raised stage that looked like it was big enough to hold a small “big” band at one point. 

We walked to a long table, at the head of the room, set aside from the bar and across the floor from the booth.  There were chairs only on the side away from the booth.  At the center chair sat an elderly, swarthy-looking gentleman, who was talking with a couple of women in waitress uniforms and signing some piece of paperwork, looking a bit like Richard Blaine in the opening scenes of Casablanca; the diners got progressively younger, the farther from the center you went. 

“This is my father, George, the owner of the bar.  Papa, this is Mitch…Berg?” he said and asked.  I nodded, and shook his hand.

“You do good job for us?  This should be good night!” he said, smiling, in a manner that implied that it wasn’t a question.

“You bet!”

And then someone else – looked like a kitchen manager – got the floor, standing before Papa George as Tony led me to the booth.  We climbed two levels of risers and a final set of steps – the floor of the booth was a solid seven feet above the dance floor – and he showed me how to turn all the equipment on.

“Hokay, you can do this.  One thing”, he said, turning to me before climbing back down; “you will get people coming up here telling you what to play.  You are the only one who decides, hokay?”

“Gotcha”, I replied, smiling, puzzled.

———-

I started out the evening playing dinner music – quieter stuff, light jazz, doo-wop and some slower oldies.  After half an hour, a pudgy, scowling woman in a white service jacket threaded through the tables and climbed the risers with some difficulty. 

“I’m Jessica, the assistant kitchen manager.  And you have to play some danceable stuff.  You gotta start getting things going here…”

“Er, we have about half an hour of dinner left…”

“I’m not asking!  I’m telling!  Get things moving!” she said with executive finality as she turned and climbed back down the risers.

Remembering Tony’s dictum, I changed nothing.

About half an hour later, as the diners on the floor finished up and started dissipating, the bouncers and bussers started clearing and removing the tables from the floor.  Another woman – taller, thinner, younger, in a white shirt and black skirt and with long auburn hair – climbed the risers.  “You’re the DJ”, she asked.  A name-tag on her blouse said “Tanya;  Asst. Bar Manager”.

“Yes, Tanya, I am”.

“Hokay”, she slurred as I smelled booze on her breath, “I’m the assistant bar manager, and you need to slow things down so the people can eat”.

“Will do”, I said, as she turned and hopped down the risers.  I changed, again, nothing.

As the floor cleared, I started picking up the pace – more rock ‘n roll, a little accessible R’nB – and watched Papa George at the head table.  Tony had joined him, sitting at Papa’s side.  Another guy – looked like another of George’s sons – sat at the other side.  Other couples flanked them all – there were probably a dozen people, all sitting on the same side, all facing me across the floor.  It felt a little like playing to the Corleones.

Oh, I knocked it dead that night.  Tony climbed the risers around midnight.  “You good!”, he said, nodding approvingly at the packed dance floor and the crowded bar behind it.  “You real good”.

Hearing this from Michelle Malkin might jolt a few people awake…:

I need a man.

Luckily for Mr. Malkin, it’s just about politics.  And it’s a dang fine point:

A man who can say “No.” A man who rejects Big Nanny government. A man who thinks being president doesn’t mean playing Santa Claus. A man who won’t panic in the face of economic pain. A man who won’t succumb to media-driven sob stories.

A man who can look voters, the media, and the Chicken Littles in Congress in the eye and say the three words no one wants to hear in Washington: Suck. It. Up.

Someone who embraces limited government and a doctrine of supporting prosperity rather than subsidizing failure, maybe?

I don’t want to hear Republicans recycling the Blame Predatory Lenders rhetoric of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Jesse Jackson. Enough with the victim card. Borrowers are not all saints.

That’s my biggest worry about Romney’s victory in Michigan; the sound bites I’ve heard look like he got at least part of the win by triangulating toward the center.

Chad the Elder is a hard-core Vikings fan in the same way that the Pope is pretty Catholic:

Cheering for a team is not about calculating the odds and going with the winners. It’s about loyalty and eternal hope in the face of constant disappointment.

It’s a nice sentiment, but…no.

Family? Country? Faith? All ofthose things are about loyalty and perseverance. Sports? That’s entertainment.

I covered this a few years ago. I wrote:

Except for the Bears and, most seasons, the Twins, I’m the king of the fair-weather fans.

I’m a busy guy – work, kids, time-intensive hobbies, yadda yadda. I go through a particularly rigorous cost-benefit analysis for everything on which I might spend time; does the cost (in time) benefit me in enjoyment more than the other things I might do?

That calculation leads me to toss things out pretty ruthlessly; among the detritus, losing teams (like the ’90 Twins) and even entire sports (Hockey).

And let’s be honest; sports need fans like me. It’s only good capitalism.

It’s a calculation I’d never make with, say, my kids (my son at age 14 is, let’s just say, a net loss in the “enjoyment” department for the next year or two), my faith, or my nation.

But a sports team?

I mean, back in the days when players spent their entire careers in one city, and owners were part of life in a region?  Maybe – and that’s a big maybe.
But all those things – the actual reasons to be “loyal” to a team – went the way of the Corvair, and at about the same time.

In a normal free-market economy, sports teams need to deliver – good teams, good efforts, winning records – to provoke audiences to part with their hard-earned money. If the team is phoning it in, punching the clock, nobody but the absolute hard core will care – and the team will fold, and will deserve to. To draw people, they have to appeal to the fickle tastes of…me!

And of course it’s more than just pure capitalism. Indeed, we owe it to our nation, our culture, and our way of life to see it this way:

In the East-German-like sports economy of places like Wrigley Field, Fenway, and the vision the likes of Patrick Reusse, Joe Soucheray and the like have, everyone would troop dutifully, a horde of gray-faced sheep, to the Sports Allocation Centre, for their weekly ration of Sport. The team would slog through the motions, the herd audience would pay $5 for their hot dogs and dutifully clap at the appropriate times, and go home wearing their $399 sweatshirts.

So you see – fair-weather fans like me are not only absolutely vital for the health and survival of sports; we are good for free enterprise, even democracy itself.

You owe it to this nation, and to those who’ve fallen to defend it, to eschew the Vikings until they turn things around.

Thank you, and God Bless America.

Joel Rosenberg – who follows police issues, especially excessive use of force issues, as closely as anyone – writes:

If you’re interested in the issue I’ve been covering, you might want to read this, right about, well, now.

He links to a piece by Steve Perry in the Daily Mold that does something the rest of the Twin Cities media should do; reports on allegations of excessive force complaints against the Minneapolis Police.

Read Perry’s piece; while he’s a reliably-apoplectic lefty, he (and, when he ran it, the City Pages) intersperses some good reporting into the droning cant.

With yesterday’s news that the NTSB’s investigation of the 35W Bridge collapse will conclude that a design flaw from the 1960’s – inadequate gusset plates – combined perhaps with excess weight on the deck is the most likely culprit for the disaster, the Tics’ key political truncheon for the next session is on the verge of being seized from them.

And they’re neither happy, nor giving up without a fight tantrum.

“The NTSB investigation is not yet complete,” House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher said Tuesday. “It would be helpful if [Pawlenty] would follow his own advice and not add his own speculation on the cause of the 35W bridge collapse.”

Kelliher – one of the dumbest speakers Minnesota has ever had – sounds like a teenager being confronted about a piece of wrecked furniture; “Oh, yeah? Were you there? Did you see it get broken?”

And Speaker Kelliher – you didn’t seem too concerned about “waiting for the report” when your caucus-mate Alice “The Phantom” Hausman went on WCCO to indict the failure of the gas tax even before the last kid was off the schoolbus, did you?

Pawlenty and DFLers came together briefly after the bridge fell on Aug. 1,

[Very briefly]

Pawlenty said on Tuesday that within hours of the collapse, a “political leader” whom he would not name had called him and threatened retribution and that since then opponents had made repeated and inaccurate “linkages” of the bridge collapse to his earlier vetoes of transportation legislation.

In light of the report, he said, they should “have the decency to correct those statements,” he said

Minneapolis and Saint Paul are one-party towns; being a Tic means never having to say you’re sorry.

He noted that there was “a bit of irony” to the fact that the design error detailed by the National Transportation Safety Board had occurred during the fabled golden era for public works in Minnesota.

Kudos to the Governor for saying that; the bridge was an artifact of an age that the DFL points to as one where “we” did things “right”. Indeed, if you want to indulge in excessive metaphor, the collapse frames nicely the demise of the “Minnesota Miracle” – the storied time when government took credit for a boom in regional prosperity that (sssssh) would have happened anyway in Minnesota, a sleeping giant at a time of immense growth nationwide.

“It is clear that MNDOT did everything humanly possible to maintain our bridges,” [Senate Minority Leader Dick] Day said. He accused Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Steve Murphy, who has called repeatedly for Molnau’s resignation as commissioner, of “prematurely and recklessly blaming her.”

But Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, was unrepentant Tuesday, saying that Pawlenty was overreaching and that the report drew no definitive conclusions about the reasons for the collapse.

“If a half-inch gusset plate kept that bridge up for 40 years, why not another 40?” Murphy said.

I’m going to pause and let that sink in for a moment.

Steve Murphy – chowderhead Tic who couldn’t pass an engineering class at gunpoint, but who would say 2+2=Bacon if Margaret Anderson Kelliher told him to – is saying “So what if the plates broke? What if they hadn’t?”

“Could it be because rust ate it away? Because the trips over the bridge went from 25,000 to 140,000? The parameters changed, and MNDOT should have been going back, making sure all the gussets, I-beams and plates could handle 140,000 trips a day.”

Of course – they did.

The NTSB’s safety recommendation noted that “although inspections of the bridge identified and tracked some areas of tracking and corrosion, at this point in the investigation there is no indication that any of those areas played a significant role in the collapse of the bridge.”

That set off U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., who heads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Oberstar said that such a dismissal of the possible role of rust and corrosion was “inappropriate and uncharacteristic of a board chairman. That [the design flaw] may be the proximate cause, but there are contributing factors in every accident.”

In other words – key Tic porkmonger Oberstar won’t directly try to politically undercut the NTSB, but he’s still running damage control for the locals.

Who, if there is any justice, will need it.

The DFL, as the curtain seemingly starts to close on the “mystery” phase of this tragedy, looks like a bunch of angry hamsters, angrily gnawing and chattering away, trying to wish things into being that just aren’t.

The terrible state of the  Hastings Bridge is something that happens when bridges get old.  Simple fact – things that get built can fall right back down.

But suppressing the report?

The Admiral from Anti-Strib is not happy:

this bridge is in a sorry state. Tack welds are bad, bearings are frozen and rusted, there are cracks throughout the structure. Eight years ago there was a load limit placed on the bridge. No further load tests since.

I’m not going to go in to explicit detail, but in summary, this bridge could collapse at any time.

As recently as mid-December, the agency had refused to release the August report.

Now for the excuse.

It cited homeland security concerns, saying that criminals or terrorists could use the information to “determine the most vulnerable components of a bridge to target for attack by explosives or other means.”

Bullshit! Pawlenty, Molnau & Co. are willing, able, and have been playing Russian roulette with the public safety. This is political, and you can take that to the bank. A cover up was just exposed.

Yeah! I know. I just finished defending Molnau. I feel like one of those people in the Southwest Airlines commercial when the announcer says, “Wanna get away?” I dropped the ball big time defending Molnau.

Many of us have been defending Molnau.  And while I’m not ready to throw her under the bus yet, there’s some explaining to be done.

And hiding behind “Homeland Security” isn’t an explanation.

I love Prairie Home Companion. It’s usually a lot of fun, and, at its best, it tells a side of upper-midwestern scandihoovian life that doesn’t get well-described elsewhere. Garrison Keillor has an amazing ear for the local argot, and some wonderful insights into the stoic, dysfunctional, warm heart of the region.

But good lord, he can (allegedly) be a real jagoff.

Keillor and his wife, Jenny Lind Nilsson, are suing their next-door neighbor, Lori Anderson, to stop her from building a two-story addition to her home that would include a three-stall garage and studio.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Ramsey County District Court, claims the addition would “obstruct the access of light and air to the Nilsson-Keillor property” and “impair or destroy protected historical resources.”

The complaint also said the project would obstruct their view “of open space and beyond” and possibly hurt property value. The estimated market value a year ago for Keillor’s home was about $1.2 million, according to property tax records; Anderson’s was about $600,000.

The City of Saint Paul – which administers building permits rather carefully in the tony, historic Ramsey Hill neighborhood via its’ “Heritage Preservation Commission” – is also a defendant; it claims Keillor was notified the same way all Saint Paulites get notified of such things; by mail.
Naturally, there are at least two sides to the story.

Anderson, who has owned her home since 1999 and lives there with fiancé Paul Olson, said Monday that Keillor and his wife have been good neighbors and that she is wary of offending them.”We were heartsick,” Anderson said of learning about the suit.

Olson said when he and Anderson decided to marry, they realized their one-car garage wasn’t big enough. Even before they hired an architect, the couple said they talked to neighbors. They planned to build three stalls, a storage area and a mudroom on the first floor and a studio for Anderson’s business on the second. The addition would be a few feet lower than the existing home and would be attached to the rear.

The project would add about 1,900 finished and unfinished square feet to the home, which now has 2,124 finished square feet. The Keillor-Nilsson home has 5,168 finished square feet, according to tax records.

According to Anderson, they jumped through all the usual hoops one must go through to build an addition to a home, especially a historic one.

City Attorney John Choi said Monday that “we have reviewed the plaintiffs’ allegations in the complaint and find them to be without merit. It is our position that the city, Board of Zoning Appeals and the Heritage Preservation Commission acted in compliance with the law and within our legal discretion.”

Olson said Monday that Keillor and his wife “couldn’t have cared less” when Anderson told them they were building a bigger garage.

“He’s a busy guy,” Olson said. “We didn’t feel obligated to include him in the planning.”

Let’s take a step back.  Keillor’s public persona is that of a lovable, if unctuous, academic – that fuzzy-headed professor that’d make you laugh when he wasn’t boring you stiff.

As I wrote five years ago, there’s another side:

I used to be a radio producer. I knew people who’d dealt with Keillor – fellow low-level producers, production assistants, the grunts that do the dirty work that has to be done for show like Keillor’s to come off. To a person, they all – every one – describe him as “extremely abusive when angry”, “selfish”, “never has a good word to say about anybody”, “no social skills”, “treats his colleagues like dirt”, ” keeps people hanging on without officially hiring them”, “destroys people behind their backs”, “acts like his shit doesn’t stink”, “dumps [employees] without warning”. Most concisely, “a complete son of a bitch”. Every one of those is from people who’ve worked with Keillor in some professional capacity, many of whom don’t dare say a thing because they want to work in these towns again. Keillor, it seems, also as a reputation for squashing careers.

It was a local joke among radio people in the eighties – Keillor went through “personal assistants” like kleenex. He was as petulant as any caricature of a golden-age movie queen. He demanded his subordinates worship him. He cast them off like old underwear when they displeased him. He was a spoiled, petulant egomaniac.

The article above was a follow-up to this one which, in addition to garnering my first Instalanche and putting this blog on the map, drew a number of emails from former and current Public Radio and Keillor employees.  They excoriated the man – and, to a person, begged to be kept anonymous.

Keillor’s not a pleasant employer.

And if the Strib’s story is true, I can’t say as I’d want to be his neighbor, either:

Olson said he and Anderson were on vacation in New Zealand when they received “an angry e-mail” from Keillor on Nov. 29. The e-mail accused Anderson and Olson of building “a carriage house” and said, “If we had known, we would have been horrified. … Neighbors do not deal with neighbors the way you dealt with us.”

Anderson and Olson cut short their vacation and returned home, hoping to talk to Keillor and Nilsson.

“We wrote them a very conciliatory e-mail to say we’ll do anything we can to work it out,” Anderson said. “They refused to talk to us.”

To paraphrase P.J.O’Rourke, you can reason with Keillor.  You can also reason with livestock, for all the good that’ll do you, if his former colleagues are to be believed.

I wonder – if he loses the court action, maybe he’s thinking of packing up and moving to New York in a snit again?

Item #1:  Build new 35W River Bridge.  Well, the job is underway, and supposedly under a year from completion.

Item #2:  Absorb the NTSB report, which reportedly blames design flaws in the collapse of the 35W River Bridge last August.  That’s “Design Flaws” – insufficiently-strong gusset plates.  Which were part of the original bridge construction, forty-odd years ago.  Back when there was, apparently, no shortage of tax money. 

Item #3: Await apology from Nick Coleman:  After all, before they’d even found all the submerged cars, the Non-Monkey had blamed Pawlenty, the GOP and the Taxpayers’ League, and the “failure” to raise the Gas Tax, for the disaster, all but accusing them of complicity in murder.

Item #4:  Await same from Alice Hausman: The famous truck was still engulfed in flames when Alice “The Phantom” Hausman, Tic from Saint Paul, Chairbeing of the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, and subject of an unseemly Lori Sturdevant girl crush, went on WCCO Radio and blamed the disaster on taxes.

Item #5:  Await More Of Same From Elwyn Tinklenberg: Elwin “E-Tink” Tinklenburg, Transportation Commissioner for DFL-Lite “Independence” Party governor Jesse “The Stealth Tic” Ventura, and perennial Tic candidate for higher office (he’s been pondering running against Michele Bachmann since before Rep. Bachmann was actually elected) did pretty much the same.

Item #6:  Congratulate Mike Mosedale The City Pages: The City Pages Mike Mosedale (Winner of the 2007 “At Least He’s Not Matt Snyders or G.R. Anderson” award) wrote ran a long article in the metro’s foremost freebie, speculatively blaming…:

• The Governor
• Carol Molnau
• MNDoT
• The Taxpayers League and David Strom
• The repair work going one on the deck
• The Feds
• The Met Council
• The state bureaucracy
• Society’s addiction to new goodies (like trains and ballparks)

..and…

• The original design of the bridge

In retrospect, the non-political parts of Mosedale’s the piece were remarkably balanced for a local lefty alt-media report.  Which is sort of like saying “except for the iceberg, the Titanic had a pretty good cruise”.

I’ll get working on them.

Via Cake Eater Kathy, it’s “the Privilege Meme”.

The point is to bold each of the statements that applied/applies to me.

Original source: The list is based on an exercise developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. The exercise developers ask that if you participate in this blog game, you acknowledge their copyright. So I do. Yaaaay Will Meagan, Angie, Minnette, Drew and Stacy!

Father went to college

Father finished college

Mother went to college—I think for a semester or two (Schwoops. As Keith Moon is my witness, I thought I’d heard it was a semester or two, but Mom emails to say she actually went to three years of college. My bad).

Mother finished college

Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor – UPDATED: Mom emails to note that a distant relative on her side was an attorney and governor of Iowa.

Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers – dad was a high school teacher.

Had more than 50 books in your childhood home

Had more than 500 books in your childhood home – I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 5,000.

Were read children’s books by a parent

Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18-–Not really – I learned cello in the elementary school orchestra. When I was 14, my dad paid one of his friends to show me a couple of things on the guitar. I think it was four lessons. It was useful.

Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18

The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively – it’s kind of a dumb statement. White conservative Christian males take a lump or two.

Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18 – I think I was 33. And I regretted it.

Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs – Dad helped out. And I got a decent scholarship, and a couple of grants.

Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs

Went to a private high school

Went to summer camp – In seventh and eighth grade, I won scholarships (thanks, American Legion!) to the International Music Camp on the cello. One week sessions that were spent practicing like mad for a huge honkin’ concert in the International Peace Gardens.

Had a private tutor before you turned 18

Family vacations involved staying at hotels Once, when we were going to the Tetons and the car broke down, we spent most of the vacation money getting the car fixed. We had enough to stay a night in a hotel in Livingston Montana. We went to the occasional lake cabin, though, which was a lot more fun.

Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 – Um, mostly? But from, like, Woolworths and Penney’s?

Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them

There was original art in your house when you were a child – Yes, but Mom painted it all. She was quite talented.

Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 – I didn’t have my own phone until I was 26.

You and your family lived in a single family house

Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home-

You had your own room as a child From age twelve on – always shared with my brother.

Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course – huh?

Had your own TV in your room in High School

Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College – no, but I bought a CD when I was 16 with my radio earnings. 12.6% at the height of the Carter Stagflation!

Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16

Went on a cruise with your family

Went on more than one cruise with your family

Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up—such as were available in the middle of North Dakota? Yes.

You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family—The commandment to not waste heat was pretty clear.

UPDATE:  The Night Writer did the meme – and added:

The point is to make us feel guilty about being born with certain advantages. To which my response would be, “What is your point?” I hope this wasn’t the result of hundreds of thousands of dollars sunk into a research study of the obvious. I mean, couldn’t that money have been better spent on something like finding out why monkeys scream during sex? Perhaps a better response from me, though, would be “So what?” — as in “So what do you want me to do about it?”

Am I supposed to go around feeling meek and guilty for an accident of birth over which I had no control over? I mean, that was a decision made way above my pay-grade. Similarly, should I be upset over the injustice that Michael Jordan gets the privilege of being 6′ 9″ with mad skills, or that Sean Connery gets that voice? Or should I go to Japan and have people treat me differently, in overt or subtle ways, because I’m different? They probably would, and I’d probably be upset about it, but the only thing in my power to change about the situation is my attitude.

The subtext of the meme was fairly clear – the authors tipped their hand with the “are people like you portrayed favorably on TV” question, as if such a question weren’t meaninglessly-broad enough to be useful only to…

…pop sociologists, I guess.

Although the “dumb” President has managed to stymie the “smart” Tics on the war, taxes, and issue after other issue, at least Nancy Pelosi has one one big-time victory.  The House cafeteria is now just fabulous:

Newly ascendant Democrats may have hit roadblocks on Iraq and fiscal issues, but they have revamped congressional menus, replacing fatty, pre-made foods with healthier, gourmet alternatives. The once dreary congressional cafeterias now abound with haute cuisine.

The menu transformation is part of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” plan to make the House campus more environmentally friendly and socially progressive.

But there can be a downside to delicious. Not everyone is happy with the enhanced offerings. Many congressional employees have complained that as the food quality has increased, so have the prices.

I smell an entitlement program brewing!

Call it “StaffAid”, or perhaps “AdminFeed”?

A fruit and cheese side dish with two small wedges of brie and cheddar, six grapes, two saltines and one strawberry cost $4.95, for example.

Who says populism is dead?

A legislature, to paraphrase Napoleon, travels on its stomach. I guess the tic majority will be headed to Provence during their next break.

Now that Kathy is apparently doing well, you need to divert some of whatever your worldview calls for – prayers, karmic imprecations or best wishes – to Tim Blair, who has just started a battle with cancer

Put me down for a ton of each, just so as to not miss any bets.

I saw this link on Drudge:

FEDS: GOOGLE cleared to bid on airwaves...

…and I thought “What would the world look like if Google got to bid on radio stations?

There’d be 5,000 channels on your dial – but 4,200 of them would be obscure liberal talk stations.

Actually, I see it’s just an article about the auction of wireless frequencies.  Never mind.

Although I am nowhere close to finished deciding who I want to see get the GOP nomination for ’08, I have a name on my short list for 2016.  Michelle Malkin covers Bobby Jindal’s inauguration as Louisiana’s first non-white governor since Reconstruction:

The Daily Advertiser of Lafayette welcomes Jindal:

Today, Bobby Jindal becomes governor of Louisiana. He will face major challenges in his new position, particularly as he strives for adoption of his No. 1 goal – rewriting the state’s ethics code. Determined to make Louisiana ethics the “gold standard” for the nation, he will call a special session to deal only with ethics reform. If he fails, he will continue calling special sessions until the reform package is adopted.

We believe he can win the ethics reform battle and meet all his other challenges, which include hurricane recovery measures, health-care improvements, economic reform, improvements in education, successfully combating crime, increasing safety for Louisiana citizens and analyzing and monitoring state spending.

“Reforming Louisiana” would seem to be in a league with “Red Sox winning the Series” or “Reforming Jersey City”; impossible jobs that can be done (provided you get someone like a Curt Schilling or Brett Schundler or Bobby Jindal on the job.  What do they have in common?) 

Jindal has proved himself in the arena of government service. We first took notice of him in 1996, when he was appointed secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. That put him in charge of 12,000 employees and a $4 billion budget – in his first government job. He inherited a $400 million budget deficit and, in a relatively short period of time, turned it into a $220 million budget surplus.

If there’s anyone on the “Jindal ’16” committee reading this blog, please drop me a line.

I don’t “endorse” anyone – because, like, who cares what Mitch Berg thinks? 

And as I showed the other day, I’m still figuring out my short list of GOP candidates; JMac shows signs of joining Rudy, Mitt and Fred on my personal rotation.

First Ringer states a great case for Giuliani, though.

Or…is it?:

He’s down in the polls.  His cash is low.  TIME remarked that his “hang-on insistence is all the more puzzling because of his lackadaisical campaigning style.”  That he was “out of gas.”  Rudy?  No.  Reagan, before his stunning primary resurgence in 1976.

Of course, “America’s Mayor” isn’t the Gipper.  In fact, no one in the 2008 GOP presidential field was, is, or will be Ronald Reagan.  Nor should they try to be.  But while all of the Republicans contenders can lay claim to the heritage of Reagan’s presidency in various ways, whether in their communication style, conservative values or tough foreign policy, Rudy Giuliani’s best attribute in common with the Gipper is something conservative candidates have been short on recently – accomplishments. 

And what accomplishments (emphasis added):

While all remember what New York City used to be, few seem to remember the visceral disgust and hopeless that once shadowed Gotham.  New York was Dante’s seventh level, a city whose future seemed best depicted in movies like Escape From New York where the last vestiges of order had been stripped away.  It was the epitome of liberal mismanagement and it was beyond salvation.  Certainly New York couldn’t be saved and certainly not by a Republican mayor who espoused a law-and-order, fiscally conservative mantra.  Before Giuliani’s tenure, doing what he accomplished with New York wasn’t considered difficult – it was considered impossible.  And perhaps the great intangible of Rudy’s candidacy is how he did it – by utterly pissing off the liberal establishment.

Is he perfect – especially as a conservative?  Of course not:

But a presidential race isn’t a mix-and-match set where we can combine Thompson’s wit, McCain’s conviction, Rudy’s record, Huckabee’s charm and Newt’s brain in Romney’s body.  To ape Donald Rumsfeld, you go to an election with the candidates that you have, not the candidates you want. 

But Rudy Giuliani has made a political life out of doing the things that others say cannot be done.  At a time when the general public has doubts about GOP competency, Giuliani has demonstrated an agenda and a record that doesn’t ask for blind trust from the electorate but merely asks them to open their eyes to what he has accomplished.  

 Read the whole thing.

We – and by “we” I mean Republicans, conservatives and America – could do much worse.

CMLP at Casual Sundays notes:

“Political Correctness: A doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous media, which holds that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

It actually was from a contest at Texas A and M…

Back when I was a kid, Erica Jong was the it writer.  Her books were the ones that my friends’ moms kept carefully tucked under all the other books on their nightstands, out of view.  We – the 12 and 13 year old versions of the neighborhood kids – snuck furtive glances at the oh-so-risque covers, got uneasy about the chances of getting caught, carefully put the books back where they belonged, and snuck carefully away.

Jong is still alive, but – if this post from Monday’s Huffpo is any indication – should have stuck with writing romance novels for women who’d just discovered the pill.

Social commentary would seem to be way beyond her.

I am so tired of pink men bombing brown children and rationalizing it as fighting terrorism.

And I, Erica, am so tired of purple(faced) women – women whose faces have turned bright purple from constant unrestrained ire – reducing complex questions to facile “racisms”.  D’ya suppose the Huffpo will take note?

I am so tired of pink men telling women (of all colors) what to do with their wombs–which connect with their brains–in case you forgot.

Nope, Erica – unlike you, I am a genuine feminist.  And, as it happens, a Christian humanist; I believe that when that egg gets conceived, the mom and dad have kicked off something that transcends either one of their own lives.  To reduce it to a matter of female anatomical politics is…well, yet another thing I’m tired of purple(faced) women doing.  And doing.  And doing.  

  I am so tired of pink men having wives who stand behind them and nod sagely on television.

I am so tired of “pro-choice” purple(faced) women who have nothing but contempt for choices not their own.

I am so tired of pink men expecting that someone–a brown, black, yellow or white woman–will trail behind them changing light bulbs, taking out garbage, washing laundry, keeping food in the house, taking care of kids of all ages, of parents of all ages.

And I’m sick to death of purple(faced) upper-middle-class over-famed dingbats and their sneering paternalistic preconceptions, bigotries and prejudices.

I am so tired of pink men whose wives double or triple the family income thinking they can spend it without doing a damn thing at home.

I’m a little peeved about purple(faced) women who ignore Warren Farrell’s research – that shows that between working more on the job and sharing more responsibility at home, men actually work more per week than women do.  I’d like those purple(faced) women to keep their purplefaced opinions out in Scarsdale and Beverly Hills, where they belong.

 I am so tired of pink men spouting nonsense on TV. I am so tired of pink men arguing, blathering, bloviating, predicting the future–usually wrongly–and telling women to shut up.

And I’m dog-tired of purple(faced) women who think that the marketplace of ideas is a zero-sum game, where a “pink” man speaking necessarily shuts up a woman. 

 I am so sick of hearing that another pink man has dropped his children out a window, off a bridge or killed his pregnant wife or killed his unpregnant wife because he was infatuated with another pregnant woman.

I’m sick of it too!  And just as sick when pink women, or women of any other color.  I’m just as sick of purple(faced) women yammer ignorantly about “pink” mens’ infatuations, and ignore the fact that women (especially “pink”) ones, are the ones that initiate the vast majority of divorces, with all their attendant social cost to our kids – pink, red, brown, black and none-of-the-above. 

I am so sick of pink men appointing their mediocre cronies to judgeships, to political advisors, to cushy jobs, to columns in the paper, to multimillion-dollar posts as CEOS or actors…

…and I’m sick of purple(faced) women barbering and phumphering about “pink male” mediocrity on the one hand, and voting for the likes of Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton on the other. 

I am so tired of pink men.

And for this pale pink fella, it’s very mutual.

Especially when referring to purple(faced) women who, were they not arrogant, overrated skags whose fifteen minutes expired thirty years ago, would have remarks like the below condemned as the bigoted, ill-informed, patronizing tripe it is:

So let’s just remember our mothers–who bore us, protected us against our fathers and grandfathers 

Ms. Jong:  if your many face-lifts will allow sound to past through your ears, listen up: Rot.

In.

Hell.

“Protected us from our fathers?”

There is no form of scum lower than you, you dessicated old plastic-surgery-lab-project slag. 

I am not stupid.

No.  You’re something much, much worse. 

 I know all generalizations are false. I know there are bad mothers, bad women, bad sisters, bad aunts, and bad females of every stripe. But I have seen enough men in high office to last a lifetime. Let’s give women a chance!

Ms. Jong; if you’re an example of what women in power are like – and I’d like to think you are not – you’ve set your cause back a few decades.

“No, Ms. Gun Controller…”

“…I’m not compensating…”

“…I’m reporting”.

Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci could be a speechwriter for Barack Obama.

It was Thursday, January 14, 1988.

It was cold out. 

Wyatt, my roommate, was – as noted before – exhibiting signs of every kind of addiction one can manifest.

• Smoking – 2-3 packs a day.
• Drinking – Low-grade, probably – somewhere between a six and a twelve of cheap beer a day. 
• Drugs – torching up daily.
• Sex – He had a steady girlfriend, as noted before – Teresa, a nurse at a local nursing home.  And when she wasn’t around, he was usually bringing home someone else, 3-5 times a week.  Envious though I was, I knew it couldn’t be healthy – especially since he bragged that condoms were for dorks. 
• Gambling – poker games, interspersed with spur-of-the-moment trips to the casinos or, occasionally, Fargo to play blackjack.

And, on top of it – odd purchases.  One day, he brought home a dog, a fuzzy black Chow he’d named “Muki”.  I didn’t know dogs, much, but I did know that Chows were kinda big, and had horrible tempers. 

And two days later, he brought home another, a huge Akita named “Jack”. 

And three days later, a Samoyed named “Rosco”. 

Three huge dogs in a three-bedroom side-by-side duplex.

Jack turned out to be dumb as a bag of hammers, and kind of nasty and with a knack of getting in the way. 

Rosco was much worse; he’d walk out to the middle of the floor in front of you, squat down and poo all over the place.  And when you got up to whack his head and take him outside, he’d flee to the corner and whiz all over the place in panic.  The boy had issues, and didn’t last long – maybe three weeks – before Wyatt sold him.  And then bought another Samoyed who, as luck would have it, was equally crazy.  The Samoyeds didn’t last long, thankfully.

But Muki turned out to be a doll; loveable, sweet-tempered (especially for a Chow), affectionate.  

Life had settled into a bit of a routine in the past few weeks.

1. Wake up.
2. Put on a record
3. Make some oatmeal.
4. Go through my notes to see if I was due to make any follow-up calls to radio stations.  Although I wasn’t doing this every single day; I was focusing on biweekly followups with program directors who’d expressed interest (at this point Fall River, New Bedford, Santa Rosa, Raleigh, and maybe a few others) and trolling for rumors of other stations that were switching to “talk” formats.
5. Take a walk.  Sometimes to the library, sometimes to noplace at all.  Often, I’d take Muki and, rarely, Jack, with.  They needed the walk, I needed the focus – and there was always the chance that I’d meet a girl, although in mid-January that was a little dicier.
6. Occasionally, go to Henri’s and have a beer and shoot some pool.
7. Make dinner – ramen, a stuffed potato, or maybe a frozen pizza.
8. Go to one of the bars I was working – Jams and City Limits.
9. Come home, read, go to bed.

Lather, rinse, repeat.  That was really pretty much it.

Canada is in the process of trying to do to free speech what they’ve done with their health care system; gut it.

In the video clips on Little Green Footballs, we see Ezra Levant, the publisher of The Western Standard, called on the carpet by the ironically-named “Alberta Human Rights Commission” at the behest of a radical imam for publishing the Mohammed Cartoons, testifying in what amounts to an interrogation.

I watched all three clips. It reminded me of my various hearings with Saint Paul Public Schools figures.

Inquisitor asks what the paper’s “intent” in publishing the cartoons was.

Levant: “…the only thing I have to say to the government about why I published them is because it’s my bloody right to do so”.

No, that’s a compliment to neither of the groups.

Watch all three vids.

Ezra Levant; if you’re in town for the RNC, the first beer is on me.

(More on the Corner, Samizdata, and in Levant’s blog)