A few weeks ago, when the Legislature overrode Governor Pawlenty’s veto of the Transit Subsidy “Transportation” Taxpayer Gougefest Bill, we were subjected to an endless, nauseating, hypocritical run of up-sucking from the DFLMedia/Sorosphere about the eight RINOS who betrayed the governor and their party when it came time to try to save the veto – especially Ron Erhard (“R”, district 41B). 

Brad Carlson noticed something I missed

see, according to Democrats, a GOP member is to receive much adulation for “doing the right thing” by “voting their conscience.” However, Rep. Mary Ellen Otremba (D-Long Prairie) was not afforded that same courtesy by her seemingly lovestruck party. Did you notice Rep. Otremba didn’t dare uphold her initial “no” vote on the bill? Had she and John Lesch (D-St Paul) maintained their respective “no” votes when it came to the veto override, then the Governor’s action would have been upheld, resulting in killing the bill. Somehow I get the feeling that the DFL wouldn’t have been as complimentary towards two members of their own party for “voting their conscience.”

Silly Brad.  Mavericks are only good when they stymie the GOP.

Code Pinkos disrupt the Senate.

I loved the first lady; “I will not be…
“…”

“…”

“…silenced!”

Like she forgot her lines and had to read a cue card.

I just talked with Joel Rosenberg, at the Capitol.  The Public Safety Committee killed Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill a little bit ago.

Nothing really shocking there. 

But there was good news, too.

As I noted yesterday, back in the dark days of DFL hegemony in this state, you could still count on pro-Second-Amendment people – real Americans, working people with actual lives and obligations – to outnumber the orcs by at least 20-1 at these hearings.

Today?  According to Joel, the orcs brought two paid staffers.  At least sixty real Americans showed up. 

And there’ll be a list of names, legislators who should have known better – a list of infamy almost as grotesque as the Gang of Six, legislators who were expected to side with real Americans, but who cast their lot with the orcs.  And it’s with memories of the end of the dark age – back in ’00 and ’02 – when even though concealed carry reform didnt’ pass, outstate legislators who stabbed real America in the back got tossed under the bus at the polls.  And this was before Tim Pawlenty took office.

So here’s an open letter to those legislators, whomever they are; real Americans have long memories – and November isn’t that far away. 

Don’t make any plans in Saint Paul for next February.  That’s all I’m saying.

Joel Rosenberg’s gonna get the names and post ’em tomorrow.  And I’m going to make damn sure nobody forgets. 

UPDATE:  Joel and Andrew Rothman liveblogged the hearing – sorta.  You can see a couple of things; the incredible disingenuousness of the orcs (Cornish on hearing someone refer to the “rights” the bill would impart on criminals, “asking what bill the opposition read, since their comments had nothing to do with the bill”), and the fact that the bill “lost” 9-9; ties go to the status quo.

Bad, but not catastrophic.  If the GOP has a decent year – and anti-Second Amendment RINOs and outstate DFLers are expunged from both parties, which is far from unusual after votes like this – we can make more progress next year.

There are people you expect to lie through their teeth about Second Amendment issues.

Heather Martens, the president-for-life of Citizens for a Supine “Safer” Minnesota?  You know she’s lying about Second Amendment issues when her lips are moving.  It’s her job.  No surprises there.

Wes Skoglund – the former Rep from South Minneapolis who famously claimed on the floor of the House that reforming the state’s concealed carry laws would result in legally-armed gang-bangers and permittees talking Wes Skoglund through Minneapolis?  The guy’s practically deranged about the issue – “lying” is the least of his issues.  (Dissociative behavior might be closer).

But Jim Backstrom, the tough-on-crime County Attorney from Dakota County (the southeast metro)?  A poster-boy for good, conscientious county prosecution?  A county attorney for whom I’ve expressly proclaimed admiration?  One would not expect him to write something chock-full of misleading claims and just plain hysterical buncombe more worthy of Wes  Skoglund than one of Minnesota’s most respected county attorneys.

Which is why it’s hard to explain Backstrom’s op-ed in the Strib last week, which has launched a lot of ill-informed but vigorous head-nodding in the local Sorosphere.  If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect it was ghostwritten by Heather Martens.

Or at least, if I were a gun owner in Dakota County, I’d hope it were.  Sorta.

Let’s take a look:

The Legislature is considering a significant expansion of our law regarding the authorized use of deadly force. Not only is this expansion unnecessary, it would be harmful to efforts to prosecute dangerous criminals who commit violent crimes.

When talking about “the bill”, it will be handy for the curious reader to be able to refer to the bill.  Read it here; I’ll also paste it below the fold.

The proposed law would allow the use of deadly force to resist or prevent any reasonably perceived threat of substantial or great bodily harm or death in any location and when responding to a reasonably perceived felony or attempted felony in a person’s dwelling or occupied vehicle.

Right, pretty much.  Backstrom doesn’t bother telling the reader that “resonably perceived” means “would convince a jury”, of course, but we’ll let that slide for now.  

It eliminates the duty to retreat, authorizes meeting force with superior force, creates a presumption that the response is “reasonably perceived” whenever someone enters a dwelling or occupied vehicle by force or stealth, and expands the definition of “dwelling” to include decks, porches, fenced-in areas and tents.

Backstrom is, at the very least, being misleading here. 

Once again – under Minnesota law, claiming self-defense requires that…:

1. You’re not a willing participant in the altercation
2. You have a reasonable fear of death or “great bodily harm”. 
3. You make a reasonable effort to disengage
4. The force used is reasonable

“Reasonable” and “Great Bodily Harm” are both legal terms, meaning “would convince a jury” and loss of limbs/eyesight/bodily functions/becoming crippled for life, respectively. 

There is no “duty to retreat” – merely to make “reasonable” efforts to get away from the threat (criterion 3, above).  What is “reasonable”?

Whatever your attorney can convince the jury.  And “unreasonable” is “whatever the prosecutor can convince the jury isn’t reasonable”. 

Someone beats your door down.  You come out of your bedroom with a gun.  You’re standing in the hallway by your kitchen as you see someone charge with a knife.  Do you shoot?  Or do you try to run through your kitchen and out your back door, with someone chasing you with a knife? 

You have one second to make that decision; run, or shoot? 

The county prosecutor – Jim Backstrom in this case – has weeks, even months, to decide whether you “should” have retreated, and whether or not to file charges.  He or she can judge your actions while sitting in their cozy office in Minneapolis or Hastings, while having lunch at the Oceanaire, wherever.  The county prosecutor can contruct their argument to try to sway the jury as to the “reasonable”-ness of your claim over the course of weeks or months, at taxpayer expense.  Along the way, he or she can (and will) try to influence the jury any way he or she can; race, gender, previous associations, all are fair game. 

Your attorney will try to argue, of course – at immense expense to you.

The jury – in a nice, cozy jury room, with bathroom breaks and armed guards keeping them safe – gets to take all the time they want to decide on the “reasonableness” of a life or death decision that you had exactly one second to make.

The Cornish bill merely gives the law-abiding home owner who meets all four criteria of legal self defense the legal cover, by taking away the prosecutor’s discretion to say “the defendant should have run away!”. 

As to “opposing force with greater force” – again, that takes away the prosecutor’s discretion to say “the attacker only had a knife; shooting him with a .45 automatic was not reasonable”. 

Supporters see these changes as merely affording law-abiding citizens the right to stand their ground and protect themselves when confronted by dangerous criminals. In truth, this proposal greatly alters the standards associated with the legal authority to use deadly force and will have some significant unintended consequences.

This proposal creates a subjective standard of reasonableness rather than the objective standard in current law.

What on earth  is Backstrom talking about?

There is no “objective standard of reasonableness” under current law!  It’s all up to a jury! 

 The issue becomes what was in the mind of the person using deadly force, rather than how a reasonable person would react under the same circumstances.

This is pure doubletalk.  The four criteria involved in a claim for legal self-defense, whether modified by Rep. Cornish’s bill or not, are all about the shooter’s perceptions – “what was in the mind” of the person – and whether the action was “reasonable” (in the mind of a jury). 

Such a law would in essence allow people to shoot first and ask questions later whenever they believe they are exposed to harm, regardless of how a reasonable person would respond under the circumstances.

This is more double-talk.  The Cornish bill does not change the citizen’s responsibility to follow the four criteria above.  It merely modifies the criteria, slightly, to give the genuinely law-abiding citizen a stronger legal standing, and more-clearly define the prosecutor’s options in trying to undercut a claim of self-defense.

It wouldn’t be a Heather Martens piece without a “Wild West” reference…

We’d be returning to the days of the Wild West, when two gunmen could face off in the street and the winner could walk away without fear of consequences, under a claim of self-defense. Such lawless frontier days should remain in our past.

…but this isn’t Heather Martens.  This is an ostensibly-responsible county attorney. 

This is irresponsible hysteria-mongering of the most contemptible order.  Nothing about the Cornish bill changes the citizen’s legal obligation to act responsibly – to act reasonably.  The Cornish bill merely codifies more clearly what is considered “responsible” – or, more accurately, what it enjoins prosecutors from trying to persuade juries is “irresponsible” in an otherwise legal case of self-defense.

Do we really want cases of road rage to result in a shooting death, when the surviving party could have stepped on the gas and driven away?

This is misleading, and – again – hysterical.  See the first and third criteria of a self-defense case; one must not participate in a fight (say, a “road rage” incident), and one must step on the gas to try to get away, under current law.  Nothing about Rep. Cornish’s bill changes this – merely that if someone comes into your car swinging, you’re allowed to presume that he’s not there to discuss things like a grownup.

This expansion of the right to use deadly force would apply equally to criminals as to law-abiding citizens. It would create viable self-defense claims in situations like bar fights.

This is worse than callow hysteria-mongering.  This is an outright lie.  Nothing about the Cornish bill would change the injunction against being a willing participant – which scuppers the whole “criminals in bar fights” argument.   

 It could allow rival gangs to shoot at one another with impunity.

Again, this is a lie.  No jury would find a shooting in furtherance of a crime – gang activity, blasting away at their rivals in public – either “Being an unwilling participant” (criterion 1),  or a “Reasonable use of force” (criterion 3).  If any gang-banger walks because of the Cornish bill, it’d be purely because they drew an incompetent prosecutor. 

With no duty to retreat, anyone could claim they were responding to a threat of serious harm and were therefore justified in killing a person.

“Anyone” can already “say” anything they want.  A jury has to believe it.  It would seem that Jim Backstrom wants the citizen to believe the police and the state’s prosectutors (and jurors!) are helpless to tell the difference between legitimate use of force and criminal thuggery!

Current Minnesota law concerning the right of self-defense and the justified use of deadly force adequately protects our law-abiding citizens. 

Where “adequate” means “subject to the caprice of county attorneys to play word-games with juries over the citizen’s decision to shoot rather than run away from an otherwise-reasonably-deadly threat” – or “subject to the semantic difference between “substantial” and “great” bodily harm, which is adequately clear for a lawyer writing an op-ed in a cozy suburban office, but not so much for someone reacting to someone charging at her in the dark”.  And where the price of “inadequacy” might be jail for an honest person.

Do you feel like banking your freedom on that? 

The taking of a life should be a last resort. It should not be encouraged as a first response unless the danger is reasonably apparent to us all.

There is nothing about the Cornish bill that would make shooting a “first response”; it merely makes an otherwise law-abiding shooting easier to justify.   

We should not return to the days when shootouts were commonplace and few or no questions were asked of the last man standing.

Either County Attorney Backstrom has very little faith in this state’s cops and prosecutors, or even less in the law-abiding Minnesotan. 

I’ll take votes. 

James C. Backstrom is the Dakota County attorney and president of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association.

And in that capacity, I’ll be soliciting his comments on this piece, via email or – preferably – on the NARN this weekend.

The show’s in Eagan.  Deep in the heart of Dakota County.  It shouldn’t be out of his way.

I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE:  I’ve requested an interview with Mr. Backstrom:

This is a media request.

I’m Mitch Berg.  I’m a talk show host with the “Northern Alliance Radio Network”, at AM1280 the Patriot.  I’m also a blogger, at “Shot in the Dark” and “True North”.

I have taken serious issue with County Attorney Backstrom over his op-ed in the Star-Tribune last week:

http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp/?p=2254

I am requesting the opportunity to interview Mr. Backstrom about what I consider to be *seriously misleading claims* in his article. 

I would like to offer Mr. Backstrom the chance to appear on my radio show during the 2PM hour this coming Saturday, March 13, to discuss his op-ed and my questions about it. 

If he’s not available for this interview, I’d like to request an interview, either by phone or email, regarding some of the claims he makes in the Star-Tribune.

I’ll eagerly await Mr. Backstrom’s response.

Sincerely,

Mitch Berg
Northern Alliance Radio Network
AM1280 The Patriot

Shot In The Dark (www.shotinthedark.info)
True North (www.looktruenorth.com)

(more…)

“Phoenix Woman” writes breathlessly scrawls:

If you Google “David Vitter prostitute“, you get around 30,000 references to the sex scandal that broke last July involving a sitting Republican Senator known for his straight-arrow “family values” image.

Wow – that’s ironic, isn’t it?

Senator Vitter has yet to resign.

(Perhaps he’s trapped in William Jefferson’s office freezer?)

If you Google Larry Craig prostitute, you get just under 48,000 references to the sex scandal that broke last August involving another sitting Republican Senator known for his straight-arrow “family values” image. Senator Craig has yet to resign.

And all 48,000 of those references must be to stuff written by morons; Craig didn’t consort with a prostitute; it was a “consensual” pickup, the kind that happens all night, every night over around Loring Park; the guy happened to be an undercover cop.

But if you Google “Eliot Spitzer prostitute“, you get over 261,000 references to the sex scandal involving a sitting Democratic governor with a straight-arrow image, and that scandal isn’t even 48 hours old yet.

Clearly, Spitzer could be free and clear right now if he’d only been a Republican. It’s really the ultimate Get Out Of Jail Free card.

Tell it to Randy Cunningham, Marc Rich or William Jefferson.

And then there’s the little matter of the accusations of racketeering and money laundering (of which Mr. Spitzer is innocent until proven guilty). I don’t believe Vitter or Craig were accused of any any felonies – were they?

No?

Because the real ultimate “get out of jail free” card is to not commit felonies.

“Phoenix Woman” – perhaps the only leftyblogger in town less clear on the law than MNob…

While in no way do I buy into Vox Day’s case to repeal the 19th Amendment, “Phoenix Woman” could actually be circumstantial evidence in the affirmative. Ladies – you might wanna do something about her.

That is all.

Blogging; it’s better than Prozac:

According to a new study by researchers at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne who were looking into the psychological benefits of blogging, bloggers tend to feel a greater sense of connectedness to a particular community, and feel that they have a larger social support system behind them compared with those who do not blog.

Well, they never asked me, but I’m here to testify.

For one example – I don’t know how I’d have gotten through 2003, with its unemployment and other difficulties, had I not had this blog.   

Viewed in this light, blogging could be prescribed as a potentially cheaper (and drugs-free) way to help people overcome a feeling of isolation.

True.  Indeed, given some of the stalker-like behavior you can encounter out there, it can make you long for isolation…

Blogging has been dismissed as a  narcissistic pursuit…

…but only by the talentless and stupid.

(more…)

The Minnesota Monitor further reinforces its transition from “an attempt at a left-leaning news rag” to “full-blown Soros-ass-kissing propaganda mill, albeit with the kind of traffic that Duncan “Atrios” Black picks out of his morning dump”, with the hiring of Molly Priesmeyer.

Who?

Oh, you remember Molly.  She’s the woman Steve “Mr. Furious” Perry stuck on the “Facile Stereotype” beat a few years back, culminating in one of the most preeningly stupid pieces of “reporting” I’ve ever read.  Indeed ,until Matt Snyders joined the City Pages, it could be fairly said Priesmeyer had written the dumbest bit of reporting in the Twin Cities media, since the departure of Margaret Grebe, anyway.  (Although to be fair, a little bird tells us that her once-and-again editor Steve Perry told her to take out all the “fair” and “objective” stuff and slime Republicans more – which is, reportedly, Perry’s style).

Oh, Molly?  Not much has changed in three years.  

I first got involved in the Second Amendment movement as an activist in 1988. 

Back then, with the state languishing under DFL hegemony, the state was stuck in a tense no-man’s land when it came to the rights of the law-abiding gun owner. 

On the one hand, the smothering Metrocrat clacque that led the DFL majority hated guns.  They trotted out a constant series of attempts at gun control measures; in 1989, in the wake of the Stockton massacre, Alan “Albert” Speer introduced an attempt at a statewide “assault weapon” ban.  It, and a parade of measures like it, drew furious applause from Speer’s coterie of Volvo-driving, alpaca-wearing, future-Wellstone-sign-waving supporters…

…and opposition from most (but far from all) Republicans and many responsible DFLers, mostly from outstate. 

Of course, the central fact of DFL life in the eighties was that with a smothering majority in the Legislature and governors who were either DFL or Republicans who were to the left of the DFL mainstream, all they needed to do was to play to the media. 

Unless there was a huge turnout. 

Of course, the Second Amendment base in Minnesota is outstate.  And I always thought it was funny – for all the DFL’s populist “Farmer/Labor” rhetoric, on Second Amendment issues the DFL stands firmly on the side of the patricians, while the plebians want government the hell out of their gun cabinets.

And as the threat to law-abiding Minnesotans’ second amendment rights flowed to a crest, political activism gestated.  And Minnesotans from outstate started showing up at the Capitol for the public hearings on these bills.  THey were almost entirely working people, taking time off from jobs and families to come to the Capitol and talk to legislators, or in some cases just to flood meeting rooms and applaud pro-Second-Amendment speakers.

And the DFL hates it when actual people show up.  It slows down “the peoples'” business. 

So the DFL committee chairs who ran the public hearings made a practice of changing the times for these hearings, often and capriciously.  Someone taking off from Bemidji at 6AM for a public hearing scheduled for noon might arrive in the Cities to find that the DFL Metrocrat leadership had moved the meeting to 9AM, or put it off to the next day or the following week.  The DFL “tut-tutted” and insisted there was no such motivation, but sources in the Capitol and the DFL told me that was exactly the reason (not that one needed a source to notice that Second Amendment-issue public hearings and committee meetings moved more spasmodically than any other kind of hearing).

And even that failed, often as not – which led to some real howlers.  At one committee hearing in 1989 over a proposed “Assault Weapon” ban, roughly 30 ban supporters turned out; they sat close by the committee table.  Despite several last-minute changes in time and venue, about 600 opponents showed up.  We packed the committee hearing room, and two others that were linked to the hearing via closed-circuit TV.  The committee chairwoman sat down, saw the huge mob in her face, and said to the cameras “Well, I think we have roughly equal numbers of supporters and opponents in attendance today”.

Then the tide turned.  Responsible grownups who care about genuine civil liberties took over, at least for four glorious years.  Sanity reigned.

———-

But one of the wages of losing elections is that you lose control of the legislative calendar.  DFL-run committees hear what they want, when they want it. 

Representative Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill – slandered in the press and the Soros-paid-for “alt”-media as the “Shoot First” bill – is getting a committee hearing tomorrow. 

When?

We don’t know. 

We won’t know, likely, until the scumbag metrocrats who run the “House Public Safety and Civil Justice Policy” committee, incontinent with fear as they are at the thought of facing real Minnesotans, decide they’ve played enough games with the schedule.

Joel Rosenberg has the 411:

Tony Cornish’s “Stand Your Ground” bill — you know, the one that the anti-self-defense bunch deceptively refer to as the “Shoot First!” or “Shoot the Avon Lady” bill ? — will be heard by the House Public Safety and Civil Justice Policy Committee this Thursday, March 13; the committee convenes at 12:30 PM, in Room 10 of the State Office Building at the Capitol complex.Please be there; you won’t be alone.   It’s important.

Please call and email all of the members of the committee in support of HF 498, a commonsense, mainstream bill to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens facing a violent attack.  If you’re the constituent of any of these folks, please also call their office and ask to speak to them, personally, and ask for their support, first for the bill, and secondly, for bringing the bill to the floor of the House for a vote.

As always:  be polite, but firm.  Never yell or threaten — not even something that is both legal and ethical to do, like working for their opponent in the next election.  Just don’t do that.

And while you’re being polite, don’t settle for an evasive answer.

The DFL, and their willing, paid-off hacks in the DFLMedia, government and the Sorosphere, are digging through the same playbook they ran throughout the eighties and nineties; throughout the ten-year debate over Concealed Carry reform:

• Sensationalize the issue to create fear, even at the expense of lying (“It’ll let criminals claim self defense after bar fights“)
• Try to marginalize the opposition (“gun nuts”).
• Try to silence the opposition (playing three-card monte with the hearing location and time). 

And so on.

While I have a busy work day on Thursday, I’m going to do my best to show up.  By all means, if you can make it to the Capitol, I hope to see you there.

I’ll be updating people as to times and places in this space tomorrow.

Simple fact: when Republicans run like Republicans – with a conservative vision, with lower taxes, smaller and more honest government, safer streets, less-stupid schools, secure borders, a Higher Power and family and country, we win.

We win because there are an awful lot of Democrats who vote for fiscal responsibility, for ethics, and for America, when they get the chance.

We win because there are an awful lot of people out there who don’t care about parties, but respond to vision – and visions are like food. If the other guy’s offering a box of Mike and Ikes, and all you have in response is a snark about how bad for you Mike and Ikes are, people will take the candy. If you offer them the perfectly-done London Broil that is the conservative vision, people take the beef.

We win because, underneath it all, most people are smart enough to see that the DFL way is no way to run a state.

To Lori Sturdevant – who, with Doug Grow’s retirement, is the DFL’s most reliable flak in the Twin Cities media – the ideal “compromise” is bouillon-flavored Mike and Ikes.

When Laura Hemler – a major mover behind Keith Downey’s campaign – called from the Cleanup on Aisle 41 last week to tell me Sturdevant was lurking about the convention, I started taking internal bets to see what she’s write.

My top bet: that she’d treat the conservative insurrection as a form of sickness or dysfunction. In Lori Sturdevant’s (entirely flak-focused) worldview, it seems any approach to life, politics and government that isn’t straight from the DFL Necronomicon is something to fear.

She doesn’t disappoint:

One vote was the elephant in the theater full of District 41 GOP elephants Saturday at Edina’s South View Middle School. It was the vote cast Feb. 25 by Republican Reps. Ron Erhardt of 41A and Neil Peterson of 41B to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto, and put a tax-increasing transportation bill into law.The punishment meted out to the two wayward representatives was stern. Endorsement for the fall election was not only denied them; it was bestowed with ease on their opponents, Keith Downey in 41A, Jan Schneider in 41B.

Got that? Exercising their prerogative as a political party – an organization with actual codified beliefs to which members are expected to largely subscribe – is an “elephant” (hahaha) in the room; that’s 12-step code for “addiction” or “dysfunction”.This is how the DFLMedia views principled conservatism in Minnesota.

I’ve joked about it in this space so many times, I’m running out of new ways to say it; to Lori Sturdevant, the only Republican is a 1976 Republican – back before all that pesky “conservatism” polluted all of that kowtowing to the Tics.

It shows in everything Lori Sturdevant writes:

Applying “DFL-lite” to Erhardt and his late wife Jackie would have been a local laugh line not long ago. A financial planner, Erhardt has been among the party’s most prolific fundraisers and reliable foot soldiers for more than 30 years. He’s run for the Legislature with party endorsement nine times, and has never won his seat with less than 56 percent of the vote. In 2006, he was the second-best Republican vote-getter in his district, behind only U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad.

For years, I’ve wanted to ask Lori Sturdevant; “Lori? For years, Norm Coleman was a reliable DFL foot soldier; he even placed the sainted Paul Wellstone into nomination at the ’96 DFL convention. He was a major-city mayor! He was successful! And yet the DFL hounded him out of the party. Why?”

“For differing with the party on fiscal issues. For going against the party’s beliefs”.

“And so, after all those years of service to, and electoral success on behalf of, the DFL, the party “punished” Norm, hounded him out of the party”.

“Did you get the vapors about that? Was that an “elephant in the room?” Did you solemnly wonder why Tics weren’t the same, responsible, pro-American, fiscally-relatively-sane party they were under Kennedy or, for that matter, Hubert Humphrey?”

“No?”

“Just thought I’d ask”.

That point begs a longer look: In 2006, DFL U.S. Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar took District 41 with more than 56 percent of the vote. Pawlenty won there too, but his percent of the vote barely cracked 50 percent.

And in 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry carried District 41A with 51 percent. Rumor had it that there were rumblings under old Edina gravestones for days thereafter.

You’d think that those votes — and not just the one on the transportation bill — would have been on District 41 minds Saturday. It doesn’t seem to be a propitious time for Republicans to be in purge mode.

Thanks, Lori, but if we want you to do our thinking for us, we’ll lobotomize ourselves with sporks and join the DFL.

When Republicans run as conservatives, we win. If we stand on our principles – as the party to a great extent didn’t in 2000, 2002 and 2006 – then we do just fine without your craven, upsucking advice.

The rest of it? You’re on your own.

…if any were needed, that liberals must be kept away from the machinery of power, since they just don’t know what they’re doing; Jeff Fecke over at Sorosmania the MinMon (and I swear, this is not satire) covers Governor Pawlenty’s tax cut proposal (emphasis added):

Saying that “The economy in our country is under great strain,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed a sales tax cut of 1/8 percent on Friday as part of his supplemental budget proposal.

The move is something of a surprise, as the state faces a $935 million shortfall in the state’s biennial budget.

The move is a surprise – if you’ve been under a rock since 1980 (or at least if George Soros is paying to pretend you’ve been under one).
For the rest of us? Not so much.

Rew at Powerliberal read my post the other day, about the California ruling that, at the moment, looks likely to ban homeschooling in California…

…and she took exception.

Or disagreed.

Or…something.

Oh, she thinks she made a point…:

Mitch says:

Whenever a profession sets up “credendials”, especially credentials administered by the government, the purpose is very rarely to promote a better professional service; it’s to constrict the supply of those professionals.

Mitch –

When you go to court, do you look for a lawyer who has passed the bar, or do you just grab that guy from down the street because he seems to talk real good?

Actually, the former is the only option I have. But I look for someone who talks real good, and knows something about representing whatever sort of case I’m involved in because – this may be shocking – merely passing the bar doesn’t make someone a good, or even a competent, lawyer. It merely means that someone has passed the bare minimum that the state licensing body says is necessary to be a lawyer.

Once you’ve found someone who’s passed the bar exam, that’s really just the beginning.

Stay with us, liberal kidz. The fun is just beginning:

When your children need surgery or break a bone, do you take them to the hospital, or just grab the knife or try to set it yourself?

Check out the statistics for people doing their own surgery, or representing themselves in court. Not good, right?

Check out the stats for homeschoolers. To continue with Robin’s comparision, it’s almost as if do-it-yourself surgeons achieved 30% lower mortality than board-certified physicians!

Of course, teaching kids is not surgery. One is teaching them, for the most part, to do and be things that one already is and does. You don’t need a piece of paper from the state to do that, for the most part. .

Some parents are smart and qualified enough to school their children at home.

And the state teachers’ union is the last body that should try to decide which ones they are.

A test is just to ensure those parents are the ones who do the teaching, not just any person who picks up a book and says “I’m teaching now.”

It’s only two sentences. And yet there are so many possible responses:

1. The only difference between a schmuck who picks up a book and says “I’m teaching now” and a “Certified Teacher” is a piece of paper that says “I passed Theory of the Eraser 352 at UW Stout”.
2. Like with lawyers, the piece of paper is meaningless…
3. …only moreso, since there’s very little about a teaching certificate that implies any actual ability to “teach”things to “children”. And if you disagree, don’t come yapping to me; take it up with my dad, who taught for 40 years, and still teaches the occasional class at his town’s college Education program. It’s his opinion. Some people got it, and some people ain’t, and a state certificate has very little to do with telling the difference.
4. Indeed, a teaching certificate’s main purpose isn’t teaching people how to teach. It certifies one can teach a big room full of kids. If you can’t see the difference between that and homeschooling, the sassy snarks pretty much write themselves.
5. Would that the whole crew at MNMon – who took on the role of “journalist” with, if anything, vastly less preparation and qualification than the typical homeschool parent takes on their responsibility, and whose results are dismally less impressive, would apply the same logic to their own efforts.
6. For that matter, where does this “official is better” “logic” stop? I mean, Rew and Smartie – shouldn’t you have your baby in a licensed daycare, right now? After a.., a test is just to ensure the right people do the child-rearing, not just any person who can create a zygote. Right? Where do you stop with this “logic”? (Hint: If the DFL absorbs the “Daycare Providers’ Union”, watch out).
7. More seriously, who does Rew think is better at getting through to kids than their own parents? And if she thinks she knows all the answers now, give it about six to twelve years, and wait until the first know-it-all teacher tells her otherwise.

Let’s put it this way; if you engage any professional purely on the basis of a piece of paperwork, you probably deserve the results you get.

The problem, of course, is that with doctors and lawyers, you can pick and choose; in the public school system, what they give you is what you get.

Flash is unclear on the concept.  In a post in which he waterboards context (where the hell is the ACLU when you need it?), he states:

Common sense Republicans aren’t allowed to vote their constituency or their conscience.

Er, Flash?  They voted their conscience.

And then their district GOP voted theirs.

Parties – grassroots activists – get to do that.  Granted, as a DFLer you may not be used to thinking for yourself, but it’s kinda what we do on the GOP side.

Carry on.

The Minnesota Monitor – the region’s Soros-funded propaganda outlet – has been doing its best, it seems, to burnish its rep as a “news” outlet; hiring Steve “Mister Furious” Perry, getting its staff to write more like reporters and less like snot-nosed polemicists, the whole thing.  Is it too little, too late?  We’ll see…

But at the end of the day, the site shows the danger of being a bought-and-paid for propaganda outlet; when its masters want propaganda distributed, truth is the first casualty.

Andy Birkey’s not a bad guy; he’s a fine writer, and he’s written some good stuff. But he covers the gay beat; while he’s no worse at Second Amendment coverage than anyone else in the local Soros/Leftymedia, this piece, frankly, starts with a basis in complete ignorance, and moves into utter fabrication.

Birkey doesn’t get far.

A National Rifle Association-backed bill is likely to be heard in the House Public Safety Committee this week, possibly Thursday. Dubbed the “Stand Your Ground” bill, HF 498 would make it easier to kill someone in self-defense.

That’s just plain wrong.

Read the bill. And then read this piece I wrote last week, in which I sum up the law-abiding citizen’s burden under current law when claiming self-defense. I spelled out the rules:

In Minnesota, if you choose and need to defend yourself or your family with lethal force, you must meet all four of the following criteria:

1. You can’t be a willing participant in the struggle: you can’t dive into a fist-fight and then shoot your way out of it.
2. You must reasonably fear death or “great bodily harm”: That means “a jury’s gotta buy it”.  And “great bodily harm” has a legal meaning; it means you gotta get hurt very, very badly. 
3. The force you use must be reasonable under the circumstances: If the police come to your house to find a body with no knife or gun, but clutching your TV, Tivo and monitor, you might have trouble with this one.
4. And finally, You must make every reasonable means to de-escalate the confrontation: That means you must back away from the altercation. In the home, that means you have to try to back away. There are limits, of course; if you are in a wheelchair, you’re not expected to develop superhuman strength and agility; if it’s -40 outside and there’s a howling wind and you have an infant, no jury and few prosecutors would fault you for shooting; if you have kids sleeping upstairs and your abusive ex-spouse has come through the door with a chainsaw, backing away is a very relative thing.

The bill changes nothing about the citizen’s obligation to prove that self-defense with lethal force was justified. It merely tightens up a few of the technicalities.

Let’s summarize what’s in SF446, starting in Subdivision 2 (Subd. 1 is definitions, although they’re worth reading as well)

• It clarifies the circumstances under which defending oneself (or someone else) with lethal force is authorized. It changes current law in that it allows self-defense when someone “Reasonably Believes” (i.e. – a jury will buy it) they could sustain “substantial” or “great” bodily harm (#2 in the criteria above). These are legal terms with real meanings; we’ll get to them below. (Subdivision 2)
• Subdivision 3 says an individual “may stand the individual’s ground in any place where the individual has a legal right to be, and may use all force and means, including deadly force, that the individual believes is required to succeed in defense. The individual may meet force with superior force, so long as the individual’s objective is defense.” In other words, as long as you have an otherwise legitimate claim of self-defense, (you meet all four of the criteria above), you are not obligated to retreat from the fight (criterion 4, above)
• Subdivision 4 states that a homeowner may legally presume that someone (unknown to thehomeowner!) who is breaking into their house or car can be presumed to be a potentially lethal threat.
• Subdivision 5 essentially states that the provisions above can be part of a legal claim of self-defense.

And that’s it. It means that a homeowner doesn’t have to figure in his head “if that’s a razor blade, does that mean I only have a fear of “substantial” rather than “great” bodily harm?” (Zealous prosecutors have put otherwise law-abiding citizens in jail over that in the past). It means that a homeowner doesn’t have to parse a burglar, rapist or robber’s intent when they find them in their homes (a friend of mine spent years and tens of thousands of dollars defending himself against a zealous prosecutor for shooting a warning shot at a burglar. In his or her home).

The bill would replace existing statutes that justifies the taking of life in cases where bodily harm or death is eminent, [let’s cut Birkey some slack and assume he means “imminent” – Ed.] and create a broader set of circumstances for which “shooting first” is immune criminal prosecution.

Point of order: In self-defense situations, “shooting second” can be a really bad idea. I’m not sure who in the media came up with the “Shoot First Bill” meme, but it’s kinda a dumb one.

Introduced by State Sen. Pat Pariseau, R-Farmington, and Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, and supported by a number of Republicans, the bill is opposed by members of law enforcement and isn’t likely to pass the DFL-controlled legislature.

Part of the concern over the bill is that it diminishes the duty to retreat — that the first line of defense is not to kill, but to get out of harm’s way if it is safe to do so.

This “concern” is purely potemkin theatrics. There is no “duty to retreat”; to claim self-defense, one must currently show a “reasonable” attempt to de-escalate the conflict. Of course, “reasonable” means reasonable to a jury, sitting in a nice, secure jury room, in daylight, after having a county prosecutor ask them, rhetorically, “don’t you think he could have gone to the second floor, or out the door?” in a nice, brightly-lit courtroom, with all the time they need to make the decision.

Attorneys also fear that the bill could give criminals a license to kill.

“This expansion of the right to use deadly force would apply equally to criminals as to law-abiding citizens,” wrote Dakota County attorney James C. Backstrom. “It would create viable self-defense claims in situations like bar fights. It could allow rival gangs to shoot at one another with impunity. With no duty to retreat, anyone could claim they were responding to a threat of serious harm and were therefore justified in killing a person.”

I’m going to emphasize the next bit rather intensely:

This would seem to be patent misleading bullshit. There is nothing in Cornish/Pariseau’s bills about repealing the first of the four criteria; “one can not be a willing participant.  There’s nothing in the bill that would change any of the other requirements – that the fear of harm and the force used must be “reasonable”, as in “must convince a jury”.  Indeed, the bill states specifically that the law-abiding shooter may only shoot where the individual has a legal right to be (see above!); it says nothing about revoking any of the qualifications for a shooting to be considered self-defense!

I will be seeking comment from County Attorney Backstrom’s office on this statement, which would seem at best to be misleading, and at worst to be flatly at odds with legal reality, and issued for purposes of poltiical propaganda.  (Indeed, Backstrom’s op-ed piece, from which the quote is drawn, would seem to be a good candidate for a serious fisking).   I’ll (try to) be charitable, here; Backstrom could be talking about far-fetched technical defenses (when lawyers say things like “could create viable cases”, it means they’re stretching and stretching hard…).

The Cornish bill would remove some of the county prosecutor’s discretion in prosecuting otherwise law-abiding gun owners; it’d take away some of the need to parse the intent of people breaking into homes and cars.

That is all.

To pass this bill off as anything else with no attempt to get the broader legal and factual context is to serve as a DFL propaganda tool, and to toss aside any claim to journalistic credibility.

(I’d love to have left a comment about this in Birkey’s post – but apparently George Soros isn’t so flush that he’ll buy them a comment engine that actually functions..)

I got a chuckle:

Me: I love that we both wanted to hate [American Idol contestant] David Cook, but ended up loving it.

…

Curly: It was sort of how I felt when I realized the troop surge was actually working.

There are times I wish Glen Reynolds hadn’t made “heh” a blogosphere cliche.

I saw this story, and had to write about it.

To set the stage; “Xavier” the blogger was out shopping at WalMart with his daughter.  They left the store.  Then, he noticed something was amiss.  They were being followed by a couple of young toughs:

I saw our vehicle and began to approach it, but I wanted to be certain. I walked past, and cut between two unoccupied SUVs, grabbing a shopping cart to block the path from my front. The man on my right turned towards me and cursed as he saw his path was blocked by the cart jammed between the two vehicles sideways. I spun and drew my pistol from it’s holster, keeping it at low ready, facing off the other young man who was quickly approaching me from behind. My thumb had already snicked off the safety and Little Darling, confused, peered from behind me.

It seemed an eternity looking into the menacing, sneering face of the hoodlum who had began his approach from my rear. He sized up the man with the gun, a little girl behind him. I heard nothing to my rear. Not a word was spoken. Then “God damned mother fucker…….” he snarled as he sauntered away. I said nothing. I couldn’t. I turned to the rear, shoving Little Darling to the side. Nobody was there. I pivoted back around, my gun still at low ready. Nobody. I waited between the SUVs. Within seconds, a mother with her child in tow strolled past. I took my daughter’s sack, as well as her her little hand, and used my remote to unlock my Jeep’s doors two vehicles away. I held my pistol in my right hand, concealed underneath my jacket and left arm as we made our way to the vehicle.

I made Little Darling enter the driver’s side and told her to crawl over. As she scurried past the console, I followed and locked the doors behind us. It was clear behind us as I started the engine. Then a green Cadillac paused behind us. I was trapped. The blue haired lady waited a moment in her Caddy, and then pulled forward. I took the opportunity and quickly backed out. I drove to an area of the parking lot that was empty for at least 75 feet all around us. I left the motor running.

Xavier describes the symptoms of the “adrenaline dump” that usually accompanies these sorts of situations:

I opened my cell phone and struggled to call the police. My fingers were still suffering from the loss of fine motor skills

And he describes wondering about some of the things that to non-shooters are commonplaces:

Through church and over the next few days I was perplexed. Why would a man of my stature, a fit six foot one, be chosen as prey by two criminals? I could not understand it. Those kind of things happened to the elderly, women, the weak. They did not happen to big guys with crew cuts and broken noses. Hell, most of the time, all it took was a cold professional stare to change the direction of young men. Was my world changing? Was I getting older? Did it show? Or were the cretins becoming bolder? I was dumbfounded. I did not know why I was singled out as prey, and it bothered me. I began to grow apprehensive. I could not change it unless I knew why, and I was still going into the worst of neighborhoods to provide nursing service. Were these thugs targeting me specifically? Did they know me? Had I unwittingly crossed into some unknown gangland pissing grounds? God damn it, did they want my child?

Thankfully, Xavier lives in one of the forty states that believes the demonstrably law-abiding citizen should have the edge over gang-banging scum.

Which includes Minnesota only as long as we, the people (Republicans and responsible DFLers) keep the likes of Wes Skoglund out of power.

Still, it was a lesson reaffirmed. We never know when or why an attack might commence. We do not know what lengths others might take to obtain that which they deem valuable. It is impossible to predict any and all contingencies. Because of the differences between people, and the dangers that result from those differences, we can only be prepared to protect ourselves and our children, at any time, by any means necessary.

(Via Miss O)

Random musings on a sad, pathetic (so far) incident:

• Edwards was right; there are Two Americas.  One of them allegedly goes to $5,000/hour call girls for illicit poot.
• Allahpundit asks “Spitz is a Hillary superdelegate. Think she’ll be getting any awkward questions over this about high-profile politicians who cheat on their wives?”.  Um, Allah?  From whom? 
• Five’ll get you ten that by November, the Sorosphere will have coined the phrase “Spitzering” as a substitute for “asking Democrats questions about unethical or illegal activities”.  Sort of like “Swiftboating”, but for crimes…
• …unless, of course, he was seen smoking at the Emperor’s Club.
• Elliot who?

Fearless prediction:  MoveOn will be demanding America “move on” before tonight’s network evening news.

If I had to pick the dumbest-in-a-scary-Stepford-wives-comet-cult-kind-of-way-line in the infamous “O Ba Ma” video, other than the massed droogs chanting “O Bah Mah”, that would be the one.

It may be the best video Hugo Chavez ever produced.

Ingsoc; it’s not just for fiction any more.

Sublime?

Meet ridiculous.

That is all.

I caught this item last week:  Minnesota gets high marks for its laws on charter schools:

According to an annual report card published by the Center for Education Reform, Minnesota has the strongest charter school laws of any state.

Minnesota gets credit for, among other things:

• Giving charters legal and fiscal independence;
• Not imposing a cap on the number of charters;
• Allowing a variety of organizations to approve and oversee charters (in addition, of course, to the state department of education).

Of course, that “lack of a cap” is over the DFL’s dead body; last session, they tried to cap the number of charter schools; the GOP (and six brave DFLers) voted against the cap, barely beating it back.

Despite the fact that the national charter school movement started in Minnesota, charter schools still face opposition from vested interests. In the Winter 2008 edition of Education Next, Ember Reichgott Junge describes how her support of charter schools was one factor in her loss to Keith Ellison in the Fifth District primary.

I’m not quite sure how to read that; Junge was an incredibly weak candidate – and while Ellison represents a party that hates charter schools (they are an affront to the teachers’ union and institutional education), inner city parents sick of the diluted, agenda-driven education they’re getting from the public system are running like mad for the charters; Minneapolis’ district has lost an immense share of its students; one in eight of Saint Paul’s students have left for charter schools.

Hence the cap, that failed last year – and, we can be sure, other attempts to kill off this experiment.

A California appeals court last week ruled that homeschooling parents need “teaching credentials“.

In this case, California ruled that a family’s kids needed to be “supervised” by “credentialed” teachers.  The parents fought – and lost.

A lawyer appointed to represent two of the Long’s young children requested that the court require them to physically attend a public or private school where adults could monitor their well-being. A trial court disagreed, but the children’s lawyer appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which has jurisdiction over Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

The appellate panel ruled that Sunland officials’ occasional monitoring of the Longs’ home schooling — with the children taking some tests at the school — is insufficient to qualify as being enrolled in a private school. Since Mary Long does not have a teaching credential, the family is violating state laws, the ruling said.

“Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey in a Feb. 28 opinion signed by the two other members of the district court. “Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program.”

The usual suspects tip their hands:

The ruling was applauded by a director for the state’s largest teachers union.

“We’re happy,” said Lloyd Porter, who is on the California Teachers Association board of directors. “We always think students should be taught by credentialed teachers, no matter what the setting.” 

For starters, lets be clear on something:  “Teaching Credentials” are to “qualified to teach children” as “Tia Tequila” is to “actress”.  Whenever a profession sets up “credendials”, especially credentials administered by the government, the purpose is very rarely to promote a better professional service;  it’s to constrict the supply of those professionals.  Which is exactly what this ruling does; limits the job of “teaching kids”, something nearly every parent in the world does by instinct, and better than most teachers, to people who’ve taken “Theory of the Eraser 352” at Bakersfield State College. 

 I wish my father – an almost-forty-year teacher and several-time instructor in a college education department – could sound off on this one; he’s as solid a critic of “teacher education” as anyone I’ve met…

But what this ruling really means is “the state knows more about raising your children than you do”.

Which should make your skin crawl.

As you think of that, and might perhaps be tempted to say  “well, it’s only California”, remember; the DFL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Education Minnesota, and EM hates homeschoolers; the Minnesota Legislature tried to “cap” the number of charter schools (the only alternative an awful lot of working parents can afford these days) last year, and the DFL in the legislature fought charter and home schools tooth and nail when the idea first surfaced.

It can happen here – and big parts of the Educational/Industrial Complex want it to.

The nice thing about masses of young, first-time voters is that they seem to get distracted by noises, candy, and bits of foil on the ground.

For example, Amber Lee Ettinger, the “Obama Girl” from last summer…

apparently didnt bother to vote in her primary:

Last summer, the music video “I Got a Crush on Obama” was a Web hit, splashing a seductive performance by a 26-year-old model named Amber Lee Ettinger across millions of screens and prompting deep thoughts about candidates and sex appeal, the YouTube generation of voters, viral marketing and so forth.

On Tuesday night, City Room ran into Ms. Ettinger at an election-watching party in Greenwich Village and asked how things went at the polls.

“I didn’t get a chance to vote today because I’m not registered to vote in New York,” she said.

So where is Obama Girl registered to vote?

“New Jersey.”

Um, but didn’t New Jersey also hold a primary?

True. The problem, she explained, was that she was sick in New York City and was unable to get back across the Hudson River to the polls in Jersey City.

Makes perfect sense, right?

“I was in Arizona for the Super Bowl — every time I get in the airplane I get sick,” said Ms. Ettinger, who did manage to make it to the Svedka Fembot election returns party at Chinatown Brasserie…The previous day she had hit the streets of New York to interview voters, where a Daily News photographer snapped her picture on Park Avenue.

It’s interesting to explain to non-Minnesotans; Minnesota Republicans pray for blizzards on election night; Republicans will crawl across broken lightbulbs to get to the polls, while Tics – especially the “young and clueless” crowd that the Dems bank on for most of their fortunes – will skip elections to catch the latest episode of “Jackass”. 

The Strib reports – belatedly – the story of Matthew Miller.

Miller was one of the heretofore unsung citizen-rescuers who saved so many when the 35W bridge collapsed. As fast as the police and fire departments responded, the people on the scene were faster – and Miller was right there:

Miller turned — and saw nothing, except dust and smoke.

“After about a minute, I realized there was no more bridge. So then I went from chaos mode to panic.”

Miller worked his way down into the river gorge, across train tracks and woods, to where a huge canopy of highway was resting at a sharp angle.

He jumped down an 8-foot embankment, grabbing a tree branch to break his fall.

“There were screams, blood, everything was down there. … I didn’t even know where the heck I was running. I just kept on running.”

Then he got to the place he calls Ground Zero. “There was eight lanes of concrete hanging 15 feet above me.”

In an instant, he found himself praying. “I said, ‘God, help me not to focus on that piece of concrete, that piece of highway hanging above my head.’ From there, I didn’t look up.”

Miller started getting people out of cars that had come crashing down with the bridge. “Everybody that I helped was alive, though more than one with their eyes rolling into the backs of their heads,” he said.

Among the first people Miller found was a woman trapped in a car upside down. He crawled into the car and ripped out the head rests so she could be pulled out through the back seat.

Strangely, she was calm. “She was very uncomfortable, I could tell,” Miller said. “But she was more calm than I was.”

And now, seven months later?

Miller’s feat, although acknowledged by Minneapolis police, came to public light only last week, when the Congressional Medal of Honor Society announced that he is a finalist for its first Above & Beyond Citizen Honors for unsung heroes.

The award, to be presented by retired Gen. Colin Powell on March 25, would be the first national recognition for any rescuer in the Aug. 1 bridge collapse, which took the lives of 13 people. Among those who died: Miller’s co-worker Greg Jolstad, who had been joking with him hours before.

“I’m not really a big hero. I don’t need to have that label,” said Miller, a senior at Bethel University in Arden Hills.

Fair enough. But kudos, and thanks, anyway.

…that you’re trying to leave a comment in my comment section, and:

a) you’ve never left a comment before

b) you’ve changed commenter IDs, or

c) you’re including a hyperlink in your comment…

…it might take a while for your comment to appear.  I’m in the middle of the biggest spam attack I’ve had since switching to WordPress for my blogging tool.

And thank goodness I did; WordPress’ “Akismet” heuristic spam catcher is doing its job, so far; but plenty of “new” spam designed to evade it is ending up in my moderation queue – over 70 overnight.  Which is still pretty dreamy, compared to the hundreds and even thousands I’d get daily on Movable Type…

…but it’s still going to slow down my comment moderation until the storm passes.

Yesterday, in an event that drove headlong into two levels of “meta”, Kool Aid Report live-blogged the 1PM hour, “NARN Idol”, with Paul “Nih(i)list” Happe sitting in for Ed; Sisyphus proceeded to live-blog the live-blog.

While I obviously couldn’t host the show and respond to two levels of liveblogging, and I’m darned if I’m gonna spend my Saturday night writing something like that, I just can’t resist the opportunity to land the fabled triple-meta.

I’m going to delayblog both of the liveblogs!

The original posts are presented in chronological order, not sorted for their originating blog; I think Sisyphus’ stuff has the bold timestamps. I think:

1:05 – It should be illegal for Chad to utter Brett Favre’s name.

1:05 PM: Learned “Packer-Fascist” Foot believes that it should be illegal for Chad the Elder to utter Brett Favre’s name. Osama bin Foot will no doubt behead anyone who draws a blasphemous Favre cartoon.

10:35AM: Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training, people. Who cares?

1:07 – They’re stalling. Nihilist must be late. Took a little too long to serruptitiously siphon gas from the neighbor’s car.

1:07 PM: Foot accuses the Nihilist of siphoning gas out of a neighbor’s car. I must admit, it is conceivable.

10:37AM: If you’d ever worked with the guy, you’d believe it.

1:10 – Top Chef debuts Wednesday. If you were only listening to Chad blather about it, you never would have known that. Luckily, you have me.

1:10 PM: Learned Foot informs us when the TV show “Top Chef” will premiere. “Top Chef” is a gay show.

10:40AM: Sisyphus must never have seen Casey, the eye-candy they threw at us straight guys last season. Or Jillian, from Project Runway. (I didn’t even know both of ’em won the “Fan Favorite” awards for the their shows – which means there’s gotta be a lot of straight guys watching.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

1:13 – More stalling. Yawwwwwn. I think I’ll liveblog the Gopher’s-Illinois game.

1:13 – Illinois 33, Gophers 29 – early 2nd half.

1:13 PM: Foot is growing impatient and is thinking of Live Blogging the Gophers vs. Illinois game. I don’t know what Foot is smoking. The Gophers aren’t playing until tonight vs. UMD.

1:13 PM: Foot hallucinates: Illinois 33, Gophers 29 – early 2nd half. Uh Foot, they’re called periods. And if you are going to make up score, make it realistic – no hockey score has ever been 33 to 29.

11:43AM: All I hear is a buzzing sound.

1:15 – Commercial. “I’m Andy Willoughby! How the fuck are you anyway?!”

1:15 PM: Foot mocks Patriot sponsor Andy Willoughby. Well played, Foot.

11:45AM: Andy Williby is a great American and a true patriot. And I’m proud to have him as a sponsor.

1:20 – Production errors abound. Nihilist must be working behind the glass.

1:20 PM: Foot blames the Nihilist for the Patriot’s production errors. This must be the first time Foot has ever listened to the Patriot.

11:50AM: Heh. Well, our producer, a lovely young Russian lady named Anna, was new to the show. She usually produces Strom and NARN Volume 1 – and new people take some getting used to. She did a fine job.

1:21 – “NARN Idol”? Everybody vote Chad out. Please.

1:21 PM: Foot takes another shot at Chad. When Foot stages his coup and installs Packeria law, Chad will be the first inmate in the Lambeau re-education camp.

11:51AM: Aaaaah. Spring training, right around the corner.

1:22 – OMG!!!!!! Paul’s had a stroke!!!! I hope he’s OK.

1:22 PM: Foot is not just a law talking guy, he can also diagnose strokes over the air!

1:23 – Never mind. That’s how his voice always sounds.

1:23 PM: False alarm! Foot just mis-diagnosed the Nihilist’s voice.

11:53 AM: I was about ready to make him sing “Burning Love”.

1:24 – Ha ha! A shout out! No guys, since I can’t be in the studio today, I’m taking a supplementary role. Just adding value; not trying to be a substitute.

11:54AM: Foot had childcare duty yesterday. If he’d only known that now only was the Patriot’s green room crowded with kids in Moonchild’s age bracket, but that Moon would have been among the more sedate of the bunch, perhaps he’d have come in.

1:24 PM: Mitch acknowledges Foot’s live blog, but what about this ground breaking live blog of Foot’s live blog?

1:54AM: Not sure how Hugh or King or Ed or Michael do it, but I just can’t read blogs and do a talk show.

1:26 – And we have Nihilist’s first Ayn Rand reference at… 1:26. Mark!

1:26 PM: Foot mocks the Nihilist’s mention of Ayn Rand – but he neglects to acknowledge that it is in the context of Angelina Jolie.

11:56AM: I actually went a whole show with neither a Marisa Tomei nor a Scarlett Johannsen reference…

1:27 – Springsteen sucks! Maiden 4ever!

1:27 PM: Bravo Foot, for denouncing Springsteen. But the Iron Maiden shout-out is a little forced.

11:57AM: Speaking of forced – apropos of nobody, but why do so many metal singers sound like they’re trying to push a triangular steel dookie out the nether parts when they sing?

1:28 – NIHILIST FACT CHECK! Geldof praised Bush for helping fight AIDS in Africa – not hunger as Paul asserts.

1:28 PM: Foot has the audacity to fact check the Nihilist? He states that Geldoff praised Bush for helping fight AIDs in Africa and not hunger as the Nihilist said. I propose a compromise: let’s praise Bush for fighting both AIDs and hunger.

11:58AM: Not to mention for “I Don’t Like Mondays“.

1:33 – Obama girl bumper music. gag. Play some MAIDEN!!!1111!!11

1:33 PM: Foot calls on them to play some Iron Maiden. Uh Foot, this is the NARN, why don’t you go listen to some pirate junior high radio station?

11:03AM: Well, let’s be fair; we were talking about peoples’ cultish crushes on Obama. Someday when we do a show on, say, the Battle of Britain, I’ll have Anna or Matt dredge up “Aces High“. Or if we do a show, say, on, er, running to the hills for whatever reason, well, you know.

1:35 – Is Sisyphus liveblogging my liveblog yet?

1:35 PM: Yes, as a matter of fact I am.

11:05AM: I’m tempted to start singing “The Circle Of Life”

1:37 – I smell a future Lori Sturdevant multifisk this week…

1:37 PM: Foot smells a future Lori Sturdevant multifisk this week. All that means is that Lori isn’t on vacation.

11:07AM: True, but I think a mash-note to Erhardt will deserve a special effort.

1:40 – The mayor sends his props in the comment thread: “This is a riot! Go LF go!”

1:40 PM: The mayor of the MOB is calling for riots?

11:10AM: If I could have a nickel for every time Ed and I have looked through the glass wondering what on earth it was that had King guffawing…well, it’d be more money than I’ve made doing the show so far…

1:41 – Just a reminder: this liveblog will be more meaningful less meaningless if you listen to the stream here (or on the radio) while reading.

1:41 PM:Just a reminder, this live blog of a live blog will be less meaningless if you read Foot’s live blog here.

11:11AM: “…the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiiife, it circles us aaaaaawaaaaaal…”

1:42 – First Nihilist P-Diddy reference at 1:42…MARK!

1:42 PM: Foot marks the Nihilist’s first P-Diddy reference at 1:42. P-Diddy has sure dropped off the map. I remember back when the Nihilist mentioned him every five minutes without fail.

11:12AM: If Diddy and Angelina Jolie didn’t exist, Nihlist would have to invent them.

1:46 – FOO FIGHTERS!

1:46 PM: What about the FOO FIGHTERS! At least he isn’t occasionally posting OBAMA!

11:16AM: Anna does have a knack for bumper music.

1:47 – Shout out #2! (NOTE: I think Pinkmonkeybird liveblogged a NARN broadcast once. Now there’s a guy who doesn’t have a life.)

1:47 PM: Foot acknowledges another shout out for his live blog. Still no shout out for the live blog of the live blog.

11:17AM: Ahem?

1:48 – Maybe NARN should give this Downey guy a shot at replacing Ed.

1:48 PM: First the Ron Erhardt supporters try to convince people that Downey is running for Hennepin County Commissioner (and not challenging Ron Erhardt for the legislature endorsement) and now Erhardt supporter Learned Foot is starting the despicable rumor that Downey is auditioning for the NARN (and not challenging Erhardt). Shame, Foot, Shame!!

11:18AM: With any luck, pretty soon Erhardt can do a show on Air America Minnesota. (Do they still exist?)

1:49 – CLOSED CIRCUIT TO MITCH & NIHILIST: Don’t forget to plug the MilF.

1:49 PM: Foot calls for a plug of the MiLF. But plug what? There has been no date set for the MiLF, so far as I know.

11:19AM: Check out KAR for the latest on the Millard Filmore Golf Tournament!

1:50 – SOMEONE ANSWER THE DAMN PHONE!

1:50 PM: Foot is unwilling to interrupt his live blog to answer his phone. Telemarketers will be disappointed.

11:20AM: Mmm. Breakfast.

1:51 – Hah! That “wazzzup” thing was kinda funny.

1:51 PM: Props to Mitch and the Nihilist on the wazzup bit.

11:21AM: All kudos to NIGP. It was his idea. I just cut it together.

1:52 – Inver Grove Bites is a dump.

1:52 PM: “Inver Grove bites is a dump.” Uh, what?

11:22AM: I think he was perfectly clear. And accurate.

1:53 – Apparently Sisyphus has been liveblogging this liveblog. I have arrived.

1:53 PM: FINALLY! A shout out to this live blog by Foot. Yes, you have arrived!

11:23AM: Cry me a river.

1:56 – Do you think that if the Nihilist bumped into Lileks in the studio, there would a violent explosion like when matter collides with anti-matter. Perhaps Sisyphus the Physicist could shed some light on this.

1:56 PM: Foot asks me a physics question: “Do you think that if the Nihilist bumped into Lileks in the studio, there would a violent explosion like when matter collides with anti-matter.” No, of course not. But if they both said exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, their voices would cancel out and you would hear nothing.

11:26AM: Close; when they walked near each other, it caused a total eclipse.

1:58 – This hour – and this liveblog – is over!

1:58 PM: This liveblog of Foot’s liveblog is over!

11:28AM: And this lifeblog of the liveblogging of the the livethunderjournaling of a live talk show is now done.

3:06 PM: A shout-out to this liveblog of the liveblog by King Banaiaian on NARN “The Final Word”!

1:02PM: Does this mean I have to start over?

GeeEmInEm on Saturday’s “upset” (in the same sense that the 1940 NFL Championship was an “upset”) in District 41; conservatives Ketih Downey and Jan Schneider beat RINOs and tax-bill traitors Ron Erhardt and Neil Peterson for the GOP endorsements.

esterday I spent the day helping John Swon — hereafter to be known only as “The Architect” — engineer Jan Schneider’s remarkable first-ballot smackdown of Rep. Neil Peterson in Senate District 41B.

Frivolity ensued.

Speaking of ensuing frivolity; I’ve been waiting for the past 18 hours for Lori Sturdevant’s piece on the subject. I might not leave my computer until it comes out.

By the way – notice the number of people in the DFLmedia and the Sorosphere who take it as a given that ejecting the RINOs will automatically cede the districts to the Tics. “Edina is purple” is a meme the Strib has been clutching close to its heart like a lucky charm lately.
They keep forgetting the key lesson of Republican politics in Minnesota this past twenty years:

When Republicans act like DFLers with better suits, we lose. When we act like conservatives, we win.

Gil Gutknecht lost. Michele Bachmann won (and, by the standards of November ’06, won big

More Edinians voted DFL in the last few elections, it’s true; in a year (’06) where Republicans were punished nationwide for acting like Tics, and where both representatives were RINOs of the most base order, why does anyone find that shocking?

This tax increase – and the six traitors who enabled it – may be the best thing that ever happened to the Minnesota GOP; in turn, it’ll be the best thing to happen to Minnesota.

Eventually.

We’ll need it for damage control.