Tradition!

If you can say one thing about “Minnesota United” – who, if all goes according to plan, will benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer largesse when they build their alleged stadium in the Midway one of these years – it’s that they’re a typical Minnesota team, through and through:

A Minnesota team?  Why yes – after leading the league in 2014 and coming in #2, MNU has dribbled down to #5 so far this season.

20 thoughts on “Tradition!

  1. But in true corporate welfare tradition, they’ll take money from the taxpayer, then demand (and get) more money from the taxpayer. Then they’ll tell us what laws we can and can’t pass. I see the NBA, which loves fascist China, is boycotting North Carolina.

  2. DG,

    While I’d be more than willing to welcome you to a discussion in my comment section, the whole “dump a condescending and fallacious comment and then scamper away” thing really has to stop.

    So this time, in addition to needing you to start discussing the claims you make in my comment section, I’m going to need some answers from you.

    • You recently claimed you’d been “published” in the London School of Economics’ blog. I’ve asked you repeatedly; the “publication” was actually just a link to one of your articles on “Minnesota Progressive Project”. Am I correct? If not, please provide a link, either publicly or privately to me. it appears you are trying to stretch five pounds of bag over ten pounds of reality.
    • Another: many years ago, you claimed that Salem Twin Cities was in imminent danger of being sued into receivership, because of a scam being run by one of its paid programs. You made a big show of it, in fact. You made a big show of how one of your neighbors – an expert in corporate law, but naturally nobody we could talk to, of course – backing you up on this.
      . So – whatever became of that? That was at least seven years ago; any updates?
    • In 2012, you claimed that Rep. Cornish’s “Stand your Ground” bill – which passed both chambers of the legislature with a bipartisan majority – was “crap legislation”. When asked to substantiate the claim beyond the level of opinion, you provided some stats that, in fact, proved that Stand your Ground was excellent legislation that did exactly what I said it would; you just didn’t know any better. So – please either substantiate your claim with actual facts (and be prepared to defend your defense!), or admit you were talking out your ass

    I could find a lot more, but I have a life.

    I’ve asked you probably half a dozen times in the past couple days. Check back over the last few posts you’ve commented on.

    ——–

    I tend to agree with you that the public does not get the benefits on investment that should govern those expenditures, overall.

    That said, I don’t know what the specifics are of this deal. It is true that many stadia are money pits, but there are also deals that have been good for their cities. The devil is in the details. The Olympics have been bad for many of their host cities.

    And there are benefits to having public stadia? Sure. Companies report that they are more competitive in recruiting business and other talent where there is a really good quality of life, and sports teams are a part of that ‘quality of life’ criteria. How does one make a better deal for the public $$$ ? That has been looked at analytically:
    Public Administration Review
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/976884?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
    “As a result, investments by the public sector in facilities should rely on a special user tax district that insures that those who benefit from the facilities bear the cost. A financing plan is presented that any city or county could follow to fund an arena or stadium.”

    Good on the NBA for boycotting North Carolina, a backward hotbed for haters and those who discriminate unfairly. If having teams hold events IS an economic incentive, then they are applying the free market system effectively by not holding their event in a location that is hurtful to their players and their sports fans.

    You either support the capitalist premise to vote with your $$$ and your feet, or you are a flaming hypocrite. Guess we know which one the hard core bigot conservatives are. You are of course perfectly free to in turn boycott the NBA, but I doubt they are too worried about losing your business, because the crazy anti-LGBT bigots are rapidly marginalizing themselves as the world moves on without you.

    A bigger concern, Chuck et al, should be that the same thing that is true of sports team welfare is also true of all those corporate tax cuts — the corporations take the money and run. The conservative tax cut premise is notoriously unsuccessful at generating either jobs or revenue. Look to that, which is a far bigger failure, before going after sports teams which at least do some good other than a legal means to redistribute wealth to the wealthy (an apparent priority of conservatives who are too stupid to vote for effective economic policies that benefit them and the rest of the middle class).

    ———-

    The ball’s in your court, DG.

  3. Except the Lynx. Looks like the womyn in Minnesota wear the pants figuratively and literally…..snicker

  4. Only in St Paul is it logical to give hundreds of millions of dollars to a billionaire to take a piece of abandoned property off the governments hands. I thought one of the benefits of Metric Football is how little infrastructure it requires. Some sod for a ‘pitch’, a couple hundred bucks of welded square tube and some netting for the goals and a kicky ball. The ‘people’ could bring their own lawn chairs or maybe get ‘a deal’ on some bleachers and kicky balls from one of the many closed schools there.
    As for this lone sport (if that’s how you classify Metric Football) post –
    http://www.goal.com/es/news/19/main/2016/06/23/24950752/video-los-bloopers-en-el-soldier-field

  5. Why should there ever be a need to build a new soccer facility when there is a huge soccer complex in Blaine. “The National Sports Center has been recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest soccer complex in the world.”

  6. Because the Blaine soccer complex doesn’t serve as a huge kick back to one of our central Minnesota cities. We must put attractive and expensive things there or people won’t want to go. Or maybe they still won’t want to go.

  7. Why should there ever be a need to build a new soccer facility when there is a huge soccer complex in Blaine.

    Blaine’s opportunities for graft are insufficient.

  8. Back in 1914, a stadium of the appropriate size for something like this, about 14000 seats, was built on the north side of Chicago for $250,000. It’s still in use, and they were even smart enough to build it so it could be easily expanded when the need arose, which happened in 1915, 1920, and 1927.

    We should be so smart. And hopefully Chicago will be that smart, too.

  9. So, you complain Mitch, that I’m snide, etc…..what part of almost everything you write is any different? You have set that tone here. YOU. And your followers the same. What about how you’ve always claimed you can take that tone in comments letting it slide off you like rain off a duck.

    I fairly fault you for using crap sources like the Blaze, while local media – like the Cleveland Plain dealer, and other news outlets, along with Reuters and the BBC make no reference to police confirming any urine incidents, much less those claimed by the Blaze. I don’t post a comment here without fact checking first, which is more than you tend to do before writing a post, or dear old gents like Doakes. Or your commenters.

    Do you really expect me to be impressed by you using that same old conservative double standard? I like to believe you are better than that.

    And on this topic I largely agree with you that the public can get taken badly; but they don’t have to be, there are other options. And there is more to consider on the pro side than just tax dollars, some of which are a bit more intangible but very real.

    London lost money on the Olympics, if you just look at balance sheets. What do you think the value was however of the incredible publicity they received hour after hour, day in and day out, worldwide? Just one example of how to look at issues like building stadia. I wonder if something better could be put on that location, which is prime. But a stadium doesn’t HAVE to be a losing proposition for tax payers. It well could be – many are, most are. But it does not have to be so.

  10. DG,

    I”m going to not white out your posts, since you are actually discussing, for now.

    I’m not going to get into a “he said, she said”; you started with the condescension, long ago. As I pointed out, I really don’t care – I/we pretty much mock the pretension.

    Three major points, here, DG:

    • You keep yakking about “facts”. “Facts” are not the end of the discussion; they are the parts you use to put together an argument. And your arguments are routinely debunked – always, always with fact.
    • When you harp on “crap sources” as if that’s the end of the discussion, you are engaging in a logical fallacy (“Appeal to authority”); the source may be more or less credible, but the facts they present are what the actual argument is about. Can you address the facts? Saying “it’s just The Blaze” proves nothing factual whatsoever! In that particular discussion, several sources confirmed the Blaze’s urine story, and others pointed out that the Plain Dealer story was from small time frame and a small geographical location, that didn’t pretend to be a comprehensive coverage of all incidents in the convention area.
    • As to “you don’t post without checking facts?” Good Lord, DG – that’s why I tell you “read the crap you write after you leave it here”. PRetty much EVERY argument, and most of the “facts” you’ve presented here in the past six years has been debunked. My favorite example; a few years ago, you posted an “academic study” that, you said, proved you had the “FACTS” and I didn’t. Bento read it – and showed that it was in fact an undergraduate monograph about a metastudy, which basically tortured data from OTHER studies into the desired shape – “facts” you didn’t deem convenient to notice or, we suspected, hadn’t looked into. This is a constant thing with your comments, here, and I’m told on your various blogs.

    The people you condescendingly call “Mitchketeers” include a couple lawyers, an MD, a couple engineers, a literal rocket scientist, a guy who runs a clinic, a nurse, a guy who runs astronomy telescopes – people for whom research and fact are stocks in trade. Since you’re the one who obsesses over credentials, let’s let that sink in – the people you condescend to have them, and you do not. And when you put “facts” out there, they routinely beat them to a fine sheen.

    But clearly, you never ever read the discussion about your comments, leaving you with the mistaken illusion that you are some fount of debating brilliance.

    You are not! Not at all!

    And while your tone – unearned as it is – is irrelevant, the fact that you seem to think my comment section is another one of your blogs, a place to expound and scamper away, is not acceptable.

    I hope you understand – though I find it doubtful.

  11. Seriously, DG, I dare you.

    Go back through every comment you’ve left in the past week. Look at the responses.

    I wonder if you’d have the guts to confront the fact that pretty much every argument you introduced was pretty well ripped apart by other, better arguments, all of them fully based in fact?

    Do you?

    Go for it.

  12. Finally, DG – just to disabuse you of some of the ideas you seem to have picked up:

    Do I care that you’re abrasive? Pfft. I let Penigma, “Common Sense”, RickDFL and Angryclown post all they want, and they’re more abrasive than you.

    Do I care that the “facts” you present may or may not be factual, but are parts of deeply flawed arguments? No! That’s why I have a comment section! Pen, Emery, Rick, Doug, the Clown, Fulcrum and others have long presented arguments – most of them wrong, some of them with some good points. They win a few, they lose most of them, but I welcome their comments.

    You, uniquely, seem to believe you are entitled to treat my comment section like your personal blog – to leave some criticism (almost invariably a faulty argument) and scamper away until the next time you feel like having an audience. I don’t care about abrasiveness or condescension (it’s rude – something you didn’t used to be, by the way), and pointless, but whatever.

    No. It’s the dump and run.

    Stop treating my comment section like your personal property. Comment all you want – mazel tov! – but participate in a discussion. Emery, Pen, Flash, “Common Sense”, Angryclown and RickDFL all do; what makes you think you’re above it all?

    Or don’t. But don’t expect me to accomodate what is an abuse of my hospitality without a comment or complaint here.

  13. One thing to point out is that it generally takes about 30 seconds to find a good source that discredits what DG says, and in many cases, a minute’s reading of what she says shows that her “source” actually says the opposite of what she claimed.

    DG, I’m sorry, but your work is that bad. It’s child’s play to discredit it, which is I think part of why you dump and run.

  14. DG, seriously – I said it before and I’ll say it again.

    Go back through the posts where you’ve left comments. Check it out.

    It’ll leave a mark, but you might learn something.

  15. On one of her blogs, dog says she “studied at” St. Olaf.

    I had a summer job at the Stanford Linear Accelerator. Talked to the guys that were observing instruments at the beam dump; they were looking for evidence of quarks.

    Can I say studied particle physics at Stanford?

  16. I’d gladly take the name “Mitchketeer”, but am I qualified? I disagree with my gracious host on a number of issues, and we’ve gone–politely for the most part I hope–back on forth on some of them.

    Your call, gracious host. And I hope I am so gracious, too.

    And again, if indeed our soccer club needs a stadium worth hundreds of millions to compete, maybe they could rent from the U. or rent out the new Crystal Cathedral? I’m sure with only six to ten games played per year, there are plenty of days left open.

  17. Bubba,

    Apparently I’m a snide condescending person. So apparently we have not disagreed politely .

    Who knew?

    Not me, apparently.

  18. Well, shoot, let’s start lobbing f-bombs at each other, then. I’m glad to be set straight on this very important issue, if against my will. :^)

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