This Is The Post In Which I Come To The Defense Of...

Fair Warning note for all readers, right and left...grab your duct tape. I am about to post something that will make your head explode. Ready? Here goes....

This is the post in which I come to the defense of...AL FRANKEN. Yes, I am going to attempt to defend Mr. Franken and give him a few ideas that he might be able to use on the campaign trail to make this a positive event. You can mail the residual checks directly to me Al....

In defense of his not paying approximately $70,000 in taxes in 17 different states, candidate Franken has said that he is the "victim" of an overly complex tax code and he is CORRECT! As the Logical Husband reminded me last nights, the states in question all have tax laws on the books that are designed to soak wealthy performers (like baseball players, football players and artists like Mr. Franken). Minnesota has one of these laws as well. These laws were proposed and passed by legislatures that are predominantly controlled by Democrats. If Candidate Franken really wanted to make lemonade out of the lemons of his own sowing, he could stand up in front of the press and pledge to propose legislation to make these laws illegal should he become the next Senator from Minnesota. He could further pledge to work across the aisle to get real tax simplification and reform passed in the Senate. He could also pledge to advocate for either the Flat or Fair tax (yes I understand that there are issues with both proposals but stay with me here). If Franken did that, he would appeal to a broad spectrum of independents and Republicans for whom tax reform is a major issue. He would also brand himself as his own man and not a shill for the "progressive" wing of the Democrat Party.

Second, he could take the advise of fellow True North poster, Pat Shortridge:

If Al Franken REALLY wants to take responsibility ….he will, along with his lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, et al, hold a press conference and answer the many lingering questions about this mess. I’m sure the press corps, both local and national, would welcome the opportunity, as should Franken if he really wants to get out from under the cloud hovering over his campaign and put it behind him.

Some questions that quickly come to mind include:

How did Team Franken decide on $70,000 and 17 states?

Does the $70,000 include penalties and interest?

Who told him he had no tax liability in the first place?

Who signed off on the termination process for Al Franken, Inc. in California?

How come the stories out of the Franken Campaign kept changing?

Does this settle all outstanding legal and financial issues for Al Franken, Inc?

This could be the tough one. One of the few things that Team Franken knows about their candidate is that he has a hair trigger temper. This is one reason why they keep their candidate as far away from the press as possible. However, the only way to make this GO AWAY is for Candidate Franken to answer these questions. Until Candidate Franken sits down for as long as the press wants him to answer these questions, the tax problems will be a lingering issue for Team Franken!

The ball is in your court Al. What's your next move?

Uff Da!

That is all I can say after reading the latest in the Al Franken tax saga.

DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, frontrunner in the race to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, owes $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states, where he earned income going back to 2003.

$70,000 in 17 states! Uff da!

Franken on Tuesday told the Associated Press that he never intended to avoid paying taxes and that on the advice of his accountant, had paid taxes to the city and state where he lived.

While it is good that Franken finally came clean, one has to wonder why Wesley Snipes attorney had not come up with the same "I never intended to avoid paying my taxes" defense?

Franken's campaign staff initially said Franken had dissolved the California entity in 2003, producing an unsigned letter on blank paper, dated September, 2003, in which a tax accountant said the company would "no longer be doing business in California."
Franken has had numerous engagements in California during those years, and in his U.S. Senate Financial Disclosure Report, filed May, 2007, stated that he does business not only in California, but in New York, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Delaware, Michigan, Kentucky and elsewhere.

I wonder how many other states Franken has made money in and not paid taxes.

One of the most tired old saws of life is this..."it's not the wrong doing that gets you...it's the cover-up". Franken's ever changing excuses as to why he didn't pay his workmans comp ("we were disputing the findings", "we didn't know the state of New York was looking for us", "we never got the notifications" and then when shown that they signed for the notifications finally "we are working out payment with the state of New York") and now California show us much about candidate Franken and it is not good! I mean here we have a candidate who says in a campaign appearance that he loves businesses that "play by the rules" and then he turns around and IGNORES the rules that other businesses are expected to play by!

This latest revelation has got to be the final straw for DFL delegates. You have to think that the phone lines between the DFL Headquarters and Mike Cirisi's house are buzzing as the DFL leadership scrambles to find a credible candidate that will stand up the scrutiny of a "premier" campaign.

It's Tax Time

Hang on to your wallets Minnesota. Rep. Ann Lenczewski's (DFL Bloomington) Omnibus Tax bill has been unveiled. Some of the key components of the bill are:

• a new Homestead Credit State Refund that restructures three existing property tax refund programs and divvies out the refunds based on ability to pay;
• increased local government aid to cities, counties and townships;
• some development projects in tax increment financing districts would be subject to a corporate franchise tax;
• preventing new businesses from entering the JOBZ program and creating new penalties for breaching the requirements of the program;
• a new border city business investment credit;
• increasing taxes on machinery at utility companies;
• changes to the Green Acres program;
• subjecting Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Holman Field in St. Paul to state property taxes;
• a property tax credit for cabins leased on government-owned land;
• changes to the “rural vacant land” classification;
• increasing the eligibility for a senior property tax deferral program;
• exempting Central Corridor rail line construction materials from sales tax;
• a moratorium on local sales tax referendums for three-and-a-half years;
• increasing collection on June accelerated sales taxes for alcohol and tobacco; and
• imposing a mortgage and deed tax to create or renew an environmental response fund for Anoka, Dakota, St. Louis, Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

HF 3149 is the number and I'll be reading it here shortly and I will be following the bill as it heads to the floor for debate.

Law And Order?

The following two stories came to me over the weekend, but I was too busy to post on them then.

First is this tragic story from the UK.

LONDON (Reuters) - An innocent 15-year-old schoolboy was sprayed with bullets
from a machine gun as he lay in his own bed after becoming the victim of mistaken identity during a gang war, a London court heard on Friday.

The second from my hometown of Chicago.

In a dramatic gesture, Mayor Daley has called for a summit at City Hall today to search for solutions to the bloodbath of violence -- almost all of it involving guns -- that has swept across Chicago's neighborhoods in recent weeks.

These two tragic stories have a couple of things in common. First is that the violence is from armed gangs. The second is that both cities have some of the most restrictive gun control legislation on the books. You simply can not legally own a gun in Chicago or in Britian.

Gun control proponents (like Mayor Daley) love to tell us that making guns illegal will stop the violence. As you can see, these law have not stopped the criminals from getting AND USING guns. All the summits and meetings and laws in the world are not going to stop people who are hell bent on breaking the law from doing so. We must simply get out of this mindset.

We need to make sure that those who are intent on breaking the law...any laws....are punished appropriately and those that are prone to violent crime need to be removed from society until they can prove that they can "play nice" with the rest of the civilized world. THAT is government's job....not warehousing our kids DNA. You want to get the guns off of the street Mr. Mayor.....get the criminals off of the street. It's that simple!

Taxing Thoughts

Some thoughts to keep in mind the next time you fill up your gas tank at almost $3.50 per gallon. The first comes from the Mayor (no - not this mayor.....a real mayor!)

Bill Dunkelberg, a professor of economics at Temple University and former dean of the Fox school of business there, periodically issues random thoughts on public policy as it relates to his arena of academic interest. His April 24 “Notes on the Economy” includes this gem regarding that Great Economic Satan, Exxon Mobil:
Some presidential candidates have decided that Exxon is a symbol of what is wrong with America. Recent ads complain of Exxon’s 40 billion in profits as if Exxon is some evil entity. First of all, Exxon is not a person, it is millions of owners owning over 5 billion shares in their investment portfolios. Vanguard holds over 160 million shares for its clients, Fidelity over 100 million shares. Taking Exxon’s profits for hair-brained government schemes will just mean millions of people will have to work longer to accumulate their retirement assets. And, doesn’t return on investment count? 40 billion may not represent a particularly good return on the capital invested in the company. Size is not the issue, the percentage return is what counts.
And the government takes over 40 cents a gallon in tax, far more than the profit per gallon made by refiners. And the government doesn’t make any gas for you.

That is something that the voters really need to take into account this November. Especially in light of the fact that by then Minnesotans will be paying another 7 cents a gallon in state sales tax thanks to this year's transportation bill.

Speaking of which, the House Republican caucus is taking out a new ad that is designed to remind voters just who is responsible for the increase.



Now I know some will say (as one caller to Jason Lewis' porogram said yesterday) that the Democrats did have some bi-partisan support in this, but hear me out. As Speaker Siefert has pointed out many times, there are 85 members in the majority. If there were not 85 members in the majority, the 6 defectors would not have made a difference! Also, the Republican Party in the districts that the 6 defectors belong to have (for the most part) given the defectors their reward....by denying them endorsement at the BPOU Conventions. They have "paid" for their votes...now it is time for the 85 to face the music and THAT is what this ad is all about.

The bottom line is that the 85 members of the majority pushed through a sales and gas tax bill that hurts the poor and those of fixed incomes THE HARDEST! The very people that they claim to want to help are the once that are suffering the most as a result of the transportation bill. It is time for the voters in this state to let the legislature know how they feel about it.

Prayer Request

Gary Gross brings us word that King Banaian from SCSU Scholars is in the hospital and in pretty rough shape. If you are so inclined, put a prayer or two up for King and for David Strom from the Minnesota Free Market Institute. David is in the Mayo Clinic for some heart related problems according to his lovely bride Margaret.

Bleeding Red Ink

Things are getting worse for the Star Tribune. I wrote last January about a memo that was sent out to employees about how revenue and circulation were down. Well the latest ABC numbers are out and according to MinnPost it's not getting any better.

Despite pledges to the contrary, the Star Tribune continues to hemorrhage print readers, according to an Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) report released today. During the same period, PiPress circulation was essentially flat.
The Strib lost 7 percent of subscribers on Sunday and weekdays between March 2007 and March 2008. That means 40,000 fewer people bought the lucrative Sunday paper; the drop was 24,000 on weekdays.
Here's how Sunday circulation has fallen over the past 18 months:
Sept. '06: 596,000
March '07: 574,000
Sept. '07: 570,000
March '08: 534,000
In the same period, daily circulation fell from 358,000 to 321,000.
The Strib’s Sunday decline was seventh-biggest among the nation's Top 25 papers and its daily decline was the sixth-largest. The Strib remains the 10th-biggest Sunday paper and slipped from 18th to 19th on weekdays.

Despite their "best" efforts, they still have not stemmed the tide of red ink flowing from the offices on Portland Avenue. Of course, some of the reason for that could be the fact that Nick Coleman is still employed there, but that's just a guess.

Will the brain trust on Portland Ave ever get it? Only time will tell, but I suspect that the only way to unseat the entrenched corporate mindset there is for the paper to close. I certainly hope that is not the case - I really don't want to see that happen, but there really seems to be no other way.

Decisions, Decisions...

The fallout continues for Team Franken. Friday and Saturday saw stories in the Star Tribune on the Franken tax issues. Both stories have a common theme....that it is the fault of those nasty Republicans that Franken is having these troubles....

Responding to new Republican charges that DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken hid income from California tax authorities for years, Franken's campaign said Thursday that his accountant is trying to sort out whether taxes are owed.

Republicans, who for more than a year have eagerly unearthed controversial tidbits from Franken's comedy routines and books, have in recent weeks discovered several slip-ups in the celebrity's business life. On Thursday, they claimed to have found another possible irregularity, a charge that has yet to be resolved.

While Republican opposition researchers (or in this case a FORMER Republican opposition researcher) may have uncovered these financial "irregularities", let's be perfectly clear here....the government of the states of New York and California are the ones making these charges...not the Republican Party.

Speaking of Michael....he has posted a video clip from Friday's Almanac program that has some very harsh words for Team Franken.



The most damaging comment is this...

They don’t have a professional seasoned campaign manager and the result is they’re making rookie mistakes. They should have scrubbed Franken, they should have known this beforehand and they should be doing a lot of other fairly plain vanilla, sort of professional activities to set up the campaign.
“…and there’s even some talk out this week, that there’s some folks in the Democratic Party wondering about running in the primary. What’s going on in the Franken campaign is unnerving. Anyone who is a professional, watching this race, it is alarming. This is just not the way a top-flight, top national race ought to be run”

The DFL is at a cross-roads in the Senatorial campaign. They can either find another candidate between now and their state convention, they can find someone to run a primary challenge to Franken (which will no doubt help Senator Coleman perserve campaign funds since he won't have a challenger until September) or they can stay with a Franken campaign that is self destructing at a rapid rate.

Decision time is almost upon us. What will the DFL do? We shall probably know in the very, very near future.

Update and Bump....

Michael has a link to the Star Tribune's Pig's Eye Podcast for today. There were a couple of interesting quotes in the podcast. First comes from Lori Sturtevant of all peopleand it echo's what was said on Almanac last Friday.

This doesn't just suggest disorder in his business life, but also in his campaign and that is what has the DFLers that I talked to over the weekend were actually LIVID about. Why is this now coming to light...at this late in the day...why is it coming to light with dribs and drabs of information from the Republican Party, tee heeing at every turn. Why wasn't this all cleared and vetted TWO YEARS AGO when this man first began to surface as a major potential candidate. This is, after all, one of the premier races in the country.

The second point comes from Doug Grow and it has to do with how long it took Team Coleman to answer the State of New York's claims of impropriety.

They gave an answer beginning with the idea that New York was wrong and that they would get this thing corrected and some weeks went by and they finally issued a fairly indirect statement acknowledging that New York, after all, was correct and I'm not sure that worked so badly for them...I think it's going to be more difficult for them in this case because of the underlying situation feels a little more serious.

We are almost a month away from the DFL state convention which would endorse Al Franken for Senate. He does not have the luxury of having research time. These allegations need to be answered ASAP. Worse - if there are ANY other tax irregularities that come forward, there will be no recovering from it. There is no indication from Franken as to whether he regrets the oversights etc which makes this issue even more troubling. IF there are any further allegations of tax irregularities, you can stick a fork in the campaign because it will be done!

UPDATE II - Welcome Hot Air and Memeorandum readers. Poke around, kick the tires and come back often!

The Sanctity of the Vote.

This is good news for people who believe in the sanctity of one man/one vote.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.
In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to prevent fraud.

One of the arguments against photo ID (as stated above) is that it is tatamount to a "poll tax". However, considering that one has to have a photo ID in order to get a welfare check or other state subsidies, it is a straw man argument. The majority, in their opinion, states why...

The law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy.

Protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process is something we should all be able to agree upon, right?

Unintended Consequences

I have made no secret of the fact that I am not a fan of ethanol mandates. Most of my objections come from the fact that it is the GOVERNMENT directing the direction and not the market. Well Logical Lady Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison had an editorial in the Wall Street Journal and IBD last week that looks at the unintended consequences of the government interference in the market.

When Congress passed legislation to greatly expand America's commitment to biofuels, it intended to create energy independence and protect the environment.
But the results have been quite different. America remains equally dependent on foreign sources of energy, and new evidence suggests that ethanol is causing great harm to the environment.
In recent weeks, the correlation between government biofuel mandates and rapidly rising food prices has become undeniable. At a time when the U.S. economy is facing recession, Congress needs to reform its "food-to-fuel" policies and look at alternatives to strengthen energy security.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article today that looks at the "80 by 50" targets (80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050) that Senator's Clinton and Obama and a score of environmental groups are pushing.

We all ought to reflect on what an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050 really means... Begin with the current inventory of carbon dioxide emissions – CO2 being the principal greenhouse gas generated almost entirely by energy use. According to the Department of Energy's most recent data on greenhouse gas emissions, in 2006 the U.S. emitted 5.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or just under 20 tons per capita. An 80% reduction in these emissions from 1990 levels means that the U.S. cannot emit more than about one billion metric tons of CO2 in 2050.
Were man-made carbon dioxide emissions in this country ever that low? The answer is probably yes – from historical energy data it is possible to estimate that the U.S. last emitted one billion metric tons around 1910. But in 1910, the U.S. had 92 million people, and per capita income, in current dollars, was about $6,000.

What does this mean for the average American household? I'm glad you asked...

Consider the residential sector. At the present time, American households emit 1.2 billion tons of CO2 – 20% higher than the entire nation's emissions must be in 2050. If households are to emit no more than their present share of CO2, emissions will have to be reduced to 204 million tons by 2050. But in 2050, there will be another 40 million residential households in the U.S.
Today, the average residence in the U.S. uses about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity and emits 11.4 tons of CO2 per year (much more if you are Al Gore or
John Edwards and live in a mansion). To stay within the magic number, average
household emissions will have to fall to no more than 1.5 tons per year. In our current electricity infrastructure, this would mean using no more than about 2,500 KwH per year. This is not enough juice to run the average hot water heater.
You can forget refrigerators, microwaves, clothes dryers and flat screen TVs. Even a house tricked out with all the latest high-efficiency EnergyStar appliances and compact fluorescent lights won't come close....

The author then gets to the real point of the "80 by 50" movement.

The clear implication is that we shall have to replace virtually the entire fossil fuel electricity infrastructure over the next four decades with CO2-free sources – a multitrillion dollar proposition, if it can be done at all.
Natural gas – the preferred coal substitute of the moment – won't come close. If we replaced every single existing coal plant with a natural gas plant, CO2 emissions from electric power generation alone would still be more than twice the 2050 target. Most environmentalists remain opposed to nuclear power, of course. It is unlikely that renewables – wind, solar, and biomass – can ever make up more than about 20% of our electricity supply.
Suppose, however, that a breakthrough in carbon sequestration, a revival of nuclear power, and a significant improvement in the cost and effectiveness of renewables were to enable us to reduce the carbon footprint of electricity production. That would
still leave transportation.
Right now our cars and trucks consume about 180 billion gallons of motor fuel. To meet the 2050 target, we shall have to limit consumption of gasoline to about 31 billion gallons, unless a genuine carbon-neutral liquid fuel can be produced. (Ethanol isn't it.) To show how unrealistic this is, if the entire nation drove nothing but Toyota Priuses in 2050, we'd still overshoot the transportation emissions target by 40%.

Emphasis mine. What this means is that our country would have to go back to living back in a pre-Industrial Revolution economy. Are you ready to give up every convenience you have now in order to save Mother Earth? Because that is exactly what this movement will require from you.

The author then gets to the million dollar question...

... However, claims on behalf of alternative energy sources – biofuels, hydrogen, windpower and so forth – either do not match up to the scale of the energy required, or are not cost-competitive in current form.
How on God's green earth will we make up the difference? Someone should put this question to the candidates. And not let them slide past it with glittering generalities.

How indeed. These are questions that Governor Pawlenty, President Bush and the candidates from President all need to consider before they start mandating these drastic, draconian cuts in energy output.

Back In The Saddle

As you will probably notice, I am indeed back in the blogging saddle. I got all of that work for the Open House done and so now I can catch up on all of the good material that hit my inbox in the last two weeks.

I'm ready....are you?

Busses, Trains and Automobiles

I have long stated (during many transportation debates over at Anti-Strib) that I have no problems with commuter rail, but have huge problems with light rail. A couple of things hit my mail box last week that are starting to change my mind altogether on rail.

The first was an email from Rep. Mark Buesgens (R-35B).

The Governor vetoed a $70 million bonding provision for a part of the $900 million Central Corridor light rail line connecting Minneapolis to St. Paul. Let us assume that the cost of the project would not grow.
Even without a government discount or a bulk discount, one can buy a 36-seat transit bus (the CTS rear engine model from Champion Bus Inc. of Imlay City, Michigan) for about $120,000.
So for the same price for the 11-mile light rail line, you could buy 7,500 buses.
These buses are 38 feet long. So the length of 7,500 buses, rolling bumper to bumper, would be 285,000 feet.
The 11-mile route of the rail line is 58,080 feet long.
So you could have five lanes of buses cramming University Avenue, bumper to bumper for the same price as the train.
Or you could have one lane of buses headed in each direction, bumper to bumper, with 4,500 buses waiting in mothballs until they were needed.
Or you could have 100 buses headed in each direction of the 50-block route, with one bus for each block. That would leave you with 7,400 buses in mothballs. With a five-year warranty on each bus, it would take you 375 years to run out of buses.

The second was this Cato Institute Report (via Drew). It thoroughly debunks the "theory" that moving to any kind of rail transit will reduce pollution.

Far from protecting the environment, most rail transit lines use more energy per passenger mile, and many generate more greenhouse gases, than the average passenger automobile. Rail transit provides no guarantee that a city will save energy or meet greenhouse gas targets.
While most rail transit uses less energy than buses, rail transit does not operate in a vacuum: transit agencies supplement it with extensive feeder bus operations. Those feeder buses tend to have low ridership, so they have high energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile. The result is that, when new rail transit lines open, the transit systems as a whole can end up consuming more energy, per passenger mile, than they did before.
Even where rail transit operations save a little energy, the construction of rail transit lines consumes huge amounts of energy and emits large volumes of greenhouse gases. In most cases, many decades of energy savings would be needed to repay the energy cost of construction.

There is much more - you really should read the whole thing and save it!

I'll admit my bias toward commuter rail. Until I moved here, I had lived in cities with vast commuter rail systems (Chicago and in Europe). We simply did not drive unless we had to. My complaint about light rail has always been from that bias....light rail does not go from where the people are to where they want to go (suburbs to city center) but rather it covers territory already served well by busses! I started to convert to Rep. Buesgens way of thinking only after the 35W bridge collapse when I saw just how quickly Metro Transit was able to adapt their bus routes in order to bypass the bridge and to go to those routs hardest hit by the collapse - no rail service can do that!

Today my conversion is complete. After reading this Cato report and it's in depth look at bus versus rail and after reading Rep. Buesgens email, I am fully convinced that the best, most ecologically sound way to get cars off of the road is not rail....it is the good old fashioned bus.

V For...

Vendetta? That certainly seems to be the case for one Minneapolis Democrat.

Minnesota lawmakers introduced a bill this legislative session calling for the state to evaluate any health risks artificial turf may pose for athletes inhaling small rubber particles from the turf and any environmental risks incurred when rain runs off the field into groundwater, rivers and lakes.
The proposal, which did not receive a hearing, also would have required the Minnesota Department of Health to inspect all public fields made of the synthetic materials.
Three Minneapolis Democrats — Reps. Phyllis Kahn, Diane Loeffler and Jean Wagenius — sponsored the bill after some residents protested a proposed DeLaSalle High School stadium because of artificial turf use.

Rep. Kahn has been fighting the DeLaSalle High School stadium for years and HF 4056 is not Kahn's first foray at legislation directed specifically at DeLasalle HS's sports complex. Last year Rep. Kahn proposed HF446 which would have required all sports fields across the state have special shields on their lights - a proposal which would have cost municipalities millions of dollars.

But wait you say...Phyllis is just looking out for the children...she cares about the children...she wants to give them the vote after all. That may be, but if she really cared about the kids (and light pollution) why did these bills ONLY come up after the DeLaSalle stadium was approved. The turf issue didn't even come up until after DeLaSalle decided to put astroturf in their new stadium. If Rep. Kahn really cared "for the children" why didn't she say something prior to this when other schools were installing THEIR astroturf stadium floors?

No, Rep. Kahn does not care about "the children" of DeLaSalle....she is using her position as a state legislature in order to make life miserable for one of her Nicollet Island neighbors...a neighbor that has been on the island much longer than she has (DeLaSalle has been on the island since 1900 - Rep. Kahn since 1983!) and a neighbor that had this land set aside since 1983 to put into a stadium - when the school had the money to do so that is...

Rep. Kahn is no stranger to controversy. In 2004, residents of one New Hope neighborhood caught Rep. Kahn stealing the literature of a Republican legislator and candidate (Rep. Lynne Osterman) and replacing it with literature for the DFL challenger (for which she faced misdemeanor charges). She has also authored some of the most questionable legislation of the last two years!

Rep. Kahn is abusing her power in order to force the people of Minnesota to pay for her vendetta against DeLaSalle. After 36 years, it is past time for this professional legislator to retire. The people of HD 59B and the state of Minnesota deserve better.

Global WHAT?

Yesterday I commented on the "20 Things You Can Do To Stop Global Warming" handout that the Junior Logician came home with. Today I found a couple of stories that I may send him to school with. The first comes from Fox News and it reports that (shades of 1970) we may be headed into another Ice Age.

Sunspot activity has not resumed up after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that — far from warming — the globe is about to return to an Ice Age, says an Australian-American scientist.
Physicist Phil Chapman, the first native-born Australian to become an astronaut with NASA [he became an American citizen to join up, though he never went into space], said pictures from the U.S. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) showed no spots on the sun.
He said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade."This is the fastest temperature
change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,"
Chapman wrote in The Australian Wednesday. "If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."

Of course critics said that Chapman "cherry picked" the data....a charge that never really seems to gain much traction when it is leveled at the global warming zealots!

The second comes to us via the Idaho Statesman and it reports that there is a new anthropogenic global warming denier....and he comes from a very unexpected direction.

Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore says there is no proof global warming is caused
by humans, but it is likely enough that the world should turn to nuclear power - a concept tied closely to the underground nuclear testing his former environmental group formed to oppose.

Needless to say, this call for nuclear power has not gone over well with Moore's former mates.

His critics, like Andrea Shipley, executive director of the Snake River Alliance, say he has simply sold out.
"The only reason Patrick Moore is backing something as unsafe and risky as nuclear power is he is being paid by the nuclear industry to do so," Shipley said.

Sadly, the charge that someone who changed their mind on an enviro issue has "sold out" is a very common one. However, Ms. Shipley's charges that nuclear power is "unsafe and risky" ring hollow when you consider that nuclear power generation IS the cleanest, most environmentally friendly power source out there and it has been much safer than it's detractors fear.

When one looks at the 1991 report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, (UNSCEAR) one would see that the routine generation of nuclear electricity releases only negligible amounts of radioactive materials to the environment. "The average dose any individual in the world receives each year from all of the activities in the peaceful nuclear fuel cycle is less than 0.1 percent of the inevitable exposures he or she receives from natural radiation sources, such as cosmic rays and radon emitting building materials" ( Trudeau 59).

If these enviro-groups were serious about stopping carbon emissions and were serious about cleaning up the environment, they would back nuclear power. It is safe for people and the environment and is a guaranteed source of cheap, plentiful energy. Since they don't, one has to assume that their goals are not to guarantee cheap, plentiful energy for all nations....which leads one to assume that they really want us all to go back to pre-industrial times which is not good for those living in poverty now.

Padding The Resume

The Minnesota Legislature recently passed HF 3902 - the Agriculture Policy bill. Tucked away in the depths of the bill (starting at line 19.19) is an addition to the Minnesota Statutes that I must admit piqued my curiosity.

19.19 Sec. 23. Minnesota Statutes 2006, section 148.01, subdivision 1, is amended to read:
19.20 Subdivision 1. Definitions. For the purposes of sections 148.01 to 148.10,:
19.21 (1) "chiropractic" is defined as the science of adjusting any abnormal articulations of
19.22 the human body, especially those of the spinal column, for the purpose of giving freedom 19.23 of action to impinged nerves that may cause pain or deranged function; and
19.24 (2) "animal chiropractic diagnosis and treatment" means treatment that includes,
19.25 but is not limited to, identifying and resolving vertebral subluxation complexes, spinal 19.26 manipulation, and manipulation of the extremity articulations of nonhuman vertebrates. 19.27 Animal chiropractic diagnosis and treatment does not include:
19.28 (i) performing surgery;
19.29 (ii) dispensing or administering of medications; or
19.30 (iii) performing traditional veterinary care and diagnosis.



Back in the days when I was showing and training horses, I did experiment with "alternative" medical treatments for my horses when needed. I am a huge fan of acupressure and massage therapy for animals as I have seen it work time and time again to treat things as varied as hypertension (I had a thoroughbred horse that was a nervous wreck when we first got him) to colic and related gastro intestinal distress. After 6 months of massage therapy the thoroughbred went from nervous wreck to relaxed cuddle bug (trust me....he did try to "cuddle"). The veterinary medial industry has always been quite open to non-traditional therapies. I know many people who use equine chiropractors and swear by their treatments. However, these equine chiropractors are trained veterinarians! They have gone through years of veterinary training in addition to their chiropractic training. Not so here. You have human chiropractors who are going to just take a few simple classes and then they are going to be able to treat animals.

Apparently, the discussion on the floor was "heated".

"For government to be putting this into law is ridiculous," said Rep. Mark Buesgens, R-Jordan.

This is one of those few times when I have to disagree with Rep. Buesgens but for reasons he would not expect. It is the government's place to regulate who can and can not practice procedures like this. It is part of the licensing process. Where I do agree with Rep. Buesgens is in that I don't think human chiropractors, like Rep. Jim Abeler, should be working on animals.

"Just because it is new or unusual does not mean it is not a good idea," said Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka. Abeler's a chiropractor who said that he doesn't plan to take required training to allow him to work on animals.

I agree with Rep. Abeler that we should not look at new or unusual ideas, but human physiology is very different than canine physiology which is different than feline or equine physiology! A stiff spine and hip dysplasia may appear to be the same thing, yet a chiropractic adjustment will cripple a dysplasic dog for life! Are you ready for that Rep. Abeler?

Stick to working on people Rep. Abeler. Your patients will thank you and my dogs (who may indeed someday need a canine chiropractor) will thank you!

Watching What They Teach Part 2

So the Junior Logician comes home from school today with a hand out that he said he was supposed to give to me. He drags it out of his backpack and when I took it from him and started reading he started laughing. For the headline of this flyer that his class was give was this...

20 Things You Can Do. Here are 20 things you can do to help stop global warming.

Some of the things on their list were common sense things that most families do, not to save the environment, but to save money out of their ever tightening budgets. Things like taking shorter showers, washing clothes in cold or warm water instead of hot, turning off lights and televisions when not in use, unplugging the energy "vampires" (computer chargers and cell phone chargers) when not in use, turning down the heat in the winter...that kind of thing. Some of them fell into the "everything old is new again" category - line drying your laundry (although some people can't do that because of homeowners association regulations). Some of the suggestions were just flat our ridiculous (unplugging alarm clocks because of the energy used to power them) and everything was tied around reducing carbon dioxide.

One of the more ridiculous suggestions on that sheet though was this one:

Buy Locally Grown Food

Let's see....we live in Minnesota where the growing season is what....4 months long? And how are we to get the produce that we need to maintain healthy lives and thus not need health care? Oranges and other citrus foods just do not grow in Minnesota!

Seriously - a lot of the suggestions on this sheet are "well DUH!" suggestions. It's all stuff that is second nature to the Junior Logician (and his family) not because he is an enviro-nut. It is because he (and we) would rather spend our money on other things than runaway energy bills.

Pennsylvania Presidential Ponderings

So Senator Clinton did it...she pulled off another "must win" and is again back in the hunt...so much so that it has caused one writer to delve into the process and opine on "Why Hillary Clinton Should Be Winning."

The continuing contest for the Democratic presidential nomination has become a
frenzy of debates and proclamations about democracy. Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has been particularly vociferous in claiming that its candidate stands for a
transformative, participatory new politics. It has vaunted Obama's narrow lead in the overall popular vote in the primaries to date, as well as in the count of elected delegates, as the definitive will of the party's rank and file. If, while heeding the party's rules, the Democratic superdelegates overturn those majorities, Obama's supporters claim, they will have displayed a cynical contempt for democracy that would tear the party apart.
These arguments might be compelling if Obama's leads were not so reliant on certain eccentricities in the current Democratic nominating process, as well as on some blatantly anti-democratic maneuvers by the Obama campaign. Obama's advantage hinges on a system that, whatever the actual intentions behind it, seems custom-made to hobble Democratic chances in the fall. It depends on ignoring one of the central principles of American electoral politics, one that will be operative on a
state-by-state basis this November, which is that the winner takes all. If the
Democrats ran their nominating process the way we run our general elections,
Sen. Hillary Clinton would have a commanding lead in the delegate count, one that will only grow more commanding after the next round of primaries, and all questions about which of the two Democratic contenders is more electable would be moot.

While there are certainly a number of peculiarities (peculiarities that Sen. Obama seems to be very happy with - as long as they help his campaign) within the Democrats process that do deserve to be roundly derided, it does lead to a more serious question...why can't Barack Obama close this out? Let's take a look at their reasons...one at a time.

RACE: The jury is still out on whether a black man can overcome America's original sin and be elected president.
About one in five Pennsylvania voters said the race of the candidates was among the top factors in deciding how to vote, according to exit polls, and white voters who cited race supported Clinton over Obama by a 3-to-1 margin.
Results from all the primaries suggest that whites who said race was important in picking their candidate have been about twice as likely to back Clinton as Obama.

I think this can put to rest the meme that the Democrats are a "color blind" party.

WORKING-CLASS VOTERS: Obama can't win the presidency unless he starts onnecting better with blue-collar voters.
The New York senator easily won among Pennsylvania voters without college degrees and those from families earning less than $50,000 a year. Gun owners, rural voters and churchgoing Democrats also backed Clinton.
These are the folks who Obama said "cling to" guns and God, an inelegant attempt to explain to San Francisco liberals how GOP operatives exploit Democratic voters in anxious economic times. He bowled (poorly) and drank beer in a feeble attempt to show a blue-collar touch.

No doubt about it....the San Francisco fundraiser hurt the Obama campaign more than he or his staff will ever admit. If he does still manage to pull off the Democratic nomination, this comment will come back to haunt him in the General Election.

FRIENDS IN TROUBLE: The longer the campaign goes, the more questions Obama aces about his friends and associates.
He was forced onto the defensive by incendiary comments by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Friend and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko faces corruption charges. And McCain is raising questions about Obama's relationship with former 1960s radical William Ayers, who has been quoted in an interview as saying, "I don't regret setting bombs" decades ago.

This is something else that is hurting Senator Obama more than he cares to admit. He has surrounded himself with people who are - to put it nicely....an embarrassment.

INEXPERIENCE: It's true that Clinton has never run a government or a business, but many voters give her credit for proximity. They consider her experience as first lady preparation for the presidency.
By any measure, Obama is relatively inexperienced, having left the Illinois Legislature less than four years ago.

Senator Clinton has almost 8 years of Senatorial experience under her belt - compared to Senator Obama's 3. Does that really need any further discussion?

METTLE: Clinton's backers love the fact that she fought Republicans — not to mention the "right-wing conspiracy" — during her husband's presidency. Many Democrats wonder whether Obama is tough enough, a charge that he should be putting to rest in this brass-knuckle nominating contest. But he hasn't.

As we have seen in the last 10 days, Senator Obama has bought into the "Obamassiah" meme - hook, line and sinker. His sense of "predestination" has been a decided detriment as he just does not have the thick skin needed to trade punches with the Clinton's AND the national media. Maybe if he had stayed around Illinois state politics a little longer and mixed it up with Mayor Daley a little more often, he might have developed a thicker skin. As it is, many have already opined that if Sen. Obama can not handle the give and take of a national campaign, what will he do when he is faced with a hostile Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

While the partisan in me is quietly cheering the mayhem that the Democrats nominating process has become, the patriot in me is wishing that there was another option. We need to have a real discussion on the issues that are facing America today - we have real issues that need to be addressed. However, since the cult of personality has taken control, we will never see the discussion that most Americans need and crave.

Making Matters Worse.

Well, well, well...it appears that the Governor may actually be coming around to the common sense take on HF 3391 (HT Gary)

Gov. Tim Pawlenty told legislators Monday that he is concerned that legislation now before a conference committee to revamp Minnesota's health care system might actually drive up costs instead of cutting them.

This has been a constant theme in my posting on this issue.

Health care costs continue to rise at "unsustainable" levels, he said. The Legislature's proposal, he said, would raise those costs further by expanding eligibility for state health programs. He said Minnesota still has "what is arguably the most generous human services system in the country."

Excuse me while I say....DUH! Every argument, every amendment from the House Republican Caucus tried to address that very fact - something that the DFL majority rejected time after time after time!

Under both bills, clinics could qualify for higher reimbursement by establishing themselves as "health care homes."
Those clinics would provide comprehensive and coordinated care, especially for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. An estimated 80 percent of health care costs are spent on people with chronic conditions.
Pawlenty asked the legislators to simplify that concept, apparently after hearing concerns from some health care providers in rural or small, independent clinics who worry that they might not have adequate resources to compete with larger health systems such as Allina and HealthPartners.

Again - these are concerns that the HRCC tried to raise on the floor of the House....concerns that the DFL majority failed to address. Does the Governor really think that the DFL, in their utter arrogance of power, will listen to him raising these objections?

The Strib also (to their credit) reported that Sen Berglin brings up a point that Gary, the HRCC and I brought up during the debate....

Originally, he agreed to spending Health Care Access Fund money to enroll people who are eligible for MinnesotaCare, but he seems to have changed his position on that," Berglin said.
Minnesota has the lowest rate of uninsured people of any state, about 7.2 percent. Of those, half are eligible for MinnesotaCare "and getting them enrolled would be a big step toward universal health coverage," she said.

It would be a big step toward universal health coverage......can I say I told you so?

Seriously, we are talking about a complete overhaul of a system that is serving 92.8% of the people of Minnesota and of the remaining 7.2%, 3.6% should and could be in the system. Rather than make the system worse for the 96.4% that could and should be covered, we need to find a way to get the remaining 3.6% into the system we have now. It's not rocket science....

Questions, Questions...

While I was busy painting and planting and generally getting ready for this week-end's open house, I was paying attention to the news out of Pennsylvania. One comment from Barak Obama that struck me was a remark he made in response to the uproar over his remarks at the San Francisco fundraiser where he said that mid-staters "cling" to guns and religion and are bigots because they are bitter. His comment was how people would take one poorly worded comment...one that was not "properly phrased" and use it to continually "beat" the candidate "to death" over it. I found that comment to be entertaining (to say the least) considering how Senator Obama did the very same thing he is complaining about (beating an opponent over the head with an out of context comment) to both Senator Clinton and McCain! Yet he claims to be a "different" less divisive candidate?

Another story that came up last week was Senator Obama's ties to former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers. About the time that story was really gaining traction (on the internet) I was on a field trip with the Junior Logicians class to the Minnesota History Museum. They are hosting a travelling exhibit "The Enemy Within:Terror In America 1776 to today". A large portion of the exhibit was dedicated to the Weather Underground and their activities. It was a vivid reminder of a period of my youth that I had forgotten (the Weather Underground had a base of operations in the Chicago area).

Which leads us to today.....Logical Lady Carol Platt Liebau asks a very pertinent question over at Townhall.com today.

For those on the left who would like to characterize these ties as no big deal, a thought experiment might be in order. What if Eric Rudolph, the unrepentant bomber of abortion clinics, someday ended up "moving in some of the same political and social circles" as a Republican presidential candidate, donated to him, and introduced him at a political event at Rudolph's home? Would it matter -- or would it be just an unimportant as they're trying to convince us the Ayers-Obama association is?

Would it matter? I think we all know the answer to that...

Taxing Our Businesses To Death?

Much has been said, this week, about the impact of the Delta/Northwest merger on the Minnesota economy. There was much wailing and gnashing of political teeth about the announcement that there was "no chance" of the corporate headquarters of the combined entity staying in Minnesota. While the loss of jobs from Northwest (and 3M moving another operating unit out of the state) is important, small business is the heart and soul of the Minnesota economy and the small business environment in Minnesota is not a healthy one (H/T TN reader James)x when it comes to taxes.

The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council's "Business Tax Index 2008" ranks the states from best to worst in terms of the costs of their tax systems on entrepreneurship and small business. The Index pulls together 16 different tax measures, and combines those into one tax score that allows the 50 states and District of Columbia to be compared and ranked.The 16 measures are:
1) state's top personal income tax rate, 2) state's top individual capital gains tax rate, 3) state's top corporate income tax rate, 4) state's top corporate capital gains tax rate, 5) any added income tax on S-Corporations, 6) whether or not the state imposes an alternative minimum tax on individuals, 7) whether or not the state imposes an alternative minimum tax on corporations, 8) whether or not the state's personal income tax brackets are indexed for inflation, 9) property taxes, 10) consumption-based taxes (i.e., sales, gross receipts and excise taxes), 11) whether or not the state imposes a death tax, 12) unemployment tax, 13) whether or not the state has a tax limitation mechanism, 14) whether or not the state imposes an Internet access tax, 15) gas tax, and 16) diesel tax.
The 15 best state tax systems are: 1) South Dakota, 2) Nevada, 3) Wyoming, 4) Washington, 5) Florida, 6) Alaska, 7) Texas, 8) Colorado, 9) Alabama, 10) Mississippi, 11) South Carolina, 12) Tennessee, 13) Missouri, 14) Ohio, and 15) Virginia.
The 15 worst state tax systems are: 37) North Carolina, 38) Nebraska, 39) West Virginia, 40) Hawaii, 41) Idaho, 42) Vermont, 43) Massachusetts, 44) New York, 45) Rhode Island, 46) Maine, 47) Iowa, 48) California, 49) Minnesota, 50) New Jersey, and 51) District of Columbia.

Emphasis mine.


Breaking down the individual measures. Minnesota ranks 44th worst in the nation in the personal income tax rate (put another way we are the 8th highest in the country), 46th (or 6th highest rate) in personal capital gains tax rate, 48th (4th highest) corporate tax rate, 48th in corporate capital gains tax....the ONLY place where we break out of the bottom 10 is when we get to personal property taxes (based on a share of personal income) - there we are actually the 17th best in the country and State/Local Sales, Gross Receipts and Excise Taxes where we rank 20th but that was based on 2004/2005 - prior to the Twins Stadium and Transportation Bill sales tax increases!


Contrary to what Minnesota 2020 tells us, Jason Lewis is correct when he says that Minnesota's tax environment is almost the worst in the nation! We are taxing our citizens and our businesses out of the state. We need to pressure our legislators into doing the right thing for people of Minnesota.

Exposing Stuart Smalley

Pity poor Al Franken. When he was simply a satirist/author, he only had to worry about Dave Pierre debunking the "facts" in his many books. Now the author of "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Liar", "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" and "The Truth With Jokes" has to deal with a different kind of truth.....one that put's Franken in the same light as fellow DFLer Lori Swanson. It appears that not only did Franken not pay Workers Comp Insurance premiums on his employees (as first reported by Michael Brodkorb at Minnesota Democrats Exposed) he also has not paid corporate income taxes in California for the last 4 years (again as first reported by MDE). Michael has laid out the trail of spin, excuses and changing stories from the Franken camp as both stories gained traction in the local traditional media.

What voters should find worrisome is that, like Swanson, candidate Franken has engaged in activities that would render most Republican candidates unelectable and would have your average Tom and Teri Taxpayer fighting for their home, their belongings and their very freedom. If Conrad Corporate CFO had used the same accounting "methods" that AFI CFO Alan Franken had used in filing his state income taxes (which was to basically quit filing taxes) Conrad CFO would not only be fighting to stay out of jail, but he would be campaign fodder for every candidate from Hillary Clinton on down the ticket. If Bob Business owner had retaliated against a whistleblower in the same way that AG Swanson retaliated against Amy Lawler, he would be the poster child of every business wrong for every DFL candidate running for state house this year. The double standard here is, quite simply, stunning.

And that, in a nutshell, is why when you run for office you have to be sure that you have a squeeky clean past - that all of your personal and business dealings ARE on the up and up. For if you don't, you can be guaranteed to find that those failings will become part of the campaign at some point in time.

Watching What They Teach

Today, like many other school days, the Junior Logician came home from school with a loaded backpack. Unlike most days, he was quite eager to tell me about his day. It seems that CLIMB Theater was at their school today to give a demonstration on.....GLOBAL WARMING! Apparently, their discussion was based on the "fact" that anthoprogenic global warming was real. They told the kids that oceans were rising and would flood the coastal areas, that it will kill the elderly, damage crops...all the usual scare tactics. Oh and it was all their fault because they watch TV and play video games. They were told that "everyone believes in man made global warming". Well, maybe not everyone...

Perhaps the folks at the CLIMB Theater would like to meet John Coleman. Mr. Coleman is a meteorologist who just happens to be the founder of a little known entity called "The Weather Channel". Mr. Coleman called anthropogenic global warming the "greatest scam in history!" Then, perhaps we could move on to Fred Godomski and Paul Knight, Senior Lecturers at Penn State University. They believe that the data is not all in and may actually have been misinterpreted. After that, we can go meet with NASA administrator Michael Griffin who said "I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists, I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with". Then we can go on to meet many other folks who are not so certain that anthropogenic global warming is "fact".

Many of the "facts" that CLIMB threw out at the kids have been questioned, starting with the biggie....if man is the cause of global warming, what did man do in the Stone Age the cause the ice that covered most of this great state to melt away (forming our beautiful 10,000 lakes)? How many emissions spewing SUV's and factories existed in the 1400's to cause the Midieval Warm Period?

The real facts....facts that should be what our schools are teaching, is that scientists just don't know what is causing the climate to change. They THINK it could be solar activity, they THINK it could be a lot of things including human activity.
More importantly, this is all the more reason why parents need to be fully involved in what the schools are teaching their kids. Don't take it for granted that their science classes are teaching scientific meathod and curiosity.

I think maybe I will have a chat with the Junior Logician's science teacher tomorrow.

Things That Make You Go Hmm.....

Last Saturday, Michael reported that Rep. Ron Erhardt (R?-Edina) was at the 3rd CD DFL Convention last Saturday. Not only was he there, he was recognized by the assembled Democrats. Today MNBlue (HT PIM) raises an interesting question....

Last Saturday, I saw Rep. Ron Erhardt (R-Bloomington Edina) at the MN-03 convention. This is the second time I've seen him at a DFL event since the budget override. He also attended the SD41 convention at Bloomington Kennedy High School. I saw him talking to DFL Party Chair Brian Melendez last Saturday.
What do y'all think they were chatting about? The weather?It's a little late
for Ron to defect as we have an endorsed candidate Kevin Staunton running against
whoever wins the Republican primary ... if Ron's still going to run. Obviously, Brian wants DFLers to win in every district and would never do anything to weaken any DFLers chances, but I would love to be a fly on the wall if they two of them ever did meet for coffee or something like that.

I suspect that the conversion is indeed complete here. Rep. Erhardt is supposedly talking about running as an independent. We know that he is like Rep. Abeler....he feels that the HRCC "stabbed" him in the back (forgetting that the first blow was delivered when he voted AGAINST the caucus on the veto over-ride....pesky stubborn facts...). Knowing this, it would not surprise me to see Rep. Erhardt caucusing with the DFL House Caucus should he win re-election in November.

I suppose this is just one more reason to make sure that Ron Erhardt is retired from the House in November.

Quick Personal Note

As you may recall, I am in the process of trying to sell my house in a very slow market. We switched agents over the weekend, in the hopes that a new marketing strategy may be what we need to get this going. The new agent has given me a rather long punch list of tweaks and things to do to ready the house for showing so my posting is going to be sporadic at best. I will still try to get a post or two out a day but it will likely be in the very early morning or late evening.

Normal posting to resume as soon as the punch list is complete.

Signs Of The Gathering Storm

The not so sublte hints from the anarkids just keep coming. Just take a look at today's sumbission: "Learning from the 'Battle In Seattle' - If protests had started earlier, it may have been possible to stop the WTO"

On Wednesday, in Room 205 of Blegen Hall, the yeast gathered to discuss protest
and possible "direct action" strategy far in advance of the Republican National Convention.
They are the Students for a Democratic Society, which took its name and inspiration from the 1960s activist group which helped organize massive protest and resistance to the Vietnam War.
On Wednesday in Blegen Hall, these SDS "usual suspects" gathered with their shiny-eyed idealism, their colorful scarves and their love of granola to watch a movie called "This Is What Democracy Looks Like," which tells the story of the massive 1999 protests at the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle.
I'd never seen the movie before, but I was there in 1999 so it made me teary-eyed and it almost gave me flashbacks as gas canisters were fired in the direction of the camera person's lens.

Oh the nostalgia.....seriously - I worked very closely with some folks who put up with the WTO protests in Seattle. Their memories of the time are probably less than fond ones....

What gets me is that the author of this opinion piece was a student in 1999 and is STILL a student. NINE YEARS LATER!

For years I've thought, "How could it have been done differently?" My conclusion: if one of the participants had tossed a few fliers into the Starbucks store explaining why this was a radical political action targeting a particular corporation, and not just some stupid, ugly, inarticulate act of vandalism and looting, then the media "spin" would have been totally different.
I don't support window- smashing except, perhaps, to exit a burning building. But I am particularly opposed to window-smashing lacking any articulated political argument. So to all the bandana-masked anarchists out there I say: this time around, be slightly less stupid.
(Oh, yeah, I'd also like to point out Minneapolis-St. Paul is full of vacant houses abandoned by folks involved in mortgage fraud. Hint, hint.)

Emphasis mine. won't hold my breath waiting for Coleen Rowley's swift condemnation of THIS implied threat of violence.....after all, the author is not Chris Baker or some other "right-winger"...Maybe David Mindemann can mention it....after all he is sooooo concerned about accuracy and all.

Second, we made a grave tactical error by starting the big protests on the first day of the WTO events and ending most of the street demonstrations around the time the conference collapsed. If massive protests had kicked off a week early, it may have been possible to stop the WTO conference from ever happening.

We failed, big time.

Take note Minnesota.....the troublemakers (I refuse to call them anarchists because you can't organize anarchy) are organizing and they are getting ready. It is time for responsible citizens to stand up to these losers and tell them that their "actions" are not representative of Minnesota and they are NOT WELCOME HERE!

Zero Common Sense

Parents of Minnesota school children take note. This will be coming to a school near you if the Governor signs HF 3391.

Children in a New Zealand school have been banned from bringing cakes to share on their birthdays, due to new government healthy eating guidelines.

I am one of those parents. The Junior Logician's birthday always seemed to fall on a school party day so I would bring cake for him to share with his classmates. It was a "thing" for us all through grade school. The teachers enjoyed it, the parents enjoyed it and (most importantly) the kids enjoyed it. Now the government wants to end that.

Is there really anything else we can say on this...other than how stupid are we to allow this kind of intrusion into our daily lives?????

Food For Fuel

AAA and I have long written about some of the problems with corn based ethanol. Over a YEAR ago, I wrote about the tortilla shortages in Mexico. The shortages have finally gotten so bad that the UN talking about stepping in. Yet our Governor insists on boosting our corn ethanol mandates! Well I hope all of the corn ethanol acolytes are happy seeing this.

For most Americans, the rising prices at the supermarket are definitely an annoyance, but hardly a threat to life and health. It's a different story in countries like Haiti, where food inflation has led to real hunger and, last week, to riots.
News reports say the poorest Haitians are trying to get by on cookies made with dirt, vegetable oil and salt. Food riots also have roiled Egypt and led to a general strike in Burkina Faso in West Africa. The high cost of corn, wheat, soybeans and other basics of the world's diet could soon start bringing down governments.

Emphasis mine.

I am all for finding alternative fuel sources. However, not at the cost of the poorest of the poor in the world. We need to quit burning food in our cars....it's that simple.

Relief

In a way, I am relieved that this story ended the way it did.

When a pit bull kills a child, "all of us want to find a person who is responsible and to hold them accountable," Hennepin County District Judge Kevin Burke said Friday.
But Burke decided that Zachary King Sr. was not guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the death of his son "Zack Jr." from a pit bull attack in the family home last August.

I say in a way because I am torn. What Mr. King Sr. did (keeping a dog he knew to be dangerous around his kids) was so excruciatingly stupid...but to put a man on trial for manslaughter for this....I just think losing his child and then going on trial for it was probably punishment enough. Keeping an unsocialized intact male dog with no training of any size or breed in the same home with small children and a breeding female is a recipe for disaster.

Last summer, we brought Captain Jack home. Jack is a mini-Australian Shepard - a herding breed. His instinct is to chase his "sheep" and nip them in the heels in order to get them moving. He nip, people react, the action is reinforced. Because he is an "intact" dog, he has that aggressive male nature that is necessary for survival of the species if he were in the wild. We are not, so we are working very hard to train that instinct out of him! We do NOT lock him up in a damp dark basement with no contact other than at meal time...and that is exactly what Mr. King did to his dog.

Which in a way speaks back to what I had been saying during the initial course of the BSL debate here in Minnesota....ANY breed can become "mean" given the proper set of circumstances. No training and no socialization is a guarantee for a bad dog....whether it is a little ankle biter or a 200 pound Great Dane.

Bonding Bill Follies

So yesterday afternoon, I got an email from a reader who had seen my prior posts on the bonding bill and said "you might be interested into what the real priorities were" in the City of St. Paul. The email included two PDF files. The first was on City of St. Paul letter head and bore the title "City of St. Paul 2008 Legislative Agenda - Top Priorities" Included in these priorities were the following.

Central Corridor: The Legislature must identify and commit $280 million in state funds for the Central Corridor this session. Failure to do so will result in significant and costly delays. The City of Saint Paul supports Ramsey County and Met Council’s request for this project.

Five Capital Projects: The City of Saint Paul has several capital projects that will improve service to residents and visitors throughout the state. The Legislature should fund the following:
Minnesota’s Event District - $41.25 million state loan forgiveness & $43 million in state bonds
Como Zoo Gorillas Exhibit - $11 million
SPORTS Initiative - $15 million for Midway Stadium renovation and $10 million for soccer park
National Great River Park - $3.8 million for Upper Landing Revetment and $6.0 million for Bruce Vento and Lilydale Regional Park
Asian Pacific Cultural Center - $5 million

So out of a bonding bill of $925 million dollars, the City of St. Paul specifically asked for $362.05 million of it! That is over 1/3 of the total bonding bill....and they cry because they bore the brunt of the cuts?????

While most of the bonding bill items were indeed removed, the $41.25m in debt forgiveness and the $43m in state bonds are still on the table.

So the City of St. Paul wants the rest of the state to pay for their toys? Mayor Coleman.....I need a new car...how about I get the legislature to make you buy that for me? I think that's fair...don't you?????

HF 3391 - Wrap Up

Well, it was not as long of a night as it was a week ago during the "War of 1812" but it did try to come close. It was also rather eye-glazingly boring at times - especially when the proponents of 3391 got into the defense of the more murky "conceptual" themes of the bill like the "Health Care Homes". There were times when Gary and I were joking that we should request combat pay for sitting through all of that (even though he didn't live blog it). However, if you didn't allow it to bowl you over, there were some very educational moments in the debate.

First and foremost to me were the multiple times when DFL members admitted on the floor that this was a universal health care bill (as I documented in my amendments post last night) although they were mostly on point when they used the euphamism "payment reform" to try to hide the real intent of the bill.

There were, however, a couple of surprise moments last night. First and foremost was how close the vote was on Rep. Finstad's amendment. The fact that the amendment failed by only 4 votes is, to me, very significant. It also tells me just how close we are (thanks to modern technologies like ultrasounds) to finally turning the tide on abortion! That vote alone was a real ray of hope for me. Second was the diversity and the depth of knowledge in the House Republican Caucus. I heard a lot of different members get up and lay out facts and figures and data on this issue that was staggering! They came loaded for bear and there were times when the ONLY defense that the Democrats could fall back on is "where is your plan and why didn't you bring it up before?" - a question that Minority leader Seifert threw right back at them by saying "you shut us OUT of the process until tonight".

The "freedom heros" from last night were Rep. Steve Gottwalt, Rep. Laura Brod, Rep. Paul Kohls and Rep. Mark Olson. All 4 gave some of the most reasoned (and at times very impassioned) defense for a Minnesota Health Care Network that has kept us the "Healthiest State in the Nation". Honorable Mention has to go to Rep. Finstad and Rep.Larry Hosch for putting up amendments that did strike at a couple of the more glaring omissions of Universal Health Care - prenatal and elder care.

Notable surprises were Reps. Madore and Faust voted against the bill. Rep. Madore maybe not too huge of a surprise. She is representing a very conservative district - a district she narrowly won two years ago and she is facing a tough opponent this year.

Another not so surprising vote was Rep. Jim "It's only one vote" Abeler who voted AGAIN to give big government more control over your life. Even after he spoke to great length about how flawed the bill was.

All in all the debate went about the way I expected. The DFL led majority ran rough shod over the minority trying all the normal parlimentary tricks (germainness rulings etc) to keep the minority from putting up common sense amendments to protect the people of Minnesota. It's back in the Senate's hands for Conference now. We'll have to see what happens next.

Busy Morning

I have a very busy morning ahead of me, but I promise I will get a recap of last nights debate on HF 3391 up as soon as I can. PLUS I got a nifty gift from a reader on the Bonding Bill that is guaranteed to make your weekend. Check back later this morning or early afternoon for some very fun content.

HF 3391 - Floor Debate and vote?

Rep. Abeler is speaking making several good points. He said that while much progress was made tonight, this bill has a way to go. He said that there are concerns about the financial aspects of the bills that need to still be addressed.

Rep Gottwalt goes into details on the financial concerns. Rep Kohls mentions the universiality goals in the bill. He mentions that if the benchmarks are not met, individuals could be forced onto health care (98% will be covered by X). He said that the benchmarks have no means of enforcement. He mentions that Rep. Sertich's cry of "where's the Republican plan?" was misleading because the majority kept the minority out of the negotiation process.

Rep. Peppin leads of quoting PJ O'Rourke - if you think healthcare is expensive now...wait until it is free! She then goes on to remind the gathering that MN IS good at providing health care to it's citizens...let's not forget that. Of the 7% who are not insured, half are eligible for EXISTING PROGRAMS. This may be a great idea, but it cut out half the solution - private industry. She then rips into RomneyCare - saying that it is falling apart under the weight of the regulations.

Rep. Erhardt got up next (after a brief announcement from Rep. Sertich on road conditions and conditional lodging allowances) and said that he was uneasy about the wishy-washy letters of recommendation that the author (Rep. Huntley) provided. He said that he would not be comfortable going to a doctor that gave that kind of recommendation.

Rep. Olson got up and asked Rep. Huntley again about the personal clinicial allowance. Rep. Huntley said that staff checked and the personal clinicial was not in other laws impacting health care. Rep. Olson thanked him for the answer and then asked if the commissioner can not reallocate costs, it implies that the commissioner can reallocate other fees. Rep. Huntley said that it would come from savings...Rep Olson clarified and asked where the savings would go? Rep. Huntley talked about more savings. Rep. Olson went back to note the 11 different ways cost shifting is used in this bill even though the authors swear there is no cost shifting in the bill and that the answers he got above were more examples of cost shifting! He said that there IS rationing in the bill and we go home and tell people we provided them with "affordable" health care but at what cost? We need to stop telling them it is free because it is NOT.

Rep. Seifert is up now. He said that repeatedly tonight we were asked "what would the GOP do?" One thing we would do is have had the bill on the floor sooner. We tried to put our plan up in pieces (amendments) which were voted down and in one chunk that was ruled non-germane. What we would have done was to have had a free market system. This is not a free market system. We would reform welfare, we want more INDEPENDENCE and less dependence. We would NOT put Katrina style bureaucrats in charge of the Mayo Clinic and our other hospitals. We would have the government get out of the way of the consumer to allow them to make their own decisions in their care. Rural hospitals are very nervous about this bill. They are politically savvy enough to not come out and say they think the bill is horrible, they are couching their "endorsement" in language that says "I hope you can fix this first". You are going to dump thousands of people into a plan that Rep Huntley admits will be bankrupt by 2012 guaranteeing you will either have to raise rates or dump those thousands of people back OFF of the plan. We want something that is real...real reform...this is not going to do it. They are not going to see any relief out of this bill. They are only going to see people move in here from out of state in order to get benefits. Let's put together a bill that the Governor can sign and we can pass 134-0.

Rep. Huntley got up (I hope he is last...I am ready for sleep) and thanked the staff that has worked on this over the summer, fall and winter. He handed out two editorials both from the Star Tribune that beg that the bill pass. He goes back to the letters of "endorsement" saying that the groups do support this bill.

VOTING - 83 Ayes - 50 Nays the bill passes. Good night folks. Wrap up will post in the morning!