Speed Gibson

12. "At Issue" cut to 30 minutes

11. KTLK-FM Morning Show gutted, releasing Kelly Guest and the 8-9 hour.

10. "Taxpayers League Live" moves to KTLK-FM in January.

 9. Despite all the schilling for the new stadium on WCCO-AM, the Minnesota Twins move their broadcasts to KSTP-AM.

 8. Patrick Campion leaves "The Patriot Insider" on The Patriot, the toughest interviewer on the radio.

 7. Ember Reichgott-Junge takes a much-appreciated leave of absence from the "Face Off" segment on "At Issue" while running for Congress.

 6. Michael Brodkorb is exposed.

 5. Wendy Wilde is deposed before I can even review her show.

 4. "Taxpayers League Live" returns to the Patriot.

 3. King Banian and Michael Brodkorb get their own show on The Patriot.

 2. Jason Lewis returns to the Twin Cities airwaves.

 1. Ron Rosenbaum is finally gone!

I finished city number 13 in my walking quest, the City of Fridley. By finish I mean that I have walked every public street (except freeways and pedestrian unfriendly highway segments). I was favorably impressed and now a regular customer of Bob's Produce Ranch.

It took 23 trips for a total of 204 miles, using Bob's and Menard's as my "Park and Walk" launch points. As always, I make sure to do some business at such private establishments each trip.

Next is the tiny city of Hilltop located within Columbia Heights, then Columnbia Heights itself.

I am close to logging 3,000 miles over nearly 5 years to date. Winter will slow me down some, but this still remains a great hobby for me, not to mention a great complement to my comparitively new Weight Watchers diet.

Turner Classic Movies served up another gem recently, "Don't Knock the Twist" starring Chubby Checker, made in 1961. It was low budget by any standard, but it's a wonderful look back. And as music videos go, I'll take several of its segments over most modern fare. Oh, and this movie was a sequel!

I was in the eighth grade when the twist craze happened. I even remember watching Chubby Checker give twist lessons in short film features on Bill Carlson's "Nite Cappers" after Dave Moore's "The Bedtime Nooz" after the iron mining sponsored movie Saturday nights on WCCO-TV.

What makes my heart sigh most is how nice everyone looks, even the band. They're all wearing matching coats and ties - suits, in fact. And Chubby looked fantastic. I had forgotton how handsome the guy was. And nobody does the twist like Chubby Checker.

The music was fun, too, and there's something about Chubby's signature style of twist music in particular. A steady yet peppy base with some old doo-wop in the background. (ooooooh! bop! bop!)

File this under: "I wish I had a Mr. Peabody Wayback Machine."

Jackie Mason was only warming up considerting Hillary Clinton as a candidate for President Wednesday when he filled in for vacationing Laura Ingraham. Then it was Barack Obama's turn. Again, this is an edited transcript, mostly for brevity.

Now the same kind of a story we have right now with Barack Obama. Two years in the Senate, but because he’s tall and he’s only slightly black, nobody knows how black, and everybody has a guilty conscience about somehow inventing a black President because there’s a collective guilt in the white population of America and because he doesn’t look like he’s going to hurt anybody, he doesn’t look like he’ll start a riot like Sharpton, and he’s doesn’t look like he’s obnoxious like Jesse Jackson, he sounds very respectful, and because he sounds respectful I can understand why you should make him a head waiter in a restaurant. Or maybe he should be a doorman. A doorman is also a job for a respectable looking person who accomplished nothing in his life.

Two years in the Senate, nobody could think of a bill that he ever brought up, nobody even mentioned an accomplishment that he ever created, all they know is that he wrote a book. Who wrote the book? Do you believe it was him? I doubt it very much. That’s beside the point.

Let’s be honest about it. He’s more of an invention of the press even than [Hillary Clinton]. If he was a tall white man or a short Jew, do you think after two years in the Senate having accomplished nothing that he would be the hottest candidate for the Presidency? It’s inconceivable that he would be. It’s exactly the opposite of what people think and like to say, that somehow if you’re Jewish or you’re black, the world is against you and it’s impossible to run for high office or ever to win.

That’s a great cliché, but it’s also a great fraud. You have every advantage if you’re black. I don’t want to belittle the fact that black people were always discriminated against and suffered great injustices in this country; they certainly have. But that’s in the past, that’s nothing to do with today. Let’s stop living in the past. The simple fact is if you’re black and you want to run for President, and if you’re tall, that’s enough. If you say hello without starting a riot, they’re ready to vote for you.

Let me tell you why this man is nobody and should be relegated to some back bench someplace instead of running for President. When you stop to think that not only has he accomplished nothing how he disagrees with himself, floundering about on every side of every issue in public. He’s a man of no conviction at all and I’m going to prove it to you with these sound bites:

"I am somebody who has not embraced gay marriage. I’ve said that it’s not something that I think this society is necessarily ready for. It strikes me that in a lot of ways for a lot of people it may intrude in how they understand marriage. But I also think that we should create civil unions for gays and lesbians that allow them to have the same basic rights as all people."

In other words, he’s slightly for it, almost against it, and wherever he stands, it’s somewhere in the middle of both sides so that you can’t say that he’s either for or against it. Some people would be against it but that doesn’t mean that he’s against it. On the other hand, he’s for civil unions which everybody is for anyway, so he’s safe on the civil union question. In plain English, he’s ducking and hiding on this subject.

"We have to have some control over our Southern border. The very idea of a nation involves being able to define who comes in and who comes out and who’s a citizen and who’s not. We now have twelve million people here who came illegally, but many are rooted in the community, and have children who are citizens. We will not deport them. As a practical matter, we can’t unless we devote all of our law enforcement resources towards that."

In other words, he doesn’t know where he stands on that issue. Do you see any real answer to that question? There’s no answer to the first question. There’s no answer to the second question.

His two most popular opinions are “on the one hand” and “on the other hand.” You could say this, you could say that, and on the other hand you could say either way. Therefore, I stand firmly on the side of being able to tell you that I got no opinion again. However, if I have an opinion you could interpret it this way. If you want to interpret it another way, it’s up to you. I myself know that I stand for something but I’m not going to tell you what it is because I’m running for President and I’m taking no chances. That’s what he’s really telling you.

"Take the example of big government versus small government. My instinct is that the current generation is more interested in smart government."

You hear this? So he doesn’t know if he’s for or against big or small government. He’s for smart government. Well, this is at least an answer. Do you know anybody who’s in favor of dumb government? He’s for smart government. That’s brilliant. For this we need a guy who’s an original thinker. You know how profound that is, that we should have smart government instead of dumb government? If somebody told you that, would you say this is a great President, I’ve got to vote for this guy – he wants a smarter government. There’s nobody else who wants this. We gotta vote for him. We gotta find him because if God forbid, he leaves, we’ll never find out the answer to this question.

This is a man talking about nothing and going nowhere, but only to the press is he a hero.

After the break:

We’re talking about the fakery of Barack Obama. I’m not trying to pretend that he’s a fraud or a fake like a Carter, who’s a miserable, sick human being. I’m just saying that he has no business being a candidate for President of the United States. If he wasn’t a tall black person, this would be impossible. I’m not against a tall black person but I want to use the same barometer of judgment for a tall black person as I would for a short Jew. Do you belong in this job and because of what?

"I was among the two-thirds [for the Iraq war] when it was two-thirds for, but we got distracted in Iraq. We ended up, I think, pursuing a course that was based on faulty intelligence, fudged numbers, a shading of the truth, and we are seeing the results. So I have said repeatedly that it make sense for us to begin a phased withdrawal of our troops."

There might have been faulty intelligence, but when was there fudged numbers? And when was the shading of the truth? What right do you have to make an accusation that was never proven by anybody? Who fudged the numbers? Who shaded the truth? It’s easy to make meaningless statements that sound very popular because the war is unpopular. What’s your position except for the fact that you can tell lies and imply shadings of the truth and fudged numbers that never happened? If you can’t prove it, don’t say it.

"I will serve out my full six year term." — Early 2006

"I would say that I am still at the point where I have not made a decision to pursue higher office but it is true that I have thought about it over the last several months." — Late 2006

In other words, you’re saying that you’re a liar, a rationalized liar. We don’t need another fake in the Presidency of the United States. We had enough with Nixon and Carter. We don’t need another one. Nothing he says makes sense on any level, and nothing he accomplished means anything. The man is a fake candidate who is an invention of the press just like Hillary Clinton is.

As with my prior post, I think Jackie is a bit over the top here again but his arguments are sound. For those who would voice outrage, this is nothing compared to the personal, lewd, banal treatment that Republicans regularly received on Air America this fall. Show me first where you protested that.

A steady diet of Jackie Mason would get old fast, but once or twice a year is a nice treat. Kind of like Sean Hannity.

Chad the Elder at Fraters Libertas heardJackie Mason filling in for Laura Ingraham yesterday. Poor Jackie's sinuses had him sniffling, coughing, and wheezing throughout, but like Chad said, it was neither boring nor predictable.

In fact, Jackie really took the gloves off near the end, going after Senator Barack Obama. He set this up by first drawing a parallel with Senator Hillary Clinton. Here is an edited transcript of that opening act:

Barack Obama is an invention of the press, just like Hillary Clinton is an invention of the press.

When you ask anybody, “what did Hillary Clinton ever accomplish?” they can’t think of anything. But they say they love her. I’m talking about the people who intend to vote for her. Ask them: what did she accomplish? Do you know that not one of them can think of anything? All they know is that they like her because of what she does. Where? This they don’t know. What did she ever do? This they don’t know.

She came up with a health care program about fifteen years ago that almost buried President Clinton. That’s why he lost the whole Congress in the 1994 election. It was considered the most devastating failure of any idea for a program … in the history of committees in this country. It was a worthless, hopeless, ridiculous health care program that has never been mentioned since because it would destroy America if we passed that program.

So if a person came up nothing but one failing idea that was so preposterous that it was forgotten about the day after it was mentioned, … would [this] make you a Presidential candidate?

And then this after a break:

This only proves how the press can invent a personality. We have a Democratic Party press here. There’s not even the slightest attempt from the press of America to be non-partisan or offer equality of opportunity for the opposite side. They print nothing and say nothing that’s ever complimentary to the other side, so they’re basically a one party press. It’s as if we lived in a dictatorship. If it happened in China, they would say there’s censorship and that’s what you get in a dictatorship. Here, without any official announcements, we have a basic dictatorship of a one party press, just as if we were ruled by an army who threatens the press if they say one good word about a Republican.

A little strong, but certainly more right than wrong. I post his Obama remarks tomorrow.

This is national "fill in host / best of" week for Talk Radio. In a way it's frustrating, but I think the time off does us listeners some good, too.

Actually it was great hearing Sue Jeffers filling in (with Dan Conry) for Jason Lewis tonight. And Walter Williams will be on Rush Limbaugh this Friday, even if it's too late to get his unique perspective on what to buy the wife for Christmas.

The late Gerald R. Ford was President of the United States from 1974 when Nixon resigned through early 1977 when Jimmy Carter took office. He holds a number of distinctions, including the longest life and the most years after he left office. And by the way, he kept his mouth shut these last 30 years regarding his successors.

As you've no doubt heard, he is the only President to serve without having been elected, either as President or Vice-President. As such, he is also the only President in at least 100 years not to break a campaign promise.

Gerry Ford left me with two key memories: the Nixon pardon and the "Whip Inflation Now" (WIN) buttons. I was very upset with Ford's pardon at the time, but time has since cleared my vision to realize that he did the right thing. There was no point sending Nixon to jail or having an extended trial. It wouldn't have passed the "Global Test" either, as much of the world thought Nixon, an amateur compared to their own crooks, was already getting a raw deal.

Though it rightly holds a permanent place in the Hall of Idiocy, Ford's idea for "WIN" buttons reflected the general ignorance of the times. Nixon before him had tried wage and price controls, a failure like every other attempt to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand. Carter after him said it was our fault, like a crowd at the football stadium all standing up to get a better view, the same view we'd get if we all just sat down. None of them understood the problem, though Carter at least appointed Paul Volcker who did to head the Federal Reserve.

Ford's tenure was an important one, a transition from scandal to normalcy that certainly Spiro Agnew couldn't have hoped to do had he been around. Ford was perhaps the original "amiable dunce" and therefore not at all controversial except for the pardon. That pardon cost him the election in 1976, but without Carter, would Ronald Reagan have been elected in response?

Ford didn't do anything terribly well, nor anything terribly bad. At the same time he was the steady, reassuring hand we needed at the time. Gerald Ford's faith in America and devotion to its principles was never in doubt.

I appreciate and applaud his service to us all.

Our decision to end our 35 year subscription to the Minneapolis Star Tribune continues to have significant effects. First, editor Anders Gyllenhaul bails to The Miami Herald. Now, the paper has been sold as expected, but at 50 cents on the dollar which seems to have surprised everyone.

Oh, there is spin about such a loss being necessary to offset other gains for tax returns. That's bunk, even at confiscatory Death Tax rates which don't apply here. The tax reductions soften the blow, but it is still a big loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to seller McClatchy.

I remember the late Louis Rukeyeser's maxim that the buyer of a stock thinks it's on the way up while the seller thinks it's on the way down. The latter is obvious enough here. But is the new owner, Avista, thinking the value will now increase, especially under their management?

Officially there are no changes yet, from Publisher on down. Yet. But look to see job cuts in 2007, much as with the St. Paul paper. Some changes, like dare I hope Sid Hartman's long overdue retirement, will not only save money, but improve the overall quality. So would, as James Lileks has proposed, eliminating the Opinion/Editorial department.

One thing Avista might be betting on is the demise of the St. Paul paper, which seems increasingly likely, finally giving the Strib the expansion to the east side of the metro. Or, perhaps they'll execute another shrewd buyout and merger.

The one thing that seems least likely is a commitment to improving the balance and quality of the paper. That would require an admission that these have been lacking of late, especially under Gyllenhaul. Don't hold the presses.

I'm in good company this week. Both this blog and Mitch Berg's Shot In The Dark were dissed by Willie Clark yesterday morning. I'm just a recreational blogger, one who looks way up to the nationally known Mitch Berg. We are both gainfully employed, but Mr. Clark figures we are just "out of work losers" who can't get hired in radio. I've never even tried, but Mitch does more in two hours a week than Clark does in a week. Oh, and I received this additional judgement: "He's an idiot."

I love radio and always have, even to the point of regularly listening to old time radio from the 1930's, now so easy via the Internet. I remember when I first heard "Surfin' Bird" on "Wonderful Wee-gee W-D-G-Y" in the 1960's. I heard the beginnings of local talk radio in the 1970's, then national shows like Larry King in the 1980's. Then came Rush Limbaugh, the EIB that launched a thousand more programs. So I think I have above average standing to review and critique radio programming.

I reviewed the new Willie Clark show in January, noting he had a problem with pausing, ah's and um's, perhaps because he didn't seem to have much to say. Listening to this hour in question, it sounds like the addition of a co-host has solved much of this problem. The content problem, i.e., the lack of it, seems to remain.

I truly wish the "Willie and Jay" show was better, and had a larger audience as a result. With the dismantling of the KTLK-FM Morning Show, I'm "homeless" again in the mornings, drifting from station to station, even sports now and then.

They say any book is a new book until you're read it. Quite by accident I saw a listing for "The Big Country" on Turner Classic Movies. It was rated four stars out of four, and starred Gregory Peck. That and the fact that I had never heard of it was enough to make me record it on the DVR.

I recognized the often played theme music immediately, though, written by Jerome Moross, and nominated for an Academy Award. I just never knew to what it belonged. And oh, does it ever belong to this picture, a simple tale of the West and cattle and a feud over water rights. And yet it's just as the promos say: "Big they fought! Big they love! Big their story!"

Like "Captains Courageous" and a couple other recent personal discoveries, this film has already moved into my top 25 or so. Excepting for the score, any one aspect of it seems ordinary enough, maybe even trite: the stars, the cast, the scenery, the dialog, the plot, the romance, the action. But patiently told, pinned against the long flowing fabric of the memorable, almost haunting music, it's nearly three hours of wonderful, vicarious pleasure. Call it a guilty pleasure if you like, as with "The Quiet Man."

I wonder how many other great films "before my time" I've yet to encounter.

Per Powerline, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has decided to take no action against Steve Berg, who "accidentally" plagiarized The New Yorker at least twice. In a flourish reminiscent of former Senate Majority Liar Dean Johnson, Berg published this statement (as quoted in Powerline):

"Reacting to a right-wing blog, the newspaper found unintentional insufficient attribution in a fraction of 1 percent of my work," Berg said. "I'll put that up against anybody."

This is one remarkable statement.

First, there is no apology, to The New Yorker, to the readership, or to his employer. Even the shortest of apologies would have sufficed. It's the adult thing to do. But if there was one, the AP didn't report it.

Second, as with Editor Susan Albright's statement, Berg assumes that since it was (allegedly) unintentional, this excuses the repeated offenses. People suffer consequences for unintentional acts all of their lives. The acceptance of this "unfair!" reality is one of the ways we distinguish adults from children.

Third, implies that a fraction of one percent for plagiarism is a good score for a journalist. Like Americans in general, I don't have a particularly high opinion of journalistic ethics. But I do believe that most, as in 90% or more of journalists don't plagiarize at all. They may practice other forms of deceit as with second hand smoke and global warming, intentional or not, but they use their own words to do it. Only a child offers this "we all do it" excuse.

I'm not saying that these particular acts of plagiarism merit dismissal or even a reprimand. That's between Berg and his employer, though we as readers are free to react accordingly. It is this arrogant statement that should earn Steve Berg a one way summons to the Publisher's office.

I had no idea that our decision to end 35 years of subscription to the Minneapolis Star Tribune would have so shaken Editor Anders Gyllenhaul, who resigned this week. The Nihilist in Golf Pants has some more likely reasons, like the fact that the Minneapolis Star Tribune hasn't won a Pulitzer the past 15 years. Instead, talk show hosts and bloggers have mentioned it as a leading candidate for the worst (major) paper in America.

Gyllenhall is moving to The Miami Herald, which has won 7 Pulitzers in the same timeframe. He'll put a stop to that!

The long term employees of the Strib should be happy. Their counterparts in Miami should be concerned. In less than five years, Gyllenhaul's low standards have accelerated the decline of this paper to where even I won't buy it.

I don't and won't expect the new editor to change the paper's politics or favoritism. But I don't think it's too much to ask for an improvement in the quality of the writing itself. Enough with this "dark and stormy night" slop. Enough with burying key facts in paragraph 22. Treat me like an adult, which at a minimum means fire Nick Coleman and Kate Parry. More fact checking, less spiking please. You report, we decide.

To that end, I'm holding the door open for the new editor. If the quality observably starts going up again, I'll be back as a subscriber.

In the latest Limbaugh Letter, Rush has a telling spread on pages 12-13 entitled "That was then, This is now."

On page 12 are Time Magazine covers and a number of media quotes arranged like a Google search. The time: 1994. The subject: incoming Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In fact, it's called Newwwwwgle. As you remember, Mr. Gingrich received pretty rough treatment up and down the dial. Howard Kurtz is quoted from CNN's "Reliable Sources" on November 20, 1994:

Newt Gingrich has gotten a ton of publicity ... But there's been kind of a mean edge and harshness ... that I wonder if we would see with an incoming Democratic Speaker of the House."

Wonder no more.

On page 13 opposite is Peloogle, with the same sources like CBS, ABC, CNN, Newsweek, and the Washington Post now fawninng over incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Newt, master of the "politics of anger" was "one scary white man" in 1994, whose "Contract with America" threatened the human species. Recently Botox'd "bipartisan" "polished" and "dignified" Nancy is wearing Armani, oh and really not as liberal as the Republicans or her voting record would have you believe.

It would be interesting to pull the then and now equivalents from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Via NDE, the creator of comic book hero Green Lantern has died.

Like Mr. Brodkorb, I was a fan of Green Lantern, the 1959 reincarntion to be specific. The "Golden Age" Green Lantern was consigned to Earth-2, with an occasional appearence on Earth-1. We live on Earth Prime, with only occasional visits from superheros.

The original Green Lantern had one of the silliest costumes ever, and his ring was powerless against wood. The 1959 Green Lantern had a much better costume, but his ring was also flawed, powerless against anything yellow.

But the ring I really wanted belongs to the evil "Power Ring" of Earth-3. His ring apparently has no weakness, not even the need to recharge from the Green Lantern battery.

The big draw of all the Green Lanterns was that we could all imagine owning a ring like that, protecting us from harm, allowing us to fly, do time travel or visit the other Earths in the dimensional chain. Anything else you just wished for, and green psycho-plasmic energy comes shooting out of the ring to do the rest. Just be sure to charge it, saying the oath:

In brightest day, in darkest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power, Green Lantern's light.

Oh, and by the way, the 1959 Green Lantern, test pilot Hal Jordan, eventually went nuts and killed himself.

Mitch Berg has a fine post on Lori Sturdevant's latest musing:

[Lieutenant Governor Candidate Judi Dutcher would] like to see the lieutenant governor become the governor's liaison to the Legislature and the people.

This is classic exercise in delusion on several planes, starting with the notion that the Lieutenant Governor has any power or significance while the Governor has a pulse. Unlike her counterpart at the Federal level, she can't even break a tie in the Minnesota Senate.

Quick: who was Lieutenant Governor under Arne Carlson? Jesse Ventura? and Rudy Perpich? (answers below)

With her calendar thus cleared, she is free to set her own course, with or without the consent of the Governor in fact, since she's elected, not appointed. So what's a Lieutenant Governor to do? Real work like the incumbent, Carol Molnau? No, Dutcher had something more important, more needed in mind, the High Commissioner of Happy Thoughts.

"My job would be to work with every legislator, both sides of the aisle — get to know them, personally and professionally, and ask what issues are facing their communities. What can we in the governor's office do to work with them to get the best results?"

You see, she has "genuine worry" about the "widening divisions in the state's body politic." She was going to travel the state as our liaison, holding "regional forums" that would bring "fresh ideas and more citizen input to bear on public problems."

"We'd bring together elected officials and the best public policy leaders in this state, to understand the emerging trends and how we can address them together," she said. The topics she expected the forums to address, just for starters, included the aging of the population, business development, environmental protection, and education improvement.

Who needs a Legislature? Seriously, isn't that their job? We have campaigns and elections that do all that. Yes, those forums can get fractured and boisterous, but once settled by election, we accept the verdicts and proceed with the sausage making. It's too late to run around organizing a bunch of second guessers. (That's our job as bloggers!)

Granted, there are divides along several lines. Perhaps they are wider than they should be. Personally, I think that's simply because as government grows it affects more people in more ways, increasing the chances of disappointment and frustration. Even if all of the benighted Republicans and rural representatives capitulated to the anointed Minneapolis DFL delegation, the obvious solution envisioned by Dutcher and Sturdevant, the "chasms" would remain.

In short, Judi Dutcher doesn't seem to understand or trust how our state democracy works, a point completely missed in this rather giddy piece by Lori Sturdevant. Carol Molnau does.

***

Answers to quiz: Arne Carlson was elected with Joanell Dyrstad (1990) and JoAnne Benson (1994). Jesse Ventura ran with Mae Schunk. Rudy Perpich's running mate was Marlene Johnson, serving from 1983 to 1991. Alec Olson became Perpich's Lieutenant Governor in 1976-79 when Perpich became Governor by way of Wendell Anderson's resignation/self-promotion to U.S. Senator.

The buzz is on. Expect a statewide smoking ban in 2007. Governor Pawlenty will sign it. That's a given. But I wonder if the Legislature shares his enthusiasm.

The Minneapolis-based DFL leadership no doubt will press hard to get this passed as "two wrongs make a right" relief to the own constituents currently suffering from the local bans. They assume that patrons now fleeing to Anoka, Dakota, and other nearby counties will return. Yes, the crime rate is high, but it should start dropping. Mayor Rybak promises more police and Mike Freeman will soon replace Amy Klobuchar next year as County Attorney.

But will the outer ring suburb and rural legislators want to do to their clubs, VFW's and American Legion posts what Minneapolis and Hennepin County did to so many of theirs? Rural communities are particularly dependent on the philanthropy of these clubs, money that will now have to cover the lost business as in Hennepin County now.

This strikes me as a good issue with which to start the rebuilding of the GOP. Oppose it, demand hearings, wait for the proof that never arrives about second hand smoke being so lethal as to require such an extreme measure. If the DFL presses on, then propose outlawing smoking period, making the DFL vote against it to preserve all that lovely tax money.

Most likely we'll get voted down and skewered in the press regardless, so why not at least have some fun with it? In fact, why not secretly measure the parts per million in the Legislative chambers and compare it to the Park Tavern?

I didn’t think it could get this bad. I never thought I would come to this. But as for me and my house, our subscription to the Minneapolis Star Tribune will not be renewed next month.

I have subscribed to this paper all my adult life. I have taken issue with those who went before me that cancelled their subscriptions, as in this post from June 2005:

OK, I've had my fun with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. But I again see numerous appeals to cancel our subscriptions, and I will not. The case is increasingly compelling, but still an overreaction.

I believe at least a third of the news room is trying and generally succeeding to get it right. Erik Black, for one. I believe that another third are trying but generally unaware how prevalent their biases are. Dane Smith comes to mind. And yes, there's the final third or so that need a fresh challenge at another paper. You know the names.

The ratios will vary, but almost every organization has a similar "portfolio" of workers. Even if we were put in charge, the problem really wouldn't go away. You might change the percentages, you might at least swing the bias to the right, but it will still be a less than perfect product. And suppose you bring them to their fiscal knees? Then what?

Like other major dailies, most of what you read is correct and useful. But by reading it with a trained eye and drawing on other sources such as on cable or the Internet, you'll be able to sort out the rest.

Stop subscribing, and you'll soon stop reading. Stop reading, and you'll soon stop learning, particularly regarding local events and issues.

I stand by my analysis then, that overall, I was better informed to read it than not. Since I believe in paying for services rendered, such as they are, I have maintained my subscription, about 35 years to date.

I no longer believe that the Minneapolis Star Tribune is worthy of such support. I'm sure I'll buy a copy now and then, such as when school test scores are published. But they won't have my subscription to entice advertisers any longer.

I was very upset with the election coverage, but I made myself wait a month after the elections before deciding, only to see still more examples of shoddy work.

That's what bothers me most of all, and should bother the many past and present hard-working staff at this paper: the declining quality. The concise, accurate, informative and respectful prose of the 1960's has given way to allegorical story telling, laced with hidden agendas. The individuals, groups, projects, and policies receive little scrutiny. The rest get something between dismissive skepticism and outright libel.

So here are my top eleven reasons why we're dropping the Strib:

11. Tolerance of Plagiarism

10. Denial of a Conflict of Interest regarding stadiums

9. Repeated use of false information about Ethanol, Light Rail, and a dozen other pets

8. Nick Coleman's thorough (and unpunished) research

7. Kate Parry, Apologist in Chief

6. Rochelle Olson's hit pieces on Alan Fine

5. Global Warming, as in how those who quote actual facts are regarded

4. Referring to Dennis Prager as a "gasbag"

3. The Minnesota Poll

2. Dropping the ball on the "Flying Imams" and related downplaying of jihadist terror

1. The repeated, unexplained refusals to accurately portray Keith Ellison, even to the point of ignoring many prior articles they themselves published.

The Patriot (AM 1280) has a great lineup on Saturdays of live local programming. Taxpayers League Live starts at 9 AM, followed by three distinct installments of the Northern Alliance Radio Network (NARN) at 11 AM, 1 PM, and 3 pm.

It's a lot of programming to hear live, especially on days as nice as this Saturday, so I record it, catching up later with what I didn't hear live. They're on Townhall.com also, but I notice that last week's shows (Dec 2) aren't out there yet.

Anyway, I was really impressed with "The Final Word" from 3-5 pm this week. This is the newest segment, featuring bloggers King Banian (SCSU Scholars) and Michael Brodkorb (MDE). What I particularly like is their focus on local events and politics.

This week's installment was great, with live reports from the Republican State Central Committee meeting from Michael and from delegate/blogger Andy Aplikowski (Residual Forces).

Michael and Andy agree on some things, but clearly differ on many more, particularly on the performance of GOP chair Ron Carey. It was a good contrast, with King noting that this may be premature until someone else steps forward to say "I'd like that job!"

In the second hour, with Brodkorb sidelined by the famine seemingly planned to limit debate, King explored some economic issues. Particularly interesting was the cost of building a typical new house in St. Cloud. The land is less than $12,000, but the permits and hookup charges are over $30,000. Granted, there are some direct costs like attaching to the water and sewer mains, but the city's net profit is about $15,000 a home!

So while having heard and enjoyed the other six hours now, I hereby declare "The Final Word" to be best in show this week.

Same as the Old Boss?

[Attorney General Elect Lori] Swanson said Thursday that she has asked fellow DFLer Hatch to consider serving as a regular assistant attorney in the office.

Perhaps he would have special responsibilities for assembling a team of lawyers who handle particularly complex litigation, she said.

Hatch is an "incredibly talented" and "phenomenal" attorney, Swanson said, "and when you have a team, you look for all the talent you can find."

-- Minneapolis Star Tribune 07-Dec-2006

This is a first-order management mistake for a new leader. It confuses your subordinates and customers alike as to who's in charge, making you look weak. In the case of Mike Hatch, it's worse, given his fiery, vindictive record, both personal and professional.

There is no need for this, regardless of Mr. Hatch's presumed abilities. As Charles DeGaulle observed, "the graveyards are full of indispensable men." I would further add that Hatch's record was clearly not exemplary, particularly in the area of criminal law enforcement.

This also begs a moral question for Swanson: if you weren't up to the job, why did you run? You worked many years in the department, enough time to know what's expected. You presented yourself as competent before the voters, only to now suggest - maybe not?

If Swanson is feeling overwhelmed, I have a better idea for her. Why not offer the deputy job to, say, Jeff Johnson whom you defeated? His passion is criminal law enforcement; yours appears to continue being consumer protection. Working together would raise the performance of this office to a new high.

Through the magic of Comcast and DVR, I saw Al Gore do much of his slide show on the Oprah show. In a word, this was scripted, right down to the concerned looks Oprah kept offering.

Actually, Oprah did give a critic a little over a minute, specifically Marlo Lewis, a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, self-described as "a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government." Here's what he said:

"An Inconvenient Truth" makes it seem as if we can reasonable expect twenty feet of sea level rise in our lifetime, or at least the lifetimes of our children, inundating the coastal cities of the world, [and] most of Florida. This is sheer science fiction. There is not a single scientific study that provides evidence that this is happening or likely to happen.

Mr. Gore warns that half the Greenland ice sheet could break off, slide into the sea or melt. In fact, if you look at the actual loss of ice in Greenland and what it translates into in sea level rise, it's about one inch over a century.

Several studies show that the entire continent of Antarctica is actually gaining ice mass. That's an inconvenient fact that is nowhere mentioned in the film.

Al Gore wants to scare us green. He wants us to be very frightened of global warming. The warming that we've seen over the last thirty years is constant and modest, and in all likelihood will give us a modest amount of warming in the next century. And therefore it's nothing to be afraid of.

And Mr. Gore's response?

Well, first of all, Greenland and Antarctica are wild cards, and Greenland particularly is being destabilized.

But let me make this point. This is kind of a new phenomena where we have organizations [like this one] that gets most of its funding from large sources of pollution. And what they crank out are so-called studies that are designed to make people think, hey there's no problem, just let us keep on putting as much pollution up there as we want. Don't make us be responsible.

But what about the expert opinions? Look at this study, Oprah.

A graphic appears:

Number of scientific studies dealing with "climate change" published in scientific journals during the previous ten years: 928

Number disagreeing with the global consensus that greenhouse gas pollution has caused most of the warming of the last 50 years: 0

Continuing ...

Gore: The University of California, this is a solid study, they reviewed every peer-reviewed expert journal article on global warming for the previous ten years.

Oprah: But this last guy, he was an expert, too.

Gore: Well, if you think about the peer-reviewed experts who are actually specialists in the field, this is a review of every one of their articles for the previous ten years, a big sample of ten percent. None of them disagreed with the main consensus. There are some aspects of this issue where there is a continuing debate around the edges, but the central consensus is as strong as it ever gets in science.

That last statement is total nonsense, of course. In fact, his whole rebuttal after he gets done shooting the messenger isn't much better. How curious that after firmly portraying the eve of destruction facing Greenland and Antarctica, now they're "wild cards" that are "destabilizing" - whatever that means.

Here's what I think is the most telling fact of all. If there's all this scientific support, why does this movement get or need a second class intellect like Al Gore leading it? I'm sorry if I'm blunt, but over the years Mr. Gore has shown himself short on facts and incapable of critical thinking in almost all the areas he projects competence. Gore is a good presenter and debater, however, as Ross Perot found out. That's what a specious theory must have, a seeming learned, even a bit garrulous apostle. It also must play out in a political arena, where truth and merit are not exactly the coins of the realm.

11:18 PM I'm liveblogging a cable outage, only I'm not really going to blame Comcast. It's our friends the Safety Nazis who somehow have made it a requirement to wire the Emergency Broadcast System to take over all channels from time to time to broadcast weather bulletins, Amber alerts, and tests.

Today you may have heard the sirens being tested as usual at 1 pm on the first Wednesday of this month. Apparently they also do a test on cable as well. But like the M-5 unit, the override will not disengage.

I tried calling the 800 number and after a couple of "please waits" got a message that they're just too swamped with calls to even think about handling mine. Click.

Yes, it's Comcast's system, but I think the Safety Nazis deserve all the blame here. I was recording Top Chef when this struck, meaning I probably lost the end of the episode. This show is repeated several times, so it's no big deal.

11:34 PM The outage is over, about 30 minutes total. I see it wiped out the recording of White House Christmas with Dr. Phil's wife that my wife had set to record. She'll have to wait until Friday night's encore. I lost the last 6 minutes of Top Chef, so I'll be up to 1 AM for the replay.

I sent Comcast an email, asking how I can contact the Safety Nazis directly to complain. We'll see what happens.

What a shame to lose John Bolton as our United Nations Ambassador. What a disgrace that dweebs like RINO Senators Lincoln Chaffee and George Voinovich should have had a hand in this ugly proceeding. So now what, given the loss of Congress next year?

I say, leave the position vacant. As far as I'm concerned, Bolton was the last chance for the United Nations. Bolton pressed hard and impressively for the U.N. to develop a little courage, i.e. become relevant again if it ever was. This is no longer possible now.

So if I were President Bush, I'd leave Bolton's job vacant for the next President to decide. Oh, I'd tell the Democrats to give me a list of acceptable candidates, then dismiss them one by one. Or, appoint Harriet Meiers.

But what if we need a Security Council veto? So what? Let them pass whatever they want. If we don't like it, stop all (remaining) funding immediately. Try to tax us or drag an American into a U.N. Court and we'll deport the lot and dynamite the building.

It's an opportunity to end this fairy tale called the U.N. that should be explored.

Lately, I've been recording Lionel Barrymore movies on Turner Classic Movies. What a talent, and what a find this time - "You Can't Take It With You" from 1938.

As if Barrymore wasn't enough, he plays against Edward Arnold, a favorite character actor of mine. He also did the "Mr. President" series on radio. A young Jimmy Stewart is business mogul Arnold's son who falls in love with Barrymore's daughter, played by Jean Arthur. Arthur was Jimmy's love interest in "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" also. I started thinking, good as Donna Reed was, that "It's a Wonderful Life" would have been better still with Jean Arthur as Mary.

Anyway, it was a fun show from start to end, with a few teachable moments. File this under "only in America" too.

Can we agree that the "Republican in name only" is a failed strategy? Right or wrong, Iraq fatigue was clearly the major factor in the 2006 election losses, but after that, when it was time to say "yes, but" we Republicans had little credibility, especially at the state level.

Taxes? Pawlenty led a charge to raise them and the GOP legislators obliged. Spending? Up a little in 2003-4, up big in 2005-6, with hardly a peep from the GOP legislators. Democracy? With considerable GOP help, the Twins stadium bill passed and Pawlenty signed it, lest we in Hennepin County decide the matter. Education? Increases in real money, phony accountability. Transportation? A new light rail slush fund now has top priority per the Constitution. Health Care? You ain't seen nothin' yet, with Pawlenty an all too willing accomplice.

If I understand AAA correctly, the State GOP leadership is still talking about "get out the vote" efforts, when a return to "limited government" first principles is what's needed. I can think of no better way than for the Taxpayers League of Minnesota to hold another signing ceremony in January as the Legislature convenes.

Yes, let's bring back the "NO NEW TAXES" pledge, put it before the GOP legislative delegation - and the Governor - and see who signs it.

With a large budget surplus forecasted, there is clearly no need to raise taxes this biennium. Make the pledge a two year commitment and there is no excuse not to sign it. No doubt a few RINO's will not. I say, invite them to caucus with the DFL. Rebuild the party around the real Republicans who do sign it.