July 2005

« June 2005 | Main | August 2005 »

Apocalypse Soon

By the whopping margin of 74-26, the U.S. Senate approved the disastrous new energy bill which passed the House yesterday. The bill now goes to President Bush, who has said he will sign it into law. Features of the bill hasten our path toward energy oligarchy and heighten the prospect of new wars over scarce resources. Read the grim details from the following press release from the Nader watchdog organization, Public Citizen.

July 29, 2005

Senate Approves Energy Bill

Bill Now Goes to President Bush for Approval

The U.S. Senate today approved the energy bill conference report (H.R. 6, "The Domenici-Barton Energy Policy Act of 2005") by a vote of 74 to 26, clearing the legislation for approval by President Bush.

The bill is a smorgasbord of special-interest giveaways for the fossil fuel and nuclear industries, which received more than two-thirds of the tax breaks. The bill is not a forward-looking energy plan for the 21st century, but rather a behemoth booster for Big Energy. Attempts to block the bill ultimately failed. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) raised a point of order charging that the energy bill's steep price tag violates the Senate's budget rules, but the Senate voted 71-29 to waive the rules.

This bill, which will become law when the president signs it, does the following:

*Repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA), a vital protection for electricity consumers. PUHCA prevents the massive consolidation of unregulated utility ownership and prohibits non-utilities -- such as oil companies, investment banks, and foreign companies -- from owning public utilities.

*Promotes a nuclear power relapse, lavishing the mature industry with billions of dollars in subsidies and other incentives that could cost taxpayers more than $13 billion.

*Federalizes the siting of liquefied natural gas importation terminals, stripping states of the right to oppose such projects.

*Provides $4.5 billion in tax breaks and more than $7 billion in authorized subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and eases environmental regulations for oil and gas drilling and refining.

*The bill will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil or reduce gasoline prices.

Absent from the final bill were measures to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration and a product liability waiver for producers of the fuel additive MTBE that has contaminated groundwater across the nation. Republican leaders have declared that they want to get these measures as part of other legislation.

Posted by Britt Robson at July 29, 2005 4:11 PM | Comments (0)

 

What song is it you want to hear?

An acoustic experiment testing the audibility of live classic rock in the urban environment has established that the song "Freebird," can be heard across a three mile-diameter in neutral wind conditions. Observation points for this St. Paul research project, titled "Rockin' Ribfest 2005," varied widely in altitude and topography and included the High Bridge, Cherokee Heights, the Wabasha Street Bridge, the Science Museum, and the Xcel Energy Center. The sound source was Jimmie Van Zant, whose amplification equipment was located on Harriet Island. (The question of why Harriet Island is called an island, when it is clearly connected to land, fell outside the perameters of Rockin' Ribfest 2005, though the subject bears further study.)

Data involving the song "Sweet Home Alabama," also played by Dr. Van Zant, were incomplete. None of the researchers involved in the experiment consumed any ribs.

Posted by Michael Tortorello at July 29, 2005 3:57 PM | Comments (0)

 

Overheard: Ask not, want.

Filed under: Overheard

Location: The bottom of Ramsey Hill in St. Paul, Tuesday night, 7:55 p.m. A bearded traveler stands at the traffic light, shouldering an old, external-frame backpack. He has the hollow look of a man who spends his time in places where no one else would want to be.

Above the wash of traffic, a command trumpets out of the megaphone on a St. Paul cop car: "You better not even be thinking of begging."

I blow through a red light. The cops don't say a word.

Posted by Michael Tortorello at July 29, 2005 2:43 PM | Comments (3)

 

The Franken factor

Would-be senatorial hopeful loses out to a pill-popping blowhard

If Arbitron ratings are any indication of Minnesota's changing colors, it would seem that our once-blue state is turning the hue of an ugly and painful recent bruise: bright purple in the center with edges of swelling red. According to a press release from Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates The Rush Limbaugh Show, Al Franken's Air America show has half the listeners as Rush Limbaugh's, and that's in the blue-blooded city of Minneapolis, about five minutes away from Franken's birthplace of St. Louis Park.

29,200 Minneapolitans are listening to the dull sound of Limbaugh repeatedly beating his chest and blasting "activists" on a daily basis, while only an average of 13,700 are tuning in to Franken's show. What's most perplexing about these numbers, however, is that when broken down by Minneapolitans age 25-54, Limbaugh brings in 14,100 local listeners, meaning that a huge chunk of his Minneapolis audience supposedly is either over 54 or under 25. Maybe it's Limbaugh's Club G'itmo gear that kids and young adults find so amusing: "Hey, kids! Let's reduce an unforgivable and shameful atrocity to a product for profit! It's the American way!"

Yet it's the awful, sex-infested video games, movies, television shows, and popular music that are turning our nation's coddled kids into a bunch of violent, detached drones who are so programmed by this evil they're capable of, say, finding things like abuse by American soldiers not only justified, but utterly hilarious--or even worse--having (gasp!) sex before marriage.

Posted by at July 29, 2005 1:15 PM | Comments (7)

 

A first time for everything

Libertarians do something funny

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that government officials may "take" land owned by private individuals and sell it to developers. If it hadn't been for the scary headlines generated by Sandra Day O'Connor's subsequent resignation, tracking the dogfight between pro-capital conservatives against constitutionalist conservatives sparked by the ruling, Kelo v. City of New London, might have been at least a little amusing. (Often the swing vote in recent years, O'Connor authored a sharp dissent to Kelo, leading some pundits to speculate that the case might have been the straw that drove her from the bench.)

We've got to hand it to the members of the Libertarian Party. Usually a humorless lot, they have conjured the perfect stunt to illustrate Kelo's absurdity:

Signatures are being collected for a petition to ask the town to use Justice Stephen G. Breyer's 167-acre Plainfield property to create a "Constitution Park" with stone monuments to commemorate the U.S and New Hampshire constitutions, said party Vice Chairman Mike Lorrey....

Breyer supported the decision, as did Justice David Souter. Earlier this month, a member of the libertarian Free State Project suggested that the town of Weare, about 45 miles southeast of Plainfield, make Souter's home into a "Lost Liberty Hotel."

Read the whole Associated Press report here.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at July 29, 2005 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

 

It's the economy, stupid

With unemployment among single mothers up--predictably--welfare reform doesn't seem so successful

According to a study released this week by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, employment rates for single mothers lag far behind their married counterparts--and the gap is widening. The numbers put the lie to the notion that the 1996 federal welfare reform law has been a success.

It has been widely recognized that the strong labor market of the latter 1990s was a critically important complement to welfare reform. The success of welfare reform was in large part predicated on low-income single mothers spending more time in the paid labor market, and in the words of welfare expert Rebecca Blank, the program "got lucky." At the same time that policy changes were pushing single mothers into the job market, the unemployment rate was headed for its lowest level in 30 years. Thus, the demand for low-wage labor expanded more than quickly enough to meet the increased supply (which explains why these workers' wages rose as well).

As shown in the chart, however, employment of single parents has fallen markedly in recent years. In fact, their employment is down much more than that of married parents, suggesting that single mothers are facing a particularly challenging job market.

The short, to-the-point EPI report, which can be viewed here, doesn't note as much, but it's clear to virtually any working mother that the job market is only half of what's up here. The other half is the gutting of childcare funding in recent years--well over $100 million in Minnesota alone.

How is Mom supposed to keep that $7 an hour job when licensed care for just one of her kids easily tops $200 a week? That's a question Pawlenty, Bush, and other right-wing proponents of the Ownership Society have never even attempted to answer. It's terribly shortsighted, not least because in punishing single mothers for what the hawks assume is their licentiousness, they are in fact consigning a whole new generation to permanent residency in the very underclass they're trying to eliminate.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at July 29, 2005 9:48 AM | Comments (0)

 

She'll always have Baghdad

In Twin Cities media circles, taking potshots at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and parent company Knight Ridder is popular, if somewhat cruel sport. The paper has opened itself to a lot of legitimate criticisms in recent years. It has titled rightward, it has more or less abandoned coverage of Minneapolis and it has slapped around its employees with an unseemly zeal.

All that said, the Pi Press has produced plenty of good reporters. Take Hannah Allam. Two years ago, Allam was chasing crime stories in the suburbs of the Saintly City, a righteous if not entirely thrilling gig. Then she rolled the dice and accepted a job with the Knight-Ridder bureau in Baghdad, where she won accolades and eventually rose to the position of bureau chief.

A few weeks back, she caused a stir in the blogosphere when she excoriated Pi Press editorial page writer Mark Yost for his boneheaded attacks on the Baghdad press corps.

This week, Allam announced that she would be leaving Iraq for Cairo. And who can blame her? A few observervations from her interview with Editor and Publisher:

"When I first started, there was a real collegial press corp," she explained. "We knew Iraq was dangerous, but not for us. In the old days, we could travel, the coverage could be comprehensive and complete and you could have a life. Go out to karaoke at night or to parties."

But, in the past few months, Allam said the atmosphere had dramatically changed for journalists. "It suddenly came that you couldn't travel," she said. "You begin to wonder if you can give your readers a full picture. It is extremely difficult and not as much fun."

Posted by Mike Mosedale at July 29, 2005 9:46 AM | Comments (0)

 

Rybak's budget bulge

Or is the mayor just happy to see you?

For all the things Mayor R.T. Rybak will say about his accomplishments, it should be noted that at least one of them is true: He has managed to steer the city of Minneapolis during a time of financial crisis.

"This is the sixth balanced budget I've had to deliver in four years," Rybak crowed during Thursday's proposed-budget address, a familiar refrain of his that is, in fact, a fact. Two of those budgets came under dire circumstances: One was deigned to clean up a shortfall that the outgoing mayor and city council members left for their successors, the other came about because of cuts to state-funded Local Government Aid passed down during Governor Tim Pawlenty's first budget balancing shenanigans.

At the end of the recent legislative session, some $5.85 million of LGA was restored to Minneapolis. Finally, Rybak beamed in front of a packed council chambers, there was some wiggle room for 2006. "This is a budget I've wanted to deliver for four years," hizzoner said.

Other city leaders, however, did not share his enthusiasm.

The main point of Rybak's proposed budget for next year calls for 71 more police officers on the street, though 60 of those potential positions had been restored when the LGA dollars came through in early July. (The LGA money for 2006 will be nearly $94 million, compared to $80 million in 2005 and $82 million in 2004. In 2003, before the cuts, the city received $117 million in state aid.)

Rybak also touted that $72 million of debt had been reduced in the last four years, though he and the city council alleviated much of that burden by taking out bonds to pay it down--a rare practice that is charitably viewed as a last resort. And the budget includes a citywide property-tax increase of 8 percent, though that was pretty much a given--something laid out in a five-year budget plan earlier in Rybak's tenure.

So, the mayor expects the city to operate on $1.3 billion in revenue for 2006, a three percent increase.

Rybak went on to talk about "new standards" for fire safety, "a plan to end chronic homelessness," and "protecting Minneapolis." A PowerPoint presentation during the address claimed that "Public Safety remains our #1 priority."

It was this kind of election-season rhetoric that led many observers to dismiss the address as a campaign speech. (The mayor's office and every city council seat is up for re-election. Ten of 13 council incumbents are running again.)

"He's replacing the cops that he cut. He's replacing money that he cut," noted Gary Schiff (Ninth Ward), adding that he was actually happy about this development. "It's campaign speak. It's a response to criticisms--he's trying to undo damage that he's done to the public."

Another key component of Rybak's address was restoring some $800,000 to the city's health department budget. Natalie Johnson Lee (Fifth Ward), the council's Health and Human Services chair, said the move came as news to her. "I haven't been briefed, and he hasn't shown me what he plans to do," Johnson Lee said. "This is typical behavior of the mayor. I have to see the numbers, and we don't know any of the numbers. I expect to see the budget soon."

Ah, yes, the budget. Some council members recalled that in the past, Rybak made a show of bringing a thick stack of papers and numbers with him to the budget addresses. This year, though, all Rybak had was the PowerPoint presentation, which, frankly, didn't reveal much.

This was not lost on Gary Schiff when a motion was made for the council to receive and file the budget. "I don't have a budget in front of me," Schiff cracked. "Are we passing a PowerPoint presentation?"

The council approved acceptance of the mayor's address--a full budget was supposed to be available Friday. The council usually approves a tweaked version of the budget in the waning days of December, and weeks of haggling are a part of the process. This year, the dealmaking will likely be full of grandstanding and chest-thumping before election day in November.

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at July 29, 2005 9:06 AM | Comments (0)

 

7/29: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

THESE DAYS

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf joined the Bush administration's war on terrorism and publicly turned against the Taliban immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. But Afghan officials allege that Taliban and allied fighters who fled to Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 are learning new, more lethal tactics from the Pakistani military at numerous training bases.

Congressman Tom DeLay slipped a $1.5 billion giveaway to the oil industry, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas into the energy bill.

CIA officials used a sledgehammer handle to beat various prisoners in Iraq, and one official, whose name is classified, would often brag about his abuse of prisoners, according to testimony in a closed session of a military hearing.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Check out a very special episode of OpenDoors in which Aaron works through his problem of hating everyone else with the name Aaron. Two hankies.

TIME WASTERS

The Washington Post declares that podcasting has jumped the couch, noting forays into the former grassroots technology by Ted Koppel and the "Queer Eye" guys.

Lingerie for cows

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself. All we need is one more liar."

-- octogenerian UPI reporter Helen Thomas, speaking to TheHill.com

"I screamed and slammed on the brakes, I couldn't believe it. It's very strange to see my cleavage the size of a brontosaurus. My breasts were huge."

-- actress Scarlett Johansson, upon seeing a billboard for her new movie The Island

"The president's position is not pro-science today. I'm someone who is pro-research, pro-hope, and I'm also pro-life."

-- Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), on stem-cell research in Roll Call

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 29, 2005 6:36 AM | Comments (0)

 

"If I stopped...I would be doing my son's death a dishonor"

A Q&A with Lila Lipscomb of Fahrenheit 9/11

In April 2003, Lila Lipscomb learned that her eldest son, a Black Hawk door gunner in the U.S. armed forces, had been shot down and killed in Iraq. When we meet her in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, she's undergoing a radical change in her personal politics. Once a flag-flying patriot and backer of the Bush administration, Lipscomb is on her way to becoming a flag-flying, high-profile critic of GWB, his administration, and their war.

Since the premiere of Moore's film, Lipscomb has logged more than 300 appearances and interviews. And its in this capacity, as a member of the peace organization Military Families Speak Out, that the 51-year old will be speaking on Saturday and Sunday, July 30-31 at the Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar in St. Paul.

Interviewing Lipscomb can be tricky. It seems crass to ask her challenging questions about her politics and perspective: As she puts it, "you can doubt my convictions, but you can't doubt my grief as a mother." But that's just it: Lipscomb's politics and her maternal loss are so tightly interwoven that it's nearly impossible to question one without impugning the other.

As in Moore's film, Lipscomb is a powerful speaker. In undressed language, she expresses gratitude for the strangers who give her newspaper clippings and hugs. When asked about the skeptics, she says she's been sheltered by "my son's angel wings wrapped around me." Ultimately, it's a strange effect this antiwar activist has, delivering stark denunciations in the comforting voice of the mother of a childhood friend.

City Pages: Are you still pro-military?

Lipscomb: Absolutely.

CP: Is it a matter of these troops being used for a justifiable cause?

Lipscomb: Let me say to you that I'm not a dumb woman, and I do understand that a country needs to have a military. But a country needs military for what purpose? For protection. So going and cramming democracy down people's throats throughout the world is not what I [feel] my troops should be used for.

CP: With a year of hindsight, how do you feel about Fahrenheit 9/11?

Lipscomb: You know, I am just so blessed that I've been given this incredible opportunity to have Fahrenheit as a platform for my son's voice, and for my voice. It's a gift, and it's a gift that I don't take lightly.

CP: Did you take any issue with the way you were depicted in Moore's film?

Lipscomb: Let me just explain it to you this way. From the very beginning when I was contacted by Michael's office, I was given complete authority over my sections of the film. After the premiere in New York City, Michael came to me again and said, 'Lila, are you okay with it? I need you to really think about it and see if there's even one little thing or one word that you don't like, let me know and I'll take it out.' So throughout the entire process I was totally respected. always. And I wouldn't expect anything different from him. I'm not the president who went and killed thousands and thousands of people, so he treats me, I think, a little differently.

CP: What do you think when you meet parents who have also lost children, yet still back the war completely?

Lipscomb: It's so okay with me, that that's where they are. It's [not my place to pass] judgment on them. That's just who they are and what they believe. And just as I don't judge them, I would hope that they wouldn't judge me. The loss of a child is what unites us together. Whether you believe in the cause or not, their child is still dead, just like my child.

CP:...um...I'm trying to be as sensitive as possible since this is a delicate subject...

Lipscomb: Don't worry, you don't have to. Just be authentic.

CP: All right. Your whole campaign is to change minds, so doesn't it pain you that they're backing a cause that ultimately isn't justified?

Lipscomb: Yeah, it does. It really, really does. Because I feel that they have been blind-sided, and it really does pain me. But in the same sense that it pains me, all I can do is support them, and hold them, and share information with them, and just pray that their eyes too will be opened.

CP: Do you think they need to take solace in the "nobility" of the cause for which their son or daughter or husband or wife died?

Lipscomb: Well, the way I see that is, that's what they have to do to hang on. And one of the things I've learned in losing a son is you have do what you have to do to hang on. When my son died a very good friend of mine helped me through everything. I remember her always asking me the question, 'Lila, what is it that you need?' And I can remember my response to her every single time was, 'I need to keep going.' And I knew through all my grief that I could never stop. Because I knew that if I stopped, I would become isolated, and I would become withdrawn, and I would end up in my home. And then I would be doing my son's death a dishonor. So I couldn't do that.

You know, people that have not lost anybody in this war, it hasn't touched them. And so, they sometimes seem to be very opinionated about the war. And the reason that I'm out there is so the war doesn't end up touching them. I don't want them to have to learn things the way I had to learn things in losing a son. You know, and I still say, 'you know, we live in America, and America was founded on democracy, and they have a right to their opinion just like I do.' But don't be afraid to come to the table and have a conversation.

CP: If before the war you had had the information you have today, what sort of views would you have toward Bush and toward the proposal of war?

Lipscomb: If I had the information I had today?

CP: Yeah.

Lipscomb: I would have chained myself to the White House.

Posted by at July 28, 2005 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

 

CJ, Eat Your Heart Out

Local TV personality quits to become psychic

No, really. Erstwhile KSTP investigative reporter Lorraine Roe has hung out her shingle in Los Angeles doing readings. There are plenty of obvious stunning things about this, but what's really boggling is that Roe wasn't some cutie-pie standup artist who had to resort to breathless scriptwriting to breathe life into her stories. She was a sharp, tenacious reporter and, before the KSTP talent exodus began, was part of one of the country's most ass-kicking investigative units. (As well as the cigar-smoking social nexus of pretty much any confab of investigative reporters.)

You still don't believe me, do you? Here's the gist of the explanation posted on Roe's website:

I used to be a workaholic investigative television reporter living in Minneapolis. I had some real successes at work. I won awards and my stories instigated some significant changes in government and business. But along with the career I was over-caffeinated, had too little time for my children and stuffed my real feelings. Four years ago I quit news to spend more time with my children and find out what it would be like to work without a news deadline. I started meditating and doing yoga. I re-introduced myself to my children. I returned to my home state of California. One day I woke up psychic. It literally happened overnight. A friend's dead grandma visited me and told me some detailed information. When I checked it out with my friend, he verified it all. Now I hear from people's deceased relatives and their guides. It is a fantastic gift that has turned my life upside down. I put God front and center in my own life every day. I have a husband, three children, one giant golden retriever and two kittens. I live in Los Angeles. I drive a convertible when I can escape carpooling.

In the tradition of broadcast writers everywhere, we've saved the "kicker" for the end of this segment: Her conversion happened not so much as a result of her relocation to LA, but as the outgrowth of a story she did on Twin Cities ghost-buster Echo Bodine.

Roe explains how her calling can benefit you on her website. Check it out. She even takes PayPal.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at July 28, 2005 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

 

Rove/Plame: a must-read by Roger Morris

Counterpunch has posted a long analytic essay by Roger Morris, the author and Nixon-era National Security Council member, laying out the backstory to the current grand jury investigation and the preceding web of lies about attempted Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger. Morris thinks Condi Rice is the principal unnamed co-conspirator in the whole matter:

"[Rice] alone among senior officials was knowing and complicitous at every successive stage of the great half-baked yellow cake fraud. She alone was the White House peer--and in national security matters the superior--to Rove and Libby, who never could have acted without her collusion in peddling Plame's identity. She as much as anyone had a stake in smearing Wilson by any and all means at hand. If Rove and Libby are to be held criminally or at least politically accountable for a breach of national security, our "mushroom cloud" secretary of state should certainly be in the dock with them.

Read Morris.

Posted by Steve Perry at July 28, 2005 9:40 AM | Comments (0)

 

Rove/Plame: Fitzgerald to lose his day job?

The Chicago Tribune reports today former Illinois Senator Peter Fitzgerald, who championed the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) to the US attorney's post in Chicago in 2001, is worried about "mounting political pressure" against his protege's reappointment to the post this fall. The former senator speaks of foes in Illinois who'd like to stop the US attorney's corruption probes; he does not mention the US attorney's moonlighting gig as special prosecutor in the Plame investigation. He's a Republican, after all. But the point is clear enough. Read the story.

The third man (or woman): The NYT's Douglas Jehl touts a "new turn" in the case: a third administration official--besides Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--who spoke to the press (in this case, the WashPost's Walter Pincus) about Valerie Plame Wilson on July 12, 3003, two days before the Bob Novak column that outed her. Jehl also points the way to this recent account by the WashPost's Walter Pincus of his exchange with the special prosecutor.

Posted by Steve Perry at July 28, 2005 7:32 AM | Comments (4)

 

7/28: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

THESE DAYS

The National Journal has a list of White House employees and their salaries.

Microsoft has filed a patent application dated to last Thursday that seeks to describe a technological method to identify the "exciting" moments in a baseball game, among other things.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Danny Sigelman's got a new cat named Beaner. Check him out at sanspeeps.

TIME WASTERS

Gawker, Readerville, and Bloglines are just a few of the sites Forbes acknowledges in their Summer 2005 Best of the Web.

A fun collection of Japanese condom wrappers.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"It was unbelievable. They didn't show a lot of what really went on with the enemy attacks and the shelling. There was so much stuff that went on and somehow the tapes got mysteriously misplaced."

-- pop singer Jessica Simpson, bemoaning the fact that the more harrowing footage of her visit to Iraq didn't appear in her ABC TV special

"We have a lot of unfinished business from the Huskers. SST [one the band's early record labels] owes us a lot of money that they're never going to pay us. There's a way to remedy that but all three of us have to be on the same page. The odds of that happening are so unlikely. I've written it off and I'm focusing on the future."

-- singer/songwriter Bob Mould, in a recent Reuters interview

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 28, 2005 6:40 AM | Comments (0)

 

This thing's gonna blow!

CenterPoint Energy's small infrastructure problem

KSTP-TV (Channel Five) ran a two-part series at the start of the week that looked back at the December 2004 natural gas explosion in Ramsey. The first part was filled with the kind of TV news bathos that tends to pull in viewers, but obscures the larger issue.

(The piece was done, after all, by Kristin Stinar, she of the self-reflective ovarian cancer series during the last sweeps period.)

But the second part shows that a state investigation revealed that the problem--and potential for further explosions--is more widespread than anyone might think. (The whole story is here.)

KSTP points out that the Ramsey explosion happened at 9:47 a.m.; crews couldn't locate the pipeline and turn off the gas until nearly three hours later.

As much was copped to by CenterPoint Energy in a recent mailer (and on its web site). In it, CenterPoint proclaims that it serves some 760,000 customers in 240 "communities" around Minnesota, running from the southwest corner to the heart of the state. Some 80,000 customers in 37 townships and municipalities--but "not all," the pamphlet says in boldface--might be affected by some faulty engineering.

According to CenterPoint, the blame belongs firmly in the long-gone hands of Midwest Gas Service Co., which bought lines in 1986 from North Central Public Service Co., which served the identified areas starting in 1959.

(CenterPoint, then known as Reliant, before it then merged with Minnegasco, bought all the lines in 1993.)

The problem, according to the company literature, is that some lines have "metal couplings" that connect to plastic pipes, which apparently led to the Ramsey explosion.

"CenterPoint Energy has never used this type of installation on its service lines," the missive notes, "and is committed to replacing service lines that could have these couplings."

Buck-passing aside, the revelation is a case study in deregulation. In the mid-90s, when utility companies were profoundly deregulated, the idea was that many entrepreneurs would get in the game of providing power and service. Why, it was so easy! Anyone could do it! Venture capitalists lined up, looked at the complicated infrastructure, shrugged, and walked away.

Like so many dereg moments, the only true winners were those who knew the inside baseball of the industry. A new era of energy producers (ushered in by Bill Clinton) was largely populated by old companies buying up old companies--and then changing names. What deregulation really meant, it would seem some 10 years later, was that energy conglomerates could swallow problematic infrastructures without so much a hint of an upgrade. (Remember the SoCal brownouts and the post-9/11 east coast blackout?)

So now, CenterPoint has to correct the past misdeeds of the companies it inherited. Don't take too much pity, though: It took a major natural gas explosion for CenterPoint to even find all of its gaslines, let alone bring them up to some kind of safety standard.

The project, according to the company lit, will be completed in 2005. Even so, if the list of communities still potentially affected by faulty "couplings" is any indication, it has a long way to go.

All but nine of some 47 communities just north of the Twin Cities are targeted for the revamp project. If you live in any number of townships, like Buffalo, Burns, Chatham, Princeton or Isanti townships, you're likely safe.

But if you live in places as varied (alphabetically, at least) as Andover, Buffalo, Champlin, Dayton, East Bethel, Foreston, Grasston, Ham Lake, Isanti, Kimball, Lino Lakes, Maple Lake, Oak Grove, Pease, Ramsey (!), Spring Lake Park or Watkins: Caveat Emptor.

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at July 27, 2005 7:07 PM | Comments (0)

 

A letter to the editor of the Star Tribune

Dear Editor,

We at City Pages were shocked to read the following passage in Cheri Pierson Yecke's op-ed, "Attacked for their looks":

"The hateful barbs being hurled at Star Tribune columnist Kathy Kersten from sources such as City Pages fall right into this genre: 'Her online mugshot vaguely reassembles the witch from the Wizard of Oz.'"

First of all, we never claimed that Kersten "reassembled" the witch from the Wizard of Oz. In fact, we are pretty sure that a) this would be impossible, since she was melted rather than disassembled, and b) to conjure or reconstitute such a dangerous figure would almost certainly be a violation of the Patriot Act, and we meant to accuse Kersten of being a dull, nasty writer, not a criminal.

Second, Yecke has an undisclosed conflict of interest in this matter, since our first reference to the Kersten/Wizard of Oz connection was as follows: "Poor Katherine, her author photo looks like Margaret Hamilton after a visit to Cheri Pierson Yecke's hairdresser."

Third, in impugning the "looks" of Kersten and Yecke, we do not refer to their physical beauty--we at CP are quite a homely bunch ourselves--but to the worldview their prim, austere press photos suggest, which was captured best in William S. Burroughs' 1986 "Thanksgiving Prayer": "Thanks... for decent, church-going women with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces."

Steve Perry
City Pages

Posted by Steve Perry at July 27, 2005 12:24 PM | Comments (3)

 

Glengarry Glen Ross

Mike Hatch takes on Ameriquest

There's a lengthy story in the business section of today's Star Tribune about a lawsuit Minnesota's attorney general has filed against one of the nation's largest subprime lenders--that is, a company that specializes in extended mortgages to people with blemished credit. Because these borrowers often can't qualify for mainstream financiers' best rates--or at least fear they can't--they're often willing to pay very high interest rates or fees. It's one of the fascinating paradoxes of life in this country at this time that this is a terribly lucrative market.

Based on interviews with angry borrowers and former employees, the Strib reports that "Hatch is looking at allegations that Ameriquest falsified the income of loan applicants, used inflated appraisals to overstate the value of homes and changed loan terms before closing." There's some great stuff from former loan officer Troy Huston.

Huston, who worked in the company's Plymouth office in 2002 and 2003 and has been questioned by state investigators, said Ameriquest loan officers routinely falsified loan applications -- inflating the income of applicants, making up occupations for them and sometimes even creating fake letterhead and business cards.

"You would write that Tom Smith owned a construction company making $5,000 a month, when he was really flipping burgers making $2,000 a month," Huston said in an interview. "People were getting loans that in no way, shape or form they could afford."

Huston said the company frequently made "stated income" loans, in which the borrower merely declares his or her income. Originally designed for highly paid professionals whose incomes fluctuate, stated income loans became an easy way for Ameriquest loan officers to push through borrowers with sketchy incomes.

Consumers getting duped by unscrupulous predatory lenders is hardly new, of course. What's so riveting about this chapter is that Ameriquest is hardly a backroom operation; its ads span the television dial and its fliers cram mailboxes in neighborhoods we're accustomed to thinking of as home to consumers banks court. It's grown so fat and sassy on the proceeds of its subprime business it's become, according to the Strib piece, "one of the major players in the home refinancing market, which has surged from $500 billion in 1999 to $1.18 trillion in 2004." In other words, it's become a market force that more traditional creditors are forced to compete with.

Does anybody remember the savings and loan crisis? There's a warranty deed to a tidy teal cubicle here at City Pages ready for transfer to anyone who can say exactly how much U.S. taxpayers are still forking out to cover the costs of that exercise in "irrational exuberance."

Posted by Beth Hawkins at July 27, 2005 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

 

7/27: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Pizzaman encounters an old nemesis on the Streets of Pizza.

THESE DAYS

The family of a Marine who was killed in Iraq is furious with Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll for showing up uninvited at his funeral this week, handing out business cards and chatting up folks during communion.

A Wal-Mart in Florida has given the Pensacola News Journal the boot after printing an essay discussing the downside of the cheap prices that Sam Walton's empire has brought to America. [via Undernews]

Radar sets the rumor mill in motion about the married Karl Rove and his "close friendship" with lobbyist Karen Johnson, a never-married, forty-something GOP loyalist from Austin, Texas.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Dream Big is a positive look at life written by Kirsten Johnson. It's refreshing to read someone on the internet whose heart hasn't yet been supplanted by a little steaming lump of charcoal.

TIME WASTERS

The Chumscrubber peers into idyllic suburbia and finds all is not what it appears to be. The Sundance selection stars Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close, Alison Janney, Carrie-Anne Moss, Rory Culkin, and John Heard.

Keep your little kid jacked up on sugar until nap time in the Flash game Sugar Crash.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"I have six children ages 4-14. And the idea of coming off a race of the intensity that I am engaged in at this point and turning around and running another two-year campaign for president is not something that I believe is in the best interest of my family."

-- Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, announcing his intention to not join the 2008 presidential race

"Dear Gracious Heavenly Father, Forgive us our sin of being dependent upon the Automobile Industry and not on You. Please restore invention, productivity and prosperity. In Jesus Name, A Michigan Citizen."

-- Inscription on four highway billboards in Michigan, paid for by retired orthopedic surgeon Larry Johnson, frustrated by what he perceives to be a backward Michigan business climate

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 27, 2005 6:39 AM | Comments (0)

 

Gambling on Iraq

Today's Wall Street Journal has an excellent page one piece detailing Stuart Bowen's efforts to document waste, mismanagement, and outright fraud in the awarding of Iraqi reconstruction contracts. (Unfortunately the story is only available on-line for subscribers.)

Bowen is a longtime Bush crony who followed his boss to Washington five years ago to work in the White House Counsel's office. His appointment in January, 2004 as the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction was initially attacked by Democrats who feared he'd be a lackey for the Bush administration.

But Bowen has proven a tenacious watchdog, pumping out copious damning audits and earning the enmity of the state and defense departments. In one instance, detailed in the WSJ piece, a contractor charged the U.S. $3.3 billion for phantom employees on an oil pipeline project. In another, nearly $9 billion that the U.S. handed over to the new Iraqi government appears to have been embezzled.

But my favorite act of petty corruption is highlighted late in the WSJ story:

In one case, an Army soldier serving as the assistant to an American boxing coach admitted to gambling away half the $40,000 he was given to cover the expenses of an Iraqi athletic team during a trip to the Philippines; his case was referred to the military's justice system for a court-martial.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 26, 2005 5:54 PM | Comments (0)

 

Stupid Quote of the Day

Bankruptcy bad for business? Not in 2005

Metropolitan Airports Commissioner Tammy McGee in today's Star Tribune on the MAC's certainty it can weather a Northwest Airlines bankruptcy:

"Demand for flying is somewhat independent of a bankruptcy of any carrier," she said.

Strictly speaking, McGee meant that the fees airline passengers pay for the privilege of using the airport won't dry up with bankruptcy; the "passenger facility charges" are rolled into the price of each ticket. The collection of these fees does go up and down with the number of users, not the fiscal health of the airline. It's counterintuitive, but strictly speaking, true. This little paradox does, however, beg any number of interesting questions.

For starters, if business is good--that is, if demand is high--how come the airline is bankrupt? The cost of oil is the short answer, but the untenable creature that is the current hub-and-spoke-and-fortress-hub system is the larger, and probably more important, answer. Of course, capitalists don't want to go there--that's anathema, burdensome regulation. (This manic belief in the free market didn't stop Northwest for asking last week for an exemption from anti-trust laws so that its partnership with Delta wouldn't create what would have to be viewed as a monopoly, but let's not digress too far here.)

And then, if the advantage of bankruptcy is to allow such a major employer to do better by its shareholders by ditching its pensions and unions and domestic workforce and becoming a crappy employer, don't we have a bigger problem than where Northwest's stock symbol is on the ticker today? In this case, bankruptcy is tantamount to a bailout, but it doesn't sound like a bailout that's at all in the public's interest.

And finally, has Ms. McGee forgotten that on 9/11 Northwest was already in arrears on its payments to the MAC, and that in the days following the World Trade Center bombing the airline said that as a result it couldn't make its back payments? (Which it eventually did, we should note.) If that financial hardship interrupted the airline's payment of its regular bills, why wouldn't bankruptcy, a legal proceeding that's designed to do just that? What is the MAC going to do if Northwest stops paying that bill, evict its largest tenant from more than 80 percent of its gates and get chummy with Sun Country? C'mon.

The MAC has a long history of bowing to Northwest and the governor, often in that order. And given that Tim Pawlenty has a history of suggesting that what Northwest wants, Northwest should get, it sounds like the subtext of the MAC's remarks is that when it comes to choosing between stock prices and Minnesota workers and travelers, it's not going to get in the airline's way.

Posted by Beth Hawkins at July 26, 2005 2:03 PM | Comments (0)

 

Wal-Mart and Target: The color of their money

After the last presidential election, the conventional wisdom held that the American body politic was nearly evenly split between Red and Blue. Like much conventional wisdom, there was some truth to it.

But of course the endless pontifications about the "polarized public" misssed the main point. The political opinions of the hoi polloi aren't nearly so significant as those of the nation's ruling elite: in other words, the business establishment.

With that dispiriting reality in mind, some left-leaning numbers crunchers built a website called BuyBlue.org. Essentially a giant database, BuyBlue aggregates the political contributions to candidates for federal office from the top executives of America's largest corporations and their affiliated political action committees.

Drawing mainly on data from the Federal Elections Commission and the invaluable Center for Responsive Politics, the site aims to give consumers a better idea about the political leanings of the companies where they spend their money. Put another way, BuyBlue tells you where big box bigwigs lie on the red-blue continuum. The ratings run from zero (the "deep red" designation) to 100 (the "deep blue" designation).

Not surprisingly, BuyBlue found that Wal-Mart executives and its PACs contributed heavily to Republican causes and candidates. This earned the world's largest corporation a "light red" rating of 22 percent.

Now take a peek at the ratings of some of the better known Minnesota companies. Given the North Star state's lingering reputation as bastion of progressive politics, you might imagine that the hometown retail behometh, Target, would be "bluer" than Wal-Mart. You would be wrong. According to BuyBlue, Target earns a "deep red" rating of 17 percent, thanks in large part to the largesse of CEO and Chairman of the board, Robert Ulrich. The company has also spread its money to other conservative causes not mentioned in the BuyBlue database, such as a $20,000 grant to the Minneapolis-based Center of the American Experiment.

Target, however, is a veritable Bolshevik sleeper cell compared to the Richfield-based electronics retailer Best Buy. According to BuyBlue, Best Buy's top executives contributed exlusively to Republican candidates in the 2003-04 election cycle, earning the company the deepest of the deep red ratings: zero.

Meanwhile, it might come as comfort to some of City Pages critics on the right that Goldman Sachs--the investment company that co-owns the alt weekly chain of which CP is a part--earns a "light red" rating of 38 percent.

Posted by Mike Mosedale at July 26, 2005 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

 

Rove/Plame: Good news for KR--25 percent of Americans have never heard of him

So it says in a new USA Today/Gallup poll about Rove and John Roberts.

Posted by Steve Perry at July 26, 2005 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

 

What's in a name? Bushmen want to rechristen "war on terror"

They want something less militaristic-sounding and more hearts-and-minds-ish, report Schmitt and Shanker in today's NYT:

"In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of 'a global struggle against violent extremism' rather than 'the global war on terror,' which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign." [Read the Times story.]

The "global struggle against violent extremism"? That will make for some dreary cable news logos. Is there nothing sexier they can find? A recent poll suggests one alternative that 6 in 10 Americans might find more amenable.

Posted by Steve Perry at July 26, 2005 8:11 AM | Comments (0)

 

7/26: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

This week's City Pages cover story, The Scandal That Could Eat Bush's Brain, about the Karl Rove/Valerie Plame affair, has already been posted for your wonky pleasure.

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Pizzaman has a new Pizza Car guiding him through the Streets of Pizza.

Jack Sparks sings the praises of Drag the River, as only he can, at the Other Side of Country.

Get personal with Dylan Hicks, if you dare, at Hicksy's Infrequently Updated Blog.

THESE DAYS

Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Raw Story has a letter from Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) to President Bush asking for a promise that Bush won't pardon those who outed CIA Agent Valerie Plame.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

MNObserver, cleversponge, rew, and Smartie join forces against conservatives, local and national, at Power Liberal.

TIME WASTERS

CNet's been spitting out Top 10 lists in honor of their tenth anniversary. The latest recalls the internet's Top Ten Fads. Haven't heard that Hamsterdance tune in a while. Re-opened a few emotional scars, if I can share.

MSN tries to take a bite out of Google Maps with Virtual Earth.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Meantime, got to admire the cojones of those Brit cops to go after him like that. All of this trumps any of my other complaints that the Brits weren't making the right noises about fighting terror. They like to go about things a bit more quietly than us. Not my style, but okay, fine -- as long as they get the five in the noggin of the right bomber boy. They do that and I'm fine. So for the moment, alls well. Just catch the four bombers. Five in the noggin is fine. Don't complain that sounds barbaric. We're fighting barbaric."

-- FOX commentator John Gibson, on British police shooting a Brazilian electrician five times in the head. The man, Jean Charles de Menezes, is now believed to be unconnected to the recent London bombings

"I promise I will become a spokesperson, if you allow me to, a spokesperson on your behalf. I will defend you and try to get rid of any stereotypes."

-- Has-been singer and United Nations Children's Fund goodwill ambassador Ricky Martin, speaking to youngsters from 16 mainly Arab countries at a youth conference [via HuffPo]

"We expected that the new pope, who on taking office emphasized the importance he places on relations between the Church and the Jewish people, would behave differently."

-- Israeli Foreign Ministry statement, admonishing Pope Benedict XVI for not admonishing those behind recent terrorist attacks in Israel, in Sunday's statement condemning attacks in Egypt, Britain, Turkey and Iraq

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 26, 2005 6:54 AM | Comments (1)

 

7/25: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Steve Monaco has your Monday Movie Quiz at Couch Pundit.

Dylan Hicks has updated his 2005 Favorites at Hicksy's Infrequently Updated Blog.

THESE DAYS

Dennis Morrisseau, 62, of West Pawlet, Vermont, plans to seek the Republican nomination to run for U.S. House of Representatives. If elected, he plans to bring articles of impeachment against Bush.

The deluge of spam that pours into email inboxes each day could by curtailed using software that learns to identify the routes taken by unwanted messages, researchers say.

Bald men in Germany have no entitlement to state support for toupees, a court ruled last week. The court said the state was not discriminating against men even though health insurance covers the cost of wigs for women.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Oceil is a medium who recalls her captivating other-worldly encounters at Ghost Noise and Psychic Dream Butter.

TIME WASTERS [RESTAURANT EDITION]

20 hamburgers you must eat before you die

The trailer for Waiting..., with its Perez Prado-sounding opening song and the Shenanigan's restaurant setting, made me recall Jennifer Aniston's workplace in Office Space. But, it appears this comedy, from first-time director Rob McKittrick and starring Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, and Luis Guzman, is from a producer of American Pie. So consider yourself warned.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"But the, the nominee doesn't have to answer them and he should not, under the canons of judicial ethics, he should not answer questions on any issue that possibly would come before the Supreme Court. Otherwise, he would be foretelling how he would vote on those issues and then they would hold that against him. So it's a little bit like Biblical Pharisees, you know, who basically are always trying to undermine Jesus Christ, you know, it goes on the same way."

-- Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), on impending John Roberts confirmation hearings

"One's life is probably in no greater danger in the jungles of deepest Africa than in the jungles of America's large cities. In my judgment, much of the problem has been brought about by the mollycoddling of criminals by some of the liberal judges who have been placed on the nation's courts in recent years."

-- Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), in his memoir Child of the Appalachian Coalfields

"Extreme characters and hideously unattractive types, ages 18-50. Odd body shapes or very lean to extremely skinny. Missing teeth, wandering eyes and serial killer looks with real long hair & beards. Wigs & makeup are not what we're looking for. We also need little people, very large sumo wrestler types, extremely tall or extremely short people, albinos, amputees."

-- Casting call for Pirates Of The Caribbean III from Sandi Alessi Casting [via Defamer]

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 25, 2005 6:33 AM | Comments (0)

 

Guns! Guns! Guns!

Is the MPD finding more firearms?

The MPD's weekly Code For meetings at City Hall, where precinct commanders give a review of criminal and policing activity to the department's top brass, are usually full of intriguing stats and anecdotes. Thursday's session was no different, and one aside was particularly ear-catching. Assistant Chief Tim Dolan, who runs the meetings, uttered at one point, "I think we've seized more than 400 guns already this year."

Actually, it's more than that. The MPD breaks its gun-seizure totals into two categories--"evidence" and "non-evidence." So far this year, cops have collected 477 guns as evidence. If the "non-evidence" seizures--guns found on the street, turned in by citizens, or even discovered in drawers at estate sales--are included, the number is 547.

Last year at this time, the figure was 519. In 1996, the second year of "Murderapolis," when the number of homicides was 86, the MPD took in 932 guns. (So far this year the homicide count is 32.)

The department may top that this year.

Year-to-year comparisons on guns seized aren't immediately available through the department, but the general feeling among the police is that there are, in the words of MPD spokesman Ron Reier, "many more" guns on the street than there were five or even 10 years ago. Still, it's not clear if that's the case.

There's little doubt that more guns lead to more violence and murders--and most crimes are up the last two years. Some 258 guns--nearly half the citywide total--were confiscated in the city's Fourth Precinct, which includes all the troubled neighborhoods on the north side. Likewise, nearly half the city's nurders, 15, have been in the Fourth.

Dolan seems resigned to it as a fact of life. "As far as gun control," he offers, "it's like closing the barn door after all the cows and horses are out."

Tougher laws might not be the answer anyway, Dolan explains, because enforcement has become more difficult. It's no secret that the latest cycle of gang violence is coming from kids who are getting involved at earlier ages. Dolan says the U.S. attorney's office, for instance, won't prosecute juvenile cases.

"We have young gang issues out there," Dolan says. "When there's that many guns out there, something's going on. We hear, anecdotally, that kids aren't afraid to carry them or be caught with them."

Dolan notes that the state's gun laws are relatively tough, but that when it comes to sentencing, "departures are fairly normal." The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms looks into every gun-seizure case, Dolan says, and "the ATF says we're soft compared to other areas."

The assistant chief points to places like New York and Boston. "They've basically set up a no-tolerance attitude toward people arrested with guns," Dolan says. "Not only with tougher sentencing, but in denying bail and things like that."

At the very least, the guns seized this year likely won't end up back on the street. Used to be that law enforcement agencies would make those weapons available to the public, but that practice has largely ended. "We don't auction guns any longer," Dolan notes. "So unless it is something the department can use, which is rare, we have them destroyed, melted at the foundry."

Posted by G.R. Anderson Jr. at July 22, 2005 9:19 AM | Comments (1)

 

7/22: Morning Communique

Filed under: Morning Communique

THESE DAYS

A prominent eating disorder expert, Lisa G. Berzins, who collapsed in a supermarket after allegedly inhaling propellant from whipped cream cans, applied for a special form of probation Thursday.

Multiple sclerosis patients in Canada with constant tingling pain can get a doctor's prescription for a new drug, Sativex, derived from the marijuana plant.

Was ABC's craptacularly successful reality show Dancing With The Stars rigged to prop up winner Kelly Monaco's struggling daytime soap General Hospital? Seinfeld footnote and second place contestant John O'Hurley thinks so, as does a source close to the show.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Scooter lives in Eagan and is a lead developer for a legal company. His commentary on political and religious news can be found at A Nod to Nothing.

TIME WASTERS

Benny Hill theme/50 Cent mash-up.

This week's screed at Avery Ant and His One Minute Rant is about Karl Rove. Not bad, but goes down hill after the initial Bush twins joke.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"If [Scholastic] had printed the book on 100 percent recycled paper, its 10.8-million print run could have saved 217,475 trees."

-- Pamela Wellner, a Greenpeace senior campaigner in San Francisco, who's organization had joined other conservation groups in calling for a boycott of the U.S. edition of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince because it wasn't printed on recycled paper

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 22, 2005 6:40 AM | Comments (0)

 

God at the U: He's not dead, just suspended

The Freedom from Religion Foundation is declaring partial victory in its spat with the University of Minnesota. As City Pages reported previously, the Madison-based organization of free-thinkers sued the U in federal court this spring. The cause of action? The U's participation in an organization called the Minnesota Faith Health Consortium , which in the view of the FFRF violates the constitutional prohibition against government promotion of religion.

On July 5, the U's lawyers blinked, sending off a letter to the folks at the FFRF formally agreeing to end the U's membership in the Consortium.

That agreement, however, does not spell the end of the lawsuit. According to FFRF co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor, the U is still forging ahead with course offerings aimed at training professionals to be 'faith/health leaders.' Such classes, writes Gaylor, "clearly belong at a seminary, not a public University."

Posted by Mike Mosedale at July 21, 2005 4:45 PM | Comments (0)

 

Smoking banana peels

Yesterday it was announced that Prince Turki Al-Faisal will become the new Saudi Arabia ambassador to the United States. He is replacing veteran diplomat Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz.

In news reports it's frequently been noted that Prince Turki, who for a quarter century served as the Saudi chief of intelligence, is pro-western and comfortable with U.S. society.

But to understand the depths of Prince Turki's familiarity with American culture it's useful to read a passage from Steve Coll's phenomenal book Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001:

Prepped in the American East Coast manner, Turki matriculated at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1964, a member of the same class as an ambitious, talkative boy from Hope, Arkansas, named Bill Clinton. In a rare breakdown of Clinton's networking radar, he failed to seek out and befriend a rich crown prince's son destined for power. (The pair met for the first time at the White House soon after Clinton became president.) Years later Turki told a reunion at Georgetown, referring to Clinton's infamous claim that he had tried marijuana but never inhaled, "It wasn't just the class that didn't inhale. It was the class that tried to smoke banana peels. Do you remember that? I promise you, can anybody imagine smoking a banana peel? But those were the days."

Posted by Paul Demko at July 21, 2005 3:39 PM | Comments (1)

 

Sjodin fallout: civil commitments for sex offenders soar

Alfonso Rodriguez is currently awaiting trial on charges stemming from the brutal abduction and murder of 22-year-old college student Dru Sjodin. If federal prosecutors get their way, the convicted sex offender will be sentenced to death.

Rodriguez, however, is far from the only sex offender to be impacted by the case. Earlier this year the state legislature passed a bill providing harsher penalties for sex crimes, including life without parole for the worst offenders. But perhaps the most significant fallout from the Sjodin murder is a massive spike in the number of people being civilly committed as sexual psychopaths.

Between 1997 and 2003, according to figures provided by the Department of Human Services, an average of 19 men (there are no women) were committed annually. In December, 2003--the month after Sjodin was abducted--there were a total of 207 people enrolled in what's known as the Minnesota Sex Offender Program. (You can read my 2002 cover story on the MSOP here.)

But since then the numbers have skyrocketed. An additional 79 sex offenders had been involuntarily enrolled in the program as of May. That works out to roughly 56 commitments per year. In other words the commitment rate has tripled since Sjodin's murder.

The spike can partly be explained by a change in bureaucratic procedure. Prior to the Sjodin incident, the Minnesota Department of Corrections reviewed the resumes of all sex offenders exiting prison to see if they should be referred for possible civil commitment. But following public outrage over the abduction (the DOC failed to recommend Rodriguez for commitment), the state agency decided to refer all violent sex offenders to either the appropriate county attorney's office or the attorney general's office for scrutiny. This has led to a huge uptick in the number of cases that received a more thorough vetting.

But this change in procedure doesn't adequately explain the increase in civil commitments. After all the standard that must be met to commit an individual has not changed in any way.

The more fundamental change seem to be in the willingness (or lack thereof) of everyone involved--judges, prosecutors, psychiatrists--to declare a serious sex offender mentally fit for society. "They don't want to be the one who gives the next Alfonso Rodriguez the stamp of approval," says Warren Maas, coordinator of the Hennepin County Commitment Defense Project.

The stakes are incredibly high for those facing commitment. Although the program is nominally designed to rehabilitate offenders so that they can be integrated back into society, the track record is not impressive. Not one of the 286 men enrolled in the program has been successfully cured and released.

Posted by Paul Demko at July 21, 2005 12:49 PM | Comments (1)

 

Rove/Plame: Left-libs go all Ann Coulter

The unfolding story of L'affaire Plame is interesting for lots of reasons--the way it lays bare the routine workaday complicity of the president's men and the tone-setters in the Beltway press corps, the political quake it could ultimately cause, the prospect that the most reviled and revered political kingmaker in many years could be brought low by what amounts to a fit of personal pique--but it's been grotesque to watch so many left-liberal writers and bloggers take up the logic of the hysterical Ann Coulter right and pronounce a verdict of "treason" on Rove's alleged leaking of news that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA.

What a bunch of overwrought bozos. Let us first recall the provenance of the law that Rove et al. are alleged to have broken. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 is widely believed to have been directed at two or three ventures in particular: the writings of ex-CIA agent Philip Agee, whose 1975 Inside the Company: A CIA Diary was the first tell-all book about the extent of the agency's covert operations; and the magazines CounterSpy and Covert Action Information Bulletin, which specialized in exposing through FOIA and other means the various covert ops the CIA was running around the world. Both Agee and the magazines named a lot of undercover CIA personnel in the process. One, a Greece-based station chief named Richard Welch, was killed as a result.

But t