Minneapolis / St. Paul News Blog

All the way to the depths of your psyche?

In the wake of Highest Gas Prices Ever, the trusty Strib has published a list online this evening of the lowest prices in the Twin Cities metro.

(LIfted from TwinCitiesGasPrices.com)

Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the now-exurban stations are relatively cheap, with the three cheapest locations--at $2.50 to $2.55 a gallon--being in Prior Lake. (Interesting to note that two of those are by Mystic Lake Casino.)

But the two surprises on the list are in what folks in Prior Lake or other outlying areas of the metro would call the "Inner City."

Two Marathon stations on the north side and near north are coming in at $2.62 and $2.63, respectively. The station on Fremont Avenue North and West Broadway is close enough to what's is generally considered to be "the bad part of town"--sometimes translated as "where black people live." Will any suburban commuters swallow perceptions and stereotypes and venture in for cheap fuel?

Even money says they're more likely to drive out to the casino.

It's less than two weeks before the September 13 political primaries. While Minneapolis isn't quite a one-party town, the DFL is dominant enough for the primaries to be more important than the general election in determining the eventual winner in some races.

Minnesota Public Radio ran an informative, succinct story on how a proposed highrise development in Uptown is affecting the primary race in Ward 10. And the bi-weekly Southwest Journal and its sister publication the Skyway News have put together a strong package of stories for their respective voter's guides. The SWJ features previews of the primaries in Wards 10, 7, 13, and 8. There is only one contested primary race in Skyway's circulation area--Ward 3. But in addition to a preview of that contest, Skyway includes rewarding features that are also in SWJ, regarding cops and public safety, the smoking ban, and the pension mess in Minneapolis. The city's best parks board reporter, Scott Russell, chimes in on relevant park board races. Even the taxing and library board candidates are covered.

Next month The New Press will publish James W. Loewen's book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. It's an eye-opening account of how hundreds of towns across the country systematically removed blacks and other minorities--often through violent means--during the first half of the 20th century.

What's particularly striking is that the overwhelming majority of these cleansed municipalities were not in the Jim Crow South, but rather spread across the northern half of the country. "While African Americans never lost the right to vote in the North (although there were gestures in that direction), they did lose the right to live in town after town, county after county," Loewen writes in the introduction.

One of the municipalities singled out for particular attention by Loewen is Edina, Minnesota. He points out that prior to the establishment of Edina just after World War I there were quite a few blacks living in what was then known as Richfield Township. This was largely owing to the fact that there was a Quaker village in the area that openly embraced minorities.

1:20 P.M. - (AP) Mayor Ray Nagin says at least hundreds of people are dead -- maybe thousands -- in New Orleans. "We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water," and others dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands."

Read the WDSU-TV dispatch here.

Read updates at WWL's blog here.

At this hour, there are 1254 missing persons posts at nola.com.

"To repair damage to one of the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, t he Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags Wednesday into the 500-foot gap in the failed floodwall. But the agency was having trouble getting the sandbags and dozens of 15-foot highway barriers to the site because the city's waterways were blocked by loose barges, boats and large debris. Officials said they were also looking at a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole."

Yesterday it was reported to be 200-300 feet. Story here.

Go here to see a very good slideshow posted at WWL-TV's website, including photos of the 17th Street canal levee break such as the one linked above.

Around noon today, the Army Corps of Engineers claimed that water levels between the canal and the city had equalized and that no more water was flowing into the city for the time being.

One of the more ridiculous aspects of natural disaster media coverage is the property damage estimates that inevitably emerge within hours of the pertinent event. In the present circumstances the absurdity of such projections has been magnified as the situation has rapidly devolved from a fairly routine hurricane to an emerging national disaster.

A quick search of the Nexis database shows that the figures have fluctuated wildly in the last 72 hours, providing absolutely no useful information to the public. CNNMoney reported on Monday that "risk modeling firm" Eqecat initially estimated that insurance companies would be hit with between $15 billion and $30 billion in damages. But the company then twice downgraded that figure within hours of Katrina hitting land, eventually settling on $9 billion to $16 billion.

By Tuesday morning the media seemed to have collectively agreed-- through some unknown process probably not unlike picking numbers on a roulette wheel--on the figures of $10 billion to $25 billion. Of course this is such an engulfing range that it renders the information completely useless.

Over the last 24 hours, as the situation has dramatically worsened, media outlets have hastened to ratchet up their damage projections. By 6 p.m. yesterday CNN was announcing that damages were expected to top $25 billion, while other outlets reported that the insurance costs could now reach $34 billion. This morning the Philadelphia Inquirer declared Katrina the "most expensive hurricane in the nation's history," with the property damage tally upped to $40 billion.

Perhaps they're taking bets on the final figure in Vegas. For the record, risk modeling expert Paul Demko projects that Katrina will ultimately cost insurance companies $118,434,327,612.43.

As late as yesterday afternoon, officials were still saying that non-critically ill refugees at New Orleans' Superdome would likely be there for up to a week. This morning Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco announced they would be moved by bus to Houston, where many will be sheltered in Houston's Astrodome. "Time is of the essence," she said at a press conference that just concluded on WWL-TV. "It's critical that we move quickly."

Regarding the levee breach that has necessitated the immediate evacuations, Blanco said this in an earlier TV interview: "The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Blanco said on morning TV. "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it's like dropping it into a black hole." [Read the WWL-TV post.]

The sense of urgency is heightened by fears that New Orleans may be hit this morning by a major southbound surge of water from the north side of Lake Pontchartrain, where hurricane winds pushed a great deal of water on Monday.

Lately, CNN has felt like the Democrats of the major news outlets, and that's not because they're supposedly the "liberal" alternative to Fox News. (They're not.) Like the dems, the first 24-hour news channel is struggling with its identity: Who are we? What does "news" mean in the new millennium? How can we compete with the internet and citizen journalists? The answer: Pander to the lowest common denominator and rely on the human element, the "tragedy," if you will, to exploit, err, tell, the real story.

Never has this been more apparent than in the last three days, as the currently self-titled "Hurricane Headquarters" posts videos on cnn.com with slugs like, "Watch the video account of unanswered screams," "See knee-deep and rising water in the French Quarter," and perhaps the most egregious, "Watch the video report of a husband whose wife slipped from his grip." With titles like that, they might as well have exclamation points and be packaged as the first in a series of the World's Most Extreme Videos. That is, after all, what CNN is selling.

News outlets have carried almost nothing but Katrina dispatches and video footage since the hurricane came aground Monday morning, but in the past 24 hours they've been surreally slow to elucidate what's going on in New Orleans following the break of a critical levee on Lake Pontchartrain either late Monday or early Tuesday.

That levee break was said to be from 200-300 feet wide at Tuesday midday--as far as I know, no one has broadcast aerial pictures of it, though there have been repeated images of the less consequential Industrial Canal breach, some of them passed off as pictures of the Pontchartrain canal break--and elementary hydraulics dictate that the breach will only widen as long as it's open. The lake will continue emptying into the New Orleans basin below it at an increasing rate until either a) the levee break is closed, or b) the water level inside the basin is equal to the water level in the lake. In that event, the city is a total loss. Forget water damage per se; the toxicity of the former site of New Orleans would be staggering both in terms of chemical pollutants and organic ones--the most virulent and dangerous body of water in the world, sitting in a natural bowl below sea level that cannot drain itself.

So how are efforts to close the levee going? Late last night the cable networks reported that an initial effort to dam the breach with sandbags had failed, and that heavy military equipment was supposed to arrive on-site late in the night and begin work today. A regional Homeland Security official, Mark Smith, told the Shreveport Times on Tuesday, "That breach is not going to be fixed today, tomorrow, or the next day." (See this MSNBC dispatch.)

There is no overstating the magnitude of this disaster. Those $25 billion damage estimates still being circulated are ludicrous--a Mississippi congressman told Fox News there is that much damage in his state alone. Fifty billion won't begin to fix New Orleans. Much of the city is already destroyed, many of its buildings structurally undermined and the rest so profoundly contaminated they will have to be razed in any event. And if the basin keeps taking on water, the same will eventually be true of all but the tiny portion of the city that is above sea level, mostly at the southern edge along the Mississippi River levee.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has stood head and shoulders above practically every other official in the clarity and candor of his public comments. Last night on CNN, he said simply, "This is the bowl effect that you hear people talk about... and now the bowl is filling up."

We will post more notes and links about storm damage, and particularly the levee breach in New Orleans, through the day today. Here's a note from New Orleans TV station WDSU on the levee-plugging effort this morning.

And here are the NYT and WashPost's pretty-good levee break stories from this morning.

Watch the WWL-TV live feed here.

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Former New Orleans resident Peter S. Scholtes has Katrina updates, including an interview with Phil Frasier of the Rebirth Brass Band at Complicated Fun.

THESE DAYS

In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production (i.e., non-management) worker was 431-to-1, up from 301-to-1 in 2003, according to "Executive Excess," an annual report released Tuesday by the liberal research groups United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies.

You can follow the New Orleans/Katrina tragedy at the WWL-TV blog.

Pope Benedict XVI faces his first controversy over the direction of the Catholic church after it was revealed that the Vatican has drawn up a religious instruction preventing gay men from being priests.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

If you're interested in conservation, birds, blowers, gardening, and bat houses, check in with St. Paulite Darlene at Nature Info.

TIME WASTERS

Minnesota State Fair photos at Flickr

Steve Gilliard at his News Blog hands out Kombat Keyboard Badges to those pundits who advocate the Iraq War, but refuse to serve or have family members serve, when eligible.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"None of your fucking business."

-- a patron at the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, to FOX News anchorman Shepard Smith, when asked on live television what he was still doing at the hotel as Hurricane Katrina was approaching

"What are these Bush Republicans afraid of? Dirty looks from the help at the country club?"

-- Pundit Pat Buchanan on Bush's stance on allowing Mexican immigrants to cross into the United States illegally

That's what the Star Tribune wants readers to believe. It's right there in the lede to today's explainer piece about about meth lab toxicity. Without citation, reporter Karen Yousa bluntly asserts that meth is "Minnesota's biggest drug problem." Sounds scary. But is it true?

Not by most available statistical measures. Consider, for instance, the Hazelden Foundation's most recent report on drug abuse trends in the five county metro area, home to about half the state's population.

According to the June 2005 survey, meth addiction accounted for approximately ten percent of all admissions to treatment programs in 2004. That's a record high for meth. But it is still 3 percent less than the admissions attributed to cocaine and almost 10 percent less than those attributed to marijuana. Meanwhile, the survey found that cocaine abuse resulted in some 3,046 metro area emergency room visits, compared to just 874 for meth. As to fatal overdoses, the state's "biggest drug problem" produced just 20 deaths, which places it far behind both opiates (72) and cocaine (49).

Of course, any honest reckoning of the relative menace posed by various drugs ought to take into account alcohol. In 2001, according to a Minnesota Department of Health report, the adult beverage industry claimed more than 1,300 lives (and cost the state more than $4.5 billion).

One final note: according the Hazelden report, meth overdoses, meth lab busts and reports of children affected by meth labs all declined slightly in 2004.

You've probably already heard or seen coverage of the two levee breaks in the wall separating Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans; the rupture in the 17th Street Canal levee is now over 200 feet wide. The best continuing coverage we've seen--besides Fox News, which has roundly kicked the asses of CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast networks--is from New Orleans' CBS affiliate, WWL-TV. The station's website is here; its live blog is here.

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Steve Monaco has last week's Monday Movie Quiz winners at Couch Pundit.

THESE DAYS

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has filed a lawsuit to force top makers of potato chips and french fries to warn consumers about a potential cancer-causing chemical found in the popular snacks.

A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

David Smith Sr., who already holds a world record for the longest distance traveled by a human fired from a cannon, added to his list of cannonball coups Saturday by shooting across the U.S-Mexico border.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

A Minnesota family joins Cindy Sheehan at Camp Casey. Follow their story at EllaGoes. [via Norwegianity]

TIME WASTERS

Hurricane Katrina photos at Flickr

Why do they do it? Cuz they're cool and kitty-shaped: Cats in Sinks

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"I want to live a nice life, have money, be rich, have a BMW and cellphone."

-- 16-year-old Zodwa Mamba, vying to become the King of Swaziland's 13th wife

Greg LeRoy is the founder of Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that works to insure that companies receiving public subsidies create decent jobs. His latest book, The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation, was published last month. LeRoy will be in town on Monday for a Labor Day event. I caught up with him by telephone this morning.

Anyone who pays much attention to such matters knows that there are terrible problems with the American health care system. But nobody explains it any better than the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell. In "The Moral Hazard Myth," the redoubtable Gladwell dissects the flawed theoretical underpinnings of the private insurance model, which, as he explains, rests chiefly on an exceptionally dim view of human nature. Gladwell's treatise ought to be required reading for every member of the U.S. Congress; check that, it ought to be required reading in every high school civics class. But if you are in a rush to get your blood boiling, this stat-laden excerpt should tide you over until you have a chance to read the story in its entirety.

According to new documents obtained by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, "The nation's two largest alternative newspaper publishers have been in intense negotiations over a merger that would create an 18-paper chain controlled to a significant extent by venture capitalists." Click above for the article, and here at Culture to Go for more background.

Hurricane Katrina, now a Category 2 storm, has moved past New Orleans and is heading toward the Mississippi coast. Early reports from New Orleans include the previously mentioned pump failure, leading to water six feet deep on the east side of the city. In the French Quarter, water is pooling in the streets, but it appears to have escaped the catastrophic flooding that was predicted last night. Breitbart.com reports: "On Jackson Square, two massive oak trees outside the 278-year-old St. Louis Cathedral came out by the roots, ripping out a 30-foot section of ornamental iron fence and straddling a marble statue of Jesus Christ, snapping off only the thumb and forefinger of his outstretched hand."

Parts of New Orleans are flooded with up to six feet of water after some of the pumps that protect the low-lying city failed under the onslaught from Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stated the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, on the east side of the city, was under five to six feet of rising water after three pumps failed. National Weather Service has also declared "total structural failure" in some parts of metropolitan New Orleans. About 50 minutes ago, as the western eye wall was passing over the city, Katrina was downgraded to a Category 3 storm with winds up to 120 miles per hour. The storm's eastern eye wall was approaching Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, where roofs were being pulled off of structures and boats were floating in the streets.

Better news for New Orleans as Katrina hit landfall this morning as a Category 4 versus Category 5 hurricane. National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield warned that New Orleans would be pounded throughout the day, but Katrina would most likely unleash a 15-foot storm surge, down from the feared 28 feet. Mayfield stated this surge would still cause extensive flooding. The wind continues to damage the Lousiana Superdome, tearing pieces of metal from the roof, exposing the 10,000 non-evacuees to daylight and rain. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, however, does not consider the dome a "dangerous situation" in which to weather the storm.

Hurricane Katrina reached land about an hour and a half ago near Empire, Louisiana, 55 miles southeast of New Orleans. The storm is moving north at 15 miles an hour and, while New Orleans will take a hit, coastal Mississippi is expected to bear the brunt of the storm. The latest news from CNN is that the roof of the Louisiana Superdome, a shelter for 10,000 residents who couldn't evacuate, is leaking rain.

CITY PAGES BLOGS

Steve Monaco has your Monday Movie Quiz at Couch Pundit.

Jack Sparks responds to Diablo Cody's State Fair post at the Other Side of Country.

THESE DAYS

Thailand's leader is trying to ferret out a government minister who allegedly had a penis enlargement, saying news of it is affecting the Cabinet's reputation.

The 43-year-old virgin

Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, wants a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to apologize for Pat Robertson's assassination remarks. I'd run him through the metal detector at the airport a couple times, just to make sure.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

A Minnesotan currently living in Australia authors a blog, the title I keep misreading: pantryraider.

TIME WASTERS

The Cyborg Name Generator. Construct Optimized for Repair and Efficient Yelling at your service.

Mark your calendars, October 9 is National Porn Sunday. The anti-porn event includes prayer and the viewing of a film called "Missionary Positions."

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"The president has been anti-science for a long time. This is the most antiscientific regime that I've seen in America in my lifetime. I'm a trained physician, as you're aware. I'm insulted by that. It's going to harm America. What serious business is going to invest in America if a scientific education is influenced by politics? Science ought to be taught as science. If you want to teach religion, that's a separate debate. But science should be taught as science."

-- DNC Chair Dr. Howard Dean, weighing in on the Intelligent Design/evolution debate

"We'll hunt down your king. It doesn't make any difference where he tries to hide... You're doomed to spend eternity in hell. All you Swedes and your Swedish king and his family."

-- radical cleric Fred Phelps, declaring a war on the gay-friendly Scandinavian country

"This lady (Sheehan) and the groups that have been demonstrating in front of the president's ranch in Crawford and following him around are the very same people that were the dropout, turn-on, anti-war peace activists back [in the Vietnam War era]. They still have this crazy notion that by just being peaceful and maybe toking up or something like that -- it's like an ostrich with its head in the sand -- maybe the danger and the bad guys will go away and leave you alone, which is not gonna happen."

-- Pop music dinosaur Pat Boone, calling Cindy Sheehan a pot-smoking hippie

Sam Smith at Undernews led us to a Philadelphia Inquirer story about going to a baseball game where a culture war broke out. For the past three years, the Phillies have sponsored Gay Day at Citizens Bank Park, this year featuring the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus performing the National Anthem and Cyd Ziegler of Outsports.com throwing out the first pitch. A confrontation erupted in the upper deck between a fundamentalist Christian group, Repent America, and fans from a gay pride group. Repent America's Michael Marcavage and another man held a sign that read, "Homosexuality Is a Sin, Christ Can Save You" at the top of Section 303 in right field. Fans in the section stood up in an attempt to obscure the banner. Police officers and Phillies officials escorted Marcavage out of the grandstand at the end of the sixth inning in accordance with the Phillies policy of forbidding banners that contain "fighting words likely to provoke a breach of the peace." Read the complete story here.

THESE DAYS

Punk legends John Lydon and Jimmy Pursey got into a fist fight outside the U.S. embassy in London as they waited in line for visas along with The Proclaimers.

A New York man who was ordered to transfer the domain name fallwell.com to the Rev. Jerry Falwell will be allowed to keep the Web site, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled Wednesday.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

The Minnesota State Fair is in high gear, which means time to check in with Brian at My Pronto Pup.

TIME WASTERS

Just in time for Christmas, McFarlane Toys is putting out some sweet Napoleon Dynamite action figures.

Nerd Boot Camp Huzzah!

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies."

-- Thomas Cadmus, American Legion national commander, encouraging Cindy Sheehan to write to her member of Congress

"You're always going to have nutcakes out there, no matter what you do."

-- Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), describing the participants of a recent Salt Lake City anti-war protest

"This is really the dream team of airline maintenance groups."

-- Northwest chief executive Doug Steenland, touting the quality of the airline's replacement workforce

THESE DAYS

The current warming trends in the Arctic may shove the Arctic system into a seasonally ice-free state not seen for more than one million years, according to a new report. The melting is accelerating, and a team of researchers were unable to identify any natural processes that might slow the de-icing of the Arctic.

Volvo is experimenting with a built-in breathalyzer and speed governor to reduce road accidents.

A 73-year-old veteran wore a stylish "Bullshit Protector" over his ear during President Bush's VFW speech in Idaho recently.

There are 490 female students at Timken High School, and 65 are pregnant, according to a recent report in the Canton (Ohio) Repository.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

A critical view of local and national politics can be yours from a Democrat named Fang at The Minnesota Critic.

TIME WASTERS

Nizlopi have a somewhat cheesy father-son song called "JCB" with a kickin' flash video.

Audio hilarity ensues when five of the most-recognized movie trailer voice-over artists get together to promote the Hollywood Report Key Art Awards.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"When we came back from exile, we thought we were going to improve rights and the position of women. But look what has happened -- we have lost all the gains we made over the last 30 years. It's a big disappointment."

-- Safia Taleb al-Souhail, Iraq's ambassador to Egypt, on the proposed Iraqi constitution

"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States."

-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, target of televangelist assassination plot

"The picture of marriage is the picture of Christian salvation. Any diminishing of that notion - whether homosexual marriage or any other degradation of marriage - is something we must fight in public policy."

-- Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN), speaking to an Indiana Family Institute program, declaring that divorce on demand is as dangerous as gay marriage

It didn't take long for United Nations Ambassador John Bolton to remind us all why even a Republican-dominated Congress refused to confirm him, compelling President Bush to ram him down the throats of the people of the world via a recess appointment. In his first public initiative in his new job, Bolton wants sudden, major, and wholesale revisions in a draft document of U.N. reforms that have been the subject of intense negotiations for nearly a year.

According to a piece in today's N.Y. Times, among the things Bolton objects to-- speaking to the world's diplomats as the representative of you, me, and the rest of the American people--are support for the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and an emphasis on disarmament rather than nonproliferation.

If we are ever going to declare victory and get out of Iraq with even a smidgen of national dignity remaining, we are going to need the goodwill of many in the international community who might consider the whole Iraqi thing a tad hubristic and would like nothing better to see us hoist on our own petard. Putting an ass like John Bolton in the mix, demanding that the rest of the world officially acknowledge the right of American empire to destroy the ozone and to stockpile nukes while denying them to others; well, it probably won't help "the reality on the ground" when we haul our tails out of Baghdad come 2006 or 2007.

Why Northwest Wanted a Strike, and its Mechanics Had No Choice

Here we are in day five of AMFA's strike against Northwest Airlines and, as anticipated, there have been some blown tires and cancellations and safety-related intakes of breath, but the planes are mostly flying, and the mechanics are looking like the house band on the Titanic. For my money, the only real question unanswered is why is it that today Nick Coleman looks like the only member of the local mainstream media establishment who has strapped on any reportorial cojones at all. That this is noteworthy is telling.

Since the strikewatch clock set up by virtually every news outlet of record in these good cities ran down to zero and started ticking upward again, precious little has been reported that goes beyond handicapping the number of planes grounded and local travelers disrupted. Today's Star Tribune does carry one analysis of Northwest's "hardball" position, but it's written by an Associated Press staffer and we're hard-pressed not to conclude that it was plucked from the wires because the New York Times--which Twin Citians can have delivered to their doorsteps, remember--Monday ran a revealing, disturbing background piece.

The black and white "geekmobiles" driven by Geek Squad techs have been a familiar site on Twin Cities streets since 1997. In California, however, the highway patrol believes the black and white paint jobs on the bugs too closely resemble those on California Highway Patrol squad cars. (The black and white VW Beetle became the Geek Squad's official vehicle in 2000.) Geek Squad tech Mark Reardon was recently pulled over near Walnut Creek and fined. The officer cited a state law that prohibits the painting of a privately owned or commercial vehicle to resemble a police car. "Obviously it would be a pretty far shot to mistake a Volkswagen Beetle for a cruiser, but it comes down to protecting our unique color scheme," said Officer Steve Creel, a spokesman for the CHP's Dublin office. All 150 Geek Squad Beetles in California are currently being painted to the CHP's satisfaction. Kevin Cockett, a spokesman for Best Buy, the local electronics giant that purchased the Geek Squad in 2002, stated he was unaware of similar run-ins with the law in other states.

John Wildermuth of the San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday on the efforts of a California consumer group to encourage citizens of that state to boycott Target stores because of their donations to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cory Black of California Consumers United states that while Target is trying to attract more seniors and families by putting pharmacies in their larger stores, the Minneapolis-based corporation also spent $250,000 to back a referendum that erased a law that would have required many California businesses to provide health care for their workers. Since 2004, Wildermuth reports, Target has given $100,000 to Citizens to Save California, which worked to qualify the governor's initiatives for the special election ballot, and $210,000 to the governor's California Recovery Team, a 501(c)(4) public benefit corporation which supports Schwarzenegger's political aims. Target spokesperson Lena Michaud finds the consumer group's radio ad campaign and boycott a bit unusual. "We contribute to political candidates based upon our corporate business agenda and that support is not tied to any one issue," she said. Read Mike Mosedale's previous post on political contributions made by Target and Wal-Mart here.

THESE DAYS

Republicans have scheduled a golf tournament next Wednesday to benefit a legal defense fund set up for DeLay fundraisers Jim Ellis and John Colyandro, both of whom have been indicted on money-laundering charges.

The federal government has cut off funding to a nationwide program that promotes abstinence to teens through skits and music videos, saying the group in charge of the campaign did not adequately separate religion from its message.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Twin Citizen Anne Frasier, the bestselling author of such books as Sleep Tight, Play Dead, and Before I Wake, is blogging at static.

TIME WASTERS

Klingon Fairy Tales

The Beastie Boys have about a dozen a cappella tracks for you to download and mix to your heart's delight.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"It was an incredibly stupid statement and has no reflection on reality... I met with President Chavez on my last visit a couple of months ago and he related that concern to me, about how the U.S. was out to assassinate him. I told him not to lose any sleep about it."

-- Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman reacts to Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez--and not because the U.S. means to kill him in his sleep, honest.

When it comes to porking out, Minnesota squeezes into the top half of the nation's most obese states, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Trust for America's Health.

Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the group noted that 22.7 percent of the nation's adults could be considered obese during the period from 2001-04, up from 22 percent during the period 2000-03.

Minnesota is almost exactly in the bulging middle of these statistics, ranking 25th nationally among the 49 states surveyed (Hawaii was not counted), with a obesity percentage of 22.6 among its adult population. When you add in people who are overweight but not obese, Minnesota's national ranking rises to 22nd, although its overall percentage of obese/overweight adults, 60 percent, is less than the national average of 64.5 percent. (Here is America's Trust look at Minnesota's specific obesity data, and here is the group's page for Minnesota health in general.)

The report indicates that among regions of the country, Dixie is tubby and New England is svelte. The top five is percentage of obese adults are Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Tennessee. The five least-obese states are Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and Montana. Oregon was the lone state not to see its percentage of obese adults rise from last year.