In their short time together, the Hug Brigade (previously profiled here) has gathered to hug strangers on the Nicollet Mall, in Uptown, outside the Vikings-Packers game, and outside polling places on Election Day -- all without incident. Until last week, that is, when a small contingent of Huggers took to the Mall Of America to ease the pain of Black Friday warriors in need of a widdle snuggle.

According to Hugger Tabatha Robbins, the Brigade -- who this time out brandished "Free Hug" t-shirts but not signs -- hugged shoppers for two hours. Finally they were stopped by a security guard who said, "Sorry, but you guys can't do that anymore."

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Learn more about Boulder-based DeVotchKa, performing at First Avenue tonight, in Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go.

The first black male soloist at the Met Opera is remembered at Corpus Obscura.

THESE DAYS

Saudi Arabia has warned that it will sue global tobacco firms unless they pay the full cost of treating patients suffering from smoking-related illness.

Women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day - 13,000 more than the average man.

Sixty-three-year-old comic book illustrator Dave Cockrum, who overhauled the X-Men comic and helped popularize Marvel Comics in the 1970s, died Saturday while wearing Superman pajamas and covered with his Batman blanket.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Professor Batty blogs on cooking in the dark, covert reconnaissance in Iceland, and tonsillectomy-as-childhood-trauma at Flippism Is The Key.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

10 Things Your Casino Won't Tell You according to SmartMoney

World's Worst Superhero Names according to Wired

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

— Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), co-chair of the bipartisan House Immigration Reform Caucus

It's no secret that the prognosis for independent record stores is bleak and only getting bleaker. But, for the hell of it, let's revisit the list of recent casualties on the Twin Cities scene. Two years ago, the renowned St. Paul metal mecca, the Root Cellar, shut down its storefront for an internet-only sales model. Last year, the venerable Let It Be Records followed suit and abandoned its downtown Minneapolis storefront. Earlier this month, Aardvark Records in northeast Minneapolis also went the virtual route. And now comes news that Know Name Records is folding its Dinkytown location.

Two items the fresh meat for the MPS mill might want to read carefully

What a bummer we didn't elect Carla Bates to the Minneapolis School Board earlier this month. Not that she was running: According to her bio at Twin Cities Daily Planet, Bates is an instructional technology coordinator at the University of Minnesota and the mother of three MPS students. She's also the site's education editor, in which capacity she's penned an agenda for the new board's first 100 days that's ambitious and sensible--if politically sticky. You can read it here.

The gist: Bates proposes tackling the rest of the to-do list rejected superintendent candidate David Jennings laid down on his way out of his interim posting, most notably closing 10 half-filled schools and doing something about the Dickensian teacher-student ratios at the others. She also just comes right out and says a few things that seem obvious to most of us but don't seem to be appropriate topics for discussion among many educators and district administrators: Someone needs to help foot the bill for shipping erstwhile MPS kids to charters and for the disproportionate amount of special ed the district provides. Oh yeah--and pay some serious attention to in-school disciplinary issues.

The Minnesota Daily reported yesterday on the ruckus currently unfolding at the U of M Law School over the hiring of Robert Delahunty to teach a Constitutional law course next semester. Delahunty formerly served in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. In that capacity he co-wrote one of the so-called "torture memos" that seemingly justified the psychological and physical abuse of detainees in the war on terrorism.

Delahunty joined the University of St. Thomas School of Law as a professor two years ago. The U of M is hiring him to teach a single class.

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

The Black Keys, Back-Up Plomo, and Transmission are just a few of the acts playing around town tonight. Check out Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go for a complete itinerary.

THESE DAYS

Scottish and Canadian researchers used a new form of magnetic resonance imaging to show sitting up straight places an unnecessary strain on your back.

With the release of Superman Returns on DVD, Papa John's Pizza is offering free pizza to Americans residing on Lois Lanes.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Computer programming info and internet news, with a little music and humor linkage thrown in at Stephen Van Dahm's blog.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

TV Land's 100 Greatest Catchphrases in TV - the only list ever that will include John F. Kennedy, Dave Chappelle as Rick James, and Tattoo from Fantasy Island

Nerds track the extent and cause of injuries suffered by Darth Vader throughout the Star Wars saga

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"These are issues that Jesus would want us to care about."

— president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America, the Rev. Joel Hunter, declining the job because he wished to focus on poverty and the environment. Hunter believes the organization is refusing to move beyond the opposition to abortion and gay rights in a broadening of their agenda.

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Britt Robson analyzes last night's Timberwolves game at Balls!

Bob Seger, Fear Factory, and Kottonmouth Kings are just a few of the acts playing around town tonight. Check out Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go for a complete itinerary.

THESE DAYS

A clear majority of Brits and Scots are in favor of Scotland breaking away from the United Kingdom, according to a new poll.

The New York Daily News reports President George W. Bush hopes to raise $500 million for his presidential library. This guy does nothing on the cheap.

Art Institute of Portland student Bob Averill was booted from the school for offending another student while discussing her belief in leprechauns.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

St. Paul resident Nina Friction blogs on failed Greek omelettes, yoga balls, her trip to Europe, poop stories, and party pix at Nina's Blue Light Cabaret.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

Probably a lousy movie, but Crispin Glover as Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka is worth the price of admission: Epic Movie

A Twin Peaks fan heads to Washington state to recapture some of the filming locations of the David Lynch series from the early '90s.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"I though it was like an animated Inconvenient Truth. I half-expected to see an animated version of Al Gore pop up."

— Fox News's Your World host Neil Cavuto, on the green themes in the dancing penguin movie Happy Feet

"...If you're going to include those themes, the least you could do is tell me, a parent. Tell me about it first, OK, so I know I'm walking into propaganda... They may not pull in $42 million if people thought they'd be watching an animated version of An Inconvenient Truth."

— CNN Headline News's Glenn Beck, who apparently also got the Happy Feet memo [via Media Matters]

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Diablo Cody has a movie update and schmutz in her eye at Pussy Ranch.

We remember David W. Hermance, the mastermind behind the Toyota Prius, at Corpus Obscura.

Guest blogger Stephen Litel discusses Saturday's Clippers/Timberwolves game at Balls!

THESE DAYS

The upscale menswear and accessory store Jack Spade in Manhattan's trendy SoHo district has stopped selling $40 frog dissection kits (complete with a vacuum-sealed formaldehyde-treated frogs) due to customer outrage.

The number of "spam" messages has tripled since June and now accounts for as many as nine out of 10 e-mails sent worldwide, according to U.S. email security company Postini.

A Florida woman who claimed she was abducted was arrested on charges of filing a false police report after it was learned she was really meeting a man at Busch Gardens.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Winona Daily News reporter Brian Voerding blogs about the Myers-Briggs test, poetry, dead lap-tops, totaled cars, and the scourge of small town boosters at Erehwon.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

The Ten Worst Internet Acquisitions Ever

Via Robot Chicken: The Real World Metropolis

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"The date of the Boston Tea Party does not matter. I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it, and they put it in a book. Give me the book, and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class."

— actor Will Smith, on why he and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, homeschool their children

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

What does "OK" stand for? When a woman gives birth in westerns, why do they always boil water? You've got the questions, and Cecil Adams is the man with the answers, as we welcome The Straight Dope to City Pages every Friday.

Panic! at the Disco, Idle Hands and Mallman are just a few of the acts playing around town tonight. Check out Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go for a complete itinerary.

David Brauer delivers a Three Pointer for the fouled-out Britt Robson at Balls!

The Friday Random Ten is posted at American Idle. Hit the party shuffle on your iTunes and tell us what's next.

THESE DAYS

British model and tabloid fodder Katie 'Jordan' Price is having her G-cup breast implants removed and plans to sell them on eBay for charity.

Each year, millions of Britons board ferries to France in order to take advantage of cheaper excise duties charged on tobacco and alcohol, but a Luxembourg-based court will soon determine whether a customer can avoid paying the duties in their home country.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Bob Ryan blogs about corporate and personal ethics in relation to our environment, politics, and consumer culture at SWiM Starting with Me.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

What happens when you put a Furby in the microwave

Generate your very own Official Seal [via Incoming Signals]

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Take it up with God."

— New Orleans resident Joshua Thompson, to a TV reporter, after Thompson and his wife sold their Memphis home for a profit, immediatley after it was donated to them by the Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ