In a move that has baffled everyone from bloggers to the Star Tribune editorial board, the Republican Party has selected a soulless, Machiavellian huckster to deliver the keynote speech at the state GOP convention in Rochester tomorrow.

What would possess a party comprised of intellectually crippled closet-perverts to select Karl Rove remains unclear at this point, though many have speculated that the Party’s shadowy culture of backroom dealing and raging cronyism may have had a hand in the selection. Or maybe it’s Rove’s ability to cut a rug that so entices the party faithful. Dude's considered something of a rock star amongst bullshit peddlers.

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In a new study, The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) has found that reports of violence, harassment, and intimidation against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in Minnesota spiked in 2007. Nationally, overall reports went up by an average of 24%. In Minnesota: 135%.

Some additional findings:

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You and nearly one million other Internet users have already seen the YouTube video "Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit." Perhaps, like me, you immediately assumed this was a callow ad agency attempt at viral marketing.

Our Gary Hodges tracked down the boyfriend behind the video, and turns out you might be surprised by what he has to say. Also, he subscribes to the Joystick Division RSS feed, so we love him already.

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A school board in western Minnesota is still torn as to whether its students should be forced to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, reports the AP.

Officials at Glyndon's Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton school—located just east of Moorhead—suspended three eighth graders earlier this month for refusing to pledge their commitment to a red, white, and blue pennant.

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Think when you hand over that extra 6.5 percent sales tax to store owners they are giving it directly to the state government? Think again.

Last week The Minnesota Department of Revenue launched an Internet database to brandish companies delinquent on their payments with the online scarlet letter of of tax evasion. (Once the tax is paid, the company's name is removed from the list and its sales tax permit is reinstated.)

Since the website's debut last week at least four companies have paid their debt to the state, allowing the agency to collect $124,000 -- small change compared to the upwards of $2 million the remaining some 64 businesses owe.

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Consultant and former journalist Mark Potts has done a lot of thinking about the future of the newspaper. Last year, he did a study into advertising trends that found a gap between that falling rate of print ads and the rapid growth on online ads. He predicted it would take five years or more for the Web-based revenue stream to catch up.

Turns out, as a new American Journalism Review story makes clear, that this was wildly optimistic.

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Earlier this month, we learned that the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists had awarded City Pages honors in 11 categories of writing, photography, online journalism, and multimedia production. It turns out that our Jeff Severns Guntzel is up for a 12th award.

Severns Guntzel's piece "The Wedding Crashers," about churches' response to gay marriage, is a winner in the "Short Feature" news category for papers with a circulation of 50,000 or higher.

The order of finish will be announced at the 2008 awards banquet on June 12. In 2005, CP won six SPJ awards, and in 2006 the paper won eight.

Food writer Rachel Hutton was on the Stephanie and Meredith show's "Foodie Tuesday" segment earlier this week. I'm back on the airwaves this afternoon at 2 p.m., talking about what to do over the weekend. But there are always potential surprises at FM 107.1 -- last time a caller asked me about phone sex. Remarkably, I didn't vapor-lock: thanks, years of doing debate! If you're so inclined, listen live here.

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I had been reading criminal complaints at the Hennepin County Courthouse for about an hour when I stumbled upon a Minneapolis Police officer's report of a drug bust on 9th & Hennepin. The inevitable happened: as I scanned the report, I started hearing the Tom Waits song. Then the improbable happened: the officer's narrative and the lyrics to 9th & Hennepin started to seem a little bit like the same story. Back at my desk I tried stitching them together. Here's what came of it. I cut a few lines from the song here and there but the police report is exactly as I found it:

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A new study published in the Public Library of Science found that journalists are getting a failing grade in their coverage of the latest health treatments and interventions. The author of the study argues that consumers getting bad information from the mainstream media could be harmed.

"The stories that we reviewed for the most part paint a sort of kid-in-the-candy-store picture of the U.S. health care system, whereby everything looks terrific, everything looks risk-free and nothing has a price tag associated with it. And nothing could be further from the truth," says Gary Schwitzer, a University of Minnesota journalism professor who has spent the last two years rating the quality of health intervention stories and authored the analysis. More information about Schwitzer's research is available on his personal health blog.

Recently interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio, Schwitzer is most critical of the media’s failure to address cost and safety.

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