Photo Credit Bob Collins of MPR.

Bob writes, The mystery billboard

It was late at night and I wasn’t sure I’d seen the billboard correctly as I whizzed past it on I-35 in Wyoming last week on the way back from Wrenshall. But an e-mailer confirms I saw what I thought I saw.

It’s beginning to sweep along the Internet, accompanied by various claims that it’s a Photoshop fake. But it’s not. It’s real.

There’s no billboard ownership plate on this particular billboard, making tracing the person who had the cash to post it difficult to find. It’s time to crowdsource this puppy.

*Update: Those responsible are revealed (sort of)

I’m pretty sure Dick Cheney is responsible.

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Depending on who you ask Minnesota either has a drinking and driving problem or the laws have gotten too strict. I’ve heard numbers cited that 1 in 8 Minnesotans (524,000 drivers) have a DWI and there are about 20,000 new first time offenders every year.

Wow.

Recently Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s has been proposing a series of stiffer laws and amongst those laws affected would be DWI/DUI.

The editors at the Strib have put together this little gem Editorial: Toughen DWI laws and save lives.

What I wonder is where is the point of diminishing returns, I think it’s clear that making tougher laws does not always result in less crime.

There are actually a few decent comments on the Strib story, but this one stands out

Let’s stop kidding ourselves
When I started in law enforcement 25 years ago it took me about 20 minutes to read the implied consent, obtain a test and write a ticket for DUI. When I ended my career I needed a flow chart to figure out what degree of DUI that was to be charged and 3 hours to fill out the required paperwork. We engage in this on going debate because enough citizens in our state refuse to acknowledge that it is not OK to drive when you have a snootful and a whole industry that has grown up to enable or punish this small group. Interlock’s will not stop the chronic offender. The chronic drunks desire to drive drunk will be readily served by a new industry who’s sole efforts will be to defeat the purpose of the interlock.
posted by montaguezx

Are the current laws sufficient? Too strict? I don’t know, but I get the feeling making tougher laws won’t do much to make the streets safer.

Thoughts?

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Congrats to local filmmakers and crew for winning a Super Bowl spot tonight for “Snack Attack Samurai!” See David’s previous post here.

Cole Koehler and Ben Krueger’s Doritos commercial was picked from over 4,000 entries and won one of three Super Bowl ad spots purchased by Doritos. They only found out when it aired in the last quarter of the game.
Which commercial was your favorite? I also liked the Betty White/Snickers one. Check out the other ads on Hulu:

Image Uploaded on January 27, 2010
by Individual_romance
There’s been plenty of talk in Minnesota this week. Most of it about bacon and eggs, some of it about beer, and occasionally someone has brought up the topic of the weather. Typically, we kill that person with kindness while secretly thinking thoughts of the Caribbean. Since it’s Superbowl weekend I’ll open it all up with some football talk.

Bob Collins has The case for a Vikings stadium discussion

The Minnesota Legislature begins its 2010 session today (MPR’s Midday is originating its entire show from the Capitol today) and the chief topic is how to to close the state’s budget deficit.

But the slightly smaller gorilla in the room is a stadium for the Minnesota Vikings. Still, it has no significant chance of coming up for discussion this year.

Gov. Pawlenty tried to put the discussion in play yesterday during his appearance on MPR’s Midday when he offered several possible ways to raise some revenue for the Vikings, whose lease at the Metrodome expires at the end of next season.

Sooner or later, the issue has to come up for discussion. The question is: Should it be sooner? Or later?

I like the first comment by BSimon

You’re absolutely half-right, Bob. I say half right because the necessary discussion isn’t just about a hypothetical Vikings stadium, but the entire list of requests for state funding. What really needs to happen is a prioritization process, that includes analysis of the payback we’ll get from any given expenditure. For instance, how much do we spend on schools & what’s the return? Are we properly educating our future workforce such that they’ll be productive members of society, contributing back to MN? What about law enforcement – is the investment in law enforcement, the courts & prison system the best way to provide security & safety to the populace? Or can we achieve the same or better results by spending differently? So, back to the Vikings stadium. Supporters claim there’s an ROI, through taxing players’ salaries, or an intangible benefit of building a sort of community. Ok, how do we quantify that & prioritize it against other obligations? Should we build a stadium or hire more public defenders & fix some bridges? How about building a ditch around Moorehead? If we consider a new dedicated source of funding, like racinos, why would that revenue be earmared for a stadium, rather than addressing the enormous budget shortfall?

So, yes, lets discuss it. What are our priorities & how much are we willing to pay for them? In bang for the buck, a stadium falls a bit on the priority list, in comparison to ensuring our state’s future standard of living remains high.

Check out my buddy Marsh getting hammered

Mpls.St.Paul Magazine’s Steve Marsh and reporter Brian Lambert imbibe the latest cocktail creations by La Belle Vie’s star bartender Johnny Michaels while chatting about the politics of Michele Bachmann, Brian’s new radio show Brian and Sheletta on FM 107.1, and the death of happy hour at the state capital.
, Brian’s new radio show Brian and Sheletta on FM 107.1, and the death of happy hour at the state capital.

Remember when I talked about the Art Shanty Black Bania? Citypages points us to this video of Spoken word artist Paul Dickenson.

bigboxcar confirms: Yeah, Cheeseheads are still bitter.

Hookers!

Minnesotan Jeff Severns Guntzel says what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate on War and makes a great video.

I ravaged the Utne Reader library looking for covers from the alternative press that helped to tell the complex and terrible story of our war in Iraq. Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti and art director Stephanie Glaros helped me. Here’s what we came up with:

Video: The Iraq War as Told Through Magazine Covers

Great work.
Fellow Cloquet escapee and writer CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER writes a fascinating story about Wille Murphy

Did you see that guy’s hair?

Speaking of hair Jason Derusha says
“The Good Question intern @allisonjanney has been researching hair. Not mine, obviously.”

Check it

Enough about hair, let’s close it out with the nicely waxed Brother Ali


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You want to get sexy?

Next Wednesday, February 10th is the Hotness party and check this out.

All of our guests will enjoy free appetizers all night, a live performance from the cast of RENT (opening this week here in Minneapolis) featuring Maria Isa and Harley Wood, live performances from BATUCADA DO NORTE complete with Brazilian Carnaval dancers and DJ sets from Gigamesh and The Nightstalker. We’ll also have free samples and offers from our Hotness partners such as Planet Beach, Crispin Cider, Mall of America, the Ordway and so much more.

And what could make Carnaval dancers, music, and mingling with the 155 sexy nominees even better?
If you introduce yourself to me I’ll do a sexy robot humping dance. (much to the embarrassment of my wife whom I am not going to tell, shhhhh.)

So there you have it, sexy people, writhing dancers, booze, music, and it’s on Hump Day so you’re bound to get lucky.

Here are the deets.

Vita.mn presents The Hotness 2010
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 /// 7pm – 11pm
Graves 601 Hotel – Ballroom
601 First Ave North, Minneapolis, MN 55403
(www.graves601hotel.com)

Also, if you’d like to join us for an open bar between the hours of 7pm and 9pm in the VIP lounge, you can buy a ticket for only $20… that gets you free Summit, Crispin and free martinis between 7pm and 9pm where you can mingle with finalists and Vita.mn staff. Pick those tickets up at http://vitamn.indietickets.com!

Invite your friends, dress to impress and bring an open mind. :)

I love local police blotter news. Police blotter is probably my favorite section in my belove East Side Review

It can be funny at times, but mainly it’s a good way to tell if there is a rash of problems creeping into my neighborhood. I find it useful to track the assaults, stolen vehicles, and break ins and the neighborhoods in which they are occuring.

For the amusement aspect of blotter, typically the smaller the paper the better, but every now and the big papers have something funny.

The Strib prints this one from Apple Valley

DEC. 28

Unwanted visitor. An officer received a complaint from a woman who said her mother had arrived for Christmas and was now refusing to leave

I think we’ve all been there.

Blotter, love it or leave it?

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Image by jennbarnett

Speaking of photography Paperlily is hosting a benefit to help local photog Jenn Barnett replace some gear.

Elli writes,

jenn has done *so* much for local musicians and helping to promote them, both through creating amazing images of their bands and telling people about their music . . . surely some of them would rally to help her replace her camera. and they would! they are! the bands i approached immediately embraced the idea of donating their time to help.

so i contacted the turf club and got a date for a benefit, and i started contacting bands. as of yesterday, we have the final lineup – although i’m certain that any of the bands on the bill would be willing to work in a cameo if anyone else wanted to get in on this. i started calling it the Jennefit (because i’m hilarious) even though that’s basically painful in it’s dorkiness. it’s super fun to say! say it out loud. do it! jennefit.

here’s what we are going to do, and i TOTALLY need your help, if you are reading this. we are going to the turf club on march 26th and we are going to watch these kick ass bands play until they make us all go home:

the honeydogs
molly maher
erik koskinen
ryan paul & the ardent
the mad ripple (jim walsh)

Sounds like a pretty great line up, for more great pics check out JENN BARNETT PHOTOS

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“Masks” – Mask wall at Twin Cities Magic & Costume Co. St. Paul, MN – view large -
Uploaded on January 16, 2010 by Dan Anderson whom seems to have the most active Flickr community in Minnesota.

My nerdy self can’t think about masks without thinking of poetry.

The Masked Face by Thomas Hardy
I found me in a great surging space,
At either end a door,
And I said: “What is this giddying place,
With no firm-fixéd floor,
That I knew not of before?”
“It is Life,” said a mask-clad face.

I asked: “But how do I come here,
Who never wished to come;
Can the light and air be made more clear,
The floor more quietsome,
And the doors set wide? They numb
Fast-locked, and fill with fear.”

The mask put on a bleak smile then,
And said, “O vassal-wight,
There once complained a goosequill pen
To the scribe of the Infinite
Of the words it had to write
Because they were past its ken.”

Think I should have went with Yeats?

Sure it snowed a good three inches over night and the morning commute dripped slower than Molasses, but we only 46 more days until spring. So we have that going for us, which is good.

Check out this video that MPR made of a snowglobe repairman.

Northfield, Minnesota’s Dick Heibel has been fixing snow globes for decades, and says the thanks he gets from his customers is the reason he keeps doing it.

(H/t In The Loop)

Here are some pics from Powderhorn Park’s Art Sled Rally last weekend. I didn’t know this before, but there were no prizes for competitors… everyone raced solely for the glory of the sledding. A favorite sled of the day was a Pacman themed one (no pics of that one though–my fingers got too cold to take them out of my coat). Props to the creativity of the sleds and courage of the riders. P.S. No sledders were injured in the following crashes…

Salon reports about Minnesota’s Governor Tim Pawlenty’s budget plan and it is not very kind. Nope, not kind at all.

a balanced budget proposal from Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2012. Pawlenty says the debate over the deficit “is no longer between competing political philosophies — it is a matter of basic mathematics.”

Pawlenty then calls for a balanced budget to the amendment to the Constitution and simultaneously recommends that “the Bush tax cuts should be made permanent and tax burdens on individuals and businesses should be further reduced.”

So who exactly is it who doesn’t have a handle on the math? As Bruce Bartlett observes in a blistering rebuttal to Pawlenty, the governor’s numbers don’t even begin to add up.

Here’s Bartlett’s rebuttal and it puts a serious crimp in Pawlety’s style Tim Pawlenty: Not Ready for Prime Time

Read them all, but my favorite is

It’s doubtful that Mr. Pawlenty has any clue as to the composition of federal spending. In FY 2009 we would have had to abolish every discretionary spending program, including national defense, to balance the budget and that still wouldn’t have been enough without a penny of higher revenues, as he insists. We would have had to cut more than $300 billion out of Medicare and Social Security as well. Good luck with that.

Mr. Bruce then wraps up with

In conclusion, Tim Pawlenty is not ready for prime time. He may think he has found a clever way of appealing to the right wing tea party/Fox News crowd without having to propose any actual cuts in spending, but it isn’t going to work. It’s too transparently phony even for them.

Ouch.

What do you think?

(h/t DBrauer)
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Don is just a dad who likes to play in the snow, so every year he makes a giant snow sculpture in his South Minneapolis front yard for his children, daughter Victoria (11) and son Donny (10).  This year Spongebob SquarePants on a big chair adorns his lawn and he was performing maintenance on him as I passed by on the way home from the US Pond Hockey Championships so I stopped to ask him about it.  If you would like to see SpongeBob he is just off the intersection of 52nd Street & 28th Avenue in Minneapolis.

Dr. King reminded us during the Vietnam War buildup: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Spiritual and psychic death is what we encountered in our tour of the DC jails. We continue to sow death and reap the whirlwind.

The powerful words of the late Dr.King is how Minneapolis peace activist and T.C. Daily Planet journalist Steve Clemens ends his report, Adventure at the White House. He then goes on to describe his recent experience with a Justice System that may be described as far more more systematic than just.

After 28 straight hours in four different jails, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. We had been arrested the day before as part of a civil disobedience action against the wars in front of Obama’s White House the day before his first State of the Union speech. I think all 13 of us who had been arrested had been traumatized by witnessing the continual crushing of the human spirit by the cruelly named “justice system.”

So when I was led into the courtroom with leg irons, and a waist chain attached to the metal handcuffs, I looked like a hardened criminal facing murder or kidnapping charges. Was the overkill on the part of the Washington, DC Metro Police strategically designed to demoralize and denigrate the “criminals” caught in its web, or was it merely a bureaucracy gone amuck with no idea how to discriminate and apply sufficient restraints where needed.

(h/t DBrauer)

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Bathtub?

Join the 3rd annual Art Sled Rally tomorrow (Saturday) at 2pm at Powderhorn Park, or better yet, build your own artistic sled and come at 1pm to register.

From the Art Sled Rally’s founders, South Sixteenth High Jinks:

“We believe part of a healthy existence is being outside a little bit at all times of year, and part of a healthy community is getting together as often as possible, especially during the coldest and most isolating parts of the year.

We chose to create a mass sledding spectacle, in part, for the history of mass winter events at Powderhorn Park that began around a hundred years ago.You will find pictures of incredible pageantry, throngs of people and fantastically sculptured luge tracks in Powderhorn from the early 1900s on up through the sixties. We would like to see this organized enthusiasm for winter activities continue.”

Nothing more enthusiastic than cardboard bathtubs racing down snow-covered hills! Join the fun! Should be a little warmer tomorrow.

Uploaded on January 27, 2010 by katbaro and she writes “What is that yellow ball of flame in the sky? Will it hurt us? Should we run? Yes, its been a long grey January.”

It sure has! The nice thing I noticed when the sun finally did come out was that it stayed light until after 5pm. Major win!

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