18 July 2006
Unload the Cartons of Tissue
Buffeted by questions about his honesty and investigations into his wife's multimillion-dollar stock options, DFL endorsee Matt Entenza dropped out of the race for state attorney general Tuesday.When you dig and dig and dig, don't be surprised to find yourself in a hole.
"(W)ith so little time and so many attacks, from anonymous faxes to attacks on my family, it is impossible to fight these attacks and win this race without it taking a serious toll on the people and the party we care about the most," he said.
(Entenza's) troubles began with the revelation that he had hired a Chicago opposition-research firm that investigated fellow DFLer Mike Hatch, the current attorney general who is the party's endorsee for governor.
One DFL'er harpooning another DFL'er, and they aren't even competing for the same office. How diseased is that?
State Rep. Jeff Johnson, R-Plymouth, the Republican candidate for attorney general, bluntly accused Entenza not only of changing his story as details emerged, but of outright lying. "I think he lied probably several times this last week," Johnson said Monday.Entenza spent the week pulling a Dean Johnson by using the words like 'embellish' instead of 'lie' and phrases like 'upon further review' instead of 'oops, you got me.'
(Jeff) Johnson said Entenza initially didn't tell the truth when he told reporters more than a year ago that there was no truth to rumors that he was doing opposition research on Hatch. Johnson also said Entenza has tried to deceive the public on the motive for his research, the extent of the digging and the cost. An anonymous attack against Entenza on Monday came in the form of a packet of documents, including photocopies of campaign records and cancelled checks from Quam and Entenza's joint account, that were faxed to several Capitol reporters. Entenza's name was blacked out on the checks. The person who faxed the documents claimed that they demonstrate that Entenza didn't tell the truth when he told reporters in December 2004 that he and his wife contributed about $600,000 to Democratic campaigns and liberal groups. The mystery attacker's documents indicate that Quam gave at least $55,000 more to Democratic committees in South Dakota, which then sent the money back to Minnesota and to the DFL House caucus, which was led at the time by Entenza.That's the biggest bomb yet, that Entenza was running, in part, to get "big money" out of the political process. What irony.
Okay Matt, you're done, and we're done with you. Now get a job.
Too Muddy for the Ducati?
Now this is cool. From Popular Science:
The tank-like tread consists of 77 identical segments—each made from hard plastic covered with tire rubber —held together by Kevlar rope. Each segment flexes independently, making the tread significantly more limber than if its components were rigid. Not only does this setup help with traction, but it would allow the tank- cum-motorcycle to corner like no other vehicle.
Wash Your Car
16 July 2006
Don't Look Now . . .
Wow, Let's Elect This Guy
Rep. Matt Entenza, who denied Thursday that he has conducted opposition research on his Republican opponent for Minnesota attorney general, on Friday seemed to revise his statement and said his campaign possessed information collected on at least some Republicans. "I just wanted you to know that we checked our files, and I did want to make clear that we do have some opposition research on Republicans," Entenza said in a voice-mail message left for the Pioneer Press.Oh yea, the cowardly voice-mail. 'Checked the files,' that's double-plus good.
The national office of AARP on Friday also made public a written apology from Entenza's campaign manager, retracting a statement earlier in the week that the association, which represents seniors, had produced a report clearing Entenza's wife of wrongdoing in connection with stock options.Entenza: "You mean I shouldn't have made that up and put it out on behalf of a third party?"
And, in another development, an executive of a Chicago political research company that Entenza hired a year ago to check up on Mike Hatch, the current attorney general, declined to talk to Minnesota reporters. Entenza had said Thursday the executive would be available to discuss the research.Strike three, Matt; grab some pine.
- A year ago, a Republican Internet blog reported that Entenza had hired a Chicago private detective to dig up dirt on Hatch in an effort to clear the way for Entenza to run for governor. Entenza at the time told the Pioneer Press the speculation was "just absolutely absurd.'Well it seems that it wasn't so absurd, wsa it Matt, since, uh you were already doing it.
Why should Entenza owe the public any explanation about the garbage diggers he hires; it's not like he's running for Attorney General or anything.- On Tuesday, the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune quoted Entenza and Hatch acknowledging that Entenza, indeed, hired a Chicago political consulting firm to request public documents on Hatch's official spending.
- On Thursday, the same Republican blog-Minnesota Democrats Exposed-posted new evidence that the firm made a wider background check on Hatch, including looking up a parking ticket he got in 2003.
- Also Thursday, Entenza publicly apologized to Hatch for the background investigation, which he said the Chicago firm expanded without his knowledge or consent.
After leaving his voice-mail message with the Pioneer Press, which referred only to possessing "some opposition research on Republicans," Entenza did not respond to requests for a follow-up interview. John Van Hecke, Entenza's campaign manager, refused to say whether the research covered Johnson or reveal who conducted it.
On Thursday, Entenza promised that Dennis Gragert, a principal in the Chicago company Entenza hired, would make himself available to Minnesota reporters Friday. Gragert was supposed to elaborate on a written statement in which he backed up Entenza's assertion that the firm's research on Hatch, including the investigation of the parking ticket, went beyond anything Entenza had requested. Instead, a spokesman for Gragert telephoned reporters and said: "He stands by the statement, and has no further comment on the matter."That's understandable - the spying fees Entenza paid Gragert probably didn't cover the long-distance phone charges for subsequent ass-covering. Wait, there's more!
I guess he must've been against misusing the AARP's report before he released it. Wonder where he learned that sleight of hand.In a totally separate part of the storm of criticism Entenza now faces from Republicans, Johnson has demanded for weeks that Entenza say how he would avoid a conflict of interest involving an investigation Hatch initiated of UnitedHealth Group. The giant Minnetonka-based health care company employs Entenza's wife, Lois Quam, as a top executive. On Wednesday, Entenza issued a long statement saying that AARP had issued a report, "based on an independent, internal investigation, unequivocally stating that my wife, Lois Quam, has never had anything to do with granting stock options or setting compensation policy.''
In fact, AARP, a major UnitedHealth customer, last week received a letter from a UnitedHealth lawyer stating that Quam has not served on the company's board or compensation committee and seemed not to have been responsible for awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in stock options that now are at the heart of state and federal investigations. But AARP did not publicize that letter, or claim it exonerated Quam. After learning of Entenza's statement, AARP demanded an apology and Van Hecke, the campaign manager, issued one. Entenza also issued a rewritten statement in which he dropped any reference to AARP.
14 July 2006
Nuke St. Cloud, Minnesota; Just Nuke it.
From the Daily Pathetic
The St. Cloud Recreation Department postponed the free pool party Saturday because of heat, said Mike Theisen, the aquatic event coordinator. Between 50-75 people were expected. "I think it had safety concerns in mind,” Theisen
said.
12 July 2006
Annual Joy
Sex with Rachel after she turned fifty was like driving the last-place team
on the last day of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, the point no longer the ride but the finish, the difficulty not the speed but keeping all the parts moving in the right direction, not to mention all that irritating barking.
Dan Winters - Los Altos Hills, CA
Dog Farm Backs Zidane
Zinedine Zidane has apologised for his headbutt on Italian defender Marco Materazzi in Sunday's World Cup final. But the French legend does not regret his actions, alleging on television that Materazzi provoked him by insulting both his mother and sister. "It was inexcusable. I apologise," said the 34-year-old Zidane. "But I can't regret what I did because it would mean that he was right to say all that."Whilst the disconnected legacy media feigns shock over Zinedine Zidane's head butt of Marco Materozzi in the World Cup Final, the world forgets what a menace and thug Materozzi is all over Serie A.
09 July 2006
08 July 2006
Welcome to the Other Side
Memo to Boston Globe gay and lesbian Guild employees: Get married or lose your domestic partner benefits.
“An employee who currently covers a same-sex domestic partner as a dependent will have to marry his or her partner by Jan. 1 for the employee benefits coverage to continue at the employee rates,” the memo states.
Canada Day Beer Run
Yea, it's a long drive for a Kokanee, but what else are you gonna do with summer?
07 July 2006
Bags Packed; I'm Off to Maryland
June 7, 2006
The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC, 20510
Dear Senator Sarbanes,
As a native Marylander and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.My reasons for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, what I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out.
Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine. Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005. Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications. If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative.
Thank you for your assistance.
Your Loyal Constituent, Pete McGlaughlin
What Really Happened in Pittsburgh?
After passing a beggar with his can, my friend asked me if I could give him a couple of bucks, and thinking it was for a coffee at the adjacent cafe, I handed him the money. To my amazement, he returned his steps and handed the money to the beggar. He then struck up a conversation. A good five minutes later, he walked back toward me, and I told him that if I knew it was to give out free money, I wouldn't have given it to him.He answered: "Here in America nobody talks to you. But for two bucks, I bought myself five minutes of conversation."Of course me being me, this was my favorite response and interpretation of the events:
It's just two liberals playing moral-superiority oneupmanship — first he with her, then she with us. That's why she's treasured the anecdote of the encounter. She lost the gambit to him, but now her sensitized self can preen (if the letter gets published, which it did) to the entire NY Times readership. And by freely admitting she lost the game to her companion years ago, she can present a false-humble self that gives her a couple extra points in the score. Plus she can parade her agreement with the popular trope that all-Americans-are-isolated-souls. In the moral superiority sweepstakes, isn't that what people call a trifecta?In this tale and it's fallout you've got reams of material for your dissertation explaining the old saw about folks pampering their own self-esteem with other people's money.
Econ 102
More and more the thing that defines today left is their desperate clinging to what's broken. They want gun control, yet it never reduces crime. They want generous welfare programs, but they have never made a dent in poverty. Public school is the only K-12 education solution offered, yet these schools continue to decay from the inside, and they lust for aggressively progressive tax rates in order to soak the rich when this approach never fattens government coffers. All these failed concepts have been chapters in the lefty bible for decades, yet they still salute when any are run up the flagpole come election time.I bring a message of hope and absolution for the high-income Minnesotans who have called for a tax increase on themselves. Their proposal is designed to meet what they perceive as the need for more government revenue to fund more government spending. However, it won't work.
Raising income taxes doesn't generate more government income. It lowers it. The answer is not to raise taxes, but to lower them.
Facts are facts. Despite last year's projections that Minnesota would once again face a deficit, we are running a surplus, while at the same time our state no longer ranks in the top four or five in per capita taxation but has dropped to 16th. In Rhode Island, about a blue a state as you can get, the top tax rate has been cut from 9.9 percent to 5.5 percent, and the state has gone from the third-highest individual income tax rate to the 27th. According to William Murphy, the Democratic House speaker, to the business leaders who choose where their companies move and create jobs, the tax rate makes a big difference.
In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has cut the top income tax rate in half. New Mexico now has a half-billion-dollar surplus and has seen tax revenues increase by 27 percent this year, faster than any other state in the union.
Yes, it's counterintuitive to claim that lowering taxes increases tax revenues. But it does, not only because it attracts more businesses and jobs. It's also because the more money people have to spend on themselves rather than have confiscated by government, the more those dollars circulate to generate greater demand for goods and services, the more jobs that are created to supply those goods and services and the more income that is spread among more people -- and thus, more tax revenue.
So let's all shed a tear for the rich and guilt-ridden, and continue cutting taxes.DAN COHEN, MINNEAPOLIS
05 July 2006
How Stupid is Your Senator?
There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right. But this service is now going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free. Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet? I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially. So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes. We aren't earning anything by going on that internet.That's right Ted. The internet is all tubes.
They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
The above link has another link to the audio of Senator Asshat. Listen for yourself if you think I'm being unkind to this pathetic, blathering old man.
04 July 2006
Nothing of Importance Happened Today
Poor King George; he was really screwed by the absence of the infomation age. Think how long it took for this to cross his desk:
That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
