Congrats KG

One heck of a blowout last night as the Celtics spanked the Lakers.

Kevin Garnett, scoring 26 points and pulling down 14 rebounds, finally won an NBA championship as the Boston Celtics overpowered the Los Angeles Lakers en route to their first NBA crown in 22 years.

Good for KG.  He’s one of the good guys and as much as we miss him in Minnesota, I’m happy that he finally got his ring.

As Jeff said:

No, I don’t feel betrayed by Garnett; instead, I feel sort of like you feel when a you run in to a former flame with his or her new love. You don’t wish them ill, indeed, you’re happy that they’re happy, you truly are, because that’s what you want for them. But there’s still just a little twinge, a little sense of loss, of asking why it couldn’t have been you. I’m happy for Garnett, truly. But I wish he could have won it here.

New Franken ad

Pawlenty of blame to go around

Reports suggest neglected maintenance was a contributing factor to the I-35W bridge collapse.

Transportation officials’ concerns that fixing or replacing a Minneapolis bridge would be a “budget buster” may have led to bad maintenance decisions before its deadly collapse in August, a report released Wednesday concluded.

Duh, ya think?

Another super for Obama

Minnesota’s remaining undeclared superdelegate, Colin Peterson, appears to be leaning to Obama.

HT: Minnesota Monitor

Vice presidential timber

So this is how Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty honors his wife for joining him at the fishing opener:

“I have a wife who genuinely loves to fish. I mean, she will take the lead and ask me to go out fishing, and joyfully comes here. She loves football, she’ll go to hockey games, and I jokingly say, ‘Now, if I could only get her to have sex with me I’d really have it made.””

Why I am proud of my state representative

Mindy Greiling is brilliant.  She is my representative to the state legislature and lives just down the block from me.  Minnesota Monitor highlights her recent correspondence with the Star Tribune over a hit piece their resident right wingnut, Katherine Kersten, did against a local charter school.

In response to questions prompted by Katherine Kersen’s recent columns on Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), I decided to visit the school myself.

What I learned during a tour late last month is that none of Kersten’s concerns that the charter school is promoting religion in violation of a state law that prohibits public schools from doing so is valid.

What I did see was excellent teachers hard at work in the classroom focused on improving student achievement. I saw engaged students of different religious and cultural backgrounds learning reading, math, government and science. I spoke with parents, teachers and administrators who all stressed their high standards for TIZA students.

While an outsider, or someone like Kersten who is trying to validate a predetermined conclusion, might be tempted to brand Tarek ibn Ziyad as an “Islamic School” because it leases space from the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, the school, like other charter schools in Minnesota that lease space from churches, is a separate entity. It does comply with federal law that requires all schools to accommodate a student’s right to practice his or her religion. And unlike other charter schools that have faced financial and other administrative challenges, the school was recognized with a 2008 School Finance Award from the Minnesota Department of Education for its “sound fiscal health and financial management policies.”

Kersten’s reckless journalistic standards have diminished this paper’s credibility. Worse, they have threatened the safety of the children and staff at the school, which has been forced to take extra security measures in the wake of recent death threats. While I value a broad range of opinions from a variety of perspectives, I value the facts even more. Kersten’s gross distortion of the facts in this case should compel Star Tribune management to ask for her resignation.

Minnesota’s dumbest legislator strikes again

Michele the whack job Bachmann is at it again, this time claiming credit for earmarks she opposed.

Bachmann, in a taxpayer-funded letter to constituents, is claiming credit for securing $803,600 in funding for St. Cloud Metro Bus. That earmark was part of the 2007 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill, which also included funding for I-35 bridge reconstruction and the Northstar Commuter Rail line. Bachmann voted against the legislation, but is now boasting of the spoils.

Democrats wasted no time pointing out this seeming hypocrisy. “Most Minnesotans learned in kindergarten that you don’t take credit for work that you didn’t do,” said DFL chairman Brian Melendez in a statement. “Bachmann ought to acquaint herself with those grade-school lessons before she shamelessly tries to pull another fast one on Minnesotans.”

Oops

Yes fish tanks can stink, but isn’t this a bit excessive?

“Ohmigod,” Adams said as she recalled police breaking down her door and flashing the search warrant. “I just kept saying to them, ‘you’ve got the wrong house.’ “

Police soon realized that themselves.

“From a cursory view, it doesn’t look like our officers did anything wrong,” said Capt. Greg Roehl.

Yes indeed, nothing wrong at all.  Except break down the door of a sleeping couple who hadn’t done anything wrong to begin with.

Our idiot laws and the moronic “war” on drugs.   And through it all there’s really nothing available to them to hold the police accountable for their behavior here.

Hat tip:  John Cole

Getting ahead of himself

It’s no secret that Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is viewed, for reasons unfathomable to intelligent people, as a viable vice-presidential candidate for John McCain.

Minnesota Monitor reports:

Minnesota’s first couple jetted to D.C. to be feted at a fundraiser Wednesday, where VP talk bubbled over as freely as champagne and Gov. Tim Pawlenty picked up a trendy new nickname: “45″ — as in, 45th president of the United States.

Um…yeah.  I guess they haven’t seen the polls suggesting that Pawlenty would be a drag on McCain, even (or especially) in Minnesota.

Perhaps Pawlenty’s time might be better spend doing other things like, oh, I don’t know, maybe FIXING BRIDGES?

Another Minnesota bridge closed

A third Minnesota bridge out of commission for safety reasons.

The troubled Lowry Avenue Bridge was scheduled to closed permanently at 10 a.m. today, eliminating a river crossing in Minneapolis for at least three years, Hennepin County announced Thursday afternoon.

Engineers had been expecting to close the aging bridge sometime this summer, but “with the temperature swings and the pier movement and the bridge expanding, there’s too many moving parts,” Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein said Thursday. “Moving parts are fine for clocks but not for bridges.”

“The engineers [Thursday] morning showed me pictures of bolts that have been sheared off,” said Stenglein, who represents the area.

But hey, we’ve dropped from a “high” tax state, to a middlin’ tax state.  Alas, we no longer lead the nation in economic growth, employment, education, and our quality of life is slipping.  But mediocre is fine for our GOP masters as long as their pockets are being lined.

And this doesn’t count the bridges that NEED repair and replacement…

Consequences of the court

They’re still hitting Norm over his judicial endorsements.  As they should.

When judges matter

It’s not just conservatives who are coming to understand why the courts matter.  A new ad is hitting the airwaves targeting Senator Norm Coleman.

For years, Lilly Ledbetter was paid far less than the men in her factory for doing the same work - and she proved it in court. But when the company appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, a new justice nominated by George W. Bush and supported by Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman wrote the opinion that denied her equal pay.

Tell Norm Coleman we need judges who will protect workers - not take our rights away.

You can listen to it here.

Hat tip: MNPublius

NOT a good thing

The Delta/Northwest merger has been announced.

We’ll see what happens, and the extent to which Minnesota may need to seek penalties against the new organization.  As Governor Tim Pawlenty said:

In 2007, we negotiated agreements with Northwest to keep hub operations and a headquarters presence in Minnesota. We will examine how the merged entity will fulfill those commitments

Damn straight.  Losing a fortune 500 company headquarters matters.  State of the Brand speaks of marketing and benefits, tangible and intangible, for having major corporate presence and especially corporate headquarters in a city.  Sure, they speak of retaining the hub, but that’s not good enough.

From a tangible perspective, large corporate headquarters provide a number of benefits: Executive level employment, corporate philanthropy, cultural enrichment funding, and innovation / entrepreneurship hubs (as smaller firms spring up to grab business from these uber-entities).

All these concrete reasons provide a powerful incentive to keep a corporate headquarters in your state.

But the departure of a corporate headquarters has an intangible affect as well - a brand impact.

When a state works to create an image for itself (or in the case of branding, a state has its image created for it at the same time), it leverages these household names to “anchor” its position.

We see that dynamic at work in Minnesota.

Minnesota is a “biotech leader” because of Medtronic and Mayo Clinic. Minnesota is a “manufacturing/innovation” leader because of 3M. Minnesota is a “retail powerhouse” because of Target. The state is an agricultural/food innovator because of Cargill and SuperValu.

Until now, Minnesota was an “aviation center” because of Northwest Airlines.

As Minnesota tries to present itself on the national stage as a good place to live, a good place to work, and a good place to seize opportunity, it relies on these brands to help make its case.

Exactly.  Minnesota is due hundreds of millions if the new company walks out on its committments.  And it should collect - it is small compensation for lost opportunity and broken promises.

The real solution here is to maintain two headquarters cities - it’s not at all uncommon, respectful of both Atlanta and the Twin Cities, and reasonable given the lack of overlap in the separate entities’ operations.

Will clearer heads prevail?  Unclear but unlikely.  We can only hope Oberstar manages to gum up the works if they aren’t cooperative.

Birds of a feather

Amy endorses

Wise woman

US Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar has endorsed Barack Obama to become the party’s presidential nominee, adding new pressure on trailing rival Hillary Clinton, Obama’s campaign announced Monday.

“My endorsement reflects both Barack’s strong support in my state and my own independent judgment about his abilities,” Klobuchar said.