Dutch finds gainful employment!
Starting today, Dude Weather is continuing over at the Rake. Go check him out there.
Dude Weather: You said “caucus”
Dude Weather: You said “caucus”
Plus an announcement…
Note from underground: Changes…
Dear Mole readers and friends,
The rumors, first reported last week by David Brauer and Brian Lambert, are true: Beginning on February 19, I will be joining Minnesota Monitor. The Mole is going on hiatus starting today, likely to re-emerge as a personal site with a more arts/culture orientation.
It’s been a lot of fun doing the Daily Mole during the past three months-plus. I want to thank all of you for the interest and support that allowed us to build from 2000 or so page views a day during the early part of public beta to 8,000-10,000 a day over the last few weeks–all without paid promotion or mainstream media exposure.
Trying to raise start-up funding in this climate has not been so gratifying. Neither has working in relative isolation every day as we bootstrapped the start-up. I’m very grateful to the world’s finest interweb weatherman, Jimmy “Dutch” Gaines, to my wife Cecily Marcus and our family, and to music contributor Jon Hunt.
And I look forward to working alongside the folks at Minnesota Monitor to ensure the site is one of the most useful and provocative sources of local news and campaign 2008 coverage. Some of the stories and the content departments we’ve been working on here will move to the Monitor, which, I’m excited to say, is in the process of expanding its resources and its coverage.
Hope you’ll join me and the Monitor’s growing roster of contributors there. And once again, thanks for reading and thanks for your support, encouragement, and criticisms.
Big loser in Rasmussen/Fox9 Minnesota survey: Pawlenty
There are no surprises in the presidential preferences expressed by Minnesotans in the pre-Super Tuesday poll unveiled by Fox9 last night. The Rasmussen survey of “likely voters” shows McCain and Obama surging here, as they have in most surveys of other states holding primaries tomorrow. But how those preferences will translate in a state where people have to spend an evening at the caucuses rather than having all day to vote at their leisure puts a premium on ground organization. We’ll see.
The eye-opener involves the two survey questions about Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Back in October, a couple of months after the 35W bridge collapse, a Strib Minnesota Poll showed Pawlenty with a 59 percent approval rating, his highest in four years. Three months later, Rasmussen says that 45 percent of Minnesotans call Pawlenty’s performance excellent or good, while 53 percent term it fair or poor. The real shocker concerns Pawlenty as a prospective Republican VP candidate: While 29 percent say it would make them more likely to vote for the GOP ticket, 35 percent say it would make them less likely to cast their votes for the Republicans. This suggests not only that MnDOT-related scandals and the economy have cost Pawlenty more than anyone has realized, but that the governor has become a more polarizing figure in Minnesota over time.
The Republicans have already invested a lot of political capital in this swing state by choosing to hold their convention here. It’s hard to think that John McCain or the chieftains of the national GOP will find much savor in the prospect of spending more political capital here by choosing a VP for the ticket who looks like a net liability in his own state.
Here’s the Fox9 report, with video, text results, and crosstabs.
Video op-ed: The Angry Clown offers his presidential endorsement
As Super Tuesday approaches, the Angry Clown grapples with the question that Americans everywhere are trying to answer: Among the major party presidential candidates, who seems least crazy and/or evil?
Coke ad during Super Bowl lays bare truth about American politics
In a scant one minute, this crypto-subversive Coca Cola spot starring Republican Bill Frist and Democrat James Carville flaunts an aspect of American electoral politics both parties typically shy from discussing: that whatever their putative differences, they a) generally wind up saying the same thing in the end, and b) can always find common ground in the interest of mutual self-enrichment.
Keefe/MPD Update: Jordan says Civil Rights Department acted properly on complaint
Keefe/MPD Update: Jordan says Civil Rights Department acted properly on complaint
Twin Cities: Campaign ‘08 video: New Clinton ads, new Obama Girl… Polls and police lawsuit in Morning Roundup… Reveille: Bon Iver in-store concert coming up… Dude Weather: “I am not a rodent”… Yesterday’s Molecast: Will Super Tuesday slow the Clinton and McCain trains?… Pop Media: Video: Google Street View 2.0… Trailers for movies opening this week… Video: documentary about comics genius Alan Moore… Talk: We resurrect a thread from early in the beta: What’s the weirdest thing you ever bought or sold on eBay?
Stuff to do: Ol’ Yeller at the Uptown Bar
First, any band that rehearses in freezing unfinished attics is all right with me. (See the video below.) Ol’ Yeller [Myspace] headlines a bill at the Uptown Bar that also features the Nightinghales, Poosa, and Deep Pool. It’s a 21+ show, music starts at 9, and admission is $5. Uptown Bar details.
Below: Ol’ Yeller, the attic tapes–shot in Nordeast in the past couple of months
Obama Girl: Here she comes to save the day…
Via TechCrunch, a new Obama Girl video premiered yesterday. If you haven’t heard about Obama Girl before, her first video (which came out seven months ago and has racked up over 5 million YouTube views) is below the jump.
Update: Though he’s far less popular than Obama Girl, Minnesota Rep. Jim Oberstar today endorsed Obama.
“Super Obama Girl” (new)
Movies opening this week
The Eye
Strange Wilderness
Below the jump: Over Her Dead Body
Keefe/MPD update: Jordan says Civil Rights Department acted properly in forwarding accusation-laden letter
Earlier this week I posted deputy city attorney Peter Ginder’s “no comment” concerning my question about whether the city attorney’s office or the Civil Rights Department was ultimately responsible for the inclusion of unusual and serious accusations against Minneapolis police lieutenant Michael Keefe in a response to a civil rights complaint by Ron Edwards.
Today I reached Civil Rights Department director Michael Jordan [pictured] and asked him whether his office had acted properly in forwarding to Edwards the case memorandum that contained the Keefe allegations (written by Caroline Bachun of the city attorney’s office). Jordan answered unequivocally.
“Yes,” he said. “The process is, the complainant makes a complaint. We send the complaint to the person they’re complaining against, the respondent, and the respondent forwards a response to that complaint. The complainant then gets to look at that response and offer a rebuttal. That’s the standard practice with all complaints. It has been for 20 years.”
US general: Let the soldiers blog
One of the best-known faces among top US military brass, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, is pushing the Pentagon to allow soldiers to blog and post video to YouTube, calling it a potential asset in the war for the hearts and minds of Americans back home.
Noah Schachtman posts about Caldwell’s efforts at the Danger Room blog, and he includes a number of useful background links regarding the current ban on YouTube access through military networks and the blocking of numerous soldier blogs.
Reveille: Bon Iver in-store concert at Electric Fetus announced
From the Daily Mole’s local music partner site Reveille, Andrea Myers has the lowdown on another local Bon Iver appearance, coming on February 13:
Before heading out on a full US tour with Black Mountain, Justin Vernon will play a private in-store at the Electric Fetus in Minneapolis on Wednesday, February 13 at 8 p.m. The store will be closed early to give fans an exclusive chance to see Bon Iver play. Tickets for the show are available for free with the first 300 pre-orders of the much anticipated national release of For Emma, Forever Ago on Jagjaguwar Records; you can pre-order the Bon Iver CD or vinyl record in person at the Minneapolis Fetus or online at electricfetus.com.
In-store attendees will also receive a free large color poster and will have the chance to have their poster signed by Justin after the show.
Bon Iver will return to the Twin Cities again in April for another proper concert. Details of the show(s) will be announced soon.
Bon Iver in-store performance
Wednesday, February 13th, 8 p.m.
Electric Fetus
2000 4th Ave. S
Minneapolis, MN 55404
FREE with pre-order of For Emma, Forever Ago
Below: Bon Iver plays “Lump Sum” live in the studio at The Current
Obituary: Netscape browser, 1994-2008
Scott Gilbertson writes at Wired’s Compiler blog that as of today, America Online has turned off the switch: “Navigator will continue to function should you happen to have a recent copy stashed away. But America Online, which has been Netscape’s guardian during its long, downward slide in popularity, will no longer support the browser and will stop releasing updates. Support for all versions of the software will be off-loaded to the Netscape community forum. Netscape.com will continue to live on as a web portal.”
Gossip Morning
Cecily files via email:
I am in LA, and the gossip is that in LA, celebrity gossip is a normal part of local news coverage. Go figure. On the 6 am news I have heard about Britney Spears (I am at UCLA today too, but not in the psych ward), Star Jones, and paparazzi laws!
- Entertainment Tonight was to run a video of Heath Ledger at a drug-laden party (though apparently there is no footage of him actually doing drugs), but Hollywood publicists and stars pressured the outfit to drop the video. Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Josh Brolin, and Sarah Jessica Parker all sent emails.
- Grey’s Anatomy star Justin Chambers recently checked himself into the same UCLA psych ward as Spears. Chambers was suffering from “exhaustion” and a “sleep disorder.”
- Actress Julianna Marguiles has given birth to a boy, Kieran.
Video: Alan Moore documentary
Altertube has posted a 77-minute documentary on the cult comics-writer and novelist Alan Moore (The Watchmen, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta).
Campaign ‘08 ads: Clinton goes with the economy on eve of Super Tuesday
In the final weekend before 24 states vote on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton rolls out two ads about the economy. Serviceable if not exactly rousing, but it’s doubtful how compelling they’ll prove to former supporters of John Edwards, who made these issues the centerpiece of his campaign. As David Schultz noted on the Molecast yesterday, one of Edwards’s greatest strengths lay among white male Democrats, and there are a great many white male Democrats who just don’t like her.
Free Fall
Can Do
This Day in Infamy: Nguyen Van Lam executed, 1 February 1968
From the Daily Mole’s partner site Axis of Evel Knievel, an award-winning blog devoted to atrocities, disasters, and portents of doom from the historical record:
By David Noon
On 1 February 1968, several days into the Tet Offensive, Lt. Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the South Vietnamese police, shot a captured member of the National Liberation Front in the head at close range. Nguyen Van Lam, also known as Captain Bay Lop, had been captured by South Vietnamese forces after a battle at a Buddhist pagoda in the Chinese section of Saigon. Hands tied behind his back and his face visibly swollen, Lam was marched down the street.
American photographer Eddie Adams and Vietnamese cameraman Vo Su — who was working for NBC — had been photographing and filming the battle and watched as two South Vietnamese Marines brought the staggering captive toward them. Adams described the scene years later:
When they were close — maybe five feet away — the soldiers stopped and backed away. I saw a man walk into my camera viewfinder from the left. He took a pistol out of his holster and raised it. I had no idea he would shoot. It was common to hold a pistol to the head of prisoners during questioning. So I prepared to make that picture — the threat, the interrogation. But it didn’t happen. The man just pulled a pistol out of his holster, raised it to the VC’s head and shot him in the temple. I made a picture at the same time.
The frightful still image of the summary execution quickly became emblematic of the American War in Vietnam, at least to its critics. For the remainder of both of their lives, however, Adams — whose photo was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 — defended Loan, whom he believed was destroyed by the image as well.
Several months after the shooting of Nguyen Van Lem, Loan was severely injured in a battle near a Saigon bridge; one of his legs had to be amputated. He fled to the United States after the fall of Saigon and opened a pizza restaurant in Burke, Virginia, which he operated until when his identity was publicized in 1991 and his business suffered. Loan died of cancer seven years later. Adams passed away in 2004 from ALS. As for Nguyen Van Lam, his body disappeared after the shooting thirty-nine years ago today and was never found.
Festivus Friday: Air your grievances, large or small
Every Friday at the Daily Mole, we ask you to air your grievances from the week gone by.
Eligible targets: bosses, spouses, politicians, co-workers, favorite teams, BFFs gone bad, media, celebrities (real or local), other people’s pets and children, or anyone/anything else that has caused you aggrievement or dyspeptitude in the previous seven days.
Use some common sense. If you’re talking about private individuals you know personally or work with (if it’s a personal story, that is), change names–and don’t provide identifying details that would violate their privacy, because the sad fact of American jurisprudence is that even scoundrels have privacy rights.Beyond that, let them have it.
TC Morning Roundup: Moving targets
Through no fault of the survey takers, yesterday’s MPR/UM Humphrey Institute poll on Minnesota presidential preferences was almost information-free. Measured against the last Minnesota head count, back in September, all it really tells us is that what’s true across the country is true here as well–John McCain and Barack Obama have gained enormously from their exposure and their successes so far in primary season. [MPR] [Strib]
Otherwise, caveats abound:
- The poll is not of likely voters, and never mind the problem of figuring out via phone survey who will actually trudge out to precinct caucuses.
- It was taken before Rudy Giuliani, and, more critically, John Edwards dropped out.
- Clinton’s lead on the Democratic side falls within the margin of error.
- And as we’ve noted here before, the polls this season have missed more often than they hit. (Here’s a WSJ analysis we linked the other day.)
Incidentally, here’s a Gallup tracking poll that contains the first scant hints of post-Edwards and Giuliani trends. And today MPR has additional numbers on the US Senate race. Surprisingly, Al Franken is not only leading big among Democrats but running even with Norm Coleman.
In a hearing yesterday on the main MPD civil rights lawsuit, Judge Michael Davis denied a motion by the city to excise certain portions of the original legal complaint on the grounds they were (David Chanen’s words) “redundant, immaterial, impertinent or scandalous.” These included references to Chief Tim Dolan’s teenage years, when he allegedly put racist fliers in the lockers of black students at his school. Davis also warned the city’s attorneys they’d face sanctions if they tried to tie up proceedings with endless legal motions.
Resume-polishing in our time: Governor Green makes noises about sweetening the incentives for building wind farms in Minnesota… The bridge: Jason Hoppin of the Pi Press writes that the 35W bridge collapse, coupled with a 2006 federal study, has the US Department of Transportation calling for a re-examination of bridges’ load capacities., and earlier this week the New York Times published a nice overview of the controversies occasioned by NTSB chair Mark Rosenker’s press conference a couple of weeks ago.
Josephine Marcotty says researchers studying the illness that struck pork plant workers in Austin who inhaled vaporized pig brains are leaning to the view it’s an auto-immune reaction triggered by the pig brain tissue…
Mortgage fraud: Ronald Joseph, a co-owner of LHS Mortgage Inc., was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday. Joseph, who tried to kill himself a month ago by drinking antifreeze, got the minimum recommended sentence.
And here’s an LA Times story from earlier this week that offers more details on the possible $1.3 billion in fines that United Health is facing in California. (If this poses a cash-flow problem for United, we know where there’s $900 million-plus just sitting around…)
keep looking »
