blognetnews.com
» Minnesota
edited by: Sally Jo Sorensen, Minnesota Editor
A A A

Items by Mark Gisleson

  • If a law is never enforced, does it exist?

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 4
    How out of control are out-of-state robo-dialing scam artists? I just got my THIRD robocall of the day telling me about credit card rates. I finally punched 9, waited and before I could even get started the woman who answered the phone was chewing me out and telling me to get [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 17, 2009, 6:27pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Newspapers still exploit kids

    —Norwegianity

    Kids don’t deliver newspapers in the inner cities anymore, so why did a 13-year-old boy just knock on my door to try to sell me a Pioneer Press subscription? He was from south Minneapolis so it’s not like he was working his own neighborhood. He said the PiPress people told him [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 17, 2009, 5:33pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Fucking with the troops

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 3
    Nothing says Republican like sticking it to the down and out. While Gov. BridgeFail frolics in New Hampshire, his state public safety commissioner has just stuck the metro area with a $300,000 bill for “extraordinary costs” associated with the dismantling of the Metro Gang Strike Force. Maybe Hennepin and Ramsey counties [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 17, 2009, 10:07am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Still paying off the parasites

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 1
    Harold Meyerson: The stocks bubble of the late 1990s was succeeded by a bubble in housing; these were the engines of our economic growth. America’s production of goods no longer received the level of investment that had made it the engine of our economic growth from the mid-19th century through the [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 16, 2009, 9:26am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Accepting my place in the greater scheme of things

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 10
    I give up. The news I’m most interested in is best expounded on in aggregated format, i.e., a list of all Joe fucking Lieberman’s fucking sins: The Ezra Klein post that led to Charles Lane’s nonsensical rebuttal post TBogg’s take Jews and non-Jews alike are criticizing Joe’s full-of-it version of Judaism Flip flopper A spiteful [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 15, 2009, 2:35pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Mn Republicans wedgie selves over technicality

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 5
    How big a girly-man is MN GOP chair Tony Sutton? Legislative Speaker of the House and DFL gubernatorial candidate Margaret Kelliher got some bad advice on a technical ruling as to how campaign finance rules work, and Sutton was quick to call for her resignation. As Speaker of the House. [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 14, 2009, 9:55am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • R.I.P.

    —Norwegianity

    Looking at the L.A. Times list of notable deaths from 2009, I realized I’d missed R.I.P.ping a number of people who impacted my life. Here’s the catch up list: Lux Interior Helen Suzman James Whitmore Mark “The Bird” Fidrych John Hughes Merce Cunningham Gordon Waller [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 13, 2009, 9:45am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Flaming bags of rhetoric

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 1
    George Clooney’s new movie speaks so directly to our times, Frank Rich wrote an entire column around it. What gives our Great Recession its particular darkness — and gives this film its haunting afterlife — is the disconnect between the corporate culture that is dictating the firing and the rest of [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 13, 2009, 9:10am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Unlike Rod Jetton’s victims, Wall Street doesn’t care if you’re awake or asleep when they fuck you

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 2
    Nice. Thanks to my overnight guest my Mac mini is now running much, much better. I like having friends who are smarter than me, especially when they’re smarter in useful ways. [NOTE: No, this headline doesn't really make any sense now that I look at it.] - Lots of reasons but right now' [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 12, 2009, 2:01pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Bastards, Bachmann, ‘bama, & brain injuries

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 1
    Bastards. Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials. The raids against suspects occurred on an [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 11, 2009, 9:46am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Or is you ain’t?

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 4
    So where I’m at isn’t necessarily where I should be. Not for blogging purposes anyway. Did the coffee thing this morning but even so when I finally got home and settled in I realized I hadn’t read any of the national newspapers yet today. That’s not the problem. The problem [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 10, 2009, 2:31pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Star Tribune ENDORSES Sarah Palin’s climate twaddle

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 1
    Silly me. I thought if I ignored Sarah Palin’s specious “climategate” op-ed in the WaPost, it would go away. No, not hardly. Despite articles, factchecking, posts, aggregations, posts, sarcasm, posts, debunkings and freaking videos explaining why climategate is a cynically manufactured nontroversy, the Strib republished Palin’s idiocy this morning. You cannot trust a [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 10, 2009, 8:29am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Icy kisses

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 4
    Not that much snow here in the Cities, but plenty all around us. In Iowa they got enough snow that the Des Moines Register decided to make their electronic version available to everyone today. Check it out. It took me a minute or so to figure out navigation and sizing. Ten [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 09, 2009, 9:53am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Another Republican sex criminal

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 8
    Rod Jetton, former Missouri Speaker of the House, has been charged with second-degree assault. None of the news reports want to come right out and say it, but they all imply that Jetton’s victim was roofied. According to a probable cause statement filed by a Sikeston police detective, Jetton and the woman [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 08, 2009, 9:17am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Caffeinated

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 2
    More from the Guardian; Roger Cohen and Bob Herbert on the other war. More important, the L.A. Times tells their readers that imposing a war tax would be insanely evil. Killing innocent civilians? Not so much so. - John Kerry’s Tora Bora op-ed. - Another Cargill-owned company recalls ground beef for salmonella contamination. I’ll give Obama [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 08, 2009, 8:34am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • A sports aside

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 5
    It’s starting. After only two losses all season, Vikings fans are already resorting to the kind of excusifying they’re notorious for throughout the league. (When, that is, they’re not trash talking the Vikes for failing to win a Super Bowl.) According to Dan Patrick: “Boselli points out that (left tackle) Bryant [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 08, 2009, 7:30am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Living in a moral vacuum tube

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 2
    Another one of those days when I can’t decide whether I hate Republicans or the media more. Corporatized Republicans because they just can’t stop lying about everything, and the media because they won’t stop treating the divided Republicans like a legitimate political party with actual policies that extend beyond fuck [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 07, 2009, 4:05pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • So how did those tax cuts work for you?

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 2
    [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 06, 2009, 1:25pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Daring to choose small govt, big war and the patriarchy

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 4
    Another very special column from Katherine Kersten this morning. Keywords include: oil oozing glare with disgust sticky handprints shill But that’s  just Kersten’s description of some nasty ad running against Michele Bachmann. Here are the words Katherine uses to describe Bachmann’s enemies: smear machine (fueled by huge sums of cash) Public Enemy No. 1 cabal of Democratic activists the [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 06, 2009, 9:26am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Yes, it’s a new theme

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 10
    No, I’m not changing it although I may spend some time tweaking it over the weekend. I wanted to switch to Khoi Vinh’s Basic Maths theme, then I saw it cost $45. I didn’t want to switch that bad, especially since I suspect I would have had to learn a lot more [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 05, 2009, 10:05am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Saturday morning quiz

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 6
    She opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, was vehemently against the draft (but called those who evaded it “bums”), and “regarded the feminist movement as utterly without legitimacy.” In her novels, she glorified rape—if it was committed by the right kind of man. Heller quotes her most famous disciple and [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 05, 2009, 9:42am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Max Baucus, philandering douchebag

    —Norwegianity

    Back to morning posts, on the weekends at least. Four stories at the Times that caught my eye: Max Baucus, the execrable blue dog bastard who shoved phony health care reform up our nation’s ass, pushed an attorney he was porking to become the new U.S. Attorney for Montana Italian court sentences Amanda [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 05, 2009, 8:06am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Nuttin’

    —Norwegianity

    In the immortal words of Atrios, I got nuthin’. Oh I could probably do something with Judith Warner’s column, but it snowed today and my mind is elsewhere. Music at the other place later. Later. [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 04, 2009, 6:45pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • A post that begins, middles and ends with Afghanistan

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 4
    I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Bill Ayers has dumped Obama over Afghanistan. Clarence Page seems to enjoy the irony. If you’re committed to party politics as I am, you don’t dump the President when he’s from your own party. Not unless he tries to nickel and dime regular [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 03, 2009, 9:06pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • The linkcetera you’ve been waiting for

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 3
    Haaretz is excited. But not so excited they forgot to mention that Marc’s father was “released from federal prison last year after serving a nearly five-year sentence for wire and bank fraud.” Former Iowa Congressman Ed Mezvinsky’s sins, of course, should not be visited upon the son. But maybe someone should ask [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 02, 2009, 2:52pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Palinfreude

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 1
    Digby’s quote from a HuffPo article sums up the state of the Palin quite nicely: As the epigram to Chapter Three, “Drill, Baby, Drill,” Palin assigns the following remarks to the Hall of Fame hoops coach: Our land is everything to us… I will tell you one of the things we remember [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 02, 2009, 1:43pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • The fork in the road

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 5
    I have to confess that I’m finding it hard to give a shit about the news given that we’re escalating in Afghanistan. Spot and Mick both speak to issues I have about that, and I suspect we’re in for quite a few disillusioned posts from former Obamanistas, not that Mick [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 02, 2009, 1:25pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Still thinking

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 6
    [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: December 02, 2009, 12:34am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Schwarzbeined in St. Paul

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 7
    There’s nothing like a series of five- and six-hour drives to give you time to think. On the way down to Ohio I emptied out my head, and on the way back I filled it up again. I think I know what I want to do with my blogs, but [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 30, 2009, 2:38pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Enjoy your holiday

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 2
    Interest in medical marijuana and easing other marijuana laws picked up markedly about 18 months ago, but advocates say the biggest surge came with the election of Barack Obama, the third straight president to acknowledge having smoked marijuana, and the first to regard it with anything like nonchalance. Even the Washington [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 23, 2009, 10:47am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Liars lying, Books by Crocks edition

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 6
    Sarah Palin as seen by: Frank Rich The Times on Palin in Michigan and Indiana, but no mention of her ditching her fans in Indiana Christopher Buckley Steve Chapman Joe Wurzelbacher CNN TBogg TRex Palin did manage to find time to ditch some fans yesterday so she could rip on the Senate healthcare vote in which her side has [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 22, 2009, 11:44am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Sorry, you’ll have to stand in line for 3 hours before you can read this blog, and we might take down the post before then

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 1
    Politics: Bob Herbert with the sad story of Detroit Not sure where Ray D. Madoff is coming from, but farmers do NOT need protection from estate taxes (that’s a lie, a Republican lie — it’s never been true and never will be true no matter how many times they lie about it) Tripp Palin’s paternal [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 21, 2009, 12:34pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • The fearsome troll-hammer of doom

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 8
    Some thoughts this morning on the fine art of trolling. That’s what I’m paneling on at Netroots Minnesota this afternoon, and that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. Not from defensive POV, but in my role as a liberal troll at my buddy Vick’s blog. I think my work in that [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:17am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Linkimus dumpus

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 4
    More than anything I’m putting up another post because I want to flag something for you. John Cole appears to be just about the only “news” source on the planet who’s put together the fact that CNN’s “Killing at the Canals” series on rogue U.S. troops in Iraq is about [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 19, 2009, 8:50pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Is you is (or is you not?) the one you love?

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 5
    - I really don’t have much use for Sarah Palin, but I have even less use for smarmy doyennes who sleep their way to the top of the Village’s social heap, and then ask very broad and quite rude religious questions of someone who’s not present to answer them. What does she [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 19, 2009, 10:31am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • rat1928@disney.com

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 8
    It’s Mickey Mouse’s 81st birthday today, and he’s still the property of the Disney folks who have owned Mickey since they created him in 1928. What does that mean, exactly? It means that if you do anything with Mickey and Disney doesn’t like it (or even if they do), they can [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:21pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • There was, in fact, beer

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 3
    I took this one picture just before I started blowing up the balloons and putting party favors at all the placesettings. It appeared to be in focus last night, but apparently it only took one and a half Maharajas to cloud my vision. They served the strong beer in small [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 18, 2009, 8:22am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Riding shotgun in the sky

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 9
    No, not another link to another a story about Sarah Palin. Well, OK, if you insist. But I’m self-aware enough to know that Wegestock is just a manifestation of my inner Sarah, my need for attention, the gratification I get from having others buy me beer. It’s not my good side. [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 17, 2009, 10:04am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Getting ourselves back to the garden

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 4
    Minnesota Public Radio’s getting ready to expand their online news presence in a way that might prove to be very interesting. Or not. Meanwhile, the Strib jumps all over them this morning and the comments go from lib MPR hate to the usual rightwing NPR fulminations. Ed Kohler deconstructs the numbers [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:13am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • The snark before Wegestock

    —Norwegianity

    A funny thing happened to Katherine Kersten on her way to the snarkfest. She laid it on so thick that Katherine’s churlish wordle grew three sizes today! And the minute her heart didn’t feel quite so right, she whizzed out an upload on the bright morning snow. And she brought back [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 15, 2009, 10:40am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Al and Norm sitting in a tub….

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 8
    I took another look at that Franken-Coleman Mad Magazine fold-in and the more I looked at it, the more I thought that their intent couldn’t possibly have been to create a FrankMan buttplug. Or a ColeKen buttplug. I tried folding the page differently. That didn’t look right either, so I tried a [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 14, 2009, 3:57pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Another MinnSat post

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 7
    I think they let an intern write Opinuendo this week. Further speculation Wegeth not, but the reporting on the ID debate at St. Thomas’s law school is a bit more even handed and less snarky than the Opinuendo I remember. Picking up after Casey Luskin’s weasel points: Luskin was followed by Peter [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 14, 2009, 10:14am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • That plus hating on women

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 7
    Sholom Rubashkin has been found guilty of 86 out of 91 counts of felony fraud related to his management of the Agriprocessors packing plant in Postville, Iowa. He was separately found guilty of 15 out of 20 charges of ignoring a court order that he pay livestock providers on the barrelhead [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:27pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Media whores and bores

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 5
    I was finally induced into watching a Strib news video with James Lileks. I won’t do that again. Lileks approaches the news Fox style, and I just can’t handle that kind of conversational crap. If it’s news, it’s interesting whether you dress it up for a party or just read it [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 13, 2009, 9:55am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Only 5 drinking days left before Wegestock!

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 7
    The enthusiasm seems to have tapered off a bit, so I think it’s time to bring out the promo poster from Tild! I’m not sure but I think this poster references an old Julie Andrews movie, either S.O.B. or Thoroughly Modern Millie, I’m not sure which. Catherine at The Happy Gnome was [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 12, 2009, 2:57pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Listing to starboard

    —Norwegianity

    Drowning in links, but I can’t decide what makes me maddest today. I think I’ll let Mick kick things off: I don’t want to seem too much like a broken record, going over and over the same grooves and playing the same song until My Funny Valentine sounds like Little Lambsy-Divey but [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 12, 2009, 1:42pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Free fat grams for veterans day

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 5
    They serve and fight for their country, and this is how we repay them? Then again, maybe a bacon quesadilla cheeseburger would sound good to one of Minnesota’s 4,000 homeless vets. - In a rare bit of good news, Jeff Huber says it’s bullshit that Obama has decided to send more troops to [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 11, 2009, 11:30am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Tagged and in the bag

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 2
    The new header’s actually scarier when you can read the tags. Not sure everyone realized it, but the tags do denote what passes for thoughts in my innermost cranial thinkspots. Word cancers would be another way of putting it. Lots of word cancers. This iteration of Norwegianity isn’t even a year [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 10, 2009, 7:37pm EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Change change

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 3
    Kill it. Yes, people will die, but people will die if this bill passes as is. Joe Lieberman should die. No, I don’t need Peter fucking Beinart to tell me it was a smart move. And I’ll ask the U.S. Conference of Bishops for their opinion the next time they chain themselves to [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 10, 2009, 11:03am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

  • Bitterenders waiting for the new Saddam

    —Norwegianity

    Number of comments: 3
    Krugman: Last Thursday there was a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to protest pending health care legislation, featuring the kinds of things we’ve grown accustomed to, including large signs showing piles of bodies at Dachau with the caption “National Socialist Healthcare.” It was grotesque — and it was also ominous. For [...]
     | Rate | Archive
    Posted: November 09, 2009, 9:24am EST
    by Mark Gisleson

Search Minnesota Political Blogs

Hot Topics

More »

Get the latest Minnesota posts by email


Daily Hourly

BNN by date

» Get the full Minnesota Feed

» Follow BNN Minnesota on Twitter

» Get the Minnesota Headline Widget

» Minnesota Politicial Blogwire

» Minnesota Politicial Blogs Dashboard

» Minnesota Politicial Blogs Directory

Powered by FeedBurner