Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will doubtlessly test the presidential waters on the premise that what he has wrought next door “is working.”According to the AP:“Unemployment rates increased in all 72 Wisconsin counties from December to January. The state numbers released Wednesday were not seasonally adjusted. They range from 5.5 percent in Dane County to 15.0 percent in Menominee County. The state Department of Workforce Development also breaks down numbers by so-called metropolitan statistical areas. All 12 areas saw unemployment rise between 1 percent and 2 percent since last month.” Of course, it goes without saying that the unemployed are not job creators.
The on-going drought has Andy Rathbun of the PiPress talking “concrete frost” with weather folks: “ … most of southern Minnesota, and possibly more of the state, is likely experiencing what's called 'concrete frost' -- an impenetrable layer of frozen soil. … Diane Cooper, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service's Twin Cities office, said it's unusual for concrete frost to form in drought conditions like the ones Minnesota is experiencing. What made this situation unique, she said, was that snow fell in early December, followed by rain and snowmelt. That water went into air pockets in the topsoil and froze when temperatures fell later in the month. Cooper estimated that the concrete frost ranges as far north as Scott and Dakota counties. But she said it could reach even farther, especially in localized areas.”
So what? Did he get it all off the Internet?The AP says: “A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to smuggling thousands of rounds of ammunition from the U.S. to Ukraine. Paul Kalash, 37, of Plymouth, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to one count of smuggling goods from the U.S. U.S. Custom and Border Protection agents seized several packages of ammunition Kalash tried to ship to Ukraine last year. Kalash argued he was sending the ammunition to a friend who is a competitive shooter. But the Star Tribune reports federal investigators said the ammunition Kalash bought from an online firearms dealer appeared to be inconsistent with competitive shooting.” I swear to god, I thought I was making a joke about the Internet….
Another video of Our Favorite Congresswoman sprinting … away from a too-inquisitive reporter. On The Huffington Post via CNN, the story goes: “Michele Bachmann tested CNN correspondent Dana Bash's speed on Tuesday when she tried to duck questions about some false claims she made during her recent speech to the CPAC conference. 'She literally raced away from our Dana Bash,' Anderson Cooper told viewers on his show. Bachmann made comments about the supposedly lavish lifestyle Obama leads inside the White House during her speech at CPAC, slamming the professional dog walker and multiple chefs she said were being paid with taxpayer money. ‘The claims of $1.4 billion in White House perks and excess, they fail on the facts in simple fairness,'" Cooper said:
Congresswoman Bachmann apparently got her information from a 131-page self-published book by a long-time Republican lobbyist. The book provides no specific sourcing for the claims it makes. No sourcing.
You mean some guy’s self-published book isn’t good enough to be called “sourcing”?
According to… a study out of Wisconsin … Carver County is the healthiest place in Minnesota. At WCCO-TV they say: “On Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of Health announced the findings by the County Health Rankings. All Minnesota counties were included in the report, which is prepared by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and ranks the overall health of counties by measuring how healthy people are and how long they live. In the report, counties are ranked in two categories: health outcomes and health factors. Health outcomes include rate of people dying before age 75, the percentage of people who report being in fair or poor health and the rate of low birth-weight infants. Health factors include health behavior, clinical care, social/economic factors and physical environment.”
More 4G LTE from ATT, says Les Suzukamo of the PiPress. “AT&T says it has invested $243 million in its Twin Cities network to expand and improve its fastest mobile Internet service called 4G LTE. The nation's second largest U.S. wireless carrier said Wednesday, March 20, that it put the money into its wireless and wired networks from 2010 to 2012, activating new cell sites and upgrading cell sites to provide 4G LTE mobile broadband speeds.”
Nothing in the official codes was violated … . Eric Roper of the Strib reports: “A developer and former Minneapolis City Council member did not violate the city’s ethics code when he used pseudonyms in an attempt to derail a business rival’s projects at City Hall, a city board has determined. The city attorney’s office reviewed allegations against Steve Minn after another developer, Kelly Doran, said Minn’s use of fake identities to e-mail city officials and make online postings was inappropriate given his appointed role on the city’s public housing authority. After reviewing the two instances that fell within the ethical practices board’s one-year jurisdiction, ethics officer Susan Trammell determined Minn was acting in his private capacity and did not violate any ethics rules. The board, at Trammell’s recommendation, dismissed the complaint on Feb. 20. … Doran, who has feuded with Minn, initiated the review by delivering an inch-thick stack of documents to each City Council member and the mayor in January. It included recent e-mails Minn sent to City Council members, under fake names, accusing Doran of being ‘a crook’, ‘unethical’ and ‘a bully.’” But the law is cool with anonymous Internet trolling … .
Kris Jacobs of JOBSNow responds to opponents of raising the minimum wage. In a Strib commentary she says: “Another argument used by the hospitality industry is that if owners weren’t paying servers so handsomely, they’d be paying cooks and kitchen staff better. If this were true, cooks and kitchen staff in surrounding states (where there is a tip penalty on servers) would be better paid than in Minnesota. But the opposite is true. In the four states bordering Minnesota, restaurant cooks are paid an average of 58 cents per hour less than in Minnesota. Dishwashers in these states are paid an average of 25 cents per hour less than in Minnesota.”
At MPR Tom Crann and food writer Rachel Hutton discuss a suppoosedly hot restaurant trend that adds … retail … to the chow:
Tom Crann: Can you give us an example?
Rachel Hutton: Sure. In 2011, Eric and Andrew Dayton opened The Bachelor Farmer restaurant in Minneapolis's North Loop. Considering their family history with the state's most famous department store, it's not surprising that the brothers also included an adjoining retail shop, called Askov Finlayson, in their plans. The shop's primary focus is menswear, but they sell everything from lip balm to children's toys.
Tom Crann: And I suppose there are advantages to the Daytons running both operations?
Rachel Hutton: Yes, including the fact that it makes it easy for them to coordinate joint events. For example, this Saturday afternoon, they're hosting a bubble hockey tournament -- the hockey version of foosball -- in Askov Finlayson, but they're going to open The Bachelor Farmer's bar early so participants can drink and snack between games.”
Wasn’t there a restaurant on the top floor of the downtown Daytons’ … 30, 40 years ago?And hasn't Mayslack's been selling "Nobody Beats Mayslack's Meat" even longer?