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Tomatos, green beans, cucumbers, peppers all grow fine in the Midwest soil, not year round but that's why

...they're grown in California. Thanks for playing!

people use to can vegetables and have cellars.

Less homes in the midwest have cellars than ever before, and people want to eat fresh vegetables all year. That was the whole premise of my comment. Thanks for ignoring reality.

So - since we're talking about Texas and if it's Texas voter fraud has to be pro-Republican:

https://www.houstonchronicle.c...

https://empowertexans.com/arou...

https://www.justice.gov/usao-s...
Since this one was vague about party affiliation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Here's the one you're fond of: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/lo...
Notice it's primaries and run-offs. You can't be sure she wasn't voting Republican to try to make sure the weaker / less harsh on her issues person was the opponent. She may or may not have been a Republican, I don't know, I don't know her and I'm not a Republican, but sabotaging the opposition in primaries isn't unheard of. In Texas we have open primaries, she could still have voted Democrat in the actual election had her butt not been in a sling.

Oh look, another one that makes a point of avoiding the mention of party affiliation - isn't it incredible how left-leaning journalist fail to mention these sorts of things when reporting on their own kind? http://www.themonitor.com/mvtc...
Considering the perp was basically hired from Illinois to do the bribery campaign I'm going to say it's fairly safe to say they're Democrats. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr...

http://www.star-telegram.com/n...

You notice when it's Republican they make a point of saying so but when they're not - for lack of further info I'll call this one unknown.....
https://www.twincities.com/201...

At the time NAFTA was put in place, the Republicans held both houses of congress with a veto-proof supermajority. Strike one!

AC, you whiffed it yourself. NAFTA was passed in November 1993. That was the 103rd Congress, and it was held firmly by the Democrats. In fact, the "GOP revolution" in 1995 was partly because of NAFTA passage. You're flat-out wrong, Bill Clinton had a strong majority of DEMOCRATS controlling the Senate and House, and NAFTA sailed through with their support. I won't even get into your claim about "veto-proof supermajority" which hasn't existed in Congress for decades.

The Democrats deregulated Wall Street? Seriously? Man, you are so full of it that not even the Russians would pay you to post that level of bullshit. Strike two!

Second whiff again, AC! Over 75% of all Democrats in Congress supported the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which repealed Glass-Steagall. It passed with such strong bipartisan support that Bill Clinton had to sign it - it was way beyond veto-proof. So yes, the Democrats were definitely part of the equation! Add in their weakening of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac regulations over the recommendations of President Bush (probably because they overwhelmingly received campaign donations from FM/FM), and continued to increase the debt load of FM/FM right up to the collapse, and they are just as complicit, if not more so, than the GOP.

I agree with the overall point you are making.

And you're immediately going to use this for political points

Politics and governing should be more than a team sport. But I would also point out that the two parties are not equal here. The Democrats drummed out Al Franken

Some did, some didn't. Example here, here, here, and elsewhere.

while the Republicans rallied around and defended Moore. Heck, some of them said they believed Moore's accusers, but would vote for him anyway.

Moore lost in a heavily Republican state. Stop trying to make moral equivalence arguments. It's like you're completely ignoring the very real support Franken enjoyed after all the women came out on record and the PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF of him sexually harassing a woman.

This is the same kind of hypocritical enabling feminists did for Bill (and Hillary) Clinton in the 1990s, and I'm sure in their minds, too, Democrats are still morally superior because at least their sexual harassers vote the same way they do.

Glad to see I wasn't the only one that thought of mid 1930s Germany when they saw pictures of hundreds of young men marching around in (citronella tiki) torches.

Yeah I thought the same thing, you know what it reminded me of? When the nazi's started fighting back against the antifascists(aka antifaschistische aktion) who were violently assaulting people in the streets, at protests and so on. All the while screaming that they "really the good guys." This doesn't occur in a vacuum, not in the least. Gee did ya note the similarities between the current antifa and antifaschistische? That they're both communists, hold the same beliefs, and both had political backing. I mean look at professor bikelock(Eric Clanton), or Tim Kaine's son(Woody Kaine) who was charged with assault along with his friends who were also antifa.

http://www.twincities.com/2016...
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-...
http://www.denverpost.com/2016...
http://www.azcentral.com/story...

BTW, I only keep hearing about "rigged" elections, fraud, stealing votes etc. from two kinds of people. Political dilettantes and Republicans.

Only difference being that as far as I can tell, while political dilettantes have always been partial to conspiracy theories because they are... well...dilettantes...
Republicans seem to have built their myth of "being cheated" around that time JFK beat their "not a crook" sweatball Tricky Dick.
Who just happened to be running multiple schemes to rig elections just as his party was busy implementing the "Southern strategy" in order to woo southern whites.
Who were at the time all hot and bothered about losing their "legitimate" ways of rigging elections against black voters, they went around dressed in nothing but dresses made out of bed linen.
Sorta like what ISIS folk do.

I assume you are referring to the teachers arrested and jailed last month in Minnesota.

Again with the false equivalence. Let's read that story in question.

Minneapolis police reported 21 protesters were arrested willingly after blocking Eighth Street at Nicollet Mall and refusing orders to disperse.

When I said "cross someone", I didn't mean block a road. And what were the consequences?

All 21 of the protesters arrested in Minneapolis were ticketed and released, according to the St. Paul Federation of Teachers.

Yes he was cleared those 2 times when he was previously interviewed but then you have someone unrelated to those investigations passing along a tip and basically saying "Hey there is this guy who is acting really strange and trying to buy a pile of ammo and body armor". You then realize this is someone who has been on your radar previously so you go and assign an agent or local cop to keep tabs on the guy to see if something is out of order and if there is you go and get a warrant. You know that good old fashion police work.

In Minnesota this happened recently where someone who was previously a person of interest in the Jacob Wetterling case was re-looked at after some new information became available. It seems like they found a real awful person when checking up on him. So why doesn't law enforcement actually do their fucking job and investigate things, even if it is just to see that there really isn't anything to it?

in SF

I think I found the problem.

Granted it isn't just SF but the whole general area. My wife's grandmother who is 88 still lives in the house they bought out there shortly after WWII in Marin county and it is more cost effective to continue to live in the house and pay people to come and take care of everything than to move into a senior living place. A friend of the family that worked for HP near the beginning until he retired likes to joke that he always wanted to live in a multimillion dollar home, he just didn't think it would be the home he bought when he started at HP a 2 block walk to work. Even in far away places that aren't CA suffer from these things as there was a recent case in St. Paul, Minnesota where a demo permit was issued and then retracted the same day and the owner had to sue the city to demolish his own property.

As someone who leans fairly libertarian my answer to these people who complain about new development is that if they don't like it they should buy the property. I also believe that people like Edith Macefield should be able to tell a developer to piss off and there isn't anything thing the government can do to force her to give up her property.

go to google news

type in "shooting"

and let's dip into the ocean today

http://www.newsday.com/news/ne...

http://www.post-gazette.com/lo...

http://www.ketv.com/news/omaha...

http://www.twincities.com/crim...

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015...

http://www.whsv.com/home/headl...

etc.

etc.

tomorrow it will be another collection of dozens of shootings

every fucking day in the usa. oh it happens in other countries. at a much lower rate. because they make guns harder for douchebags to get

the usa enjoys no amazing lower rate of rape, robbery, assault, etc., because of owning lots of guns, as compared to our social and economic peers, we are no crime free paradise. so owning a gun doesn't confer magic anti-crime properties. it does confer something though: a massive increase in homicide. pointlessly. needlessly. every little confusion or altercation in the usa has to lead to death. and this is somehow better

completely unnecessary, completely fucking stupid, and completely ok according to my fellow countrymen who are fucking braindead douchebags

we need gun control in the usa badly

and we are going to get it

you can't ward off logic and common sense with stupidity, lies, and propaganda forever

Actually I'm quite proud of my MN state government who recently went through and culled a lot of old laws. We need more of that. Programmers go back and optimize all the time, the law is just as complex, and the whole thing needs to be reviewed from time to time to ensure it works as expected.

http://www.twincities.com/loca...

Delivery trucks do get stolen from time to time.

Because the incinerators here suck and are a money pit. There was an article a little while ago in my local paper about one such plant if anyone care to read it.

It probably does but not in the "she was dressed like that" manner but more of a this requires further investigation manner. Given the type of weapon, a real assault rifle and not something with different trim, it was (he was a tax stamp holder I assume unless it was an illegal weapon) it would have been highly valuable. Since you are implying he was targeted now the question is how did he become a target?

One guess would be he liked to show the weapon off to just about anyone who came over and even like to show how secure it was since the criminals came prepared. This leads me to the question of why would bank robbing criminals need a fully auto weapon over the standard handgun, shotgun, or semi auto rifle? The others are much easier to come by and if planning a big heist a fully auto weapon will just eat through ammo and wouldn't be of much use unless they were planning to mow down a crowd. You also mentioned that the criminals were caught aiming it out a window which seems to indicate these aren't the real serious criminals who know to shut the hell up and be low key. Most of your criminals (99.999%) aren't like those in the movie Heat even worse is most (99%) don't even measure up to the barely competent Man in Black Robber so something does smell a bit fishy. You claim they were serious criminals but yet they seem to be exceptionally stupid, as in below the average crackhead gang banger who knows not to wave a fucking gun around where people that can turn you in can see it.

Another scenario that jumps to my mind is insurance fraud given the value of the firearm (probably at least $15,000). As such I would have looked at the connections between your father and the criminals as there probably is a very close relationship with 1 maybe 2 degrees of separation if not directly known by your father. Again this seems to fit with the well prepared but incompetent criminals. The only other scenario that seems to fit might be your father wasn't a tax stamp holder (seems unlikely) then it seems like the person who he got it from let someone else know where to get one in which case I don't have much sympathy. But there that doesn't seem to fit since how would the criminals have known to come prepared to remove a wall.

Also I tried to find some cases of a legally owned assault rifle (even ones that were previously legally owned and registered in the US) being used in crime and that seems difficult to find as I haven't come up with anything yet. This task is further confounded by the nebulous term of assault weapon which idiots in the media equate to assault weapon when they are not the same thing. Here are some of what I have found:
Assault Rifles Are Not Heavily Used in Crimes
Has any Fully Automatic Firearm ever been used to commit a Violent Crime?
Fully automatic guns in the US are highly regulated, and regulation workshardly a right wing outfit
I did find a case where privately owned assault rifles/machines guns were stolen but it seems far more common for the government to have them stolen
Feds release photos of stolen machine gunsThe one case of privately owned ones stolen. incompetent as hell
Hotchkiss man pleads guilty in theft of cop’s assault rifle, SWAT gear
Cop shot looking for stolen police rifle

Actually there have been advances that substantially reduce the variation in the harvest from year to year but it isn't implemented as broadly as it could be. This year was a bad year in almost all states except Maine. The new system is a vacuum device that actually sucks the sap out of the tree instead of waiting for it to drain naturally, problem is that it is expensive and most producers can't afford it. The local paper had a big story on it earlier this year because of how bad the harvest was in neighboring Wisconsin. The article also mentions that last year's bumper harvest basically got evened out by this years bad harvest and that there wouldn't be much if any of a price difference.

While I agree that charter schools are not lived up to all the promises that were made the same could be said about public schools. Some of the schools are doing quite well while others suck ass. A few days ago the local paper I get had an article covering just this as 20 years ago the first charter school opened in Minnesota. Now charter schools in Minnesota are not as free to do as the want like most people believe as they are still public schools and must take anyone who applies provided that there is space. If there isn't space then students go onto a waiting list or there is a lottery for spots. The only real priorities given to an individual student is if they have a sibling that is also going to or has gone to the school. They are also not exempted from the various sets of standardized tests that are imposed by the state and feds.

As my wife has worked in both traditional public as well as charter schools as a teacher I have ended up with a rather unique insight. The standard public schools have figured out that it is beneficial to try and dump their problem children into charters as they no longer have to deal with the problems. This was an unofficial policy as teachers were encouraged to suggest to parents of problem children that their child would be better served by the smaller class sizes, more individual attention, different environment, etc that are offered by a charter. This removes a sizable portion of the problem children from the standard public school roles while substantially increasing the number of problem children in the charters. I have watched this and currently the class my wife is teaching has 8 out of 22 students having behavioral, ADD, ADHD, or some form of autism spectrum disorder with the other class in the grade having 7in these categories. The class coming up next year is worse with 18 special needs children out of 44 and the worst one being a child that in a normal public school setting would be 1 on 1 with an aid 75% of the time (the parent decided to move the child to a charter eventhough they couldn't provide the necessary services). Also charter schools are even more money strapped than regular schools since they only get the state and federal money (no local money from property tax), don't get to own their own building and have to pay rent, still have to provide transportation to any student who is located in the same physical school district that the charter is located in (regular public school only have to do this for students who are in the boundary for each school). Given all of that it seems amazing that there is any success at all in charters. What would do the most good would be to remove the behavioral, ADD, ADHD, and autism spectrum children and have schools setup that can deal with them as these are the students that actively detract from the learning of the other students.

How much do you think a train line the same length in the middle of Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, or Utah would cost where there is lots of open land that is dirt cheap. The problem is California is expensive and there are tons of costs because everyone and their brother will be suing to stop the train if it negatively affects them. I am sure the California rail project is mired in as much red tape as the Stillwater Bridge project here in Minnesota is.

Part of the demand for special ed teachers is there are more students classed as special ed. Lots of districts do this as it entitles them to additional funding from both the state and feds. Also the school system is very top heavy, people piss and moan about teachers and their pay but one should look at the real cost. In Minnesota the total per student funding is around $10,000 per student (I may be low by a couple thousand as this is a number I remember from several years ago). With an average class size of 20 students (lower than the real average) that puts the total cost per class at $200,000, you should be asking where all that money is going since teacher pay and benefits comes to what $70,000 or something like that (this includes insurance, base pay, and pension) so where is the other $130,000 per class going? There are lots of classroom aids (probably another $40k-50k a year each) various administrators, bureaucrats in the district offices, and the superintendents who get pay packages with golden parachutes similar to those of CEOs.

It appears that the bill failed to pass the house. The final vote was 233 for it 193 against it. Even though it had a simple majority it failed to achieve the two thirds majority required for expedited action. Republicans are expected to try again to pass it shortly but this time requiring only a simple majority.

Looks like he killed himself http://www.twincities.com/ci_15540156?source=most_viewed

http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_15540156According to this, the guy killed himself.

Some of us want to keep ad-supported sites running. However, something has to be done. A couple reputable sites in the last two weeks have apparently served malware to me or people I know through doubleclick.net. The sites were wunderground.com and startribune.com (story here)

I don't want to pay to support those sites. Neither do I want to pay slashdot (gasp). For that reason, I allow all the ads on these sites by whitelisting nearly everything NoScipt asks me about on each.

Except now, I've had to blacklist doubleclick.net because it seems to be the site serving malware for its reputable clients, wunderground, slashdot and the Star Tribune.

Sites want to get paid for showing ads so they can keep running. I want to support my favorite free sites by allowing their ads. But I also want to keep my machine annoyance and security-risk free. Users and webmasters need to fight back somehow. Bennett's feedback idea sounds good enough to try. Let's give it a shot.

From the pioneer press:

Fans of "Star Wars" have a chance to see a free screening of the notoriously bad "Star Wars Holiday Special" next week in Minneapolis.

The Minnesota Film and TV Board is showing the 1978 television special as an official Toys for Tots event. It will be screened Dec. 16 at Bryant-Lake Bowl.

Film Board director of services Chris Grap is a fan of bad movies. Grap says he "couldn't believe" the "Star Wars Holiday Special" existed.

The plot involves Han Solo trying to get Chewbacca the Wookie back to his home planet to celebrate Life Day. The cast includes original "Star Wars" actors as well as Bea Arthur, Art Carney and Harvey Korman.

The screening is free, but people bringing a toy donation will get priority seating. Doors open at 9 p.m.

— Associated Press

For those of you awaking in your tauntaun right now on Hoth (aka Minneapolis), here's the link.

Indeed, from your link:

Film Board director of services Chris Grap is a fan of bad movies. Grap says he "couldn't believe" the "Star Wars Holiday Special" existed. The plot involves Han Solo trying to get Chewbacca the Wookie back to his home planet to celebrate Life Day. The cast includes original "Star Wars" actors as well as Bea Arthur, Art Carney and Harvey Korman.

Keep in mind that this is the birthplace of MST3K and a great time in Minneapolis is a case of beer and one really bad movie with your friends. Slightly offtopic but five episodes of MST3K are on Hulu now.

For those of you awaking in your tauntaun right now on Hoth (aka Minneapolis), here's the link.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_12112297

(Tried submitting this, but I don't know if it will be seen, so why not put it in a D & D thread?)

it's worse than business as usual.

US Bancorp CEO Richard Davis's comments on TARP:

"I will say this very bluntly: We were told to take it. Not asked, told. 'You will take it,' " Davis said. "It doesn't matter if you were there on the first night and you were told to sign on the dotted line before you walked out of the office, or whether in the days that followed, you were told to take it."

"We were told to take it so that we could help Darwin synthesize the weaker banks and acquire those and put them under different leadership," he said. "We are not even allowed to mention that. ... We were supposed to say the TARP money was used for lending."

Northern Trust (remember them from one of Barney Frank's tantrums?) got sick of complaints for sponsoring a charity golf tournament, so they're in the process of returning TARP money they didn't need and were told to take. (Some other banks are returning the money as well).

Bank of America agreed to buy Merril Lynch, but tried to back out after discovering they had been cooking their books. Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson made them complete the acquisistion (and put up additional money and loan guarantees).

JP Morgan acquired Bear Stearns and WaMu. Wells Fargo acquired Wachovia. BoA also acquired countrywide.

TARP was proposed and approved as a plan to purchase junk mortgages. In reality, it's turned big banks even bigger.

The money was given to banks so they could loan it? Not exactly.

Banks sold preferred shares to the government in exchange for preferred shares (which pay a dividend and are first in line in the event of a bankruptcy). Since the money isn't free, they need to loan it out, right?

Of course, AIG and Citibank couldn't make those payments, so that preferred stock was reorganized to regular non-preferred, non-dividend paying stock.

And AIG? You know where the bonus money went, but the rest is a mystery. They're basically laundering it to other banks (many of them in Europe).

Fella, I have just wasted 15mins of my life reading news articles trying to figure out whether there was any truth in what you were saying. None of the news stories agree with each other (including such gems as them being recruited from 67 cities (when there were 35 people)) and it turns out the afadavit (pdf warning) is attached to the request for a search warrant and has nothing to do with what was actually found when the search warrant was actioned. All the shit that has been reported sounds wonderful, but most of it was never found when the houses were searched.

I must regretfully conclude you believed this shit without ever researching it.

If I am wrong, point it out. However,I would like documentation and citations please. Not random newspaper reports.

I don't need to be a mind reader to see the obvious. Perhaps that is because I'm objective where your convinced.

Say what?

I don't need proof of anything, the cops do. And this proof will come out during their trial.

If there is one. And what if this is one of those "oops we made a mistake" situation? Too bad?

The article presented is a little misleading on facts too.

I have more than one link in my collection:

• I-Witness Video Members Detained En Masse by St.Paul, Minnesota Police in Advance of the 2008 Republican National Convention
• Houses raided, 5 arrested; critics decry crackdown
• National Lawyers Guild: What police seized was not 'weaponized' urine
• Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention
• Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention
• Federal government involved in raids on protesters
• Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis

As people posted links in the tread, I'd open then in a new Firefox tab then I'd bookmark after reading them.

The cops said they had informants who told them about the planned activities.

Yea, and those informants were getting paid only if there was an arrest.

They were making, not possession but making devices to cause harm to other people's property

And there were no legitimate uses for any of them? Oh and they were all made illegal?

Now, as for proof, the cops will show that to the courts during their prosecution. I don't need it, all I need is an accusation and charged to be filed which both are true at this point.

In other words it's okay to deny people the right to protest just by making an accusation, or paying an informant to make the accusation. I wonder what you would think if that happened to you.

BTW, possession of dangerous chemicals can be a fire code violation as well as a felony. But there were more then "fire code" violations involved.

And what charges will stand up in court? Or doesn't it matter to you? Is all that counts is that protesters were stopped? Maybe you'll like it with Kim Jong-il then.

Falcon

The Star-Tribune SUCKS. Can't trust them. I've lived in Twin Cities.

My sources (in MN) say that that most the buckets were gray water and a few were because there was no bathroom (the place was over crowded.) Not to mention there is no crime for pissing in a bucket.

In addition, the Star Trib spends time on the anarchist group when most the raids were OTHER groups that were not anarchist and the paper didn't explain that and left it for the reader to mis-characterize all the other people involved in the raids when most of them were peaceful people gathering on private property.

They were NOT civil to reporters in all situations. Plus in some cases the people they held were the people asserting their constitutional rights. (there no warrants in most cases.)

Plus if you have been following, there were reports of the FBI trying to get students to be informants for them... One student spoke out about it months ago; one wonders what kind of characters volunteer for it-- and how trustworthy they are if they hate these protesters to begin with and that is why the agreed to be a voluntary government spy.

here is another link
http://www.twincities.com/ci_10346122?source=most_viewed

http://www.twincities.com/ci_10344356?nclick_check=1 ...

The statement said the items found in the searches included:

- Materials to create "sleeping dragons" (PVC pipe, chicken wire, duct tape), which is when protesters lock themselves together
- Large amounts of urine, including three to five gallon buckets of urine
- Wrist rockets (high-powered slingshots)
- A machete, hatchet and several throwing knives ...

Protesters have the right to protest. They DO NOT have the right to plant IEDs, spray urine on delegates, etc. Kudos to the police in Minnesota for busting these Stalinists.

They took along *anything* and *everything* that might be related to possible riots. When they raided a home that wasn't actually the correct home, they still detained people for over and hour while they obtained the correct warrant. When I read that I posted that I was concerned that when I arrived at home that I too would find cops on my doorstep because after all, that was the point of all of this horseshit.

When you finally hear from the other side you learn that the "buckets of urine" was actually gray water used to flush the toilet (my father developed a tank system in the 1980s that used shower/tub water to flush the toilet which saved us so much money that the water company came out 3 or 4 different times to replace the meter because they thought it was defective).

I have been ashamed to be an American for a long ass time but between the Ramsey County Sheriff's response to this event, the confiscation of camera equipment in the name of Homeland Security for the RNC, and using Blackwater mercenaries in New Orleans in preparation for Gustav I am not quite sure I am actually living in the United States of America anymore.

I am disgusted to be a Minnesota and United States resident. This is fucking shameful and horrifying. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of free speech violation. This is a stupid political rally, not a fucking war on our soil. Personally I'd love to join the protests but I seriously fear for my freedom and my life. I am not against the RNC but I am definitely against the manner in which protesting is being handled.

FUCK YOU AMERICA.

For live footage of raids and other First Amendment violations, check out The UpTake on Qik.com.

A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite.

The explorers... called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment... ... One night they measured the temperature inside their tent at 58 degrees below zero, and outside temperatures were exceeding 100 below zero at times... ... In contrast to Bancroft's 1986 trek across the Arctic with fellow Minnesota explorer Will Steger, this time she and Arnesen were prepared to don body suits and swim through areas where polar ice has melted.

Atwood said there was some irony that a trip to call attention to global warming was scuttled in part by extreme cold temperatures.

"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming," Atwood said. "But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."

Sometimes, you just have to laugh.

It was just the other day that I read about an ethanol plant that makes vodka on the side.

From the Slashdot "story":

"the brown Zune is apparently not only being bought, but more popular than the white model.

From the actual article:

"The company is offering a dull brown version of the Zune in part to stand out from the competition and because it got favorable reviews in its pre-market research. But according to NPD, the brown Zune accounts for just 19 percent of all the Zunes sold, about the same amount as the white model. The black model accounts for about 63 percent of all sold."

But I guess it just sounds "funnier" if Microsoft is selling "brown stuff", so who cares about, ya know, reality...?

Attorney John Lear's new offices in the Major George Downey Mansion will be the testing ground for the system. Lear, who specializes in gas and oil law, stumbled upon the idea last year while investigating alternatives to traditional heating and cooling systems.

The project includes each utility installing a new boiler, fuel handling system and auxiliary equipment to tie into existing turbine generators. The project will use biomass from a tree farm in Aitkin, as well as right of way clearings.

Biomass is organic matter (such as wood) that can be processed into energy for heat, liquid fuels or power generation. Biomass can be combusted directly to produce steam for electricity or it can be converted into a gas to power a turbine.

The boilers will produce 20 megawatts of biomass electricity in Hibbing and 15 megawatts in Virginia.

The two utilities, working jointly as the Laurentian Energy Authority, hold a contract to sell 35 megawatts of biomass power to Xcel Energy.

I agree that the linked article is worthless. In fact, my story submission linked to a copy of the actual Associated Press article but for some reason Zonk chose to link to that Press Release advertisement.

I think 5 or 10 years from now, after SOX is repealed and replaced with something a little less insane, we will look back and wonder how we managed to do business with all these restrictions.

I certainly agree with that (and I'm one of those people whoring for said firms at present). It was/is reactionary legislation that should be tempered with time.

HOWEVER, we need to make damned sure that CEOs are held responsible for their financial statements. As CEO pay continues to skyrocket (and sometimes to the detriment of regular workers) there simply must be bottom line accountability. The buck has to stop at the top, no questions. And the penalties should be stiff and prompt. We're not there yet.

Major League Baseball disagrees with your assessment of law.

(see: http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/1417288 4.htm)

Oops.

Stuff like this will just drive more tobacco business online, too. Although, some of those online smoke shops look a bit...shady.

I don't know how many - but here are four recent murder cases that claim video games were a part of the problem - or in one case actually taught the "perp" how to commit the crime. This was the first 4 answers under google news to your question... http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20050725/APN/507251163 http://www.betanews.com/article/GTA_Battle_Goes_to _the_Courts/1121894331 http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/12180380. htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&arti cle=UPI-1-20050721-14014500-bc-us-playstation.xml

the far left antiwar crowd is far more annoying and intrusive with their proselytizing than any Christian group

Your attempt to place humanitarian ideals in opposition to your concept of Christianity exposes the true nature of your faith.

No, he got it right:
Fox News fans misinformed, study finds

You may recall the recent Choicepoint security breach. Apparently there's profit to be made in between finding out about a security breach and actually announcing it!

ChoicePoint execs sold shares before theft news

ChoicePoint Inc.'s top two executives made a combined $16.6 million in profit from selling company shares in the months after the data warehouser learned that people's personal information may have been compromised and before the breach was made public, regulatory filings show. ChoicePoint's stock has dropped about 10 percent since last week when the company announced that criminals had duped it into allowing them access to its massive database. Alpharetta, Ga.-based ChoicePoint says the stock trading was pre-arranged under a plan approved by the company's board. Corporate governance experts say the pattern and timing of the trading by chief executive Derek Smith and president Douglas Curling raises questions. Smith and Curling did not respond to repeated requests through a spokesman for comment Friday.

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1. Canadian French
2. Cajun French
3. Dialects of french spoken in African and Asia

What was that about "pristine" french?

All living languages are changing. Making new words from other words dates back at least to Old Latin.

Oh, and for your info - there's the Oxford English Dictionary, which is considered a reference tome. Webster's is relatively well considered American English tome.

The french are not "conservative", they got upset about all these "new english technical terms" showing up in the "pristine" french language, making it sound less french, and "ugly". Hence "courriel" for "e-mail"

At almost the exact moment this Kos suck-up story was posted, Eason Jordan, CNN News Chief, was resigning!

His resignation follows weeks of right-wing blogosphere activism over his comments that the US military was deliberately targeting journalists.

So what's a bigger story - left-wing bloggers busting an unknown right-wing "journalist" working the system to lob a couple of softballs at President Bush, or right-wing bloggers busting the freaking head of CNN news?

If the republicans "rigged" the election, as you propose, why in the hell would they give a third party candidate so many votes?

Simple: divert Democrat votes to this third party so less suspicion will be cast on the Republicans. As long as the % of votes for the major parties stayed within the error bounds of previous polls, hardly anyone would look for irregularities. This exact same pattern has been noted in other elections.

Using your logic, I'm suspicious of the Boston Red Sox miracle. I mean, everything went so perfectly.

Sure, your logic follows... except that the World Series took place in full view of a television audience of about 30 million nation-widewide . If it weren't for that small quibble, I'd say your logic was good...

Can anyone reply to my post with a corresponding list of things Dems have done?

Sure:
-Republican forms get tossed in the trash but not Republican forms...
- Democratic registration for completely fictional people...
- Fraudulent, forged Democratic registrations as well dumping a full years worth of paperwork on the registrars lap in the last minute to ensure they weren't looked at and INTENTIONALLY putting down false information for Republicans or simply not turning them in.

- Texas Democrats who Gerrymandered in their redistricting efforts... (The recent successful Republican effort was tit for tat revenge for the 1990 redistricting that The Almanac for American Politics called "The most partisan redistricting in the '90 cycle in the nation." and "the shrewdest gerrymander" of it's time. A gerrymander that resulted in a house delegation that was 17 to 15 Democratic despite 56% of the voters at the polls voting for a Republican congressman.

- CBS (as partisan as Sinclair or Fox) doing it's traditional 60 Minutes week-before-the-election hit piece early this year using obvious forgeries and giving the Kerry campaign advanced notice so they could exploit it with their operation "Fortunate Son"

-Florida 1998 -- Massive voter fraud uncovered that eventually leads to the election being overturned. The efforts during the next cycle (2000) all efforts to prevent fraud demagogued as "disenfranchising black voters" by the EXACT same people who had perpetuated the fraud.

The Green party doesn't have the draw the democrats have. [...] I'd love to see Nader or Badnarik president. [...] Next election I'd like Nader to run. But I feel that voting for Nader will have as much effect as writing a letter to Bush asking him to "play nice".

Just to clarify, like they do in polls.slashdot.org:

Michael Badnarik: Libertarian Party candidate for president. http://www.badnarik.org/

David Cobb: Green Party candidate for president. http://www.votecobb.org/

Ralph Nader: Rejected by the Green Party because we want to grow the party, not just tilt at windmills. Independent candidate for president, though he did exhume enough of the Reform Party to get on the Florida ballot under their name. http://www.votenader.org/

Of the three, Cobb is the only one (as far as I know) who has the guts to publicly state that Bush must go at any cost, even if it takes away from Cobb's own votes. Here's a good news article from Minnesota that puts Cobb and Nader's differences in context.