...one very good blogger is referred to by another very good blogger as the me of Mankato. Oddly, someone from Mankato was visiting our campus this very day for a workshop with department chairs. Such as lovely April Fridays sometimes spent (though a trip to two local watering holes with river views made up for that.) Phil Miller is indeed an excellent blogger; he, Doc Palmer and I had a couple of podcasts back in 2005 found at the bottom of John's podcast page.

Two of the three of us are on the Northern Alliance Radio Network tomorrow. I have an extra appearance in my usual first-of-the-month visit to the David Strom Show at 10am. John and the Fraters at 11-1 (guys, more hockey!); Mitch and Ed 1-3; and then the Final Word with Michael and me at 3-5pm. I believe we'll talk about the honesty of Larry Pogemiller, the bonding bill, and this curious article about malt liquor and murder.

Labels: Final Word, NARN

So I get an invite to a Dennis Prager talk from the station tonight, as did all of NARN. Late last week we were asked to put forward someone who will emcee the event. I had never seen Prager talk before and thought it a good thing to see (I had met him ever so briefly onces before, at a state fair event.) So I accepted the ticket, but, given I had to teach late this PM and worried about traffic, thought it would be better if someone else did this. Usually, you cannot keep Mitch away from the microphone and he's better at it anyway.

I had not planned on having dinner because of the schedule anyway, so I was surprised by light traffic and hit the Northland Inn around 6:15. They get me a seat in the dinner anyway, I get to talk a minute with Prager -- who is as nice as you would expect if you listen to his show; he says there's no radio-Dennis vs. real-life-Dennis, and from what I see that is right. I get my chicken (no use to this vegetarian, and at this stage not replaceable so I did without a main course), push it aside and talk with Fraters three and Nih(i)list. Over comes station management: We need someone to stall for Dennis, he's running late. (The dinner guests were to get personal pics with Prager, more on which in a minute.)

Now, walking into a room of 40-75 people and talking for 10 minutes is easy, and a studio with just a mic and a producer, well, that's fun. But this thing was sold out, and I had no idea how big the ballroom was. Something "sold out" placed in the "Grand Ballroom" isn't likely to be 75 people.

It wasn't. It was 600. And save for the picture-takers wandering down in twos and threes, it was full.

It was at this point I realized, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Or even a chicken you gave away.

I suppose I did OK. It did not help that one of my Celtic heroes, Wolves GM Kevin McHale, was in the audience in the front row, or that the room was darkened and a bright spotlight was on the podium. But in and out, maybe three minutes tops (they wanted ten, and I think my facial expression in response convinced them that was not a good idea.) Apparently I did well enough that they had me give a minute as a close to get Prager out of the hall without being stopped by 50 fans.

Me, I got five on the way out.

Labels: AM1280, NARN

You would never know it, but two blogs of the Northern Alliance joined at the same time; the last to join was Captain's Quarters in December 2003. But one less will remain after next month.

Beginning on March 1, I will begin working for Michelle Malkin, a friend, mentor, and writer I have long admired. She has offered me a position as writer at Hot Air, and my blogging will appear exclusively there.

That means that I will close out Captain’s Quarters sometime in March. This saddens me, as it has become my ever-ready home and because of the terrific community it has generated. I hope that the CapQ community comes with me to Hot Air, and Hot Air will have open registration today for 12 hours in order to allow CapQ commenters to join me at my new digs.

Nobody who meets Ed ever dislikes the guy; nobody who reads his blog can doubt he's one of the hardest workers in blogging. The friendship between Malkin and Ed goes back a good ways and the move will make Hot Air one of the leading sites for political commentary on the internet for a long time. I know we've had some top blogs retired because of writer fatigue in the past, but has any been subject to a buyout before? (I assume his new compensation plan from Malkin includes a lifetime supply of Notre Dame football jerseys.)

Worth noting: In his 12/03 post accepting NA entrance (NARN was still four months away) Ed said:

I don't listen to a lot of talk radio because I find that a great deal of it is shrill and annoying, and even when people don't make a habit of screaming into a microphone, they still tend to get childish and demeaning.

And Al Franken wasn't even on the air yet! Ed's keeping his archives up indefinitely.

I had to go back and look at the formation of the Alliance while thinking a few minutes about this. Originally considered to be Lileks, PowerLine and Fraters Libertas (now known as Act One, or the Opening Act, or Top Billing, or whatever in our radio lives), we added Mitch and myself in May 2003 before Ed. One guy now runs the blog of a newspaper, another group is giving away $25k for a book prize, and Ed is off to Hot Air.

I guess my life as Pete Best continues. Mitch, Chad and Brian? Your comments invited.

Labels: blogging, NARN

We will have two interesting, different guests with one message: Stop spending. At 3:15 House GOP leader Marty Seifert will be on to discuss the first week of the legislative session. Think he knows something about taxpayer protection pens? I'll ask him whether the House GOP would be willing to take a hike from any House business until the I-35W bridge money is released by TCAG.

At 4:15 we will be joined by Erick Kaardal, lawyer for , whose group Citizens for the Rule of Law (and also Neopopulism) are suing the legislature and various over the abuse of per diems. I'm shocked, shocked! to hear that we would have groups wishing to deny per diems to our state legislators. I mean, how are they supposed to live on less than $96 a day? Readers will recall that we provided several dining tips for state senators struggling to make ends meet. (Just take the March 2007 archive and search for "per diem".) I would like to find out from Kaardal how we could simply limit the number of days legislators get to take per diem, as done in New Hampshire. It might keep a certain farmer home more. Sarah Janacek suggested last fall that the per diem issue never seems to work for challenging incumbents in elections ... but a lawsuit might get their attention.

Don't forget that there are eight total hours of local programming Saturdays on AM 1280 the Patriot. The David Strom Show 9-11, then NARN's Opening Act of John Hinderaker, Chad the Elder and Brian Ward 11-1, and Mitch Berg and Captain Ed as the Headliners from 1-3.

Labels: Final Word, NARN

...Michael and I agreed to take up a conversation about John McCain's candidacy. Did his CPAC speech give you enough to overcome any qualms you had, or are you still wondering "quo vadis?" Why did Michael vote uncommitted (and did I ever commit?) Ben Golnik, Minnesota coordinator for the McCain campaign will return to field your questions.

Catch us 3-5pm tomorrow on AM 1280 the Patriot. Indeed, join the Patriot all day starting at 9am for the David Strom Show, then 11-1am will have me sitting in with Chad the Elder, followed by the Headliners Mitch and Ed at 1-3pm -- I want to hear Mitch give this idea the beating it deserves.

UPDATE: Derek from Freedom Dogs and True North has given us a meter to use to gauge your McCain support. I would have gone for McCainuum, but McCaintinuum it is:
Call us tomorrow, and tell us where you are on the scale.

Labels: Final Word, NARN

Sticky for the day: I will be hosting an election returns show on AM 1280 the Patriot tonight beginning at 8pm. At some point Michael will arrive; we anticipate many local political figures calling in with their observations. Ed Morrissey is anticipated to stop by after his caucus (which I believe is his first experience ever with the MN system). THere's streaming audio available from the Patriot site if you are not in our broadcast range (which in the evening is quite possible.) We will have updates from other states as well on a night that could be decisive for John McCain but likely to be just another step in the danse macabre that has become the Democratic primary.

Labels: AM1280, Final Word, Media, NARN

... it's your final chance to hear from the NARN on the caucuses. We'll have Minnesota representatives from all four remaining GOP candidates and we want your questions and comments on who you are supporting and why. The last MPR/Humphrey poll has McCain well in front with Huckabee in second place (41-22, with Romney back another five.) Hillary Clinton is up seven on Barack Obama in that poll.

Is it possible to change minds still? Four spokespeople will try, and so will the callers. Join us please at 651-289-4488. Listen on the stream if you wish; the podcast will be available later.

Also, we plan a Tuesday night broadcast beginning at 8pm on the Patriot, with updates from party headquarters, call-ins from caucuses, national results, and expert analysis from as many people as will take a phone call from us. More details to appear on Monday, but we hope you go to the caucuses, then flip on AM 1280 the Patriot on your way home.

Labels: Final Word, Minnesota, NARN, politics

... we have Peter Fritz, the Carleton student involved in a fracas with Al Franken who Janet discussed here, and Ron Carey of MnGOP on the Minnesota caucus process. And a few wolf tickets will be sold to Mrs. MDE after her Packers failed to deliver Favre to Glendale. Go Big Blue.

Listen in on AM1280 the Patriot live, or pick up the podcast later next week (we seem to be back to a good pattern with coverage there.)

Labels: Final Word, NARN

While reading around on the Times, I ran across this comment on an editorial encouraging us to celebrate Martin Luther King.

Our view: Celebrate King, his principles in St. Cloud

King Baanian?

It is about time an economist was crowned for messing with our consumer confidence!

If you can take the pressure, I'll be messing with David Strom's confidence when I appear on the his show on AM 1280 the Patriot at 9am, to talk about recession, stimulus, Huckapessimism, etc. Should be a good hour.

The Final Word will appear as always 3-5pm on that same station. We are hoping to talk to people about the bonding bill, the NTSB report on the I-35W bridge collapse, and we'll talk after 4pm with David Bossie, recently author of President Hillary and producer of Hillary the Movie and, previously Border Wars. (A 2006 WaPo bio is here.) We'll have an eye on the upcoming Tsunami Tuesday caucuses, and if I know my co-host, he just might mention Al Franken or Mark Ritchie. Just a hunch, that.

Did you forget to read this until Monday? Get a podcast.

Labels: Final Word, NARN

We will look forward to visiting with Andy Cilek of the Minnesota Voters Alliance, which has filed suit against Minneapolis plans to institute instant runoff voting. Andy has been our guest before, and just below I will talk a little about IRV. We will also speak with Brian Davis, a candidate for U.S. Congress in the First Congressional District, looking for the opportunity to run against Rep. Tim Walz. Michael and I will visit with him in the last half hour.

As always, the Final Word is heard 3-5pm on AM1280 the Patriot (click that link and then the Listen Now in the upper lefthand corner) or later via podcast when the podcasts gods choose to post our shows. Like monetary policy, shows are posted with long and variable lags.

Back to IRV. Let me help people think about it by a couple of simple thoughts. Why would IRV be bad? After all, we had three viable candidates in the 1998 gubernatorial race won by Jesse Ventura over Norm Coleman and Skip Humphrey. Humphrey came in third. Suppose we had IRV in the state. How would Humphrey's vote been distributed? Would Coleman have gained enough of those votes to overcome Ventura's three percent plurality. At least in one study, the answer is no. So plurality voting -- the system we use most everywhere in the US -- gave us the same result. (My apologies if you can't read that study -- it's good to work at a university.)

We would say that Ventura was a Condorcet winner -- he would have won in a pairwise vote against either Coleman or Humphrey. And perhaps one reason why Ventura would have won is that he turned out people that would not have voted otherwise; 7% more voters participated in 1998 than 1994, and the study cited above indicates that the Ventura presence could account for just about that size effect. An exit poll taken that day indicates that of those who did vote, Ventura voters preferred Coleman over Humphrey, 56-44.

So IRV would not have made a difference there. Where would it? It could if you ended up with cycling, where in a pairwise contest between each of the three candidates you wouldn't find one that beats the other two in heads-up. And it would be perilous if we found instead that Coleman would beat Ventura and Humphrey would beat Ventura in pairwise voting, but Ventura wins in a three-way, plurality-voting contest. That would seem to be something we would want to avoid and could be a case for IRV. And yet, as we joke a bit about voting for bacon, there is a very serious question whether we might end up with a Condorcet loser in the primaries with some states using winner-take-all allocation of delegates. On the Democratic ticket, let's suppose Sen. Clinton is the plurality leader. She would be a Condorcet loser if she would lose a two-person race against either Sens. Obama or Edwards. (I make no claim that this is so.) I'll let others think about how that applies on the GOP side, but I think it fair to say IRV would make the GOP primary different.

I find it interesting that the claim made by MVA is that IRV is too complex. Indeed, the best case one can make for plurality voting is its simplicity. (Try reading the rules for the DFL's walking caucus sometime. They aren't easy.) There are other good reasons to oppose IRV, though they are a bit harder to explain, having to do with lack of single-peaked preferences and the number of parties in play. I've not worked on electoral theory for awhile so I am not going to try to say I understand every bit of this; I don't. Suffice to say, for example, that it can be shown that you can get different electoral outcomes by changing IRV rules only slightly to drop the candidate with the most last-place votes rather than the fewest first-place votes. This is known as the Coombs rule. You could argue Coombs is a better rule, but it would be no less confusing.

A last thought, and a question I'll ask Andy tomorrow: Suppose we could show empirically that IRV increased voter turnout, since one could vote his preference first and then between the two major party candidates later. Would increased turnout be a good thing, and wouldn't you want to support IRV then if so? I know they argue that it hasn't, but would finding enough counter-examples to theirs be persuasive?

Labels: economics, elections, Final Word, NARN

A long weekend of radio for me:

• Today with Captain Ed on Heading Right Radio, 2pm. Scott Swett of "To Set the Record Straight" will be on for the first half hour, then I suspect we'll swing into talking about holiday sales.
• Tomorrow, 7-9am as co-host of Hot Talk on KNSI in St. Cloud. (Streaming occasionally works here.) Tony Garcia will be with me. Our usual nuttery will commence, though from time to time we steer into serious things like the Bhutto assassination, the funding of the St. Cloud schools and Northboonstardoggle.
• Saturday, 3-5pm as usual on The Final Word on AM 1280 the Patriot. We will be live with a wrapup of the year in Minnesota politics. Winners? Losers? Best piece of political art drawn by Freedom Dogs? (You know how I love "put your fork down!")
• Monday, 6-9am, back to Hot Talk, sans Tony. Last day of the year, what happened that affected lives of local St. Cloudians? The local paper has a list of difference makers. I have something to say about that. And of course there will be gloating as my Giants defeat the Patriots.

All times Central. Hope you can listen in.

Labels: Final Word, KNSI, NARN

The cheap dollar brings foreign tourists here to shop, and one group is pretty happy about getting deals:

This December at the Holiday Inn near the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., more than a quarter of the 171 rooms are sometimes filled with shoppers who have come over on direct flights on Iceland Air from Reykjavik. Each spends around $2,500 at the mall’s stores, says Evie Walter, the hotel’s director of sales. “‘Where’s Victoria’s Secret?’” is usually one of the first questions they’ll ask, she says.

Apparently, according to this article, if the group doesn't speak English, "charades always works."

I won't be stopping at the Mall of America tomorrow, as I will be spelling an unwell Mitch and putting in four hours on NARN tomorrow. Captain Ed will be with me 1-3pm CT and his interview with Mike Huckabee will surely be a topic, and Michael for Final Word in our usual 3-5pm slot with a more Minnesota feel. Meanwhile, I'm going to bed to read the Mitchell report. I will certainly have something to say about that.

Labels: NARN

Attention to my friends at Fraters Libertas, whose feature on NARN: The Opening Act "This Week in Gatekeeping" is always a hit: I think I have a winner. A conversation between a blogger writing about baseball in Philadelphia (and Phillies fan) and longtime sportswriter Bill Conlin devolved into this quote from Mr. Conlin:

The only positive thing I can think of about Hitler’s time on earth–I’m sure he would have eliminated all bloggers. In Colonial times, bloggers were called “Pamphleteers.” They hung on street corners handing them out to passersby. Now, they hang out on electronic street corners, hoping somebody mouses on to their pretentious sites. Different medium, same MO. Shakespeare accidentally summed up the genre best with these words from a MacBeth soliloquy: “...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing...”

The blogger points out several errors in Mr. Conlin's defense of the blogger's disagreement with Conlin over the National League MVP (Conlin supported the winner, Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins, while the blogger was persuaded by some statistics that Rollins was not the most deserving.) Conlin went on to suggest that his one mistake in his column was his editor's fault.

My columns are read by a minimum of three editors for fact, style, fairness and balance. Despite that scrutiny,errors still filter by the goalies. In my Rollins column that has upset so many of you, the only thing I would remotely take back was having Holliday performing his Game 163 heroics against the Diamondbacks when, of course, it was the Padres. D’Backs were on my mind as the soon-to-be-vanquished division champions when I wrote the line. Any editor worth his salt should have caught the error. However, most of them are so intent at catching the bad stuff they let the obvious error slip by. Who checks your facts and deletes a line that is over the edge of good taste or might demean or defame an athlete or subject? Did you take a course in the libel and slander laws? Or do you merely throw it against the wall and see what sticks? That’s what most of you do. I can’t pin that on you specifically because I have never read your blog.

So there you have it. His opinion is read by three gatekeepers, and even if they missed his factual error, it is still better than the opinion of a blogger who he never read.

Labels: Media, NARN, sports

Michael and I are taking a week off from The Final Word. Just as well, as Michael is busy chasing down pieces of the Mark Ritchie debacle. Gary has found another one.

Me? I'm trying to figure out how to get a gig researching a Cigar Aficionado bash. Otherwise I'm writing. Have a good weekend.

(Shopping? No, because I'm trying to improve the trade deficit and stay out of those Icelanders' way. And Greg Mankiw anticipates my Tuesday principles lecture -- all the better since I use his book!)

Labels: Minnesota, NARN, politics

We can now vote in the finals of professional economist versus professional ... whatever for mayor of the MOB. Voting from home and from office is permitted -- it appears to be even encouraged -- as is voting daily. Elections are now through Wednesday.

We again thank our supporters, both left and right, for helping the Many Vowel Party (the MVP) reach this point in the campaign, and we know you can put us over the top with one (well, actually, six) more votes. We are getting Buttercup her own laptop:

Labels: MOB, NARN

I'm scared to give this quiz to my students, so I give it to you instead. I missed three of the sixty questions, including one of the questions on the NAEP test.

There is no prize for beating me, except that you may feel quite superior. I was honestly stumped on two of the three, the other a mental error I should not have made.

See you Monday. There's a show tomorrow, but I'm still so Italy'd out I have no idea what we'll do yet. I hear Michael's angling to dump me because he found better help.

P.S. When you go to church Sunday, say a prayer for Zimbabwe. It's getting worse...

Labels: economics, Final Word, NARN

...this blog was born as

a group weblog for SCSU members of the NAS to discuss events at SCSU and elsewhere that would be of interest to us and to the SCSU faculty and staff.

It has obviously become something much different than that, due to a number of people and events. All the other members of the St. Cloud Association of Scholars either retired or moved on to other things. I decided to make it personal instead, and the habit of posting here each weekday was something I just fell into.

Later on, of course, came the Northern Alliance, the radio show and its evolution. Guest bloggers have worked here, and then last year we brought Janet, who I did not know before MAS, into regular posting. This is a statement about how often good things in our lives begin with an act you do that is unrelated, even orthogonal, to what happens in the end. There are so many blessings that have flowed from the decision to try out this Blogger thing that describing the beginnings of this blog cannot really be accomplished in a post. I'm probably going to write up an 'about' page (finally!) this week.

I will have to say the best part of this has been to find a whole new group of people to talk to, a group so large that even the list in my blogroll doesn't do the trick. So rather than name a whole bunch of people, I'd like to thank just the people who matter most.

The beautiful woman on the left is the woman that makes sure I get in the car each Saturday to do the show, who asks about the people on the right blogroll of the MOB, and who allows me to scoot down into the basement to post rather than do the housework that needs doing here. That too-tall kid on the right is the kid that ends up doing the work I would do if I wasn't doing this and is tied for the second-best thing in my life. That guy in the middle isn't my son, but the famed Psycmeistr, who can stand in for the dozens of other bloggers, readers and friends I've made through this. Put yourself in Leo's spot, dear reader, because you're one of our family, too.

The biggest of thanks, then, to Mrs. S and the Littlest Scholar for permitting me the pleasures of this blog. We'll stick this post at the top for the day.

Labels: housekeeping, MOB, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

The new Economic Freedom in the World 2007 is out from the Fraser Institute. In it is an essay by Russell Sobel and Peter Leeson on whether states that neighbor or trade with other states that become more free economically pass on that freedom. They test the hypothesis advanced by George Bush, among others:

“[a] new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region … A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions.

Geography and trade are two channels through which freedom might spread. If your neighbors are more free geographically, it's not too hard for your own citizens -- particularly the productive ones -- to move to the freer state. Such moves might cause the less free state to move towards the more free one in terms of policy. Imports are like advertising for freedom; freedom attaches in a cultural way to the goods traded, and sticks to the receiving country.

The results suggest that having the average score on the Economic Freedom in the World Scale of all your country's neighbors increase by 1 (on a 10-point scale) increases your country's freedom by 0.2 on the same scale. Likewise, if your import partners have an average increase of 1, your economic freedom goes up 0.2 or 0.3, depending on the specification. (There's an issue of whether you trade with countries who are like you in economic freedom, so it's possible that causality goes the other way on that; this isn't true for the geographic results.)

For those who might argue that Iraq is a beachhead to connect the Non-Integrated Gap, such results would be good, though the size of the effect isn't as large as one might hope.

Labels: economics, NARN, politics

Here we are again, Michael and me, ready for three more hours of NARN Live at the State Fair. We're here 5-8pm tonight; many guests are expected but unconfirmed, so I'll leave this list blank (Michael updates while we're on, so check to see from his link. I'm busy trying to keep this thing between the ditches.)

Tomorrow, we have John and the Fraters 11-1, Mitch and Ed 1-3, and then we're back 3-5, for our usual NARN turn. Below is video from a food eating contest two years ago created by Saint Paul, featuring Mitch and former Patriot program director Patrick Campion.

So stop by us at the Fair, or listen, on AM 1280 the Patriot.

Labels: AM1280, Minnesota state fair, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

I am behind the Patriot booth preparing for NARN Live at the MN State Fair. If you are at the Fair today or tomorrow at 5-8pm, or Saturday 11-5, be sure to stop by the booth on Judson Street, across from the Horticulture Building and say hi. We hope to have Sen. Norm Coleman on with us before he leaves for Iraq tonight, Prof. Larry Jacobs, a pollster at the University of Minnesota, Rep. Marty Seifert, along with Mark Yost, author of , and Sean Broom from MN Publius. He seems nervous, but we promise to treat him well.

If you're not at the Fair, listen in.

Labels: AM1280, Minnesota state fair, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

After Michael got off the air on his view that we should not be afraid of a special session, The Lady Logician struck back.

First off, we are echoing the sentiments of our friends and neighbors who just watched this Legislature fritter away a $2.2 BILLION DOLLAR budget surplus on"optional" expendatures [sic] --none of which was scheduled to go toward bridges and roads. Money went to just about everything else.

OK, but that was then and this is now. Priorities respond to circumstances. I agree as well with Gary that the DFL looked at transportation issues and saw only gas-tax-increase; what I don't agree with is that this is a reason to do nothing now.

I have a roof on my house. I look at it in spring and say, "it appears OK, it should be fine for another year," and I don't call the roofing company. After the tornado passes through and my roof fails because I didn't replace it (assume it would have been fine if I had replaced it in spring), do I not get to collect on my insurance to pay for a new roof? Do I not get to change priorities?

Second - the money is already there for use not only for the bridge but for the flood zones. Drew Emmer at Wright County Republican has the breakdown of the emergency funding access that the Governor has.

He has the power to get the money now, certainly, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be a tax called for to pay for it later. It is my preference to have a regular session later and have all spending and tax options available, and a little more information about the 2008-09 biennium. I would prefer to wait. But you can read the July budget forecast which says the outlook for the economy is slightly weakening, and then look at the subprime/credit crisis, and argue that at some point we might need the rainy day fund for general obligations of the budget. Yes, they may have spent too much in May, but that's a sunk cost now. The alternative, of course, is unallotment after the emergency spending; for both political and economic reasons, that's an unattractive alternative.

Lastly, as Representative Seifert stated after the bridge collapse, the latest budget forecast shows an even bigger surplus than we had previously expected. The final numbers are due in November.

Tell you what, LL, let's have a bet. You can take the side that we'll have a bigger surplus in November than projected in July. I'll take the under. If the Global Insights weighted forecast (which the state uses for budget forecasting) had 20% on the pessimistic scenario in July, you don't think it'll be less in November, now, do you?

Labels: Final Word, legislature, Minnesota, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

I have the distinct pleasure of broadcasting from the State Fair again this year, for the fourth year running of the NARN. I find hosting this rather than riffing off Mitch Berg's venerated radio skills hard. I mean, Mitch, you know, he really knows how to do the Fair.

Here, by the way, is the full schedule:

• NARN, the usual shifts, Saturday August 25, 11-5.
• Mitch and Ed Monday and Tuesday, August 27-28, 5-8pm.
• Ed with guest host Col. Joe Repya, Wednesday, August 29, 5-8pm.
• Minnesota Daddy Exposed and me, Thursday and Friday, August 30-31, 5-8pm.
• NARN the Last Fair Shift, Saturday 11-5.

As the Fraters will tell you, there's no finer way to end your summer than with the NARN at the Fair -- at the bleeding edge of freak shows. See you there.

Labels: Minnesota state fair, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

I need to go tune up my golf game for MilF next week, so I'm off to take advantage of the weather. You get a double-dose of me tomorrow, and I get two guest co-hosts. I'll fill in for Mitch and Ed as the Headliner-of-the-Day, with guest host from the ether Duane Patterson, a/k/a the Generalissimo of the Hugh Hewitt Show. I will among other things talk about his post on the study of strike calls by Major League umpires (see Phil Miller, J.C. Bradbury and Skip Sauer; Skip gives us a link to the actual study.) That would be 1-3pm CT. Then, with Michael annoying his wife and new twins by live-blogging their births, Residual Forces' Andy Aplikowski will join me for The Final Word. You can bet the words "special" and "session" will be used liberally. The politicization has been noted as far away as New York and Washington. Andy has posted that the BPOUs (read: grassroots) are making inroads to slow the idea down.

That's all from 1-5 on AM 1280 the Patriot tomorrow. Stream it. Or (from Monday) podcast it.

Labels: AM1280, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

We'll talk about the bridge in the second hour. Before that we'll hear from HD 28B special election winner Steve Drazkowski, and talk about financial markets with Western Illinois Professor (and blogger) William Polley.

Weigh your costs and benefits, and I'm sure you'll listen in.

Labels: NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

I will be appearing on Ed Morrissey's CQ Radio around 2:30 CT to talk about the economics of the Minneapolis bridge. You are invited to call in at 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

Labels: Media, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

Michael has been posting some information at the end of each post since Wednesday night with information on how to help with the victims of the Minneapolis Bridge tragedy. Here's some information (poststamped to stay top for the day.)

DONATIONS
Minneapolis Red Cross - donate blood and money
* Web site: www.redcrosstc.org/
* Donate blood: 1-800-448-3543
* Donate money: 612-460-3700

United Way (2-1-1)
The United Way has an established protocol for handling donations. They work with state and local officials by consolidating offers of emergency assistance and making them known to responders. Contact United Way's 211 hotline for donations. Just dial 2-1-1 or 651-291-0211. (Full disclosure: I am a board member of the United Way of Central Minnesota.)

FAMILY ASSISTANCE CENTER
Minneapolis Red Cross has established a Family Assistance Center at the Holiday-Inn Metrodome, 1500 Washington Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55454

We'll talk more about this tomorrow on The Final Word at 3pm on AM 1280 the Patriot, and I will guest host for Tony Garcia on The Tony Garcia Show on 1450 KNSI Sunday at 1pm. (Links go to sites where streaming audio is available.) More about the bridge tragedy as infomrmation develops, otherwise, we'll see you Monday.

Labels: AM1280, KNSI, Minneapolis, Minnesota, NARN

Michael and I are starting a series this week on the Final Word in which we will focus on one presidential candidate per week and ask callers to tell us specifically what they like or don't like about that candidate. This week we kick off with Rudy Giuliani as the focus. Do you like him or don't you and why? Do you think he'll win or not? I'll focus mostly on domestic policy -- since Steve Forbes has signed on with Rudy as an advisor, should I be treating Rudy as a Forbes/Kemp tax warrior? -- as that's what I know. Michael will offer some thoughts as well. But what will make this feature work or not are opinions on the candidates from you, the listener. Be sure to listen and call us Saturday at 651-289-4488 with your view.

Labels: AM1280, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

If you are a blogger, or read blogs, just wonder what that word means, you need to be at Keegans tonight at 6pm for the Minnesota Organization of Blogs gathering. Usual ringleader Chad the Elder has decided he prefers Manila, enjoying his satellite TV connection, but the rest of us should be there. Cigars preferred.

You can start your fine day right now, listening to the second hour of Taxpayers League Live and then six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network beginning at 11am, on AM 1280 the Patriot (stream, later podcasts). Michael and I will have the Final Word starting at 3pm, with a focus on state and local politics. Exactly what? We're still working on guests while I hop in the car now and drive to the station; moonroof open because it's another gorgeous day in Minnesota.

Labels: AM1280, MOB, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

Apparently, all of it.

I am signing the petition today to tell the Democrats hands off talk radio. Obviously that's a bit self-interested in my case. But we continue to applaud Senator Norm Coleman for leading the fight to keep talkers talking. Captain Ed has the dialog between he and Sen. Dick Durbin. Coleman later offered a press release, in which he said,

Since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine talk radio has flourished, thanks to free speech and free market ideals. Americans have not only been witness to, but have directly benefited from, the information revolution that has changed our daily lives. Cable television, radio and the Internet are all in their own ways bringing forward a multiplicity of information and view points. Despite today’s efforts by my opponents, I will continue working to ensure our free speech and free market principles are protected by fighting against reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine.

Look for more news at Fairness Doctrine Watch.

Labels: Media, NARN, politics

Remember first that the Final Word comes after four hours of excellent local talk radio on AM 1280 the Patriot's Northern Alliance Radio Network. Be sure to catch some combination of Brian and Chad and John from 11am to 1pm, and Mitch and Ed from 1-3pm.

Seeing that blogs at two newspapers are fretting over the loss of a congressional district, Michael and I will visit with the guy who started this thing. Tom Gillaspy is the state demographer, has done so for quite some time, and I'm happy to have been on a couple of panels with him at Winter Institutes here in the past. Half an hour with a demographer is a lot more fun than you'd think, and you should try it during the first hour.

Back by popular demand in the second hour is our good friend Drew Emmer, whose unique view from Wright County is not to be missed. I'll try to keep my giggling to a minimum.

So at least one of us is having fun tomorrow on the Final Word. Maybe you will too.

Did you take the weekend off and miss the frivolity? Podcasts available.

Labels: Final Word, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

It takes almost no time to find a faculty member here who has had an experience with Internet plagiarism. A study from Rutgers University four years ago (that I find cited frequently) found that 38% of students survey said they had cut-and-pasted from the internet into their research papers. 44% of students thought this was trivial and not cheating. By comparison, only five percent of the students surveyed had turned in papers out of paper mill or otherwise downloaded from an online source.

One of the reasons I find students having this issue is the misunderstanding of the academic voice in writing. When one writes as a student or faculty member of such-and-such university, one conveys a seriousness to the exercise. It says, I am a person who thought about a subject in a sincere intellectual pursuit of truth, and here is what I found in that pursuit. Students tend to write like the examples they read -- alas, these are most often email and instant messages (thus the papers that refer to "ur" rather than "your" or only use the middle letter of "are".) Some more serious students nevertheless try to imitate styles of journalists or, more often, columnists. The imitations are often wincingly bad, but I simply tell them instead "your voice should be that of a serious student, not Dave Barry." Let Mr. Barry write his own academic tomes.

We have software we use to get at this, which can be otherwise a daunting, time-consuming task. The stuff is expensive, as you'd expect for something that can replace that much labor. And reading this article on newspaper plagiarism indicates that the best way to combat it -- not defeat, that's too lofty a goal -- is to make sure students know what it is and how severe it is. I read the first item of "Prohibited Conduct" from the student handbook:

Academic dishonesty, including but not limited to, cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of student status, and resume falsification. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the use by paraphrase or direct quotation, the published or unpublished work of another person without full and clear acknowledgment; unacknowledged use of materials prepared by another person or agency engaged in selling or otherwise providing term papers or other academic materials; and commercialization sale or distribution of class notes without the instructors' permission. (Emphasis added.)

While Mitch and Michael were discussing the issue of plagiarism at Minnesota Monitor, Michael called to ask whether the use of a quote from a published source met my definition of plagiarism. Pointing to the above definition, what I could say was that if a student here did what Mr. Fecke at MinMon did on a paper turned in to me, I would call it plagiarism. Use of the adverb "reportedly" would not suffice -- I would have written in red in the margin, "reported where? Give source."

Now certainly a newspaper article is not an academic work. And certainly as well, a newspaper gets press releases that can be used as quotes without attribution (it's considered something in lieu of an interview.) But by its own standards, MinMon says its 'new journalist fellows' should "[i]dentify sources when possible." I think it is fair to hold a website that puts such statements on its pages up to those standards.

The Society of Professional Journalists, in 1984, added this sentence to its code of ethics: "Plagiarism is dishonest and unacceptable." (Source.) Indeed, as Fred Fedler points out in that piece,

Typically, SPJ's code does not define plagiarism. The Associated Press Stylebook does not include an entry on "Plagiarism" but devotes slightly more than a page to "Copyright Guidelines."13 Similarly, Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute found that most newspapers had no clear rules about plagiarism and that editors seemed loath to define it. Clark found no guidelines, no warnings, not even the word "plagiarism" in the indices of newspaper stylebooks and journalism textbooks on his shelves.14

Journalism's trade and professional publications devote more attention to the topic, and Editor & Publisher has blamed journalism schools "for sending out interns and graduates who pilfer other people's work."15

(Click the source article to follow the footnotes.)

This is what strikes me as the takeaway from this story: In Mr. Fecke we have a young man, reared on the blogosphere, who has been encouraged by an agenda-driven news site to wear the mantle of "journalist". He identifies himself as a freelance writer, and he writes like, well, a freelance writer. In trying to effect the voice of a journalist he has failed to grasp the seriousness of the enterprise. This does not make him a journalist, and to do so would require more care over his articles than the editors of MinMon have provided, at least in this case. Perhaps new fellow Eric Black can provide the seasoned wisdom that the current leadership has failed to provide to its new journalist fellows.

Labels: Media, Minnesota, NARN

In an update to the story yesterday about the MnSCU board spat, I identified Mr. Kimball as not being a student. In this I could only rely on information I had in my control, such as the student directory and the online email list. He was not found in either one. I took that to mean he was not a student on the campus in 2006-07. Students not registered for classes have their email accounts suspended by the university's computing staff.

Shortly after my 10pm update, Mr. Kimball emailed me from a student account here on campus. I confess at first to being surprised. He indicated he was enrolled in classes. The only way this can happen, as best I can surmise, is that he is enrolled for a class or more this coming fall. (Here's the automated way he can do that.) Due to data privacy issues, there is no way for me to tell that someone is an incoming student (or returning after some hiatus) unless they identify themselves.

When I decided in 2004 to join the NARN as a radio personality, I resolved that it had to be clear that I spoke on the air in a personal capacity. I try hard to avoid the impression that a listener thinks I speak on behalf of the university. I thought I had taken due care in establishing, within the rules of data privacy, that he was not a student and therefore unlikely to be seen as someone with whom I might have any professional responsibility.

Had Hal identified himself as a returning student before our Saturday broadcast, I would have hesitated on running the story and would certainly have been more tempered in my discussion of his role; I can understand the confusion it causes to think I may be criticizing him as a professor. Again, he has never been my student and given his course of study (identified publicly as a masters program in social responsibility) he likely never will. But my line is a little further out than that; the potential that criticism of a person is seen as my speaking officially to a student is over that line.

My obligation is to the university in this regard. To them, I apologize for any confusion I may have caused in mistaking Hal as an ex-student. While I believe I took due care to ascertain his status, it is nevertheless my mistake for which I will take responsibility. I have communicated my regrets to Hal, who has been gracious in his reply. I will write no more on this matter, and I will clarify my mistake on the air next Saturday.

Labels: NARN

On Saturday's show, we did a rather obscure story that I'd like to review now and provide some background.

A seat is available on the MnSCU Board of Trustees for a student from one of the four-year universities in the system (one of which is SCSU.) The current holder, Michael Boulton, goes off on June 30.

Chapter 136F of the Minnesota Statutes governs MnSCU and specific provisions are provided for the selection of trustees. 136F.04 covers the student board members' selection, assigning them "the responsibility for recruiting, screening, and recommending qualified candidates" to the board. They can recommend between two to four. The statute explicitly states that the governor "is not bound by these recommendations." The student association covering the four-year universities is the Minnesota State University Student Association (MSUSA.)

During the show we reviewed first the case of Luke Hellier. Luke is a graduate of St. John's University, has been active in Republican politics both on and off the campus, and has experience in SJU student government. I met him while he was at SJU and active with Students Fostering Conservative Thought; I have spoken as well to the campus' College Republicans chapter. Luke says he is enrolled for classes this fall at MSU-Mankato for a masters degree in public administration. He tells that upon speaking with Boulton, and realizing he met the requirements for the position, he decided to apply for the post. Using the Open Appointments process meant he filled out a form. He reports that last week, he was interviewed for the position. Nothing on that form indicated to him that he should speak to MSUSA for screening, nor did anyone from the governor's office when they interviewed him.

We also interviewed Adam Weigold, a candidate who went through MSUSA screening. When I asked how he knew of the post opening, he reported that as someone affiliated with MSUSA he was aware of the process anyway. How was the position advertised? I asked. He replied that it was up to campus student government presidents to make the position known to people on their campuses. While Adam was very supportive of Luke's candidacy, he felt that Luke should have known this process by finding the statute.

That's a fair enough point. But what I would ask is, when the statute says (136F.02) that "Three members must be students who are enrolled at least half time in a degree, diploma, or certificate program or have graduated from an institution governed by the board within one year of the date of appointment." (emphasis added), it clearly contemplates the applicant pool to include a student entering school. Nobody disputes this. And this would appear to be the case: The entering student would be a graduate student coming to a MnSCU school. We do not offer doctorates (yet) and master's programs typically take two years. So it's most likely that if grad students are contemplated to join the board, they would most likely join it at the very beginning of their enrollment in a program. Without the provision I italicized, it is unlikely that graduate students could gain the 4-year student seat on the MnSCU board.

Yet the system by which MSUSA announces the process it uses is exclusionary to those who would enter a program a few months after the announcement of a vacancy. It puts candidates like Luke at a disadvantage to insiders within MSUSA and the seven campus student governments.

If you think that's fair -- that there should be preference for current over incoming students, even if the incoming student has experience in student government from a non-MnSCU school -- you're welcome to argue that point. Please indicate how you read that into current Minnesota statute.

Enter last week's folderol from the leftist blogs inspired by Hal Kimball. Long-time readers of the Scholars are familiar with Mr. Kimball. He is a past student government president. During his tenure his student government helped get a man elected homecoming queen, interfering enough with the campus' student finances that its student finance committee quit en masse, and causing enough ruckus with the student newspaper to have its editor make Kimball the focus of his valedictory editorial, including these famous words:

Kimball is a whiny, two-faced, corrupt liar- all of the personality traits of a politician. He probably has a good career ahead of him.

The career path was rather evident early on. The year before Kimball became president of the student government, SCSU's students voted to remove themselves from MSUSA. To do so requires legislation, so the vote was to bind student government to seek that legislation. Throughout early 2004 the debate raged, and when Kimball won election that April, he indicated he would still abide by the students' preferences.

Kimball and [VP Bianca] Rhodes [who also tried to quit as Kimball's VP during the finance flap in 2/05 but was persuaded to stay] intend to keep the pressure on, they said.

"We will still be working on the MSUSA issue," Rhodes said. "That is very important to the students and student government."

But in the greatest about-face since Gomer Pyle, Kimball not only does not press for SCSU's departure from MSUSA, he becomes its chair. In a scathing editorial of Kimball's tenure, the campus newspaper notes that this is "similar to President Bush becoming the head of the United Nations after his term."

So those who think I might have been a little over-the-top last Saturday on my show should review this fellow who you have followed into your calumny over Luke Hellier's legitimate candidacy for the MnSCU Board. Is it really about protecting the recommending authority of MSUSA -- a body that Hal Kimball has both said he wanted SCSU students out of, and then became chair of -- or is it in fact about the politics of Luke?

After reading the facts above, and reading Hal's post, you decide: Does this look like the post of a 35-year-old adult that should serve on a board of MnSCU to you?

UPDATE: Michael looks at the reporting and finds it lacking.

UPDATE 2 (10pm): Since some people are missing key points, let's review again:

1. I don't really care if Mr. Hellier wins or loses the Board seat. I think he is qualified, but it is reasonable to assume all three candidates are. Having not interviewed one and having only talked briefly to the other two, I'm in no position to pick. Nor is that my job: It's Governor Pawlenty's.
2. Mr. Kimball is not a student at SCSU at this time. Having left the university, he is not subject to any special consideration from me as a faculty member. I checked this before agreeing to do the story on the show by establishing he no longer had an email account at the university. He has never been in one of my classes and his resume indicates he left the university in 2006.
3. Reporting on his past at the university goes to motive. Mr. Kimball is a political actor in this issue; the post I offered of his above shows a political argument disqualifying his contention that the issue is about the MSUSA recommendation. Even in his questions he would ask of Mr. Hellier, he makes Hellier's work with the Bachmann campaign an issue. There is no political qualifications or disqualifications for a Board position. And his inconsistent position on MSUSA ("it's not your daddy's MSUSA") should call his judgment on the MSUSA recommendation into question. The target of his post is not Hellier but Pawlenty, and his willingness to smear Hellier with misrepresentations to get at Pawlenty is in fact part of a pattern of behavior.
   
4. We are grateful for the listenership of the leftist blogs to our show. We are glad you found it entertaining. That is, in fact, what we do. We both inform and entertain. If leftists could figure this out, maybe they'd draw more than a 9% share of the talk radio format.

Labels: AM1280, higher education, Minnesota, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network, politics, SCSU

First the more: Because someone apparently has trouble with the concept of gravity (he can explain later), I'll host Taxpayers League Live tomorrow at 9am. Better, I will interview John Lott a second time. (We didn't get through all my questions last time.) Even better, because only one in the crib is gravity-challenged, I will have Margaret Martin with me. Phil Krinkie figures to come by in the 10am hour; maybe he can explain this silliness with the new House tax bill to me.

After that I have lunch at an undisclosed location, then Michael and I plot the Final Word at 3pm.

Sunday, I'll be on Race to the Right with Tony Garcia on KNSI, talking about blogs in Minnesota. That show begins at 1pm. Tony might keep me on for awhile, or I may annoy him enough to be shown the door by 1:10. We'll see. If I were you, I'd not be late.

Now the less: You may tell I am posting less on here right now than before. I had it in my head for some time there should be four posts a day (ideally, two AM and two PM.) Four. Why that number, I do not know. But if I didn't hit that number I felt I had shorted the pot.

While most people think summers are less busy for professors, for me at least summer is my busiest time. It's specifically the time I get to write professionally. And with a contract for a book in hand plus a number of obligations to journals and other outlets, hitting four is getting to the point where I feel pressures both to post and not to post. And when that happens, the blog has to get less attention.

So I've decided that, for now, the two morning posts will have to go, and the two afternoon posts will be most of what you see for the foreseeable future. If it costs readership, that'll have to be.

Labels: NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network

Everyone and his mother-in-law, it seems, is linking to the MSNBC story of journalists who made political donations. While it seems fashionable to bash a particular journalist for giving money -- and, no surprise, mostly to Democrats -- Ed Morrissey asks a probing question.

Why should journalists have to trade away their rights to political expression in order to work in the media? They are Americans, after all. Again, in this instance, it's exactly like the BCRA; it strips a fundamental right of political assembly and speech from a segment of American society. Regardless of how one feels about bias in the media, that approach is fundamentally wrong.

There are, however, many rights we trade away in return for certain jobs. Athletes have contracts that prohibit activities that put their bodies at risk (Ben Roethlisberger says hi, Ed.) Some individuals who perform personal services give up speech rights as well, which is after all what campaign contributions are.

What's worth probing in Ed's question is why some news organizations would have rules against political contributions. I don't think it's necessarily an act of stupidity. News organizations sell themselves as agents (the journalists) to provide information to the principals (the readers) that is to be reliable. Because there is asymmetric information -- the journalist usually in fact DOES know more about a particular story than the readers, sometimes even more than the blogger -- there is a potential conflict of interest. The journalist can filter the news to turn a story that is sold by his bosses to be "truth" into propaganda. Media owners hire editors, ombudsmen, etc., to represent to the readers that someone has vetted an article and that it contains truthiness. To help with that representation, the newspaper may contract with journalists who sign pledges to waive their right to make political contributions, just as a ballplayer might waive his right to privacy and allow someone to randomly command a urine or blood sample.

While I see no reason why a journalist always must sign away that right to make contributions, I also so no reason why a media owner has to hire someone who would not sign a contract that banned the behavior as a condition of employment. The newspaper is the owner's property, and he has the right to entrust its reputation to those he chooses, since the loss of reputation is something borne by the owner.

Any such restrictions are of course imperfect; there will be chiselers. But technology will also influence the prevalence of such arrangements. When the blogosphere and other independent watchers can investigate who made contributions to whom, newspaper owners may feel more or less compelled to hire reporters with the restrictive covenant against contributions. If the reader can judge for himself the preferences of the reporter, he can adjust his reading as well. Since I would only sign the covenant in return for some consideration -- likely, additional money or perks -- the owner has an incentive to not impose the covenant if it is duplicative of private information produced by others. I can't predict which way newspapers and television news will turn in the age of abundant information.

Labels: economics, NARN

There are simply days where you can't blog. Sometimes it's work related, and today is one of those days. Yesterday, though, was the glorious day of golf for The Patriot. Met great people and played a fabulous golf course. (I was skeptical of their talk that golf carts were special, but they were, and fast as heck too!)
Sure, we had no birdies, but we had sun and fun, and at least one of us had great shoes.

Came home trying to think up something and instead saw my daughter wanting to go for a walk, and the blog lost to Littlest.

More tonight when I return from Chili and Chat.

Labels: AM1280, NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network, politics

We are pleased to announce that Governor Tim Pawlenty will join us just after 3:30 today on The Final Word. Working in your garage? On a boat? Take twenty and listen in (well, you could listen to the whole two hours from 3-5, but I try to keep expectations reasonable.)

Michael and I will have other stories during the rest of the show. And you have to hear what's up today on the NARN:

• Film critic Steven Hunter joins the Opening Act, with Brian, Chad and John, 11-1;
• Columnist Eric Black with the Headliners, Mitch and Ed, telling us how the Minnesota Monitor differs from Elba, from 1-3.

Streaming from here at AM 1280 the Patriot; podcasts of all these shows will be up on Monday here.

Labels: NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network, Pawlenty

NARN will be live at the World War II Veterans Memorial at the State Capitol tomorrow. All three shows will be there, with Scott, Brian and Chad 11-1; Ed and Mitch 1-3pm, and Michael and me 3-5. The dedication begins around 2.

We are looking forward to having John Lott on the air to discuss his book Freedomnomics. Those of you who remember Lott more for More Guns, Less Crime should listen in, as I may ask a couple of questions about that work as well. I'll have a review of the book up after the show.

UPDATE (6/9): Our current troops are also to be saluted. Mike from Lamplighter's News, a former guest host of Scholars, has done great work getting together some care packages for the troops overseas. So successful, he has 100 extra he's looking to send but needs addresses for. I know a few of our readers -- brought by Janet, who's enjoying Alaska right now -- are keenly interested in this and might know how to let supply create its own demand. Click through, and get Mike a note with an address to send these packages.

Labels: NARN, Northern Alliance Radio Network