Sunday liquor sales: The little bill that can't
Posted at 1:57 PM on May 23, 2013
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Politics
If government was all about the will of the people, you'd be able to buy booze on Sunday in Minnesota.
A release of polling data today by Public Policy Polling shows the bill that can't ever get out of the starting gate at the Capitol, is the one that unites DFLers and Republicans.
Overall, the poll showed more than 60 percent of those surveyed, support being able to buy alcohol on Sunday, a practice presently prohibited.
The crosstabs show that very liberal, somewhat liberal, and somewhat conservative people overwhelmingly support the concept, and even half of the very conservative respondents thought it a good idea.
It also provided common ground by race.
And age.
And gender.
(3 Comments)
The concealed carry muzzle
Posted at 1:13 PM on May 23, 2013
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics
Joe Blow has a concealed carry permit.
If I were in Louisiana, that sentence could put me in jail.
The Louisiana Senate is set to pass House Bill 8, which states:
It shall be unlawful for any person other than an employee of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections or a law enforcement officer to release, disseminate, or make public in any manner any information contained in an application for a concealed handgun permit or any information regarding the identity of any person who applied for or received a concealed handgun permit issued pursuant to this Section. Any person who violates the provisions of this Subparagraph shall be fined ten thousand dollars and may be imprisoned for not more than six months.
Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy isn't buying it:
This is a clear First Amendment violation. Florida Star v. B.J.F. (1989) struck down a law banning the publication of the names of rape victims, once the information was released by the police (even when it was released in violation of department policy). This statute is thus unconstitutionally overbroad, because it has no exception for these kinds of erroneous-release situations. But even if the statute were limited to exclude information gleaned from public records, it would still be unconstitutional: It would be a content-based restriction on speech. It would apply to speech about crime, lawsuits, threats to public safety, and other matters of public concern.
And while in theory even such content-based speech restrictions might be constitutional if they are "narrowly tailored" to a "compelling government interest," this test has rightly been extremely hard to satisfy (consider Florida Star itself). Indeed, one reason our free speech protections are so strong is that courts have been extremely hesitant to uphold speech restrictions under this test. They are thus very likely to strike down the statute -- and if they do uphold it, the precedent would risk undermining free speech protection more broadly. The Second Amendment (or, to be precise, the desire to keep confidential people's exercise of their gun rights) shouldn't be a basis for undermining the First Amendment.
(2 Comments)There's Texas and then there's everywhere else
Posted at 12:43 PM on May 23, 2013
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
The U.S. Census Bureau today released the list of fastest-growing cities in America. Most of them are in Texas.
| Table 1. The 15 Fastest-Growing Large Cities from July 1, 2011 to July 1, 2012 | |||||||
| Rank | Area Name | State Name | Percent Increase |
2012 Total Population | |||
| 1 | San Marcos city | Texas | 4.91 |
50,001 |
|||
| 2 | South Jordan city | Utah | 4.87 |
55,934 |
|||
| 3 | Midland city | Texas | 4.87 |
119,385 |
|||
| 4 | Cedar Park city | Texas | 4.67 |
57,957 |
|||
| 5 | Clarksville city | Tennessee | 4.43 |
142,519 |
|||
| 6 | Alpharetta city | Georgia | 4.37 |
61,981 |
|||
| 7 | Georgetown city | Texas | 4.21 |
52,303 |
|||
| 8 | Irvine city | California | 4.21 |
229,985 |
|||
| 9 | Buckeye town | Arizona | 4.14 |
54,542 |
|||
| 10 | Conroe city | Texas | 4.01 |
61,533 |
|||
| 11 | McKinney city | Texas | 3.95 |
143,223 |
|||
| 12 | Frisco city | Texas | 3.92 |
128,176 |
|||
| 13 | Odessa city | Texas | 3.83 |
106,102 |
|||
| 14 | Auburn city | Alabama | 3.71 |
56,908 |
|||
| 15 | Manhattan city | Kansas | 3.71 |
56,069 |
|||
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Vintage 2012 Population Estimates | |||||||
| Note: Large cities are those with a population of at least 50,000. | |||||||
| Release Date: May 2013 | |||||||
There wasn't any change in the makeup of the cities in the top-15 ranking, just a change in order. The only midwestern city on the list -- Indianapolis -- dropped one spot to number 13.
Minneapolis is now the 47th most populous city, adding about 4,000 residents between 2011 and 2012. Saint Paul is 55th (adding about 2,000 residents).
Here's the total ranking of Minnesota cities.
| City | Population |
Rank |
| Minneapolis | 392,880 |
47 |
| Saint Paul | 290,770 |
66 |
| Rochester | 108,992 |
249 |
| Duluth | 86,211 |
358 |
| Bloomington | 86,033 |
360 |
| Brooklyn Park | 77,752 |
416 |
| Plymouth | 72,928 |
455 |
| St. Cloud | 65,986 |
514 |
| Eagan | 64,854 |
527 |
| Woodbury | 64,496 |
532 |
| Maple Grove | 64,420 |
534 |
| Eden Prairie | 62,258 |
554 |
| Coon Rapids | 61,931 |
560 |
| Burnsville | 61,130 |
567 |
| Blaine | 59,412 |
590 |
| Lakeville | 57,342 |
621 |
| Minnetonka | 51,123 |
714 |
The steady growth of the south makes it seem likely Minnesota will lose a seat in Congress in 2020. It barely kept it in the last redistricting of 2010. (5 Comments)
Tornado damage via satellite
Posted at 11:25 AM on May 23, 2013
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
NPR has just released a pretty neat app that shows the damage from the tornado in Oklahoma this week.
Sabrina's best day ever
Posted at 10:30 AM on May 23, 2013
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
Filed under: Arts
The instructions for Google's Doodle contest was to illustrate your "best day ever."
That part was easy for Sabrina Brady of Sparta High School in Wisconsin, who won -- probably handily -- Google's annual contest for school-age artists.
Her doodle is featured on Google today.
"When I was 10 years old, my dad came home from war," she wrote in her entry. "This was my best day ever."
He was deployed for 18 months.
She will get a $30,000 scholarship from Google, and the thanks of a grateful nation.
Update This is the second win in a row for Wisconsin. Last year's winner -- Dyland Hoffman -- came from Caledonia, WI. He was a second grader.
Postcards from the security state (5x8 - 5/23/13)
Posted at 7:08 AM on May 23, 2013
by Bob Collins
(3 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8
It's unlikely the world of private aviation is going to get people too worked up about an obvious change in the government detaining of citizens -- most people don't fly airplanes -- but The Atlantic's James Fallows has been following an increasing number of cases in the U.S. where pilots who have done nothing wrong are being detained and searched without explanation. There was a time when that would be considered illegal in the country.
To say it again: I am not contending that the aviation world is being inordinately picked-upon. Overall it is a privileged part of society -- and demographically it skews toward older white males who are politically conservative, have money, and often have military experience. Ie, these are people who are not generally the object of police profiling for terrorist or other criminal tendencies. So if the security state is leaning heavily on them, you can extrapolate to other groups.
Since Fallows wrote an original piece on his blog about one incident, he's gotten details about others.
It's an extremely good read.
2) RETURN OF THE VACCINE DEBATE
Great Britain is in the midst of a measles outbreak, NPR's Shots blog reports. Why? Apparently because of the disproven theory on the evils of vaccines:
Childhood vaccination rates plummeted in Great Britain after a 1998 paper by Dr. Andrew Wakefield claimed that the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella had caused autism in a dozen children. That study has since been proven fraudulent, but it fueled fears about vaccine safety in Great Britain and the United States.
"This is the legacy of the Wakefield scare," Dr. David Elliman, spokesman for the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, told The Associated Press.
Most of the measles cases have been in children and teenagers between the ages of 10 and 18, according to British health officials. In that age group, vaccination rates dropped below 50 percent in some parts of England after the Wakefield paper was published.
It's hard to stand one more story about dead children, but when Stillwater student Zach Sobieski lost his battle with cancer this week, he left a hopeful story behind, along with the music he loved.
His song has hit #1.
"He wanted to be able to find a cure for osteosarcoma, but also, knowing he was going to be leaving the world, he wanted to be able to take care of the people he loved," Scott Herold, the founder of Sobieski's record label tells WCCO. "It's hard that Zach's gone, but man this is really awesome. It's beautiful."
Sobiech's funeral is being held today in Stillwater.
Related: When University of Minnesota men's pitching coach Todd Oakes went to the mound to talk to his pitcher yesterday during the game against Illinois, he was wearing a surgical mask. He's battling leukemia and had a bone marrow transplant and doesn't want to risk infection. But he does want to keep coaching.
"Never give up. Never give in," he said in an interview last month.
Sportsmen and other outdoor enthusiasts are pressuring Gov. Mark Dayton to veto the spending bill for the state's Legacy fund, an issue that took a backseat to other high-profile issues at the Capitol this year.
Legacy money comes from a portion of the state sales tax, a provision voters approved several years ago for arts and outdoors. The battle is over the the question: What is "outdoors?" Is it habitat and wildlife -- mostly in more rural parts of the state? Or is it parks, open space, and water in the cities?
And it's shaping up as a battle of former big names for the Minnesota Vikings. Legendary coach Bud Grant wrote a letter on Tuesday to the governor urging him to veto the bill. Today, the Pioneer Press reports that former player Paul Krause is urging Dayton to sign the legislation, which comes from the legislative group in charge of determining how the money will be spent.
He singles out two of the projects contained in the metro parks initiatives: restoration of Trout Brook in Dakota County and prairie restoration adjacent to state lands purchased with Legacy funds. "Just because wildlife habitat is owned by a county park system -- rather than the DNR -- should not make valuable wildlife land ineligible for habitat restoration funds."
Krause is hardly alone. A host of metro park districts, from Minneapolis to Scott County, have been drafting letters to Dayton urging him not to veto anything, according to e-mails obtained by the Pioneer Press.
Many of those calling for a veto point to a statement, recorded on video, that then-candidate Dayton made at Game Fair in Anoka County: "I will veto any legislative attempts to usurp the authority of the Lessard-Sams council."
5) RIVERFRONT HOMEOWNERS PUSH BACK
Moorhead residents are pushing back against the city's announcement this week that it might stop providing sandbags to residents of the city who live near the Red River.
The city says residents should "pony up" for more of the cost of holding the flood back. Fargo Forum reports the residents say they already have plenty of money invested.
Schramm, who has lived on Rivershore Drive since 2007 in a home her father built in the mid-1970s, said the fact that she and her husband have put roughly $20,000 into their private dike is proof they have "ponied up" to protect the city.
"I grew up in the town, and this town is very important," Schramm said. "And I don't think the people should say we don't care about them because we always have."
Zimmerman said "in most cases" residents along the river do not have private levees.
"For those people that have built a dike like that, they don't need sandbags so there really isn't an issue for them" if the city stops delivering bags, he said.
Politically, it's a near risk-free stance for the city. Only 87 homes are left standing along the Red River in Moorhead.
Related: In Cross Hairs of Tornadoes, a Town's Residents Stay Put (NY Times)
Bonus I: Read the divorce papers closely. In Texas, the Associated Press reports, a woman has ruled a a North Texas lesbian couple can't live together because of a morality clause in one of the women's divorce papers.
Bonus II : What does Google Glass say to people? "Don't come near me."
WHAT WE'RE DOING
Daily Circuit (9-12 p.m.) - First hour: How communities recover from a disaster.
Second hour: The healing power of holding a grudge.
Third hour: Do voters and candidates really understand what policies truly affect small business owners?
MPR News Presents (12-1 pm): A special from the America Abroad series, hosted by Ray Suarez: "Immigration and the Global Talent Search."
Talk of the Nation (1-2 p.m.) - TBA
All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Jarrett Krosaczka is the author of 20 childrens books. They include the Lunch Lady series -- an award-winning, kids favorite -- starring the school cafeteria superhero. NPR interviews Jarrett Krosaczka on its Backseat Book Club.
(3 Comments)God and the Oklahoma tornado
Posted at 2:45 PM on May 22, 2013
by Bob Collins
(21 Comments)
Filed under: Religion
It's getting harder and harder to expect journalists to cover disasters without it leading to a storyline about miracles and divine intervention. Theological discussions by journalists, who are in the business of asking questions, should be more complicated than that.
Rev. Wolf Blitzer takes top honors in the "awkward" category for this viral interview of a woman who wasn't about to conform to the notion that surviving a tornado requires the intervention of the divine.
On a more intelligent level, the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog today asks the question that few seem to want to ask. "Where was God?" However, it approaches the question in response to an intellectual question: If one prays for divine intervention in the aftermath of a tornado, doesn't that suggest divine intervention was possible in the mere existence of the tornado?
When atheists use natural disasters as a time to rebuke individuals of faith, there may be some indication that their argument against God is more of an emotional objection, rather an intellectual problem. However, with some atheists, it seems to be a genuine intellectual objection that dates back to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and later, David Hume.
Some atheists, following Hume, who are watching natural disasters or experiencing true evil, will often hold that the two statements: "An all-powerful and all-good God exists" and "Evil exists" are logically inconsistent. But other logicians will note that there is not an explicit contradiction in these statements. The atheist is often assuming that if God is all good, then He would prefer to create a world without evil than to create a world in which evil exists.
Tom Cabral, writing on his Faith & Fall River blog raises more questions than answers:
The God of the bible has what are called incommunicable attributes. Those he does not share with us. The bible declares God both omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful). Everything in his universe happens under his rule and reign. He knows the number of hairs on our heads, the days until we die, and the places you will live and whom you'll live with.
Some claim that God has a multitude of plans and if one doesn't work out he goes to plan B. That's not what the scriptures declare. They declare that even the most powerful man's existence is under the control of an all-powerful God "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will" (Pro 21:1). Either he is fully sovereign or he is NOT sovereign at all. We cannot put God in a box. The first thing we cannot do is say God cannot stop evil.
If that's true, than we're back to the beginning of the discussion: why a tornado?
The question cannot be answered, Cabral says, because "we must not become the voice of God and answer."
Enough with the Hiroshima atomic bomb comparisons
Posted at 1:20 PM on May 22, 2013
by Bob Collins
(6 Comments)
Filed under: Science
The Associated Press is the latest news organization to compare an event to one of the most gruesome days in the history of civilization, with its science story today claiming the energy in the tornado in Oklahoma City this week "dwarfed" the atomic blast in Hiroshima.
Several meteorologists contacted by The Associated Press used real time measurements, some made by Schumacher, to calculate the energy released during the storm's 40-minute life span. Their estimates ranged from 8 times to more than 600 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb, with more experts at the high end. Their calculations were based on energy measured in the air and then multiplied over the size and duration of the storm.
We heard the same sort of comparison a few months ago when a meteor exploded over Siberia. In those stories, we were told the meteor was more powerful than 30 atomic bombs.
While scientifically correct, perhaps, it's a weak comparison for the purposes of journalism. Rather than add important context, it removes it. For one thing, it's comparing energy released but not the impact of the energy released. And, clearly, comparing something to the atomic bomb is meant to create the impression that the tornado was a bigger force in total than the atomic bomb.
That's nonsense.
The calculations cited include the duration of the tornado's 40-minute lifespan. The explosion over Hiroshima was over in a matter of seconds.
At last check, twenty-four people died in this week's tornado, a tragic number by any comparison. But is it really honest to suggest any comparison to a weapon that may have killed an estimated 90,000 to 130,000 people -- 75,000 immediately and perhaps as many over the following years?
Such a comparison dishonors and diminishes the suffering of people like Michihiko Hachiya, whose 1955 Hiroshima diary was nothing we've ever witnessed before or since on such a scale.
In time I came to an open space where the houses had been removed to make a fire lane. Through the dim light I could make out ahead of me the hazy outlines of the Communications Bureau's big concrete building, and beyond it the hospital. My spirits rose because I knew that now someone would find me; and if I should die, at least my body would be found. I paused to rest. Gradually things around me came into focus. There were the shadowy forms of people, some of whom looked like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in pain, like scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies with forearms and hands dangling. These people puzzled me until I suddenly realized that they had been burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together. A naked woman carrying a naked baby came into view. I averted my gaze. Perhaps they had been in the bath. But then I saw a naked man, and it occurred to me that, like myself, some strange thing had deprived them of their clothes. An old woman lay near me with an expression of suffering on her face; but she made no sound. Indeed, one thing was common to everyone I saw - complete silence.
Whatever problems facing Oklahoma City, an increase in leukemia because of the tornado isn't one of them. Neither is a significant impact on the mental development of children not yet born.
What happened in Oklahoma City was real and tragic and on a scale that takes your breath away. But no component of the tragedy in any fashion dwarfs what happened in Hiroshima.
(6 Comments)Justices fume over MN Supreme Court ruling in sexual harassment case
Posted at 11:35 AM on May 22, 2013
by Bob Collins
(1 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice
The Minnesota Supreme Court today rejected the argument that if an employer's sexually explicit behavior is extended to both women and men in the workplace, it's not sexual harassment under the Minnesota Human Rights Act. But the ruling split the court because it did not specifically declare the employer's actions to be sexual harassment.
The court ruled in the case of three women, who were employed at Lou's Fish House in Two Harbors. They testified in district court that owner Brian Zapolski asked them about their sexual preferences and sex lives, made sexually suggestive comments to them, showed them pornography, asked them to find friends who would have sex with him, and touched them.
But a district court judge said that's not sexual harassment because they didn't lose salary or their jobs, didn't seek counseling, were not specifically sexually propositioned and Zapolski's sexual comments were "not merely directed at females."
Today the Supreme Court struck that decision down, agreeing with a Court of Appeals ruling. But the Court of Appeals had ruled the women were entitled to a judgment under the human rights law. The Supreme Court today, however, sent the case back to the district court for a decision on the women's claims.
Justice Lori Gildea said in her ruling that the sexual harassment claims do not require the three women to prove discrimination. "The fact that Zapolski directed inappropriate, sexual comments at both male and female employees... cannot support the district court's determination that the conduct was not sufficiently severe..."
But Justice Wilhelmina M. Wright, while agreeing with Gildea's overall ruling, said today's opinion doesn't answer an important question raised in the case: what standards apply when reviewing a hostile work environment claim under the Minnesota Human Rights Act? She said there's no need to send the case back to the original judge for a decision.
If the conduct at issue in this case does not unmistakably violate the MHRA, I shudder to consider both the degrading conduct that any employee must endure in a Minnesota workplace and the unreasonably burdensome actions she must take to prove that her workplace was hostile so as to vindicate her legal right to be free from a hostile work environment. On the record before us, applying the appropriate legal standard, we need not delay or deny the Employees a just resolution of their hostile work environment claims.
Justice Wright said she refused to take part in "playing 'kick the can down the road' with a question of law that affects the legal protections of every worker -- male and female -- in Minnesota."
In other words: if the Supreme Court can't rule that the three women's rights were violated in this case, what would it take to so rule?
In finding that Zapolski's conduct did not create an objectively hostile work environment, the district court relied in part on its finding that the Employees were never explicitly sexually propositioned. This underlying finding of fact is clearly erroneous and contradicted by the district court's earlier finding that Zapolski asked Reinhold "if she would kiss him when he came to work," to which Reinhold replied "no." Notwithstanding Reinhold's refusal, Zapolski's request is a sexual proposition. Although Moyer was not personally propositioned, the district court found that during Zapolski's sexual discussions with her, Zapolski "attempt[ed] to have Moyer solicit other young women to have sex with him."
Justice Paul Anderson called the refusal to rule "extraordinary."
I believe something more needs to be said about the message the majority delivers to Minnesota's citizens, whether those citizens are male or female, young or old, rich or poor. The unfortunate consequence of the majority's opinion may well be that offensive and repulsive sexual misconduct in the workplace, like Zapolski's verbal and physical misconduct, will be much more difficult to curtail in Minnesota and that many victims of similar misconduct will be left without a remedy under the law.
In his strongly worded dissent, Justice Anderson said the court majority made an "almost heroic effort to ignore the district court's erroneous findings," calling Zapolski's behavior "classical sexually motivated misconduct in the workplace."
Anderson, who is retiring, said when he became a justice, he thought the state was well on its way to not tolerating sexual harassment in the workplace. "As my service as an appelate judge draws to a close," he wrote, "I am concerned that the opinion the majority renders today signifies a step backwards on what I once believed was a one-way path toward ending sexual harassment in the workplace."
Here's the full ruling in the case. And here's a webcast of the oral arguments before the court in the case.
(1 Comments)What happened in the basement? (5x8 - 5/22/13)
Posted at 7:10 AM on May 22, 2013
by Bob Collins
(10 Comments)
Filed under: Five by 8
Minneapolis and police department transparency, the people who go to work when a tornado hits, Timberwolves math, the new voice of NPR, and coffins the old-fashioned way.
Continue reading "What happened in the basement? (5x8 - 5/22/13)"
Mary and Bob (5/21/13)
Posted at 4:42 PM on May 21, 2013
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Mary and Bob
The searching ends in Oklahoma, the politicians spin in Minnesota.
Here's today's news conversation with Mary Lucia on The Current.
(0 Comments)If the tornado had hit MSP
Posted at 3:39 PM on May 21, 2013
by Bob Collins
(5 Comments)
Filed under: Weather
The National Weather Service says the tornado that hit Moore, Okla., was a top-of-the-scale EF-5 twister with winds of at least 200 mph, the Associated Press reports this afternoon.
The weather service says the tornado's path was 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide.
What kind of damage area would that be if it were the Twin Cities?
This:
A 2018 Super Bowl for Minneapolis?
Posted at 2:26 PM on May 21, 2013
by Bob Collins
(7 Comments)
Filed under: Sports
No Super Bowl for you anytime soon, Minnesota, unless your team plays its way in.
The National Football League today gave Super Bowl L in 2016 to San Francisco, part punishment for Miami for not approving public financing of its stadium, and part reward for San Francisco (actually, Santa Clara) for practically paying for the entire stadium. The stadium authority in San Francisco borrowed $850 million from Goldman Sachs and US Bank to pay for the new stadium, construction on which started last year.
The league further smacked Miami when it awarded the 2017 game today to Houston. That's a fairly old stadium as the stadium business goes these days -- 11 years. Seventy-three percent of it was paid for with occupancy and car rental taxes, a ticket tax, and a parking tax. But it had also already hosted a Super Bowl -- 2004.
Next year's Super Bowl is being played in New Jersey, which is the league's newest stadium, but wasn't built directly with public funds. The 2015 game is in Arizona, which built a stadium for the Cardinals the same year as Indianapolis -- site of the 2012 game -- did.
If future Super Bowls are awarded to city's where taxpayers foot the bill, Minneapolis may have a longer wait. Dallas, with the second-newest stadium, hosted the game in 2011, but is said to be competing hard for the 2018 game. The NFL, however, may not want to put the game in the same state two years in a row.
That puts Minneapolis in line -- maybe -- for 2018, although other cold-weather cities with a bigger profile -- Chicago and, perhaps, Denver, might provide competition.
"The day's events send a clear message to cities and teams: If your stadium is out of date, you aren't going to get Super Bowls," the NFL's Around the League column said today.
(7 Comments)Even if people quit smoking, state will reap plenty from cigarette tax hike
Posted at 11:11 AM on May 21, 2013
by Bob Collins
(2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics
Bob Moffitt of the local American Lung Association called my attention today to an old NewsCut post which connected the rate of a cigarette tax increase to the number of people who stop smoking because of it.
Contained therein, was a CNBC interview featuring the late, great Mark Haines questioning the logic of using a tax to close a funding gap in state finances while intending it to also encourage people to give up buying cigarettes. If people quit smoking, the state loses revenue. It can't, the theory goes, afford people kicking the habit.
"The increase per pack way offsets the decline in smoking, " the advocate of higher cigarette taxes responded. "Every state that has increased its cigarette tax significantly, has seen dramatic increases in revenue, even while tobacco consumption declines."
Is that true in Minnesota? Decidedly so.
In 2005, Minnesota raised cigarette taxes by charging a fee to wholesalers -- 75 cents a pack -- which was passed along to the customers. Tobacco tax revenue went from $174 million to $446 million in just one year.
Maybe a lot of people quit smoking during that initial jump, but the revenue figures do not suggest tobacco taxes were ever imperiled by people quitting.
According to the Tax Policy Center, Minnesota tobacco tax revenues totaled $448 million in 2007 (an increase, two years after the tax increase), dropping to $419 million in 2008, before increasing to $423 million in 2009 and $428 million in 2010.
So, tobacco tax revenue dropped only 4% since the "health impact fee" was imposed on smokers.
The new Minnesota tax increase of $1.60 will raise another $434 million, showing almost no financial impact from people quitting.
There may be a point at which it's financially illogical to raise the price of cigarettes. But the data -- so far -- indicate we're nowhere near it.
(2 Comments)Tornadoes, coincidence, and the spring we didn't have
Posted at 10:29 AM on May 21, 2013
by Bob Collins
(0 Comments)
Filed under: Weather
This image, from the National Weather Service, is getting a lot of attention. It shows the route of yesterday's tornado near Oklahoma City and compares it to the route of the previous worst-tornado-in-history that hit the town.
Freaky?
Not really.
Alan Boyle and John Roache at NBC pick apart the tracks of tornadoes in a quite outstanding article today.
The tracks weren't all that similar, however: Monday's tornado took a more southerly route as it moved east. And there's nothing unique about the area's geography to make it a magnet for super-powerful twisters, according to Bob Henson, a tornado expert with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.
"If there were geographic features, that would tend to cause multiple tornadoes every few years," the meteorologist and writer told NBC News. "Well, why has this been happening only since 1999?"
The similarity in the tracks of these devastating storms is "a good example for how weather events can be clustered in ways that are striking yet ultimately coincidental," Henson said.
They also point out another truism: It's been a quiet tornado season so far, mostly because the cold air from the north pushed deeper into the south.
That would suggest that the spring we missed out on, and the snow and nonsense of April and early May in Minnesota, was part of a season that may have spared others a tragedy like yesterday's.
Suddenly, missing out on April around here doesn't seem like such a bad thing.
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About the Writer
Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio News since 1992. He is the former managing editor of online news, and former political and broadcast editor for MPR.
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