News Cut: January 31, 2008 Archive

Paper padlocks

Posted at 9:07 AM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

All across the northern border, people are upset about new rules requiring passports or birth certificates to get back into the United States. Maybe it's not a big deal if you only travel to Canada every now and then, but if you live along the border, it's a big deal, and a big hassle. In Detroit this morning, though, the new rules reportedly went smoothly.

Tom Robertson of MPR takes a great look at the reality in International Falls.

But in addition to the hassle, there's another frustration to the new rule: It's going to cost you money. A passport card, a new version of the passport, will run you $45 because the government has tacked on a "fee" to its cost of giving you one. $10 for kids, $20 for adults and a $25 execution fee. But the card can't be used for air travel.

Meanwhile, the government is jacking up the cost of a regular passport tomorrow, when it shoots up to $100 for people over 16, $85 for kids. You can get a passport at a post office.

So, a family of four may pay almost $400 just to cross the border.

For crossing the border by land, a birth certificate may be used. Minnesotans can start the process of getting one here. It'll cost you $16 for each certificate. If you're in a hurry (an average wait is said to be 4-6 weeks), that'll cost you another $20 a pop and if you pay by credit card, tack on an additional $6.

In this case, the family of four could pay up to $165 to comply with the new rules.

The days of using a Blockbuster card to gain entry are over.

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Have we hit bottom?

Posted at 10:21 AM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

A CNBC talking head made an interesting observation on certain market indicators today. A crisis has bottomed out when the media starts regularly reporting it exists. On Sunday, 60 Minutes looked at the foreclosure problem. Newsweek has the recession story on the cover.

End of the real estate "crisis?" Maybe the beginning of the end of the crisis.

St. Paul Realtor Teresa Boardman, who writes one of the region's best blogs, has a street-level view to share today:

Activity has picked up in the last month. It always does in January. What I mean by activity is that more buyers are looking and sellers are listing. None of us have noticed an up tick in sales, but activity is a good sign.

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Double standard for Twins fans

Posted at 10:59 AM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

Baseball is a business. That bulletin is coming as big news, for some reason, in Minnesota. Today, Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman characterized the players the Twins received for Johan Santana as stiffs no 5th grader has ever heard of before. The obvious question, which nobody seems to be asking in the wake of the Santana trade to the Mets: if you don't know who they are, how do you know they're stiffs?

I get the whole "we'll miss Johan" thing, but Coleman refers to the trade as Carl Pohlad giving the fans the finger with an "Ol' Scrooge play." Maybe. But it also ignores the fact that an "Old Scrooge play" is what got Santana on the Twins roster in the first place. It's also worth noting that Johan Santana was the one who set the deadline and it was Johan Santana who decided he couldn't make ends meet on $13 million a year. So why is Carl Pohlad the bad guy?

Over at The Hardball Times, a blog for people who really do know how baseball works, Victor Wang pulls out the calculator and dives into the long-term ramifications of the trade (Remember: Santana is signing a 7-year deal with the Mets and 7 years from now, Santana is not going to be a 29 year old).

Concludes Wang:

... the Twins were not ripped off as many claim. However, I would not say that the Twins won the deal outright, as the raw prospect value numbers show. When we include the four factors mentioned above into our evaluation, I would say that the Mets come out as slight winners; the extent of their edge depends on what happens with the contract negotiations with Santana.

If I were a Twins fan, I would be slightly disappointed by the fact that the rumors of the Boston and New York proposals did not come true. Still, the Twins did come away with good value in this trade.

For the record, Johan Santana asked for more than $20 million a year, and didn't think once about what his leaving would mean to Minnesota's 5th graders.

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Planning for the day after

Posted at 11:35 AM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

The first shipment of seeds, to be used to regenerate earth after a global catastrophe, has arrived in Norway, destined for the 'doomsday vault.'

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Super business

Posted at 2:25 PM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Super Bowl Sunday is as important to some industries as the holiday shopping season is to others. Some local companies are poised to benefit from the game.

This Sunday, for example, one in seven of us will order take-out; half of those will buy chicken wings. Minneapolis-based Buffalo Chicken Wings is counting on it. A company official told CNBC today, "it's the most important day of the year."

But there are 364 others and analysts are fairly cautious about the company.

"There are 500 locations nationwide," said MKM Partners restaurant analyst Steve Anderson. "Half of those are in the Midwest, and four of the five biggest states where the company has exposure, they have higher-than-average unemployment rates, subprime ARMs and foreclosures."

Nonetheless, the company has been hot today. Its stock is up more than 11% on the day. closed up nearly 9 percent today.

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What hype?

Posted at 3:16 PM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)

I've taken a sick day today, so I'm watching the NFL Network coverage of Super Bowl week. Several news conferences are broadcast live, which unfortunately gives people a glimpse into the kind of biting questions asked by some people who make their living as journalists. This afternoon, Alicia Keys and Jordan Sparks were announced as the pre-game entertainment, an event usually covered by the B-squad anyway, but still...

Lynne Miller (Ironstar) - "First of all, I love you. I think you're fantastic...." It didn't get better. She wanted to know what was in their iPods.

Amanda Jahn (Channel 3 News) - "First, you guys are so beautiful..." Why even bother with what her question was?

Yetta Gibson (Fox Phoenix) - "How ya doin? Where are your seats? And are you forced to root for the Knicks?" The what? The Knicks? I looked her up on the Internet. She's described as "an Emmy Award-winning journalist." That should tell you how hard it is to win a local Emmy.

Tom Petty, the halftime show, is up next. NFL Network analyst Terrel Davis says he's never heard of Tom Petty. Ugh.

Update:

3:56 p.m. - "Let's give it up for Tom Petty," the moderator of the news conference says. And they do. The reporters... journalists... in the audience..... they do.

3:58 - "Would you please give a shout out to 103.7 FM, 'The Mount' in Seattle?", asks a reporter from 103.7 FM. Petty does. I begin to understand better why The Current has so many online listeners from Seattle.

4:00 - "How awesome is it for you to be performing at a Super Bowl?" asks a reporter. I literally pray that Petty answers, "It's awesome!" Instead, he says "it's mind-blowing," a subject about which Petty appears to know a fair amount.

4:01 p.m. - A reporter asks if a friend of his can sing a few bars of "American Girl," and would Petty critique him. "Umm, no," Petty replies.

4:03 p.m. - Amanda Jahn from Channel 3 (see above) is back for more. She begins her question with, "You guys are still smokin' hot." Good golly, she was once nominated for an Emmy. Here's some of her work. Note the part where she refers to Chris Bergman.

4:05 pm. - Actually an interesting question here. "You've always been Mr. anti-corporation and here you are at the Super Bowl, a corporate orgy, in a halftime show sponsored by a corporation..." Petty says, "that's just the way it is in TV. You just smile and be good boys."

And take the cash.

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Fun with numbers: The voting age

Posted at 4:27 PM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau today shows Minnesota ranks #21 in the nation in population, with a little over 5 million people. Wisconsin is just ahead at #20.

75.8% of Minnesota's population is 18 or over (voting age), only slightly more than the national average (75.5%). That puts us in 29th place in that category.

Utah, by contrast, has only 69.1% of its population old enough to vote.

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A letter from Kenya

Posted at 4:28 PM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Kenya's problems are growing worse. A police officer gunned down an opposition lawmaker today.

The worsening news prompted me to check in again with Katie Springer, the University of Minnesota grad who works in the region, interviewing people from East Africa who want to emigrate. I last talked to her in early January.

Today, she tells me via e-mail:

Nice to hear from you. I was in Dadaab, Kenya, which is the northeast province, for the last 3 weeks. When I left, it seemed things were back to normal. Yesterday on my way home from the airport, after our delayed flight due to the "tension" as its called here, I saw fires burning in the distance and my taxi driver informed me that it was peoples' homes up in flames. The strange part is, everything as far as I can tell is life as normal. However, I had a long talk with my house girl today and she was sharing with me what her life is like in one of the major slums. She said the men don't sleep; they have to stay awake all night guarding their shacks and families inside with machetes. Maybe you heard, but yesterday fliers were distributed around some of the slums telling members of certain tribes they had a matter of time to leave. She is trying to find a way to get her children out and send them somewhere safer, though no one can really identify where that is. So, it seems the tensions are still high, and climbing. However, many of the problems we were seeing before, for those of us not living in the slums, seem to have bettered. Now, it's the economic effects we're seeing. My roommate was forced to take a 20% pay cut. She considers herself lucky as most people were just laid off.

(Photo: Kenyan policemen place roses near a memorial at Uhuru Park in Nairobi today. The memorial was erected in memory of all Kenyans, who were killed, raped or lost their homes in post-election violence. Kenyan police have been given orders to shoot to kill in a bid to stem weeks of violence, a police commander said. Photo taken by Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images)

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Same debate, different views

Posted at 9:09 PM on January 31, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

Here is some of the most interesting live-blogging done at the Democratic presidential debate on Thursday night.

New York Times Caucus blog
Editor & Publisher
Norwegianity
The Guardian - Richard Adams
L.A. Times
Andrew Sullivan - The Atlantic

(Phone: Emmanual Dunand/Getty Images)

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