News Cut: February 20, 2008 Archive

The mystery of maps

Posted at 8:40 AM on February 20, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

MPR's Curtis Gilbert has a fascinating look at an old theory -- that people in the city are DFLers, and people in the 'burbs are Republican to varying degrees depending on where they live.

The claim appears to be supported by a map lifted from the Institute for Race and Poverty at the U of M.

The story is accompanied by a blizzard of maps showing "election results" for a number of years, ranging from "safe Democrat" to "safe Republican."

"It's as if the Republicans are a tribe and they're living in one part of Minnesota, and Democrats are another tribe living elsewhere," Humphrey Institute political scientist Larry Jacobs marvels. "It is one of the most striking manifestations of the polarization in our political world today. We are literally living apart."

The question "what's wrong with this picture?" can only be answered by first asking another question, "what election are we talking about?" The maps don't say.

Check the 2006 election results on the MPR Campaign 2006 section.

Here's the map of the governor's race, which appears to support the story's conclusion:

And here is the result of the race for U.S. Senate, which appears to turn the theory on its head:

The political party identification comes from a U of M/MPR poll (pdf) earlier this month in which those surveyed were asked to state which party they most closely identify with. But the survey appeared to find it difficult to correlate that self-identification with other factors:

The inner ring suburbs, which lean Democratic, strongly approve of Governor Pawlenty’s performance (58%). Another surprise is Senator Amy Klobuchar’s 65 percent approval rating in the Republican dominated outer ring suburbs.

At the end of the story, Jacobs acknowledges that people in the suburbs seem more likely to "split the ticket," meaning they may be as likely to support a DFLer as a Republican (a truism that should make claims that someone is a Republican or a Democrat suspect), just as the maps above show. Why would they do it? Because the issues are different. In the governor's race, for example, the issues were primarily economic. In the Senate race, the issue was foreign policy, which overshadowed economic concerns. Moreover, these concerns shift over time. The poll, for example, touts that the center city voter is more likely to consider "education" as the top priority, while people in the suburbs lean more to naming the economy.

But you have to be careful with that sort of statement because it's far too easy to read it as "city voter more likely to be concerned about education than the suburban voter" and there's really no evidence to support that. The ranking of voter concerns is fraught with peril when it comes to making sweeping judgments based on the rank.

A look at the 2006 District 56 (Woodbury-Lake Elmo) results (here, here, and here)shows the danger of such conclusions. Three DFLers, who ran very strong campaigns that focused on education, knocked off three Republican incumbents, who all ran on economic issues. If you want a lab rat for really understanding the suburban voter, that's the district to use.

There's also the danger of using election results as a mirror of what issues are involved. If there's one thing the cumulative results of Select A Candidate have shown us over the years, it's that votes for a candidate often stem from factors beyond the issues (and to the extent that it is about issues, it's interesting to note that Iraq is the #1 issue in the race for president, but health care is the #1 issue in the race for U.S. Senate).

Just as easily, the conclusion could have been: City residents are more likely to be in lockstep with a political party than residents of the suburbs. And woe to the candidate who takes the suburban vote for granted, or attempts to reach a single conclusion on the nature of that voter.

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When is 'pre-trial publicity' too much?

Posted at 10:29 AM on February 20, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

The Minnesota Lawyer blog asks a terrific question in a post today:

"Should newspapers be restricted in what they can report about a case before it goes to trial? It seems that substantiated, relevant data shouldn’t have to be embargoed for the benefit of one or the other side in a lawsuit."

The question stems from a Hennepin County judge who postponed a trial of a suit filed by two lawyers over the way their former firm distributed $103 million in legal fees from the AOL Time Warner case.

The Star Tribune printed a story on the case on Monday. On Tuesday, a judge delayed the trial.

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A reprieve for the dying satellite

Posted at 1:34 PM on February 20, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Update Thu. 7:44 a.m. - The Navy reports success in shooting down the satellite. China is lobbing the ball back over the net. It apparently was shot down on the next pass after it was spotted over the Twin Cities, making the following lame picture likely the last photograph of it.

Here's some Pentagon pictures. Still waiting for the video to be posted.

Update 6:42 p.m. - I can attest that the satellite has not yet been shot down. I just observed it over the Twin Cities. Note lame picture.

So, I'm 0 for 2 in trying to spot this killer satellite, whose orbit is decaying and threatening to rain toxic hydrazine upon, well, who knows? It was probably a bad idea for me to drive eastbound on I-94 last night, straining my neck around and behind at 6:43, and looking 20 degrees above the northwest horizon, since it made me a bigger threat to Minnesota than hydrazine.

I didn't think I'd get a third chance to see it tonight, but apparently I will since rough seas have conspired to thwart the Navy's attempt to shoot it down.

Russia and China are concerned that this whole operation is a cover to test a new space weapon. If so, a flaw in its operation has now been made apparent.

By way of Google comments, James A. Lewis, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, takes on some of the lore that is building around this situation.

1. On the threat of hydrazine and the construction of the tank that contains it:

Hydrazine is highly dangerous stuff. It’s unstable, corrosive and explodes easily. That means that the fuel tanks for hydrazine are made extra tough. Unfortunately, the strength that lets the fuel tank carry hydrazine safely into space also means that the tank is tough enough to survive catastrophic reentry. When the shuttle broke apart on reentry a few years ago, the hydrazine tank was one of the few items to survive the fall unscathed. In that case, however, the tank contained only a few pounds of hydrazine. In this case, the tank is full. The risk is that the equivalent of a 1000-pound bomb could end up crashing down into a populated area.

2. It's a space weapon test to impress the Chinese:

The U.S. doesn’t need to do this to impress the Chinese. They were already impressed by earlier successful tests, including the last one where an SM-3 missile launched from an Aegis cruiser hit a warhead 87 miles above the Pacific Ocean. This didn’t get a lot of public attention, but the Chinese military was sure to have followed it closely, if only because the U.S. has a cooperative missile defense program using Aegis with Japan, which the Chinese think could be used to defend Taiwan.

3. The whole idea is to keep a secret satellite out of the hands of "enemies."

When a nuclear powered satellite built by the Soviet Union crashed in Canada in the 1970s, the Soviets said they didn’t want the pieces back. When a Chinese rocket carrying a Western-owned communications satellite blew up shortly after launch, the Chinese carefully collected all the pieces and tried to examine them before turning them back, but the most sensitive items were charred and cracked beyond recognition. The probability of gaining useful information from the crash is low, as the best technology would have to survive reentry and the debris would have to fall in an opponent-controlled area. The probability of surviving reentry and landing in a hostile controlled area are too low to explain the decision to shoot down.

4. It all comes back to the dinosaurs. This is a test to crush a killer asteroid, right?

A 200-foot wide meteorite that struck Tunguska Siberia in 1908 had the effect of a nuclear explosion (without the radiation aftereffects). If there was warning that a similar event was about to occur over a populated area, it would be nice to have the ability to stop it. It's not worth spending much time worrying about being hit by asteroids, however, or even by satellites, but having spent all that money on missile defense, it’s nice that it finally has some practical use.

Twin Citians (or mere visitors) have the best chance of seeing USA 193 tonight at 6:36:38 (Woodbury time) when it appears 10 degrees above the west southwest horizon, reaches 52 degrees above the northwest sky at 6:38:48 p.m., and then disappears at 6:40:47, when it's 12 degrees above the northeast horizon.

Some minutes later, the lunar eclipse begins. By the way, if you have a spiffy camera set up to record it, send me some images and I'll post them here tonight.

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Heading to the future

Posted at 4:14 PM on February 20, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

That thing up there, called Epic Emotiv Neuroheadset, is probably going to change a few lives which, until now, have relied on keyboards and joysticks to be involved in the gaming world.

As the BBC reports, it's a headset that will measure electrical activity in your brain and transmit it directly to the game.

Emotiv is going to sell this thing for about $300.

One can easily see this as a solution to a number of problems, including more applications for those who've lost the ability to speak, but not think. It also may mark the beginning of the day when we go into meetings, put these things on, and then participate in some sort of virtual communication.

The headset can read 30 different emotions, making it harder to be passive aggressive.

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Watching you watching me

Posted at 6:02 PM on February 20, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Atlanta and Minneapolis are trying to get to know each other in the wake of the coming merger between the two hometown airlines. Reporters from this neck of the woods are in Atlanta. The Atlanta reporters are already here, as evidenced by the Atlanta Journal Constitution's assessment of what the people in Eagan think about all of this merger stuff.

"Everything changes," philosophized Kevin Swanlund, the bartender. "It's never good to lose any jobs. But Minnesotans are sought after. We're hard workers. We'll all find something to do. Change is a dynamic of this place."

That certainly appears true in this suburban-industrial town of new office parks, strip malls and subdivisions a few miles from the airport. Despite its stature, Northwest is only the third largest employer in Eagan with 2,300 employees scattered among three buildings.

Just as media reports are indicating that a Northwest-Delta deal may be in trouble, a vice president of Delta is actually talking about the merger.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Lee Macenczak, Delta's executive vice president of sales and customer service, told a business luncheon that "rising fuel prices, increased global competition and customer demand are driving his company's pursuit of Northwest."

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Lunacy

Posted at 7:42 PM on February 20, 2008 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)

A lunar eclipse in Minnesota is the last one we'll see until 2010.

If you're one of those people with nifty photographic equipment, we'd love to post your favorite eclipse photo. Use this form.

I, on the other hand, have your basic cheap digital camera, the kind you get free for subscribing to some magazine. Alas, it'll have to do.

The Saturn-like ring is actually a twig from a tree. This was taken at 9:30 p.m., just about at the height of the eclipse.

Jered Jackson in Eden Prairie has just sent this. Nice!

And he followed it up with this beauty.

Mike Moore of St. Paul gets big style points for the following photo. He took this at 9:20. I guess I should've asked for lens and shutter specifics for those people who have nice cameras. I can see that the contributors know what they're doing around cameras.

Michael Custard's contribution. Taken in St. Paul. Apparently the city lights offer no barrier here.

St. Paul seems to be "eclipse central." Sara Kim, of St. Paul, writes "I took this picture in St. Paul at 8:17 p.m. I was amazed that it turned out! I have a pretty nice camera but am far from a professional! I somehow had a very steady hand in the freezing temps! The other eclipse pictures are fabulous! Thanks for posting them. And thanks for the great blog." And here's her picture:

I'd love to see a picture or two taken in the rural parts of the state.

In South Minneapolis, Andrew Fetzer proved that you can stay warm and still get off a good shot. He took this picture through his living room window.

Also from South Minneapolis, Terence Brashear. Note the copyright notice:

Say, why do we see a red moon when it's in the shadow of the earth? Why do we see it at all? According to Astronomy.com:

The atmosphere acts like a filtered lens. It bends red sunlight into our planet's shadow and scatters out blue light. It's the same reason why sunrises and sunsets appear reddish. If Earth were an airless planet, its shadow would be pitch black and the eclipsed moon would be invisible.

The pictures are still coming in! Jimmy Hodges in Swainsboro, Georgia has sent this one:

It was taken around 9:01 central time. Terence's was taken at 9:03. I've rotated Jimmy's slightly to align the moon to the same point in both. Notice how the orientation of the part of the moon still in sunlight is slightly different? I presume the difference in geographic location of the photographer has something to do with that.

Twenty-four hours later, and they're still coming in. Here's one I received from Mathew Brenengen, who says he took it from his kitchen in -- you guess it -- St. Paul. I have no idea how you create something like this.

And here's one from Minnetrista that makes me want to delete my top photo out of sheer embarrassment. Thanks to Michael Smart. The file info on the photo says the f6.3 and shutter speed 1/2500.

Out at the airport, something had their attention. "What is that? A plane arriving on time?" Nope, it's the eclipse. (Thanks Julia Schrenkler)

Other pics here, and here.

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