News Cut: April 23, 2008 Archive

Drunks on the road

Posted at 12:03 AM on April 23, 2008 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Health

It's established fact that the upper Midwest can -- and does -- outdrink the rest of the nation. And one out of three high school students binge drinks, so it's not a problem that's going to disappear anytime soon.

What happens to all these people? They get in their cars. A government report out today says the upper Midwest has the worst drunk driving rates in the country. Nationally, nearly one out of 6 drivers on the road has driven drunk in the last year.

Wisconsin -- and this will knock you over with a feather -- is the worst with more than a quarter of the adult drivers reporting they've driven drunk. North Dakota is #2, Minnesota 3, Nebraska 4 and South Dakota rounds out the top five.

"It's not surprising, but it means that these jurisdictions should take this data and think about how they approach public education campaigns and enforcement campaigns," said Dr. H. Westley Clark of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Another expert, Eric Goplerud, research professor at George Washington
University Medical Center, cites cultural and demographic issues for the high rates of drunk driving in these parts. He said strong religion in the southeast discourages drinking, which perhaps is a slap at the heathens in this neck of the woods.

This area, the experts say, is also suspect because of its predominantly white racial makeup. Blacks, they say, drink at substantially lower rates than whites.

(Posting will be light this morning; I'm speaking to a journalism class at the U and then will hunker down on stuff later.)

Comment on this post

Merger math

Posted at 2:14 PM on April 23, 2008 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Northwest Airlines

How do you make a small fortune in the airline business? You start with a big fortune.

Northwest Airlines lost $4.14 billiion in the first quarter of the year. What does burning through that kind of cash look like? Something like this, maybe:

That's $540 in $10 bills sucked into the jet engine every second. Do that every second of the day for three months and you'd be Northwest Airlines.

Up it to $887 a second and you'd be Delta.

Comment on this post

A small slice of the federal pie

Posted at 5:04 PM on April 23, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)

Now that you've paid your federal taxes, Minnesota, you can await a thank-you note from Louisiana. Or Alaska. Or Mississippi.

According to a Census Bureau report out today (pdf here), those are the big winners in the "federal spending sweepstakes." The report lists the total amount of federal dollars that flow to states in the form of salaries or programs or projects.

Here's the national map:

Minnesota? We're #48 with a little over $6,000 in per capita federal spending; that puts us just ahead of Utah and Nevada and just behind Wisconsin.

The report is based on 2006 data. A survey in 2005 showed that Minnesota received 73 cents in federal spending for every dollar paid in federal taxes, which tied the state with Connecticut for the bottom of the heap. Mississippi, by contrast, got $2 back for every $1 paid in. (Hurricane Katrina recovery at work.)

Today's report does not suggest that ranking is going to change.

Comment on this post