News Cut: August 13, 2008 Archive

Trees or electricity?

Posted at 7:48 AM on August 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)

Your trees or your electricity? Which would you rather have?

USA Today reports on the results of a congressional order that electric utilities trim trees near power lines. The bill was passed in 2005 but wasn't to be enforced until last year "to give the utility companies time to comply." And you thought it was a do-nothing Congress.

Fines could be up to $1 million a day, which explains why utility companies have been hacking trees faster than Paul Bunyan and Babe ever could.

Last year, for example, Woodbury officials tried to halt Xcel's plan to cut trees that were more than 30 years old. After a day or two, the tree-cutting crews went in unannounced and leveled the trees. At $1 million a day, who's got time to negotiate? The situation still rubs city leaders the wrong way.

It's a familiar theme and complaint. In Burnsville last month, a woman, said to be known for her landscaping and gardens, lost spruce trees in her yard. She tried to negotiate with Xcel to trim the trees instead of cut them down. Xcel cut them down.

Xcel suggests this wouldn't be a big deal if people would just plant trees in the right place.

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The R word

Posted at 8:09 AM on August 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (23 Comments)

We've had spirited discussions in this space over the last 10 months about the public use of certain words.

Now we have a chance to have another, thanks to Ben Stiller's new movie "Tropic Thunder."

Retard.

At the premiere, several groups protested the movie, according to former WCCO reporter -- now CBS correspondent -- Ben Tracy.

Dozens of people from organizations such as the Special Olympics and the American Association of People with Disabilities protested the movie-industry spoof across the street from the film's Los Angeles premiere at Mann's Bruin Theatre on Monday. The protesters held up signs with slogans such as "Call me by my name, not by my label" and chanted phrases like "Ban the movie, ban the word."

Dreamworks says it won't make any changes to the film, but has changed its promotional materials and yanked the Web site, which contained the tag line "Once there was a retard."

It's just satire. It's just a joke.

Craig Ludin, 32, isn't laughing. He's best at swimming, although he plays a good golf game, too. He works at Capital One Bank. He has Down syndrome. And he hates the word, according to Newsday.

"I'm sorry they have that opinion," Stiller said.. "They haven't even seen the movie."

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Are cellphones a company perk?

Posted at 11:03 AM on August 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Tech

Your company gives you a cellphone. Should the income tax meter start ticking when it does?

There's considerable pushback developing, the L.A. Times reports, over the IRS rule that few employers -- and even fewer employees -- know about. You, the employee, are supposed to keep detailed records of which calls are "personal" and which are "business." If you don't, the IRS figures the phone and the wireless service are perks, and taxable.

Most employers were unaware of the rules until the last few years, when the IRS began cracking down and requiring additional taxes to cover the value of the cellphone service provided to employees.

UCLA, for example, was hit with a $239,196 bill this year after IRS auditors found that employees with cellphones were not keeping logs. UC San Diego had to shell out $186,471 for the same reason.

"It's completely unreasonable to have to keep track of calls at that level," said Mike O'Neill, payroll and tax manager for the UC system. "Especially as the costs of these devices have come down, you can get these mega-minute plans where there's really no additional cost" for personal calls.

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Last call for late drinking

Posted at 12:37 PM on August 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: The political conventions

For all the talk about the need to stay open late to allow Republican National Convention delegates -- and their media followers -- to drink, there's been a somewhat surprising lack of plans to keep the doors open, at least where official "parties" are concerned.

According to the schedule of lobbying-related parties I wrote about last week, only one event is scheduled past the normal 2 a.m. closing time. Each night the Warehouse Productions Party is being held from 10-3 a.m. in Minneapolis.

Nothing is scheduled late (or early, depending on your perspective) in St. Paul. And that, apparently, includes the non-official locations. The Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, is holding a news conference this afternoon to try to get the city to lower its $2,500 "fee" for bars and restaurants that want to stay open until 4 a.m.

The Chamber, which will be joined at the news conference by bar owners, says "the current fee places Saint Paul venues at a competitive disadvantage with neighboring cities." That would refer, of course, to Minneapolis, where there's a $100 fee to stay open late.

(h/t: Tom Weber)

Update Here's Tom's story.

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The kid sings the blues

Posted at 12:50 PM on August 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Surveys and trivia

In Wisconsin, an underaged person can be served -- and drink -- alcohol, as long as it's OK with the parents who are with the kid. But don't try playing a guitar. Insert your own Wisconsin joke here.

But it's not a laughing matter for Tallan "The T-Man" Latz. He's 8 years old and apparently a heck of a blues player.

But the state of Wisconsin is threatening action if he keeps trying to play in the state's bars and taverns, the Associated Press reports.

An anonymous e-mail sent to state officials complained that Tallan was too young to perform in taverns and nightclubs because of state child labor laws. His booking agent even got an anonymous letter threatening her with death if she keeps booking him.

When Tallan's father read him the state's letter saying he couldn't play clubs anymore (he can still play festivals), the boy's response -- like his music -- seemed beyond his years.

"He goes, 'It's not how many times you get knocked down but it's how many times you get back up and go forward,' Carl Latz said his son told him. "And I told him that's exactly what this is all about and if nothing else this letter just taught you a life lesson."

Tallan was apparently turned in by another blues guitarist who was tired of losing gigs to a kid. Drink up, kid. The show's over.

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U.S. reaction to the Russia-Georgia war

Posted at 2:07 PM on August 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)

For those of us who grew up during the Cold War years, the conflict between Russia and Georgia has got our attention in a big way, and not because we're particularly concerned about Georgia.

Back in the day, there was a constant fear that one wrong move could start a nuclear war and we'd be forced to duck under our desks.

As the war between the two appears to be intensifying, the U.S. appears to be ready to jump in.

In Washington, President Bush said the United States planned a massive humanitarian effort involving American ships and aircraft, including a C-17 military cargo plane loaded with supplies that landed on Wednesday.

He said Russia must ensure that "all lines of communication and transport, including seaports, roads and airports," remain open to let deliveries and civilians through.

"The United States, its allies, and other countries need to send a strong signal to Moscow that creating 19th-century-style spheres of influence and redrawing the borders of the former Soviet Union is a danger to world peace," The Christian Science Monitor quotes Ariel Cohen saying. He's senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies at the Heritage Foundation ( Read his analysis).

Back in the day, this is the kind of thing that kept us up nights. We're up late at night this week, but only because we're watching the Olympics. The war, and the U.S. role in it, is playing second fiddle to Michael Phelps.

The problem here is it's 2008 and the world is more of a juggling act than ever before.

The U.S., notes James Traub, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, needs Russia to help "contain Iran."

This is precisely what Bush administration officials are asking themselves right now. Can we afford to confront Russia over Georgia, if we need to bring Russia in line with sanctiuons on Iran? This is why diplomacy is hard. But these trade-offs often prove self-defeating. If the United States does not confront Russia over Georgia, that will not necessarily translate into help on Iran and other issues -- and it might embolden Russia in its increasingly confrontational approach to relations with the West. Europe has generally taken a more accommodating line with Russia; but to what effect? Putin's Russia seems to take a zero-sum approach to diplomacy: You must lose if I am to win. It's not clear that Russia can be cajoled into a more cooperative approach.

The administration , not surprisingly perhaps, is leaning toward the view of the gentleman from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. Says the Washington Post:

Although options appeared limited, the senior administration officials said that the West actually has more leverage now over Russia than it did in 1968, when Soviet forces occupied Czechoslovakia. Then, one official said, "they didn't care about their integration into these institutions," or what the world thought of them.

Russia, the official said, now has "a lot more to lose than the Soviet Union did in '68."

The politicians outside the administration seem inclined to sit this one out. Sen. Norm Coleman's statement on the subject, for example, is short on ideas of what this country should be doing:

"I am deeply concerned about the ongoing hostilities in Georgia, and particularly the provocative actions of the Russian military. I believe that the Russian government must respect the territorial integrity of our strong ally, and remove its troops from South Ossetia. The U.S. must be firm in its disapproval of Russian actions and work quickly to implement a cease-fire."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar has not issued a statement on the situation, her press secretary told me this afternoon.

None of the 8 congressional representatives from Minnesota has issued a statement on the war and the potential of U.S. involvement. One, John Kline, is in Washington, but he's live-blogging a protest over the House leadership's inaction on an energy policy -- an issue that's primarily driven by the coming election.

Rep. Tim Walz's press secretary said the 1st District representative hasn't had anything to say about the situation because nobody's asked him yet (Now, someone has). A call to 6th District Rep. Michele Bachmann has not yet been returned.

(Update 4:50 p.m.) - The only member of the Minnesota delegation to react to the situation is Rep. Jim Oberstar, who responded to my request with this:

"I support the United States sending humanitarian aid to Georgia and engaging in an international effort to halt the conflict there. However, it is regrettable to see yet another colossal failure of U.S. intelligence under the Bush administration.

We should have had the intelligence in place to know that tensions were escalating and war was imminent. Instead, President Bush stood next to Vladimir Putin at the Beijing Olympics just days before Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, and missed an opportunity for direct face-to-face diplomacy that could have made a difference. After all of the attention that has been paid to reforming our intelligence services and systems since 9-11, it is incredible that the United States was unaware of this situation until shots were actually fired in Georgia.

It is not enough to express outrage after shots are fired and people have died. As a superpower, the United States has the duty to rally the international community in time to halt aggression. We have missed that opportunity in the Caucuses and now the people of Georgia are suffering from this violent invasion."

What do you think the U.S. reaction should be?

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We love surveys

Posted at 4:55 PM on August 13, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Surveys and trivia

I admit it: I love surveys that are about... us.

Minnesota leads the nation in ACT scores? Great. We eat it up. Good job, kids. Take that, Wisconsin! How do you like us now, Iowa?

Less fascinating are the ones -- the obviously inaccurate ones -- that paint us in a less flattering light.

Forbes, for example, says fans of the Minnesota Twins are among the fairest of the fair-weather fans in Major League Baseball. We console ourselves with this injustice by reminding people that the same outfit named Kevin McHale the best general manager in all of sports.

Late today, came another blow to our Gopher-sized ego. Minnesota ranks 44th -- 44th! -- in the nation in fast Internet connections. The Minnesota average is 1.57 megabits per second. The U.S. average is 2.35. Japan is 63.60 megabits per second. A year ago, Minnesota ranked 26th. Wisconsin has passed us. Iowa has not.

The report comes from the Communications Workers of America, the union that stands to benefit, of course, should panic ensue over the situation.

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