News Cut: July 10, 2009 Archive

Fact-checking Bachmann

Posted at 5:15 PM on July 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (12 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Rep. Michele Bachmann overreached today when she delivered her latest salvo against the U.S. census. Bachmann proposed allowing people the option not to answer questions on the census.

ASSERTION: "Beginning last weekend, the Pentagon was broken into, its computers, as well as Homeland Security's computers, and North Korea may be the culprit," she said. "What we know is that the government's computer systems are not hacker proof."

FACT: According to the Associated Press, "Treasury Department and Federal Trade Commission Web sites were knocked out by the blizzard of digital requests, while others such as the Pentagon and the White House were able to fend it off with little disruption." No one has been "hacked" in this cyberattack from -- reportedly -- North Korea. Instead, access to a computer service is blocked through "denial of service" attacks. No information actually is pried from a targeted computer. And no computer was "broken into."

As the AP report characterized it:

Denial of service attacks against Web sites are not uncommon, and are usually caused when sites are deluged with Internet traffic so as to effectively take them off-line. Mounting such an attack can be relatively easy using widely available hacking programs, and they can be made far more serious if hackers infect and use thousands of computers tied together into "botnets."

ASSERTION: "And so American's private information, including their home telephone numbers..."

FACT: But you can get people's home telephone numbers from a telephone book.

ASSERTION: ".. and very private information about their personal lives could be subject to a hacker."

FACT: True, a computer could be hacked into. But that doesn't stop Bachmann from accepting donations on her Web site that require you to reveal your credit card number, your occupation, your address and your email address. One has to calculate the risks and evaluate the return.

A couple of weeks ago, Bachmann said the census data might be used to round Americans up, making a connection to Japanese internment in World War II.

If Bachmann is worried about what the government might do, it's not as if it hasn't given some reason to be. In 2004, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said it obtained documents to show that data "on people who identified themselves on the 2000 census as being of Arab ancestry" had been given to the Department of Homeland Security. But the DHS said that was to figure out what language to use on signs at airports.

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I have a confession to make. I can't remember ever filling out a census form. I can't remember anyone coming to the door and asking me questions. A young man stopped by a month or so ago to confirm that my address is correct, apparently to be sure I didn't put four large numbers on the post by the garage to fool the Census people.

"I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home," Rep. Bachmann told the Washington Times last month. "We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that."

That, of course, is wrong, according to Census officials. It also ignores the reality that the Constitution provides a framework for laws. There's nothing in the Constitution, for example, about a 55 mph speed limit, but my argument fell on deaf ears in White Bear Lake not long ago.

What's the point of the census? Let's look at a couple of the questions.

Question: How old are you?
Reason for asking: The voting age population census could help Minnesota lawmakers decide, for example, which House district could be eliminated if, as reported, the state loses a congressional seat.

Question: Last week did this person work for either pay or profit?
Reason for asking: Helps to identify the impact of immigration and job markets, according to the Census Bureau. It's an issue that's been important to some representatives like Bachmann and could provide facts to back up assertions, should that ever comes back into style in Washington.

None of this is new. The census people have been making this point for decades:

Many of the questions claimed as "personal" are actually on the American Community Survey, rather than the Census short form that most people will get.

Bachmann is making the claim that government intrusion by way of the Census is an expanding universe. But there's evidence that the opposite is true. Past census records, for example, reveal that Clark Haley of Anoka County got $18 a month in a government pension for having a "diseased lung" in 1869. George Fairbanks, also of Anoka County, got $4 a month for chronic diarrhea.

Let the record show, there are no questions planned in the '10 Census about diarrhea.

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Five at 8 - 7/10/09

Posted at 7:57 AM on July 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)

1) The pick of the day is clearly Dan Gunderson's tour of a former North Dakota missile silo. It's not the first look we've had underground. Former MPR reporter Cara Hetland gave us a similar tour in September 2001. Unfortunately, the multimedia tour that went with it has been orphaned by all the moving of servers and redesigns over the years. I suppose it was only fitting that the story of these relics was told via a RealPlayer presentation. History lesson for you whippersnappers: These were massive, powerful weapons that could be stopped by a third-grader's desk.

2) Calculations. How can you wipe out your credit card debt? "The Fed's free credit card calculator that shows how long it would take you to pay off your card debt at its current interest rate if you made only the minimum monthly payment, along with the grand total of how much you'd pay in finance charges over that time," Consumer Reports says.

I love online calculators. Here's another: The Liquid Candy Tax Calculator, from a group that wants taxes on soda... err, pop. Playing with it a bit shows it would take $1 a can to pay for the cost of medical care for obese Minnesotans.

3) New technology in baseball, says the New York Times:

A new camera and software system in its final testing phases will record the exact speed and location of the ball and every player on the field, allowing the most digitized of sports to be overrun anew by hundreds of innovative statistics that will rate players more accurately, almost certainly affect their compensation and perhaps alter how the game itself is played.

The new gizmo will reveal that the Twins need a secondbaseman who can hit.

4) Most experts agree "drug court" has been a success in Minnesota. Here's a related court: Family Dependency Court. In Mankato this week, Michael Bakke became the first graduate in Blue Earth County, the Mankato Free Press reports.

But some people commit crimes because they're addicted to alcohol or other drugs, or because they have mental health problems, (Judge Kurt) Johnson said. When those problems are addressed, the criminal behavior usually stops.

The financial benefit, of course, is participants who are successful become productive members of the community instead of a drain on law enforcement and social services resources, he added.

"We're helping people," Johnson said. "We're actually making a difference in people's lives instead of taking their kids away or throwing them in jail."

5) Why do Scandinavians write such great crime fiction? It's a peaceful spot of the earth. You know the people are gentle (when they're not merging on the highways). "Scandinavia is a bleak, ungodly, extraordinarily violent place to live. The capitals are seething hot pots of murder," Nathaniel Rich says on Slate.com. Oh.

Follow-up: The Pennsylvania pool story isn't over yet.

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TODAY'S QUESTION

Have women achieved equality in American politics?

Recommended commentary: For Iranians in the streets, 'landslide' was humiliating lie

WHAT WE'RE DOING

I hope to have an MPR News Cut Quiz by mid-afternoon. I've got a few questions in mind and, of course, they're going to be maddeningly hard. If you have a news-based question you'd like me to consider, send it in. Appropriate credit and riches will be given.

Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) - How much do you know about science. Take the Pew Center quiz, then listen to Midmorning's first hour and find out you don't know much. At 10: The magic of the circus. The guest is James Tanabe, assistant artistic director of Cirque du Soleil and a Rochester, Minn., native. The circus is playing in Lowertown in St. Paul.

Midday (11 a.m. - 1 p.m.) - Sort through the economy in the first hour with economics professor Louis Johnston of St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict. Second hour: Veterinarian Dr. Kate An Hunter and her dog Ansel will be in the studio to answer questions about your pets. Sniff. We had to put our dog down a couple of weeks ago.

Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) - It's Science Friday! The talk turns to a form
of ebolavirus carried in pigs. Plus, reforming health care reform, and how the
personal life of presidents can shape healthcare policy. In the second hour: How the snack industry designs the snacks you crave.

All Things Considered (3-6:30 p.m.) - Some students in Northfield have taken years to research and write a visitor's guide to the Jesse James gang's time in Northfield and Southern Minnesota. MPR's Tom Weber will have their story this afternoon.

MPR's Mark Steil says personal wind mills are going up faster than big wind farms, but the individuals who build them are often disappointed that they get less power than expected. That reminds me of a story in the eastern 'burbs. In Woodbury, a new school wants to power itself with a windmill. The trouble it's having getting permission to build it shows why wind energy in populated areas may be a lost cause.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, the most enjoyable name to say in all of the news business, has details of the meeting today between the Pope and the president. Robert Siegel talks to a couple of people who have invented the "coil guitar," the next generation of electric guitars.

Guitars provides today's discussion point. United Airlines broke Dave Carroll's guitar last year but the story since has been the company's response, which led to Dave's response:

Question: In a time of economic troubles for most company's, why have so many American corporations, filled with smart execs, figured out the economic benefit or providing great customer service?

Give us a story of a business you'll patronize forever because of the service they gave to you. Maybe some of the smart execs are reading.

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Window closing on new state park, Pawlenty says

Posted at 11:22 AM on July 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

Is the time still right for Minnesota to be buying land for a new state park?

Gov. Tim Pawlenty today said the window is closing for one of his pet projects -- a new state park around Lake Vermilion in northeastern Minnesota. The land is owned by U.S. Steel, which wants more money and thinks it can get it from developers anxious to build luxury homes.

That's business. Housing. Jobs. All the things that Gov. Pawlenty has been saying for 6 1/2 years should trump just about everything else in the state. But he says the plan could help save small campgrounds in the region. Back in 2005, however, some of those campgrounds said the problem is state regulations around the lake.

The Legislature appropriated $20 million to buy up the land during the 2008 session.

Who's the biggest landowner in St. Louis County now? The state of Minnesota.

"Our only request back to the DNR, which is a very reasonable request, is that they would sell other properties within St. Louis County," county commissioner Keith Nelson told MPR's Stephanie Hemphill back in 2007. "Waterfront properties that they hold presently, that would be of equal value to this new proposed park."

Of course, times were better back when Pawlenty came up with his idea. The economy hadn't yet tanked, and social services to people -- many of whom had no chance of using the new state park -- weren't yet being unalloted.

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The week that was

Posted at 2:39 PM on July 10, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: The Quiz

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