Podcast 319

Minnesota Caucus 2016. Get the week officially started – after President’s Day – with updates. The Minnesota Caucuses will be held March 1st, which is the closest possible day to the so called ‘first four’ collection of primaries and caucuses that garner so much national media coverage. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are the only states that precede Minnesota in 2016. So, the opportunity for Minnesotans to influence the state and national process is just one year away. What are you doing NOW to organize your precinct and prepare for the caucuses? Is the feud between Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton and Senate Majority Tom Bakk real? After Dayton tried to push through very large pay raises for his commissioners, igniting a firestorm of Republican opposition, Bakk surprised everyone by suggesting the Governor slow down, break the raises into parts, and discuss his plans with the legislature. Dayton says Bakk ‘stabbed him in the back’. Is old Crazy Eyes back? Or maybe he never left? Should the people of the state, through their elected representatives, have some say over pay increases for state officials of over thirty five thousand dollars a year, in one case? You betcha! Meanwhile, as to whether or not those state agencies are getting the job done; A few years and about 37 million dollars ago they were going to consolidate the state’s drivers’ license and vehicle registration system. Brought in HP to get the job done. HP has been fired and paid off, and the story is, it was very difficult to work with state employees on this project. So the state IT people have taken over the job and now say it will take longer and cost maybe 93 million dollars, when it’s all said and done. And they wonder why we question raises? Got poor service from Comcast? Forget complaining to the company, complain to the FTC which is considering the Comcast/Time Warner Merger. Some analysts say the company’s poor customer service may be a factor in whether the FTC approves the merger. Lots of hot air about electric cars these days. Now supposedly Apple is building one. No one ever asks where the power is going to come from and how much its going to cost when we’re all driving electric cars. And after NASA falsified weather station reports to make it look like the planet is warming – when it didn’t in 2014 – now they say we could have the worst droughts in one thousand years. Oh yeah, when? We don’t know when, but you know, it’s gonna happen. Is Russia controlling the weather? Or are international agencies interested in creating a world organization to do just that? Oh, Hell no! Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

Podcast 294

Dry Cycle. The update turns into a discussion of the fallibility of media, even your favorite cable news channel. This weekend, Fox News had to correct itself and apologize profusely for reporting there are ‘no go’ zones in Europe, where non muslims fear to tread, and the police won’t enter. Everyone was talking about it all weekend after Fox anchors and guests apparently got it wrong. These are neighborhoods in England and suburbs in France that are about as forbidding as LA’s Compton, or Chicago’s South Side. While Europe has been more lenient allowing Sharia Law, it does not mean muslim ‘enclaves’ have sprouted, even though allowing a separate law for Muslims in a modern, western democracy is not a good idea. That said, the President and the Pope continue to support limits on free speech. President Obama even went so far as to say he doesn’t consider terrorism a existential threat, which it most certainly is, then said Europe has to do a better job ‘integrating’ its Muslims. Maybe he fell for the No Go story too. This provokes a whole conversation about how to wean yourself from cable news and talk radio, develop multiple sources of information, deal in facts, avoid the emotion spewing out of talk radio and fox news, and use your tools to find and develop deeper knowledge on key subjects. The need to fill the airwaves, pushes under financed and poorly managed outlets to spew out incorrect information, relying on ping ponging viewers back and forth between the latest outrage and the latest breaking news. The good news? That kind of media’s glory days are behind it, as it gives way to on demand audio (podcasts), You Tube, NetFlix and future on demand video services. A recent survey reports that most millennials don’t ever watch broadcast television, seldom watch cable news channels, and download virtually all their entertainment and information. In an on demand world, the daily outrage may not work as well, as people seek out information, rather than people screaming at each other. The latest example? NASA says 2014 was the hottest year on record? Do you know by how much? Do you know what the margin of error is in that estimate? The answer might surprise you. Finally, Arizona and other states are passing laws which require high school seniors to pass citizenship exams in order to graduate. Good idea? Sponsored by Baklund R&D

Podcast 93

Greetings from the coldest city in North America! Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Podcast 93 is about the January doldrums. Greed on Wall Street, France’s Socialist President becomes a Supply Sider, Tall White Aliens control America, Europe dumps Carbon controls for Fracking as the US is putting their refineries out of business and more. Much more. A trip through Bob Davis’ weekend reading ‘grabs’ sets you up for the week. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.