Across the Great Divide

For Brodkorb is an Honorable Man.

I speak not to disprove what Brodkorb spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
I read his words and ask, what sort of man wrote this?

When the story broke that on Minnesota Democrats Exposed that Al Franken hadn’t paid his workers compensation premiums for three years, Team Franken denied it. It wasn’t until the State of New York made it clear that not only hadn’t Franken paid his premiums, but that someone had apparently blown off more than a dozen letters – including a signed, certified letter telling him to pay his premiums, and then telling him to pay a $25,000 fine.

Oh yes, the labored syntax at the start
Might signify that this could be our man.
Self-reference and scarlet typography —
How could such a constant drone be plagiary?
For Franken hath transgressed against the state
While Brodkorb is an honorable man.

And yet, this alien diction
This length, so lexically complex
The Gunning-Fog near triple what we've come to know
And loathe. Analysis,
Algorithmic, doth suggest
That someone else hath spoken in his stead.
But Brodkorb is an honorable man.

Not faithful readers, nor patrons, nor keepers,
Not buttboys, Publii nor seraphim
No caries nor cadres nor campaigners
Could put words in this man's mouth.
For Brodkorb is an honorable man.

My ethics are not governed by legal interpretations.
I am continually aware of my responsibility to disclose.
Any attempt to connect Me to any political or non-political clients
Is ridiculous,
For Brodkorb is an honorable man.

Alas, I have no documents or facts
To prove another authorship or attribution lax.
I've come to doubt my congeries of hacks
For Brodkorb is an honorable man.

[h/t Joe Bodell, who first noticed a certain stylistic inconsistency]

Punish the Monkey.

They’re driving long nails into coffins
You’ve been having sleepless nights
You’ve gone as quiet as a church mouse
and checking on your rights
The boss has hung you out to dry
And it looks as though
they’ll punish the monkey
and let the organ grinder go

— "Punish the Monkey," Mark Knopfler

Why I Hate Advertising: Free Oxygen in the Passenger Compartment of Every Car!

Who  knew sparkling beverages could be hydrating?

It's true. All beverages hydrate, including sparkling beverages. So if you are looking for hydration, but want the delicious and refreshing taste you get from Coca-Cola, don't compromise—go for it! You'll be hydrating your body with each and every sip.

— Packaging copy on each and every Diet Cherry Coke 12 pack

Somehow, I'd missed this truly stupid bit of promotional writing until riding home today with a couple 12 packs turned over in the basket.

It's true. A product that is about 99.9% water has a hydrating effect. So do fruits and vegetables. So, I suppose, does the blood of virgins. Diet Coke, more hydrating than the blood of virgins. Conveniently available in more places. And more refreshing, too.

This is not a particularly useful public health bulletin, even for idiots, because it only covers beverages. They  might want to know the hydration effects of other liquids. For example, if they can't find a delicious and refreshing Coca-Cola product, which of these other trusted brands could provide the hydrating benefits they deserve?

Curel Therapeutic Moisturizing Lotion? Yes, "moisturizing lotion" sounds hydrating, doesn't it? And if you picked Curel, it's true. Refreshing, hydrating water is its most plentiful ingredient!

Ortho Weed B Gon? Congratulations! If you picked Weed B Gon, you are on the right track! It packs a whopping 92% of non-active ingredients. Most of which you will recognize as hydrating water. Plus, it kills chickweed, clover and creeping charlie.

409 Antibacterial All-Purpose Cleaner? But you have a big thirst. And your body is crying for relief. So go for it! 409 is 99.7% stuff your body can use in a hydrating way! Plus, it's antibacterial!

Apparently, the copy formerly promoted soft drinks, but maybe some marketing genius said, "Wait a minute! Soft drinks sounds... soft... flabby. We want to promote a fun, active, healthful life style. Plus, what about my product line, DASANI Plus? It's an Enhanced Water Beverage — not a soft drink."

You can learn more about the wonderful effects of Coca-Cola products at Coke's website, where there's a Hydration Calculator to help you estimate your hydration needs.

For example, if you are a 45-year-old male who weighs 175 pounds, you need 125 ounces of daily hydration from food and beverages, whereas, a 90-year old, 300-pound  male would need 125 ounces. Age 19 and only 120 pounds? You need 125 ounces, 13 ounces more when you were 18, so be sure to drink up.

You can even calculate the impact of exercise on your hydration needs. If skinny boy bikes for an hour (the longest ride the calculator can handle), he'll need another 8 ounces.

Now, as reader of this blog instead of product packaging, you're probably  already thinking: "Wait a minute. Isn't the caffeine in many Coke products a diuretic? So instead of hydrating, it flushes fluids from the system?"

According to this research into the effects of caffeinated drinks on athletic performance:

When no exercise was carried out, caffeine acted as a strong diuretic, hiking urine production by a torrential 31 per cent. However, it was a different story altogether during actual cycling. As the cyclists pedalled along, the use of a caffeinated sports drink didn't boost urine output at all, compared to drinking the caffeine-free beverage. In addition, caffeine had no effect on heart rate, body temperature, or perceived effort. This was in spite of the fact that the athletes were swallowing the equivalent of two cups of coffee per hour during their three-hour exertions.

You're welcome.

Mock Ads: McCain Swift Boated.

The Worst Political Ads in America Awards are coming Wednesday, May 21st. Sen. John McCain helps out with this weekend's reminder, appearing in a pair of ad parodies, plus an attack ad from the Ron Paul campaign.

And a special bonus clip...

Starting Over on the American Dream.

During the first quarter of the year, properties identified in the survey as "lender-mediated listings" represented more than a fifth of all houses on the market and more than one in four home sales in the 13-county metro area.
— "Distressed properties dragging home values down," Star Tribune

First, we just wanted to get into an apartment where we couldn't smell some one else's cooking and didn't hear the couple downstairs fighting. We found one, and the landlord let us refinish the floors ourselves.

Then, it was to own a house with the same classic wood work and to stop having to park on the street. It seems incredible today, but the owner let us in before the closing to strip the wallpaper and window coverings and paint.

Next, a little cabin up north, designed by a friend (now architect to the titans) for $400 and built for less than $20k.

A nicer house in a better neighborhood followed. We fixed it up more to our liking.

Having learned a lot, we repeated the remodeling process over time with a solid, inner suburban ranch on a creek. Unloaded the cabin.

Finally, we built a house from scratch, the way we wanted, near family out west. It's designed so we can die, dry up and blow away there.

We've been more fortunate than most Americans, steadily improving our living circumstances, always in a place we liked and could afford. Maybe the housing situation now is just having a stutter step, or maybe the change for the next generations will be more profound as they try to move up from humble circumstances.

Recently, a lot of people have gone backwards. Or maybe they were heading backwards all along and just couldn't see it as the housing market escalated toward the bubble. Now, they're starting over, or worse.

Yesterday, I realized there's a rung on the dream ladder we'll never ascend — scraping a $3.5 million house off a corner lake shore lot and starting over.

Anonymous Left-Leaning Blogger Almost Breaks Story!

Ollie at A Bluestem Prairie already posted about the Strib story on the accounting woes of the State  GOP, and she fills in the blank, naming the anonymous blogger mentioned here:

Last month, GOP party chairman Ron Carey said, “Why do Hollywood celebrities think there is one set of rules for them and one set of rules for everyone else when it comes to paying taxes?”

A left-leaning blogger tried to ask Carey about the party’s FEC reports at a news conference the GOP called last week to highlight Franken’s problems. Carey dismissed him, saying the press briefing “is something for our credentialed media here.”

If it had been a certain right-leaning blogger, of course, Carey wouldn't have called on him either, but that's because the blogger would have already received and leaked the substance of the GOP story prior to the press conference. And the Strib would've had no problem identifying said blogger, even without seeing his Real ID media credential.

Here, we're taking no position on the state party's filing troubles, having already gone on record as defending the right of Democrats to make paperwork mistakes. However, let's note this isn't the only level at which the Party of Business has had accounting troubles. And the left-leaning blogger isn't the only one getting stiffed by Carey on this story.

Carey did not respond this week to Star Tribune requests for an interview about the FEC filings.

Minnesota Worst at Protecting Patients from Bad Doctors?

The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog contained one of those factoids that's bound to get sent around, devoid of context and attributed to the Journal — as it was today by Politics in Minnesota's Morning Report.

Where doctors are most (and least) likely to get busted, WSJ Health Blog. MN at the bottom of the list.

But what does Minnesota being at the "bottom of the list" mean? That our state medical board is terrible at disciplining physicians and therefore not protecting public health? The Health Blog at least takes a stab at evenhandedness.

It’s hard to know what to make of the rankings. Sid Wolfe, who runs Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, argues that state boards that are better funded, better staffed and more effective tend to have more disciplinary actions. But an official at the FSMB tells American Medical News that “it could very well be that the best medical boards succeed in preventing serious problems and would have low numbers of disciplinary actions, and the citizens of those states would be better protected.”

That doesn't stop Public Citizen from including Minnesota on its Worst States list.

I'm inclined to go with the theory that fewer disciplinary actions reflects Minnesota's generally high level of health care outcomes in the state and the relatively low proportion of paid malpractice claims. (We rank 25th for total number of paid claims, and the states that rank better have smaller or similar populations. Other "worst" states like South Dakota, Wisconsin and Mississippi also had low claims.) I'd guess the state's fairly high penetration of managed care organizations also has something to do with enforcing standards and upholding quality of physician performance.

Finally, since a small percentage of doctors commit most of the negligence, medical errors and other infractions that prompt medical board action, disciplining a higher proportion of physicians could simply be evidence of a higher proportion of substandard practitioners in the state.

In other words, Edina may have fewer arrests per capita than Minneapolis, but that's not because its police do a worse job.

Saving Tape.

The Bush White House was more committed to recycling than I thought. And, no, I don't just mean bringing back Cheney and Rumsfeld or resurrecting supply side economic policy.

It so happens the administration recycled email backup tapes used to archive White House emails during the critical spring of 2003.

Presidents are responsible for preserving all historical records during their time in office under the Presidential Records Act. Congress is conducting an investigation into possible violations of this act, including the destruction of at least ten million White House email records.

In response to a judge's orders, the White House Office of Administration (OA), which manages the networks and email systems in the White House, filed a statement, which revealed that no emails were saved between March 1 2003 and May 22, 2003. "Office of Administration is preserving 438 disaster recovery backup tapes that were written to between March 1, 2003 and September 30, 2003. Of those 438 tapes, the earliest date on which data was written ... is May 23, 2003," according to the Bush administration filing.

This time period is perhaps the most historically significant of the entire Bush administration. It includes the run up to the invasion of Iraq, diplomatic jockeying to try and rally United Nations support for war, the possible planning for retaliation against former diplomat Joe Wilson, who was accusing the administration of lying about Iraq weapons of mass destruction claims, the use of harsh interrogations in the so-called "War on Terror", as well as the formation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) – the ruling body in Iraq after the invasion – and the controversial policy decisions the CPA undertook.

Pawlenty and the Health Care Honey Pot.

No one has covered Gov. Pawlenty's budget maneuvers and manipulations of the Health Care Access Fund better than Britt Robson. For an early example, see part III of this story, updated here, and most recently here.

Of course the reason both the governor and the Legislature proposed ambitious task forces in the first place — and the reason both task forces swallowed hard and came up with huge, radical reforms — is that health care costs are a cyclone destined to lay waste to government finances. Health care is projected to cost the state $50 billion by 2013 — or about $15 billion more than is currently spent on the entire general fund. Meanwhile, employers have seen the storm blowing in and are bailing out.

Employers bailing out of providing health insurance and Pawlenty bailing out the General Fund with proceeds from the medical provider tax as the storm approaches.  This is not an issue  we can solve through back door budget games.

Real Truth Can Only be Learned by Reading This.

A letter in the Strib today contains a fine example of that old trick — slipping into the argument an unsupported fact that everybody knows.

This bill moves Minnesota in exactly the wrong direction. We need only look to Canada to see how "big government" health care is failing miserably. Real health care reform can only be achieved by reducing, not increasing, government involvement.

How exactly Canadian health care is failing remains unspecified, presumably because we've all heard by now how restricted access and long wait times plague the Canadian system. It's true, wait times on average in Canada may be longer; the real issue is whether the wait is detrimental to the health of the patients.

Of course Jeff Davis of Minnesota Majority only wants us to look to Canada in a metaphorical sense. Otherwise, we might find data like this from Healthcare Economist:

If this is "failing miserably," I wonder exactly how Davis would rescue Canadians from their longer life expectancy and lower overall spending. (The referenced study concludes the two systems produce roughly equivalent results.)

Today's lesson is to look for yourself when anyone prescribing a solution to a complex social issue says, "Real _________ can only be achieved by _________."