My day at the Polls

I got up before dawn on election day and drove a half hour in the dark to a north east suburb of the Twin Cities. I was a DFL "challenger" though the DFL didn't want us challenging anyone (besides, the law says I would have to have personal knowledge that the person couldn't vote, hard to do when you don't live there). Really I was there to be the eyes and ears of the party and to report back any problems.

I sat myself down in a corner and got ready to spend the day people watching. I sat behind the same-day-registration tables and watched people register and reregister to vote. There were two major themes; the problem with the same-day-registration law, and the wonderful people that came and really really wanted to vote.

First, the problem with the current law. I'm not sure when the law was written, or when it was last updated, but there are some obvious problems. To register a voter has to bring a form of photo ID to prove that they are who they say they are, and a bill with their name and current address. Or they can get a voter registered in that precinct to vouch for them, a staff member of a group home will also work.

So the problem is that only specific bills are accepted and some things that logically should work, don't. Signed leases? Nope. Car payment? No. Medicare payment? Try again. Paystubs? Nope. There were even two different people who thought maybe an alcohol citation would work. They didn't. (Quote of the day: "I was in an accident I wasn't aware I was in.")

The other problem I saw could be addressed if a signed lease could be used; there were at least three couples that had moved on the first of the month. All they had were leases, no bills had come yet.

But here is where I start to feel better about democracy. ALL of the people that had moved came back with someone to vouch for them, or a receipt for a new drivers license. One couple was turned away twice and the second time the guy was talking like he wasn't going to come back. But they did, separately, and both voted. Even the woman who was probably 6 months pregnant. A young man that was registered with his wife earlier in the day, was brought back with a friend to vouch for him and they brought another woman with them. More than that, he realized that he lived down the hall from the couple at the other end of the table and could have vouched for them too.

But the most heart warming thing I saw was a older woman, blind and deaf, with an aid who registered and voted. It must have taken the better part of an hour for them to fingerspell the entire registration form, the entire ballot and her vote.

This woman is from my state.

Bat.Shit.Crazy.

She's long been known to be rather nuts, but this takes the cake. Now, when you look at Congresswoman Bachmann's record of being a right wing nut, and the current beautiful shade of blue that the state is polling on the presidential election, you might wonder what the heck is going on. Bachmann is from the 6th district which is primarily the northern suburbs, from the Wisconsin border, up over the Twin Cities and west out past St. Cloud. A blend of rural and suburban that leans a little red. Bachmann was elected in 2006 and her reelection seemed well inside possible despite being, well, bat shit crazy. But apparently this little outpouring of McCarthyism has lead to a small surge in donations to her opponent. This might get interesting.

But there is something more here. When you look Bachmann's apparently sincere belief that Democrats and Democratic party's nominee for president might be anti-american, and put it in the same context as the vile things said about Obama at Republican rallies, there is an obvious theme. These are the equivalent of a Freudian slip. The party officials can only talk about "palling around with terrorists" for so long before their supporters make the logical connections and start saying the things the party officials could never get away with. Its one thing when supporters with only the power of the vote and their voice scream things at rallies. But you know the meme has grown bigger when an elected official, up for reelection no less!, thinks she can get away with saying this on a national cable channel.

One more thing, even the most liberal, left wing, progressive elected Democrat in the federal government believes in our democracy enough to try to change it from the inside. That faith that our government can be fixed, and is not fundamentally flawed, is proof enough for me of their pride in America and the American system of governance.

Addendum: I made that lol, what luck that Bachmann used Impact as her campaign font!

This will take years

Judge postpones hearings for RNC 8

The court cases stemming from the RNC protests are starting to wind their way through the courts. Many people arrested and charged with felonies at the time have had their charges reduced to misdemeanors. Which is good for them, but it hints that the original charges were more for intimidation than anything else.

There were eight people arrested on the Friday before the RNC. Because they were arrested after the close of business before a three day weekend, they were held until the last day of the convention. They had their hearings postponed today at the request of their lawyers.

Criminal complaints allege the eight are members of an anarchist group that was attempting to disrupt the convention and assault police.

Oh, gosh, anarchists are SO scary. Yeah, uh did you see what those cops were wearing?

Photo credit: Zak Forde

I don't think anyone wearing anything less than the same really stood a chance at hurting these cops. (And there were literally hundreds more just like these three.) Wanting to do something, and actually having the ability are not the same thing. I've talked about this before. Plotting to do something is different than gathering information and writing violent poetry, but there's still that part where they didn't actually disrupt the business of the RNC.

Larry Leventhal said he and other defense attorneys working on the case can't mount good defenses until they see reports from various law enforcement agencies that provided security during the RNC.

"It's important to know what the charges are based on so we can prepare a proper defense," said Leventhal. "There are reports from the FBI -- we have nothing, and they were all over the place. These are reports from other jurisdictions -- we have nothing. All we have are materials from Ramsey County."

I have no doubt that the lawyers will get what they need. If there is nothing else I have learned while working as Queen of the Copy Machines at a law firm, its that lawyers are really good at getting what they want, and being a real pain in the other side's ass when they don't.

Register to Vote!

Minn. voters nearing record registration number

Voter registration in Minnesota is on pace to hit an all-time high.

This is a very, very good thing. Getting people registered is very important. In most states, if you don't take the time to register, you can't vote on election day.

But we Minnesotans are lucky, we can also register at the polls. And let me tell you, the Republican's HATE this. The two sides can pretty much be summed up like this; Democrats don't want anyone who should vote to be turned away, Republicans don't want anyone who shouldn't be allowed to vote to do so. Democrats err on the side of more people voting, Republicans err on the side of less people voting. The people that show up and register at the polls tend to be the working class, the poor, the people that are too busy to register before election day. These people tend to vote for Democrats. Now you see why Republicans don't like this whole, register at the poles thing.

Nearly 3.13 million people are already registered to vote, just shy of the number who were on the rolls after the election in 2004. That's out of a possible 3.7 million eligible voters.

In 2004 Minnesota had 2.8 million people vote in the presidential election. That worked out to about 77% of those eligible. I hope we can get at least that many on election day this time round.

Check to make sure you're registered here.

I'm just sunburnt

I was in downtown St. Paul today, but I stayed along the official protest route and saw nothing outside the regular bored looking riot cops standing on the side walk. I didn't get maced, sprayed, detained, arrested or had sound grenades lobbed at me.

However, many of the riot cops have been busy running around after the RNC Welcoming Committee and others (Funk the War was one I heard of). There were some windows downtown were smashed. And the pepper spray, sound grenades and smoke bombs have been flung. Some journalists have been arrested along with the demonstrators.

But there are still arrests being made, on Sheppard (the road we take to work in the morning) Harriet Island (where protesters are supposed to be able to camp) and on the bridges over to said Island.

I've stopped noticing the sound of helicopters, and noticing only when there aren't helicopters overhead.

Other bloggers will cover this better than me, and if you want to keep on top of it as only the internet can let you, head over to Coldsnap Legal Collective's twitter stream. But I'll tell you what its like at work tomorrow. I already know that some of the windows I walk past every day were busted in.

101st Post!

And its about the goddamn Republicans taking over my city! Yay?

I've made a map of the Controlled Zone and its access routes into and around (but not through) said Controlled Zone. Don't try to take your car or your bike through there. Be careful taking yourself into there as well, those cops are antsy and those Republicans are evil.

Map!

Welcome to the RNC

Authorities raid, search protesters' hub

Cops have raided the meeting site of the RNC Welcoming Committee, an anarchist group long planning to protest the RNC and the Republican warmongers infesting my fair city.

The Pioneer Press did not see the warrant. But witnesses quoted from the warrant, which was read aloud by authorities. They said authorities were looking for "items that could be used for direct action techniques, ranging from computers, Xboxes, Xbox games, Molotov cocktails and matchstick heads."

Okay, I may be 23, but I've never been much into videogames, anybody out there in internet land want to explain to me why the cops would want Xboxes? Did they break their Wii? Has Microsoft released some special tutorials on how to bomb the Xcel center that are only available on Xbox?

In related news, Downtown St. Paul was weird yesterday during lunch. There were more people out, but it wasn't really clear how many of them were cube dwellers gawking and how many were honest to god Republicans. Except for that one woman with really blond hair, really big pearls and a portly husband in a suit jacket and a cowboy hat; they stood out like a sore thumb, looking really confused and haughty.

All the mailboxes were taken out, and the mail in the office can't be over a certain weight and we have to hand it directly to the mail carrier. How exactly sister dearest will get to her coffee slinging job an hour earlier in the heart of the control zone is still being ironed out.

Pawlenty shows no love for St. Paul

St. Paul officials: What does Pawlenty have against us?

Governor Tim Pawlenty signed the bonding bill, but not before using the line item veto to cut $208 million in projects, many of them in St. Paul. But wait, St. Paul is hosting the RNC later this summer and Pawlenty's name has been floating around as a possible veep pick. Is it really such a good idea for Pawlenty to write St. Paul out of the bonding bill, when the city is about to go on display for the national convention of Pawlenty's own party?

"What does the governor have against St. Paul? What have we done?," (Sen. Sandy) Pappas asked.

"This is just a blatant attack on St. Paul and its residents, I think, and on Alice Hausman and her constituents," added (Sen. Ellen) Anderson.

DFL Rep. Alice Hausman is the lead bonding negotiator for the House and is from St. Paul. She attended the governor's briefing, but left before it ended.

There are a few things from the back story to keep in mind; the reason we have a bonding bill that is such a big deal is because Pawlenty made a "No New Taxes" pledge, and Pawlenty had said before that it was too big earlier, so the partial veto is not unexpected. Its the way St. Paul was singled out that is surprising people. The phrase bandied about this evening was a paraphrase of the New York Daily News; "Pawlenty to St. Paul: Drop Dead"


You know, that third headline might not be that far off from the current situation...

More lead from China and Reebok's money

Reebok's deadly lead charm draws $1 million federal fine

Two years after a Minneapolis boy swallowed part of a charm bracelet given away with a pair of athletic shoes and died of lead poisoning, the shoes' maker, Reebok, has agreed to pay the government $1 million to settle allegations that it violated the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.

One million isn't that much for a company like Reebok, but it is more than the government usually fines. But this is not a case where the facts were really in question. The charm the little boy swallowed was 99% lead and there is no question that it directly lead to his death.

Reebok International representatives could not be reached for comment Monday night. But Heuer (the family's attorny) said company executives and lawyers were "compassionate and professional" about the recall. They issued a quick public apology and did not force Jarnell's family into extensive litigation, he said. "Most corporations, when something like this happens, get up and deny, deny, deny," he said.

Sometimes even the big corporations, with legions of lawyers, have to admit that they made a huge mistake. Thankfully no one else died and the recall went smoothly.

The question remains, however, when Reebok designed this little charm and contracted out the job, how did they end up with a product that was nearly pure lead? I'm sure that they didn't ask for a lead charm, but when they contracted it out, did they check the reputation of the manufacturer, or did they just look at the price?

I'm starting to think that "Made in China" should be treated as a type of warning label in and of itself.

Unionizing in the AG's office

Union battle heats up in A.G. Swanson's office

Since there is a lawyer in my family, I've been hearing rumblings for a while. The allegation of union busting isn't new, but some of the attorneys have gone public about what they've seen.

Lawler said she was on the job just a week when an attorney, who introduced himself as the head of the office social committee, took her out for coffee and delivered a strong anti-union message.
...
Lawler said the same attorney later approached her and other employees, asking them to sign what she described as a loyalty petition.

"The second paragraph is all about how great Lori Swanson is, how she's the first attorney general to graduate at the top of her class, how she's the first attorney general with such extensive public and private experience, how she never brings politics into the office, how she's all around a great leader," Lawler said. "And then the last paragraph is about how we decry the union's tactics, we don't want them representing us and they don't speak for us."

While union busting tactics have been around for as long as there have been unions to bust, but Lori Swanson ran for the AG seat as a Democrat with an endorsement from the DFL. If we had known that she was going to actively suppress unionizing, she wouldn't have gotten the DFL endorsement and that would have seriously hurt her chances at getting the job.

But this isn't over yet. Lawler was interviewed on MPR and in that interview she brought up some ethical issues she had encountered on the job along with the aforementioned issues of union busting. For bringing up her concerns in public, rather than through the proper channels at the AG's office, Lawler has been suspended.

AG's office defends suspension of attorney

During an interview, Lawler also described wrestling with ethical issues in her job. She said one issue came up when Swanson directed her to quickly file lawsuits against mortgage foreclosure consultants even though the attorney general had no defendants in mind.

"And that was kind of the case across the board," she said. "She's just have an idea about a lawsuit, and she'd want it filed as quickly as possible. The biggest was she wanted people who'd be willing to appear at press conferences."

Those ethical issues, which Lawler also shared with other reporters, were specifically referenced in the letter from Deputy Attorney General Karen Olson notifying her of the administrative leave.

Interesting timing don't you think?

Back in the first article they make it clear that this isn't just about having a union or not having a union. Its about having the State Attorney General's office staffed with good lawyers who want to be there.

Jody Wahl left the attorney general's office in January after 25 years. Wahl said she saw more than 50 professionals leave the office in the past year, but it appeared to her that Swanson wasn't interested in the reasons.

She said the attorney general never recognized the union discussion as a management issue.

"There wasn't an understanding that this was truly an internal, staff-driven effort to have conversations with their colleagues about whether obtaining union representation would work to benefit the work of the attorney general's office," Wahl said. "Instead, it appears there was a sense that this was driven by outside forces, by former political rivals or former staff members, or whatever. And that isn't the case."

I have a feeling this is going to get worse before it gets better.

Bridges and Vetos

House and Senate override governor's veto

A $6.6 billion transportation bill is now law after both the Minnesota House and Senate voted for the first time to override a veto from Gov. Tim Pawlenty. The House voted 91-41 to override the governor's veto, and the Minnesota Senate followed shortly after by a vote of 47-20.

The Minnesota State House and Senate passed a ¢5 per gallon increase in the gas tax to pay for an increase in the transportation budget. But Pawlenty took a "No New Taxes" pledge before he was elected and, while he has increased "fees" on tobacco, he stood by his tax pledge and vetoed the bill. But everyone with any memory voted to over ride the veto, because we had an effin bridge fall into the river and people DIED!

If I seem a tad bit worked up over this, thats because I am.

I honestly don't understand why Pawlenty did this. The bridge collapsed, and he vetoed a bill to help pay for the replacement, upkeep and maintainence of other bridges in the state. Plus other road repairs and some public transit. For ¢5 more per gallon. ¢5.

He must really want to be the most anti-tax governor out there to veto this. I can't think of an analogy that fully conveys the stupidity of vetoing a small tax to pay for something with such emotional appeal. (And how often is there an emotional appeal to infrastructure?) He should just eat some puppies and get it over with.

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, questioned some of the first-term Democrats on the floor about whether they campaigned for a tax increase last election.

"You folks, again did not campaign a couple summers ago on the mantra that you were going to raise taxes. That was Minnesotans' biggest fear about turning the reins of this government over to your party," said Emmer. "Same question to you, Rep. Madore. Are you going to vote to raise the taxes the hard-working families of your district in this family?"

Yes I am and I'm going to tell you why," responded Rep. Shelley Madore, DFL-Apple Valley. "The bridge went down on Aug. 1, and a gentlemen from my district died. He left four children and I went to his funeral. I stood there with his family and I looked at them in the face. And when you're asking me, 'Is his life worth a nickel a gallon?' I'm telling you it is"

The Republicans claim that the gas tax and the bridge are separate issues. They are separate issues in so much as we can never know if the bridge would have stayed up if the transportation budget had been increased earlier. But the gas tax is going to the transportation budget, and while that is not paying for the replacement 35W bridge, it is going to (at least try to) prevent another bridge from falling down.

Lots of people voted this past week.

Wisconsin Primary results
Obama 646,007
Clinton 452,795
Others 12,483
Total 465,278

McCain 224,226
Huckabee 151,201
Others 31,832
Total 407,259

Whats interesting is that the combined total for McCain and Huckabee is less than Clinton alone got. While the Republicans had only about 58 thousand less people, they had more people voting for someone other than the top two candidates. This has been a running trend, when both parties have their primaries on the same day the Democrats have a larger turnout than the Republicans. There could be many reasons for this. Maybe the Democratic race is inspiring more people to come out, but the Republican race is just as tight. I think its pretty clear that the middle of the political spectrum is not happy with the way the country has been run for the past seven years. And the result is more people showing up for the primaries in general and the Democratic primaries in specific.

But this was hardly the most exciting election that took place in the past week. Pakistan had an election and Musharraf's ruling party was soundly defeated. I can't find a reference right now, but I saw in the paper that the party received about 15% of the vote. Whats amazing to me is that the party has admitted defeat. But as I told my mother the other day, I'll really believe democracy has come to when someone else comes to power. Thats not to downplay what has finally happened in Pakistan, but rather to say that I don't trust Musharraf to not act like so many dictators that have come before and make some bid to hold on to power. I am cautiously optimistic about the democracy in Pakistan.

Polar Bears and Caucuses

A Cool Dip for a Warming Planet

This is my alma mater and last year I took part in the first polar bear splash. That time it was a cold rainy February day and we never got a fire started. Looks like the weather was a bit better this year. I still know many of the people in the slide show.

In other news, my precinct had a turn out of 178 people where it usually has between 12 and 25. The presidential break down was 98 Obama, 74 Clinton, and 6 others. The school we met at had three other precincts as well and the line to find out which room to go to was out the door. So I grabbed a one of the maps someone had printed out and helped.

Everyone I've talked to said that the turn out at their caucus was amazing too. Even the one person I know who went to the Republican caucus said that they had twice as many people as they had been expecting. An interesting night to say the least. Back to the regular schedule tomorrow.

Pig Brain Mist and PIN

There are two write ups on this one; the secondary source is "Austin pork plant investigation zeroes in on pig brains" and the primary source is "Investigation of Progressive Inflammatory Neuropathy Among Swine Slaughterhouse Workers".

The Minnesota Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control have given an update on the disease down in Austin, Minnesota. The Star Tribune nails down the idea that has been floating in my head since I first heard about this.

Pigs and humans are such biologically similar mammals that researchers are trying to find ways to use pig organs to replace diseased human organs. So it's not surprising that if the immune system creates cells to attack proteins from pig neural tissue, those immune cells might also attack human neural tissue as well, experts said.

If the body is attacking an influx of nervous tissue from pig brains, it isn't much of a leap for that same attack to be wrongly redirected to the body's own nervous tissue. Our bodies are very good at attacking invading infections, but unfortunately when that system turns back on the body things go badly. See lupus, MS and Chrohn's.

I don't think that we evolved to be able to deal with liquefied and aerosolized brains. Touch them, eat them yes; inhale them, no. So it doesn't surprise me that things might go wrong. I wonder who came up with the idea of using air to remove the brain anyhow? Bet they feel pretty bad right now.

The experts have decided upon a name for the cluster of symptoms, progressive inflammatory neuropathy or PIN for short. They looked at other large slaughter plants in the US and found two more that were using pressurized air to blow the brains out.

To date, no cases of PIN have been identified in association with workers at the Nebraska plant. However, several workers at the Indiana plant have been preliminarily identified with neurologic illnesses and similar histories of exposure to head-processing activities at that slaughterhouse. Further assessments of these patients, and additional measures to identify other workers with illness, are being conducted in Indiana. As a result of this investigation, all three plants have stopped using compressed air to extract brain material.

The health officials are also looking to talk to anyone who has worked at the Austin plant since the air pressure system was installed a decade ago. The problem is that the job has a high turn over rate, with many of the workers being immigrants. In December of 2006 a different meat packing plant in another small Minnesota town was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and took away hundreds of workers. So finding everyone that worked at the Austin plant over the past decade is impossible from the start. Which means there is a chance that there is someone out there who might never figure out why their limbs stop working and go weak.

Revere over at Effect Measure has a post about this too. Revere is a public health scientist and credits the medical specialist who was seeing several of the patients. A very good post from a blogger I really like.

Ever seen a pipe burst?

Water main break closes North Side streets

Hmmm... infrastructure again.

A 36-inch water main burst on Chicago's North Side overnight, collapsing a major street, partially submerging parked cars and rerouting CTA service. For a while, a virtual river ran through a popular neighborhood.

The 80-year-old cast-iron main burst about 1:30 a.m. near Montrose Avenue and Wolcott Street, forcing police to close an area of several square blocks. The CTA briefly shut its Brown Line Montrose station and rerouted two buses.

I have no idea if 80 is old for a cast iron pipe, or if this was just one of those one in a million deffects that wasn't tested for in the 1920's.

"It wouldn't be surprising to see that that the weather played a role," LaPorte said. "It went from very cold over the weekend to warmer temperatures that can cause weakness in the pipe."

I wonder how much variation in temperature there is in the ground under the streets in Chicago.

Rachel Maddow is on Countdown right now, talking about how infrastructure investments can work as an economic stimulus package. That sounds like a great idea, employ people and fix our bridges at the same time. It worked for FDR, I would think that it would work for the next president. Build bridges, community centers, clean up land, plant trees, and on and on. Give the local governments some money earmarked for infrastructure and community projects.

I'm just thinking out loud on this one.

The Weather in Wisconsin is strange

January Tornados and Pile ups in the fog.

"I have never seen damage like this in the summertime when we have potential for tornadoes," Sheriff David Beth said. "To see something like this in January is mind-boggling to me. This is just unimaginable to me."
....
The only other tornado to hit Wisconsin in January since 1844 was in 1967, according to the National Weather Service.

I've never been in a tornado, but you can't live in the Midwest and not have spent some time in the basement, hearing the air raid sirens and hoping not to hear that freight train sound. But thats June, July and August. January is supposed to be lots of cold dry air, without any warm moist air coming up. But the weather in Wisconsin hasn't been normal the past few days.

On Sunday there were several pile ups in thick fog and two big ones.

The preliminary investigation shows that some motorists were traveling at least 70 mph above the 65 mph speed limit, said Wisconsin State Patrol Lt. Laurie Steeber said. Steeber said with the conditions, people should have slowed down.

"When there's snow, there's ice, there's fog. The speed limit is too fast,'' Steeber said.

I had a friend call me from the road outside Madison heading south and east. We stayed on the phone almost till she hit the state line. These pile ups were only a few minutes behind her. I checked the weather for her at the time, and visibility in Madison was 0.13 miles. She's a little shaken, but fine.

And while I don't want to blame every little weather quirk on global climate change, there is a larger overall trend of strange weather. And thats what we will see in our weather. You might not experience a net warming, but you will see a change. Warm when it should be cold, dry when it should be raining, floods in parts that are supposed to be dry. How exactly things will change is hard, if not impossible to guess at.

My mother told me a few months ago that she knows something is up because plants that are supposed to die off over a Minnesota winter, haven't been. Things will really be obvious when the insects start moving north. Oh wait, that has already started.

Bishops' Molestation Documents Not Ordered Out

Judge dismisses lawsuit against Catholic diocese in Wis.
The story of this case is a long and twisted one. In 2002, a funeral director and an intern were shot. In late 2004, the police were zeroing in on a Catholic priest who hung himself before the police could get to him.

St. Croix County District Attorney Eric Johnson has said evidence suggested O'Connell learned the priest was sexually abusing someone, was providing alcohol to minors, or both.

Because Rev. Erickson died before he could be questioned, there is no way for us to know if this was true. But the family of the funeral director, the O'Connells, sued the Catholic Diocese of Superior to see if they could get information regarding Rev. Erickson. But that wasn't all, they wanted the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to release all their documents regarding the molestation of minors by priests.

But the case has been dismissed. The reasons are understandable given the facts of the case. The judge ruled that it had no basis in Wisconsin law, and that there is no proof that Rev. Erickson's accused pedophilia made him more likely to kill someone.

But Thomas O'Connell told KSTP-TV in St. Paul that he was disappointed with the ruling.

"Where does church and state, the First Amendment, protect a molester?" he asked.

This is also true. I can see why this specific case couldn't crack open the USCCB's filing cabinets, but I can sort of see the outline of a case that could. If someone could show that they need to see those papers in order to protect children right now, or that the USCCB is protecting someone who has broken the law, then maybe the papers that the O'Connell's were after would have to be given to the court.

The issues that the Catholic Church is dealing with in all this are problems that see boggling to many of us. The way many religions repress the sexuality of their followers, it seems to me obvious that those sexual urges are going to get pushed out in twisted, wrong ways. You can push people's urges down, but the vessel that holds them wont always be able to hold that pressure, and the seems fail and the pressure is released in all the wrong ways. Its just so sad that so many people and children get hurt when the pressure finally gets out.

Lets build some bridges

Federal budget includes $195 million for 35W bridge

Minnesota would receive $195 million to help replace the fallen I-35W bridge, as well as $50 million in security money for next year's Republican National Convention, under a year-end budget bill passed by the House of Representatives late Monday.

About friggin time. I mean, the bridge fell over four months ago. I know that infrastructure isn't exciting, but thirteen people died. But I suppose I shouldn't be moaning too much. Look at New Orleans. The whole place flooded, the levies broke and the place is still under martial law.

But there are more bridges that need work around here. A one time shot of money from the Feds can't help with all of them; the Lafayette bridge takes Highway 52 over the Mississippi near downtown St. Paul, the I-35 E bridge over Cuyahoga Street in St. Paul, the Highway 61 bridge over the Mississippi at Hastings. Infrastructure is not an exciting topic, but it is a necessary one. And not just on a state level.

There are probably thousands of bridges around the country that are in similar condition. There were a lot of bridges built after WWII that are getting older. I'm willing to bet that many of them have the same feature of the 35W bridge where one part fails and the whole thing goes, no redundancy in the structure. While many bridges don't get the same heat-cold-road-salt assault that those here in Minnesota do, they probably have their own problems. Still, not a riveting discussion, despite all of the discussion of rivets.

But war! thats exciting and usually unnecessary. Maybe the deficiencies of one can compensate for the other.

On Monday, Bush said he was hopeful he could sign the bill, but only after Democrats agree to accept funding for U.S. troops in Iraq.

Great. Bush is tying up the money we need to pay for the bridge (and security for the RNC) with the funding for his god damned war.

Maybe not CIDP, but still bad

Pork-plant ailment a mystery again

The Department of Health has backed off from the initial diagnosis of CIDP. That said they do have another case, bringing the total up to 12 people.

Key to differentiating the condition from CIDP is a characteristic of CIDP involving an interruption or blockage of the electrical signaling in and between nerves, Lachance said. Tests now show that none of the 11 workers has that problem, he said.

They do have damage to the nerve system caused by their immune systems, he said. But at this point it can be categorized generically only as an inflammatory response that is damaging the nerve sheaths, he said.

What I said before about the myelin sheath and Schwann cells being the target of the immune reaction is still true. My speculation about a connection to the Guillain-Barre syndrome and the 1976 swine flu vaccine is out the window though.

There is no doubt in my mind that this still has something to do with the fact that they were literally blowing the pigs brains out. What I would call aerosolized biological tissue, Norwegianity is calling "Brain Mist."

When solids are aerosolized they are able to get into places they normally wouldn't, such as the lungs. From there they can get into the blood stream and then strange things can happen.

Scratchtasia

Not exactly accurate, but good at getting one point across; some things should not be aerosolized.

More on the CIPD in Austin

I read most of this from the Dead Tree Edition of the Star Tribune, but it has been reposted by the fine folks at MSNBC so we don't have to run into the subscription problem.The question at Austin pork plant: Why?

There isn't much here that I didn't already know or figure out on my own but there were a few bits that caught my attention.

CIDP is the chronic form of another disease, Guillain-Barré; syndrome, which develops much more rapidly and has a number of known triggers. It first received public attention in 1976 when linked to the swine flu vaccine.

That seems interesting to me. Could there be a connection between the swine flu and what happened here?

Symptoms first emerged around the same time the plant began using the high-powered air system. Some health experts think exposure to blood and pulverized tissue might have caused the autoimmune response.

But the compressed-air system almost certainly is not the problem, said mechanical engineer Frank Moskowitz, a compressed-air expert based in Phoenix. "Compressed air itself absolutely cannot introduce anything bad," he said. He said pressurization kills any living organism in the air.

Well that maybe true, but I doubt anyone was actually thinking that this was do to physical pressure from blasts of air. But the fact that the compressed air system and the disease are temporally linked means to me that there was something about blowing biological tissue into the air that is the key here.