In a move that is sure to irk Minnesota manufacturers, Gov. Tim Pawlenty has decided to hold on to their sales tax exemption refunds for as long as three months. The Associated Press explains that while Pawlenty has been pushing for tax exemptions for businesses that make major equipment purchases, part of his budget fix includes delaying those refunds starting in January 2011. MPR quotes Pawlenty from his State of the State speech from January of this year: "Companies shouldn't have to do a bunch of paperwork so they can qualify for a bureaucratic rebate from the sales tax they pay on equipment ... Let's just give them a 100 percent exemption from the sales tax — right away when they buy the equipment."

"Really getting sick of much of the media covering Franken as 'no joke' and 'no more clowning around' and suddenly 'serious,' " complained Franken supporter Aaron Landry on Twitter. "Grow up." He ain't kidding, either. Samples of recent Franken headlines: "A serious Franken vows to work hard in US Senate," from Reuters; "Al Franken on Capitol Hill: Not that funny," from Politico; "Day of high seriousness and muted levity for new Minnesota senator," from the Detroit Free Press. The last story is a reprint of a Kevin Diaz story from the Star Tribune; Diaz also had a story recently run under this headline: "Senator Al Franken: Goodbye to the Class Clown." NPR goes as far as to ask "Is Al Franken Too Funny for the Senate?"

In fact, the press simply seems to have caught on to the message that Franken himself has been pushing throughout his campaign, beginning with the press release announcing his candidacy on Feb. 14, 2007, in which Franken uses the words "serious" and "seriously" three separate times, while a cursory search of his blog shows Franken's campaign using the "Franken is serious" meme on at least 38 separate posts. This message was lost, however, on Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Peter Bronson, as David Brauer reports: The columnist illustrated a story about Franken with an image of the senator in diapers and bunny ears, asking, "Is this who you want making decisions about your health care?" The trouble, however, is that the image is a fake, and was debunked, as Brauer points out, by Bronson's own paper three years ago.

When rock concert promotion goes horribly wrong: The Pioneer Press' Tad Vezner tells the story of Taste of Minnesota's misconceived "Gold Circle Seating," in which the front 1,000 or so seats at Taste Of Minnesota's live music performances on Harriet Island were reserved for patrons who paid $50, compared with the hoi polloi at the festival, who had paid only $10 and had to stand 25 rows back. The trouble? Many of these Gold Circle seats were left empty, causing the performers to rebel, including Elvis Costello, who reportedly tried to encourage audiences to leap the barrier to take possession of the empty seats. Commentors on Jon Bream's Pop Life blog seemed to share the sense that the Gold Circle was ill-advised: "The Gold Circle idea is a complete insult to the spirit of the Taste," said one, while another added, "Definitely need to have the Gold Circle seats altered."

When bad guys get bitey: It's bad enough when your stay at a Brooklyn Center motel is interrupted by two men with guns; it's considerably worse when one of them starts gnawing on you. Vince Tuss of the Star Tribune reports: "When police went to the room, they found the boyfriend with blood running down his face and part of his right ear missing. He also had bite marks on his left ear."

That's not how you have fun: Elizabeth Mohr of the Pioneer Press reports on one Angel Marie Rawls, a 21-year-old from Cambridge, Minn., who allegedly got bored one day and decided to prank-call her 69-year-old grandmother — more than 20 times. Phrases Rawls reportedly taunted her grandmother with: "I'm gonna kill you," "You're going to die," and "I'm watching you."