Let's see — did anything happen this weekend? Oh yes, it was Independence Day, which produced a lot of photos like this and this, but also like this, prompting local scribe Molly Priesmeyer to complain on Twitter as follows: "Does anyone have any poorly exposed pictures of fireworks? Because I'd really like to see more of 'em."

But CONvergence also happened, producing photos like this and this and this. CONvergence, for those who don't know, is an annual convention of fans of science fiction and fantasy. As you might expect of nerds, they smartly identified a hashtag for Twitter: #cvg2010; in this way, those of us who weren't there could enjoy it — or more of it, depending on our predilection — vicariously.

It is, however, hard not to grudgingly admire an event that takes over part of a downtown Minneapolis hotel and converts it into an opportunity for invention, especially when they are embedding Ewoks in the walls and overheard dialogue includes the following: "Can I lick your head?" "Uh, no. No you can not." Also admirable: "We have apparently reached the polka stage of the evening." Say what you will, these people know how to party.

There was also what sounds like a series of panels lead by skeptics, all detailed on a blog called The Skeptical Teacher. There was, for instance, Skepticism 101, Ghost Hunting and pseudoscience ("We watched 'Conspiracy' with Jesse Ventura and it's the worst journalism I've ever seen.  His attitude is that if they're denying it, then they're doing it," comes one criticism.) It may seem a little spoilersportish to show up at a celebration of fantasy to debunk the fantastical, but, then, there's a difference between enjoying dressing up as a Cylon and the pseudosicence of denying global warming, and the people who tend to do the latter have their own conferences, and those probably don't include impromptu hallway light saber fights.

Monday was an anniversary of a sort: It marked the end of Al Franken's first year as senator. Jason Hoppin of the Pioneer Press looks back, reminding us that the former "Saturday Night Live" funnyman has been painted as "an attack dog who would threaten to tear apart Senate comity." So what happened over the past year? Mark Zdechlik of Minnesota Public Radio offers a retrospective, including 23 pieces of legislation. Included among them were the creation of a pilot program that pairs service dogs with veterans.

Franken's first anniversary also caught the attention of the national media, as Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent points out. Both Newsweek  and the Associated Press looked back on his freshman year, both claiming the year was low-key and productive, despite expectations produced mostly because of his background as a humorist. Didn't George W. Bush once talk about the soft bigotry of lowered expectations?

Franken hasn't actually been that low-key — he's been pretty forthright in criticisms for one thing, as demonstrated at the recent Elena Kagan hearings, when he made the case that the current Supreme Court is an activist court based on the Republican definition of the phrase. Andy Birkey of Minnesota Independent has the video, including the following quote: "You said there are three things that judges hold to when they're not activists. You said that they respect precedent. They make narrow decisions and they defer to the political branches, in other words the legislature. And there are a lot of recent cases that we've been talking about that instinctively strike me and a lot of other people as falling outside of these three guidelines. And I think that in these cases the Supreme Court was legislating from the bench, which is being activist."

In the same way that Franken found himself painted as a frothing extremist, GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer will soon find himself the subject of unflattering portraiture in the form of a half-million dollars worth of televisions ads from The Alliance for a Better Minnesota, according to the Associated Press. The content of the ads has not been released yet, although reportedly they will compare Emmer to current governor Tim Pawlenty. In the meanwhile, Baird Helgeson of the Star Tribune paints a portrait of Emmer riding "a populist wave," although Helgeson's first example is from a Tea Party rally and quotes one of the organizers: "I've think I've had a vision into Tom's heart ... I think he's a good person, and that he's willing to work with or at least listen to people."

It would be interesting to ask some restaurant workers what they see when they look into Emmer's heart: He recently proposed counting their tips toward their minimum wage, as reported by the AP. This would bring the hourly income a restuarant worker knows they can count on down from between $5.25 and $6.15, depending on the size of the employer, to as little as $2.13 per hour. Why? Well, according to Emmer, as reported by MPR's Martin Moylan, he believes that this would encourage employer growth. He argues that there are restaurant workers who take home upwards of $100,000 per year, although he doesn't back this up with any sources or detail the percentage of workers who make this impressive amount.

Andy Birkey of Minnesota Independent rounds up some responses to Emmer's idea: Matt Entenza, himself a former waiter, said, "While thousands of working men and women are struggling to make ends meet he's proposing cutting into the wages of lower-income earners." Mark Dayton said, "It's totally wrong to be trying to take money away from hard-working men and women." Bob Collins of MPR, in a Twitter conversation with MinnPost's David Brauer, offered this suggestion: "I think it's time to demand PROOF that stiffing someone on minimum wage is going to create a significant # of jobs. how many?" We at the Glean would also be curious to get an answer to that question.

In arts: It is almost impossible to discuss the story of a controversial beaver statue in Bemidji without making an inappropriate joke, so we will merely link to the story on WCCO and leave it at that.

In sports: St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter Jim Ragsdale offers up, in video form, a piece of doggerel apologizing to the state of Mississippi for calling it a cesspool while pleading for Brett Favre to remain. His apology seems heartfelt, but the meter is tortured and the rhymes jejune — Ragsdale is now going to have to locate a poet to apologize to.