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Dan Landherr

Forest Lake, MN
Commenter for
5 years 21 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 03/25/11 at 11:10 am in response to Mr. Dilettante: Could Bachmann run be good for Pawlenty?

I think she's overreaching here. Plenty of colleagues who were content to leave her statements unchallenged will now have every incentive to put her through the wringer.

Posted on 03/17/11 at 09:28 am in response to New Census numbers will change Minnesota's political landscape

A lot of analysis on the federal level here. Is there enough data on the state level to draw conclusions yet? It is interesting that we have a GOP house and senate yet the DFL has every statewide office. That suggests the DFL is winning big in more districts than the GOP. I agree with the sentiment that safe districts are not good for citizens. Safe districts encourage corruption.

Posted on 03/16/11 at 03:42 pm in response to GOP targets trains, solar lab, planetarium and trails

"Nuclear power's small risk of a HUGE catastrophe is an unacceptable risk." - Watson

If that is true then the small risk of a tsunami destroying the coastline is also unacceptable and nobody should be allowed to build housing within 1 mile of the coast in Japan. I doubt anyone would be happy with that.

Posted on 01/27/11 at 04:54 pm in response to Reduce the deficit with pixie dust

$1.5T in debt looks really scary until you consider that American citizens have somewhere between $50T and $65T in combined wealth. That's a debt to assets ratio of .025.

It is encouraging that a majority supports cuts to the military budget. That's actually a big budget item.

Posted on 01/27/11 at 02:06 pm in response to Time for Minnesota governments to stop paid public-notice ads in newspapers?

Rod Garbe brings up some good issues but I think they can all be resolved.

Accessibility - how much longer will all areas be served by print newspapers? Also, removing a mandate does not mean a municipality with substandard internet service wouldn't choose to put public notices in the newspaper anyway. It also doesn't prevent a newspaper from passing valuable public information along to their subscribers.

Accessibility could be improved in several ways with a digital format....

Posted on 01/27/11 at 10:50 am in response to Time for Minnesota governments to stop paid public-notice ads in newspapers?

I agree with removing this mandate. I think we are past the tipping point where it makes sense to leave printed newspapers behind. If a government believes a newspaper ad is appropriate they should still be able to place it. I'm sure some newspaper public notices are more effective than others.

I don't agree with replacing this mandate with a snail mail mandate. People can go to public bulletin boards (library, post office, city hall) if they want the information. Posting information...

Posted on 01/21/11 at 12:12 pm in response to Excerpts: Bachmann to warn Iowans America 'under threat as never before'

Every tea party needs a Mad Hatter. Or is she the White Rabbit?

Posted on 01/12/11 at 04:00 pm in response to Tucson tragedy: What it means for Pawlenty and Palin

I think he's running for vice-president.

Posted on 01/11/11 at 11:05 am in response to Drop in the bucket: Tax receipts ahead of projections

Bachmann's presidential ambitions make sense in the grand scheme of political power maneuvering. She was just excluded from the group of Republican power brokers in the House. At this point the biggest threat she has to use against those power brokers is as a spoiler within the party. If she is in the race she takes $$ and attention away from candidates that could win the nomination. From the outside this looks like a shakedown - give me some money, attention and power and I'll 'bow out' of...

Posted on 01/10/11 at 12:07 pm in response to GOP legislators look to eliminate corporate income tax

The obvious budget item to cut if corporate income taxes are eliminated is corporate services starting with the Department of Employment and Economic Development. If businesses would rather not have DEED and other services designed to help businesses in the state they should make that clear.

I would also expect to see property tax surcharges on industrial property to make sure businesses continue to pay for their roads, streetlights, water, sewer, street plowing, and fire and police...