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Mark Gisleson

St Paul, MN
Commenter for
5 years 20 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 07/08/09 at 01:56 pm in response to Survey: Big papers made 12 percent profit in '08 -- as did the Star Tribune

David, help me out here. Isn't 100% of the Strib's problem the fact that they were bought for an absurdly large amount of money, and that since that money was borrowed their insolvency is all about servicing their debt, and not about their actual business?

If I run a successful business that nets me $100k a year, that doesn't mean it makes sense for you to buy that business from me for $20 million.

Even if the ridiculous newspaper profit margins of the '90s and early '00s had...

Posted on 07/07/09 at 05:09 pm in response to Repub ad dredges up footage of Franken "being" Wellstone

Mr. Stych: if it's so easy to find examples of Al's outrageous behavior, why don't you provide us with some? Or is this, as I'm guessing, simply a matter of labeling most Democratic policies as "bizarre"?

Maybe Al can earn his "cred" by retiring half way through his term a la Palin, or maybe by bedding an Argentinian he met by tap dancing in the airport men's room.

I grew up Republican, but I don't recognize today's Dixie fried party of talk radio connoisseurs and name callers...

Posted on 07/07/09 at 02:45 pm in response to Repub ad dredges up footage of Franken "being" Wellstone

I would love to see Mr. Swift provide some examples of Al Franken's "outrageous and bizarre behavior." Preferably something from this century, and not from his SNL days.

Posted on 06/27/09 at 10:15 am in response to Crossing the Rubio-con: Another T'wolves 'draft gaffe'? Maybe not

Already and with or without Rubio this season sounds a lot more interesting than what we suffered through last year. I'm happy enought with this draft that I'm seriously thinking about getting an NBA league pass, but only if they stop giving cable companies the exclusive rights to so many games.

Posted on 06/25/09 at 08:21 am in response to DTV switchover hurts many local newscasts

1. More proof that local news is for old people, the #1 demographic having problems with this conversion.

2. Confused by the digital conversion, I suspect many people hooked up to cable and then with extra choices chose to stop watching local news.

3. Who cares? There's a word for people who get their news from TV, and that word is "uninformed."

Posted on 06/22/09 at 06:50 pm in response to 2010 governor's race: A Facebook 'primary' is proposed

I'm all for it . . . just the second we give an internet ready computer and instructions to every Minnesotan who has one.

This is a TERRIBLE idea. Instead couldn't we just once try to make the process more OPEN instead of always trying to find the angle that lets one group get courted at the expense of the other potential voters?

Posted on 06/22/09 at 07:03 pm in response to What's your $80,000 song?

A little late but I thought I'd take advantage of your question to again remind the RIAA that I have personally downloaded tens of thousands of songs from the Internet. And yes, that's my real name, real email address, and real blog URL. I'm also in the phone book and Google Maps.

This isn't about the law or artists' rights. This is about shaking down people (usually parents) for a few thousand bucks here, and a few thousand bucks there. They could have gone after Thomas-Rasset much...

Posted on 06/19/09 at 02:48 pm in response to Download decision: Its meaning for music industry and consumers

Does Mr. Spence have any actual knowledge of musicians or composers receiving payments from the RIAA from the money they've been "raising" through legal thuggery?

I've been following the RIAA's actions for years and I've never seen any credible proof that ANY artists ever got a dime from the RIAA other than as contractually due for actual sales. The history of the recording industry is synonymous with the history of corporations defrauding musicians and composers.

And how is...

Posted on 06/19/09 at 02:58 pm in response to Daily Glean: Norm's legal woes, deer in the headlights

The problem with the deer population isn't from the lack of hunting so much as the strategies used by DNRs in most "hunting" states to increase those populations.

The legislature will NEVER offend hunters by telling the DNR to rein it in, but I know enough rural upper Midwesterners to know they're fed up with this dangerous state of affairs.

I for one am still sporting the dents from my last "run in" with deer while driving through rural Iowa. Limits should be abolished for...

Posted on 06/16/09 at 10:42 am in response to Star Tribune's Tice: from politics editor to editorial page

When the Blois Olson suit against Michael Brodkorb was ruled on, I drove to the courthouse to get the decision. After digitalizing the ruling I uploaded it. Michael Brodkorb then downloaded my scans and gave them to the Strib who ran them as Brodkorb's.

I notified Doug Tice and he sat on my challenge for weeks before "ruling" that the Strib could not determine the truth of who had scanned the documents. In fact there was a very notable glitch in the scan that made it all but...