Says Reuters: “Authorities said on Sunday they had no plans to forcibly remove activists protesting plans to run an oil pipeline beneath a lake near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, despite telling them to leave by early December. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the federal land where the main camp protesting the Dakota Access pipeline is located, said last week it would close public access to the area north of the Cannonball River on Dec. 5. On Sunday, the agency said in a statement that it had ‘no plans for forcible removal’ of protesters.”
I doubt we’ll be seeing a lot of federal money to help. Says Ricardo Lopez of the Strib, “The Minnesota Department of Human Rights, a 50-year-old state agency charged with investigating claims of illegal discrimination, has seen its staff shrink by almost half from its historic peak in 1990. The steady drop in full-time enforcement officers and other staff comes amid a growing workload …. While hate crimes overall have declined in Minnesota since 2010, reports of hate crimes directed at Muslims are up in Minnesota, according to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).”
My guess? The driver ate some of the food, got ill and passed out. For the Strib, Erin Adler reports, “Two people were injured Sunday morning when an airport catering truck overran a barricade at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The LSG Sky Chefs truck fell to a lower level, blocking a tunnel that led to the airfield and Terminal 1 about 11:30 a.m. Sunday, according to airport spokesman Patrick Hogan. No one knows why the truck took a nose-dive, Hogan said. It took more than five hours to get the truck horizontal again ….” Next time stick with the “complimentary” peanuts.
This in from The Florida of the Midwest … Says the AP, “The University of Wisconsin-Madison has fallen out of the National Science Foundation’s top five research institutions for the first time in over 40 years because of the school’s decreasing spending on research. The school cut research spending by more than $100 million between 2012 and 2015. Campus officials highlighted the falling expenditures Tuesday as they encouraged lawmakers to increase funding for the University of Wisconsin System in the next state budget … .”
Where’s the outrage? Says Christopher Magan in the PiPress, “Five elementary schools in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district will have new attendance boundaries next fall. The changes come as the state’s fourth-largest district is set to open its 19th elementary school. The new school, in the quickly growing south-central part of the district, is being built to ease overcrowding at neighboring elementary schools. School board members approved the boundary changes for Diamond Path, Highland, Parkview, Rosemount and Shannon Park elementary schools unanimously Nov. 14. After the new school opens, all six will be slightly below capacity.” Are “activist parents” mellowing, or what? In the old days if you changed the brand of macaroni in the lunch menu you’d get a torrent of protest.
Hey, have you ever made the semi-finals? In the Strib, Liz Sawyer says, “It seemed only fitting that Halima Aden was the first contestant to introduce herself to the audience. Many of the cameras were there for her, after all. The 19-year-old Somali-American sauntered on stage during the Miss Minnesota USA pageant Saturday night in a ‘burkini,’ a bathing suit covering her from neck to wrist to ankle. She was the first fully covered Muslim to compete in the state pageant, where she made it to the semifinal round of 15 Sunday, but didn’t advance to the final five.”
Sold … again. Says Mike Hughlett for the Strib, “The oil refinery in St. Paul Park will have its fourth owner in six years after Tesoro Corp. completes its $4.1 billion purchase of Western Refining. … Earlier this month, San Antonio-based Tesoro announced it would purchase Western and its three refineries in Texas, New Mexico and Minnesota — the largest deal in the oil refining business since 2011. The sale includes SuperAmerica, a leading Minnesota fuel and convenience store brand whose stations have long been supplied by the St. Paul Park refinery.”
Kind of a weekly event if you ask me. The Forum News Service reports, “Wayne Farms, an Oakwood, Ga. establishment, is recalling approximately 4,059 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken products due to undercooking, resulting in the potential survival of bacterial pathogens in the products, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has announced. These items were shipped to retail stores in Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and North Dakota.”
The deer are dropping like flies. Says Sam Cook for the Duluth News Tribune, “The preliminary total through Wednesday for the Minnesota deer harvest (including archery harvest) was 155,947, compared to 147,006 deer killed in 2015, according to Adam Murkowski, big game program leader for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The harvest was up in Zone 1 (Northeastern Minnesota) from 35,008 last year to 44,034 this year, an increase of 25.7 percent. The harvest was stable compared to last year in Zone 2, and down in Zone 3.” So if you shoot it in Zone One but it flops over dead in Zone Two which gets to count it?
Have you worried about October snow cover in Siberia? Says Paul Douglas on his Strib blog, “My 11th grade advanced placement English teacher had good advice. ‘Use action words. And when in doubt, mumble. Better yet, obfuscate.’ I’ve been doing a lot of mumbling and random hand-waving in recent weeks when asked about the winter to come. Weather researcher Judah Cohen tracks Siberian snow cover in October to gauge how tough winters will be in the U.S. Based on the rate of Russian snow he predicts a weakened polar vortex capable of lobbing arctic air southward; coldest conditions east of the Rockies. Not as cold as 3 winters ago — but close.”
