Klobuchar has some questions. WCCO’s Jeff Wagner reports: “Even in a public world, people are entitled to some privacy. Those rules can apply to Facebook, with users allowing the public to only know so much about them. … But the social media site admits Cambridge Analytica violated that right to privacy. A whistleblower from the analytics firm says it involved 50 million profiles of U.S. voters. … The news bothers Senator Amy Klobuchar. … ‘When they start messing with our democracy and a foreign country is trying to influence and get data from someone, that’s a problem,’ Klobuchar said. … The senator feels Facebook can’t police itself, and worries with another election looming other social media sites could also be targeted for a privacy leak. … It’s partly why she’s demanding Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee regarding how the private information got out.”
Pipeline math. MPR’s Elizabeth Dunbar reports: “Calculating the carbon footprint of a project like Enbridge Energy’s proposed Line 3 oil pipeline is complicated. Not only are there multiple steps involved in the analysis, but there’s also a need to make an educated guess about what the world would look like with and without the new pipeline. … We attempt to break it down below…”
Angling for the outdoors vote. The Star Tribune’s Tony Kennedy reports: “The 2018 Legislature could prove to be an apex predator of Minnesota muskies if a new bill introduced by a key committee chairman succeeds in depleting the big fish from numerous lakes. … The proposed anti-muskie law authored by state Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, would blow up the long-range muskie management plan of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The agency has heralded muskie fishing as the fastest-growing type of angling in the state, and DNR biologists and hatchery personnel have worked to expand muskellunge fishing opportunities. … Ingebrigtsen, chairman of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee, said the DNR hasn’t been listening to a large constituency of more traditional anglers who believe muskie expansion is happening at the expense of sunnies, crappies and walleyes — an assertion rejected by DNR science.”
Quite an adventure. The Duluth News Tribune’s Sam Cook writes: “When Will Steger goes on spring break, he knows how to avoid crowds. He heads in a familiar direction — North. … Ely’s Steger, who has led successful dogsled expeditions to the North Pole and across Antarctica, will leave northern Saskatchewan on Wednesday for a 1,000-mile solo trek across Canada’s treeless barrenlands. He plans to reach Baker Lake, near Hudson Bay, 70 days later in early June. … Now a fit 73, Steger will haul a custom-built canoe-sled loaded with 200 pounds of gear and food over lakes, rivers and portages. His route passes through no villages. He will be resupplied twice by a bush plane on skis.”
In other news…
This seems wrong: “Minneapolis is North America’s 3rd most expensive city, says The Economist” [City Pages]
Gross: “Charge: Stylist at upscale Mpls. salon molests client, calls it a ‘nice tip’” [Star Tribune]
Too soon: “1500ESPN: Report: Vikings Will Open NFL Season at Eagles on Thursday Night Football” [KSTP]
Not Damascus
Can’t say I’m eager to try to emulate Damascus and the “excitement” of regular bombing, but I also have a hard time believing Minneapolis is right behind L.A. in terms of cost of living.
The Twin Cities are definitely more expensive – largely, but not entirely, due to housing costs – than living in St. Louis, but by the same token, it’s not nearly as expensive to live here as it is in metro Denver, or anywhere on Colorado’s northern Front Range. I can’t speak to other places in the Rocky Mountain West, or on either coast, or Chicago or Pittsburgh, etc., not having actually lived in any of those areas, but of the three places I **have** lived, Minneapolis is squarely in between St. Louis at the low and and metro Denver at the high end. How that ends up in the same league as Los Angeles I have no idea.
Not that it was very high…
My respect for City Pages dropped a bit after reading them describe The Economist as “perhaps the leading economics magazine of the English-speaking world.” That’s like calling Fox News the leading canine biology TV network because they have “fox” in their name and they do sometimes show stories about dogs.
Daily Calcium
A Starbucks medium sized latte costs $4.39 in Minneapolis and only $3.95 in San Diego. Because of our location and attendant transportation costs, I had expected we were paying more in San Diego but we’re not. In Minneapolis it costs about 10% more.