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Extreme American Housing Sector Crisis
Perhaps not so ironically, one of the largest homes built by ABC’s “Extreme Home Makeover” faces foreclosure. The $450,000 home built by volunteer labor might just be a perfect symbol of America’s mortgage crisis. The show is premised around the idea that a ridiculously large new home will solve the problems of any family, anywhere.…
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Oh, I’ve been to this meeting …
This is a little “inside baseball” but if you are interested in the future of journalism, read this tongue-in-cheek post from Ken Doctor, a former big time newspaper executive now blogging about the problems of the modern media industry. It’s called “Frankly, Candidly, Truthfully: Newspapers CEOs Talk About 2Q.” It’s a funny read, if you’ve…
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Union outreach aims to hold Democratic line for Obama
Electricity was down again this morning (it rained last night; that’s how it goes out here in the woods) so I got a late start on all things electronic. All I’ve got right now is an item on an AFL-CIO political outreach campaign in the swing states of Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan to reassure…
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Breaking down data in the Fightin’ 8th
Jeff Rosenberg has created something I haven’t seen before, which is a series of maps breaking down the 8th Congressional District by precinct to show the Democrat/Republican split based on the 2006 election results. Get geeky and check it out. Related posts: No related posts.
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Pray for my phone, as it hovers near death
So I’m wading through the water of our undeveloped lakeshore removing weeds with my awesome new AWE (Aquatic Weed Extractor) this afternoon and realize that I had left my cell phone in my (now underwater) shorts pockets. The phone is drying on the kitchen counter. I heard somewhere if you dry these things out completely…
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Check out my tundra pals!
So, do you have friends who live closer to Russia than they do to a McDonalds? I do. Linda Hanson from the Duluth News-Tribune wrote a feature story about my Range-native Alaska friends, the Rudstroms, today. C.O. and AnnMarie live with their 1 1/2 year old son Harold in Brevig Mission, Alaska, an Inuit village…
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Global resove vs. grocery shenanigans
So Barack Obama goes overseas last week. At every turn, Obama was speaking about U.S. foreign policy in a way that re-united our allies and forces his opponents to subtly rephrase their positions to sound more like his. Oh yeah, and he shows up in Germany and 200,000 people come out to hear him speak.…
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Sunday’s Iron Range news roundup
Here’s a roundup of Range stories from this morning. State Sen. Tom Bakk offers a tepid endorsement of Al Franken for U.S. Senate in today’s Mesabi Daily News. Bakk is one of a small cadre of Minnesota officials who were shocked, shocked!, to learn that Franken had once made a living as a late night…
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Rummage sale memories
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, July 27, 2008 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Rummage sale memoriesBy Aaron J. Brown We joined in a rummage sale with some friends last week. We’ve learned some things about organizing rummage sales over the years. Be ready for early birds. The traffic drops off around…
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Rock the grid with your home turbine
I think the real opportunities for wind produced energy will not be from large scale wind farms except perhaps in really windy places within a reasonable distance of the customer. (For instance, I’m a fan of large wind turbine farms here on the Iron Range because they can serve big customers like the mines without…
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A dose of intrigue in Range House races
As I’ve said before, State Rep. and House Majority Leader Tony Sertich faces a primary challenge from Marc Pocrnich (check out his official website) this year and there is a Independence Party primary in my home District of 3A between Bill Hamm and Chris Pfeifer. I have way too many conflicts of personal interest to…
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Itasca DFL kicks off major effort on Wednesday
Readers come here for many different reasons. So, my apologies to those of you uninterested in DFL campaign news. At 5 p.m. on Wednesday, July 30 at the Itasca County DFL headquarters in Grand Rapids there will be a volunteer training session, phone banking push and — the biggie — the delivery of Al Franken…
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Building trades officially "encourage" Bakk to run for governor
Are you growing tired of the “hard facts” of the 2008 election? Wouldn’t your rather resume the political analysis based on hearsay and guessing we all enjoyed last year? I have just the item for you. State Sen Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook), one of two Iron Rangers and 50-plus other DFLers considering a run for governor…
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Brown on the Air: PIE!
My essay for the Saturday, July 26, “Between You and Me” on 91.7 KAXE is about pie. That’s the show’s topic anyway. It’s some kind of pie holiday that host Heidi Holtan will explain to you when you listen. I do these commentaries every week, by the way. Sometimes we talk about deep life issues…
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Generations, Part 3; Times a’ Changin’ on the Iron Range and in Duluth
Today I conclude my three part series on generational shifts that might influence races up and down this year’s Democratic (and, indirectly, Republican) ticket. Why? Well, I like to look at things through a historical lens and while history is known for taking a long time to transpire, there’s usually a tipping point where a…