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The benefits of looking up; the costs of looking down
This video asks some important questions about the decline of space exploration in our age of austerity. It features a mash-up of statements by one of my favorite speakers, the astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I am left wondering what good can come of our nation if we can’t figure out how to strategically spend money…
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Cravaack to hold Grand Rapids town hall
The Grand Rapids Herald Review is reporting that U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) will hold a town hall in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, this weekend. U.S. Representative Chip Cravaack (MN-8) will host a town hall meeting in Grand Rapids Saturday, March 17 from 11 a.m. to noon at the Sawmill Inn. All town hall meetings are…
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Faster permitting amendment offered to aid Magnetation
Rep. Tom Anzelc has proposed an amendment hastening the permitting process for scram mining operations like Magnetation in a state House bill. There was a not-too-small recent hullabaloo over where Magnetation might locate their proposed processing plant, which would turn their iron concentrate salvaged from area mine waste dumps into traditional taconite pellets. Magnetation extracts…
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MN-8 DFLers on Almanac portend delicate chess match
Last Friday night the DFL candidates seeking to run against U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) appeared on TPT’s Almanac, the vaunted statewide public TV news magazine show.View the Almanac segment featuring MN-8 DFL candidates. The interview by hosts Cathy Wurzer and Eric Eskola began with a heavy focus on last week’s somewhat unsurprising announcement that…
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Do not ask the past about the future
I have more thoughts on my post from last night about Gogebic Taconite ending its plans to open an iron mine and processing plant in northern Wisconsin. Before any of that happened, I planned to write about this letter in the Wisconsin State Journal. A letter-writer had asked people who support mining in northern Wisconsin…
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Gogebic Taconite cancels northern Wisconsin project
Citing dissatisfaction with a bill that would loosen environmental permitting, officials for Gogebic Taconite announced the cancellation of their plans to mine taconite near Ashland, Wisconsin. Gogebic Taconite CEO Bill Williams offered this brief statement: Senate rejection of the mining reforms in Assembly Bill 426 sends a clear message that Wisconsin will not welcome iron…
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Cravaack reveals some surprises in Gilbert forum
Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN8) was on the Iron Range late last week and Saturday. He did a town hall forum in Gilbert Saturday morning, the account of which was recorded in a Sunday story in the Mesabi Daily News. It would appear that the forum was a mostly genial affair, owing in part to the…
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Brown on the Air: FAME and POLITICS
The topic of the Saturday morning talk and music show “Between You and Me” on KAXE will be “brush with fame.” Guest host John Bauer will be taking calls from people sharing their stories of meeting celebrities, athletes or other prominent public figures. I’ve produced a piece that details how my feelings have changed about…
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Cravaack to hold Gilbert town hall Saturday morning
From the wires: Cravaack Announces Gilbert Town Hall Washington, D.C. – On Saturday, March 3, U.S. Representative Chip Cravaack (MN-8) will host a town hall meeting in Gilbert, Minnesota. All town hall meetings are open to the public. “These town hall meetings are a great opportunity for me to hear directly from my constituents in…
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Activity commences in new northern districts
After the new maps came out several days ago I detailed the redistricting implications in northeastern Minnesota. Today I’m going to take a new look at those districts and the political situations unfolding there. I have never precisely defined the borders of this blog’s coverage area, but I have to draw the line somewhere for…
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Radinovich to run in open Cuyuna Range House seat
In my detailed discussion of northeastern Minnesota legislative redistricting last week I did not talk about the new Senate District 10 and House 10A and 10B races. This is the Brainerd Lakes/Cuyuna Range district. House 10B is now an open seat including all of Aitkin County and most of Crow Wing County. Today, the first…
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The Range survives redistricting, but western battle looms
I’ve had a little time to review the new Minnesota legislative and congressional redistricting maps. If you read on, you’ll see what it means to the Iron Range and surrounding political universe. The congressional map is fairly simple. The districts largely retain their shape and constituencies. There are marginal changes in party index, some favoring…
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Range retains similar legislative delegation
Today a five-judge panel has released the final redistricting plan for Minnesota’s legislative and congressional maps. Though there are many large overviews of the plan in the state media, tonight I will spend some time analyzing the impact on northeastern Minnesota House and Senate districts and Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. In summary, the 8th CD…
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A ‘new normal’ for America’s economy?
Thought for the day: Is it possible that America’s 20th century strength (and the backbone of our success here in northern Minnesota’s steel and timber empire) was the nation’s forward-thinking and at times complete domination of the energy industry? Now that oil is becoming less reliable and plentiful as a commodity, we are struggling. Thus,…
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COLUMN: The map is dead; long live the map
This is my Sunday column for the Feb. 19, 2012 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Check back on Tuesday for my analysis of the new redistricting maps in Minnesota and how they’ll affect northern Minnesota politics. It will be a very busy week. The map is dead; long live the mapBy Aaron J. Brown…