The bill that was vetoed and then overridden was a $6.6 billion transportation plan for the state which included the first gas tax increase in 20 years for Minnesota. All of the money will go to rebuilding and repairing roads and bridges in state. The gas tax will increase 5 1/2 cents by fall and go up to possibly 3 cents more. Those living in the seven-county Twins Cities area will also see a quarter-cent increase in their sales tax. Also, low-income families will receive a $25 income-tax credit to “ease the effect of the gas tax increase.”

This historic veto didn’t just happen by coincidence, but by the DFL (Democratic) majority in the legislature. The house overrode the veto with a 91-41 vote, which was only one vote more than the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto. The senate voted 47-20. However, not everyone rode party lines hard. The Star Tribune quoted one Republican representative who voted for the bill initially and also for the override. The party refused to endorse her reelection campaign because of her stance. At least someone can see that even though taxes suck, it’s better than falling into a river and drowning in your car.

“I’m assuming I’ll have several people running against me for the Republican nomination,” said Rep. Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover, who voted for the bill Thursday and then for the override, two days after her Republican endorsement for reelection was postponed because of her support for the proposal. She said that despite facing what she called her toughest vote in her 12 years in the Legislature, she did “what’s right” and that “I’ll sleep good tonight.”

Rep. Shelley Madore, DFL-Apple Valley, I think, put it the best however and hopefully makes some republicans feel like shit:

“The bridge went down on August 1, and a gentleman from my district died,” she said. “If you’re asking me, is his life worth a nickel a gallon [state gas tax increase, as the plan calls for], I’m telling you it is.”

According to the sensationalists at FOX9, the $6.6 billion will come in gradually over 10 years. The bill will also create nearly 33,000 new jobs per a year for the state. People who purchase newer model vehicles will also have higher registration fees for a longer period than they already have. Rental car fees will also go up from 3 to 5 percent.

What’s sad is that this historic story was buried under a pitbull attack and how Minnetonka wants to ban sex cruising in public bathrooms. Wait. Sex cruising is not illegal in Minnetonka already??? Gov. Pawlenty, there’s a bill that definitely won’t be overrode. Unless Larry Craig is voted into the Minnesota legislature soon.

Castros

First off, Fidel Castro resigned as president of Cuba last Tuesday 49 years after he obtained power in a revolution. This gives the UK and the US a chance to move Cuba toward democracy, though Washington said they will not lift the current trade embargo. That is exactly what the US should do. They should definitely invade another country that had an authoritarian government for years and try to enforce democracy there. That plan sounds like it will work for sure. After hearing the news, President Bush said this is an opportunity for the 11.2 million people of Cuba:

“The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy.”

Cubans, watch out for roadside bombs and soldiers raiding your homes daily. Or even worse, watch out for Wal-Marts, Starbucks and Vin Diesel movies coming soon.

Fidel Castro handed interim power of Cuba to his brother, defense minister Raul after a July 2006 surgery. Raul Castro was voted president unanimously by an assembly vote. In his first speech, he said that communism and socialism will live on in Cuba long after Fidel’s reign. The good sign for Bush is that Raul is 76-years-old, so he’ll keel over soon.

McCains

Speaking of Bush, his old enemy from the 2000 presidential election Jon McCain, whom he attacked during the South Carolina primary which helped Bush win the nomination, was attacked again, kinda. A NY Times article was printed last Thursday and it was the talk of the town. Basically the article was about a relationship that McCain had with a communications lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Although both deny any romantic involvement, which the NY Times implied but only used anonymous sources to prove, the bigger story is that McCain possibly favored Iseman’s clients.

One piece of evidence the Times shows is that he wrote to the FCC that he wanted to uphold laws that allowed one television company to control two stations in the same city, which was a crucial issue for one of Iseman’s clients. Another piece of evidence was a letter the FCC that helped push a television a deal for another one of Iseman’s clients. In other words, this was four Web pages of bullshit the NY Times felt like printing to stir up the campaign. There are a few letters that might show there was some favoritism, and very little to prove that he and Iseman were romantically link. Basically, the NY Times is still the liberal shit rag its always been. Of course, McCain’s people think so:

“It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.

Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career.”

and Naders, Oh My!

On another story about fucking shit up, Ralph Nader is running for president……again. Trust me, it’s not 2000 or 2004. What’s kind of ironic is that he is running because of how democrats wanted to stop him from running in fear that he would take vote away from John Kerry like he did to Al Gore in the disputed Florida in 2000. What a spiteful mother fucker! Knowing he doesn’t have a chance, he’s running again just to piss democrats off? Wow and I thought I was filled with spite when I ate that delicious husky puppy yesterday after one bit me in the ass 10 years ago. I mean, I am from Korea, so it only seemed natural.

I hope these three tidbits of news are tasty and enjoyable as the husky puppy I devoured, or at the least, read by someone.

The Oscars winners were announced Sunday night and like usual ran way over time. The pomp and circumstance this year was hosted by Jon Stewart, who began the night, according to Reuters, by ripping on how depressing the plots of the best picture nominees were and how the writer’s strike almost caused the ceremony to be canceled, which would have made life much more tolerable this Sunday.

But the real story isn’t how Jon Stewart isn’t that funny without a writing staff, but that Minnesota kicked ass this year. Former City Pages blogger, Diablo Cody, won Best Original Screenplay for the movie “Juno”, which shows that Micheal Cera plays the same awkward character in every movie he’s in. Cody wrote the screenplay for “Juno”, supposedly, in a coffee shop at the Crystal Target store in downtown. After excepting the award, she ripped off her leopard print dress and spun around on the mic stand until the music ended and DJ Jon Stewart announced the next presenters.

The other huge Minnesota win comes from the best brother duo since Raul and Fidel Castro (more on that later), the Coen brothers. I’ve loved nearly every movie these St. Louis Park natives make, even the one where George Clooney lip-syncs. And the Academy loved them too giving the brothers Coen four Oscars this year for the grisly crime thriller, “No Country for Old Men.” The Coens won three themselves for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and the grand daddy of them all, Best Picture. Javier Bardem, who plays that scary guy with a huge gun, won the Best Supporting Actor award.

So even though Minnesota is still fucking freezing in the winter, our sports teams suck ass, the tuition at our state university is expected to go over $10,000 soon, our governor could leave us to be McCain’s running mate (that’s actually a good thing), US senators try to score a little sucky sucky in our airport bathrooms, and did I mention it’s fucking cold here, at least we can be proud that an ex-stripper and two brothers who live in NYC more than Minneapolis, brought some hardware home for the North Star State.

I came across this scary story from the jolly old BBC that says “machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029.” Leading US inventor Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of text-to-speech technology and the first keyboard synthesizer, told the BBC at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, that humans will eventually have tiny robots in their brains to make them more intelligent. This made me wonder if the d-bags who constantly raise their hands in class, and show-off the fact they read the material, are actually robots implanted by the university’s Driven to Discover campaign.

Kurzweil goes on to say that man and machines will merge around 2029 when humans start implanting devices in their bodies to stay healthy and become smarter:

“We’ll have intelligent nanobots go into our brains through the capillaries and interact directly with our biological neurons,” he told BBC News.

The nanobots, he said, would “make us smarter, remember things better and automatically go into full emergent virtual reality environments through the nervous system”.

Did this make anyone else shit their pants in fear of a robot takeover?? I am now under the impression that ever person I meet may be a T-1000 coming to kill me because in the future I eventually lead a human resistance to victory over the machines who tried to destroy the human race.

This BBC story also reminded me of an interview from The Colbert Report that me and my roommates ridiculed. Chess master and author of the book, “Love and Sex With Robots,” David Levy says that humans will be banging, loving and marrying robots within the next decades, not always in that order of course. He made sound like a crazy person, and he has really bad teeth, but he was awarded a PhD for his study of robot-human sexual relations. Though it was from a Dutch university, which cause Stephen Colbert to make a pot joke.

He says that those who will end up with robots will be those who are lonely, miserable and can’t establish personal connections with other humans. Women who fit that description already have access to these robots. Those, of course, are called vibrators.

As I wind down from a long hard day of calling random people and making them take surveys they really don’t want any part of, I decide to watch re-runs of Family Guy on Adult Swim. Then I saw this Associated Press story about an end to the writer’s strike!!!! Oh my Flava Flav it’s finally over!

In the story, one of my favorite characters on my favorite show, Dwight from “The Office,” says that the cast will be back on the set on March 10 to shoot six more episodes!!! Hold on, I have to change my pants. In the meantime, enjoy this Dwight mixtape from season 2:

Alright, now that I’m all cleaned up, here’s some facts from the writers strike. The 10,500 writers that walked out in November have fucked up Los Angeles’ economy. A total of $3.2 billion was lost in revenue and wages. It seems sad that’s how much America thrives on entertainment. An entire major U.S. city can turn to shit if a few writers quit for a while. Although, I just had an orgasm over hearing that a show about an office is coming back to a box that flickers moving pictures.

The contract the producers offered to the writer’s guild on Saturday went to a vote Tuesday night and it was overwhelming approved, 3,492 to 283. Now the writers will get a maximum of $1,200 for programs streamed on the internet for the first two years of the new deal and then 2 percent of gross profits for the third year. They also got an increase in the percentage they get from TV show and movies downloaded from the series of interconnected tubes called the internet.

Finally, all these horrid shows like “Moment of Truth” and this show I keep seeing ads for when I watch Conan called, “My Dad Can Beat Your Dad” will be put to death! Now “The Colbert Report” can go back to doing what it does best, mocking our political process with sharp wit rather than becoming a Stephen Colbert interview show. Good thing “The Sopranos” ended before the writer’s strike. Otherwise I might have whacked James Gandolfini and David Chase personally, with all due respect.

So enjoy sitting on your ass and eating Doritos, America. You fat fuck! I know I will.

We also learned about “Mutual Assured Destruction,” where if either the US or the Soviets attacked one another, each had enough of a stockpile of nukes to retaliate and blow each other to smithereens. That might sound insane, but you know what? After attending the Republican Caucus on Tuesday, I wish this crazy scenario would have come to fruition.

The insanity of Super Tuesday made me want to become a commie. A cameraman and I went to cover the event for the Web site, and my God was it not worth it. The sites and sounds of all the motions passed and I’s and neigh’s reminded me of a high school student council meeting. The votes weren’t even counted correctly by the organizers! Isn’t that, you know, the biggest fear voters have?? That their vote won’t count?!?!?

Granted, the organizers finally got the tally correct, and organizers were only expecting 10-20 people, but shouldn’t they have realized that more people would show up for a PRESIDENTIAL CAUCUS, compared to a state legislature caucus??

Anywho, this participation in the electoral process made me realize why communism might not be so bad. All this chaos of people standing in line for 30-45 mins, casting votes that don’t really matter until they vote for delegates, and people not knowing anything about any of the candidates made me want to write in Karl Marx’s name.

One kid I spoke to was voting for Ron Paul because he didn’t want his tax dollars to be used to “stop (him) from smoking (his) weed!” Another kid named Josh I talked to, wearing a bright yellow jacket and looking a little disoriented gave me this gem of a quote:

“He likes small government, and, and uh I don’t remember. I went to his rally drunk last night and the things he said, I don’t remember, but I was happy at the time.”

Wow, I just thought of Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin rolling over in their graves! Is this really what they wanted by giving the people the power in government? College kids to show up to caucuses and make jokes and listen to candidates while they’re shitfaced? Granted, I love a little booze myself, but don’t you usually go bowling or to a movie or drive a car wasted or something, not go to a rally by a viable presidential candidate??

However, as I dug a little deeper I found many educated voters who had passion about the issues of the day. One was elected as a delegate. Her name was Noelle, a senior geography major who supported Ron Paul, and actually looked into his platforms. Noelle even recorded debates where Ron Paul was asked less than half of the questions than other candidates. That is a little crazy, but hey, at least she’s wasn’t hammered at the time.

And although she sounded like Ron Paul’s press secretary, she gave me a little hope for the democratic process:

“If people actually listened to the man speak, and listened him state what he believes in, I think his numbers would be a lotbetter than what they are. But as he says, the important thing is that his message is getting out there.”

But it’s clear that many are on the Ron Paul bandwagon because they think he is crazy and college kids love crazy. So truly, is Paul’s message getting out? Are people buying into his Constitutionalist ideals? Or are they just voting for a novel act that will fade by November? And am I really considering communism as a good form of government?

This caucusing really made me think if all this is worth it. To put some white dude (or woman, or black man) in the White House for four years and have people get into ridiculous arguments about who’s values are right and who’s are wrong. Maybe we’d be better off with one crazy mofo controlling us all.

P.S. watch for The Wake’s video coverage of the Republican caucus coming very very very soon/when we’re not insanely busy and have time to edit!

It’s 1:00 a.m. and I feel like celebrating Romney dropping out of the race!!!!! WOOOOO!!!!!! Why am I awake writing this early?

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose real name is Willard by the way, “suspended” his bid for the White House Thursday after a terrible showing on Super Duper Tuesday’s caucuses and primaries. In a speech he said he’s suspending his campaign because of his love for America. Wow, this guy will say anything to kiss conservatives’ ass! Dropping out for the love of his party?? BAHHHH!!

I am not against republicans, but I wished this day would come! Romney is like a conservative Barbie Doll. He acts the way conservatives want him to act. He is the ultimate robot political panderer who will say and do whatever will get him votes, which didn’t even work in the end. What is encouraging is that this shows even though you have the $$$, you’re not always guaranteed the presidency.

On “Real Time with Bill Maher,” I heard Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi say that when he saw Romney’s face up close, it was smooth like a cereal box. He had no pores!

What makes me want to start gouging my eyes out again is this editorial written by the online editor of the National Review. In it, Kathryn Lopez, who’s writing from the Conservative Political Action Conference which Romney spoke at, says:

“By the end of the speech, Romney, who won the presidential straw poll at this meeting of conservative activists last year, had well-positioned himself to be the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican nomination. And he knows it: Romney began his speech saying, ‘It’s great to be with you again. And I look forward to joining with you many more times in the future.’”

AHHHHHHH!!!!! NOOOO!! I can’t believe this. Romney needs to go back and try to double Guantanamo Bay again. Seriously, who says that?? I’m all for arresting terrorists. I’m even for the use of some “enhanced interrogation techniques,” as long as they don’t violate or abuse them. Fight fire with fire, right? I’m sure terrorists aren’t abiding by the Geneva Convention. But they are human too and deserve due process and a real trial.

Too bad he wasted $35 million of his personal money to finish in third place behind a senior citizen and a crazy religious zealot, who won’t fund abortions to mentally-challenged incest rape victims, even though federal law says state governments have to.

Willard, you had a good run. You were the front runner for a while, but somehow you blew it. How? I have no clue, but I’m glad you did. Have fun re-charging your batteries for 2012 when you lose again.

p.s. why won’t this you tube video embed? someone help me!!!!

To quote the great Foreigner, “It feels like the first time.” But truly this is my second. Here’s a shameless plug for my old JOUR 3101 news blog. Go check it out B! So to make it easy for both you and I, I’ll be gentle this once. I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt too bad, but down the road, you’ll grow to like it and you’ll be craving it all the time. My blog that is. Why what were you thinking about? You sick bastard! I don’t even want you to read this blog! Just kidding, I love you and I never meant to hurt you!

But seriously. All you have to do is listen to every word I say, for I only speak the truth. Otherwise may God/Buddha/Allah/Tao/Confusious/Science/L. Ron Hubard(I think i hit them all) strike me down with lightning!

FUCK! My hair just lit on fire, give me one sec…..

OK that smelt like death but anyways, hold on tight because once I get out of this cubicle I’m sitting in at the Star Tribune newsroom that is turning me into a nut right now, the posts are going to come hard and fast, just the way your mom likes it. ZING!!!!!!111!!!!!$#