ST. PAUL — John McCain and Republican party officials agreed to suspend their national convention Monday out of concern for the strong hurricane headed toward New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, ordering a scaled-back opening session and leaving in doubt how the rest of the nominating meetings and political theater will be conducted.

McCain said the more than 4,000 delegates gathering here to give him the party’s presidential nomination would meet for a two-and-half-hour session Monday, beginning at 4 p.m. ET. They are to conduct only essential business, putting aside political speechmaking and leaving uncertain the following three days of the convention.

Seven hours of speeches had been planned for the first day — including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, both of whom canceled plans to attend the convention. Bush will fly to Texas on Monday to monitor Hurricane Gustav.

“We take off our Republican hats and put on our American hats,” McCain said by satellite television hookup from St. Louis, where he had just returned from a tour of Mississippi areas potentially in the path of Hurricane Gustav.

However, The Rally for the Republic in Minneapolis will continue as planned.

The convention for former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will go on as planned, the campaign said Sunday, despite the RNC’s decision to truncate their program.

Paul’s campaign said it decided to stick with their schedule because it didn’t want to have to turn down the 10,000 people expected to attend the three-day event.

The main event takes place Tuesday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. When planning for the event began earlier this year, it was originally scheduled to take place at the University of Minnesota, but due to a “strong initial response,” it was moved to The Target in Minneapolis, which can house up to 18,000 people. Speakers Tuesday include NBC’s Tucker Carlson, former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and another appearance by Paul.

The rally will officially launch Paul’s new political action group: the “Campaign for Liberty.”

Meanwhile, the protests will also go on, despite arrests.

Eight were taken away in handcuffs. The ninth, a 78-year-old Roman Catholic nun, was not cuffed.

All are charged with trespass for crossing a security fence into a restricted area near the Xcel Energy Center, the convention hall.

Interesting article about “Governor No” who has “racked up more vetoes this year than any governor in Minnesota’s history.”

More GOP news from the CityPages Elephants in the Room blog.

Hillary Clinton gave the Twin Cities a shoutout in the line of the night during her speech at the Democratic National Convention.

After ticking off John McCain’s agenda–with a pointed reference to him not believing women deserve equal pay for equal work–Hillary used the geography of the Republican National Convention to deliver a bon mot that cemented the “McSame” meme:

“With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.” more on McSame quotation

And don’t forget the activists – Minneapolis cops detain activist journalists, confiscate their cameras

Three activist journalists in town to videotape the RNC protests were stopped, questioned, and searched by police officers early this morning and had their cameras, a computer, and personal effects seized, one of the three, Vlad Teichberg, told City Pages this afternoon.

Watch it. Episodes are also available online.

As of June 26th, 32 bars have qualified.

However, many bar owners are not excited about paying the $2500 fee – is anyone surprised?

The St. Paul City Council on Wednesday voted 6 to 1 to approve an ordinance that will allow bars that meet certain conditions and pay $2,500 to stay open late during the four nights of the event, to be held Sept. 1-4 at the Xcel Energy Center.

About 32 bars, maybe more if they can find a way to add more seats, are eligible. There are 257 places that sell liquor, wine and beer in the city. About 90 currently have licenses to stay open until 2 a.m.

Bars must already have a 2 a.m. closing license to be eligible, and they must have at least 291 seats or be in downtown or commercial development districts, such as Selby-Dale.

If a bar without a 4 a.m. license is caught serving after 2 a.m., it faces a $2,000 fine per incident.

Don’t forget – that the crowds will not be homogeneous. In addition to the 35,000 RNC attendees, there will also be upwards of 100,000 protesters here during the convention. It sounds like it will be an exciting event! Even Minnetonka is donating a couple police officers to help keep the peace in St. Paul.

The author describes some of the requirements that contribute to the extra costs:

• 80-foot-wide lots
• multi-acre lots
• no rain runoff flowing into streams & building ponds
• wetlands
• rare species
• $4000 fire sprinkler systems
• tornado-safe rooms in town homes with no basements (steel-doored rooms lined with three-quarter-inch plywood and Kevlar, the fabric used in bulletproof police vests. The price tag? $2,000)
• streets wide enough for four lanes of traffic
• cul-de-sacs enlarged to allow an oversized fire truck to turn around
• costly architectural extras, such as stonework or full-width porches
• 360-degree architecture, which makes four sides of a house attractive
• sometimes, it’s done intentionally to make less affordable housing
  

In the past, when buyers wanted a certain type of home, developers built it, said Ed Goetz, professor of Urban and Regional Planning for the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

But now, thanks to regulations, they can’t.

“This is not a free market,” Goetz said.

]]> http://northbynwa.com/2008/07/10/regulations-account-for-20-30-of-the-price-of-a-new-house/feed/ 0 http://northbynwa.com/2008/05/22/fbi-infiltrating-rnc-protest-groups/ http://northbynwa.com/2008/05/22/fbi-infiltrating-rnc-protest-groups/#comments Fri, 23 May 2008 02:07:10 +0000 kas http://northbynwa.com/2008/05/22/fbi-infiltrating-rnc-protest-groups/ In preparation for the Republican National Convention, the FBI is soliciting informants to keep tabs on local protest groups

Need some extra cash this fall?  The FBI is looking for a good informant…

—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership

“This is all part of a larger government effort to quell political dissent,” says Jordan Kushner, an attorney who represented Ganley and other Critical Mass arrestees. “The Joint Terrorism Task Force is another example of using the buzzword ‘terrorism’ as a basis to clamp down on people’s freedoms and push forward a more authoritarian government.”

According to FTH, beverages defined as wine can contain up to 24% ABV and have no container size restrictions. Likewise, liquor can contain up to 100% ABV and can be sold in any size container under Alabama law. So what’s the point of banning beer with 6.5% ABV?

FTH and the Gourmet Beer Bill has received recent coverage in the LA Times and even in The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland). Stuart Carter, current president of FTH, hails from Scotland.

The most entertaining coverage of this issue has to be this edited recording of the recent House debate (don’t miss Alvin Holmes statements, 5:30-6:15).

Let us put that to you another way. Would you want to be told that you can’t buy a Mercedes because there are already plenty of Fords and Hondas available? This is exactly the type of restriction that is being placed on gourmet beer in Alabama.

FTH is not trying to change the existing beers in Alabama. To refer back to the analogy, there will be plenty of Fords and Hondas around once we lift the restriction against Mercedes. FTH and its supporters would just like to have the option to choose the Mercedes of beer.

The government is also allowing regular citizens to purchase cell phones and stay at nice hotels, which were previously restricted to foreigners and high-up government officials.

Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro’s new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.

The change is a sharp contrast to the early days of Cuba’s revolution, when the government forced or encouraged private farmers to turn their land over to the state or form government-controlled collective farms. But without more details, it was difficult to tell the significance of program, which began last year but was announced only this week.

Many of the shoppers filling stores Tuesday lamented the fact that the goods are unaffordable on the government salaries they earn. But that didn’t stop them from lining up to see electronic gadgets previously available only to foreigners and companies.

Cuba’s communist system was founded on promoting social and economic equality, but that doesn’t mean Cubans can’t have DVD players, said Mercedes Orta, who rushed to gawk at the new products.

“Socialism has nothing to do with living comfortably,” she said.

“Very good! DVD players on sale for everybody,” exclaimed Clara, an elderly woman peering at a black JVC console. “Of course nobody has the money to buy them.”

Hopefully Raul will continue implementing this type of free-market reform and realize that legislating social and economic equality only leads to poverty for most.

“The country’s priority will be to meet the basic needs of the population, both material and spiritual,” he said as he replaced Fidel Castro, a staunch critic of capitalist consumer society.

To me, this is outrageous. It also illustrates the dangers of a government with too much power. As you think about which candidates to vote for this year and in the coming years, remember that the USA is the great nation it is today due to the personal and economic freedom we have enjoyed through the years. Sadly, our country has been embracing the same ideals of socialism and communism that have produce these pitiable conditions in Cuba today. Please, for your own good (isn’t that what democracy is all about?), support public officials who embrace the ideas of limited government and free-market capitalism. Unfortunately, most politicians these days don’t.

Think about it this way: Do you like “Politics” or “Politicians”? Probably not, right? Well, most candidates running for office these days support bigger government, more programs, more regulation, etc. etc. Translate that into: more Politics & more Politicians. See where I going? If you say you don’t like Politics and Politicians, why vote for candidates who promise programs and the like that will only result in more Politics and more Politicians. The only way get reduce politics is to reduce the size of government. It’s really that simple. Unfortunately, most people seem happy to vote for candidates who promise them what they want but all they get is a bigger Political mess.

Cubans were delighted with the prospect of being able to buy items such as microwave ovens and air conditioners that were previously only available as stolen goods on the black market.

…

Many Cubans expect the state to soon allow them to buy cellular telephones. While they will now be able to buy computers, access to the Internet remains controlled by the government.

Read more about anti-capitalist Cuba here.