Floyd of Rosedale (from Wikipedia)

Just a few odds and ends and random observations from the currently frozen tundra of Saint Paul:

– The UK publication The Spectator, a longtime institution among both British and North American conservatives, was forced to apologize for lobbing false anti-Semitism accusations against Mohammad Sawalha, the president of the British Muslim Initiative.

– Last September, Mark Lewis, lawyer for one of the plaintiffs in the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal, told a House of Commons committee that he’d been told by a police detective involved with the case that there were “something like 6,000 people” whose phone messages were intercepted or whose phones were directly hacked by a person or persons working at the behest of the Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid. Since the official story at the time was that only eight persons had been victims in the phone-hack scandal, this caused the Press Complaints Commission, which is the UK’s media watchdog, to beg to differ with Mr. Lewis. Lewis then sued, claiming that the PCC was implying that he’d lied. He just won his case, and the PCC was forced to apologize.

– Lance Mannion accurately pegs why Republicans and conservatives like Rush Limbaugh hate the GM rescue — and why Rush made a big mistake when he attacked the Chevy Volt.

– The story behind Floyd of Rosedale: Minnesota’s greatest governor, Floyd B. Olson, was looking to defuse a racially-charged football rivalry and to ensure the safety of a black player on the Iowa Hawkeyes’ team, Ozzie Simmons — another African-American Hawkeyes player had died some years earlier as a result of injuries sustained during a game with Minnesota — and came up with the “Floyd of Rosedale” idea. Olson asked Iowa’s governor, Clyde Herring, to accept a bet that the loser of the next Iowa-Minnesota game would give a prize pig to the winner; he also included with the bet a call to the Minnesota Gophers to play cleanly and fairly. Herring accepted, and news of the bet reached Iowa City as the Hawkeye fans, who had been prepared to riot at the first sign of maltreatment against Simmons, were gathering at the stadium. The bet calmed the fans and the game proceeded. Minnesota won 13-6 in a clean and incident-free contest, and Ozzie Simmons played an injury-free game. After the game, the Minnesota players made a point of complimenting Simmons, and Simmons praised the Gophers for their clean, hard-fought play. Minnesota went on to win their second straight national championship, and Governor Herring procured a pig, which was named “Floyd of Rosedale”, and had it walked into Governor Olson’s office. When Floyd passed away a few years later, a bronze pig statue was substituted for him, and it is this statue that is now known as “Floyd of Rosedale” and which travels between the two university campuses.

What’s shakin’ in your neck of the woods?