Bob Collins
Minnesota is generally considered a high-tax state but the Thumbtack.com survey found that taxes was not statistically significant in defining whether a state is friendly to small businesses. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Surveys and trivia
Rochester is the Minnesota city is the only metropolitan area in the north to make the top-10 list of happiest cities. Read more →
One supposes we should just be happy we made the top 10 of smartest states in the country, but 10th? We only made 10th? There are only 50 states. Minnesota is relatively unaccustomed to finishing this low in national surveys; we regularly rank in the top two or three for education, health, and quality of Read more →
It might be a tough hiring market for this year’s college graduates, but a new survey says if you’re a young person looking to start a career and put down some roots, you want to be in Minneapolis or Saint Paul. Read more →
It’s going to be tough for the mayor of Minneapolis to succeed in her plan to have more people bragging about her city. People here don’t know how good they’ve got it.
That much seems clear by virtue of a new Gallup poll that shows only 61% of the people surveyed here think Minnesota is ‘one of the best possible states to live.’ Read more →
Sorry, Minneapolis. You’re not in the top 10 of funniest U.S. cities.
The good news: You’re not in the top 10 of least funny cities, either. Read more →
There’s really no reason for me to post this video other than the fact that it reminds us that somewhere in this world today, there’s a person running on a warm beach flapping his arms like a pelican. Equal time: Why would you ice fish? (Minnesota Public Radio News).
There are only two kinds of Minnesota drivers in winter: The ones who do this, and the ones who don’t. It is of questionable value and meaning. In freezing rain, theoretically, it could prevent breaking the wiper when pulling it out of the ice. This, however, requires an ice pack equal to or greater than Read more →
We do love us a good high school fashion controversy.
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For a few days, St. Cloud is the center of the trivia universe. Read more →
Non-Minnesota NewsCut readers: Do we seem snooty to you? City Pages today relays the findings of a travel magazine which ranks Minneapolis-St. Paul as the fourth most snooty metro area in the country. San Francisco, New York, and Boston are just ahead of us. It’s entirely possible that we are supposed to find this insulting, Read more →
Clearing off the desk of items that’ve been sitting here a week or so. There goes the Federal Reserve again, destroying perceptions. In its assessment of state economies released a couple of weeks ago for April 2013, only five states have contracting economies under a survey’s method. And two of them border the fair state Read more →
Rubber duckies in the news