Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The project required 6 miles of fencing, at a cost of $10,000 a mile. A Legacy Amendment grant paid for 4 miles; revenue from the grazier offset staff costs to fence 2 miles.”

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/08/03/environment/sherburne-refuge-herefords-help-with-upkeep

$10,000 a mile?!?!? Last year I had to fence in all of my land because of changes in the Green Acres tax laws, so I have an idea how much it costs. What did they use to fence it in, gold plated barbed wire?!?

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Just HAVE to laugh at this one... On the news tonight was a story about Zygi Wilf, the owner of the Minnesota Vikings football team, who has been pushing for the state to build him a new stadium to play in. The financing was going to come, in part, from an electronic gambling deal that was touted as a wonderful source of revenue, except it didn't turn out to be the golden goose that was promised. Then it comes out that some had tried to warn that the figures presented were really hinky, but the powers that be just didn't want to hear any naysaying, and pushed it through anyway.

So now comes this story about our football team's owner: "Superior Court Judge Deanne Wilson ruled in a 21-year legal battle Monday that brothers Zygi and Mark Wilf and their cousin Leonard committed fraud and breach of contract and fiduciary duty and had violated New Jersey's civil racketeering law."

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9550527/gov-mark-dayton-alarmed-vikings-owner-zygi-wilf-legal-woes
What is so funny is that our governor, according to the news tonight, wants to make sure that the state  examines the fine print of the contract for the new stadium before it is signed. OK, it's scheduled to be signed in two weeks! Wouldn't you think the fine print would have been gone over by now, by a whole team of lawyers?!? Or were they going to wait until they got to the table to read it over? I would think a contract for $477 million would be more than a couple of pages long.
Just shaking my head in disbelief...