Video news clips of the day: Michele and Manure / headlines

CNN names Michele Bachmann Number One “for sheer wingnuttery.” You’ll have to watch the video all the way to the end, as it starts with Wingnut #5 and works up to our own Minnesota winner.

And from Fox News, a video of an Iowa farmer who spelled out “Happy Birthday, Love You” for his wife in the snow – using manure. “The good soft, gushy stuff works best,” he told Fox. See it here.

Back to serious news tomorrow – maybe.
Headlines | January 5, 2009

• Now that a Ramsey County court has knocked down his unallotment scheme, Governor Pawlenty wants the legislature to come back for a special session — to ratify his delay of school aid payments. (Pioneer Press) Not likely, say DFLers. Besides, the regular session starts February 5.

• Finally – the Minneapolis Wi-Fi network is up and running. (Star Tribune)

The Police Department is looking at Wi-Fi network connection equipment for squad cars that would range from $500 to $5,000 per car, Palmer said. The less-expensive solution has the disadvantage of slowing the existing squad car computers, he said.

• Ice is here to stay, at least until the temperature warms up substantially. (MPR)

“The stuff is like concrete. It doesn’t want to go away,” said Kevin Nelson, the street and bridge maintenance engineer for the St. Paul Public Works Department.

City crews have tried to remove ice from some streets with graders, because “snow plows can’t really cut ice,” Nelson said.

But even a grader can’t do much to a chunk of ice when it’s below zero, so crews are doing other tasks instead.

• Bankruptcies are up, according to AP’s count:

The AP gathered data from the nation’s 90 bankruptcy districts and found 1.43 million filings, an increase of 32 percent from 2008. There were 116,000 recorded bankruptcies in December, up 22 percent from the same month a year before.

•  The Afghan suicide bomber who blew up a CIA station (New York Times) was actually a double agent recruited by the U.S.:

The bomber had been recruited by the Jordanian intelligence service and taken to Afghanistan to infiltrate Al Qaeda by posing as a foreign jihadi, the officials said.

But in a deadly turnabout, the supposed informant strapped explosives to his body and blew himself up at a meeting Wednesday at the C.I.A.’s Forward Operating Base Chapman in the southeastern province of Khost.