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Every election cycle we get The Call: hello, this is the group that presumes you believe as we do; please vote. Sometimes it’s a political party. Sometimes it’s my union. Tonight I got an interesting call on the answering machine - a fellow following up on a house-call paid by one of the MPIRG kids. The guy asked for my wife by name, described the person who’d come to our house, and named the issue: reducing coal-fired electrical plant emissions. I remember the meeting. I made the mistake of engaging the young woman about the efficacy of wind farms, and told her I supported less coal and more nukes. She informed me that the electricity generated by Minnesota wind farms could supply the entire electrical needs of the lower 48, and at that point I said, kindly, that she’d just spoken absolute nonsense, and I wished her a good night.

So now this organization several months later calls up our house, matches my wife’s name to our phone number and residence, and wants to follow up on the conversation. Wow. We’re in their database.

CITIZEN ACTION is what Caller ID says. Hmm.

This isn’t MPIRG; their phone number is different. Some googling about turned up the connection - I was called by a local chapter of the Progressive Action Network, which appears to be telemarketers for progressive causes. The “jobs” page gave me the Minnesota chapter, and their phone number is the same as the one on Caller ID. Keep in mind that the guy on the phone identified himself as a member of MPIRG, not Citizen Action. <artejohnsonvoice> Innnnteresting. </artejohnsonvoice>

Now it gets fun. The email for the number that called me is XXXX@camembershipcenter.org. If you go to that site, you’re redirected to the PAN site. If you whois the site, you find that the site registrant is the Citizen Action Membership Center at 328 East Hennepin. But the contact info for Citizen Action is an address on North 12th Street. But! Below the Citizen Action entry on the PAN site is another PAN client called “Minnesota Clean Water Action,” whose address is 326 E Hennepin.

My point? My point is this: the CIA used Joe Pesci, Ed Asner, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Oldham to kill Kennedy! Or, just having offices in the same vicinity is not proof of nefariousness. Oliver Stone would love this stuff. Me, I got bored when whois googling on administrator names led to yahoo discussion groups about out-of-date DNS info.

So I’m going to call them back tomorrow, and ask them: “I’m curious how you matched a phone number, a specific name, an address, and referenced a particular conversation. Because if the Justice Department did to you what you’ve done to us, your breakfast would be running down your pants leg.”

I suspect there is no vast left-wing conspiracy here. Stay tuned; details tomorrow.

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