My recent editorial in the Grand Forks Herald about North Dakota’s Workforce Safety & Insurance bureau, predictably, ticked off Chad Nodland over at Bismarck Dems.

Why?  It’s hard to tell, but reading in amidst all the sarcasm, hyperbole and liberal usage of multiple exclamation marks (!!!!!) I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s angry either because a) being a lawyer he has a financial interest in seeing WSI crippled when it comes to investigating worker fraud so that he and his colleagues can reap in lots of fees (payable by the state) or b) he’s mad because the Herald dared to refer to this blog as North Dakota’s most popular.

Given this little screed at the bottom of his post I’m inclined to lean toward the latter:

I love how the Grand Forks Herald closes Port’s rant.  It closes with this:  Port runs such-and-such blog, “North Dakota’s most popular political Web log.” I love that.  It’s caused me, yesterday, to change the banner you see across the top of your screen when you’re looking at the BismarckDems.com website.  Rob has dubbed his blog the “most popular” political blog, and so now the Grand Forks Herald is parroting that without questioning it.  I’d like to know if the Herald has done a survey of North Dakota blogs to see which one is the most popular.  Hey!  Don’t get me wrong.  Rob’s blog might be it, for all I care.  But how did the Herald come to that determination?  What were the criteria?  Was it “Rob says so” so it must be true?  Was it that his blog has the most comments posted by out-of-state buddies of Rob?  Okay, fine.  I’ll admit it.  Rob’s got that goin’ on.  But was there anything else?  Did they do some polling?  No.  They published that in the newspaper because Rob says it’s true.  I say BismarckDems.com is the “most influential political blog” in North Dakota—and it is, by the way—so that must be true, too.  Right?  [Where’s that flag of sarcasm when I need it?!?]

Envy and jealousy are ugly, but a full-grown man with blog envy is just plain pathetic.

I call this blog North Dakota’s most popular because it is.  I get more visitors and more comments/submissions from readers than any other blog in the state.  When I started blogging pretty much on one else was doing it.  There was a small group of national bloggers, and no North Dakota bloggers.  No serious ones, anyway.  So when I developed an audience I laid claim to the title of “most popular,” mostly as a joke.  It was true, technically, but when your competition is mostly teenagers with MySpace pages it isn’t much to be proud of.

But whatever.  Now I lay claim to the title just because it irks Nodland so.  And that makes me feel warm and happy inside.

As for the WSI thing, you haven’t heard the last of this yet.  Whatever else people will tell you about what’s going on at WSI, remember this: From 2004 to 2006 the budget for investigating worker fraud went from $1.6 million down to $150,000.  This state is spending 1/10th of what it was on investigating worker fraud, yet the number of fraudulent workers out there hasn’t decreased by that much.  They’re just not being investigated any more, which means that eventually the bureau will be paying out millions in benefits it shouldn’t have to pay, and that expense will be passed on to every business in the state in the form of higher premiums.  Something that will, in turn, make the price of our goods and services a little bit more expensive.

And who has a vested interest in seeing that happen?  Why, unions and work comp. lawyers of course.  Lawyers like Chad Nodland.