It's all in how you spin it.

Here are the first parts of two press releases that landed in my inbox within 15 minutes of each other this morning.

ST. PAUL - Recognizing the significant potential for medical and scientific breakthroughs, the House of Representatives today passed legislation authorizing the University of Minnesota to perform stem cell research. The bill lays the scientific and medical basis for stem cell research and defines what can be studied, including embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL - Minneapolis), the chief author of the bill, said the bill enables Minnesota to join other states on the cutting edge of medical and scientific research.
"Stem cell research offers immense potential to fight and cure pervasive and chronic diseases," said Kahn. "Minnesota has historically been a haven for biomedical and scientific innovation and we should join other states in the effort to realize the curative promise that stem cell research can offer to hundreds of millions of suffering Americans."

And:

ST. PAUL - In a heartless act of disregard for the earliest stages of human life, the Minnesota House of Representatives today voted 71-62 in favor of human cloning and embryo-killing experiments. The vote approved the deadly Kahn Cloning Bill, S.F. 100, which legalizes human cloning and forces taxpayers to pay for the destruction of human life on a scale never before seen in Minnesota.
"House members today had a chance to do the right thing and protect vulnerable human life, but instead they chose to treat human life as mere raw material for experimentation," said Andrea Rau, MCCL legislative associate. "It is a dark day for citizens to see their taxes being spent on such unjust treatment of human life."
House members approved the deadly bill authored by Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, which allows taxpayer funding for the destruction of human embryos for experiments and also the wanton creation and destruction of human life through cloning at the University of Minnesota.

I love politics.

The lovely Cary at List of the Day gave me a reciprocal link. Now I'm feeling the pressure to write something entertaining, because some of Cary's vast network of readers might actually be clicking over to me. And man, are they ever going to be disappointed.

So here's a question in honor of Mother's Day. Feel free to answer it in the comments.

What have you done in your life that you hope your mother never finds out about?

Here is everything you ever wanted to know about me. If you did. And I'm not saying you do. (I wrote it at the request of my new editor. Fortunately, he found it amusing and I'm still employed.)

Betsy Sundquist is a new reporter for the Capitol Report/St. Paul Legal Ledger. She has held every conceivable job in journalism in the upper Midwest over the last 20 years, most recently as a Web and copy editor for the unbearably exciting Industrial Fabrics Association International in Roseville, Minnesota. She did such a sterling job there that the company eliminated the position in April.

Betsy is a fifth-generation Kansan whose geologist father dragged his family to the ends of the earth, or at least the ends of the country. She grew up (more or less) in Kansas, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and North Dakota, where she graduated from high school in Bismarck and began working for the daily Bismarck Tribune at 16. She attended Moorhead (Minn.) State University and worked during college at The Forum in Fargo, then later as entertainment editor at the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader.

She took a journalism hiatus to work as an aide in Washington to U.S. Sen. Jim Abdnor of South Dakota, then returned to The Forum when Abdnor wasn’t re-elected, vowing never again to allow her job to depend on the whims of voters. Since moving to the Twin Cities, she’s worked as a process server, an online pop-culture columnist, a desktop publisher, a communications aide for the House Republican caucus (so much for that “whim of the voters” vow) and a test proctor. She is married to Kip Sundquist, an Oracle systems analyst for Mortenson Construction, and they have a brilliant 7-year-old son, Andrew, and a charming 10-year-old Akita, Otis. They live in Burnsville.

Betsy reads voraciously and sells used books online (which is the reason for the 7,500-plus books on shelves in her garage). She loves rummage sales, concerts, the Renaissance Festival and the Minnesota State Fair, and couldn’t live without satellite radio, Starbucks iced tea and her personally autographed photo of Bobby Sherman. And she wins a lot of radio station contests, mostly for ridiculously large barbecue grills.

As I was leaving the state Capitol this morning, having covered a riveting briefing on an economic competitiveness report (my first story for the St. Paul Legal Ledger), someone was inflating a very large, parade-float-sized yellow rubber duck on the lawn in front of the building.

I'm trying to figure out if this was some kind of sign from above. Am I being told to take a bath? Go duck hunting? Just plain duck?

It's a mystery.