What if they keep the name until next week and just forfeit Thursday’s game? Matt Sepic of MPR says: “Six Minneapolis City Council members told the NFL and the owner of the Washington, DC franchise they disapprove of the team’s name and the mascot. The letter, dated Nov. 4, comes days before the Vikings play the [team] at the Metrodome on Thursday. Council members Cam Gordon, Robert Lilligren, Lisa Goodman, Elizabeth Glidden, Gary Schiff and Betsy Hodges wrote the open letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and [team] owner Dan Snyder.” That’s showin’ ’em!

Not exactly a shocking conclusion … Catharine Richert at MPR’s PoliGraph fact-checking desk deems the GOP’s flat claim that MNsure “will cost you 22% more” … misleading: “It’s important to keep in mind that premium rates do not represent the full cost associated with insurance. Deductibles and co-pays, for instance, can also influence how much you spend on health care. … Julie Sonier, deputy director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota, said that the GOP’s cost comparison doesn’t take into account federal subsidies that will be available to many people buying on the individual market. Sonier points to an actuarial study commissioned by the state that found that 70 percent of people buying insurance on the individual market will see either no change in their premiums or lower costs as a result of those subsidies.”

Not being a math wizard, I can’t be certain, but it seems one year of 4.6 percent and another of 5.6 percent end up being “double digits.” Dave Shaffer at the Strib says: “Xcel Energy asked for its largest-ever Minnesota electric rate hike on Monday but offered ways to soften the pain, including spreading it over two years. The increase of $291 million is slightly more than what Xcel sought in its 2013 rate-hike request, which utility regulators slashed by two-thirds. This time, Xcel proposed smaller, single-digit increases over two years for its 1.2 million electric customers in Minnesota. … Xcel executives said they see a need for perhaps three additional annual rate hikes, from 2016 to 2018, but at levels below those proposed Monday. Those requests would be filed in late 2015, they said.”

Minnesota Orchestra subscriber Karen Bachman asks in a Strib commentary what musicians want, exactly? “So far we know what the musicians don’t want. For starters, they don’t want whatever the board and management are offering. They don’t want the orchestra’s financial statements. They don’t want to make a counteroffer. They don’t want the $20,000 signing bonus raised by community philanthropists. They don’t want to play in Orchestra Hall (thus the last-minute move of last Sunday’s Vocal Essence concert to Central Lutheran Church). And so I ask: What do they want?”

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The Minneapolis owner of Allen Edmonds shoes has sold the company to a California group. Stribber Neal St. Anthony says: “Los Angeles-based Brentwood Associates reportedly paid about $200 million to Goldner Hawn Johnson & Morrison for Allen Edmonds, which is based in Port Washington, a small town near Milwaukee. ‘All we need to keep going on our exciting growth trajectory is some additional capital and some best practice insights that Brentwood Associates can bring from its other consumer companies,’ said Paul Grangaard, a veteran Minneapolis businessman who has been chief executive of Allen Edmonds since 2008.”

Says Paul Douglas about today’s snow event: “[M]aybe 1-2″ for the northern suburbs, as much as 3-6″ in the central core of the metro, with some 5-8″ amounts not out of the question far southern suburbs, closer to 10″ from Redwood Falls to Le Center and Northfield with up to a foot from north of Rochester to near Eau Claire. We’ll see, but I want to stress a few variables … ground temperatures are still mild, after a few days of 40s and 50s. So snow will initially melt on contact during the late afternoon hours. Precipitation will start out as rain, and the strongest vertical velocities with this system may slide just south of MSP.”

Talk about a state icon … . Rochelle Olson of the Strib reports: “Red Wing Pottery, a storied Mississippi River institution that began selling farmers salt-glaze storage crocks in the 1860s, will either be sold or closed. Scott Gillmer, owner and grandson of former president R.A. Gillmer, said he will have to shut down at the end of the year if a buyer doesn’t emerge. Crushed by bigger retailers, Gillmer said he can no longer operate the 32,000-square-foot retail-restaurant-pottery production facility on West Main Street. The overhead has become too much for even the venerable Red Wing Pottery name.”

Salon.com runs a piece by Amanda Marcotte on young(ish) Christian conservatives trying to making … Christian conservatism cool. No. 1 on her list is a Minnesotan: “1) Bradlee Dean. In many ways, Bradlee Dean epitomizes the Christian right overreaction to the fact that young people are ignoring religious fundamentalism in growing numbers. Many Christian leaders have taken to suggesting that Christianity should be more manly and aggressive to woo the young, and Dean took this to heart, starting You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International and the Christian rock band Junkyard Prophet, both of which embrace an over-the-top Harley motorcycle-influenced aesthetic. Dean had a habit of sneaking Christian propaganda into public schools by offering programs he portrayed as merely anti-drug to school administrators but once he was in front of the students, turned into Bible-thumping. … He is prone to spinning all sorts of wild and often contradictory conspiracy theories, e.g. President Obama and Rep. Keith Ellison are part of some gay plot to take over America and a plot to impose anti-gay sharia law on the country. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there is a lot of chest-thumping.”

Lake Superior is filling back up. The Duluth News Tribune reports: “Lake Superior’s long, slow move back toward long-term average water levels continued in October, with the big lake 3 inches below its long-term average for Nov. 1. Lake Superior is 11 inches above its Nov. 1, 2012, level. The International Lake Superior Board of Control said water supply to the lake was above average for the month but that the lake dropped about 2 inches in October, a little more than the usual 1-inch drop for the month.”