You’re expecting something snarky and sarcastic. But it’s time for a new year of positive blogs. At least one. As the Vikings head into their first playoff game since 1865, one which they are having trouble selling tickets for, can we sit back for a moment and appreciate Zygmunt and Mark Wilf, the team’s New Jersey-based owners?

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This is the season of Year in Review preoccupation in the local and national media. Those interminable stories reminding us of everything that happened throughout the last year on the premise that we weren't paying attention most of the time but for some reason we are in the last two weeks of December. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?

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Is Minnesota Public Radio now public enemy number one for transit advocates? 

Will MPR have the wherewithal to derail Central Corridor LRT by at least a year and add tens of millions of dollars to its cost because it believes the proximity of the trains to its studios and downtown historic churches is undesirable? No, says the Met Council, which yesterday rejected high-profile MPR pressure tactics to take planned trains off Cedar Street, where they will run within twelve feet of MPR's campus.

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I voted for Supreme Court Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea last month. She seemed to be running against a bit of a wacko, and I'm a sucker for those reassuring Scandinavian middle/maiden names. I mean, she's one of us. She'll do the reasonable thing. 

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One evening last week, WCCO Radio's Don Shelby was doing his 5:30 p.m. chat-up with 'CCO-TV's Frank Vascellaro, promoting that evening's 6 p.m. TV newscast. They were clucking over the Blagojevich mess. Frank apparently used to work in Illinois, or implied as much, and they went into a routine about how you needed to have the fix in at City Hall to get your garbage picked up or something to that effect. Much chuckling ensued, followed by a hardy round of self-congratulation over how wonderful it is to live in a state where you can get your gas turned on without paying a bribe. Wonderful, love it here, so grateful . . . you betcha, Don.

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Can someone explain to me what it takes in this state to get the governor to raise additional revenue? We are facing a $5+ billion dollar biennial budget shortfall, the worst since the Depression I am sure, and the first thing out of Governor No's mouth is "not raising taxes." And for some puzzling reason, the DFL leadership in the legislature (a couple votes shy of a majority that could override him with impunity) seems to be in concurrence.

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Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, but last week's state Canvassing Board meeting that turned down Al Franken's request to allow counting of improperly rejected absentee ballots fell totally along party lines. Yes, the vote was 5-0, but the two Pawlenty-appointed Supreme Court justices were hard line "no" votes while the elected Ramsey County jurist and Ventura-appointed district judge felt there needed to be a solution that included those ballots (they also weren't sure the Canvassing Board had authority in the matter). 

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