Smoked Out - It's not

Smoked Out - It's not often that I compliment Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch. In fact, I never actually have.

But Hatch led the charge to strip the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco (MPAAT) of its funding - $202 million. MPAAT got the money as part of its' share of the spoils from Skip Humphrey's assault on "big tobacco" four years ago.

The charge continues. And if it means no more Target Market ads, then it'll be more than worth it.

Talking with the Enemy - OK, not "the enemy", per se - I like to be a bit more civil than that. But it's DFL Convention time again, and I'll be there.

No, I haven't lost my mind. Fear not. I'll be there with a group out in the lobby. And I'll be watching eagerly.

Criminy - I don't even ownany Birkenstocks...

Europe, Part IV - Another theory of the psychology behind the Euro-intelligentsia's loathing of America.

When Juergen Goes Marching Home - On the other hand, the best of Europe was in the news again, today.

One of the spookiest moments I recall after September 11 was looking up in the sky on September 13 - two days after all air traffic in the US was shut down - and seeing contrails in the sky. Curved, not straight. Two of them, in formation. Military aircraft flying Combat Air Patrol over the Twin Cities. I caught my breath - only rarely did that happen over US cities in the middle of World War II. But there they were - F-16s with air-to-air missiles, patrolling to fend off the terrorist attack on the Mall of America or the IDS tower that never came.

It was unprecendented - suddenly, the USAF had to go from its Clinton-distended peacetime footing to having to continuously patrol the skies over most of America's major cities, while simultaneously gearing up for a war in Afghanistan. It was a stretch.

So NATO sent a unit to help out - a multinational squadron with some AWACS aircraft, in the first invocation of NATO's "An attack on one is an attack on all" principle. Today it was announced they're standing down and going home.

Thanks, NATO.