Remember last fall, when during my election predictions I said that new Attorney General Lorie Swanson would be “Mini Mike”?

According to Brodkorb, it’s actually worse than that.  Hatch is staying on as an AGO “employee”.

Mr. Hatch; you were rejected at the polls, during a year in which you held every possible advantage.  Minnesotans do not want you anymore.

Leave.

I have a new parlor game.

Here’s what you do:  When reading a Strib editorial, try to guess which overwrought hamster is doing the writing.  Different editorial writers, like different species of deer, leave different clues where they’ve been grazing.  The key is to figure out which one dropped this pile…

…in this case, “supporting” the growing meme that Hussein’s execution was unjust because his trial was “unfair”.

Saddam Hussein has been executed. Friday evening, U.S. authorities transfered the fallen dictator to the custody of the Iraqi government, which then hung him. It is an ambiguous moment:

Self-righteous, morally-blind equivocating?  That smells like Boyd…

I’d urge the writer to ask the people of Dearborn, or Mosul, or the marshes of southern Iraq, exactly how “ambiguous” the trial was.

• While Saddams crimes against humanity cannot be denied, neither can his trials fundamental unfairness. Numerous international rights groups followed his journey through what passes for an Iraqi court system and found the proceedings deeply flawed. The verdict was just, but in legal affairs, how a verdict is reached matters a lot.

That’s dumb enough to be Kate Perry.

No, there’s a point hidden in there – along with a glob of reeking hypocrisy.  It is important for the Iraqis to have a valid court system to build a viable nation; it’s through such a system (and the means to enforce the laws), among other things, that Iraq will finally emerge from its current nightmare.

But the show and tell of an elaborate civil trial was more than Saddam deserved – and there is ample precedent, when dealing with tyrants, for skipping the entire charade.  Douglas MacArthur held courts-martial for Japan’s mass-murderers and war criminals – people with, individually, less blood on their hands than Saddam – and excecuted dozens, without harming Japanese society one iota.  Ditto Germany, although Nuremberg was slathered with civil-court decorations.

A military court-martial, or a summary court of Iraqis, could have tried and killed Hussein without ceremony, and the world – and Iraq – would have been better off for it.  And Iraq’s justice system would have suffered not one jot.

Its the difference between an assassination of a thug and the execution of a war criminal.

When Ed showed me the footage of the blow-dried anchorbot in Orlando calling the execution an “assassination” over the weekend, I thought it was an isolated instance of a dolt in a $1000 suit transposing words under the heat of the set lights.

But I’m wondering if this isnt’ the latest shrieking point issues from loony-left central – that we’re agents of tyranny, ourselves, because Hussein – a mass-murderer – didn’t have the same chance to get off on a technicality or perversion of justice that OJ Simpson did.

To that end, there are longstanding international norms for how charges of crimes against humanity are to be prosecuted.

[Crushing ignorance of history?  Could be Nick Coleman]

Yes, there are;  military tribunals and quick executions.

To claim otherwise is…

…well, the province of Strib editorial writers.

Saddams trial did not meet those norms. Amnesty Internationals Malcolm Smart had it about right

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

And while the Strib didnt’ see fit to mention it to their readers (a Jim Boyd hallmark), Amnesty International tends to oppose capital punishment first, and worry about petty moral issues like guilt later.

Amnesty came down on the side of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a killer for whom there is really no defense.

I frequently say “I don’t believe in Karma, but I think what goes around comes around”.

In a similar vein, I don’t really believe in New Years’ Resolutions – but I have a bunch of goals for the next year that I really want to hit.

Let’s start at the top:

1. I’m in vastly better shape than I was a year ago. Now is no time to backslide; joining the “Y” (for the kids and I) in about two weeks.
2. In a similar vein, now that I’m working in downtown, I will be well able to bike to work when the weather improves, especially in the summer (when I don’t have to drive kids to school and I can get as early a start as I want). That’s the goal for the summer; bike it to work every day weather permits.
3. My daughter has had a blinding flash of epiphany re school in this past three months. Need to facilitate my son’s having the same thing.
4. My house is the next priority. Going to improve the overall level of housekeeping quite a bit. Even if I have to pay for the help.
5. Also re the house – I’m going to build that patio I’ve been yammering about for the past two years.
6. In many ways, the job I have now is the one I’ve been hoping to find ever since I left StorageTek in 2000; I am, at least nominally, in a leadership position. I’m going to make the most of that in the coming year.
7. The blog – there are a number of things I’ve been dying to do with this blog as it approaches its fifth anniversary, in about a month. More later.
8. Also – after nine months of thinking about it, I’m going to try to get my podcast site finally up and on the air in the coming weeks. There’s a technical issue I have to work out – but it’s finally doable.
9. As re the NARN – well, the status quo isn’t half bad. We’re starting to see how well the show’s actually been doing; continuing to clobber the competition in head-to-head radio combat. Next year will bring even more fun stuff.

Anyway, I’d like to thank all of you readers and commenters. Your feedback and support have been one of the highlights of recent years for me. As to the criticism – well, it’s given me people to laugh at, which is also valuable.

Hope you and yours have a great 2007!

It was Thursday, January 1, 1987.  I’d worked probably twenty hours in the past two days, plus probably at least as much over the Christmas break.  It was going to be a great paycheck.

And I’d gotten a call back from a bar, McCready’s Pub in downtown Minneapolis.  They wanted to book us for January 16.  I’d accepted the gig.

The year was getting off to a grand start.

So sue me; I had a decent year. Not spectacular, of course – many things could have been better. Other people may disagree, and for good reason – but if I may borrow a line from Al Franken and Tom Davis (remember him?), let’s talk about the state of Mitch Berg.

Call it “the year of the hidden blessings”, if you’d like. My kids both had lousy experiences at school – but they led us to better places for both of them. My job for the first nine months of the year went from being a career-building break to “bandmember on the Titanic” when my project wound up on the endangered list; the job to which I jumped went sour (as consulting engagements sometimes do) after six manic weeks; but in the scramble to land on my feet once again, I landed a really good – and full-time permanent! – gig that I think I’m going to like for a long, long time (knock wood). My personal life had its ups and downs – but it as mostly ups, and I learned some important things.

The blog? Well, traffic has held steady (don’t mind my Sitemeter counter – I need to update some things) after the election, which isn’t bad at all. The NARN expanded from one to three shows, and from three to six hours, and continues to beat KTLK-FM in our various time slots like a prison shower-room smackdown; in the all-important Saturday Sweepstakes, we reign supreme against our well-heeled challengers. Note to Doug Westerman, KTLK majordomo; give us a holler when you wanna bring your “A” game to the weekends.

As to the coming year – well, we’ll touch on that tomorrow.

I have three questions:

First:  I’ve been working for two months now trying to get my old MT archives to move to WP, and being stymied at every point.  Would someone be able to help me with this?

Second:  The search engine on my WP blog throws an error when I try to run it.  It looks to some sort of permissions error, like I need to change some setting in some config file somewhere.  Anyone know where I can start with it?

Third: Well, that one I’ll keep offline.  It’s a security thing.  More on that later.

Leave me a comment, and thanks in advance.

After a week of mad polling, dirty tricks, and emotional appeals, the two great titans of Lenfestation Abatement – Learned Foot and Dan “Northern Alliance Wannabe” Stover – fought to a tie!

Stover made up a five-vote last-day deficit to end up at (or immediately after) midnight with a 43-43 tie with Foot (another vote or two came in after my arbitrary deadline).

Rumors that this has anything to do with my New Years’ Eve poker debacle at Foot’s place are both in utter error and poetically symmetrical.

Anyway, congrats to Foot and Dan – and to all the entrants who made this such a fun contest! Because at the end of the day, when the measuring tapes and checkered flags and lard are packed away for next year, what really counts are the big things; skewering the writing of Susan Lenfestey.

Thanks! Until next year!

(And I’m sure there’ll be a next year. There’s always material).

Read all the entries!

UPDATE: Dan Stover.  My bad.  Changed above.