City Pages has published their annual “Best of the Twin Cities” article (find it online here). As always, it’s kind of a fun read even if there is the fair share of things to disagree with. Let me give a quick run-through of some of the more interesting/surprising entries.

First they choose to take a quick jab at Pawlenty:

BEST BROKEN PROMISE
Tim Pawlenty’s opposition to gambling
Pawlenty campaigned for governor as an opponent of expanding gambling in Minnesota. (He also opposed public subsidies for stadiums, but we’re limited to one broken promise at a time.) Two years ago, he was one of the many hand-wringers who took a pious stance against the rise of casinos being used to create state revenue, saying it was “not a function of government,” and that gambling “destroys lots of people’s lives.” It wasn’t a promise per se, but he sure made it sound like a deeply held principle in his political philosophy. Now, thanks to holding hard to a no-new-taxes pledge that has shone some national attention on him, but has made balancing the budget increasingly untenable, the governor is spinning the roulette wheel of major casino proposals while saying it’s time for the Indian casinos to share the wealth. This can’t really be a good development in the overall picture, no matter what happens. But forgive us while we get to say this: He’s waffling! He’s waffling! And, forgive us while we gleefully watch the many Pawlenty-ites in his own party–especially the holier-than-thou Evangelicals–decry their leader’s political tap dance.

Then they move on to bashing Senator Dayton:

BEST CAREER MOVE
Mark Dayton decides not to run for reelection
We were not looking forward to the gruesome spectacle: 18 months of Republicans giddily attacking Minnesota’s lucidity-challenged, terrorist-fearing senior senator. Seldom, if ever, in our memory has an incumbent politician (with no recent history of pedophilia or crack usage) looked so vulnerable. Pitiful might be a more appropriate word. The candidate’s prospects seemed so grim that we were briefly excited by the possibility that a retread loser like former Congressman Bill Luther might challenge Dayton in the Democratic primary. His announcement in February that he would not run for a second term was roughly akin to the Vikings declaring at the start of the football season that they’ve decided not to contest this year’s Super Bowl. Now if only Norm Coleman would follow suit.

A couple of other things worth mentioning:

• State Senator Linda Berglin (DFL-Minneapolis) gets a nod for best politician
• Karen Anderson of Minnetonka snags Best Mayor
• GOP secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer gets “Best villain” with the reader’s choice going to Pawlenty
• John Hindraker of PowerLine gets “Best Meltdown” for his response to a local blog’s critique of the White House letting Jeff Gannon into press conferences. This is such a jewel let’s revisit: Hindraker says,”You dumb shit, he didn’t get access using a fake name, he used his real name. You lefties’ concern for White House security is really touching, but you know what, you stupid asshole, I think the Secret Service has it covered. Go crawl back into your hole, you stupid left-wing shithead. And don’t bother us anymore. You have to have an IQ over 50 to correspond with us. You don’t qualify, you stupid shit.” HA, what a dick.
• Dayton, in a counterpoint to the above award, gets “Best Victim” as well (read it).

Overall it’s an entertaining read. I strongly recommend giving it a quick thumb through, if for no other reason than to laugh at the PowerLine boys one more time.

This show on MSNBC is so stupid. Wow, has TV really become this insipid? The graphics, the music, the commentary, it’s all crap and no substance. I feel really stupid for having not turned the TV off directly after the President’s press conference and stopped myself from being exposed to this junk!

For those of you salivating over the next generation of videogame consoles (I know I am), IGN has a nice round-up article for the xBox 2 (or xBox 360, or Xenon, or whatever they’re going to call it). It’s only a couple of weeks until the thing is revealed so even if the rumors are wrong, we’ll know soon enough. Now the real question is, what in the heck is Nintendo so secretive about with their new system, “revolution”? (and yes, I know punctuation goes inside of quotation marks, but the name of the system isn’t “revolution?” now is it)

I thought that this is kind of a useful feature on other blogs so I’m going to try it out here. There are only two problems I have with it: 1) It makes it a little more cluttered at the bottom of the posting, and 2) The lack of actual “trackbacks” is potentially embarrassing! Let me know what you think.

I was watching the Fox News Magazine (I’m not sure if that’s the exact name of it but it’s where they show quick clips of all the pundits’ segments) round up tonight and this stuff is hilarious. It’s really to the point where it doesn’t even make me upset or angry because it is so absurd. Tonight they had O’Reilly talking about how the ACLU making America look bad in the eyes of the church and that he prays the church sees past such liberal extremism (maybe he should pray first that they overlook his sexual advances on coworkers). Then we had some guy talking about how if people are going to disagree with the President then they shouldn’t be allowed to talk to him! (Thus justifying the policies at his notorious town meetings). I really hope they keep nailing this stuff home because they are close to depriving Fox News of the last ounce of integrity it has left. Hilarious!