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Items by Mitch Berg

  • Some Jokes Write Themselves

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 2
    Like this one, ripped from the headlines: Prostitutes Offer Free Climate Summit Sex But just because the joke writes itself doesn’t mean we can’t, too. Have at it, readers!  The comment section is open for your versions of the story – and like those Danish doxies’ ministrations, it’s absolutely free, although that offered [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2009, 12:14pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Ridiculous To The Sublime

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 2
     Two reviews of Sarah Palin’s book – sort of. On the one hand, we have local leftyblogger “Penigma” from, well, Penigma.  You’ll recognize him from this blog’s comment section; after years of telling him to “start his own blog”, he went and did it a while ago.  And while this may [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2009, 12:10pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Unintended Consequences, Predictable Reactions

    —Shot in the Dark

    One of the basic rules one must always follow when dealing with government is this: anything government does, for whatever reason, will have unintended consequences.  These consequences will pretty much always be as bad as or worse than whatever problem the original action was supposed to rectify. When Minnesota legalized “charter [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2009, 11:05am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • De Godenfar: The Norwegian Mob In America, Part II

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 1
    Andy DeLigio, ace investigative reporter, has gone farther inside the Norwegian Mob than anyone who’s lived to tell the tale. Let’s pick up with part one of the story. Inside The Norwegian Mob Andy DiLigio “Your people are  from what part of Norway, then?” Jeff Hartelowen looks at me with a focused but blank concentration [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2009, 11:00am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Dear Mayor Daley

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 3
    To: Richard Daley, Mayor, Chicago From: Mitch Berg, occasional visitor. Re: Hahahaha Dear Mayor Daley, As you and your minions dig in to fight against the rule of law in the McDonald case (scheduled to go before the Supreme Court on March 2), just thought you’d like to check out a little bit of [...]
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    Posted: December 04, 2009, 7:43am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Boxer: “Kill The Messenger!”

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    So what we have here are “Scientists”, caught red-handed trying to doctor data, jiggle the “Peer Review” process and defame rather than scientifically refute their critics, in a scam whose goal was to secure their funding and, by the way, bring epic and unprecedented political power to their (inevitably liberal) [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 12:10pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Democrats: Criminalizing Dissent

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 8
    Democrats Diane Feinstein and Dick “Turban” Durbin – who have long been the Dems’ official trial-balloon-floaters for assaults on free speech like the “Fairness Doctrine” – are proposing an amendment to a Senate bill (S.448) clarifying the press shield law. And it’s aimed squarely at citizen journalists like you and I.  [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 12:07pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • De Godenfar: The Norwegian Mob In America, Part I

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Everyone’s heard of “The Mob”.  The “Cosa Nostra”.  The “Mafia”.  The Italian organized crime syndicate, ostensibly established on the principles of Omerta, the fabled, iron-clad code of silence, is ironically the most famous, best-publicized organized crime syndicate in the world.  The “secret brotherhood” of the Mob has been the subject [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 12:00pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Police Naw Give You No Break

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 4
    I was pulling out of the Rainbow parking lot on Universityi around 6:30 last night, and noticed a small clutch of Saint Paul cops pulled up at the corner of Pascal and University. “Nothing new there”, I thought.  It’s not uncommon to see the cops pulling over drunk drivers, thieves, footpads [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 7:25am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Q: What Does A Stealth Liberal Need, To Succeed?

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    A:  A conservative lead-in. Anderson Cooper – famous for impeccable silver-gray executive hair and his ability to throw politically-correct tirades on cue, and who is most famous for chuckling “it’s hard to talk when you’re tea-bagging” about a story about the Tea Parties – is getting clobbered in the ratings (empasis [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 6:22am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Obama’s D-Day Speech to The Troops

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 2
     This just in from an alternate universe in which Barack Obama was President of the United States on June 6, 1944; this is his proclamation announcing the invasion continued surveillance and aggressive patrolling actions in Normandy. Soldiers, Sailors and Airpeople of the Allied Relief Force! You are about to embark upon the Great [...]
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    Posted: December 03, 2009, 5:00am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • First Sign Of Hope

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 3
    I’ve long felt that the MNGOP’s best shot at a pickup in 2010 will be in the First Congressional District (CD), where DFLer Tim Walz beat incumbent moderate Gil Gutknecht in 2006.  Walz was a middling-to-weak candidate, but a likeable enough guy who ran far enough to the center to [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 12:16pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • No Decision

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    In the book and miniseries Band of Brothers, “Easy ” Company (E Company/506th Airborne Infantry Regiment) is led through Normandy and Operation Market-Garden (the invasion of the Netherlands) by Dick Winters – the protagonist and real-life hero of the story.   After Market-Garden, Winters is promoted to battalion executive officer; he’s [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 12:05pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • All In The Numbers

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    The Associated Press h compares Iraq, before and after the war, with perhaps some surprising results: U.S. TROOP LEVELS: _October 2007: 170,000 at peak of troop buildup. _Nov. 30, 2009: 115,000. CASUALTIES: _Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of Dec. 1, 2009: at least 4,366. _Confirmed U.S. military wounded (hostile) as of Nov. 30, 2009: 31,572. _Confirmed U.S. [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 7:29am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Half-Measures

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 2
    It’s one of the paradoxes of military history; often the more aggressively one attacks one’s enemy initially, the less it costs in time and blood subdue your enemy.  Had we decided on an Obamaesque “small footprint” strategy, say, in Europe in 1942, World War II would still be dragging on [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 6:08am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • The Freudian Tingle

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 4
    Chris Matthews: West Point is “the enemy camp? Wow.  Paranoid much, Mr. Tingly? [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 5:40am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Patience Is A Virtue

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 3
    Our world today is just too hectic. Too pell-mell. People never stop and smell the roses. Add to that the ethical and spiritual degradation that comes from expecting immediate gratification for your desires – which is one of the great spiritual cancers of our time. So when people tell me Shot In [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 4:42pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • New War President? Meet Old Fraud Filmmaker!

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Michael Moore descends into madness in this open letter to the President re his Afganistan speech tonight: Dear President Obama, Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you go to West Point [at 8PM this evening] and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 12:54pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • The Dog Ate Their Homework

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 6
    Professors, ironically, claim that all their notes on man-made global warming got lost when their moms inadvertenty tossed ‘em.  Really: The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss [of, like, all the raw data "supporting" their "thesis"] following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation. The data [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 12:00pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • You Only Hurt The Ones That Adore You Ceaselessly

    —Shot in the Dark

    After promising the most open, accessible Administration ever, Obama is strictly cutting his media face time: The president, whose job-approval ratings have been on a steady slide, hasn’t held a formal news conference in 19 weeks, since July 22. That one ended badly, when Mr. Obama waded into a racial controversy [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 11:05am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Eighty Is The New Forty

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 1
    Today is the eightieth birthday of “Billy” Waugh. “Who?” Billy Waugh, born today in 1929 in Texas, tried to run away to enlist in the Marines in World War 2 at age 15.  He failed – but came back when he was of age (after going back to school and earning straight A’s [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 5:19am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • For Heaven’s Sake, Mayor Daley…

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 2
    …after nine people are killed in your cesspool of a city over the Thanksgiving weekend, for the love of all that is Holy, by all means make sure you keep guns out of the hands of the law-abiding!  Because heaven only knows what’d happen if the scum that pervade Chicago (I’m [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 5:00am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Sisu

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Fans of underdogs should observe today as an international holiday. It’s the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Winter War.  It was 70 years ago today that Stalin’s Red Army invaded sprawling, cold, thinly-populated Finland.  His army of well over 200,000 troops, with hundreds of tanks and hundreds more artillery [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 12:00pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Note To Local Leftybloggers

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    I realize you get that sense of edgy rebellion by calling our governor “Timmy”.  And ordinarily I’d not be the one to rain on your parade, however pathetic “your parade” would seem to be. However, he was elected by a plurality of your neighbors – twice.  So it’s actually “Governor Pawlenty” to [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 7:43am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Now, This Would Spike The Ball

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 3
    I think it’s unlikely, but far from impossible, that the GOP will take the US House back in 2010; beyond the historical tradition of the president losing seats at midterm, I think that there’s a lot of generalized dissatisfaction with the Administration out there.  It’s easy and tempting to fall [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 7:13am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Indefinite Detention

    —Shot in the Dark

    Last week, I wrote about the U of M Department of Education’s plan to screen Education majors – aka “future teachers” – for political purity. I was going to write a detailed fisking last week, but as expected, FIRE – America’s foremost academic freedom group – beat me to it. I’m excerpting [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 7:00am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • It’s All Coming Back To Me Now

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 7
    Y’know, I have to confess – two weeks ago, when I ribbed the local “Minnesota Netroots Conference” – the last thing I’d have expected was that any of them would actually be reading me.  Partly because, I’ll be honest, my readership among local leftyboggers is pretty darn minimal, and partly [...]
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    Posted: November 30, 2009, 6:59am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Radio Dazed

    —Shot in the Dark

    By the way – posting’s been zephyr-light over this holiday weekend (although I see Roosh and Doug have contributed – bully, lads!), and I’ll confess I needed a bit of a break. And the show’s off today, too – we’re taking our traditional Thanksgiving day off.  I hope you’re enjoying the [...]
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    Posted: November 28, 2009, 11:58am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Radio Silence

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 2
    The Northern Alliance Radio Network – King, John, Brian, Ed and I – are all taking the day off today to observe the Thanksgiving holiday. Tune in to a “Best Of” broadcast, and join us next weekend! [...]
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    Posted: November 28, 2009, 7:55am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Brain Candy

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 1
    I tried this online game thingie – ten minutes to remember every country in Asia and the Middle East.  I got 46 out of 48, officially – although one of the ones I “missed” I knew, but spelled wrong. [...]
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    Posted: November 27, 2009, 7:24am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Like New Years

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 1
    Every year, I try to think if I can write a better Thanksgiving piece than I wrote seven years ago, for this blog’s first Thanksgiving. Nope.  I still got nothin’. Happy Thanksgiving, all! [...]
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    Posted: November 26, 2009, 6:09pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Happy Thanksgiving

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 1
    Ronald Reagan’1985 message to America: [...]
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    Posted: November 26, 2009, 5:05am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • SITD Redux: How To Save Public Schools

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 5
    This is a piece I originally published in April of 2005.  Some minor updates and copy-edits have been added. ———- When I hear blowhards like Nick Coleman ranting about how Republicans want to “abolish the public school system”, I get a chuckle. I grew up in the public schools – Dad was [...]
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    Posted: November 25, 2009, 12:00pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Twin Cities Leftybloggers: Verdict – Guilty! Sentence – Ridicule!

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Here’s one for the Hall of Shame. A few months ago, US Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead.  The death was suspicious – he was found hanging, with anti-government graffiti scrawled on his chest. This happened not long after Rep. Michele Bachmann spoke about her ambivalence about cooperating with a census [...]
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    Posted: November 25, 2009, 11:00am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • It Just Occurred To Me

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    I ask people on the left, constantly, “so what, precisely, is the problem you have with Katherine Kersten – besides the fact that she’s a conservative?” The closest thing I’ve seen to an answer that wasn’t solely fueled by politics was “she was never a reporter; she’s nothing but a think [...]
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    Posted: November 25, 2009, 7:55am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • The Schizo Pages

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 8
    Getting a job at the City Pages is apparently like getting a “diary” on Minnesota “Progressive” Project. Otherwise, how would “Hart Van Denburg” have gotten to get this bit here published? Last week, MinnPost gave controversial conservative scribe Katherine Kersten a free megaphone for her oft-repeated views on everything from gay marriage [...]
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    Posted: November 25, 2009, 7:36am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Their Master’s Voice

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Robin “Rew” Marty is leaving the Center for “Independent” Media – the “non-profit” that controls and bankrolls a whole slew of “independent” political propaganda sites like the Minnesoros “Independent“: Over my years with the CIM my job became more and more operational based, and now that they are larger, they have [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 12:00pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Tyranny For Ye, But Not For We

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    The word “hypocrite” gets tossed around with excessive abandon in grassroots political arguments; leftybloggers throw it about like monkeys flinging poo over every perceived inconsistency or imperfection they can dredge up. “Hypocricy” is when someone completely contradicts a moral, ethical, philosophical or other stance. Like, say, when a Legislative body tries to [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 8:07am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Aim

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Since the Civil Rights movement’s epic victory in the Heller case two years ago, the eyes of civil-rights-loving Americans of all parties have been trained on Chicago. The City of Chicago, and many of its suburbs, have gun control laws scarcely less onerous than those in North Korea – while the [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 6:00am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Going Un-Framed?

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Via Andrew Malcolm; Sarah Palin’s numbers are rising as fast as The One’s are dropping: Not that it matters politically because obviously she’s a female Republican dunce and he’s a male Democrat genius. But Sarah Palin’s poll numbers are strengthening. And Barack Obama’s are sliding. Guess what? They’re about to meet in the 40’s. A very [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:15pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Why, It’s Almost Like He’s Crazy Or Something

    —Shot in the Dark

    Hugo Chavez doesn’t think Idi Amin was all that bad: “We thought he was a cannibal,” the Venezuelan leader said, referring to Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. “I have doubts. … I don’t know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot.” Most [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:03pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Dear “Youtube Star”

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 5
    To:  Would-be YouTube “Stars” From: Mitch Berg Re:  Your Activities To whom it may concern: You know who you are.  You make videos of yourselves sitting on the toilet chanting “I’m Sittin’ On Da Toilet”.  You have your roommates post videos of you, slobbering drunk, chanting “Hhhope ‘enn chanzhe” over and over. You scream [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:00pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • You Are Guilty Of Thought Crime; Go To Mental Detention

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Need any more reason to get your kids the hell out of the public school system? “America Last” is going to be a matter of academic doctrine – at least, at the U of M. Katherine Kersten – the single best columnist working in the Twin Cities today -  takes it down: Do you believe in [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 7:10am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Now The Strib Is A Giant Of Free Enterprise!

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 5
    In the nearly eight years this blog has been a going concern, I’ve spent countless posts bagging on the Minneapolis Star/Tribune – usually for the relentlessly left-of-center orientation of the editorial board and columnists, although occasionally for really really bad reporting.  I’ve also noted, of course, that whatever their faults, [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 5:24am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • I Can Learn

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 4
    For all these years, I thought that being “African-American” was a combination of African-descended ethnicity and, at some level, some stake in the cultural history involving slavery, reconstruction and the battle for civil rights. Silly me. It’s all about supporting Obama, no matter what: The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday night criticized Rep. [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 5:00am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Happy Birthday, Miami Steve

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    It’s Steve Van Zandt’s 59th birthday today. So which Steve Van Zandt do you like best? The guitar player? As “Miami Steve”, Van Zandt has served for a couple of decades, with a break from 1984 through the mid-nineties, as Bruce Springsteen’s onstage foil – sort of the quiet anti-Clarence-Clemons of the band.  [...]
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    Posted: November 22, 2009, 7:00pm EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • There Was Someone On The Radio Saying “Come On, Come On!”

    —Shot in the Dark

    Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 9AM-3PM. The King Banaian Show – On AM1570, “The Businessman”, from 9-11.  King’s broadcasting from Saint Cloud, at long long last. Volume I “The First Team” -  Brian and John or some combination thereof kick off from 11-1. Volume [...]
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    Posted: November 21, 2009, 9:09am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Bad, Bad Jeff.

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 10
    Before I get started, let me just start by saying how very, very much I hate Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent. Part of it is the gay thing, sure.  But for the most part, it’s because like most sentient people I hate liberals; their attitudes, their smug self-centered perspective on [...]
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    Posted: November 20, 2009, 8:00am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • Good, Good Jeff

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 7
    I had two very different things to say about this particular Jeff Fecke post. In their own way, they rated two separate posts: That out of the way, it’s time for me to defend Carrie Prejean. As you may have heard, former Miss California USA-slash-anti-gay activist Carrie Prejean “Anti-gay activist”? Well, no.  She’s a [...]
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    Posted: November 20, 2009, 7:59am EST
    by Mitch Berg

  • When In Downtown Saint Paul Today…

    —Shot in the Dark

    Number of comments: 8
    …and you’re wondering why there are forty nebbishy white guys with professor glasses and Elvis Costello hair cuts in front of you at Subway asking if there’s arugula and if the salami is free-range, and if the line at Caribou is paralyzed by perpetually outraged-looking women who look and sound [...]
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    Posted: November 20, 2009, 5:35am EST
    by Mitch Berg

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