Well, another hiatus

Once again, I've had some posting problems. One set due to being out of town on a short but fun visit to the Windy City, and the other problem being a change to Blogger that broke my (up to now) trusty Mozilla browser. Now armed with a newer version 1.7, it's time to give it another try.
I do want to offer congrats to Governor Pawlenty for taking the Star Tribune to task about their recent editorial criticising him for visting our National Guardsman in Kosovo. My favorite part:

Half a world away, in a country few Americans can find on a globe, more than 800 Minnesota citizen soldiers are hard at work. They're keeping the peace in a country that has been torn by war, dictatorship and genocide.

These men and woman keeping the peace are not full-time soldiers -- they're volunteers in the Minnesota National Guard. And they're the bulk of the U.S. peacekeeping force that stands between the people of Kosovo and violence.

The First Lady and I are going to Kosovo to thank these brave, selfless men and women and the families they leave at home. The public is understandably focused on places like Iraq and Afghanistan. We should not forget, however, the tremendous service that members of our military provide in other places such as Kosovo.

That's why it was so disheartening to read the Star Tribune editorial that criticized our trip to Kosovo this weekend. I normally don't bother to respond to the criticism I receive from the Star Tribune editorial writers. Their perspective is hopelessly imbalanced, increasingly shrill and often just simply inaccurate or incomplete.

They have an angry and dismissive attitude toward conservatives or Republicans -- unless, of course, the Republicans are the sort who are nearly indistinguishable in their views from Democrats.

Although I agree with the governor's assessment of the lack of quality of the editorial writers work, important part is where he reminds the Strib about priorities:

The trip to Kosovo requires that I be gone one business day. I left Thursday evening and return this evening. To criticize being gone one business day to thank our troops when nothing has happened at the Legislature for months is ridiculous and represents a new low even for the editorial writers of this newspaper.
...(paragraph about Minnesota domestic stuff snipped)
One thing is for sure -- I won't be letting the men and women of the Minnesota National Guard and their important mission in Kosovo take a back seat to partisan theater at the State Capitol. I would also hope that, when it comes to supporting and thanking our troops, the Star Tribune editorial writers would at least pretend to be fair for one day.

Well said, Governor.