On the Eve of Thanksgiving, Ed of The Ed Show broadcast from the Twin Cities and focused on our own Michele Bachmann.

This is your time to start focusing your activity and shaping the party that you belong to. Enter resolutions, discuss them, vote on them, volunteer. Get excited about getting active. Meet people who share at least some of your goals. Be cynical but friendly.

Organizations whose goal is profit make decisions through a far different process than entities that don’t, and it is best that way. As a property-tax payer, I can go to an opening meeting of the local city council and voice my opinion. Even if I weren’t a property-tax payer, I could do so, because budget meetings for the government entities are open-door proceedings and have time allotted for public comment. I couldn’t do that at a Medtronics board meeting. I have no influence over the way that Medtronics sets its budget or conducts its business, even if the decisions that they make effect me in some ways.

OK, have you stopped laughing? Have you stopped screaming? Have you cleared the tears from your eyes? Yes, it is true. This video scared the authorities into spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to carry out dozens of blatantly unconstitutional acts and hundreds of inappropriate activities. Thousands of law enforcement officials were involved. A pogrom was carried out. The Mayor of Saint Paul and the Chief of Police saw this video, shat in their pants, and the smell is still ripe.

I’m tired of having to shoot people I’m trying to help.

The teabaggers and birthers and town-hall busters are all, in truth, in the category that the press should report about but not in concert with. So, I’m waiting for the secretly taken videos to leak out onto YouTube. When the madmen are speaking freely among themselves, they will say things that will realign the way they are regarded, even by conservative press.

… So, last night, when Ben and Stephanie and I got to Azia and were expecting Ana, but she was running late, I suggested that we order Ana’s favorite dish and wine. This way Ana would be taken care of when she arrived, and we would not have to mess around. I am so incredibly thoughtful that I can’t even believe it sometimes.

It turns out that Azia no longer serves this dish, but that did not matter. Our waiter, who was excellent, simply arranged for the dish to be made, and for a proper wine to be uncorked. The dish was significantly larger than I remembered it, several feet in diameter and teeming with what looked like the day’s catch from a medium-sized trawler (but with no turtles). We were about halfway through when Ana arrived, and I know she appreciated the fact that we had arranged the dinner in her honor, even if we had already eaten most of it….

National politics edition: U.S. economy looks more like an emerging market than an established one after undue political influence from finance, Obama administration is attempting an end run around Congress on bailout rules and reporting, documenting the administration’s ties to finance,Nassim Taleb predicted the collapse and explains what needs to happen next, the possible return of Eliot Spitzer, Spector no longer supports a vote on EFCA, war demands sacrifices from dogs too, state legislatures focusing on voter “fraud” instead of real issues, Congress may fillibuster Justice nominee to protect Bush administration, and being denied health insurance for needing it.

We needed to talk, to spend some time alone and in a fairly quiet, undisturbed location so we could discuss a mutual friend who had gotten into some very serious trouble. We needed to find out where we each were on the issue, about our respective mutual states; we needed to compare notes and remember details covering several years of time; we needed to talk about what had to happen next. And given our schedules, we needed to eat. Which is fortunate, because it was time for me to write another restaurant review.

It turns out that Greek restaurants in Minneapolis are to the citizens of this area what operating systems and political candidates are to computer users and activists. You’ve got one you love, and the rest suck.