According to a house ad in my Saturday Strib, ex-metro columnists Nick Coleman and Katherine Kersten will return to the paper's pages May 24, as regular Sunday op-ed columnists.

You have to admit, the place has gotten a little dull without them. And trust me, I had no idea it was coming when I wrote this Thursday.

As you might remember, management offered the Sunday consolation prize when they axed the pair's columns late last year because they were too darn ... opinionated. Both eventually took buyouts, and didn't initially accept the Sunday alternative.

The news once again joins Nick at the hip with Kersten, even though the latter began her Strib career as an op-ed columnist and never should have left. She's a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution, or what's left of it, but even if you found her infuriating, she's frankly more interesting (and local) than the tired, ubiquitous musings of a George Will or Charles Krauthammer. I'd rather read her imaginative defense of Michele Bachmann than Will demonizing denim.

Nick, who never regurgitated think tank talking points a la Katherine, disdained a chance to keep working for editor Nancy Barnes as a Variety section feature writer. He will hopefully have more freedom under editorial page editor Scott Gillespie, whose section has sorely lacked a feisty trickle-down foe.

The Strib is putting a lot of its financial chips on the Sunday paper, and today's moves make it better. There'll be more shouts of disgust, and pleasure, around the breakfast table, and those are the juices the Strib must stir to stay alive.