John Brewer at the PiPress is all over pigeon poop. After a big chunk of rotted concrete fell off a parking ramp in downtown St. Paul, the city is getting its poop together to fight the flying rats. A proposal to set up feeders with fertility-blocking pellets is on the way. A test prior to the Republicans' visit last summer seemed to work. The downside? The feeders cost $500 and the building owners pick up that tab. How fast can you say, "Pigeon poop adverse health impact fee"?

Rachel Stassen-Berger reports for the PiPress that Norm Coleman has officially requested permission to use campaign funds to pay for expenses related to two matters ... other than his never-ending recount battle. The other two would be the Nasser Kazeminy insurance money to Mrs. Coleman's business out of Texas and the ex-senator's ultra-low rent apartment in D.C. Under the rules Coleman is allowed to divert such money if he can convince the FEC the situations are politically motivated. On the bright(er) side, Stassen-Berger writes that, "Coleman's attorneys told the FEC that they do not want to use Coleman's campaign cash to pay for any cost related to Laurie Coleman's potential legal fees."

Suzanne Ziegler reports for the Strib that April home sales in the Twin Cities spiked up nearly 23 percent over a year ago. That's the good news ... somebody is buying. The bad news? As Ziegler writes, "The number of pending sales that were lender-mediated -- foreclosures and 'short sales' where the lender agrees to a sale for less than the mortgage amount -- nearly doubled from a year ago, while traditional sales actually fell."

Cray Inc., the supercomputer company headquartered for years in Mendota Heights before being sold to a Seattle company in 2000, is considering a move from Mendota to Galtier Plaza in downtown St. Paul, according to the Strib's Chris Havens. Naturally, the city is bending over backwards and inside out to facilitate a company with 200 employees making an average of $100k a year. That's lots of lunches eaten at places other than Subway.

The Strib editorializes today in favor of a new alcohol tax ... or "alcohol use impact fee" if you're a politically ambitious governor who pledged never to raise anything called a tax ever again. The paper officially likes the idea of sales taxes on clothing and consumer services, but concedes that ain't happening this year. But you have to laugh when countering the argument that this will drive boozing Minnesotans over the bridges to Wisconsin. The Strib writes, "But with the lowest beer tax and second-lowest wine tax in the country, Wisconsin has chosen to be an outlier among the states. (It might be no coincidence that Wisconsin also leads the nation in the share of its adult population that surveys show engage in regular binge drinking.)" Jeez, how about a couple Cheesehead/paint thinner jokes for good measure?

God love Tom Lyden. Fox9's relentless underbelly reporter does over three minutes on a police raid of a "rejuvenation center"/massage parlor in squeaky clean Eden Prairie that was ... are you sitting down? ... a house of prostitution, or so police allege. Click in for the shot of Lyden chasing after a car, driven by a possible john (at 2:10 in the clip), yelling, "Were you using the services here?" Are they teaching Lyden 101 in cub reporter classes?

Strib tech guy Steve Alexander takes questions related to Microsoft's Windows 7, now in free download test phase, the software that is supposed to make everyone forget Vista. But Alexander is talking to a tough crowd. Writes one commenter, "Why can't Microsoft EVER put a product on the market that doesn't make life miserable...and they're still rolling in the money...Stupid American Consumers? Monkey see, monkey do? Keep up with the Jones'? I have to have the newest test versions of everything so I can be first and brag about it?...even if I lose? I'm still on Windows 98 on my PC and doing fine. My Mac is even better... ."

Powerline's Scott Johnson has been very busy this morning. But for sheer Mobius loop legalese you owe it yourself to diagram his argument that the bail-out/structured bankruptcy of Chrysler really is, if you look at it this way, a lot like Lincoln advocating for emancipation in the face of tyranny. Wow. You know, I never really ever did put those two together.

City Pages writer David Hansen gives Twins back-up catcher Mike Redmond the full feature treatment. There might have been a way to take a more comical approach to Redmond's story, but alt weeklies aren't exactly hanging in hotel bars with the team on 10-day road trips. So Hansen pulls out the time-honored baseball-lyricism stops. "Redmond," he writes, "was the perfect choice to back up Mauer. To compare the two is to compare a stallion with a wolf. Mauer is tall and equine, lean and patient, quiet and reserved, built like a Greek hero. Redmond is diminutive and loudmouthed, a battered, husky scrap of a player, something that crawled from the dust with a mitt and a mask. In Mauer's eyes, you see the calm assurance of greatness, in Redmond's, the ferocity of hunger."

Charlie "Shooter" Walters quotes ex-Gopher and Packers star Darrell Thompson saying that Brett Favre can take the Vikings to the Super Bowl. So there you have it. In the context of the Favre-to-Minnesota potboiler, idle soothsaying by ex-jocks is good enough to advance the story to another day.