Greg at MetBlogs notes that by the MAC’s own estimates, only 20,000 of the 34 million people who use the airport annually suffer from Humphrey/Lindbergh confusion — making the project cost $110 per lost soul. He suggests a simple change: make each airline ticket state which terminal the plane is using.

On Twitter, the move called into question the very identities of the Twin Cities themselves …

… and raised a question: Has the MAC considered selling naming rights, a la our newest stadiums?

What other Minnesota pairs could be subjected to renaming-by-the-numbers? Or other things named for Minnesota greats where a single digit would do?

The Metropolitan Airports Commission told staff Tuesday to renegotiate a draft deal that would ease a repayment requirement of $245 million bond debt under promises Northwest made to keep its headquarters here, the Pioneer Press reports. Now that Delta owns Northwest and intends to break that promise, the MAC wants to exact new pledges on money and jobs — but how much and for how long is at issue.

Meanwhile, in the legislative session that started Tuesday, elected representatives will take up schemes to make money through airport privatization inspired by a lucrative, 99-year deal at Chicago’s Midway Airport. But, writes Conrad deFiebre at Minnesota 2020 (via), there’s a more local lesson for legislators in the sad tale of the Twin Cities’ once-public transit system that private owners (including the just-deceased Carl Pohlad) drove into the ground four decades ago, necessitating a new public bailout.

The agency that runs the airport refused an apparently serious offer to buy the men’s room stall made famous by Craig’s 2007 conviction for disorderly conduct in a sex-solicitation sting operation by the airport police. The Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC) spurned the $5,000 offer, which arrived by certified mail, according to MAC spokesperson Patrick Hogan.

“We would not want to do that to the senator,” Hogan told the Spokesman-Review newspaper of Spokane, Wash., which is just over the state line from Craig’s home state of Idaho. “We’d want to treat this case like we do any other, and we don’t sell fixtures for novelty purposes.”

Read more and see those intact fixtures for yourself in a new YouTube video after the jump.

Craig tried to take back his guilty plea, but – unlike issuing a presidential pardon – copping to a misdemeanor is irrevocable. That’s what the state Court of Appeals told Craig when it rejected his appeal earlier this month.

The revelation about the rebuffed purchase offer is part of a story on Hogan’s claim that sight-seers’ “special interest” in the bathroom has dwindled since Craig’s arrest. The men’s room’s status as a tourist attraction ended the gay cruising activity that the MAC police sting had targeted, Hogan said. That in turn allowed MAC officials to reverse their decision to extend stall walls to meet the floor, a project that would have cost several times the amount of the would-be stall-buyer’s offer.

The airport survived a boycott by Craig supporters only to find the MAC in heavy talks with Delta to renegotiate Northwest’s contracts following the airlines’ merger. The publicly owned and operated airport even faces privatization threats in the state legislative session that starts next month. By not remodeling the mens’ room, the airport commission can argue it has saved enough to afford its high-minded refusal to play-for-pay with at least one well-heeled sex-scandal devotee.

Still, Hogan sounded more like an enthusiastic tour guide than the spokesman for a thrifty public agency when he gushed, “The restroom looks exactly as it was when the senator was arrested.”

Here is a video re-enactment of Craig’s visit to the Minnesota airport men’s room, released Monday by satellite radio talk show host Michelangelo Signorile:

At least two other Minneapolis attorneys would like to be in that courtroom to defend clients who are identified only as “John Does

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, imam Didmar Faja said some of the imams prayed at the airport before boarding a Phoenix-bound flight. The imams attended a three-day North American Imams Federation conference in Minneapolis.

Agents asked them to get off the plane, he said. “We were then led off of the plane, handcuffed and searched right on the jetway.  We were humiliated and treated as if we were criminals.

Airport staff want a public hearing on the new policy, which calls for a 30-day suspension of licenses upon the first offense and two years on the second offense.

It’s a stark departure from last year’s deal, which would have assigned distinct color codes to drivers who don’t carry alcohol. That plan turned a huge public relations disaster for MAC, which quickly scrapped it.

Most of the taxi drivers, who MAC says shun about 100 customers a month, are Muslims who cite religious prohibitions of alcohol.

Regardless of religion, airport spokesman Pat Hogan said customer service is the priority. And any driver who’s not willing to serve all customers will face consequences.

Abdisalam Hashim, manager of Bloomington taxi, who participated in negotiations with MAC, says that they will present their own plan when the full commission discusses the issue on Jan. 16.

“Obviously, we’re disappointed,