They see also take the "split the baby" approach that others have made with the challenges. This maybe hard to hear, but we have no clue what will happen with the challenges because we don't know the composition of the challenges. The same is true of the absentees.  With the challenges, it would require a relatively small percentage- 10 percent of challenges in Al's favor- to change outcomes at this point. Also, the challenges could reach 3000 given its pace right now. It seems also that Franken is decreasing his challenges, and his people have said they will review their prior challenges this weekend so the spread could go up rather than down if they get rid of their frivolous challenges. Leaving Coleman going foreward with much more challenges. but we shall see.

Strange.  I would have sworn I was just reading a diary by Jerome about how Obama has proven himself to be a centrist foreign policy Democrat, just as Jerome claimed earlier.

Then, when I clicked on a comment, I found this Franken v. Coleman diary instead, and the other one is nowhere to be seen.

Am I dreaming?

I agree that the resolution of the absentee ballots will be key.
Using the SOS numbers 1.9 million counted Coleman leads by 25 thousand. Norm had challenged 945 and Al 948. Norm is down 669 from and Al is down 621 from the starting count.
So what does that all mean? Norm's people are challenging more new (previously uncounted) votes then Al's people are. So it looks like Al's challenges are more likely to be overturned. So my best guess right now is that while Al is indeed picking up more votes, it isn't going to be enough. I'd say he falls short by 60-70 votes at the end of the recount.

BUZZFLASH had a posting from Minnesota Public Radio with captioed showing 2 challenged ballots.  If these are representative of challenging the final count of challenged votes should be very different. If these ballots are rejected because they are overvotes the will of the people may be thwarted again.  Both ballots were challenged as overvotes.
Both have handwritten names on the "write-in, if any" category;
but the ovoid box to the left of the handwritten words: "Lizard People" has not been darkened. If the voter's intent is the objective then the first photo above of a ballot should count for Franken. Although the voter made a sloppy attempt at humor (repeatedly) the voter did "vote for one." In the second ballot the vote should go to Coleman for the same reason; the handwritten name is "Bachman" or "Badmen" (it is sloppy writing.)
However, if the objective is civic "discipline" then the silly voter could be penalized by not having the vote counted (the entire ballot, i.e. every candidate selected) but this seems particularly misdirected action as ballots are anonomous and the penalty is removed from the misdeed. The question of voter intent is much easier than "bi-partisan" politics suggests. Recounts should be non-partisan.