PSoTD

Enjoy! And remember to not leave any embarrassing pictures online afterwards!

(no, it's not me)

The mortgage industry is on the march to Washington to ask for more federal control of their industry...

A booming industry that makes home loans to people with fragile credit is lobbying Congress for nationwide rules that regulators and consumer advocates warn would roll back tougher state protections.

The debate comes as millions of Americans have taken out mortgages with higher fees and interest rates than the mortgages granted to people with solid credit. As these “subprime” loans have proliferated, so have complaints from borrowers who say they’ve been slammed by surprise fees and high-pressure sales tactics.

More than two dozen states, led by North Carolina and in- cluding Arkansas, have moved into a vacuum created by weak federal regulation, imposing their own laws targeting abusive practices.

The industry’s five biggest players are based in California and one, Ameriquest Mortgage Co., is nearing a $ 325 million settlement with 33 states over alleged baitand-switch tactics, inflated appraisals and other issues.

Amid scrutiny of their operations, lenders have rallied behind a bill sponsored by Reps. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., that would impose uniform national rules on the industry that last year issued $ 530 billion in higher-cost mortgages. Supporters say the measure is needed to replace a hodgepodge of state and local lending laws.

Bob Ney's "truth" ain't worth the saliva it takes to pronounce his name, but Paul Kanjorski ought to be answering the tough questions as to why he is sponsoring this bill.

I'm pretty sure this is going to be incomplete since I'm dependent on Technorati to figure it out, but I wanted to thank every blog that linked to a specific blog post of mine this year. Blogrolls provide traffic, but it's the actual specific blog references that really provide audience. So, if I missed your blog, my apologies, but I do want to thank, in no particular order...

Philly Future
Shakespeare's Sister
grannyinsanity
The Sideshow
Dictionapolis in Digitopolis
Alternate Brain
Philadelphia Will Do
Comments from Left Field
American Agenda
The Daou Report
Corruption Chronicles
PointofLaw.com
Gort42
Proof Through the Night
One-Man Think Tank
The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat
The Chutry Experiment
Crushed by Inertia
NewsHog
The Land of the Ultra Rev
Memeorandum
Dark Bilious Vapors
Rook's Rant
UN Dispatch
The Heretik
What Do I Know?
The Command T.O.C.
The Moderate Voice
The CultureGhost
Earl Bockenfeld's Radio Weblog
Ang's Weird Ideas
Burned Out Paranoid Democrat
Effect Measure
Annie's Annals
Byzantium's Shores
Blinq
Patridiot Watch
Brian's Political Donnybrook
Ross Notes
750 Volts
TommyWonk
Dialogic
Postalnews.com
The Chronic Curmudgeon
Windy City Lefty
Strange Pulse
Blogpulse Newswire
Just a Bump in the Beltway
Rob's Blog
Indulge Yourself
Florida Blues
lawnorder
The Tattered Coat
Preemptive Karma
Fester's Place
King of Zembla
Povertybarn
Iddybud
Bourgeois Nerd
Relentlessly Optimistic
Idyllopus
expostulation
Against the Madness
Commonsense Desk
Middle Earth Journal
Notes from the Real World
Bread and Roses
Rox Populi
Blanton's and Ashton's
No More Mister Nice Blog
skippy the bush kangaroo

Again, thanks!

After singing it, share your knowledge about Auld Lang Syne.

(okay, it might not impress many...)

Today's obvious question...

How do you plan to spend this Saturday night?

It's that time of year for all feeling slightly infallible to plan for their Polar Bear dip. Oh sure, they sometimes call them something else, but if you look around the nation, you'll see that Polar Bear is the preferred term.

Are you gonna jump in? Bloggers do - and write about it. Radhole, Verbami, Mental excrement, Dear Diary, and Ramblings on the Matter all dive in on the subject.

Me? Nah. I don't mind the cold, but give me a hot tub, please.

My blogger resolution for 2006 is to make a FOIA request and report what I find out here, both in process and in results. It would be kind of cool if 2006 was the year that bloggers really became skilled at this resource, since in the past year some very interesting real news came out of such blogger requests.

Effect Measure has the details. It's just amazing how much crap this Congress embraces.

I have all sorts of books, and from time to time they are used for a purpose other than a book. Example: coaster, door prop, paperweight... My wife is truly embarrassed by the way I use books occasionally in my home office.

So here's the question: Should the Bible be treated differently than other books, and never be used for such purposes?

From today's Washington Post:

Although Rove raised concerns about giving critics too much ground, the younger-generation aides prevailed. Bush agreed to try the approach so long as he did not come off sounding too negative. Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University specialist on wartime public opinion who now works at the White House, helped draft a 35-page public plan for victory in Iraq, a paper principally designed to prove that Bush had one.

Does this mean this is also true - that before the paper was designed, there is no proof of a plan?

Check it out.

Who was President at the end of World War II? Harry S Truman.

1945 was a whirlwind for Harry S Truman. He served only 82 days as Vice President. Prior to that, he was a United States Senator. He became President on April 12, 1945. Shortly thereafter, he was responsible for the final decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.

Why the short history lesson? Because, if impeachment becomes a more common subject of discussion around the country, one of the things we are likely to hear is that we shouldn't change Presidents during wartime. Well, there's precedent of it. The country has already switched Presidents during wartime, bringing in a relative newcomer to the Executive Branch at a most critical time of our country's second biggest war, and the country not only survived, but won the war and prospered afterwards.

We can change leaders during wartime and succeed. We have before, we should again. Fight through that false argument.

This story...

State inspectors were investigating what caused a 125-ton concrete overpass to fall onto Interstate 70 Tuesday evening, and said a three-mile stretch of the interstate would remain closed through Wednesday at least.

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials said the bridge was last inspected in March 2004, and it was visually inspected again in August. Bridges must be inspected bridges every two years, said Jeff Breen, PennDOT's maintenance chief in Washington County.

serves as a reminder of a greater story...

Time, weather and the demands of increased traffic have converged to create precarious, aging and outdated state-owned bridges.

Four out of every 10 of those bridges are classified as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, according to a report Tuesday in The Patriot-News of Harrisburg.

Watch your heads.

If this story had happened two years ago, no big deal. But Pennsylvania's state legislators appear to be tone deaf...

The 25 uniformed officers who patrol the offices of the state House of Representatives will be armed with handguns beginning next month.

House officials say the move has to do with terrorism prevention, not public outrage over the now-repealed pay raise.

Acting on a request by the security officers, House legislative leaders decided to allow them to carry 357-caliber handguns.

The security officers primarily monitor access to the House chamber and offices and provide security if requested by House members.

However, the union that represents Capitol police officers has questioned whether the House security officers are trained sufficiently to carry guns in a crowded setting, such as a rally or protest in the Capitol.

A few thoughts:

It has been about 10 years since I regularly covered the Pennsylvania State Legislature, and I'm sure things have changed, but there's no way I would have wanted to see some of the "guards" back in 1995 carrying a loaded weapon in public. There were some VERY sleepy folks on the crew back then.

I heard Bob Durgin, the local conservative radio ranter, talking about this issue on Wednesday. He wasn't happy. He compared it to Stalin and the USSR, and somebody compared it to Nazi Germany. He sees it as an effort to stifle dissent, particularly in light of all the blasting of legislators over the pay raise, and the fact that the legislator pay raise issue is now in the courts and might actually return from the dead.

It sure does seem like something has scared the Representatives, and the pay raise did receive very angry and constant attention from the public. Did somebody get death threats?

The House downplays it.

But Brian Preski, chief of staff to House Speaker John Perzel, and others said that pay-raise outrage had less to do with this decision than the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and subsequent acts of violence in public or government buildings.

"We all wish we lived in a time before these terror nuts, but we don't," Preski said in an interview this month.

Wow, that really doesn't sell well. The argument that four years after 9/11, well after they put the barriers out front and other security measures in place for the House, that they decided out they need lethal weapons for House security to protect against terrorists just seems... bogus on its face, given the timing.

Perhaps Durgin's on to something here.

Time to go back 30 years in the past. Pick your favorite five songs from this list of the top 100 of 1976. And pick your least favorite, too.

Just some recent blogger blurbs about the lack of lobbyist registration requirements in Pennsylvania...

Grassroots PA

House Members Pushing State House Speaker Perzel On Lobbying Law

Froth Slosh B'Gosh

Looks like some in Harrisburg are actually trying to force a vote on requiring lobbyists to register.

Pennsylvania is the only state without a lobbyist registration and expenditure reporting law.

And Perzel thinks that's just fine.

DaveRalis.com

Perzel not only stumbling block to reform

An interesting editorial moved today on the AP wire, one week after it was first published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The newspaper called on state House Speaker John Perzel to get the heck out of the way and allow a vote on a lobbyist reform bill.

Gettysblog

In a state with no lobbying laws, can you imagine the pressure on the legislators to pass amendments to Act 71? Each investment group for the proposed casinos is lobbying for its own set of amendments. Pressure? The pressure is on them because they haven’t passed the amendments. They stand to lose a good bit of money if they don’t. After all, they are permitted to own a 1% share in a casino, and IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE MADE PUBLIC!

Pressure.

Are we, as a nation, ready to have this guy as President?

Because at some point in all the discussion of impeachment in the next year, Hastert becomes the focus point. And I don't believe it is a good idea to wait until after the 2006 elections to push the impeachment discussion full throttle.

If Bush and Cheney were found guilty of high crimes, impeached and removed from office in the next year, Hastert would be President. At some point, Democrats are going to have to start discussing - positively - that possibility, or drop the talk of impeachment altogether.

One of my Resolutions for 2006: To come up with something valuable to add to this Wikipedia entry.

Today's Question:

What musician(s) will become the "next big thing" in 2006?

One of the things about bloggers - they don't lack for opinions and their use of the opportunity to voice those opinions. The same can't be said for voters, at least the opportunity to voice part of it, since turnout rates of eligible voters of over 70% in this country are rarely seen.

What is the turnout of bloggers as voters? We have no way of knowing at this point, but my guess (and it is a guess) is that it is higher than 70%. Is there something about blogging - about keeping up with news and information about an interest, about feeling a need to inform others of the same - that relates well to voting?

This would be a great subject for a study in 2006. There are blogs and bloggers about everything, and I would think that it would very useful to measure as many of them within a state, for example, and see how many of them vote in that state's 2006 primary. The more states, the more elections, the more interesting to me. In fact, I think it would be more than useful - depending on the results, it might serve as an impetus to use blogs as a "get out the vote" tool - for societies, rather than political parties. If it did turn out that bloggers are much more likely to vote than non-bloggers, then perhaps there is actual policy - for example, tax deduction policy - that a state can create to substantially generate more bloggers, which in turn would improve election turnout.

I know this sounds whimsical. And it is... sorta. But there are two real points to be made here:

There should be considerably more academic study and measurement of the impact of bloggers on events;

There should be considerably more government effort to provide an environment whereby a greater percentage of people choose to vote.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the first leads somehow to the second.

Wow, Kate O'Beirne is truly original.

Did she have lunch with Bernie Goldberg this year? I'm sure she's hoping to follow Goldberg's publicity formula...

Can't wait for whatever is next for the Republican Weekly Reader crowd. Bob Novak's "100 Fat People Named Kennedy That Pissed In Your Soup"? Fred Barnes' "All The Liberal Corporate Mamby-Pambies That Are Ruining The Economy"? Ann Coulter's "Politicians Who Deserve To Die"? What's the next level of innovation for these Republican artistes? Pop-up books?

I'm going to say this just once: I'll be very disappointed if Jon Stewart has O'Beirne on The Daily Show. There should be no reward for copying someone else's D grade project.

There is a bakery in Camp Hill, The Pennsylvania Bakery. It is a great bakery, and one of the best things they do is make all these different desserts and pastries and other items specifically for Christmas. Just fabulous stuff, and as a tradition, we go there every year.

But... the tradition is enhanced by the fact that nobody else around here seems to make any Christmas specialty bakery items. None that I have found, at least. And this is why, on the Friday, two days before Christmas, you go into The Pennsylvania Bakery to pick up your order at 10 AM, and you find there are literally 49 other orders waiting to be fulfilled before you're up. WHEEE! Now, I have to tell you, the pastries are great, I love The Pennsylvania Bakery, but quite frankly, I'm not very interested in waiting forty-five minutes to have an order fulfilled at a bakery two days before Christmas.

So... calling all other bakeries on the West Shore... make and sell some Christmas specialty items for 2006. Advertise them. People will come. Don't be so afraid of The Pennsylvania Bakery Tradition. They're good... but the lines do intimidate.

Just an experiment in referrers. From TBogg's blogroll...

100 Monkeys Typing --- Ain't No Bad Dude --- Alas,a Blog --- Alicublog --- All-Baseball.com --- Americablog --- American Leftist --- Bad Attitudes --- Bad Things --- Bad Tux --- Better Inhale Deeply --- Bitch Ph.D --- The Blogging of the President --- Bloggy --- Body and Soul --- Brilliant At Breakfast --- BusyBusyBusy --- Byzantium's Shores --- Catalyst --- Catch --- Corrente --- Crooked Timber --- Crooks and Liars --- Cursor --- Daily Howler --- Daily Kos --- DC Media Girl --- Demagogue --- Dependable Renegade --- David Ehrenstein --- The Decembrist --- Democratic Underground --- Democratic Veteran --- The Department of Louise --- Elayne Riggs --- Eschaton (Atrios) --- Ezra Klein --- Failure Is Impossible --- Fantastic Planet --- Feministe --- Firedoglake --- First Draft --- Freewayblogger --- The Gropinator --- Hairy Fish Nuts --- Hullabaloo(Digby) --- Ignatz (Sam Heldman) --- I'm Not One To Blog --- Interesting Times --- James Wolcott --- Jesus' General --- Juan Cole --- Just A Bump In The Beltway --- Kicking Ass --- King of Zembla --- Lawyers Guns and Money --- Lean Left --- Left I On The News --- Liberal Oasis --- Main & Central --- Majikthise --- Making Light (Nielsen Hayden) --- Mark Kleiman --- Martini Republic --- MaxSpeak --- MF Blog --- Michael Berube --- MyDD --- Nathan Newman --- Needlenose --- Needles on the Beach --- The Next Left --- Nitpicker --- No More Mr. Nice Blog --- Norbizness --- Norwegianity --- Not Geniuses --- Oliver Willis --- One Good Move --- Opinions You Should Have --- Orcinus --- Pacific Views --- Pandagon --- Pharyngula --- Political Animal(K.Drum) --- The Poorman --- Right Hand Thief --- Rising Hegemon --- Rittenhouse Review --- Roger Ailes --- Rox Populi --- RubberNun --- Rude Pundit --- Ruminate This --- Sadly, No --- Seeing The Forest --- Shakespeare's Sister --- Sisyphus Shrugged --- Skippy the Bush Kangaroo --- Slacktivist --- Southpaw --- SteveAudio --- Steve Gilliard --- Suburban Guerilla --- TalkLeft --- The American Street --- The Girl Gets Away --- The Left Coaster --- The Liquid List --- The Road To Surfdom --- The Sideshow --- The Talking Dog --- The Talent Show --- Tom Tomorrow --- UggaBugga --- Wampum --- Whiskey Bar --- Wonkette --- World O'Crap

and their subject was something other than Christmas... believe it or not!

Blah3: Working the Refs

Blondsense: What would Einstein Teach?

The Left Coaster: Jeanne's Computer is Down

Pharyngula: Narnia blarnia

skippy the bush kangaroo: Christmas in the Marketplace

But the country should be in a giving mood for Ted Koppel and Tom Brokaw. They should give these guys shit for the rest of their television broadcast careers (the time we have to endure since their retirement from their "main gigs") for the pompousity and self-importance they've attached to themselves in this little piece from yesterday's MTP:

MR. RUSSERT: And they were not questioning whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

MR. BROKAW: No. No. No.

MR. RUSSERT: That seemed to be a uniformly held belief.

MR. BROKAW: Right. Yeah.

MR. KOPPEL: Nor did the Clinton administration beforehand.

MR. BROKAW: No.

MR. KOPPEL: I mean, the only difference between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration was 9/11.

MR. BROKAW: Right.

MR. KOPPEL: If 9/11 had happened on Bill Clinton's watch, he would have gone into Iraq.

MR. BROKAW: Yeah. Yeah.

This should be Exhibit A as to why the news media has to quit interviewing itself. Why? Because the news media is full of people that are full of themselves, and that bear very little responsibility in their real jobs for what they say. How could Ted Koppel presume to know what would have happened if Clinton was President during 9/11? Does he have any idea what a Republican Congress may have done to Clinton after such attack? Does Tom Brokaw just say yeah, right, after any particular nonsense spouted by Koppel? Is Russert afraid of Koppel's hair? No challenge of this garbage? Perhaps Koppel and Brokaw would have invaded Iraq, perhaps the two of them would have shown the same kind of diligence to detail that George W. Bush did, the same kind of interest in what the U.N was saying that Bush displayed, the same kind of diplomatic skills that Bush brought to bear. I thought both of them were smarter than that, especially Brokaw, but apparently I was very wrong.

Fact 1: We don't know what would have happened with Iraq after 9/11 if anyone else was President. Period. That is one major variable to change.

Fact 2: We do know what George W. Bush did.

It's been 4 years since 9/11, and yet we have to keep saying, focus on what happened. Not the possible scenarios. Not the what-ifs and mebbe-bes. WHAT HAPPENED? We still don't have all the facts, so quit playing your parlor games and do some real work.

Hat Tip to Fixer for spotting this. It is a bit shameful that NBC chose to run such a piece of crap programming on Christmas Day. Give Russert the week off because the nation's airwaves need a break of carrying his pungent loads every week.

Remember this when writing out your tuition checks...

From The Parthenon Online (WV):

Marshall University may be one of the hundreds of universities required to install wiretaps to make monitoring online communications easier for law enforcement agencies.

The installation of such equipment is due to the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. This law requires universities and other organizations to engineer their switching systems by spring 2007 for easier FBI surveillance.

"Even the lowest estimates of compliance costs would, on average, increase annual tuition at most American universities by some $450," Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education, said in The New York Times.

This is not the case for Marshall's possible costs, Dr. Arnold Miller, assistant vice president of information technology, said.

"We are more or less exempt from this," he said. "We have an aggregation point, so we should only have to buy one."

Other universities without an aggregation point, a single box where the network meets the public network, would have to install multiple switchers or routers which would pull the data together.

"The piece of equipment would cost $10,000 to $100,000, based on how much traffic goes through," Miller said. "Right now, 50 megabits a second go through. Equipment that looks at things that quickly costs quite a bit of money."

Here's hoping Santa brings the Chicago Bears a win today, which will lock them up for both their division title and a first round bye in the NFL playoffs...

Today we have 8,885 posts in Technorati with the terms of impeach and Bush.

The week before? 8009 posts. The idea continues to germinate.

As the song goes, love the ones you're with...

Enjoy!

Would you rather see this...

or this...

I realize that I spend quite a bit of blogging hammering on the news media for coverage or lack of coverage. I lose sight of the fact that this is a unique time in history, where it has become so easy for an average citizen such as myself to critique and comment on the efforts of large and small news organizations and directly reference their content.

It's not just a miracle of the Internet. It's also a great opening of the news industry, and for that I express my thanks.

And because of that, I want to thank the following Pennsylvania news publications that provide online access to at least some of their news content. It is a great gift you are providing our society, and I believe it should be rewarded. Here's hoping that 2006 provides such rewards.

For everyone from Yahoo! to McAfee...

Do they have any known involvement in the Bush Administration's NSA domestic spying?

That Krauthammer be proved a fool again.

That Dan Froomkin, when he comes back after a bit of paternity break, is given even better visibility for his columns - and yes, that means in print.

And that this staff writer be let out to pasture. Enjoy the oats, Bob!

You might want to bookmark Follow The Money. The nonpartisan Institute on Money in State Politics tracks contributions in all 50 states and makes this data easily searchable online.

Ill-gotten campaign donations may be a big source for charitable contributions in the next year...

Sen. Sam Brownback is giving away $42,000 in campaign donations connected to indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a move several other lawmakers have taken in recent days to avoid the appearance of undue influence.

The Kansas Republican, who is weighing a presidential bid, is also giving up a separate $5,000 contribution from a defense contractor at the center of ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's bribery case, Brownback spokesman Brian Hart said Wednesday.

"Senator Brownback has always preferred to either return or donate to charity any campaign or leadership funds that even have the appearance of impropriety," Hart said.

Brownback's now-defunct Restore America Political Action Committee received the $42,000 in 2002 from four American Indian tribes represented by Abramoff, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Abramoff and his partner, Michael Scanlon, collected over $80 million from tribes to lobby Congress on casino gambling and other issues. The Justice Department is investigating whether trips, gifts and campaign donations arranged by Abramoff were in exchange for official acts by members of Congress and whether the tribes were defrauded.

In recent days, members of Congress who accepted campaign donations from Abramoff's clients have begun returning the money as the investigation ratchets up in intensity.

"Although the four tribes that contributed to his PAC never met with nor asked the senator for any help, Brownback felt it best to donate these funds to charity," Hart said.

The $5,000 donation was from ADCS Inc., a California defense contractor that allegedly bribed Cunningham with cash and gifts in exchange for government business.

Hart said Brownback decided to give away the ADCS contribution last week to Doctors on Call for Service, a Christian organization that, according to its Web site, links U.S. physicians with African physicians to exchange techniques and experiences.

Brownback decided early this week to give away the Indian tribe contributions but has not yet settled on a charity, Hart said.

But I have a serious question - was there no consideration about returning the money to the tribes, or at least giving the money back to a charity that works with Native Americans? If there's a question that the tribes were defrauded... why is Brownback keeping the money away from the defrauded?

There should be a web site in which homes that have outstanding Christmas light/decoration displays can be submitted and searchable by area. I was hoping to find such a site for Central Pennsylvania - no such luck.

On the other hand, there is a bit of an online catalog for Ugly Christmas Lights...

Last September, I blogged about Omaha Steaks, and how they had been overzealous in their telemarketing of one-time customers, at least based on my own personal experience. It was a simple post, and referenced a Business Week article. It did not receive much attention.

Since then, this blog has gained a bit more popularity, but nothing astounding. Still, a few of the search engines have somehow determined that my Omaha Steaks post was worth a higher profile on search results for Omaha Steaks. And with the swell of online shoppers that hit the search engines in the past few weeks, this blog has received a surprising amount of traffic for that term.

This doesn't seem to have much impact on my blog, as most visitors come to the site from that search to find a bit of information out about Omaha Steaks that they haven't seen before, and then scurry back to the search engine for more. This isn't a long-term traffic issue for the blog, but it is evidence of empowerment of bloggers on the image of corporations and their behavior. I'm able to discuss the topic of a company's behavior and it actually is seen. It may even have some small bit of economic impact.

We're seeing that on a much larger scale with organizations like Wal-Mart and Ford. I think it's important that bloggers realize they have a small but growing impact on at least the online impression of a company, and to be responsible in that impact - but that means to use the power, and use it well.

So... if you think you have received a raw deal from a corporation, or there's a business practice that you find hard to accept, then present it, calmly, objectively and intelligently. There will be a time when people do a Google or MSN or other type of search for the business. And it's quite possible that at a time when people are searching for "customer creating" information about the business, you'll be providing an unvarnished view of the organization. Prospective customers will notice. Eventually, so will these companies.

Here's your task: Take a bad movie that has come out the past ten years, and turn it improbably into a Christmas movie with a one paragraph story description. Using the plot summaries at http://www.imdb.com and just changing them can help. Here's my example:

Dinosaur

Long before humans appeared on the planet, dinosaurs ruled the earth. On a little off-coast island, a clan of lemurs finds a dinosaur egg, hatching. Since there are no parents, the lemurs take care of the newborn, Aladar. Years later, a medium meteor goes down close to the island and the shockwave forces its inhabitants to flee to the continent. There, Aladar and his family meet other dinosaurs for the first time as well as real dangers. The destruction caused by the meteor here has also forced a herd of different herbivores to follow a bright star which leads them to a remote valley that can provide food and protection against the carnivorous predators following after. When they all reach the valley, they find a nest with a baby dinosaur named Jesusaurus. Three wise lemurs give the babe gifts.

Three trends I've noticed this year in the cards we've received:

1) Professional family photograph cards are down. Normally we get over 5, sometimes nearly 10. So far we have 1. I think this is a good trend, not because I don't like seeing the pictures, but because they all have the same posed look about them.

2) People are sending non-denominational cards. If you want to look at where the term "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" has really taken off, look at the Christmas cards you've received. People play it safe, and want their cards to cheer anyone regardless of faith. No harm in that.

3) It seems like a lot more people are making their own Christmas Cards. And to that, I say COOL!

A couple of blogs have added PSoTD to their rolls, and I wanted to say thanks...

American Agenda

One-Man Think Tank

Much appreciated!

From TheDerrick.com:

About 60 confirmed flu cases have been reported across Pennsylvania so far this year, but local counties have avoided adding numbers to the tally.

UPMC Northwest has seen some patients with upper respiratory illness, but there is no indication the flu season is under way here, a hospital spokesman said.

"We're seeing some sinus congestion, colds and bronchitis, but no real signs of the flu," said Jeff Corsetti, physician director of emergency services.

The peak of the flu season in Pennsylvania is mid-January to mid-February, but activity can begin much earlier and linger much longer, experts say.

"Usually right about this time of year we are seeing some low level activity. It's right now moving along the way a normal season does," said Richard McGarvey, a spokesman for the state Department of Health. "Each week we see a few more cases and it will probably pick up activity right after the holidays."

"It's a little early for the flu. We usually don't begin seeing it until about mid-January, although it is unpredictable and can begin sooner," Corsetti said.

This just in. I think it's here. In our house. Me. Pretty lowgrade fever, fortunately.

If you watch Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) and want to contribute to stories and discussion about their programming and development, please visit PCNBlog and email me at losyannigans@yahoo.com about being part of the blog. We're looking to start up in early January, and the more the merrier!

When the gift limitations for a postal carrier - you know, the person that slogs in snow and rain and 100 degree heat with humidity all day long with our mail - are tougher than for many, many elected officials:

We asked the U.S. Postal Service what rules govern gifts to carriers.

Mail carriers and postal service employees are allowed to accept gifts valued at up to $20, according to postal service spokeswoman Sue Litterly.

They can't accept cash or cash equivalents such as checks, money orders or stocks. They can, however, accept gift cards to retail stores if the gift card cannot be redeemed for cash, she said.

"Food is good, homemade gifts are good," Litterly says.

Just in case you're planning on giving your carrier a holiday gift...

Majikthise found an interesting site to measure you blog at: Slut-O-Meter. PSoTD came in at Promiscuity: 7.55%.

That is what The Fly Under the Dome writes is going on in Republican reality for Pennsylvania.

(Hat Tip: One-Man Think Tank)

Unfortunately, they are somewhat related...

Go read Peter Daou's The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade). It won't leave you with a good feeling.

Follow that up with Slouching Toward Kristallnacht by MaryScott O'Connor at My Left Wing to double your depression about the direction of the country.

Today's question:

What company sent you the most junk postal mail this year? Don't include catalogs - just mail that came in an envelope.

This is a message for all adult Americans that, even to this point, don't really have strong feelings about the Bush Administration and the direction this country has gone the past five years.

If you don't have strong feelings, then you're not any kind of American I recognize. I don't know what you are. I don't what nation you think you're part of, I don't know what kind of government you believe we should have, and I don't know why you think you should stay. Is it the job? Is it the family?

Because it sure ain't your love of this country.

I'm not talking about conservatives who support President Bush, because even though I don't agree with them on most important issues regarding Bush, at least I know they have a view of America. Somewhat disturbing view, but a view.

I'm not talking about liberals or progressives who oppose Bush's policies. They also have a view of America.

It's not the political moderates. Moderation is a viewpoint.

No, it's the disengaged. We can talk about how politics is a turnoff and how media coverage sucks and more, but individuals have responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to be aware enough when your system of government is changing right in front of your eyes. And one of your responsibilities is to think about that change, and decide, for yourself, whether you approve of that change.

I'm not talking about changes of what government does as policy. I'm talking about changes in how government works as structure. George W. Bush, and the domestic spying issue, is an effort to change the structure without structural approval.

Every American citizen owes it to every other American citizen to learn as much as they can about what happened, and what the ramifications are if we let this stand. Every American citizen owes it to every other American citizen to have an opinion about this. We're standing at a historical moment, a litmus test of our citizenship, and history will loudly judge how we reacted when confronted with a challenge to the way we have expected governance for over 200 years.

Citizens that will think about this, and take a stand, pass that test, regardless of their decision, regardless of what happens next.

People who won't learn and think and decide for themselves how they stand on this situation, who says politics is boring and that they don't really care, well, they aren't citizens. And to them, I say... get the F out.

I think there should be a low threshold amount before bids are required for government contracting, but I like where Joe Hoeffel is going in general in this piece about outlawing no-bid government contracting in Pennsylvania.

Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti has pushed through parliament a new 25% tax on all hardcore pornography.

Previous attempts to raise new revenue by taxing pornography have failed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: when government gets in the business of making revenue from a practice, it becomes a partner in protecting that practice. There are two very good reasons to be opposed to a special "pornography" tax:

1 - It is a tax based on a morality judgement of a product and its users and not based on any economic policy;

2 - It puts the government in the position to protect the hardcore industry as a "special" revenue source since it is taxed at a special rate.

But this tax has another reason it's particularly silly - the government is going to be put in the position of officially defining "hardcore" for purposes of taxes. I suspect that definition varies from person to person. Good luck with that, Italy.

I think that, John, there's going to be a lot of analysis done on the decisions on the ground in Iraq. For example, I'm fully aware that some have said it was a mistake not to put enough troops there immediately — or more troops.

I bet his handlers wish he had caught himself a few words before. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

What is your tradition, if you have any, for Christmas Eve?

We'll start seeing lots of signs and talk like this.

This story hasn't really burbled up to national level, but as you might expect, Louisiana's prison system is still somewhat mixed up in the aftermath of Katrina...

From The Daily Advertiser:

For two months, James Mitchell has been lost in the prison system.

He isn't even supposed to be in jail anymore. His 20-day sentence was set to expire Sept. 1. But on that day, he and thousands of other inmates were fighting fear and floodwaters in Orleans Parish Prison after Hurricane Katrina.

Now, he's in the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center. He's there in person, but not on paper, according to the Louisiana Department of Corrections.

Mitchell was released Oct. 3, a corrections lawyer said in court Dec. 6.

But on Dec. 8, there he was, sitting at a table in the tiny arraignment courtroom at Lafayette's parish prison. The mixup was discovered when a Daily Advertiser reporter interviewed him that day and alerted lawyers.

He is convinced another James Mitchell has been released in his stead.

"When we were here about two weeks, a guy came in and he wanted information from the people who came from New Orleans. When he got to my name, my name had a line drawn through it, with 'Released' on there," Mitchell said. "This kind of, like, haunted me."

Haven't done this in a while...

For some reason PSoTD is the Featured Blog at the Daou Report. I'm not sure how that happened, but it feels good. Thanks!

America's reputation - as a nation of laws and as a republic - is at great risk today. How can nations look at the United States as a model for governance, as examples of democratic institutions, and as a structure where the law treats all as equals, if the President admits to breaking the law and there is no investigation and no punishment to that process?

Short answer: they cannot. We have long felt a national pride that our government was superior, due to the way the founding fathers set it up and the 200-plus years of history our predecessors have spent, sweat and bled to create that government. Our parents, and their parents, and so on and so forth for as long as we can individually track our families back, have built a nation, a nation with a political framework we should take pride in.

But how can we? Is our current national government really any better politically than the government of Mexico in the 1940s or the government of the USSR in the 1970s or the government of Uganda today? Is it any less corrupt? Is it any more democratic? Is it more fair than those governments, is it more responsible to the will of the people than those governments, is it more dedicated to the pre-existing framework of governing than those governments?

How can we answer yes? How can we expect residents of other nations to believe this is true?

There is only one way.

America's Congress has to be responsible to the framework. America's Judiciary has to be responsible. We are not a nation of one political party. We are, or are supposed to be, a nation of three political and governing components. But for several years now, our government has failed to work smoothly this way, and greater and greater power has been deferred to the Executive Branch, primarily because the Executive Branch was also the de facto head of the political party in power.

It is questionable as to whether America's Congress can be resp