What my friend Jared said is pretty much exactly what I've been thinking lately, except that I will have to take his word for it that a sense of decency was behind Durbin's apparent loss of backbone (I'd have called it a sense of vote-grubbing, though that is almost equally unsatisfactory as an explanation). I'd been working up a post, but J has saved me the trouble. Go read his entry, and then tell us both if you have any ideas about how to get progressive politics off the ropes.

It's quick and easy, and he asked nicely. No, get your mind out of the gutter. If you have a blog, please take ten minutes to help Cameron out.

In a feeble attempt to hinder independent local journalism, a certain scumbag has glommed the obvious domain names for the Seldovia Herald, the newspaper run by my friend Savannah. The Seldovia Herald is not some rinkydink mimeographed collection of hick minutiae (not that there's anything wrong with that!). It's a charming and professional local publication with community clout and political savvy. S has been using a tilde account but is tired of having to explain a long, awkward web address to her somewhat non-geeky readership, so she's registered sovnews.com. I've added it to googlebombs for good and urge anyone with a web page (and the minimally developed nervous system required to understand the value of independent journalism) to give the Seldovia Herald some Google juice. (tip o' the titfer: Brad)