Can blogs tip votes in ‘06 races?

This story should be read by every MOBster. It includes quotes from the Westover,

“They’re going to eat the newspapers’ lunch,” Westover said.

Gary of KvM,

“I’m crazy enough to think we can make a small difference in this race,”

(How about a little confidence Gary?)

and the MOB’s own anti-christ (link embargoed).

“There are some right-wing blogs that even if you tried to have a conversation with them, it’s essentially a bunch of frat guys having a party and doing a beer dance,” said Michael McIntee, producer for the Inside Minnesota Politics blog and podcast. “And that’s not useful; it’s pretty much making noise.”

The story goes on to try discredit blogs and their influence on elections. It is a real piece of work, that’s for sure. Definitely anti-blog. But I guess since blogs are providing something that neither the legacy media nor political parties can, they are just jealous, and that’s why they lash out at us whenever they can.

Oh well, I don’t plan on going away anytime soon, I guess you are stuck with me.

Shocking as it is to hear, the UN blew a large portion of the money it was given to help Tsunami victims on itself.

NEW YORK, Dec. 23 (UPI) — Up to about a third of the $590 million U.N. fund spent for the Indian Ocean tsunami relief may have gone to pay for overhead.

The Financial Times says its two-month investigation showed the money appears to have been spent on administration, staff and related costs. The $590 million was part of the United Nation’s $1.1 billion disaster flash appeal.

The newspaper also found several U.N. agencies continue to refuse to disclose details of their relief expenditure in spite of earlier pledges of transparency by senior officials.

The flash appeal covered the money donated by governments to the world body in the first weeks after the disaster to fund the early aid work, the Times reported.

The newspaper said details of that appeal it obtained from U.N. agencies such as the World Health Organization and the World Food Program showed 18 percent to 32 percent of the expenditure related to staff, administration and other costs.

So all that about 5-Star hotels and restaurants for UN workers is true?

Gee, I am flabbergasted that the UN would be corrupt. I mean they have had a sparkling history of being the most trustworthy agency in the World. Next thing you know, the Hollywood fundraisers will have wasted a bunch of money on limos and Pierre rather than caring for the victims.

I would love the opportunity to do this.

Frustrated by the coverage they were receiving from the news media, the Marines invited Roggio, 35, who writes a popular Web log about the military called “The Fourth Rail” ( http://www.billroggio.com ), to come cover the war from the front lines.

How cool would that be?

“I was disenchanted with the reporting on the war in Iraq and the greater war on terror and felt there was much to the conflict that was missed,” Roggio, who is currently stationed with Marines along the Syrian border, wrote in an e-mail response to written questions. “What is often seen as an attempt at balanced reporting results in underreporting of the military’s success and strategy and an overemphasis on the strategically minor success of the jihadists or insurgents.”

Do you still think we can just forget about domestic surveillance? Dozens treated after St Petersburg gas release

More than 70 people were sickened by an unidentified gas released in a store in Russia’s second-largest city on Monday.

Boxes with wires and timers attached to containers possibly holding gas were found in other outlets of the chain, officials said.

I’m just saying, that around every corner, terrorist may be getting ready to do this to us.

Now, I appreciate the fact that there was not a single car besides mine on the roads again today, but this is getting ridiculous.

Doesn’t anyone else work anymore?

Geez. Well I hope you are all slumbering away while I am not. I really do not care for the Holidays. I have fun and all, but I think I could do without them. I wish I could be in bed right now, snuggled up and sleeping away. So having to get right back to work is a bit more than I can take, especially when everyone else is somewhere else I would much rather be.

I already miss Bob Davis in the morning. I’ve been listening to this new guy, Willie Clark (?) for 15 minutes, and so far I gotta say he makes Krok sound good.

What the heck happened to AM 1500? It was once the envy of the Twin Cities talk stations.

Pay attention law makers, higher taxes don’t work! People will find a way not to pay.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - When Julie Abel goes grocery shopping each week, she drives more than 25 miles to Georgia to avoid paying the nation’s highest average tax on food: 8.4 percent in Tennessee.

“If you can save $5 it is worth driving down the road,” Abel said after traveling from her rural home in Hamilton County, which collects 2.22 percent sales tax on food on top of the 6 percent for the state. Georgia does not tax food sales.

Read the rest.

No one in our society knows how to entertain more than celebrities(I.E. Limousine Liberals). For generations of troops, Hollywood elite and musicians have left politics at the waters edge, and gone to entertain the troops regardless of party affiliation. I guess the sense of duty celebrities used to have for entertaining the troops died with Bob Hope.

Just as the seemingly intractable nature of the war has led to a growing recruitment crisis, so the United Services Organisation, which has been putting on shows for the troops since the second world war, is struggling to get celebrities to sign up for even a short tour of duty.

t is a far cry from the days following the September 11 2001 attacks, when some of the biggest names in show business, from Jennifer Lopez to Brad Pitt, rallied to the cause. “After 9/11 we couldn’t have had enough airplanes for the people who were volunteering to go,” Wayne Newton, the Las Vegas crooner who succeeded Bob Hope as head of USO’s talent recruiting effort, told USA Today. “Now with 9/11 being as far removed as it is, the war being up one day and down the next, it becomes increasingly difficult to get people to go.”

Not only do they not go now, many of them spend all their free time actually harming moral. Whether it be swanky private parties or fundraisers for anti-war organizations, todays’ celebrities find it better to pad their hollywood lib-credentials than offer laughter, smiles, and a sense of home to our troops.

Newton said many celebrities have been wary of going because they think it might be seen that they are endorsing the war. “And I say it’s not. I tell them these men and women are over there because our country sent them, and we have the absolute necessity to try to bring them as much happiness as we can.”

I thought you could support the troops with out supporting the war? Hypocrites! There are some on America’s left coast and aristocracy who do either share my support for not only the war, but for the troops and do risk “never working in this town again”, in order to remind the troops just what they are fighting for, America.

Even Al Franken has put aside his venomous politics to entertain America’s finest, and for that I have to thank him. So few people in America have the ability to stand before a crowd and bring them to their feet with laughter, cheers, or awe as our celebrities do. Too bad that they have decided not to share their gifts with the people who are sacrificing so that they can use their talents. I have never believed anyone when they have said that it is possible to support the troops and not the war. This story is proof of that.

Most of these celebrities believe it is more important what their piers think of them instead of the brave men and women defending our nation do. They worry more about being on the guest list to the parties in the hills, than whether our troops can have fond memories of them.

I wish I could go give the troops something back. I wish I could be talented in a way that I would be invited to go visit the troops. I wish I could have some talent that would brighten their day or lift their spirits. But I don’t. God was not that gracious to me. But he was to some, and those people are playing partisan politics with the spirits of our troops. They should be ashamed of themselves for being what they blame everyone else of, self-centered partisanship.

If the USO is having trouble filling the slots on their shows, I suppose I owe it to the troops to try. I’d be honored. I used to have a funny bone somewhere. I figure at the very least, some one ought to go over there and remind them of home and what they are fighting for. And if the people with the talent won’t do it, I’ll step up to the plate. I’d be honored.

Merry Christmas from Residual Forces.

How about that, Bio-diesel sucks. Well, it freezes. just 2% mix is enough to freeze up and shut down some trucks.

(AP) St. Paul Truckers will get a three-week reprieve from the state’s 2-month-old biodiesel mandate after complaints that the soybean-based fuel is clogging some fuel filters — particularly in cold weather.

The state Department of Commerce on Friday temporarily suspended a requirement to blend 2 percent biodiesel into diesel fuel, giving biodiesel makers and distributors time to fix the problem. During the 21-day variance, stations can sell unblended diesel fuel.

Freezing fuel filters is a big problem in trucking. Just about every trucker out there has probably had it happen to them at least once. When it does happen, you are SOL. unless you happen to have a spare filter, the tools to change it, along with the luck of stalling in a safe enough place to make the repair.

“We have members that are going ballistic over this,” said John Hausladen, president of the Minnesota Trucking Association. “Now, we do not know for certain that it is the biodiesel causing the problem, and we are trying to make sure that we have our data. But all the evidence we have gathered points to biodiesel being the culprit.”

You mean to tell me that the bio-diesel isn’t really ready for mass consumption yet? Jeez, it is almost like it was done by pure mandate rather than as the markets desire. Actually it was railroaded into use by the legislature, at the strong armed tactics of various lobbies.

Bruce Gordon, with the Minnesota Department of Commerce, said there’s not an obvious cause to the problem. The state is conducting tests — initial results on 18 samples showed “four samples that failed a cold-weather test, but it does not say what is the cause of that failure,” he said Thursday.

“We have received complaints that fuel filters are reportedly clogging, especially in colder weather, and we know that not everyone is experiencing the problem,” he said.

So, better hope you make it. Maybe you’ll be lucky to get that load to its destination. Typical CYA by a state official.

The state’s trucking group said that in a survey of 90 members, 56 reported problems with plugged fuel filters, Hausladen said.

Maybe you should plan on it happening. I would. (junk science in my opinion.)

The clogging has stunned Minnesota’s soybean growers, who envisioned biodiesel as a clean alternative fuel. They worked to make Minnesota the first — and only — state to require a biodiesel blend in every gallon of diesel sold.

Gee I wonder why no one else did it? Maybe because it is crap?

But now, farm groups are willing to have state officials waive the law temporarily,

Gee thanks, I sure hope your subsidy checks don’t rely on bio-diesel to get to you. (That was uncalled for, I apologize.) But these green fuels are crap. They are based on junk science and hysteria.