Betsy Muse's blog

It's that time again. BlueNC is having major growing pains and we are in need of an upgrade. Our database is in dire need of some cleaning and we have unnecessary files all over the place.

We also need to shed some outdated modules and upgrade our Drupal installation from 5.x to 6.x. In our case it will be Drupal 6.6. This will mean some big changes and it might take you some time to get used to some of the new features.

We will temporarily lose the use of our private message system and our events calendar, but the benefits of the upgrade will far outweigh those minor inconveniences.

I caught up with Wayne Goodwin this week and asked him about his campaign. I was specifically interested in how public financing worked for him. Both he and his opponent participated in public financing, so were on equal footing in that regard. The most obvious result of their participation is that insurance industry money was kept at a minimum in both campaigns reducing the appearance that those who are regulated by the office also hold influence over it.

This year the voters booted the insurance industry and its employees out of this campaign, not that the current or future office holders were or would have been influenced by their contributions in the first place.

The following is a bit of my Q & A with Commissioner-elect Goodwin:

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Dear Veterans,

Thank you for your service to our country.
Thank you for securing and ensuring our safety and the many freedoms we enjoy.
Thank you for helping those in other countries devastated by natural disasters.
Thank you for assisting in our own communities when natural disasters hit home.
Thank you for protecting our global neighbors when aggressors put them in harms way.

The greatest strength of America's military is found in the number of men and women willing to voluntarily put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve the people of this country and those in need around the world. We are truly blessed.

Thank you.

H/t ghostlawns at Kos:

Every presidential election cycle in my adult life that I can recall, I've heard about the dreaded October surprise. This year we speculated what that might be and anxiously anticipated its arrival. We might not have known about it, but the October surprise had been arriving all month in the form of pink slips. Unemployment figures are out for October and over 240,000 people lost their jobs in the month prior to election day.

Each job loss touched more lives than just that of the former employee. If the economic turmoil hitting Wall Street hadn't had an impact on their lives yet, the new job loss made it personal. Think of the spouses, neighbors, parents, adult children and friends who might share the fear, grief and anger of the newly unemployed and you can imagine a massive group of people motivated to vote for change.

According to just about everyone in the free world Elizabeth Dole crossed the line with her "Godless" ad attacking Kay Hagan.

Kay is fighting back. She has not only released a strong ad, but plans to fight back in court.

GREENSBORO, NC- Kay Hagan filed a lawsuit against Elizabeth Dole and the Elizabeth Dole Committee, Inc., after Dole declined to remove her new television ad, described by North Carolina newspapers as "indecent," a "gross misrepresentation," "dishonest," and "beyond the bounds of acceptable political disagreement."

A brand new Rasmussen poll is just in and Elizabeth Dole has fallen even further behind Democratic challenger Kay Hagan. The poll shows it was in the field at the same time Dole was carpet bombing North Carolina with ads attacking Kay Hagan's faith.

I didn't get to see it, but I found an email in my in box. Soooo, I'm offering the first person to post the video in the comment section or to add it to this diary post their choice of my homemade peach, strawberry or blackberry jam as a reward for their speedy posting of the video.