McCain on the other hand won big in New Hampshire taking 37% to Mitt Romney's second place finish at 32%. I wouldn't read too much into this for McCain, he was popular here in 2000 and was expected to do well here this time around also. McCain is sitting fourth or worse in the polls in South Carolina, Nevada, and Florida, and let's not forget that he failed to pick up a single delegate in Wyoming.

Like Iowa, the big side story is voter turnout. The Democrats tallied a total of 276,685 votes to the Republican's 226,640, a difference of just over 50,000 votes. This trend must be making the DNC very optimistic for the November election no matter who they end up fielding.

Oly Hempfest 2008 at Heritage Park Sat 11am-8pm, Sun 11am-6pm guest speakers Jack Herer, Eddy Lepp entertainment by High Ceiling, Bluestte, More TBA.

AFP: Pentagon has video, audio of Strait of Hormuz incident

The Pentagon charged Monday that five armed Iranian speedboats approached the USS Port Royal, the USS Hopper and the USS Ingraham at high speeds in international waters as they transited the Strait of Hormuz Sunday morning at 0400 GMT.

"What happened between the Guards and foreign vessels was an ordinary identification," Ali Reza Tangsiri, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' naval forces in the region, told the Mehr news agency.

I'm surprised the Iranian boats were allowed to get so close to the route the U.S. ships were using but I'm really not qualified to comment on the actual danger presented to the ships.

I believe Rob stated he was in the Navy. Maybe he could offer an opinion based on his experience and knowledge from sailing around?

I wish I had more time to discuss this right now but I am interested to know how you feel about Hillary's standing in New Hampshire and the presidential race overall.  I originally suspected she was headed downhill.  I still don't think she's the Democratic nominee but you've got to wonder if her emotional tug on America has something to do with her sudden success in NH.  She's ahead by over 3,500 votes with nearly 60% of precincts reporting.  And...

Is Mac back?  John McCain simply smashed the competition in NH, where independents rule.  In Romney's post-primary speech, a silver again, his congratulations of McCain's NH run fell amongst a slew of boos.  Huckabee was a distant 3rd.

The number crunching will be fierce on Wednesday but know this - 9 out of 10 folks from NH were talking economy (taxes, healthcare, subprime, etc.) and foreign policy (Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan).  Guns are rarely a decisive factor.  Abortion seems to have the same fate.

Speaking of Iran, what a bunch of <rhymes with wussies>.  The next time you come that close to our Navy in international waters expect that your 'Miami Vice' boat will be snortable.  If that's a word.  I got it from Lindsay Lohan.

Air: Wednesday, January 9, 7:00 pm on KCTS (Analog/DT)Seattle
Future Airs: 01/11/08, 4:00 am KCTS (Analog/DT)Seattle...

Dan and Nancy Evans: 50 Years of Leadership is an important and enlightening conversation about leadership and public service with one of the most prominent couples in our state. Over five decades, Dan Evans has served Washington state as a legislator, Governor, college president and United States Senator. By his side has been his wife Nancy who has set her own standard of public service. Taped before an audience at the University of Washington, the couple looks back on a remarkable political career and talks about the need for public service and leadership today. KCTS 9's Enrique Cerna is the host of this one hour special.

Run Time: 00:56:46

Source: KCTS

From the Header on its front page:

This blog is made up of transcripts of Harry Lamin's letters from the first World War. The letters will be posted exactly 90 years after they were written. To find out Harry's fate, follow the blog!

The blog is run by Harry Lamin's Grandson.

Here is the City of Olympia's online page for getting involved via the advisory board process--

To me this all seems overly bureaucratic (and if understand all the info about this process correctly, with the majority of the board posts being appointed via selection process by Council, rather prone to nepotism), but that is just me:..

...I took one look at the application process and thought of other ways of being during my time on Earth.

But I did download all the forms and looked at all the suggested reading on the site and was wondering what my fellow OlyBloggers think of this whole process as described (perhaps maybe share stories about past or current volunteerism "with/for/or near" the City of Olympia)--

--I'm especially interested in hearing about ideas for events or collaborations that have stalled-out or never started because of anticipated interaction with City governance.

As Rob noted, former downtown business owner Joan Machlis was appointed to the council last night. Here a video of her interview.

And the movie of their final decision

I thought Joan did a good job in her interview, I was glad she talked more about why she feels neighborhood gathering places are an important part of a great city. In appointing her, the council had various good things to say about her.

Joe Hyer (I'm paraphrasing here a bit): There were a lot of good applicants, she was right person at the right time.

Jeff Kingsbury:I liked how she talked about community and gathering places (me too).

Rhenda Strub: Her strengths balance out my weaknesses, and anyone of them would have made a good addition.

Here are videos of all of the other interviews:

It's time to get moving on setting up OlyBlog as a non-profit, especially if we want to apply for grant money to fund some more experimental approaches to citizen journalism. For example, we could potentially fund Citizen Terminals at different locations around town, where folks could sit down and blog about something that is happening (and upload pictures or video). We could also think about stipends for individual Citizen Journalists to reimburse expenses (e.g., memory cards, travel expenses, etc). Other ideas anyone?

The first thing we need to do is finish the bylaws (which anyone can contribute to), and then we'll know more about what kind of tax status we should file under. I'm thinking we should set up a workgroup, meeting weekly, to hash out the details, and divide up the duties. Sign up in the comments if you'd like to be in the workgroup, and I'll send out a Doodle schedule that we can use to find meeting times. (If you can put good and/or bad times in your comment, that will help narrow things down.)

I'm interested in reactions to her selection. What in her application will be of benefit to the council?