Thanks to everyone who contributed over the years and perhaps we'll meet someplace else on the Internet.

If you see any problems, drop me an email, or throw in a comment.

Of course, if something interesting happens, I'll be back to comment.

I started posting the press releases for two reasons. First, Massa's site wasn't up and running yet. Second, I think it's interesting to compare the press releases with what's published in local media. Since Massa's been posting them for all to see, I've removed them from the front page. If you want to see Massa press releases, they're here.

The feed of Massa's recent votes which was on the left column is now at the bottom right.

This data is provided by the excellent GovTrack site, which allows you to set up custom trackers for Congress. The site is an impressive, free effort by Josh Tauber and a few other volunteers, and it's worth a visit.

I've also changed the top right menuing to remove earmarks (which aren't available yet), and replace it with a resources page. That page has a few links for those curious about doing more Congressional research.

I'll be pimping up the feed displays over the next couple of days.

Howard Owens from The Batavian will be joining us.

The live blog here will start around 8:30 or so. Check in then to see what's happening.

We will be live-blogging with DragonFlyEye. Check back here around 9:30 tomorrow for the live-blog, and I hope anyone interested will join in.

Update: CW-16 is a Rochester TV station affiliated with 13-WHAM. I believe they will simulcast on the Internet at their website here. Tune in to the live blog tomorrow for more information.

We'll be live-blogging starting a little before 9 p.m. tonight.

We'll be using some new software that allows everyone to comment in real-time. It's more like IM or a chatroom, so it should be pretty interactive. If you're watching the debate and near a computer, stop in and participate.

In today's post on the debates, I claimed that there have been no public polls in the 29th, and that Kuhl's campaign has not paid for a poll in the recent past. A sharp reader wrote to point out a Kuhl poll which was distributed in January that showed Kuhl 20 points ahead. Just to be clear: in addition to being a poll from one side, that poll had a few other issues that made it really unreliable. Follow the previous link to learn more. There's been no third-party polling in the district that I know about.

As reported earlier, Greenpeace is bringing a solar demonstration vehicle to the Southern Tier. The vehicle will be on display at Watkins Glen, Clute Park/Lakeside (by Route 414) tomorrow, between 4-6 P.M.

Other than the appearance, the main changes are the comment procedure, and the earmarks and significant votes sections.

Comments are now "threaded" so you can hit the "reply" link to reply to a previous comment. Also, you should only be asked the "CAPTCHA" question once, and then your email and name will be remembered for a while. The security question is now a little simple math. Since few were using logins, I didn't bother re-implementing them in this version.

Earmarks and Significant Votes are now linked to pages in CongressDB that contain data from Taxpayers for Common Sense and Project VoteSmart. Both of those are new CongressDB features, by the way. You can look up other legislator's 2007 earmarks and their Key Votes (according to Project VoteSmart) if you're interested.

An old friend used to say "all change is decline". That's not my intention, so please send me an email if you see anything amiss.

The Senate is at the root of many of the problems Democrats faced this year. Republicans applied delaying tactics that had never been used before--on highly controversial issues as well as routine ones, and not just by filibustering, but by regularly denying unanimous consent in a body where everything moves, or doesn't, by unanimity. It had the twin effect of raising the bar to 60 on nearly every issue, and slowing down the Senate as if there were gallons of molasses poured onto the roadway. Because a filibuster can be applied as many as three separate times on a bill, and a successful cloture vote allows up to 30 hours of debate after it passes, filibuster efforts, even on widely accepted matters, can take days to resolve. And by raising the bar to 60, it meant that many matters with majority support--like limiting farm subsidy payments to non-millionaires--went by the boards. Combine these delaying tactics with the president's near-universal veto strategy, and you have a formula for gridlock.

• Those of you interested in new media might want to read an interview with Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.  Craigslist is a company of about two dozen people with the goal of bringing free classified ads to the world.  Money quote:

Newspapers have much bigger problems. Newspapers are going after 10% to 30% profit margins for their businesses and that hurts them more than anything. A lot of things are happening on the Internet that never happened before because the Internet is a vehicle for everyone. The mass media is no longer only for the powerful, and that's a huge change for the entire newspaper and news industry.

In the old media model, with huge presses or transmitters and large technically-adept staffs, a 20% profit margin was necessary to attract investors willing to finance the overhead in return for a share of the profit.  In the new media model, major capital investments are no longer part of the picture, so media can run on a low- (or no-) profit, sustainability model.  In other words, today's media can be more like a small business than a major corporation.  That's a tremendous shift in the media business model that we're just starting to see nationally in sites like Craigslist or TPM Media.  The shock waves of that shift are just starting to be felt in our local markets, but when they hit, it's going to be an interesting ride.

• I like watching the HBO series The Wire.  The show takes on different issues in inner-city Baltimore, including the War on Drugs, Education and Unions.  It's written by two veteran reporters for the Baltimore Sun.   This year's theme is journalism, and it will be fascinating to see the parallels between the D&C's role in inner-city Rochester, and the Sun's in Baltimore.
  

• This week's Massa press conference was canceled due to the holidays.

• The look is slightly different.
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