This and that

Apologies for the dry spell in posting. As usual, I have been very busy, primarily working and reading. I'm still at the cow barn and the bookstore, but starting tomorrow I will be a volunteer intern on the Jeanne Shaheen for Senate campaign. I've decided that although I have reservations about the presidential candidates, the New Hampshire Senate race is one that I CAN get interested and involved in. Our current senator, John Sununu (R), beat former Governor Shaheen (D) in their last matchup in 2002, allegedly with some dirty tactics, so I'm really hoping she'll kick his butt this time, and I'm happy to do what I can to help, so when a friend of mine told me he had a job on the campaign and was looking for help, I jumped at the opportunity. Not sure exactly what I'll be doing yet, but meanwhile here's a couple of links to look at on Jeanne Shaheen's position on the issues from Ontheissues.org and her campaign website.
Next, I did of course note the interesting announcement made by Barack Obama about his intentions to renew and expand Bush's faith-based initiatives. This is a very odd pronouncement for a Democratic candidate to make, certainly controversial and bold. I personally support it, as I always have, provided he doesn't go too far, especially with the initiatives about some ability to hire and fire based on faith, but certainly this has charged up some Democrats, who are upset about this shift to hard center, and some Republicans, who note the hypocrisy of Democrats supporting the faith-based initiatives now that Obama is supporting it, who wouldn't when Bush proposed them. Commonweal magazine has an interesting blog post about it, and Michael Gerson wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post about how this is an indication that Obama knows how to "play the political game."
Finally, Happy Canada Day (July 1) and Happy Independence Day (July 4)! Here's a quote from National Treasure appropriate to the latter holiday.

"To high treason! That's what the signers of the Declaration of Independence were committing. If we had lost the war and they had been caught, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, oh and let's not forget my personal favorite. Their entrails would have been cut out and burned. So- here's to the men who did what the law said was wrong in order to do what they knew was right."