Illinois Senators voted 59-0 to remove Rod Blagojevich, who walked out of the silent chamber after delivering an impassioned plea for mercy. Within hours, they applauded his former running mate and lieutenant governor, Patrick Quinn, who was sworn in as the state's 41st governor vowing a new course for Illinois. He replaced a defiant Blagojevich, 52, the first Democratic governor in a quarter century and the first governor in Illinois history to be impeached. After racing back to his Chicago house before the vote could deprive him of a ride home on the state plane, Blagojevich once again said he was the victim of a rush to judgment. Proclaiming his innocence during a 47-minute closing argument, Blagojevich declared he "never, ever intended to violate the law" and added that he was "sorry we're all in this."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-blagojevich-mainbarjan30,0,923624.story Here’s the WSJ story.

Unimplemented IG Recommendations Costing Taxpayers Billions of Dollars
News release: "The House Oversight Committee asked the nation’s IGs to identify all recommendations made between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2008 that had not been implemented by federal agencies. The information provided shows that the Bush Administration failed to implement 13,847 recommendations since 2001, which could have saved taxpayers $25.9 billion. Almost half of these recommendations were made over a year ago, and more than a quarter were made over two years ago. The five agencies that could save the most money by implementing open recommendations are the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development."
Majority Staff Report: Implementing Thousands of Open Recommendations Could Save Taxpayers Almost $26 Billion, January 2009

Treasury Provides Funding to Bolster Healthy, Local Banks
News release: "The U.S. Treasury Department has announced investments of approximately $386 million in 23 banks across the nation as part of its Capital Purchase Program (CPP), a means to directly infuse capital into healthy, viable banks with the goal of increasing the flow of financing available to small businesses and consumers. With additional capital, banks are better able to meet the lending needs of their customers, and businesses have greater access to the credit that they need to keep operating and growing."
Transaction Report (1/27/2009)

Report: Wind Energy Grows by Record 8,300 MW in 2008
The U.S. wind energy industry shattered all previous records in 2008 by installing 8,358 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity (enough to serve over 2 million homes), the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today, even as it warned of an uncertain outlook for 2009 due to the continuing financial crisis. The massive growth in 2008 swelled the nation’s total wind power generating capacity by 50% and channeled an investment of some $17 billion into the economy, positioning wind power as one of the leading sources of new power generation in the country today along with natural gas, AWEA added. At year’s end, however, financing for new projects and orders for turbine components slowed to a trickle and layoffs began to hit the wind turbine manufacturing sector."
State-by state installation information
For more on the policies that are needed
Related postings on wind energy

Between 1816 and 1820, Stephen Decatur (1779-1820) served as a Navy Commissioner. During his tenure as a Commissioner, Decatur became active in the Washington social scene. At one of his social gatherings, Decatur uttered an after-dinner toast that would become famous: "Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!" This toast is often misquoted as "My country, right or wrong!" and then attacked as a straw man by those who believe it to be an enduring and official statement of US foreign policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Decatur

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man," one describes a position that superficially resembles an opponent's actual view, yet is easier to refute. Then, one attributes that position to the opponent. For example, someone might deliberately overstate the opponent's position. While a straw man argument may work as a rhetorical technique—and succeed in persuading people—it carries little or no real evidential weight, since the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted. The term is derived from the practice in ages past of using human-shaped straw dummies in combat training. In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy, sometimes dressed in an enemy uniform or decorated in some way to vaguely resemble them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Example of a univocalic sentence—only uses one vowel
Abraham’s ark has ants, aardvarks, bats, cats, rats and pandas.

One-liners
All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.
All I ask is a chance to prove money can’t make me happy.
I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
http://www.northbaybiz.com/Columnists/Publishers_Forum/Is_It_Possible_to_Be_Totally_Partial.php