Fellow SOBer Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion has blogged on, and I believe influenced, the downfalls of two powerful RINOpublicans who deserve to be put out to pasture.

Summit County’s Alex Arshinkoff has resigned from that County’s Board of Elections.

Kay Rogers is about to do the same thing as Butler County Auditor.

Others have been involved in vetting one of the above two situations, and I don’t intend to slight them (in fact, anyone who moved the story along and sends a link will be recognized late this evening when I return to Blogland), but Matt has been at both of them very persistently.

Well done, sir.

BizzyBlog began on February 22, 2005, with a post on Social Security, and how its retirement benefit calculation works. Stated quickly, it hasn’t changed; the more you make during your working career, the less you get back in benefits as a percentage of your income (sorry, I’m just the messenger).

Otherwise, wow…. infinite thanks to all readers, commenters, and advertisers.

And now back to our not-so-regular programming.

Michelle Malkin has made a very good business move by snagging Captain Ed Morrissey for Hot Air. Captain Ed’s going there is very astute on his part.

As if to prove a point, one of Captain Ed’s final posts (”Did Saddam Figure’s Millions Influence Obama?”) asks questions about shady Barack Obama connections that only overseas media outlets seem to care about.

Hot Air has added more investigative heft, and by doing so has definitely cranked it up a notch. This is good news heading into an election campaign season that promises to have many nutroots v. rightroots moments. By adding Morrissey, Michelle, who by herself has ‘em outgunned, has just turned it into a totally unfair fight.

Bryan Preston has left Hot Air to become Laura Ingraham’s producer. Congrats to Michelle for handling his move with class. I so despise when someone leaves a company, the employer refuses to say what happened to the person who left, and even acts as if they never existed. Ms. Malkin, as usual, has too much class to do that.

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Victor Davis Hanson on the New York Times’s “McCaingate” (my word; bold is mine):

….. three questions arise about the Times.

1. The Descent. Is this more of the same—when we remember the Jason Blair mess, the leaks of National Security information, the Moveon.org discounted ads, and the serial stories about defeat in Iraq and relative silence about the surge? The Times in the ideological sense has become indistinguishable from the Nation, and in its lack of craftsmanship no different from the British Tabloids or National Inquirer. Like Dan Rather and the crash of CBS, its directors know what their disease is, but also that the medicine is worse, so they will keep at it until they will expire.

2. Why Now? What are we to understand about the timing? That they held it to ensure a scandal-free McCain in the primaries, as the least offensive of the Republican candidates? They hoped he would win the nomination, as they argued in their own endorsement, but almost immediately upon becoming the veritable winner he should be weakened to favor the Democratic candidate in the general election? It is surreal to see the New Republic of recent Scott Beauchamp infamy in a tussle with the New York Times, on matters of conscious and probity. Name an old standby: CBS—Rather and the “memo”; Newsweek—the Periscope flushing of the Koran lie; Reuters—the photoshopped smoke over Beirut; New Republic—the Beauchamp mythology. The examples could be multiplied, but the theme is the same: a media elite, well educated and sophisticated, believes that their own biased means are necessary to achieve a utopian and just ends for the rest of us.

3. Open Season? Does the McCain story establish new benchmarks? Now we are going to go carefully through the last ten years of Obama’s personal and professional life to discover whether anyone ever wondered about attractive women in his general vicinity, and whether he was ever familiar with lobbyists?

The last sentences in Numbers 1 and 2 nail it.

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All of a sudden, out of the blue from Associated Press, appears this 15-year summary of Hillary Clinton’s involvement in things such as Whitewater, the White House Travel Office, Paula Jones, etc. I mean, it’s all there as it relates to Mrs. Clinton, including Monica Lewinsky, Ken Starr, etc. Geez, even Vince Foster.

I guess AP is cleaning out the closet, because after next Tuesday few will care.

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Once again, Ralph Nader is running for prezzzzz……

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The Canadians understand the “aid and comfort to the enemy” problem:

Canada: Afghan Debate Endangers Troops

Canada’s top general warned lawmakers Friday that prolonged debate over the military mission in Afghanistan could be encouraging the Taliban to step up attacks on Canadian forces to coerce an early withdrawal.

Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Rick Hillier called for a quick extension of the mission past February 2009, saying that the Taliban is watching the political debate and looking for signs of weakness.

“We are, in the eyes of the Taliban, in a window of extreme vulnerability. And the longer we go without that clarity, with the issue in doubt, the more the Taliban will target us as a perceived weak link,” Hillier said.

Hopefully, Hillier sent transcripts of his statement to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

From East St. Louis, Illinois:

Feb 23, 7:21 PM EST

As flames consumed her home and prevented her parents from helping, a quick-thinking 12-year-old girl saved two younger siblings Saturday by kicking out a second-story window and easing them down, firefighters said.

Derrionna Adams then leaped 15 feet to safety, East St. Louis Fire Chief William Fennoy said.

“She kicked the window out and stepped up onto the roof of the first floor and was able to pull her two siblings out,” Fennoy said. “This was a blessed day.”

Velma Dorris, the children’s mother, and her husband, Bernard, were sleeping downstairs with three children when the fire started, authorities said. Smoke and flames kept them from reaching the children upstairs.

Meanwhile, oldest daughter Derrionna managed to guide her two siblings, a 9-year-old and an 8-year-old, onto the roof, Fennoy said. Once outside, the 9-year-old boy, Dedeonta Neal, noticed his younger sisters were missing, not knowing they were safe with his mother. The boy went back inside the burning building to find them, suffering burns on his arms before exiting.

He and the others jumped 15 feet from the roof, Fennoy said. The boy broke his ankle in the fall, but the other five children were uninjured.

The house was destroyed before firefighters could put out the blaze. Firefighters suspect a space heater started it, Fennoy said.

Mayor Alvin Parks Jr. said the 12-year-old girl was mature beyond her years.

“It is a tremendously courageous and wise way of dealing with the situation,” Parks said. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.