http://denver.yourhub.comThe latest blog posts in The Denver Newspaper Agency YourHub.comen-usnews@yourhub.com(c) 2009, YourHub.com5Hi, neighbors. I'm finally tackling the old driveway, which is now pretty much just hard-packed earth sprinkled with old gravel, and a whole bunch of weeds and whatnot. I'm ready to re-gravel, but I don't just want to dump a couple of tons on top of an existing problem. First off, the cur...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Blog~614248.aspx5/11/2009 6:56:49 PMRalph Dosser Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall and 4th District House Candidate Betsy Markey were bumped up in the Washington Post's "Line" of seats most likely to switch party control in the fall. Udall's ranking jumped from 5th to 3rd, and Markey from 12th to 8th in the listing maintained by Post p...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~526606.aspx9/28/2008 7:31:09 AMRalph Dosser John McCain got an expensive lesson in the difference between tactical and strategic in Friday night's debate - he gained a narrow tactical victory, but suffered a big strategic defeat. The tactical victory: Going by debate rules, McCain edged out a win over Barack Obama by "landing blo...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~526575.aspx9/27/2008 3:50:45 PMRalph Dosser (Follow up to the post " Soccer In The Trenches ") In case anybody's wondering - I think it went well. David Brown showed up, and he and I had a couple of pints and got to know each other. No shots were fired, no blows were exchanged. I now know that David's a good guy, very friendly...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Blog~526577.aspx9/27/2008 5:07:17 PMRalph Dosser I've got a truly insane idea. Let's sit down and have a drink. It's all too easy to demonize a name on a web page, but maybe not so with somebody you've connected with. Somebody you share something with. Somebody you've showed a picture of your kids, or talked sports, or computers, or hiking ...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Blog~524446.aspx9/22/2008 9:22:46 PMRalph Dosser For a while there, against all reason and against the laws of physics itself, the coyote was hanging in mid-air. By picking Sarah Palin and launching into a lie-based campaign, John McCain had strapped on the Acme rocket wings and launched himself off the cliff, hanging in mid-air, straining skyw...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~523198.aspx9/19/2008 7:53:06 AMRalph Dosser The dear ladies at "Right For Longmont" have this habit of "blogging" by copying things from their email inboxes - things that most people would call spam - and pasting them into blog posts. One of their more recent triumphs was a comparison of snowbilly Sarah Palin to (take a deep breath her...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~522089.aspx9/16/2008 11:39:53 PMRalph Dosser This story has everything! Sex, drugs, politics, and a moral! You don't get that often these days. And - trust me - it has a Denver angle. " He met her in the bar of the swank hotel and invited her to his room. Once there, the woman fixed the drinks and told him to get undressed." What a l...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/Local-State-Politics/Blog~521771.aspx9/16/2008 11:19:42 AMRalph Dosser Remember the end of "The Fly" when Jeff Goldblum's human face and body slough away, revealing the horrible monster underneath? That's what it's been like watching the McCain campaign these past few weeks. Sure, a lot of us knew that the "Straight Talk" and "Maverick" business was a bunch of h...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~521009.aspx9/14/2008 7:15:13 PMRalph Dosser Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer got his butt caught in the toaster again, screwing up yet another expensive ad buy and possibly costing his campaign big bucks that he can't afford. According to the Rocky Mountain News , Schaffer's latest TV ad apparently broke federal campaign law...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~520825.aspx9/13/2008 5:50:58 PMRalph Dosser I think I get why the wingnut right loves Sarah Palin: she's Dubya in a dress. The final piece of the puzzle came when I heard her try - and fail - to say the word "nuclear" during her embarrassing interview with Charlie Gibson. Like Dubya, she mangled it as "nuke-you-lar." Not just once and ...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~520800.aspx9/13/2008 12:19:41 PMRalph Dosser Right now, John Sidney McCain III is as close to the White House as he's ever going to get. His campaign has peaked, his mistakes are about to drag him back under, and he knows it. The desperation is obvious. Like a child furiously swatting at an out-of-reach brass ring, McCain is unleashing ...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~519257.aspx9/10/2008 11:16:00 AMRalph Dosser It's late in the game, your situation is hopeless and there's no realistic path to victory. What do you do? Something so insane the other side would never expect it. McCain needed to get Obama's triumphant speech out of the news and somehow put his campaign off-balance. So he did the craziest...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~518492.aspx9/8/2008 3:14:38 PMRalph Dosser Why are so many top Republican candidates - including Colorado Senate hopeful Bob Schaffer - shunning the GOP's national convention this year? "Nobody likes a funeral," said a Senate Republican press secretary, who went on to mourn "the overall climate of general malaise about the party," ...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~507650.aspx8/13/2008 1:06:52 PMRalph Dosser Lewis Black was on the Daily Show Wednesday night, riffing on dictatorships and hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. He showed a CNN news clip in which the reporter had spent $3 trillion (Zimbabwean) on two cans of baked beans and some tomatoes. Black yelled: "A trillion dollars for baked beans? I did...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Pop-Culture/Blog~505882.aspx8/7/2008 8:48:08 PMRalph Dosser Republican Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave repeated Monday a lie told by Dick Cheney, falsely claiming that China is drilling for oil 60 miles off the Florida coast in Cuban waters. In an article in The Coloradoan , Musgrave was reported as repeating Cheney's June 12 whopper, which he was for...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~491295.aspx7/2/2008 10:54:12 AMRalph Dosser 1922 - Warren G. Harding has a radio installed in the White House. 1929 - President Herbert Hoover has a telephone installed on his desk in the Oval Office. 1936 - John McCain is born. 1939 - Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first president to speak on television. 1947 - Harry S. Trum...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~489823.aspx6/28/2008 9:17:00 PMRalph Dosser Republican Bob Schaffer's senate campaign leaped out of the gate and off the side of a mountain this week when his first campaign ad featured the candidate confusing Mount McKinley with Pikes Peak. In the ad, the Ohio-raised Schaffer cocks his head back toward a mountain in the background beh...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~471018.aspx5/15/2008 5:22:31 PMRalph Dosser I was at the Farmer's Market today, and was interested to see that the Longmont Republicans had a presence: a card table with a little stack of books, manned only by a dispirited youngish man slumped in a too-small folding chair. He looked like he had long since given up on getting anybody to sto...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/Local-State-Politics/Blog~468572.aspx5/10/2008 10:45:04 PMRalph Dosser Mark Udall , Democratic candidate for Colorado's US Senate seat, blasted the Clinton/McCain gas "tax holiday" proposal as "short sighted" and "Washington-style pandering." I can't say any more than has been said - in abundance - across the web. Google has a huge list of items abou...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~465714.aspx5/4/2008 9:56:30 AMRalph Dosser The $100 tank of gas is going to be a killer for a lot of bedroom communities, but the coming light rail terminus near 1st and Terry could save Longmont from slipping down that hole, and could possibly even cause a development boom. Recent news reports showed that the housing market collapse...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Local-Business/Blog~463338.aspx4/29/2008 9:08:39 AMRalph Dosser With all the attention on the Obama/Clinton race, a little piece of news from the Pennsylvania fell through the cracks last night. First off, the Democratic candidates received a combined total of 2,267,368 votes - a great many of them first-time voters - while only 791,205 votes were cast in...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~460230.aspx4/23/2008 12:17:59 PMRalph Dosser Of course the Firestone/Longmont border dispute is heated, there's money on the line. But Firestone Mayor Mike Simone took the debate to an astonishing low point right out of the gate: "The Longmont council doesn't have the guts to voice its true intent ... they have an anti-LifeBridge, ant...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Blog~449842.aspx4/1/2008 2:30:17 PMRalph Dosser A story in today's Washington Post had a simple point: the GOP doesn't get the internet. You don't have to look very far from home to see this principle in action. Marilyn Musgrave, our 4th District GOP Congresswoman - must be feeling the heat. Survivor of two consecutive narrow re-electi...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/Local-State-Politics/Blog~311585.aspx5/21/2007 7:24:23 PMRalph Dosser Yesterday's testimony by James Comey told a bizarre tale - almost impossible to believe. Top White House officials rushing to stricken Attorney General Ashcroft's bedside to strong-arm a signature, and Ashcroft's assistant and the FBI director dispatching their own muscle to stop them. How could ...http://denver.yourhub.com/Longmont/Blogs/Archive/Politics/National-Politics/Blog~309118.aspx5/16/2007 10:24:52 AMRalph Dosser