Reporting live from Marin County, one of the richest regions in the US. After a local newspaper last week reported on the growing shortages of food in Marin's food pantries, I started doing some good old fashioned investigating. Conclusion: The crisis we are facing here, where our local Food Bank is struggling to serve 1,700 people a month, must pale in comparison to what's going on in your neck of the woods.

Advice is about as expensive as talk. Nancy Pelosi reportedly thinks that Obama should govern from the middle. The Gaucho Politico thinks that Obama should govern from the left. According to a horde of folks on the right, from retired Army Colonel David F. Bedey to the Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party to Newsweek editor Jon Meacham have repeatedly stated that America remains a "center-right" nation which requires that Obama govern accordingly (i.e, to the Center-right). Peggy Noonan doesn't explicitly call us a center-right bunch, but implies that Obama has to moderate his governance to win over the 50 million-plus of us who voted for McCain (a caution she never deemed necessary for Mr. Bush, whose victory margins were considerably smaller). All that unsolicited advice is starting to sound like the Yardbirds' famous song "Over, Under, Sideways, Down." Fortunately, I'm here to offer my own really inexpensive advice.

Why does Jane Chastain fear, hate, and/or disdain the Girl Scouts of America (GSA), of all groups? Well, apparently because they're leftists addicted to change kind of like Barack Obama, and because they've added an asterisk to God. And you were worried about al Qaeda while all the while the Girl Scouts were selling God and country down the river of new age waters and multicultural streams!

Cry, moan and wail: Since last Tuesday, the tongues are a wag. Did the GOP lose touch with the voters? If so, what can be done to repair their image?

And will they even bother?

You probably didn't hear about this unless you work for a newspaper, but last month the head of newspaper conglomerate MediaNews Group said to the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, "One thing we're exploring is having one news desk for all of our newspapers in MediaNews ... maybe even offshore." Now that's a terrific idea, don't you think? Yet it may be unstoppable, at least in the short run.

And here I go again, back on my soapbox. What I am to say, I've said before, and I refuse to budge on my idea, as to date, I've never had anyone hand me better data...

When I voted at 7:10 a.m. this morning in St. Johns County, Florida, my right to vote was challenged because a poll worker decided my signature did not match my driver's license signature. I was given an "Affadavit of Elector When Signature is Different" form to sign and was going to be given a provisional ballot, but I objected to that decision, telling the worker that I've been voting at the same precinct with the same address for a decade and they were "abrogating my right to vote." (When negotiating a government bureaucracy, the most obscure verb wins.)

I've been telling anyone who will listen that once Christmas is over, look out for the avalanche of retail stores closing. Now it seems I was being too optimistic: things are so bad, expectations for the Christmas season are so low, and inventory is actually losing value so quickly that retailers are already starting the closing season.

It's very interesting to hear what political folks say in low pressure situations, where they aren't necessarily as watchful or their words as they might be under the glare of national tv, for example. Take John McCain. Please.

On October 29, Eliabeth Vargas of ABC News asked Sarah Palin "Do you think Senator Obama is as patriotic, as American, as honorable as John McCain? " The answer, according to an excerpt of the interview, was "I am sure that Senator Obama, ... cares as much for this country as McCain does."

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