Markos Moulitsas — alias “Kos” — created Daily Kos in 2002, a time he describes as “dark days when an oppressive and war-crazed administration suppressed all dissent as unpatriotic and treasonous.” Be careful what you wish for. With the Bush years now just a memory, Kos’s blog has lost its mission, and its increasingly rudderless posts read like talking points from the Democratic National Committee.

Increasingly rudderless posts.  Ouch!

It’s great that the press is finally covering this. The only problem? It goes into effect tomorrow.

There was virtually no reporting of the problems with this law by the news media until this month.  Blogs, on the other hand, have been fighting this thing hard since early December.

In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission granted a one year stay of the regulations in response to the concerns raised in large part on the internet.

I have been following this on craft blogs, Etsy (a handmade internet marketplace), facebook, and even twitter.

This law, as it is written, would have been disastrous to the small crafters.  Many families depend on the income generated by the craft businesses run by an at-home mom.  Under these regulations, which require expensive testing, most of those businesses would be forced to close.

I have always thought of blogging as a hobby and sort of an echo chamber where like-minded people talk about common interests, with little effect.  But, the Stop CPSIA movement really gained traction and the government responded, if only temporarily.

Perhaps, I was wrong.

The work to change CSPIA is not over.  For now, crafters have been spared from these burdensome government regulation that were designed to prevent any more poison toys from China, but it is not the end of the problem.

There are too many people in the government that do not take into account the negative consequences of this type of regulation.  Just as the federal education mandates created for inner-city schools do not work to serve our small rural schools in places like Vermont, expensive testing requirements meant to target large-scale manufacturers and importers hurt small, independent home-based crafting businesses.

One-size does not fit all.

Micro and small businesses are vital to our nation.  Not in the larger sense, where people are employed and large amounts of money changes hands, but in a smaller sense, where families are able to make ends meet and parents have the freedom to be involved in their children’s lives, while still contributing to the economic well being of the family.

The government needs to get smart about micro and small businesses.

For more on what’s wrong with CPSIA, here is a great post that sums up briefly the negative effects of this law on parents, environmentalists, loves of things handmade, second-hand shoppers, small businesses, antique toy collectors, and the economy.  If you fit into any of those groups, please take a look.

But, if you care about that at all, you already knew. Otherwise, you weren’t there either, so you don’t care if I was!

This morning, I was picking up my kids from a summer camp near Plymouth, NH. That’s almost 3 hours away, not counting stops.

I had two choices. Stress everyone out by insisting we rush right home so I could get to the barbecue, or enjoy a leisurely time with the family, stopping as necessary.

The initial plan was to rush right home, I hate to admit. I figured we could all relax at North Beach. Worst case, I could go alone.

Then I saw how exhausted the kids were from a week of non-stop summer camp action. So, I opted for the latter and we rolled into Burlington around 4:00 PM, in the pouring rain.

No barbecue for me.

The real bummer is that this is the only weekend we had plans that were set in stone. Like, ever. I mean ever. Seriously. Other than holidays, we never have plans like this. And the rest of my summer is wide open.

‘Twas not meant to be, I suppose. Better luck next year.

My only question now is whether or not another conservative blogger was there to represent.

Well, Michelle Malkin decided to use the AP’s rates to calculate how much they would owe her for quoting her blog without permission. It’s at least $132,125.

Gee, I guess that one was poorly thought out, AP.

Here’s a clue: Bloggers still need a news source. We are not really a threat. Really.

Not only that, but we have developed sort of a symbiotic relationship. We quote you; you quote us. (Well, some of us.)

Now stop being such you-know-whats.

(The link to MM above has links to the backstory, too.)

Check it out at Candleblog.

In other really cool blogging news, I am posting this from outside in my yard! How cool is that? I love being wireless.

I was thinking it would be cool to jot down my random political thoughts that are too short to necessitate a full blog post or drop a quick note about something when I do not have the time to flesh it out in a full post.

At this point I am thinking that I will spare you the boring details of my life. I will probably sign up for another account and post it on my personal blog.

But be forewarned, I reserve the right to bore you at a later date, if I so choose. Having two accounts might end up being more of a hassle than it is worth.

Besides, don’t you want to know when I am going to the store or making soap?

Update: My auto-post never went up today.  I don’t know what happened.  It might have had something to do with the tags.  I was only posting links tagged “politics,” but I added “blogging” last night.  Maybe that screwed something up.

I ended up using the manual post function.

Diigo

Diigo rocks! It is like Clipmarks meets Del.icio.us.

They call it “social annotation.”

You can bookmark, clip, sticky-note, and highlight. And then share.

You can even share your annotated links, so someone else can view what you highlighted on a site.

It is a great tool when putting together a blog post or article. And you can keep your annotations private if you want, as well.

My daily Lunchtime Links posts are automatically posted when I am away from the computer, from the sites I bookmarked that morning or the evening before.

So check out Diigo.com.

(I swear this is not an ad.)

Turns out the bloggers are right.

According to a new poll, “Over 75% of reporters see blogs as helpful in giving them story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue.”

Marketing Pilgrim has the scoop.