Quickies: Readers respond to Herald sale, Eastside road work

* Dakota was giving the thumbs-down to local political candidates who didn't attend the meetings of the bodies they're hoping to be elected to. One of her readers had the same thought I did: Maybe the council candidates are at home watching the meetings on TV (except Mike MacNamara, who's in Iraq).

That's what I'd do if I could.

I even have this whole drinking game worked out where you drink whenever one of the council members say something predictable. Like Doug Christensen making any reference to politics as "making sausage" or Bob Brooks talking about "getting off my soap box."

* I see Prairie Pundit had a post yesterday about the Herald getting bought by the Forum. I've got to read my own newspaper's products more.

On the same topic, 265 of our readers responded to a Web survey about the buyout. Most think it's either too early to tell or that it's great news.

* Better late than never: I forgot to mention a story I did a couple of days ago on the humongo road project in East Grand.

* Speaking of Eastside, City Hall's posting the info packets given out to council members on the Web. Good for them. This will make city governance more transparent like in Grand Forks. Now if city staff would make the information on those packets less cryptic to the rest of us like they do in Grand Forks, that'd be dandy.

* I knew Good Ol' Boy was blogging but didn't figure he'd have a site separate from Dakota's, but I found him at Boyd Drive Follies.

That's a lot of blogs reporting and commenting on local news. There's Dakota, Grand Forks Guy, JGS, Rick Abbott and my colleague Prairie Pundit (a.k.a. Tom Dennis). Schlossy reports on the Fighting Sioux, so I guess that's local news, too.

* Oh yeah, Good Ol' Boy says he hates those numbskulls who speed through yellow lights. I admit it: I've been guilty a few times.

* There's this Web site where I've been posting some photos that I take around the region. It's pretty neat. Looks like there's a few Forkers on there. Grand Forks photos are here. Photos from around the valley are here. Most of them are mine plus this person that has a bunch of photos of his or her grandma mowing the lawn in Grafton, N.D. North Dakota photos are here and Minnesota photos are here.