Brandon's blog

Merced's Charles Ogletree was on Comedy Central's Indecision 2008 Tuesday, talking about his former student, President-elect Barack Obama. Besides meeting with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Ogletree also talked briefly with Sun-Star reporter Victor Patton for a story in Wednesday's newspaper. Read that story here.

Didn't get a chance to read our live blog of Tuesday's election? Here's your chance to relive the election-night ups-and-downs of Merced County politics.

10:24 p.m.: Measure M passing

By Danielle Gaines

Bursts of excitement are heard every few minutes as results come in for Measure M. With 75 percent of precincts reporting, the school bond measure is passing at 62 percent. Superintendent Scott Scambray said he is "nervous as heck." Yes on M committee members spent the day calling Merced residents to remind them to vote.

NPR had a segment this morning about Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, practically congratulating the guy for "keeping his opinions to himself." Listen to it here.

Apparently Smith is paid $8 million a year "not to take an explicit point of view."

Is it getting harder to make a political statement in Merced?

A recent press release from the Web site ProtectMarriage.com says that a Merced supporter of Prop. 8 reported 15 yard signs stolen from their home.

Paola Zarza Mora and Keith Dennis both had Barack Obama signs taken from their yards last week. Dennis placed the sign in his yard on Thursday morning and returned home from work to discover it missing. "I was just mad that I couldn't even get 24 hours out of the thing," he said. Both Zarza Mora and Dennis have replaced their signs, and are making an extra effort to bring them in at night.

Nevermind the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter or allegations of impropriety in dealing with her state trooper brother-in-law.

The real scandal is the pair of shorts she's wearing in this 1982 photo. (Palin is second from left). Bill Clinton's "pasty white thighs" have nothing on her.

I bet she's be the first person on a presidential ticket to wear booty shorts.

When I read the New York Times' story about the Merced housing crisis, I knew it would be a matter of time before we heard from the woman on the other end of Mayor Ellie Wooten's phone call.

Sure enough, the woman responded in the comments section of a follow-up story that was published in Tuesday's Sun-Star.