The headline is obviously referring to the blog, which is currently under repair. I think the only thing showing right now are the actual posts. Spent most of the weekend working on it, but ran into some frustrations. Eventually (probably over the course of the week), you will see a new look, along with possibly a new URL. Stay tuned...

Lots to mention to get this week started, one that looms large in political circles. More on that later and probably in another post.

Let's start with a birthday, born of a $1.65 billion investment. That is how much Google paid for YouTube in 2007, considered a major risk at the time. Well, last October, the internet video powerhouse eclipsed some one billion page views per day, and just recently it announced that figured had doubled. Today, YouTube turns five.

It is almost amazing to think that YouTube didn't exist when I was in high school. In what is clearly a sign of the information age, it is so prevalent right now as to give the impression that it has always existed. Yes, I was born before computers were even that ubiquitous. When I was in elementary school the cool thing to do on a computer was play Oregon Trail." Now, well, on this browser alone, I have nine different tabs open (five of them are related to this blog actually).

Google as a corporation has revolutionized information, taking advantage of the internet in the same way Microsoft did the personal computer. There is no slowing this train down. What I find funny to remember is the man who is largely give credit for creating the internet (financially anyway), Al Gore, is now so widely criticized in his current endeavor (clean energy) as to think he's never successfully done any forward thinking. Even Gore could not have expected this. The internet, as you don't need to be told, has changed the foundation of just about everything in the world, including the family. Google has been by far the leader.

So happy birthday to one of its arms, YouTube.

Uplifting, yet sad at the same time, the University of Virginia women's lacrosse team opened up the NCAA tournament with a win yesterday, in its first game since the murder of one of their own, Yeardley Love. Love's mother and sister were in the stands as the entire team held up pieces of paper with the number "1" on them, a reference to the motto of both teams in the NCAA tournament, "One Love." The alleged killer was a member of the men's team, which returned to action with a win on Saturday.

BP is claiming some success today, after a pipe inserted into the 21-inch riser pipe was able to begin diverting oil to a tanker on the surface. The mile long pipe is just four inches wide, means its effect is minimal, but it marks the biggest positive step anyone has seen in stopping the leak. Late last week reports suggested that more than 10 times more oil was leaking that previously thought. At the original rate there would have been about 5.6 million gallons spilled up to today, in the fourth week of the spill. In the newer range that has been hypothesized, somewhere around 100 million gallons has already spilled. That would be about 10 Exxon Valdez spills, with the end still of in the distance.

A Rhode Island school that fired all of its teachers has reached a tentative agreement to rehire all of them, after a three month process. The school board of the district voted to fire every staff member, teachers and administrators, over low student performance. A new deal would allow the teachers to return to work in the fall without having to re-apply for their jobs.

After 40 years, the Boston University class of 1970 walked in a graduation ceremony this weekend, a chance the 3,000 graduates never got during the turmoil of the time. Final exams and the ceremony were canceled that year after the university, like so many others, became the site of strikes, sit-ins, building takeovers and fire-bombings. That spring saw President Richard Nixon invade Cambodia and National Guardsmen killing nine students at Kent State.

Attorney General Eric Holder gave the commencement speech to the entire graduating class, including the 2010 grads, saying, "I love you all," then gesturing toward the class of 1970, sitting in front him, "But these are my people."

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Amazingly, I avoided Congress and politics for a while there, but no longer (I will be avoiding the Mariners, however, so if you want to be depressed, try the Seattle Times).

• Politico suggests that President Obama is rolling his sleeves up and taking a more hands-on approach with Congress right now, as financial reform and possibly energy work their way through. That can only be good for those efforts.
  
  It probably also shows that, with some Democrats unwilling to campaign on a health care bill that was painted in such a negative light, the administration needs to give them something else. Cracking down on Wall Street should work every time.
• Not necessarily political, but I absolutely loved this interview yesterday in the New York Times Magazine, with Alan Greenberg of JP Morgan Chase.
• Congressional hearings this week on the oil spill in the Gulf will focus on the federal response. Two things to watch:
  - Are federal officials just as non-committal (or even finger-pointing) as their oil executive counterparts. After the speech Obama gave on Friday, for his administration to point fingers at oil companies would likely backfire.
  - That said, expect to see the officials talk about how their response was appropriate and swift, even though there was very little the government could do initially. Quite frankly, what is often missed is that oil companies know best how to handle these sorts of things, which is why BP is still involved at all. If the hearing gets into how close the oil companies and their regulator are, or why BP was not required to do a full assessment before drilling the well, it could get ugly for the administration.
• Here is a quick primer on what is going on in Pennsylvania, something my later post will cover. This one is far more interesting than the others, to me at least, simply because I really do think Arlen Specter is the only one that can win the general.
• Expect to see something from me on this as well, as questions loom over whether Governor Christine Gregoire will be nominated for the solicitor general position being vacated by Elena Kagan. That obviously has ramifications across Washington state politics. This next day or so of blogging is going to be fun.

My sports-related note comes from where else but UW. After a marathon NCAA tournament last year, that saw the Husky softball team travel from Massachusetts to Atlanta to Oklahoma City on chartered jets for three straight weeks (with no trips home), the team will host an NCAA Regional, partly thanks to that success.

Despite being a higher seed at both the regional and the super regional last year, the Huskies were forced to travel because their stadium did not have lights, an NCAA requirement for hosting. The Huskies turned the lengthy road trip (which, unlike basically every school outside of the west coast, was in the middle of the academic quarter) into a positive and rode it the program's first national championship.

Along the way, their story was told over and over again on ESPN, leading to an influx of donations and the unveiling of lights to begin the 2010 at Husky Softball Stadium. The Huskies (45-6, 17-4) will host a regional starting Friday. Despite being the top-ranked team in the country for the entire season, unanimously for most of it, the Huskies are just the No. 3 overall seed. Alabama and Michigan are one and two, respectively.

A couple more things on this: The Huskies head into their 17th-consecutive postseason appearance coming off of the best regular season in school history. Washington missed out on the tournament in its first season of existence, 1993, but has been there in every year since.

And not only was this a big season for the team, but, as mentioned in previous posts, reigned National Player of the Year Danielle Lawrie has cemented her place as maybe the greatest pitcher to ever play the game and certainly one of the best athletes in UW history. She set the Pac-10 career strikeout record over the weekend. Lawrie heads into the postseason with, get this, a 35-2 record, 0.99 ERA and 407 strikeouts in 247.1 innings, while also hitting .322 with team highs of 14 homeruns and 55 RBI. Have the Mariners even scored 55 runs yet this season? Before last weekend she was almost out-homering that whole team.

Finally, if you can get past the blatant partisanship here, the way he presents this is absolutely hilarious. Obama was talking to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Yes, he is completely finger pointing, but tell me when he says, "No!", you didn't laugh.



Happy Monday