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Some stories that deserve attention:

The Senate voted down funding for the F-22 fighter plane that the Pentagon and the White House did not want but members of Congress from the states that produce it did. While there is still funding for this plane in the House, President Obama and the Defense Department have made it clear that they don't want to play politics with the military budget; Obama has even threatened to veto the defense appropriations bill if it contains F-22 funding. He has an unlikely ally on this issue: Senator John McCain.

The Senate also failed by two votes to pass legislation that would have allowed people to carry concealed firearms across state lines. This bill would have reduced the gun laws in nearly all states to the standard of the states with the weakest gun laws by allowing concealed, loaded weapons to be carried anywhere and without regulation.

Also . . .

An independent investigator concluded that outgoing Alaska governor Sarah Palin may have violated state ethics laws by soliciting and accepting private donations to pay legal debts totalling $500,000 through Alaska Fund Trust, and cited the close friendship between the fund's trustee, Kristan Cole, and Palin. Palin appointed Cole to commissions overseeing oil development and agriculture in Alaska. legal debts.

"The relationship between Ms. Cole and the governor could cause a 'reasonable person' to conclude that the payment of the governor's legal fees is intended to influence the governor's performance of official duties, action or judgment," investigator Thomas M. Daniel wrote.

This makes Sarah Palin - whose name is an anagram of "a plain rash" - more improbable, however slightly, as a presidential candidate.

You take your good news where you find it. . . .