Welcome! Don't tell anyone yet, but you're getting a sneak preview of the new OpenSecrets.org. We're not scheduled to officially launch until Wednesday, May 14, but we thought it was a good idea to flip the switch a little early and test some things out. Massie Ritsch

Economic hardship didn't cause the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) to withhold federal contributions for the last 10 weeks, and it won't prevent the group from following up on its decision late last week to start giving again. Lindsay Renick Mayer

If money had predicted the winners of last night's Democratic primary contests, Barack Obama would have emerged victorious in both North Carolina and Indiana. In the Tar Heel State, Obama raised $1.7 million compared to Hillary Clinton's $1.1 million. Much like the results at the polls, the financial results were closer in the Hoosier State. Lindsay Renick Mayer

The 2008 Webby for Politics has gone to FactCheck.org, which frequently uses Center for Responsive Politics data to check the accuracy of candidates' statements and advertisements. FactCheck, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, beat out the likes of NPR, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and Truthdig. Also among the finalists was MAPLight.org, which mashes up CRP data with congressional voting records to correlate money and votes on legislation. Lindsay Renick Mayer

Getting a more complete picture of lobbying expenditures will be a little easier, thanks to a modification to the now quarterly disclosure reports that lobbying firms and clients must file. Previously, firms earning, and clients spending less, than $10,000 needed only to check a box indicating they'd earned or spent less than that amount. Lindsay Renick Mayer

Congressional candidates come up with all kinds of creative ways to draw attention to their campaigns. Some of these techniques land political hopefuls in office and some...land them in jail. Lindsay Renick Mayer

The U.S. Supreme Court had its hands full with money this week—more specifically, with campaign finance dollars. The justices considered Tuesday whether it's constitutional to "level the playing field" in congressional elections by increasing the dollar limit on individual contributions for candidates who face wealthy, self-funded opponents. Communications

The news media and commentators have recently pointed out that Hillary Clinton's campaign was $10 million in debt after March, but then they sometimes include a disclaimer that the figure includes her $5 million loan to her campaign. It doesn't. In fact, the Clinton campaign's total debt as of March 31 was $15,321,562. Communications

A contribution of $2,300 to a presidential candidate can go a long way, but the contributions of $200 and less are going even further for the Democrats in the presidential race, according to a study by the Campaign Finance Institute this week. March marked the second month in a row where more than half of the contributions going to Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama came from donors giving $200 or less. Communications

We've been processing the presidential candidates' March fundraising reports since they filed them Sunday, so take a spin through the presidential election section to see what's new. The Donor Lookup now includes individuals who gave in March, and totals by state and metro area have been updated. (The Democrats' next battleground, Indiana, hasn't produced much money, but Barack Obama has a small edge in fundraising there, and his lead is larger in North Carolina.) Communications

In the contests for Congress, 1st Quarter fundraising totals for some congressional candidates -- many of them incumbent senators -- still haven't come out electronically from the FEC. (Senators insist on filing their reports on paper even though everyone else files electronically, so this usually explains the delay in getting electronic information -- it has to be keyed in at your expense, taxpayer.) Communications

The New York Times generated a lot of buzz this week with a story about military analysts who work for military contractors when they're not opining on television. The analysts, who have unprecedented access to information from the Bush administration, lobby for military contractors, serve on their boards and act as consultants to them. Communications

Monday, April 21 was the deadline for lobbyists to report their activity under a new quarterly filing system. We will incorporate the new data into our Lobbying Database as the Senate Office of Public Records makes it available electronically. Communications

CRP is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, but we're giving you the birthday gift -- a new website. The redesigned OpenSecrets.org is scheduled to launch officially on May 14th with great new features and a fresh look. In addition to beefed-up news and analysis, you'll be able to easily search across our multiple databases, customize the site to monitor what most interests you and share data through widgets and social networking. Communications

Although former presidential candidate John Edwards has not yet endorsed either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, his supporters are giving more money to Obama, The Hill reported. Communications

Wars are the clock ticking off the time of Israeli history: World War I; the "riots" of 1929 and 1936; World War II; the War of Independence, 1948; the Sinai Campaign, 1956; the Six Day War, 1967; the War of Attrition, 1969-1971; the Yom Kippur War, 1973; the Labanon War, 1982; the Gulf War, 1991. Not all these conflicts were equally significant in their cultural impact, and surely not in the same way, but together they create a ghastly rhythm in which every calm period is seen in Israel as a pause before future violence.

[Editor's Note: I would say this explains a great deal about Israel...and I would add that a similar statement could be made about Palestine]

— Ariel Hirschfeld, in his chapter in Cultures of the Jews, edited by David Biale

10:00 am - 11:00 amMac OS X Leopard Workshop
With over 300 new features, Mac OS X Leopard will let you have more fun, and be more productive, no matter how you use your Mac. See top Leopard features including the new Desktop featuring Stacks, Finder with Cover Flow for your documents, iChat with fun new video effects, iChat Theater and screen sharing and Time Machine that will keep your Mac fully and automatically backed up. Sign up or drop in.11:00 am - 12:00 pm.Mac Workshop
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Join David Auerbach of Digital Fix for an exciting overview and demonstration of Xsilva LightSpeed 2.5 point-of-sale software for Mac OS X. LightSpeed 2.5's powerful multistore and multiuser inventory lookups, administration, dynamic tracking, reporting, and new web store offers a whole new generation of POS.

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Many, many voices--elected officials, reformers and editorial pages alike--have weighed in with disdain about the allocation of pet projects in the federal and state budgets, known as member items here at home. Last week, the Senate and Assembly released their member item data, renewing calls from around the state for change. It's worth summarizing the reaction from many points of view:

The practice is bad from a budget standpoint. In a year when lawmakers were trying to find something, anything, to cut from the budget, many say it's irresponsible to allow legislators to dole out pork like any other year. As the Press & Sun-Bulletin notes, "Defenders of the cash piles argue that the 'discretionary items' they finance are small potatoes in a $122 billion budget. True, but those were our potatoes to begin with." Attorney General Cuomo's office is stepping up to try to eradicate outright corruption, but especially in a fiscal crunch, shouldn't we expect our elected officials to be a bit more careful with our tax dollars?

The practice is fundamentally unfair to districts that elect members of the minority party. Even if you agree that legislators should have some small pot of money to give to the most worthy causes in their districts, there is no excuse for partisan distribution of member items. The population of each legislative district is constitutionally required to be substantially equal, yet NYPIRG found that the average Assembly Republican doles out a mere quarter of the amount received by the district of the average Democrat. The Senate disparity is even worse, with Senate Republicans taking home eight times the pork of the average Democrat.

The practice is wholly political. As NYPIRG's numbers show, legislative leaders not only funnel more funding to majority members, but they also prioritize within their own conferences to help their most vulnerable members. Democratic senators are also talking about severely limited member item funding for Republicans if control of the Senate flips this fall. The current practice is despicable and its continuation after a Democratic takeover would be equally deplorable.

We second the notion that it's time New Yorkers received real equality and accountability in member items. Whether pork or potatoes, the distribution ought to be based on the worthiness of the project, not the political power of the individual representative and majority party.

10:00 am - 11:00 am.Mac Workshop
See how .Mac offers innovative software and services, including your own ad-free .Mac email account, 10GB of iDisk and email storage space, seamless syncing of personal data between Mac computers, elegant web page creation with HomePage, online file transfer and retrieval using your personal iDisk, and easy-to-use Backup software. In addition, learn all about the online .Mac Learning Center containing interactive tutorials on a variety of Apple products. Sign up or drop in.11:00 am - 12:00 pmMac OS X Leopard Workshop
With over 300 new features, Mac OS X Leopard will let you have more fun, and be more productive, no matter how you use your Mac. See top Leopard features including the new Desktop featuring Stacks, Finder with Cover Flow for your documents, iChat with fun new video effects, iChat Theater and screen sharing and Time Machine that will keep your Mac fully and automatically backed up. Sign up or drop in.12:00 pm - 1:00 pmiPhone Workshop
Get to know your new iPhone in a workshop that takes you through the basics. See how easy it is to make calls, send email, use Safari to browse the web, and much more. Sign up or drop in.1:00 pm - 2:00 pmiPod and iTunes Workshop
Explore iTunes for Mac and Windows and learn why it is the best digital jukebox with the #1 music store inside. You'll learn to import and organize your music, burn CDs, buy music or audio books from the iTunes Music Store, create playlists, and share your music. And with iPod, you can take your favorite music and even photos with you wherever you go. Sign up or drop in.2:00 pm - 3:00 pmGarageBand Workshop
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'Podcasting' is one of the hottest buzzwords on the Internet. But what is it all about? Learn more about podcasting and how to create your own podcast. With the podcast recording studio in GarageBand and the podcast templates in iWeb, how can you go wrong? Sign up or drop in.4:00 pm - 5:00 pmLogic Express Workshop
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Join coauthors FeliceFrankel and George M. Whitesides as they share fascinating images and insightsfrom their book, On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary inScience. Find out why Nature reports, "On reading this book one getsthe immediate feeling that one's eye and mind have truly feasted, thatone holds in one's hands an obvious classic at the nexus of art andscience.? And be sure to read Frankel's "Inside the Image"column on the Apple Science web site.Sign up or drop in.

My colleagues Andrew Stengel and Laura MacCleery have an op-ed in today's Times Union urging state lawmakers to once again take up negotiations on campaign finance reform. They argue that the deal reached by Governor Spitzer and legislative leaders last year should only be the starting point for an improved package of much-needed reforms, including lower contribution limits, elimination of loopholes, and enhanced enforcement.