It was only a little more than eight months ago when he was ousted as Senate GOP leader by colleagues as punishment for signing off on a budget deal that included tax hikes. But he's finishing the year on an upswing. Cogdill is the author of the $11 billion water bond that lawmakers approved this week and voters will consider in November.

So who could blame him for smiling ear-to-ear at Wednesday's ceremony in the governor's office held to celebrate passage of the water bills.

Speaking of water deal winners, Democrat Anna Caballero should also get a political boost from the deal.

Caballero, an Assembly member from Salinas, is vying for the Senate seat in 2010 of the termed-out Jeff Denham, R-Atwater. She's squaring off against the Republican mayor of Ceres, Anthony Cannella, in a race in which water politics will play a big role.

So it's no surprise that Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, gave Caballero a leading role in water negotiations. She spoke repeatedly in favor of passing a water bond. And sure enough, she was invited to Wednesday's ceremony.

But this might be the best part for Caballero: She got a shout-out from Cogdill, who credited her "for all the hard work that she's done in the Assembly to partner with us and to bring this home." (in the photo, that's her to the left of Cogdill, who's at the podium)

Think we might see that one in a campaign ad down the road...

The Republican assemblyman was bed-ridden, with what he thinks might have been the swine flu. Still, Berryhill, who has a heart transplant, says he was ready to make the more than hour drive to the Capitol, should leaders have needed his vote.

"I was a phone call away from getting up and coming up there," said Berryhill, whose district includes parts of Madera County.

Turns out they didn't need his vote, as the bond squeaked through with the bare minimum votes just before the sun rose after a marathon session.

Berryhill says he's feeling better now.

But when the Legislature finally passed an $11 billion water bond this week as part of a larger deal, two of the GOP contenders didn't exactly embrace the deal with open arms --despite strong support for the bond from Valley ag groups.

Meg Whitman gave a similar statement, saying she too was "troubled by the last-minute additions to increase the size of the bond." Tom Campbell gave the most positive review, saying the "fundamentals" of the deal "all appear to be the right ones."

The cautious statements reflect a split in the GOP over the bond, which requires voter approval in November. Some fiscal conservatives have criticized the borrowing, which will cost the state up to up to $809.3 million in annual debt service at its peak.

Two GOP statewide candidates voted against the bond: state Sen. Chuck DeVore, who is running for U.S. Senate, and state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, a lieutenant governor candidate, who has supported previous water bond proposals. Denham's opponent in the GOP primary, state Sen. Sam Aanestad of Grass Valley, was not even present for the vote. DeVore's GOP primary opponent, Carly Fiorina, supports the bond.

Two Democratic lieutenant governor candidates voted yes: state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, who helped negotiate the deal, and state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach. They faced pressure from the left, as some environmental groups and unions opposed the deal.

Assembly Member Mike Villines, R-Clovis, who is running for insurance commissioner, voted yes and gave an impassioned floor speech in support.

"This isn't an issue about debt service," he said, but about "survival" of the Valley's farm-heavy west side.

First Belana closes, now the Borders Express store in Sierra Vista Mall is scheduled to close.

The closures come on the heels of this story about all the new shops and restaurants opening up in Fresno. It's a reminder that we're not quite out of this mess yet.

Belana may have faced the same problems attracting customers as other restaurants, despite famed local businessman Krikor "Kirk" Vartanian's involvement.

As for Borders Express, the company is closing mall-based stores in an effort to stay profitable. The Hanford Mall location will stay open.

Both argued that the details of the crime should have been withheld from readers because they were painful -- especially for relatives of the victim.

I had to stop reading after a few lines of those words on paper, that described an event that only a child molester would enjoy reading. I cannot believe those details were printed and reported in the news. Are there any guidelines that are used to help your reporters as to the difference between the gruesome details of a murder, rape, molestation versus simple newsworthy fact reporting? I felt as though I were reading an ugly novel about a rape that I surely would never choose to buy, instead of a news article reporting a murder. Both of these families have endured more than their lifetime of pain, without the Fresno Bee revealing details that should only be heard in a courtroom. I cannot help but believe!

Indeed, this is a question that newspaper editors wrestle with every day -- how to balance the costs and benefits of reporting unpleasant details about crime.

The cost side of the equation is obvious. Any normal human being would recoil at the details of this case. We naturally want to live in a world where children are allowed to keep their innocence.

The benefit of providing such details is far more abstract -- but, we feel, more powerful in this instance. The underlying principle is that citizens cannot govern themselves if they are not informed. And that means, from time to time, knowing the grisly realities that police officers and crime victims face every day.

Another way to look at it is this: Do we want to live in a world where paternalistic media organizations shield us from unpleasant facts?

We do our best in cases like this not to dwell on details unnecessarily, or repetitiously. And we typically recount the facts well into a story, so that only readers who want to know what happened will see them. But our readers are paying us for information, and it is not our job to withhold it.

A third reader objected to The Bee's decision to run a photo of Raul Castro, the teenager who is accused in the case.

I just wanted to say that I am deeply ashamed at the Fresno [Bee] for choosing to print the picture of a 14-year-old boy. Regardless of the fact that he is being charged as an adult, he is still a 14-year-old boy, and printing his picture does not serve any functional purpose. Shame on those at the Bee who thought that was appropriate!

This question is a little more straightforward. Media organizations typically shield the identity of minors accused of crimes. But any who are tried in adult courts according to adult laws have been deemed adults by our society. It is not for us to decide that they deserve to be protected from public scrutiny.

"Too few powerful interests had too much power to determine the content," wrote Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based think tank. Gleick, a water policy expert, has an interesting analysis.

The law, passed Wednesday by state legislators, sets up a council to watch over the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It also starts the process to clean up the state's water quality and conserve water in cities, along with a mountain of other goals.

Voters will need to approve an $11 billion bond next year to make this happen.

So what happens when there are too few people in the negotiating room? Organizations not at the table tend to be pressured to fall in line with philosophies and past loyalties, instead of details.

Now there is a swarm of Northern California opponents, such as the Sierra Club and Friends of the River, who have to be brought along.

For Marsden, this is a big deal. The $3,000 represents a big chunk of the grand total of $13,733 he's reported raising this year. The alternatives, though, weren't very palatable. The Madera-based Families Protecting the Valley bills itself as an organization designed to restore water to the region. Its members include some adamant critics of Radanovich.

Radanovich's staff, in turn, were preparing to file a complaint about the group's contribution to Marsden, on the grounds that Families Protecting the Valley was an ineligible contributor. Rather than fight it out, or face embarrassment, Marsden returned the dough.

That's not far from Mendota, but it still has not reached the Mendota Pool. This is an initial, experimental flow of water that began Oct. 1 as the start of the river restoration.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to slow down the release of water from Friant Dam on Wednesday morning.

Right now, it's going 700 cubic feet per second. It will slow to 350 cfs Wednesday through Nov. 20. Then the extra flow will be shut off until Feb. 1.

1. Voters next year still need to approve the $11 billion in bonds. It is not a slam dunk.

2. There is an oversight council now to monitor every twitch of every species in the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But there is no money yet to pay for it. Look for that in January.

3. The state is going to hire 25 new inspectors to catch folks who are illegally diverting water from streams. But right now, there's no real penalty, just a laborious process that could result years later in a fine. And the fine is just about what the thief would have paid for the water to begin with.

Will this new law make any more difference than the Calfed Bay-Delta Program, which flopped over the last dozen years or so?

Health officials estimate thousands - that's by the phone calls they've been taking from people wanting to know where and when they can get the H1N1 vaccine - will show up for shots.

It's the first chance many in Fresno will have to line up for a shot. Vaccine supplies aren't exactly bulging. The Fresno County Department of Public Health got 11,500 doses last week for a county of almost 1 million.

Another clinic will be from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday (Nov. 5) at the retired teachers building on East Saginaw Way. To learn more about the H1N1 vaccine, check out the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site.

To find a flu-shot clinic in Fresno County, go to the health department's Web site.

It will be interesting to see the numbers after the 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. clinic closes at the Manchester Center. I keep hearing from people who say they aren't going to get an H1N1 shot. Many of them aren't in high-risk categories - pregnant women, children and young adults, caregivers of infants younger than 6 months or people with chronic health conditions. But some in those targeted groups say they won't get vaccinated.

But I hear that office workers in doctors' offices are getting screamed at daily by people who want to know why they can't get an H1N1 flu shot. Doctors are waiting like health departments for the vaccine to arrive.

So I'm curious: Who's going to get a flu shot (or wants to get one when more vaccine is available)? Who isn't getting a shot? Why?