North Arlington All Stars

I received an e-mail this morning from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). Specifically, it came from John Cornyn, the chair of said committee. The subject of the e-mail, and why it so quickly caught my attention was, "Stimulus For Honeybees?"

Jeebus. Forget for a second why I am on this distribution list. I assure you that it isn't intentionally.

I knew exactly what the e-mail was going to be about when I saw the subject line and I wanted to puke. The main sentences are here:

The Democrat [sic] plan included $70 million for super computers to research climate change, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $335 million to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, $150 million to insure honeybee farmers, and $20 million to remove fish barriers in rivers.

Wow - sounds pretty good, huh?

I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about why honeybees are so important. Hopefully you have heard about Colony Collapse Disorder. But the bottom line is that programs like these in the Stimulus Bill, or more accurately THE JOBS BILL, are important. Oh and also, these programs comprise 0.006%, 0.042%, 0.019%, and 0.003% of the total. So you know what, Republicans, STFU already! Either get some new ideas of your own, or get out of the way.

I've never called my Senator, let alone a Senator that wasn't my own, but I'm considering it over this, not because this is the most major issue to come along in the past 8 years, but because my dad keeps bees and this issue is personal. I'll go to callcongress.org to find the proper contact info.

Labels: douchebag Republicans, honeybees

While in southern Virginia over Christmas break, my wife and I went to Portsmouth with my in-laws for lunch and some shopping. There are a lot of antique stores on High St., the main drag in Portsmouth, and at one of the shops we found this punch bowl and mugs set.


The set, consisting of the punch bowl (red dots) with metal handle and 6 mugs (green dots), was priced at $75. As we were deciding to purchase the set, the proprietor of the shop informed us that "everything" was 20% off. Uhh, OK. So we brought the set home for $60.


Each of the mugs has the "AH" mark of Hazel-Atlas, which is described here. The punch bowl itself has no markings on the bottom, although the pattern is absolutely the same, so I cannot believe that the bowl isn't Hazel-Atlas as well.

I was excited to get home and look the set up on eBay to see if we had gotten a good price. What I found was that there was NOTHING on ebay like this.

Jen found this blog post that shows the same bowl (scroll down) with no metal handle and no mugs. The blogger says that the bowl is Fire King and frankly, the info that I found relating Hazel-Atlas, Anchor Hocking and Fire King is confusing. There seems to be some sort of relationship between the three companies, so I can't says that he's necessarily wrong.

Update: I found the bowl and mugs on ebay for $150. No metal handle.

In the past few days, I've heard Bill Press say some fairly amazing things. I'm beginning to think that I will continue to hear some shockers from him, so I'm going to start documenting them here.

Now, I LOVE (love love love) progressive talk radio in general and Air America specifically. I listened to probably 98% of Al Franken's radio show from the very first day and not that he is gone, I still listen to Thom Hartmann who took his time slot. I listen to Stephanie Miller every morning. I catch an hour or so of Randi Rhodes in the afternoon. The full list of talk radio hosts that I currently enjoy: Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow. I used to also listen to: Al Franken, Marc Maron, Ed Schultz, Sam Seder and The Young Turks. Also Bill Press. Ahh Bill...

1. On Tuesday, and I'm not sure what the discussion was about because I had just turned on the radio, but someone mentioned something about a "box of fruit". Bill gave an incredulous laugh and said, "Box of fruit? I can get you a box of fruit from Harry and David!" No wonder Republicans like to label democrats "elitists"...
2. This morning, talking about Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) who is pregnant, Bill said something to the effect of, "It wasn't that long ago that Dan Quayle went after Murphy Brown for being a single mother." Uh, Bill? 1992. 16 years and 5 Presidential Administrations ago.

Stay tuned for more Bill being Bill.

Obama/Biden, Warner, Moran, Favola.

NO on the "Housing Authority" question.
YES on all bond referenda.

Here is the 2008 Voter Guide from arlingtondemocrats.org

Check out my liveblog for the disappointing DC United @ CLB match from Sunday evening over at The DCenters.

Well, not really. Jen and I are going to investigate "in-person absentee voting" tomorrow morning at the Court House in Arlington. If it looks like it may take too long, we may wait until next week to do it after work. But I may very well vote a straight Democratic ticket tomorrow. The prospect is exciting!

I heard from 538.com or maybe tpm.com that a bunch of people have voted already - voted early. Amazing. We've got to take the power back. Take it back sooner than later.

UPDATE: OK, we'll try Monday afternoon.
arlingtondemocrats.org for more information.

"The government will never keep anyone from getting rich. But the government should keep people from getting poor."

All this talk about socialism is just ridiculous.