Representative Murray Hill, Inc. (R - Maryland 8)

From Think Progress:

Corporation Runs For Maryland Congressional Seat To Protest SCOTUS Campaign Finance Decision

The PR firm's press release is priceless.

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it was filing to run for U.S. Congress and released its first campaign video on www.youtube.com/user/murrayhillcongress

“Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”

Murray Hill Inc. is believed to be the first “corporate person” to exercise its constitutional right to run for office. [emphasis mine]

Yes, I know they are kidding, and this is satirical, but it proves a point about the bigger issue: this "corporations are people" thing. I know we had a really great discussion about it here, but I just can't agree with that notion and I think it has to change. Check out the rest of the presser. It has one quip after another about putting people 2nd, and antiquated "human-only" laws.

Their campaign ad:Funny stuff, and makes a point. After all, as their campaign slogan goes: Murray Hill Inc. plans on spending “top dollar” to protect its investment. “It’s our democracy,” Murray Hill Inc. says, “We bought it, we paid for it, and we’re going to keep it.”

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Michigan beers best in the world

I thought this was perfect for this blog:

Multiple Michigan beers, brewers and establishments, including Bell's and Founders, rated best in the world .

By Josh Smith Kalamazoo Gazette
January 28, 2010, 12:48PM

KALAMAZOO - Michigan brewers, owners, retailers and restaurants have a lot to be proud of.

Beers from three Michigan breweries finished in the top 100 best beers in the world category in the RateBeer Best 2010 competition.

Grand Rapids' Founders Brewing Co. ranked the highest at No. 8 with their KBS (the beer formerly known as Kentucky Breakfast Stout).

Also on the list from Founders:
15. Canadian Breakfast Stout
30. Breakfast Stout
86. Imperial Stout

Kalamazoo's Bell's Brewery Inc. has six of its brews on the list:
12. Bourbon Barrel-Aged Double Cream/Expedition Stout
14. Expedition Stout
21. Hopslam
63. Two-Hearted Ale
85. The Oracle DIPA Ale
100. Kalamazoo Stout

People seem to like their stouts. Seven beers in the top 10 are imperial stouts.

Kuhnhenn Brewing Co.'s Raspberry Eisbock came in at No. 42.

Of the 100 Best Brewers in the World, six are from Michigan:
4. Founders Brewing Company, Grand Rapids
5. Bell's Brewery Inc., Kalamazoo
22. Kuhnhenn Brewing Co., Warren
34. Dark Horse Brewing Co., Marshall
64. Shorts Brewing Co., Bellaire
67. Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, Dexter

Hopslam was ranked the 16th best beer. In the Best Beers of the United States, eight out of 50 are from Michigan:
8. Founders KBS
9. Bell's Bourbon Barrel Double Cream/Expedition Stout
11. Bell's Expedition Stout
12. Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout
16. Bell's Hopslam
23. Founders Breakfast Stout
31. Kuhnhenn's Raspberry Eisbock
47. Bell's Two-Hearted Ale

On the Best Beer Bars list, one from Michigan (out of 50):
22. The Hopcat, Grand Rapids

Of the 50 Best Brewpubs, four are from Michigan:
5. Shorts Brewing Co.
16. Kuhnhenn Brewing Co.
22. The Livery
47. Dark Horse Brewing Co.

Best Beer Retailers (one out of 50):
39. Siciliano's Market, Grand Rapids

Best Beer Restaurants, (two out of 50):
6. Slow's Bar-B-Q, Detroit
17. Ashley's, Ann Arbor

Best Breweries to Visit (four out of 50):
12. Founders Brewing Co.
14. Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales
15. Dragonmead, Warren
27. Kalamazoo Brewing Co./Eccentric Cafe (Bell's)

2.47 million reviews of 110,000 beers from 9,680 brewers worldwide were submitted for this competition.

Find each list in its entirety here.

Cheers to all. Well done.

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SOTU Open Thread

State of the Union Coverage:

Full Text at the New York Times.

New York Times coverage.

Washington Post coverage.

FiveThirtyEight coverage.

Mr. Furious reaction.

Thoughts? Comments? Critiques?

NOTE: If any of my ATK colleagues have a full SOTU post, commentary or analysis ready to go, feel free to bump this post.

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For the Children...

Radley Balko has a thoughtful piece in this months Reason on how some prosecutors are treating the gorwing trend of 'sexting' and teens posting exlicit pictures of themselves. He points out how some jurisdictions are charging these teens as child pornographers where they could receive prison terms up to 10 years. As a parent, I would probably be pretty shoacked and angry if my kid were doing this, but I don't think the way to deal with a knuckleheaded, impulsive teen is to ruin their life with a child porn felony conviction.

The root disconnect, here, is that the law treats pre-pubescent sex crimes on par with crimes related to teenagers who are sexually mature. Fact is, teenagers become sexually mature years before it's socially or legally permissible to think about them that way. That they're then having sex is nothing new. Nor is the fact that teens make rash, emotional, spur-of-the-moment decisions. What's new is that they're able to document it all in ways that can quickly escape their control. What they need after the fact are responsible adults who can walk them through a poor decision, appropriately reprimand or punish them if necessary, but all while keeping things in perspective, and minimizing the long-term consequences for the teen. Dumping the kid into the criminal justice system has all the subtlety and precision of dropping an anvil on the problem from 40 stories above.

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The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

I tried to post this yesterday, but had technical difficulties.

From The History Channel's web site:

Canned beer makes its debut on this day [January 24] in 1935. In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production.

By the late 19th century, cans were instrumental in the mass distribution of foodstuffs, but it wasn't until 1909 that the American Can Company made its first attempt to can beer. This was unsuccessful, and the American Can Company would have to wait for the end of Prohibition in the United States before it tried again. Finally in 1933, after two years of research, American Can developed a can that was pressurized and had a special coating to prevent the fizzy beer from chemically reacting with the tin.

The concept of canned beer proved to be a hard sell, but Krueger's overcame its initial reservations and became the first brewer to sell canned beer in the United States. The response was overwhelming. Within three months, over 80 percent of distributors were handling Krueger's canned beer, and Krueger's was eating into the market share of the "big three" national brewers--Anheuser-Busch, Pabst and Schlitz. Competitors soon followed suit, and by the end of 1935, over 200 million cans had been produced and sold.

The purchase of cans, unlike bottles, did not require the consumer to pay a deposit. Cans were also easier to stack, more durable and took less time to chill. As a result, their popularity continued to grow throughout the 1930s, and then exploded during World War II, when U.S. brewers shipped millions of cans of beer to soldiers overseas. After the war, national brewing companies began to take advantage of the mass distribution that cans made possible, and were able to consolidate their power over the once-dominant local breweries, which could not control costs and operations as efficiently as their national counterparts.

Today, canned beer accounts for approximately half of the $20 billion U.S. beer industry. Not all of this comes from the big national brewers: Recently, there has been renewed interest in canning from microbrewers and high-end beer-sellers, who are realizing that cans guarantee purity and taste by preventing light damage and oxidation.

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Video Fun - Get Some Balls!

Timely, political, funny and related to beer.

What more could you ask for in a video?

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The Suppression of The Little Guy

The Supreme Court of the United States today ruled to ease restrictions on corporate campaign donations. This statement from CNN reflects my sentiments:

The Supreme Court has given big business, unions and nonprofits more power to spend freely in federal elections, a major turnaround that threatens a century of government efforts to regulate the power of corporations to bankroll American politics. [emphasis added]

.Says Obama:

The Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics...It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.

This, again, reflects my sentiment well. Of course, I am not surprised Obama is not a giant fan of this decision; he raised gobs on money online a couple bucks at a time. But that was when raising gobs of money online could be competitive with limitations set on corporate giving. Now? There's no way you or I can compete. In my mind, the playing field was level when a Wall Street Exec or Random Mega Rich Guy had the same giving limits as me. But now? This Fall will make 2008 look like a school bake sale by comparison.

From supporters of the decision:

The Supreme Court's decision today is a victory for the First Amendment and the right of all Americans to participate in the political process," said Theodore Olson, who successfully argued the case for the conservative Citizens United

I get that everyone is protected by the First Amendment, but this statement is tied to a much older decision whereby "corporations" are "people." I'm not a fan of that train of thought at all. Where this sentiment really bothers me is in Kennedy's majority opinion:

When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. "The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."

Corporations can have PACs, and this is unaffected by this decision. A PAC is how they exercise their opinions, as corporations, about candidates. What a corporation has that I do not have, as a real person, not a "corporate" person, is enough money, unlimited in some cases, to really really really make my voice heard.

The problem extends itself. How many, say, progressive corporations and labor unions are there? And how many conservative corporations are there? And how many more of one is there than the other, and what are their combined voices, and more importantly, their combined media-buying power, capable of in terms of influence above and beyond the other?

And why the fuck should a corporation, who is not a person, have that kind of say anyway?

Let's take this out of the realm of "this is bad for Democrats/Progressives." This is simply a bad ruling that yet again places corporate interests above and beyond the ability of the average citizen to find equal voice in the political arena.

The issue hinged on whether corporations' ability to pour money into election campaigns could be strictly regulated, or whether corporations have free-speech rights to spend their cash to influence elections, just as individual donors do. In this ruling, the justices also nullified earlier rulings upholding the core of a 6-year-old federal law aimed at curbing corporate campaign spending. Under current law, there are severe restrictions on campaign ads used by corporations for federal elections. They generally must be issue-focused -- talking about abortion or taxes, for instance -- and not expressly supporting or opposing a candidate. Those limits have now been generally removed.

I think even giving corporations the ability to weigh-in on issues was bad enough, but at least their power to silence me was limited to a certain extent. Unless I really really cared about the issue ad, I'd skip it.

the bottom line for me: What this does is force political candidates to bow further to corporate interests so that they can reap the benefits of even more money.

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Does Obama Get It?

A small amount of hope that Obama understands the path to victory?

Read this ABC News interview with the President following Tuesdays election.

It’s a good read and a little reassuring.


(H/T Balloon Juice.)

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Lawyers for Terrorists?

One of the themes we should expect to hear in the 2010 election is that "Obama" gave a terrorist a taxpayer-funded lawyer hours after he tried to blow up a plane over Detroit.

Please can a lawyer tell me, once the guy landed in Detroit, wouldn't we be required to give him a lawyer? What were our other options?

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Well There. You. Go.

If these numbers change much over the next 3 hours before I go to bed, I will be shocked:

CNN has projected that Republican Scott Brown will win the senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy. Standby for further results.

Precincts Reporting: 1,939 of 2,168 (89%)

Scott Brown (R) – 1,036,855 (52.4%)
Martha Coakley (D) – 921,459 (46.6%)
Joe Kennedy (I) – 19,867 (1.0%)

UPDATE

No real change:

Precincts Reporting: 2,154 of 2,168 (99%)

Scott Brown (R) – 1,153,808 (51.8%)
Martha Coakley (D) – 1,052,391 (47.2%)
Joe Kennedy (I) – 22,080 (1.0%)

This should make things fun for the rest of the year.

A friend of mine pointed out an interesting paradox that I am sure will come true. To paraphrase, he said that when Republicans lose, they make an appeal to their base. When Dems lose, they make an appeal...to the Republicans' base. "We need to be more like them!"

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Why would a Republican win in Massachusetts?

Should Scott Brown (R) beat Martha Coakley (D) in today’s special Senate election in Massachusetts as FiveThirtyEight is leaning, it will not be due to a left to right electoral shift. While the right-wing pundits will surely portray it that way, if you ask me, it is far more complicated than that.

My thoughts of why a Republican would win this seat, without any substantial detail and in no particular order:

1) Lazy Democrats – Democrats have horrible turnout in special elections.

2) Short voter memory – one year is enough to say that Republican administration wasn’t so bad after all?

3) Impatient electorate – one year is enough to start blaming Obama/Democrats for our problems and lack of economic turnaround?

4) Disenfranchised Democrats – While these fools hold out hope for the liberal utopian health care plan, they actually believe that no health care bill is better than what is proposed, so they won’t show up at the polls. My sister, with a preexisting condition, who buys her own health care would argue with them on that. (Considering Coakley would likely vote for a public option, if given the chance, this is especially stupid postion to hold.)

5) Crappy candidate – sounds like Coakley was a lazy and poor performing candidate. She did win a primary, so not sure who is to blame for that one.

Well, if this sinks the health care plan, it won’t be the first time the death of a Kennedy created disastrous consequences for the nation.

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Deal on Health Care Imminent

Well-placed sources in Washington have informed this blogger that a deal on health care will be announced tonight.

The deal will then be scored by the CBO and voted on in two weeks.

Check your local news station to determine if my source is any good.

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Operation: Around The Keg Bash

Mr. Henderson has tentatively accepted our invitation to come to the Great Lakes State! Of course, the devil is in the details and the timing, so we will continue to negotiate with Rickey to make his brief trip to our cold but lovely state worthwhile.

What I see developing is an annual Around the Keg Bash, whereby ATK contributors and regulars converge on some spot and attempt, with gusto, to drink said watering hole out of beer.

I am currently in the process of finding excellent airfares and reasonably hotel rates, using some of my evil and nefarious connections.

It has also come up that a few ATK contributors are also table-top gamers. Perhaps, if there is sufficient time, Rickey could be introduced into the world of Warmachine. But we'll play that by ear, given that really this is a beer extravaganza we're talking about here, and we need to show Rickey how much fun one can get into in Michigan.

In other brief news, I transfer my Scottish 80 shilling to the secondary fermenter this weekend, and I just ordered some ingredients for what I hope will be a nice Brit ESB. And I only have 8 bottle of my Russian Imperial left. That shit goes FAST.

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Inspiration, Motivation; Release 2.0

To be clear, I still want to have a beer with George Wendt. I think it would be fun, and I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask him.

But I wonder if we need a trial run. And in that wondering, I thought it might be fun to periodically target an ATK Regular to have a beer with.

Thus, I would like to formally announce Around the Keg's newest goal:

Have a beer with Rickey!

Rickey Henderson, blogospheric alter-ego of a mild-mannered New York aboriginal and author of uproariously funny blog Riding With Rickey, is a fixture here on our misguided, half-informed corner of the inter tubes. Well, Rickey, we want you to come to Michigan and have a beer with the ATK crew.

Here's our offer: After agreeing-upon a date, we will seek a plane fare for you of fair and reasonable (though unfortunately not first class) price with as few layovers as possible. And if we can help it, we won't fly you in to Detroit. They make you check your underwear there, I hear.

We will pick you up from the airport using classy transportation, and deliver you to a brewery or beer bar of epic proportions. We will meet. We will laugh. We will get hammered. And then, the next day, we will fly you back home.

Rickey, this is your chance to meet, face-to-face, the award-winning beer swillers and argumentative political hacks that comprise the Around the Keg family.

Mr. Henderson...do you accept? Will you come have a beer with Around the Keg?

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Fox, why are you doing this to me?

I have been a lukewarm defender of Fox News in the past. Most of their op-ed stuff is pretty biased, but the "news" portion of their broadcast wasn't all that bad and they usually get some fairly bright commentators and panels. They certainly weren't any worse than most of the rest of the MSM. Maybe I have just been getting more crotchety, but I have less tolerance for pundits in general and the commentators on Fox have been getting on my nerves.

O'Reilly is the least annoying, but he still shouts far too much. At least he brings on people that disagree with him. Hannity is a lost cause. His show made some attempt at balance when Colmes was paired with him, but it is completely unwatchable now. Beck never was watchable, nor will he ever be.

As for the contributors, some are good. Judge Andrew Napolitano is sharp and has a good understanding of the Constitution. I don't like Karl Rove, but at least he has the background to discuss politics, campaigning, and DC. Now I find out that they are bringing on Sarah Palin as a contributor. I know I have defended her in the past. I still don't think the media treated her fairly, but I also don't think she has done enough to educate herself on national matters and is content to produce sound bites and populist BS. I think this is a bad move on the part of Fox.

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Inspiration. Motivation

A good acquaintance of mine, Sam Singh, just got back home last Halloween from a journey all over the world. He took a leave of absence from his job for about a year and a half, and traveled the globe. In fact, his web site is still up, and he still uses it for good things. The site details his trip around the globe and the things he did.

You see, when he would visit a country, he wouldn't simply take in the touristy sights (though some of that is necessary when you visit cool places with cool things). No, Sam would get involved in that country. He would talk to government leaders, nonprofit leaders and NGO leaders. He volunteered, in most all of the countries he visited, in some sort of outreach program; building houses through Habitat For Humanity's Global Village program, or working with CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, just to name a few.

He took 18 months of his life to travel...and give back.

But that's not what inspires or motivates me today. As inspirational as Sam is, and as much as I absolutely admire what he did and jealously wish I could do the same, today I am inspired by Sam's friend, Justin "Bugsy" Sailor.

"Bugsy" has a grand idea, and a web site to boot. Bugsy's goal? To have a beer with Richard Branson. Mr. Sailor needs help in his New Years Resolution to have a beer, this year, with the Virgin Atlantic creating, tropical island owning, adventuresome, bombastic crazy man Richard Branson.

His web site asks all the right questions. If he makes this happen, where should he go? What should he ask Mr. Branson? And the most important question of all: what beer should he drink?

Now I am inspired.

I have a New Years Resolution. It is for the Contributors of Around the Keg (and Hell, let's invite our regulars too) to have a beer with American Beer Cultural Icon George Wendt.

George Wendt's book Drinking With George shows that Mr. Wendt is not only a beer afficionado in reruns of Cheers, he really understands and appreciates beer. George represents, in a way, our beer culture.

Why not a cultural icon like Jim Koch? Well, apparently, getting to have a beer with Jim isn't very hard. No, for the challenge of it, for the metaphor of it, I think we try to have a beer with George Wendt.

I know I need a simple web site, and I will try to design one. We need to ask the important questions on it.

I am eager. I am excited. I want to have a beer with George Wendt. Who's with me??

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A Public Service Announcement

This year is going to be a massive election year in Michigan, and probably a total disaster. But that means we "political insiders" on ATK will have plenty to talk about as Michigan's political season gets under way. Stay tuned for half-assery and mockery.

In brief, up for election this year:

• The Governor
• The Secretary of State
• The Attorney General
• All 15 members of Michigan's Congressional delegation
• All 38 State Senators, 31 of whom are term-limited and unable to run again
• All 110 State Representatives, 35 of whom are term-limited

As you can see, this will be an unmitigated disaster. The 31 open Senate seats will force competitive races between State Reps, some of whom are not term-limited, thus actually potentially opening up more House seats than the 35 already open.

The race for Governor is already, a week into the New Year, turned interesting. Democratic forerunner (and current Lieutenant Governor) John Cherry just announced his withdrawal yesterday, as Bob astutely pointed out. This nearly guarantees that Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero will end up entering the race, seeing himself as the only Democrat able to run against and beat a Republican this election cycle. Virg potentially faces former State Rep and health care nonprofit manager John Freeman(who??) and current State Rep Alma Wheeler Smith.

The Lansing Rumor Mill says to look out for one or both of these folks to enter the race because of Cherry's withdrawal: U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, and former Congressman David Bonior. Bonior ran with Alma Smith a cycle ago on the Extremely Liberal Wing of the Dem Party ticket. The Stabenow rumor comes amidst speculation that former GOP Governor John Engler is looking to move back to Michigan to run against Debbie is 2012. Debbie may allegedly decide that Governor is the best move for her, thus most likely sacrificing another Dem seat in the U.S. Senate, which Engler will most assuredly win. He is a political animal, and the infrastructure he created still functions (though having gotten rusty in his extended absence as Executive Director of the U.S. Manufacturers Association). But again, these are just rumors right now. The point is that Cherry's withdrawal does more to the Dems than just help Virg. It opens-up all sorts of possibilities and problems as the Dems search for a candidate that can somehow retain a Democratic Governorship despite Granholm's....performance.

**UPDATE**

As Bob pointed out in the comments section, I forgot one of the biggest wild cards: The current Speaker of the House, Andy Dillon (D - Redford Twp.). He was considering entering the race as an Independent, but again, with Cherry's withdrawal, the question deepens. Not only is it will he run, but will he run, and as an Indy? Or a Dem? Oh, sweet drama...

As for the Republicans, Ann Arbor businessman and former Gateway computers CEO Rick Snyder can be pretty much written-off as the Guv candidate. This leaves an interesting race between Congressman Pete Hoekstra (yeah, that Hoekstra), current Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard. Hoekstra has been under fire from even some of the folks in his West Michigan ultra dutch reform conservative base for his fundraising letter attempting to capitalize on an averted disaster to raise money for Governor. Hoekstra is current the GOP frontrunner in Michigan, with Cox a very close #2. Bouchard's #3 is not that distant, and there are still rumors all over Lansing about Congressperson Candace Miller and current Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land entering the GOP primary for Guv as well, but again, those are just rumors, and those ones have been sort of mainstay rumors. They have a truth of their own, even if they never happen.

More to come. It'll be a fun year...

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Governor of Michigan?

Now that it looks like Michigan’s Lt. Governor will be dropping out of the Governor’s race, I have one thing to say…

Smitty for Governor!

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All Things Beer

Bubbling and roiling away in a fermenter is my first shot at a Scottish 80-Shilling ale (by way of a history brief, the heavier and more potent a beer, the more it would cost; this beer would have cost 80 shillings...or so beer lore says). I am really looking forward to this one. I am not bottling this beer; this will go in my keg system in about 3 or 4 more weeks.

This beer had some trouble getting started; perhaps the vial of yeast I purchased was the one-in-a-zillion unhealthy ones and it took a while for the healthy ones to replicate, perhaps I pitched the yeast when the fermenter was just a tad too cold yet and I should have waited a few more degrees, or perhaps I pitched the yeast too soon after I took it out of the fridge. Maybe I should get in the habit of making a starter, but I've never had to worry about that before... Whatever the cause, I went back to my #1 beer-making web site, Northern Brewer, and purchased 2 more vials of English Ale Yeast so I could pitch them right away and kick-start the beer.

Well, the fermentation is now going like crazy, and probably today, I will have 2 vials of English Ale Yeast arrive at my house. This is a nice problem to have. I don't want $12 in yeast to just go to waste now do I? No... But I do need to now brew another kind of UK-style beer. An Irish Red? English Pale or ESB? Brit Nut Brown? English IPA? Porter? So many styles to choose from...

Speaking of beer...if you do not already subscribe to Beer Advocate magazine, you really should. The magazine comes from the web site Beer Advocate, started by two brothers from Boston, Todd and Jason Alstrom. Membership to the web site is free, and includes a fairly robust beer rating system, chat rooms and forums about everything from brewing beer to cooking with beer. I highly recommend becoming a member. It's a fun site.

About 2 years ago, they decided they had enough connections in the brewing community (they do...) to start a magazine where they highlight brewers from all over the world, get the latest on beer-related news, offer sophisticated food recipes where beer is a chief ingredient and so on. It's a really fun magazine. Go here and subscribe. It's a mere $30 a year and is really nice rag to get every month.

Let's face it. The Alstrom Brothers are my idols. They started a web site for rating and discussing craft beer. They created an empire. And now? They get to fly all over the world to interview brewers. The web site and magazine and all of their related festivals that they throw is their day job.

Sigh.

I'll of course do a full report on my 80 Shilling. And get out there and get Beer Advocate magazine. And for you daring souls, my Russian Imperial Stout is unveiled and I am already down to my last 16 bottles. My how quickly that batch goes.

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Party-Switchers

I always wondered what happens to staff members when a legislator switches party affiliation.

In one case, I now know. They all resign en masse.

That took guts.

Source: The Hill.

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Happy New Beer!

Happy New Year folks!

I'm not one for New Years resolutions, as those are fleeting goals meant to be broken and often are. No, instead, I have New Years Suggestions. This way when I fall down on them, which I invariably do, I don't feel as bad. It was just a suggestion anyway.

One such suggestion is this: that I will endeavor to keep up more on the blog in 2010. There are beer reviews just backlogged, waiting to be put on the site. 2010 is a huge election year in national and state politics, as Michigan turns over its entire government (Guv, Sec'y of State, AG, State Senate, State House, Congressional delegation). Foiled bomb plots, growing families...all of it. Thank heavens for Bob last year, posting prolifically, and steve holding up his end of the deal. SO I guess I'll get off my duff an get moving on it myself.

Enjoy your own New Years Suggestions, and we'll look forward to you all stopping by a much more active blog in 2010. For a few weeks anyway...

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