Rep. Jeb Hensarling has proposed the 2008 Blogger Protection Act.  TechRepublican has more.

Sears and Kroger are offering a 10% bonus if you turn your economic stimulus rebate into gift cards.  Sears, meh.  Kroger, actually worthwhile.

For those of you keeping track at home, here are the first quarter filings for candidates running for Tom Davis’s open seat in Virginia’s 11th:

Leslie Byrne (D) raised $231k and has $237k on hand
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00440909/332352/#SUMMARY

Gerry Connolly (D) raised $501k and has $422k on hand
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00445452/333752/#SUMMARY

Doug Denneny (D) raised $34k and has $14k on hand
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00437145/332033/#SUMMARY

Keith Fimian (R) raised $138k and has $742k on hand
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00437210/333649/#SUMMARY

The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority is asking Average Joe’s to do some lobbying work for them:

The cash strapped Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) — especially after the Virginia Supreme Court stripped it of the taxing authority the governor and legislature gave it — is asking residents of the Washington, DC area to make videos of their commutes and post them to its “Piece of My Commute” campaign page.

Let the sock-puppetry begin!

Jon Baliles says Ukrops is going to be shutting down it’s store at Harrison and Grace.  Man, there goes the closest salad bar.

But it’s not his hate of tires that’s at issue, it’s the lying about his hate of tires:

[D]efense attorneys also were able to get Levar Stoney, of Virginia, and Leshaunda Joy Williams, of New York, to admit they lied to Milwaukee Police Department interrogators shortly after the Nov. 2, 2004 incident in order to safely flee the city. Stoney and Williams both were in Milwaukee to help hype Dem turnout in the final weeks of the Kerry-Edwards presidential bid.

Both Stoney and Williams told the FBI in subsequent interviews that they heard most of the five men brag about their role in the slashing of tires on nearly 100 vehicles rented by the GOP.

Alright, well maybe he himself doesn’t hate tires, but he’s protective of folks who do.

Stoney also admitted he lied to Milwaukee detectives. But when approached in Virginia by the FBI he said he deemed it his “civic duty” to admit he heard the men talk about the vandalism once they returned to party headquarters.

It wasn’t his “civic duty” to tell the truth to begin with? Is it going to take the FBI approaching him to get the truth out of DPVA?

Scott and Jim hit on this over the weekend.  Jim Hoeft has thoughts as well.

D.J. McGuire points out how bloggers supporting Gilmore have made a pretty good case for Del. Bob Marshall’s Conservative approach to government. Good job, guys.

I’ll have more thoughts later…

LATER: As DJ said in his post:

Gilmore’s decision to plow “excess tax revenues” into the higher education system benefited less than one in every nine Virginia households - hardly putting money to work “for the People.”

From a different angle, however, this is even worse.  One of the many things the American right has done to change the debate on education in general is to force Americans to see that a government monopoly is not the best way to deliver education.  At the K-12 level, this has led to numerous conservative proposals for education reform under the e umbrella of educational choice - in essense, taking the entire idea of government help for education and restructuring it so that the students, not the institutions, are aided.  The conservative movement is making similar moves in housing, medical insurance, and other areas.

Gilmore’s tuition freeze, by contrast, moves in the exact opposite direction.  It doesn’t strengthen individual choice; it limits it by forcing them to use public education in order to benefit from the aid.  It doesn’t embrace the free market; it distorts it by using government power to artificially lower the prices for government-funded universities to the detriment of private and religious ones.

It comes down to who can best spend YOUR money and what it means to be a Conservative.

As one who took some time off before finishing school (three weeks to go), I have had to pay my own way during these last few years.  What drove my decision to attend VCU was a combination of factors that included very heavily the cost of tuition.   That tuition has increased by more than ten percent in the last two years and looks to go up yet again year after year.  Is this happening because the government isn’t subsidizing it enough or because the school is making bad decisions and isn’t being held accountable by me, the consumer?

That depends on who you speak to.  The administration of VCU will tell you that the state is at fault, that less funds from the state means tuition must increase.  Yet no where have the services provided to me or the students of VCU increased by 10%.  In fact, they went $10 million over budget for a business expansion and you can fully expect that buck to be passed along to the students.  But because we don’t demand accountability from the administration, no one’s going to know what’s going on, tuition will be raised again and the blame will be placed on the state.

So how are students and their families to afford these rates?  Is it up to the state to spend their money, your money, my money to pay for bad decisions on the part of VCU or GMU or UVA?

Or, are families better served by having that money in their pockets to begin with, to be able to make the choices on their own and demand greater accountability from the schools for the product they provide at the prices that they charge?

In the case of many Virginians, myself included, Gilmore’s policies to keep college “affordable” made it anything but.  Instead, it took more money out of the pockets of Virginians when they could have saved that themselves to put towards furthering their education through a means other than a state funded system that only benefits 10% of Virginian families.

When Virginia was faced with a surplus, Gilmore didn’t give that money back to Virginians, he increased spending and locked Virginia into a system that continued to take money from every family to no effective end.

When did increasing spending become a Conservative value?

LegiStorm is causing a bit of a to-do by posting the salaries of members of Congress and their staff:

“Who knew it was going to get posted on the Web? It’s shocking,” said one House Democratic chief of staff, who requested anonymity to discuss her personal finances. “Now that anybody can look it up on the Web, I don’t know if I like it anymore.”

Her forms for 2006, which were filed last spring, included her home address and 32 pages of detailed statements about bank accounts under the name of her husband and daughter. That prompted her to raise concerns about identity theft at a chiefs of staff meeting in March.

…

Under federal law, staffers who earn more than $110,000 a year must file financial disclosure forms. In addition to staffers’ financial holdings, the documents show any outside income, gifts received and official positions held with outside groups.

Before LegiStorm existed, anyone searching for salary and financial disclosure information had to trek down to the basement of the Cannon House Office Building to rummage through the records. Those searching for financial disclosure forms, either for a lawmaker or a staffer, had to enter their name into a computer database, leaving a record of whose documents they were examining.

LegiStorm claims that since starting they’ve helped shed light on some questionable transactions among top staffers. The House is looking into changing their forms to limit the personal information on there, but I don’t see this type of service as a bad thing given that aides are the movers and the shakers and being paid with money that comes from our pockets.

Leslie caught onto this back on Saturday.

Make your own presidential candidate finger puppets!

So Delegate Jeff Frederick has decided that he can save the Virginia GOP and is running against current Republican Party of Virginia Chair John Hager for his seat. It leads one to wonder that if Del. Frederick really is to be the “future” of the RPV, one must ask what he has done in the past.

There really doesn’t seem to be much.

In 2004 Del. Frederick established Virginia’s Future PAC with a $100 contribution. That’s it. Nothing else since then. No helping other candidates in the state, no fundraising, just $100 sitting there. Though maybe it’s not there anymore since the PAC paid for Frederick’s Chairman campaign website:

Let’s go beyond the PAC. Individually, Del. Frederick has donated $1,500 over the last few years, $1,000 of that to candidates, $500 to the Dominion Leadership Trust PAC, the PAC established by Del. Bill Howell to do, well, what? Lose House seats like there’s no tomorrow?

What has Jeff Frederick done to be Chairman of the RPV? Where has he proven his ability to raise funds, assist candidates and campaigns, coordinate anything on a statewide level, and on and on and on?

Where does Jeff Frederick provide any reason to vote FOR him?

So my ladyfriend decided 2008 was the year of the hot bod and in an effort to help her out and work on myself a bit I have joined a gym. Not that I have any clue as to what exactly I’m doing when I’m there, other than pulling and pushing on things and making myself sore in the morning. I think I’m doing it right. My only previous experience with a gym was going three times a week during the two free “try us out” weeks before signing up for an annual contract during which I never went again. I’m trying to find an exercise regime online somewhere, but most are pretty vague and the sites make me worry that anyone watching is going to wonder if I’m looking up porn.

Anyways, part of Hot Bods Bodz 2008 (”With a ‘z’ because it’s that hot.” - Ladyfriend) is also a better diet, which I seem to suck at more than exercise. My almost daily intake of fast food (maybe I should strike “almost”) really hinders that part more than anything else. That and the fact I haven’t actually cooked a meal in, well, a long time. So I have to work on that part.

My problem is I’m not really overweight, just out of shape. I’m trying to move some of the me from my gut to somewhere else and short of fixing my diet I worry all I’m going to do is break myself somewhere. Or be really buff with a gut.

I guess the point of this post is that if anyone out there has any exercise or dieting advice and suggestions, I’m all ears.

Until then, my tail’s at the gym three nights a week, hating cardio and thinking 45 pounds is heavy.

Russ Anderson has some shots of Frank Miller’s upcoming movie adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit.  It might be pretty good.

Recommended Reading: Foreign Affairs

You can download Flight Of The Conchords newest single, Ladies Of The World, for free today from Download.com.  Pick up Business Time while you’re at it, too.

How to buy like a millionaire without being one.