How do I know it is the end of the world?  The Colorado legislature is hard at work for the taxpayer, they are high on John Denver.

Some choice quotes:

The halls of the Colorado Capitol building rang with campfire tunes Monday as both houses of the Legislature heard and passed a joint resolution making John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” an official state song alongside “Where the Columbines Grow.”

Hagedorn dismissed the idea that lyrics in the song describing a “high” refer to or encourage drug use, suggesting instead that they refer to the elation one feels while enjoying spectacular places.

“We are high on Colorado,” primary House sponsor Nancy Todd of Aurora agreed.

High on Colorado?  God save us all.

A choir singing “Kumbaya” kicked off legislative proceedings and was followed in both houses with versions of Denver’s beloved “Rocky Mountain High” after the joint resolution passed.

Kumbaya?  This was plagarized from The Onion, had to be.

“If I had any hair, I’d part it in the middle and say ‘far out,’” Sen. Steve Ward said in an address to the Senate floor.

Warning: Politician being very lame!  Stay back 500ft!

Despite some lawmakers’ insistence that the song’s use of the word “high” does not necessarily refer to drugs, others on the House floor snickered when speakers referred to the measure as “the joint resolution.”

Heh.  The joint resolution, [insert Bevis and Butthead laugh here].

The good news in all of this of course is that Colorado has been touched by God and there are no serious problems or issues of any kind left for lawmakers to deal with in this modern day Utopia.  Seriously though, I hate the government.

RedState scooped this one (ok, it’s the first site I saw this on). Today Jeb Hensarling, the leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House, held a conference call with several bloggers to announce a new effort by the RSC to redefine the fiscal troubles this country faces and what conservatives want to do to solve them. The American TABOR, I guess you could call it, boils down to 4 conservative beliefs:

1. Taxpayers have a right to have a federal government that does not grow beyond their ability to pay for it.
2. Taxpayers have a right to receive back each dollar that they entrust to the government for their retirement.
3. Taxpayers have a right to expect the government to balance the budget without having their taxes raised.
4. Taxpayers have a right to a simple, fair tax code that they can understand.

You can read more of the RSC’s plan in the brief pdf file here. And as RedState notes, the RSC chose to release this to bloggers first, then deal with the mainstream media second… pretty cool in my book. Some people realize who their constituents are and are actually working hard to uphold their best interests. It’s nice to be reminded of that every now and then.

Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) will resign his House seat in the coming months following his selection yesterday as the new chancellor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

Meehan, who was elected to his eighth term in Congress in November, had been one of three finalists for the slot. University President Jack Wilson offered the lawmaker the position yesterday morning, and Meehan’s final approval is set for this morning, when the board of trustees votes on his confirmation.

The university wants its next chancellor in place by July 1, and Meehan has indicated he would retain his seat for the time being. After that, a special election would ensue in Massachusetts’s 5th district.

The Hill

This is a map of the 5th Congressional District:

This district borders New Hampshire so I would make an educated guess that there are more Republicans here than if it were in the Greater Boston area.  But this is still Massachusetts and that may not really mean much.  Three Republicans have been mentioned as possible candidates.

Among Republicans, Lawrence Mayor Michael Sullivan, former state Rep. Donna Cuomo and 2002 Meehan opponent Charles McCarthy have been mentioned. McCarthy took 34 percent of the vote against Meehan.

34% doesn’t look that hopeful, particularly in the same year that Mitt Romney got elected Governor.  An open seat usually aids the party opposite of the incumbent because there is no incumbent in the election to draw as many crossover votes, but gaining another 16 points seems like quite a stretch.  It is certainly possible, though.

The 5th district tilts Democratic but isn’t as safe as some of the state’s other nine districts, all of which are held by Democratic men. Kerry won 57 percent of the vote there in 2004 — his second-lowest percentage in his home state

Possible, but I don’t think probable.

President Bush, working to rebuild strained U.S.-Mexico relations, promised Tuesday he would do his best to get a deeply divided U.S. Congress to change American immigration policies that are hated south of the border.

“My pledge to you and your government, but more important to the people of Mexico, is I’ll work as hard as I possibly can to pass comprehensive immigration reform,” Bush said during a sun-splashed arrival ceremony that opened two days of meetings with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in this Yucatan Peninsula tourist haven.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070313/D8NRCILO0.html

He is promising Calderon that he will do everything he can to reform our immigration laws to the approval of the Mexican nation?  So Calderon can keep exporting his problems across our border?

What’s interesting about Thompson’s bid is that he is clearly thinking of entering the race to play a part he has yet to fill on screen: as the tribune of the Right.

Two unconventional Republicans, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, are far ahead of the pack, and there’s a sense abroad in the land that there’s no authentic conservative in the race who has a chance of winning.

In his appearance on Sunday, Thompson specifically declared himself pro-life and an opponent of gun control - two areas in which Rudy Giuliani takes an apostate’s view, as far as the Republican base is concerned.

There’s something a tiny bit off about Thompson playing the right-wing card. He is a political disciple of Howard Baker, the former Tennessee senator who was one of the defining figures of moderate Republicanism in the second half of the 20th century. And as a career trial lawyer himself, Thompson stoutly opposed efforts in the mid-1990s to impose tort reform - a key issue for the Right.

It would be a terrific thing if Fred Thompson entered the race, because he’s a big personality with a remarkable command of the issues and the kind of eloquence that we’re only seeing right now from Barack Obama.

New York Post

I’m still pulling for Gingrich to enter the race, but I wonder if he would still jump in should Thompson make an official decision to run.

On his VolPAC blog, Bill Frist endorsed a Fred Thompson for President run. As much as many of us may have thought that Frist was a weak senate leader there is no doubt that his support brings with it the type of national connections that someone jumping in this late would need. The question here is whether this is an obligatory “he’s from my state endorsement” or will Frist really pitch in. My natural inclination is that its a “in name only endorsement” but then again why come out and endorse him before he even runs and then risk him not running and having burnt bridges with the major contenders.

Another blog notes that some social conservatives blame him for getting out of the 2002 race late as a favor to Lamar Alexander and shunning their candidate, Ed Bryant. Now I am a big Ed Bryant fan, but do a favor to a friend (Alexander and Thompson knew each other closely through TN politics) who happens to be slightly more liberal than another guy might be questionable but compared to favoring taxpayer funded abortions (Giuliani) it ain’t nothin. I still am leaning Romney at the moment but we’ll see if Thompson gets in.

UPDATE: Read this thread of blogs commenting on the possibility of Thompson getting in. There are some major blogs with good, good things to say. I think the two most poignant comments being that the net firestorm his FNS appearance created shows he has a broad base of support and second that his hollywood and establishment (Frist, Baker, Dole) connections would allow him to raise $ quickly.