And now a bit of information on Maryland's four signers to the declaration of independence:



FAST FACT: Charles Carroll of Carrollton was easily the richest signer of the Declaration of Independence. He would also be the longest surviving member.



FAST FACT: Samuel Chase was known as "Old Bacon Face," and would be the only Supreme Court Justice to have a vote of impeachment in the House. He was acquitted.



FAST FACT: Among the rich living on the Chesapeake Bay at the time, there was a bit of one-upsmanship over their boats. Who's was biggest and fanciest or whatever. William became the real winner, when he added cannons to his ship. Whenever he came into Annapolis, he liked to fire a cannon volley to announce his presence.



FAST FACT: There is really next to nothing known about Thomas Stone. He has no recorded correspondence, and he didn't say much in Continental Congress. He seems a nice enough guy.

BONUS FAST FACT: When L. Carroll Judson wasn't engaging in enough purple prose to make Stephenie Meyer cry for mercy, he wrote about how great the Masons were. Alot.

Regardless of how you feel about abortions, can't we all agree that's a bit too much?

Bir Tawil is a pretty desolate place. 2060 kilometers square of mostly desert and mountains in northwestern Africa, the name Bir Tawil comes from the arabic for Water Well. It's so named because there's a water well near the center of the territory. It's the only source of water for miles.

It's completely uninhabited apart from the couple of nomadic shepherds that will venture to the aforementioned water well. There's no buildings, no structures, no fencing.

Also, no central authority, no sovereign government, and no legal authority of any sort at all. No treaties or statues regulate it. Like Antarctica and international waters, it is one of the only places on Earth where you can be in no country or territory. And unlike Antarctica and some international waters, nobody wants it.

Let me explain.

The sad, strange story of Bir Tawil begins, like most cocked-up border issues, with the British. In 1899, the United Kingdom set the border between Egypt and Sudan at the 22nd parallel. At this point, Bir Tawil was Sudanese, as it sits below the 22nd parallel.

But then in 1902, "for its own convenience" as Wikipedia puts it, the United Kingdom traded a piece of Egyptian territory above the 22nd parallel known as the Halayeb Triangle with Sudan for Bir Tawil. The reason for this was that the Halayeb Triangle, and area of land ten times larger than Bir Tawil was closer to Sudan's capital Khartoum than Egypt's capital Cairo, and would be more easily controlled by the British Governor in Khartoum. Bir Tawal went to Egypt because it used as grazing land of the Ababda tribe based near Aswan, Egypt.

As time went on, the Halayeb Triangle became more and more valuable and desired as territory, what with the Red Sea access, petroleum reserves, population, and being more than desert. Both countries laid claim to the land, but in 2000 Sudan withdrew their forces, effectively ceding control to Egypt. In 2004, Sudan renewed claims that they owned the territory, claiming control of the area's major "city" Halayeb.

This puts Bir Tawil in a weird spot. Egypt claims the Halayeb Triangle under the 1899 border, which puts Bir Tawil in Sudan. Sudan claims the Halayeb Triangle under the 1902 border, which puts Bir Tawil in Egypt. Neither country can claim Bir Tawil without vacating their claim of the Halayeb Triangle, and since there is absolutely nothing of value in Bir Tawil, neither will.

Many people know that four American states are officially known as Commonwealths (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky, which is the one I always forget).

But here's something you may not know: only three states have Houses of Delegates. What are they?

The first one should be easy to remember, the other two...not so much.

Because everyone loves these!

( I really should be working on my papers. )

Hat tip to Tim Blair.

Meet Tommy Bromwell. At the beginning of our story, Tommy Bromwell is Senator Tommy Bromwell, a Democrat representing Baltimore County. And he's not just a Senator, he's chairman of the powerful Finance Committee.

Life is good for Tommy Bromwell. You're getting some money on the side by helping commercial contactors win government work, but who doesn't in Annapolis? Let's face it, the world is your Chesapeake Bay oyster.

And yet...and yet. You're not happy. You wan't more, don't you Tommy? But what more can you get? What's more powerful than Chairman of the Finance Committee?

Well, how about President of the Maryland State Senate?

Now that's power. Real power. President of the Senate is second in Maryland's order of succession, for starters. And you have, if you choose to use it, the capacity to dominate the Senate, with an iron fist if you so choose. And it's a pretty nifty launching pad if you want to use it. Steny Hoyer's got a Congressional seat, Melvin Steinburg was Lieutenant Governor for two terms, Louis Goldstein is the most popular tax collector in the United States and probably will remain such until he dies.

Yes sir, that's a heck of a job to get. The tiny problem is that Maryland already has a Senate President. A Mr. Thomas V. "Mike" Miller, Jr, from Calvert and Prince George's County. He's been Senate President since 1986, and it's for a good reason. He plays the senate with it's many members, cliques and factions like a violin. He's reined in a absolutely insane Senate, and he doesn't have any plans of slowing down.

For the ambitious senator, like our friend Tommy Bromwell, this presents a problem. But Tommy is not concerned. He's smooth, he's popular, he has connections, and he can take down Mike Miller.

So Tommy Bromwell starts working the backrooms and Harry Browne's. He cuts some deals with several Senators from Baltimore city. The Republicans would be happy to see Mike Miller go. He builds up an organization, an army, and late in the 2000 session, the battle begins. And he falls short. Bromwell's coup attempt, alas, fails.

Now, they say that if you want to kill the king, you had better be sure you get the knife in his back. But Mike Miller is alive and kicking, so one would expect retribution. After all, the Senate President picks Committee chairmanships, committee placement, even what office you get. You'd picture our poor friend Tommy Bromwell with a office in the parking garage, no staff, a rotary pay phone and a seat int he gallery, but strangely he keeps his Chairmanship. No vengeance is paid.

"President Miller took it all very well," people start to say. He's taken a close call of a coup attempt in perfect stride, and seems willing to live and let live. But Thomas V. Mike Miller is not a man to let water fall of his back, or to nurse a grudge. He's just a man who gets even, that's all. Mike Miller had been under investigation by the feds for corruption once, but the investigation was dropped. But some say that Mike became friendly with the good people of the FBI that were giving him the once over. And mayhaps he tipped them off that Senator Tommy Bromwell had been involved in some shady business that actually could be proven.

In 2001, the feds began taping conversations of the good Senator, which led to him bragging on tape about his scams, and also him spouting off a fun collection of racial epithets and calling Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend something foul.

And so, in 2005, Thomas L. Bromwell was charged in a United States court of wire fraud, mail fraud, extortion, and violating the RICO statute. And in 2007, not only is Bromwell found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison, his wife was caught taking money for a no-show job and was sent to jail for a year and a day.

So what's the lesson of this story, children? That's right: you DO NOT screw around with Mike Miller.

If you're going to decalre a "liberal leave policy" you should probably explain it so a bunch of idiots don't waste my time asking about it.

But "essential personnel" is simple enough: If you are, you know it. If you don't, you aren't.

A problem is when someone uses the term "to make a long story short" four times in the same long story.

i.e. Becky.

What type of Chevrolet vehicle the good guys are.
What the bad guys look like.

Hattip to Geekadelphia.

So the two girls sitting in front of me at the TETC Computer Lab are talking about this guy the girl to the right doesn't know she likes or not. But, after they have had sex, she was woken up by his snoring.

And so their quandry: Is this a big deal?

The girl in question isn't sure, but friend to the left counseled that if the roles were reversed, and the guy found the girl snored, he'd be like "I don't know if I want to talk to you anymore." I don't know what guys she's thinking about, but I wouldn't care, and I'd like to believe most normal guys would be the same way. Breaking up and/or not going out with a girl because they snore is a very Seinfeldian reason to not have a relationship.

Besides, as a person who snores I can't afford to be hypocritical.

And all of this is ignoring the strange default that sex comes before the Liking/not-Liking decision but that's just me.

Now back to schoolwork.

I mean, all the guy did was cure polio.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose some people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag some people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. I'm not a big fan of these things, but to watch a meme grow and spread is very interesting to me.

2. Like for example, I just found someone a couple weeks ago who did one of these that wanted only 19 random facts. Somewhere that 19 became 25, and added a posting instruction. And before that, a 16 random fact version floated around. Isn't that neat? I think so.

3. So I should note that I'm going to cheat on what precisely counts as a "fact about me."

4. I sleep with a light on, though I've found that I don't need to. These days, I just do.

5. Life can be serious, so you should take it seriously. But when you have the opportunity to lighten up for a bit, you should take it.

6. I don't want to complain about things that I can't change, and if I complain about something, I should work to change it so I don't need to complain about it anymore.

7. What I think is that what's done is done, so why worry about the past?

8. I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far, but I haven't truly done anything yet.

9. You need to remember that in most cases, the stakes are so small that getting into a fight, or argument, or feud or whatever is a utter waste of time.

10. Every campaign I've worked on has won in the primary but lost in the November elections, but 2006 and 2008 have been bad years for Republicans and you can hardly blame me.

11. I need to listen to more classical music.

12. It's strange how much nervous energy I seem to have. I chew on my nails, and when I'm not chewing on my nails I'm bouncing my leg, and when I'm not doing that I playing with a pencil, and when I'm not doing that I writing little notes to myself. However, when I'm reading something that's all I do.

13. I snore, it seems.

14. If there's any amount of background noise, I'm ging to find it extremly hard to hear you unless you are directly talking to me somewhere close by.

15. My humor probably comes off as being sardonic. Mostly because it kinda is.

16. I'm not a very good conversationalist. But then I dread awkward silences. Rough combination.

17. I could live and die on the Eastern Shore and be perfectly content.

18. You've got to like Antiques Roadshow. I'm hardly alone in it being a secret favorite. However, someone on tonight's episode bothered me. In a "Best Of" clip, they had a woman who brought in a awesome painting of Henry Clay relaxing and reading a newspaper at a tavern. Cool painting, worth a ton of money. However, when the guy appraising it asked the woman if she had ever had it appraised, she said she had: In 1969 for $20,000.

Antiques Roadshow should try to avoid items that have been appraised before. I mean, how is it fun then? Sure the price went up in a period of 40 years, but if it starts out at $20,000 you can feel confident it will still be worth something, taking a bit of the excitement out of the final reveal. Antiques Roadshow is at it's best when the item was bought at a thrift shop for 5 bucks, has been hanging on the wall for 20 years and at least one significant other talked about the waste of $10 bucks the item was once they first bought it.

19. If there's a television on, I'm probably going to watch it, no matter what's on. I'm very bad about that.

20. The best feeling in the world is to feel like you're actually wanted.

21. Peach preserves is better than jelly when on toast.

22. The least I can do for someone sometimes is to just give half a crap about their problems, and sometimes that's all they need.

23. I hate posed photographs, mostly because I'll look stupid in them. At least have the decency to just take the stupid picture as a action shot as opposed to getting me all self-concious by drawing you attention to it.

24. I'd love to be a writer but I don't think I write very well. I'd love to be a scientist, like a string theorist or something, but I'm bad at both math and science.

25. I believe obscurity is good for you.

Something I discovered that's strangly interesting is this website that let's you make Obama-esque HOPE and CHANGE posters in a few easy steps. Some examples below the fold.


( We are the internet generated posters we were waiting for. )

There is a hack out there of Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green. It replaces the sprites of Pokémon for sprites of moe girls in Pokémon outfits. Which you can catch and raise and battle with. The results are...kinda cool.

PAC 14 is broadcasting the Salisbury Christmas Parade, presented by the Salisbury Jaycees. And guess who is one of the announcers? Bob Laun. The man can leave the broadcast, but the broadcast can't leave the man. Even if he is on a channel that absolutely no one watches, while they read off a horrible script (horrible, horrible script).

Hey, there's the Wi-Hi Marching Band! And Sheriff Mike Lewis! This is great.

And there's the Allen Volunteer Fire Company with their Rescue Boat. And there's Eastern Correctional Institute float. Jeez, that thing is impressive. The non-Bob Laun announcer noted that it should be, the guys working on it have plenty of time on their hands. And Sherman the Shorebird in a Christmas Tree costume.

Ah...this is great. Merry Christmas everyone

"Other than that Mrs. McKinley, did you enjoy the fair?"

Does anyone else have moments where they're changing the radio station, and right before they push the button they suddenly decide what's going to be on the next station? That happens to me every once in a while. Like today: I was leaving after my International Law class, and was driving out of the parking lot when right before I changed to 96 Rock I thought to myself "Nine Inch Nails." And wouldn't you know it, it's Head Like A Hole.

Of course, I might be deciding I do this after the fact, but I feel like I've done that sort of thing before. Starting to sing a song then switching channels and hearing that song playing, weird stuff like that.

And it's utterly useless, since it always happens right before I'd push the button. It's like predicting a ball is going to hit you when it's a foot away from your head. If I'm doing that at all.

Congratulations and good luck to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and all winning House and Senate Democrats.

And a very cool note: Joe Biden will be attending Returns Day in Georgetown tomorrow. Returns Day is a more fun than it should be, really. Get yourself a Ox Sandwich.