Don’t we have an economy to fix?

Or health care to universalize?

or jobs to create?

Meat-flavored vodkas.

Yes, Sexy Sarah can be outdone…

Wasilla, Alaska is now exporting Smoked Salmon Vodka. < /barf>

Here at the Caribou on Pennsylvania Avenue, and a few other nearby coffee shops, White House officials have met hundreds of times over the last 18 months with prominent K Street lobbyists — members of the same industry that President Obama has derided for what he calls its “outsized influence” in the capital.

On the agenda over espressos and lattes, according to more than a dozen lobbyists and political operatives who have taken part in the sessions, have been front-burner issues like Wall Street regulation, health care rules, federal stimulus money, energy policy and climate control — and their impact on the lobbyists’ corporate clients.

But because the discussions are not taking place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they are not subject to disclosure on the visitors’ log that the White House releases as part of its pledge to be the “most transparent presidential administration in history.”

The off-site meetings, lobbyists say, reveal a disconnect between the Obama administration’s public rhetoric — with Mr. Obama himself frequently thrashing big industries’ “battalions” of lobbyists as enemies of reform — and the administration’s continuing, private dealings with them.

“Lower-nose accoutrements are often associated with certain professions, such as law enforcement, motorcycle maintenance, pornography, pipe fitters and horseshoe fitters union 173,” said Aaron Perlut, chairman of the American Mustache Institute, a mustache-advocacy group based in St. Louis.

“I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults — teachers and counselors — we try to encourage them not to do that,” said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.”

“Parents sometimes say Johnny needs that one special friend,” she continued. “We say he doesn’t need a best friend.”

Tiffany, the former teen singer famous for her single, “I Think We’re Alone Now,” will face-off against the “Only in My Dreams” crooner in a new Syfy signature Saturday night original movie called ‘Mega Python vs. Gataroid’ according to “The Hollywood Reporter.”

The 80’s pop icons have both previously been cast in Syfy originals, but this is the first time they will appear together. “Mega Python vs. Gataroid” will feature Gibson as a fanatical animal rights activist, while Tiffany will be an overzealous park ranger.

It was treated as an oddball twist in the otherwise wrenching saga of the BP oil spill when Kevin Costner stepped forward to promote a device he said could work wonders in containing the spill’s damage. But as Henry Fountain explains in the New York Times, the gadget in question — an oil-separating centrifuge — marks a major breakthrough in spill cleanup technology. And BP, after trial runs with the device, is ordering 32 more of the Costner-endorsed centrifuges to aid the Gulf cleanup.

So… Milwaukee County, you know the armpit of Wisconsin, where teens routinely murder people, have apparently solved all their other problems, and are now ready to tackle a boycott of Arizona over AZ’s much maligned immigration law.

The highlight of the debate, straight from the mouth of genius County Supervisor Peggy West

“If this was Texas, which is a state that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would have to look twice at this.  But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border”

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, displaying a sense of humor I’ve never known him to possess, responded appropriately.

Brickworld 2010 was held June 17-20, 2010, in Wheeling, Illinois.