To go with your Sunday news talk shows: It's the Friday Roundtable from KUAT-TV's Arizona Illustrated, after the jump!

I'm going to miss Flight of the Conchords. Can we dream of a big-screen version someday?

After earlier buying one Toole Avenue warehouse from the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) for just over its appraised value, on Friday, Dec. 11, Steve Fenton forked over about twice the estimated value of another building on the street.

The structure at 15-19 E. Toole had been valued at $265,000 by ADOT, but Fenton won a spirited bidding process at $512,000.

There were initially three bidders for the warehouse, but one dropped out quickly. That left Fenton and Darren Peress, who identified himself as a heart doctor who wants to be part of downtown redevelopment, to drive the price up $1,000 at a time. After about 15 minutes, Fenton emerged victorious.

The historic warehouse Fenton purchased, located between the former Zee's Mineral Gallery and Solar Culture, is presently home to AstroFab woodworkers and some other users.

Last month, Fenton purchased the Solar Culture building from ADOT for $101,000.

Bruce Bartlett, a senior policy analyst in the Reagan Administration and columnist for Forbes.com, called out Arizona Congressman Trent Franks in a recent article about the health-care debate and why Republicans have little credibility when it comes to talking about fiscal responsibility.

The whole piece is worth reading as a reminder of how bad the GOP-controlled Congress was, but check out this excerpt:

It's important to remember that the congressional budget resolution capped the projected cost of the drug benefit at $400 billion over 10 years. If there had been an official estimate from Medicare's chief actuary putting the cost at well more than that, then the legislation could have been killed by a single member in either the House or Senate by raising a point of order. Then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., later said he regretted not doing so.

Even with a deceptively low estimate of the drug benefit's cost, there were still a few Republicans in the House of Representatives who wouldn't roll over and play dead just to buy re-election. Consequently, when the legislation came up for its final vote on Nov. 22, 2003, it was failing by 216 to 218 when the standard 15-minute time allowed for voting came to an end.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary events in congressional history. The vote was kept open for almost three hours while the House Republican leadership brought massive pressure to bear on the handful of principled Republicans who had the nerve to put country ahead of party. The leadership even froze the C-SPAN cameras so that no one outside the House chamber could see what was going on.

Among those congressmen strenuously pressed to change their vote was Nick Smith, R-Mich., who later charged that several members of Congress attempted to virtually bribe him, by promising to ensure that his son got his seat when he retired if he voted for the drug bill. One of those members, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was later admonished by the House Ethics Committee for going over the line in his efforts regarding Smith.

Eventually, the arm-twisting got three Republicans to switch their votes from nay to yea: Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, Butch Otter of Idaho and Trent Franks of Arizona. Three Democrats also switched from nay to yea and two Republicans switched from yea to nay, for a final vote of 220 to 215. In the end, only 25 Republicans voted against the budget-busting drug bill. (All but 16 Democrats voted no.)

Otter and Istook are no longer in Congress, but Franks still is, so I checked to see what he has been saying about the health legislation now being debated. Like all Republicans, he has vowed to fight it with every ounce of strength he has, citing the increase in debt as his principal concern. "I would remind my Democratic colleagues that their children, and every generation thereafter, will bear the burden caused by this bill. They will be the ones asked to pay off the incredible debt," Franks declared on Nov. 7.

Just to be clear, the Medicare drug benefit was a pure giveaway with a gross cost greater than either the House or Senate health reform bills how being considered. Together the new bills would cost roughly $900 billion over the next 10 years, while Medicare Part D will cost $1 trillion.

Moreover, there is a critical distinction—the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no

Political analyst Nate Silvers says Democrats like Congressman Raul Grijalva shouldn't get too worked up about the Senate health-care package. Among his reasons:

1) The energy by progressive activists on behalf of the public option has done more good than harm, and by a wide margin.

2a) Nevertheless, the public option is/was a relatively minor part of the health care bill, at least once it became clear that it (i) wouldn't be pegged to Medicare rates, and (ii) would only be available to a small fraction of the population.

2b) To claim that a health care bill without a public option is anything other than a huge achievement for progressives is, frankly, bullshit.

There's more.

We mentioned yesterday that Congressman Raul Grijalva was starting to complain that that Senate health-care package was getting too watered-down.

Grijalva pushed even harder today. Talking Points Memo reports:

An influential progressive in the House of Representatives says that the public option compromise taking shape in the Senate might not survive the lower chamber—particularly if the Senate tries to jam its health care bill through the House.

In an interview this afternoon, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) said he met with the Congressional Progressive Caucus' health care task force yesterday and they all agreed. "There is consensus within the progressive caucus," Grijalva said. "Personally I'm in agreement with them. I don't think very much of it."

"We're questioning whether you can define [what's coming out of the Senate] as a robust PO, and we don't think you can," he told me.

"There's rumors that we will skip conference--that we won't do conference--and bring their bill directly to the floor, and we are very, very opposed to that," Grijalva said.

In August of this year, I met licensed pilot Jessica Cox and went on a flight with her around San Manuel, Ariz. Jessica is the first U.S. pilot certified to fly a non-modified plane using her feet without prosthetics. Visit http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/messina/Content?oid=1306035 to read the column.

In October, Jessica went to Hawaii and tried surfing for the first time. Scroll down to watch a video of her lesson.

At 10 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 13, the TLC channel will air a one-hour documentary which profiles Jessica and two other people. The show repeats at 1 a.m., Monday, Dec. 14. Watch or set your TiVo! Here's the description:

Born Without Arms
TV-PG

Nadia, Jessica and Mark are three very different individuals who all share one remarkable similarity: They were born without arms. From day-to-day struggles to artistic and professional achievements, these inspiring people have accomplished amazing things.

Longtime TW readers may recall "Staggering Heights," a ongoing comic strip by Joe Forkan, whose work also graced many a cover for TW through the 1990s.

Joe is now an associate professor of art at California State Fullerton. Check out some of his latest work here.

He's also posting those old strips on his Staggering Heights blog, along with commentary. One great story he tells:

I met Charles Schulz once. I was in my early twenties, and I was drawing comic strips and editorial cartoons for a bunch of college papers at the time. I heard that Schulz was in Tucson, where I lived, filming a live-action sequence for some Peanuts special at the local skating rink. Well, when I was a kid I loved the strip, as did anyone my age. He did artwork for the Apollo 10 moon landing, for god’s sake. Snoopy was everywhere, and Christmas and Halloween weren’t the same if you missed the Peanuts specials when they aired. So the strip was a bit of a touchstone for me, and Schulz was certainly the most successful cartoonist imaginable.

Well, being an industrious young man, I decided it would be a good idea to head right down to the skating rink and show him my cartoons, thinking of course, that he would

I talk about the robots that work at the Human Origins Genotyping Story in this week's cover story, but you need to see them in action to really appreciate what's going on there.

Our Web producer, Nick Smith, shot a short video where Matt Kaplan, the lab's director, explains how the robots do their thing.

Oh, you want meat, huh? Try the Hog Pit Smokehouse Bar and Grill 's (6910 E. Tanque Verde Road) "Hog Trough Challenge" on for size.

Your mission, should you choose to consume it, is to eat a super sandwich comprised of one pound of hamburger, one pound of pulled pork and one pound of chopped brisket covered in extra spicy hot sauce (oh, and one pound of French fries) in less than 25 minutes.

Should you meet with victory, the $25 meal is free, and you get your picture on their wall of fame.

Call 722-4302, or check out the entry on their Facebook page for more info.