The easy joke is, of course, how would anyone be able to tell, but Phoenix based conservative blogger Espresso Pundit posted an odd missive yesterday to mark his several-day hiatus from blogland. Maybe this is coded conservative-speak that I'm just not capable of understanding.

I've tried to get the passion back with less caffeine. Last week I moved my copy of "Silent Spring" from by bookshelf to my desk. After all, Rachel Carson is a hero to the left, but banning DDT has killed upwards of 50 million people. Surely that will get me motivated? Nope.

So this morning, I said screw it and had a giant cup of coffee and I'm thoroughly jacked up on caffeine. Rachel Carson is back on the shelf...Liberal Fascism is on the desk now. Don't forget that Woodrow Wilson put 175,000 Americans in jail for STATEMENTS they made during WWI. Don't forget that Roosevelt imprisoned 75,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry...with the full support of his newly reshaped Supreme Court. Jim Crow laws, White Primaries and Grandfather clauses were DEMOCRATIC Party inventions.

The Chinese economy is a centrally-planned house of cards. Entitlements are going to overtake the entire budget in a few years. The 1.4 Trillion dollar deficit isn't sustainable. Napolitano is bringing the same corrupt practices to the Orwellian sounding department of "Homeland" security that she got away with here. The only thing worse than Obama Care and "Cash for Clunkers" may have been Bush's prescription drug benefit and steel tariffs.

Whew. That felt great. Sure, my hands are shaking and I can't see out of my left eye, but it's totally worth it to have the fire back. I have so many things to tell you about....

Time is running out for state lawmakers to act to extend unemployment benefits for Arizonans who are still looking for work.

The extension wouldn't cost the state any money; the funds come from the federal government, but to be eligible to receive the additional funds, state lawmakers must change one word in state law.

Matt Benson, the spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer, tells The Range that the governor is "gauging the appetite" of lawmakers regarding a special session to make the change.

"She supports a change in statute so the state gets the entirety of unemployment dollars from the federal government," Benson says.

Lawmakers must act by June 3, says Benson.

Republican leaders didn't attempt to make the change during the session because they argue that extending unemployment benefits encourages people to not seek work.

The Pima County Democratic Party sent out a bulletin yesterday noting that since The Rapture didn't take place, out-of-work Arizonans still need help:

The Rapture didn’t happen. Time continues to turn. So more than 15,000 Arizonans are about to lose unemployment insurance claims one week from tomorrow because Far Right political bosses won’t change a “two” to a “three,” in state law.

Arizonans bought this insurance policy. The Federal government will honor the claim for these folks but the state has to use a three-year calculation to get it rather than a two-year calculation. It’s an arcane “lookback” provision but the issue was never brought up during the last Legislative session. Gov. Jan Brewer supports the idea of making the change but hasn’t called a special session. There was even speculation that the measure would pass but Phoenix stands idle.

Baseball is as American as apple... slices?

Strange as it sounds, that could be the new reality in Kino Stadium as the Tucson Padres team up with the county to offer more nutritious food options at concession stands. Don’t worry, hot dog lovers: the traditional ballgame fare will still be available. But so will healthier choices like turkey burgers, baked chips and veggie packs.

“As a ball club, we have a social responsibility to the Tucson community to provide our fans with healthy choices,” says Mike Feder, the Padres’ vice president and general manager. “This is a tremendous opportunity and we want to do anything we can to encourage fans to live a healthier lifestyle.”

The Padres will choose the new foods with the help of Communities Putting Prevention to Work. The program, led by the Pima County Health Department, aims to reduce the spread of obesity by encouraging good nutrition and active living. In the next few weeks, fans will be able to taste-test healthy foods at home games, says Donald Gates, program manager of Communities Putting Prevention to Work.

“Up to three options are offered as a free sample to the fans, who then fill out a short form,” Gates says.

The fans rank the foods by taste and by how likely they would be to buy them at the grocery store. The results of the taste test will determine which healthy options will be offered over the rest of the season.

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, a documentary covering the time between the end of Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show run and his show on TBS hits the Loft Cinema on June 24th.

It's a long way from Southern Arizona, but the special election for a House seat in New York's 26th District has the attention of a lot of political junkies because it's the first place that the Democrats are testing their strategy of running against Republicans who supported Paul Ryan's proposal to essentially eliminate Medicare and replace it with a system in which future seniors buy their own health insurance with some government help. In a district where a Republican win should easily win, polls are indicating that Democrat Kathy Hochul is on the verge of victory.

We won't know the outcome until the votes are counted, but Nate Silver of The New York Times provides his usual insightful analysis:

I cautioned two weeks ago against reading too much into this election. Some of that was because I am inherently skeptical about the predictive power of any one special election. And some of it was because of contingencies specific to this election — most notably, the presence of Mr. Davis, who at one time had about 25 percent of the vote.

With Mr. Davis’s share declining, I’ll relax my skepticism somewhat — perhaps the election requires a flashing yellow light rather than a stop sign. But first, let’s dig a little deeper into the polling.

Meanwhile, TNR's Jonathan Chait is already doing a victory lap:

The race has centered almost entirely around the exact theme that Democrats plan to employ in the next election cycle. All this suggests the party has gotten deep traction on the issue, and that the public can react against the policies of the House GOP. The political landscape that produced the Republican sweep of 2010 is gone. Just what replaces it remains to be seen.

Does this mean that Democrats in Arizona have some shot at retaking some of the districts they lost last year? Well, we still don't know what the districts will look like after redistricting and we still don't know who the the eventual candidates will be, but we do know what the main theme of the Democratic campaigns will be: The Ryan budget proposal.

• Have I mentioned how awesome Tucson's street food is?

The Rolling Chef is a flame-emblazoned food truck run by the former executive chef of fine-dining establishment Anthony’s in the Catalinas. It can be found on the corner of Stone Avenue and Pennington Street between 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., weekdays; and outside of the Music Box Lounge at 6951 E. 22nd St. until the wee hours on weekends.

Chef Carlos Aponte said he was let go from Anthony’s in the Catalinas when the recession hit and sales plummeted. It was a bit of a blow—he’d worked at El Parador, opened City Grill for Sam Fox and worked at fine New York restaurants, earning accolades and an impeccable reputation along the way—but there was precious little time to mope around.

“Basically, I had to make my own economy,” says Aponte. “It came down to what would be the most profitable, what would take the least to get started, and what is trendy.”

The result: The Rolling Chef, which has been wowing downtowners with gourmet, street-style tacos, cheese steaks and roast-beef sandwiches. For the moment, it’s about the closest thing Tucson has to the now-famous Los Angeles food truck Kogi BBQ, and Aponte is forever adding to the menu.

Aponte’s tacos are stuffed with shredded Angus beef, pit-roasted pork and other things he carefully roasts over special wood until it all collapses into tender shreds. It is then stuffed in a tortilla from the Anita Street Market and topped with coleslaw and caramelized onions, or cabbage salsa and lime, and handed over to you for the paltry sum of $1.

There's also talk of a teriyaki chicken taco topped with Asian salad and pineapple, but that's still in the development stages.

The Rolling Chef is down this week—it's getting a new engine—but should be back next week.

You can follow the truck on Twitter here.

Ladies and gentlemen (well, probably just gentlemen), your unofficially corporately branded bounce track of the summer, courtesy of Mr. Ghetto. Note: if you work or live at the sort of place where wild, unstoppable ass-shaking is frowned upon, perhaps you might want to skip this particular video.

We mentioned earlier today that the Center for Law in the Public Interest has taken legal action to stop a plan by Gov. Jan Brewer to block low-income Arizonans from getting state-subsidized health insurance.

Brewer spokesman Matt Benson told The Range this afternoon that the governor “is confident in the legality and constitutionality of her Medicare reform proposal.”

Benson said the crux on the legal argument will revolve around whether the state has “available funds” for the program.

As we reported earlier, Tim Hogan of the Center for Law in the Public Interest argues that the state has funds available for the program but lawmakers decided to spend them elsewhere.

“The state’s budget is $8.3 billion,” he says. “This population has first claim on the budget. (Lawmakers) have to fund what’s legally obligated first.”

Benson noted, as a side note, that the plaintiffs in the petition to the Supreme Court appear to now be covered by AHCCCS, so there may be a question of standing.

Benson added that if the state is forced to continue to provide health care to everyone in Arizona under the federal poverty line, it will cost the state an estimated $207 million, which will blow a considerable hole in the state budget.

Benson said that Brewer might consider a proposal from the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association to tax hospitals in order to continue to fill the budget hole and draw down federal matching funds for AHCCCS, but Republican lawmakers have been cool to the idea.

“She’d consider the bed tax if it had some legislative support,” Benson said.

• The doorman was trying on his new outfit when I stopped by.

The restaurant and hookah lounge is going in at 1730 E. Prince Road, in the former Guadalajara Grill location. Owner Jamal Lulu—originally from Jordan—said he spent the last eight months getting the place ready, and that he's amped to bring his version of Middle Eastern food to Tucson.

On the food menu: Falafel, chicken shawarma, kabobs, fattoush, stuffed grape leaves, sandwiches, salads and other items. On the hookah menu: Too many flavors to name, but you can smoke stuff that tastes like everything from a can of cola to something called "safari melon dew."

This place also has a large courtyard replete with giant mesquite tree and trickling waterfall. As for entertainment, there will be DJs and bellydancing on weekends.

Hours will be 11 a.m. to midnight, Sunday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 4 a.m., Friday and Saturday; and noon to 10 p.m., Sunday.

Call 881-5800 for more information.

A new local microbrewery should be up and operating on Tucson’s westside in the not-too-distant future.

Eric Greene of the new Dragoon Brewing Company said he hopes to have “beer in the tanks” by the end of the year, although he says getting all the federal and state permits through could potentially push that date back a bit.

Greene is opening the brewery with his father, Bruce Greene, and Tristan White. It will be located in a warehouse at 1859 W. Grant Road, Suite 111.

Greene — who homebrewed for years before completing an apprenticeship through the American Brewers Guild and going to work for Nimbus Brewery — said the first beers will be an “aggressively hopped” India Pale Ale and a mild “session” beer with a low-alcohol content.

Seasonal beers made with ingredients like agave nectar and mesquite-smoked malt could also show up before long.

“We really want to do seasonally appropriate beers using local ingredients,” Greene said. “We’re going to try to keep it fresh and interesting and tied to Tucson a bit.”

Greene said the operation is a production brewery and will not serve food or have a bar. It will, however, have a tasting room with regular hours.

There’s more information over here.