Tuesday, December 01, 2009

The Sandstone Quarries at Aquia Creek

Aquia Stone
L’Enfant had been hired to design and plan the new seat of government, the District of Columbia, and he chose to use the sandstone from the Aquia quarry. The quarry became known as Public Quarry and the island (actually a peninsula) became known as Government Island. (It was also known as Wiggington Island for reasons unknown).

Forty boundary stones, made of Aquia freestone, originally marked the four sides of the diamond-shaped square of the District of Columbia, North, South, East and West. The stones were square with a pyramid shape at the top and were laid out, each stone a mile apart, by Benjamin Banneker and Major Andrew Ellicott between 1791 and 1792. On the sides facing the states, the names of the states were inscribed. On the opposite side were the words "Jurisdiction of the United States." These boundary stones are the oldest federal monuments in the United States.

The White House was built using Aquia sandstone but the stone was painted white. After the War of 1812, when the White House was burned, the structure was washed and cleaned but more of the Aquia freestone was brought in to restore the building.

Parts of the Capitol building are built with Aquia sandstone including the original gatehouses which can now be found at Constitution Ave and 15th and 17th Streets in Washington. The stone is unpainted and the original color can be seen.

Fact Challenged WH Trods On Head Down

650,000 jobs, sullied research? No matter, we are the champions. Yeah, but of what?

Facts, never a strong suit for Obama, his cronies and this administration, can be stubborn things, especially when they seem to laugh at your conclusions for desired results.

Looking at the main objectives of the Obama administration, Cap and Trade, government health care, the Stimulus and Iraq/Afghanistan, one has to ask just how inept is this administration. Breaking it down more, economic policy, war policy, climate and health care policies, one has to notice that in all areas this administration appears to not know what to do nor how to do it.

But they will not let facts get in their way.

Howard Dean Socialism AND Capitalism In USA

Maybe Howie is thinking of the communist China economic model which should make all Americans happy, eh? That Howie, always thinking, but unfortunately, he was thinking out loud. Always dangerous for Howie. And America.

Onerous Ohio Taxes On Everything

I just got a friendly reminder from the Ohio Department of Public Safety about the need for me to renew my license pkates.

Ohio now taxes every thing one does and taxes it at usuary rates.

Special plate fees $25.00
State license tax $31.00
Local/county tax $10.00
Service fee $ 3.50
Postage $ 0.37

TOTAL $69.87

Of the 50 states, Ohio now ranks as the 8th most taxed state, according to the Census Bureau, of all the United States of America. When I left for Washington, DC all those years ago, Ohio was, as I remember, the 42nd most taxed state in the United States.

In terms of state and local taxes, in 1977 Ohio ranked 45th in the country for the amount individual tax burdens. By 2008 Ohio had moved to 7th in the nation.

It's time for all this tax stuff to stop. We can't just blame Strickland because there was Taft Jr., Gilligan, Celeste, Voinovich and legislatures that bought votes and monuments to their dim status as legislators. Nothing puts gravitas to a career as much as having pretty much every building, bridge and pig pen named after you.

It is obvious that having one's name attached to great deeds is a good way to be remembered, but cutting the size, scope and impact of government probably won't have a building with a big bureaucracy in it to do such a deed, ergo, nobody gets to put their name on it by legislating huge sums of money to something to cut huge sums of money. Wait a minute, I think this has already been tried.

Anyway, I'll pay for the new tags, but I'm tired of it all.