But if you stop and think about it, it gets more and more retarded. And then you realize why Fark gave Florida its own tag.

Ronda Storms, a Republican state senator from Florida, says it’s about the unfairness of taxpayers paying for junk food items combined with concern for the health of poor kids. But it seems the goal is more about gaining a petty sense of moral control. Dog forbid poor people enjoy — and let their kids enjoy — a snack every once in awhile.

This is increasingly nonsensical when you consider all the unhealthful foods that are still available: orange juice, apple juice, flour, sugar, bread, sugary yogurt, etc. Kids will be putting down the chips and picking up those gross yogurt pops, I guess. I wonder who gets to decide what is junk food — and how long it’ll be before Florida just starts sending people boxes full of the foods they’re allowed to eat. It would be a lot simpler that way.

The worst part: The law doesn’t even save Florida any money. It’s not about cutting costs. It’s about waving a “naughty, naughty” finger at people who are getting kicked in the teeth already. I always assumed these programs were about keeping people from starving to death, not about imposing some state-approved diet on the poor. Stupid me.

Note to Florida: Your poor residents may very well be abusing the system, but it isn’t by munching on a 99-cent bag of Cheez Doodles. Back away slowly from the smug self-righteousness.

"I will end Obama's war on religion. And make sure shitty coffee doesn't make it into your cup."

Here’s the story at Fox News: The only legitimate news source on the Internet.

Check this out, from Todd Starnes of Fox News: ”It was President Obama who declared in an e-mail to CBN News that ‘whatever we once were, we’re no longer just a Christian nation.’”

How dare Obama point out that people in this country are exercising their freedom of religion. That’s what we get for electing a Muslim president.

I, for one, am glad Perry will end Obama’s War on Religion when our Lord and Savior makes him president. Then all our brave men and women overseas fighting religion can return home to their families, and we can redirect all those tax dollars to something important, like making sure people can’t get married unless their pee pees interlock.

Fine, I’ll stop. I can’t keep a straight face anymore anyway.

Starnes goes on to say: “It was during the Obama administration that Christian school children were ordered to stop praying outside the Supreme Court building because they were violating the law. Instead, those American boys and girls were forced to pray for the elected officials while standing in a gutter.”

This is technically true. But the Supreme Court does not have a policy prohibiting prayer. This happened because one police officer misunderstood the Court’s policy on group demonstrations. I’d also like to note that I got a crappy cup of coffee from my local coffee shop today. I’m waiting for an explanation from Obama, as this tragedy happened on his watch.

The rest of his column is equally asinine, but you can read if for yourself.

To avoid making myself bug nuts, I’ve decided to kick back and enjoy the War on Religion (officially known as the War on Religion, Christmas, Children and Sometimes Yo Momma). Republicans trot it out every December, and it has become warm, comfortable and hairy, a lot like yo momma.

There are three things I love about the War on Religion.

Oh, fuck it. Never mind.

In short, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius vetoed the FDA’s decision to make Plan B available over the counter to anyone who wants it. Currently, people 17 and older can get it from a pharmacist with proof of age. Anyone under 17 needs a prescription. Since it needs to be taken within 72 hours of sex to be effective, this makes it very difficult for younger girls to get it.

The FDA decided to make the morning-after pill available to younger girls, but Sebelius used her authority to veto the decision.

Whatever your opinion of abortion, take a look at this statement from Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for Americans United for Life:

“They should not be administered late in a pregnancy because of risk of severe bleeding. In addition, they make vulnerable women and girls even more at risk to abusers who may acquire the drugs to cover up their criminal behavior.”

First: All drugs carry potential side effects, especially when you use them improperly. Aspirin can cause severe bleeding, too, but we don’t ask people to get a prescription for it.

Second: So the only thing holding your sons, fathers, brothers and husbands back from rape is the possibility of pregnancy. Because they would scrub their victims of all DNA evidence after force-feeding them Plan B, I guess. Nice opinion of American men, assholes.

Third: Childbirth is far more hazardous to a woman’s health than anything related to Plan B, especially for young girls.

Another objection to Plan B is that younger girls are not emotionally mature enough to use the pill appropriately. Yet somehow they are emotionally mature enough to raise these babies if they want to, or choose between abortion and adoption. How odd.

I wish these people would just admit that any acknowledgement of teenagers having sex squicks them out. At least it would be honest.

+++++++

This shit’s cool. Trust me:

Smoking can make your nipples fall off
Baby rocks out with her chili
Chuck Norris jokes never get old. Never. 

Enormous pants bring me and Devon closer together

Well, they ARE my pants. Sort of.

I own these pants now thanks to the Finders Keepers Losers Weepers Law. That law was passed right after the Patriot Act, which is why no one noticed. Really, people, you need to pay more attention to politics if you don’t want to lose your enormous pants.

I don’t know how we got them. They just showed up on our dresser one day. It’s like the crappiest Christmas miracle ever. This is what I get for making Tacky Plastic Jesus date my Barbies when I was 9.

I’m trying to be positive, but I’m not exactly a ray of fucking sunshine, so it’s hard. Like, there are starving kids in Africa who don’t even have pants and would love these. If they had pants, McDonald’s would let them in, and then they could buy Happy Meals and they wouldn’t be starving anymore. These pants could save their lives.

If these were your pants, I’m sorry. They probably got mixed up with my clothes at the Laundromat. I would give them back, but I’m sending them to Africa. It’s the right thing to do.

++++++

This shit’s cool. Trust me:

I don’t even understand this headline, let alone the underlying science
The 7 Dumbest Video Game Inventions That Actually Exist
I link to this because it would have been useful when Devon’s computer sounded like it was          taking off from a tiny runway under his desk

What bothers me the most is not that this guy is a douche rag. Lots of people, rich and poor, are douche rags. It’s that I found a bunch of exceptional Americans in the 99 percent with some 5-minute Wikipedia-fu. It seems our educational system is failing the filthy rich.

Peter Cooper: An American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and candidate for President of the United States. He designed and built the first steam locomotive in the U.S., and founded the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in Manhattan, New York City.

Aaron Copland: an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as “the Dean of American Composers.”

Gertrude B. Elion: An American biochemist and pharmacologist, and a 1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Working alone as well as with George H. Hitchings, Elion developed a multitude of new drugs, using innovative research methods that would later lead to the development of the AIDS drug AZT.

Millard Fillmore: Not remembered as our greatest president, but still a pretty impressive achievement.

John D. Rockefeller: Yeah, that guy. He wasn’t always stupid rich.

And these are just a handful of 99 percenters from New York state alone. I didn’t even mention any of the raft of actors, athletes, poets and other entertainers that have come out of New York’s working, middle and upper-middle classes. Or the people doing awesome things who will never get Wikipedia articles about them.

Also, and this is a cheap shot, but dude, if you’re that rich, you can afford a suit that fits properly. Damn.

A lot has already been said about this, and I don’t have any wisdom to offer. But it’s pretty exciting to see so many people exercising their right to freedom of speech in such a big way, even if it’s still a work in progress.

The complaints are mostly financial:

Some are about education, implicitly and explicitly:

Good sign. 

                            Bad sign.

Some people go for the long shot:

Some people relax:

Some people work:

And some go off the deep end:

I can’t help but wonder how many will stick it out through the first frost.

Summary: Undocumented women are being forced to give birth in handcuffs, their babies are taken away from them shortly after birth, the fathers are barred from being present and other asshattery.

The “logical” conclusion some of these people have come to is that if you’re accused of a crime, there are no limits to what the police can do to you. Because these people are dickholes.

The problem for me is that I can’t figure out what is the single biggest threat to national security. When I asked Devon whether it was anchor babies or homosexuality, he said, “That’s an impossible question, because they’re both the end of the world as we know it.”

Dear Law Enforcement: If the chick you have in custody is flat on her back and has a 7-pound larva emerging from her hoo-ha, SHE ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE. Really, she’s not. She just wants to get it the fuck out. Then she will want to engage in the unspeakable crime of holding, and maybe feeding, her baby. And allowing her husband or boyfriend to be there with her is unlikely to lead to a Mickey and Mallory-style escape from the maternity ward. Everyone will be too goddamn tired for such shenanigans.

Yeah, I know: These women were charged with crimes. Somehow, I doubt you would think this was cool if these people had, say, stolen mascara from MACY’s, so just fess up and admit you’re racist booger rags.

Even if you’re hard-line on immigration because an illegal immigrant stole that lucrative fruit-picking job you were gunning for, there’s good news: Human decency will not increase your taxes. We don’t need to be assholes just because we can be.

Smokey the Bear would never pull that shit, by the way. Smokey has class.

Also, I wrote a lengthy entry about how Eric Cantor needs to DIAF before news broke that he recanted on his asinine plan to tie relief funding to budget cuts. I’m so glad he seems to have seen the error of his political ways (temporarily) that I’m not even going to give him too much shit for being a troll-faced weasel in the first place. It has to be humbling to wake up and realize you are a bigger dick than even the people who voted for you are willing to tolerate.

Cantor says they “found the money,” which makes me wonder if he ransacked GE CEO Jeff Immelt’s sock drawer.

At the same time, I hold my breath wondering how he is going to use funding the clean-up of Hurricane Irene to starve babies and push old people down stairs. Funny how disaster relief needs to be funded, but wars and tax cuts are like cookies from heaven — a right-wing heaven that bakes only heterosexual, God-fearing cookies.

By Lisa Pembleton / Getty Images / links to TODAY

This reminded me of Dad. The one and only time he ever voted Democrat was for Kerry. He got tired of seeing pictures of dead soldiers in the newspaper. Possibly they reminded him of his friends and neighbors, or his own potential fate. He never explained that much, though. He just left tear stains on newspapers.