This week, Ashley and I talk about:
Plus we have a rant, a dirty joke from Eli, and an awesome Dude of the Week!
So it’s been two weeks since I’ve done a roundup for y’all. What can I say? This summer his kicked my hiney. Between the heat and the kids and the chores and Leif’s crazy work schedule … sometimes not everything gets done. Like the laundry. But that’s another story for another day.
So go click my links (my editors like web traffic, yo!) and maybe even give my articles a glance. You might even learn something! I know I did writing them.
Just after Governor Rick Perry announced his run for the presidency, I wrote about his jobs record in Texas. Spoiler alert: It’s better than Obama’s.
I wrote about the truth behind those ‘budget cuts’ we keep hearing about. They aren’t cuts at all. They’re an increase in spending. Only in Washington … sigh.
I never thought about this problem before, but how do women get bras in Saudi Arabia? They’re not allowed to work, and men aren’t allowed to fit them. My breasts salute America!
We need Social Security reform. The Ponzi scheme is going to collapse, and soon.
In Idaho, a man is being prosecuted for killing a grizzly bear that was on his property. The bear was approaching his family, which includes six children, aged 10 months to 14 years. Bottom line: People > Bears.
Environmentalists are now going after our clean clothes. Leave my fabric softener alone!
Happy reading!
In which I talk about Republican women and why we’re right, and talk to John Hawkins of Right Wing News. Also, listen to the end for a hilarious blooper real!
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I was in the kitchen cooking apple cinnamon and oatmeal pancakes and bacon for dinner (this has no relevance to this post, I just take immense pleasure in my kitchen skyllz) when I asked Thing 1 to turn on the news. She’s a smart girl, so she knows that that means Fox News, and yes, she knows the channel number.
From the kitchen, I could hear Geraldo. Gah. But that’s a blog post for another time.
“Is that Geraldo?” I called to my seven-year-old.
“I don’t know…”
“What’s he talking about?”
“The … Casey Anthony … murder trial … what’s that?”
“Come over here!” Not a discussion to be had while calling to each other over the kitchen counter.
…
“Now. Do you know what murder is?” I asked her.
“Yes. When someone kills someone.” She looked at me like I was an idiot.
“Ok. Well, Casey Anthony had a two-year-old daughter that was murdered.”
Thing 1 gave some sort of grunting/moaning/sad noise that signaled her upset.
“Do you understand that in America, a person is innocent until proven guilty? That there has to be lots and lots of evidence to *prove* that someone is guilty of a crime?”
“Yes, I know…” I have no idea where she gets that precociousness. Must be Leif.
“Ok. Well, the little girl’s mommy is on trial right now, because there is evidence that suggests that she murdered her daughter.”
“WHY??”
“Honey, IF she did it …. IF … it’s because she’s very sick in the head. Not like headache-sick, but like crazy-sick.”
My firstborn thought about that for exactly 2.7 seconds, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Maybe she’s just a bad person.”
Rest in peace, little Kaylee. You’re in a better place now.
California is releasing tens of thousands of inmates after a ruling by theSupreme Court on Monday. No, they haven’t been wrongfully imprisoned and suddenly found innocent due to some new DNA technology.
It’s just that the prisons are overcrowded.
A sane solution would be to build more prisons. Unfortunately, there’s apparently not enough money to build more steel bars. So, we should totally tax the rich, because even though they pay the vast, vast majority of our taxes, they still aren’t paying enough, because new prisons aren’t getting built!
Another logical option would be to spend less money per prisoner, so that the savings could go toward building new facilities. The average prisoner in the State of California costs over $48,000 annually, with about $16,000 of that going to health care, mental health, and dental costs.
Prisoners, convicted felons, probably have better health care than you do.
Seriously, does your health insurance cover free hormone replacement therapy for you if you happen to be transgendered? California prisons do. And soon, they may even provide gender reassignment surgery as well.
Read the rest at The Stir
While I try not to judge others, occasionally I come across something that makes me stop and say to myself, “Wow. That’s disturbing.” Such a moment happened this week when I stumbled upon a story about Adult Babies. Fully grown humans that like to wear diapers, sleep in giant cribs, and suck on pacifiers.
If I can’t say this is weird, then I might as well not be able to call the sky blue, because that stuff is messed up.
Thanks to the Internet and prime-time network television (hello CSI and the “Furries” episode!), I’ve become aware of some of the stranger oddities that people sometimes choose to indulge in. Being someone that doesn’t understand the appeal of defecating in a giant diaper or putting on a bunny suit to get it on, I’m always strangely fascinated by these people.
Read the rest at The Stir
California is just about bankrupt, which must mean that it’s time to pass a law outlawing flat sheets and short-handled feather dusters in hotels across the state.
Seriously.
This year alone, the Golden State will spend about $25 billion more than the $82 billion it expects to take in from taxes and fees. We have big problems in California, but instead of tackling issues that actually matter, the legislature has introduced a bill to ban flat sheets at the Hotel California.
Supporters of the bill argue it will reduce worker injuries by eliminating the need for workers to repetitively lift extremely heavy mattresses when making beds. They contend that flat sheetscause workers to strain their backs, shoulders and wrists, and are often responsible for repetitive motion injuries.
State Bill 432, sponsored by Senator Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), also calls for the use of long-handled tools like mops and dusters so housekeepers do not have to get down on their hands and knees to clean bathroom floors.
Read the rest at The Stir
Unless the politicians in Washington can come up with a budgetfor the fiscal year we’re currently halfway through, the government will shut down all non-essential services. The funding dries up Friday at midnight, which means that some 800,000 federal workers will be furloughed and also that Yellowstone Park will close temporarily.
The problem with creating a budget is that Republicans andDemocrats can’t agree on how much money to spend and what items to spend it on. There are just so many ways to spend other people’s money that sometimes it’s hard to decide whether to fundmenopausal yoga classes or blatantly biased media outlets.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi pointed out the key difference between the ideologies of the right and the left: Liberals care about their fellow citizens, and Conservatives don’t give a crap about starving seniors. OK, maybe I paraphrased a teensy bit. Here’s what she actually said:
In one of the bills before us, six million seniors are deprived of meals — homebound seniors are deprived of meals. People ask us to find our common ground, the middle ground. Is middle ground three million seniors not receiving meals? I don’t think so. We’ve got to take this conversation from a debate about numbers and dollar figures and finding middle ground there, to the higher ground of national values. I don’t think the American people want any one of those six million people to lose their meals.
Read the rest at The Stir
In which I rant about cleaning my daughters’ room, household budgets versus the federal budget, and Amelia Hamilton joins me for Conservative Chick Chat.
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When I was in college, I loved Abercrombie & Fitch. That super lame LFO song had come out a few years earlier, and A&F was where all the Summertime Girls and cool kids shopped. A lot of my dorm-mates even kept the notoriously sexy shopping bags tacked up inside their closets.
In 2002, I stopped shopping at Abercrombie. They had started selling thong panties as part of their tween line, complete with suggestive phrases like eye candy and wink wink. I just couldn’t in good conscience support a store that would call the underwear ‘light-hearted and cute.’
There is nothing light-hearted or cute about a ten-year-old in thong panties with the words eye candy stamped on her crotch.
The store eventually (and rightfully) caved to pressure from family-advocacy and Christian groups, and pulled the provocative panties from the shelves.
The clothing retailer is once again in the news for another product in their kids’ line. This time it’s padded bikini tops for girls as young as eight. As the mother of a little girl that will be eight and in third grade by the end of this upcoming summer, I’m disturbed on many levels.
Who looked at an eight-year-old girl and thought to him or herself, Hmmm … she’s a bit flat chested. Let’s help her out a little bit?
Who’s the designer that agreed to pad swimsuit tops for little girls?
Who are the parents that buy these and in effect encourage others to gawk at their prepubescent daughters??
What purpose does a padded bra or bikini top serve other than to make the wearer sexier than she would be otherwise?
As a capitalist, I agree that it’s Abercrombie’s right to sell completely inappropriate clothing. As a parent, it’s my right to be outraged over it.
