Chalk one up to Jon Stewart.* Alan Grayson, thug, censor, and one of the worst drooling mongoloids in Congress, is about to enjoy a permanent vacation at Disney World.
It's a tribute to Grayson's lunacy that even the voters of Florida finally got tired of his act. Whatever else happens tonight, I'm happy to see Grayson go.
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Via James Joyner, I see that our governor has limited the use of California welfare cards:
Governor Schwarzenegger says the cards can no longer be used to pay for psychic readings, marijuana shops and other businesses he feels are "inconsistent with the intent of the program."
In a letter to county welfare officials throughout the state, the governor also blocked use of the welfare card in bingo halls, tattoo parlors, cruise ships and bail bond businesses.
The Gov had previously banned the use of the cards at casinos.
Of course, practically speaking, these rules merely mean that welfare recipients — who, in California, get a card that they can use much like your bank's debit card — will have to walk all the way across the street to the nearest ATM to spend at casinos or tattoo parlors or bail bond shops.
Frankly I'm a little irritated. No, not because it's stupid that there weren't reasonable restrictions on cards in the first place. I'm irritated because there was a day, in America, where we could count on someone coming out to argue that people who live on welfare ought to be able to use their welfare money to pay for a "fuck you, taxpayers" tattoo if they wanted, because everybody is entitled to dignity and autonomy — including people living off my work. Now we've got to imagine those arguments in order to be annoyed by them. Such things happen not because a politician openly called for tax-funded bail bonds — they happen because politicians have learned how to create systems that permit such things, so long as those systems serve to increase the politicians' power. I blame Clinton. Also, psychics.
It's not easy to count the ticks on a dog. It's not easy to count the barnacles on a ship. And it's certainly not easy to count the number of state agencies, commissions, committees, and other taxpayer-funded entities run by an out-of-control debt-ridden state like California.
But Maggie's Farm gives you a graphical impression of it. It will take your breath away.
Every one of those entities has employees paid by you, my fellow Californians. Every one wants to grow its fiefdom — which, generally, means that every one wants to increase the role of state government in citizens' lives. Every one wants to get more money next year than it got last year. Every one wants you to think its mission is essential, let alone reasonable and prudent. Every one has lobbyists. Every one has aligned interest groups. Many have unions. Most have a thicket of regulations, and most have brigades of lawyers who make their living helping citizens deal with them.
Is Barack Obama a Keynesian?
Even asking the question proves one to be a racist, ignorant teabagger.
My prediction: PAIN.
The only cure for idiocy is death. The only remedy for hubris is pain. I predict more pain in 2012, though who will suffer the most remains to be seen.
Don't think you're getting out of this. You deserve your share of pain almost as much as THEY do. PAIN.
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Spammers are scum. It's really easy to get very angry at them.
Yet that's not the righteous way. That's not the considerate, compassionate way.
The righteous, considerate, compassionate way is to string the spammers along for the general amusement of your audience.
The Bloggess is a past master (past mistress?) at this, as demonstrated by her recent encounter with an epically shameless spammy proprietor of a "teach your baby sign language" site, who sent a form-email talking about how wonderful parenting is — and wouldn't the Bloggess like to visit her parenting site? — in response to a typically hilariously inappropriate Bloggess post about digging up a dead dog.
It's possible that the spammer in question will respond and defend herself (perhaps with gestures); I certainly hope so. As you may recall from our own humble adventures with failed-baseball-player-turned-SEO-spammer Jamie Spottz, it's awesome when they respond.
I try to do a post here for every election. This time, I'm actually on top of things enough to not have to do it ipso facto. So, without further ado, here's how I'm voting for the Statewide issues in California. If you really want to know who I'm voting for Mayor of Alameda, you can ask. As always, I am using my scoring method of scouring websites and using the excellent follow the money site (especially useful for ballot propositions. If I can't decide based on those materials, the tie breaker is to do the opposite of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association's recommendation.
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Well, not really. A kid in Charlotte turned in his parents for having a stash of pot.
But you wouldn't know that from listening to D.A.R.E. officer Stason Tyrell as he smugly congratulates the squealer on turning in his parents.
Something has gone genuinely wrong in this country, when the government pins a medal on a kid's chest for helping the Man bust his parents. If anything was ever right about this country in the first place:
The 11-year-old student is in 5th grade at a an elementary school in Matthews. Police say he brought his parents' marijuana cigarettes to school when he reported them.
Matthews Police say he reported his parents after a lesson about marijuana was delivered by a police officer who is part of the D.A.R.E. program, which teaches kids about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.
"Even if it's happening in their own home with their own parents, they understand that's a dangerous situation because of what we're teaching them," said Matthews Officer Stason Tyrrell. That's what they're told to do, to make us aware."
Tyrrell says the town's D.A.R.E. officer spends time at each of the three elementary schools in Matthews teaching kids to make the right choice when it comes to drugs.
The right choice, in this case, was to destroy the child's own family.
Police arrested the child's 40-year-old father and 38-year-old mother on Thursday.
Both were charged with two misdemeanor counts each of marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.
They were not jailed and were released on a written promise to appear in court.
"I don't give drugs to my kids," the father told us when we went to his house.
When we asked him how his kid got ahold of his drugs, he replied, "That's no one's business."
No, it's everyone's business. Because if a boy can't turn his parents in based on what he finds while rooting through the cigar box in dad's bedroom closet, we might as well live in Russia.
Perhaps spurred by the recent news that a purported United Nations initiative on extra-terrestrials was a hoax, citizens in Denver have arranged a ballot initiative which, if approved, will create an extra-terrestrial affairs commission.
The wording is straightforward:
"Shall the voters for the City and County of Denver adopt an Initiated Ordinance to require the creation of an extraterrestrial affairs commission to help ensure the health, safety, and cultural awareness of Denver residents and visitors in relation to potential encounters or interactions with extraterrestrial intelligent beings or their vehicles, and fund such commission from grants, gifts and donations?" Yes___ No___
However, the full text betrays Denver sensibilities:
The creation of an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission will help to ensure the health, safety, and cultural awareness of Denver residents and visitors and, ultimately, facilitate the most harmonious, peaceful, mutually respectful, and beneficial coexistence possible between extraterrestrial intelligent beings and human beings.
Personally, I think that the best way to ensure my personal safety is to have the residents of Denver slow down the chortling brain-devouring leech-creatures of Proxima Centauri by lining up obligingly to give them handcrafted dreamcatches in touching friendship ceremonies whilst I'm joining the resistance and determining how to fight them with nukes, computer viruses delivered via MacBooks, or possibly crippling litigation. So Denver: vote yes.
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Nov 2, 2010 
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