Watermelon Finally Makes ‘WSJ’ Front Page

The Wall Street Journal today ran the above hedcut on this story about the number of resolutions Congress has passed. And you thought Murdoch was going to ruin the WSJ!

In an actual true story of leaders fiddling while Rome burns, this Congress has passed the fewest number of laws in the 20 years of record keeping; it has, however, passed the most number of resolutions honoring the New York Giants or recognizing soil as an “essential natural resource.” (Really!) Some may find this a bad idea, but it would seem to me the fewer number of laws Congress passes, the less chance it has to screw up.

But, really, who would have thought it’d be the Democratic Congress that’s passing fewer laws?

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, whose home state of Georgia has 24,000 acres planted in watermelon, pushed a resolution establishing July as National Watermelon Month. “As Mark Twain once said, ‘When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat.’ I encourage my colleagues to join me in acknowledging the wisdom of Mark Twain by supporting this resolution,” Sen. Chambliss said on the Senate floor. The only problem: July is about 14 days late for a Watermelon Month. The crops come in in mid June.

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Patrick Murphy Is A True Eagles Fan

See? Now this is how you do it. While Arlen Specter is wasting his time meeting with the NFL commissioner, freshman U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy is putting his Eagles fandom into law.

On Wednesday, the House passed a resolution congratulating the New York Giants on winning this year’s Super Bowl “and completing one of the most remarkable postseason runs in professional sports history.” The resolution passed by a vote of 412 to 1.

Murphy, a diehard Eagles fan who worked at Veterans Stadium as a security guard when he was 16, was the only House member to vote against it. “As a former 700-level security guard and lifelong Eagles fan, I couldn’t, in good conscience, vote for the New York Giants,” Murphy said Thursday. “The only thing worse would have been a resolution honoring the Dallas Cowboys.”

Patrick Murphy is not only a great Philadelphian, he is the greatest U.S. representative of all time.

Murphy won’t cheer Giants [Bucks County Courier via Philly EDGE]

Specter Spends Nearly $1 Mil To Harm Children

I never really thought I’d see anything new from Arlen Specter. He’s been in the Senate since Andrew Jackson was president and I figured he’d be content to simply coast in what is possibly his last term.

Whoops! It turns out Arlen Specter has an earmark in a recently vetoed spending bill that spends nearly a million dollars to hurt Pennsylvania children!

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, secured 25 earmarks providing $882,000 for abstinence education programs around the state.

“There are people who say that abstinence education doesn’t work,” Mr. Specter said, but “I’ve seen a lot of indicators that it does work.” In addition, he said, “I have 12 million people in Pennsylvania, they have a lot of different ideas,” some of them strongly favor abstinence education, and their values “ought to be recognized.”

He’s seen indicators it does work. I can only assume that means he’s traveled the commonwealth checking teenage girls to see if their hymens are still intact. Icky.

One Lawmaker’s Waste Is Another’s Namesake [NY Times]

Lawmakers Think They Suck As Much As We All Do

With America pretty much failing at every war it decides to join nowadays — Iraq, Afghanistan, drugs, literacy, obesity, etc. — it appears lawmakers have decided to, much like the rest of us, give up.

Case in point: The new bipartisan proposal asking Americans to pray every day. Nothing wrong with praying every day, but when the head of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, J. Randy Forbes, says he wants to “build a spiritual prayer wall around America” that will not stop “until God heals our land,” well it appears Congress has outsourced illegal immigration to God.

(Well, how else do you explain the “spiritual prayer wall”?)

There’s even a website, prayercaucus.org, where one can sign up to pray for America and hope God’s able so solve all the problems in the world since politicians obviously can’t.

Of course, since this is Congress asking us to pray, I expect the United States to be destroyed by a giant flood in the next couple of days.

Lawmakers want Americans to pray 5 minutes each week for the nation [Camden Courier-Post]

Leftovers: Bits ‘N’ Pieces

• In a step for gay rights — uh, I guess — two women were listed as the parents on a birth certificate in New Jersey. It is an important decision because it allows the child to receive health care from either parent. You see, it always comes back to that health care thing. [AP/Camden Courier-Post]

• Western Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha was defeated in his bid to become House Majority Leader by Steny Hoyer in a blowout. But, hey, he still has Johnstown behind him. [AP/Philly.com]

• Investigators are now checking to see if the College of NJ student found dead in a landfill in Bucks County was playing hide-and-seek before his death. I don’t know about you guys, but my college hall games were never that wild. [AP/Inquirer]

• Local ‘It’ writer Sam (nee Matt) Schwartz has an Interview with himself up. Huzzah. [Daily Miltonian]

• And, finally, here’s an article to make you feel good about Philadelphia city government. [LA Weekly]

Stay With Philadelphia Will Do Until Its Editor Is Too Drunk To Blog!

Those of you who know me personally may know that I’m fairly detached from this whole “politics” thing. Although I voted today, I’m not particularly sure that it matters. (I’m not positive, so I did it just to be safe, although I voted for myself for U.S. Congress. Take that, Bob Brady!)

That being said, here is what I like about politics: Making fun of politicians. So I will be updating, sporadically, throughout the night — though probably not until later — to make sure you get the best of Curt Weldon concession speeches, awkward anchor transitions and Ed Rendell hanging out with boobs. Please, join me. Barring technical difficulties.

Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Fails In House, PIMP Act Still Has A Way To Go

If you weren’t aware, today is apparently a holiday. It’s National Anti-Gay Marriage Day, where leaders from both political parties get all high and mighty and debate whether President Bush has a right to stop two dudes or gals from signing a lifelong, binding contract.

Constitutional amendments need 60 votes to pass in the Senate, and this one managed to lose outright, 49-48. (Huzzah, huzzah.) Of course, the press has been telling us this is just a political ploy to shore up the base and get people’s minds from Iraq, gas prices and whatever else is bad right now. That’s probably right, but it’s also a much easier idea to get your head around, too. I mean, it’s easier to think of politicians as opportunists who don’t mind using gays to as a way to score political points. Thinking of it another way is, well, almost scary. Right?

Speaking of scary, here in Pennsylvania our lovely legislators — when not voting themselves pay raises* — have their own Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages, which actually passed in the House. The Pennsylvania Marriage Protection Act, or the PIMP Act, would ban gay marriage as well as limit municipalities from recognizing civil unions of same-sex persons. It would also, apparently, defend marriages, although I’m not quite sure how.

For some reason, the PIMP Act still has to be ratified by the Senate and the House and Senate again in 2007 before being put out to the voters on the ballot. This will bring conservatives out the polls, presumably for that bastion of conservative elections, the Philadelphia mayoral race.

Pray they don’t hold it until ‘08.

Penna. House Passes State Constitutional Amendment Banning Gay Marriages [KYW 1060]
Gay Marriage Ban Falls Short of Majority [AP/KYW 1060]

*This clause copyrighted by John Baer, Daily News columnist, and John Grogan, puppydog and Inquirer scribe.

U.S. Rep. Has No Friends On Myspace

The government is a big fan of doing things to screw things up for kids. Kids can’t vote — nobody really votes until they’re about 65 anyway — and so the government can do whatever they hell it wants to do.

And, right on cue, here comes legislation that’s going to ban schools and libraries from allowing access to social networks like Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, etc. Of course, since the legislation is so broadly written, basically anything allowing one to communicate with someone over the Internet would have to be blocked.

This legislation was drafted into action by up-for-his-seat-in-November U.S. Rep Mike Fitzpatrick, who represents Bucks County and parts of Northeast Philly and Montgomery County. And you know what’s going to happen: Anyone who even thinks of going against this bill is going to be declared a friend of child molestors, perhaps even a pervert, as the bill is called the Deleting Online Predators Act — Ho ho! Get it! Deleting predators! Ha! — and is supposedly going to stop online predators forever.

NB to whoever wins the Democratic primary in that district tomorrow: Paint yourself as the pro-Myspace candidate. You might be able to even get some 18-year-old high schoolers to vote.

Bill Seeks to Block Access to MySpace in Schools [Los Angeles Times via BoingBoing]

Blogicized: Driving Everyone Quackers

• And, really, let’s jump on this now before we all forget: Yes, we hate the duck boats. We hate those stupid whistles. We hate everything. But, yeah, especially those stupid duck boats. Especially the one at least partially owned by Milton Street. [Starting A Landslide In My Ego]

• Hey, the eighth congressional district! Whoo, awesome! Are we allowed to actually get interested in a story when we don’t live in the district anymore? Yes? Okay. This is not nearly as dorky as I can get, by the way. [Philly Future]

• Remember how the governor of Arkansas pretty much blackballed an alt-weekly? Well, not he has a ridiculously long rant on his website about how they’re allegedly asking for special treatment (they’re not) and generally looking like a five year old. And this man wants to be president. Actually, acting like a five year old is pretty much par for the course these days. [Arkansas Times Blog]

Leftovers: Give This Man A Regular Column, STAT!

• And, the award for best columnist ever goes to Richard D. Sloan, left, whose guest column about the Catholic conspiracy behind illegal immigration should be making you laugh so hard until it tickles. This goes all the way to the Supreme Court!, he writes, and maybe it does. Someone needs to give him a regular column. [Fort Wayne News-Sentinel via All Spin Zone]

• It’s Edmund Bacon Day, and none of you jerks even bothered to get me a card. I’ll be buying an airbrushed t-shirt and an overpriced CD at The Gallery to honor the late, great Bacon’s legacy. [Metro]

• Oh, Tanya Barrientos. I really, really tried to poke fun at your Inquirer column about foot fashion and care and… I just couldn’t. It was too bubbly. Plus, those articles are necessary to keep the Inky’s stranglehold on the “suburban fortysomething” market. [Inky]

• That $100 check to pay for gas (or new kicks)? Not so much. The oil companies hated it because they were going to be taxed to pay for it and drivers were confused as to just how much it was going to help and everybody else was like, “Sweet, free money!” Unfortunately, it failed. No new Nikes for me. [AP/CNN]

• Atlantic City’s rally to keep Boardwalk on the board of the Monopoly “Here & Now” edition drew only a few people. Poor Boardwalk. Poor, poor Boardwalk. [KYW 1060]