The Academy Awards have come and gone. One actress dressed like Scarlet O’Hara wearing a hot air balloon that was being deflated. She tripped. Too bad, so sad. But if you wear a dress that is the size of Delaware, you have to expect there could be difficulties walking, climbing, sitting.

Kansas is preparing for more snow. The big snow that came last week, was called the Blizzard of Oz. Today’s storm is being called  Blizzard of Oz II.

The Kansas legislature, mainly the House, is comprised of whacky Republicans. The locval paper endorsed many of these idiots, but now seems to be questioning their choices. As indicative of this, I present Sunday’s editorial.

LAWMAKERS GONE WILD,

Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013

Rhonda Holman, for the Editorial Board

Though every session has its dumb bills, the current Kansas Legislature has set an exhausting new standard for the introduction of legislation that would flout the feds, trample on local control and judicial review, and serve as lawsuit bait.

It’s a further embarrassment that the push for some of these measures is coming from members of the Wichita-area delegation, and a mystery as to how some of the people introducing and voting for these bills can call themselves small-government conservatives.

Proposed legislation would tell courts to butt out of school funding, tell science teachers they have to spend class time on climate-change denial, and tell doctors they can’t ask patients whether they own guns and that they must tell women seeking abortions the fiction that abortion is linked to breast cancer. One measure would tell Transportation Security Administration screeners which passengers’ parts not to pat down in Kansas. Another bill would regulate dancing at strip clubs. There’s a measure requiring communities with fluoridated water to provide residents with the bogus warning “that the latest science confirms that ingested fluoride lowers the IQ in children.” Other bills would bar local governments from using public dollars to promote sustainable planning or to lobby the Legislature about anything.

The urge to meddle in public schools is especially egregious – bills would block use of the Common Core standards and require that slow readers repeat third grade, for example – given that Kansas already has a State Board of Education to make curriculum and policy decisions statewide and local school boards and superintendents to manage districts.

Of course, the poster child for bad bills may be the mandate that the University of Kansas and Kansas State University play Wichita State University annually in men’s basketball.

At least Rep. Steve Brunk, R-Wichita, who introduced the anti-fluoridation bill, told the Kansas Health Institute News Service that he didn’t expect it to advance and had no interest in it himself.

But other bills have strong support, unfortunately.

Lawmakers eager to pass the Second Amendment Protection Act, which supposedly could shield Kansas-made and -owned guns from federal restrictions, should heed Assistant Attorney General Charles Klebe. In written testimony, Klebe noted that “the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution cannot be waived by state law” and that barring physicians from asking patients whether they own guns raises First Amendment issues. His office also thinks the bill could cost the state $825,000 for lawsuits over the next three years – reason enough not to pass it.

Local officials and other constituencies must be alert and ready to respond to all these proposals with facts, as they did last week at the packed hearing that apparently beat back the fearmongering bill from state Sen. Michael O’Donnell, R-Wichita, that would have told local health departments they couldn’t pursue national accreditation.

But 28 days in, it’s hard not to be impatient for the final gavel on what the Legislature’s GOP leaders hope will be an 80-day session. While a bill’s introduction hardly assures passage, Kansans will only be safe from all the unneeded, unfounded and legally questionable legislation once lawmakers have called it a year.

More snow expected tomorrow, 5-8 more inches. This time I plan to park my car about 15′ from the street, rather than 80′.

I was up several times during the night, purposefully. I have sevveral feral cats. They have a warm place on the shed, but I still get up to check on their water dish several times during the night. It was 8 degrees yesterday morning. Water tends to freeze up quickly in that kind of temperature.

The city streets are clear. Most parking lots are clear. Most of the city’s churches are closed today. Christians shouldn’t be inconvenienced for a little thing such as going to church on a cold morning just to worship the guy whom the say sacrificed his life for them. Church should be a confortable place – warm in winter, cool in summer, and certainly not the place to ruffles one’s conscience or sensibilities.

The church next to my house cleaned their parking lot. They didn’t clear the sidewalks, though. Heathens might use those sidewalks. No, the good Christian parking lot is cleared, and services cancelled. Well played, faithful neighbors. Well played! They will have to be open on Tuesday. There’s a city primary vote on that day. Nothing proclaims the concept of separation of church and state as succinctly as voting in a christian church. 

I shoveled one neighbor’s driveway on Weds. That was a 5″ accumulation. He was off work on Thurs. He shoveled two more times. A snow plow came along and piled snow in his driveway near the street. I cleared that out for him while he was at work, yesterday.

This morning, I scooped snow behind my car, started my car, then drove it backward about ten feet. The sun is going to help melt the rest of the snow and ice off the car. Now I need to clear away an area of about 20′ X 8′.  Most of the rest of the driveway – about 80′, is passable.

We got 14’2 ” and some places in the north country routinely get 25-30 of snow a year. Who am I to complain.

I will say that it was easier to shovel snow at 16.

Wichita got 14.2″ of snow. This is the second largest snowfall since the city has been keeping records.First plac was over 15″ in 1962.

I didn’t un-bury my car. I didn’t shovel my driveway. The newspaper carrier drove up my driveway to lave my paper on my front porch. My house sits 80 feet back from the street.

I applaud the police department, sherriff’s department, city and county road crews, the EMT workers, the dispatcher and many other reprsentatives of Obama’s socialist government, many of whom would like union and/or associational representation, but are denied that privilege.

I wonder why the rich folks don’t fund these organizations. Why not have a private police force? it worked for Dubya in Iraq.

Plenty of snow outside. Probably Obama’s fault. Could be the sky fairy being pissed about gay marriage, by more likely it is  something the president did or didn’t do. I’ll have to check Faux and fiends to get the “real” answer.

This is rush hour, but with most buinesses closed, I see about one car every 4 or 5 minutes.

In the game of Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey there is always the ass where the tail is to be affixed.

Welcome to Kansas, the proverbial ass end of the above mentioned game.

The Kansas legislature is going to tackle some very important issues. For one, they want to exempt from Federal laws, and guns manufacture red in Kansas. Yeah! State’s rights! The same old mentality that brought us the American Un-Civil War a mere 152 years ago.

Kansas wants a new abortion law that will make it illegal to have abortions for reasons of gender. ALA China, this is an essential fucking law to have. It will help us proclaim we are the stupidest state in the nation.

We also have a bill proposing that if we teach global warming in the classroom, that optional theories must also be taught. This is silly because we all know that global warming is caused by god farts. Every time god has a greasy repast, he gets indigestion, then farts, and the weather changes. I mean, why teach what we already know!

We have a governor who has gone to every corner of the state proclaiming is vision for improving the economy – a thing he failed to do here, thus far, and never did while in the U. S. Senate. We have since learned, earlier this month, that his financial figures have been based on a 2 billion dollar budget error. Oops. He has found someone in his administration to fall on that sword.

Nationally, the U. S. Senate plays brinkmanship with the predicament (and the nation), with their ideological B. S. trumping reality, and trumping the seriousness of matters at hand.

Is it impossible for American’s to find mature individuals to fill our senate? I’m not talking about age. Crap. Our senators are generally older than oatmeal and dinosaur eggs. I mean mentally mature individuals.

I’ve been waiting for someone to return an over-due item to the library. A conscientious library would perhaps keep track of over-due items, then contact the patron to urge the return of the errant item in as timely a manner as possible. But this is Kansas. Our library staff meets each morning, lays hands on the book shelves, and prays that missing items be returned. It’s the only Christian way to handle things in Bishop Brownback’s kingdom.

It is snowing outside my window. We should have 6-8 inches by tomorrow, maybe 12 + inches in other parts f the state. Snow is caused when polar bear farts encounter god’s hot beef and bean burrito farts converge somewhere in the north regions of Canada. (Who needs science?)

A glance at Kansas:

Two brothers won $ 75,000 in a lottery, claimed their money, bought some marijuana and some crack cocaine and went home to celebrate. A butane leak ended up blowing up their house. One brother went to the hospital. The other one wet to jail.

A 17 year old and a 20 year old were messing around with a hand gun. The gun went off and one man was shot in the foot. At first, the men told police it was the result of a drive-by shooting. They lied. Later they confessed.

A State legislator claims he was robbed outside his hotel room, beaten up in the process. Video tape of the hotel corridor doesn’t support that legislator’s claim. He lied.

Opinions from the Wichita Eagle:

“I thought minimum wage was supposed to be reserved for high school kids while they live with their parents.”

(JRM Comment: Good one!)

“We are witnessing the out of control government our Founding Fathers warned us about.”

(JRM Comment: Site your sources, Dumbo.)

“We keep hearing about a divided Republican Party. But take a look at the Democratic Party, which does not exist anymore. It has been completely taken over by the socialists and just hasn’t changed its name.”

(JRM Comment: Surely this is evidenced by the way Obama nationalized the banks, the auto industry, and usurped the courts and the legislature to make his own laws. Oh, wait! None of that has happened. Meanwhile, we have someone opining that the Dems are a socialist organization – which isn’t true – while ignoring that the Republican Party seems to be, in fact, a divided party.)

Apparently someone leaked a plan from the White House to proffer a solution to the immigration situation. Indeed, the White House may have staged the “leak” so that it would generate discussion about the matter. Regardless, laws are still made by congress. The increasing feeble-mined John McCain has now attacked the White House. Good one, John. Divert attention from the inadequacy of congress – especially Republicans – to tackle the matter of immigration. We have waited through all the Bush 43 years and the first fur years of the Obama administration for your party, John, to craft meaningful legislation. Turning your disgust toward the White House does not alter the facts. Congress makes the law. Congress has failed to craft immigration law. John, get off your high horse and get to work.

To Marco Rubio, I have this to say: I hope a cereal company comes out with a new product, Trickle Downs, and you become their chief spokesperson.

My neighbor’s dogs have access to their back yard. On warm days, I can hear them barking at the odd and occasional stray cat, adventuresome squirrel or at me if they spot me hauling trash out to the dumpster.

The dogs are ‘house-broken’ as the saying goes. That means that they don’t relieve their bowels or bladders inside the house. Outdoors is a different matter, especially when I take them for a long walk.

The great outdoors becomes an adventure, as well as a place to leave canine messages. These pups stop to pee on a tree stump, then a few feet along the path they find a bush, or lamp post, or a curb, or some other object that needs to be watered. I can walk three blocks and count at least ten stop ’n’ spray diversions.

What if humans were more akin to canines. Say a man goes to a club, dances, plays pool, does a Karaoke rendition in a voice that sounds like a moose on crack, but every so often he pees on the leg of his dance companion, or the chair leg at the table where he and his companion sit, or the leg of the pool table, or the Karaoke microphone?

So, ladies, even is the klutz you are with often acts like a dog, be grateful if he doesn’t emulate the old canine stop ‘n’ spray technique, at least in public.

Another thing, I wonder if a dog can leave a stop ‘n’ spray message that simply ‘un-friends’ some other canine in the neighborhood?

From the Wichita Eagle Opinion Line

“An increase in the minimum wage sounds good until you have to pay more for what you buy and more in taxes.”

If we raise the minimum wages, prides go up. If we keep minimum wage as if, prices won’t go up. If we lower the minimum wage, prices should go down. Why not eliminate all wages ad see what happens?

“Minimum wage is not supposed to be a wage you can support nine kids on. It is for those just entering the work force. If minimum wage isn’t cutting it for you, obtain some skills that are deserving of higher wages.”

This person’s ignorance also smacks of Ronald Reagan and his mythical Welfare Queen.

Minimum wage is relative solely o an individual and his/her labor. It does not regard one’s color, creed, age, gender, marital status.

The first minimum wage law was in Massachusetts in 1912. It was deemed necessary to insure proper wages for women and children. Be that as it may, all state and eventual federal, minimum wage laws applied to individual wages, guaranteeing most workers – would have the benefit of receiving at least that minimum hourly rate.

The minimum wage certainly IS NOT intended to provide for a family with nine kids, because being married or single, having children or not, is not part of the equation.

The original state minimum wages were directed toward those who were already employed. It would, as a consequence, have an impact on people entering the work force after the enactment date of any minimum wage law.

Additionally, the individual who submitted the above opinion may assume that it is easy to live on a modest wage and still have sufficient time and funds to obtain skills that would ultimately produce a more desirable wage. A further assumption is that a person desires a different kind of employment or a better wage. That may be, but some people are content with the work they do. And, for the most part, individuals are not in a position to demand that their government enact minimum wage laws.

Many corporations have starting hourly wages that exceed minimum wage. Such wages may not be significantly higher, and advancement opportunities within some corporations may not be plentiful. But the fact remains, that the person who penned the cited opinion didn’t do much research, but was content to unfurl their banner of ignorance, proudly.

****

Gasoline is up 75 cents a gallon over last month. Probably because that “socialist” mentioned increasing the minimum wage in his State of the Union Address.

Don’t laugh. I’m sure some Rebublican and Tea Party folks would be nodding their head in agreement.