This and that

and

The latest edition of the Front Porch program/podcast has a pretty random mix, ranging from sugary drinks to the transgender bathroom issue. However, listeners can benefit by my sage advice on the biblical hermeneutics of   dietary entomology and what happened in the 70s if you got caught smoking in the bathroom.

Chew on this

SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, play a huge role in helping families keep food on the table. Nationally, 1 in 7 people rely on them. In WV, it's 1 in 5. Here's a fact sheet that lays it out.

SPEAKING OF FOOD, HOW DID EARLY HUMANS GET SMART? Maybe by eating bugs.

SHOCKING. Here's a look at how natural selection helped the electric eel power up.

URGENT BUSHY TAILED VAMPIRE SQUIRREL UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Who's next?

Union retired coal miners and their families hoped for justice from a federal judge in the Patriot Coal bankruptcy case--and found none. Corporate promises these days aren't worth the paper they are written on. I think it's time once again to quote Leonard Cohen:

Everybody knows the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes.
And everybody knows.

MIGHT AS WELL eat bugs.

You be the judge

If you're anything like me, you are really pretty sick of hearing two words that were everywhere on the news in the weeks leading up to New Year's. Yes, I'm talking f****l c***f, as in that artificially created federal budget crisis that rhymes is ixkal zliff.

I was, however, amused when a friend told me that the vent feature in a small weekly paper in southern WV complained about the "physical clip." Was it a malapropism or a witticism? I can't call it...maybe you can.

I think the last best word on the whole thing came from The Borowitz Report. Here's an excerpt:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)--Official Washington was in celebration mode on New Year's Day after kind of averting a completely unnecessary crisis that was entirely of its own creation.

"The deal proves that if we all procrastinate long and hard enough, we can semi-solve any self-inflicted problem at the very last minute in a way that satisfies no one," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky)....."This is a new year, and much work remains to be done," he said. "It's up to us to concoct entirely new optional disasters that we will have to undo at some later date in a more or less half-assed way.

In a related story, an arsonist received an award for putting out his own fire.

(Thanks to a Goat Rope reader for passing that on!)

MEANWHILE, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out that the deal makes permanent 82 percent of the Bush era tax cuts. There's more on the next steps here.

WISHING. I hope this lawsuit by former WV state school superintendent Jorea Marple rocks the world of the WV Board of Education.

Oh yeah, and then there's this:

WANNA SAVE THE WORLD? Eat bugs.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED