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Customer Wyatt Earl sent us a search tool where you can look up who is getting farm subsidies.  You know, welfare for rich people.  And you can do it in your jammies!

Click right here and you can enter a name or a zip code and see who is on the dole in your neighborhood.

And lookie here, the very first name I found was Charlie Howard, our ultra conservative State Representative who has more money than Oprah but would find such joy in blocking emergency room doors while giving lectures in personal responsibility to the little children of undocumented workers as they writhe in pain.  He is the stingiest man on the planet but he made off with $21,296 of taxpayer money in farm subsidies.

Charlie the welfare queen.

Charlie and I have had this conversation several times before.  I found him keeping his horses on corporate property for free and then helping the corporation get an agricultural exemption because it had his horses on it.  He admitted that it probably didn’t look right, but was emphatic that “it’s not illegal.”  I replied that neither is chasing an intern around the desk in the Oval Office but Charlie sure got upset about that.  His final reply?  “I’m going to take what I’m entitled to.”  Entitled.  Good choice of words, Charlie.

Now, it’s very clear that Charlie ain’t spent any of that money on clothes or personal appearance, and I seriously doubt he gave it to charity.  He’s gonna take it with him.

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Texas is hot.  That’s the bad news.

The good news is that most Texans have a lower life expectancy than people in Libya, Malaysia and Ecuador, so the heat is the least of our problems.

A new national study found that women in hundreds of U.S. counties, including nearly a third of those in Texas, had a shorter life expectancy in 2007 than in 1997.

Men did not suffer the same kind of decline. And Hispanic immigrants live longer than whites and blacks, a puzzle the study underscored.

Thank you, Rick Perry.  Maybe you didn’t shoot them with your .380 Ruger  loaded with hollow-point bullets while jogging, but your policies killed them just the same.

Milam was the one Central Texas county where women lost longevity between 1997 and 2007 — 0.8 years. Women there had a life expectancy of 78.2 years in 2007 — lower than women in Estonia, Mexico, Cuba, Albania, Slovakia and Argentina.

Patsy Gaines, director of the Milam County Health Department, was not entirely surprised. Health services have been cut instead of expanded to meet the community’s needs, she said.

Texas Republicans have had a war on women for years.  Apparently, they are winning.

I’m planning on being around long enough to be a burden on my children, so I might need to relocate.

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Wally, who is our Foreign Correspondent in The People’s Republic of Iowa, sent the following report this morning.

Dear Susan.

Juanita and the girls may enjoy these photos. The Crazy Train visited the Bluebird Diner across the street from my wine shop this morning. “Someone” put some truth in advertising on the bus.

Wally

Click the little ones to get the big ones.

Good Lord, I have a friend with a wine shop, a camera, and a Magic Marker.  How lucky can a girl get?

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I figure the thinking is, “What the hell, let’s just make Texas an insane asylum.  I mean, it’s almost at capacity already.”

Glen Beck is moving to Texas.

Oh damn.

He’s rented a house in the DFW area.  The rent is $20,000 a month, which makes it only half as nice as what the taxpayers are paying for Rick Perry’s rental.

He’s gonna be sleeping here —

And he’ll be standing on his front porch yelling at the little children to get off his lawn.

There’s big money is preying on the fears of others.  Click here to see all the photos.

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It’s North Carolina.

Many Christians believe Jesus can be found anywhere. In southern Lenoir County, he may be found on a utility pole.

The pole, about a mile south of Kinston, has attracted attention of some area residents. Some say the kudzu-covered post bears a striking resemblance to Jesus’ crucifixion.

Kent Hardison, who runs Ma’s Hotdog House less than a half mile from the pareidolia, rides by the Christ-resembling post each day. He said when he first saw the kudzu growing he almost sprayed it with herbicide.

“I glanced at it, and it looks like Jesus,” Hardison said. “I thought, ‘You can’t spray Jesus with Roundup.’ ”

A woman named Michelle Davis pretty much summed it up in a deep theological thought —

While the site may not be considered holy, Davis said the kudzu is symbolic.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, it is going to be around,” she said. “Ain’t that a lot like Jesus?”

Thanks to Ralph for the heads up.