Aristophanes was one funny guy.  In about 400 BC, he wrote a comedy about Lysistrata, a saucy chick who came up with the idea of withholding hoochy koochy from the men of Greece until they ended the The Peloponnesian War.

And in the way that The Natural isn’t really about baseball and Rocky  isn’t really about boxing (at least Rocky I isn’t), Lysistrata really isn’t about the Peloponnesian War.  It’s about the war between the genders in a male-dominated society.  You know, like yesterday.

One of the most quoted lines is:

[Choir of] Men: There is no beast, no rush of fire, like woman so untamed. She calmly goes her way where even panthers would be shamed.

[Choir of] Women: And yet you are fool enough, it seems, to dare to war with me, when for your faithful ally you might win me easily.

But some men never learn.  Take, for example, Virginia Republican Representative David Albo, who took to the floor of the Virginia House to do a comedy routine about how his wife wouldn’t do the wild thing with him after his vote on the ultra-sound bill.

Albo was a co-sponsor of the bill. I am woman; see me cringe.

I think Representative Albo should be very grateful that his wife took her cues from  Aristophanes and not Lorena Bobbitt.

Thanks to Deb, Larry, Jan, Julie and Tom for the heads-up.

Governor Rick Perry and State Attorney General Greg Abbott have both selected their talent portion of the beauty contest.  They are finely tuning their ability to throw away other people’s money.  They will both take the stage right after the swimsuit and cowboy boot competition and gleefully burn piles of taxpayers’ money while bowing toward Lynchburg, Virginia, home of the Blessed Virgin Protector of the Insane and TeeVee Evangelism, Jerry Fallwell.

In this case, Rick and Greg are refusing to accept our tax dollars from the federal government of $40 million designated for women’s health care because Planned Parenthood performs many of these services.

Republican lawmakers worked overtime last legislative session to design language that would keep any Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinics from receiving state family planning and women’s health dollars, despite the fact that taxpayer-funded clinics may not perform abortions. They got the backing of Abbott, who said their efforts were legal, and gave the state’s health commissioner the go-ahead to implement the new language.

But not to worry.  In their exulted self-images of being averagely almost semi-competent, they have opened Rick and Greg’s Women’s Health Clinic and Cocktail Lounge, offering free breast exams, the occasional vaginal probe, and lots of locker room giggling.  They are reasonably sure that’s every woman’s dream health care plan.  Rick has even volunteered his stirrups if needed.

We do not know what Greg Abbott did with the money his Momma gave him to go to law school.   We know he is well-schooled in hypocrisy torts (more on that some other time when I’m especially hacked at him), but he was absent the day they taught The Supremacy Clause, and he obviously put his hands over his ears at the mention of John Marshall.

For that reason, Verdelia and Thelma are making plans to go to Greg’s house and home-school him in constitutional law.  They have all the necessary schoolmarm accessories – a dunce cap, chalk, and Greg’s butt to use as a chalkboard.

I have come to the conclusion that Greg Abbott views the Civil War as a great tragedy in American history only because the wrong side won.

And, yes, that really is his campaign sign.  I could not make that up.  He used that because his political consultants thought that using the Stars and Bars was a tad over the top.  Okay, I did make that part up.

Thanks to Beth for the heads-up.

You know, I have decided that Republicans must be having far better and way more nasty sparkin’ than we Democrats have.

It’s all they can talk about.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that except they seem to be opposed to it.

One of their most important concerns appears to be about women finding out about s-e-x.  And not far behind that, come children.  The operate under the theory that if you never tell children about s-e-x, they will never, ever figure it out on their own.

And that’s a good thing.

A bill to allow Utah schools to drop sex education classes — and prohibit instruction in the use of contraception in those that keep the courses — moved significantly closer to becoming law Wednesday. The House passed HB363 by a 45-28 vote after a late-afternoon debate that centered largely on lawmakers’ differing definitions of morality.

Morality?   How come morality never comes up in sewing class or arithmetic?  How comes it only comes up in health class?  You know, the class that teaches how to live long enough to sew and add things.

“We’ve been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it, which is intellectually dishonest,” said bill sponsor Rep. Bill Wright, R-Holden. “Why don’t we just be honest with them upfront that sex outside marriage is devastating?”

Okay, I don’t want to be mean and unnecessarily cruel, but sometimes you need to be necessarily cruel.  Look at the guy.  What you want to bet that is wife is pretty devastated by sex within marriage?

One of the Democrats in the Utah House commented, “not everyone in Utah believes premarital sex is harmful, and it may not be right to ‘force our beliefs down the throats’ of those Utahns.”  At which point Bill Wright had to leave to lock himself in the bathroom for 2 minutes, tops.

I’m telling ya, their s-e-x is much nastier than our s-e-x.

Thanks to Sam for the heads-up.

Another greedy Republican crook from Texas, former Senator Phil Gramm, might be one step ahead of a couple of indictments.  At the very least, he’s once again unemployed.  Until, of course, a money changer spot opens up at the temple.

Phil Gramm: already in the handbasket

Gramm’s leadership at UBS has come to a halt.  They call it a “retirement.”  What a nice word for getting the hell outta Dodge.

Gramm was the mover and shaker at UBS when all hell broke loose and UBS found itself at the center of international banking hanky-panky.  While in the senate, he passed the laws to make it possible for UBS to hide American money from taxes, and then when he left the senate in 2003, he went to work for UBS.

Nice job, huh?  Things went great for a while, money flying out of this country, making Phil and his friends rich and beloved.

But,

Guess the bank must have been disappointed when he wasn’t able to get them out of the mess their greedy tax evasion business got them into. Hmmm. That does make one wonder just how much Gramm knew about UBS’s business of pushing secret accounts that the IRS couldn’t trace, smuggling diamonds in toothpaste tubes, and generally doing whatever necessary to make loads of money by helping US taxpayers avoid their tax liability under US tax laws?

PS In a “serves it right” result, UBS reported a fourth quarter net profit decline of 76%…..

Haircuts and drinks are on the house the day Gramm is indicted.

One other interesting note.  Although he never registered as a  lobbyist, Gramm “helped build the UBS Office of Public Policy in Washington, D.C.”

Well, if Newt can be paid to be a historian instead of a lobbyist, I guess Phil can be paid to be a water boy.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads-up.  Don’t forget:  this week only, if you order a Blizzard and mention that you saw it on Juanita’s, Alfredo promises not to charge you extra.  This offer is only good until Saturday.

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After the GOP debate, which by the way was almost as mean and hateful as their ads have been, somebody asked around about what people thought of Newt’s performance.

Newt was “intellectually superior” to the others on stage.

Governor Rick Perry

And how would he know that?

Bless his heart.