Florida is known for its quantity of retirees.  There’s one thing all retirees need and some of them need it more quickly than others.

A bathroom.

Not so, says Florida.  In Miami-Dade county, no voters will be allowed to use the restroom on election day even if the election is held in a building owned by the taxpayers.

Why, you ask?

Because it’s damn Florida.

A Feb. 14, 2014 email from Assistant County Attorney Shanika Graves states that “the [Elections] the Department’s policy is not to permit access to restrooms at polling sites on election days. Restrooms are open to voters during early voting because early voting is held at public facilities. However, public and private facilities are used as polling sites on election days. Private facilities are governed by private landlords, not the County. This policy was implemented to avoid situations where accessible restrooms would be available to some, but not all voters.”

I quoted that because I knew you would not believe me.

In my semi-rural county one of our election sites is Carlos’ Upholstery Shop.  I’m not making that up.  You can drop off your couch cushions and vote at the same time.  Carlos is a nice guy but I am certain that he’d rather a voter use his restroom than tinkle on his floor.  I’d call him and check on that policy but I’m afraid he’d think I’d finally dived head first into the shallow end.

This story starts with a bright young woman deciding that along with having an official state bird and state tree, South Carolina needed an official state fossil.  Because fossils are cool.

She picked the wooly mammoth because some of the first wooly mammoth bones were discovered in South Carolina in 1725.  This third grader wrote letters to her two legislators at the state house.  They are both Democrats and she figured that meant they can read, whereas that is questionable among South Carolina Republicans.

Anyway, they like her idea and introduce a bill in the South Carolina House requesting that the wooly mammoth be named the official state fossil.  They thought it was a dandy way to teach kids how bills get passed.

Ridgeway and Johnson both have filed bills — H.4482 and S.854 — to make the wooly mammoth, an extinct genus of hairy elephant, the official state fossil. McConnell said she faithfully is following the bills’ progress online, where both are in committee.

Oh hell no.  The House passes it as is, no problem.  Then the steeple people get involved and everything goes to crap.

Sen. Kevin Bryant, a pharmacist and self-described born-again Christian who has compared President Obama with Osama bin Laden, voted to sustain a veto by Governor Nikki Haley of funding for a rape crisis center, and called climate change a “hoax,” proposed amending the bill to include three verses from the Book of Genesis detailing God’s creation of the Earth and its living inhabitants—including mammoths.

Yeah, mammoths and damn snakes … like Bryant.

The official state tree is the palmetto but I looked it up and there isn’t one damn word about God creating the palmetto tree in the legislation.  The state waltz is the Richardson Waltz but you do not see a stinkin’ word about God creating it in that legislation either.

Personally, I think they’re just picking on the wooly mammoth because Jesus didn’t ride one.

By the way, if South Carolina doesn’t have an official state tool, I’d like to nominate Kevin Bryant.

Thanks to Abigail for the heads up.

Mena, Arkansas, ain’t exactly your bastion of liberalism.  And neither is the First Baptist Church there.  So, when this showed up the newspaper, I damn near burned myself with the curling iron.

It was announced last week that 9th Street Ministries will be concluding their medical clinic mission, which had been ongoing monthly to offer free medical services to those in need since first starting in 1998. The final day for the medical clinic will be Thursday, April 24, and that will conclude the mission that has been in place for almost 16 years.

“Because people are qualifying for insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, our free medical clinic will not be needed anymore,” Stacey Bowser RN, 9th Street Ministries Clinic Director, stated. “We’ve gone from seeing around 300 people a month on a regular basis, but as people were enrolling in Obamacare, the numbers we were seeing have dropped. We were down to 80 people that came through the medical clinic in February, all the way down to three people at the medical clinic in March. Our services won’t be needed anymore, and this will conclude our mission.”

They will keep open their help with food and paying utility bills, but now people have insurance to pay for a doctor and nurses and medical clinics and that means jobs in the area to fulfill those needs.

So just shuddup, Republicans.  Just shut the hell up.

Thanks to Robert for the heads up.

Most of y’all know that I am pulling strongly for Dan Patrick to win the Republican run-off for Lt. Governor because while David Dewhurst is mean and hateful, Dan Patrick is just plain goofy.

So, here I sit in a dilemma.  If I discover something that Dan Patrick has done that will cause the goofy branch of the GOP, as opposed to the mean branch, to like him more, should I just shuddup about it?

This is tough.  I mean it involves what might be under the table money and reporting to the government, so breaking statutes like that might make Dewhurst MORE popular with goofy Republicans.

Oh hell, let’s risk it.  Click the little one to get the big one.

So the Express Scripts PAC reported getting a refund of a contribution it made to Dewhurst.  Only problem – the PAC never reported making the contribution in the first place.

Magic money?  You be the judge.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.

This one if gonna be hard to beat and certainly sets the bar high.

Thanks to Karl for the heads up.

Lufkin is the heart of East Texas, except it doesn’t have a heart.

It does, however, have an underwear thief.  Someone is breaking into houses and stealing women’s underwear.

The incident marks at least the 17th burglary in the area in which women’s and girls’ underwear has been taken.

The burglaries have occurred over the past couple years and remain unsolved. The case has law enforcement frustrated and warning residents to remain on alert.

Lufkin Police are handling the Tuesday burglary that they say almost was not reported at all. The residents decided to call police early Wednesday to report the break-in.

Verdelia says there are far too many weird people in East Texas already and now she has to worry about perverts on top of all that crazy political stuff.  She swears she’ll keep her windows rolled up, doors locked, and air conditioner off when she drives through East Texas on her way to gamble in Louisiana.  “First, they want my uterus and now my bloomers,” she laments.