Friday's Follies

Kinky Friedman and Grandma Strayhorn are officially going to be on the ballot in this November’s election. The independent candidates collected enough signatures on petitions to be included in what will be a 5-way race for governor with Democrat Chris Bell, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, and Libertarian James Werner.

One interesting note: Kinky Friedman’s ratio of signatures validated was higher than Carol Keaton Strayhorn’s…80% of his 170,258 names were certified, compared to 48% of Strayhorn’s 222, 514 signatures collected.

Ah, yes, the quality-over-quantity factor. It's going to be interesting between now and November. By the way, Kinky's name is cool to be on the ballot, but Ms. Strayhorn must prove that her "one tough grandma" slogan is more than that to be legit for the election (see Wednesday's post regarding word legitimacy and the ongoing bastardization of the English language.)

Government scientists are warning Congress that Earth is the hottest it's been in at least 400 years. (Anytime I see those two words back-to-back in a sentence—government scientists—I cringe.) I believe the phrase used invoked the name of Jesus to describe how hot it is: The planet is at hot as it was when Jesus walked the earth.

Others are cringing this morning that the government’s Swift program has been sifting through the bank records of suspected terrorists and sympathizers since shortly after 9-eleven…which may be why no other attacks have occurred on US soil. The quickest way to stifle these thugs is to take away their means of operation, and choke off their funds.

The United States is out of the running for the World Cup, after losing to Ghana Thursday.

Ghana?

Impress your friends at the office, and show them on a map where Ghana is…(It’s on the southern coast of West Africa, between Ivory Coast and Togo), and use the country in a sentence that does not include references to soccer or any short pants sports.