You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

In case you missed it, a couple weeks ago, the Texas state legislature almost passed the Barefoot Pregnant Women Act, but the bill died as the special session expired at midnight after a heroic filibuster by Senator Wendy Davis. The very next day, one of the biggest pricks in the history of ever the governor called another special session and told them to pass the exact same bill, which made it out of committee pretty quickly after the chairman cut off testimony and refused to recognize anyone opposing the bill, because democracy.

When the Butthurt Session began last Monday, thousands of people stood outside to register opinions and wait to testify. Those in favor of the bill wore blue, while those opposed wore orange:

It's like "Where's Waldo," except in this case, Waldo is actually a raging misogynistic dinosaur.

But wait—that shape looks awfully familiar:

"It's just the rebels, sir. They're here."
"My god, man! Do they want tea?"
"No, I think they're after something more than that. I don't know what it is, but they've brought a flag."

It's not exactly a stretch, given that, although something like 80% of the people in Texas don't want this bill to pass, protesters have been called "terrorists" and "an unruly mob," and the Governor himself said that "the louder they scream, the more we know we are getting something done." Why not just come right out and call them "rebel scum?" It's no more than you'd expect from people that essentially derive their mandate from an organization that was led by this guy:

"Your feeble filibusters are no match for the power of the Dark Side."

Anyway, it already passed the House earlier this week, so this afternoon the Senate will begin discussing Death Star HB 2. Since nearly three weeks remain in the special session, a filibuster is all but impossible, so it's unfortunately very likely to pass.

"There will be no one to stop us this time."

I'd like to think that a group of representatives who refuse to actually represent the people who elected them will eventually be thrown out of office, but even if that's true, what good will it be to all the women whose health—or lives—will be put at risk by this ignorant, misogynist, cock-driven farce of a pretense of giving a shit about women? It seriously makes me ashamed to have a penis.

What the Fuck Just Happened in Texas: TL;DR Edition.

You may have noticed that the interwebs have been blowing up over the past 24 hours or so with stuff about the Texas Senate and hashtags like #standwithwendy. Amidst all the tweeting and tumbling, I've noticed that there have been a few people who have no idea what's going on, probably because they couldn't seem to find anything about it on the news. I know that a lot of people don't have the time to wade through hundreds of posts on multiple sites  to piece together the whole story, so I've compiled a quick tl;dr guide to get you up to speed. You're welcome.

So, it basically started when Governor Dick Perry called a special legislative session and gave them last-minute instructions to pass an anti-abortion bill that would shut down all but five clinics in a state that's close to 800 miles across in both directions.

Here's what the bill looked like:

So Senator Wendy Davis announced that she intended to filibuster:

They told her that meant that she had to speak—without stopping—for 13 hours, and couldn't sit, lean, eat, take a drink of water, go to the bathroom, or stray from the topic:

She was eventually told to sit down after 11 hours because talking about sonograms (which are required to have an abortion in Texas) wasn't "germane to the discussion":

Every major news outlet while all this was happening:

Except CNN, who were all:

MUFFINS!

Then Senator Van De Putte called out the President of the Senate for ignoring parliamentary procedure and refusing to recognize her because he was trying to force the vote and didn't want to:

"At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues?"

The President impotently tried to quiet the cheering crowd after that burn:

But the entire gallery was like:

They tried to vote on it anyway:

The vote was too late to be legal, so they tried to change the journal to say it happened before midnight:

Just kidding. Those assholes aren't nearly cool enough to be the Doctor.

But the entire Internet already had screenshots:

So they had to concede:

The End.

P.S. I'm sorry for all of this.

I'm not sure you've grasped the concept.

This conversation just happened:

Guy Calling Library: Do you take community service there?
Me: We do accept volunteers, but you have to apply through the City, and they won't allow anything court-ordered at the library. For that, they're going to make you do roadside cleanup or janitorial shit. You can find all that information on the City website.
GCL: Ah. It's just that it would be really convenient for me to do it at the library because I live in the apartments just across the parking lot. Actually, I'm looking at your building right now.

First of all, this is in no way fucking creepy, Dude Who Has Already Been Convicted Of Doing Something Illegal. Would you like me to go to the window and wave my arms or describe what I'm wearing so you can tell me that you can see what I'm doing?

Secondly, I do sincerely apologize for the inconvenience of your fucking sentence. I know that it's meant to be a pleasant and rewarding experience, and this is clearly in stark contrast to the section of the Penal Code that states:

§ When an individual is convicted of an offence against the Community, the sentence shall consist of a reasonably low number of hours of pleasurable service to the Community in a comfortable location convenient to the individual's place of residence.

Had you called even an hour sooner, the City may still have had a community service opening in the Getting A Blowjob From A Supermodel department. Again, I'm very sorry. Asshat.

America, fuck yeah!

So, Amazon's appstore has just offered me a spectacular deal in honor of America's independence:

What better way to celebrate America than by playing a bastardization of the national game of China?

I've also learned that patriotism is inherently tied to buying any of the following items, plus many more:

• New or used cars
• Appliances
• Furniture
• Shitty, shitty beer

Meanwhile, in Texas, today is the one day out of the whole fucking year that it's OK to admit we're part of America. Mostly, it's an excuse to mix alcohol and blowing shit up in the back yard, which is actually just regularly scheduled programming about 10 months out of the year here.

Anyway, Happy Independence Day, Americans! Remember to count your fingers before and after.

To Canada, specifically: I apologize for the noise. We'll try to keep it down. Also, your planning this year was much better than ours. At least you put your holiday on a weekend and not a fucking Wednesday.

To the rest of the world: Um, it's Wednesday, so I guess the week's about half over.

An open letter to Everything That Is Bigger In Texas.

Dear Giant-Ass Truck In Front Of Me, et al.:

It has come to my attention—largely through your maniacal, potentially homicidal veering—that you are Unnecessarily Huge. If you are unable to make a turn at an angle wider than 90° without swerving a full lane's width out of your way (and into everyone else's), you are Too Damn Big. To be sure, the terrain in a city with a median household income of $93,000 is unforgiving, but after having outfitted my Ford Focus with a bit of technology that I call tires, I find that I am able to handle anything this Wild West town throws at me: lanes, speed bumps—even corners! You can get them at pretty much any store with the word "tire" in its name. There's probably one within a couple miles of you right now. I bet you can even see it from way the fuck up on the eighth floor of that monstrosity you're driving.

You're welcome,

Jake

P.S. My friend Sigmund Freud was wondering if you could get together with him to discuss some of his theories regarding your apparent obsession with size. However, even he thought the testicles dangling below your hitch made the metaphor too obvious.

It's like they have some kind of animal vendetta.

A week ago, 1400 new laws went into effect in the state of Texas. First of all, you should be impressed that I'm even writing about it this soon. Secondly, I know that legislators often get a lot of crap for wasting everybody's time and money, but they've accomplished some really important things this session.

Thank God for HB 2189, which legalized hand-fishing, better known as "noodling," apparently. Finally. After nearly a century of waiting, Texans are now free to walk into a river, grab a catfish by the face, and drag it home with them. I predict we'll see a huge social impact as a result of this critical piece of legislation. Y'know, like a considerable decrease in the number of bears going to prison. Or an increase in replantation surgeries. And prosthetics.

Also, you can now pay someone to take you up in a helicopter so you can shoot feral hogs. I guess this is probably important for people who have no sense of morality population control or something like that. It was pretty unfair when the animals had weapons like running and hiding, and all we had was a gun. Now that we're allowed to use helicopters, the world makes sense again. Until feral hogs invent anti-aircraft tanks. Then we're just fucked.

Because usually, Frisco is the Aspen of Texas.

As North Texans celebrate the glorious "cold front" we've been experiencing, let's not forget how completely fucking normal terrible the skiing conditions were a month ago.

They were probably out looking for shovels.

Dear TxDOT:

Although I know you probably receive thousands of these letters, I wanted to write to you and express my gratitude for the complete closure of State Highway 121 this morning. I understand that the world does not run on a strictly 9-to-5 schedule and that, even though today is Saturday, many people in the area still had to go to work this morning. While the construction crew for this segment of highway was not actually among our number, the hundred or so of us stopped on the convenient one-lane detour you provided knew that, for the half hour we spent practically motionless, unnecessarily burning up a limited and expensive resource, they were with us in spirit. I would also like to compliment you on your decision not to announce this closure in advance, as I am sure that the waves of commuters adjusting their routes would have caused an undue increase of literally dozens of vehicles on each of several nearby roads that would otherwise have gone nearly untraveled at that hour of the morning. It is precisely this kind of thoughtful planning that makes you one of the finest Departments of Transportation in all of Texas.

Again, thanks for making me late. You owe me like $7.50.

Love,

Jake

P.S. I don't mean to complain, but we could really use a few more medians around here. Yesterday, I saw at least two different vehicles attempting to make a left turn rather than simply driving several more blocks and making a U-turn.

I tried to get an owl to deliver this, but they *so* don't get the Internet.

Dear All of Texas, But Mostly Tarrant County:

If you have a car, you can be a wizard! There's a magic wand attached to the left side of your steering wheel. If you wave it, you can create a magical light show! If you wave it downward, flashing lights will appear on the left side of your car. The incantation for this spell is I'm going to turn left. If you wave it upward, they'll appear on the right side of your car (that spell is I'm going to turn right). You don't have to say the spells out loud when you wave the wand, but you can if you need to. Here's a picture of the spellbook I found them in:

It's totally the same as Hogwarts.

It doesn't matter what kind of vehicle you have, they all have this magic. Even the ones made in Texas.

P.S. If you don't believe in magic because it's evil, it's totally not a magic wand; it's a Satan repeller. But you still have to use it because it's the rules and you go to hell if you don't.

This is from Leviticus, probably.

Mirror Mirror

Not long after my wife and I moved into our first apartment in Texas, a new plaza sprang up about half a mile down the road. It was named Ajax Plaza, after what was then–and may still be–the only business there: Ajax Mirror Superstore. I used to bitch about this every single day as we drove past it. A mirror superstore. What the hell is wrong with us? What does it say about our vanity as a nation that we allow such an establishment to exist? Where are the torch-bearing mobs from Frankenstein and The Phantom of the Opera?

I find it even more relevant that this store exists in Texas, because there is no place in the world more obsessed with its own image. Here’s a simple test: if you suspect you may be in Texas, look around you; if you don’t see a picture of Texas, or a Texas flag, or at the very least, a giant beveled star, you are not in Texas. This information is crucial to Native Texans–the Real Chosen People^®–whose religion considers it a sin against Texas to leave the state (or, as about a third of its residents–including its governor–seem to believe, the Nation). Because Texas is a vast expanse, and much of it is an empty wasteland, its residents need almost constant reassurance that they have not inadvertently strayed from its precious boundaries into basically anywhere else, where people don’t give a shit that they’re from Texas.