Some things should just go without saying

It’s never a good idea to tattoo a toddler, especially if that toddler isn’t even your child.

Wow, I’m really glad that, despite being in sincere pain, David Boreanaz is soldiering on through the tough times that he has experienced since it became common knowledge that he cheated on his wife (there have been rumors about his infidelity forever, but he had to come clean in order to head off an extortion attempt). A lot of guys wouldn’t be able to keep going. They might even miss the cut at Quail Hollow. But David, well, he’s a trooper. He’s not going to let the man (or woman) bring him down! This kind of internal fortitude must be why he was able to so convincingly play first a vampire, then an FBI agent, for all these years.

I had the hugest crush on him in high school, but I’m happy it died a natural death before this happened.

You should probably not sue your comedian daughter/sister-in-law for making jokes about you. If you do, your lawsuit is going to be dismissed, she’s going to make more jokes about you, and judges/complete strangers are going to join in. And what’s that? Your son/brother’s law firm is the one that defended her? The next round of holidays is going to be awkward.

Los Suns will come out tomorrow

I think it’s pretty great that the Phoenix Suns will wear jerseys that say “Los Suns” tomorrow, Cinco de Mayo, in light of the awful immigration law that just went into effect in Arizona. I still don’t care who wins that game, but at least now I will remember to look on Thursday to see who won.

If you’re in a restaurant and your 2-year-old drinks alcohol that you ordered, and was placed on your table with your party’s other drinks, it’s your fault. Not the waiter’s, not the restaurant’s. How could these people even kind of think that their reactions were reasonable? If I were that restaurant, I would have banned them for being negligent parents, crappy customers, and pretty useless in general.

I’ve just decided that May is going to be Personal Responsibility Month on this blog.

Imagine if the Tea Party was Black

Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black by Tim Wise, via Ephphatha Poetry.

Not the Onion II

I don’t even understand how this is a real headline: Knox Jolie-Pitt Looks Like His Parents

Is the volcanic ash no longer sexy, now that transatlantic flights have resumed? Did the Pirates’ 20 – 0 drubbing at the hands of the Brewers not do it for the folks at The Huffington Post? I’m wracking my brain here for an explanation of this completely obvious headline that looks for all the world like it belongs at The Onion. Possible headline: Biological Child of Famous People Resembles His Parents

What  I find more interesting is that they failed to note that he inherited his Republican grandfather’s political leanings, as evidenced by the pro-NRA gesture he’s making.

You were born in Puerto Rico. Your existence is invalid.

“Y is a fact, [so] your x is invalid,” is only funny when y = something silly and x = your argument. Then we’re talking about the meme most likely to crack me up. Infinitely less hilarious is when y = you were born in Puerto Rico and x = your birth certificate. Then we’re talking about millions of people being utterly screwed.

The problem is that Puerto Rican birth certificates are somehow extra ripe for being spoofed, forged, and otherwise used for nefarious purposes. The US State Department and Department of Homeland Security estimate that around 40% of forged US passports were obtained using birth certificates from Puerto Rico. That’s obviously a very serious and scary thing. The government’s solution, though, seems particularly ham-fisted: they’re simply going to invalidate any Puerto Rican birth certificate issued before July 1, 2010.

From my reading of the article, it seems that a large part of the problem is the way that birth certificates are passed along to and for in Puerto Rican society. From the end of the article:

Only 45,622 children were born in Puerto Rico in 2008, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But more than 860,000 certified copies of birth certificates were issued by the Puerto Rican Office of Vital Statistics the same year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

That is an insane discrepancy between people born and birth certificate copies issued. Over the course of a lifetime, so many people in Puerto Rico request extra copies of their own and their children’s birth certificates, and really have no idea where the extras are now. Of course unscrupulous people are using Puerto Rican birth certificates; well-meaning citizens have made things easy for them by having so many extra copies of real birth certificates floating around. If that doesn’t change, will the goverment’s new measures make any difference in the long run?

Cute!

I love everything about this picture and the article that goes with it. Listening to little kids talk amongst themselves is one of the things I love the most; they’re hilarious, and make a surprising amount of sense when they’re being serious.

But can the Proclaimers do this???

What does Sottish rap sound like? No, that’s not the set-up of a joke. The answer is, “Who really knows?” This interview with Gavin Bain tells the story of two talented Scottish rappers (Bain and Billy Boyd) who were mocked and laughed at when they performed in their native accent. Moving to the United States, inventing new biographies for themselves, and pretending to be American got them the recognition they couldn’t get before. I love a good hoax story, but the underlying prejudice that allowed (forced?) them to do this is pretty awful. Still, I cannot believe how many people they got to believe them. To paraphrase Bain, you can indeed kid a kidder.