Does This Make You HAPPY?

Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R. Michigan) has introduced a bill that would allow a tax deduction of up to $3500 for - ready? - pet care. (Note that you're still on the hook for your own care, or your kids'.) It's called the HAPPY act, Humanity and Pets Partnered through the Years.

The rationale is that pets improve their humans' health by reducing stress and improving mood, especially useful in bad times like these. And sometimes they certainly do. It is comforting to cuddle a furball when you're feeling down. Gotta give 'em that. Other times, though, they're shredding your furniture or depositing any of a wide variety of messy presents on the carpet. In my experience, the effect on stress is kind of a wash.

Still, we really do love our fur children. It is a tragedy that so many unemployed workers are having to give up their animals to shelters. I would be devastated to abandon our beloved Gatsby here, but I can certainly understand the financial pressure. We've spent hundreds in vet bills this year alone, thousands over his lifetime, and now the guy needs a special diet that I suspect is made of ground-up gold.

The bill might enable more of us to keep our pets. That would definitely be a win for us, our companion creatures, our overcrowded shelters, and the pet care industry.

But really, here's the thing: We are bankrupt. America is so far in debt that we will never, ever get out and we are still hemorrhaging money. The Treasury is collecting less and less from our paychecks, and more and more from selling IOUs to other countries. Is now the time for new tax deductions for pet care?

I'm not so sure.

Doctors Drop Their Pants on Everest

Irresistible title, huh? It sucked me in, too.

I have a day off today, and I have a to-do list that would take a week to do. So I'm just sitting here Web surfing and watching the snow come down. Yeah. I'm a slacker. I'm OK with it.

So the title comes from the Discover Magazine website, and it's about a group of doctors doing a study on how much oxygen deprivation a body can take before going down for a dirt nap. The dropping trou part comes in when they draw blood from their groin areas and hand the samples to the Sherpas to schlep down the mountain for testing. If you ask me, the big round of applause should always go to the Sherpas.

There is also a story there about how horny mosquitoes buzz in harmony to produce a perfect fifth with an overtone. This is much more interesting than I ever thought mosquitoes could be, but I still hate them.

And then you have your transgenic goats producing pharmaceutical milk ... self reassembling robots (Terminators, anyone?) ... and last but so not least, zombie animals and their mind-controlling parasites.

And it isn't even noon yet. I'm gonna need more cocoa.

The Kitchen of Mrs. Moreau

This just in from the AP: Do It Yourself DNA Amateurs Trying Genetic Engineering At Home.

There's a snapshot of a woman in jeans and a T-shirt, sitting in her spare room, puttering with equipment that includes a box of baggies, Tupperware, and a roll of toilet paper. Here's the caption:

"Meredith L. Patterson, a computer programmer by day, conducts an experiment in the dining room of her San Francisco apartment on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008. Patterson is among a new breed of techno rebels who want to put genetic engineering tools in the hands of anyone with a smart idea. Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering - a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories."

And you thought scrapbooking was cool.

Mr. Moreau: "Honey, I'm home."
Mrs. Moreau: "Hi--Wait! Don't step there."
Mr. Moreau, left foot frozen in midair, eyeing the floor in panic: "They got loose, didn't they. I knew it, I knew it... "
Mrs. Moreau: "Oh stop. It's just grape jelly."


Mrs. Moreau carefully lifts a test tube with barbecue tongs and heats it with a hair dryer. The contents begin to glow a faint blue.

Mr. Moreau, suspicious, stepping away from the jelly: "What are you working on?"
Mrs. Moreau: "It's a surprise."
Mr. Moreau groans, "That's the biofluorescent plaque-eating toothpaste bug, isn't it." Silence. "Isn't it!"
Mrs. Moreau, eyes fixed on her work: "Maybe."
Mr. Moreau: "Good God, woman, it ate the kids' teeth into points! They look like little sharks!"
Mrs. Moreau: "Relax. It's just baby teeth. They'll grow new ones. And on the plus side, the bullies at school are afraid of them now."

Mr. Moreau, slumping into a kitchen chair: "You have to quit this, Edna. You're going to kill us all."
Mrs. Moreau: "Nonsense. It's perfectly safe."
Mr. Moreau: "Who says that, Edna, who?"
Mrs. Moreau: "Scientists. Many scientists. And when I get this right, we'll be rich."
Mr. Moreau, brightening: "Oh. Well then. Carry on."

Best. Toy. Ever.

I've been avoiding the news lately, mostly because I dislike heart palpitations. They scare me and they make me cranky, much like the news itself.

The price I pay is missing stuff like this: Toy Hall of Fame Inducts the Stick.

Now that is funny, as in snorting-coffee-out-your-nose and laughing-until-you-pee. There's even a photo of the beaming curator holding the stick, proudly housed within another classic, The Cardboard Box. (I am so in the wrong job.)

Once I caught my breath, though, I began to remember my childhood, way back at the dawn of time, and the fun we used to have with the good ol' stick.

A neighbor had a row of trees that dropped loads of long, willowy, flexible switches. They became jockey whips, transforming our bikes into race horses. They were magic wands, and instruments of tickle torture; pointers for the teacher when we played school; probes for investigating the contents of mud puddles.

Best of all, they were forbidden. Parents assured us we'd put out an eye with them. They told us, in dire tones, the story of then-famous Andy Divine, a gravel-voiced actor who ruined his throat by running with a stick and falling on it. We could end up like Andy, croaking our way through life -- and blind to boot.

In reality, the stick was the least of our perils. We raced our bikes down the middle of the street, and nobody wore helmets. We rode them behind the DDT truck, in the cloud it made when it sprayed the alleyways to kill flies. We tunneled into sandbanks down by the river, with no thought of cave-ins. We fished in a chemical soup of a river. We trusted and obeyed adults, even strangers, just because they were adults. A broken thermometer was an occassion for fun with mercury. Cars didn't even have seat belts. Nobody gave any of that a thought. But sticks? Lethal. Certain death.

Now here we are in 2008, and the stick is vindicated. Exalted, even.

So now I know what to get for all the kids on my Christmas list. Yes, kids, Santa is bringing switches this year. And this is officially A Good Thing.

Whispers from the Cellar

Once in a while, in my line of work, I find myself on the phone with a customer from my home state of West Virginia. Good natured banter always ensues, as we are a friendly and clannish folk. The customer relays news from home, and I dutifully lament my loss at having left the place. Yesterday, though, the usual script took a surprising turn.

At the end of the call, the client recited the first line of the West Virginia state song: "Oh the West Virginia hills, how majestic and how grand." To which I found myself adding, without hesitation, the next line: "With their summits bathed in glory like our Prince Immanuel's land."

Where the HELL did that come from? I haven't sung that song since grade school. In the '50s.

But wait, there's more: Today on public radio, I heard that researchers have discovered that baby boomer brains are still carrying around an extra load of carbon 14 from the nuclear bomb tests done when we were babies. Some parts of people regenerate completely over time, but the brain just keeps packing new stuff into its original equipment. Hmm. Permanent, radioactive memories. This explains so much.

So it seems I have reached the age where I can't remember whether I took a pill with the glass of water I am still holding in my hand, but factoids from half a century ago are on speed dial. Nature has a cruel sense of humor, and she loves to screw with old people.

News flash from Gobbler's Knob

Say it ain't so, Phil! Say it ain't so! The word from Punxsatawney Phil, official prognosticator of Groundhog Day, is that winter 2008 has six more weeks of bleak, grey torture left in it.

Man. One giant rat sees his shadow, and everybody suffers. Where is the justice.

Caution: Falling iguanas

Fancy a romantic walk in the moonlight on a nippy Florida evening? Better take a seriously sturdy umbrella.

Nights have been so cold down there lately that iguanas are dropping out of the trees. Some of them wake up eventually, and others are down for the count. So you can add sudden, reptile-induced concussions and rotting lizard corpses to the list of charming attractions available in the Sunshine State.

The critters are not native, and they're a nuisance, so ... whatever.

Filet o' Frank?

This is from a midnight romp through BoingBoing. Somebody in Korea has hybridized carp that appear to have human faces. Because there just wasn't enough creepiness in the world without them.

It reminds me of the recent news story about the Russian fishermen who hauled in what appeared to them to be an alien. So they photographed it for a while before they ate it. Wonder if they had fries with that.

moar funny pictures

The Surgeon General, apparently with nothing really pressing to do last week, declared war on Santa Claus. He announced that it was critical for role models to present a good example, which Santa, it seems, does not. Because he is fat. Santa needs to slim down. Or else.

OK. First of all, if Santa Claus is a "role model," then so is the Easter Bunny. Therefore, the Easter Bunny should immediately stop wearing fur.

Santa is a "right jolly old elf" with "a round little belly" that "shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly." It's part of who he is. Santa is a symbol of taking joy in plenty and pleasure, and of selfless love for others. You could do a lot worse for a role model.

And I'll tell you what's critical for the welfare of today's kids: The children's health care plan Bush vetoed, that was critical. Keeping lead soaked toys out of their nurseries, that was critical. Paying parents a living wage so they can be home more with their kids, that was critical. Where was the Surgeon General on all that?

They say Santa has changed before, and should again. True, he has. He used to bring switches and coal to those who deserved it. I can think of at least one fellow who should get a sledfull of both.