Lame.

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I wasn’t aware of this, but it seems you can improve a team’s success by changing their mascot to a more menacing animal. In light of this new discovery, the Sioux Falls Canaries will now be called the Sioux Falls Fighting Pheasants. Take THAT Wichita Wingnuts! Your days of intimidating the lowly Canaries with whimsical alliteration are over!

Granted, the new name does better reflect the local (imported) wildlife. But other than different uniforms and letterhead, what’s the difference? Will the games be any more fun to watch – especially from the right-field party zone – now that we have a new mascot? Doubtful. Will the league expand to more than five or six teams so there’s a little variety to the opponents? Not likely. Will the team break into the real MLB farm team system so we can see future all-stars instead of the odd has-been? That would be nice. In fact, all the changes mentioned above would be great, and a real improvement to our local sports scene. But all of them are difficult. Changing a name is easy. I wonder which changes local baseball fans would prefer.

I know what I’m going to do in honor of the new name. Tonight, I will take the last two pheasants out of my chest freezer, thaw them, cover them in bacon, stuff them with garlic, onions, and peppers, and roast them at about 300 degrees in a pan with about an inch of beer in the bottom until delicious.

Now there’s something I can cheer for.

If you didn’t see this coming…

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…you must be blind, deaf, and incomprehensibly stupid. Time to find a new source of rainbows and unicorn farts.

The bill that would have allowed cities to raise a third penny sales tax for special projects was shot, hanged, poisoned, racked, gassed, lethally injected, drawn, quartered, and waterboarded by the House Local Government Committee.

While most of the arguments against the bill came from people saying they didn’t want to tax the poor to pay for something they’ll never use (a good argument), the main problem I have with funding a new EC with a sales tax is that it’s a crappy way to fund an entertainment building. Tax Bed, Board, and Booze instead. This will still give us enough revenue to build an EC without putting an undue burdon on people buying groceries or yet another set of clothing for a daughter who grows faster than our national debt.

The most unfortunate (and telling) part of the linked article is the paragraph quoting Jane Page of the State Department of Revenue.  She’d like to keep the option open for the state to raise sales taxes in the future without having to pile on top of increased local taxes.  I wonder how many legislators “can’t wait” to raise the sales tax to build all kinds of wonderful stuff.

Now that the city has to go back to the drawing board to come up with a workable idea, maybe they’ll be a little more open-minded about better locations and funding sources. If not, we’ll still be talking about building a new EC 20 years from now.

Pakistani ambassador given the shaft by Saudis

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Apparently, the name of the new Pakistani ambassador has rubbed the Saudis the wrong way. The ambassador’s name, Akbar Zeb, in arabic means “Biggest Dick”.  Similar attempts to penetrate the diplomatic corps of the UAE and Bahrain were also cockblocked.

While the Pakistanis had a huge swell of confidence that their man would be able to erect new bridges with their middle-eastern friends, it turns out that a major case of penis envy has given diplomacy the blue balls, and the Pakistani government a throbbing headache.

I, for one, am proud to live in a country where men whose name is also a euphamism for the male genitalia can be elected to high office and serve as members of our diplomatic corps anywhere in the world. All they need is a stiff adherence to our American principles and the peoples’ mushroom stamp of approval.

Eight-year-olds, dude.

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Thanks be to the TSA for keeping their eyes on a budding terrorist.

Ever since he was two years old, Mikey Hicks has been getting extra attention from the TSA when he flies.

He was recently frisked aggressively when his family flew to the Bahamas for vacation on Jan 2, just days after the so-called “underwear bomber” attempted to ignite explosives on a flight from Amsterdam to Michigan.

“Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal,” Mikey’s mother told the newspaper. “A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.”

With a unique name like Michael Hicks, it’s a pretty safe bet that the TSA has the right guy. In fact, there are only 1,600 other people named Michael Hicks in this country – including young Mikey’s father, according to a national directory. Pretty cut and dried if you ask me.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sure glad we have psychics working for our government who are able to see into the future and know this kid will grow up to be the next Bin Laden. It just gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling all over. Kind of like a good pat-down.