1. Ron Paul gets social security:

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) may rail against Social Security insolvency in the public eye, but that hasn’t stopped him from accepting the government checks.

The libertarian-leaning Republican and former presidential candidate admitted Wednesday that he accepts Social Security checks just minutes after he called for younger generations to wean themselves off the program, in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Ayn Rand also suckled at the big evil government’s teat, so it’s only fair. Anyway, it’s for the younger generations to make the sacrifices, right?

2. The EPA might ban baptisms, according to Mike Huckabee:

Fox News host Mike Huckabee, who is an ordained Southern Baptist Minister, recently warned that President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could force his religion to begin using less water to baptize believers.

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“If the government can tell the Catholic Church what it must do, how it must practice, what it must do to accommodate the government mandate then the next time the government may say that Baptists can’t — maybe the Baptist won’t be able to immerse because the EPA will determine that’s using too much water,” he added.

The 1689 Baptist Catechism states that “[b]aptism is rightly administered by immersion, or dipping the whole body of the person in water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

This means that most Baptist churches will include a baptistry pool in the sanctuary area. Large baptistries can hold over 1,000 gallons of water.

I’m unclear on whether there is a specific volume of water required to hold the Holy Spirit. I mean, they managed to baptize me back in the ’70s just by dribbling water on my little infant head (according to eyewitnesses), and–

–actually, let’s not use my baptism as a guide. It didn’t exactly take.

The possible repercussions of restrictions on Baptist baptismals (that’s fun to say ten times fast!) could be catastrophic. If Baptist children really do require more water than children of other denominations, we could have hordes of damned souls wandering around (which is what many Baptists think of the rest of the world anyway), possibly eating the brains of the saved.

Looking further ahead, if the government can do stuff, it might be able to restrict the amount of water Grover Norquist can put in his bathtub, severely undercutting his plan to drown government there.

3. Michigan Republicans describe Reps. Brown and Byrum as having a “temper tantrum:”

A surge of outrage swept the internet yesterday over two female Michigan legislators who were banned from the floor of the House for saying the word “vagina” in a debate over one of the worst abortion laws in the country.

Then, in an effort to clarify, a spokesman for the Michigan GOP Leader of the House only made things worse. In a letter to press, he simultaneously did not deny that the women were banned for saying “vagina” and further accused the two of throwing “temper tantrums.”

The letter reads:

Just to be clear, despite the misinformation being spread by Reps. Brown and Byrum, and Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, there are two representatives not being recognized on the House floor today because of their actions yesterday. It has nothing to do with their gender, their religion or the topic they were discussing. All day today, we have had representatives of both parties, both genders and several different religions passionately debating important issues that will significantly impact the future of Michigan.I would urge you not to become too distracted by temper tantrums designed to score political points.

That’s Ari Adler, spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger. Jase Bolger does not like it when people say the word VAGINA. He probably doesn’t care for the word UTERUS much, either, although he hasn’t said as much about it.

Photo credit: ‘Hyena vs ass’ by Schillings, Karl Georg, 1865-1921; Johnston, Harry Hamilton, Sir, 1858-1927 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.