A Florida state senator has proposed a bill to amend the Florida Statues to add, and I quote,

If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer [Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature] and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register with the appropriate office... within 5 days after the first post by the blogger which mentions an elected state officer.

Transparency in government is a good thing, but this doesn't really have anything to do with better government, does it?

As SB 1316 is currently written, it doesn't matter whether that blogger is a citizen of the state of Florida, it doesn't matter whether what they've blogged is true or not, and said blogger has to continue submitting monthly reports until they stop blogging permanently, whether they are still talking about Florida government or not.

That all seems a bit much, which is no doubt the point. Make it onerous enough, and bloggers won't say anything about Florida government at all.

Either the proposing senator (who has spent over a decade in Florida's state congress) is very, very bad at writing bills, or he's being disingenuous when he says this one is "JUST LIKE how we treat lobbyists." For one thing, Florida Statute 11.045 only requires lobbyists to report quarterly, and only during quarters they "were registered to represent a principal." For another, when was the last time a blogger took a senator out for an all-expense-paid Ruth's Chris steak dinner to discuss how backs could be best scratched?

Yeah, blogging is the problem.

Personally, as a blogger who has never been and never plans to be compensated for blogging about anything, let me just say that I think that senator is a poo-poo head.

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"Newton County man gored by buck in his backyard," reads the headline at cbs46.com (WGCL).

A man appears to be wielding a broomstick at the deer to ward it off. Seconds later, the deer charges at the man and pins him down. The video pans out for a split second before showing the man laying on the ground.

It sounds like a scene from a Stephen King movie, but that's their description of a Facebook video shared by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division. Warns the GDNRWRD:

"[I]f you observe tame or pet deer, please contact the Law Enforcement Division.... While you may hesitate to call due to the potential for the animal to be euthanized, please know that you are doing the right thing."

Longtime readers of Wriphe.com don't need that warning. We know that if we see what looks like a "tame" deer, what we're really looking at is a domestic-ated terrorist.

You're going to get what's coming to you, Bambi!

Bury him under the jail, fellas.

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America so enjoyed its two-decade war in Afghanistan that it has now installed the Taliban as our Supreme Court.

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UGA football legend (and gameshow-host Donald Trump's best "see-I'm-not-racist-I-have-a-black-friend" friend) Herschel Walker won the Georgia Republican party primary for U.S. Senate with over 801,000 votes (68%). He literally won every single county in the state. He trounced his closest opponent, Gary Black (13%), who has been the state Agriculture Commissioner for the past 11 years! If I was writing headlines, this would read: Football Culture Trumps Agriculture.*

Now Walker will head into the general election to face sitting senator Raphael Warnock. So far Walker — who it should be noted has a net worth upwards of $29 million yet has sent me, a UGA football season ticket holder, at least 7 letters asking for campaign contributions — has refused to describe any specifics of his platform (other than "Teamwork good" and "Democrats evil") or debate any of his Republican rivals, instead relying purely on the goodwill garnered in college in the 1980s. And it's easy to see why he's so reluctant to speak up. When asked on friendly Fox News what he would do to prevent future mass murder of elementary school students like the 19 who died this week in Texas — Walker's home state for the past decade, right up until he decided to run for Senator of Georgia — he said this:

You know, Cain killed Abel and that's a problem that we have. And I said what we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation. What about getting a department that can look at young men/women that's looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that? And we can stop that that way.

Yes, poor Abel would still be alive today if Adam had only kept his eyes on TikTok instead of Eve's fig leaf.

Besides, Cain killed Abel with a rock, the Daniel Defense DDM4® V7® AR15 with Improved Flash Suppressor rifle of its day. No one would ever try to ban rocks, so why would you want to ban 30-round magazine automatic rifles? (According to Christian dogma, the rock was given to Cain by The Devil, which I'm sure Walker would insist in no way reflects on for-profit gun manufacturers selling military-designed long guns to 18-year-old civilians.)

Sadly, I think there's every chance that bible-thumping, gun lobby-supporting, social media-spying Walker will win a seat in the U.S. Senate on nostalgic name recognition alone. And if that is the case, Georgians will be getting exactly the representation in government they deserve. That's democracy in action, folks!

* While Trump did indeed endorse Walker, it's not like Black wasn't trying his damnedest to earn his evil overlord's favor too, including refusing to admit that Biden is the lawfully elected president of the United States. Trump's endorsement in this race means far less than Walker's 82 touchdowns as a Georgia Bulldog.

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Nineteen children and two adults were killed in a mass shooting by a single 18-year-old in an elementary school in Texas today.

It would be nice if someone did something to make this sort of thing stop happening, but in American that could only mean closing elementary schools.

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advertisement from The Red And Black, November 23, 1945

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All has been quiet on the Great Deer Uprising front for the past year. You might think that means the war is over, but you'd be wrong. The deer have just been preoccupied building WMDs.

From The New York Times:

Scientists have identified a new, highly mutated version of the coronavirus in whitetailed deer in southwestern Ontario, one that might have been evolving in animals since late 2020.

They also found a similar viral sequence in one person in the area who had close contact with deer, the first evidence of possible deer-to-human transmission of the virus.

The 1925 Geneva Convention specifically bans biological weapons in warfare, but deer never signed the damn thing!

He is wearing this mask for his protection, not yours!

Hey, humanity. If we can't start pulling together, those hooved bastards are going to take us out. And the worst part is I'll be dead and unable to say "I told you so."

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Think your headlines are bad? At least you don't live in Gotham City.

Batman #120, December 1958

They saved the elephant, but Batman had to be put down.

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Maybe. But the real question is can I fuck them?

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Welcome to the 16th Annual Wriphe.com Batman and Football Month, now with 166% more disease!

A year ago, I looked upon the approaching college football season with trepidation and wrote

I get that the players want to play. As a fan, I want to watch. But just because we *want* football doesn't mean we're in a position to have it. If you're old enough and smart enough to go to college, you're old enough not to let your wants hurt you. If getting this pandemic under control, if ensuring that we break the chain of infections to protect ourselves, our families, and our neighbors means we have to stay in our homes (or dorms) and forego one football season, we should do that, even if we don't want to. Any other behavior is just irresponsible.

Oh, how naive I was in my youth. Let me show you how much things have changed in the state of Georgia in one year. This is August 2020:

And this is where we are in August 2021:

source: worldometers.info

A year-to-year gain of +7,000 cases on a graph that is still climbing! To get numbers like that, you have to be actively trying!

Just like in 2020, I bought UGA football season tickets in the early spring under the assumption that this whole pandemic thing might be under control by fall. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Granted, some things have changed in a year. In theory, the players have all been vaccinated (right?), so they should be safe enough (from COVID if not brain damage). But can the same be said for the fans? There's a non-zero overlap between the group of people who love to watch live football and the group of people who would rather kill children than wear a strip of cloth over their faces.

I'm fully vaccinated and have been since May, but vaccination is no guarantee that I can't get the virus. (If you like to be depressed, Google "breakthrough cases" and "vaccine efficacy decline".) Since we have yet to see any sign that this latest pandemic surge is ready to turn any corners, it looks like I'll be missing out on another season.

I guess I should have spent that ticket money on a new, larger television. I may be in my bunker for a long time yet to come.

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