Totally NOT A Stripper

Virginia Foxx, despite spelling her name with a double x in the traditional ‘stripper or pornographic performer’ style, is actually NOT a stripper. Rather, she is a caricature of the old lady from the ‘Where’s the beef?’ commercials if she went off her meds and decided to spend the recent of her brief, mean time on Earth strangled hippies with her ancient, claw-like hands. She also has the honor of being the craziest, most offensive member of Congress to come out of the Carolinas recently, which is really and truly saying something.

After calling the Matthew Shepard murder a hoax and repeatedly using the phrase “tar baby” on the floor Congress, Foxx recently declared the prospect of health care reform to be a bigger threat to the nation than “any terrorist right now in any country.”

Now, I’m no fear-monger, but I have to take issue with the fact that Virginia Foxx (again, not a porn star, despite what her name would lead you to reasonably assume) certainly appears not to hate or fear terrorism at all. Which is just wrong headed. If there’s one thing the last eight years have taught us, it is that nothing is scarier than terrorism. Nothing, anywhere, ever. The very word “terrorism” is, grammatically speaking, literally two thirds PURE TERROR and one third suffix. Nothing is scarier than that. Not health care reform. Not swine flu. Nothing.

So why doesn’t Virginia Foxx hate terrorism? Does it have something to do with her confusing stripper name? That’s a question only she can answer.

But until she can answer it, I think she should step down and relinquish her seat in Congress to someone who we know hates terrorism. For example, this bear in India’s Kashmir, who killed a pair of militants who were holed up in his cave. That bear fucking HATES terrorism. Hates it so much he mauls terrorists, or even just militant guerilla rebels, which are a lot like terrorists, kind of, to death. So even if he is Indian, and a bear, he is a True American. Not like Virginia “Probably Never Been An Adult Film Star But Totally Spells Her Name Like One” Foxx.

 

Rain of Frogs

The heartening news for the day is this: even in the midst of a worldwide crisis in which amphibian species are being lost at a staggering rate, researchers across the world are discovering new species of frogs all over the world. Following the discovery of nine new frogs and a previously unknown salamander in Colombia in February of this year, this summer has been lousy with croaking, chirping, hopping amphibians never before described by science.

May saw Conservation International document three new species of frogs in Papua New Guinea, as well as a few dozen new species of jumping spiders. Sadly, that frog news was overshadowed by the nearly 200 new species of frogs discovered in Madagascar last month, a number which doubles the number of known amphibian species inhabiting the island.

After a spate of finds like that, you’d think that would be it in new frog news for a while, right? I mean, 203 new species – that’s a lot, right? We can take a break from the new frogs, right?

Well, no, not if  the Zoological Survey of India has anything to say about it. The survey released data earlier this week showing that 2008 found more than a dozen new frogs were discovered in the country, as well as 14 new insect species. You can check out great pictures of some of the new species on Cryptomundo here. Meanwhile, not to be outdone, Ecuador is getting in on the act.  News broke just a couple days ago of 12 new species discovered along the country’s mountainous border with Peru, including – you guessed it – 4 new species of frogs. All of which are larger than the Noble’s Pygmy Frog, which was discovered in the Peruvian Andes in March and is, for reference, about this big:

And the less heartening news for the day? Well, as I mentioned earlier, it remains a bad time to be an amphibian pretty much anywhere on the planet, newly discovered or not.