Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Texas Parent! Genital warts will be a thing of the past, no matter how hard the governor screws you:

Gov. Rick Perry ordered today that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots.

The girls will have to get Merck & Co.’s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer.

“If there are diseases in our society that are going to cost us large amounts of money, it just makes good economic sense, not to mention the health and well being of these individuals to have those vaccines available,” he said.

This is interesting, because HPV is quite different from the other diseases kids are vaccinated against. It’s transmitted by sex. Other diseases that we’re mandatorily vaccinated against — things like chickenpox, measles and whooping cough — are transmitted by casual contact.

For that reason, there’s a sound public-health reason for mandatory vaccinations against easily transmitted diseases. Without those shots, classrooms turn into germ farms. Kids pick up the diseases en masse, take them home, and everyone gets sick.

HPV is a different story, though. It’s a sexually transmitted disease, meaning a kid’s chances of contracting it at school are incredibly low, unless little Peggy Sue has a seriously nearsighted geometry teacher. So why make the shots mandatory?

Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.

Perry has several ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, his former chief of staff.

Oh.

In one of the most courageous exercises of legislative courage ever seen, Rep. Garnet Coleman (D) introduced HB-1068 today.

(2) provides for the disposal of used condoms in a manner that protects:

(A) the anonymity of inmates and state jail defendants; and

(B) the health of department employees, inmates, and state jail defendants.

Reaction varied among his constituents but the most common reaction was, yeah, we needed that. Thanks, holmes (note: that’s homes in the other hood).

No matter what we do, we’re DOOMED:

International scientists and officials hailed a report today saying that global warming is “very likely” caused by man, and that hotter temperatures and rises in sea level “would continue for centuries” no matter how much humans control their pollution.

The report said no matter how much civilization slows or reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and sea level rise will continue on for centuries.

“This is just not something you can stop. We’re just going to have to live with it,” co-author Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., told The Associated Press in an interview.

Sounds good to me! I’m gonna go shopping for a Hummer.

Yummy:

Whole Foods Market Inc. is recalling 6,000 jars of its 365 Everyday Value Kalamata Olive Tapenade because they may contain glass fragments.

It’s organic glass, though. All natural.

Now that the minor matters of crime, illegal immigration and official corruption are completely solved, Houston’s city council can finally focus on the stuff that really matters:

The mismatched news racks that clutter Houston sidewalks, never before regulated or even counted, would have to be similar in size and identical in color under an ordinance presented to the City Council this week.

It would require news organizations to register each rack with the city, use boxes meeting certain size and material specifications and paint them all a matching dark green. The plan is likely to pass, and some newspaper distributors are complaining about it.

Registered news racks. Now let’s hear from your friendly, neighborhood nanny-statist:

“It will make a big difference in how things look downtown,” said Bob Eury, director of the Downtown Management District, who supports the ordinance. “What is totally out of control right now is the outrageous cacophony of color and size.”

Got that? Some private citizens want to distribute literature from red boxes. According to local government, that’s “outrageous.” He did have one thing right, though. Newspaper distribution is “out of control” — it is out of the control of government.

And that’s exactly where it ought to stay.

Because I want to and I can, that’s why.

Earlier this week, I warned Houston’s hobos to stop running across freeways. One of them didn’t listen:

A third person has been killed this week after trying to cross a Houston freeway and being hit by a vehicle, according to a report this morning by KTRK (Channel 13).

Police gave reporters this account: Just after 6 a.m. today, a homeless man darted into the eastbound lanes of the North Loop, just before the Yale exit, where he was hit by an SUV.

That location is about 500 feet from the overpass at Shepherd, where the guy could have crossed safely.

I know that there are a lot of drive by readers of LST that don’t bother to read the comments. Well, you’re missing out! Here is my collection of this weeks highlights:

Emergency Update: 11:29 am

trl3 Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:16 am eericpjohnson

you have gone from ridiculous to just plain stupid.

twocute64001 Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 9:04 am eAbout the pic aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh he’s adorableSure its a chic pic - live with it - we LADIES deserve it after that horrid clown baby

Now at my age calling me “chic” make me feel young again so keep it up

hamous Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 9:28 am eAsk and ye shall receive:Fried Polar Bear Balls

ngredients:
First, you must have a big set of balls yourself to kill a polar bear, because they don’t kill so easy. A lot of times when you are tracking the bastiges, you find that the bastiges are really tracking you. I think they enjoy man balls just as much as we do polar bear balls. A good thing to do is not bathe for 6 months before going after the bear, so you smell more like him. You are going to need a big freaking gun as they don’t stop coming at you so easy either too! Of course, after all this you will need a sled dog team to bring the sumbitch back to camp to skin and de-ball him.

Preparation:
Some people like their Polar Bear Balls boiled but I think there is nothing like a fried pair. Put the balls in a frypan and light up your Sterno. Carve down a piece of leg bone from the bear while you can sit by the fire thinking how lucky you are not to have your balls in that pan.

I used to have one for Polar Bear Cubcakes but can’t lay my hands on it right now

FourAlarm Says:
January 30th, 2007 at 9:42 am eI’d much rather look at this puppy than Barbara Streisands puppies from the other day. I’m on my 3rd case of Visine trying to wash that horrid image from my eyes.

Read more

Showing once again that they have absolutely no class whatsoever, the editorial staff of the Houston Chronicle whips up this little number in rememberance of Molly Ivins:

One lovely irony of her 30-odd-year legacy is that, more than most other prominent Texans, she embodied the values — the love of country, state, family and friends — that so many of her victims so publicly claimed but so often betrayed.

Besides comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, another public service that Molly Ivins performed was to give the world a different view of what a Texan is. In many quarters, unfortunately, the stereotype has been of an ignorant, provincial hick or a gun-totin’ cowboy — shoot first and ask questions later. In Ivins, the world saw an educated, urbane, funny, fearless and compassionate Texan.

Yep — the Chronicle apparently felt that this was a good opportunity to take a not-so-veiled swipe at conservatives, pitting the obviously urbane and compassionate Ivins against the conservative rural Texan.

In any event, was Ivins really “urbane?” Urbane essentially means “big city sophistication;” her entire schtick was writing Ann-Coulteresque columns for the left laced with blunt, folksy prose. She basically provided a biting, no-holds-barred liberal viewpoint coupled with a Texas twang. That’s not meant as an insult, as she was very successful in this model and gained a remarkable following. However, it does tend to undercut the Chronicle’s use of her example to slander conservatives.

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