Rejoice, American Public!

Today Congress passed a bill reining in some of the more heinous abuses of the credit card industry. Arbitrary interest rate raises will soon be a thing of the past.

And as a bonus, we'll all soon be able to carry guns at national parks.

Finally, I'll feel safe at Plimouth Plantation. Wave a blunderbuss at me, will you, Goodman Frothingham?

Overheard at Work Today

"You're goin' to Ireland? Why the Hell would anybody wanna go to Ireland? That place ain't safe since the IRS started fightin' the British again."

Jumping on the Bandwagon

File this post under everyone-else-is-writing-about-it-so-I-might-as-well-too. The most famous teenage mother in America is now the Candie Foundation's ambassador for teen pregnancy prevention. This almost tops Bill O'Reilly (who called a rape victim "moronic" for wearing a mini skirt) speaking at a fundraiser for a rape survivors' foundation.

Bristol Palin has retracted her slip on Fox News that abstinence for all teens was not a realistic expectation, and is now advocating abstinence as "the only one-hundred percent fool-proof way to prevent pregnancy."

Admittedly, casting Bristol Palin as an ambassador for chastity hearkens back to a time-honored tradition of learning from others' mistakes. In the rural South in the mid-twentieth century, inmates from state prisons were brought to public schools to tell children "how they went wrong" and urging them to stay out of trouble or else they too would end up in the state pen.

The problem with this is that Bristol Palin can't very well say that abstinence will "save you a lot of heartache" and simultaneously say that her son Trig (where does this family get these names?) is "a blessing...the love of my life...the best thing that ever happened to me...."

"Be a good chaste girl and you won't have a little blessing from Jesus like I did." Flawless logic, no?

Of course, the Candie Foundation itself is constructed on self-contradicting foundations. It's affiliated with the girls' jewelry and apparel maker Candies--one of whose spokepersons is Britney Spears, the most famous 1990s pioneer of the kinderslut look.

But let's not be too hard on Bristol. It's perhaps easier to be on the sanguine side about your own teen pregnancy when you belong to a wealthy family and you're getting paid to talk about your mistake (scroll down to the end, you'll find it).

No one will say what Candie's Foundation is paying Bristol, but considering how much money her mother has bilked other people out of, I think we can assume she's doing quite well.

The Week in Food

First, congratulations to the Washington Post for winning the James Beard Award for Best Food Section.

Guys, couldn't you just settle for chicken or pork? If you're craving protein and you're not the tofu type, stealing a giraffe from a game reserve is not the way to go.

If you want to really see how much sugar is in your Mocha Frappuccino versus your chocolate milkshake, check out Sugar Stacks.

"I never heard of liver pudding and Cheerwine before." Thank God for education.

Some people like cats, and some people like cat. Just a few days ago I learned of an unusual culinary festival in Peru.