Post-Election News Nuggets

News nuggets you might have missed in the hurricane of what-it-all-means reporting after Tuesday’s breezy handful of elections:

·        TALES OF THE JERSEY BELTS:  New Jersey Republican Chris Christie won the right to be the eighth person to be governor or acting governor of the Garden State since January 31, 2001. His two main predecessors had famous unbuckled belt problems – Jon Corzine’s seat belt in a crashing SUV and Jim McGreevey’s pants belt with a male aide. Christie’s only apparent belt problem so far is a size issue, but he doesn’t take office until January. Look for him then to be belted by rising property taxes, government deficits and citizen anger.

·        YOU BET YOUR LIFE apparently wasn’t enough of a gamble for voters in Ohio, who approved casinos in the state’s four biggest cities. The election happened while authorities found 11 bodies and counting at the house of a Cleveland registered sex offender. Before the grisly discovery, authorities regularly checked to make sure the convicted sex offender was at home. He was, and so allegedly were his decomposing victims, who raised a stink that locals mistakenly attributed to a nearby sausage factory.

·        ARGENTINIANS YES,  HORSES NO  seems to be the rule of  thumb in South Carolina, where a court sentenced a man to three years in prison for repeated sex with a horse. South Carolina’s married Governor, Mark Sanford, who earlier confessed to repeated sex with a woman not his wife in Argentina, faces no such penalty. The horsing-around conviction may trouble the Republican party’s conservative wing, which doesn’t want to support bestiality but is generally committed to a buy-American policy. Also no word on the possible formation of  NAMHLA (North American Man-Horse Love Association).

·        DOWNHILL SLIDE CONTINUES for former Ohio Democratic Congressman Jim Traficant, who has been a football player, a member of Congress, a convict and now a newspaper columnist. Traficant, who served seven years on federal bribery and other  convictions will be writing for American Free Press, a Washington D.C. weekly, Editor & Publisher reports. So much for the notion that prison terms can produce reformed, useful citizens.

·        SAME-SEX NO, MARY JANE YES turned out to be the view of Maine voters who overturned the state legislature’s gay marriage law and endorsed a medical marijuana-enabling bill. Apparently according to the wisdom of Maine’s voters, committed gay couples who are now denied marriage licenses can get a doctor to prescribe marijuana to ease their pain.

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