After Congress comes back from its Hot Spring Break or whatever, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 [PDF!] is out of committee and awaiting arguing and posturing and maybe voting. It’ll expand food programs for low-income children pretty radically, from what we can tell. Which is great! On the other hand, some kids have too much food, or something, and they are storing it in their bodies, so the bill will, in its Food Death Panels section, take food away from them in the form of giving them food that is barely food. Also the bill would cause schools to maybe stop feeding children millions of pounds in recalled meats, but whatever. Also! It will make sure that all children only drink skim milk, according to the Times: “For example, milk is the biggest single source of saturated fat on the lunch line. The bill would allow only skim milk to be offered, banning whole and 2 percent milk.” While this is not actually stated anywhere in the bill, at all, that is possibly true! Because what we know now is that milk is what makes children obese.

A pet store owner in Britain has been sentenced to home confinement during evening hours after selling a pet-in this case, a goldfish-to an unaccompanied 15-year-old boy. (You have to be 16 before you are allowed to buy a pet without an adult.) The woman claims she thought the lad appeared to be of legal age, but this isn’t the first time she’s been in trouble with the law.

Officials sent the boy in to make a test purchase after receiving a complaint the shop had sold a gerbil to a 14-year-old girl with learning difficulties, who later dropped it into a cup of coffee.

Investigators also discovered a distressed cockatiel in the shop, which, “when examined, was found to have a broken leg and eye problem.”

Not being much of a cat person, my knowledge of feline behavior is at best a very shallow pool. (But growing!) So it’s not surprising that I was previously unaware of how much advertising aimed at cat owners is surreal or downright psychedelic. I mean, this is a commercial for a cat shit removal product, for God’s sake. You people are bizarre. [Via]

There’s a lot of ways to make money as a former politician! You could consult on “security services” like Rudy Giuliani. You could write a memoir, like everyone. You could retrieve coins from the flopping intestines of flayed dusky prisoners, like Dick Cheney. Or you could become a slightly slatternly spokesbot for penny-stock startups, like George Pataki-who has now lent his name and visage to two concerns, one of which went big-time belly-up last month.

“I recall fondly the outdoor drinks of my youth: the iced tea and vodka in a Poland Spring bottle, gin and juice in a Nalgene.” Oh yes. This weekend, people: Outdoor Drinks Season is officially begun!

Australian PM Says His White Trash Better Than Ours

Prison Island’s Pirate King is incensed at remarks made by Robin Williams about his nation of convicts. Responding to a series of jokes Williams made on David Letterman’s show (sample: “The Australians are basically English rednecks,” “If Darwin had landed in Australia he would have said: ‘I’m wrong, I don’t know what I was thinking,’” etc.), Prime Minister/blackout drunk Kevin Rudd suggested that the comedian “should go and spend a bit of time in Alabama before he frames comments about anyone being particularly redneck.” Which, you know, fair enough. Also, I don’t really expect Kevin Rudd to know this, but nobody over here really thinks Robin Williams is all that funny anymore. Relax, mate! Have a drink!

As we all know (right, ladies?), men have a “harder time” with relationship breakups than women. But that is not all the suffering that men do in this world! Come to New Jersey and meet the unemployed guys: “Ridgewood’s Men in Transition group-not to be confused with a Men in Transition support group for teenage fathers in Minnesota or Men in Transition for jailed inmates in Texas or Men in Transition for men going through divorces in Seattle-is for men who have been laid off from their high-paying Manhattan jobs in business and finance.” The Coach of this group explains all to Irina Aleksander: “In my experience, this is not something women struggle with. They can just get together for the first time and really put it out there, talk about their feelings and what they’re going through. Men would never be able to do that. Even when it’s only men, they have difficulties.” Don’t you feel bad, women? (And even if you somehow don’t, this is still a great read.)

Will New York soon fall victim to an infestation of sharp-toothed vermin? (Or, I guess, a greater infestation.) “The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is slashing the number of pest control aides in an effort to save $1.5 million. 57 out of 84 full-time pest control aide positions will get the axe,” reports the local Fox affiliate. A department spokesman claims that the staff reduction will actually “enable the program to more effectively target properties contributing to neighborhood rat infestation,” because, you know, that’s always how things work. Anyway, find out more about the rats in your neighborhood at the city’s Rat Information Portal, which is about as slow and clunky as you would expect, but does include this adorable icon to keep you company while you wait for the information to load. I think I’m gonna call him Ratty.

Carla Bruni had two hot dogs for lunch yesterday. Just thought you should know.

For this coming Sunday’s New York Times magazine, Jeff Koons has apparently provided photographs of two bunnies. Just two days ago, the Times reported on the decline in work and income for professional photographers. After claiming that amateurs and their low pricing were hurting professional photographers, a claim that is total baloney-newspapers and magazines changed their rates and the amount of work they commissioned, is actually what happened!-the Times started to make sense: “Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether…. And while magazines once sniffed at stock photographs, which are existing images, not original assignments, shrinking editorial budgets made them reconsider.” And here are some of the stock photos that could have been used by the Times mag instead of randomly hiring one of the world’s most expensive photographers!

Super Stock charges a whopping $1700 for cover use on a magazine with a million-plus distribution. We imagine that’s a whole lot less than Koons charges. But particularly when your institution is looking at the lack of work for working photographers (of which Koons is not one!), it seems in poor taste to steal a job out of the mouth of someone who actually does this for a living.

LOOK AT THOSE GAY STOCK RABBITS!

And…. there. For the worst Photoshop mockups in the history of ever, I would like $5 please.

Later I suppose we’ll start asking why, um, there is a cover story in the Times mag where the coverline is “THEY GAY?” Because, WHAT? (Are they trying to make GayLOLRabbits happen? Because, no.) Also the story isn’t even about rabbits! “Contributing writer Jon Mooallem explores homosexual activity amongst albatrosses at Kaena Point, Hawaii.” And! “But studying these activities may have implications beyond animals; for many, it’s a reflection of what humans perceive as ‘natural,’ a validation or a denunciation of our own behavior.” Hoo boy!